May 14, 2025 • 43 mins
Jay Ball shares the story behind his metal project Gospels of Odin, a creative outlet that evolved into a powerful father-son collaboration when his 15-year-old son Levi revealed unexpected vocal talents. The project has gathered nearly 9,000 streams in just four weeks since release, demonstrating how digital platforms have revolutionized music distribution.
• Founded Gospels of Odin about 18 months ago after 40 years in the music industry
• Established the J Ball Guitar Academy in 1994 to share his musical knowledge
• Grew up during the British wave of heavy metal, drawing influence from Motorhead, Tags of Pantang, and Def Leppard
• Handles multiple instruments, production, mixing, and video creation for the project
• Discovered his son Levi's hidden vocal talents when the teen recorded vocals for "Bone Crusher"
• Shoots professional-quality music videos using drones in the scenic Derbyshire Dales
• Draws inspiration from Viking mythology and horror films for thematic elements
• Currently has 28 additional songs ready for potential future albums
• Considering forming a full band for live performances in the future
Keep it metal, keep it real. Just write from the heart, and people are always going to love it, they're always going to accept it, they're always going to want it, and people are always going to talk about it.
https://open.spotify.com/track/3tL4yII8U3iDoTNMQ9VkCF?si=ZpvQ3OcrQaiAF-2mf5UhYw
https://youtu.be/44yxXk4V2Kw?si=LaVoxaiOYUxZNTX4
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (00:01):
Hi and welcome to Franklin's Garage to
Stage podcast.
My name is Rob WardrumsFranklin and my co-host is Dana
Thunderbase Franklin.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (00:12):
So with us today we've got a
special guest all the way fromthe UK, mr Jay Ball, who is
pretty much the leader, founderand everything of a band called
Gospels of Odin.
How are you doing, sir?
Jay Ball (00:27):
Yeah, I'm good, Dana.
Thank you, you guys.
Dana (Thunderbass) Fran (00:29):
Awesome , it's a pleasure to have you on
here.
So maybe you can tell the worldhow you would describe your
band to anybody that's neverheard of you guys or listened to
you, how would you describeGospels of Odin to the world?
Jay Ball (00:46):
Yeah, gospels of Odin is really a project that I
started about just short of 18months ago.
I'd got a load of songs that Iwanted to sort of really get
back into recording again.
I'd not been recording for someyears I'd been playing music
for 40 years and I wanted tosort of do something fresh,
(01:10):
something new, somethinginteresting and I live and
breathe sort of metal music, notin any particular genres, I
like all genres of metal music,and so I wanted to create
something that was basically wasfun to play, was fun to record
(01:33):
and produce some really goodsongs.
I think, with having 40 yearsof experience being in the music
industry and of writing andrecording a lot of music over
those years, I found that when Isort of put the studio together
and this project together forrecording that I found a new
(01:55):
lease of life with this project.
It was really cool, it wasreally interesting and exciting
and I'm really happy with it.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (02:04):
Yeah, I love the tunes.
I've listened to a number ofthem and I really really like
them.
Thank you, can you tell us alittle bit about?
I understand you have a guitaracademy.
What is that all about?
Jay Ball (02:17):
Yeah, when I was, I started off playing guitar in
the 80s and obviously as a youngguy, in my bedroom, at sort of
14, 15 years old, and back inthose days you didn't really
sort of have, you didn't haveguitar teachers and you didn't
have any sort of way of teachingguitar.
(02:38):
What we'd do is sort of makesomebody had learned, I don't
know, they'd learned Ace ofSpades by Motorhead or something
, and then we'd all pile aroundto the house and they'd show us
how to play it, and then I'dlearn something like Iron man by
Black Sabbath, and so that'show we learned to play guitar
back in the early 80s.
So when I got into my 20s andI'd done a lot of music I'd been
(03:03):
doing music a lot for a livingI decided that I wanted to sort
of go into teaching, becausesome people say that you know,
when you start teaching it'ssort of like you're a failed
musician, and I totally I'vealways disagreed with that
because I always think if you'regood at what you do,
particularly in playing aninstrument like the guitar, then
why not pass that on to thenext generation and the
(03:25):
generation after that?
So the whole reason for startingup the J ball guitar Academy,
which I started in 1994, was umwas to give something back and
and uh, to be honest, I loved it.
It was, it was, uh, an amazingpart of um, of of me as a person
growing more um as a musicianand being able to trade those um
(03:49):
, those guitar skills that I'velearned.
Because back in the early 90sguitar uh lessons were we didn't
have the internet back then,remember.
So you you would go to a guitarteacher or you would go to a
guitar shop or a music shop, andthat's where you tended to find
a guitar teacher, or you wouldgo to a guitar shop or a music
shop and that's where you tendedto find a guitar tutor.
Whereas I decided I had astudio at home, that I would
(04:10):
just basically open up my studio, open up my home and become a
tutor from home.
So I started my own guitaracademy.
Dana (Thunderbass) Frankli (04:18):
Nice , cool yeah, we've talked before
on some of our other episodesof how kids today have no excuse
for not.
I mean they've.
They've got so muchavailability to the internet and
music lessons and and videos ofthe pros even showing you you
know how to do certain chordsand you know and stuff on the
internet.
It's funny.
But, um, you know, back in theday we're talking about how you
(04:39):
know, we just keep playing tapesand rewind it and play it again
, and play it again to try tofigure out what the song is, and
you know, until the tapestarted getting all warped
because you know there was noautomatic tabs on the internet
to look shit up.
So, yeah, um.
So my question is you know, inevery musician's career there's,
there's a point where you knowat an early age or even later on
(05:01):
, where they're like wow, thisis what I want to do for a
living.
Early age or even later onwhere they're like, wow, this is
what I want to do for a living.
Jay Ball (05:06):
When did what was the moment that told you, shit,
music is what I want to do Ithink growing up um in the early
80s I was fortunate because themusic in that era was like
phenomenal and obviously I'm I'mI'm english, I'm british, and
so you guys are clearly aware ofthe British wave of new heavy
(05:27):
metal and that was just like.
Some of those bands were justincredible and we're like 14, 15
years old at this period oftime and we're hearing like Tags
of Pantang, and they're from mycountry.
We're hearing Motorhead from mycountry.
We're hearing some of the bandsfrom that era, like Def Leppard
(05:49):
, who went on and becamephenomenally big.
You know, sort of I supposethey were like world dominators
and probably still are.
So.
For us growing up in that era itwas kind of like it felt
exciting because that wave ofBritish music was in our country
and and we kind of felt alittle bit sort of to be a part
(06:12):
of that was really cool and Iknow that um people like, going
back in the day, what lars wouldcome over from um, from
metallica, and he loved thatwave of british heavy metal and
he came and sort if you've everread his biographies I'm sure
people have he used to bunk downat people's houses, right right
.
And sort of basically as a youngboy himself he would hang out
(06:32):
with these guys in these bandsand he took that back to America
.
So I kind of feel in a way thatwe helped create that wave.
Those Metallica bands of thatearly era were definitely
founded from from our country,so I felt proud to be part of
that at that age.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (06:52):
We were lucky yeah, I agree 100%.
Hey, I've got another questionfor you here about your.
Obviously you're talented inmany different ways, but do you
also play percussion for allyour songs?
Jay Ball (07:05):
Being a drummer, that's, you know the thing I
listen to the first and foremost.
So yeah, I am amulti-instrumentalist.
I mean, guitar is my maininstrument, but I kind of found
that I was always.
When I used to put bandstogether years ago, when I was
younger, back in the 80s and 90s, I always tended to be sort of
(07:25):
the driving force.
I was the songwriter.
I tended to be the person thatwould book gigs.
I was a person that would sortof keep the band in.
I even drove the band man.
You know what I mean.
It was the be all and end allsort of.
It was my little project.
I never.
I always wanted equals in theband and we had equal, obviously
, band members.
(07:45):
But I think my drive andmotivation was probably much
more than those.
So as I got better at playingand I kind of knew what because
I've been playing a long time Iknew what styles I wanted to
play.
So over the years I kind ofthought, well, could we try this
sort of beat instead of thatbeat?
And so I could jump on the kitand I could knock that out and
(08:06):
they'd be like, yeah, okay, Thencould we try this sort of track
style of bass on there.
And so the bass player would belike, yeah, that's cool.
And then the singer I'm not asinger, I can sing, but I
wouldn't say I was a greatsinger.
But I could always write lyricsand I could always see how
those lyrics would fit into intowhat I was writing.
(08:26):
So I didn't sort of take it onfrom a point of view that I
wanted to be that sort of theman in control as such.
I just had a passion forwriting music and I could hear
things slightly different in myown mind and the only way I
could get that out and portrayit to say, the bass player in
the band was to sort of you know, this is kind of the riff I've
(08:46):
written on the guitar.
How about trying this?
And then, don't get me wrong,there was plenty of scope for
them to improvise and have theirown inspiration with it.
But I always found that Iwanted to play more than just
the guitar, although I loveplaying the guitar.
