Getting to Know… Cruel Juno | Interview 🎤

For the 1st interview of 2020 (46th overall), The Musical Hype gets insight from Lowell Parker, drummer/producer of hard rock band Cruel Juno.

“I reached out to people in my favorite European metal bands and see if they’d be willing to record some great music with me.” Sigh, that’s the response that Lowell Parker, the drummer and producer of hard rock project, Cruel Juno, gave The Musical Hype regarding the background of the band.  For the first interview of 2020, and the 46^th overall in the Getting to Know… series, Parker was kind enough to provide some insight about the band. In addition to Parker, Cruel Juno features Gandolfo Ferro on vocals (HEIMDALL), and special guest Luca Pinciotta (DORO and Luca Princiotta Band) on guitar.  Without further ado, here’s Getting to Know… Cruel Juno, Interview #46.

Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype (BF): Let’s get this started off right. For those who may not be familiar with you, what would you say makes Cruel Juno distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

Lowell Parker, Cruel Juno (Parker): Have you ever wanted to jam with the musicians on your favorite albums? That’s exactly what CRUEL JUNO is. I reached out to people in my favorite European metal bands and see if they’d be willing to record some great music with me.

BF: Cool! Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did your Cruel Juno form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

Parker: I moved back to Texas and couldn’t find a band to join. I had met Luca Princiotta (DORO, BLAZE) when he was on tour with DORO, and so I asked him and Sicilian vocalist Gandolfo Ferro (HEIMDALL) if they’d record a song with me. Surprisingly, they liked my crazy idea, and with them signed on as special guests, I produced the first single, “Swallow My Medicine” – and then went in search of additional artists to work with, such as Fabio Lione (RHAPSODY, ANGRA, VISION DIVINE), Oliver Palotai (KAMELOT, EPICA), Gian-Andrea Costa (DREAMSHADE), and Jasio Kulakowski (KOBRA AND THE LOTUS). And there’s still more people I’d like to work with! I sometimes think of the project as “My Avantasia,” because it’s more of a collection of guest musicians than a band.

BF: 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?  

Parker: My goal now is focused on improvement. The people I’m working with are incredibly talented. My focus as the producer is to ensure that the audio quality is the best it can possibly be. We record one song at a time, and each sounds progressively better. I’m taking the learnings from one song and applying it to the production on the next.

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

Parker: I taught myself drums by trying to play along to JUDAS PRIEST records. “British Steel” was pretty manageable for an aspiring metalhead, and I spent ages playing along to that record. When I’m writing a song and working on the guitar parts, I think, “What would Glenn Tipton play?” The first CRUEL JUNO song I wrote was “Swallow My Medicine,” and I sequenced a guitar solo for the demo I made. The whole time working on that solo, I tried to honor Glenn’s style of playing. When Luca recorded the real guitars for the song, he of course made the solo much better, but he kept the overall structure and style just as I had written it, and I really think you can hear the JUDAS PRIEST in that solo. I’m very proud of that first effort.

BF: 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.

Parker: In one of my earliest bands, we were playing a very questionable establishment. As we arrived to load in, there was one guy boarding up a broken window, and another starting to mop up a pool of blood on sidewalk just outside that window. When we went inside, they were mopping up more blood. The guy mopping inside must’ve seen the look on my face and said, “We had another stabbing, and one guy got thrown through the window.” I turn to the guitarist and say, “I don’t know about this…” But before he can answer, the guy mopping says, “Oh, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re the entertainment. And they never ruin the entertainment.”

BF: Wow… “they never ruin the entertainment,” huh? 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?

Parker: My favorite is our newest song, “Wound Too Tight.” But it didn’t start out my favorite. The original demo, written by my good friend Gandolfo Ferro, was very much a Deep Purple styled song, and I wasn’t sure how it would fit with our CRUEL JUNO sound. But as we worked on the song, it really started to come together. One of the final pieces was the keyboard part from Oliver Palotai (KAMELOT, EPICA). And once I dropped his files in, the song really just came alive and I was really excited with what I heard. Luca Princiotta (DORO, BLAZE) added some final guitar riffs and I’m over the moon with the final result!

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

Parker: This is all self-done – I handle the web design on crueljuno.com, the layout on the CD cover and lyrics insert, all the video editing, you name it. There is no, “Oh, we have people for that.” I’m “the people.” It’s just me, the incredibly talented musicians I record with, my mixing and mastering engineers, and the photographer to provide all the great images for our “Juno.” 

Admittedly, things went wrong on the video for the new single “Wound Too Tight.” Normally I use old movie footage to create my videos, but there simply wasn’t enough footage of mummies in any old mummy movie, so I had to shoot my own video. I bought a spandex bodysuit mummy costume and filmed myself in front of a tomb backdrop. It was all going OK until the zipper broke midway through the take. Ever worn a spandex bodysuit? Let me tell you a secret: They’re just like the Cinderella story. You have until the twelfth stroke of the clock to get home before you’re naked, because those suits will literally just peel off your body once the zipper fails. The suit was ruined, so I had to reuse the first half of the take I’d filmed, making the mummy video I filmed genuine B-Movie material. Rock and Roll!

Here are the links to our brand new “Wound Too Tight” lyric video on Facebook and YouTube.

BF: Closing this thing out, what is you/your band currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

Parker: Our first EP, Playing with Monsters, will be released January 10, available on Spotify and everywhere else online. A very limited number of CDs are available by contacting me through crueljuno.com.

Also, in the works but not released yet – I have a very special collaboration underway with Jasio Kulakowski (guitarist, KOBRA AND THE LOTUS). We have co-written and recorded a song about Medusa. I expect to have a final version from him any minute!

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

Follow Cruel Juno:  Website • Facebook • YouTube • Spotify

Photo Credits: Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype, Cruel Juno