If you’ve been looking for bands like Ghost, HIM, or Volbeat, let us introduce you to our band: Feral Humans. We’re an international music project formed almost entirely online (with members in the US, UK, Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal). Together, the sound we produce is heavy, metal-like rock put to catchy melodies and higher vocals.
Check us out…
Our Story
The project started with an idea from our drummer, Mark Hartenau. Mark started drumming way back when he was in middle school in the mid 90’s (San Diego, CA). Inspired by bands like Ghost, HIM, and Volbeat (although that far back it was more like Megadeth, Metallica, Ugly Kid Joe, Gwar, Nirvana and so many more) Mark taught himself to play drums by doing a metal project called Open Arsenal with a schoolmate/buddy, Matt Scheffer, on guitar who was also learning his instrument at the time. The only real show they played was a secret show during the school’s “Multi Cultural Day” event where a bloody mosh pit broke out (all unknown by the school’s staff). Later, the two musicians entered freshmen year of high school and gained a singer/bassist (Rich Leneau). Together, they started an alternative rock variation of the band and called it Gimp.
Gimp
By sophomore year, Matt had moved out of the state and Mark had to transfer to another high school (as he and his dad moved to another part of the county). That left Rich to start another project with his brother (Brian Leneau), called 609, while Mark continued Gimp at his new high school. He met all new musicians including guitar players Ryan Smull and Kory Stetina, singer Dave Prohaska (half brother of Chris Moore from Pivit), and bassist JJ Bannasch who had previously been in Chump.
This new version of Gimp was a super fast “skate-punk” band that ended up playing the legendary San Diego punk club, SOMA, regularly before they lost their singer, Dave, to moving away. So Gimp’s lead guitarist (Ryan) took over vocal duties and the band continued until they finally disbanded as when they graduated high school in 1998 and scattered to different universities. In Gimp’s time, they released two tapes and a CD EP called Lost Aspiration on New Left Records.
So how does that all relate to Feral Humans? We will get to that shortly. We just need to build up a little more background so you can understand.
Camerica
What happened next was the dawn of a new millennium, and for Mark, a new band. Two old high school buddies and fans of Gimp (Kurt Lager and Tyler Grant) asked Mark to start a new punk band with them. They weren’t all that experienced yet but they had a lot of drive and potential. They also a had a singer/guitarist who had just moved to San Diego County from Canada (Dave Werth), hence the name: Camerica (Canada + America). And Dave could actually sing well so Mark accepted.
Camerica’s claim to fame (if any) is that they got tons of rotation on the Independent Music Network (IMNTV) which was a national (and even international) cable TV channel that played music videos of independent artists 24 hours a day. Camerica was one of the first bands to submit a music video to IMNTV so they played Camerica a lot! It even led to them getting signed by a startup record label at the time called Galactic Pop Records (who released their CD EP, Blue Sky Stereo). Camerica only ended because Mark decided to move away from playing drums in bands and focus on another passion of his, In Your Face TV.
In Your FaCe TV
In Your Face TV was a music TV show in the early 2000’s that showed a lot of punk, hardcore, metal, and all-around alternative rock music videos. It also showed interviews with bands and other antics put on by the guys in Camerica. Mark did all the video production and produced the show while the boys in Camerica where the on-camera hosts. And of course, many of the music videos that they showed were very much in the vein of Ghost, Volbeat, and HIM. In fact, they were all very inspired by HIM!
The CKY videos were a very popular but also kind of an underground thing. If you don’t know what CKY is, CKY are the Jackass guys. CKY was the name of the VHS video tapes that they used to release long before the Jackass TV show arrived on MTV. And within the CKY videos, the band HIM is heard a lot. So on In Your Face TV, the hosts did a lot of similar stunts and antics and they of course played a lot of rockin’ videos similar to HIM. These were bands like Atreyu, No Motiv, Anberlin, Trivium, Hawthorne Heights and Subseven just to name a very few.
