Interview: Robin Staps of The Ocean (the AU Review)

 Ever since Galileo was forced to recant his rather sensible belief that the Earth moved around the Sun by the Italian Inquisition, the burning desire to not whisper, but shout “Eppur si muove” (And yet it moves) in the face of dogmatic fundamentalists has not diminished since the Renaissance – in fact, it’s only intensified. Robin Staps, the “creatively despotic” leader of six member metal collective The Ocean took it upon himself – almost literally – to will the trials of reason against faith to resplendent and complex heavy metal music. Enraptured by the beauty and aggression of the craft, the Ocean have vaulted into the imaginations of discerning metal fans the world over and as Robin reveals, rather prominently in our lofty isle. Touring here almost presently, Robin immerses us under the depths of his proud Ocean.

Read the rest at the AU Review.

Interview: Steve Hughes - Still Mad, Still Metal, Still Funny (Metal As Fuck)

Got an issue? Sit down, let mystical heavy metal comedian Steve Hughes soothe your woes - for about three seconds. Your sides will hurt and your mind will too; I promise. He's back home and he's got a bone to pick with you...

Steve Hughes hails from parts unknown. Well, that isn’t entirely true. He holds no real fixed address. If you live on Her Majesty’s Isle and wait long enough in a local record shop, you might see him cackling with glee as he discovers a rare Venom record while he winds through on tour.

Read more at Metal As Fuck!

Interview: Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy (the AU Review)

At the turn of the century, traditional heavy metal forged in the crucibles of Europe had been muscled out of the popular consciousness by an ostentatiously presented, teenaged television marketing campaign known to the world at large as nu-metal. Long haired metalheads hurled their steel cups of mead at speakers in frustration, wondering if the creative wells of their beloved genre had finally run dry, fingers crossed in a futile/paranoid gesture hoping bulldozers from MTV (sponsored by Monster Energy Drink) wouldn’t raze Wacken Open Air three to four years hence (Or have a band like say, Korn headline, which would more or less have had the same effect.)

But locked away in Gothenburg’s premier metal recording house Studio Fredman, the phoenix like Arch Enemy was preparing a new album with a new, Germanic recruit standing before the microphone. Oft-criticized vocalist Johan Liiva had departed. Angela Gossow entered. She turned how we had always thought about metal on its head.

Find out how she did it at the AU Review.

Archive Interview: Tomi Koivusaari of Amorphis

Originally printed in Buzz Magazine, May 2009.

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“I’m chilling at home.”

Wait, I’m sorry, what did Tomi Koivusaari, founding guitarist of progressive doom legends Amorphis and huge rock star say?

“I’m just at home in Finland taking a break before we start on all the summer festivals.”

Yep, the lackadaisical tone in his voice definitely sounded like he wasn’t writing or touring, but this reporter had to remain skeptical. Nevertheless, I forged ahead with my barrage of inquiry into what exactly makes this Finnish powerhouse tick and seemingly, go boom.

Their latest album, Skyforger sounds like an explosion of tender and swirling melodies plucked from the heyday of the 60s and 70s progressive and psychedelic era; touches of mellotrons sweep across soundscapes built on thick, bulging guitars and pulsing, fanciful synths, even more so than their previous efforts. How did they make the album sound so lush and organic?

“Well, I’ll have to have a think about it,” Tomi says, while a deep Finnish hum rumbles around my phone as he ponders. “I guess it’s because of the mixing and the mastering. It doesn’t sound as compressed. So there’s more dynamics and space. You can just hear those small things a little better.

“And there might just be a bit more delay guitar maybe. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just delay guitar. The sounds are just more, like, dynamic. Spacey in a way. We didn’t do any more psychedelic stuff on purpose though.”

And fittingly, the band’s obsession with the Finnish folk tale epic Kalevala isn’t something they set out to re-tell via their music and lyrics, as the music again just evolves naturally.

“I think they’re interesting stories and philosophies, but they aren’t the thing we use to write music with. I think they fit with our music very well because they’re timeless and there’s a lot of emotional stuff [behind it]. But I wouldn’t say that [Amorphis] are the ‘storytellers.’ It’s a very old tale but it gives you a good perspective on today’s life [and culture.]”

Koivusaari, like an concerned parent-to-be, doesn’t enjoy waiting for their new album, Skyforger to be released (which was three weeks away at the time of the interview) because, well, it might just get annoying listening to it.

“I feel very anxious waiting for it to come out. There are a few things we can do before hand like the artwork and promotion but that’s about it really. I wouldn’t say I feel nervous because we are very satisfied with the album. I listened to it about a hundred times during the mastering but I haven’t listened to it since because to your own ear, it might sound like shit.

“Once you get a bit of distance from the recording session you can almost listen to it like an outsider.”

The band have been taken in out of the cold by the mainstream in Finland, with their last two albums, Eclipse and Silent Waters charting rather well, achieving gold status – something that they would never have expected, even in the normally metal-crazed Northern Most Land.

“It’s good; and we can respect that happening in a different way than from say, when we were twenty years old. It feels good, but it wasn’t our goal or anything like that. Its funny because ten years ago things were a little bit different with us in Finland.”

How does he figure?

“Well,” he continues, “after [our current singer,] Tomi [Joutsen] joined it’s given us so much more energy and [a bigger] audience in Finland as well.”

I ask if it was due to the surge of popularity of Lordi after they won the Eurovision Song Contest; but in Finland, heavy metal is the pop music over there, outstripping sales of rock and other genres by a significant degree.

“It’s always been like that. It’s unbelievable how big it is in Finland. Lordi went to Eurovision because metal was already big in Finland. But them [winning] has nothing to do with it, actually.

But as for bands like [symphonic metal band] Nightwish, their sales have been amazing. They sold something like 100,000 albums which is in the top five biggest selling albums in Finland.

“It’s amazing, knowing that little kids and grandmothers are listening to it. People were ashamed that Lordi was making fun of the Finnish people, but after they won [Eurovision] everyone was like ‘Yeah, Lordi!”

And of course, here’s the fun part of the interview where all Amorphis’ Australian fans get the news they’ve all been waiting for:

“We’re coming down at the end of the year,” he proudly tells me. But is it a sure thing, amidst swine flu, GFC and other terrors?

“Yes, of course. There should be two shows in Australia. It should be good to be there.”