So I felt like, well, if I wasgoing to shoebox into just
(09:07):
playing griffs and lead guitarparts, then maybe I was doing
myself an injustice really.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (09:15):
Okay, what type of a kit do you have?
I mean, what do you play andwhat you've recorded?
What kind of kit are you usingright now?
Jay Ball (09:26):
The kits we use.
We tend to use, like a lot ofthe drums that I've used,
particularly on the, on thegospel stuff.
We've used this we've basicallysampled the kit drums, uh, and
the snares and the, and we'vecut them up and we've sort of
put them into the studio behindme and I've.
So I've I've sort of createdthe drum beats from the samples
(09:46):
that we've used.
Okay, but I've been able,because I can play the drums,
I've been able to execute themin a way where they sound live,
right, they don't sound like adrum machine.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (09:57):
You're right, they don't either.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (10:00):
So with this, especially with this
new album that you did, god'seye, yeah, did you do everything
?
Did you do the bass tracks too,and the guitar tracks and
obviously I think it was yourson that did the vocals on it
but what I've read is that youdid the mixing, the mastering
and everything on there.
Where did you get theexperience to do this?
(10:21):
Is this something that wastaught formally somewhere or did
you just learn it along the way?
Jay Ball (10:28):
No, again, I'm self-taught all the way through.
It was just a case of I got agood ear for music.
I listen to music all day,every day.
I have done it for many, manyyears now.
I get up, I put music onMusic's with me all day.
I come home, have my tea music.
Now I get up, I put music onmusic's with me all day.
I come home, have my tea musicon.
(10:53):
I just listen to music all thetime.
So I'm sort of super inspiredby many different musicians.
So when it came to sort ofwriting God's Eye, I'd kind of
got.
I'd got so many different ideasthat I wanted to sort of put
together that it was easy to do.
And because I've been playingfor sort of 40 years, I've had a
studio since 1991.
(11:14):
I had my first studio.
So I've had a studio for whatnow?
35 years.
So I kind of got used to beingable albeit an office studio.
Then I got used to being able,albeit an office studio.
Then I got used to being ableto sort of, uh, put a drum beat
down and put a bass line down,and, and because I listen to a
lot of music, I kind of think Ilove the sound of that.
Can I recreate that insomething that I want to do?
(11:35):
Uh, and again coming down tosort of, if you guys have
obviously been in the studio,you know yourselves, you can
sort of solo everything off andjust listen exclusively to the
bass line and add little bits ofEQ and you can play about with
things and make it sound muchbigger and wholer than perhaps
it is just sitting there in yourlap.
(11:57):
So yeah, there is a bit ofwizardry in there.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (12:00):
Okay, cool, I've got kind of a
two-part question for you.
Yeah, what is your songwritingprocess?
And secondly, what are yourplans for putting those songs
into like a live performance?
Is that something you've beenthinking about doing?
Jay Ball (12:17):
yeah, the um talking about the, the first part of the
question, the process ofwriting.
I tend to find that because ofI'm fortunate enough that I've
got I've got four kids and allmy kids listen to metal music
nice way to way to teach themright, right, the right way.
Yeah, yeah so my, my eldest sonis, uh, he's 20, and he'll come
(12:39):
to me and he'll go oh, dad,you've got, you've got to check
out kublai khan to the x orsomething.
I'm like um, I'm like cool, puthim on.
And he played me something, forexample, like Ampile was a song
off, that was one of their.
It's a little snip of a songthat's about 30, 40 seconds long
, and he played me this part andhe was like that reminds me,
dad, of what you sound like whenyou're just chug, chug,
(13:00):
chugging on your guitar.
And so I listened to that cubelike on, and then I thought I'll
download the album and I have alittle listen to the album and
I was like, yeah, I really likethe sound of that and to me it
was kind of a new, fresher sound.
Uh, to him obviously it was justsort of something mainstream.
So then I kind of think tomyself, okay, could I write a
(13:20):
song similar to that sort ofstyle?
Could I, I put my own stamp onit, or could I actually take
inspiration from that?
So because I listen to a lot ofmusic I'm just using Kublai
Khan as one example I sort of,yes, I could sit there and think
, well, yeah, I could replicatethat particular song or this
(13:42):
song, and so it tends to startwith being inspired by a band.
That kind of kicked my ass alittle bit and I was like I love
that, I'd love to sound likethat, and then it kind of grows
from there.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (13:55):
Okay, nice.
Jay Ball (13:59):
The live aspect of it is a little bit more tricky.
I've obviously played live alot in the past when I was a
younger man.
This project at the moment,gospels of Owe started off as
sort of my little brainchild,and Levi's been into his metal
since he was born.
This sounds ridiculous, but I'dnever heard him sing and my
(14:24):
wife and I we went away onholiday and I came back We'd
been away for a week and he saidoh, dad, I've been up in the
studio, I've been doing somerecording.
I was like, oh, cool.
He said do you want to have alisten?
So I was like, yeah, cool.
So we came up into the studioand he'd done the vocals on Bone
Crusher, which is off the albumGod's Art, and he sort of said
(14:45):
he hit play on the play deck andI was just like whoa, where did
that voice come from, man?
And I was absolutely blown away.
I was like I did not know thatyou could sing like that because
he'd never came to me and saidDad, I want to be a singer, dad,
I want to be in a band.
He just sort of loves his metal, loves going to gigs, listens
(15:09):
to music all the time like I do,but never sort of told me that
he was practicing singing.
And, as it came down to it, ithe'd been practicing for about
six months but never saidanything to me and his voice
just fit, fitted that songperfectly.
And I was like, oh my god, thatis awesome, we've got to, we've
(15:29):
got to do something with this.
And so then I made him a listof the songs that were on the
first album and on God's Eye andsaid which of these songs do
you fancy putting vocals on?
Which do you think would workbest for your voice?
And we sort of had a chat aboutit and we picked out the songs
that he wanted to do.
And it's been amazing, thealbum came out before he'd had
(15:55):
the chance to sort of do anymore vocals.
So he came to me to give you anidea, a perspective on time.
It was February when heunleashed this amazing voice on
me, and the album came out inApril.
So I was like dude, we ain'tgot time to rewrite the whole
album now and put vocals on it.
So what we'll do is, well, hepicked five songs, he put the
(16:15):
vocals onto those five songs andthen we've got another 28 songs
lined up, ready to go at somepoint in the future, which have
not got all vocals on those yet.
So, coming back to the questionI know I'm going around the
houses with, regarding playinglive At the moment it's a father
and son project, so I wouldneed to find a bass player.
(16:36):
I definitely need a secondguitarist, um, and, and, and
obviously we need a drummer.
So I'm open to that.
Yes, I am.
Depending on how well thisproject goes, I am open to that
okay, well, how long the flightis it from here?
to here, to there.
I mean you got bass, and drumsright here thank you no, that
(16:56):
album, that album's amazing.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (16:57):
So with that and having your son
involved with that I mean, ofcourse, metal, rock and roll.
He's got the bad rep of all thedrugs, sex and rock and roll
and all that.
How do you talk to your sonabout coming into that life and
staying away from the stuff thatcan ruin it?
Jay Ball (17:21):
Especially it being family oriented.
It is, uh, I think I don'tworry about those things too
much.
At the end of the day, we, youknow we, we are responsible for
ourselves and you know we, um, Imusicians, seasoned musicians
that have been playing a longtime and have never touched
anything.
I know I've got dead friends aswell, so I kind of know what
(17:46):
that seed is.
But at the end of the day, Ithink he's 15.
And so he's got to make his ownmind of where he wants to go
with this.
At the moment we're putting Levidown as featured as the
vocalist, because this isn't afive, six-piece band, this is
(18:08):
just father and son.
And the reason I wanted to dothat was, a, because he was 15,
and B because his voice is sogood that I don't want him to
feel that he's the singer inGospels of Odin and he can't do
anything else, because he's gothis whole life in front of him
and he's a really good vocalist.
And Levi and I spoke about itin length really, and I said to
(18:31):
Levi if we can use Gospels ofOdin as a springboard for you as
a vocalist, then you're notstarting at the local pub
playing a few gigs with yourmates and kind of going around
in circles and no disrespect,but not really going anywhere.
We're sort of pitching you in alot higher where a band that
(18:54):
are looking for a younger bandthan Gospels of Odin, that are
looking for a younger band thanGospels of Odin, that are
looking for that type of singer.
That would be perfect for himand I'd be happy for him to go
on and have his musical career.
But he's 15, so he's got a lotof time to get into that.
(19:14):
My other son, solomon, he alsois a singer.
He's a great singer but he's adifferent style of voice to levi
, but he's just sort of um,generally sort of left his
singing in the shower and in thebedroom.
He's not done anything with ityet, and so he's got the
opportunity I've said to him tocome on board, maybe on the
(19:35):
second album now and do somevocals uh, and showcase what
what he can do as well.
Uh, I'm just loving the theopportunity to do this with my
sons, oh yeah that's amazing.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (19:47):
Yeah, that's that's, that's great.
And I've got a couple of kidsand they just they haven't shown
any interest at all in music,which kind of should surprise me
, but but, yeah, I, I envy youdo that.
