“If Evan or Levi showed up at my front door in the middle of the night, I’d probably call the cops,” laughed YUUGE founding member Ryan Abts. “I’ve literally never spoken to them or even seen them outside pictures on Instagram.”
Evan and Levi are the singer and drummer, respectively, in YUUGE.
Yet, YUUGE has garnered serious votes for ‘new band of the year’ across a variety of major music publications and has thousands of social media followers, despite rarely posting.
Their debut single, ‘Zepperiah,’ has garnered favorable comparisons to rock legends, TOOL, and other modern metal mainstays such as Architects and Bring Me the Horizon.
But, how does that even happen? How does a band who has never even met manifest a popular single and a following?
“I first encountered Ryan on the URM Producer’s Board Facebook page, a diverse conglomerate of musicians and producers,” said YUUGE vocalist, Evan Milosevic.
‘URM’ in this case is the Ultimate Recording Machine Academy, which is an online audio school founded by noted metal producers Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi. Members gain access to a private Facebook page where they can interact via the social network medium.
“He had shared a demo that immediately piqued my interest, along with the desire to collaborate with a vocalist for a long-term project, now known to the world as YUUGE.”
But, how did they creatively formulate the actual project?
“100% Facebook Messenger,” laughed Milosevic. “I’m proud to say the result speaks for itself.”
“I actually have loved this process. Trying to make a band is brutal,” said Abts. “I’ve mostly found three types of people - dedicated but not talented, talented but not dedicated and people that are neither.”
“URM organically self-selects out of that. You have to be a really driven maniac by virtue of being a part of that community, and you really build the ability to represent your musical ideas and talents.”
Interestingly enough, when the drummer for YUUGE’s debut album, Chrysalis Retrograde, couldn’t make his schedule align for the writing and recording process for YUUGE’s upcoming 2nd album, where did Abts and
Milosevic turn to find a new addition on the drums?
You guessed it - URM. And how have they all been communicating and creating?
“It’s been a great collaborative effort between us...all on Facebook Messenger,” laughed newly minted YUUGE drummer, Leviathvn. “Especially in this day in age where home recording and producing is more accessible than ever before. This material posed an exciting new challenge to work on, and the distance between us was not one of these challenges.”
“Ryan had a pretty clear vision of what he wanted and I used that vision and embellished it to take it to the next level of what he had in mind. All while being in the comforts of our own home," added Levi. Pretty nice.
The big question now is - will YUUGE ever leave the comforts of their own homes and play live for their rapidly building global audience?
“Who knows? We’ve got such a massive demand to go on tour in Europe. It’s actually getting ridiculous…You know, that could be the first time we actually hang out IRL,” Abts laughed.
Release Date: Sept. 29, 2023
FFO: Tool, Architects, Karnivool
Location: Minneapolis, Philadelphia & Cyprus
“This is gonna be yuuuuuge,” said Lyft driver Giovanni Stonecipher as he turned the volume up to the song Zepperiah to levels only comfortable to a wildebeest.
And thus, the band was dubbed YUUGE. An unlikely International Progressive Metal pairing of singer, Evan, of the island of Cyprus, multi-instrumentalist, Ryan, of the icy hell of Minneapolis, and drummer, Ross, of the cruel, cruel desert of Phoenix, YUUGE simultaneously interweaves formula-crushing song structures, aggressive brutality, transcendental beauty and, at times, the suspicious near silence of a cobra trapped in a wine bottle.
In an age in which Tik-Tok influencers and AI each calculatedly simulate art by parroting exhausted themes and chord structures with as much spirit as a Senator disposes a condom wrapper, YUUGE sits like Göbekli Tepe next to a Pizza Hut.
Check them out on YouTube and subscribe!
Follow them on Spotify and add them to your playlists!
Follow the band at these links:
https://www.instagram.com/yuugemusic/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090508417066
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5jbA7ewgq2Ss5jzBGafY6F
https://www.youtube.com/@yuuge
https://metaldevastationradio.com/thebeast/blog/25113/the-band-yuuge-thats-never-met-gains-millions-of-streams?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger
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