Photo courtesy of Marcus Marino
Since forming in 2010, Jacksonville’s Rhythm Of Fear have been fleshing out their own brand of crossover, deeply inspired by the musical principles and attitude of late ‘80s, early ‘90s thrash and hardcore.
Growing up, Rhythm Of Fear vocalist Jay Santiago found acceptance within the hardcore community early on, and from there, connected to music on a whole other level. “I kind of felt like an outcast all throughout school,” Santiago recalls. “It’s a weird feeling to not be Spanish enough for the Spanish kids, not Black enough for the Black kids, not white enough for the white kids, but when I found hardcore, it was just a mix of everybody, and everybody was so accepting.”
“I also found out about straightedge, and I thought that was the coolest thing. That’s what attracted me to the music scene. From there, just talked to like-minded people and wanted to start a band.”
Santiago expresses some of his biggest influences as the hardcore/crossover-type bands from New York. “Obviously Cro-Mags, Leeway, and Maximum Penalty, which influenced me as a frontman. I don’t have the pipes that the guy from Maximum Penalty has, but he’s literally one of my favorite vocalists.”
He continues, “We have our influences in thrash metal, too, and you can’t go without mentioning the big four. But as for some of the lesser known bands, I always say that we have three bands that influenced us that we call the trinity: Cyclone Temple from Chicago, Forced Entry from Seattle, and Slammer from the U.K.”
With their latest crossover thrashterpiece, Fatal Horizons-out now via MNRK Records-Rhythm Of Fear conjures up a cohesive collection of dark, psychological stories depicting the downfall of humanity. Each member of the band, including Santiago, tie together imaginative lyrics rooted in reality, but with a sci-fi twist.
“We picked the name (Fatal Horizons), because most of the songs on the record are about death in some way.”
Santiago further explains, “A lot of the material comes from real-world stuff. For instance, we have a song about police brutality, then we write about crazy, off-the-wall subjects like alien abduction and conspiracy theories that we find interesting. We like to have songs that are real, that we can connect to our listeners with, but we also like that sci-fi aspect.”
Training and pushing himself into doing more vocal work outside of the aggressive realm, there’s a noticeably more melodic progression to Santiago’s voice on the new record. Through developing it over the years, he recognizes and expresses that “It’s been a journey… but I feel like I still have developed my own vocal style.”
He continues, “When you listen to earlier stuff, my voice was so much more high pitched, and that was, in part, due to me being in a more melodic hardcore band and another part of me not knowing what I was doing.”
Santiago started out playing drums, then transitioned to vocals in his melodic hardcore band prior. He recalls, “When we started (Rhythm Of Fear), Logan wanted me to do vocals, so I said ‘cool,’ but I wanted to try and be a little more aggressive than I was in the last band.”
Now, some listeners might be able to pick up notes of Hetfield, John Bush-era Anthrax, or Brian Fair (Shadows Fall), but beyond that, Santiago has pushed his voice into a style that is undoubtedly unique to him and not so easily achievable.
“People think we’re psychos. We’re the type of band that will practice two to three times, maybe more, in a week if we can. Even through (the pandemic), we were making sure we were practicing and writing, practicing and writing… We recorded the record and made sure we had to do what we had to do to push the project forward.”
Even with that said, Santiago felt as though the pandemic took a toll on his personal progress. “I’ve always been a socially awkward, shy person I guess. And being in a band, especially as a frontman, has made me feel more comfortable around people as a whole. So with the pandemic happening, not being able to front the band and get in front of people, I feel like it took me down a couple notches.”
After shaking off those nerves of coming back to the live setting, Santiago feels he’s worked his way back up to a better state of mind. With Fatal Horizons, it’s clear that the band is at their best, with more on the way. Santiago mentions that Rhythm Of Fear is, “Constantly writing new music, and because of how we write, we had songs that we intentionally left off of Fatal Horizons for the next record.”
“I think captivating listeners of more than just one genre is what we want. We don’t want just hardcore listeners to listen to us or just thrash metal listeners. When we write music, we want it to be catchy, and we want to leave an impact on anyone who’s listening to our music.”
Photo courtesy of Marcus Marino