The band plays metal the way Mercyful Fate and Saxon knew it: simple, pounding rhythms; heavy, catchy riffs; lonnnnnng guitar solos; lyrics about, alternately, mysticism and sex; and falsetto wails. Looking like Cliff Huxtable's idea of a rock star -- long hair, leather pants, chains, and wristbands -- is something each band member also takes seriously. A neat "package" of appropriate metal looks and appropriate metal songs is what Aska's been delivering for the past 12 years. All those musical styles that have come and gone since then (grunge, rap rock, art rock, pop punk), and all those looks that have also been "in" one day and "out" the next (flannel shirts, ball-caps-and-baggy-pants, shaved heads and goatees) have had no, zero, zilch influence on the quartet. They're still all about black leather and silver studs, and their eponymous first album, from 1991, sounds a whole helluva lot like their fourth and most recent c.d., Avenger (Steelheart Records; 2001) -- except that Avenger reflects a band at the height of its prodigious talents. Led by Call, one of the most underrated singers and guitarists in the Metroplex, the stalwarts of Aska are musical loyalists in a world of turncoats. No area outfit pounds out long-thought-dead power metal better or more sincerely than they do. But there's very little room in the Fort Worth-Dallas region for a band like Aska. Clubs around these parts mostly service acts of regional styles and genres: country, blues, and a lot of indie rock. Overseas is a different story. In places like Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, power metal lives comfortably right alongside power pop, hip-hop, and pop rock, and in every place but here Aska is a Big Deal: They signed with Italy's Steelheart Records last year, and each member, with money from the advance, bought a house in the Metroplex. They've played in clubs across the globe and on U.S. military bases in 37 countries as part of the USO's entertainment program for American soldiers stationed overseas. They've been lauded by the international media. And they just finished a crown jewel of a gig -- opening for metal gods Judas Priest at the Bronco Bowl in Dallas. Will Aska become a household name? Probably not -- unless your household includes subscriptions to Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs magazines, a Manowar c.d. or six, and a stack of Witchblade comic books. But you could say Aska is the envy of a large percentage of better-loved, more-praised, and better-respected local acts. This band is doing what it loves, and each member could -- if he wanted to -- get by doing only this.
The men in Aska are, indeed, walking anachronisms: While each band member is obviously aware of the inexorable march of time -- and is familiar with concepts like, say, taxes and homeland security -- each is also a minor case of arrested development. These guys are into the same things they've been fascinated with since youth -- cars, video games, guns, and chesty comic book heroines. You wouldn't find a copy of Remembrance of Things Past or Ivanhoe in any one of the band members' libraries. So you can almost understand why the easiest thing in the world would be to write off Aska as juvenile entertainment by juvenile minds. Aska can work and play their asses off, but they're still never going to be accepted by mainstream culture. Heavy metal music has no redeeming social component: It's aggressive music made by and for aggressive white males. In a multicultural world, power metal is truly the devil's music -- the blue-eyed devil's. The main guy behind all things Aska is Call, who the Dallas Observer once said sang as if he "had half a ball." Call not only pens the lyrics to nearly every Aska tune, he sings every song, comes up with the majority of the riffs, and handles 60 percent of the guitar solos. He also writes most of the sludge on the band's web site (www.askaband.com), books shows, coordinates rehearsals, oversees the production and distribution of Aska T-shirts, and keeps track of the band's contact list. Nothing in the band happens until Call has signed off on it, yet the married father of one carries himself like a happy-go-lucky flaneur. The dark-maned Call is about average height and is frighteningly thin, and in his smoky voice (though Call neither smokes nor drinks beer) he can chat up the hottest woman in the room without coming off the least bit desperate or intimidated. His good humor is infectious, and the party doesn't start until he shows up. The other guys in the band are bit more laid-back. Bassist Knight is a muscular outdoorsman who looks like wrestler Ric Flair and gives the impression that he'd much rather be communing with nature than talking with fans, while rhythm guitarist Norton is the dark, strong, silent type who -- once he gets around to conversing -- reveals himself to be quite the pipe-puffing philosopher. (Up until last week, Call's younger brother Damon had been handling drumming duties; he quit to concentrate on his job with -- of all places -- the Tarrant County sheriff's department.) The band, the way everyone now sees it, is much better off with Call as its frontman than it was when each member wanted the job. "We had the attitude we were gonna please ourselves, each of us," Call said. "That's a recipe for disaster. We ended up playing metal in way too many styles."
Call and Damon grew up in Diablo, in the Canal Zone of Panama; their father worked for the U.S. government. The way of life there was pretty idyllic: "It was like a country club," Call said. In Panama, he said, your lawns were mowed for you, you were surrounded by plenty of open space, and you could pick and eat fruit right off the trees. Call's father's record collection was, according to the metalhead, deep and wide enough to fill the shelf space of a small store. Disco and country-western predominated, though there was a little bit of everything else, too. Call was in fifth grade when two momentous events happened: He met Darren Knapp, the guy with whom he would eventually form the first incarnation of Aska, and ... he heard KISS. The record was Alive!, and the Call boys bought it at a yard sale with $2 of gift money that Damon regularly got from an Italian godfather whose sources of vast income were always suspect. When the boys told their father about this great new band, they didn't get exactly the response they were looking for. "My dad said, 'That's nice.' Then he said, 'But I don't think so,' " and promptly hid the record, Call said. Its MIA status was short-lived. The boys eventually found it and played it while their father was at work. The kids were spellbound -- and hooked on metal. "At that moment," Call said, "I wanted to learn how to play guitar. I wanted to do whatever I needed to be like those guys." The Call boys then exposed Knapp to the kabuki-and-metal show that was KISS. Young Darren was immediately sold. Two summers later, Knapp went to New York to visit. As soon as he returned home, he was greeted by an anxious Call. "I called him up, and I said, 'Darren, I got a surprise for you.' And he said, 'Well, George, I got a surprise for you.' " The boys agreed to meet at Knapp's house. "I knocked on the door, and he opened it, and I was standing there with my arm behind my back, and he was standing there with his arm behind his back, and at the same time we both showed each other." What each future metalhead was holding was a six-string guitar. "We were, like, 'We're gonna form a band!' " The path to KISS-esque stardom seemed right around the corner. |
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