In Session: The Frozen Heads

ALBANY – The arts’ world has room for many various types of creative minds. This is certainly true for music: some thrive on the stage, and others in the studio. The Frozen Heads, definitely falls under the latter category – the band has been on a creative tear since February, churning out new material weekly. The latest swath of material being written all stemmed from their spontaneous creation in February, entitled Live at Bohemian Grove.

I had a chance to sit down with Jay Sebastiano of the Frozen Heads this week to discuss their latest musical direction. Continue reading on to catch our chat.

Lucas Garrett: Thanks, Jay, for sitting down to talk about your band, The Frozen Heads. I hear you’re writing a lot! Tell us about it.

Jay Sebastiano: Well, we’re always writing. But, we started getting fired up around February – we were doing the RPM challenge (record per month). And, we said, “Oh, let’s keep going.” I’m always writing, anyways. If it’s not with the band, it’s for something else; I’m a studio nerd. I can’t stop.

LG: Your stuff is all over the place, as far as genre. What are you working on right now?

JS: The album we just finished; I don’t know what you’d call it. Maybe post-punk in the loosest sense. But, the stuff we’re writing now is like atmospheric, black metal. We might do a four-song EP in that department, but whether or not we stick to those constraints, I have no idea.

LG: What are some of your inspirations? What do you draw on musically when you write?

JS: We draw from a lot of stuff; there’s four of us and we’re four very different people. That said, we listen to so much different stuff that, you know, we’re constantly drawing from a huge well. It’s incredibly hard to pinpoint, you know? There’s definitely some obvious things, like 80s post-punk, synth-pop – to a degree. I’m a big doom metal and black metal fan; industrial. Ultimately, the overarching influence is progressive rock. I should have said that from the get-go: prog-rock! Haha.

LG: Talk to us a bit about the band. For those that want to learn more about the band; how did the band come to be what it is now?

JS: The band started in 2018, and it happened in the wake of… I was in three bands before that and they all broke up – at the same time. I said, “OK, well I’m going to start something new, and this’ll be the last band I’m ever in. I’m never going to do a musical project again. It’ll be good and I’ll make it last. There’ll be no sound or style that is off-limits!” People can come in, and they can leave. If they want to work with me, awesome. So, that was my goal in the beginning.

I reached out to my friend who was playing drums, and said, “Hey, whatcha doing?” So, we started recording at his house; jamming and recording. That turned into our first EP. After two years and two releases, one thing led to another – musical differences, and such. Goki (Abe), our bassist, joined initially around that time as a second guitar player. He’s a really cool dude and we get along very well, musically. The beautiful thing is we’re both multi-instrumentalists. We can both play at fairly high levels between guitars, drums, and bass. We also do keyboards. Eventually, we got our new drummer, Dan Corr. After he joins, we made two more albums and start changing things up. That brings us up to now, with the current line-up of: myself on guitar, vocals, various instruments, and production; Goki Abe on bass, guitar, and various instruments; Dan Corr on drums; Justin Harrington on keyboards, and various instruments.

LG: What’re you doing right now; what’re the Frozen Heads doing right now? Are we going to be hearing you live? Let’s talk about what you’d like to do going forward.

JS: We are in the midst of a “studio binge.” And, whether or not we play live any time soon, I’m not sure. I mean, we probably will. For a while, we were playing the Low Beat – I’ve been going to Valentine’s since I moved up to Albany so many years ago. I followed those guys up through the Low Beat days. Since they’ve closed, we’ve been playing Pauly’s (Hotel). That’s been our home base. Shows are nice, but I have an easier time getting creative in the studio.

LG: Anything else you’d like to talk about?

JS: You can find our music on Bandcamp. We have a new album out, Live at Bohemian Grove, and we’re on every major online distributing platform, such as: Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon music.

LG: Thanks again for your time!

JS: I appreciate it, man. It was a good time. Thanks!

LG: Have a good one.

JS: Peace, man.