In the last of our interviews with the Blue Ridge Rock Festival Rising Talents, this was one I was pleased to secure. After reading up on this artist and seeing one particular video, I was looking forward to sharing their story with our readers. So, I would like to introduce everyone to Inner Image!
Inner Image is a rock band from Houston, TX. Their band consists of Carlos (Los) Gutierrez (vocals), Jeremy “Ragin’ Cajun” Griffin (lead guitar), Pino Garcia (rhythm guitar), Brady Wink (bass), and Rich Moore (drums). Los and Jeremy was able to join us that night for our interview. The band started in 2009 as a group of friends just jamming together before one day deciding to record something. Once they made that decision they decided to take it slow before doing live performances. It would be almost a year and a half before they performed their first live show. “We were about lets just make good music and when we decide to play live somewhere, we want to come out hitting strong,” Los shared. For them, the focus was just making good music and at that time not even thinking about making music a career. “This is our escape,” he continued, “This is our area of Zen. This is what we do for fun. Some people play golf, we like to rock out.” And after even 10 years of doing this, the goal hasn’t changed for Inner Image. It’s still about having fun and making good music. But with their families and careers, it would take some significant convincing to have them become full-time musicians.
When got onto the discussion of their music, Jeremy brought up a very interesting perspective stating the band “put our passion into this art form and hopefully everyone gets it.” And that’s how I saw Inner Image. While being a rock band, there is definitely something more artistic to their flavor of rock. Los agrees that Inner Image is rock, but also added, “It’s like telling someone, ‘Hey there’s cake.’ Everybody likes different types of cake, but rarely would anyone say ‘No I don’t want any cake.’ Rock is a very, very wide audience. So when they check out the music, we just let them decide for themselves.” Jeremy added, “What was the fan’s interpretation and that’s what we really vibe on.” But, what I truly honed in on is Inner Image‘s rock is fueled by emotion. They want you to feel what they feel in their songs, to which Jeremy said I “definitely got the message.” Los continued, “I believe you can only talk about what you know. Or actually, your message will be delivered best…if you’ve experienced it yourself or going through it and so forth. So just like everybody else, you pour your emotions into your music or whichever art form. And the last several years have been rough, not just for us, but for everyone. Naturally, the songs have been having a really deep emotion kind of essence to it.” And Inner Image‘s music didn’t start that way. Their earlier singles was more anthemic, bringing the energy to get the crowd jumping and moving, and while they still bring that during their shows, their recent singles have just captured raw emotions.
And this led us to the discussion on their cover of Duran Duran‘s “Come Undone.” Los and I both agreed that this single is one of the best and most iconic in the Duran Duran catalog. And when Inner Image decided they wanted to do a cover of this song, they did not want to mess it up. Duran Duran‘s lead singer Simon Le Bon wrote the lyrics to that song for his wife Yasmin as a birthday gift. But, the story behind Inner Image‘s recording of it is unfortunately tragic. “As we were working on that song, and we were actually in the studio recording, my brother passed,” Los said. “We’re in the middle of it, we had a big concert coming up, big show with Puddle of Mudd, and all these things were right around the corner.” With the loss of his brother, it took them a while to get back to recording it. “The guy recording it, Brad, he was very patient and we’ve known him for many years. He was like, ‘Breathe. Take your time.’ and he knew when to cut off the mic when you started losing it.” While the original meaning behind the song was how much Simon loved his wife and he couldn’t live without her, Inner Image‘s version provided a different message. “So the message ended up coming out in a different manner. In a, you know, ‘I love you, but I miss you’ type of message….It had a bit more sorrow to it. But, just because there’s death doesn’t always mean it’s sad. Or it doesn’t mean that it has to be depressing. So that’s why in the video there’s that pick me up.” Jeremy adds, “What you hear in that one is pure emotion.” And I wholeheartedly agree. Their song won the “Best Rock Single” award in April 2021 from the One World Music Awards.
The video and song is a fabulous piece of work that will immediately give you goosebumps. Check out the video below for yourself.
The loss of Los‘ brother was, unfortunately, one of many hardships the band encountered. One of their promoters named John was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Los‘ wife was also diagnosed with cancer. Add on top of that the pandemic and friends and family who were passing away from COVID. Since they weren’t doing any live shows due to the pandemic they took the time to reflect and write. And as Los said, “Write about what you know and what you experience.” And this is what led them to their current single “In The Sea.”
