Enjoy!

Here’s a chance for you to tell our readers about your latest release, ‘Beelzefuzz’. But could you please start off by introducing the readers to the band Beelzefuzz?

Beelzefuzz is Darin McCloskey on drums, Pug on bass and HI, I’m Dana Ortt, I sing and play guitar. The band is influenced by classic rock bands like Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Grand Funk, Black Sabbath (of course!).

And now onto ‘Beelzefuzz’ - track-by-track! What inspired you, which topics are you dealing with, what do you want to express with the songs etc.

1. Reborn

The lyrics have a topic of death taking away someone you can’t function without, when your identity and personality is lost without that person. “I wanted to reach out and experience the elusive truth, enter the void that took your life”.  I also wanted to express the hope of reuniting again; “I always knew that one day you would return to me. You were never lost and I never mourned”. The song has a feeling of a new beginning to me.  We wanted an up tempo track to start off the album. The version on the album is a bit faster than what we like to play live nowadays.

The ”Lotus Jam” lyrics are based on the Alfred Tennyson poem “The Lotus-Eaters”. The Tennyson poem comes from the story in “The Odyssey” by Homer. The Tennyson poem involves some mariner dudes stopping off on an island, on the island they start eating lotus leaves, getting high and not caring about their mission or anything associated with it. Staying home, getting high, living out a delusion of reality and forgetting “the mission” is the theme of this song.  The music is definitely inspired by “Stormbringer” by Deep Purple, well, to my ears anyway. I wanted to have a prominent Hammond/Jon Lord vibe to the song. 

We wanted to have a couple of songs with a prog vibe. I really dig Peter Gabriel era Genesis, and we wanted to have that kinda vibe on this song, don’t know if it came across that way, but that was the original intention. I wanted some epic lyrics of creating your own destiny, not relying on a government or a god to give you a purpose or reward. “If our spirits can’t be saved, in our time of flesh our destiny we must claim”, “no divine intervention, we will create on our own”.  This song is another that we might slow down a bit live on occasion to give it more weight or lurch, haha!
 

This one is inspired by “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Elliot. “The sleeping souls must rest, redemption remains in deaths’ dream kingdom”. The lyrics and music are inspired by Cream. I wanted to have a kind of Clapton, Leslie tone in the intro. The lyric, “hear the sirens calling out, salvation coming down”, definitely inspired by ‘The Tale Of Brave Ulysses”.
 

I wanted an intro that was drony, with a didgeridoo or throat singing on it. Something, well, hypnotizing, haha! The lyrics deal with being subjected to a mental breakdown, or mind control, you know, advertising and marketing 101. “In the endless days you would submit to your fate, into the darkest night”. A familiar theme of trying to resist a power hungry government or those acting on God’s will, but being worn down over time and giving in. As the Borg say: ”Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated”.
 

With the lyrics “If dreams are all that is left, within my blackened heart become death”, I wanted to convey the feeling of being lost without a purpose. The lyrics deal with fighting for a god, government or master and being abandoned once your purpose has been served. 
 

A doomy, slow-tempo song, on the topic of following your convictions to the end, even when those convictions have lost their original meaning and value. “That’s the promise that we’ve made. Left in cages, locked entombed”, it’s about dying for “the cause”, even when you know “the cause” has been exposed as a fraud.
 

The lyrics are based on the Bram Stoker story “The Castle of the King”. The song deals with wanting to protect those you love, in this life and beyond.
 

Having art that thoughtfully and effectively gives the listener the correct “mindset” before listening is great. Brian’s art, to me, really takes on the visual personality of the music.

Thomas Nielsen, August 2013