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Beneath the Sky just returned from Pittsburgh where they shot the first video for the song “7861” from their debut full-length album, What Demons Do to Saints. At this time three years ago, the band didn’t even exist. Forget life in the fast lane, this is the express lane.
Guitarist Jeff Nelson realizes that Beneath the Sky has evolved more rapidly than most local bands. In the two-and-a-half years since BTS first came together, the band has recorded a pair of EPs, established an out-of-town presence, hired management, signed with a major indie label and recorded their debut album.
“It’s been crazy,” says Nelson on a brief break, from his Cincinnati home. “It’s all happened so fast but we just keep going onto the next thing.”
Beneath the Sky is already generating a lot of buzz in Death Metal circles. The band’s shredding guitar riffs, triphammer drumming and often doom-laden lyrics are above average for the genre, but it’s BTS’s subtle use of melody, occasional glimmers of lyrical hope and redemption and an almost Prog-like intricacy that has Death Metal tastemakers paying attention.
“We didn’t want to sound like everybody else,” says Nelson.
“We all like heavy bands and bands where they’re heavily into singing. We threw the keys in there … a lot of Heavy Metal bands don’t have keys. We just wanted to create something different. It’s worked out well.”
The seeds of Beneath the Sky were planted more than four years ago, when the band’s six members were all doing time in other projects. Guitarist Nelson, his vocalist brother Joey and their high school friend, keyboardist Matt Jones, were a part of Blind Judgment, a big name for a good three years in the local Metal scene. The trio was well acquainted with guitarist Chris Profitt and drummer Brandon Sowder, both with the band Makeshift, and bassist Nick Scarberry. After playing shows together on a fairly regular basis, eventually a conversation was started among the six about getting together for a jam.
“We were all good friends and hung out together and we just wanted to start a different band,” says Nelson. “All three bands we were in played heavy music, but none of them had that melodic sound. We still wanted to be heavy but we wanted that melodic thing.”
The chemistry was immediate. The first jam yielded a written song the first day, and it was obvious that their intuition about getting together had been correct. They all gave notice to their respective bands and Beneath the Sky was officially launched.
“I got with (Brandon and Chris) and we just started jamming,” says Nelson. “We really liked the sound we created. I called my brother and told him to come down. We played him the song and he loved it, and from there it just started rolling. We got Matt and Nick to come down, and everything just flowed really well. From there, we just started writing more.”
Using connections they’d formed with their previous bands, Beneath the Sky hit the ground running; their fourth local show was an opening gig for the sold-out Chevelle show at Bogart’s, an amazing opportunity and a huge amount of exposure for a new band.
“We still get messages from fans saying, ‘I saw you at Chevelle,’ ” says Nelson with a laugh. “It’s crazy.”
Just as importantly, BTS began venturing out of town almost immediately. In January of 2005, about five months since their formation, Beneath the Sky recorded a four-track demo EP and pressed up 5,000 copies, blowing through the whole run in a matter of weeks.
“We were playing locally, but we were going out of town a lot,” says Nelson. “We played out of town a lot more than we played in town. We definitely wanted to build things up outside of Ohio. We used a few old contacts but we started making a lot of contacts through MySpace and the Internet.”
A year later, after a hectic circuit of regional touring, BTS headed to a Cleveland studio to lay down five more tracks for a 1,000-run CD, which was depleted just as quickly. Shortly after that, the band got a call from Victory Records president Tony Brummel.
“On our first original demo, I’d gotten ahold of Tony’s e-mail, but never heard anything,” says Nelson. “On our new demo, I sent him an e-mail saying, ‘If you get a second, check us out.’ Not long after, he e-mailed back and asked if we could play in Chicago the next week, so we went up and showcased.”
Within weeks of playing the showcase in Chicago, Nelson received Victory’s contract offer via e-mail and Beneath the Sky became a part of the renowned Punk/Metal label’s roster. Last October, they began work on What Demons Do to Saints, an amazing hybrid of Death Metal’s bleak density and Prog’s subtle melodicism and elegance.
“We all like heavy bands but we didn’t want to be just straight Death Metal, so we decided to mix it up a little bit,” says Nelson. “We just wanted to create something different. I’m real big on Killswitch Engage, because they mix it up that way, and Under Oath. Six Feet Under is one of Joey’s favorite bands; that’s where he picks up more of the Death Metal sound. We like a lot of Grindcore bands even though we don’t have a Grindcore sound.”
As fast as everything has moved for Beneath the Sky, 2007 looks to be the band’s breakout year. They have a few things lined up in the early part of the new year, including a 10-day circuit in Europe, but they’re working on securing a booking agent to help them land even more touring opportunities.
“Touring, touring, touring,” says Nelson of Beneath the Sky’s focus for this year. “We just want to get out there and try to get a name, get known, move some CDs and just go at it.”
BENEATH THE SKY celebrate their Victory Records debut with a show at Covington’s Mad Hatter Friday.
This article appears in Jan 24-30, 2007.
