Greg Jarvis is a Toronto born musician and composer best known for his work leading the orchestral rock group the Flowers Of Hell. Jarvis’s compositions are largely informed by timbre-to-shape synesthesia, a neurological condition which causes him to see all sounds as layers of three dimensional shapes.
Prior to the Flowers of Hell, Jarvis played on Prague’s underground music scene in the 90s, in Moscow rockabilly group Merzky Beat, and in The Red Stripes in the early 2000s, a London based comedy-reggae White Stripes tribute act he formed with drummer Guri Hummelsund. "We stopped when it started getting crazy big with Peel, the NME, BBC6, The Face, Duran Duran and some peripheral members of The Clash and The Sex Pistols getting into it. We signed to a Universal imprint, met The Wailers in a medieval fortress in Serbia, shot a video in Africa and felt we had to kill it before we became too known for it," Jarvis said looking back in a 2015 Irish interview. Jarvis produced and performed on an album of Northern Soul covers and originals by Emma Wilkinson, whom he managed after she won the 2001 Stars In Their Eyes TV talent series performing Dusty Springfield’s ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’. He founded the Flowers of Hell in London, England in 2002 as a studio project, growing it into a live group in 2005 recruiting bandmates Abi Fry, Guri Hummelsund, Ruth Barlow, Steve Head, and Owen James. He returned to Canada in 2007 and formed another branch of the group, expanding its line up to encompass musicians living in both Toronto and London. He composes many of the pieces performed by the band, and is its main guitarist. Highlights of the group’s career include collaborating with members of their major influence Spacemen 3, Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground praising their artistry and commencing his final radio show by playing three of the groups recordings in a row, being asked by Kevin Shields to open for My Bloody Valentine during the band’s 2008 reunion, and NASA’s mission control staff declaring their enjoyment of the group’s ‘space rock’ with the shuttle launch team syncing footage of a Discovery mission to the Flowers Of Hell’s ‘Sympathy For Vengeance’.
Synesthesia
Jarvis has auditory-visual synesthesia which causes him to see all sounds as abstract shapes surrounding him. In 2013 he founded the Canadian Synesthesia Association as a way of meeting other synethetes and raising awareness of synesthesia.
After summiting Kilimanjaro at the age of 23, Jarvis backpacked through rural Malawi where he was requested to name a newborn baby in a mudhut village a local brought him to. Having been asked to use names from his land that had meanings, he chose Fonzy and Kermit. In 2015 Fonzy Kermit Mwangomba named his first born son Greg after his 'white father' who had provided financial support to him throughout his life. Following a return visit to Masoko village in 2017, Jarvis successfully raised funds for Fonzy to study to become a mechanic, as per his wish and his TV namesake. In 2010, Jarvis was chased by a group of protesters in West Papua New Guinea after photographing their activities. He played a ukulele to convince rebel soldiers from the Organisasi Papua Merdeka that he was a musician, not a government spy. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean as a lone passenger on a working cargo freighter in 2013, intending to complete the mixing of the Flowers Of Hell’s ‘Symphony No.1’ at sea.
