User:GoodEditsOnly

White Recluse
White Recluse
	White Recluse in Lincoln, Nebraska 2024
Background information
Origin	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.
Genres	Sludge metal; stoner metal; heavy metal;
Years active	2018–present
Labels	Dwell; Relapse; Metal Blade; Housecore;
Members	JT Wright; Gavin Al-Asif; Tommy Finnelly; Andrew Yoon;
Past members	Alec Wright; Scott Sowders; Logan Gardner;

GoodEditsOnly is a user who edits only good edits.

Early Life

GoodEditsOnly was born from a womb, and later went on to create an account on Wikipedia. He is from Laramie, Wyoming, though later moved to Lubbock, Texas before returning to Wyoming to attend the University of Wyoming on a computer science major.

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White Recluse is an American heavy metal band that formed in 2018. Hailing from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the band has been described as combining sludge metal with doom metal, stoner metal, grunge, groove metal, hardcore, and even elements of extreme metal.

History

Formation & Pre-History (2013-2020)

White Recluse formed from the remnants of Ashtree, a stoner metal band JT Wright had created while at College Park High School in The Woodlands, Texas. Ashtree saw minor success on the Houston underground scene between 2013 and 2014 but disbanded in 2015 due to constantly rotating lineups and Wright's interest in other projects. Two of Ashtree's members included Gavin Al-Asif and Scott Sowders, both of whom went to high school with Wright; the three met in a high school music theory class.

In 2018, Wright moved from Texas to Kalispell, Montana on a job promotion with Cinemark Theaters and befriended several coworkers who enjoyed heavy metal music. Many of these coworkers even performed in doom metal bands and gladly helped JT resurrect Ashtree. Wright formed a new band called White Recluse, named after a homegrown strand of marijuana bassist Logan Gardner was growing, reusing several older Ashtree songs ("Flower Girl", "Fifth Dimensionally") while also writing new songs ("Falling From The Top Of Nothing"). While in Montana, Wright released a demo, "Kalispell 2018", in which he played all instruments. This version of the band never officially took off and only played one show in Columbia Falls, Montana.

In early 2019, Wright moved from Montana to Austin, Texas but saw little to no success from White Recluse; though longtime friend Gavin Al-Asif joined the band and had "several full-band lineups meet up for practice", these lineups never amounted to much due to Wright's rampant depression and homelessness. In 2020, Wright moved to Jacksonville, Florida to play bass in the metal band Pandora & Her Box, and while the band was very successful on the local scene, Tyler felt his songwriting efforts often went ignored. To channel his ideas, he regrouped White Recluse with Scott Sowders, his former Ashtree drummer. Sowders and Wright flew to Gavin's apartment in Huntsville, Texas for a week to record the Huntsville 2020 demo, which was originally meant to be the band's debut LP. Sowders split from the band when his side-career as a Soundcloud rapper became a primary focus, and JT called his cousin, Alec Wright, to fulfill bass duties. Although JT lived in Florida, Gavin lived in Texas, and Alec lived in Oklahoma, the three spoke daily to come up with ideas and record new material that would then be sent and mixed by JT. Their first demo, The Payne County Torture Tapes, was recorded remotely in this method and was released in December of 2020, using a drum machine.

JT moved in with Alec in Stillwater, Oklahoma at the start of 2021. The band hired drummer Tommy Frizzell, a Guitar Center manager who had previously played in technical death metal band Commotio Cordis, acid rock band Cosmic Wool, and was a touring drummer for Texas Hippie Coalition. Though Tom had been semi-retired from music for several years, he agreed to join White Recluse due to his friendship with the Wrights, saying "the band just felt so natural."

This lineup recorded ‘’The Future Is Here” EP in 2021, but Alec, who had been running track at Oklahoma State, left White Recluse that winter after earning a transfer scholarship to the University of Wyoming. The band knew that Alec would be leaving for nearly six months, and had been auditioning new bassists with Alec's full consent. Some of these bassists, both live fill-ins and possible replacements, included former Ashtree bassists Dillon Kovar, Chuck Haley, and Blayk Deth, Nevermind The Embers and The Love Donations bassist Andrew Yoon, Rid Them All bassist Jon Hamm, Shift! musician Benjamin Rosfield, and Waylon Llewelyn, the bass technician at Tommy’s Guitar Center. Though Yoon was the band's first choice, Yoon initially turned it down due to his intense work schedule. Llewelyn briefly joined the band as a fill-in bassist, but was quickly fired within a month due to, according to Frizzell, "extremely bad vibes." Andrew Yoon decided to join after witnessing how poor Llewelyn meshed with the band and was officially brought in as the new full-time bassist on January 10, 2022.

