Distortion Analysis - Episode 7

TOPIC - INTERVIEW WITH KING FOWLEY FROM DECEASED

NEWS - William Shatner announces new metal album that will include covers of Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest along with originals. Henry Rollins and Zakk Wylde are contributing to it. Tesla have signed with Frontier Records. Iron Maiden’s official documentary “Burning Ambition” is coming out in May. According to recent interviews with Roddy Bottum and Mike Patton it looks like Faith No More is no more. Sebastian Bach has replaced Dee Snider in Twisted Sister for a handful of shows they’ll be playing. Snider was sidelined by some physical ailments he’s dealing with right now. 

ALBUM REVIEW - Deceased: Children Of The Morgue

MYSTERY BAND - William’s pick

LIVE SHOWS / TOURS - Punk in the Park has been canceled due to political conflicts. Inkarnation coming up in July: https://inkcarceration.com, Queens of The Stone Age on tour for their Catacombs album. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:26

We are back for episode uh six seven seven yeah our interview with Jimmy with six seven wow so yeah now the topic for this episode we're about to cut to that um is we have an interview coming up with King Fowley from Deceased. All right, so uh in this episode of Distortion Analysis, we welcome a very special guest, uh, old buddy of mine from back in the day, back in the 90s, that we met when I worked at Relapse Records. And his name is King Fally. Cheers, hello, from the mighty deceased.

SPEAKER_05 1:20

41 years of this there, Sean.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

I know, man. I couldn't believe it. I kind of looked it up because I was kind of curious, I couldn't remember what year you guys started. And I looked up, and you guys have been around for 42, 41, 42 years now.

SPEAKER_05 1:32

Yeah, well, yeah, we actually before it we named the band Deceased in 1985, January 1985. But before that, we had all these uh goofy, cool when you're young names like Evil Axe and Mad Butcher, and we were even mace for a little while. But and we were we were we were writing material, I could say as far back as 80, as maybe even late 83. I have some tapes where we're doing something called terror inside the coffin back then, but as deceased, January 85, we became the name deceased, so that's what I put it at.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

I I can relate to that. I was in a band in the 80s called Sniper, but we spelled it with a Y because that was more metal.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

I love it like Striper.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Yeah, but well, the the sad part was we had this our first gig, it was like this big gig, you know, for us. It was in the newspaper, right? And when they put in the newspaper, they totally misspelled our name as Snyder.

SPEAKER_05 2:23

Which brings us back to deceased and Les Snyder on the base. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

So yeah, full circle, full circle. Now, um, give me a heads up on this. Over this course of 41, 42 years, how much has the lineup of the band changed and how much has the sound changed? Like just the evolution of the sound and the line the members of the band.

SPEAKER_05 2:44

Well, basically, I'll I'll do the whole shebang with you. So basically, when we started the band, it was basically me and a guy named Marcel. We it was Marcel DeSantos, he was gonna play drums and I was gonna sing. We were gonna get a whole band. Well, Marcel at that same time was really caught up with a girlfriend, so he kind of quickly secondaried. Okay, so I met a guy named Doug Souther in um 1983, and um we became quick close friends, and I said we gotta form a band together. So it was really me and him, and then Marcel was the second the third wheel at that point. I was playing bass, Doug was playing guitar. Doug didn't play guitar yet, he went and learned to play guitar, he was taking lessons, he learned Venom covers, Jack Panzer, Overkill, the bands of the time. We met a guy, I met a guy at a Queensrike Twisted Sisters show at a bar in DC called Wax Museum. This was basically Queensrike's EP, Twisted Sisters, you can't stop rock and roll, and we became quick friends. We talked about Venom and Raven and Slayer and all those bands of the time, and we wanted him to come in. Well, we were also drug addicts at the time, and so basically we kept stoning out and forgetting to call this guy to get this band roll. Finally, we got the band rolling. So it was it was me, it was me, Mark, Mike. I mean, I'm sorry, me, Mark, Doug, and Marcel for a short while. Marcel backed off, and then I said, you know what? I need to play drums. And they're like, Well, who's gonna sing? You gotta sing. I said, Well, and I immediately said, Well, Dan Bieler, exciter, Peter Chris, Kiss, you know, drum singing drummers. So we had no bass player, two guitars, and me on drums and vocals. That was all that way all the way up till almost three months before we recorded our first demo, the Evil Side of Religion, in 1986. We wrote stuff as a three-piece. We got a guy named Rob Sturzlin, who was a great friend of ours, a German guy who was a big-time headbanger, Iron Angel, living death, creator. He was the guy. And we recorded Evil Side of Religion. In 1987, we were gonna do a second demo called Yuck with the same lineup, but I I I got fucked up on drugs and all this shit, and I had to quit drugs. So that was a down year. Basically, I almost died and quit quit all my drugs.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

What was the drug? What was the drug of that? What was the drug of choice at that time?

