Here at Jericho Vs. Mankind, we really want to get all of our ducks in a row before we start playing shows. Here’s a couple of logos I’ve put together for possible merch. Why not start playing shows with stickers, huh?
I could see the above logo going down the front of a t-shirt.
The one above is based off the Honda logo, which is in honor of Edward’s motorcycle.
-Brandon
I was living in California a few years back, and while there, I met a great guy named Alan. We worked in a comic book shop together, watched western movies, played videogames, and even attempted to start a comic together. He’s one of the best artists I’ve met, and when he had an interest working on this project (the band), I was ecstatic. He sent me some sketches, which were great, so I decided to give him some story, so he had a better idea of the universe the band was shaping. It was supposed to be a quick few paragraph rundown, but once I started to write, I just couldn’t stop.
We’re dividing the story into chunks, each chunk going to an album. The band brainstormed, I wrote an outline, and I would write songs and lyrics based on that outline. This is The first part of the first chapter of the Jericho Vs Mankind story. We have ten parts (songs) outlined for the first record. This is the first two. Sorry for any grammatical errors, spelling, etc. I wrote this out, didn’t read through it a second time. I’ll fix it when I get the chance.
-Brandon
Chapter I
Part I
Edward Jericho lives near the science lab where his father works in a small town in central Australia. This small town is just outside a moderate sized city. It has shops, a mall, and a decent population. Edward’s father works fairly normal hours, aside from the occasional overnighter, in which Edward is informed via telephone. He’s a good father who has always provided, and dealt with things well, even after things like Edward’s mother’s death. Being the son of a scientist, and a brilliant one at that, has a tendency to make one…nerdy. Edward always looked up to his father and respected his work in bio engineering. His father was fighting the good fight, in a world that seemed to disregard that kind of brave behavior. Ed played his videogames without much of a thought about what would happen to him when the end of the world came about. It’s a good thing he got a hint.
It had been two days. Two when the boy realized something was wrong. Some call it the benefit of the doubt, and the young man had given that, but in that kind of work one has a tendency of getting suspicious at any sign of trouble. It was only a few miles to the lab, and with the gut feeling that something had gone wrong, Edward grabbed his father’s spare keycard, and departed into the night. Breaking into a government owned facility is no small feat. It is, however, one that should go unnoticed. Ducking, hiding, and sliding around the complex, Ed mimicked the moves of his favorite action stars from movies and games. Slipping passed security, he finally made it to his father’s lab. He slowly arose from the ground, and peered through the window, only to see the biggest shock of his life. His father, strapped to a medical table, decaying as if he’d been ripped out of the grave.
Stumbling backward, handover mouth, Edward held in the horror that tried to escape him. Within seconds, a figure entered the frame, needle in hand ready to continue atrocities which young Jericho could only assume he had started. The face attached to the figure was no other than Dr. Jericho’s faithful lab assistant, Dr. Z. Jericho had met the doctor many times, and would never have thought anything terrible would come of the rapport him and his father had, but that thought was still finding it’s end by the time Edward had reached the door out of his current location. Things are going to change. This is the beginning. Edward’s first gut feeling had proved true, and it would be unwise for him to turn his back on said feeling now.
The route back to the outside was treacherous, which Edward noted, but his head was filled with questions, some which he already had answers. The television in his head was no different than the one that sat on his desk in his room. The footage he was remembering was only days old. I wouldn’t call it a pandemic, said the flapping jaw on the screen, but it is spreading at an alarming rate. Jericho’s eyes narrowed at the thought. No way. New footage, this time only hours old. …we’re working hard on a new antibiotic, but nothing is seeming to take. The dead eyed patient sitting in the room behind the doctor was not the first he’d seen. It was as Jericho was reaching the door to the night when he realized Fuck, I’m at ground zero.
Jericho rushed home and sat in his room. What was there to do? My father is gone, he thought, but what if this is all in my head? Ed didn’t have a history of overactive imagination, but this was absurd. But he could shake that gut if his. Better safe than dead. He left by morning.