That's cool.
Um, you've got some excellentvideos out there.
So my next question isbasically how are you producing
these videos and what type ofequipment are you using, because
(20:08):
the people that haven't seenthem yet you've got to check out
his website, which I will, orhis socials, which we'll include
on our website, but you've gotto see these videos.
They're amazing.
So I just want to knowbasically how those are produced
.
Jay Ball (20:24):
I'm smiling because again, I am the video producer.
Yeah, basically I just sort ofdecided that in order to,
because when we used to writemusic and record it back in the
80s and 90s it's kind of like weused to go into the studio as a
band, we'd record a demo, sayfour songs, and we'd probably
(20:46):
pay £500, english pounds backthen, which was probably about
£2,000 or £3,000 in today'smoney.
So we kind of put all our moneyinto like going into the studio
and recording four songs on acassette and then we'd play gigs
and we'd sell the cassettes andthat's how we sort of made a
little bit of money.
But at the end of the day,between the gigs and then and
(21:09):
the cassettes, we were sort ofwe still had to have a day job.
We couldn't make that pay.
Uh, it was kind of more beermoney and fun money than
anything else.
So when I wanted to get intothe project of gospels I wanted
to sort of invest into thestudio, which it did and then
into the video side of it,because I thought nowadays the
(21:30):
beauty is that we don't have togo into the studio, spend two
and a half thousand pounds intoday's money and then release a
cassette and go and play live.
Those aspects would still work.
But the internet has changedeverything.
Social media has changedeverything.
It's like the old song that ifI knew then what I know now,
(21:56):
we'd have been famous many, manytimes over because the
opportunity.
It's never been easier now toget your music into a wider
audience.
We released God's Eye what 28days ago, four weeks ago.
Now we're punching nearly 9,000streams.
That's incredible.
That's amazing.
Four weeks of releasing a demoin 1980, we'd have probably sold
(22:20):
30 or 40 copies.
Do you know what I mean?
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (22:22):
Yeah, yeah.
Jay Ball (22:24):
So it's an incredible.
The internet and the socialmedia side of it is incredible.
So the video side for me wasjust a natural progression.
We've got the music out there.
Let's just do the video.
I bought a drone.
I paid some decent money forthe equipment.
I bought a drone, which wasfantastic to use on spellbinding
.
You can see it right comingdown into the valleys and, by
(22:47):
the way, that's my daughter inthe video.
Oh, really, okay, cool, mydaughter.
She.
I was like you fancy beingfamous.
Yeah, I'll put you on the bigscreen.
I don't think she's had anyoffice since, but maybe she will
in time.
I bet she will actuallybasically we went out and had
some fun recording the video.
I think at the end of the daywe've got we live in a beautiful
(23:09):
part of England.
We've got the Derbyshire Dales,literally a stone's throw away
from where we live, and the I'mtalking about Spellbinder video.
The actual location we used wasa place called Stanton on the
Peak, which is in the DerbyshireDales, and it's got this really
cool 4,000-year stone circlewhich has got all this sort of
(23:34):
urban legend attached to itabout apparently the core it.
There's nine stones there and,um, apparently the nine stones
of the circle were nine ladiesthat danced on sabbath and that
they they were turned to stoneand that's the sort of myth
legend of the of the place.
But that is very well.
(23:55):
Um, it's one of the mostpopular sort of.
There's many popular places tosee in Derbyshire in England but
that's one of the popularplaces to go for people that are
into sort of more of the witchyand the sort of pagan-y sort of
side of their music.
There's sort of trees up thereand people like make little
white sort of symbols andpentagrams and they hang them in
the trees and stuff.
It's kind of got a whole witchysort of vibe to it and it's a
(24:20):
cool.
It's got a cool, um, sort of acool.
The environment feels reallygood and the atmosphere is
really cool up there and so,yeah, we went up there to shoot
the video.
The only problem we had wasthat because we were flying the
drone up so high and you getsort of like you know, hundreds
of people visiting there, wehave to keep like bringing the
drone back so high and you getsort of like you know, hundreds
of people visiting there, wehave to keep like bringing the
drone back down and going.
Excuse me, no photo bombing,just give me five minutes please
(24:44):
, because I'm just trying to doa bit of filming.
And then people were obviouslycoming up to us saying do you
mind asking what, what, what you, what you're doing?
We're like, yeah, we'reshooting a video for a music
video.
Oh my god, that's, that'sreally cool.
So yeah, it was a brilliantlocation and the drone was a
game-changer for doing thevideos okay.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (25:04):
So you've had obviously a long
musical career.
What is one of your, your bestmoments that you that you've had
?
You know, whether it be a liveshow or or putting this Gospels
Bowdoin project together, youknow what would you consider,
you know the pinnacle of yourcareer so far that's a tough one
.
Jay Ball (25:22):
That that is a tough one.
I think um because I've been in, because I've been playing
music for 40 years now.
I've got a lot of um.
I've got a lot of memories anda lot of fantastic times playing
live um.
I was in a thrash band in the80s when thrash was thrash.
It was new, it was fresh and weused to call it speed metal back
(25:43):
then.
I think thrash was more of anAmerican sort of name for it.
In England we call it speedmetal and you know, those days
were brilliant.
I was, you know, I was kind ofliving the dream myself.
We had a great band.
As the sort of 90s came in andit sort of the shift in music
changed, we sort of disbandedand I went my own way and I
(26:08):
decided that I wanted.
I was really influenced in theearly 90s by Alice in Chains.
They're one of my all-timefavourite bands and they'd
released the Facelift album.
I think it's 89 or 90, thatalbum.
And I kind of got this albumand I was just like, wow, what
is this?
It was like the freshest,coolest album music-wise.
(26:30):
I'd never heard anything likethat back in 1989, 1990.
So I was like I'm going'll puta band together just like this.
This is cool.
And so we kind of went.
I put together a whole newbunch of guys and we came
together and we put a bandtogether called Tribe from our
town and we did really well atthe time.
(26:51):
But again, we didn't have theinternet and we didn't have the
sort of the outlets that thereare now.
So we were back to recordingthe tape it was CD then
recording CD, taking it to thegigs, sell them at the gigs
played a lot of shows with Tribeand we thought we'd get signed.
But unfortunately I suppose theproblem with that era and that
(27:12):
band was that the you weretalking about it earlier the
drugs of the drugs and rock androll side of it sort of took
over a little bit too much andit kind of it ruined the band.
It kind of rehearsals got,certain members weren't tuning
up to rehearsals on time and,yeah, things got a little bit.
It went a little bit darker andit spoiled the band.
(27:35):
Really I would say that elementdid spoil that band, but still
amazing times.
And then obviously I had otherthan my own Guitar Academy.
I had a bit of a hiatus frombeing in a band for some years
and Gospels was sort of knockingon my door.
(27:56):
As I say, I'd got some Newinfluences from some Amazing
bands and I wanted to Pick theinstruments Back up again and
not just teach but start towrite and record and Become a
better musician Myself, which Ithink I did On the debut album.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (28:18):
Well, I'm sure enjoying what I'm
listening to.
Hey, speaking of performances,we have a moment we call oh shit
, and this is basically anexperience you've had that was
either really bad, reallyembarrassing could be either at
a live performance or a practiceor during a recording, but just
one of those moments where youjust have to say oh, we were
(28:43):
there's been a few.
Jay Ball (28:45):
There's been a few.
We, um, when we were in, whenwe were in the grunge band, we,
um, we we had um a drummer whowas uh, he was young and he sort
of came to rehearsal and he'dbeen telling us about this older
lady that he'd been seeing,that was married, and we were
like, okay, dude, that's kind ofnot great, but you know, it's
(29:08):
your life and as long as it sortof doesn't interfere with the
band, that's fine.
And so we'd got a string ofgigs booked and we we played a
lot of pubs back in those days.
The pub scene back in the 90swas really big in England.
It's not so much now.
That's, the times have changed.
But back then there was a lotof live venues that you could
(29:30):
play.
And we rocked up to this onevenue.
We were setting all the gear upand the landlord came out it
was early came out, shook hishands, introduced himself, et
cetera, and he was like, yeah,cool, you know.
And he was like, oh, you know,love your band and we love your
sort of music and everything.
I was like, yeah, cool, andwe're sort of just, we go to
(29:57):
order some drinks from the barand the guy in the band who's
been seeing the older lady saysI can't get my eyes on that.
Why not?
He's like because my elder ladyworks in the pub and we're like
dude, I know I shit you not.
She's married to the landlordthat we're playing the gig to on
(30:17):
the evening.
So we were like, oh shit, well,let's just play anyway.
And we did play and fortunatelythe guy didn't find out for
some time.
We were lucky that night,otherwise the gig would have
been off.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (30:37):
Yeah, that could have went real bad.
Jay Ball (30:39):
That was kind of an old shit moment.
We were like shit, we're aboutto play.
Dana (Thunderbass) Frank (30:44):
You're seeing the the landlord's wife
just keep looking over like doeshe know, does he know?
