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All images courtesy of Nathan Utz

Resist & Bite frontman Nathan Utz is a seasoned veteran who has survived the turbulent rock ‘n’ roll roller coaster for nearly four decades.

Utz emerged in 1986 with the Atlanta glam metal act Blonz, which produced a self-titled debut in 1990 for Epic Records before ultimately petering out shortly after. He then went on to lead a wide variety of musical ventures throughout the 1990s, during a time when the musical landscape was drastically altered.

More recently, Utz found his feet with an Aerosmith tribute band, Pandora’s Box, and even earned the distinction of being one of the singers in an incarnation of Lynch Mob that included Utz, drummer Scott Coogan, bassist Sean McNabb, and, of course, legendary six-stringer George Lynch.

However, these days, Utz serves as the vocalist for Resist & Bite, which boasts an impressive lineup including ex-Tesla axe-slinger Tommy Skeoch, bassist Brian Powell, guitarist Steve Stokes, and drummer David Parks.

In 2021, the band released a debut EP and album, while garnering critical acclaim following February’s Monsters of Rock Cruise.

I recently sat down with Utz to discuss, among other things, the origins of Resist & Bite, what’s next for the fast-rising rock act, and more.

Andrew:
Good to speak with you, Nathan. Figured I would mention that Resist & Bite’s The Myth I’m Livin’ has been heavy in my rotation as of late. I really dig the EP.

Nathan:
That’s at our bossman’s house, actually. He just sold that house. It was so awesome. Like a month before he was closing on that house, we got to get in there and shoot that video. “The Myth I’m Livin’” is on the EP. It’s got “The Myth I’m Livin’”, a song called “Pain” that me and Tommy [Skeoch] wrote, which is a great story. The story behind “Pain” – it’s a riff that Tommy had for like twenty years, dude. He couldn’t get Jeff [Keith] to do anything with it. Not that he couldn’t, but it just didn’t come to fruition. So, he sent me that riff on my phone, and like ten minutes later, I sent him back the melody and the verse. It was pretty amazing. Also, “Ode to Lemmy” is on the EP. The entire song is pretty much song titles and album titles of Motörhead, and then I peppered in a little bit of my chorus, and there’s a line in there that is kind of a tip of the hat to my Lemmy story. Everybody’s got a Lemmy story, and mine is pretty fabulous, actually.

Me and him got in my car, left my birthday party – this happened to be in Atlanta – and I had a big birthday bash back when I had my record deal with Blondz. Me and him actually left my party, in my car, to go to another club to score some medicinal purposes, and then came back. My car at the time was an R7 and super fast, and I knew the roads and he didn’t. So, when we got into the club that we were going to, he’s like, “Happy Birthday Nate!” I was like, “Yeah, man! We gotta get back.” And he’s like, “I’m not getting in that death trap again with you, man.” [Laughs]. You’ll hear that in the song; you’ll hear “Eight balls and a deathtrap seat,” and just those two lines sum up my moment with Lemmy. It’s funny, the whole way back, I was going, “No one is ever gonna believe this.” And I can’t tell anybody either, ‘cause I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing. But that is my Lemmy story.

Andrew:
Resist & Bite has garnered rave reviews coming off the Monsters of Rock Cruise. What was your experience like and how did it help the band build its following?

Nathan:
We were. Steve Smith, he’s our shepherd through this whole thing from the beginning – he’s the contact guy – and he had been chatting with Larry, who was the agent who was booking the whole situation; he does Monsters on the Mountain, Monsters of Rock, so on and so forth. Bands were dropping off, and Smith was pretty persistent with him and calling him going, “Hey, look, we’re available. We’re not doing anything. We’re available. We’re all vaxxed and we’re ready to go.” So, when we finally got the call, obviously we took it.  We get on the ship, and it was kind of short notice; people really weren’t super aware that we were on the gig. We got really good time slots, we got really good locations of our time slots; we were pretty blessed getting the format that we got for the ship. It was actually very, very productive for us. Before my foot even got on the ship, we were going through the process of getting onto the ship, and I was already getting texts from Smith going, “Dude, the phone’s already ringing now that people know you’re on the Monsters of Rock Cruise.” He got like two, three phone calls just that day. So, to your point, it’s very, very transitional for us; it brought in a huge thing for us. Everybody is now even more aware of us, and we had a really good buzz created being on the ship that week. Everybody was super interested in seeing Tommy. Tommy and Brian [Wheat] mended their fences. Eddie Trunk was adamant about getting that to happen, and it did happen, which was a beautiful thing. So, everything seems to be in order right now. The clouds have cleared and the sun is shining for this band. It’s been a really, really productive thing. There was a buzz going around the ship about Resist & Bite … “You gotta check this out. Tommy’s in the band, Nathan from Lynch Mob. You gotta check it out.” It really opened up the doors.

