DAY SHEET BLOG — Dirtbag Block of Rock

Dirtbag Mike from The Foundry gets a chance to follow up with Zacky Sickness. They talk about heavy sliced and girthy metal riffs, studio recording and new music for his latest EP titled "Storm the Gates".

Songs for mention are: Will Anyone Be There

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Zacky-Sickness-1852242868237554 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/zackysickness/?hl=en Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/58kNV2ehu00mrwHZBK5GRr Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVA5LOVcSEKnbkBHbntaZlw

Artist Bio: Zacky Sickness started in 2018 after Zack moved back to his hometown of Joseph, OR and couldn’t find a band wanting to do his style of music. Which made him starting to make instrumentals on “Apple Loops” as he worked on his first solo album. At the very end of writing that he looked up “Royalty free heavy metal instrumentals” and found Jacob Lizotte. Zack had him make 2 tracks for his first album, and has been working with him ever since. Creating 2 albums together Now Zack has just released a brand new E.P. With Jacob Lizotte once again handling all the instrumentals and mixing and mastering. The E.P. “Storm the Gates” is once again exploring many different genres and influences in both lyric wise and musically. Zack explored new boundaries with songs such as “Life is Just a Airport” where he challenged himself to write a fun drinking Irish punk song. Zack has said about the song “I’ve gotten comfortable with writing about my depression and anxiety, and often feel if I try to write something happy or uplifting it comes off as corny, so I wanted to challenge myself and make a song that people can party and have a fun time to.” Another song where he tried something new was the song “Zoltar’s Fortune” which is a song about a fortune card he got from a “Zoltar” machine that was eerily accurate to what he was going through in life, and the first verse of the song comes straight from the fortune card he got. Songs like “Storm the Gates” talk about war, while “Will Anyone Be There?” Talks on self doubt and being unmotivated by people ignoring the songs he puts all his effort in, while “The Liars and Thieves” is about the sharks of the music industry, about people who prey on small musicians with broken promises all to get their money.

Dirtbag Mike from The Foundry catches up with the 3-piece power rock trio from Houston, Texas --- HONEYCUTT SOUTHERN.

 Description:

"The Struggles of an Unknown Musician" is the third album by 'Zacky Sickness' and is his second album to have all instrumentals and mixing and mastering done by Jacob Lizotte. "The Struggles of an Unknown Musician" is Zacky Sickness' first concept album. The album is the story of the journey of a musician who is trying to make it in the music industry, and the highs and lows that most musicians go through. It tells how the main character gets sucked into the lifestyle of drugs and alcohol, and then has to eventually move back in with his parents. He soon finds that he can't come to grips with the reality that he will just work a normal day job forever and ends up taking his own life. Many of the situations in the story are based off of situations that Zack has gone through and has thought in the past. Zack Started working on the album only 3 months after his previous album "Stonebreaker" was released in March 2020, and finished this album 9 months later.

Influences for the Album:
Killswitch Engage, Metallica, Nirvana, Cheap Trick, Coheed and Cambria, Linkin Park, Architects

Track Suggestions:
Tear Them Down
A Glimpse in an Endless Sea
Cycle of Misery
The Beast I Am
Just Another Broken Dream

Bio:
Zack Settergren (A.K.A. Zacky Sickness) started his musical journey in 2010 at the age of 17 after being inspired to be a frontman after going to his first real heavy metal music festival. Zack started to practice his singing along to the video Game "Rock Band," until he decided to start his first band with his friends Tommy Hill, Casey Marino, and Collie Davidson. Together they formed a Pop Punk cover band named 'My Friend Z,' who covered songs by 'Green Day,' 'Blink-182,' 'The Ramones' and 'All Time Low.' They only played two shows and was a band for only a year, but those two shows inspired Zack to take music seriously, and to follow it as a dream.

In September 2011 Zack moved to Eugene to go to College. A few weeks before he moved there he posted an ad on the Eugene Music Craigslist looking for a band. A day or two later he got a e-mail from a man named Jered Kappenman. Five days after Zack moved down to Eugene he had his first practice with Jered and their first bassist, James John, and they formed the band 'Black Hare.' Black Hare toured all over the West Coast of America for 6 years with many different line-ups, leaving Zack and Jered the only original members of the band. Black Hare gained popularity in their hometown of Eugene, along with getting to open for international touring artists such as: Alien Ant Farm, HED P.E. and Powerman 5,000 at the world famous "Whisky a Go-Go" in Hollywood, California. They also got to be an opening act for international touring artist 'Dope' at the Hawthorne Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Black Hare released 2 albums and 2 E.P's within their six years of being a band.

Unfortunately, financial problems fell on Zack and he had to leave Black Hare and move back to his hometown. A small town of 2,000 people called Joseph, Oregon. Zack was hoping to start a band when he got back to Joseph, but soon realized there was no metal bands or metal musicians in Joseph. Zack found himself as one of the very few metal-heads in his county. Zack soon started to do recording projects on his own, creating instrumentals on "Apple Loops," and recording vocals over them. 9 of those songs were on the first 'Zacky Sickness' album: "Songs From the Black Sheep." Towards the end of recording the album he decided he wanted a really heavy hitting metal song. He went on to YouTube and looked up "Royalty Free Metal Instrumentals." Where he came along Jacob Lizotte's channel, and listened to a few songs and really enjoyed them. Zack asked Jacob if he would make him a custom instrumental track. The track Jacob gave him Zack thought was genius, and Zack wrote lyrics and recorded the vocals to what would become his song "I Give Up." Zack enjoyed the song so much he had Jacob make another real heavy song for the album that turned into "The Nightmare Called Life." After that album dropped Zack decided he'd have Jacob make all of his instrumentals, and together they released the album "Stonebreaker," released on March 27, 2020.

Zack told himself that he was going to take a good amount of time off from writing songs after the release of "Stonebreaker," but was persuaded to start writing again when he saw a interview with Ozzy Osbourne where he said "If you're on a roll with writing you got to keep going." Zack felt that he was on a roll, writing the best material he's ever written. So he quickly got back to having Jacob cook up some instrumentals. Zack felt it was time to challenge himself and to try to write a concept album. Zack came up with the idea of telling the story of a musician trying to make the "Big Time." He was hoping to show all the hard times along with the good times that come along with it, he hopes to show the world how dedicated some musicians are to making it. "Some musicians are so tunnel vision about making it, they can't come to reality with the fact they got to work a normal boring job and be a average Joe, and I wanted to put that out there" Zack said.  So 9 months later Zack and Jacob finished "The Struggles of an Unknown Musician" and released it on New Years Day.

Band Line-Up:
Zack "Sickness" Settergren- Lead Vocals
Jacob Lizotte- All instrumentals and Production

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