Jay Ball (30:51):
oh, yeah, that was crazy.
We used to have these aftershow parties.
They were always crazy oh yeahabsolutely we, we.
We were sort of the people inthe band we always used to push
each other musically but we'dalways push each other for like
stupid pranks and stupid thingsto do when we'd had too much to
drink.
Oh, yeah.
(31:11):
And we'd done an after-showparty one night and we had this
little dare.
We were talking about thishouse.
That was probably 100 yardsdown the road and it got a
swimming pool and the lads inthe back.
We said we'll set this littlechallenge.
You've got to get strip naked.
So you're absolutely naked.
(31:32):
You've got to run down the mainroad, jump over the wall to
where this mansion was, and thefirst one into the pool is the
winner.
So yeah, after a few drinksit's like, yeah, that sounds
like fun, I'm up for that.
So, me and the bass player,we're off.
We're running down the road,cars are pipping at us.
What are you doing?
I'm back at him because I was alot taller and skinnier than
(31:55):
him.
So I run and jump over the wall.
I didn't realize the wall'sabout three foot on our side.
On the other side it's droppeddown six or seven foot.
So I just plumb it down ontothe floor, bearing in mind I'm
naked, and the spirit lightscome on and there's two dogs in
the garden.
Oh damn, I'm whacking his headoff.
He's gone.
He's like he left me.
(32:16):
I tell you, I never got offthat wall so quick, my friend.
I got off that wall.
I bet Knees bleeding, handsbleeding, straight back to the
house.
Yeah, that was an oh shitmoment.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (32:27):
Yes, it is.
Oh, that's funny.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (32:30):
So the name of the band Gospels of
Odin.
How did that come about?
Is there a story behind that?
Jay Ball (32:38):
My love of Vikings.
I love everything sort ofNordic.
I'm very much.
I'm not a religious man but Ilove the whole sort of.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (32:50):
So you follow the ascetic.
Jay Ball (32:53):
I've always loved that sort of stuff.
I think those things kind of gohand in hand with metal and the
music we listen to, anyway, itseems to.
So for me, I was kind of like wecould have called the band Odin
, but I thought that was alittle bit too.
You know, it was kind of fourletters, it was a little bit too
short.
So I was kind of like, yeah, ifwe're going to bring other
(33:13):
people into the band over aperiod of time, maybe to become
a live act, then we'll becomelike like the gospels of Odin,
and so I wanted to introduce,yeah, the whole, the whole
Viking vibe, which I love.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (33:27):
So do you follow the Asatru religion,
so to speak?
Jay Ball (33:32):
No, I'm not.
I'm not a religious person.
Really.
I don't.
I don't follow it.
It's sort of I'm not ananti-religious person but I
don't follow religion as such.
But I just love the.
I just love this sort of feel ofthe Gospels of Odin is sort of
like the music really can bequite brutal, it can be quite
beautiful in places, it can bemasculine and it can be feminine
(33:56):
.
So it's kind of it had got thewhole sort of.
For me it had got the wholesort of Viking feel to to it and
I just loved the feel that wecould do something that was sort
of related to that.
Because I know, like the hitseries vikings, which was like
the um uh, you guys haveprobably seen it which is a few
years old now, was a huge hitover here in england.
It was a massive sort of tv hitand um, I kind of I just loved
(34:21):
the idea of you'll hear it insome of my introductions, for
example on Killing Fields, whenyou've got a whole sort of
Nordic battle about to begin,and I just loved the energy of
that.
I thought to put that into musicwas something a little bit
different.
But also it kind of gave thesongs a new dimension and for
people that loved their sort ofViking, nordic sort of feel to
(34:45):
the music, I thought they'dreally get Gospels of Olden.
They'd like it, they'd love it.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (34:50):
And I like that new video featuring
the Vikings on that hill.
That's very cool.
Jay Ball (34:54):
And once again we'll put a link to that on our
website.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (34:57):
But, that's a very cool video.
Jay Ball (35:01):
That's going to come out at the end of this week
actually, so hopefully by thistime next week.
It should be, it should be live, it should be out.
Yeah, oh, sweet yeah we justshot that one this last couple
of weeks I want to do.
I want to do probably three orfour more videos off the songs
on god's eye, um, as I get timeand chance to do them, because
(35:21):
some of the songs, as Imentioned earlier, levi's only
sung on five.
There's 12 songs on the album,or 13, including Paranoid, and
so they were instrumentals, theywere written as instrumental
songs.
So the video brings a whole newentity to listening to the
songs.
And again now, particularly ifyou listen to your music by
(35:44):
Spotify, which I do and a lot ofpeople in England do it's very
popular.
You can get the video versionsof it as well, so it gives it a
different dimension as well.
So, necessarily being aninstrumental song, the video
lifts that and gives it a littlebit more three-dimensional sort
of feel to it, which works well.
I think yes, it does.
Dana (Thunderbass) Frankli (36:05):
Yeah , and how you're speaking about
that is, you know, especiallywith those instrumentals.
Like you know, welcome to theApocalypse.
You know I love that song andhow.
You know just the dynamics init, you know how you're saying
some can be masculine and somecan be, you know it's just got
so many different feels to it,all within one song.
It's amazing.
Jay Ball (36:26):
Yeah, thank you.
It comes down to.
I think again, these two govery close.
I've always been a phenomenalheavy metal fan.
I love so many different bandsfrom so many different styles.
I hate to say that's thrash orthat's new metal or that I just
(36:47):
love metal.
I think hand in hand that goeswith horror movies, my love of
horror movies.
If you notice behind me, you'llsee my.
Amityville windows in my studio.
I've been an avid horror fanfor decades.
I love horror films.
And so when I tend to writemusic for example, like the
(37:11):
Apocalypse song or the Symphonyof the Undead, another song off
that album.
It comes back to my love ofhorror and I kind of wanted to
sort of be able to sort ofcreate the feeling of a horror
movie in a song and so to beable to take that and use that
as because there's no vocals inthose, again they are, I suppose
(37:34):
, loosely instrumental becausethey have got there is talking
and the story being talked aboutyeah.
I wanted to be able to sort ofyeah, create that horror feel to
it, and one of the videos I'mgoing to release I've not
written or recorded the videoyet, but I'm planning to do is
for Symphony of the Undead,which is one of the songs off
(37:57):
Dodds Eye, because it's just aclassic zombie story and I just
want to do a video for itbecause I love zombies and I
think it'd be really cool ohyeah, it will be cool.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (38:08):
So what are your plans for the future?
I mean, what I?
I see that you've got youreleased 12 of the 40 songs.
Are you going to release moreof those songs?
And then, what else do you haveplanned for the immediate
future?
Jay Ball (38:21):
yeah, we've got um.
I wrote 40 songs, um, forgospels of owen and I was kind
of just enjoying writing you.
You know, I've been writingthose songs over a period of
just short of 18 months and, um,what I found was that there's
certain periods in at that time.
For example, if I went back toapril of last year of 2024,
(38:45):
that's when I wrote sort ofspellbinder, and then in in the
may I wrote um alchemy, which isanother song off god's eye, and
I wrote a few other songs thatare not on the album, that are
ready to go on another album,and they were sort of written in
a probably a two or three monthperiod where I was kind of
(39:06):
really into that sort of vibe.
And then, yeah, no, no, noworries, my friend, yeah I think
you'd pretty much answered thequestion.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (39:17):
We were just asking what your immediate
future was with the band, but Ithink you pretty much addressed
it.
But, um, anything else, youwant to tell our listeners as
far as uh, what you've got in,uh, in the works, what's coming
up next for you?
Jay Ball (39:30):
yeah, we've got um.
When I wrote the, the songs forfor god's eye this is an
overspillage you said 28 songsand I think those songs I don't
know um how many of those songs,I don't know um how many of
those songs will will will getused again, but there's
potentially another couple ofalbums worth of songs there.
They're written in the samevein as as God's eye as well.
(39:50):
So the um, the, the seamless,the pretty much seamless.
If you release a second album,yeah, I appreciate it.
It's been lovely speaking toyou guys.
Dana (Thunderbass) Frankli (40:02):
Yeah , great talking to you and you
know this being a Garage toStage, you know podcast any
insights to new musicians outthere that you can pass along?
Jay Ball (40:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think the music scene inEngland is buzzing at the moment
.
There's a lot of bands, there'sa lot of good venues popping up
.
It's vibrant and I thinkthere's a lot of bands, there's
a lot of good venues popping up.
It's vibrant and I thinkthere's a lot of talent out
there now.
We said it earlier in thispodcast that it's much easier
for people to learn to playinstruments nowadays than it was
back in the day.
All you've got to do is justsort of believe in yourselves
(40:37):
and what you want to do, and forme, keep it.
Metal, just keep it real.
Just right from the heart, andpeople are always going to love
it, they're always going toaccept it, they're always going
to want it and people are alwaysgoing to talk about it.
So, for me, keep it metal, keepit metal.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (40:56):
Alright , jay, thank you very much.
It's been a pleasure, it reallyhas.