Andrew:
What’s the story behind the name Resist & Bite?

Nathan:
Tommy had heard a Sabaton song called “Resist and Bite,” and he just liked the title. Tommy is a bit of a metalhead; he likes the heavier side of music. He’s very, very diverse in songwriting, but to the heart, he’s a metalhead. So, he just liked the title because it was kind of catchy and a little scandalous; it could mean several different things.

I Googled “Resist & Bite,” and actually, during World War II, it was almost like guerrilla warfare. It was a brigade, and they actually have a bar and shield symbol. So, it was a collection of several different military countries, almost like a guerilla warfare thing. Remember Hogan’s Heroes? Kind of like that. It kind of had that vibe to it. The bar and shield is a boar’s head. I’m an artist, and I designed our logo, actually. It’s like this over-exaggerated, boar’s head skull with a shield around it. That’s really what Resist & Bite is.

Andrew:
How did Resist & Bite come together?

Nathan:
It all started with Dave Parks. Dave Parks was Troy’s drum tech in Tesla for years. Dave is also a session drummer in Nashville, he was in a band called LoCash, which is a touring country group. Steve Stokes, our guitar player, was in that band with him. Brian Powell, our bass player, Steve Stokes, and Dave Parks all play music in Nashville. They’ve been playing down on the Strip for years and years and years and they all knew each other. Well, Dave Parks played on the Skinsuit album with Tommy, and then Dave – like Steve Stokes and Brian Powell – they all reached a moment in their life where they were tired of being hired guns and they wanted to make a record. Well, Dave, in his own mind, started the process of putting the band together. The first call he made was Tommy, and him and Tommy started formatting this band. And then came Brian and Stokes. They had a singer, and the singer really didn’t work out.

So, Dave Parks called Perry Richardson, who is like one of my closest friends. We were labelmates; he was in FireHouse and I was in the Blonz. I’ve also known Perry forever; he was from the Myrtle Beach area, and I lived in Myrtle Beach for a long time. Dave Parks called Perry and said, “Hey, man. I’m looking for a singer. I need a singer.” Perry said, “Call Nathan Utz.” [Dave] said, “Isn’t he with Lynch Mob?” [Perry] said, “Just call Nathan.” He called me, and he said, “Would you be interested?” And I’m like, “For sure.” So, that’s how that all came about.

Andrew:
What were the different band influences each member brought to the mix?

Nathan:
The crazy thing is, two weeks prior to Dave Parks and Tommy calling me about this band, I had just gotten off the road playing an acoustic show with Frank Hannon. I had met Frank touring with Lynch Mob, so we became buddies, and then he called me and said, “Hey man, I’m doing a one-off acoustic thing. I’m kinda close to you, in Akin, South Carolina, do you wanna come do this show with me?” And I’m like, “By all means.” So, I went and did that and came home, and then two weeks later, these guys called me. To answer your question, I’ve always been a big Tesla fan. My influences are Led Zeppelin, Tesla, and Dokken, that side of the world. I’m also a Steely Dan fan, just all over the place; Phil Collins; Peter Gabriel. I could go from one end to the other as far as my influences.

Tommy has always been a real heavy guy. He’s a Judas Priest guy, in the darkness of that heavier side. He loves that stuff. Stokes, he’s the younger guy – the younger, more intelligent guy in the band – he’s a more modern metal guy; he loves Sevendust. He’s more on that side of metal, but he’s also a huge Judas Priest fan, Iron Maiden, bands like that. Brian Powell is actually a west coast dude, and you name it, he likes it. He’s more of an in-depth, melodic, soulful music, rock guy. And Parks is the same deal. A lot of musical influences, but to umbrella the whole thing, it’s all just that good ‘ole classic freakin’ rock; the Jimi Hendrix’s of the world; the Stevie Ray Vaughn’s; the Jimmy Page’s; the Robert Plant’s; the Steven Tyler’s; the David Lee Roth’s.