Interview: Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost (the AU Review)

Nick Holmes, the stalwart gothic metal pioneer is a right ‘gobby’ bloke (for someone who's boring after three pints of lager, as described in his own self-deprecating Twitter bio) – it’s a requisite for the job as singer in the morose doom metal outfit Paradise Lost. In the early 1990s in Yorkshire, Paradise Lost seemingly channeled the lament of long-haired youth who were witnessing their metal greats blundering about aimlessly as grunge invaded the popular consciousness. In comparison, grunge’s flirtation with despondency was piecemeal in comparison to the UK doom scene’s dyed-in-the-wool, consummate romance with bleakness and sorrow.

Read the complete interview at the AU Review.

Podcast: The "Lost" Devin Townsend Interview

The long lost interview has finally been found! Conducted in Feburary 2012 for Metal As Fuck, it was once thought perished in the rusty innards of a fried HDD, this interview with the incredible Devin Townsend turned up in the most unlikeliest of places much to my surprise and delight. So here's my gift to you - a rare, earnest insight into the always entertaining and thought-provoking mind of Heavy Devy!

Listen to it in full on SoundCloud.

Interview: Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society (the AU Review)

 Sporting a bedraggled beard and fierce axe to stir the envy of Odin and his mighty sons, Zakk Wylde and his Black Label Society have knocked the paisley-mellow orthodoxy of metal virtuoso guitar on its ass; breathing nothing but fire and spittle while shredding up storms of fury throughout his colorful career. Mastering his craft since the age of fourteen, Wylde drops recondite phrases into his genre-spanning career just for kicks as enraptured, raw-throated crowds cheer on. Jetting into Australia for Soundwave, the confidante and doom-driven acolyte of Ozzy Osbourne shoots straight from the hip laying down some real talk for y’all about spirituality, strange times and the Shatner. You’d expect nothing less from the fearless leader of the famed Black Label Order, leading the wounded cult of rock n’ roll back into the darkness.

Read more at the AU Review.

Interview: Fair to Midland’s Cliff Campbell (The Void)

Ripples of interest in alt-metal combo Fair to Midland have turned to crashing waves that have reached from shore to shore in recent times – and it isn’t hard to figure out why. 

Armed with hulking riffs as well as playful whistles and soulful banjos, they charm indie kids as well as their transgressive metal brethren with an energetic mix of southern twang and hard driving rock. However, it hasn’t been a smooth ride toward peer acclaim. Though picked up by System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian’s vanity label Serjical Strike in the dawn of the new century they parted ways in 2009. After much searching, they finally put ink to paper at E1 Music under their burgeoning metal sub-label.

Read more at The Void.

Article: Currents of History (The Big Issue)

It is easy to underestimate older people – as Tom Valcanis realised when he learned about his grandmother’s life and noticed her electrical skills.

One frosty morning when I was six, I was sitting in my grandmother’s lounge room transfixed by Agro’s Cartoon Connection. As usual, I was toasting myself against her glowing gas heater. Back then, I knew my grandmother as my Macedonian “Baba” but, apart from that, I didn’t know much about her at all. For all I knew, her life was full of cooking, cleaning and telling jokes to keep us young ones occupied when there was nothing good on TV.

Baba always wore a simple, faded floral apron and cheap, unassuming clothes no matter where she went. This day was no different.

Read the rest in issue #392 of The Big Issue, available from street vendors around the nation.

Archive Interview: Cult of Luna - Enigmatic

This interview originally appeared in Buzz Magazine, September 2008.


Johannes Persson, enigmatic guitarist for sludge/doom band Cult of Luna makes the unlikeliest of friends up in the wintry steppes of Umea, their home town. “We have made lots of friends from people in Australia. One of the bands that recorded up here, you may have heard of. We’re very good friends with the Dukes of Windsor.” I was flabbergasted. The Dukes of Windsor? From Melbourne? Persson too was taken aback. “Yeah,” he laughs. “I thought I recognized the name of [your] town. They played up here in our hometown. I was totally blown away by them. Jack, the vocalist, has a voice that could not be compared to many people on this Earth. They’re a great live band too.” A ringing endorsement from a man who lives and plays in the extreme? Priceless.

Persson is one of eight members that includes some three guitarists and two vocalists in the gargantuan line-up of Cult of Luna had humble beginnings, with most of the core group playing in a hardcore band called Eclipse. “Well we just started to write slower and slower songs…eventually the band broke up and our sound changed so much that we decided to change the name of the band.” Persson says. Persson also quite earnestly enlightenens us on how a band with eight members forms one cohesive whole in the songwriting process.

“Well, we start off with a basic idea that someone in the band has. There’s no pre-defined structure or anything like that, we just jam it out. It would be a lie to say everyone has as much to say in every song, but it’s usually I, Fredrik (guitarist) and Erik (guitarist) that writes most of the stuff, and a majority of the songs come from me, to be honest.” Persson, not shy of telling like it is, even confesses that CoL’s latest album, Eternal Kingdom has its rough edges. “Well, some of the best songs on there is some of the best material we’ve ever [written], he explains.

“But some of the other songs could have used a few more jams in the rehearsal room before we went into the studio.” He also quashes the rumor that CoL recorded the album in a disused psychiatric ward, evoking images of a haunted menagerie of padded walls and blood-curdling screams. “Well, where we recorded was on the site of a big institution. It’s all been rebuilt now. There’s a cultural centre, music studios, etc.”

However, the use of a madman’s diary as the central theme to Eternal Kingdom is very much true, as Persson tells. “Well, a year before we started writing music, we did a T-shirt design for one of the characters, which was a hare, but with moose-horns. (laughs) - It was a hybrid kind of animal. Besides, when a story like that just falls into your lap you can’t not do anything with it. It was an interesting story and a good story.”

Persson, being the earnest and endearing musician he is also has a strong passion for raising moral and political issues through Cult of Luna. “Well, every album has to have a clear and [defined] issue running through it,” he tells me. “If you’re in a band and people listen to your music, you may as well say something important.” He even rages against the established music “machine”, critiquing the homogenization and routine dumbing down of popular music culture.

“When you pick up any music magazine it almost makes you want to poke your eyes out,” he laments. “[Musicians] sometimes get really stupid questions from journalists about the ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ lifestyle; it’s all uninteresting and it’s been done so many times. They ask you things like ‘what’s your quickest tap solo’ – f—k off! That kind of music journalism isn’t journalism at all. Having that said, we’re not a band that wants to point fingers and tell people what to do. But we’re also a band that doesn’t avoid controversial and important issues.”

