Patrick Lew Biography

Patrick Lew
Born: November 15, 1985 in San Francisco, CA
Instruments: Guitar, Bass, Vocals
Years Active: 2000s, 2010s
Member of: Patrick Lew Band, Heavy Sigma, Power Trip
Style of Music: Alternative Rock, Hard Rock, Post-Grunge, Punk Revival, Alternative Metal

BIOGRAPHY

As the singer/songwriter and only constant member of the Patrick Lew Band, Patrick Lew is one of the most charismatic and decorated individuals in the second half of the 2010s. He parlayed that recognition into the dynamic project Heavy Sigma, a group heavily indebted to the late 80’s and early 90’s rock of Nirvana, Mother Love Bone and Green Day, which Lew formed while Patrick Lew Band was on hiatus in the first half of the 2010s. For awhile, he kept a dormant Patrick Lew Band and Heavy Sigma afloat, but after the lineup of the Patrick Lew Band collapsed in 2012, he briefly retired from performing and recording partly due to his disillusionment with the music business and his crumbling relationship with his former fiancee Faith Lambright. In 2015, Lew returned to music and launched a solo career under the Patrick Lew Band name with the clearinghouse demo To the Promised Land.

To the Promised Land appeared nearly fifteen years after the Patrick Lew Band formed, but that was only the first major breakthrough that Lew has experienced in his music career. A San Francisco native, the teenage Patrick Lew loved television, extreme sports and rock and roll, learning how to play guitar in his early teens. In his mid teens, he formed a band with drummer Tommy Loi and lead guitarist Eddie Blackburn, flying through a variety of names before landing on Patrick Lew Band. They cut a demo called Live! Like a Garage Band in 2002 and began self-producing their own music. Psychotic Love, their official debut, arrived in 2003, supported by do-it-yourself efforts promoting their group through the Internet, all of which helped the Patrick Lew Band reach out to listeners on social-media.

In the mid 2000s, Lew formed the alt-metal outfit Band of Asians (also known as Power Trip) with college classmates David Arceo, Augusto Hernandez, Zack Huang along with Blackburn, putting the Patrick Lew Band aside so he can focus on his new project. Revenge, the group’s only album, came out in 2006 and the Band of Asians began touring locally. Different priorities in life came ahead, as both Blackburn and Loi left the Patrick Lew Band during 2007, with Band of Asians drummer Arceo replacing Loi. The Band of Asians however, split amicably in early 2008. Lew and Arceo began directing their main focus on the Patrick Lew Band. They recruited former Distorted Harmony guitarist Jeremy Alfonso and newcomers Greg Lynch and David Hunter, and the new lineup recorded 2009’s Curb Your Wild Life and Let it Rise and Against. The latter, helped raise their profile in the San Francisco Bay Area. The idea for PLB initially was an online collaboration between close friends who knew each other while attending college. 

Over the next few years, the Patrick Lew Band embarked on a long road to thrust themselves in the spotlight and further their band in the music business. Their 2011 album Murder Bay, sustained their momentum. The Patrick Lew Band went on a short tour playing small shows in the Bay Area during the Summer of that year, and later broadcasted some of their performances on their YouTube and Facebook account.

Despite their promise and lofty ambition, tensions started to surface in the band when polarized reception from audiences and critics affected Lew emotionally at the time. Lew got engaged to his former fiancee Faith Lambright, and his relationship with her initiated many tensions with his creative pursuits and his personal well being. His creative pursuits and ideas didn’t satisfy some of his bandmates, and a growing number of detractors began to appear. Then came further fractures in the band’s relations, highlighted by the lack of support from some of his bandmates, David Hunter and Greg Lynch’s projects outside of the group and Lew’s desire to slow down his music career so he could spend more time reconciling with his significant other. All this led to the Patrick Lew Band’s breakup in 2012.

Lew resurfaced later in the year with a new band called Heavy Sigma, a hard rock outfit inspired by 80’s and 90’s rock icons Guns N Roses, Nirvana, Bon Jovi, Green Day and Oasis. Heavy Sigma released an experimental debut, Taiwanese Rebel in 2012, quickly followed by Voyager (consisting of rejected PLB material) in 2013. Following the release of Voyager, Lew quietly announced his retirement from the music scene. However early retirement was not to be, as Lew personally missed performing and recording music and developing a bond with his audience. Patrick Lew was working with guitarist Salvador Martinez to form a new band called Kings of Malevolence, but the two parted company due to creative differences. In mid 2014, Lew ended his six year relationship with his fiancee Faith and began pondering a return to the scene. He began sporadically recording new material in his home studio, and revived Patrick Lew Band with long-time friend and collaborator David Arceo by the end of the year.

A full fledged campaign followed on social-media sites Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and Lew decided to pursue a solo career under the Patrick Lew Band name in 2015. After several months of home recording, the album To the Promised Land surfaced in June of that year. Along with participating in Patrick Lew Band, Lew began collaborating with Neverfade drummer Erick Salazar with Heavy Sigma, currently working together on the new Heavy Sigma album Play It Loud. While turning his attention to Heavy Sigma with Salazar, he turned his attention back to Patrick Lew Band, compiling new music for the upcoming album Bubblegum Babylon, which is set to be released during the fall of 2015.