Andrew:
Was there a particular theme or mindset at the time you wrote songs for the album, Nathan?

Nathan:
You know, I’m gonna say this, and I’m gonna speak for myself: I’m a Godchild. I’m not by any means a perfect human being, but I have a conscious, and I am Christian. I believe in God, and I adore every day that’s been given to me. I have a beautiful wife and six kids and two grandkids. My whole process in that last decade has just become letting go; the things you want most in the world are usually the things you’re not gonna get until you decide that they’re really not that important. Then the very moment that you decide that is usually when it’s been given to you. That really happened to me in my world; I didn’t walk away from music, but I didn’t have it in the forefront for a while. I was like, “Ya know, I’ve been blessed enough to have had a record deal, to do the Aerosmith tribute thing I did…” I’ve been blessed to be able to entertain – it was a gift that God gave me – and then accept it for what it actually is. And then, no sooner did I do that bro, it just like blew up. I’m getting phone calls: Frank Hannon’s, Tommy Skeoch’s, George Lynch’s; all these things were starting to come back around, and I wasn’t asking for it. So, I had the opportunity to write to this music, and then some of it, I actually installed some of the riffs. “A Soul for Mary,” the core riff of that was something I sent Tommy. He said, “I love it,” and sent me back the finished product. And then “Say whatchu Want,” the last song on the record, is a song I wrote when I was like twenty years old. I’d written it and walked away from it, and then re-approached it when I was living with Perry, right before I met my wife. Me and Perry were gonna start writing country-type music, and I was like, “Well, I got this one tune that might be kind of country.” And the whole vibe to me was like Joe Walsh. I love Joe Walsh.

But back to your point, my inspirations come from, first of all, whatever the music makes me feel; if I hear a riff and it sends me off in some kind of direction or paints some kind of picture that brings up a subject. For example, “Blood on Me,” the first track on the album, is about the crucifixion of Christ. I actually freestyled that song after we had been recording some demos in Kentucky at John Luttrell’s house. When we got done, Stokes said, “Hey, man, I got these riffs that I recorded. I’m gonna throw ‘em at you, and let’s just have fun and see what you come up with.” And I pretty much wrote seventy percent of the lyrics that night; it just came out of my mouth. Then when I sat down and listened to it, I was like, “Was I really just singing about the crucifixion of Christ?” Then, “A Soul For Mary” is about false prophets. We’re not some Christian rock band, but we’re on the upper side of life, you know what I mean? Some people say, “Is your glass half empty or half full,” and I’m like, “Hey, man, I’m glad I got a glass.”

One of my best friends James Curtis, who is actually one of the people that supported us financially to even make this record, he’s handicapped. He’s been handicapped most of his life; he’s got a thing that messes with his spinal cord. He can walk, but his brain tells him to do something, and his body is slow to react. So, most of the time, he’s in a wheelchair. But he’s very, very coherent – very understanding of what’s going on around him – and a very educated guy. It has never stopped him. It has never stopped him from going to rock concerts, and going to dinners, and going on vacations. Me and my wife took him to Disney World because for some reason, his parents never took him there. I love him and I adore him. It’s people like him, people like the military, and the police force, and EMTs – all these people that have these things that they do that are much greater than themselves – and we sit and complain about whether our food at the dinner table or the restaurant is cold or hot when three miles down the road, there’s a kid somewhere that the only meal he’s gettin’ is at school during lunchtime. There are so many things that are just so stupid to complain about, and “I” is that song. It’s the epitome of, “Hey, man, get off your ass. Stop complaining. There’s a big world out there and you’re just a small part of it.”

Andrew:
Were any of the songs that made it onto the EP or the album holdover Tesla songs or was it all fresh content?

Nathan:
It was all actually fresh content. It was all stuff that Tommy and Steve Stokes had written. And a few of ‘em were stuff that me, Tommy, and Stokes wrote. As I said, there are some guitar riffs and stuff that I had brought to the table. But “Say Whatcha Want,” the very last song, is actually a song that I had, as I told you, since I was twenty. Yeah, every bit of it was new stuff; it wasn’t stuff that was rehashed.

