JUST ANOTHER NYC BAND
AND THAT’S AN HONOR
ACCORDING TO JAMES FREY OF THE INFERNO MERCHANTS
WRITTEN BY
BRIAN LUSH
“I would say that our bands
sound is like the soundtrack of the DRUDGE REPORT.” says JAMES FREY of his band
THE INFERNO MERCHANTS. “I kind of think
of it as this big sonic blog”
All one needs to do is
listen to THE INFERNO MERCHANTS debut LP WARCHILD’S PLAY to know what FREY is talking about. The
bands sound combines blues rock and R&B flourishes
made possible by its rhythm section. (JOHN MILES on bass, KEVIN BREGANDE on
drums) ANTHONY G tops it off with his STEVIE RAY VAUGHN – styled lead guitar
and FREY’s vocals float over the mix in a way that
will remind listeners of DAVID BOWIE during his YOUNG AMERICANS era.
The standout tracks for
WARCHILD’S PLAY speak to the challenges of a post 9/11 society. Just when you
thought that politically charged rock was left to the likes of GREEN DAY and
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, THE INFERNO MERCHANTS are deeply
rooted in politics. “The bass player (JOHN MILES) and I have a lot of political
discussions and that’s where a lot of the songs come from.”
One thing that
you won’t hear from JAMES FREY and THE INFERNO MERCHANTS is “BUSH-bashing”,
which is something that doesn’t sit well with FREY. “It’s big to bash PRESIDENT BUSH if you’re a rock
star. I don’t subscribe to that. If you want to disagree with his policies and
I disagree with many of his policies, that’s fine. But when you take this sort of MICHAEL MOORE –
All-about-me stance, you become part of the problem. You have a duty to the
republic to make your opinion as informed as possible and I think we’ve lost
sight of that somehow.”
In case we needed to point
it out, FREY was a political science major at the
Being a songwriter based in
THE INFERNO MERCHANTS share
a rapport that is uncommon in most rock n roll profiles. “I struggled for so
long to keep a band together. I was always a big fan of the bands that JOHN,
KEVIN and ANTHONY were in before we got together and did our thing. These guys all went to the BERKLEY SCHOOL OF
MUSIC in
For the production of the
bands debut WARCHILD’S PLAY, the band turned to producer DAVE WINSLOW. “He was
an engineer for a BACKSTREET BOYS track” says FREY. “I’ve worked with good
producers before but I always felt like I was being rushed. With DAVE, that
wasn’t the case. We recorded it at SHELTER ISLAND STUDIOS which is where
SUZANNE VEGA and SHAWN COLVIN record. It took a long time and a lot of late
nights in the studio. There were also situations where a major label would book
the studio at the last minute and we’d have to make ourselves scarce for three
months, so I always got into the habit of telling people ‘We’re almost done!
We’re almost done!’ and when I’d see people again the CD still wasn’t ready.
Tomorrow finally came but it took a long time, and I’m just glad that we didn’t
rush it.”
In a business where egos get
bigger everyday, JAMES FREY manages to keep it down to earth. “Part of being an
artist is being a member of the audience too. I never understood this whole
thing about artists being competitive with each other. That’s not who your
competition is. My competition, in drawing an audience in
New York City is the cradle
of Western Civilization yet there aren’t any recent rock bands of note that hail
from the Big Apple and all that most music media focuses on are the
accomplishments of bands like THE RAMONES, BLONDIE and TALKING HEADS; The CBGB’s legends. “All you ever hear about now is CBGB’s closing down.” says FREY. “My heart goes out to them
but you know what? Where there’s a will, there’s a way and there are still a
lot of great clubs out here. We always play at the BITTER END. It’s in the
heart of
THE INFERNO MERCHANTS are also an
experience that JAMES FREY continues to be rewarded by. “To quote CHRIS ROBINSON of THE BLACK CROWES, ‘It’s all just one big song’. We’re an unknown band in
It’s not easy being a small fish in an ocean filled with sharks, as many struggling
bands in
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INFERNO MERCHANTS
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