Clamor boys
Have you heard? It's loud and clear: Will Haven's back

par Chris Macias - Bee Pop Music Critic www.sacticket.com

Step inside Room 24 at the House of Hits rehearsal studios off Marconi Avenue and you'll get sucker-punched by sound.

The guitars are cranked so loud and heavy that it's like the buzz from a swarm of locusts of biblical proportions. And then the singer plants his motorcycle boots on the grubby carpet, unleashing a punishing vocal while a vein in his neck pops to attention.

So much for this Sacramento band's three years of silence. Will Haven is back and will perform a reunion show Saturday night at the Boardwalk.

"I've always felt like we had unfinished business," says guitarist Jeff Irwin, 32.

This might not be such great news for your hearing, but the resurrection of Will Haven will be a blast for fans of heavy music. Before breaking up in 2003, the band was world-renowned for its crushing sonics and experimental twists.

There were European tours and cover stories in Kerrang! the mother of all heavy-metal magazines. The Deftones treated this fellow Sacramento band like brothers in bombast, and Will Haven chugged through the underground metal scene with such heavier-than-thou albums as "WHVN" and "Carpe Diem."

But it all ended just about three years ago to the day, with a rowdy farewell show at the Capitol Garage where moshers literally were slamming out the door. Eight years of touring and temporary hearing loss had driven singer Grady Avenell into retirement.

"I was just getting burned out," says Avenell, 33. "I had just got remarried and didn't want to spend time away from my wife. I wanted to try something different."

For Avenell, that meant stepping away from the microphone, raising a family and enrolling at Sacramento City College. Guitarist Irwin and bassist Mike Martin kept their will to rock and formed an equally heavy but more melodic band called Ghostride.

Avenell didn't talk much with his former bandmates in the post-Will Haven years. It wasn't anything personal - the singer had just settled down.

They started talking reunion when Avenell called Irwin to be a job reference.

"I told him that my brother kept asking when we were going to get back and play shows," says Avenell. "And Jeff's all, 'Funny you mentioned that. Everyone keeps mentioning that to me.' It kept rolling from there."

The band got together in mid-December, but no one was sure if that first rehearsal would click. All of the original band members were on board, including drummer Mitch Wheeler, plus Ghostride guitarist Cayle Hunter.

"When Grady came in, there was some apprehension at first," says Irwin. "We weren't sure how he'd come across. But when he started singing again, it was like the old days again. This is Grady's calling right here. His cadence was right on, his voice was perfect."

And that voice is integral to Will Haven's sonic punch. Avenell's scream-sing is all intense, all the time. It's an acquired taste, and if you're not a fan it may sound like Avenell is trying to pass a giant kidney stone. It's an especially heady approach to headbanging music. The rhythms slap you around in odd, 5/4 and 6/8 meters, and the bombast is balanced with dreamy guitar interludes and electronics.

"They wear their emotions on their sleeves and it's not false or pretentious," says Deftones drummer Abe Cunningham. "It's brutal and really, really gnarly, but it has texture to it. It hits a nerve. They've been bitten by the beast."

Once the word got out that Will Haven had reunited, Irwin received an e-mail from Deftones singer Chino Moreno that said "Deftones - Will Haven 2006" in the subject line.

The idea was to include Will Haven on the Taste of Chaos tour, a hard-rock package tour that's being headlined by the Deftones and comes to Arco Arena on March 29.

The timing didn't work, but there's hope that Will Haven will join the Deftones for a later tour.

"We'd taken them to Europe (back in the mid-1990s) and they went over there and killed it, like electric fire," says Cunningham. "It was a Sacto thing. When I heard they were back together, I was like, 'Let's do it.' I'm just happy they're back together. They need to rock."

Saturday's reunion show won't be a one-off deal. The band's already booked for a tour of England and Scotland in March. Will Haven also is writing songs and hopes to land a record deal.

So it's back to the rehearsal room for another round of rekindling at extreme volume.

"The last couple practices have almost been kind of chaotic," says Irwin. "We're rocking out, people are breaking stuff. The intensity's almost picked up more. Being back with these guys feels good. They're pretty much the only guys I've played with. If good things keep happening, I can't see us quitting."