Such as?

“Well, [for example], every time you pick up a magazine it [reinforces the] male-domination of the rock ‘n’ roll business and traditional male values. I don’t want to generalize, but a lot of the American bands have this jingoist, macho attitude. First off, it’s just plain boring; it’s very unoriginal and just lame.”

Living in a land of extremes ourselves, Cult of Luna would find themselves at home among the “cult” like following of the sludge and experimental doom movement, with Isis, Sunn O))) and Boris all touring successfully here – I ask, would Persson like to take his outfit down under? “Yes, we would love to tour Australia. We have many friends that loved touring there – in fact, every band I know that toured Australia say that it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. In that sense, we want to go to Australia as soon as possible…hopefully we’ll be there soon.”

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Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved, Crushtor Media Services Pty. Ltd.

Interview: Jon Howard on the renaissance of Threat Signal

Rock music in Canada, it seems, doesn’t get the respect it deserves as some musicians such as fellow countryman Danko Jones and others lament. If one delves into the demonic and despondent end of the cacophonous canon, a bum rap in the mainstream press is almost a fait accompli. Industrial-tinged thrashers Threat Signal feel the media's indignation. Jon Howard, founding vocalist remains cognizant of the fact that metal will always stay somewhere lurking underground supported by a legion of fans who reject the easy path of flicking on a radio or clinging to ephemeral fads. But he doesn’t believe rock music isn’t garnering esteem in the Canadian popular consciousness. However, “metal on the other hand is a bit harder [to catch on], just like anywhere I would imagine,” Jon professes.

Read the rest at MetalAsFuck.net.

Interview: The Man With the Mighty Axe – Marcus Siepen: Gamer, geek and Blind Guardian rhythm guitarist (Metal As Fuck)

He’s got connections in Blizzard Entertainment. He’s been playing rhythm guitar for 25 years and wouldn't have it any other way. He’s Marcus Siepen, and he’s the riffwraith for German power metal gods, Blind Guardian. Read on - and don't get too jealous, gamers.

Read the rest at Metal As Fuck.

Interview: Martin Mendez of Opeth (the AU Review)

Opeth's Martin Mendez isn’t one for showmanship. In fact, Martin was probably one of the unlikeliest candidates for a measured rise into Swedish metal stardom. Born and raised in Uruguay, he drank in all the music that his Latin heritage had to offer, pouring it into his elegant, textured bass playing. Making his way to Sweden by way of Swedish-born Uruguyan drummer Martin Lopez, he joined Opeth in 1999, almost half way into the band's now twenty year career.


Read the rest at the AU Review.

From the Archive: Parkway Drive - Winston McCall Interview

Originally appeared in Buzz Magazine, December 2008.

Kicking back in his native Byron Bay on the tail end of a massive international tour, Winston McCall, lead vocalist of the immensely popular Parkway Drive pauses for reflection. How does a hardcore/metalcore band such as theirs react to writing and record a chart-topping album? (Horizons managed to debut at #6 on the ARIA Album charts.)

“It’s been pretty good. It’s been better than we ever could have hoped.” Having that said, it wasn’t completely out of left field.

“When Killing the Smile came out it got such a good reception it was better than anything we could have hoped to have achieved with that. We were put in the position where we thought nothing could ever do better than it.”

Horizons wasn’t destined for any sort of greatness – Winston describes it as the “backup” album to merely ride on the coattails of Killing.

“Funnily enough, Horizons seems to have gone really well; the songs we play live seem to go down just as well if not better than the old songs, I like the songs more and kids seem to be stoked on it.”

Being as popular as a metalcore album could ever have dreamed to have been, was this the signal for a headlong drive into the mainstream, albeit the fringes thereof? According to Winston, underground core lovers need not be frightened by the neon lights and MTV cameras just yet.

“I don’t think so. Simply because you still don’t hear any of it played on the radio and [metalcore isn’t] definitely breaking any kind of mainstream barrier in terms of acceptance, you never see film clips or anything like that, it never has any support like that…you could hear it on Triple J or on independent radio stations. The volume of kids listening to it is testament to how big the actual following is. Other than that, it’s still definitely under the radar from the mainstream.”

Parkway Drive have built themselves from the ground up, playing in Europe to mere handfuls of people all the way up to headlining shows.

“When we went to Europe, it was like starting up again, as if you were a brand new band,” he recalls. “We’d be playing in the smallest venues you’ve ever seen without stages and holes in the roof, but now we’ve got thousands of kids rocking up and it’s just ridiculous.”

Has Winston ever considered playing something else for the band?

“No,” he insists, “I’m so, so bad. I cannot play an instrument.”

Even despite being revered for his vocals, Winston doesn’t think they’re anything praiseworthy.

“I can’t sing either. I found that I could scream at kids and I lost my voice like hell when I first started out but it was the first thing I could actually do that gave me an outlet for the passion that I had. I wanted to start a band but I had no ability to do it because I couldn’t play anything, I guess that was the only thing left for me to do. (laughs) I still can’t play anything for shit.”

He did, however, try to learn the harmonica, but to no avail. How would it fit into the Parkway Drive sound?

“Well, I don’t think it would. But it seems pretty simple. I’m finding that it’s more complicated than it looks. I find myself going ‘hee’, ‘haww’ over and over again and I’m like,‘shit, how do you actually play this thing?’”

Metalcore has long been considered the orphaned lovechild of heavy metal and hardcore music, which many fans on either side relish in deriding instead of accepting.

“Europe has the most unified scene when it comes to that. But when you go to the States, it’s broken down even beyond that. You’ll go to a show and kids won’t come out unless it’s a specific genre of music,” he reveals.

“There’ll only be a handful of bands that fit their criteria and will actually go out of their way to support. To me, I don’t really care what the label is. If it’s heavy and there’s a punk ethic, I’ll call it punk. If hardcore kids like I’ll call it hardcore and if metal kids like something I’ll call it metal. To me, the music being played is a lot more important than the label being placed on it. I don’t think pigeonholing a band will make it sound any different or any better. I don’t think that’s going to change, though.”

Parkway Drive recently re-mixed and re-mastered their first album, Killing with a Smile after only two years of recording it. Why would a band resort to re-mastering after only two years? Winston explains that it wasn’t a business decision, but as a thank you to their new fans that couldn’t find their earlier work.

