Since his old metal band broke up five years ago, guitarist Li Heng Chan hadn’t given the project much thought. However, last week he started receiving emails and texts from friends, family, and one of his former bandsmates. “They were saying, ‘Your band is in the news!’ ”Chan: “Everyone’s like, ‘What’s going on?’ ”
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the stage … Omicron!
The latest Covid-19 variant was named by the World Health Organization on Nov. 26. The 15th letter of the Greek alphabet was chosen, but the name struck a chord with at most one musician, Jon Wurster (Superchunk, Bob Mould, Mountain Goats renown). “Omicron sounds like a progressive metal band that’s never headlined,”He Two days later, tweeted.
It turns out Wurster wasn’t far off. Omicron was the name for an underground prog metal band that existed in Hong Kong between 2014 and 2016. The quartet — Chan, keyboardist Tyler Yeung, drummer Alex Bedwell, and synth-guitarist Adam Robertshaw — only played a handful of gigs and weren’t around long enough to release an album (more on that later). Omicron suddenly got some attention thanks to a bizarre coincidence. “Of all the possible words you could use for designating a virus, you choose Omicron,”Chan has a good chuckle. “Whether for the right or wrong reasons, we’ve been getting clicks. It’s been a lot to process.”
“I have honestly never heard progressive metal, as far as I know, but it’s a term I’ve heard [the Mountain Goats’] John Darnielle use a few times,” Wurster tells Rolling Stone. “It just seemed reasonable, at least in my mind, that there could, or should be, a progressive metal band called Omicron.”
Omicron was founded almost a decade ago. After initially immersing himself in Linkin Park, Papa Roach, and other nu-metal faves, the Hong Kong–born Chan branched out and began exploring everything from Slipknot to Helloween. He heard about Helloween and Linkin Park. “Acid Rain” by Liquid Tension Experiment — an offshoot of modern proggers Dream Theater — Chan began dedicating himself to knotty instrumental music.
The group was formed by Yeung, a high school friend, and Bedwell (who played in various Hong Kong outfits), in 2012. Robertshaw joined the group in the next year. His synth guitar allowed him both to play rhythm and bass lines. Chan stated that they were looking for a name that would sound good. “cosmic-themed.” Andromeda was taken, so at Robertshaw’s suggestion, they went with the next viable-sounding choice, the name for the 15th star in a constellation. “It had this particular ring to it,”Chan speaks of Omicron. “That was the starting point. And then we looked deeper into the word itself. Our music is loosely based on a sci-fi/space approach, and Omicron means ‘small.’ The idea was that our individual parts — the Omicron — contribute to the bigger picture.”
Omicron was a standout among folk and EDM bands, with their intricate tunes and covers of extreme-metal artists Edge of Sanity, Atheist, and others. “There are a lot of instrumental progressive bands, but as far as Hong Kong, we were the only one,”Chan said. But they only worked sporadically, since the band members had other jobs (Chan was a secondary school teacher; Robertshaw was a store-developer architect for H&M). They were unable to rehearse for more than one day per week and only played seven clubs in Hong Kong. One reviewerThese were their names “surely one of the brightest flames in Hong Kong’s metal scene.”
Omicron was cancelled in 2016 after Bedwell made the decision to return to the U.K. Chan moved to Perth, Australia with his wife. He began teaching music at a secondary school, and also started a side-project. Outcome Variables. “We could’ve done more,”Chan speaks of Omicron. “We could have been more organized about it at the time. There was a lot of potential, and there were recordings.”
Here’s where the Omicron story takes another twist. The four Omicron members now live all over the world, Yeung remaining in Hong Kong and Robertshaw still in the U.K., while Bedwell is now in Denmark. But starting last year, they began collecting the studio recordings they’d left behind — spruced up with newly added parts — for a belated, self-titled album. “I’m very psyched,”Chan: “There were limitations to what we could do live, with just the four of us. But with the album we’re looking to make it sound massive.”
Although the album was scheduled for release next year, Chan claims that Omicron is currently struggling to re-emerge in this climate. “We were thinking, ‘Should we capitalize on this? Is it too soon? Is it in bad taste?’ ”Chan: “Obviously the virus isn’t a positive thing, but it’s generated some traffic for us.” At the very least, he says, they’re considering tweaking the band name and calling themselves Omicron 2014, after the year the quartet coalesced. “We don’t want people thinking we’re basing it off Covid,”Chan: “That’s not what we’re about.”
Reunion shows can be more difficult. “The demand would have to be big enough for all four of us to make the trek halfway across the world to play,”Chan. “If we met somewhere in the middle, like Russia or Mongolia, we’ll consider it.”