SPEAKER_05 4:47

Oh, for me it was cocaine. I did a lot of cocaine, a lot of PCP, and then your usual you know, ounce upon ounce of marijuana on top of that. Luckily, you never got some heroin or any of that bullshit. It wasn't a pill head either. So I was lucky. I just did, you know, I just smoking bombing fluid. I got out easy. Anyway, so we so after I got better, uh, I remember my mom bought me a brand new drum set, a $3,500 pair of mirror Ludwigs, double basic, it was huge.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 5:14

We had one jam, and and Rob didn't make the jam because he had to go to uh college. He had a uh local college. I talked to him on the phone that day. That night they wanted to celebrate, they wanted us all to go out, but I told him, I said, I'm still pretty worn out from you know coming off of drugs and my first day back. I'm gonna skip out, but I love you guys. We'll jam tomorrow. Well, that was the night of the accident, as you know. It was that night, Rob, Rob passed away, and uh he was in the accident, and Doug's brother was in the accident, and our friend Larry was in the accident, and they all all them died, and then another friend, Sean, he lived. He got both of his legs flipped around, and it was it was a fucking mess. So we decided to go on in the name of Rob, and and we went, we played our first show back, and it was this crazy Japanese guy jumping off our amps, this little kid. It was like a little kid with super long hair, looked like he was in Death Angel, and it turned out to be here we go, Les Snyder. So we got Les on base. So he came in. We got our second demo in 88, we got our third demo in '89. Matt from relapse got in touch about like right around then. We signed a relapse, and then Doug decided after he did Luck of the Corpse, he didn't want to do it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Why?

SPEAKER_05 6:23

Yeah, he he me and him started to see the way differently. Uh, I wasn't so much about making money as I was just getting out and playing. He was like, I need to survive, I need to pay my bills. He lived with his mom, he needed to pay his bills, and I understood that. We just sadly went grew apart, and it was a shame because we had a really good tight friendship for a solid five years. Yeah, so we brought in a good friend named Mike Smith, and that's the lineup most people know when you were relapsing all those years. All those records from 13 Brighton Souls, Blueprints, Fearless, Supernatural Addiction, and Behind the Mourner's Veil, it was the same guy.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Wow, so you had a really solid lineup for long time.

SPEAKER_05 6:57

And we had our issues with Matt and Relapse, as most people know, and uh we just left the label. And after we left the label, I decided I didn't want to play drums anymore. Because I had another band's time called October 31, and I was the front man for that. And I was like, it would be great to do this. So we had a friend named Dave Castillo who was in a local band called Hatred. He came in and played drums. His first show for us, and my first show singing in front of the band was at Vauken. We played at Vauken. Oh, a couple thousand people.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Wow, really? That was your first one the very first time.

SPEAKER_05 7:25

And I'd already the first time I did it with October 31 as a singer was the year prior, and at Vauken, both years was the first time.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 7:33

So we had that lineup for many a year. Then Dave had a had a baby, had to take some time off. And um, Mike stepped down from playing live, and we brought in a guy named Shane Fugel, who was a dear friend of ours, roadied for years and stuff, and he joined, and then Mark stepped out, he wanted to retire, he didn't want to do it anymore. He had some personal issues and stuff. So we kind of had a revolving door as a second guitar player live for a while because Mike was still the studio guy, he just didn't play live.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 8:00

And so we had a couple guys, Matt Altiri was a guy we had in there um early on, and then it kind of Dave came back. We had a guy named Eric Mays who was in Shane's band play. I know this is confusing, but this is what we had to do to keep going. So we had to go to keep going. And I basically said when Mark stepped down and Mike didn't play live anymore, I said, I've busted my ass to do this. I said, We're a family, but I you know I've I'm not stopping because nobody else don't they don't want to do it as as much as I do. So it kept going and kept on, and we had some great stuff when Shane joined on and Eric first got in. We went out and did 150 shows one year. Holy shit. And you know, from the days of relapse, we couldn't do a lot of touring.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:46

So we had a little bit of a you know, cushion.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:49

So that all was what it was. And then um Dave came back and Eric passed away, unfortunately. The drummer that was helping us out, Dave came back, and we continued on some more. I actually went back to playing drums on one record in 2011, I think it was. Yeah, that's yep. Surreal overdose. Okay, and then um we were kind of rolling with that live thing with a couple other guys. James Danzo came in, a guy named Chris Crump played some bass, various guys, Walter White, a guy named Matt Haibach, who still jams with us now, just for a lot mostly live. It's always it's still me. My it's me and Mike Smith write most of the stuff. Shane has has become the third head on the on the songwriting part of it, and Les is always our bass player and stuff. Well, in 2018, we did an album called Ghostly White, and one month before it was supposed to come out, or weeks before it was supposed to come out, our fucking drummer died. He drowned in El Salvador. I don't know what it's called, that mountain in Peru. What's that that big that big mountain there? I don't know. He was strong as ass, but he couldn't swim a lick. Him and his brother were playing frisbee out in uh on the beach in El Salvador. The frisbee went in the water, riptide came and it killed him.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Oh, no.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

And the weirdest part was we just done a tour with a band called Death of Kings. I know that's a fun name. Death of Kings. And uh and Dave said, if anything ever happens to me, man, you gotta get this guy, Amos, to play fucking drums for you guys because this guy can weird. And sure enough, it happened like literally four or five months later. Wow. Amos out of the blue wrote me a pen to paper, old time school letter and said, if you guys need help, I saw what kind of family you were. I'd love to help you guys out. And he's been our drummer since.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Wow, cool.

