By Jim Barber
Every artist has facets of their creative personalities – streams of imagination that flow in from different directions, feeding the wellspring of their artistic soul. Sometimes they remain unexplored for reasons of time, temperament or timidness. Some become brief diversions that one simply taps into them from time to time to spice up that which is their main artistic outlet.
But then there are a rare few who wish to explore, to push the boundaries of their artistic horizons, challenge themselves as creators. With those whose craft is music, these songsmiths are rarely influenced by a solitary style or genre of music, although their output may tend to stay focused in one area. Others, at a certain point in their careers, want to head into these other artistic avenues, boldly allowing their hearts, minds and spirits to pursue these rabbit holes of uniqueness and variety to see what transpires. When this happens, and they lock in, these explorations become an absorbingly bold new enterprise for them.
For much of her three decades as a solo artist, Emm Gryner has tended to release music that is generally categorized within the broad pop/singer/songwriter territory. And she has done so to superlative critical acclaim, generating a demographically and geographically broad base of fans and admirers for albums such as Science Fair (1999), Asianblue (2002), Goddess (2009), Northern Gospel (2011) and 2014’s Torrential.
But over the last decade, whether from creative restlessness, a desire to broaden her musical horizons, to tap into new audiences or a combination of the three, Gryner has become more exuberant in her musical wandering, following the muse where it chooses to take her. She has delved into traditional Celtic music (Aonaran, 2016), a prog-rock concept album (Only of Earth: Days of Games in 2017), classic jazz (2020’s Just for You) and yacht rock with Business & Pleasure in 2023. She also collaborated with fellow songwriters/musicians Dayna Manning and Lindsay Schindler on the Canadiana-inspired Trent Severn project, worked alongside the brilliant axe-slinger Sean Kelly (Lee Aaron, Crash Kelly, Helix) on the hard rock band Trapper, and delved into more literary works (September 2021’s book The Healing Power of Singing) and acting as a life coach and music business mentor.
Now, she’s gone full metal with her new band, Ovary Act, which is releasing its first single. ‘Rise Up To Fall,’ on her own Dead Daisy Records on Saturday, June 14 on all streaming platforms. It is more than just an exercise in experimentation, as Gryner’s approach to this band (it is neither a ‘project’ nor a ‘collective’ although she confides that it will feature a rotating cast of characters as she builds up a repertoire of original music) is different than how she’s approached any aspect of her career as it is being led by her heart more so than her head. It is passionate, but more than a passion project. The music of Ovary Act is not so much about making a powerful and provocative statement as the entire philosophy and modality of the band is the statement. The medium of the band is the message – and that message is sharp, fierce, eminently relevant and much needed in the day and age within which we find ourselves as we roll through the discordant 2020s.
Being the clever and brilliant artist that she is, Gryner’s name for this new band is indeed predicated on some evocative wordplay. Ovary is, of course, an integral part of the female reproductive system and Axe is just a very ‘metal’ word which invokes everything from Vikings to medieval executioners. Ovary Axe, as an idea, as well as a band, can be interpreted as weaponized, righteous female anger, a statement of empowerment and aggression towards the ills of society – the patriarchal biases and structures that hold so many people down; the rise of anti-democratic, anti-science, anti-anything non-white and heterosexual authoritarianism, destruction of our natural environment, war, famine etc.
But there’s also a more subtle meaning behind the name. When you say it out loud, it comes out as ‘overreacts’ – which is a self-deprecating commentary on Gryner’s own predilection towards blowing things out of proportion.
“The name just kind of landed out of the sky and it made me think about the word ‘overreacting.’ When I was younger, I was highly sensitive – I still am, which is why I think I am a songwriter. So, I would get really upset about things, lots of things. And my mom would always say I was overreacting. And it wasn’t like she said it once in a while. It was told to me every week pretty much. I was prone to overreacting and overexaggerating so the name Ovary Axe kind of fits. And then obviously there’s the female element and the word ‘axe.’ How could you not just take that as your heavy metal band name, right?,” she said from her home in London, Ontario.
“I am still writing a lot of the music for this band, so it’s still kind of a work in progress. There is a definite intent to not only express this anger and outrage but also to celebrate myself and other women and the sort of evolving personalities we all have and how we respond to things in different ways. But it’s not going to be the same type of song over and over. There will be a lot of common threads between them. I want to keep things open to what I am going to write about because there’s a lot to be angry about – that’s not a problem.”