Thank you, jay, thank you verymuch.
Dana (Thunderbass) Frankli (41:01):
It's been a pleasure.
It really has.
Yeah, thank you guys.
Yeah, we'd love to have afollow-through with you, maybe a
little bit down the road, toget another album out or put
another CD together and do sometouring.
Absolutely, we'd love to hearabout what happens with you in
the future.
So thank you for being with us.
Jay Ball (41:13):
Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's an exciting time.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (41:21):
So, yeah, yeah, church, but I'd
love that absolutely.
Jay Ball (41:23):
Thank you, jay.
Thank you, jay, and bestregards to you and your son,
your whole family.
Yeah, thank you, take care guys.
Thank you, bye.
Hi and welcome to Franklin's Garage to
Stage podcast.
My name is Rob WardrumsFranklin and my co-host is Dana
Thunderbase Franklin.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (00:12):
So with us today we've got a
special guest all the way fromthe UK, mr Jay Ball, who is
pretty much the leader, founderand everything of a band called
Gospels of Odin.
How are you doing, sir?
Jay Ball (00:27):
Yeah, I'm good, Dana.
Thank you, you guys.
Dana (Thunderbass) Fran (00:29):
Awesome , it's a pleasure to have you on
here.
So maybe you can tell the worldhow you would describe your
band to anybody that's neverheard of you guys or listened to
you, how would you describeGospels of Odin to the world?
Jay Ball (00:46):
Yeah, gospels of Odin is really a project that I
started about just short of 18months ago.
I'd got a load of songs that Iwanted to sort of really get
back into recording again.
I'd not been recording for someyears I'd been playing music
for 40 years and I wanted tosort of do something fresh,
(01:10):
something new, somethinginteresting and I live and
breathe sort of metal music, notin any particular genres, I
like all genres of metal music,and so I wanted to create
something that was basically wasfun to play, was fun to record
(01:33):
and produce some really goodsongs.
I think, with having 40 yearsof experience being in the music
industry and of writing andrecording a lot of music over
those years, I found that when Isort of put the studio together
and this project together forrecording that I found a new
(01:55):
lease of life with this project.
It was really cool, it wasreally interesting and exciting
and I'm really happy with it.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (02:04):
Yeah, I love the tunes.
I've listened to a number ofthem and I really really like
them.
Thank you, can you tell us alittle bit about?
I understand you have a guitaracademy.
What is that all about?
Jay Ball (02:17):
Yeah, when I was, I started off playing guitar in
the 80s and obviously as a youngguy, in my bedroom, at sort of
14, 15 years old, and back inthose days you didn't really
sort of have, you didn't haveguitar teachers and you didn't
have any sort of way of teachingguitar.
(02:38):
What we'd do is sort of makesomebody had learned, I don't
know, they'd learned Ace ofSpades by Motorhead or something
, and then we'd all pile aroundto the house and they'd show us
how to play it, and then I'dlearn something like Iron man by
Black Sabbath, and so that'show we learned to play guitar
back in the early 80s.
So when I got into my 20s andI'd done a lot of music I'd been
(03:03):
doing music a lot for a livingI decided that I wanted to sort
of go into teaching, becausesome people say that you know,
when you start teaching it'ssort of like you're a failed
musician, and I totally I'vealways disagreed with that
because I always think if you'regood at what you do,
particularly in playing aninstrument like the guitar, then
why not pass that on to thenext generation and the
(03:25):
generation after that?
So the whole reason for startingup the J ball guitar Academy,
which I started in 1994, was umwas to give something back and
and uh, to be honest, I loved it.
It was, it was, uh, an amazingpart of um, of of me as a person
growing more um as a musicianand being able to trade those um
(03:49):
, those guitar skills that I'velearned.
Because back in the early 90sguitar uh lessons were we didn't
have the internet back then,remember.
So you you would go to a guitarteacher or you would go to a
guitar shop or a music shop, andthat's where you tended to find
a guitar teacher, or you wouldgo to a guitar shop or a music
shop and that's where you tendedto find a guitar tutor.
Whereas I decided I had astudio at home, that I would
(04:10):
just basically open up my studio, open up my home and become a
tutor from home.
So I started my own guitaracademy.
Dana (Thunderbass) Frankli (04:18):
Nice , cool yeah, we've talked before
on some of our other episodesof how kids today have no excuse
for not.
I mean they've.
They've got so muchavailability to the internet and
music lessons and and videos ofthe pros even showing you you
know how to do certain chordsand you know and stuff on the
internet.
It's funny.
But, um, you know, back in theday we're talking about how you
(04:39):
know, we just keep playing tapesand rewind it and play it again
, and play it again to try tofigure out what the song is, and
you know, until the tapestarted getting all warped
because you know there was noautomatic tabs on the internet
to look shit up.
So, yeah, um.
So my question is you know, inevery musician's career there's,
there's a point where you knowat an early age or even later on
(05:01):
, where they're like wow, thisis what I want to do for a
living.
Early age or even later onwhere they're like, wow, this is
what I want to do for a living.
Jay Ball (05:06):
When did what was the moment that told you, shit,
music is what I want to do Ithink growing up um in the early
80s I was fortunate because themusic in that era was like
phenomenal and obviously I'm I'mI'm english, I'm british, and
so you guys are clearly aware ofthe British wave of new heavy
(05:27):
metal and that was just like.
Some of those bands were justincredible and we're like 14, 15
years old at this period oftime and we're hearing like Tags
of Pantang, and they're from mycountry.
We're hearing Motorhead from mycountry.
We're hearing some of the bandsfrom that era, like Def Leppard
(05:49):
, who went on and becamephenomenally big.
You know, sort of I supposethey were like world dominators
and probably still are.
So.
For us growing up in that era itwas kind of like it felt
exciting because that wave ofBritish music was in our country
and and we kind of felt alittle bit sort of to be a part
(06:12):
of that was really cool and Iknow that um people like, going
back in the day, what lars wouldcome over from um, from
metallica, and he loved thatwave of british heavy metal and
he came and sort if you've everread his biographies I'm sure
people have he used to bunk downat people's houses, right right
.
And sort of basically as a youngboy himself he would hang out
(06:32):
with these guys in these bandsand he took that back to America
.
So I kind of feel in a way thatwe helped create that wave.
Those Metallica bands of thatearly era were definitely
founded from from our country,so I felt proud to be part of
that at that age.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (06:52):
We were lucky yeah, I agree 100%.
Hey, I've got another questionfor you here about your.
Obviously you're talented inmany different ways, but do you
also play percussion for allyour songs?
Jay Ball (07:05):
Being a drummer, that's, you know the thing I
listen to the first and foremost.
So yeah, I am amulti-instrumentalist.
I mean, guitar is my maininstrument, but I kind of found
that I was always.
When I used to put bandstogether years ago, when I was
younger, back in the 80s and 90s, I always tended to be sort of
(07:25):
the driving force.
I was the songwriter.
I tended to be the person thatwould book gigs.
I was a person that would sortof keep the band in.
I even drove the band man.
You know what I mean.
It was the be all and end allsort of.
It was my little project.
I never.
I always wanted equals in theband and we had equal, obviously
, band members.
(07:45):
But I think my drive andmotivation was probably much
more than those.
So as I got better at playingand I kind of knew what because
I've been playing a long time Iknew what styles I wanted to
play.
So over the years I kind ofthought, well, could we try this
sort of beat instead of thatbeat?
And so I could jump on the kitand I could knock that out and
(08:06):
they'd be like, yeah, okay, Thencould we try this sort of track
style of bass on there.
And so the bass player would belike, yeah, that's cool.
And then the singer I'm not asinger, I can sing, but I
wouldn't say I was a greatsinger.
But I could always write lyricsand I could always see how
those lyrics would fit into intowhat I was writing.
(08:26):
So I didn't sort of take it onfrom a point of view that I
wanted to be that sort of theman in control as such.
I just had a passion forwriting music and I could hear
things slightly different in myown mind and the only way I
could get that out and portrayit to say, the bass player in
the band was to sort of you know, this is kind of the riff I've
(08:46):
written on the guitar.
How about trying this?
And then, don't get me wrong,there was plenty of scope for
them to improvise and have theirown inspiration with it.
But I always found that Iwanted to play more than just
the guitar, although I loveplaying the guitar.
So I felt like, well, if I wasgoing to shoebox into just
(09:07):
playing griffs and lead guitarparts, then maybe I was doing
myself an injustice really.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (09:15):
Okay, what type of a kit do you have?
I mean, what do you play andwhat you've recorded?
What kind of kit are you usingright now?
Jay Ball (09:26):
The kits we use.
We tend to use, like a lot ofthe drums that I've used,
particularly on the, on thegospel stuff.
We've used this we've basicallysampled the kit drums, uh, and
the snares and the, and we'vecut them up and we've sort of
put them into the studio behindme and I've.
So I've I've sort of createdthe drum beats from the samples
(09:46):
that we've used.
Okay, but I've been able,because I can play the drums,
I've been able to execute themin a way where they sound live,
right, they don't sound like adrum machine.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (09:57):
You're right, they don't either.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (10:00):
So with this, especially with this
new album that you did, god'seye, yeah, did you do everything
?