SPEAKER_05 10:33

And then since then, also Mike has retired. Mike was Mike was big time government. He was he was a secret fucking agent. This is no bullshit for the CIA.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Damn.

SPEAKER_05 10:44

He was living in he was living in fucking Turkey. Whoa. He was living in Jordan, taking care of all this crap in the world that goes down. He was big. So I wouldn't see Mike for but four four times a year. So some of these records took four or five years to get it done.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Oh wow, that's kidding.

SPEAKER_05 10:59

And then so after all that, we cut we me and Mark didn't talk for 10 years. When he quit the band, he sort of went and did his own thing. And we we had, I don't know what happened. First, I was pissed at him, he was pissed at me. Then time went on, I was just sad about it all. We made peace uh due to a mutual friend. Um, and Mark's been like, you know, he's helped out. He played a he just did a live show for the first time in 20 years. Last year, we celebrated our 40th. He played some leagues on the last record. So we're all it's a family, we're all look, you you know this, but I'll say it again: drugs, women, fucking fucking up, marriages, kids, divorces, houses, mortgages, bankruptcies, you know, like yeah, but we still do what we do, man, and uh it's it's it's great. I'm still very proud of what we've done. Our last record, Children of the Morgue. I was super excited when we did it. I still feel like the music is as good as it can be. I I don't do what I I say a lot of jokes is rent records. I don't just play records to make a couple bucks and you know, sell it and this the music comes first with me, always. Right always. I'm proud enough to say that I believe that the CISA's never done a shit record. Some are better than others, some sound better than others, but I feel like we've given all we have every time out. There's never been uh yeah, and that's kind of where it stands. I mean, you know, it's even now like we've got some shows coming up. Some guys are gonna go out one tour, some guys are gonna go out another tour because there's enough of us that someone can go do work, someone can take off work, and then the next time around, the person that took off work can work, and the guy that worked can take off work.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

That's so cool. You guys can you had a way you've got a way to put this all together, so that's really cool.

SPEAKER_05 12:39

I'm 57 years old now, brother.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Same here. I'm right up, I'm 57 too.

SPEAKER_05 12:43

Are you older than me? When's your birthday?

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Uh November 9th, 1968.

SPEAKER_05 12:47

Oh, you're you're not as old as me. I'm July 6th.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Oh, okay. You got me by like a few months. Okay, big.

SPEAKER_05 12:53

I'm not happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Well, at this point, the months do count, so I'll agree with that. Uh William.

SPEAKER_05 13:00

I don't know when it was, but when you're kids, you're like, you're nine years old. You're like, nope, I'm nine and a half. But when you get older, it's like you're 57 years old. And he's like, they're like, nope, you're 57 and a half.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

If you want a half the closer you get to 60, you're more than a good one.

SPEAKER_05 13:13

Anyway, we're busting our ass, dude. We still do what we do, and it's still 110% passion all the way through 100%. Everything about what we do.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Uh William, you got a question?

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Well, I mean, first of all, I have to say that's like one of the probably the most fascinating band history I've ever actually listened to. That's I mean, that that spans decades. It's very difficult to keep a metal band together over that period of time, much less longer than five years, which is probably like the national average.

SPEAKER_05 13:40

Sure. I mean, I'll yeah, I mean, that's the thing about us, and I say it when we play live a lot of times. Let's say we never went grunge, we never gave up on metal in the 90s, like a lot of people did. All of a sudden everybody was staring at their shoes, and woe is me, and you know, death is life and all that bullshit. We we stayed our guns, we played what we did, we fought through uh shaman. No, we did fearless undead machines at a time when everybody had the Pantera beard and the chugger chugger whiffs, or or or the you know, the Nirvana this, Nirvana that. But we didn't do that. We never stepped down, we never stepped aside. We're not one of these bands that came back because it's cool to reform these days and all that shit. Right. We just keep on a chugger luggage, and it trust me, I got the bald spot to prove it, man.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

So actually, it's it's good that you mentioned that because one of the questions was gonna be about um uh where where's this question? Uh okay. And I've asked this question to others before. What happened, in your opinion, to heavy metal in the late 90s? Take us through that.