Andrew:
In terms of touring, will you guys be playing predominately Resist & Bite songs, or will you also play Tesla songs?

Nathan:
When we tour, we play Tesla. I can tell you the three that we predominately play: “Heaven’s Trail,” “Modern Day Cowboy,” “Action Talks,” and when we’re doing headlining shows, we have an acoustic medley of “Rainbow” by the Blonz, and it goes to “Love Song” by Tesla. It’s so cool, dude. Tommy actually created that.

Andrew:
You should find a way to incorporate “Last Action Hero” into the setlist! It would suit you well and I think many people would enjoy hearing it performed with the Resist & Bite lineup.

Nathan:
Yeah, right! But we do do “Action Talks.” We actually learned a little bit of “Solution” because it’s Eddie Trunk’s favorite tune. So, when Eddie did the album release party, we morphed “Action Talks” into “Solution.”

Andrew:
What does the band’s touring slate look like for the rest of this year?

Nathan:
Right now, the touring is kinda spotty, because again, we’re a new band. We’re coming late into the season, and as you know, most clubs and most venue tours usually three-to-six months in advance. So, we’re kinda playing catch up. But, back to the beginning with the Monsters of Rock Cruise, it really, really opened the doors for us. Our man, Steve Smith, has been getting phone calls. It’s very tentative right now, but it looks like we’ll be on the Monster’s on the Mountain thing in Tennessee. We’ve got a show on April 30th in Jordan, New York, at Keg’s Canal Side with Stephen Pearcy, and Bad Marriage, which was another band that toured with Tesla that Brian Wheat supports, and Hair Nation. We’re doing that, and then we’re working on backing our way down from that, probably starting in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We’ll probably do a show there, and then somewhere in Baltimore is what we’re shooting for. The phone is finally starting to ring. You know, we got the Nashville show on March 24th, and then I break off the next day and do a show in Chicago with George Lynch. You know, man, we’re crawlin’ our way up. But I will promise you this, we have no intentions of going anywhere. Man, Andrew, we’ve written probably at least three more albums’ worth of material. When me and Tommy got together it was like this river; somebody opened the floodgate. Every time that we get together to rehearse, or every time we get together to do a show, we’re either in a hotel room with a recorder, or we’re in Stokes’ apartment or my house, laying tracks down to a song. It’s this puppy love, this giddy thing. We’re so excited right now. It’s breathed a lot of new life into every one of us as individuals, especially Tommy. It’s a whole new look on a brand new world, man, and we’re just super excited.

Andrew:
Initially, it was your work with the glam metal band Blonz, which recorded an album for Epic Records in 1990, that launched your career in music. What were the origins of that band?

Nathan:
I moved from Myrtle Beach to Atlanta. I was in a cover band literally out of high school. Graduation night, you know how everybody goes to a beach or something? What I did, my older sister lived in Myrtle Beach at the time, her husband – at that time was her boyfriend – they lived in Myrtle Beach. I told Kathy I wanted to move there, I wanted to be a rock star, I wanted to play music, I wanted to be a singer. I had a scholarship to go to Virginia Commonwealth University, majoring in commercial arts. I didn’t do it; I was the only kid out of the family that didn’t go to a university. My dad wanted to kill me. I was the only kid out of the kids that got a scholarship and didn’t go! So, I moved to Myrtle Beach, I got a gig playing in a really established cover band there. I was eighteen years old, and I was there for about maybe six weeks of that summer, and said, “You know, this is not it. I get this, but this is not it.”

So, I met a girl that summer, and she was going to art school in Atlanta. I was going back and forth from Myrtle Beach to Atlanta, seeing her on weekends. And she goes, “Why don’t you just move here,” because, after a while, she knew my intentions. So, I actually stayed in her dorm with her. They had a paperback, that’s where you used to find musicians, or if you needed a sofa, or if someone’s selling a bicycle, it was in that thing. And there was a musician section. I was making phone call, after phone call, after phone call, and went and tried out with a couple of guys for a couple of different bands; it was not really was I was expecting. The last phone call that I made was to Steve Taylor, who is the lead guitar player from Blonz, and he also does Joe Perry for Pandora’s Box. Me and Steve have been together on and off for thirty-plus years. Without blood, he’s my brother, dude. I met Steve – long story short – we had a great management team, and they were putting a band together. I came in, we started writing, we already had songs; half of the record had pretty much already been written by Steve and Dennis Ogle – who was the other guitar player in the Blonz. I would say like with seven months we got offered a record deal. Long story short, the first offer was from Atlantic; we didn’t do that, we ended up going with CBS. Lenny Petze signed us; he was the guru for Epic Records. Steve Walsh from Kansas, the singer, and Phil Ehart ended up producing that record.

