Jason Hartman’s a busy guy with a lot of music in the pipeline. He’s made a name for himself as a guitarist with Jex Thoth as well as his current band Vanishing Kids who are finishing up their second record. If that’s not enough, Hartman is also releasing music via his metal album Old Spirit as well as his alternative/electronic project Night Eyez. Both albums are available now.
“I’ve had so many ideas and songs I’ve wanted to record over the years. I dabbled in four track stuff years ago, but I couldn’t find anything good enough to release beyond that of a demo until recently. I began to notice that friends of mine could get really good recordings, even on their phones, it kind of amazes me sometimes,” Hartman explains.
“Some of my friends were posting some cool stuff they had recorded themselves, and I thought maybe I could do this too, so I started getting into it more, and it really struck me how much easier it was to get good recordings these days than it was maybe five years ago and how user friendly some of these programs are now, so Old Spirit was just kind of born out of that.
I’ve had all these metal songs that just didn’t fit into my current band, Vanishing Kids. On top of that, it’s really hard to get a project together with a bunch of people where you have to organize schedules, practice, and find a studio, all of which is time-consuming. Old Spirit was something I could do by myself, on my own time, when I was at home, so that’s kind of what it was and how it came about.
What happened, though, was that I recorded two albums at the same time, at the beginning of last year, 2021. I recorded the Old Spirit album and the Night Eyez album. They’re both available now. Each record is different from a musical point of view featuring songs that really wouldn’t fit into other projects or Vanishing Kids. More than anything else, I’m excited I have an outlet where I can get this done and put it out. It’s been a long time I’ve been wanting to do my own recordings.”
Vanishing Kids features Nikki Drohomyreky on vocals, organ, synth, and tambourine. Riff master general Jason Hartman handles guitar duty while veteran bassist Jerry Sofran man’s the bass. Psych and doom is their sonic weapon of choice.
“Yep, we’re in the studio with Vanishing Kids right now finishing up our new record. ‘Old Spirit’ material was done in my spare time, in my office, where I’m at now. Switching up between both bands wasn’t hard to do because Old Spirit was just me. I could do that music whenever I had time to do it,” he says.
“Unlike Old Spirit and Night Eyez, Vanishing Kids are in an actual studio with the same guy that produced our last album, Dustin Sisson. We only put an album every few years and half of it is usually written by our vocalist, Nikki (Drohomyreky). We split it up so Nikki comes in with half of the songs and keyboards, and I put guitars on top of it, or she writes parts, and I write parts, and we put songs together that way. On this new record, we have a few more mid-paced songs than on our last album, ‘Heavy Dreamer.’
There’s still a lot of heavy, doomy ballad stuff but the middle of the road paced songs make the record flow better; that’s what I think. It makes all the songs stand out in their own way. In general, we’ve just spent more time on this new album, months actually. We also have a different drummer this time, it’s Nick Johnson from Jex Thoth. We’re also planning on mixing this record with Randall Dunn.
I played in Jex Thoth; Nick plays in Jex Thoth, and he produced their last album. Randall came to mind because he’s done a lot of cool albums, some very metal leaning. For example, he’s worked with bands on the more creative end of the metal spectrum like Sunn-O, Wolves In The Throne Room, Myrkur, Earth, and Boris. He’s also been doing soundtrack work. He was one of the guys behind the score to Mandy, which had Nicholas Cage in it and did Candyman as well. He hasn’t done anything with our album yet; we’re still in the tracking process, but we were lucky to get him.”
Whereas Vanishing Kids has a more rigid structure to their music, Old Spirit was quite the opposite when Hartman was putting it together.
“Old Spirit is much more free in terms of my guitar tones and how I approach that music and what you hear. I took the fuzz aspect and mixed it with more overdrive and distorted tones,” Hartman says. “I’ve got some stuff that’s thrashier that doesn’t need fuzz and other parts that are heavier which need it. My guitar tones on Old Spirit are all over the place, plus my vocals are different styles. This record is definitely more metal, more classic metal sounding. It reflects more of the music I grew up on like Mercyful Fate, Voi Vod, Celtic Frost, more or less taking all of that and mixing it together.
I like the end result, I think it has a real NWOBHM vibe mixed with thrash and a little bit of psyche and ’70s hard rock as well. Everything I do, I don’t want it to be derivative of my influences but rather a mixture of it all with a cool spin on top of it. When I write I want to make sure I’m doing something new and original that doesn’t already exist somewhere. Even though I love NWOBHM I wouldn’t want to do an entire album of it, I think it’d be boring. I prefer to do something new but not to the point that it’s foreign or recognizable to the ear.
I think all of my music, in a way, can be considered freeform. The average listener will hear a lot of different things with any of my music, whether it’s Vanishing Kids or Old Spirit, and I go back and forth on whether that’s good or bad. I am trying to organize things but yeah, in the end it definitely is freeform, especially Old Spirit and that’s really due to the fact that I don’t have any real restrictions or limitations I adhere to.
Regarding the King Diamond thing, I’ve been a fan of Mercyful Fate since I was a teenager. Some of these songs just called for that musical style. In terms of vocals, I took on that role even though it’s my least favorite thing to do. I’ve done it in Vanishing Kids and other bands so I’m kind of revisiting that with Old Spirit and Night Eyez.
What you hear on Old Spirit is what I thought each song should sound like. The King Diamond style of singing? I can’t pull it off like he can, but it’s my take on that. I actually met King Diamond years ago here in Wisconsin, in the early 2000s. It was at a show in a small town outside of Madison, and there was literally, I’m not joking when I tell you this, 30 or 40 people there! We met him outside his tour bus after the show, and he was really cool to talk to. I met him again at Psycho Las Vegas in 2017 when I was playing with Jex Thoth.”
Old Spirit, as a record defies categorization or a label. Dare I say it’s quirky, is that a bad thing? I don’t think it is.
“Different is good. I’m less interested in somebody telling me that my music sounds like something else they’ve heard. Being Avant Garde is something to strive for. It’s all about pushing yourself creatively, so quirky is welcomed.”
Purchase or stream Old Spirit here and Night Eyez here.
Visit Bright As Night Records Facebook page here.
Visit Vanishing Kids YouTube channel here.