SPEAKER_05 14:40

It became a bad it became a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths from the record company's point of view, most of them, because you know, I love Sean. Sean's always been good to me, and I like a lot of people at relapse, but relapse really, really lost direction for me then, kind of looking for whatever they needed to do to survive on their end. But it was different from what we did. And I've always been a guy to point out cancers and speaking mainly for relapse, I'm speaking it mostly at Matt because it was me and Matt that had a lot of head clashing more than anything else. But a lot of people like took advantage of clubs. I'm gonna use bands like Morbid Angel as an example. They would go and fuck it up for everybody else when it came to the underground because they'd be asked for these insane amounts of things. They'd get it once, they'd get it twice. The clubs would go to shit, they'd stop booking shows for that, and then other people bands were following graphic charts. Uh, you know, I won't even use the big bands like Metallic and stuff, which is quite obvious. But everybody was like, All right, we we this is in now. We have to, we have to be darker, we have to be whatever. Like Overkill had their I hear black album. All of a sudden they were like sad. Kiss, kiss 800,000 when I'm gonna lick their ass at any given time. Kiss all of a sudden's like, oh, I wish it would rain. They're like freaking being sad. Because Gene's like, you know, smashing pumpkins is hip man, smashing pumpkins hip. And I know that's stepping outside the boundaries, but nobody was calling it heavy metal anymore. I remember going to see Motorhead, and Anthrax opened it. I've only oh now I like by Anthrax, the soldiers of metal, so they were long dead to me, but they were like on stage, like, yeah, we're a hard rock band. I remember Lars on Howard Stern saying we were never a metal band.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Oh, I told you to see, I told you that that's the beef I had with him because I was just over here.

SPEAKER_05 16:24

They're the most ignorant band ever. I've never liked Metallic ever, any album ever, ever. I think they're the most overrated pile of shit ever. Everybody's sucking on Master Puppet's dick right now, one of the lamest, fucking tenderest, fucking yuppie alligator shirt fucking piles of shit ever. You can have that record. We were we were fucking smoking PCP and banging to fucking hella weights. Don't break the fucking oath. That was what we were doing. But anyway, that's that's what happened to it. A lot of people then they came back, then all of a sudden it was like, oh my god, it's cool to be heavy metal again. It's cool. I'll use this as an example. Marcus Steiger over there at on nuclear blast. He sent me a message one time. He said, I know you're in this band deceased. You really need to give up this heavy metal edge you guys have because it's so fucking dead. He's like, it's hurting, it's hurting your band whether you know it or not. And I wrote him back, I said, dude, go fuck. We weren't even on nuclear blast, we're on nuclear blast America. But I was like, dude, just go fuck yourself. And he was like, Yeah, well, good, have a good time because heavy metal's dead. Not six months later, this dude's signing Halloween, sabotage, man of war, he's sucking Hammerfalls, asshole. He's fucking up. All those bands all of a sudden surfaced on his label. And I was like, they're all going, whatever, whatever's hip. I don't give a fuck what's popular. I don't want to be the hip paradigm band of the month. I stayed saying this for decades. I don't give a fuck, man. I want the underground to be about music again. It even seems like everything, even now, like bands they want to come out, they want to have a video, they want to spend all this time and money on fucking on a good-looking logo and a great band picture. Then you hear their music, you're like, Why'd you waste your fucking time, dude? You put the least thing you put any effort into was music. I love a good song, man. I'm not hearing it, brother. I haven't heard good metal really like complete records of good metal in decades, man.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 18:09

I have friends there in some of these bands that are you know out now and stuff, and you know, more power to them. But as a listener of heavy metal, to me, most of it's been done, and I don't care if somebody's like if it's a rehash a bit, but it it seems like everybody's formulated to something. In the 90s, what it all comes down to was everybody was busy worrying about what everybody else was fucking doing. The underground is supposed to be about pure musicianship and togetherness.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Are there any new bands currently that like new, new, not like an old school band that's been around forever, but is there any new bands that stick out that you like, King?

SPEAKER_05 18:44

I mean, I have friends and bands I always support. I love uh Savage Masters, a band that's been around a good while. I love that we've done shit towards them. They're great, they're great guys and girls, and they're they're really cool. There's a band called The Unknown with my buddy Amir out of Connecticut, and they're fucking they're good, they're really cool. And I have plenty of friends that are doing stuff. Matt that helps us out instead of band called Nuclear Tomb, they're voivod heavy, you know, kind of guys. It's all cool now. Uh musically, I'm still stuck with what I always was. I would never lie to them, you know. They don't gotta they don't gotta love deceased either, but it's not even like I love like anything kind of like that. It's like I support them because they're cool people. But if I'm gonna put some music on, dude, I'm telling you, it's gonna be the same shit it's always been. I'll play peace of mind for the 17th millionth time. That's just what I do, yeah. But you know, I'm I just want to be genuine, and I know Sean knows from shit 30 years ago with this. A lot of people back then, like, oh, that that fat motherfucker King Felly needs to shut up. You know, he's just mouthy all the time. He's mouth. All I was trying to do was better the scene, not worsen it. And I'll say this in anybody's defense that did say that. I was drinking my I was a drunk man and I would talk a lot, a lot, and it would get out of control. I haven't had a drink of I haven't drank a sip of booze in 25 years. Congratulations I'm not I want to be all in sober. I wish I never touched booze or drugs, nothing. I'm jealous of anybody else that's fucking never touched the shit and all that stuff, but I needed to get away from that to make it to make it come around. And a lot of people that used to dislike me for that or hate me or whatever it was, one day said, you know what, you ain't fucking wrong. You know, I'm not saying everybody came around. I was in and I'm not saying I'm a right or wrong either, but bottom line was somebody needed to speak up right because it got out of hand, and and and the underground is just not what it used to be, it's just not. No, I mean a lot of things now are it's a new world, the internet changed a lot of things, which came right after the 90s. Big time. A lot of people will Google stuff and all of a sudden they're masters of metal and agents of steel because they've fucking you know read everything on the on the fucking metal pages and stuff, and they think they're experts in it and stuff. It's like I'm not throwing my age or anything around, but dude, it takes a long time to get this knowledge in your fucking lot of experiences, good, bad, and in between. Yeah, yes. But I got like I said 10 minutes ago, we just kept playing metal through it all, and I respect the bands that did it. I respect the ones that that just kept doing what they do, whether they were popular, laughed at, whatever it was. We didn't care.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Uh, William, got another question?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Uh, so uh I actually got to see you guys in 2012 uh at the New Jersey Death Fest. I don't know if you remember, it was uh in North Arlington. Uh was with Ghoul Dysentery. Um who else? Uh Gorgasm headlined it uh the one night I was there. Um, but you guys played like kind of in the middle. And kind of to what you were just talking about, about the sense of family. When I watched the crowd and their reaction to when you guys were on and you were giving people hugs and and smiling on stage, it was just this very congenial atmosphere. It was crazy because everybody was like, Daf, kill, and then you guys got on, and everybody's like, Yeah, yeah, let's fucking rock on. And then it went back to death. Kill.

