User:Goroth/Save Our Souls

Save Our Souls
File:Save Our Souls Keyclub.jpg
Background information
Also known as	Chiba-Ken, SOS
Origin	Los Angeles, California, USA
Genres	Alternative Rock Post-hardcore Post-grunge Hard rock Alternative metal Progressive metal
Years active	Since 2003
Labels	unsigned (2003 - 2006) Gotham Records (2006 - 2009) unsigned (since 2009 again)
Members	George William Julian Ken Jason D'Amelio Pete Griffin
Past members	Dan Casper Joshua Jaffe Eddie Delgado Justin D'Amelio Elias Tannous Graham Goetz
Website	Save Our Souls MySpace

Chiba-Ken is an American Post-hardcore/Alternative rock band founded 2003 in New York City by George William, Jason D'Amelio and Joshua Jaffe.

The band was named for the Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo where William lived for some years. The lyrics deals with society problems, love, politics and depression.

History

2001 - 2003: The beginning of forming a band

George Williams' musical career started in 2001 when started to write and record some songs at his apartment. While working on his musical career he studied at University of Central Florida. He recorded 24 songs by himself but he founded out that working on a solo musical career is not the best thing so he started searching for potential musicians for founding a band.

He wrote at several forums that he is looking for musicians who want found a band with him. Two weeks after starting search Joshua Jaffe a professional graphic designer joined him. Jaffe designed the official homepage and some merchandise articles for the band later. Jaffe is currently musician who is playing bass guitar at The SmashUp and designed the online game Ex Arcana together with Megan Dawson Jaffe, Sean Benjamin Jaffe and Matthew Volk.

Month later Jason D'Amelio joined William and Jaffe as drummer. A short time later Elias Tannous became a band member too. Eddie Delgado joined the band after he found something about the band in the internet. He lived in Dallas but he wanted to live in New Jersey so he joined the band as guitarist.

2003 - 2009: Chiba-Ken, Gotham Records

After the searching for musicians for the band was finished William named the band Chiba-Ken after the same named Prefecture in Japan where he lived. Singer George William works as director, cinematographer and actor also - so he played the main role at the musical Tony n' Tina's Wedding, one of the longest running Off-Broadway productions.

One year after founding the band they released their first Demo CD on their homepage chiba-ken.net which does not exist anymore. This CD consists out of 3 tracks which was downloadable on their old homepage.

In September 2005 the band released their first EP called Faces of the Moment a 7-Track-EP. The band invited Tenille De Freitas and Danielle Elyse Romano for being cover models. The EP was selled in Germany, Great Britain, Canada, France, Japan and even in the USA at Amazon.com. Faces of the Moment got a positive review at Scratch Music Magazine in May 2006.

The EP sold well for an unknown band so New York-based indie record label Gotham Records spent attention on the band and after releasing their second Demo Winter Sessions the label signed them in mid of 2006. The band released their album debut Are We Innocent? on October 3rd 2006. Short time before releasing the album Delgado left the band and was replaced by Dan Casper. The album was recorded at Purple Light Studios and Jupiter 4 Studios. Producer was Patrick Arn founder of Gotham Records. The album sold 7,000 copies in the US only. The album was distributed in more than five countries including Germany, France, Great Britain, Canada, Japan and even in the US. Are We Innocent? was reviewed at Crave Magazine and Spirit of Metal webzine. Short after publishing their debut album Chiba-Ken had an appearance at Fearless Music where they performed their song Faster Tonight from their album.

At the beginning of 2007 the label organized two concerts with God Forbid. One at the Apple Store in Soho and one at Starland Ballroom in New Jersey.

After Dan Casper left the band Julian Ken replaced him as second guitarist after auditioning in front of the band. Julian Ken was born in Kazakhstan and lived in Israel before he joined living in the USA. Kens' first concert was at the Blossom Music Center in Ohio on June 12, 2008 as opener for Iron Maiden at their Somewhere Back In Time World Tour. In November the band began to work on their second full-length album called Hard to Be Human. In the same month the band won at the Famecast contest a voting contest. After winning a Famecast voting the band was featured in SPIN Magazine of February 2009.

The album was released on April 9, 2009 but the official release party was in the end of March. The band and the label split up just before releasing the album so the band had to finish the album without a label. Producers were Mike Watts who worked for As Tall as Lions, Hopesfall and The Scenic and Rich Liegey, who played in the groups Wheatus and The Smashup.

Chiba-Ken moved to Los Angeles in 2009. Shortly after moving to LA the band became one of the best newcomer bands at the Sunset Strip. The legendary Whisky A Go-Go voted the band as band of the month and newspaper LA Weekly wrote some articles about the band. The band played at Playboy Mansion for their Super Bowl party. The band recorded the track Siren together with record artist Yung Berg and performed it at the Sunset Strip Music Festival where they opened for Slash.

Since 2010: New band name and third album

The band changed their band name at the end of January 2010. Graham Goetz joined the band. Goetz is currently bass player at Orlando, Florida-based Prog metal band called Atoms Eve. Justin D'Amelio who replaced Joshua Jaffe (Jaffe plays at The SmashUp) left the band too. He went back to New York. On May 14, 2010 the band shared stage together with platinum record producer Yung Berg and performed their song Siren. Yung Berg and Save Our Souls met together while a party at Playboy Mansion. Singer William and George William announced that the concert would be special and there will be just one concert together.

