Adam ‘Hutch’ Glynn has been a man missing in action.
Since handing in his resignation to Melbourne’s Frankenbok in November 2002 (After recording two releases with the group in 2000’s ‘Greeting And Salutations’ and 2001’s ‘The Loophole And Great Excuses’ E.P.), little had been heard from the vocalist.
But all that is set to change with unveiling of his new project Five Star Prison Cell.
Joining Glynn in this brutal outfit (Who can be described as having the technical precision of The Dillinger Escape Plan with a front man possessing the incredible range and sound of Mike Patton) are Extra Virgin guitarist Mark Holain and bassist Cameron Macdonald and Tension drummer Marc Whitworth.
Alongside releases from Walk The Earth (‘Rampant Calamities’) and Sebasrockets (‘Sebasrockets’), Faultline Records (The label owned and run by ex-Superheist guitarist/renown producer D.W. Norton) are proud to unleash Five Star Prison Cell’s debut album ‘The Complete First Season’.
Prior to the albums release, I caught up with vocalist ‘Adam Glynn to find out how Five Star Prison Cell shifted from being a mere studio project into a full blown touring act, comparisons to acts as the ones mentioned above, what the group consider a five star prison cell is and just where it all started from.
“When I left Frankenbok, the first thing I did was start my own website. I was just looking at branching out with different musicians and doing a lot of shitty, basic home recordings. I soon came to realise that what I like about the whole music entity was the creative and writing side of the process, rather than playing live. I prefer to work and squander all my money by pouring it into recording songs. So I installed a little studio at my house. An old friend of mine introduced me to bass player Cameron Macdonald, and we started talking over the Internet about getting a project happening. He soon suggested getting the guitar player from his band, and Mark Holain soon joined up. I didn’t know who to get for a drummer, but we eventually got Marc Whitworth from Tension because he was really good. I don’t know what happened exactly, but we didn’t get him first. We got this other guy called Gareth. He was a good drummer and a great guy, but he wasn’t very committed. He rocked up to a rehearsal late one night on his way to a gig. We jammed for two hours, and as he was leaving, he was talking about going over to New Zealand for a couple of months. We told him it wasn’t going to work, and within a week he quit. Somehow Macdonald got onto Whitworth soon after that. He came in, we had a jam and it was awesome, and we haven’t looked back since.”
The name Five Star Prison Cell can conjure up a number of mental images, but as Glynn explains, it has a far deeper meaning that the glorified jail cell theme.
“Holain actually came up with the name. When we first met, we all went out and had a meal to discuss various things, with one of the issues being a name. A few were thrown around at the time, but I immediately identified with Five Star Prison Cell. It simply jumped out at me. The whole philosophy behind it for me personally reflects a time when I was going through a materialistic phase. I had all this nice furniture, electrical equipment and all that sort of stuff, but I was working my ass off to pay for it all from my credit card. And that got me thinking. I have all this nice stuff, but I’m stuck here at home, and I can’t afford go anywhere. And there are a lot of people that fall into the same trap. They just get themselves in so much financial debt with all these nice things, and then can’t afford to do the simple things in life such as go out for a meal, or see a gig. And that’s because they’re stranded after paying all this money back that they owe. They’re literally stuck within their own five star prison cells. I thought that would be a cool theme to go with. A lot of people go with the jail theme, and our first website had a real prison based theme as well, so I guess it has two kinds of meaning. It’s simply open to personal interpretation.”
While Five Star Prison Cell is a fully-fledged band with their debut album ‘The Complete First Season’ just being released (Through Faultline Records/Gorilla Music), it wasn’t part of the original plan.
“We were originally going to do an E.P. (Containing five tracks), with a modest budget of nine thousand dollars, with the whole package being done by ourselves. Half way through the recording, D.W. Norton (Who produced the album) was really into it, and asked us what our plans were. Our initial idea was to release it independently, but he was really keen to put it out through Faultline Records (Through their parent company Gorilla Music). In the end, we decided to do a whole album, rather than an E.P. because record companies really don’t get good returns on E.P.’s. So we signed a licensing agreement with them. Basically all that money that would have gone into mastering and manufacturing the disc independently went into studio time. We worked out a deal where we basically paid for everything concerning making the album to get nine songs up to a finished standard, and they would took care of the rest by reducing the studio fees from that point on. But having said that, we had come up with three thousand dollars for a marketing budget ourselves so that they could promote it. It’s worked out pretty good, because we own the recordings, while they’ve paid for the manufacturing side of things. I think when most artists sign a deal, they get like thirty percent back on their release after they’ve recouped costs. We’re getting like fifty percent. We paid for most of the album, so it works out that we had a bit more control instead of getting ourselves into debt with a record company. That means we don’t have to sell a million albums to get our money back. It’s not going to take long for us to recoup it all the cost back. We’re not expecting to sell a great amount, because you have to be realistic with this kind of music here in Australia. But I think we’ll do well with ‘The First Complete Season’”.