SPEAKER_05 22:02

We had to break up the monotony, huh? No, I mean that's the thing about playing live. I I love a lot of bands. I was just saying something the other day on Facebook about this. I was like, what's a band you love? And you went and saw them live and you were fucking so disappointed. For me, it was Rush.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

Rush.

SPEAKER_05 22:16

Rush Live. I had the worst time. It was boring. I was like, it's like listening to the record, but with worse vocals. That's what I said. And I fear this is my this is what I do. And I love being the front man because I've been doing it for a long time now. Is you got to give them a show. You have to give them visuals, or all they're doing is hearing the record, not as good as you would have if they, you know, hope playing the record. So you have to give them a lot. And I want to give them a lot. I want to show the real the real vibe of me and the other guys want to show their personality. And I guess it came out what you were saying. We've got a lot of people that just like, you know, you guys are fucking I don't know, something about it. It's just so fucking metal and it's so genuine and stuff. And that makes me feel good. Whether it is or isn't, that's not my place to say. But I know we give it our all every every fucking time. Every time. And I've been through a lot of shit, man. I had a I had a stroke when I was 36. Jesus. I had fucking I had a blood clot in my right lung when I was 34. I'm beat up fucking guy. I'm living with fucking all kinds of fucking ailments. You as you get older, it is what it is. I mean, remember, I smoked embalming fluid all those years ago. And I take a whole port of motor oil, too. Yeah, there's weird shit inside you, concoction, weird things, but I don't give a fuck, dude. Let's go have fun.

unknown 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

If you guys look in the chat window, uh, I just posted uh four pictures that William took of you back in the day. So if you look in your chat window. Okay, so take a look at them. Yeah, I can I'll send them to you, I'll email them to you to see. So yeah, so we'll check those out.

SPEAKER_05 23:46

I'm glad you I got I'm glad you, William, you were entertained, man. That's what it's about, having fun and and making sure we play the shit right. I I I rate every show we do, I study everything to get better and better as a live band. It's just what I do being the ringleader of these guys.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Now, let me speaking of which, I want to talk about how you wrangle all this because you're in New Hampshire, but the rest of the guys, are they still in Virginia? Like, where is everybody?

SPEAKER_05 24:09

I live in New Hampshire. Our drummer lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 24:13

Les lives in outside of Austin, Texas. Jesus. Our one guitar player, Shane, lives in Washington, D.C., Maryland border.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 24:21

And Mike Smith is the only guy still in Virginia. Okay. He's out of Stafford. So how do you do? We do this thing called homework.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Okay. Because they're going to say, how do you guys coordinate all that between writing practice and recording? How do you do that?

SPEAKER_05 24:33

Well, when it comes to writing, what I do is I drive down to DC. Oh. And we write me, Mike, and Shane without it no less there. It's just two guitars and drums. I play the drums to write the stuff. We write material. That's the way we do that. Once it comes to playing live shows, it's whoever can one can go out at the time. Like I said, there's a couple moving parts there, depending on how long we're going to be out and what it is. Um, we just I make a list, I show everybody this is what's up, and they show up. If there's a time, a good night before the tour is going to start, we'll sit down. Even if it's just, you know, boom tapping without even amps, we'll do that, or we'll make it a very easy practice. And if not, let me just turn my phone off. Sorry. Um, and if not, then we just go on stage for the first show, and uh whatever happens, happens. And the guys have never the guys have never let me down. They've never let me down. Everybody comes professional. I mean, okay, here you go. 57, been doing this since I I've been doing this since I was 16, 41 years, I've just deceased. I better know what the fuck I'm doing now, or you know what? There's no need to be doing it. Yeah, that's the same with everybody else. They come ready to play, man. Everybody's they're just they're just you know well versed hungry.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Cool. I was wondering how you guys coordinated that.

