The unapologetic Boston band unleashes its debut record September 30 

OUT NOW: Listen to ‘Hell Is Coming’ via Spotify

Watch the ‘Moon Man’ music video on YouTube

BOSTON, MA [September 30, 2022] – Hell is coming. Look busy. 

Because the sound rising up from the fiery gates below comes from Officer X, as the Boston heavy rock brigade unleashes debut album Hell Is Coming on Friday, September 30. A steady storm of hard rock fury and traditional heavy metal brimstone, the quartet’s inaugural record burns through the speakers via a trio of formats – compact disc, cassette, and digital.   

The release of Hell Is Coming is a pivotal moment for the band, one unbothered by current musical trends and indifferent to what others think a convergence of hard and heavy music should sound like in 2022. Inspired by the new wave of traditional heavy metal that combines the majesty of Maiden, the dreamworld of Dio, and the power of Priest, Officer X formed a few short years back by a pair of longtime conspirators in vocalist and guitarist Rodrigo van Stoli (Bang Camaro, Gymnasium) and bassist and vocalist Peet Golan (Spring Heeled Jack), rounded out just recently as a proper quartet alongside guitarist Robbie Davis and drummer Dave Barresi. 

The timeline leading up to the LP’s release was marked by lineup changes, a pandemic pause, and a series of events and releases that quickly proved Officer X was out on their own shit entirely: A coming out appearance at the 2019 Rock and Roll Rumble; the release of the explosive “Lady Soledad” in Fall 2021, and this spring’s blistering “Moon Man” crashing down to Earth in April. Now, a mad dash to the album is under way: A performance video for “Hellfire” on September 14, a record release party at O’Brien’s in Allston on September 24, and finally, almighty, the unleashing of Hell Is Coming on September 30.   

With the album, Officer X is finally, truly, awakened.   

“We are listening to these recordings again after a long break, and it’s good stuff,” admits van Stoli. “There’s a side of the band that people haven’t heard yet, and it will be great to get that feedback. One of the best things about it is that it sets us up to finalize a new batch of tunes. We have progressed as musicians and songwriters in the last few years, and I am excited about where we are going.” 

Adds Golan: “I feel like we have been holding on to this for so long. It’s been our little secret from Covid times. We were waiting for things to get back to somewhat normal so we can go out and support the record. So it’s time.”

Across the album’s eight powerful tracks, Officer X take influences from the crackle and hiss of the records and tapes we grew up with, the late nights spent worshiping the metal gods on Headbanger’s Ball, and glossy magazine pages that made titans of the genre appear larger than life. But while they never set out to be a quote-unquote metal band, the sound conjured up by von Stoli and Golan just gravitated to what they shared a love for.  

“I know we use the word ‘metal’ a lot, and I am a metalhead for sure, but that was never really the idea behind the band,” van Stoli confesses. “It was more about writing songs, and because of our common influences they turned out to be heavy tunes. My favorite ‘metal’ bands never set out to be metal bands, they just played loud rock with tons of riffs, and the metal label was applied to them later. I see us more as heavy rock n roll, and we definitely achieved that.” 

Though this is the debut Officer X album, Golan admits the band has already evolved quite a bit since inception. That’s on grand display throughout Hell Is Coming, from the mountainous chants and magnetic pull of “The Red Prince” to the anti-war sentiment and unrelenting riff brigade of “Incandescent” to the groove lightning and bassline gallop of “Hellfire,” the chorus of which is where the LP’s moniker is derived.   

“We were initially going to have the album be self-titled,” Golan says. “We had been making edits to the ‘Hellfire’ video and the hook of that song is ‘hell is coming’… it got in my head from watching it so many times. I hit up Rod and asked what he thought, and he was all for it! I mean, we are not lying. Hell is coming, it could already be here depending on what your situation is.” 