“Well, our first album went out of print, so kids couldn’t find it. So we got our first album and all of our other out of print stuff before Killing and whacked it all together and put it on one release. We tried to make it available to kids if they wanted it. It wasn’t so much of a marketing ploy, it was doing something that kids asked of us, I guess.”

And Parkway Drive are always accommodating to their fans.

“We try to hang out with as many kids as we can after shows and stuff and we try to make kids as happy as they can. For example, I signed some guy’s nuts in New Mexico.”

You read right. He signed a fan’s nutsack.

“He got them out and they were swollen, and I signed them. I even took a photo with him afterwards. It was crazy.” All part of the Parkway Drive service.

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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

Anti-Flag - Pat Thetic Interview

Had a pleasant conversation with Pat Thetic of Anti-Flag - Be sure to read Buzz Magazine next month for more Anti-Flag news!

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Anger. Violence. Revolution. All adjectives that could invariably be applied to punk rock legends Anti-Flag. Not words that can describe their reasonably chipper and easy-going drummer, Pat Thetic, however.

“Hi,” he greets me cheerily. “How are you today?” I reply that I’m very well. Cool and calm, Pat tells me where he is. “I’m sitting on my back porch in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I just got home from Sweden yesterday. I slept all day and now I’m ready to chat.” At this point, I was fired up for a great conversation too.

The People or the Gun, the title of Anti-Flag’s ninth studio record will, as Pat says, “rock your ass off.” Recording in their home state of Pennsylvania was a figurative and literal return to their beginnings, as Pat explains.

“Well, we hadn’t recorded in Pittsburgh for a long time,” he continues. “We set up a studio in our practice room and it was good because we haven’t recorded that way since the first four or five records that we’ve done without a producer; just us and some rented recording equipment. There wasn’t any other band in the house or a warehouse…it was very refreshing having the four of us writing music and recording music dirtily and aggressively and just making it happen.”

“I think we captured something really special on this record that we haven’t been capturing on some of the other records.”

As a punk band, they are one of the few bands that steadfastly rock out against the establishment, consistently speaking out against injustice, misuse of power and highlighting, sometimes controversially, issues they feel go unaddressed by others – they even pledged to donate a portion of the record sales of The People or the Gun to Amnesty International, the human rights advocacy group. With the U.S. Presidential Election looming and a world economy in turmoil, the band resolved to, as Pat tells us, to “record quickly.”

“There was a lot going on in our world and we wanted to comment on it. The world was sort of collapsing and we wanted to say something about it.

“We bring up issues in our music and we want people to be aware of them; but it doesn’t necessarily mean people are going to stay angry about them. I want people to think about these issues. I want there to be other points of view [besides the mainstream media] and that’s why we create this music; so we can have another point of view – another set of ideas that are being thrown out there when people are hearing about militarism and the government bailing out bankers.”

Anti-Flag’s activism is built on the same straightforward premise; that giving people ideas about what is happening around them through music can bring change to the world, although their first goal is simply to “be a rock band” as Pat breaks it down for us.

“If you’re not doing something creative or interesting musically, no-one’s going to care. Now that we’re a rock band, what can we do that’s more interesting than just play rock shows. How can [Anti-Flag] get our ideas into the world where we feel these ideas aren’t present? Our activism and being a rock band isn’t a separate thing.

"I mean, for example when we went to Canada this year – a lot of kids in Canada don’t have coats. The kids that come to our rock shows have extra coats. Then let’s try to get the kids who have extra coats to give them to the kids who don’t have any. Then it’s not a rock show, it’s a rock show that’s building a community and building something better than just a rock show; that’s sort of how the process goes.”

Pat says they had a lot of challenges with being signed to a major label before moving on to independent punk label SideOneDummy which also includes Flogging Molly and the Casualties on their roster. However the switch was more to do with the perception others had more than their desire to shy away from the mainstream music industry.

“Being signed to a major label made us more resilient and even angrier,” Pat explains to us simply. “If we had mainstream success from the outside, it would probably be detrimental.”

“If you gave the four of us as an entity a bullhorn that big? You wouldn’t be able to get us to go to sleep because we’d be trying to figure out ways to push people’s buttons and make them uncomfortable. It would just make us unsuccessful again and put us back into the world we know.”

Jokingly, I liken their hypothetical situation to that of the late author and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson when asked what the first thing he would do if he was elected President – “Resign!”

Pat laughs it off. “Yeah, sort of like that. But we wouldn’t intentionally resign. Through our actions, we would make ourselves resign…because we’d have to. (laughs)”

Anti-Flag are eager to return to Australian shores, but it just a matter of finding time in their busy schedule.

“We have a tour schedule set up until January 2010,” Pat laments with a strain in his voice, “It would probably be soon after that. It would be the spring of … ‘Ten.’ What are we going to call that? 2010.”

I tell Pat he could call it the ‘Tour in Ten.’

“That’s a great name for it! ‘Tour in Ten!’ (laughs) “Now when we call it that you can point at us and say, ‘That was my idea! Damn them, damn them to hell!’”

Joking aside, Pat and the band can’t wait to return.

“We love to play Australia. We love the Australian people and playing shows there are always a lot of fun. It’s definitely on our list to get there soon.”

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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

Trivium - Corey Beaulieu Interview

An interview with my good friend (well, I have met him a few times - does that count?) Corey Beaulieu, guitarist for global metal giants Trivium. Be sure to read Buzz Magazine for more Trivium news this month!!!

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Floridian metallers Trivium have a hectic tour schedule. As of publication, they would have already embarked on a trek through Canada with Slipknot then hopping over to Japan before touching down in Australia. Although the norm for places such as the United States and Europe, Trivium’s headlining tour comes with two other overseas bands, namely Germany’s Heaven Shall Burn and thrash metal neophytes Black Tide – a band with an average age of only seventeen. Talking with Corey Beaulieu, guitarist for the heavy metal hegemons, insists that he won’t do anything to corrupt their innocent minds while in Australia; he’s already done it for them.

“Well, we had them open a few shows for us back home a couple of years ago”, Corey reflects. “That was their first kind of mini-tour; we popped their ‘tour cherry’ in a way.

“We’ve seen them at various music awards but we haven’t toured with them since then, so they’ve come a long way since we played with them. It’ll be fun to play with them again. They’re Florida boys so it’ll be like ‘Florida reunites in Australia.’”