SPEAKER_05 25:49

I'm still a big guy, and I'm still loud if I need to be. You know that, Sean. I'm like, I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Well, you know, you're always lively when you came into the offices at relapse. And there I just want to know, I there's one story I want to tell you about relapse. I just want to see if you knew. Um, when you used to come to the offices, one of the things you were notorious for was stealing shit. Huh?

SPEAKER_05 26:10

Yeah, stealing. Okay, go ahead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

All right. Now, did you know that that whenever you would come to the office, we would get a heads up, and one of us was assigned to watch you.

SPEAKER_05 26:19

Yep, you didn't know that you know did you know that half the people that were assigned to it told me to steal some stuff for them?

SPEAKER_01 26:31

I didn't fuck. I wish I would have known that trick. I didn't know that trick when I was watching you. I would have done the same thing. God damn it.

SPEAKER_05 26:38

Well, I mean, the thing was, I mean, that was our that was our that was our thing back then. Was me, our friend Vinny, it wasn't the it was it was it in in that place. This is the truth. This is the fucking honest to God's.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:51

When we would go in there, first off, for me, there wasn't much at relapse I wanted to steal or not. Most of that music was not my thing even then. It was something you guys had a big catalog and all that stuff, but but bottom line for me was we'd go in there and they knew what what we did for a living, which at the time back then we would go to all the CD stores up and down the east coast and we'd steal CDs and we'd trade them in. And I pretty much want to want to think that a couple of us guys were the ones that started all that shit. We we could go out in in a fucking in four hours and make a thousand bucks just stealing CDs. Like we'd have the we had what we call the relapse route. We had the relapse route, which was that which was that Route 30, that route thill in Lancaster, yeah. And we would do that. But yeah, I dude, I knew that. And I mean, I I had a I mean me and Pellet bump heads sometimes. We just had a other day had a bumping of heads. I put a thing on my page, maybe I saw that.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

I saw that.

SPEAKER_05 27:47

I was like, this Facebook AI is as fake as a relapse hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I tried to tell Pellet, it's not about you, it's it's really, it's really almost always directed at it's well.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

I had the same, I understand that because I've had the same beefs with Matt too. I'm not a Matt fan, so I totally understand where you're coming from.

SPEAKER_05 28:04

Well, I'm just gonna tell I tell everybody as we go, whether it be Carl, whether it be Pellet, Jeff, Jeff, or Andy or Sean up in Canada, yeah. Any of you guys as we go down the list. I I never had a really only one I really had a problem with at all, otherwise was Gordon for a while. And me and Gordon, Gordon was over there, and I seen him at a record convention, not this time around, but last Thanksgiving two years ago. We talked and we made peace and everything. Oh, good, okay. You know, yeah. I mean, I told him, I said, dude, I was in a different headspace then. I more than anything, I was just pissed at fucking relapse because everything I wanted to do or anything, Matt was just the opposite. And then he would just be Matt. And like Matt would be like so mouthy and so cocky. And and if I wanted to what I did with people back then was punch them in the face and kick them in half. Like, and that would be like that would be like fighting Kirk Hammett.

unknown 28:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 28:55

It's it is, it's it's it's I couldn't do it. I heard Bill, I heard Bill came over to that table one time on him.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yeah, Bill, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:03

I heard Bill told me some stories, but anyway, but that's what it was. I was like, you know what, fuck this. So I would just take shit and sell it to my friends. Okay, gotcha. On top of that, we'd be in San Antonio at one of those, you know, November to Dismember's or whatever it was. And I I was on interviews for I think it was, I think at the time this might have been Fearless or Supernatural, maybe it was. And Matt had someone follow me around to like edit my what I was saying to people. What King says something mouthy, make sure you don't put it in a thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

That's a putt.

SPEAKER_05 29:34

So me and him, I mean, from anything, he would have us. And I walked into a hot topics once and I saw a deceased long sleeve and it was 40 bucks. And I told him, I said, dude, get that out of here. I said, That shirt's $25. He's like, it's in a mall, and all this. And he just always it was me like, King, why are you so against me? Everything I do, because I'm like, dude, it's supposed to be the underground, it's supposed to be cheaper. You're turning it into everything I fucking despise. So then I told him one day, I'm gonna do the under underground. And he just wouldn't take wouldn't take my calls anymore. He'd push me off to you, or he pushed me off to pellet most times, and you guys were friendly enough. They get none of you were working there, you know. Yeah, whatever. It is what it is, it's a learning experience. I thanked him for the early days, and I despise them for the laser days.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

How did you end up on Hell's Headbangers?