She only half-jokingly called the impetus for creating a metal band, “mid-life rage,” but there is a certain Morello-esque, Rage Against the Machine tone to Ovary Axe’s first single, ‘Rise Up To Fall,’ in that it is a song impelled by legitimate indignation at so many of the awful things happening in the world to those most vulnerable, to those who don’t conform, and especially to the innocent. The abuse of power, the demonization and dehumanization of entire communities of people, the increasing poverty gap, the backsliding on women’s reproductive rights, corruption at the highest levels of society. In short, Gryner the human has no more f***s to give, and Gryner the artist has decided to use her creative gifts to unleash a compelling, literate, but scorching volley back in the faces of the agents of chaos dominating our collective news cycle.
“I’ve been thinking about a metal band for maybe a year and a half. With Ovary Act, there were two really significant events that happened in September of last year that made me go, ‘okay, metal, or hard rock or whatever you want to call it, is the only way to communicate my feelings around some of these things.’ One was I saw the movie The Substance [starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley] It’s sort of a body horror film, but also kind of a black comedy, and normally I wouldn’t see something like that but I had an idea of what it was about and, as someone who is in their 40s, you see it all around you: Botox and other injections and all this stuff that women are inspired to do, or they’re driven to do, or they dabble with because their friends are trying it. It’s always been a really confusing and irritating sort of societal landscape for me. So I knew the movie would kind of hit that nerve. And I love the whole premise because it sort of gave definition to a lot of that irritation and rage and stuff,” she explained.
“So that came out in September and it really blew my mind and it made me really want to create. And then there was a lot of other stuff going on in the world, but specifically the Gisele Pelicot trial in France. It inspired me to write the first song for this project, which is called ‘Face Fire.’”
Pelicot’s case made world headlines. More than a decade and a half ago, she was raped by multiple men while drugged, incidents organized by her then husband, who also drugged and raped her on many occasions. Normally the name of the victim is withheld by the court, as happens in Canada, but Gisele chose to have her name and story publicized to encourage other women to come forward if they had suffered similarly horrific crimes. She also went public and welcomed the extensive media coverage because her case also revealed the truth of the institutional bias against female victims of violence inherent within the French judicial system, and the broader society. The details of the crime (there were 50 defendants, with 45 of them being found guilty and sent to prison), were graphic evidence of the misogyny, gross lack of understanding and inequality that still exists for women, even in so-called advanced western democracies, and became a rallying point for change within Europe and North America.
It was the enmity generated by the case, but also the strength demonstrated by Gisele, combined with the scathing social commentary of The Substance, that motivated Gryner to make her own contribution to these discussions, dialogue and debates, and to use the vehicle of metal music through which to channel this sense of outrage.
“There’re going to be hardcore metalheads who say, ‘well this is more just like melodic hard rock’ or whatnot. And honestly, people can call it whatever they like. But I know what aspects of metal I gravitated to as a child. And that would be bands like Iron Maiden especially. Just finding out about Iron Maiden when I was 12 was pretty formative. And sometimes, it’s all the metal education you need. And like punk rock, metal is designed to engage people with these issues and an outlet to express anger about injustice and inequality and war and all these terrible things happening. I almost think if you’re not using that genre to do these things, what’s the matter with you,” she said, adding that part of the allure of Iron Maiden was the power and soaring nature of lead singer Bruce Dickinson’s voice.
“The vocals will always be a big part of metal for me. And that was what appealed to me when I was younger too, people like [former Queensryche singer] Geoff Tate and Bruce Dickinson, and also people like Klaus Meine of The Scorpions and of course David Coverdale. And even though I have two brothers, I found Iron Maiden on my own. I was reading a lot of the metal magazines at the time, It was the [1988] Seventh Son of a Seventh Son album, I remember getting it on cassette. But then when I went back in their catalogue, my favourite album of theirs became Piece of Mind [1983]. It’s just a fun album to play bass along with. I didn’t even really know who [bassist] Steve Harris was, I just knew I loved those galloping bass lines. I think most people, especially most young musicians, kind of needed to possess certain bands and it was very personal and you didn’t want to share them with another sibling or friend or whatever. That’s kind of where my introduction to not just metal but to wanting to play music started.
