Fuck the Heartless - Bluebeard

Having been blessed with a very short attention span.
I'm more than equipped to handle single and shorts bursts of energy, creativity and pure power. So when some old friends asked me if I would share my thoughts and a few words on a recent burst of fury.... Let's just say, I was up for the task.

F.T.H. features three quarters of the band My Rifle.
With Hobi Klapuri being the only absentee on this track.
And though one can't help but draw comparisons to My Rifle. "Bluebeard" takes on an even darker, heavier approach. Driving guitars and pounding rhythms compliment dark, heavy and powerful vocals.
Unlike a lot of the heavier stuff I'm hearing these days, these guys don't rush through things. The mid paced "Bluebeard" decides to stick around a while. Coming in at 5:26, it does a good job of leaving a lasting impression.

Though the future of My Rifle remains questionable. The pieces assembled for this particular track really deliver. "Bluebeard" was recorded and mixed by Andy Guida at Six III studio in Forest Hills, Queens. It features Lewis Dimmick on bass and guitar. Andy Guida on drums and Jason O'Toole on vocals. James Damion

Bluebeard Download

My Rifle - Self Titled EP

The long awaited, highly anticipated debut release of 

My Rifle's self titled 7 inch EP is finally here.
For those of you not familiar with My Rifle, the bands personnel read like a New York Hardcore 

Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

(Featuring former members of Life's Blood, Our Gang, Supertouch and Altercation, 

just to name a few.) 
The record really made a quick and lasting impression on this listener.

The songs are marked by excellent musicianship and production. None of which erase any of the songs raw energy. Though My Rifles sound is firmly planted in the band's hardcore routes.

They don't rely on old tricks or safe avenues to achieve their sound. Mixing Hardcore with Metal while adding different elements and angles that deliver powerful results.

The record opens up with "Fall On Your Sword", which has a fast, straight up, menacing hardcore sound. For someone who hasn't been involved in music for more than twenty years, Jason's voice hasn't lost any of the venomous appeal he originally displayed with the band Life's Blood. 

Lews dark and murky bass lines really shine on the track and Andy Guida show why he's one of the most sought after drummers in Hardcore.

The next track "By the Grave of God" slowly grinds the listener under heal. The sound is dark and ruthless with its twists and turns, highlighting Hobi-One's guitar prowess.

Side two opens with "Stars" a short, too the point burst of power that's done nicely.

Storming the Gatekeeper", my first taste of the bands sound, is still my favorite.

They seriously click on all cylinders here. Showing the bands musical range and ability to take chances. The guitar work on here is Maidenesque. I was just floored.

Recorded by the bands drummer Andy Guida with Artwork by the legendary Sean Taggart. The record comes on clear vinyl. My Rifle's debut also marks the return of Freddy Alva's Wardance Records.

It just doesn't get better.

Wardance Records  Buy it here
Related Interviews:
My Rifle  United By Rocket Science
Freddy Alva/Wardance Records  Unite 

My Rifle - "This is my Gun."

When former members of Life's Blood (Jason O'Toole), Our Gang (Hobi Klapuri and Lewis Dimmick) got together to start My Rifle it inspired Freddy Alva (The New Breed Compilation) to restart his Hardcore label Wardance Records. 
Needless to say, the possibilities for something incredibly special were pretty high. Add drummer/engineer Andy Guida (Supertouch, Altercation and currently Absolution) 
to the mix and  you've got all the elements for something Epic.
With a record on the way and the return of Wardance records on the horizon I asked Jason and Lewis a few questions about the band and the upcoming release. I greatly appreciate their feedback.  James Damion


James: Give me a little background on the band?
What brought you together and what was it that made things click for you as a unit?


Lewis: Facebook brought us together. Hobi and I hung out at a couple of 
Life's Blood rehearsals. (Back in the day.)
We thought they were a great band but weren't close friends with them or anything like that. All these years later we started talking to Jason on Facebook and the idea of doing a record came up.
We went through two drummers before finally having Andy from 
Altercation / Supertouch / Absolution get the job done. Things clicked with him, I think, because he has the same point of view. He's from the same scene, influenced by the same bands.