SPEAKER_05 30:23

Well, about right around the time we left relapse. Um, we went and played a show at this place in Ohio, and these guys came up and they were all they were all looked a lot alike. They were like, Yeah, we're brothers, and we want to do something with the cease. We love you guys. And they said they wanted to do these homemade coffins, like three-foot coffins. They wanted to put all our demos in it on record tape, etc. And I was like, All right, so I thought they were blowing smoke up my ass. Well, a couple months later they called me, they were like, This is our label, and they did them. They did like hundreds of these damn things, and they were all handmade by the Amish.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Oh my god, have you ever seen one? Made by the Amish? The Amish person? Get the hell out. No, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 30:59

I'm not, I'm not even kidding you. And we did a deal, and after that, they they we we did one album with a guy named Ray out of uh um Puerto Rico. We did As the Weird Travel On after you guys, which made me know then and there that Matt was full of shit when he was telling me like sales with us, and if it weren't, then he just wasn't putting any effort because I know I sold more of that CD out of my house than he claimed the last two records out of relapse sold. Yeah. I mean, I was doing October 31. My other band, I sold 7,000 CDs out of my house of that record, got signed to Metal Blade, did a got signed, signed a contract. They called me like two days later trying to alter the contract. I tore it up. I was like, fuck relapse and fuck metal blade. Fuck these people. So anyway, after all that was said and done, me and Justin, one of the brothers, talked. He's like, dude, we'd love to have you. And they they got us, man. We've we've been with them, shit. I we've been with them at least fucking going on 15 years. Is it that long now?

SPEAKER_01 31:55

No.

SPEAKER_05 31:56

And dude, I'll tell I I promise you, Sean, everything they've ever promised us, they've done. Right now, we're getting ready to do something with Luck of the Corpse again. And um, I want to get I want a hand puppet of the woman on the cover. Or and and you know, the and the promo guy, Eric, one of the brothers, he's busting his butt trying to find someone that can do it. Like the old do you remember like the old McDonald's hand puppet stuff? Yeah, yeah, totally just those like trash bag looking things, yeah. And we're trying to find someone to do it. They go out of their way to make it happen. Here's one more example.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

We should talk because I got fabricator friends that probably could could probably hook you up.

SPEAKER_05 32:31

Well, I need it, I need it because we're having problems.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

But anyway, let's let's email, let's email after the interview because I think we could deal with some people.

SPEAKER_05 32:39

Yeah, this when we did Ghostly White when Dave died, it was just about to go to press. And I said, Could you do me a favor, man? Can we hold press for two weeks on this record? I said, I'd really like to include a sticker. They already had everything done, and they went back and took all those CDs and one by one put a sticker dedicating the record to him. They stopped press, we put some drumsticks on it, and we're like, We lost our brother a medal on this dedicated to him, and they did that for me. And I really, really touched my soul. Awesome. I love Hell's Headbangers, they're fucking cool. All of them are their own person. Chase is my go-to guy when we need to talk about the next record. Justin's my guy when I need to be silly with his damn J Dog show on YouTube. He's wild with that. And Eric's my guy to get things done artistically and things like that. They're all great in their own ways, but yeah, I have nothing but A plus thumbs up for them. And that's literally I'm not nothing. Not even to it's the it's the ultra ego of relapse.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Uh William, got another question? Uh uh, yes. Uh I I'm gonna start with this definition. I hope that you're somewhat entertained by this. A poser is someone who acts in an affected, insincere manner or adopts a false persona to impress others or to fit into a subculture, often lacking genuine knowledge or commitment. The question is why do you hate posers so much? Show me where on the doll the posers touched you.

SPEAKER_05 34:10

They touched me everywhere. They didn't play, they didn't play favorites. I personally, I just I mean, in this world, man, there's so there's so many robots, so many fake people, so much. Now the world is AI, everything's AI. So what I what I always hated was it was just so obvious. Growing up, our poser was a guy named Matt Sharp. Matt Sharp went on to play in the band Weezer. Okay. This guy lived in Arlington. He was he was he was our friend. We liked him, we didn't hate him, but he was the epitome of what's what's hip this week. When I first met the guy, he wasn't really much of a metal guy. Then he became a hair guy. Then I remember he was a thrash guy, and then that didn't work out, so he became a doom metal guy. He I remember him spray painting everything off of his thing and putting trouble logos up, and then he ends up like making, and I knew all along he was only in metal for a short ride, and then he ends up in Weezer, you know, with that buddy Holly thing, and he's huge, and then he gets whatever happened with him, he's out of that. But it's like the guy was always just when it came to anything else, it was all right to talk to him when it came to music. Music's like my mother, man. You don't you don't you don't fuck around with my mother, I'll beat your face in, and that's what it was. And and I don't understand where all of a sudden this this world today, the world is as George Carlin said, fit perfectly, is full of pusification. This world is soft, is it's literally it's softer than a Kirk Hammett handshake. Okay. Fucking the only thing I can say about it nowadays is nobody wants to call anybody a poser. Oh, that's wrong. You're bullying somebody and shit. Poser is always a poser. The the heavy metal world, tipper gore loves it now. It's so weak and soft that tipper gore is like she's bathing in it and how fucking how lame everybody's a pussy now, man. They're afraid of any and everything, and there's nothing, there's nothing I despise more in this fucking world right now than politics. All of them, they're all crooks. It's ruining all everybody's shit. I won't tolerate it, I won't talk about it. If anybody brings it up more than what I just did, that's it. I don't want to talk about it, I don't vote for none of them. They're all crooks, I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to fucking hear about it, I don't want to see it, and that's all I see in the Facebook feeds is everybody fighting back and forth in the shit. They're all idiots, they're all fucking crooks, and there's nothing. Live your fucking life. You can say, Oh, this guy's stopping me from doing this and shit. They've always been doing it, man. When I we were growing up, all my friends, you know what we talked about? Pussy, drugs, and heavy metal. That's right. Now it's it now if it's either that or how did you do on your fucking like on your your fucking prostate exam? You know, that's where that's where we are in this world. Let that shit go.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Pussy and prostate exam.