Los started off with, “I wasn’t so much questioning my faith…however, it was a bit shaken and I found myself just asking ‘How are you making these choices on who gets to stay on who goes?’ Sometimes the most horrible of people survive wrecks. Or they just get thrown in prison. And the nicest of people and so forth they lose their lives in an instant. How is that fair? So that’s what was going through my mind and stuff whenever I was writing these lyrics. and then combined with Jeremy and the rest of the band everybody was feeling it. Everyone was going through different things themselves. And the song just kind of came together pretty quick. Everybody was on the same page and everyone was in that same stage emotionally.” “It was pretty organic. It kind of created itself to be quite honest. From a feeling to a riff to a full-blown song and emotion. There you go. End of scene, there you have it,” Jeremy said. The video for “In The Sea” is absolutely beautiful and so emotionally charged. Wade was their studio producer and videographer for this song who did a phenomenal job on both. Wade was also their videographer for “Come Undone”. It’s a must-watch video so check this one out below.
I wanted to dive more into the singles that Inner Image performs. So when I asked Jeremy to start us off on this discussion what was the first song he listed? ““Come Undone.” The way that it grabs people. People immediately grasp that song as soon as they hear the lyrics and that one riff, the guitar riff, people really connect to that and that’s what we’re looking for. We like that connection with the crowd and that energy.” Then he threw me an unexpected curveball with the next single he listed. Not because of the song, but where you can find the single. ““Breaking Even” the one we’ve got on NASCAR Heat 4 another good high-energy song where at the midpoint we’re doing a bit of a chant and we’ve getting to crowd to come along with everything. And that to me is the music experience. It’s the live music, putting out that energy, the crowd giving you back that energy and it’s just this infinity thing locked in pumping really hard.”
NASCAR Heat 4 is a video game published by 704Games and released in 2019. And Inner Image has their song “Breaking Even” in the game and on the soundtrack to that game. And not only do they have their song on one video game, they have a second one too! “Scout” made it onto NASCAR Heat 2 in 2017. Their music already had my attention and now the fact they had music on two video games? Seriously impressive. Los explained their drummer, Rich, had made a contact with 704Games and presented their band to them. 704Games told them to send them a song but to keep in mind they had 1000 songs to review and they’d see where it would go. Inner Image sent them “Scout” and they loved it. A year and a half later, 704Games reached out to Inner Image asking them what else they had since fans loved “Scout”. They had just released “Breaking Even” at that time so they sent it over. Los said smiling, “Within the hour they said, ‘Here’s a contract.'”
I was surprised to learn over their 10 years of being together, Inner Image only has one self-titled album which was released in 2013. Los said they did take a hiatus during their 10 year period. “It wasn’t until the last three years, four years, when actual momentum started kind of picking up. Once we got on that first NASCAR video game we’re like OK there’s more out there than just hang out and jam out and if we take it at least a bit more serious and get in the studio and start recording and putting it out there let’s just see what happens.” From there they released “Seven” in 2015, “Breaking Even” in 2018, “Come Undone” in 2019, and then “In The Sea” in 2021. Currently, they’re perfectly fine with releasing singles only. Though Los and Jeremy said their fans are begging for another album. I truly believe with Inner Image is all about quality over quantity. Los even said, “If a song comes out it has to be, has to be, 100 percent where I believe OK I could not do better than this, I believe in this song, and I won’t get tired of ever listening to it and singing it on stage, I think it’s that good.”
“No filler!”, Jeremy immediately threw in and then pointed out, “The industry has changed. It’s not favorable at this point to kind of just say drop a whole album of recorded material and then try to build on it. It seems to be, you know, things are moving in the direction of, you know, we’re finding success with releasing these singles one at a time. And doing a video, and doing a promo per song seems to be working out nowadays. and then we’re thinking once we have a handful of these, then we can just drop the EP or album with a couple of extra songs that we’ve got, like Los said, here in the banks just waiting.”
When Jeremy and Los aren’t making music with the rest of the band they do enjoy their downtime. Jeremy is a family man with two kids. He also loves video games and plays them with his kids too. Call of Duty: Warzone is their big thing. Being from Louisiana he the family love to go boating and fishing. Los says he loves to eat and travel. He and his wife will travel as often as they can. He raves his wife is an amazing chef so he eats really well. His kids are older so it gives them the ability to travel more. They love to visit the Philippines to see family and also enjoyed Italy, Scotland, and Ireland. Check the video interview to hear our conversation on travel!
Inner Image plays Blue Ridge Rock Festival on Saturday, September 11th, which is, sadly, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. As both Los (Marines) and Rich (Army) are both veterans, they were honored to play on this day. Los said it’s the biggest stage they’ve ever played and they’re ecstatic and ready. “It’s going to be a day to remember definitely for us.” After the festival, the band has a few shows they’ll perform, one with Drowning Pool and another with Il Nino. Afterward and towards the holiday, it’ll be back into the studio to finish some tracks and acoustic versions of both “Come Undone” and “In The Sea”.
Inner Image is a fantastic band with such amazing music and energy, so please ensure you check out their set, visit their merch booth, buy a t-shirt, buy a single, or something because this is how they continue to make their music. Come check out their social links along with the video interview below!
Inner Image Social Links
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