Getting to Know… 3 Bravo | Interview 🎤

In the 393^rd Q&A in our Getting to Know… series, we get the inside scoop from Utah heavy metal band, 3 Bravo.

“One element that is unique for us is that we are a father and son trio..” Whoa, 3 Bravo! The band expounds, “This is currently a full-family project. Even though some decades separate us, we have been writing and playing together for over 20 years.” Rock on! We get the inside scoop on the Utah heavy metal band – the genesis, goals, musical influences, and current and future musical endeavors. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into 🎤 Getting to Know… 3 Bravo: Interview No. 393!

For those who may not be familiar with you, what would you say makes 3 Bravo distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

One element that is unique for us is that we are a father and son trio. We have seen siblings and other family members in the past in other bands, but this is currently a full-family project. Even though some decades separate us, we have been writing and playing together for over 20 years. How do we rock some socks and melt faces? By being ourselves and not caring what people try to say [what] we are, or we aren’t in music. We play what feels right when the music starts flowing. Mostly, we are hard rock and heavy metal, but we have also had some blues heavy stuff and even some stuff you might have seen come out of the Sunset Strip in the 80s.

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did 3 Bravo form and what were some of the goals or visions you had early on?

The one common denominator for all of us was a shared first concert, albeit decades apart. Dennis saw KISS when he was a young teen back in the 70s and knew he wanted to be like Ace. Later in his life, he took me and Josh to see our first concert in 2000, which was also KISS. Once we knew we wanted to play, Dennis (also known as dad), was right there to help guide us on our journey. We have jammed together for a really long time, and one of our more fun traditions is to play the first full song we learned to jam together: War Pigs by Black Sabbath.

In June of 2022, our dad approached us and ask me and Josh if we wanted to finally record some of our original stuff we’d been playing. Thus, 3 Bravo was born! Our vision is really simple: play what we love. We never really expected to get the reach we have so far, we just wanted to share the stuff we wrote.

Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

Right now, our goals are to try to find a drummer so that we can start playing live. While Josh is great on drums, he also happens to be our vocalist. The skill level on both means he needs to do either one or the other as a focus. One thing we all miss from previous bands is the ability to play in front of a crowd. It’s just a different energy live.

We are also aiming to seek some duet work with a female vocalist on a song or two. We have some ideas where we’d like to go and who we would like to approach, so look forward to something in 2024 in that realm.

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Whom would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

Some of our biggest influences are Queensryche, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and Judas Priest. We are a little more retro in that regard because we play in that realm most often. Especially on the vocals. Josh regularly mentions Rob Halford as being one of the key inspirations to his vocals, as well as Dio when he sung for Sabbath. For me (Craig), I have been playing along to Sabbath and Queensryche forever, so you do get the feel in what I am doing. With Dennis, he is inspired from all over. From B.B. King with some blues all the way up to Eddie Van Halen, a full spectrum of rock.

Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.

Craziest thing with us playing? Probably our incorporation of Simpsons inside jokes in what we play. If you listen closely, you may even pick up a few if you’re a fan like we are. One of the craziest inspirations that ever happened was washing the dishes, I kid you not. It ended up making the perfect sound for what we were looking to add into our song, “Look at the Flowers.” Dennis was doing a phone recording of a riff, and his wife was rinsing dishes. When Dennis played back, his phone had picked up the clinking, so he ran into his studio to grab his mic and an interface/ & laptop to grab some more. It ended up just perfect.

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

For all of us there are two songs that have really stood out when we heard the mixes and masters come back. While we are certainly proud of all of our work we’ve done, I’m not sure any of the others truly hit like these two did for all of us. The first is “Pushing You Away”, which was our very first. The song addresses trauma and the sort of path you walk when going through the process of life after the traumatic experience. Each of us has had different traumas in our lives, so it hit on a very personal level.

The second is our upcoming single release of “We All Die Young”, a cover of Steelheart. My son died a few months ago and when we got this song back, it really hit all of us hard. We not only brought everything we had into the recording, but it was just mixed so well that you can really feel the song. We have decided that this song will be dedicated to Conner. Our son, grandson, and nephew.

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

We didn’t even know that Josh could sing clean vocals until very recently. He had hidden that talent away from us for a long time. Hearing him belting out some rock screams at the level of Rob Halford was like entering another world for us. We knew he could do gutturals and had a solo death metal project, but none of us were really prepared for how good he turned out to be.

Closing out, what is 3 Bravo currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

In the works right now are the final recordings for our second album, Divine Wreckage. As of today, we have about three more to record and a few to have mixed and mastered. From there we are looking into an EP dedicated to Conner. Four or five songs solely dedicated to his memory. After that, we have two more albums worth of work in various stages and about 10,000 riffs to work with for the future. There will be no shortage. Once we do find a drummer, we will also be doing a lot more live work, because like we said, we all miss it a lot.

Thank you so much for sharing and taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward. 

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 Getting to Know…3 Bravo: Interview No. 393 [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; 3 Bravo; Tumisu via Pixabay]