Despite a legion of vehement armchair-bound, Facebook toting detractors, Trivium have won over many metalheads in Australia with their latest record, Shogun, finishing with a peak ranking of #4 on the ARIA album charts; a feat that many metal bands could only dream of accomplishing. Corey says that he’s “really excited” by all the press and fan reaction to such a stellar result and their first ever Australian headlining tour.

“We’re really pumped to do a headlining tour for the record for the first time and Australia is one of the places where we’ve never done this sort of stuff before, so our fans haven’t seen the full, super-long Trivium set so its going to be fun to be able to do that because we’ve got a really killer set going too. Hopefully everyone has a chance to make it out to the show.”

Even though the set may be lengthy, Corey insists that fans may never get to hear the “sheer volume of material” in their vaults as Trivium’s well of inspiration seldom runs dry. Corey believes that the state of the music industry is changing and Trivium needs to lead the charge.

“Instead of recording 12 songs per record, we could easily go in and record something like 20 songs and then put out the record,” Corey muses. “Every three months or something or throughout the tour cycle we could put out a new song online. We could constantly feed people with new music, keep people involved.”

“We might write a record with a bunch of songs that don’t typically fit the tone of the [album]; we could put out a song that’s a little different from the record – you know, just to put out music that’s cool. We don’t [necessarily] have to put it on a record.”

“With the industry sort of suffering, you have to have a fresh approach on music and keeping people’s attention spans up.”

Will Corey weep for the decline of the humble compact disc? As a fan, yes. As a guitarist in a constantly touring metal band, seemingly not, as he revealed to me.

“When I was a kid I fuckin’ loved going down to the record store and buying new music – you know saying ‘that has a cool album cover, I’m going to buy it.’ But now out of the necessity of what I do and my traveling around, I started using iTunes. I got hooked on it; its just so easy, I click a button and I buy an album that I want. Sometimes some of the stuff I want to buy, record stores won’t even have because shelf space is declining. People can’t get the record they want unless they special order it or some shit.”

iTunes may have killed the CD star, but Beaulieu thinks that artists will get their just reward if they choose the digital route.

“It doesn’t cost a lot – well, any money to put a record up on iTunes. There are a lot of benefits to it but what you miss is the actual, physical product. But truth be told, the CD is kind of dying out. People just aren’t buying music any more and its hurting the whole business.”

Even though music is essentially being stolen via the internet, Corey doesn’t believe that Trivium will have to make their music “louder” as people move away from listening to music on their stereos with powerful speakers to iPods with the now ubiquitous tiny white earphones.

“Well, I’ve got the little earbuds that came with my iPhone, and they sound fuckin’ killer for their size.” He says, surprisingly.

“The technology that goes into what you’re listening to and to keep it at a really high quality is really advanced. It depends on what you’ve got. If you’re listening to a record via shitty equipment it’s still going to sound shitty no matter how good the production of the album was. I don’t think we should ‘dumb down’ or change ourselves sonically during recording to match what people are listening to us through.

“People should want to listen to music on high quality sound systems. It’ll just kick ass more.”

Those with the cash to splash on high-end sound kit should take note of the guitar tone on Shogun; the production into creating such an inimitable sound was meticulous to say the least.

“The reason it sounds so different is because there’s just so many angles of sound going into it,” Corey explains. “our producer [Nick Rasculinecz, also currently producing the new Alice in Chains album] knew a lot of old school tricks and would mix and match between ProTools and stuff used before then.”

“We might have been sitting there going ‘what the hell is he doing?’ when he was setting up an old studio trick from back in the day instead of using a plug-in tool or something like that. He’d actually go out and do something in the room to create the sound we wanted. He brought some different approaches to the record that we had never seen before.”

Was the band happy with the result?

“Oh yeah. We would never have been able to get some of the sounds we got without someone with the kind of experience he had. It was a lot of fun seeing him do some of the stuff he did.”
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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

My Dying Bride - Andrew Craighan Interview

The grandfather of gloom; Andrew Craighan of My Dying Bride chats candidly with me about his new album, For Lies I Sire, tours, the happy side of doom metal, the past, the present and of course, the future.

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Crushtor.net: Hey Andrew, how are you? Where are you based at the moment?

Andrew Craighan: I’m quite well thank you. I’m in South Leeds in Yorkshire.

C: Touring? Or just relaxing?

Andrew: Well, there’s no shows planned until the end of May. Well, I’m just relaxing as I might do on, well, this is a Wednesday evening here in England. Just having a quick beer and talking to you lovely people.

C: Well, let’s get started. My Dying Bride (MDB) are one of the first doom bands that emerged on the scene that are still committed to the style. As the “father” of the style, what has kept you together with the “baby” that you’ve now raised from infancy and into maturity while others have shunned the style such as Paradise Lost or Anathema as time went on?

Andrew: The major difference as to why we’ve stayed as we were boils down just after the release of 34.788% Complete. I know we don’t have a lot of time so I’ll try to condense this as best as possible and try and have it make sense.

C: (Laughs) Okay. No worries.

Andrew: Calvin (Robertshaw, former guitarist) left the band. Just prior to that we lost Rick (Miah, former drummer) and Martin (Powell, former keyboardist and violinist) so we were down to fifty percent of the original band in a flash; within 18 months or something like that. The remaining three was myself, Aaron (Stainthorpe, vocalist) and Adrian (Jackson, former bassist) and we said ‘What do we do, this is a catastrophe.’ From a line-up point of view, well, I thought anyway. I wasn’t keen on the idea, but they said ‘we’ll keep going; we’ll keep the name and just continue.’

From this decision making episode, we resolved ourselves to remain doom metal or death metal or whatever you want to call it. It’s going to be bleak, it’s going to be dark, we’re going to be as horrible as we can be and we’re going to be true to the name My Dying Bride from this point forward. No compromise. We’re not interested in anything else, this is who we are and this is what we will do. I think that deliberate decision making back then in 1997 or ’98 has made us who we are. Where as Paradise Lost and Anathema had never been through that; they continued on their progression through various musical styles; for their own reasons, I don’t know what they are.

Andrew continues and allows us a brief insight into the renaissance of MDB.

