INFERNOPHONIC TURNS ON STAR WARS’ NEXT GENERATION AS STAR WARS: CLONE WARS HITS THEATERS ‘EYE OF THE JEDI’ IS MOST POPULAR TRACK ON NJ BAND’S ACCLAIMED DEBUT CD, ‘SPARK IT UP’ AMID LATEST WAVE OF STAR WARS MANIA
“A breathing, live sound that will remind you of when music was played by bands.” – Guitar Player
“Think Wolfmother fronted by Heart’s Wilson sisters.” – Sea of Tranquility
CLIFTON, NJ – New Jersey rock band INFERNOPHONIC has been thrust into the midst of the latest wave of “Star Wars Mania” with the arrival of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It’s no accident that “Eye of the Jedi,” the classic hard rockers’ richly melodic and spiritually topical Star Wars tribute, now has become the most popular track on its acclaimed new debut album, SPARK IT UP.
“Eye of the Jedi” easily is the most downloaded song on the band’s MySpace page (www.myspace.com/infernophonic), and it’s also the one song fans consistently have been demanding in concert all summer long. No INFERNOPHONIC show is complete these days, without “Eye of the Jedi” as the final encore. The audience simply won’t have it any other way.
“The reaction to ‘Jedi’ has been phenomenal,” says Kevin Bolembach, the band’s bass-playing ringmaster. “It’s a catchy tune with a nice, simple arrangement, and I think the subject matter catches listeners and stays with them because it’s something they grew up with and have heard of before. I mean, who doesn’t want to be a swashbuckling Jedi, swinging a light saber around? It’s amazing how these names and mythologies from the Star Wars movies have become permanently embedded in our culture.I believe that it attests to the strength of the concepts behind them.”
Inspired by the timeless philosophies in Jedi mythology, INFERNOPHONIC wrote “Eye of the Jedi” in 2002 as Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, was hitting theaters. Six years later, the band made “Eye of the Jedi” the final track on its debut album. Released in June, SPARK IT UP, has been hailed by Guitar Player, Guitar World, Music Connection and a fast-growing list of others, and has charted in the Top 5 Most Added at FMQB and CMJ.
INFERNOPHONIC’s lyrical themes –written almost entirely by head-turning lead vocalist Elaine Tuttle – primarily center around spiritualism, self-help and resistance to oppression through free-thinking. As Bolembach notes, those ideas have a kinship to the pure and noble Jedi lifestyle and its somewhat vulnerable focus to withstand the corruptive pressures of outside forces.
“I think one of the lines in ‘Jedi’ sums it up best,” he says. “It goes, ‘No time to debate with all the ones that hate - won’t even try to relate, I’ll find a better way to levitate.’ In other words, evil is all around you, but you need to rise above it.”
Heavy without the metal and meticulous in its musicianship, INFERNOPHONIC returns the swaggering spirit and soulful splendor to hard rock in a funked-up, female-fronted fury on SPARK IT UP. With Tuttle being singled out as “red hot singer” (Guitar World) who “conjures comparisons to Grace Slick, Ann Wilson and other ballsy banshees” (Music Connection), INFERNOPHONIC is a true musician’s band that’s pummeling rock’s current conventions with a wallop reserved for the hard-hitting giants of the past four decades. Stacking contemporary influences such as Red Hot Chili Peppers and Audioslave on a firm foundation of forefathers Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, the ferocious foursome is rounded out by. Fortifying the attack are the lightning licks of guitarist Pat Piegari (Lourds) and the deep, dirty backbeat of drummer Ross Kantor.
After two years of burning up the Northeast with their incendiary live shows, INFERNOPHONIC was asked to record SPARK IT UP by Alan Evans of Soulive. Evans brought the band into world-famous Applehead Studios in Woodstock, NY (Coheed & Cambria, King Crimson, Medeski Martin & Wood) to plug into its coveted vintage gear, clandestine recording techniques, and cutting edge mixing technologies. Those studio qualities held special meaning for Bolembach, a self-professed gear head who is also founder and president of Godlyke, Inc., an equipment company obsessed with tonal quality. It should come as no surprise that SPARK IT UP is a sonic smorgasbord that will leave every musician wondering: “How did they get that tone?”
Able to melt and meld a diverse audio arsenal to create a new sonic experience, INFERNOPHONIC is a breed apart. SPARK IT UP is sure to ignite the molten core within any hard rock fan, regardless of age, by a band that is glorious in all its heavenly rage.