The journey wasn’t long, only a few hours by foot, but it lead him north and farther away from the city. He arrived at the porch of his grandfather’s house. It was his mother’s father’s house, and it was one he knew well. He pressed the doorbell waited. Nothing. He pressed once again, this time hearing a crash. He stepped back, paused, then ran to the back of the house. The kitchen screen door was slapping against its frame. Jericho entered. The place had been torn apart. Christ, no. Grabbing a large kitchen knife, Edward slinked around the corner that lead to the living room. The television was silent, but projecting an image he would never forget.
There was a large mall in the city, Edward had been there many times. The drive from his house was under forty-five minutes, but never more than a half-hour. His father would buy the latest action movies, and the anticipation on the car ride back was nearly unbearable. Smashing the front door, young Edward would plow through the kitchen into the living room and slap his finger against the open button on the dvd player. His excitement was cut down at the sound of his mother’s voice- Not until after you’ve had your dinner, young man. Many trips to that mall filled him with the joy he had that day. Always some new piece of plastic to make his emotions soar. Even the smell of plaza would make his heart sing at a younger age. He could only imagine the odor that developed in that mall now.
The footage did not lie. What had been a mere illness days ago had turned into what he feared. Dead walk the Earth read the text next to the local news channel emblem. What he read next would completely change even his worse case scenario plans. Plague rapidly spreads to other parts of continent. Government announces state of quarantine for the continent. Edward put his hand against his forehead in disbelief, and then a crash. By the time he could look behind him, it was already on his way over the couch. Grandfather? he thought as dead hand slapped the knife out of his hand. Ed stumbled back bumping against the front door No! Stop! Jericho shouted sliding his back against the wall towards the kitchen. The skin of his grandfather was falling off his face, revealing bone and muscle. It’s me, Edward! He continued but got nothing back but a dead stare and a slow gimp. Edward escaped a swipe to the head, just ducking under it, and passed his relative heading back into the kitchen. He searched for another utensil, realizing what he had to do. Just then, while Ed stared down at the counter, a hand came down on his shoulder from behind. Edward turned his head to see his grandfather’s face lunging toward him. In a last second attempt to fend him off, Edward quickly put his hand against his foe’s forehead and pushed back. He pushed until his opponent was falling backward. Edward put his entire body into his arm as it landed the back of his grandfather’s head against the corner of the opposite counter. There was a feeling and a sound that can only be described as a crack and a pop.
A slight twitch surged through the body of his grandfather, and then it was done. Edward stood there, looking at his kill for a moment, then walked out the kitchen door into the sun and the sand. He fell to his knees, hands on the back of his head, grinding his teeth. Tears fell from his chin, but with a sniff and a wipe on his arm, he was back on his feet. Jericho walked out thirty yards to his grandfather’s garage, and with both hands, slid the giant door upward. Jericho walked to the back of the garage to the sink, where he proceeded to wash the remains of the demolished head off his hand. Turning around, he noticed a covered up vehicle, and a gas tank beside it. Jericho kicked the tank and liquid sloshed out the top, splashing his boot. He grabbed the fabric and swiftly yanked it off the metal frame beneath it. There stood a 1962 Honda CR93 motorcycle. Even in the shock of his first kill, it was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. They key sat in the ignition.
Jericho filled her up with as much petrol as she’d allow, took a seat, and started her up. She was loud, but she’d have to do. Edward burned out of the garage, away from the house and into the desert, a trail of dust the only thing that followed.
So, we’ve got our lineup solid, which includes me doing the vocals. I’ve always resented writing lyrics in the past. I’ll write something, look back on it a couple of weeks later and hate it. Things are different writing for Jericho, though. I don’t know if it’s because I’m writing around a theme, or I’ve just become more comfortable with my writing, but I’m liking it so far.
We’ve come to point where we have a pretty solid set list, and we’re about ready to preform. With the exception of a couple of songs that need vocals, we have six songs written, and more are being worked on. It’s almost June, and we want to start playing shows before August, so it’s crunch time. Last practice, we did our whole set without stops for the first time, and although tiring, it’s definitely something we can do.