Did you do the bass tracks too,and the guitar tracks and
obviously I think it was yourson that did the vocals on it
but what I've read is that youdid the mixing, the mastering
and everything on there.
Where did you get theexperience to do this?
(10:21):
Is this something that wastaught formally somewhere or did
you just learn it along the way?
Jay Ball (10:28):
No, again, I'm self-taught all the way through.
It was just a case of I got agood ear for music.
I listen to music all day,every day.
I have done it for many, manyyears now.
I get up, I put music onMusic's with me all day.
I come home, have my tea music.
Now I get up, I put music onmusic's with me all day.
I come home, have my tea musicon.
(10:53):
I just listen to music all thetime.
So I'm sort of super inspiredby many different musicians.
So when it came to sort ofwriting God's Eye, I'd kind of
got.
I'd got so many different ideasthat I wanted to sort of put
together that it was easy to do.
And because I've been playingfor sort of 40 years, I've had a
studio since 1991.
(11:14):
I had my first studio.
So I've had a studio for whatnow?
35 years.
So I kind of got used to beingable albeit an office studio.
Then I got used to being able,albeit an office studio.
Then I got used to being ableto sort of, uh, put a drum beat
down and put a bass line down,and, and because I listen to a
lot of music, I kind of think Ilove the sound of that.
Can I recreate that insomething that I want to do?
(11:35):
Uh, and again coming down tosort of, if you guys have
obviously been in the studio,you know yourselves, you can
sort of solo everything off andjust listen exclusively to the
bass line and add little bits ofEQ and you can play about with
things and make it sound muchbigger and wholer than perhaps
it is just sitting there in yourlap.
(11:57):
So yeah, there is a bit ofwizardry in there.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (12:00):
Okay, cool, I've got kind of a
two-part question for you.
Yeah, what is your songwritingprocess?
And secondly, what are yourplans for putting those songs
into like a live performance?
Is that something you've beenthinking about doing?
Jay Ball (12:17):
yeah, the um talking about the, the first part of the
question, the process ofwriting.
I tend to find that because ofI'm fortunate enough that I've
got I've got four kids and allmy kids listen to metal music
nice way to way to teach themright, right, the right way.
Yeah, yeah so my, my eldest sonis, uh, he's 20, and he'll come
(12:39):
to me and he'll go oh, dad,you've got, you've got to check
out kublai khan to the x orsomething.
I'm like um, I'm like cool, puthim on.
And he played me something, forexample, like Ampile was a song
off, that was one of their.
It's a little snip of a songthat's about 30, 40 seconds long
, and he played me this part andhe was like that reminds me,
dad, of what you sound like whenyou're just chug, chug,
(13:00):
chugging on your guitar.
And so I listened to that cubelike on, and then I thought I'll
download the album and I have alittle listen to the album and
I was like, yeah, I really likethe sound of that and to me it
was kind of a new, fresher sound.
Uh, to him obviously it was justsort of something mainstream.
So then I kind of think tomyself, okay, could I write a
(13:20):
song similar to that sort ofstyle?
Could I, I put my own stamp onit, or could I actually take
inspiration from that?
So because I listen to a lot ofmusic I'm just using Kublai
Khan as one example I sort of,yes, I could sit there and think
, well, yeah, I could replicatethat particular song or this
(13:42):
song, and so it tends to startwith being inspired by a band.
That kind of kicked my ass alittle bit and I was like I love
that, I'd love to sound likethat, and then it kind of grows
from there.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (13:55):
Okay, nice.
Jay Ball (13:59):
The live aspect of it is a little bit more tricky.
I've obviously played live alot in the past when I was a
younger man.
This project at the moment,gospels of Owe started off as
sort of my little brainchild,and Levi's been into his metal
since he was born.
This sounds ridiculous, but I'dnever heard him sing and my
(14:24):
wife and I we went away onholiday and I came back We'd
been away for a week and he saidoh, dad, I've been up in the
studio, I've been doing somerecording.
I was like, oh, cool.
He said do you want to have alisten?
So I was like, yeah, cool.
So we came up into the studioand he'd done the vocals on Bone
Crusher, which is off the albumGod's Art, and he sort of said
(14:45):
he hit play on the play deck andI was just like whoa, where did
that voice come from, man?
And I was absolutely blown away.
I was like I did not know thatyou could sing like that because
he'd never came to me and saidDad, I want to be a singer, dad,
I want to be in a band.
He just sort of loves his metal, loves going to gigs, listens
(15:09):
to music all the time like I do,but never sort of told me that
he was practicing singing.
And, as it came down to it, ithe'd been practicing for about
six months but never saidanything to me and his voice
just fit, fitted that songperfectly.
And I was like, oh my god, thatis awesome, we've got to, we've
(15:29):
got to do something with this.
And so then I made him a listof the songs that were on the
first album and on God's Eye andsaid which of these songs do
you fancy putting vocals on?
Which do you think would workbest for your voice?
And we sort of had a chat aboutit and we picked out the songs
that he wanted to do.
And it's been amazing, thealbum came out before he'd had
(15:55):
the chance to sort of do anymore vocals.
So he came to me to give you anidea, a perspective on time.
It was February when heunleashed this amazing voice on
me, and the album came out inApril.
So I was like dude, we ain'tgot time to rewrite the whole
album now and put vocals on it.
So what we'll do is, well, hepicked five songs, he put the
(16:15):
vocals onto those five songs andthen we've got another 28 songs
lined up, ready to go at somepoint in the future, which have
not got all vocals on those yet.
So, coming back to the questionI know I'm going around the
houses with, regarding playinglive At the moment it's a father
and son project, so I wouldneed to find a bass player.
(16:36):
I definitely need a secondguitarist, um, and, and, and
obviously we need a drummer.
So I'm open to that.
Yes, I am.
Depending on how well thisproject goes, I am open to that
okay, well, how long the flightis it from here?
to here, to there.
I mean you got bass, and drumsright here thank you no, that
(16:56):
album, that album's amazing.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (16:57):
So with that and having your son
involved with that I mean, ofcourse, metal, rock and roll.
He's got the bad rep of all thedrugs, sex and rock and roll
and all that.
How do you talk to your sonabout coming into that life and
staying away from the stuff thatcan ruin it?
Jay Ball (17:21):
Especially it being family oriented.
It is, uh, I think I don'tworry about those things too
much.
At the end of the day, we, youknow we, we are responsible for
ourselves and you know we, um, Imusicians, seasoned musicians
that have been playing a longtime and have never touched
anything.
I know I've got dead friends aswell, so I kind of know what
(17:46):
that seed is.
But at the end of the day, Ithink he's 15.
And so he's got to make his ownmind of where he wants to go
with this.
At the moment we're putting Levidown as featured as the
vocalist, because this isn't afive, six-piece band, this is
(18:08):
just father and son.
And the reason I wanted to dothat was, a, because he was 15,
and B because his voice is sogood that I don't want him to
feel that he's the singer inGospels of Odin and he can't do
anything else, because he's gothis whole life in front of him
and he's a really good vocalist.
And Levi and I spoke about itin length really, and I said to
(18:31):
Levi if we can use Gospels ofOdin as a springboard for you as
a vocalist, then you're notstarting at the local pub
playing a few gigs with yourmates and kind of going around
in circles and no disrespect,but not really going anywhere.
We're sort of pitching you in alot higher where a band that
(18:54):
are looking for a younger bandthan Gospels of Odin, that are
looking for a younger band thanGospels of Odin, that are
looking for that type of singer.
That would be perfect for himand I'd be happy for him to go
on and have his musical career.
But he's 15, so he's got a lotof time to get into that.
(19:14):
My other son, solomon, he alsois a singer.
He's a great singer but he's adifferent style of voice to levi
, but he's just sort of um,generally sort of left his
singing in the shower and in thebedroom.
He's not done anything with ityet, and so he's got the
opportunity I've said to him tocome on board, maybe on the
(19:35):
second album now and do somevocals uh, and showcase what
what he can do as well.
Uh, I'm just loving the theopportunity to do this with my
sons, oh yeah that's amazing.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (19:47):
Yeah, that's that's, that's great.
And I've got a couple of kidsand they just they haven't shown
any interest at all in music,which kind of should surprise me
, but but, yeah, I, I envy youdo that.
That's cool.
Um, you've got some excellentvideos out there.
So my next question isbasically how are you producing
these videos and what type ofequipment are you using, because
(20:08):
the people that haven't seenthem yet you've got to check out
his website, which I will, orhis socials, which we'll include
on our website, but you've gotto see these videos.
They're amazing.
So I just want to knowbasically how those are produced
.
Jay Ball (20:24):
I'm smiling because again, I am the video producer.
Yeah, basically I just sort ofdecided that in order to,
because when we used to writemusic and record it back in the
80s and 90s it's kind of like weused to go into the studio as a
band, we'd record a demo, sayfour songs, and we'd probably
(20:46):
pay £500, english pounds backthen, which was probably about
£2,000 or £3,000 in today'smoney.