“I wasn’t crazy about a lot of other bands so I was fixated on Iron Maiden for a little while, but then I remember getting into Kings X too. I think they’re not necessarily metal, but pretty close. And I think too the metal genre has always been about, and I don’t want to generalize too much, but there’s an aspect of it where the bands are saying, ‘we’re doing this no matter whether we’re making $5 or $5 million.’ The joy is in building the community. I just don’t have that community yet, but this is a starting point.”
With three decades of experience (good, bad and otherwise) as a professional songwriter, performer, touring musician, record label owner, and music coach, Gryner’s approach to Ovary Axe is actually quite revelatory in how it opens her up to new ways of creating. The open-endedness of the process of building the band and it’s music is indicative of an artist who is confident enough in their abilities to blaze a new trail without knowing the final destination, emotionally resilient enough to fend off the slings and arrows of idle commentary from the interweb or from cultural busybodies who think they know how, why and for whom an artist should operate, and open to allowing herself to be buffeted by the occasional bouts of uncertainty, open to new voices steering her in interesting new directions and talented enough to make beautiful musical statements at each step of the journey.
“I am still wrestling with it all. ‘Rise Up To Fall’ is about misogyny and the awfulness of celebrity culture and what it means for women. But there’s also part of it that’s crying out for integrity and kindness to rise louder than ever. You can be angry, and I think there’s a way to channel that. To me it’s just so bonkers that everyone has gotten away with what they’ve gotten away with. But at the heart of it, I think are very broken people. And I know that may not be what people want to hear, they just want to rage and to blame, but I think this band and the process of discovering its voice will eventually help me to become more compassionate. Not that I will turn a blind eye to injustice but be more compassionate and gain an understanding of the root of why people do what they do. I know a bad childhood doesn’t excuse anything, but these are very deeply unloved people. And they were probably surrounded by fear their whole lives,” Gryner said.
“You can be angry, but is it useful? It depends on how you channel that anger. There’s a lot that is really sickening in the news. I mean ‘Rise Up To Fall’ is very much about Trump and Diddy and that whole thing. I don’t know. I just feel more than ever that I need to communicate all of this through music instead of ranting and raving about everything that’s going on. I don’t know what more I can add to it that is actually productive other that to do this band. And there’s also the physicality of it. It’s a release, because it’s not feasible to go to a rage room every minute of the day. If people had a way to channel their anger that wasn’t harmful to others, maybe some of these things wouldn’t escalate. And that’s why the metal genre and punk too is the right way to go. It’s so cathartic and the shows are so physical, but no-one is getting hurt. Honestly, there is a quiet, deliberate methodology to what I’m doing. Until I really get it going, it’s hard to say what the movement really feels like, because it is a movement. And I don’t mean for it to sound grandiose: it’s about engaging as many people as possible and not just one person bitching on a podcast or something. But also it really is a work in progress and I am okay with that. It’s the reason I’m a songwriter because it’s the best way I know to process these thoughts and emotions and reactions to what I am seeing and feeling.”
“In a lot of ways I am doing this band quite differently than other projects where they’re usually all mapped out. With those things I know who’s in the band, I know what the songs are and what everything looks like and where it’s going to tour. But for Ovary Axe I am keeping it open as to who comes along to inspire it. And I’ve done that with this first single.”
Gryner is producing Ovary Axe’s music with most of collaborators on ‘Rise Up To Fall’ including producer/drummer Ian Romano (City and Colour among many projects), who mixed the single, being folks she never worked with before, but who entered her orbit, seemingly serendipitously, to bring her vision to life.
“I have Keegan Hornbostel on guitar. He’s a 19-year-old kid from Petrolia [Ontario] and to be totally honest, he was my vocal student. He’s actually a big part of why this band exists. He brought a lot of new metal into our lessons and he’s an amazing guitar player and singer and right now he’s rocking it. He’s going away to school in the fall, so he will do what he can, when he can. But like a lot of what’s happening with this band, I will just see how things go. And I also have my friend [veteran Toronto-based touring and studio drummer] Tim Timleck [with whom she worked alongside in Trapper] playing drums, and he’s incredible.