Another highlight off the record is “The City and the Stars,” an epic medieval ballad that was inspired by Boston musician and Officer X friend Chad Raleigh (The Rationales, Lonely Leesa & The Lost Cowboys, Ringtail), who posted an acoustic composition on the internet during the pandemic. van Stoli envisioned a melody over it, and Raleigh was gracious to allow the band to expand upon it. Golan wrote a fretless bassline, van Stoli added melody and keys, and soon an Officer X anthem, sure to inspire many a lit Bic lighter to be thrust into the air, was born. “We gave it the Officer X treatment,” van Stoli says, “and I think it’s one of the best things we have done.” 

It’s got competition. The new tracks on the record are a kinetic complement to the LP’s two prior singles, the galactic “Moon Man” and soaring “Lady Soledad,” which the band were sure to use as an introductory salute. 

“They are two sides of the band that I believe should be represented upfront,” van Stoli confirms. “‘Lady Soledad’ is more NWOBHM metal, with some Queensryche thrown in. Epic, operatic, cinematic. ‘Moon Man’ is more of a straight-forward rocker. I am not sure it’s even metal, it’s just a rock and roll song. We do both, and these singles make sure we don’t get pigeon-holed as either. I am proud of how varied it is. I hope the next album will be even more diverse.”

By then, we’ll all know Officer X by name. 

Media Contact: Please direct all press inquiries to Michael Marotta at michael@publisist.co or Officer X at officerxbooking@gmail.com.

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Officer X is:

Rodrigo van Stoli: Vocals and guitar

Peet Golan: Bass and vocals

Robbie Davis: Guitar 

Dave Barresi: Drums

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‘Hell Is Coming’ production credits:

Written by Rodrigo van Stoli and Peet Golan

Recorded at Q Division

Produced by Officer X and Matthew Alexander

Mastered by Mike Kalajian at Rogue Planet Mastering

Mixed by Matthew Alexander

Music video by Punchdance Studios, RC Media/Spliced Iris & Red13 Media

Check our New Video for Hellfire!

Boston band unleashes animated space odyssey music video on May 18; track hits the streams b/w Thin Lizzy’s ‘Thunder And Lightning’ on May 20

BOSTON, MA [May 18, 2022] – Move over SpaceX, here comes Officer X. The Boston-based heavy metal and hard rock band is ascending to the furthest reaches of the galaxy with its new single and video, an epic journey through the stars and alien lands titled “Moon Man.” Blastoff is imminent: The comic art animation video, crafted by RC Media/Spliced Iris, makes its YouTube debut on Wednesday, May 18, a few days before the track crashes all major streaming platforms on Friday, May 20. 

The hard-charging “Moon Man” is an epic and adrenalized track inspired by the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal and hard rock heroes of yesterday, and is Officer X’s follow-up to last fall’s debut single “Lady Soledad.” It’s just the beginning for the fledgling band, led by vocalist and guitarist Rodrigo van Stoli (Bang Camaro, Gymnasium) and bassist and vocalist Peet Golan (Spring Heeled Jack), which has more music aimed at the heavens and ready for release later this year. 

But first they unleash “Moon Man,” perhaps Officer X’s most straight-up and straight-ahead rock song, and certainly its shortest (at an economical 3:03 runtime). It’s a lightning bolt of a single with riffs inspired by Michael Schenker’s “Captain Nemo” and Iron Maiden’s “Back In The Village,” and a lyrical turn penned by van Stoli that pulls from the historical macabre. 

“I wrote the lyrics after reading The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, an 1835 short story by Edgar Allan Poe,” says van Stoli. “It’s about a businessman from Rotterdam who runs into all kinds of trouble with clients and creditors, and decides to build a balloon and escape to the moon. The lyrics take that as a launchpad. There are lots of references to the original story in the lyrics – the whole trip took 19 days, for example. Once the idea took shape it all became more abstract, and like most of my lyrics it was more about words that sounded good and worked with the music.”  