So we kind of put all our moneyinto like going into the studio
and recording four songs on acassette and then we'd play gigs
and we'd sell the cassettes andthat's how we sort of made a
little bit of money.
But at the end of the day,between the gigs and then and
(21:09):
the cassettes, we were sort ofwe still had to have a day job.
We couldn't make that pay.
Uh, it was kind of more beermoney and fun money than
anything else.
So when I wanted to get intothe project of gospels I wanted
to sort of invest into thestudio, which it did and then
into the video side of it,because I thought nowadays the
(21:30):
beauty is that we don't have togo into the studio, spend two
and a half thousand pounds intoday's money and then release a
cassette and go and play live.
Those aspects would still work.
But the internet has changedeverything.
Social media has changedeverything.
It's like the old song that ifI knew then what I know now,
(21:56):
we'd have been famous many, manytimes over because the
opportunity.
It's never been easier now toget your music into a wider
audience.
We released God's Eye what 28days ago, four weeks ago.
Now we're punching nearly 9,000streams.
That's incredible.
That's amazing.
Four weeks of releasing a demoin 1980, we'd have probably sold
(22:20):
30 or 40 copies.
Do you know what I mean?
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (22:22):
Yeah, yeah.
Jay Ball (22:24):
So it's an incredible.
The internet and the socialmedia side of it is incredible.
So the video side for me wasjust a natural progression.
We've got the music out there.
Let's just do the video.
I bought a drone.
I paid some decent money forthe equipment.
I bought a drone, which wasfantastic to use on spellbinding
.
You can see it right comingdown into the valleys and, by
(22:47):
the way, that's my daughter inthe video.
Oh, really, okay, cool, mydaughter.
She.
I was like you fancy beingfamous.
Yeah, I'll put you on the bigscreen.
I don't think she's had anyoffice since, but maybe she will
in time.
I bet she will actuallybasically we went out and had
some fun recording the video.
I think at the end of the daywe've got we live in a beautiful
(23:09):
part of England.
We've got the Derbyshire Dales,literally a stone's throw away
from where we live, and the I'mtalking about Spellbinder video.
The actual location we used wasa place called Stanton on the
Peak, which is in the DerbyshireDales, and it's got this really
cool 4,000-year stone circlewhich has got all this sort of
(23:34):
urban legend attached to itabout apparently the core it.
There's nine stones there and,um, apparently the nine stones
of the circle were nine ladiesthat danced on sabbath and that
they they were turned to stoneand that's the sort of myth
legend of the of the place.
But that is very well.
(23:55):
Um, it's one of the mostpopular sort of.
There's many popular places tosee in Derbyshire in England but
that's one of the popularplaces to go for people that are
into sort of more of the witchyand the sort of pagan-y sort of
side of their music.
There's sort of trees up thereand people like make little
white sort of symbols andpentagrams and they hang them in
the trees and stuff.
It's kind of got a whole witchysort of vibe to it and it's a
(24:20):
cool.
It's got a cool, um, sort of acool.
The environment feels reallygood and the atmosphere is
really cool up there and so,yeah, we went up there to shoot
the video.
The only problem we had wasthat because we were flying the
drone up so high and you getsort of like you know, hundreds
of people visiting there, wehave to keep like bringing the
drone back so high and you getsort of like you know, hundreds
of people visiting there, wehave to keep like bringing the
drone back down and going.
Excuse me, no photo bombing,just give me five minutes please
(24:44):
, because I'm just trying to doa bit of filming.
And then people were obviouslycoming up to us saying do you
mind asking what, what, what you, what you're doing?
We're like, yeah, we'reshooting a video for a music
video.
Oh my god, that's, that'sreally cool.
So yeah, it was a brilliantlocation and the drone was a
game-changer for doing thevideos okay.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (25:04):
So you've had obviously a long
musical career.
What is one of your, your bestmoments that you that you've had
?
You know, whether it be a liveshow or or putting this Gospels
Bowdoin project together, youknow what would you consider,
you know the pinnacle of yourcareer so far that's a tough one
.
Jay Ball (25:22):
That that is a tough one.
I think um because I've been in, because I've been playing
music for 40 years now.
I've got a lot of um.
I've got a lot of memories anda lot of fantastic times playing
live um.
I was in a thrash band in the80s when thrash was thrash.
It was new, it was fresh and weused to call it speed metal back
(25:43):
then.
I think thrash was more of anAmerican sort of name for it.
In England we call it speedmetal and you know, those days
were brilliant.
I was, you know, I was kind ofliving the dream myself.
We had a great band.
As the sort of 90s came in andit sort of the shift in music
changed, we sort of disbandedand I went my own way and I
(26:08):
decided that I wanted.
I was really influenced in theearly 90s by Alice in Chains.
They're one of my all-timefavourite bands and they'd
released the Facelift album.
I think it's 89 or 90, thatalbum.
And I kind of got this albumand I was just like, wow, what
is this?
It was like the freshest,coolest album music-wise.
(26:30):
I'd never heard anything likethat back in 1989, 1990.
So I was like I'm going'll puta band together just like this.
This is cool.
And so we kind of went.
I put together a whole newbunch of guys and we came
together and we put a bandtogether called Tribe from our
town and we did really well atthe time.
(26:51):
But again, we didn't have theinternet and we didn't have the
sort of the outlets that thereare now.
So we were back to recordingthe tape it was CD then
recording CD, taking it to thegigs, sell them at the gigs
played a lot of shows with Tribeand we thought we'd get signed.
But unfortunately I suppose theproblem with that era and that
(27:12):
band was that the you weretalking about it earlier the
drugs of the drugs and rock androll side of it sort of took
over a little bit too much andit kind of it ruined the band.
It kind of rehearsals got,certain members weren't tuning
up to rehearsals on time and,yeah, things got a little bit.
It went a little bit darker andit spoiled the band.
(27:35):
Really I would say that elementdid spoil that band, but still
amazing times.
And then obviously I had otherthan my own Guitar Academy.
I had a bit of a hiatus frombeing in a band for some years
and Gospels was sort of knockingon my door.
(27:56):
As I say, I'd got some Newinfluences from some Amazing
bands and I wanted to Pick theinstruments Back up again and
not just teach but start towrite and record and Become a
better musician Myself, which Ithink I did On the debut album.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (28:18):
Well, I'm sure enjoying what I'm
listening to.
Hey, speaking of performances,we have a moment we call oh shit
, and this is basically anexperience you've had that was
either really bad, reallyembarrassing could be either at
a live performance or a practiceor during a recording, but just
one of those moments where youjust have to say oh, we were
(28:43):
there's been a few.
Jay Ball (28:45):
There's been a few.
We, um, when we were in, whenwe were in the grunge band, we,
um, we we had um a drummer whowas uh, he was young and he sort
of came to rehearsal and he'dbeen telling us about this older
lady that he'd been seeing,that was married, and we were
like, okay, dude, that's kind ofnot great, but you know, it's
(29:08):
your life and as long as it sortof doesn't interfere with the
band, that's fine.
And so we'd got a string ofgigs booked and we we played a
lot of pubs back in those days.
The pub scene back in the 90swas really big in England.
It's not so much now.
That's, the times have changed.
But back then there was a lotof live venues that you could
(29:30):
play.
And we rocked up to this onevenue.
We were setting all the gear upand the landlord came out it
was early came out, shook hishands, introduced himself, et
cetera, and he was like, yeah,cool, you know.
And he was like, oh, you know,love your band and we love your
sort of music and everything.
I was like, yeah, cool, andwe're sort of just, we go to
(29:57):
order some drinks from the barand the guy in the band who's
been seeing the older lady saysI can't get my eyes on that.
Why not?
He's like because my elder ladyworks in the pub and we're like
dude, I know I shit you not.
She's married to the landlordthat we're playing the gig to on
(30:17):
the evening.
So we were like, oh shit, well,let's just play anyway.
And we did play and fortunatelythe guy didn't find out for
some time.
We were lucky that night,otherwise the gig would have
been off.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (30:37):
Yeah, that could have went real bad.
Jay Ball (30:39):
That was kind of an old shit moment.
We were like shit, we're aboutto play.
Dana (Thunderbass) Frank (30:44):
You're seeing the the landlord's wife
just keep looking over like doeshe know, does he know?
Jay Ball (30:51):
oh, yeah, that was crazy.
We used to have these aftershow parties.
They were always crazy oh yeahabsolutely we, we.
We were sort of the people inthe band we always used to push
each other musically but we'dalways push each other for like
stupid pranks and stupid thingsto do when we'd had too much to
drink.
Oh, yeah.
(31:11):
And we'd done an after-showparty one night and we had this
little dare.
We were talking about thishouse.
That was probably 100 yardsdown the road and it got a
swimming pool and the lads inthe back.
We said we'll set this littlechallenge.
You've got to get strip naked.
So you're absolutely naked.
(31:32):
You've got to run down the mainroad, jump over the wall to
where this mansion was, and thefirst one into the pool is the
winner.
