As rising Texan death-metallers Frozen Soul gear up for a first-ever UK headline tour, we caught up with frontman Chad Green to find out how their frostbitten fury is built on a foundation of fun, friendship and finding common-ground to navigate the bitter realities of modern existence…
Temperatures rarely dip below freezing-point in Texas. A land of cowboys, oil-barons and oh-so-delicious barbecue, most of the time folk in the Lone Star State are massively more likely to be kept indoors by oppressive heat and suffocating humidity than traditional winter conditions.
But when the mercury does drop, it can lead to outright chaos. Like the February 2021 power crisis where a combination of electric-driven central heating, the decision to separate from the United States’ national grids, and a confluence of three severe winter storms led to disastrous power-outages and the deaths of hundreds of people. Or the absurdity of this past January, when Frozen Soul frontman Chad Green saw his native Dallas grind to a halt over a few hours of frost on the ground.
“There’s no such thing as snow in Texas,” Chad grins, wryly. “When it gets cold here, everything literally turns to ice. And it’s a wet cold. 99.9 per cent of the time, it’s so shitty and humid that when it gets actually cold here, it hurts to step outside. It stings your skin because of how much moisture there is in the air. As soon as we get close to a freeze, the whole state basically shuts down. Last week, we had, like, two hours of ice in the AM and the grocery-store shelves were empty. Nobody drives. All the shops and restaurants are closed. It turns into this post-apocalyptic landscape!”
Not that this has anything to do with their frosty band name. Instead, that taps into the OTT theatricality of classic rock and metal, effectively repurposing the grim, glacial imagery of black metal, but with more muscle and jagged one-liners than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr Freeze.
“We love a good show,” Chad offers. “We’ve always loved movies and fantasy and video games. And we’re big fans of pro-wrestling. Everyone loves a gimmick. The bands we looked up to growing up, like KISS, tended to have a theme. We understand how fans like that something to get into, to latch onto, to remember you by.
"As soon as we settled on a band-name like Frozen Soul, we were always going to have some frosty imagery and frozen skeletons. But then our fans just kept making jokes and leaning into it to such a degree that we decided to go out and buy a snow-machine!”
This understanding of rock showmanship was ingrained on Chad from an early age. The frontman’s grandparents ran legendary Fort Worth rock club Savvy’s – the kind of joint where 25-cent beers could see a crowd of over 1,500 fighting for entry on a cover-band Friday night – through the ’70s and ’80s. His uncle’s band Savvy was a permanent fixture. His mum was a waitress and his dad was a security guard. Dig deep enough on YouTube and you’ll find footage of Pantera levelling the joint on their ’86 – 87 tour. Somewhere, there’s a photo of young Chad on Vinnie Paul Abbott’s drum kit.
It was Chad’s discussions with guitarist Michael Munday, though, while the pair were working together at a comic book/Magic: The Gathering store in the mid-2010s, that Frozen soul really began to come into focus. With the latter’s love of the brutal death metal of bands like Suffocation and Cryptopsy meeting the former’s passion for “more old-school stuff” like Obituary and Bolt Thrower, with just a pinch of hardcore, the stage was set for something monumentally munchy. Still, Chad insists that it’s taken a lot of help from their local scene – and fellow Texans – for Frozen Soul to reach the worldwide renown it has today.
“Texas is huge,” he gestures. “It’s ginormous. A lot of people born in Texas live and die here. They never leave. Because of that, we tend to take care of our own. And we’ve got a history of great bands, most recently with the likes of Power Trip and Creeping Death. When a new band starts working hard, playing shows and putting out good music, people here will try to raise them up.”
Indeed, John Iskander from Parade Of Flesh booking put them on their first-ever show alongside heavyweights Blood Incantation and Necrot. Four months after first forming, they were out on the road as a fully-functioning band winning legions of fans. From there, Scott Magrath signed them to Maggot Stomp for their Encased In Ice demo. Then they made it to legendary German label Century media to put out 2021’s debut LP Crypt Of Ice and 2023 follow-up Glacial Domination.
