UTOPIA SHARE VIDEO FOR ‘WHAT ABOUT ME” – FEATURING LEPROUS DRUMMER BAARD KOLSTAD
Utopia, the metal group centred around guitarist John Bailey and Corrupt Moral Altar vocalist Chris Reese have shared the video for new single ‘What About Me’ which features Leprous drummer Baard Kolstad.
Utopia will let loose their debut album ’Stalker’ on 27th August via APF Records.
The album see John and Chris joined by an impressive list of guest musicians such as drummers Billy Rymer, Lee Fisher (Fawn Limbs/Psyopus) and Si Blakelock (Tangaroa/Dream Troll) alongside guitarist Simon Peter King, bassist Arran McSporran (De Profundis/Virvum) and finally keyboardist Mike Moran (Ozzy Osbourne/George Harrison/David Bowie).
For new single ‘What About Me’ guitarist John Bailey states,
“This song features Baard Kolstad from Leprous on drums. I chatted with Baard for a little bit about it and basically explained to him that he should just throw all his chops at it, of which he has an aircraft hanger full!
‘What About Me?’ is an idea taken from a Nietzschean concept of discovering one’s own moral code and one’s own identity. It challenges the idea that morality and moral behaviour should be derived from religion or from a particular society or community. I suppose these days this is best exemplified in social media, which is an echo chamber for likeminded people to feel more and more convinced of their own opinions by surrounding themselves with people who probably think the same.
I’m not making any political statement here, just an observation on human behaviour, which was made in the 18th Century. The problem with this is the issue of Xeno’s ‘paradox of unanimity’, which means essentially ‘everybody is doing it, so I’d better do it.’ This is a situation which very often leads to the wrong outcome. There are a million examples of this across the world, some horrific social norms which create untold misery for a large percentage of the world’s population.”
Watch the video now:
The initial idea for the band was formed by John Bailey, by day he’s a touring guitarist for the likes of Aled Jones and Russell Watson, a far cry from the extreme metal of Utopia, but with ’Stalker’ he wanted to bring together all the music he loves, creating something aggressive and intense but also well thought out and intelligent.
Utopia was started in March 2020. As John was coming off the back of a busy tour/session schedule and felt this was the time to finally start the band which he’d been thinking about doing for years. For a vocalist he had no one else in mind but Corrupt Moral Altar’s Chris Reese.
After 7 to 8 months of writing it was then just a matter of getting each person to record their parts which posed their own geographical problems with different musicians living around the world. However once all done the album was mixed and mastered by Rob Hobson at Silent City Records.
’Stalker’ is released on 27th August via APF Records and will appeal to fans of Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah, Converge, Mastodon, Botch and Strapping Young Lad.
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