Hampshire band Kodiak Jack could be on the brink of the big time after being flown out to California to get their second album produced by one of the biggest names in rock music.
Jeff Arnold, Matt Forster, Bryn Roberts, Jon Karp and Kev Farren are Kodiak Jack
Brian Wheat, from legendary rock band Tesla, heard the band’s demo CD about a year ago and emailed them to say how much he liked what he had heard and wanted to work with them.
Now the band – Matt Forster who owns the Queen’s Head pub in Titchfield, Kev Farren who grew up in Warsash and went to Brookfield School, Bryn Roberts from Portsmouth, Jeff Arnold from Stubbington, and Jon Karp who lives in Gosport – are this week at Brian Wheat’s studio in his home, a house once owned by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Brian is going to trim the fat and chop the songs around to make them more punchy,” said Matt. “He wants to make everything plain and simple, with catchy hooks, big riffs and good choruses. This is an album for the bigger audience – stripped down and much more commercial.
“We deserve to have this break. Individually we played in different bands for about 16 years, and then started playing together about two and a half years ago, so it is really nice to get some recognition at this level.”
The band say their influences are Gun and Roses, Velvet Revolver, Smashing Pumpkins and Alice in Chains – and that was evident in their first album Your Death: My Glory.
Their new album, which is yet to be named – includes catchy tunes such as La Rue, No Surrender, Coming Home, Brother and Get Out Alive. They hope it will be released by the autumn.
If, while in California, they get the chance to play a gig they won’t turn the opportunity down. But the main focus is to concentrate on making the album and gain as much knowledge from Brian as possible to create an album for their fans who travel across the UK to see them.
Bryn said: “There are a core of fans and they travelled up to Wales to see us. They helped us get our gear there. We’re really lucky - people put a lot of faith in us. They drive us on.”
Jon added: “If you’re playing at an out-of-town gig and you don’t really know anybody there and then people turn up with Kodiak Jack t-shirts on it’s like you’re playing in front of a home crowd, it makes it all worthwhile and you do a good show for them.”
Having played at small independent festivals and gigs in Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Brighton, London, Swindon, Guildford, Felixstowe and Northampton, the highlight was performing in front of American guitar idol Paul Gilbert from Mr Big.
And the band would love to take their passion for music to the next level. Playing at top UK festivals such as Sonisphere, Download and Isle of Wight is an aspiration for the band.
But now, as Bryn said, they stand on the brink of, possibly, something big. “We’re quite excited because to a certain degree we don’t know how it’s going to pan out.
“We don’t actually know how good this is going to be. We know it’s going to be good, but we don’t actually know the potential of what this is going to do to us as a band. We’ll see what doors open from this really.”