October Noir

**October Noir** is a gothic/doom metal band flavored with dark autumnal melodies. The band was formed in fall 2016 by Tom Noir himself, then later formed a quartet.

October Noir has released four albums to date. Their newest album, *Letters to Existence*, was released on September 22, 2023. Every music were recorded at Tom Noir's home studio in Pensacola, Florida.

## History

Tom Noir is a big Type O Negative fan since 1993, the year *Bloody Kisses* came out. He enjoyed every album release by Type O, including his favorite album *October Rust* as being the key inspiration for his band. Then on April 14, 2010, Type O frontman Peter Steele died from sepsis diverticulitis at 48 and the band broke up permanently. To bring back music that Type O Negative had covered and with his voice sounding very much like Peter, Tom set up the studio room in his house and formed the band October Noir in late fall 2016. He was considering to release a lone, merely a test album by the band by ripping elements off of Type O Negative, but the band can keep going if he gets enough positive feedback and support from fans. Tom began recording songs in January 2017 for their first album, *The Haunting and the Powerful*, which was released on October 19, 2017 and all the credits went to Tom. Shortly after the release, Troy Lambert, Daniel Stickz Bryant, and Jaxxx Daniel joined the band, playing guitar, drums, and keyboards respectively for live shows.

In an effort to get more fans into the band, Tom decided to release the first cover songs that were not included on the album, just like Type O Negative did. In 2018, October Noir released two non-album singles that were originally recorded by other bands—"Pictures of Matchstick Men (RIPeter)" (Type O Negative cover) on April 14 and "Lips Like Sugar" (Echo & the Bunnymen cover) on July 5. Echo & the Bunnymen is one of the biggest influences in the making of October Noir songs.

When the recording for their second album got underway in early 2019, guitarist Troy Lambert and keyboardist Jaxxx Daniel left the band, but Troy did record guitar on their first track "Tombstones". Their second album, *Thirteen*, was released on October 1, 2019, which continues strong Type O Negative presence from their first album and that Tom mostly recorded it himself. On that same day, guitarist Doug Lane and keyboardist Justin Thompson joined the band and the official Facebook post announced the new members seven days later. Their next album will have everybody recording their own instruments. Released on January 14, 2020, "Wicked Game" (Chris Isaak cover) is the first ON song where the quartet recorded together. Two more singles were released later in 2020—"Race War" (Carnivore cover) on August 21 and "Cry Little Sister" (Gerard McMahon cover) on October 10.

October Noir released their first Type O Negative cover song "Love You to Death" on April 14, 2021, on the 11-year anniversary of Peter Steele's death. Their third album, *Fate, Wine, & Wisteria*, released on September 22, 2021, delves away from Type O cloning of the first two albums by recording all their own material. *FW&W* is the first album with four members each playing the instrument, but keyboardist Justin Thompson left the band for personal reasons on July 27, 2021, that's after they're done recording that album. On December 5, 2021 drummer Daniel Stickz Bryant left the band due to him not cooperating properly with the band and the fans, like being mean to them, making fun to the fans, and overplaying or not following the drums beats during live shows. The drummer Tyler Fleming took over his spot on December 31. The remastered version of their first album *The Haunting and The Powerful* featuring that new drummer came out on January 14, 2022, which came with it a new track "Beautifool". Over two months later on March 20—the first day of spring—their seventh non-album single and Tommy James and the Shondells cover "Crimson and Clover" came out. "Nights in White Satin" (The Moody Blues cover) was done with Denis Pauna in April for the YouTube video series What If Type O Negative wrote..., that one features October Noir and the single was dropped on July 7, 2022.