The title ‘The First Complete Season’, unlike the band’s name, comes from a specific reference point, as all the members of Five Star Prison Cell are all D.V.D. fans.
“We’re all big D.V.D. fans. In our spare time, we tend to sit around and watch a lot of box sets and stuff like that. It also ties in with the fact that this is all the material we wrote in our first year together. We’re pretty lucky in that respect because we had enough songs for a full-length album. Playing live, we do a few covers here and there, but we do put our own spin on them. This whole album’s material represents us from the day we got together, rehearsed together for around eight months, started gigging and decided it was time to do a C.D.”.
Throughout Glynn’s career (From his time served in Frankenbok, through to his present project), the comparison to Mike Patton has been used more often than not. While such a blatant reference point would tend to box in or corner any vocalist, Glynn is unfazed by the tag.
“It doesn’t bother me. Any band that comes out with a release has the press pigeon hole them into something or other. I’m a big Mike Patton fan as a vocalist, but also I listen to a lot of vocalists as well. I draw a lot of inspiration from all kinds of vocalists. Sometimes it might not be all that apparent in the singing that I do. Sometimes I might get an idea from a cheesy band such as INXS, or Alanis Morissette, but I end up putting that influence into a heavy sort of context. The thing with Patton that’s really frustrating for me is he’s such an out there, creative kind of vocalist and artist that he’s kind of ruined it for any kind of vocalist, such as myself, to do anything a little different for themselves. Patton has influenced me for sure, but I do try and put my own spin on it as well. People will always pigeon hole me as a vocalist who just wants to be like Patton, but if you really look at it, all vocalists have their own influences. If listen to Patton’s stuff (Especially his weirder and more obscure solo stuff) it’s very John Zorn influenced. So it’s really just a matter of taking all those steps back and finding out the real source of inspiration. I think Mike Patton has simply commercialised what John Zorn was originally doing years before he was even doing it.”
The same industry pigeonholing Glynn’s vocals can be said for the other three members of the band as well with as their sound is very much like The Dillinger Escape Plan.
“‘The Dillinger Escape Plan is an influence, but there’s also stuff like Meshuggah and Blood Has Been Shed as well. Those guys are into lots of different bands. I think the guys (Along with myself) really do like to challenge themselves musically. They want to do something that’s a little over their own heads musically, progress as musicians and keep it interesting for themselves. For me personally, coming from Frankenbok to this band meant I had to put my head down and concentrate a lot harder. The stuff Frankenbok wrote was a lot more simplistic. You could pretty much yell anything over it, and in a sense that would do. I would just pull crap out of my ass, and they were really impressed by that. I would always think to myself that it wasn’t that good. Ask them that now, and they might say something completely different of course! (Laughs)”
Another interesting aspect about Five Star Prison Cell’s release is the artwork supplied by Australia’s (Melbourne) own Seldon Hunt.
“The packaging looks amazing. Seldon Hunt’s done a lot of overseas work for acts such as Isis (Their recent promotion posters for their tour of Japan and Australia) and Neurosis (The cover artwork to 2001’s ‘A Sun That Never Sets’). We got in touch with him through Tension. He actually came and saw us after we played with Tension, and he said that he really liked what we did, and he left leaving his card with the offer to do any artwork for us in the future. We checked out his website and liked what we saw, and gave him a call. His work is more used by café’s and a lot more commercial contracts rather than music. Apparently his work doesn’t get as well received within the music industry as they consider his work too busy. I couldn’t take my eyes off the finished product today. The entire album covers that have adorned my work in the past have had something that I haven’t been quite happy with, but this one has came out brilliantly. I’m really happy with it. The font on the Five Star Prison Cell was supposed to be indented with foil to give it a bit more of a vintage look (Not to mention the connection with the groups D.V.D. viewing habits), but we were running a bit behind time wise. We were also supposed to have a pre-release available at this year's Metal For The Brain, but we missed out because there was a stuff-up with the artwork. The band (Minus myself) went to help out Walk The Earth as their stage crew, and there were a few people that had hoped to get a copy. It’s unfortunate there was nothing to give them, but we’ve been so busy. We’ve even neglected updating our website because it’s been chaos running around organising this album. But finally we have something to offer those people.”
Five Star Prison Cell Interview Page 1 << you are here
Adam ‘Hutch’ Glynn has been a man missing in action.