“Four years ago, when Michael and I were writing that demo, we never would’ve imagined that we’d be out here touring with Amon Amarth, Cannibal Corpse and Obituary!” Chad half-laughs with real disbelief. “Or that in the following three-and-a-half years we’d tour Europe three times and play at some of the biggest metal festivals in the world. It’s always been a dream, of course, but like a fever-dream that we never really believed could come true. Now it’s actually happening.”
That build hasn’t all been down to blunt force and sub-zero schtick, mind. Over the past four years there has been a subtle evolution. On one level, it’s about increased atmospherics. Chad greets us today in front of shelves stacked with horror memorabilia from films like Hellraiser and The Thing, whose soundtracks are reflected in the likes of synthy collaboration Assimilator with Gost, and a broader aura of menace. A love of all things epic is in evidence, too, with the stadium-metal stomp of tracks like Glacial Domination’s titanic title-track, which even features Trivium’s Matt Heafy.
“More harmony,” Chad elaborates. “More melody. More hooks and choruses. But still some really gnarly songs like Morbid Effigy or Death And Glory. It’s okay not to think. It’s okay to just do stupid, funny, macho stuff. It’s all about fun and friends. That’s the basis of everything. If you’re having fun doing what you love with your friends, it’s already successful, no matter what else you achieve. I don't think we have a problem evolving because we'll always find more ways to love this. And as long as we love it, I'm sure someone else is gonna love it, too, because everyone loves heavy shit!”
True to that, Frozen Soul’s march on metal’s upper echelon’s continues to build pace. This month’s massive European headline tour – with support from the aforementioned Creeping Death, Helsinki crossover crew Foreseen and Fargo DM collective Phobophilic – is an opportunity to rekindle some of the relationships they’ve created over the last few years and to keep building some more.
“One of the greatest things about this band has been the ability to connect with people,” Chad nods. “When I was a kid, I liked knowing my favourite musicians weren’t just robots and could be my friends. No band is robotic. We’re all out there, on tour, destroying our bodies every night!”
More than just beer and headbanging, there is room to bond over heavy subject-matter, too. Ice-battles and cold-blooded vengeance may sit front-and-centre of these songs, but it’s their deeper ruminations on mental health and the endless struggle of everyday existence that really connect. And for all his band’s OTT bludgeon, Chad is happy to speak to some far heavier subject matter.
“I've gone through some pretty serious loss,” Chad unpacks. “We all have. So it's more important for us than ever. On the face of it, we sing about things like revenge and warfare. That’s always been the backbone of Frozen Soul. Because, let’s face facts: life is cold. But there is a lot of specific personal meaning in these songs, too: fighting trauma, fighting the things that have happened to you and your friends, stopping the inner thoughts that sometimes try to take control.”
Openly acknowledging this has created even stronger bonds with fans, too: underlining the cathartic quality of even the most ferocious music, and stressing that it’s okay to counterpoint the brutality with a little vulnerability. Ultimately, this music should be a force for good.
“I think losing so many friends and stuff kind of pushed me over the edge. I remember hearing about [The Black Dahlia Murder frontman] Trevor Strnad’s death while we were on tour with Dying Fetus. I was already coming to terms with the loss of my friend Riley [Gale, of Power Trip] and I just felt so overwhelmed with emotion that I could barely play. So I talked about it at the show. I thought if I could reach out to even one or two people who were feeling the same, it would be worthwhile. But there were so many people who reached out to me in the wake of that, telling me how they go to metal shows to try and hide their feelings and just mosh it off. To actually hear someone talking about these things made their day. Because mental health is no joke. After that, I had to keep talking about these things. So let’s be there for one another, let’s stay together, let’s be warm to the people close to us, let’s lift each other up."
And then he puts it in the most metal context of all.
"We’re all just here for a short time," he smiles, "so it’s important to use it well!”
Frozen Soul are on tour in the UK from February 12. Glacial Domination is out now via Century Media.
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