Heavy Glow

The boys of Heavy Glow
photo by Bo Cross

Bluesy rock with emotional vocals, HEAVY GLOW first gives off whiffs of Hendrix guitar with Dave Grohl fronting; it’s a modern sound that will be music to the ears for fans of THE WHITE STRIPES and THE BLACK KEYS. Their music was recently featured on the Stephen King show “Under The Dome” and you can see why it fit perfectly: it’s dark and moody melodic hard rock that sounds like it was meant for listening to driving on a summer night. We took a few minutes to talk to HEAVY GLOW’s lead singer and guitarist Jared Mullins about their upcoming Madison show at the Willy Street Pub and Grill, the Wisco.

Maximum Ink: What got you started in rock n’ roll?
Jared Mullins: I heard ‘Come Together’ by The Beatles when I was young and it changed my life. It was like I discovered this whole-other dimension to life and it was mine…all mine.

MI: “Pearls and Swine and Everything Fine” is a great album title, what’s behind it?
JM: A series of unfortunate events and a nervous breakdown helped as well. All-in-all the lyrical content is very personal and straight from a place of despair and a destitute heart. Essentially the album title is a reminder to myself to put an unbecoming chapter of my personal life behind me and move on. Get my head out of the slums and out of interacting with slum-rats and back into discovering the beauty of life.

MI: What would you recommend as the song to listen to for people who are listening to you for the first time?
JM: “Love Ghost” or “Headhunter.” Either one I think captures the essence of the band up until this point in time. Both are on the new album. I wrote “Love Ghost” on Valentine’s Day in a cheap hotel in downtown San Diego. It was my first V-Day after a breakup of about 6 years. I sat in the hotel room alone trying to drown out the sound of every couple in the hotel making love and the universe rubbing it in my face. When I sing that “she cums and goes” I really meant it…

MI: HEAVY GLOW is a sweet band name, what’s the story behind it?
JM: Honestly, it almost wasn’t going to be ‘Heavy Glow.’ We were in the studio recording the first EP with Stevie Salas and still didn’t have a band name. I wanted to call the band ‘Black Ivy.’ Stevie and Joe liked ‘Heavy Glow’ after a name of one of the songs that we’d been recording. I took it as a fat joke at first and fucking hated it, but after awhile I thought about it and it definitely captured the dynamics and duality of the music and allowed us to carry on an ages-old tradition of light/heavy rock band names.

MI: What’s next for the band?
JM: Working hard. Keep touring. Keep writing. Keep recording. We’re aiming to have another album out in 2015. Fingers crossed…I’ve always wanted to be on Interscope or tour with Rival Sons. Would love to get to Europe before the year is out and see our fans over there.

MI: What can people expect at the Wisco?
JM: Catharsis. We’ll play most of the songs from the new album up front and personal in an intimate setting. There’s an energy there that transcends explanation as far as interacting with a crowd, so that’s what we shoot for. Release, if you will…

MI: Rock’s a big genre, what do you think separates you guys from others?
JM: We fill in the spaces so to speak while covering a variety of rock subgenres. If you like rock that rolls with sensual swagger, non-cute blues, accessible psychedelic rock, with dynamic and tasteful proto-heavy metal flourishes then we’re the band for you.

MI: What are you pushing? What should people check out before the show?
JM: We just had the opportunity to film a music video with Mayra Leal from the Robert Rodriguez movie ‘Machete.’ Go check it out on Youtube. It took awhile to convince me to make a music video. I always thought, “What’s the point if MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore?” But I decided if I’m going to make one I wanted to make something I would want to sit down and watch. In 2:15 it covers a lot of my own personal preferences as far as dynamics from black-and-white to color tv, Hitchcock, the Twilight Zone, 70s B Exploitation flicks, and it all stars one of the most gorgeous girls I’ve ever seen in an abandoned, haunted college in Tehuacana County, Texas. Go see it!

And the Wisco on June 13th seems the perfect place to see this trio. It’s an intimate venue with a chance to get up close to the sound and the band. You’ll almost wish we didn’t have a smoking ban in Wisconsin, so that the room could be smoke-filled to be a soundtrack for a night of hippies, dancing, and hard drinking.

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