By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News | Photo courtesy of Coalbreed
It’s not often that a local band pursues a metal sound. The harsh tones and heavy lyrics can be challenging for even the most seasoned musicians. This is what makes Coalbreed stand out. Performing original songs and giving metalheads a group to cheer for, Coalbreed has quickly become a fan-favorite group in the Castle Country.
Castle Country Radio was joined by Tyson Farrell, Mark Dickey, Nick Melosi and JB Johnson to discuss the rebranding of Coalbreed, what inspires their music and most importantly, what lies ahead for the area’s premiere metal group.
Until 2025, Coalbreed performed under the name Black Corvus. Dickey explained the motive behind this rebrand,” We restructured the band lineup and just wanted a new, fresh start, and so we were wanting to take the band in a new direction anyway, add some more melodic tones to our music, and it led to an all-new look and sound and feel.”
As with any group, the musical inspirations of each band member are diverse and varied, with each member citing a different individual or group as their source of inspiration. “I’m a little bit older, so I go back a little ways to like Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, and those guys, but also Zach Wilde and Nuno Bettencourt, people like that. And I honestly never used to like metal until I started to play guitar. And the earlier stuff was easy, and this challenged me,” explained Johnson.
“If you look through my playlist, I mean, you’re going to think that I have multiple personalities. Like I have everything from super, super heavy stuff like Children of Bodom, Lamb of God and Slipknot,” shared Dickey.” But then I also have everything over to like the Muppet movie soundtrack, and that’s dead serious. And so it is like I really love all different types of music.”
Melosi added,” I have a pretty wide background in music, too. I grew up with a lot of that same stuff, like Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac. My parents were a big influence on, of course, what I listened to when I first started. I got into a lot of punk rock, and that started shifting me into heavier music. And then once I discovered what metal was, that really branched out.”
For Farrell, a wide variety of genres keeps him occupied musically,” I started out listening to AC/DC, Metallica and stuff like that. And then in high school, I transitioned into more of the heavier stuff, like Lamb of God.” He continued,” Mostly now, for me, I’m all over the place. I enjoy older country music, and I also appreciate listening to some jazz. We’ve incorporated some jazz elements into some of our songs. I think it’s fun just trying to crunch the different types of genres into the metal and somehow making it work, and it always pans out.”
Dickey explained how these varying musical tastes help Coalbreed stand out in the world of metal: “To be able to bring all of those pieces together into one place in the stuff that we create makes it super fun. That’s what we’ve enjoyed at a lot of our shows. We have people come up to us who go, ‘We normally don’t like metal bands, but we really like what you guys are doing.’ Or they ask us like, ‘Who are your influences? Because you don’t really sound like the other people.’ And so we like that we don’t fit the normal metal mold, and we also like that people who don’t typically like metal are enjoying our stuff.”
The group also delved into what the creative process entails while producing their original songs. “It changes, honestly. Sometimes, JB will come up with a guitar riff and sit on it for a year or longer, then bring it to the table, pass it my way, and I’ll mess with it a little bit before sending it back to him. So sometimes we almost just do things like a pass and trade. Sometimes we all get together, and we’re just jamming out, and magically a song just kind of pops out there,” said Melosi.
“They’re happy accidents,” added Farrell.
“And no matter what we’ve done, everybody puts their touch on it,” shared Johnson. “You know, like when I bring songs, we’ll have drums, we’ll have bass, we’ll have everything, but I’ll tell Mark, ‘That’s just a foundation, do you. I want you to do your part,’ because it’s Mark. Nobody else sounds like Mark. The same goes for Tyson, Nick and myself. We’re all individuals, all unique. And if we try to be something else, we’re not us.”
“We’re always pushing each other to get better, and I think that’s one of the things I love about the group we have now, it’s one way or the other, whether we mean to or not, we’re always pushing each other forward. Getting each other out of that comfort zone,” said Farrell.
Looking at the onstage performances from the group, Dickey shared what makes these moments stand out,” We practice this a lot, so it’s super tight. So when we’re up on stage, we’re kind of ready to go. And so I have a giant grin on my face the entire time that we’re playing, which doesn’t really work great for a metal band, but I have a good time. It’s just fun performing that music so tightly.”
Speaking on the future of Coalbreed, Melosi stated,” We’re looking to get our new material recorded so that we have just some more. We did record an album during our previous iteration, but now we’re working on releasing our new material. We’re talking about hopefully getting a music video or more put together.”
For more Coalbreed, you can find the group on their Facebook and Instagram pages. The next opportunity to see the group live comes on Friday, Aug. 1 at the Redemption Bar and Grill in Herriman.