Since Mark had stopped playing drums and focussed on producing the show (which started as a public access show and later grew to nationwide syndication) the Camerica guys started Dorado Gold (with Matt Bennet on drums). Dorado Gold later broke up and Kurt Lager moved to Hawaii (where he now plays guitar in Superfuct).
In Your Face TV ultimately got replaced by the advent of YouTube, so it ended in 2008.
Feral Humans
So how does all that relate to Feral Humans? Well, the moral of the story is, as a musician, you have no control. Band members come and go, they spread around all over the world, they change their musical taste, etc. How can you create a band that makes music you would listen to (like HIM, Volbeat, or Ghost) and it not matter where in the world they live? So Mark decided to start a band that:
- Makes heavy but catchy music where the choruses have a “hook” (like Ghost, Volbeat, and HIM).
- He could choose his own solid musicians who have really honed their craft.
- He could source them from anywhere in the world.
So Mark put this band together and called it Feral Humans (which of course would be a band where the music could only be listened to online and could never play live- a global studio project).
After uploading our debut music video to YouTube (and running ads to promote it) many of the comments where from kids saying that our band is like Ghost. Mission accomplished then!
SongWriting
Mark’s first task was to find a good songwriter. And he found that in Marvin Fockens (out of Amsterdam, Netherlands). Marvin started as a rock guitarist and later became a professional music writer in the pop and EDM world. He’s worked with labels such as Warner Music, Disney, and Universal and he’s collaborated with names like Sacha Skarbek (Miley Cyrus, Adele, and Backstreet Boys) and Anders Grahn (Black Eyed Peas and Anastacia). But much to Mark’s surprise, Marvin was a big fan of HIM growing up and he used to go to all their shows. So Marvin was ecstatic to work on something similar (like the Feral Humans project) and Mark was equally ecstatic to have him be the songwriter. Marvin wrote the first song for Feral Humans in 2019, titled: Leap. And then he wrote Crawl in 2020.
Guitar
Next, Mark needed to find a master guitar player who could really shred. Marvin could actually play guitar just fine (and sing even) but Mark wanted to keep him at just songwriting so an entire band can be built. So Mark found amazing guitar skills in Artur Hearhadze (out of Belarus but seemingly in Poland these days). Artur is a metal-focused music production expert. He has blown away Mark’s expectations with his work on Leap and Crawl. Artur is such a trooper, when he worked on Crawl in 2020, he was sick with Covid-19 (pre-vaccine too). Guitar styles like Ghost, HIM, and Volbeat aren’t even a problem for this man. He also threw in all the bass guitar too!
However, Artur was not available for guitar work on Take my Life. Therefore, Mark enlisted the help of Joao Corceiro for that single (out of Portugal). Joao has a degree in classical guitar and over a decade of experience with rock and metal bands.
As for bass guitar on Take my Life, Matt Scheffer offered to play the bass track (when he could fit time around his main band, Blistering Tree, in Florida). And Matt, of course, is the original bandmate that Mark first started playing with back in middle school. What a cool, full-circle moment that is!
Vocals
Vocals where the next missing piece to make a killer band like Ghost, Volbeat, or HIM. Mark found that in the singing voice of Alex Dew (United Kingdom). His voice is on the higher side (making him sound very similar to something like Ghost and Volbeat, and dare we say… Freddie Mercury?) His voice is great for rock as well as EDM and he has a four-octave range.
Mixing
Once those musicians do their thing and send all the files back to Mark, he takes everything into Doubletime Recording Studio (the same studio where Mark’s drumming is recorded) and everything is put together by Jeff Forrest. Jeff is recording legend in the San Diego area. His studio is where pretty much every San Diego band got their start (like Blink-182, Unwritten Law, Buck-0-Nine, Sprung Monkey, and Ghoulspoon). He has also recorded Pierce the Vail, Atreyu, As I Lay Dying, Incubus, Cattle Decapitation and too many others.