Though he's best known for his work fronting California metallic hardcore band Slowbleed, Jon Stephenson has been cooking up a new project.
Bad Onez finds him laying down his gruff vocals over groove-driven riffs on the band's new self-titled debut EP. I dig the release and wanted to give Jon a chance to give No Echo readers the lowdown on the “Bad Boy Sound."
What ended up happening with Slowbleed, and how did it lead to the formation of Bad Onez?
So nothing in particular happened with Slowbleed. The three of us that wrote Slowbleed stuff at one point years ago felt we could be busier and Logan began writing some stuff kinda for ourselves, we played maybe once or twice as Bad Onez years ago and never released anything and just sat on these songs.
We all get busy and grown up and (myself) being far away from the other members of the band picked up all these songs we had been sitting on and started writing. They felt new fresh and fun for the first time in a long time. We recorded a grip of songs and will be slowly putting them out in chunks of probably 3-4 at a time.
The fun thing about Bad Onez is it’s just easier than Slowbleed on a lot of levels and we just never stop writing. Slowbleed on the other hand is a project we are all very proud of and I think taught us how to be in a band, but don’t totally count Slowbleed out it’s just BOz season.
From a stylistic standpoint, what did you want to do with Bad Onez that was different from Slowbleed?
Bad Onez writing is about doing more with less and having fun with it, I feel. The jungle influences are lost on most, there are songs that start with a jungle clip to build off of and also the other way around that feels like another instrument in the mix.
I love the Slowbleed songs but they could get crowded at times, and sometimes felt like we were stripping away. Can’t speak on that for the whole band but I can say Bad Onez is a love letter to fun times with friends and has to be fun in turn.
Talk to me a bit about the jungle aspect since it's going over people's heads.
We just love a lot of '90s UK jungle and being a genre comprised of samples it felt only the most appropriate way to bring the “Bad Boy Sound” it’s fun and grimy music that just has a feel that goes hand in hand with what we’re doing.
Also, the Suburban Base Records catalog is a treasure trove of incredible jungle/hardcore/breakbeat what have you for anyone not familiar with what I’m talking about.
What can we expect from the band in the coming months?
- EP 2 “ZOO” working title
- EP 3 in the coming year
- Couple more music videos
- Some shows and fests
Like 3 more mix 'n' match lineups. [Laughs] It usually takes a band years to play with as many talented people in the band as we have in like 6 sets. Maybe some remixes.
Oh, and I haven’t spoken to anyone about this but it’s a dream of mine to do a record with [Terror drummer, and prolific producer/engineer] Nick Jett. I think that we wouldn’t do what we do without all of his bands and doing Slowbleed with Taylor Young and making what we did was an experience I wouldn’t trade for the world and it feels fitting in that same sense
***
The Bad Onez EP is available for pre-order on 24k gold-painted cassette and CD via Big Bite Records.
Bad Onez on social media: Instagram
