YEIBICHAI
San Francisco, California, United States | SELF
Music
Press
HJB: Hey Andy!!! Great to hear you are jammin with YEIBICHAI (pronounced yay-beh-chay). What does Yeibichai mean?
Andy V Galeon: The name is Native American in origin, Navajo to be exact. Yei's are spirits, they connect Man and Creator, they control the natural forces on Earth, day, night, rain, wind, sun, etc. The Yeibichai is a talking God, who speaks to Man, telling him how to live in harmony with all living things, with a few rules of behaviour, while using only basic things for survival.
HJB: What brought you guys together?
AVG: We all gravitated towards one another through the medium of Music, with the intent of playing meaningful, heartfelt, yet aggressive and powerful Music. As you may or may not know, I have been a disciple of Music for a long time, as have the other members, Stephen Vincent Ezell-Vox, Jimmy Tomahawk-Guitars, and Tai Hake-Bass, we all come from different backgrounds and have different Musical taste, but what we bring to the table is heavy Music, with an organic and indigenous style, with nothing but respect for all that came before us, as in all the natural forces. We're not reinventing rocket science or building an indestructible machine, we're doing the opposite like using a drum to communicate, or using arrows and machetes instead of nuclear bombs.
HJB: I love the CD. Cactus Buttons, Badwater & The Ritual, I can feel the Native American ambiance just in the name of some of the songs. Do you have a song that has become your favorite or is especially meaningful to you?
AVG: Since all the songs are so different, each one brings out various forms of emotion, but Cactus, Badwater, and The Ritual specifically really ring true to me personally, but maybe that's because they took longer to internalize and learn! Haha! We're in the mode of recording all the spontaneous jams right now and locking in with each other which has come surprisingly fast. When all members are on the same page you really would be surprised how little verbalization there is between members. It's a nice change and one that I really needed in my Musical progression as a player. Who says Democracy can't work? If you don't stretch your boundaries then you'll never know what can be accomplished.
HJB: I love that idea!! I hope to hear some of that spontaneous jammin live soon!!! - HellaJenn
An odd (but fluid and cohesive) offering of hard rock/metal from these California dudes. Groovy, bluesy riffs plod along with a bar-rock swagger as well as progressive clarity, enough to get a rocka-rolla and a metalhead to tap their toes along. A desert-y spaceyness akin to Kyuss meets the aggressive blues sensibilities of Danzig. Dare I compare this to 90’s Metallica? Well, nobody deserves that kind of insult—the band cites Alice In Chains as an influence, perhaps that’s a better example. The psyched-out Hetfield vocal approach does not clash with the more inventive musical approach, which borders on the psychedelic with the creative guitar lines, and combines quite nicely with acoustic guitar on several occasions. A reverence for the band’s Native American heritage is also present in the sound and spiritual themes of the lyrics. This is good stuff with room for improvement and a lot of promise. BEST TRACKS: 1, 8
Cactus Buttons - Bluesy, rockin’, a nice dirty groove
Lodestone - Folksy acoustic intro leads into a hard rock number with a lot of syncopation and, again, groove.
Left Hand Path - Drifting, folksy, spacey intro gives way to a sinister dirge.
Human Artifice - Bizarro-spaced out rocker with some hints of aggression ehre and there.
Badwater - Echoing, heavy riffs lumber along with a stoner progression of dynamics
Threading - A bit more jittery, technical, and technical approach to riffs.
Ouroboros - An excellent track that prompts me to label it “prog-doom”
The Ritual - A rumbling, smoked-out epic album closer that rocks in some places and drifts in others. - KZSU 90.1 FM Stanford University Radio
Yeibichai, a dense progressive-alt-metal band with Navajo leanings has just finished recording a debut release in Talmage, CA near the city of Ten Thousand Buddas. The professional sounding self titled effort is heavy, melodic and full of deadly riffs.
-Gabe Meline, North Bay Bohemian - The North Bay Bohemian
Discography
YEIBICHAI (2010)
Photos
Bio
YEIBICHAI (pronounced YAY-BEH-CHAY) is a San Francisco, California based progressive hard rock band who shortly after forming, released its full length self-titled debut album in December of 2010.
The term Yeibichai was first encountered by founding guitarist Jimmy Tomahawk who often visits the befriended Navajo peoples on their homelands. To them, the “Yei' Bi' Chai”, or simply The Yei, are essentially beings who come to man from the "other world" to remind him how to live in balance with the natural elements of this realm. An image of a Yei' Bi' Chai can be seen on the band's debut album cover created by Navajo artist Zeke Sena, a friend of the band and native of New Mexico.
With Grammy winning engineer Mark Vinten at the helm, YEIBICHAI entered a Northern California studio in September 2010 to begin tracking their full length debut album. Throughout the following 3 months in a frenzy of productivity, the debut was recorded and mixed in Los Angeles and mastered in San Francisco.
YEIBICHAI has created a worthy buzz since breaking into the San Francisco music scene in early 2011 receiving praise from the gritty alt/metal crowd, quirky psychedelic prog rock appreciators as well as ambient electronic/world music fans alike. The latter can attributed to the use of indigenous instrumentation such as Indian Tabla and Native American flute heard throughout the debut effort performed by special guest Thayne Hake, Bassist Tai Hake's father.
In 2011 shortly after releasing the debut album, drummer Andy V Galeon, founding member of the band Death Angel joined YEIBICHAI bringing with him years of experience touring the world over as a highly revered drummer in modern hard rock and metal circles.
YEIBICHAI have received consistent airplay on San Francisco's 107.7 The Bone, University of San Francisco's KUSF, Stanford's KZSU, UC Berkeley's KALX, San Francisco's FCC Free Radio, among other California stations and internet radio stations such as Jango & Pandora.
Drawing influences from many cultures merged with heavy-progressive rock, esoteric thinking, and psychedelic-spiritual expressionism, YEIBICHAI is a unique musical entity with a compelling undertone wherein vocalist Stephen Vincent Ezell explores the beauty and absurdity of life in the new millennium.
Just as their namesakes do, YEIBICHAI seek to peel back the thin facade between our preconceptions of what is possible and what we deride as merely phantasm.
For Press material, media and booking information contact TheBand@Yeibichai.com
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