The Beast is an ominous force that thrives on chaos and suffering, says John McGeown, the lone force behind Chicago’s BlackWristBand.
“It questions the meaning of life and the role of faith in times of turmoil.”
That’s the gut of “In the Mouth of the Beast,” the second single from his debut album My Escape, premiering its video today, March 18, 2025.
McGeown doesn’t stop there. “It looks at real world problems that seem insurmountable, that reinforce a sense of impending doom. It is an indictment of the relentless cycle of negative news and the ineffectiveness of responses to it.”
The new single is a mirror held up to a world that keeps chewing itself raw, and he’s not blinking. Directed by Miguel Angel Echemendia, produced by Jeff Dean at The Echo Mill, and mastered by Justin Perkins at Mystery Room Mastering, the track hits like a brick through a window.
McGeown’s a one-man wrecking crew—singer, songwriter, drummer, guitarist, bassist—pouring every ounce of himself into My Escape, out April 11. The Navy left its mark on him, a double-edged blade of growth and damage. “It shaped me in a lot of ways and stunted me in a lot of ways, too,” he says, and you can hear that war in “In the Mouth of the Beast.” It’s a “power punch,” he calls it, a fight for survival against a force that feeds on collapse. The video, dropping right here, drags that struggle into view—a jagged, unrelenting companion to the song’s howl.
His first single, “I Don’t Care,” already cracked the surface with a different shade of unrest. “A kaleidoscopic mirage of resignation, defiance, and introspection,” he says, its indie rock leanings twist apathy into something sharper. “On the one hand, saying ‘I don’t care’ gives you a sense of detachment from various aspects of life. But the chorus offers a contrasting tone, emphasizing a sense of community and connection through music.”
It’s a thread that ties back to “In the Mouth of the Beast”—two sides of the same battered coin, one staring down despair, the other clawing for something to hold onto.
My Escape spans ten tracks, a tangle of punk and hardcore grit—think Apocalypse Hoboken, Oblivion, Dead Kennedys, Buzzcocks, Misfits, Black Flag—mixed with the cutthroat prose of William S. Burroughs, Hubert Selby Jr., and Hunter S. Thompson.
“I do sort of have a split personality on the album,” McGeown jokes. “Different versions of myself showed up for this one.” The themes swing wide—disappointment, sarcasm, crass truth—but they’re always real, pulled from a life that’s kicked around Sacramento, Chicago, Glasgow, and Iraq with the Navy. “I’ve been everywhere, man,” he says, echoing Johnny Cash with dirt under his nails. “Music has been my constant, grounding me when everything else felt unsteady.”
The spark for BlackWristBand lit back in 1996, when Dave Grohl’s one-man Foo Fighters debut blew his tenth-grade mind. He’s still using that same Pearl Export drum kit.
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The pandemic shoved him over the edge. “I couldn’t bear letting another year go by without accomplishing this lifelong dream,” he says. What came out is a record he hopes feels “both intense and laid-back … great for venting and just chilling out.” But “In the Mouth of the Beast” doesn’t chill—it seethes, wrestling with that “ominous force” and the doom it drags along.
The album drops with a release show on April 10, at Gman Tavern in Chicago—7:30pm, 21+.
McGeown’s not chasing lost years. “With age comes wisdom, experience, and a certain depth of character that is hard to find in youth,” he says. “I’m not trying to turn back time. More like a tipping of the hat to some of the most bittersweet times in my life. This is me living my best life in the present moment.”
BlackWristBand’s purpose, he adds, is to “give people an outlet for angst, heartbreak, and confusion… the complex feelings and personal struggles that are sometimes hard to express otherwise.”
