Sometimes the stars align and the astral plane is a beautiful place. When distinguished members of Calgary’s forward-thinking metal community were scanning the horizon looking for a fresh voice to front their new project, Gone Comic, those diamonds in the sky shone brightly when Abbie Thurgood appeared. 

First encounters with her musical future, however, were a little lackluster. While serving beer at an event, Thurgood was approached by a woman who had overheard she was actually a singer. That woman passed her email along to Devin “Darty” Purdy, guitarist for Chron Goblin, who, along with Brett Whittingham (Cron Goblin) and Marcello Castronuovo (Witchstone), were searching for a female vocalist. Thurgood didn’t exactly jump at the opportunity when Darty emailed back with a proposal to try out for the band. 

“Listening through the Cosmic demos,” recalls Thurgood, “I realized very quickly that this was unlike anything I’ve ever explored as a musician. I was so stoked, but also pretty damn nervous, this was so far outside of my comfort zone. I know my nerves got the best of me as I actually tried to get out of the audition! But Darty messaged me back and it gave me the confidence and clarity to get out of my head and give it a shot.”

Odd that Thurgood had a bout of anxiety given she’s no stranger to adventure. Her first foray into the entertainment world was at 14 when her parents, eager to help find her creative path, sent her to acting lessons that led to auditions and eventually Los Angeles. A year later she was in Nashville and by the time she was 19 she was living there on her own and recorded her first record. Music City, however, was short-lived. 

“Nashville is its own world,” says Thurgood. “So many wickedly talented people condensed into this town. I started the process and I was writing with whoever I could and play whatever stage I could get on. You work hard and play the game and hope that eventually it all pays off. I loved the process and the experience, but I started to feel artistically, a bit drained. I enjoyed writing catchy hooks and country-pop bangers, but there was something else calling me home.”

Back in Calgary Thurgood was on the “solo-train” for a while before signing up with The Torchettes, a rotating cast of local R&B devotees, for a tour of duty. “Through shows and jam nights, I met up with a few musicians and we started a Motown-soul infused project. It started quite sweet with the stage moves and harmonies and eventually grew to having more power vocals and louder guitars.”

Decibel ready, Thurgood stepped inside Gone Cosmic’s sonic circle and embraced the dynamics the band was searching for. Bassist Brett Whittingham explains:  “When Darty, Marcello and I began writing songs for the first record, we had envisioned collaborating with a female vocalist who could bring bluesy, soulful, and powerful melodic elements to complement what we were creating. Some of the tracks were aggressive, technical and complex while others were more relaxed, atmospheric and moody, and we wanted to partner with someone who could complement and balance these elements effectively while bringing an entirely new perspective through melody and lyrics.”

Similar to the groove-heavy Black Mountain, what is overtly apparent at a Gone Cosmic show is how the band wraps their sound around Thurgood’s lead vocals instead of overpowering her with amplification that can easily bury both her presence and delivery. That’s quite refreshing considering metal musicians love to turn up the dial and embark on an act of full-out pulverisation. 

“While we have some progressive and complicated elements to our music,” says Whittingham, “we always try to create space for a vocalist to be the lead musical voice at times. We like to contrast laid back and atmospheric parts with heavier and aggressive sections so that the dynamics are more powerful, and the vocals are an integral element in weaving these concepts together.”

And then, Gone Cosmic is not your typical metal band. There’s some metal elements, for sure, but also prog, straight up rock that oscillates between the complex and melodic making it interesting art, compelling music.

Whittingham says, “I don’t think we ever contemplate genre when we dig into songwriting. There are many shared musical interests and influences between band members, but we also all have very unique and individual tastes. Sometimes we try to write parts that are challenging to ourselves and our bandmates, pushing each other to unknown musical landscapes, while other times we are much more focused on mood, atmosphere, and vibe.”

Thurgood adds, “We have been called the ‘heavy metal’ band at a folk show and the ‘folk band’ at a heavy metal show! There is a need to remove the formulaic structure and dive into the weird, the technical, and the unexpected.” 

No stranger to adventure and no stranger to the unexpected, prior to the recording of their second record, Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling, Thorugood narrowly escaped tragedy during a skydiving incident. A self-proclaimed risk-taker, that she inherited from her father, a Royal Engineer and Army Diving Supervisor with the British military, she had jumped out of a plane over 30 times and was just starting to get her skydive mojo going. 

“I was getting comfortable in the air. I was really getting the awareness and getting into how it works and playing, hugging somersaults and backflips in the air as I’m flying through. I was really, really on a mission with it. I was out there almost every day.”

Then on one jump as she got close to the ground she hit a pocket of dead air, known as a “burble,’’ which collapsed the canopy of her parachute and she abruptly fell 35 feet hitting the ground hard. 

“I landed right on my right leg,” recalls Thurgood. “Then I sat there because I felt a surge go through both my legs. I was like, ‘Hey, don’t move, don’t move.’ Like you just stay still. You’ve fucked something up pretty good. You don’t move. And then my canopy caught wind and it started hauling me backwards across the farmer’s field for I don’t even know how long… my legs are flailing, my shoes are flying off.”

No doubt, her recovery was difficult, painful and uncertain at times. But when she bounds into the Big Kitty studio with good vibes glowing galore, Thurgood is clearly ready to step back into Cosmic’s sonic circle. On the new record there’s a track called, “Causeway,” which she describes as, “An anthem of perseverance — defeat will take more than this.” Indeed. Wittingham praises Thurgood’s commitment and integral talent she is to the band, and fully realizes she’s at the helm guiding these astral plane pioneers on a fantastic voyage.

“The melodies and lyrics Abbie contributes to the songwriting process add an entirely new level of emotion and storytelling to the musical foundation we lay down. With the first record, seven of eight songs were written before Abbie joined the band. With the second record, she’s been a part of the songwriting process from the first note of each song and this has been a positive influence for us in many ways. Not only do we write songs with Abbie’s voice, cadence, and style in mind, but she also contributes immensely to the song structure, arrangements, and instrumental melodies, taking us down pathways we may otherwise not have known.”