Andrew: I can certainly remember having the meeting. Without doubt, we sat there and put the cloaks on so to speak; it became a much darker atmosphere around the band and music from that point forward. We’ve sometimes wandered from the path musically in various songs but for the most part we’ve try to keep true to that. I think [the meeting] was without doubt the turning point towards the dark side, if you will, without sounding too cliché. But I guess that’s it.

C: Let’s talk about your new record, For Lies I Sire.

Andrew: Okay. (pause) Which bit? (laughs)

C: I haven’t heard it yet, so I wouldn’t know where to start!

Andrew: Well Okay, I’ll give you some pointers. We reintroduced the violin, which we haven’t used since Like Gods of the Sun, for over ten years. It was a pretty tricky decision because in the beginning, we felt that the violin was an instrument that was very difficult to replace. So if you can imagine when Martin left, we didn’t have one for so long. On this record, it seemed like the right time to bring it back. It was mainly because no one asked us if we were going to. Well, if no one’s asking us to then it makes it our idea again. It just felt like the right time, truth be told. The LP, is kind of – without making it sound obvious and boring – it’s the epitome of what MDB is; it’s brutal in places and massively heavy; almost aggressive, almost horrible in places.

But it’s like that all for the right reasons. It’s as bleak as MDB have ever been, it’s not just boring music either like, ‘Oh my god here comes another riff change after twenty minutes of the same note.’ Its still very musical. It’s typically MDB but without going ‘oh, we don’t need to hear it then, because we already know what they sound like.’ There’s something to this one that I can’t quite put my finger on. To be fair, its probably the most complete record we’ve done musically; everything is in the right places and it all seems to make sense. It’s still very miserable. It’s sort of…sickeningly morose in places. Also it’s overly aggressive for the sake of it in some places.

C: MDB have always had a rich, romanticist, literary tradition. Does the band still draw inspiration from literature? Or other types of art? What’s your creative process like?

Andrew: Well, it’s pretty straightforward really. For me, from the musical sense, I don’t get involved with the lyrics apart from minor stuff here and there; everything influences you, there’s no sort of mystery to it. I don’t just sit in a dark corner and think morbid thoughts and come up with riffs all day. Your life is just one continual collection of influences. I was mentioning earlier to another chap, I guess in MDB its sort of like practicing for real misery. Like, what will I really do when it happens to me? So I was always kind of playing the part, and that’s where the inspiration for me used to come from. Its sort of like we said ‘let’s write something miserable and pretend we understand.’ Then when real tragedy came, and you felt really miserable, genuinely miserable, genuinely upset, there was no inspiration at all. The spark was gone for music and the spark was gone for creating music. When you regain your senses again, I found that writing and playing this music was a great joy.

The influence to do it is because it pleases me. Greatly. I love this style of music. It’s morose and, I’m not a psychologist so I don’t know what that says about me and I don’t understand why, but I draw great pleasure from playing and recording with this outfit. Sounding like this…nothing makes me smile wider. The more miserable we sound, the better I feel.

C: So it’s not a cathartic thing for you, it’s a genuine pleasure.

Andrew: Yeah, I love it. No question about that. If we get something and we go ‘fuck me, that is morose’ or ‘that is heavy’ because we’re primarily a heavy metal band which is something I love, and if we think we’ve come up with something that we would consider ‘uber-doom’ which is ‘beyond doom’…it’s just misery itself and just breaks you in half immediately…we’re over the moon! You know, because this is going to piss everybody off and make them upset. I mean, it seems to work. We’re not the only ones who seem to like this stuff.

C: Well doom metal certainly has a following, there’s no doubt about that. Even for myself, I own a few of your records, and as ‘depressing’ as they sound, I still enjoy them quite a bit.

Andrew: Well, fair enough; every time you put the CD player on, MDB isn’t the band you always go to. I’m the same; I don’t do this twenty-four hours a day. If you’re in that particular zone and you’re in that particular mood, and make sure it’s a good one. Just don’t put one on when you’ve fallen out with your girlfriend. (laughs)

C: Yeah, well...I sort of actually did that once. But let’s move on.

Andrew: (laughs) Yeah kids, don’t try that at home.

C: (laughs) You should put a warning sticker on your albums; do not play during a break up, etc., etc.

Andrew: To be fair, it would probably cause such controversy and double the sales on them and ruin everything.

C: How so?

Andrew: If we ever got into the mainstream limelight it would kill the band. Its due to the fact we’re still very much an unknown quantity; people have heard the name but not everybody knows about us and I think that’s part of the attraction.

C: Talking about that, being an underground band and having stuck with your label, Peaceville, right from the beginning, they seem to be a musician’s label and a music fans’ label, treating them both with the same level of respect. Would that be an accurate assessment?

Andrew: It’s not far away to be honest. They understand what MDB and the other bands on the roster are all about. They don’t ask their bands what they don’t want to do. They don’t take us aside and ask us ‘can you please shorten that song to a three-minute hit, please?’ That would be ridiculous, clearly we’re not the band for you if that’s what you want. They don’t hassle us about artwork or titles or lyrics. They know that they’ve got MDB and that it has its own appeal and it has its own little market somewhere and they’re happy with that. Its the same with the other bands on the roster. So that’s perfect for us.

We haven’t stuck with Peaceville just because of that. Our contract has come up maybe two or three times through the course of our career and we’ve had offers from various other labels. They’ve always been the best one. It’s just that simple, for many many different reasons. They’ve always offered the band; as far as we’re concerned, the best deal and they pretty much leave us to just get on with it. I mean, who wants to be hassled by a record label? They’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but as a record label they’re probably the right one for us. We have no intention of changing in the near future.

C: Have you ever wanted to tour Australia?

Andrew: Yeah. Well, its getting to the point where we can’t avoid it. We’ve been asked a number of times and as I’ve mentioned, it’s not financial, it’s not the money that stops us – we get good offers, even as an underground band, we get offers that certainly make it financially viable, to get there and back without spending any of our own money, at least. Its time. That’s the killer. There’s six members in the band plus certain members of the crew we can’t leave behind. Its getting them all together at one point and saying ‘right, we have so many shows to do, and we have to get there and back’ But yes, we’re on our way and without doubt its going to happen. I just can’t tell you when.

C: This year, next year?

Andrew: Please don’t hold me to this, but we’re hoping to be there in the next eighteen months to two years, which is still a massive amount of time. But, considering how long we’ve been going it’s only a minute away.

C: Well, maybe one more question, if the operator doesn’t scold us.