James: What made you decide to add different elements and sounds as opposed to doing a straight up Hardcore band?


Jason: My voice has changed considerably over the years, as I have lived in Texas, 
Louisiana, and here in Georgia for many years. There’s an unmistakable twang in my vocals now. It’s funny how one’s ear changes over time. New Yorkers now sound nasal and gruff to me, and I don’t notice the softer, Georgia accent at all, as it’s what I’m accustomed to in my home. I plum disremembered how to speak Yankee. So, you have my country and blues influence on the music – which is subtle on the EP but the careful listener will notice elements of Old Hank, Jerry Lee, and Leadbelly in my lyrics and vocals.
Then you have the more obvious metal influences, which one should expect from men who grew up listening to Iron Maiden. The LP we have planned will be more musically diverse. It’s still going to be very much hardcore, but we hope to record a really amazing song Hobi wrote which is nothing short of his masterpiece, more of Lew’s metal-worshipping bass, and I may even play guitar on the punk-blues-blasphemous-gospel songs that seem to come to me in my dreams down here.

Lew: We're just trying to play music that we'd like to hear, drawing on all the music that's influenced us throughout our lives, in this case mostly hardcore and metal. We're all experienced musicians and we set out to do something that was absolutely not half-assed.

James: What led you to choosing Freddy Alva's resurrected label Wardance? What are some of the bands future plans?

Lew: Freddy made the offer and we accepted immediately because he's not only an old friend, but one that has made a lot of value contributions to the NYHC scene.

Jason: The rebirth of Freddy Alva’s NYC based Wardance Records and the formation of MyRifle are really one and the same. Freddy is as much as part of the band as any of us. One of the reasons it has taken us so long to deliver this EP is that we knew it would take a lot of work to be worthy of being a Wardance record.
The cover artwork for our EP, which will be reproduced for t-shirts available from Wardance, is by none other than Sean Taggart. Wes Harvey, who illustrated the Life’s Blood “Defiance” cover has been drafted to come up with something amazing for the LP. Friends of ours who work in film and television are at work on videos for our songs, which should manifest in the usual places, YouTube, Facebook, and possibly this new Google +.

James: Jason, you mentioned an LP. How far down the line are we talking?

Jason: We have never stopped working on songs and easily have enough material for an LP. It is just a matter of everyone finding the time to rehearse and record. 
I am planning on recording with the band for the LP and may play some backing guitar as well.

Lewis: We've got some music we'd like to work on at some point but it's impossible to predict if or when we'll ever complete an LP. We might work on some new tunes with Andy in the fall / winter.

James: It's been years since you've recorded. The digital age has brought a lot of changes to how we record. How is Andy helping to bring it all together?

Lew: I'm no expert on recording analog vs digital. But Andy, as I mentioned before, has the same influences, the same point of view, so we were pretty comfortable with him right away, and that allowed us to not settle for anything with which we were not completely happy. For a bunch of stuff that Hobi and I play on the record, we weren't even in the studio on the same day. Jason wasn't even in the same state when he did his vocals. He did them later in Georgia. But that kind of thing can be done with either analog or digital, so like I said I'm no expert.

James: What have been some of the stumbling blocks you've faced along the way? The cancellation of your show with Agnostic Front comes to mind.

Lew: Things not working with our first drummer. Things not working with our second drummer.
Being older, having more responsibilities, struggling to find time that each person could dedicate to the music, rehearsing, recording. We got booked on that AF show without truly realizing how long it would take, when the band lived in NY and our singer lived in Georgia, to get songs together. We weren't able to play that show and feel we were ready to make a strong impression.

James: In closing, is there a date on the release? How will you be distributing it and in what format will it be available?

Lew: The EP shouldn't be too far away. Test presses will arrive soon. Shouldn't be terribly long after that. Freddy, aka the mack daddy, will be taking care of distribution. It's gonna be a 7" EP.


MyRifle - Bandcamp


Wardance  Label