“This song is an anthem for those who have had enough, that recognise the power of the system can only be diminished by uncontrollable opposing action.” – Exxyle
Welcome back, you awesome readers! Today we celebrate individuality and freedom of choice with UK artist, Exxyle’s new single: “The Cancer Redux“. A song that was born six years ago, but was pulled from the dust and reborn from its ashes today! Listen now to “The Cancer Redux”!
Created by Frank Loots, a Bracknell, UK, family guy who quit his job to dedicate 100% to making music, Exxyle is a heavy metal music machine that packs a mean punch with an important message: Wake the hell up, celebrate who you are and don’t let anybody try lo live your live for you. Let’s go!
“Six years ago I wrote and recorded The Cancer in my living room with the worst audio interface in the world, not too bad drum samples and a midi bassline that drew out a rhythm and melody, but had nothing else going for it.” – Frank Loots.
“The Cancer” first saw the light six years ago but didn’t had the punch necessary to break through with its message. At the time Frank was new to production so he had to navigate his way through its labyrinth. He released it to the world as a way to prove to himself that he could do anything he wanted to.
Fast forward to this day, between January and June of 2020 Frank created a re-invention of “The Cancer”, a rebirth of the original song.
“The message is the same, but driven by several higher octanes. It’s about the urges people feel to disobey, to rebel and to fight this gradual and systematic menticide to reduce the fertile and beautiful essence of individuality into a gruel of conformity and obedience to ever increasing restrictive environments.
Lyrics point out that a society under such ever present indoctrination are conditioned into rejecting and condemning individuality as dangerous and destructive, like a cancer that threatens to destroy order and comfort. It then asks the question on whether society and the rulers thereof are correct, or if the destructive influences are really the restriction and suppression of individuality and impulse, are they in fact, the cancer we should be fighting?
The song encourages free thought, free will and rejection of oppression within a system that requires people to give up the former for the sake of comfort, security and predictability.” – Frank Loot
Influenced by great American metal bands like Alter Bridge and Motörhead, Black Stone Cherry, Mötley Crüe, Stone Sour and Tool, Exxyle uses high gain guitars and molting bass lines to push through the noise. The song was written, recorded and produced in Frank’s home studio in London, UK by Frank himself; with Terry Beckley doing the vocal recording, editing, production, mixing and mastering.
I had the pleasure to chat a little bit with Frank about his journey so far, and you can read right here! Only on Less Than 1,000:
MadZen: First of all, congratulations for the release, it is truly a great song with a great message! It seems like you’ve gone a long way in the music production path, could you tell us more about that journey and how did you manage to create your own production style and process?
Frank: “An idea of a sound bouncing around in my head, a deep impulse to make music since I can remember, reading, reading and more reading production articles, gear reviews and recommendations, a metric ton of YouTube videos, some great, most garbage and then trial and error ad nauseum. It’s been about 6 years of trying and growing and dropping and ever increasing amount of money into the bottomless pit until I finally found a process that works for me, that grinds out the sound the vibrates in my bones and to lastly gain the confidence to overcome my deep insecurities when it comes to my skill and proficiency (or lack thereof!).”
MadZen: Sounds like a great challenge! I’m aware that you used to have a job, make music and have a family all at once. How did you manage to find the time for all of it? D:
Frank: “I didn’t. Music took a serious downpeg on the priority list, especially since my job was extremely time consuming. 12 – 16 hour days were regular, often had to travel and when I had downtime between sites, it’d take a lot of time to turn off my operations brain and tune into my creative brain. My family comes first, every time so I tended to work on music very sporadically producing three complete tracks over the period of six years (and a bag load of false starts, dead ends and sub-par tunes that found their way to the recycle bin as soon as they were made). However, it did give me the opportunity to work on the process, the sound, the message, all the things that make the music I’m releasing today genuine, honest and polished to a degree that it can be enjoyed by more people than just me.
I think back on it often, wondering if I’ve wasted a lot of time, how I could have done it better and the answer comes back that if I had the opportunity to work on the music full time then, it would not have been tempered in the crucible of struggle and would likely have been a contrived, unrefined soup that may have sunk the ship before the journey has begun. I’m grateful for having struggled to get to this point, even though there’s a great mountain still to climb. Because of what I’ve been through with the support of my family then, now and into the future, I can be confident that I’m ready for the next challenges.“
MadZen: That is truly great!! So, to wrap it up, now that you’re into music 100%, what’s next or what can be expected of Exxyle?
Frank: The Cancer Redux is the flagship cutting into the tide. In the immediate future, people can count on a new track releases every five weeks from the release of the last one, starting with Line In The Sand scheduled for the world on September 10th. You don’t want to miss this one. Recording will start again as soon as I’ve built my new studio (moved home recently) and among the planned tracks which will all follow the same release schedule will be Head In A Box, a look into how TV and media erodes the human will and freedom of thought and the title track for the album, The Hollow King. I’ll leave people to speculate on the message of that one based on the content of my songs leading up to it. There’s a singup option on my website, exxyle.com which will ensure folks miss none of this and also get early access to tracks prior to release.
MadZen: Excellent Frank, we’ll be looking forward to it and to having you back on the blog soon! Thank you so much for your time and keep on doing what you do!
You can find Exxyle on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Spotify. You can also check out his official website.
It also helps to stream and share his music; you can obviously find it in the following Playlists: Less Than 1,000 Followers, Hot Stuff Metal, Sickest & Dopest, Debut Bands (Off The Radar), and Alterindie State Of Mind,
Remember that you can always find me here Linktree MadZen for all my social media and own music.
P.S. If you enjoy discovering new artists and fresh new music you can subscribe to this blog Less Than 1,000 Followers and follow the Playlist with all the artists that we have presented here!
This coverage was created via Musosoup #Sustainablecurator