Adds Golan: “Rod came in with the initial riff, and we started turning it inside out, upside down and dissecting it all. Our first couple of songs were epic and long, so we wanted to make this one fast, short, and sweet. Once we had the music sorted out, Rod came in with melodies and lyrics – and boom!” 

Golan’s long-term working relationship with Richard Crimlisk and RC Media helped shape the music video for “Moon Man,” a colorful and captivating comic art animation clip that could have blasted out of beat-up television sets on Headbanger’s Ball in the late-’80s, its characters drawn on every high school notebook across America. At first, RC Media offered to do a lyric video and some social media content for “Moon Man,” but as the art direction emerged and the creative vision began unfolding, Officer X knew it had a full-blown music video in the works. “They just went wild with it,” Golan says. “It was way more than I imagined.” 

In the clip, van Stoli and Golan run ground control as a sci-fi spaceship races through the galaxy, encountering aliens, robots, and other devilish creatures. It’s a space odyssey set to metal, with RC Media incorporating various styles of animation, from digital to hand drawn to rotoscoping, for a visual as loud as the band’s riffs.

“The general idea for Officer X’s ‘Moon Man’ music video was to do a callback, of sorts, to comic art and animation styles of the ‘70s and ‘80s, such as Heavy Metal,” says Crimlisk. “I feel like metal music matches and blends perfectly with comic style animation because of the bigger-than-life and over-the-top vibe it brings. Whether it’s an intricate harmonized guitar solo or falsetto vocals swooping over a galloping bass and drum beat, there’s an energetic and outrageous playfulness that seems to lend itself very well to animation.”

“We absolutely love it,” admits van Stoli. “It turned out to have nothing to do with the original theme of the song, and that’s better I think. The song has this bouncy rock and roll thing happening, and while it was never intended to be humorous it works great with the funnier vibe of the video. One thing that many people forget is how much humor there is in metal and hard rock. The best bands really don’t take themselves all that seriously, even if the subject matter they cover lyrically is on the somber side.” 

And that holds true for a lot of what Officer X has been up to lately, taking sonic cues from the heavy metal icons that raised us, but also pushing the genre forward and injecting some new life into an old stodgy beast. It’s another stark reminder that despite what the glossy blogs or faded old-timers may say, metal is far from dead. Or perhaps it’s simply undead, lurking just behind an exotic, unexplored mountain range in one of RC Media’s far-away planets.    

“People have been declaring heavy metal’s demise for at least 40 years,” van Stoli concludes. “No, it’s not dead, but maybe it’s living dead? Like one of those fast zombies from 28 Days who rip your face off before you even see them? There’s definitely plenty of life in the doom, death, and stoner side of metal, but traditional metal bands are also alive and well. We have shared bills with much heavier acts, all-out screamers with seven-string guitars and non-stop double kicks, and they always tell us how refreshing it is to hear our older-school take.” 

Take that to the moon, man. 

Media Contact: Please direct all press inquiries to Michael Marotta at michael@publisist.co or Officer X at officerxbooking@gmail.com.

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‘Moon Man’ production credits:

Written by Rodrigo van Stoli and Peet Golan

Recorded at Q Division

Produced by Officer X and Matthew Alexander

Mastered by Mike Kalajian at Rogue Planet Mastering

Mixed by Matthew Alexander

Music video by RC Media/Spliced Iris

BLASTOFF! Today we unleash the ‘Moon Man’ music video, a heavy metal space odyssey that screams across the galaxy as we search for undiscovered worlds. The visual is an adrenaline rush of colorful comic art created, directed, and animated by Rich Crimlisk and Lauren Mangini at RC Media/Spliced Iris. It finds our lonely but determined spaceship encountering sinister aliens, evil robots, and other devilish creatures.Watch the video below, and stream ‘Moon Man’, backed with a cover of Thin Lizzy’s ‘Thunder And Lightning’, this Friday!  

Lady Soledad is up on all the streaming services! Head on over to to distrokid and hit that heart button on Spotify or download it on iTunes. Check the sweet video on YouTube as well!