Jonathan Dennison – Unholy, Guitar
May 12 marked the release of New Life Behind Closed Eyes from Prosthetic Records own, UNHOLY. On this Friday night in Anaheim, CA, UNHOLY is the first band on the bill and went on about 15 minutes earlier than planned. While the SxE crowd in attendance were generally unknowing of the Syracuse based band, near the end of the set the kids began to flail their arms, windmill, and give their pseudo-roundhouse kicks in approval. Currently on tour with EARTH CRISIS, guitarist / founder Jonathan Dennison finds a few moments to speak with SMNNews.com to give a little insight to the world of UNHOLY.
How did you guys tug on the ears of Prosthetic?
A couple years ago we were on tour and we played a show with FUNERAL PYRE. The singer John works at Prosthetic and we met him and we were teasing the idea as we were pretty much unsigned to a certain extent as we had a release called Blood Of The Medusa on Lambgoat Records which was a one shot. Come a year later we start record shopping and Prosthetic Records was one of the few lables out there that I believe we would sync in not sounding exactly like the very popular and trendy sounding stuff these days. They have a pretty good roster of great, different sounding bands; a very diverse roster and the ethics behind the label are amazing. Our management company works with THE ACACIA STRAIN as well and they pretty much sealed the deal with us as well.
Give me a little history of UNHOLY.
UNHOLY has been through a few lineup changes; it’s only been an active band for the past three years really. It’s been a project band that I’ve tried to get serious for a long time and never had a solid lineup. About 3 years ago we had a pretty consistent lineup minus the singer trouble we had.
This nucleus of the band, how long?
About 2 years! Billy Price (vocals) has been with us about 2 years. Basically right after the first tour off of the last record we realized why the singer has been in local Syracuse bands forever including GOD BELOW because he freaked out a week into the tour and went home. So after that we had to regroup and we knew Billy Price from other local bands and is a really great dude and friend of ours and everything sort of worked out that way. We did a couple more tours and the band was road ready.
In your press release there is a quote “If there was a purpose, we’re here to destroy everything around us, we’re here to destroy the planet, and every form of life that walks this earth.”
I think it was a question once asked about the undertones of our record. It was saying in essence that the lyrical idea behind our record is that the root of the program is humanity. If there’s anything that’s set to destory anything on earth is us. One thing I’ll have to say is that behind the story our album encompasses is we really don’t want to live forever, we really have nothing, we’re all gonna be dead tomorrow and nothing is going to mean anything. The record looks at us as more of a microcosm of a mold as something corroding and eating itself away.
If you think about how big Earth is and the Universe, how little are we compared to all of that?
Definitely! As much as we might look at a spore of mold on the ground and look at that as a little piece of mold, we are the mold in that same manner. We have no idea what’s out there and for us to be as feable minded and to think we’re the only intelligent being in this universe is very closed minded. And since we only use 6-16% of our brain and I do belive that the Ancient Egyptians were a million times more powerful than we are as they built a civilization with only what was only around them and the power of the sun.
People don’t realize that we only use 10% of our brain.
Yeah! That’s why when people use Acid the nickname ’spinning’ you’re basically shredding through different aspects of your brain that you don’t use. There’s definitely something to be said about the Third Eye through certain religions and so forth. Nobody can sit there and have an answer for everything!
Tell me about the early influences of UNHOLY.
A lot of 90’s metal! All time favorite death metal band of all time, CARCASS. ENTOMBED! TESTAMENT Low era!
Really? How about The New Order era?
I love that stuff too but they took what they saw in COC and really brought groove into it and between that and SEPULTURA Chaos AD. All that stuff that sorta has a punk edge to it. Before the days of pro-tools when things were a little loose and musicians had to play their instruments front to back in a song and perform and make it sound like a band. That’s the beauty of that era. There would never be any such thing as ‘Extreme Metal’ or whatever you call it without all the chaotic studio magic that these kids have to use triggers for their drums. A lot of the stuff of the 90’s really roots UNHOLY. As a teenager, that’s the bands I loved.
What about the rest of the band?
Pretty much the same thing which is why it works. Our other guitarist (Steve Caiello) is more into stoner rock and classic rock than I am hence he does all the leadwork and solos, amazing guitarist to play with. Between all of us we’re pretty much in the same school of music. Any progression of UNHOLY is never going to be like trying to sound in a different way than to please anybody other than a progression of us feeling the moment and whatever comes out comes out.
How does the songwriting work with you guys?
Usually I’ll write about 80% of the song to start off with and then I’ll jam with the drummer, work out the kinks and structuring. Get a lot of input from the drummer. Then after that point when the actual structure and all the kinks are worked out, Steve will pretty much write a whole song over it between harmonies and leadwork. Then I’ll work with Billy and we’ll work with vocal patterns and try to get that 110%. It’s a self-produced band. We have a brand new drummer (Andy Miller) and this is his first tour with us and I’ve tested him already to see if I could write with him and I’m super excited. We started working on new material for the next record and it’s gonna smash this one times ten. We’re gonna tour as much as possible for this one! For us, luckily we can do a tour like this and go over amazing with the hardcore kids then we can turnaround and play with SOILENT GREEN in front of a full house and have everybody doing the devil horns with us!
What would you say to a person to get them to listen to UNHOLY?
I’d say for anybody who is looking for something more in music. As the genre we’re coming out of that people call Metal or Hardcore, UNHOLY is definitely a band for somebody who is beyond a 16-year old level of just bland music and wants to listen to something a little more interesting and still catchy enough to keep your ears going.
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