Andrew: She’s pretty cool, actually.

Operator: It’s okay.

C: (laughs) You’re still there! I’d thought you’d left!

Andrew: We’re on first name terms.

C: Well, how have you reacted personally to the term “doom metal” being claimed by the post-hardcore / progressive movement [like bands such as] Electric Wizard or The Sword or what have you? Do you still call that “doom?”

Andrew: I have no idea who the fuck those two bands are.

C: (laughs) They call themselves “doom” but, at least when I think of “doom” I think of the crushing, heavy, oppressive sound. They’re also calling themselves “doom” bands.

Andrew: They certainly don’t register on my doom radar if you know what I mean. Before I make any stupid comments about them I need to listen to them. Doom has so many different faces right now. They may genuinely be a form of doom, it might not be quite how I understand it. I heard about one of these bands supporting someone recently and they seemed to be quite high up the bill and I thought ‘well, I’ve never heard of this outfit.’ But you mentioned their name again. What I’ve always expected is for an American band to turn up and be doom metal and go straight to the charts in mainstream music as “doom.” But some doom bands that have been plodding along for twenty-five years, thirty years get nothing. Then they get classed as “old school doom.” As opposed to the “new wave of doom.” For me, that would be a travesty and a tragedy for the word “doom” to be used in that way. As “pop.”

C: It’s been great talking with you Andrew, I hope to see you in Australia soon.

Andrew: It’s been a pleasure. And I’m not just saying we’re going to tour for the sake of it. It’s something on the cards, its going to happen.

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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

Edguy - Jens Ludwig Interview

Here’s me thinking that a rock star never got out of bed until the clock was at least into the double digits.

“It’s 9:40 in the morning over here,” confesses Jens Ludwig, lead guitarist for Germany’s power metal darlings (or goofballs; it really depends on your point of view) Edguy. I heartily apologized for awaking him so early, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“I usually get up at eight o’clock.” Really? Is that the waking time for a rock star of such a caliber?

“It really depends, but I have a dog that really needs to go out.” Well, you can’t ignore the thunderous yelps of a caged canine for too long, can you?

Pet maintenance aside, Jens presumably beamed with pride while talking about Edguy’s new album, Tinnitus Sanctus while relaxing at home in Germany. Jens, Tobi (Tobias Sammet, lead vocalist) and co. also had a great time thrashing out the jams for this disc, with a lenient tour schedule affording them a more relaxed and comfortable experience than ever before.

“The recording went pretty smooth,” he says. “We had a big time window to record it so we didn’t record everything in, let’s say, three weeks, but over a period of two months. For example, Dirk (Sauer, guitarist) and I laid down our guitar parts in three sessions, which only took three days. But we had enough time to lay down vocal parts and additional arrangements and try out different things too [in that time]. It was all pretty relaxed, but we also focused on the more important things.”

Nevertheless, two months, let alone three weeks seem to be a pretty tight turnaround for the creation of a sterling metal album with symphonics and other flashy sonic nuggets that a discerning ear may pick up.

“Well, it depends on how much material we have,” Jens says as he gets down to explaining the finer aspects of an Edguy album recording.

“For the previous albums, Rocket Ride and Hellfire Club, we also had two EPs to produce for each album (one each), so we had sixteen to eighteen songs to record. This time we only had eleven
songs, so it was much less work. (laughs)

“But it was better to focus on these eleven songs instead of trying to get fifteen or sixteen songs done in the same amount of time, since we had so much belief in the album.”

They also hope fans to believe in the album more so than the singles since the radio and TV coverage of metal is lamentable at best, even so in the seemingly metal-mad continent of Europe as Jens explains.

“If you’re producing a single and you want to get it to the radio, it has to be played in some underground radio station or on some stations that, lets say, have the ‘metal hour’ maybe, once a month? It’s just a waste of promotion money.

“Sometimes there might be a couple of hours a week [dedicated to metal] and only the metal fans listen to it anyway, and they already know that the album’s going to be released because they are reading the magazines and all that stuff as well. You don’t reach anybody new with radio.”

It’s always been hard for metal to crack a new market in the face of such stiff competition, but Jens’ attitude gives it a positive spin; that metal fans are more appreciative of their genre due to its scarcity of mainstream attention.

“I think it’s good the way it is; it’s never been different with this kind of music. Its good for the fans of metal, since they don’t get any new material from radio or television they have to look out and they have to really pay attention for what’s going to be released, and they really look for material that they like.

“That means they’re going to be fans of your band for the future as well, not [treating your music] as just some throwaway article.”

With new albums come new tours; Jens sounded pumped to begin his eight week European tour (that just might encompass the land down under, if all goes well) that started in January.

“After we finish that European tour we’re going to start a world tour,” Jens excitedly tells me.

“We’re going to start in Russia, then take in Asia, then, hopefully go to Australia, because I would really love to come back there once again. I’ve been there twice already, and every time was so great there, so I hope that it’s going to happen this time.”

“After that we cross the date line and go to South America, and then after that we’re just going to see what’s going to happen.”

“There’s nothing confirmed yet,” he says confidently, “but be sure we’re working on that.”

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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

Chimaira - Rob Arnold Interview

Here's a chat I had with Rob Arnold of Chimaira just prior to departing on their two month US tour; be sure to read Buzz Magazine next month for more Chimaira news!

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A phage is spreading across the metal realm and it about to be released by metalcore pioneers Chimaira. Their latest album, The Infection and its accompanying sensory onslaught seeks to instill a sense of dread from every direction, taking on a dirge-like quality that invokes the bleak and inevitable. However Rob Arnold, founding lead guitarist didn’t have plans for such a grandiose, conceptual piece; he tells us it “sorta just happened.”

“We go into every record saying ‘let’s see what happens when we get together and start writing,’” he straight-forwardly confesses. “That sludgier, sort of doomy more brutal sound was just what was swirling [around our heads] at the time.”

The record’s genesis began rather unceremoniously in the back of a tour bus with Mark and Rob setting up a makeshift studio during the latter stages of their Resurrection world tour.

“We set up a studio in the back lounge of the tour bus at the end of the Resurrection cycle [of tours] and we said ‘Hey, its about time we wrote a new record.’ So, on the first day we got it all together, got my guitar plugged in and the first riff played was the opening riff to the song Try to Survive. Its just got this cool groove. (starts to sing song) It’s got this cool heavy vibe to it.

