Spearheaded by guitarist and creative director John Bailey, whose day job is a jazz and classical session musician working with the likes of aforementioned Russell Watson and Aled Jones no less, the idea for such a project had its roots in John’s uni days but took fifteen years to come to fruition.
Hailing from Huddersfield originally, John has always been a metalhead. “My first albums were Deftones, Slayer and Slipknot,” he told us. “Then Converge, The Dillinger Escape Plan…then I got into grindcore and played in a grindcore and hardcore band when I was younger. But there came a certain point in my guitar playing, when I was at uni, and I thought ‘man, these guitarists are just way better than me. Why are they so good?’.” He took it upon himself to start studying jazz and classical music so he could “understand the guitar a bit more” and essentially get better at his own instrument. It was a wormhole of self-improvement that led to a whole career.
Entirely self-taught, mostly from books from the Uni library, John describes toiling for “eight hours day for a year at least… just practicing jazz and classical music” and learning how to read sheet music. Clearly such impressive commitment levels were going to lead to something. As well as being inspired to do a masters in jazz, he “set up doing some teaching, then got the gig with Russell (Watson) and Aled (Jones). With Russell to start with. And that’s just been my full time job…doing various kinds of gigs. I did a bit on one of Sting’s shows, writing stuff for film, TV work, whatever it might be.” Now fully embroiled in the jazz world, he spent the next ten years being involved in only jazz and classical, which included putting out his own albums in the genre.
“I thought ‘now’s the time to do the metal album I’ve wanted to do for fifteen years.’”
Throughout it all though, he never lost touch with his grindcore roots and still always listened to many different styles of music, metal included. “When I’m playing one style of music, I tend to be listening to another style. If I’m writing a jazz album, I don’t really want to listen to any jazz at all. I know what I’m like. I’m just impressionable and I’ll get other people’s stuff in my head and that’ll end up coming out.” And he never lost that dream of wanting to make a metal record. “Then Covid happened. Everything in my diary got wiped out. So I thought ‘now’s the time to do the metal album I’ve wanted to do for fifteen years.’” An album that he started playing jazz in the first place to try and improve for. It’s an unusual, full circle story for an unusual band and that full circle includes the recruiting of vocalist Chris Reese, also of Corrupt Moral Altar for the project.
John and Chris (affectionately called ‘Reese’) have been “mates for a couple of decades. We used to live together at uni,” John told us. “He was the first person I met when I left home.” They also started their first band together. Although ultimately life took them on different paths for a while, they still remained firm friends. “It was one of them relationships where we didn’t see each other for years then we’d see each other from time to time and it was like we’d never been apart.” When it came to setting up Utopia and getting to work on the album, John explained he was always the first and most obvious choice to him. “I know how versatile Reese is. His range of vocals go from extreme screaming to real dirty gutturals to tetradactyly-like shouty stuff. I didn’t think about anyone else.”
In terms of the other artists featured on the record (which are numerous), John explained he just “put the feelers out” and asked around, using his various contacts in the music industry to pull in guitarist Simon Peter King, bassist Arran McSporran (De Profundis/Virvum) and keyboardist Mike Moran (Ozzy Osbourne/George Harrison). Since the drums were so technical, intense and full on, John helped to “lighten the load” by getting several guest drummers including Billy Rymer, Baard Kolstad (Leprous) Lee Fisher (Fawn Limbs/Psyopus) and Si Blakelock (Tangaroa/Dream Troll). Recorded during the lockdown, “everybody just recorded their parts remotely” and sent them in. “I recorded guide tracks for everything and recorded all the guitars. Reese came to mine and we did the vocals here.”
“His range of vocals go from extreme screaming to real dirty gutturals to tetradactyly-like shouty stuff”
Given that the tracks – and even the individual guitar parts themselves – were recorded in smaller chunks with layers of complex and often improvised licks and sequences, John concedes it’s going to be something of a nightmare to bring to life in a live environment. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try. “I’ve just finished booking a tour in February. 4th to the 12th.” How will he translate it to a live experience? “With great difficulty. We’re going to play the album front to back in a forty-minute set. Everyone’s gonna be on wireless packs and in the ears will be a click track and the synth that will go front of house. And anything that we can’t play between the five of us will go front of house too on a backing track.”
It’s clear just from a small chat with John that he is incredibly proud of the project he has waited most of his adult life to bring to life and had fun with it. “Doing things like this is never easy and it certainly isn’t always fun, but it’s cathartic….And it keeps you sane in the middle of lockdown!” Like Dr Frankenstein and his monster, his creation is now out in the world and will almost certainly be difficult to reign in again. “The problem with me is I’m a workaholic,” John reflected. “The second it’s out there I’m concerned about getting the next one out there. You’re a long time dead. You’ve got a limited time to create as much as you can.” Which means more albums are definitely on the horizon. “I’ve got the bones of about 7 tracks from the next album together. I’m just trying to double down on how nuts it is. You’re definitely not going to get any fucking break on the next album, it’s gonna be full tilt. The people who like it will like it. If you love it, wicked!” As long as he’s still feeling inspired by it and enjoying it, John will keep knocking out the records, and we can’t wait to hear the chaos that ensues.