Official WATCHTOWER Feature-Length Documentary Is In The Works

On a recent episode of the "Talk Louder" podcast, hosted by veteran music journalist "Metal Dave" Glessner and lifelong hard rock/metal vocalist Jason McMaster, Jason spoke about the current status of the reunited legendary Texas progressive metal band WATCHTOWER. McMaster is joined in WATCHTOWER's 2025 lineup by bassist Doug Keyser, guitarist Ron Jarzombek and drummer Ric Colaluca. Asked by Glessner if WATCHTOWER is "done" recording some of its long-awaited new music and the band is "just waiting on someone to pull the trigger" and release it, Jason said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, it's not done [yet]. And it's the rest of… So think of 'Concepts Of Math: Book One' [which came out in 2016]. Where's 'Book Two'? … So whether it's called 'Book Two', whether it's going to be a full-length and include the first five songs — include 'Book One', basically — but maybe updated versions with different drum tracks and maybe me singing harmony with Alan [Tecchio, singer who replaced McMaster in WATCHTOWER]. These are hints, by the way. Y'all should be writing it down. Whether that happens or not — bunch of 'wink, wink, wink' going on. That's been talked about. So, basically duets, I hate the word 'duet', but me and Alan doing a trade-off — I sing lead, he sings harmony; he sings lead, I sing harmony, la la la — sounds kind of awesome to the band. When we discuss this, and we have, this sounds like a really good idea to us."

Jason continued: "We're all old men now. This is an important time, and we could be talking about our swan song. And I'm not trying to get romantic or, like, 'the end of days are coming,' but it could be a swan song, and it could be this incredible explosive swan song.

"This is an idea that we have and we're talking about. If you look at — as history has served — we talk a lot of shit. 'Cause [WATCHTOWER's since-scrapped third album] 'Mathematics' was supposed to come out 25 years ago.

"A lot of this is being talked about because of the recent activity — the shows, the 40th-year anniversary of the release of [WATCHTOWER's 1985 debut album] 'Energetic Disassembly', [long-running German record label] High Roller [Records] wanting to get involved, la la la."

McMaster also confirmed that a feature-length WATCHTOWER documentary is on the way, currently in-production from Blue Balloon Studios and PennyRock Productions. The tentatively titled "Energetic Resistance: Decoding The Story Of Watchtower", the film is being produced by McMaster and Ray Seggern, and it is being directed by J. Budro Partida, an Emmy Award-winning video producer and award-winning filmmaker from Austin, Texas who has worked professionally in television and media production since 1997. Partida's spectrum of work includes award-winning films and music videos, television commercials, multiple television series, and the Emmy Award-winning late night TV series "Austin After Hours". His short documentary "Sunset At Dry Creek" won "Best Short Documentary" at Austin Indie Fest (2023),"Best Documentary" at The Longhorn Film Festival (2022) and "Best Short Documentary" at the Grand New York Film Awards (2022).

Regarding how the idea for the WATCHTOWER documentary came about, Jason said: "The impact the band has had in the extreme music world, I'll just say, obviously it's going on half a century now. And I just think that it feels really good to come to grips with that idea.

"When Ray Seggern came to me with the idea originally, I was making a weird face," McMaster admitted. "I was, like, 'You wanna do what? It felt impostrous. I was just, like, 'Wait, what?' But it's been brought to my attention by my peers that, 'No, dude. The impact is huge. This needs to happen.'

"I think that anyone who likes extreme music, extreme metal, prog metal, Texas metal, all of our friends, our peers that have championed the band their entire existence, and these are people who are in California and Florida and Europe and New York and whatever… I think that it's there's some reach. And this is all related to the little mini tour we just did.

"When people first heard WATCHTOWER, they remember it," Jason explained. "They remember the first time they heard it, because they were, like, 'What the fuck is this?' That's what everyone's reaction is to when they hear it. And they either fall in love or they have no idea what planet they're on for that moment."

Perhaps previewing some of the things that will be covered in the WATCHTOWER documentary, Jason said: "I remember the band released [its second album, 1989's] 'Control [And Resistance]' and then they did some shows in Europe and then Ron's fingers needed surgery, and that was that for a minute. And all of these trials and tribulations and all of this mucky-muck going on the whole time almost keeping you guys from being a band at all. All of this is tied into what would be an interesting storyline. And the fact that we're all still here and friendly. You can't say that about a lot of people and a lot of bands and a lot of artists. You just can't."

WATCHTOWER played its first reunion concert with McMaster on September 8, 2023 at Fitzgerald's Bar & Live Music Venue in San Antonio, Texas. This marked the progressive metal legends' first appearance with McMaster since the band's performances at Germany's Bang Your Head!!! festival in 2000 and Holland's Headway Festival in 2004.

Jason confirmed his return to WATCHTOWER in May 2023 during an appearance on the "Decibel Geek" podcast. He said at the time: "It's weird playing songs very sporadically. Because I've done reunion things with WATCHTOWER before, but the last one was 20 years ago. The last sort of reunion thing we did, we went to Amsterdam, and played a festival over there. And we did a couple of warmup shows around Texas before we got on the plane, kind of thing. And that was in 2004. So, singing songs that you wrote 40 years ago? It's crazy to think about that… And have them be legit. Play them, like, 'Holy shit.' And have all of the guys look around each other in rehearsal as old men and go, 'This shit is fucking hard to play.' But that's why people like it."

McMaster co-founded WATCHTOWER in 1982 and appeared on the band's 1985 debut album "Energetic Disassembly" before leaving three years later to focus on sleaze rockers DANGEROUS TOYS. Jason was replaced in WATCHTOWER by Tecchio (formerly of HADES),who sang on group's second and most recent studio album, 1989's "Control And Resistance". A reunion with McMaster followed in 1999 and lasted for several years, only for Jason to leave again. Tecchio returned for new material intended for WATCHTOWER's since-scrapped third album "Mathematics" that resulted in the 2016 EP "Concepts Of Math: Book One".

Jason previously stated about WATCHTOWER's early musical direction: "By the end of 1983, we had a set of unbelievable, technical, fast, crazy, time-changing, sophisticated sounds coming out of the mill we had created, making a planet that we didn't feel had been fully instigated. All of the lyrics were socially aware and some strange fascinations with nuclear power and some sort of holocaustic world (that had been dreamt up by guitarist Billy White and bassist Doug Keyser). They equally weirded each other out with their lyrics. I had no problem with the stuff they were pumping out. It was so tasteful, but yet had urgency and was frantic about the topics, mostly apocalyptic and socially chaotic on news issues. These were crazy words to sing over crazy changes."

He added: "I had no map. This wasn't rock and roll. I wrote all of the melodies (I use that word loosely) for the songs, and that was my contribution to the sound and timber, even though later on a few critics would learn to hate the style of 'pissed off Geddy Lee' vocals. It seemed to be most of the death metalhead mags would say that they 'love the band, hate the singer'."

In April 2010, WATCHTOWER played its first live show with Tecchio on vocals in some 20 years as co-headliners of Germany's Keep It True festival in Lauda-Königshofen.