DAY SHEET BLOG — rock n roll

 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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The band name is as unique and ridiculous as the way I titled this post. I personally love snacks at midnight. My waistline doesn't, and in the Navy, we referred to the midnight snack as "Midrats or Midnight Rations". Which is basically just the leftovers the galley had from the day prior. Sometimes, it was perfect before or after your watch and sometimes it was Special K and whack. So, I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of the midnight snack. Between the military career and now touring musician, eating snacks late has become a function of my life. 

Snacks at Midnight isn't leftover bang bang beef or Special K. They also happen to be a talented group of young gentlemen from Spokane, WA who thought it to be a perfect band name. I have to agree. I also am a bit biased, because the weirder the band name the better in my humble and august opinion. One time, QUOR was playing a show in Nara, Japan at Live House Neverland and we got to share the stage with a band called FROGS. Great band! Of course FROGS and every other band that night was amazing not to mention the other 30 Japanese bands we had shared stages with on the 2019 QUOR Returns to Nippon tour. Snacks at Midnight.

Regardless if you're into Metal, Deathcore, Math Rock, Djent, or whatever weird sonics you enjoy bouncing off of your tympanic membranes, one must appreciate good musicianship and skill when it occurs. Especially, if one truly refers to themselves as an artist. Band names, foreign tours, house parties or pandemic live streams, when you can play, you can play and nothing else matters. 

Snacks at Midnight plays indie rock with a touch of blues, soul, a pinch of jazz and some stuff you just may have not heard of yet. Yeah, I said it. They have a great range stylistically when it comes to song composition. Instrumentally a 5-piece including lots of stand up bass and keys. Who doesn't like all of that blended with some solid drums, a melodic guitar and some skillfully placed vocals? I do. I don't care what genre it is. I just want to hear the story of that artist through their music. Blood and guts on the fuckin' dance floor. Slain open like a 12-point buck in Washington State. 

These young men are on to something awesome. Whatever it is, it's theirs; if they can keep it. If they can all make music their life, together, through life, the ups, the downs, fat, thin, busy and bored. College, families, girlfriends, jobs and all the other great things life has to offer. For is it good music that makes life, or life that makes good music? The balance of the tide from life to music is what sails great ships and also can destroy them like the Kraken. 

Check this band out, give them a follow on Spotify and Facebook. Maybe share a couple of songs around and do your part to make this world and music business a little bit better. Support each other.

I'd like to highlight the song "Westward Bound". A bit gritty and heavier for Snacks At Midnight but has a great vibe, dark, bluesy, and groovy. Just like I it. They have some other softer material that would make mom proud. Oh, did I say that's the name of the record they just released? Mom's Proud is a 10 song snack pack of some homemade songs by homemade sons who want to show the world their craft and have some fun.

Speaking of Snacks at Midnight, it's 11:06pm... I got 54 minutes. Stoked.

Enjoy and don't forget to support each other or Santa ain't bringing you shit.

Love,

Smitty