Guerilla Mind Society

Guerrilla Mind Society is living proof that heavy metal can be subtle while simultaneously kicking your ass. The Seattle-based four piece has the pounding rhythms and paint cracking volumes required to earn their mosh pit badge -but the band turns its music around corners and down alleyways few hard rockers dare approach. Lead vocalist Ryan Trees seamlessly switches from a growling, mic swallowing Neanderthal pose to a bluesy, melodious character with traces of Bob Marley and Peter Gabriel. Lead Guitarist Shou Yanagita’s delivery ranges from face-melting metal solos at whipsaw speed to Middle Eastern textures and molasses-paced bends that hint at jazz. Bassist Kokoro Yanagita and drummer Dustin Cassidy play with jackhammer power and precision without sacrificing the dynamics and feel central to Guerrilla Mind Society’s music.
Unlike a lot of American bands that want to come to your town and help you party down, Guerrilla Mind Society has a message, a mission and a multicultural background.
Informed by both Japanese and American cultures, the band’s lyrics cut holes into societal pathologies of submission and faceless war. The violence of Guerrilla Mind Society’s music comments on the violence we accept every day. Some moments in the band’s songs sound like an Apache helicopter landing on your head while guitar dive-bombs crash around you.
Guerrilla Mind Society has no interest in playing to the here-today-gone¬-tomorrow pop music mill. The band members are career-minded musicians. Their sound was born of no hip scene, but of old friendships, slow-gestating songwriting and genuine love of music. Their intention is to make a living playing to appreciative audiences, not make a quick million and pass the rest of their days by the pool. This is a grassroots band.
Comprised of two Americans and two Japanese, Guerilla Mind Society balances between two worlds to craft a cohesive sound and career. The band has played more shows in Japan than in America, cutting its teeth before ultra-critical Japanese audiences that hang on every note and stay after the show to give feedback. Shou and Kokoro, who are brother and sister, are from Utsunomiya but have roots in the Yamagata Prefecture, a Japanese province with a long history of self-reliance and pride. Kokoro is also a classically trained pianist and does all of the band’s cover art.
Guerrilla Mind Society is carefully getting on with its life, making career moves to sustain its goals. Ryan, Dustin, Shou and Kokoro embark on another Japanese tour in October of 2006, followed by a tour of the American west coast, or possibly the entire country. The band is supporting Bushido, a five-song EP, with a new full-length due in spring 2007.