The members of Psych/Soul/Rock trio Heavy Glow may be getting their mail at a Californian address these days, but guitarist/vocalist Jared Mullins hails from the North Coast and his trippy Hard Rock/Blues/Memphis Soul sensibilities are filtered through his Cleveland, Ohio, roots and experiences.
Mullins, originally a drummer, relocated to San Diego and found bassist Joe Brooks on Craigslist, but he quickly shifted to guitar and vocals, ceding the drum chair to Dave Rollans to form Heavy Glow. The band’s eponymous 2009 EP — produced by guitarist Stevie Salas, who has played with Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger and Justin Timberlake, and in the band Hardware with Bootsy Collins and Buddy Miles — earned good reviews for a debut effort and got a publicity bump when Fox used the song “Grinning in the Dark” in an episode of the vastly underrated, one-season cop comedy, The Good Guys.
For Heavy Glow’s sophomore release, 2010’s The Filth & the Fury, the band took over production chores but remained grounded in Black Sabbath’s Proto Metal thunder, Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic Blues lightning and Nirvana’s gritty Grunge hailstorm, not to mention The Black Keys’ hybridized Blues/Soul fury and a generous helping of Motown and Stax rhythms and rolls.
The EP scored a nomination for Best Rock Album of the Year at the 2010 San Diego Music Awards. The band’s 2011 full-length, Midnight Moan, offered up more of the same (the album was digitally re-released just last month) and, with the arrival of new drummer Drew Hofman (and new touring drummer Andrew Merkle), Heavy Glow — which is now based in Los Angeles — is hitting the road to celebrate its first new music in two years, a 7-inch featuring the songs “Mine All Mine” and “Headhunter.”
The two tracks are previews of the band’s second full length, Pearls and Swine and Everything Else, which is slated for release early next year; “Headhunter” was recently played by the local disc jockey character in CBS’s Under the Dome, which resulted in a virtual tidal wave of attention for Heavy Glow, a perfect publicity metaphor for the band’s volume, power and intensity.
HEAVY GLOW plays Monday, Aug. 19 at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine. Check out performance times and get venue details here .
