THE NEW PATRICK LEW BAND
THE BUILDUP
After the release of Murder Bay, Patrick Lew Band toured locally and the group began working on rebuilding their band and their business slowly. Lew, itching to work on new music in his home studio, began recording demos and kept them on his hard drive. When he presented his musical ideas to his then-bandmates Greg Lynch and David Hunter, they were turned down by his former bandmates. Instead, Patrick Lew recruited his long-time best friend and PLB drummer David Arceo and his then-fiancee Faith and formed a side project, The Steel Lions. Lew wasn’t willing to have nothing to do musically and creatively during a time where PLB was going through a huge rebuilding period. The original idea for Patrick Lew Band was to take away aspects of recording in separate studios and collaborating on the Internet and through social-media and to make PLB a real local band of competent musicians. However, there was an extension of miscommunication and tensions between the band members over creative and personal issues. Patrick Lew wanted to continue playing music and recording in his newly built home studio Blizzard of Sound (located in San Francisco, CA). In the interim, The Steel Lions would self-produce three albums during 2012: Oddities, Taiwanese Rebels and Voyager. All three albums consisted of purported demos and unfinished musical ideas intended for Patrick Lew Band.
On March of that year, The Steel Lions would sign a distribution deal with upstart indie label ANN. However, Steel Lions would not tour behind any new music due to huge discouragement and criticism from another musician from another local band who was formerly a friend of Lew and Arceo, social-media backlash, alongside Lew trying to rebuild his relationship with his on and off again girlfriend and former fiancee. Little work was complete with PLB by this time, although the band would sporadically rehearse during mid 2012 at Greg’s house in Pittsburg, CA. Hunter backed out of recording and performing commitments with PLB for unbeknownst reasons, later resurfacing as the bassist for the band OC Bay. Lynch and Lew would remain cordial until Lynch brutally critiqued Lew’s abilities as a musician, claiming he wasn’t “good enough” to be onstage or play guitar in a band.
Lew later revealed that it was very, very difficult to corral himself, Lynch and Arceo into working together in the same rehearsal space and recording studio. He also claimed that while there were grandiose plans for PLB in the future, he had little input over the band he created and felt nothing was getting done because of different priorities between all the band members. On September 5, 2012, Lew announced on the Patrick Lew Band’s Facebook page via blog that the group would be taking an indefinite hiatus. He concluded that he was open to working with Lynch and Hunter again musically in the near future. At the time, his relationship with his former bandmates were still cordial. Lew would continue working on his passion for being a musician and home recording artist in Steel Lions.
However, his relationship with his former fiancee declined considerably by 2013, which Lew described the last 18 months of their relationship “unbearable” and became frustrated and disillusioned with the state of his music career, the business and politics of the music business and tensions within the scene itself, resulted in Patrick Lew to nearly give up playing music for two years. By the time Lew ended his relationship with his former fiancee, Lew later sought legal separation from his former bandmates (with the exception of Arceo) to regain the rights to the Patrick Lew Band name and estate.
Patrick Lew Band returned to the indie scene on New Years Day 2015 and Lew intended to be “rather known as a digital multimedia artist as opposed to being a wannabe rock star.” He wanted to make PLB less thrusted into the spotlight and media and intended to create music in PLB on his own terms and put himself out there on social-media without having anxiety over how social-media or the public views him and the newly revived PLB. Lew then invested into newer technologies such as iMacs, synthesizers and other musical gear to create something different. He felt that the only way he could evolve his songwriting was through computers and at the time, didn’t knew how to do it efficiently. After legal battles were thrown out and Lew was granted full ownership over the Patrick Lew Band name, he recruited Arceo to join him in the recording studio. Many demos and ideas existed in Lew’s hard drive and the duo began preparations for new music and putting the finishing touches on older ideas that were on cloud storage on Patrick Lew’s computer hard drive. The duo began working together in Lew’s home studio, Blizzard of Sound in San Francisco. PLB would also play shows again during 2015, including an open mic slot at Cafe International on August 14th. Patrick Lew Band would self-release new albums during 2015 and 2016 respectively: To the Promised Land, Bubblegum Babylon and Fire in the Sky. Lew would also play guitar and sing in the Steel Lions, working on a record with Neverfade drummer Erick Salazar co-producing the music in the studio and began jamming with long-time friend Gem Jewels and formed the shoegaze band TheVerse.
COMPOSITION
Earlier PLB albums were recorded through online collaboration between former band members in separate studios on social-media, which every instrumental part would be copied, cut and pasted into Lew’s computer. During the album Murder Bay, Lew intended to become more adventurous with his music by delivering a wide range of styles. Lew was trying to broaden his amateurish garage-y punk rock past and was aiming for more dirtier and gritty arena rock reminiscent of the late 80’s and early 90’s while maintaining his 2000s era signature garage punk sound. Recent music from PLB however is a slight departure from past efforts, as more of Lew’s 80’s and 90’s rock aspirations becomes present in the songwriting and ideas. Instrumentation is somewhat tighter and while Lew retained most of his trademark guitar tones, vocal style and his style of guitar playing, the music itself is more carefully well produced in the studio and the musicianship is somewhat tighter and cohesive. Changes in musical and recording gear had a factor in the shift in style.
Lyrically, a lot of the angst is still present in Lew’s music as Lew describes the lyrical content on his recent work as more or less the same. Lew’s friend from the scene, rapper Slab Gram, described the sound as “if pre-Dookie era Green Day and Nirvana had a baby.” Synthesizers also play a factor in recent PLB music, which Lew had began experimenting with using synths as early as 2012 on the Steel Lions release Taiwanese Rebels, which some newer tracks showcase elements of EDM. The result is a more broader and wider range of sounds, but maintaining Lew’s intention to sound like a modern version of a 90’s hard rock band.
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