Flashburn finally ready to step out

By JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, July 30, 2008 10:36 AM PDT ∞

For more than a decade, the men of Flashburn gathered together to play their take on modern metal.

But that gathering was usually in the garage of one of the band's members. The audiences were often unwitting ---- neighbors who couldn't hear their televisions over the music.

As drummer Jason King put it, their only public gigs were "parties here and there."

Enter Sam Ilich.

The Chicago native, who transplanted to Oceanside about two decades ago, had been lead singer for local hardcore band Peace Corpse. When Peace Corpse disbanded, Flashburn ---- consisting of King, guitarist John Marlatt and bassist Joe Ward ---- asked Ilich to become its singer.

According to Marlatt, King and Ward, they saw Ilich as offering them the opportunity to raise the level of their performance and professionalism.

In addition to being a veteran of the local hardcore and punk scenes, Ilich is also well-connected in the business side of the music world. A longtime promoter (he co-produced the Theatre-X shows with Luke Chandler at THEATRX in Escondido a few years ago) and producer, Ilich had the kind of savvy the band was looking for.

"That was an element we were missing," King said.

The roots of Flashburn go back to the Junior ROTC unit at Orange Glen High, where Ward and Marlatt originally met and began playing guitar together. In 1996, King entered the picture.

"I met these guys through a mutual friend, and they mentioned they were a couple of guitar players who needed a drummer, and I mentioned that I was a drummer who needed a couple of guitar players," King said of their meeting.

After several different bass players didn't work out, Ward dropped his guitar and taught himself bass.

With Ilich on board, they've completed their first CD (being released Friday at the Jumping Turtle in San Marcos) and are readying a regional mini-tour for the fall.

King said it was never a lack of desire that kept the band from trying to achieve more ---- it was the fact that they were all self-taught and had few contacts in the local music community.

"All the previous years, we were a bunch of guys without any lessons just jamming together, trying to learn our instruments through playing together," he said. "We've always wanted to be a jamming band, record a CD, play some shows."

With the CD coming out on Chandler's Above Ground Records, which brings national distribution, the band is heading out on tour.

"We're planning on going to Seattle, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Arizona and Texas shortly after the album comes out," Marlatt said. "By '09, we want to be in Chicago and the Midwest."

For Iliich, who said at first he resisted joining Flashburn due to its members' lack of experience, the band represents a sort of extended family. Before joining the band, he hired the other members to help out at shows and recording sessions that he was running ---- a sort of tryout.

He said it was the kind of people that the other three are that made the decision to join the band the right one.

"We laugh so much together and have so much fun together," Ilich said. "We enjoy each other's company. We've recorded a lot of music that isn't really metal that we haven't released, but that we've had fun making.

"These guys have stepped up huge. They stepped up even bigger for being a metal band. We're not just some crazy metal band; there's something deeper to what we're saying."

Flashburn

When: 8 p.m. Aug. 1

Where: The Jumping Turtle, 1660 Capalina Road, San Marcos

Admission: $13

Info: (760) 471-7778 or thejumpingturtle.com

Web: myspace.com/flashburn

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