Maybe the most exciting aspect of playing live, is going to be our live performances. I’ve talked to the guys about this, and we’re all on the same boat, and I can’t wait. We want to make every show memorable whether we’re playing to five people, or five hundred (Ha!). Aside from low key onstage costumes/personas (nothing the crowd will even notice, I’m sure), we’ve got band friend/my girlfriend Miranda Larson working on some onstage video visuals for us. I couldn’t be more ecstatic about this. Now I have work to do.
Starting here in a couple of weeks I’ve got to start talking to other bands to see if we can get some opening shows here and there. It sounds like guitarist Matt may have a couple of leads for us, so we’ll try to cash in on that. We’re just excited to play this stuff live at this point. We’ve put a lot of time and energy into this, and we feel we’re almost ready to show it to the world.
Wish us luck, and we hope to see you in the near future at a gig.
-Brandon
Since last post, we started trying out singers, and had a lot of luck. I didn’t want to start posting blogs again until I had a good idea where the band stood member wise, and I’m glad we did. We started trying out people for vocals, and we had a great amount of luck. Everyone was great, and we ended up having two people join the group instead of one.
The first was Tom. Tom has been a friend of the band for a long time now, and his unique vocal style made it a must that he tried out. On top of that, he played piano, and that’s something we’ve wanted to add to the band. We lugged my electric organ from my house to the practice space, and it’s being slowly worked into more songs.
The second person we tried out was a guy named Matt who found our ad on Craigslist. We were very interested in Matt, because he would be able to sing and play at the same time. We never got around to trying out his vocals, but with his great playing and Tom’s amazing singing, we were okay with adding another member.
Sadly, Tom is a busy guy. He’s got school, work, and our band is a pretty full time commitment. Although we loved everything he brought to the band, Tom and the band knew that as we got busier, it was going to get harder to get together, so we had to part ways. So, for now at least, I’m acting as frontman. The band will decide in the upcoming weeks if this arrangement will work out, or if our search will start again.
Will try to post more as things happen. There may be nobody reading this now, but I like the idea of having some sort of band record until we get our own site up.
-Brandon
After Armed With Teeth broke up, Luke, Casey, and I wanted (needed?) to keep doing music. We didn’t know exactly what this entailed at the time. Our singer had just left, so we had some options. Our initial idea was to get a new singer, and keep rocking AWT. It wasn’t long before we knew we wanted to go a whole new direction entirely. Thus, Jericho Vs. Mankind was born. I brought the boys a song I had been working on for a while (now known as Dawn of the Masher), and Luke brought the idea of having a story based zombie apocalypse theme. Zombies? Fuck yeah.
With AWT we were more determined to stick with one genre (hard rock). We were willing to play around with what that genre had to offer. I might have gone insane if not. We started this band knowing we wanted to write whatever we wanted. Western? Go for it. Surf? Sure. Thrash? Why not! It’s been such a gratifying experience so far.
One of the best parts is seeing how we’ve grown as a band. It’s much more apparent when you switch gears so drastically. AWT had been playing for more than two years, and we had all improved so much as musicians by the end of that bands life, it was impossible to not keep making music. Now we’re trying out singers (more on that soon), and I really wanted to take over the lead guitar role. I’m not an amazing guitarist, and I’m aware of that. But I’ve always been more a fan of creative guitarists than technical brilliance. This is really giving me a chance to hone my skills, and become more of the guitarist I want to be, and that’s very exciting.
Well, this has probably gone on long enough. Next time, vocalist tryouts, and more gloating about my band mates!
-Brandon
Welcome to the official Jericho Vs. Mankind blog. There’s been so much I wanted to blog about relating to the band, but myspace eats my soul. I’ve never used Worpressbefore, and my html skills are ass, so this may look a little…terrible for a while. We will fix things in due time, I assure you. Now, it is very late, and I am moderately tired, so to bed I go. Talk to you all soon.
-Brandon
