Instrumental Tech/Prog Metal Seeks Lead Guitar

Oregon City OR

Description

Increate is an established band that has been playing in the Portland area for ~8 years. Unfortunately our current lead guitarist is going through a tough phase in his life and will not be able to continue playing with us in the future, so we're beginning the long and painful search for somebody new. Apologies in advance for the semi-long post and demanding tone, but we’re just hoping to avoid trying out a bunch of people and wasting everyone’s time. What we're trying to find is someone who is capable of writing both some catchy and shreddy lead parts, as well as playing and/or harmonizing most of the rhythm parts with me. Our writing style is fairly unique and complex, but to put it simply, think of it as a mixture of Meshuggah and Animals as Leaders. You don't have to be able to shred like Tosin (or our current guitarist), but that's certainly a bonus if you can. You must be able to understand polyrhythms and play odd time signatures as comfortably as 4/4. Ideally you'd have at least a base foundation of music theory knowledge as well so that you can quickly grasp the concepts of what we're doing. That said, we don't expect anybody to come in and learn everything instantly, so I'm happy to go over everything in fine details and would honestly prefer to. Pro gear is a definite requirement (I play a Kiesel Vader VM8 with a Kemper and FRFR speaker). You don’t necessarily need to have recording capabilities but your tone must sound good live at full volume. I play an 8 string downtuned 1.5 steps to D# standard and we won't be changing the tuning, so if that will be an issue for you then unfortunately it won't work out. I do have a back-up Kiesel in the correct tuning that you can use during practice for the first few months though, if necessary. We do have material nearly ready for a third album which we are planning to start recording this winter. We typically try to play shows about once a month, with the occasional weekend-long run and maybe a ~10 day tour about once a year. You won’t be required to write all of the lead parts for the new album, but it would be preferred for you to at least dip your toes in with us and contribute to the writing process. The remaining three of us (myself on guitar, bass and drums) are all in our early-mid 30's and have day jobs. We practice at my house in Oregon City once a week, usually on Wednesdays or Thursdays from about 5:30 – 8:30. Light drinking and weed smoking is cool, but no hard drugs please. You can check out both of our albums at https://increate.bandcamp.com/ (also available on all of the streaming services). Please listen to a few different songs so you can get a feel for our style before responding. Full tabs are also available for every song we have written. If this sounds intriguing to you, feel free to send some clips of your own writing/playing and we can chat from there. Serious inquiries only – please be honest about whether or not you’re capable of what we’re looking for. - Sean (rhythm guitarist for Increate)