Alright! We’ve got another loaded release week in front of us with Profiles in queue to spotlight just a couple of them. Literally just a couple. The first one is a good one, and a welcomed shift from what has been dominating my playlist more recently. Enter, Sons of Ra. The instrumental jazz rockers are releasing their debut LP, Standard Deviation, this coming Friday through Free Electric Sound. It’s a dynamic, multilayered composition that is an absolute blast to listen to. It is just packed with so much good stuff, and simply put… it sounds awesome. But! There is definitely a lot to unpack. Thankfully guitarist Erik Oldman Vecchione stepped forward to answer our questions about this unique project and album. Give it a read after the jump!

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How and when did you first get into playing music, or metal more specifically, and how did your band get its start? Any pushback from family/those close to you?

I grew up in a very musical household. My mom was a singer and guitarist who fronted a hard rock band. She was a rocker and a metalhead, so I grew up listening to a lot of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Scorpions, and Van Halen. There were always guitars around, so it was sort of an osmotic experience for me to pick up the guitar at a really young age and start figuring out the notes to whatever was playing on the stereo.

The two artists who influenced me from a metal perspective were Randy Rhoads and Kirk Hammett. By the time I was in high school, I was into extreme metal from bands like Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Napalm Death. Cynic, Atheist, and Testament got me interested in learning jazz and diving deeper into music theory.

We actually started out as a dare. A roommate of mine in Chicago was producing a monthly showcase and needed a band to fill in. At the time, I was jamming with Keith, the bassist and tenor sax player in our band. I asked Keith and a friend who was a killer violinist to play an experimental improvised show over a set’s worth of electronic beats my roommate produced. The show went over amazingly well for something thrown together in two weeks with a couple of rehearsals. The violinist and my roommate dropped off due to other commitments, but Keith and I kept going with it.

I didn’t really experience a lot of pushback. It was more so my family’s sense of weariness about pursuing a path as a musician – and that I needed to earn my first guitar. My mom was sick of me playing hers all the time!

How would you describe your band and what you play to someone who is completely in the dark?

Instrumental jazz-rock fusion combined with a huge dose of math rock that tends to get weird and heavy.

Is there anything about your upcoming album or about your band that no one will find in any interview or review that you care to divulge?

We really like cheese. If we ever get to a point with something like the brown M&Ms clause in a tour rider like Van Halen, we would have a cheese platter with very specific varieties in our dressing room.

Any funny stories from playing shows / tours / festivals, etc?

We stayed in a AirBNB house in Philadelphia that seemed like it was straight from the set of a psychological horror movie. It was the kind of place that just didn’t make any sense in terms of how you would expect a house rental to be set up. Hardly any furniture, bare lightbulb fixtures, five bathrooms, unfinished construction projects…and weird, creepy, old house noises. Things were just really random and piled up in odd places. The only couch in the space was a row bench taken out of a 15-passenger van. The place was…functional…and well, pretty cheap and clean. Everyone seemed to get a decent night’s sleep and shower.

What do you see as some of the great things happening in and around the metal scene (yours or just in general) and what are some of the worst things happening right now?

We have some great people putting on shows here in Chicago and regionally throughout the Midwest…not just shows, but festivals. Heavy Chicago, the return of Milwaukee Metalfest, and folks around Wisconsin and Indiana booking solid bills showcasing regional talent. We’re grateful to be able to work with the promoters behind some of these things.

I think the worst part of what happened is over. We lost a lot of venues during the pandemic. Some great bands, friends of ours, and other folks in the scene, had to close up shop or move on. We miss them.

Most folks have passions for a cause or causes that are close to them. What, if any, are some of the most important issues (social/political/humorous/etc.) for you / your band and how do you insert those issues into your music?

Even though the three of us come from heavy music backgrounds, the overarching tradition that informs much of what we do comes from the early days of jazz fusion in the late Sixties and early Seventies. People from different backgrounds and cultures collaborating and putting out groundbreaking music.

Look at what artists from this era like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra were doing. You’ll see that what we do is coming from a more egalitarian perspective. It’s more about what you can play and what you’re saying in the context of a musical conversation than hang-ups people have around race, image, background, or a scene.

This extends to the people we associate with in various music scenes. We work with some amazing people from different worlds musically – symphony musicians, avantgarde jazz cats, country players, punk rockers, death metal dudes…all walks of life. You can hear that on our album.

The opening track on the album, “Disintegration”, is inspired by “Alabama”, a 1963 composition by saxophonist John Coltrane. It’s a piece he wrote in response to a church bombing by the KKK in Birmingham. Four little girls were killed. This was a powerful piece that always moved me. I wrote the
main body of the piece in 2020 during what was happening with Ahmaud Aubrey, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. It’s a thread that is part of our band’s story and a reflection of our identity.

Do you guys have day jobs or hobbies you want to share?

Yes.

Beer, Coffee, Whiskey, Gummies, Cheese, BBQ, Pizza, Drawing, Painting, Gardening, Drones, Yoga, Effects Pedals, Looping, Synths, Photography, JavaScript, User Experience.

What advice do you have for music critics and outlets out there? How can we all better serve the genre in the eyes of a hard-working musician?

I feel like there’s more attention paid to rehashing the past and worshipping sacred cows than there is uncovering the future or what’s next in music, especially in the underground scenes. I don’t really have any advice, but it would be nice to learn about more underground artists.

More than anywhere else, I find out about new music from talking to people who run local record shops and interacting with folks where we tour. The people who run the music stores here are the most knowledgeable in regard to new local music. Many of them are also actively involved with performing and sponsoring shows.

Any specific long term goal(s) in mind?

Heading overseas. We would love to be able to play for our fans in Europe and South America. We also want to tour in Japan.

When you’re not obsessing over your own material, what are some of your favorite albums to listen to currently?

Sun Ra Arkestra – “Lights on a Satellite”
Opeth – “The Last Will and Testament”
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – “Of the Last Human Being”
Tomeka Reid Quartet – “3 + 3”
Graphics – “The Great Unconfusing”
Mulatu Astatke – “The Ethiopiques Series”
Xoth – “Interdimensional Invocations”
Isaiah Collier – “The World is on Fire”
Devin Townsend – “Powernerd”
Mdou Moctar – “Tears of Injustice”

What is the near future outlook for you or your band? Any specific events on the horizon that the masses should be aware of?

We have our first full-length release, “Standard Deviation”, coming out in April on Free Electric Sound.

Our release show is at Reggies in Chicago on April 12, and we’ll be playing some dates around the Midwest throughout the Spring. Visit SonsOfRaMusic.com for more information.

Summarize your band in one word.

Whirligig.

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Many thanks to Erik and Sons of Ra for the time!

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Standard Deviation is out on Friday through Free Electric Sound. For more information on Sons of Ra, grab everything you need here.