So yeah, after a few drinksit's like, yeah, that sounds
like fun, I'm up for that.
So, me and the bass player,we're off.
We're running down the road,cars are pipping at us.
What are you doing?
I'm back at him because I was alot taller and skinnier than
(31:55):
him.
So I run and jump over the wall.
I didn't realize the wall'sabout three foot on our side.
On the other side it's droppeddown six or seven foot.
So I just plumb it down ontothe floor, bearing in mind I'm
naked, and the spirit lightscome on and there's two dogs in
the garden.
Oh damn, I'm whacking his headoff.
He's gone.
He's like he left me.
(32:16):
I tell you, I never got offthat wall so quick, my friend.
I got off that wall.
I bet Knees bleeding, handsbleeding, straight back to the
house.
Yeah, that was an oh shitmoment.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (32:27):
Yes, it is.
Oh, that's funny.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (32:30):
So the name of the band Gospels of
Odin.
How did that come about?
Is there a story behind that?
Jay Ball (32:38):
My love of Vikings.
I love everything sort ofNordic.
I'm very much.
I'm not a religious man but Ilove the whole sort of.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (32:50):
So you follow the ascetic.
Jay Ball (32:53):
I've always loved that sort of stuff.
I think those things kind of gohand in hand with metal and the
music we listen to, anyway, itseems to.
So for me, I was kind of like wecould have called the band Odin
, but I thought that was alittle bit too.
You know, it was kind of fourletters, it was a little bit too
short.
So I was kind of like, yeah, ifwe're going to bring other
(33:13):
people into the band over aperiod of time, maybe to become
a live act, then we'll becomelike like the gospels of Odin,
and so I wanted to introduce,yeah, the whole, the whole
Viking vibe, which I love.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (33:27):
So do you follow the Asatru religion,
so to speak?
Jay Ball (33:32):
No, I'm not.
I'm not a religious person.
Really.
I don't.
I don't follow it.
It's sort of I'm not ananti-religious person but I
don't follow religion as such.
But I just love the.
I just love this sort of feel ofthe Gospels of Odin is sort of
like the music really can bequite brutal, it can be quite
beautiful in places, it can bemasculine and it can be feminine
(33:56):
.
So it's kind of it had got thewhole sort of.
For me it had got the wholesort of Viking feel to to it and
I just loved the feel that wecould do something that was sort
of related to that.
Because I know, like the hitseries vikings, which was like
the um uh, you guys haveprobably seen it which is a few
years old now, was a huge hitover here in england.
It was a massive sort of tv hitand um, I kind of I just loved
(34:21):
the idea of you'll hear it insome of my introductions, for
example on Killing Fields, whenyou've got a whole sort of
Nordic battle about to begin,and I just loved the energy of
that.
I thought to put that into musicwas something a little bit
different.
But also it kind of gave thesongs a new dimension and for
people that loved their sort ofViking, nordic sort of feel to
(34:45):
the music, I thought they'dreally get Gospels of Olden.
They'd like it, they'd love it.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (34:50):
And I like that new video featuring
the Vikings on that hill.
That's very cool.
Jay Ball (34:54):
And once again we'll put a link to that on our
website.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (34:57):
But, that's a very cool video.
Jay Ball (35:01):
That's going to come out at the end of this week
actually, so hopefully by thistime next week.
It should be, it should be live, it should be out.
Yeah, oh, sweet yeah we justshot that one this last couple
of weeks I want to do.
I want to do probably three orfour more videos off the songs
on god's eye, um, as I get timeand chance to do them, because
(35:21):
some of the songs, as Imentioned earlier, levi's only
sung on five.
There's 12 songs on the album,or 13, including Paranoid, and
so they were instrumentals, theywere written as instrumental
songs.
So the video brings a whole newentity to listening to the
songs.
And again now, particularly ifyou listen to your music by
(35:44):
Spotify, which I do and a lot ofpeople in England do it's very
popular.
You can get the video versionsof it as well, so it gives it a
different dimension as well.
So, necessarily being aninstrumental song, the video
lifts that and gives it a littlebit more three-dimensional sort
of feel to it, which works well.
I think yes, it does.
Dana (Thunderbass) Frankli (36:05):
Yeah , and how you're speaking about
that is, you know, especiallywith those instrumentals.
Like you know, welcome to theApocalypse.
You know I love that song andhow.
You know just the dynamics init, you know how you're saying
some can be masculine and somecan be, you know it's just got
so many different feels to it,all within one song.
It's amazing.
Jay Ball (36:26):
Yeah, thank you.
It comes down to.
I think again, these two govery close.
I've always been a phenomenalheavy metal fan.
I love so many different bandsfrom so many different styles.
I hate to say that's thrash orthat's new metal or that I just
(36:47):
love metal.
I think hand in hand that goeswith horror movies, my love of
horror movies.
If you notice behind me, you'llsee my.
Amityville windows in my studio.
I've been an avid horror fanfor decades.
I love horror films.
And so when I tend to writemusic for example, like the
(37:11):
Apocalypse song or the Symphonyof the Undead, another song off
that album.
It comes back to my love ofhorror and I kind of wanted to
sort of be able to sort ofcreate the feeling of a horror
movie in a song and so to beable to take that and use that
as because there's no vocals inthose, again they are, I suppose
(37:34):
, loosely instrumental becausethey have got there is talking
and the story being talked aboutyeah.
I wanted to be able to sort ofyeah, create that horror feel to
it, and one of the videos I'mgoing to release I've not
written or recorded the videoyet, but I'm planning to do is
for Symphony of the Undead,which is one of the songs off
(37:57):
Dodds Eye, because it's just aclassic zombie story and I just
want to do a video for itbecause I love zombies and I
think it'd be really cool ohyeah, it will be cool.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (38:08):
So what are your plans for the future?
I mean, what I?
I see that you've got youreleased 12 of the 40 songs.
Are you going to release moreof those songs?
And then, what else do you haveplanned for the immediate
future?
Jay Ball (38:21):
yeah, we've got um.
I wrote 40 songs, um, forgospels of owen and I was kind
of just enjoying writing you.
You know, I've been writingthose songs over a period of
just short of 18 months and, um,what I found was that there's
certain periods in at that time.
For example, if I went back toapril of last year of 2024,
(38:45):
that's when I wrote sort ofspellbinder, and then in in the
may I wrote um alchemy, which isanother song off god's eye, and
I wrote a few other songs thatare not on the album, that are
ready to go on another album,and they were sort of written in
a probably a two or three monthperiod where I was kind of
(39:06):
really into that sort of vibe.
And then, yeah, no, no, noworries, my friend, yeah I think
you'd pretty much answered thequestion.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (39:17):
We were just asking what your immediate
future was with the band, but Ithink you pretty much addressed
it.
But, um, anything else, youwant to tell our listeners as
far as uh, what you've got in,uh, in the works, what's coming
up next for you?
Jay Ball (39:30):
yeah, we've got um.
When I wrote the, the songs forfor god's eye this is an
overspillage you said 28 songsand I think those songs I don't
know um how many of those songs,I don't know um how many of
those songs will will will getused again, but there's
potentially another couple ofalbums worth of songs there.
They're written in the samevein as as God's eye as well.
(39:50):
So the um, the, the seamless,the pretty much seamless.
If you release a second album,yeah, I appreciate it.
It's been lovely speaking toyou guys.
Dana (Thunderbass) Frankli (40:02):
Yeah , great talking to you and you
know this being a Garage toStage, you know podcast any
insights to new musicians outthere that you can pass along?
Jay Ball (40:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think the music scene inEngland is buzzing at the moment
.
There's a lot of bands, there'sa lot of good venues popping up
.
It's vibrant and I thinkthere's a lot of bands, there's
a lot of good venues popping up.
It's vibrant and I thinkthere's a lot of talent out
there now.
We said it earlier in thispodcast that it's much easier
for people to learn to playinstruments nowadays than it was
back in the day.
All you've got to do is justsort of believe in yourselves
(40:37):
and what you want to do, and forme, keep it.
Metal, just keep it real.
Just right from the heart, andpeople are always going to love
it, they're always going toaccept it, they're always going
to want it and people are alwaysgoing to talk about it.
So, for me, keep it metal, keepit metal.
Rob (Wardrums) Franklin (40:56):
Alright , jay, thank you very much.
It's been a pleasure, it reallyhas.
Thank you, jay, thank you verymuch.
Dana (Thunderbass) Frankli (41:01):
It's been a pleasure.
It really has.
Yeah, thank you guys.
Yeah, we'd love to have afollow-through with you, maybe a
little bit down the road, toget another album out or put
another CD together and do sometouring.
Absolutely, we'd love to hearabout what happens with you in
the future.
So thank you for being with us.
Jay Ball (41:13):
Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's an exciting time.
Dana (Thunderbass) Franklin (41:21):
So, yeah, yeah, church, but I'd
love that absolutely.
Jay Ball (41:23):
Thank you, jay.
Thank you, jay, and bestregards to you and your son,
your whole family.
Yeah, thank you, take care guys.
Thank you, bye.
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