Otherworldly Entity release Cataclysm amidst the covid craziness and the hard rock message may be different than you’d think. “A big thing for Cataclysm was the idea of writing an album during a global pandemic, doing a lot of our work together remotely and sadly, watching the people around us suffer and, in some cases, die. The idea of a “cataclysm” is kind of like “Armageddon.” It’s always presented in such a terrifying way, but destruction often breeds creation. None of us take the situation that our world is in lightly, and as a band, we’ve all experienced loss in the past year. But Cataclysm is really about our struggles through a modern plague on a personal level,” John Harris.
For me, personally, my favorite song on the album is “Sunset.” In that song, my favorite lyric is “love is poison that has never seemed to have a cure, give me poison if it means I’ll be with you.” But I think overall, my favorite lyric on the album comes from “You’re Not Alone,” a song that emphasizes positivity. In it, I sing “in a world so callous what’s more rebellious than to show a little kindness?” We really wanted that song to be about loving each other, supporting each other, and showing kindness for the sake of kindness.
MT: Tell me about the history of your band and who’s currently in it.
JH: We formed back in 2018 in support of my third solo album, DICHOTOMY. I wrote all of the instruments on that album, but couldn’t play it all live. At the time, I had just done a solo acoustic tour, and was doing a lot of open mics where I met Zlatko Grozl. We had a lot of fun playing together acoustic, and I mentioned that I needed a band to back me live in support of DICHOTOMY and he said he’d love to help. We started looking for other bandmates, and found two more solo artists, Shane Archer Reed and Matt Raymond, that wanted to play. We played for over a year in support of that album under the name John Harris and the Otherworldly Entities. Shane Reed went his separate ways to focus on his solo material, which I’m glad he did because he’s really nailing it, and the legendary Syracuse musician Shane Stillman replaced him on drums. We went out to Buffalo to play with one of my childhood idols, the numetal band Cold, where we met with some really well known producers and musicians. We changed our name to Otherworldly Entity and started working on Cataclysm as a cohesive band. Later, Taylor Cole Porter joined up on drums towards the tail end of the album.
MT: Congrats on your success on YouTube. You’ve got around 13k views on the “Sunset” video!
JH: “Sunset” is one of those songs that just happened. I wrote it in a night, showed it to Z (Zlatko) and we started recording it. The video was, I guess, “envisioned” as I was writing the song. The song is based on a true story, so the vision of the video is really just an exaggeration of real life. The song presents as a love song, but it’s not…”Sunset” is a song about over thinking. It’s about how, when things seem to be going well, I tend to think a month, a year, a decade ahead. But the reality is, none of that is real. It’s just imagination. We tried to really bring that out in the music video by forming dream sequences. Xyzhea Mae helped us shoot it, but the production was all in-house, relying on the technical backgrounds of Z and I. The video came together really well, with an amazing local crew that I put together. Meghan Heagerty on hair, Zoe Scialdone on makeup, the amazing Risa Fox playing my love interest, and a huge help from people like Stephanie and Nick Hopman with the wedding scene. We also reached out to the singer of Taylor’s other band (The Stacy White Suite) Jon Page who started Three Lives in Armory Square to shoot a scene there. The incredible fashion designer Khang Le designed my suit in the wedding scene, and Whisky Jack’s Glass Slipper in New Hartford helped out with the makeup in that scene. It was really a great collaboration of a lot of local creative professionals.
MT: The creativity is flowing. How are your other art endeavors going?
JH: I own JPHii DESIGN where I make custom jewelry. It’s our 10 year anniversary this year, and I just relaunched the company after a 3 year hiatus. We’ve been doing photo shoots for magazines, and one was just picked up by a magazine in Paris and another one in a magazine in Munich. So JPHii is recovering!
We’re already writing new material, but we’re also planning another music video. We’ve been offered some national tours later in 2021, but we’re playing that by ear. Cataclysm is streaming on all major platforms.
Follow the band here: www.OtherworldlyEntity.com
Band photos by Xyzhea Mae, John Harris photo by Risa Fox
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Misse always keeping it real!!!