FAYETTEVILLE-MANLIUS – In contrast to his college-bound classmates who, on the surface at least, had their courses all charted out, Mick Fury decided to dive headfirst into the unknown at the close of his student years at Fayetteville-Manlius High School.
In 2020, however, just as a time of national-level uncertainty set in with the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Central New York native found himself well-prepared to rely on what he’s come to know best: playing music.
Belonging to a family that settled in Manlius in the early 1900s, Fury has been figuring out song structures for as long as he could remember—ever since his guitar-playing father laid the groundwork by teaching him some proper chords and scales at a young age.
Though he was known to sometimes “go against the grain” and skirt the rules of school administrators, Fury said he appreciates the F-M district for the education he received growing up, remaining perfectly able to recall a handful of his favorite, most inspiring teachers from those days.
While there, he also better found his footing as a musician through regular cracks at the annual student-run talent display known as Showboat as well as his performances for back-to-back Dance Marathon fundraisers.
Coming up he was jamming and booking other live shows with the Syracuse-based, partially eponymous band Silent Fury, but along the way, he began realizing he did not want to pursue the nine-to-five route or any type of career in finance like a number of his peers.
Determined instead to go all in with his musical career, he packed his things and moved to Los Angeles to join in on the entertainment scene that colors the Sunset Strip, a relocation that brought him more experience and a plethora of networking connections.
After that stint out west, Fury temporarily returned to Syracuse, where he and his band took up a residency of sorts at the Westcott Theater in addition to performing at various other area venues.
Before long, however, he headed down to his current home of Nashville, Tennessee, and grew into a groove of hitting 150 tour dates a year—a routine abruptly halted two springs ago by COVID-related concert cancellations and otherwise deterred by venue capacity restrictions.
Nonetheless, Fury put a positive spin on the “bizarre” situation in due time, having landed the opportunity to pivot into song licensing with the help of friends in the television and film industries.
His first batch of accepted compositions were used last year in the daytime soap opera “The Young and the Restless,” and soon after he took on the responsibility of writing and performing the majority of the soundtrack for the new action thriller film “Panama.”
“It was a cosmic blessing in disguise,” Fury said. “In a weird way, the pandemic allowed me to segue, because if I had been on the road all year, I probably would’ve said no to this gig. I said yes not really knowing what I was getting myself into, but a year later, here it is.”
Helmed by Watertown-raised director Mark Neveldine and released to a limited amount of theaters on March 18, “Panama” stars Cole Hauser as a Marine hired to complete an arms deal by a defense contractor played by Mel Gibson. Loosely following a true series of events, the two characters then become embroiled in the U.S. invasion of Panama that took place in 1989.
While Gibson is well-known for his directorial work and his star turns in “Braveheart,” “Mad Max” and the “Lethal Weapon” film series, Hauser has gained recognition for his leading role in the Paramount Network drama “Yellowstone” and for his supporting appearances in films such as “Dazed and Confused,” “Good Will Hunting” and “A Good Day to Die Hard.”
Often leaning in style toward a melding of country and harder-edge rock, Fury said his songwriting approach for television programs and films revolves around providing a soundscape that appropriately blends with the “emotional vibe” of the scene in question. At certain points the music has to match a feeling of tension, he said, and elsewhere it has to reflect resolution or an undercurrent of sadness.
Fury said he looks to recording artists like The Beatles, The Allman Brothers Band, Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell as influences and go-tos for leisurely listening. His touring schedule revived, the SAMMY winner is planning to return to the general vicinity for shows on June 10 and 11 at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona.
More information can be found on his official website, mickfury.com.