Hard Nox

Origins

As a lifelong fan of rock and metal, I wanted to create an album to reflect my musical roots. I began writing some rock songs for a game soundtrack a few years ago, but as time went on and the music progressed, I became more passionate about creating a full-blooded rock album. The lyrical and musical themes remain dark and haunting, with the addition of a more aggressive electric sound. I also wanted to work with some talented musicians and singers that I know. Meghan Walsh and Jim Hamar lend their vocals to several songs on the project, and some of the other tracks will feature my own vocals. Joe Pangrace lays down some shredding guitar work to give the album a definitive hard rock edge. The musical styles range from haunting ballads to melodic alternative rock to industrial darkwave and straight-on rockers. I wrote more than 150 rock tracks over the past three years and had to narrow it down to 13 for the first Hard Nox album. We’re just scratching the surface with this album, so there will definitely be more rock releases in the future, amidst more traditional Nox Arcana releases of course.

After writing and recording demos for several albums worth of rock music, I started wrangling my musician friends into the project to sing and add a more aggressive edge to the songs. I've been really good friends with Jim Hamar since we were in our teens. We were in our first few bands together, back when Jim played lead guitar and I sang. He went on to be the lead singer in some notable metal bands — Breaker, Rotterdam and Nightcrawler. He's got great range and an amazingly powerful rock voice.

Meghan is a younger singer from my old hometown of Parma. We got together by a strange act of fate. A few years ago, another friend of mine had asked if I could write some songs for her to sing. I had just started working on some rock tracks, so I wrote some songs for a female voice. Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances kept her from being able to follow through with the project, but I really liked the songs I had written—such as "Mask", "Without You", and "Six Feet Deep"—so I started looking for another female vocalist who wanted to sing rock songs. It ended up being much more difficult than I thought it would be. After a few different singers fell through, I was ready to give up and just move on.

Then one day while visiting my mother, she gave me a small article she had clipped out from the local paper about a young singer named Meghan Walsh who had just released some rock songs that she had written and recorded. I checked out her music and was impressed by what I heard, so I got in touch with her. Meghan came out to the studio, and I subjected her to dozens and dozens of songs I had written as I explained the project. In hindsight, it might have been a bit overwhelming for her, but I was very enthusiastic about the potential of us working together, so I just kept playing more songs. We started recording vocals the next week and things really began clicking. Her hypnotic voice was a perfect fit for the songs I'd written and we've collaborated on writing some very cool songs for a future album. Visit Meghan's website.

Joe Pangrace came into the project in the 11th hour, and was exactly what I was looking for to put the finishing touches on the heavier rock tracks, and his blistering guitar work took the album to the next level.
— Joseph Vargo