Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Souls Extolled. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Souls Extolled thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

It’s difficult to say the most meaningful project we’ve worked on between our last album MMXXII, and the Seraphic War EP. We can understand how most of you who know us would be surprised there’s any comparison, considering for MMXXII we got to work with big time producer Omar Vallejo for the first time, and we accompanied the release of the album with our first national tour. These factors probably do put MMXXII ahead, as we got to push our sound to the next level with Omar in 512 Studios, and the coast-to-coast tour was easily one of the greatest experiences we’ve all had in our lives. With that said, Seraphic War is still a close second, as we wrote and recorded it in the solitude of the pandemic, in the heat of the social justice crisis and political turmoil, and in doing so really came together spiritually as a band, and for the first time started to dial in our unique sound. Although we took everything to a whole new level with MMXXII that the EP struggles to compare to, Seraphic War really laid the foundation for that as it garnered our first attention from premier local and regional establishments, as well as our first mass national radio play, significant national and international press, and various other important ‘firsts’ for us. After closer consideration, Seraphic War is meaningful for different reasons. However, the badass experiences associated with MMXXII make it the most meaningful for us, if we have to choose. We also want to note, the 2 music video shoots we did with CJ of Under Siege Productions are probably a solid third runner up!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We’re 4 years old this February, but our seeds were sown years earlier in the mind of then UT student Zach Black. Inspired by genre-smashers like Matisyahu, indie-rock in the vein of Modest Mouse, and a myriad of classics from Black Sabbath and The Doors to Rancid-esc ska punk, Zach wanted to create an epic fusion of his influences through the simplicity of a standard rock band setup. Meanwhile, Austin native JP Ortiz had been cutting his teeth with downtown bass gigs since his teens! With his reputation for a quick musical wit and creative yet solid ‘pocket’ bass playing, JP was recommended to Zach by local guitarist and teacher Sameer Durani in 2018 when Zach was looking for session players for a predecessor project. Zach and JP started kicking it and soon became best friends. On the other side of town, a drummer with a formal background in band and jazz percussion, Joe Valadez, had come to Austin from the Houston area for college at St Edwards and found his initial musical home with Austin heavy-hitters Fair City Fire. Zach met Joe at a Fair City show and they became friends through an epic psychedelic experience seeing Tame Impala and Modest Mouse at Float Fest. When they ran into each other again at an open mic weeks later, Zach invited Joe to come jamn with him and JP, and in February of 2019 Souls Extolled was born. Our goal since our conception has been to make the music we feel is missing from the world, what we see as the natural evolution of rock music, fusing our favorite flavors of rock from psychedelic and indie-rock to ska punk, grunge, and metal. Additionally, we’ve always sought to hold ourselves to our own golden standard of art, which is to make art that is honest in that through its sounds and meanings it reveals something true about who we are and our experience. Finally, our goal is to be a facilitator of good times to our friends and other lovers of rock music.
In terms of what we’re most proud of, we’re really proud of our entire body of work, generally speaking. But even more so, we’re proud of all the awesome experiences and kinship we’ve had with each other and our people, The Restless Kind, through this band.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’m sure most other creative artists out there can relate when we say that our biggest pivot was definitely in response to the global pandemic. We had only been a band for just over a year and had dropped our first album Follow the Ghosts a few months prior. Our thing at the time was just to get out and play anywhere we could, as much as we could, and we were getting ready for our second SXSW, but the first one we were at all prepared for! Then the world came to a crash and for a while we couldn’t even jamn while we were all quarantined. However, as soon as we could start getting together safely, we decided to press forward and try to be productive any way that we could. Although we dabbled with some live streams and other pandemic-era trends, for the most part we just wrote and jammed a lot, and the result was the Seraphic War EP. Those songs really brought us together during a tough time and seemed to channel a lot of the pain and chaos of that period accordingly. We felt that through the EP we had really figured out what the band was about, both philosophically and sonically, and therefore it remains a major milestone for us. Additionally when the scene came back it wasn’t the same, with fewer venues and everyone trying to get back out there at the same time, so we really had to learn to make the most of fewer live events, and also start going out of town. We actually learned that we prefer to spread out our gigs out more, which not only keeps us from getting burned out, but also seems to make the shows more special in a way, and therefore generally more successful.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For us it’s definitely when you have a great show! The pandemic taught us to never take live music for granted, and although we love to write and play generally, we realized that the primary reason we do this is to get out and play for people, in person. That’s what we love to do! There’s nothing like the atmosphere of a rock concert, and when we know that we successfully transmitted some of the energy we feel in our music to the crowd. And then the good times around the show when we really feel the love! And while touring is probably the pinnacle experience of playing live shows, some of our most special shows have obviously been to the home crowd. Either way, there’s nothing like it! That’s definitely the most rewarding part.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://soulsextolled.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/soulsextolled
• Facebook: http://facebook.com/soulsextolled
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/soulsextolled
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/soulsextolled
• Other: best links for us are: https://linktr.ee/soulsextolled https://soulsextolled.com/epk

Image Credits
the first one with JP jumping on the rail is Patrick Kirk Thomas the black and white live shot and the red/blue/purple smoky live shot are Caden Leavell all the rest are Seth Talkington