Imagine being nineteen years old, and I’m in a freakin’ studio, and I’m looking through the vocal glass at Steve Walsh from Kansas, bro. This is the guy that I’m havin’ to sing to on this record. I’m singing to him, and he’s like, “Okay, that was great. One more time.” And Lenny Petze is sitting behind him on the couch, who signed Boston, Alice Cooper, and all these people, and this particular day – lo and behold, dude – Alice Cooper walks in the studio. I, even at the age of nineteen, looked at Walsh, and I did the cut-throat thing with my hand, I went, “I’m done. I’m done today. I’m not even gonna do this.” He pressed the red button, and he goes, “You’re right, mate. That’s good. You can take a break.” So, the Blonz thing was an amazing situation. Unfortunately for us, we were at the tail-end of the train. As soon as Nirvana and all that kicked in, which I loved, but there were a lot of people in the world that were biter about all that. I’m like, “Man, everybody gets their turn.” I was honored and blessed enough to go out and tour with bands like Poison, and, strangely enough, Don Dokken, who was one of my major idols. Further down the road, now I’m singing with George Lynch. I mean, what’re the chances of that craziness? Blonz was actually scheduled to tour with Tesla, and I was playing a pickup indoor soccer game, and I broke my leg and we couldn’t do the tour. So, I missed running into Tommy at that point in time.

Andrew:
Eventually, you connect with the aforementioned George Lynch and become one of many singers to front Lynch Mob over the years. What led to that?

Nathan:
Crazy thing. I am very close friends with a drummer called Bevan Davies. He had a band called Still Rain, he was in Static-X, he was in Jerry Cantrell’s band, played with Danzig. He’s now the drummer for Zoso, which is hands down the best Zeppelin tribute band on the planet. Bevan is making a record, and he had a band called Comes with the Fall, with William DuVall. Him, William, and a guy named Nico Constantine had a band called Comes with the Fall, and they were an Atlanta band, and I had another Atlanta band a long time ago. Nonetheless, we go way back, and he said, “Man, I’m gonna make a record of all of my greatest drumming influences.” He wanted me to sing three of the songs, which were “Ready and Willing” by Whitesnake, I did “Fireball” by Deep Purple, and I did “Light Up the Sky” by Van Halen. So, that record kind of brought me back into the light again a little bit. At that time, I was still doing Pandora’s Box. And this House of Blues gig in Orlando, one of my lifelong friends I’ve known since ’89 is Will Hunt, the drummer for Slaughter and Evanescence. Will came to the show because Troy McLawhorn, the guitar player for Evanescence, him and Bevin were in a band called Still Rain a long time ago. So, Will comes to that show to see me and Troy, and when he gets there, we’re doing the Aerosmith thing, and after the show, Will comes back and he goes, “Dude, you were killin’ it all night.” He goes, “I was like, ‘He doesn’t have it in ‘em. There’s no way he’s got it in ‘em. And you just pounded the shit out of that song! It was great.’” To my point on that, Will didn’t know if I still had the pipes. He’s like, “Great impression of [Steven Tyler].” He’s my brother; he’s gonna call it like he sees it. So, I get back home and I’m doing what I do – I do home repairs when I’m not touring because I’ve got a thousand kids, so I gotta work. So, I get this freakin’ phone call, and it’s [Jeff] Blando, who is the guitar player for Slaughter. Well, Blando and Will obviously are boys, so Blando called me and says, “Hey, dude, are you busy?” I said, “Yeah, I’m busy, but what’s up?” He’s like, “Dude, Lynch is looking for a singer, and I told him, ‘I got the guy for you, but he’s got this Aerosmith tribute thing and it pays a lot.’” He sent him footage and George immediately texted him and was like, “I want that guy. That’s the guy I want.” Blando said, “Are you available?” And I said, “I will make myself available for George Lynch.” And Blando goes, “Alright, I’m gonna call him back. He’s gonna call you.” I was like, “Alright.”

