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ABOUT
Garrett Turney
(Guitar/Lead Vocals)
Rob Hitchcock
(Keys/Vocals)
Color Chemistry seeks out to break the expectations of homogenous modern metal music. In an oversaturated world of hard rock and heavy metal, they strive to stay true to themselves by writing unique music that challenges the listener’s initial assumptions, brings them into their world, and transforms them into loyal fans.
Color Chemistry is synth metal band defined by blistering riffs, soaring vocals, and fearless experimentation with their sound. From their synth-heavy debut full-length “A Light Above,” to the more familiar metal elements in their thrash anthem “Reach for the Sky,” Color Chemistry has presented audiences with dynamic instrumentation and performances across their career.
Founding vocalist and guitarist Garrett Turney remains a constant through this evolution, bringing a familiar tenacity and heaviness against this backdrop of constant change. Enter Rob Hitchcock, synthesizer player and co-songwriter who joined the group shortly after recording their debut EP “The Other Side.” His influence on future recordings would tilt the band’s sound toward more theatrical elements and raw production.
With Color Chemistry’s latest release “Space Invaders,” the band revisits their prog rock roots with ambient synths, extraterrestrial key modulations, soaring vocals, and hard-hitting riffs. They cap the year 2020 with a sound and message that is just as unsettling as the year itself, however, it showcases a glimmer of hope moving into their next chapter.
Color Chemistry released "There's No Place Like Home," the first of five new singles, on September 16, 2022. Inspired and reinvigorated, they chose to approach their songwriting boldly by testing the homogenous formulas and sounds of heavy metal by performing all electric bass with keyboards. An outside-the-box thinker, synth player Rob Hitchcock innovated phenomenal tones and performances with his primary instrument, defying the typical formulaic expectations of metal music.
Garrett knew from the moment he heard the first riff in the first verse of Ozzy Osbourne's "No More Tears" that he wanted to pick up a guitar and play heavy music. From that stemmed obsessively practicing to Metallica, Megadeth, Rush, and Iron Maiden CDs for countless hours in his bedroom throughout middle school and high school.
He found himself wanting to express his interests with fast melodic riffs and Alex Lifeson-like chords in his own endeavors, so he started Color Chemistry with original co-guitarist Matthew Ertl upon entering college. They mutually shared the same visions and influences to create a progressive metal band who's style leaned heavily on thrash metal roots with melodic phrasings that brought to fruition the music they had wanted to hear.
Amidst several lineup changes, Garrett reached out to former Wings Burn Away keytarist, Rob Hitchcock, to hold down electric bass, as well as incorporate synthesizer into their sound. This newly aligned dynamic duo would prove to be the right fit to align both of their visions. Combining heavy riffs and synth hooks proved to be a perfect combination for the sound Garrett had heard in his head for over 15 years.
Rob Hitchcock might say music was his destiny — after all, everyone in his family are musicians. He initially resisted the call, preferring basketball and video games in his younger days over taking piano or guitar lessons.
During his teenage years, his love of heavy metal ignited a personal passion to compose and play music. He taught himself to play the synthesizer out of necessity to join in a cover band his friends were in. His style of playing the keys would emerge as a marriage between the blistering synth leads from bands like Stratovarius, and the music prevalent at sporting arenas and old console games that were the soundtrack to his youth. Unsatisfied with merely being a keyboard player, Rob worked tirelessly during these years to learn several other instruments and audio production.
Rob would later establish Wings Burn Away, a metal band wherein he composed all of the music and lyrics and placed his synthesizer work as the center of the band’s sound. They achieved limited commercial success but had a strongly devoted following of fans, one of whom was none other than Garrett Turney. When an opening in Color Chemistry became available some years after Wings Burn Away disbanded, Garrett contacted Rob to audition, and the rest, as they say, is history.