For all the metalheads looking for a local show to see this summer, progressive/technical metal band Terraform has Eau Claire slotted as a stop in its summer tour on June 21 at The Plus in downtown Eau Claire.

Jake Olson of Terraform, who is also a previous member of Our Judgment, is the only member who lives in Eau Claire. He talked with The Spectator about the band’s origin, sound and the upcoming show.

Alex Zank: How did the band form?
Jake Olson: It’s actually kind of funny how it starts. We were on tour in my previous band, and we had a flat tire in Iowa. We pulled over and called one of my friends Nick Kelly, who plays guitar in Terraform, and he came and helped us with our tire. During that time he (gave) us some demos that he was working on. Just being his friend, and it being a similar genre to what I used to play … I told him we could tour with him as soon as he put the project together and have full members come in. What happened when we got back from touring, Our Judgement broke up, leaving the bass player, Chris Galetka, and myself looking for a new project. So (Kelly) said they were looking for a bass player and a vocalist in Terraform. We tried out and let them know what we had to offer and they added us to our current roster.

AZ: So Terraform basically started with a flat tire?
JO: Right, we started with a flat tire and ended up being in a completely different band. It’s amazing how things happen like that.

AZ: How long did it take you to learn metal vocals?
JO: I started trying to do metal vocals from freshman or sophomore year of high school. So I started experimenting with that sound. Even from my last project to this one it’s changed a little bit. So I’m always learning to try and improve it and make it better.

AZ: What do you think some of the band’s inspirations or what do you think really comes out in the music that people will recognize?
JO: It’s really relatable to some of the other bands in this genre like TesseracT or Periphery. So I’d say pretty much any other band (like that) and more of the tech metal, progressive metal genre we draw influence from because every member is a really big music listener and avid music fan. So it’s really hard to pinpoint the exact location of where input comes from being that we are five different people that have different interests in music, but we come together into this one genre.