The Oklahoma EP

For over a year, JT Wright, Frizzell, and Yoon played as a trio because Gavin Al-Asif worked and lived in Texas as an IT technician and could not dedicate much time to traveling to Oklahoma for practice and shows. Without Gavin, the band played their first full-lengthed “real” show at Kendell’s Bar in Oklahoma City on March 19, 2022, to a crowd of about 20, which included the entire lineup of Texas Hippie Coalition. They played as a trio at Richard’s Club on April 1, at Kendell’s again on April 9, and opened for Acid Witch on May 11.

Tommy openly debated leaving the band following the birth of his daughter, which scared Wright and Yoon into searching for other drummers; local drummers Chris Mathis and Tim Barth practiced with White Recluse, though were never brought into the band when Tommy decided to stay. Around this time, Wright feared that Gavin Al-Asif would also be leaving the band and offered Darian Thompson, guitarist of Locust Grove and Deity, the position in case Gavin left. Darian later guest-appeared on their debut album and worked as the band's touring guitar tech.

Due to their intense schedules (Wright was a full-time college student at Oklahoma City University who also worked in the local film industry, Yoon worked with the Oklahoma government, and Tommy was a father of two who also managed a pizza restaurant), the band played shows sparingly for several years. Despite this, White Recluse managed to quickly become one of Oklahoma's most popular metal bands. Their next show took place in Norman, Oklahoma at The Resonator on January 27, 2023; despite opening for Locust Grove, a metal band signed to IMG Records, a local paper noted that White Recluse's crowd number was more than double what Locust Grove's was. They played an underground floor show on February 5, which earned them a label contract offer from Braden Kowkicks, who was in the audience that night. White Recluse were signed to ____ Records, who released the band's next EP, the Oklahoma Metal EP, and raised funds for their first studio album. The Oklahoma Metal EP sold incredibly well and attracted the interest of Nuclear Blast.

Styles and Influences

White Recluse have listed various artists and bands as sources for their creative inspiration and influences, namely Crowbar, Black Sabbath, Alice In Chains, Death, Life Of Agony, Metallica, Tool, Control Denied, Pantera, Khemmis, Bathory, Candlemass, Acid Bath, Horn Of The Rhino, maudlin of the Well, Sepultura, Opeth, Electric Wizard, Gojira, Motionless In White, Agalloch, Turnstile, Primus, Gorguts, Pallbearer, Overkill, Converge, System Of A Down, Entombed, Demolition Hammer, Darkthrone, Cynic, We Came As Romans, Animals As Leaders, Witchfinder General, Jesu, Morta Skuld, The Sword, Saint Vitus, and the Oklahoma-based sludge metal band Self Inflicted, among others.

The band has also listed several artists outside of the metal genre for offering inspiration and influence, including Nirvana, The Cranberries, Slowdive, Slint, Cigarettes After Sex, American Football, Gorillaz, Weezer, Neutral Milk Hotel, Mac DeMarco, Massive Attack, and The Beatles, among others. Wright has said numerous times that The Beatles in particular one of White Recluse’s largest influences, and that the band listened to The Beatles “non-stop” while writing Broken Bow and Amorphis. Additionally, Wright says the band has drawn influence from folk music, as well as jazz from sources like Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Moondog.

JT Wright named Crowbar's sixth album, Sonic Excess In It's Purest Form, as the single most inspirational album to White Recluse's sound, saying "it's the best sludge metal album of all time, bar none...if I could take it from history and slap our logo on it, I probably would." In a video interview with Loudwire, Wright listed the following five albums as "albums fans of White Recluse should listen to"; Black Sabbath's Paranoid, Life of Agony's River Runs Red, Horn Of The Rhino's Weight Of Coronation, and Crowbar's Sonic Excess.

Members

Current

JT Wright - Vocals & Guitars (2018-present)
Gavin Al-Asif - Lead Guitars (2019-present)
Tommy Frizzell - Drums (2021-present)
Andrew Yoon - Bass (2022-present)

Former

Alec Wright - Bass (2020-2022)
Scott Sowders - Drums (2019-2020)

Session

Logan Gardner - Bass (2018-2019)
Waylon Lleweyllan - Bass(2021)
Tim Barth - Drums (2023)

Timeline

366 Production

Filming began on May 10, 2023 and concluded a full year later on May 10, 2024; this schedule was intentionally picked as Wright's graduation from college would serve as the film's climax. The film mostly chronologizes the real everyday life of the director, J. Tyler Wright, which included his university studies, vacations, campus visits, his senior capstone project, and his real graduation. The movie combines elements of documentary with experimental filmmaking, but also has some moments that are scripted.

According to Wright, "about 90% of the film" was shot on the Blackmagic Design Cinema Pocket 6K. However, some moments of footage were filmed with various iPhones and smartphones, a 1997 Sony Hi8 VHS camera, the webcam of a Macbook Pro, and multiple security cameras owned by Wright, including a Ring doorbell.

Release

The film first screened at Oklahoma City University's Dawson-Loeffler Theater on May 14, 2024, and then again at the Rodeo Cinema in Oklahoma City on May 25, 2024. The