On August 28, 2010 the band played at the Sunset Strip Music Festival 2010 where acts like The Smashing Pumpkins, Kid Cudi, Lost Patrol, Steel Panther and Volbeat played in front of 30,000 people at SSMF Street Fest. Save Our Souls played on SSMF 2010 Street Fest at Whisky a Go-Go as opener for Adler's Appetite and Billy Boy on Poison.

The band joined a band contest where the winner will share stage as Newcomer band on the next years Rock am Ring festival but the group don't pass the first voting round. The band ranked on place 56 of 275 and missed entering next voting round. It was a chance to play their second concert in Europe after giving one in London on New Years Eve. The band created a profile at Mp3.de (a german version of Mp3.com) where the band may purchase their albums as download in the german-languaged area.

The band played a concert in Las Vegas on September 11, 2010. It was their first concert they played not in California since they moved to LA. The band invited some directors and producers from Universal Studios and some celebreties. On September 19 the band shared stage with legendary Dave Lombardo from Slayer at Whisky A Go-Go. The band played a second time at Playboy Mansion at the end of October. Save Our Souls had an appearance at Troy´s Room on LA Talk Radio moderated by Troy Spiropoulos on 26th October 2010. Spiropoulos is currently a bass player at The Dmaggs, a San Pedro, Los Angeles, California-based Indie rock band. The band posted their song Hard to be Human for voting at smashsongs.com. Smashsongs contest is a public voting where the top 30 bands will be supported by Kevin Zaruk (producer of Nickelback and Hinder).

Save Our Souls was on stage at the Sports Life 1st Annual Charity Event for Homeless and Wounded Veterans together with well-known American rock band Crossfade which took place at The Orleans Hotel and The Orleans Casino in Las Vegas on February 12, 2011.

On February, 15th the band announced that founder member and guitarist Elias Tannous will not be a part of the band. Tannous announced to be official guitar player in Krash Karma in the end of March 2011. They also parted with bassist Graham Goetz.

Save Our Souls played on the Revolver Golden Gods Awards after party together with Inside the Black, Archer, Style Like Relevators and A Million Little Pieces in Whisky a Go-Go on April 21st, 2011.

Save Our Souls distributed their own IPhone application on ITunes which feeds the customers with news around the band. On April 21, 2011 the band played a last concert before entering the studio to start writing on the new album. In July 2011 the band stated that they will go into studio on August 10, 2011 to start recording their third studio album. The band stated on their Facebook profile that the recordings will be finished in October. On January, 20 2012 Save Our Souls released their first record since they changed name from Chiba-Ken to Save Our Souls. It is a 4-track-EP called Animal and is a downloadable EP only. They made a music video for the song Animal which was directed by Mike Marshall of Category 5 Music. Save Our Souls streamed two of the songs on Gunshyassassin.com. Nowadays Pete Griffin is the bass player of Save Our Souls. Griffin was member of the Grammy-awarded tribute act Zappa Plays Zappa. The band plan a West Coast tour and a new album which is sheduled for release in Summer 2012.

Success

Since their founding the band played concerts with Kittie, Iron Maiden, Ill Niño, From Autumn to Ashes, God Forbid, 40 Below Summer, Powerman 5000, Glassjaw, Cartel, The Smashing Pumpkins, Slash, The Lost Patrol, Kid Cudi, Dave Lombardo, Travie McCoy, Steel Panther, Andrew W.K., The Ataris, Boysetsfire, On Broken Wings, Byzantine, Biology, Big Wig, Patent Pending, Sponge, My Ruin and Black Market Hero.

The band was supported by Jägermeister, Sam Ash Music, Shore Athletic Apparel, LoveNico Clothing Vic Firth, Rock Star Industry Clothing and Little Paw Skateboards.

Their song Paradise Lost from their actual album Hard to Be Human was licensed by Major League Baseball and ESPN. Their song What Do We Do Now? from the same album was chosen to appear at SuicideGirls´ newest DVD called Guide to Live. At the moment the band is peaked on 130th place at the ReverbNation rock bands charts behind Thick As Thieves and before In This Moment (Century Media) and Forever Farewell.

Music style and lyrics

The bands music style is influenced by - most times melodic and quietly vocals of singer George William and rhythmics like bands playing in the Pop-rock genre. In some cases the band are using elements of Post-grunge and Alternative rock in their newer releases. In the earlier releases the band mixed their style with Post-hardcore.

On their official Facebook profile the band stated that their music style is influenced by Faith No More, Deftones, 30 Seconds to Mars, Muse, Pantera, Tool, Steve Vai, Alice In Chains, Incubus, Red Hot Chili Peppers, System of a Down, Avenged Sevenfold, Protest the Hero, In Flames, Nirvana, Rage Against the Mashine, Slipknot, The Who and The Doors.

The lyrics which are written by George William are dealing with politics, love, depression and society problems. In his lyrics he shows the listener his scorn and anger about society in a dark satyrical manner.

Discography

As Chiba-Ken

Demo-CDs

• 2004: Chiba-Ken
• 2006: The Winter Sessions

EPs

• 2005: Faces of the Moment

Albums

• 2006: Are We Innocent? (Gotham Records)
• 2009: Hard to Be Human

As Save Our Souls

EP

• 2012: Animal

Web links

• Chiba-Ken at Allmusic
• Chiba-Ken Myspace profile (active)
• Save Our Souls at Spirit of Metal webzine
• Save Our Souls MySpace profile