“We liked it and we finished up that song that night. The other guys were popping their heads in there and saying ‘Hey, that sounds cool.’ We just knew we were on to something. It just really set the tone for the rest of the tunes.”

And they were written similarly quickly; the “first seven songs were written over the course of a month, on the rest of that tour,” Rob reveals. “The whole process probably took around three months or so.”

Even though the buzz around the record has been momentous for the band in their eleven year career, the no-nonsense Rob doesn’t seem to see it. He insists that the recording took place under routine circumstances, even enlisting former keyboardist Ben Schigel to handle the production again.

“[Ben] has been our long time friend and producer [who’s] done a bunch our stuff. We had all the songs written and we just went in and did our thing. There wasn’t anything really special about the recording.”

The Infection, when released on the 21st of April, will feature a ton of goodies and bonuses for fans; those who are lucky enough to snag the first 580 “metal briefcases” will also receive a flag, a DVD documentary and a syringe shaped USB stick with demos, pictures and other bonus tracks among other merchandise. (“We had to sign about 100 of them” Rob tells me, “we had a little assembly line going in our practice space”) Rob’s involvement was limited to playing the songs on the record and giving a final tick of approval to the finished artwork.

“Mark and Chris, our singer and keyboard play have a ton to do with that stuff. I’m the kind of guy where they make the stuff and they show it to me and then I’m like ‘Hey, that looks good.’ Those guys are heavily involved in the artwork and every concept of what goes on with each record and they work real closely with [label] Ferret Records and their team.

“They always make cool looking stuff. Its just for fans that like something a little extra special.”

Constantly on the road, Chimaira certainly aren't afraid of a little hard work with Rob describing their touring schedule as "definitely intense", especially when they've begun writing on tour.

"We're gone for the long part of the year and we don't get to spend much time at home. But that comes with the territory. We're a metal band and we have to get out there and work it. We have to rely on the word of mouth; play as many shows as you can and get as many people to see you as possible.

"In metal, you can't really rely on radio at all, so this something we know we have to do. For ten years now it's been write a record, record it, tour on it. Now, like you said, we're even writing while we're already on tour."

Despite the fatigue of the road (and sea), Rob and the crew are already psyched up to play Australia and New Zealand again.

“We had a great time last time and we’re really looking forward to coming back in [Autumn.] Our last show with Korn was in New Zealand and we’re really excited to go back.”

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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

Alice In Chains - Sean Kinney Interview

A treat for all those AiC fans out there.

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Although considered the newly resurrected gods of alternative metal and grandfathers of the noble grunge tradition, Alice In Chains are not invincible. Talking to founding member and drummer Sean Kinney, the last time he was in our fair land many years ago, he ended up in hospital, as he reluctantly revealed to me.

“Yeah, the last time I was [in Australia] I had a great time. Unfortunately I had to go to hospital. Jimmy DeGrasso [the drummer] from Suicidal Tendencies had to fill in for me when we went over to New Zealand. I can’t remember exactly what it was; it was a long time ago.

“I’m actually looking forward to getting over there [for Soundwave] and – well, you know – to not end up in hospital.” Nevertheless, it didn’t deter him from staying on, staying in Cairns for two weeks after his eventual recuperation.

Having been on hiatus for so long, Kinney remains cognizant of the weight of the expectation that he and the band must bear; he laments that Alice almost disappeared completely, never to be seen again.

“Well, we sort of shut down when, back in the day, when things were really starting to blow up around us,” he caustically explains.

“We made the wise career choice of never performing after releasing two number one albums back to back. So we stuck with that plan by not doing anything for ten years. Then of course Layne [Staley, singer], had passed away. This was something I didn’t foresee happening and it just naturally had taken its course.

“As long as it feels good and it’s cool and it’s genuine with us and we like it, it just kind of evolved to this point. Things are going along pretty great. It’ll be interesting too. It’s such a different world out there.”

The world he refers to is that of the music industry, which has undergone almost cataclysmic shifts since their time in the late 1990s – the age of the internet crept in and eventually exploded towards the dying years of their decade with the advent of Napster and more recently iTunes and Bit Torrents, a world Kinney keeps a critical eye on.

“It’s a world where people steal music and record companies can’t sell music,” he says, with a mix of excitement and disapproval.

“They sort of screwed up. It’s such a different time and place; there are so many real unknowns now. It’s going to be really cool.”

When Alice in Chains were around the internet was no where near as powerful a medium as it is today and the record companies who ignored its potential, according to Kinney, have paid the price.

“They fucked up, man. They just didn’t pay attention.”

“The great thing is that you can get your music out to a lot of people. But on the flipside, people want it for free. Studio time isn’t free; we put a lot of money and effort into what we do. They expect us to be talking to them twenty-four hours a day on blogs and things. It takes the mystery away, I think.

“We’re not from that ‘era.’ That was never really our ‘thing.’ It’ll be interesting to see how we fit in, if we fit in.”

Talking from the famous Studio 606 in Los Angeles, Kinney and the band settled on Grammy-award winner Nick Rasculinecz (pronounced Rask-yoo-len-icks) as producer, having an impressive CV having been behind the desk for Rush, the Foo Fighters and Velvet Revolver. The genesis of the new Alice record was humble, Kinney says.

“Well, we had a few tunes happening and it got up to the point where we said ‘Hey, let’s make a record.’

“So we started thinking about producers, and Nick’s the kind of guy like us; we don’t use a lot of the stuff that people use nowadays, we’re not doing song inspections and we’re not doing autotunes and shit like that. We’re really old school. We actually play everything you hear. (laughs) Sonically, he does some really great stuff. [He makes] what you hear is what’s really going on, and we really liked that.”

According to Kinney, Nick is one of the more laid back producers in the rock scene, content with having fun and making friends rather than pushing the band to their absolute limits. Would Nick ever wave a gun in their faces a la Phil Spector and The Ramones during their turbulent sessions?

“It wouldn’t surprise me though,” Kinney muses, “If he did something weird…but I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in my time and it’ll take a lot to throw me. So far it’s been really cool.

“A few years ago Rolling Stone said that we’d never do it. Now here we are, making music again and I’m honestly really excited about it. It’s amazing how life plays out like that. If it feels right, and it’s for the right reasons then it happens. But you never know where shit is going to lead you.”

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Originally published in Buzz Magazine, February 2009 © Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.