Doomed Confessionary: Michael, Josh & Myles (Children Of Atom)
Just a couple door to door sorcerers hustling vibes, Children Of Atom is a 3 piece psy-fi rock band from Spokane, Washington with a sound that blends classic psychedelic rock and blues with heavy metal science friction creating a unique sound that calls back to the power trios of the late 60s and 70s but still manages to add something different. Described as “Grand Funk on space station acid” the Children throw in a little touch of punk, funk, and desert rock feel while bringing the heavy headbanging riffs to heel with a healthy dose of cosmic boogie.
Children Of Atom are Michael Fenris (vocals, guitar), Josh McClure (drums) and Myles Weaver (bass, vocals).
Be prepared to bang your head and shake your ass in equal measure whenever Children Of Atom come to town!
Can you say a few words about your band?
Michael: We’re a psy-fi stoner rock band from Eastern Washington. At least that’s what our band bio says. Basically that’s just short for psychedelic sci-fi rock which loosely describes our style of cramming a bunch of styles together and flip-flopping genres like a crackhead with ADD. We try to actively avoid homogenizing our sound in any way or writing the same songs twice, so sometimes we end up with an odd combination that works, and that’s sorta what we’re looking for: odd. We’re all big nerds. We love sci-fi and comic books, so naturally we make spaceship noises with guitars and call it rock and roll. Basically, we’re weirdos, and we make music for weirdos.
What was the biggest challenge for the band?
Myles: Definitely finding the right people to play with.
Josh: Yeah, sometimes styles or personalities don’t mesh.
Michael: Yeah, I don’t think I’m a particularly difficult guy to get along with, but sometimes even when the playing is right, the player isn’t. You have to be able to spend every waking moment with that person on tour when we’re all crammed in the van together. Plus not everybody wants to tour and spend all their free time doing everything an independent band has to do to get by. It’s a lot. It doesn’t pay much, if at all. “You gotta do it for the love of it” is what all the veteran musicians seem to say. Its always been a big setback for us trying to find people that mesh personally, professionally, and musically, and get them integrated into our sound, but it’s worth it to finally feel like we’ve found the right people with the right vibe.
What can you be most proud of so far?
Myles: I’m proud to be in a band that provides the needed expression and song writing that I align with. It’s been really rewarding touring and making friends and feeling like I belong.
Josh: Yeah, finally getting the chance to tour. We’re an independent band without much financial support and it takes a lot to put a tour together. We really started to take on booking our own tours and getting out of our corner of the country right before COVID hit so, obviously that set us back a bit, but getting back at it and coming out the other end with a ton of new shows under our belt and a bunch of new friends, experiences, and memories all feels really good.
Michael: Personally, as a kid I never thought I’d have the chance to record my music or make a record. That was something rockstars did in million dollar studios. So having the chance to record and distribute our music at all is a literal dream come true. We’ve always had kind of a tough time translating what we do live onto a record, so recently we’ve taken on the recording role ourselves and it’s been really fun to have the total freedom to try things and make mistakes and not be counting the minutes by the dollars they’re costing us.
What was your biggest regret?
Myles: The only regret I have is not having more time to put towards releasing more music and getting on the road to more places we‘ve never been before.
Josh: I have NO RAGRETS.
Michael: I regret touring in a 1976 Ford econoline. I definitely don’t regret the tour, that was killer, despite all the trials and tribulations, but I think I spent more time under the van than in it.
What was the best concert/tour so far and why?
Myles: Aside from being stranded in Redding, this last tour was a blast.
Michael: Yeah, despite all the hardships, I think we all trauma bonded so much dealing with that old van that we came out of it a better band. Getting repeatedly stranded several hundred miles from home is a great team building exercise.
Josh: Playing in Vegas on this last tour was definitely a high point for me. The Red Dwarf was really cool and their pizza is sooo good.
What was the biggest surprise on the music scene for you?
Myles: It’s always a bit of a surprise finding fans in distant cities where we don’t really know anyone and to see how many awesome, talented bands we get to share the stage with.
Josh: You never know what you’re going to get as a touring band playing a city for the first time. Our reception in Vegas kind of caught me off guard. It’s such a huge entertainment town, and it wasn’t an easy one to book, but it ended up being a highlight of the tour.
Michael: It’s always super humbling to me that, in a town like that with a thousand things to do, people will still pack a room for a couple riff-peddling hobos yelling about outer space.
Honestly though, I’m constantly surprised at how tight knit and supportive the whole stoner/doom/psych scene is. Some music scenes are so viciously competitive and toxic, and it’s so refreshing to be a part of a community that really seems to go above and beyond to actively support one another.
What is currently in your heavy musical rotation?
Michael: I’ve been revisiting a lot of Alice In Chains lately. I’ve always listened to them more as a guitarist, but we’ve been playing more and more with vocal harmonies and if you’re looking for inspiration, there aren’t many heavy bands who do it better. I’ve also been addicted to the 20th anniversary reissue of Mark Lanegan’s »Bubblegum«. I dunno if that’s exactly heavy but I think we all tend to spend a lot of time listening outside our genre for something new to bring to the table and Mark Lanegan is one of my all time favorite singers.
Josh: I’ve been listening to Hippie Death Cult’s new album a lot.
Myles: I just became a dad in November, so I’ve been spending a lot of time at home listening to Zeppelin with my son.
What was the best advice you’ve ever been given as a musician?
Myles: As a bass player: play to the song. As a guitarist: use the volume knob on your guitar.
Josh: Keep extra hardware in case something breaks or somebody forgot their drums.
Michael: There will always be a million and one guitarists in the world with more technical skill than you, or longer fingers, or whatever it is. Don’t be too stuck up or self-conscious to play with those people. You’ll get a lot better for it.
What are your guilty pleasures?
Michael: Well what have you got? I don’t know about ‘guilty’, but some of my pleasures are: reefer, motorcycles, tequila cokes, and too many video games.
Josh: Neil Diamond because money talks but it can’t sing and dance.
Myles: Sour cream and cheddar Ruffles.
Can you say something more about the current music scene in Spokane?
Michael: Spokane is kinda tucked away, but there’s a lot of great music in this town that I think is often overlooked. It seems to be growing in the past few years and we’re getting more and more touring bands playing out here which seems to be helping the scene grow and reach further outside of our little city.
Myles: I teach at a rock school and it’s really cool to see the kids forming bands and performing on some of the stages I grew up playing.
Where can we see you live this year (concerts/tours)?
Michael: We’re focusing on writing some new material now and releasing some more new music coming up this spring which we’ll be announcing shortly, but as the snows thaw we’ll be heading out on the road again for sure. If you’re following us on any kind of social media, Spotify, or whatever, you will definitely be in the know when the new music is coming and when we can announce some dates.
What are your plans for the future as a band?
Myles: Put out more music. Play more shows.
Michael: Write a hit, get rich, break up, do a reunion tour.
Josh: Get back to the Red Dwarf and get some more of that pizza.
How can people best support your band?
Michael: Really just check us out, and if you like what you hear we’ve got more music on the way. You can find us on Spotify, YouTube, Bandcamp, etc. We’ve got merch if you’re into that kind of thing, but really as an independent band the hardest thing to do is get in front of people so any help doing that goes further than any t-shirt or buttplug we sell at the merch table.
Myles: Yeah come out to a show if we’re in your area, buy some merch, hang out with us.
Josh: And bring pizza.
Do you have any message for your listeners?
Michael: Listen to »Paraedolia« backwards. There’s no hidden message, it just sounds cool.
Josh: All hail the Glow Cloud and stay out of the dog park.
Myles: Thanks for the love and support!
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well