Forms of expression

When John Wood was 19 years old, he had a brush with the law. “I was arrested for mooning a cop,” he said. “He even called for backup.” Not long after that experience, he moved to California where he had a brush with death.

Wood was minding his own business, walking on the street with a friend of his when 9 shots rang out. While his friend was dying, the gunman pointed the gun at Wood and asked him, “Are you ready to die?” The empty chamber clicked, and Wood lived. The memory has remained vivid in Wood’s mind. “It was very surreal,” he said.

The event is forever memorialized in a song called “9 Shots” filled with observations of the experience like “no one to blame (except) love of greed and the power of pain.”

Wood, a former corporate executive, is a musician, a song writer and a painter, all things that enable him to work through trauma that all human beings have experienced at one time or another. His music may be considered “Gothic” by some; “New Metal” by others. “It’s hard to describe,” Wood said, “It might be that we’re more in-tune with the desperation’ side of life.”

His music is not filled with teenage angst but the more mature realization that pain remains and needs to be realized and released. This is illustrated in his poem/song called “Hollow:” “Hollow heart, hollow head, is there a reason for this? Plastic cases for the urvalic faces that I’ve seen in my lifetime. Oh god will I make it through? Hope I make it through just fine.”

Wood’s band is called Urvalic which is a made up word that could mean many things. They’ve been playing together for about a year, spending most of their time in the recording studio with big plans for the future including an upcoming movie score and regular playtime on radio stations. When they are ready to begin performing live, their shows will be very involved. “Sort of a mix between the Blue Man Group, Willie Wonka and Rob Zombie,” Wood said, “If you’re going to do something, you might as well go all the way.”

Wood has played in many bands in Spokane, Seattle and Los Angeles. He started the record label Establishment Entertainment Group based in Seattle and Spokane, with feelers in other cities including New York.

Urvalic’s sound is heavy, rhythmic and full of emotion as are Wood’s abstract paintings which he has only been doing for the last year. The pieces emit pure freedom including “Hypothalamus” filled with multicolored segmented shapes and a black and white study of piano keys.

Wood, 41, is all about expressing himself through music, words and paint. He grew up in the Spokane area, moved to the West Coast to follow his muse and now he’s back, settled with his daughter Kayla, working through his past and present into a future filled with creative expression.

“I still get ‘when are you going to grow up’ from others,” he said. “It’s not that I haven’t grown up, it’s just that I don’t hide anything.”