So, like, two nights later, me and my wife are laying in bed watching TV. I can’t contain myself, I told my wife about it – she’s younger than me, but she wasn’t a metalhead by any means – so she has no idea who this person is. So, my phone rings, and because he gave me Lynch’s number, and when our phone rings it would say the name of the person. It goes, “George Lynch,” and I couldn’t contain myself. My wife looks at me and she goes, “Just calm down and answer the phone.” Dude, we talked for like forty-five minutes. He’s like, “Do you wanna do this?” I was like, “Yes, sir. I’m available. Let’s make it happen.” He goes, “Don’t call me sir.” I was like, “It’s just the way I was raised.” He was like, “I don’t need to fly you out to California to rehearse or anything. Do you know the songs?” I said, “Yeah, I know pretty much everything you just sent me.” He goes, “Okay, so I’ll meet you at the gig.” Literally, that’s what happened.

The first show was in Minnesota, I think, and it was with Slaughter of all bands. So, I met Scott Coogan, the drummer, and Sean McNabb, the bass player, at the airport. I met everybody at the airport; George hadn’t gotten there yet. George pulls up in this van because he’s George; he is a man of the earth. This guy will drive, he will build a house, and he will mow the yard. He does not require a red carpet. He’s just the most down-to-earth dude you’ll ever meet. He pulls up, and he comes around the corner of that van, and I’m like, “What the hell.” And he’s like, “Nate! Finally good to meet you, dude. You ready?” I’m like, “Uh, I guess so.” So, we go to soundcheck, and we do “Street Fightin’ Man,” which was the first song of the show. When the song’s over, all three of ‘em started laughing, and I go, “What’s so funny?” George looks at me and he goes, “You’re hired.” That was it. That’s how that happened. I had to come back at ‘em, and I said, “So, what if I’d have sucked, man? What were you gonna do?” He said, “We would have just made it through.” I’m not boasting, but [George] was pleasantly surprised. Lynch was like, “You came in here and you owned it, man.” I was like, “Well, I wasn’t gonna come in here and fall down in front of ya, man. I mean, you’re like a mentor to me.”

Here’s something really crazy, bro. We were at the Richmond Coliseum, and I saw the Dokken/Tesla [Tooth and Nail] tour. If you’d have told me, that night up in the cheap seats, that I would be singing for that guitar player, and writing a record with that guitar player, and doing an acoustic gig with that other guitar player, I would have laughed in your face. And that happened. Then also, touring, opening up for Don [Dokken] with Blonz. So, there were four people in that building, in two different bands, that I have graced the stage with in my life. Dude, if that’s not God smiling upon me, I don’t know what it is. So, to take that opportunity and do anything wrong with it would be the cardinal sin of my history. My whole goal is to, when they burn me to ashes, I want my entire family to know, “My dad did the best he could with what God gave him.” That’s the whole intention. There are no luggage racks on the hearse, you know?

Andrew:
Was your involvement purely on the touring front, or did you end up recording anything with George?

Nathan:
You know, we actually spoke of it. The night we were leaving from RockTember, which was with Tesla, we were in the van, and it was me, Scott Coogan, Sean McNabb, and George Lynch. [George] goes, “We need to make a record with this unit right here. These four. We gotta make a record.” We were all giddy about it, then after that happened, Scott Coogan had to take the L.A. Guns gig, because we weren’t playing a lot. And from someone’s point of view, like Scott Coogan, I can understand; you’re this amazing drummer, you’ve made records with Nikki Sixx and Stephen Pearcy, and someone’s offering you a pretty solid, consistent gig, as opposed to playing with someone that just plays – and rightfully so – when they feel like it. So, when Scott left, that changed that, and it just didn’t happen. So, I was very, very close to recording with Lynch. And who knows, it still might happen. Life is young; we’re not dead yet.

Interested in learning more about Resist & Bite? Hit the link below:

Be sure to check out the full archives of Shredful Compositions, by Andrew DiCecco, here: https://vinylwritermusic.wordpress.com/shredful-compositions-archives/