Besides being a calculated but still visceral response to world affairs and the general messed up nature of large parts of society, Gryner’s new creative arc was also inspired by some of the work she has been doing studying human behaviour from a more academic perspective. And this is also helping her to understand how to engage with her current audience and build new audiences for her music.
“I’ve always had an interest in human behaviour. I think as an independent artist you’re on your own to figure out how to promote music and also how to understand audiences. I wouldn’t say that record labels always know what’s going on, but it would be helpful for them to look at the psychology of their audiences. I find it quite interesting. I think a lot of what is going on with social media is not really helping people. People are just sort of talking to camera and trying to appeal to someone’s mind. I think it’s time for appealing to the heart,” she said adding that while some naysayers may reduce and even dismiss ‘Rise Up To Fall’ is strident feminism, there is more subtlety and openness to her position.
“I think at this point, both men and women, and people who identify somewhere in between are becoming railroaded by these thoughtless and heartless people in power – people who are actually abusing their power. So I think if anyone’s going to be taking the position that I’m just doing a feminist thing they’re not looking at how everyone’s being slighted in a way. Everyone is being manipulated and having an agenda forced on them. It’s not the time to be zeroing in on one person’s opinion or actions. We need to zoom out. Can you not be myopic? Can you actually rise above, take a broader view and actually see what’s happening and how it actually affects all of humanity? To me, that’s what feminism is. It’s about equality, not putting one group above another.
“And I know that we’re living in a time when nuance is not really taken seriously. Where you’re either hardcore one way or hardcore another way. There doesn’t seem to be a space for proper conversation. And I think that’s why I am a little hesitant to maybe categorize this band as a certain thing yet, because there’s part of me where I just want people to enjoy the music. Like when you’re at a show and everyone’s just digging the band and it doesn’t matter what you stand for. There’s obviously power in that as well. Listen, I’m not trying to be wishy washy on anything. I believe in the things I’m writing about and I genuinely hope for tolerance and kindness and integrity and all those things. At the end of the day, I think music unites us and does have the power to change minds and hearts.”
In much of the world, particularly Europe the idea of metal bands having a female frontperson or having female members or even being completely female has pretty much left the novelty stage and become commonplace. While things are getting better across the pond, in North America, many heavy acts still use the ‘female fronted’ epithet as part of their branding. Gryner has been a solo artist for most of her career, meaning she is the leader and boss of every band that backs her up. For Ovary Axe, she does use the ‘female fronted’ descriptor with some reservations.
“I think it’s great that there are so many more women in metal and hard rock. I think it’s great. When I was a teenager, it was always music first, gender second. But unfortunately, actually, I found that outlook to be a little short sighted. Yes, I think everyone’s equal and I don’t want to be a novelty, but I do use the tag to bring people into my world. And it’s my choice to do that, because I feel I’ve already fought that battle of perception anyways. I work with people who don’t think less of me or don’t think less of women. To me everyone is to be respected: male, female and everyone who identifies as something in between. I use it to bring people in, and because I’m proud of it. And it’s not like that’s all I use to describe myself. I think people are getting to the point where it is becoming less of an issue,” she said.
As well as continuing to work her mind through her academic studies from Miami University, Gryner said he is also spending a lot of time working out her body, to ensure her fitness, strength and cardio is at its best for possible Ovary Axe tour dates.
“I’m actually in a pretty intense training program right now because I need to be fit enough to sing this stuff and to perform it. A lot of people say, well, people work out for vanity reasons. But to me it’s a very functional reason. I can’t do this music at this age unless I really work hard at it. I want to have the kind of energy that Bruce Dickinson has,” she said.
Gryner has no set timeline for when a full Ovary Axe album will be released, nor does she have any current plans on tap. Much of the rest of her time is spent working with her vocal students, mentoring artists as a business and life coach, as well as playing the occasional date under her singer/songwriter persona and being a wife and mom.
But considering the interest and intrigue and powerfully compelling nature of this new band and the music coming forth, it’s best to keep tabs on the band’s socials, including www.instagram.com/ovaryaxe. For more information, email to ovaryaxe@gmail.com. You can also subscribe to the band’s Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/OvaryAxe.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