In June 2022, October Noir announced that they're no longer an active band, saddening the fans. Then a month later, plans for the next album to be released in fall 2023 was announced, reinvigorating the fans, as the group began writing songs for the album. On September 20, 2022, "Endless Lonely", the first single from that announced album, was released. Still missing their keyboardist for 17 months while making of the album had gotten underway and upon knowing there's not many keyboardists out there but plenty of guitarists, it was decided that Doug Lane switched from guitarist to keyboardist on November 27, 2022, so the band can instead look for a guitarist; just 12 days later on December 9, Trey Ozinga of the band Oracle joined October Noir as guitarist. On March 31, 2023, ON released the then-upcoming album's second single, "Forever Haunt", which features Nadia Kodes who co-sings with Tom. Their fourth album, *Letters to Existence*, was released on September 22, 2023 after more than a year of development.

## Musical style and influences

October Noir has unique signature sounds. It has gothic-doom metal riffs peppered with atmospheric melodies that promotes feelings of autumn or other things and incorporates elements of 80s-styled synth-rock and hair metal. The main genres are gothic metal, doom metal, gothic rock, synth-rock, and haunted metal. The band also incorporate bits of hair metal, alternative rock, progressive metal, new wave, dark wave, sludge metal, stoner rock, punk, and thrash metal. The keyboards are heavenly used in this band, producing a variety of haunting, autumnal and ethereal tunes.

Type O Negative is the biggest influence of October Noir, and additional big influences of the band are Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, and My Dying Bride. Some other significant influences include Tool, Cradle of Filth (through keyboards), and '80s hair bands The Cult, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Skid Row, and Slaughter. The band also contains trace elements of London After Midnight, Lycia, Moonspell, Danzig, Born of Osiris, Corrosion of Conformity, Alice in Chains, Tears for Fears, Elvis Presley, and Acid Bath.

## Name

October Noir was chosen as the name of the band as October is Tom Noir's favorite month and that his surname 'Noir' happens to be the French word for black. The name is appropriated in the band's frequent presence of dark, autumnal and haunting melodies. Conclusively, the name of this band is loosely translated to 'Autumn Black', according to Tom's interview with Tomaz on Terra Relicta dark music web magazine. Tom joked that the name was inspired by Spirit Halloween store. Contrary to popular belief, the name of this band is not based off of *October Rust*, which is his favorite Type O Negative album.

In a January 2022 interview with Tyler Fleming on Vinyl Lollipops, "Tom wanted to portray the elements of Halloween, autumn, elegance, and darkness (or gothicness), which is also the illusion of greens, blacks, and orange color palettes. So, the goal was to be able to recognize the name in simplicity and have it paint a mental projection."

## Theme colors

The theme colors of October Noir are green, black, orange, and white for title texts. Black and orange agree with the colors of Halloween, and green was taken from the theme color of Type O Negative. As seen on album covers, green is represented as the foreground color over the objects or sky, black is for silhouettes and shadows, and orange is the color of the light source, such as house lights through the windows on *The Haunting and the Powerful* and the moon on *Thirteen*. On the cover of *Fate, Wine, & Wisteria*, pale grayish green is shown on the lady and objects, black used on shadows, her dress, and wine she's holding, and brown on the ground around her is displayed. Green is not even utilized on the cover of *Letters to Existence*; instead the colors shown are yellow-brown, red, and black as represented in shadows, with white displayed on titles.

## Accolade

On July 19, 2023 October Noir won the 2023 Nappie Awards for Best Underground/Metal Band in the Mobile, Alabama area. October Noir winning the award was granted in the band's musical excellence and relative popularity among the underground bands in the Gulf Coast area.

## Personnel

**Current members**

* **Tom Noir** – vocals, bass (2016–present) | guitar, drums (2017–2019) | keyboards (2017–2019, 2021–2022)
* Trey Ozinga – guitar (2022–present)
* Doug Lane – guitar (2019–2022) | keyboards (2022–present)
* Tyler Fleming – drums (2021–present)

**Former members**

* Troy Lambert – guitar (2017–2019)
* Jaxxx Daniel – keyboards (2017–2019)
* Justin Thompson – keyboards (2019–2021)
* Daniel Stickz Bryant - drums (2017-2021)

Comparison between October Noir and Type O Negative