O ZORN! Released their album Your Killer on March 20th, 2020. To coincide with this release, a record release show was scheduled at The Wayfayer in Costa Mesa California. The show was sold out. Their label, Seeing Red Records, was flying in from Cleveland. Album reviews were pouring in. The band was pumped, and couldn’t wait to hit the pavement to start sharing this new material with the world. That all got shut down. The day before their big day, the State of California, ordered the cancellation of all public events. The record release show would not happen. All of the future shows that were scheduled, would not happen. The Corona Virus put an end to all of it. All the band could do was continue to rehearse and hope that the ban would lift, and they could get back to business. That of course, never happened.
The pandemic did not do well in maintaining spirits within the group. Billy, the lead guitarist slipped further into depression and drug use. Eventually, this would force them to excuse him from the band, and into rehab. His whereabouts, as today, are unknown. Drummer Danny would also head down a dark path of drugs and alcohol, and would also be dismissed. This left only Bill Kielty. Thankfully, being the songwriter and vocalist for the band, he was able to pick up the pieces and hire a new drummer, in the way of Derek Eglik, from local popular band, Painted Wives (Century Media).
The Pandemic didn’t look to be ending anytime soon, so Kielty decided that writing and recording a new album would be best, to keep things moving forward. So it began, the two members of O ZORN! would begin hashing out rough sketches of what would be a new record. Fast forward to December 2021. Both Kielty and Eglit, fly cross country to Tampa Florida to start recording the new material with producer Ryan Boesch (Foo Fighters. Andrew WK, Whores, Melvins) at his Candor Studios.
What was supposed to be two weeks of sessions, got cut short when both Ryan and Kielty contracted covid. The remainder of the time was spent in a hotel room, battling the virus. Things couldn’t be worse.
2022 found Kielty, flying back and forth to Tampa, to try and make up for the lost sessions. Thankfully, the time that was spent in the studio the past December, they were able to track all of the drums. Which made things a little easier, but with the long distance working relationship, progress was held up a bit.
However, both Kielty and Boesch stayed focused and are now putting the finishing touches on the new album, and are gearing up for a release of their first single, “Golden Features” which will come early Summer of this year, along with a video. In addition to a new album, Kielty enlisted local Southern California musicians Justin Suitor on lead guitar and bassist Justin Morales. Both from previously mentioned band, Painted Wives. O ZORN! is once again complete, and cannot wait to share their new music.
Listen to O Zorn!: