Distortion Analysis - Episode 1

Our debut episode! We introduce ourselves and discuss our musical industry backgrounds. Our music news segments includes stories about Lamb of God, the Stubhub controversy, Megadeth retiring and more. We review the Morbid Angel album Blessed Are The Sick and Sean shares his mystery band of the week. We wrap up the episode talking about live shows from Lamb of God, Sanguisugabogg, Sinister, Master, and the Maryland Deathfest. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Welcome to the Tor Channel Source. For each episode, we discuss our topics of Arctic News and on tour. First year our reviews all focused on heavy metal. Here are your hosts, Sean McKnight and William Rizzo. So welcome to our podcast. My name is Sean McKnight, and with me as my co-host is William Rizzo.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

Hey.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

And um uh we're gonna start. This is our first episode, so this episode will probably be a little rough around the edges until we get our until we get our bearings and figure all this out. But we're on our way. Uh we want to start with a little intro about ourselves as far as uh just talking about why we're here, uh what we're gonna talk about, a little bit about our backgrounds, uh, just so everybody kind of understands, you know, a little bit about our history here and what we're oh and what we're all about. So um, William, did you want to start or did you want me to start as far as background stuff?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Okay. So my history goes back into the 90s a bit. I've been a musician since the 80s, but um, but I got into metal music uh, you know, really back in the 80s uh as far as a musician and playing, you know, playing bands and stuff. And then um uh eventually I got to work for record labels. So that happened in the 90s. Um started around 94, I think. I started to work uh at Relapse Records as uh doing radio promotions is what they hired me for originally, and then it kind of morphed into a position where I was working on video promotions and doing tour coordinations and uh setting up endorsement deals for bands and uh doing video promotions and um yeah, the AR stuff where I would help manage the bands whenever they were in the country, uh things like that. And at that time, relapse and nuclear blast were one kind of office because it was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And um at that point, relapse was the U.S. office of nuclear blast. So it was kind of two labels, you know, at the same time. So we were working with like relapse bands like um, you know, uh, let me think, who's on relapse of like Deceased and you know, some uh Exit 13, you know, some of the other more you know grindy bands, and then on nuclear blast we had like Dismember and Amorphous, and Amorphous is kind of on both labels, really. And we had um, you know, uh in later on in Flames and you know all these other great, you know, these great bands. So uh and I got to work with you know a good chunk of those bands. So that was what I did. So and then uh I did that for a while, and then eventually the the labels split apart. There was a nuclear blast office set up all by itself, and then I ended up working uh for that office too. So I left uh you know, relapse, went to nuclear blast, and then worked for that office, kind of do the same stuff, so and worked with bands like Mishuga and you know and then you know all those great bands. So yeah. So that's now have you my history. Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Have you stayed into metal music? Yeah, and this through the whole last 20 years or so I did stay into it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Like one of my uh problems with it was at the end of my career in it, I was really burning out on it, where I was getting it was kind of killing music for me, where it was like you know, it was having the opposite effect where I was getting so inundated with so much music, but then also the politics of it were really bothering me. Um, and that was some it was just kind of a dirty, it's kind of a dirty business in a lot of ways, and a lot of cutthroat bullshit that goes on. And between all that and just I think the oversaturation of it, I just was kind of getting sick of it. So that's when you know I had another career kind of change. I moved over into teaching and things like that and video production, those kinds of things, and then um eventually left the industry in like 2000, I think three, two or three, something like that is when uh when I was done at nuclear blast. But then after that, I stayed still working with bands and doing live shows of my own, and you know, I still you know stayed active, just not in the label sense. So, but yeah, yeah, I and I still stay in touch with some of those bands. Like, I'm in touch with guys from like Deceased and Amorphous, and you know, some of the other bands out there.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

So very nice. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's nice to be plugged in.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah, yeah. And they and they and the funny thing is they sometimes they they actually even still recognize me. I went to the Maryland Death Fest like back in I forget what year that was, 28. It was before COVID, so it was like 2019 or 2018, it was just before COVID, I guess. Yeah, and and we saw Amorphis there. I was there with a buddy of mine, and we saw Amorphis there, and we went, they were doing a meet and greet afterwards, like you know, designing the table thing. And I just want to see, you know, go up and say hi. And then Essa, the guitarist, recognized me right away. And he goes, Oh, and he like he recognized me as we were like hugged, and you know, it's like this big moment because we were friends when when I was working with those guys, yeah. So him and Tomy, the other guitarist, they they both recognized me from like 20 years ago, so that was really cool. Because I was like, I was because I walked up to them and they looked at me like like it's like hey, I didn't know it was like, Do you guys remember me? And it was like, Oh yeah, and then you know it was a big, you know, big thing. So that was fun, very nice. Yeah, yeah. So how about you? Now you I I blabbed on long enough. What about let's give us let's hear the Williams story.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, uh well, I mean, I've always loved music just in different forms over the last I mean, for most of my life. Uh actually, yeah, it's gonna sound crazy. Started with disco in the 70s.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

That was your portal in the music was disco.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Who are your bands? The Saturday night uh fever soundtrack. Oh, I had that. I had that album. Was it was like I worshiped that. I worshiped the BG, I worshipped Cool and the Gang. Wow, don't even get me started on the village people. No, when I was in first grade, I actually got my uh um, I asked the teacher, we were putting on some kind of play, and I was like, Can we do a song where we dance to uh YMCA? I remember if it was YMCA or in the navy, one of those two was like one of my favorite songs of theirs. And uh yeah, I mean I can at like six, I convinced the teacher to add this segment in because that that's how my how heavily I was into it. So that kind of morphed into um pop music, the pop music that was around in the early 80s, yeah. Beginning of like uh electronic music, yeah, uh Tears for Fears and things like that. But mostly I was a top 40 radio guy. Wow, I grew up in on Long Island, which of course is right next to uh New York. Yeah, it is New York, but I mean the city, yeah, the radio park, and that's when uh rap music came out. And you you take like a 10-year-old kid who's watching videos of these dudes breakdancing grand concourse in the Bronx, and you're like, I want to do that. I started getting into all this rap music, and every Saturday night I was putting on breakdancing shows from my parents uh with little boombox and everything. No way, I'm trying to picture that. Oh yeah, well, fortunately, there's no pictures of this. Yeah, but uh, you know, I mean, I was I was totally into it, and uh wow, yeah. I I I thought I wanted to be like a DJ for like like no shit RB stuff, and and then yeah, and I I just like I don't know how the rocks I mean I always I there was a few rock records that I enjoyed, like like I had Pyromani.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Who is who is your first favorite hip hop? Who is your first favorite hip-hop guys, like the rap guys?

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Oh, it had to be run DMC.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Run DMC, yeah, okay, cool. Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Run DMC and LL Cool J were like the top.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah, nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

You know, and then you have this the the lesser known guys, but the like more more skin card guys like like Bizmarkey and Flickrick the Ruler. Uh it's like crazy dudes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

So uh so yeah, I mean it was it was like that, and it's through the mid uh eighties into the late 80s when um my best friend from high school was started turning me on to rock music because okay, we were both into pop music, and then some guy that he became friends with turned him on to music and was like, What are you listening to? Here, look at this Zeppelin tape, here listen to this J Jimi Hendrix tape. So he went through that and he started, and I'm like watching this transformation take place. I'm like, What is he doing? He's like you know, betraying his roots and all that, and then all of a sudden he was like, dude, you have to listen to this tape, just listen to it a few times.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Which one was it? What was the first tape?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

I don't remember. It was it was either it was either a Hendrix tape or a cream tape, or yeah, and and I was just like, Wow, this is amazing. This is unlike anything I ever heard. Uh not completely, because like I said, there was a few rock things in uh kind of buried in there.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Well, you run well, run DMC did the crossover with Aerosmith and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, and there was also like rock that was in the pop uh charts, so that some of it made it into the pop charts, but I was also I also like the band Triumph, which was a three piece.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Love Triumph, yeah. Yeah, actually doing a reunion tour thing now.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah, I don't I I thought that was off, but hopefully, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

I think it's back on. I don't know. I was reading that they're doing something.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

I need to get a ticket, yeah. See what happens because uh you know they're not young chickens anymore.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

But uh yeah, uh and it's the original three, it's the same, it's the same three guys, so they're doing yeah, Gilmore is uh drummer, I think, and uh bassist, I don't remember. Then Rick Emmett, I mean I was that guy.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

So about may probably about um 89, 88, 89 is when I started listening to like classic rock.

SPEAKER_05 9:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

And what happened was over the next couple of years, so so this guy that turned me on to the music, uh, his mother bought him a guitar uh for a Christmas of 88. Yeah. And this is a very sad story, and I hope he doesn't mind that I'm telling it, but his his mom had uh an asthma attack after like shortly after the you know the presents were given out and uh she passed away.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Oh my god, that's terrible.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah, it was extremely traumatic. Yeah, exactly. And uh so I I you know fortunately he bounced back from it. He has a very successful career in San Francisco right now. He's a DJ and techno music, and he's he's very um skilled with doing like um like video editing and things like that. Um so anyway, he starts playing guitar and he's like, William, you have to get an electric guitar so we can jam. At that point, I only had like a few acoustic guitar lessons like from a few years before that. And I was learning shit like Mary had a little lamb and I a yellow ribbon and shit, you know. So I was bored with it and I just I forgot about it. So he's like, just get an electric guitar. So um asked my parents to get me one, and I got a cheapo Charvel with a cheaper little practice amp, and then nice was started going over to his house. We started jamming. Right. Uh uh, I started getting into ACDC because that was a very, very easy uh sure.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Oh, yeah, ACDC is a good, yeah, good way in.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Yeah, yeah. Uh and it's easy enough to where you can teach yourself. Well, blue scales, it's just blue scales, yep, and the chord progressions are all real similar that just radiations on. So that's how I kind of taught myself to play was playing along with ACDC. Uh, then I got into rush.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Oh boy, okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah, and then uh so then I was into like more than just like your basic classic rock stuff.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

I'm listening to the radio one night, and it was it's a not an it's a college radio station up in New York called uh WSOU.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

I was gonna say WSOU. I was gonna I I used to work with them, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

They have um South Orange, New Jersey.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

They're like the the biggest metal station in that market.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Oh, totally, totally. Yeah, um they were playing, I don't know if it was the Monday night mayhem show or what, but um listening to and they played all kinds of stuff, but all of a sudden they played Metallica's disposable heroes.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Uh okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

I had never heard Metallica before and the most evil shit that I ever heard. And I said, Oh my god, I can't believe music is that heavy.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah, yeah. You know, so it's back from Metallica is still heavy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Well, yeah, that's from you know, that's from the puppets album before they even got into you know the the justice stuff, but uh I I was just floored by it and I said, I I really want to learn to play like that. So I've started you know gradually learning the simplest stuff and then moving my way up, and then I got eventually, you know, I started moving up to the other bands harder and faster stuff, you know, Exodus and Slayer, yep, okay, Megadeth. Yep, yeah. It was only about a year after that that I got bitten by the extreme metal bug. And I said, That's it right there, bro. I need to learn how to do that because that's what I want to do. And uh, so then I started playing along with those records, and I'm like, I gotta get into a band. And I was in bands, I was in a couple of bands before I got into my main band, which was sarcophagy.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Uh who is who's the who is the first death metal band that you were like, that's the band I want to that's lighting the fire to do to do the thing.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Uh well, I know it's not a lot of people say, Well, that's not death metal, it was, but it was napalm death.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Was it napalm death? Okay, well, yeah, they're considered grind core or whatever, but it's considered grindcore.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yeah, but the the thing that I tell people is the Harmony Corruption album, yeah, it is a death metal album. Yeah, yeah, it was. That's not what their intention was. And if even if that's not what Mick Harris intended for it to sound like, yeah, they went to Morrisund, they recorded with uh um not not Tom Morris, um um I can't I can't remember his name off the top of my head. Um the the the guy that recorded uh did all the recording. Um great. Now I'm an idiot. I just met him last year. He's a cool dude.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

The guy from Morrisound?

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Yeah, yeah. Hold on.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

Yeah, let's Google this real quick.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Oh great. Now my phone is should have left the phone up. Uh oh, Scott Burns. Oh, Scott, yeah, yeah, I forgot about the two.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Uh so you know, they for followed the same formula that all the other bands have followed, so their record sounded an awful lot like it. So one night I was watching Headbanger's Ball, okay, and then they played the video for Suffer the Children. Yeah, it was a life-changing moment that I still remember. If I think back enough, I'm like, I can remember sitting in the basement and going, holy fucking shit. I I was it was mind-blowed. So I um really started getting into that, and I started getting into death and obituary and Hannibal Corpse and all that. You know, and then I started, you know, jamming along with the cassettes of that. At the same time, I'm in these bands, they're like cover bands, or just the like I was jamming with people. Like I was I had this uh guy I'm still good friends with who's a drummer down in Nashville. That um it was me and him and another guy that we used to take places uh trade the drum, uh not the drum, the bass with the guitar.

SPEAKER_05 15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Because he was a big Steve Ray Vaughn guy. Huh. So he would jam uh his, you know, he would want to do a couple SRV covers and I would play the bass on that. And then I would put my guitar on, he'd put the bass on, and we would just play this, like I don't know, with very amateurish avant-garde noise rock. Nobody was singing anything, but we were just going nuts.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Was that sarcophage? Was that the beginning of the no okay? No.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Um, it was just it was just an opportunity to jam on like a Friday night.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Oh, I see, I got you.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Okay, our our old band uh that had broken up, the one that I was in with the guitar player, yeah, broken up, and we were standing at some local concert, you know, this local show, we're watching the band play, and he says to me, Man, I'm so bummed that the band broke up. I'm like, I know, I don't know what we're gonna do. We'll I'll have to try to find somebody to pull to jam with. Because who are we gonna find? You know, we uh we were at Purdue University in in Indiana, which is fairly conservative as a of an area. I didn't know that there was a whole metal underground there yet. Really? Well, I mean, I was like, you know, Purdue, no kidding. Yeah, well, and people back then people would tell me in New York, they're like, Oh, you're going to Purdue? You know how conservative it is out there, and to an extent, they were right. But um, I mean damn. Yep, but you know, I I can't obviously to find uh different picture, but uh so we're standing there and he he's sitting next to his other friend and he goes, Hey, do you happen to know any anybody that's a drummer? And he kind of started laughing, and he goes, Yeah, him. And next to him was my friend Mark. And hey, what's up? So right after that show was done, we went back to his apartment and consumed many libations, talked about all the things we were gonna do and jam, and so we started this every Friday night thing. Wow, cool. Yeah, that lasted for about six, seven months, and then uh the semester ended. And uh I had to try to, I don't know. He was gonna start jamming with some other band. So again, I'm in this situation where I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. And that's when I that's when I went to a local show with this girl I was dating, uh, because she was a towny, so she knew all the people and the local, you know. So she brings me to the show and she's like, Oh, one of the bands that's playing is a death metal band. I know you death metal. I'm like, sure. Let's go. So we go there, and one of the bands that comes on is my friend Tony's band. It's was uh he ended up being the basis for sarcophage, but he was in this band called Casket, and they came out on stage and they just tore the place to shreds. Wow, it was like I thought there was no one like this here. You lied to me. So I I introduced myself after the show. I'm like, uh, you know, I know you got a band together and all that, but here's my name and number. If you know any other musicians that are looking in music, so he hooked me up with the guy who ended up becoming our drummer.

SPEAKER_04 18:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Um, and then a few months after that I called him. We started jamming, and uh the rest of the guys, and so we did, you know, we were a sarcophage for three years.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

So that's how the band sort of came out. It was out of Purdue University, the scene.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah, well, none of the other guys were Purdue students, okay, at least not yet. And it was just me, and it was it's crazy that there was a scene there, yeah. I I well, you know, uh Purdue is in West Lafayette, and Lafayette's across the river from it. Yeah, so there really isn't a whole lot of interaction between live and work in Lafayette, which is a fairly blue-collar town, yeah, industrial, a lot of industry, heavy industry there, versus you know, the college town of West Lafayette. Yeah, so I when I called the drummer, I'm like, listen, uh, you know, Tony gave me a number. Uh I was wondering if you wanted to jam. I I'm a produce student, but you know, I have all this free time outside of studying. You know, do you want to jam? And he's like, I thought you'd never call me.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

No way.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Wow. Get your ass over here and bring your guitar. I'm like, no shit. Wow. Hell yeah. So uh yeah, we started hanging out.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Uh now how long how long you said we were together? Three years?

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

We got signed.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

No, we didn't get signed.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

No, I didn't get signed. Okay. But we tried. Did you produce uh your own? Did you make release your own stuff? Yeah, yeah. Which would you have how many stuff did you release uh like full-length albums or what?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

No, two demos.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Two demos, okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

They were I mean they were both studio recorded.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

The the second one sounds a lot better than the first one.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Does um did now did you get to play how much did you get to play around a lot? Did you guys get to tour and stuff like a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah, a fair amount, like about uh I'd say uh maybe 20 to 30 shows. Right on, you know, I mean it's not that many, especially today when everybody's playing shows, but yeah, it's it was kind of it was a little difficult to schedule shows because a lot of times people wouldn't rent to us.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Well, we're were you guys were you guys still based there and in like in the same town, or did you okay? So was there opportunity to play around there, or did you have to kind of go out? There was okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Yeah, so like we would rent out like the Union Hall, okay. I did a lot, man. I was like, I took the DIY ethic to heart.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Wow, it was important to me because I was like so there weren't so there weren't any clubs, so you made a club more or less.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Yeah, I mean it was like you know, like like a community center. Cool. Um, yeah, just uh a church that let us rent out the space after you know that it wasn't like the part with the pews in it, it was like a but yeah, no, so we played like a lot of shows around town, a couple bars, a couple bars we played in.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Um, but we did travel out of town. We played uh Flint, Michigan. We played Kenosha, Wisconsin. We did the Milwaukee Metal Fest one year. Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

You did Milwaukee Metal Fest. Cool. I was gonna say, did you guys you guys so you got to play with some sign bands too?

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Oh, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Did you open up for anybody big?

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Uh once we played in Indianapolis where uh Morpheus Descends actually opened for us. Oh, right on. Wow. That's cool. We also did a show in Bloomington, uh, Illinois. It was the Bloomington Death Fest where we opened up for uh both Dying Fetus and Oppressor. Oh, right on. And it was back when dying fetus wasn't like known.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Yeah, well, it wasn't like dying fetus, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, and I you know, I was I wasn't feeling too bad about the mistakes I made during our setting. I was just trying to relax it with our drummer, and all of a sudden they came out and they just destroyed the place.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Well, I guess we got a little practicing we gotta do and get home. So yeah, so it was good. You know, it was three years of a lot of fun. Uh yeah. And then uh, you know, camaraderie, you meet people in other bands, and and it and it was fun. We got a lot of uh fan mail. Cool. Did you know the world? Yeah, uh wow. We got a lot of stuff from Brazil. Brazil surprisingly. How did they find you? No, I well, you do, you know, back in the day you did a lot of tape trading.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Oh, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Because it was no internet, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Yeah, so underground, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yeah, and and everything was um, like you know, like you mentioned fanzines.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

I was gonna say, did you guys get zine interviews or anything like you know, anything?

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Multiple interviews I did. They did, okay, cool. Yeah, because I was like, we gotta we have to get the word out about us doing this, otherwise, we're doing all this work for nothing.

SPEAKER_05 22:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

So uh we I did a bunch of magazine interviews, I did a radio interview for someplace in upstate New York. Um, I think Mega Trends and Brutality was the name of the show. And he gets on he and it was a broadcast program, so he's like, before we go on, I just gotta let you know you can't curse because if you curse once, I gotta give give you a warning. If you curse two times, I gotta I gotta end the show. And I'm like, Oh, don't worry about that. So so yeah, it was it was cool, man. We we got correspondence from all different types of people. I I was corresponding with a guy who was locked up in prison. Um, that apparently he somehow got a copy of our demo tape. Me and all the dudes, when we are in the yard, we jam this tape while we're lifting weights. And I'm like, whoa, that's a table. So I better write back to this guy.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Yeah, you and one of his friends showing up and go, Hey, you're writing back to me.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Yeah, he's waiting for your letter. I know. Yeah, I think I sent him like a like a sticker or something to cigar. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Best to keep him happy.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah, best to keep him happy. Nice. What what what made the brand what what brought the band to an end?

SPEAKER_00 24:02

So we were hoping to get signed, and uh it didn't happen. We were hoping to get signed because it for so you know, when you're young, you get these ideas in your head that you know things are gonna happen in a certain timeline, yeah, and you don't understand the concept that life has its own design, right? So uh one of the things that our vocalist Eric was saying was, Oh, oh, we're gonna go uh to the Metal Fest. Once we play that show, we could probably get signed, like Internal Bleeding got signed last year, yeah. Yeah, because apparently, like somebody from Pavement Records was standing in the audience and they just does delivered a killer set and got signed a pavement right away to do it their first album. And yeah, you know, Eric was thinking the same thing was gonna happen to us, and I'm like, uh maybe, yeah. So it it they it didn't. We went on, we were the first band, you know, it's all weekend long. Yeah, we were first band on Friday afternoon at like 3:30, 4 o'clock.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Yeah, crap slot, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

And and yeah, it was terrible. I mean, there was some people there and they got into it, but like nobody important was there, yeah, yeah, no, not yet, yeah. So it didn't happen, and Eric decided he was gonna move to San Diego. Uh so that effectively ended us because as soon as he said that, the our Tony or bass player was like, Well, I I'm gonna bail too because you know I think we should bring this to an end. I was like, Okay, so and and the way that the music was going at the time, um, death metal was really kind of going on the decline. Uh okay, and then not even just in the popularity, like I started noticing like the quality of the music, it seemed like there was more regurgitated riffs, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not as not as powerful. The music was getting kind of boring, and I'm like, what's happening to this music? And then I noticed the new metal was and quickly taking its place. All of the fervor that was associated with the breakout of death metal in the early 90s was now transferred on to new metal.

SPEAKER_05 26:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

So uh I was like, you know, I I don't really see a live making a living with this unless I'm just saying screw it, I'm gonna go down to Florida. Yeah, even the folks in Florida weren't doing that well, it was just on the decline. So I uh you know, you talked about a career change, yeah, yeah. So I decided I wanted to go back to to get my doctorate degree in uh in psychology because I wanted to be I wanted to be a forensic psychologist and do evaluations with you know uh prisoners and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

But but um uh you know, so I went through, you know, I I basically left music behind. I I uh packed up my guitar, my amp collected dust. I didn't write any music, didn't play for like five years, six years. Um, and I I didn't really listen to much music either because it was just I didn't have time. So I kind of left the music scene entirely for five, six years, and then gradually started getting back into it.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Well, now what now you're back doing what? So what are you doing currently? Talk about your current project. Oh, and by the way, uh yeah, go ahead and talk about your current project.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Um so right now, uh I'm 15 years into uh my solo artist, uh my solo career as a musician, where um I I refer to myself as soul control because I do all of the stuff, all of the things like the recording. Um I'm gonna receive a little bit of help here and there from friends who would manage.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

You're playing every you're doing the vocals, the bass, the drums, everything. Drum guitar, everything, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yep, yep, uh everything. Uh yep. So you know it it's the and that's been its own long journey. It started about 2008. And uh I don't know, I just I I realized that I had missed playing. I and I had also missed metal.

SPEAKER_05 27:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

So I started getting back into listening to you know what was around then, and by that time death metal was starting to make a little bit of a resurgence with uh some of the bands that were you know had started back then, like Abysmal Dawn or just did a couple months ago. And um so over the next few years I started realizing, oh, I can put together my own songs and my own metal music. I'll just do that. So that's that's what I've been doing now. It's 2025, and uh I cut two solo albums out um planning on releasing some kind of a uh an EP here in the next year or so. Uh and uh there was some talk about another sarcophage album, and I wrote some riffs for it. So I don't know what's going on with that. I haven't heard anything. I know that some of the other guys that were wanting to do it, they're you know pretty busy with uh you know life right now. As you get older, you get busier with life and kids and all that. So, you know, they know I'm here that uh you know I'm ready to go if they want to do it.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Quick question. Uh, can you hear the TV in the background?

SPEAKER_00 29:03

No. Okay. I'm listening to the heat.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Okay, well, as long as you can't hear it, it should be okay. Um, okay. So so um so you're so um uh now how can people find your music, Soul Control? Where do you have it out where people can get it?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

I only have it on one platform. I know I should have it on more, I know it should be on Band Camp, but I'm only on Reverb Nation, so it's reverbnation.com slash soul control.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

How do you spell and soul is S O L E control?

SPEAKER_00 29:31

S O L E.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

There you go. Okay, um, and all the music for our podcast here is courtesy of you, by the way. So any the intro music, any music you hear throughout this podcast is all William there. So just heads up uh for any anybody who's listening to our podcast, any music you hear, it's all him. So you can get a sampling of where Williams' music just by hearing the background stuff here, and then go find more looking up Soul Control on Reverb Nation. Rock on, rock on, thanks, William. Um, okay, so uh that's a little bit about what and we're gonna be talking about here in the podcast, we're gonna be talking about different types of metal. Uh, we're not gonna just talk about death metal, we're gonna talk about everything encompassing metal, basically. So all things that are metal. So this could be anything from Metallica to you know really extreme, you know, brutal truth and you know, whatever, you know, go into like stone or rock, you know, whatever. Um, so yeah, so we're gonna be just talking about all things within that spectrum. So just a heads up to our listeners as far as what we're gonna be talking about. Uh eventually we'll have some interviews on here. We're gonna get some you know interviews lined up and uh let's go ahead and move into music news. Um I read an article this week uh about Lamb of God and Stubhub. So I don't know if you saw that or not, but uh uh apparently Stubhub was promoting a Christian event that was uh had the something tied in with the Lamb of God, and then they showed uh they they thought they got it confused with an actual Lamb of God concert. So they were showing like the band pictures and stuff, and I guess Lamb of God fans bought tickets to this thing, and then eventually it came out that this was actually a Christian event. So uh what did you think? Did you did you hear about that?

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Yeah, I what I think is I think uh StubHub needs to stick with sporting events clearly than I qualified to handle music distribution, but uh yeah, that's I I mean I I'm sure that they talked about it as a group as a band, like you know, wouldn't it be funny if yeah, yeah. Well now the wouldn't it be funny if story actually happened?

SPEAKER_02 31:39

I can't believe it hasn't happened sooner. Like that I mean they were originally called Burn the Priest, like when they first started, that was the first that was and then they evolved into Lamb of God, but um you know, so the first thing would have been more obvious, you know. But then when they turned into Lamb of God, I'm like, I'm kind of surprised this something hasn't happened like the sooner. I was actually thinking it was gonna be the other way around, where they would be doing a concert somewhere, and then Christians would see Lamb of God in like the newspaper, you know, like a publication somewhere, get tickets for it, and then show up at the show and be like, wait a minute, I don't know if this is you know, hang on, kids. I don't know if this is quite the Christian event that we thought this was gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Daddy, why is mommy crowd surfing or crying or both?

SPEAKER_02 32:20

So I'm just wondering, do you think that's ever happened where they like some Christian showed up at one of their shows? I don't maybe to protest. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah, that's usually what they're yeah, that's that's quite comical that such a mix-up could happen. I don't know about you, but I usually do my due diligence before I attend an event.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Yeah, yeah, usually same here. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

I mean, especially if it's something that you've never seen before or heard of before. You don't go based on the name. Well, you know what? I shouldn't say that because I actually I actually went to go see suffocation based on an ad that was in the paper. This is back in 1992, and I I was I was like home for spring break, and while like other kids were down and you know, so you weren't familiar, you weren't familiar with them as a band yet. No, I'd never even heard of them.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

And I remember the ad said roadrunner recording artists suffocation with immolation and morphous descents. Oh wow. I know what immolation, but I've never heard of of this other band suffocation. Yeah, sound brutal if they're on Roadrunner records. I should have checked it out.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

So if they're playing with immolation, they're gonna be brutal too.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, uh but you uh it wasn't something I could just look up on the phone, right? Right, right. You know, there was no radio station for me to call up, except for I guess SOU might have had one of your records, but yeah, um, but I I didn't know, so I just showed up and sure enough they ripped my face off.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

As they do, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

But uh yeah, but I uh most of the time I usually look into you know who it is I'm going to see exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

I just I just wonder if they ever play like a venue where there's um it's like a theater or something, because sometimes when there's a theater like that, they'll have like uh people who buy like a pass, like a season pass to all the events, right? And they'll just you know what I mean, they'll just attend because they can. So you get like some retired retired couple showing up, oh look, Margaret, it's Lamb of God, and then they show up and then it's like you know, they get their face wrestled off. So that's the kind of thing I was kind of wondering if that ever happens with them.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

A season pass.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Yeah, because they you know, they get people that show up and plays, and you know, these kind of like they just go to go because it's something to do, they're retired or whatever, and they have these like season passes where they'll have like it's like a membership, but they get they get to go to everything, right? So they buy this one thing that costs whatever money, and then they can just attend everything that that that shows up. So that's the kind of thing I'm just kind of wondering that ever happens with them.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

So oh, I'm so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Harris. This will never happen again. Who the hell booked this band?

SPEAKER_02 34:53

I love how deceiving their name is. Yeah. Lamb of God.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

I know that I mentioned uh the last uh time we discussed this was the you know, the the there's the one video that they have where it starts off as a children's birthday party, right? You know, where they're all these waspy looking people with bowl shirts and they're you know playing these like yard games, and here comes the freaking Lamb God tour bus.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Oh my god. Um all right, so do you have anything else in Metal News? Anything else?

SPEAKER_00 35:32

I I actually wanted to bring up um something I just read about Dave Mustaine.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Oh, what's that?

SPEAKER_00 35:39

They they are I mean he's he's basically addressing the the fact that they're gonna be they're not gonna be recording any new music.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

I saw that, yeah. Like this is the last album. This is the last album. Yeah, and last tour, too.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Yeah, yeah, he's like he's done. The only question is how long the tour is gonna last and whether or not they're gonna put out a live record, which I think he said he was gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Yeah, that would be smart.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Yeah. Um, but what I didn't know was like I didn't know the the extent to which he had physical issues. Oh, yeah, some with his hands, right? Doesn't he have his hands? Arthritis in his fingers. Okay, he also has this condition called something contracture where one of his fingers is is unable to be fully straightened.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

Oh, I didn't know about that.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Wow, yeah, and it's getting to the point where it's a progressive disease to the point where like it's he won't be able to play, he's not gonna be able to play anymore.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

At least not the way not to the level where he is now normally, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

And and because I was I saw video of him playing recently, and I was like, Man, he is he's he's really kind of sloppy, and I didn't know why. I thought it was just his age, but he's lived a rough life, man.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

No, you know what's not just that though, because I saw I I've seen them like over the years, like three or four times. I saw them back on like um uh you know Symphony and you know some of the other tours and stuff that they had done. Yeah, um, and he they were always tight, but then when I saw them back in like 2018 or whatever it was when they were touring with Mashuga, um, I noticed the same thing that he was like I was surprised by how sloppy he was because he's much more of a technical player than that normally. So that's why I was kind of like, Oh, he's he's kind of yeah, because my friend also one of my best friends with me, my friend Paul, he's also a guitarist. He and I were kind of like, Oh, he's kind of that's not normally he's normally tighter than that. So we were both kind of taken aback by that. Because especially after just watching Mashuga open for them, sure, and Mashuga's like perfect, yeah. Like it's like it's like watching an equation of math, like in the form of music, it's flawless, yeah. It's flawless. So when you see that and then you saw them, it just like this loose kind of you know, it's yeah, it was just surprising for Megadeth.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

If I didn't know better, I would have thought maybe he started drinking again.

SPEAKER_02 37:57

Oh, that's interesting, but that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

I mean, the guy is like solid as a rock with the buttons he have that plus some other physical problems, he also had the issue where this is crazy. Like 20 years ago, he and and it might have been longer ago than that. He was drunk and he fucking passed out in the chair he was sitting in, and he had his his arm over the back uh of the the chair, and he so he just fell asleep like this. Yeah, he didn't realize that he cut off, he he pinched a nerve. Oh no, wow, and and he gave himself pretty bad nerve damage to where he said I woke up, I couldn't, I couldn't control my hand. Oh my god, wow, I didn't know about that.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

No, he had that was like permanent damage he did. He did permanent nerve damage there.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Well, it was it was long-term damage. They were telling him you're not gonna play guitar anymore, and he's like, I'll show you. And he he just soldiered away at it wow until he we regained most of his functions. He was he wasn't like back to um 100 Rust in peace, love the planet, but he was he he got himself pretty decent. And then we saw him uh for the uh dystopia tour, which I think was 2016, 2017, something like that. Yeah, it wasn't the one with Masugar because I would have remembered it. Um wait, did you see the show in Philly? Yeah, was it at the electric factory?

SPEAKER_02 39:25

At the filmmore, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

At the filmmore?

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Yeah, it was at the filmmore.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

I saw one at the electric factory.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Yeah, no, it was at the top. This was at the filmmore, yeah. It must have been different. Yeah, the opening band was Tesseract, and then it was Meshuga, and then it was Megadeth.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

Yeah, I mean, even then it was like you could tell it was a difference in the playing, but well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

I mean, when I saw him then, he was like, I that's what I was saying. It was sloppy, so it was surprising.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah, we saw the one where suicidal tendencies opened up.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Oh, okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Um, so I'm that might have been like befor right before that was probably the tour before or something, yeah. Yeah, but I I think in all in all in all seriousness, I think he's entitled to to to hang it up. He's done enough. Yeah, he's certainly been a a crusader for you know 100 the the industry, the metal industry.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

And he's one of the godfathers for sure.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

He really is, and you know, he all all all of the drama with Metallica aside, the guy's a multi-talented yeah, for sure. Um you know, really had a clear he's like the perfect example of someone who's so determined nothing's gonna stop it from getting what he wants.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

And I use that as like my own inspiration back in the 90s when I was I went through like a period where I was uh having a depressive episode because I was in a I I uh had a relationship that didn't work out, and so I just focused on playing and like metal is what saved my ass.

SPEAKER_05 40:49

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

You know, my my whole state of mind was saved by it. So that's why, and and I credit his playing with a lot of that. So I think he's gonna have a well-earned retirement. I think I I think so too.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

I think we might, you know, he it's one of those things where they say they're not gonna release anymore, but you know, down the road, you know what I mean? I think they'll probably he might go back and do something music musically, I would think.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

But well, he did say they were interviewing him, and he's like, I don't want to be like one of those acts that says goodbye, and then they come back a few years later and they're playing, you know, recording new music and playing shows again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we'll see if he doesn't see if he can even play.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

Well, that's true too, yeah. So, um, okay, so one last piece of music news I had that I thought was really interesting. Uh, did you hear about Vinny Vincent's new release?

SPEAKER_00 41:38

That guy's still alive, really okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:42

So, listen to this. So, so X Guitar is a kiss, right? So, you know, yeah, okay. And Vinny Vincent's right, right. So he's releasing a new album. Okay, now the way he's doing it though is really interesting because instead of releasing just a full album, right? Where you can just buy the album, like all the songs together as an album, right? What he's doing is he's releasing each song as a separate single that you can only get on CD, and each song costs 225 bucks.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

That this is it's not April 1st, is it?

SPEAKER_02 42:19

No, that's what he's doing. He's releasing every song separately as a single, but you can only buy them on CD and they cost$225 each. Each song,$225.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

I would like to know the strain of LSD that he took before coming up with this marketing strategy.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

So his idea, and he's a real dick about it too, because his fans are like, What are you doing? What you know, we can't afford this, you know, especially in this economy. What are you doing? And he and he equates it like this. He's like, Well, he's like, Look, the artist puts all this work into it, you know, we get ripped off by Spotify and the streaming, which it's legit, that's a legit thing. So you know, I believe that's true. So I understand kind of where he's coming from economically that way. Uh, I don't agree with it, I think it's very impractical, but I understand kind of where he's coming from. So, but then someone said that, you know, okay, they can't afford this. You know, how what's your response to that? What's your response? And his response is that, well, tough shit, basically, and that my music is not for everybody. And if you can't afford it, well, it's kind of like caviar. The the people that can afford caviar buy caviar, the ones can't, don't. So that's kind of that's his attitude about it. It's kind of like fuck you to anybody that can't afford it. And he's like, if you can afford, you know, if you can afford caviar, you can buy my album, kind of a thing. So that's kind of that's his attitude.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Well, I I wish I could say that I was surprised by that. But no, knowing what I know about his personality, he he's an he's an incurable egomaniac.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Oh my god, his ego's so out of control.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

He's worse than Ingve. That's saying something. Yeah, it is something that really says something. The few the few blurbs that I read about Vinny was just like he's. He he's always at a hundred.

SPEAKER_05 44:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

You know, and and and then I listened to some of his his playing and I'm like, this is not good.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

No, he's just kind of a mess. He's just like flying around the fretboard. I don't I don't even know what. Yeah, I I've heard his stuff and I never thought it was good. None of it.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

It didn't hit me like like when you listen to other like virtuosos that uh really have a a good command of the instrument. So you know, like Steve Vai or uh something like Satriani or yeah, Satriani or Jeff Beck.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Jeff Beck, yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

You know, people who really have good feel, you know, just cramming a thousand notes into two bars, it's just you know well, and he's just he's just playing fast for the sake of playing fast.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

There's nothing there, there's no substance to it. It's just like look how fast I think I am. That's right. And then he's sloppy as hell on top of it. So it's not like he's it's not like he's in vain where he's super precise about it. Yeah, so he's just kind of like a little bit, it's just kind of like this sounds like this mess. So I was never impressed by his playing.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

No, no, the guys that that you see at Guitar Center are better than he is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

Yeah, that's so true. But yeah, that's his model. So that's uh that's that's if you want to get the new Vinnie Vincent invasion music. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

Oh man, I guess I'm gonna have to go without that's pretty much what anybody else is saying too.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

So I don't know. Good luck to him. I don't know. Yeah, I guess some hardcore Kiss fan would maybe some collector person maybe buy this shit, but I don't know. I don't know. I'll be surprised if he sells any copies. I really will. But I don't know, that's his attitude.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Well, uh, maybe the same person who bought the single copy of the uh final Wu-Tang album will add that uh each single to his collection, then yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

So the one so one guy will appreciate it. So all right, so we will move over into album reviews now. And you you picked the one this week. So tell tell us the one you picked and why you picked it.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Okay, well, we are talking about the second full-length release from Morbid Angel. Uh and this is a uh brilliant album, Blessed Are the Sick. There it is. And uh yeah, it's some real cool artwork on the front. I forgot the name of it, but it's you know actual actual art. Um the final album with uh them being a four-piece, uh the last album that Richard Brunelli was on before they let him go. Uh and it's it comes out in uh it came out in 91.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

91 on Earache Records.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

On Earache Records, another band that recorded down in Marsound, another band that recorded um with Scott Burns. And uh it's just so tight. My God, I I've listened to it several times now, and the the reason I picked it was because in all of these years, like I've never been a real huge morbid angel guy, and I don't know why. It's just like just like the way that the music is structured, it's so like disjointed in parts and awkward and like weird drums, and yeah, not that straight ahead, straightforward, you know, blast beats that that I kind of got exposed to. Um and I I thought it was kind of an acquired taste, but I only had the first one, which was Alters and Madness, which is a very different record than this is. Yeah, and then I sat down and listened to this like for real, and this thing is a masterpiece. It's very, it's very uh it has a lot of dynamics to it, I'll say that. I've read that uh people are not the biggest fan of the fact that it that it had like all of these like little musical interludes to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it has like an intro and then it has an outro, right? And it has uh a little flute section at the end of one of the rats or something. And I thought that was spooky as fuck, man.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

I'm sitting down in this basement, it's like you know, after midnight, the wife's asleep upstairs, and I'm hearing I'm going, and then of course, there's Richard Brunelli's masterpiece, um, Desolate Ways, which is the solo acoustic piece.

SPEAKER_02 48:26

And uh, that's really that's a really that one's that's a surprising departure in the in that album.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

Yeah, it was very unexpected. Yeah, and I think that that's what really makes the album stand out, and it's not long, it's like 39 minutes, yeah. Yeah, so it's very it's easy to digest in a single sitting. Um, it's the production is top-notch, the playing is is just flawless. Yeah, the interplay between Trey Azagthoth and Pete Sandoval, the drummer, yeah, yeah, just so tightly locked in. Yeah, um, there's actually a uh a YouTube clip of Richard Brunelli playing along with the like his playing along with his own record with um um immortal rights, which is on the first record. Why did they why did they dump him? Uh allegedly there was uh substance issues, substance abuse.

SPEAKER_02 49:19

Is that right? Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

Yeah, and and that can wreck people in a lot of different ways. So I don't know what way that manifested with him, yeah. Whether he just didn't show up to practice or he did show up and he was a mess, gun player, yeah, gotcha, or he was very antagonistic. It could have been a combination of those things, right? It's very difficult when you have someone that you're depending on when they have serious substance.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

Well, and especially that stuff, it's not like they can get away with some sloppy blues thing. I mean, it's all technical what they're doing, right? So you have to be you have to be tight when you're playing, you can't be like out of goofing around.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

That's right. But I mean, maybe maybe they just felt like he just wasn't going to cut it for any further records, yeah. Uh, so they were like deciding maybe let's not even start a new record with him, let's tell him now.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

Yeah, yeah, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

But it's it's a shame. Um so they went on to make Covenant after this, which was released in '93, I think. Yeah. And uh that was them as a three-piece. So he very overdubbed his solos.

SPEAKER_05 50:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

But uh, yeah, I mean, uh I uh all of the I I even I like I sat down here a Saturday and just like wrote a bunch of notes out of all the songs, man. It's just like my favorites probably um was it's um unholy blasphemies, which is the ninth ninth ninth song. Uh the notes I have here say total fucking death, Lucy solo, nut so transition, and at the end Trey thinks he's Hendrix. Because that final solo is just like and and I dig it, I dig it. I mean he does it, he places the notes well, and he's very he's very uh uh his his picking is very um uh like you know, to use the word articulate again. I hate to keep using the same word, but yeah, yeah. He's a very clean player. Yeah, yeah and he's a huge uh Eddie Van Halen fan. So he once remarked in an interview uh you know that he he he really uh was influenced by Eddie and he would just be like, just listen to his rhythm playing. If you want you know, if you want to really get what drives me in terms of what I come up with for Morbid Angel, listen to a Van Halen.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

No kidding, really. Is that where he got his inspiration?

SPEAKER_00 51:40

Yep, yep. He was into the shred, the whole shred scene. Oh wow, okay, that's cool. So yeah, um, I never got to see them, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

Did you no, I've never I've never seen them. No, I've never seen them live. Uh uh. I thought I saw them at Milwaukee Metal Fest, but no, I don't think I don't think I see them. So no, I missed them.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

Yeah, well, I was supposed to see them uh open for Black Sabbath. Whoa, wow. Odd. Yeah. When was that? It was 94 and I was living at uh in Indiana at the time. Opening for Black Sabbath. That's crazy in Chicago. Whoa. And I think it was uh Black Sabbath uh God, that's crazy. Which tour was that? I wonder. I think I think it was yeah, because it was it was when Sabbath was um Ozzy was not singing.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

No, no, it was one of the other yeah, I forget.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

I can't remember the guy's name he was saying for him. Yeah, uh, but so Lafayette is about a two hours and change drive from Chicago, yeah. Uh and of course, and it was like January of '94, and of course, this fucking blizzard happened the day of the show. So my buddy that was gonna go to the show with me comes over to my apartment, and he's like, I don't know, man, the roads are pretty scary right now. And I'm like, Well, you're doing the drive. And so if you want, we can try to make a stab at it. And we got about 10 miles outside of town, and the traffic ground down to like uh five or six miles an hour during down this highway. And I said, You know what, man, at this rate, it's gonna take us six hours to get up there.

SPEAKER_02 53:20

Yeah, forget it.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

We're gonna miss the show anyway. Yeah, so we turned around and went back, and I called the club in Chicago, and I'm like, Hey, I'm just wanting to see, did you reschedule the show? And he's like, For what? I said, Because of the snow. He goes, No, we're still having the show. It was Chicago, there used to snow, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get up here, you weakling.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

So I was like, Great. So we just kind of sat around and talked this, you know, talk shit for a while and and had a couple drinks, and that was that.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 53:48

I never got to see him.

SPEAKER_02 53:49

Uh so all right. Um I had uh I liked I listened to it too. I'm familiar with the album. I was never a big morbid, morbid angel guy myself. Um I I had an appreciation for them and respect for them. Uh just I don't know, just they just never grabbed me, I guess. Yeah, so but uh, but I did like some of their uh did like some of the stuff I heard off of Covenant and so some of the off of some of the other albums. Um they're definitely one of those bands that were defining, I think, the genre at the time when it was first starting. So they're one of the bands I think that laid a lot of the foundational stuff for the genre. Like they became one of those sort of boilerplate bands that you kind of study if you're gonna study death metal, you know what I mean? Yeah, so they're one of the bands you go back to in history and kind of look up and see what they're like, and you know. So I think there was uh I think they had a lot of uh influence that way. Um like what I did notice about it was the it's it's good for the production of the time. So, but I did notice that sometimes the production was a little muddy sounding, but that's just because the nature of of the I think of the you know the mixing and stuff because we talked about how you know the mixing is like done at more sound and you know they're good at extracting all that, but there are times when I found that it was just a little, but that's just the I think it was just the technology of the time more so because I used to work in well, yeah, because I used to work in studios around that time too. So it was just you had what you had, yeah. And then I like when they remaster things because it does help clarify some of those old mixes and stuff. So I'd like to hear a remix of this, like like a new, you know what I mean? That would be interesting to hear.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

I think they did remaster it.

SPEAKER_02 55:20

Did they remaster it? Okay, I might have to go back and revisit that.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

This uh this copy is 2018. Okay, oh I think I read that in 2019 they put out uh uh like an enhanced CD.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

Oh, did they? Okay, I might have to check that out.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

Something called a combo disc where it the one side was a CD of the album and the other side was a DVD of their like music. Oh, cool, and uh, you know, yeah, it's pretty cool technology to have those two things fused onto it. Yeah, okay. Um, so maybe that's a version that would be remastered.

SPEAKER_02 55:55

Check that out, yeah. Um I did notice that there's times when uh the velo the melody in the vocals almost feels punkish. Did you catch that at all? I thought there's a sort of a punk delivery sometimes to the way he kind of like the some of the attitude that that was there, the way he kind of barks and stuff at times. I kind of like almost felt like there was a punked vibe in there, yeah. Yeah, so just with the vocals a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

It's a unique vocal.

SPEAKER_02 56:19

I don't know if that's I don't know if I'm hitting the mark on that, but to me it sounded kind of a little bit there were moments I thought his vocal was kind of like that a little bit. It was interesting because it's like because he's kind of the typical death metal singer, but just he does have those moments where he's just a little bit more there's some attitude in there that I know.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

Oh, totally, yeah. I don't remember what song it's on, but there's a part where like the he stops his vocals and the music continues, and he can and he just utters the last word from the previous uh verse, and it's just the word suffer and the way he said suffer!

SPEAKER_02 56:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

And I'm like, Oh man, that's so badass.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Yeah, he has yeah, he does kind of move around a little bit, so I thought that was cool. And yeah, Desolate Ways was a really big surprise when that just shows up, and you're like, What? This is like a whole different album. It doesn't seem like it belongs on there. So, but it but that was a cool, again, sort of departure, which made them a bit unique because again, how many bands were doing those kind of like just musical interlude things that weren't that weren't about extreme, it was just about a good piece of music that they felt fit into place with everything else. Oh, yeah. I thought that was really cool. Um yeah, and I liked a lot of the leads. Um, but I like it, like the one lead that really stuck out stood out to me was on the ancient ones. So that was that one was I thought just like really cool, just like really tight and kind of uh precise and technical and all the things you want a good solo to be. But then I listened to the uh uh but then when I was listening to Brainstorm, I thought that that solo was kind of like just like a I don't know if the intention was there, but it just kind of felt messy and kind of like all over the place. So I don't know if he was going for something more discordant or if that just kind of came out that way. You know what I mean? So I don't know if you listen to that. Yeah, listen to brainstorm and then listen to the ancient ones, and then you'll hear what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

So I have Tight and Fast as Shit.

SPEAKER_02 58:06

For which one?

SPEAKER_00 58:07

For Brainstorm. For Brainstorm, okay, evil ass lyrics, hick my ass solos again, expert level transition, outrageous thrash thrash section, and then trace lays at the end.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

I don't know, maybe uh it's probably the outrageous thrash section that feels like, but maybe that's the intention, though.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Oh, that's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:26

Yeah, so maybe that's because I know he's a better, I know he's a good player. I'm not questioning his skill, but just like it just feel it feels stylistically like that one's a lot more chaotic versus something more constructive like the ancient ones was.

SPEAKER_00 58:38

You're right on the money, totally.

SPEAKER_02 58:39

So that was so that was something I noticed that was interesting. I I don't know how many people will pick up on that as far as like whether he did that intentionally or that they think he just fucked it up. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 58:52

We're never gonna know.

SPEAKER_02 58:55

But that's just I don't know. I just thought that was, you know, whatever that because it's you know, it's obviously my interpretation of this, so I don't know what his intent was, but you know, I just thought that was I thought that was an interesting take on it.

SPEAKER_00 59:04

But he's a very unique player with a very uh interesting kind of approach to um like the I I I mean I have listened to countless bands that do crazy solos, but he's he's sets it apart because I like you he makes you question, he almost reminds me of like Vernon Reed.

SPEAKER_02 59:26

Oh, yeah, from Living Color, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:27

Like the Vernon Reed of Death Metal.

SPEAKER_02 59:29

Yeah, yeah, I can hear that.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

Because you listen to Vernon and you're like, does he really know his shit? Does he really because he went to Berkeley, you know, and it's like yeah, a lot of jazz influence and stuff in there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

So he's kind of like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

But when you hear Vernon Reed playing by himself, bring bring, I'm like, oh crap.

SPEAKER_02 59:49

Oh, you're like, okay, yeah, he knows what he's doing.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

It's like Paige Hamilton from Helmet. You listen to his playing and you're like, that dude went to, I think he's the one that went to Berkeley. Yeah, yeah. And then he plays these jazzy interludes and he just he smokes them.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

So I think Trey is in that kind of clean.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:07

Yeah, definitely. So cool. Cool. All right, so we're gonna do a music, uh, an album review every every week. So we'll come back to that. Um, now we come to the part where we try to introduce uh a band that we haven't heard of. One, you know, I try to turn you onto a band, you try to turn me onto a band. Oh do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

You go first.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

Okay. Have you heard yet? Have you listened yet to Blood Incantation?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

I've heard of them, and I've heard some of their stuff. I've seen the video where they are in outer space and they're flying through planets and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:53

You have to get the album or listen to the album called Absolute Elsewhere Elsewhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:58

It's like if Pink Floyd was a death metal band. I'm serious. That's what it's said. That's exactly what it sounds like to me.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:06

Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:06

Oh, yeah. So the musicianship is like crazy, crazy, crazy good. But then they do these like you talk about a departure, it it goes off from this distance. You're like, where the hell are we going? And but it all works, like the whole thing. It's like listening to a bunch of classical music suites, all in one, all going from one to the other in the whole album, and they're definitely out there. They were definitely channeling something when they made when they wrote this thing. So yo my god, it's like it's it's like it's yeah, it's like it's something that it's gonna be, you know, one of those albums that looked at that's looked at as like uh an album of its time that was just like one of those influential albums that everybody was like, this is like the best thing, you know, ever that that year. So yeah, so listen to it. So I have my shirt here right right there. It is, but so it clearly says blood incantation. You can see that, right? So anybody can see that. Well duh. I mean, come on. Obviously, there's a there's uh C, there's a L. So yeah, I mean, obviously, I'm not gonna spell it out for you. Semicolon. Yeah, so and then the back of the church, but uh um, so I saw them here in Portland. Um yeah, so if you get a chance, you have to look up that album uh absolute elsewhere. All right, can't recommend it enough. It's like a it's a masterpiece, it is just a masterpiece for its time. I'm gonna just shut up because I'd rather let the album do the talking for the rest of it, but but listen to that album, and I'm telling you, it'll like just sit it, sit down, sit down and listen to it from beginning to end, though. You gotta because that's the only way you're gonna appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

Oh, sure, yeah, I believe it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

It's like it's like it's like listening to the wall.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

Yeah, they're they're an album-oriented band.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:47

Very much so. Yeah, yeah. They're all their albums have been kind of like that because I uh once I kind of discovered that album, I went down a rabbit hole and got started getting some of their other stuff. And their EPs are like, you know, so are are are are incredible. I'm gonna bring up something here so I can look at it while we're talking. But yeah, the um um uh the the uh hold on a second, let me spring this up real quick. Where is it? Uh there we go. So yeah, I got I got uh absolute elsewhere. There's one called Hidden History of the Human Race. Uh there's another one, another album called Time Wave Zero, which is all uh ambient like time or like soundscapy stuff. It's not like death metal, it's just like atmospheric stuff. The whole album's like that. Nice, so like I said, very pink Floyd, lots of keyboards, things like that, clean vocals, as well as the death metal vocals. Oh, yeah. But but sung in a way that again he sounds it's very pink floyd. If you didn't hear the death metal part, you might be like, that sounds like a pink Floyd band. Yeah, yeah, seriously. So yeah, so just check them out, and again, I think you'll really appreciate them. And I saw I got I had the uh the the chance to see them live uh uh last this past summer here in Portland, and they're they were just mind-blowingly good. Like I would they played that whole album beginning to end, non-stop, seamlessly, and it was just perfect, yeah. I mean, just like yeah, there's just a flawless band. We see them like just it's something to be said about musicians, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

Just amazing seeing a a band play an album that you love like that from beginning to end.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

That's one reason why I wanted to go because I knew they were doing that, and they just played that was and it was just like that. The whole thing was perfect, yeah. Yeah, so there you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:21

Well, you've heard of Cynic, right? I have. Uh they I watched them open for Cannibal Corpse back in '94, right? And we played the entire album focus.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:32

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:34

And I remember standing there, I had just gotten a beer, and I'm like, and I watched the whole set, and I looked down and my beer was still there. I didn't get a sip of this. That's how incredible it was.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:48

I've been to shows like that, yeah. All right. So, what do you got for me?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:53

Uh so back in 1990, uh, a band came out of France, a thrash band. I don't know if you've heard of them, they're called Xentrix.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:02

I've heard the name, but I can't say I've ever listened to it. It's spelled as an X-E-N-T-R-I-X.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

And the uh L P is called For Whose Advantage. For Whose Advantage. And it was it was uh, you know, I got exposed to it because it was covered in uh I don't remember if it was a guitar magazine or if it was Metal Maniacs. Um but it basically marketed as if you're into tight thrash metal, i.e., you know, old Metallica, um Exodus uh testament, yeah, like this record. So I went right out to uh where I got all my stuff and bought it, took it home and it was just it blew my mind how good it was. It was just it was it was very tight. And uh meat guitar tones. Um just very well executed Thrash Metal when Thrash was still kind of in its heyday.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:07

And I know they came out with more albums besides that. I just never got into any others.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:14

Are they are they still around or are they are they done?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:17

I don't know. I didn't look that up.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:19

Okay, I had to look them up. Zentrix.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

Okay. So what do you know what year they w around when they came out?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:25

That was 90.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:27

Okay, cool. All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:30

It's aged very well.

unknown 1:06:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

If you listen to it now, it's still holds up. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have a modern sound to it, but it's just it's it's very well I don't know, carried out, however you want to put it. Yeah. The production is very good on it. Yeah. I don't know what label it was on because I didn't I didn't look that up. But um I just remembered getting into that at time. I'm like, oh my god, I just discovered this awesome new band, and that didn't happen very often because most of the time people were turning me on to stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. So I would look up Zentrix. All right, thank you for that. All right. Uh so now we're on to pretty much the uh that we're round we're wrapping things up here. Um the last part of the show, we just kind of talk about things like live shows or tours coming up or anything else that you know you you know that you want to go see. Or so is there anybody else that you know, anybody touring-wise that you want to go see? Or anything, any shows you have tickets for?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:40

Uh nothing. Well, I will I wanted to go see uh uh death metal band they're called Sang Sangus Sugabog.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:50

Oh Sangus, yeah, thank Sangus Sugar Bog, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:52

Yeah, yeah. Um they were with uh another band called Defeated Sanity, which I think is from Germany. Okay. Um I mean all of it just like top notch. And it was the it was the Sunday of or no, the Saturday night of Thanksgiving weekend a few weeks back. And uh I I got the damn neurovirus the day before not only did I miss Thanksgiving with my family, I also by the time Saturday rolled around, I was like starting to feel normal again. But I'm like, man, I can't I can't go out to the city, it's cold out, and I I just don't have the energy, it's still wiped out. So I didn't get to see that, but that would have been my third show of the year after um the one I was telling you about um earlier with um Abysmal Dawn. Yeah, uh they opened up for Christian from Brisbane.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:45

Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Christian, awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:47

Oh, that was fantastic. And then early in the summer, I was uh I had a ticket to go see uh Sinister from Holland.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:54

Oh yeah, I'm fan of Sinister, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

And they were co-headlining with Master, like oh my god, Master, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:00

They're like they've been around forever. They were playing around forever, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:03

I know, and that's why I was like, Oh my god, this is like ancient, these are OGs.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:07

Wow, and they were playing with them and they were playing Jersey. They were playing at Milk Boy in Philly. Oh, in Philly, a milk boy, no kidding they were playing at Milk Boy in Philly, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

You know how shitty it is. Wow, I walked up to the top of the stairs, incredible, and uh five feet away from me, sitting at his own merch table, was Paul Steckman from no way, and I was like, ah anybody can just walk up to him and see him. Um, and unfortunately though, the guys from Sinister ran into passport issues because this was back in uh like September, August, something like that. It was back when uh people were having like problems coming and going from America, yeah, without getting into the politics too much. Basically, that's what was that's I know. Like I only knew about it because one day I looked at my I looked at the the bill on Facebook and I'm like, what happened to Sinister's logo? You know, researching around, and I come to find out oh they're they they they're not that's that sucks.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:11

Um they were the band I would have wanted to see. I that's how I nothing it's master, I'm just more of a sin. I like sinister better.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:18

Oh, totally. Wow, totally. And I had we had already like I was supposed to see Sinister back in like 1994.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:25

They were the the first act on that show with Cynic Accountable Corpse. Oh no, wow, yes, and and unfortunately, because it was in Cincinnati, and it took us three hours to get there from where we were in Indiana. Uh I thought we left early enough. Uh obviously we didn't. We walked in, everybody was playing, and we were like, Oh, Sinister just played. Oh shit. Oh, and this was back in the um uh oh I remember what album that they had out back at that time, but it was it was it was so brutal. Um diabolical conquest.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:58

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:59

My god, and I and then I I so this is the second time that I've missed them. And a guy at the show was like, Oh, if you want to see them, they'll be at the Maryland Death Fest uh next year. So uh I may go to that.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:11

That that does look like a good lineup. I've been watching the uh posters for that. They they're gonna have a pretty good lineup there, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:17

Yeah, the grave is gonna be there. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, I was like, this might be my last chance to see them.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:24

So I think that that's the that's the big ticket that I'm looking forward to.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:28

Oh, yeah. That's a good show. I like them, I like the Maryland Death Fest. That's a good show. Um, yeah, Sango Sugar Bog. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but they're they're actually on tour now with Lamb of God. They're opening up with uh they've got like three bands opening on their tour. They're doing this big tour in 26. Yeah, it's Lamb of God, uh Kubicon, Texas, um, or Kublicon TX, I guess it's Texas. Um, uh, who is it? Fit for an autopsy, and then Segment Sugar Bog's opening. So I wonder I'd like I keep missing Lamb of God, and they've been playing here in Portland, and I keep missing them, and it's driving me nuts. And I would love to go to this tour, but I'm old and I don't want to sit through three bands that don't really want to see. So I'm gonna miss this tour too. Oh no. Well, they came through with like Mastodon and Carrie King, and that was one I should have seen. And they also before that, they came through with Gojira, and I was like, shit. So I kept missing them, and then this time they're coming through, and I'm like, ah, now I can see them, but I don't really want to see that that lineup. Nothing against those other bands, I'm just not into those other bands, yeah. You know, so because I've listened to all three of them, and they're like, Yeah, I'm like, Yeah, they're cool, but then I don't want to sit through sets of all three, yeah, and I'm old, so I don't really want to sit through all that. No, it's so good. Damn it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:41

That struggle is so real, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:44

Well, you know, 57, so it it does, you know, it does catch up to you a little bit. So sure, you just gotta sit a little, man. Well, but hey man, at the same time, I saw when I saw uh you know blood incantation, I was in the pit, so I'm just saying. Oh, no kidding. So yeah, in the pit, man. And then also when I saw Zealand Arter over the summer, too. Uh I was in the pit for that too. But but I can also relate to your your thing about missing shows. I had um uh I guess it's earlier this year, In Flames came through with Unearth, and I love both those bands. So and I had tickets to go see them, and I got screwed up by a storm and I got stuck in Chicago, and then I missed the show. Yeah, I know. Another storm-related faculty. So pissed, yeah, so pissed. Because I was those two bands, I love In Flames. I'm huge. I used to work with them because they were new to Glass Band. Yeah, I used to work with those guys, and um, and then and and of course, uh, I got an unearth after that because I saw they were opening, I wasn't that familiar with them, but I started going down the rabbit hole and they are amazing. So if you get a chance, unearth, yeah, really good band. Um, but yeah, unfortunately, I missed that show. So right now I don't really have anything else coming up on my uh I don't have tickets for anything, but you know, we'll keep talking about and seeing who's out there in touring and other stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:55

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:56

All right. Yeah, do you have tickets for anything coming up?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:01

No, no, I think I just I I I figured I would try to to uh work out the uh Maryland Death Fest and see if something else comes up. I thought I saw something in the next few months. I think something was up in Brooklyn. Okay, and I don't remember what it was. There's uh I I don't know. I have to look back at um because you get like alerts on Facebook about different things and and I forgot, I forgot it was. So I'll look into it and next time we get together, we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:31

We'll talk more, yeah. Okay, speaking of which, uh yeah, keep an eye out for Lamb of God. They're gonna be on tour uh beginning 26 uh early next year with those other bands. So check them out. All right, and that brings us to the end of our first show. How do you think it went?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:45

Oh, I feel delightful. I love talking about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:50

Did we talk about the metal enough? Did we get enough metal out there? Do you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

Yeah, I I think it's very metallic in taste.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:57

I like mercury, but don't tell anybody I said that because then they'll know why I'm the way I am.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:06

All right. So uh yeah, so join us next week and or for the next podcast, and we will go from there. Thank you for joining us. Twitch are the podcast anyone, we should have a few.