CHRIS WYSE OF THE CULT SOARS WITH OWL

Bassist Chris Wyse of The Cult talks about his latest project, Owl and finally getting the opportunity to record his own album.

Having performed bass in The Cult since 2001, along with recording with legendary artsist from Mick Jaegar to Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Wyse is currently focusing his energy on his latest project, Owl. Formed with drummer Dan Dinsmore and guitarist Jason Achilles Mezilis, the time has finally come for Wyse to record his own material with his own band and with his own vision.

Artisan News caught up with Chris Wyse to get his thoughts on supplying the vision for the album and deciding to perform live together as a touring band.

“(Wyse) Yeah I had the vision for the record first because I was like ‘Absolutely for a change I’m going to have a record.’ And through that process it really formed the band. Dan was very down with playing live and by the time we got to finishing the record it was like ‘Let’s play live!’ So it was just like with Jason as well.” “(Mezilis) Honestly I didn’t really know I was in the band until I got a copy of the album and I saw my name in big print next to his and Dan’s.” “(Wyse) That’s kind of how it went.” “(Mezilis) Oh, I guess I’m a band member now.” “(Wyse) It worked out pretty simple like that.” “(Mezilis) It was pretty good to see though!”

Wyse also took over the producing dutires for the recording of the bands self titled debut album and he talked about being a producer with a lot of detailed vision.

“I thought it was time for me to take on that particular role mainly because the vision I’ve had for it. This brings up Matt Sorum (Velvet Revolver) again and he brought up the fact that he was in bands blah, blah, blah and big bands but he was really happy at the time to be doing Velvet Revolver and he was like ‘You should do your stuff!’ And he gave me a rate on a studio and I met the guys over there previously working with Velvet and I knew it was sussed out. So I’m more like a producer that has a lot of vision. A lot of detailed vision.”

A very unique texture to Owl’s sound is Wyse’s use of the stand up bass played with a bow through his effects chain and amp that gives it a synth like sound. Wyse also talked about using the upright bass and a bow in a Rock setting.

“Absolutely, drawing the bow across the strings gives a symphonic sort of feeling sometimes. Even though it sounds like guitar, bow and drums I put a little delay and verb on there to create some atmosphere and it becomes like a synth. We’ve actually had people come up to us after shows and ask us about the keyboards. Yeah, what kind of keyboard was that? I know it’s confusing folks, so it’s giving a symphonic instrument the reign to be amplified.”

The first single from Owl was the song “Pusher” which Chris co wrote with producer extraordinaire and old friend Marti Frederiksen, who has produced hits for such bands as Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Fuel, Mötley Crüe, Ozzy Osbourne, Buckcherry along with numerous film soundtracks. As of press time Owl do not have any tour dates booked but look for the band to announce a new run of tour dates in the near future.