SPEAKER_05 36:52

Live your life, man. You're losing the game, man, by doing what you do. Teach their own. I don't know what to say, but that is not my world.

unknown 36:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:59

Hey, uh poser is always opposer, and yes, they need to be killed. Let's kill, taken off the world, lit on fire, you know, whatever. Have a dog shove it up their ass, something.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Let's let's let's turn our attention to the new album for a minute. Uh so children of the morgue. Now, two things I want to ask you about this, just to kind of piggyback the questions back to back. Um, would you qualify this as a concept album? And what story or like what storytelling influences do you draw from? Like as far as like who influences you, as far as your style of storytelling.

SPEAKER_05 37:34

Storytelling-wise, it's always a ground butt with me. He's weird, it's something mangled about it for me. It's just it's it's what I grew up as a kid, and I and really a lot of the storybook, it's not so much that, it's just everything I've ever everything that's ever like uh adhesed to me over the years, whether it be a horror movie or a book or a I I got I get a lot of influence all the way back to supernatural addiction with these ghost stories from what was called a famous ghost stories record. When I was my dad had just died, my first Easter without my dad. I was six years old. It was Halloween night. My mom came home, she had to work two jobs. My sister was asleep with her, with my aunt who was watching us. My mom called me outside, she said, Here, I got you this for Halloween. And it was this famous ghost stories record. And oddly enough, it had a finger puppet of a ghost in it. And that's kind of where the luck of the corpse thing is anyway. And I just listened to all these stories, the classic ones, the telltale heart from Edgar Allan Poe, or some this one that goes on over and over, the premonition about the stranger they pick up and they take them home and they've been dead because they wrecked the on the same road a year ago. All that's what does it. It's not really anything, it's all of it together. And if you listen to the last record, Ghostly White, there's a song on there called Germ of Distorted Lore, which is basically where all these stories get twisted because most of the stories about the boogeyman originate back to parents who fucking touched their kids or killed their kids or you know, abused them in some way. That's where the boogeyman came from. And they turned it into the boogeyman to throw the scent off of the parents and all that stuff. But that's where it comes. That's why I called it the germ. It spreads, but it's distorted lore. It gets twisted into this oh my god, the here's the bunny man, or oh my god, here's the slender man, or any of these fictional characters that people have made up to the things. That's where it comes from for me. But with Children of the Morgue, which is 100% a concept record, it's all about death. It's I've wanted to do this forever because for me, Death Metal to me is more than there's nothing scary, there's nothing creepy, there's nothing haunting, there's nothing chilling about that. I want to tell tales, I want to bring people together, a la Vincent Price or Alain Serling in the Twilight Zone and freak them out. I've got people that come to me and they're like, deceased is drama metal. He played drama metal. It's always like what's gonna happen next. And how I got to my vocals that I like was on Fearless, is where I became the victim. I wanted to play the victim in the songs, I wanted to be the shrieking guy, the person that's like you know, trapped in the fucking behind the wall that's falling, whatever it was. And um, with this record here, I really wanted to touch bass with death. I lost my dad. My dad died at 27 years old, 28 years old of cancer from cancer. Wow. I never got to know my dad. My mom died on a whim um one week, and she got really sick suddenly, and she basically went into a coma and I never saw her again. My son's mother, the same thing happened to her. She was 38 years old. She got sick and was dead in six months.

SPEAKER_03 40:37

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05 40:38

Um, and on top of all that, it's just that's where the death metal is for me. We're playing heavy metal, we're playing speed metal, thrash metal. You've got some even got some doom in there, we've got some everything from Queens Reich to Impataigo is in our space. It's the truth, and we just it just always collaborated like that. Some people said you're too here. Quick story. We played Keep It True, which is a big German thing, a few years ago, and when we went there to play it, we were the heaviest band on the whole thing. It was like everybody like Jag Panzer or Sinner or you know, whatever. We went on stage and I said, Hey man, I don't think like the dude from Halloween. Okay. And some people liked us for it and some people didn't. I remember a girl afterwards going, You were like venom, you were like the venom of the show. Then a week later, we played at the um Netherlands Death Fest, whatever it was, and it was like terrorizer and pungent stench and all those bands, and all of a sudden we're the fucking carpenters, we're the lightest band in the build. So we all the same, the same um reviews afterwards. Oh, deceased, now they're a pussy shit, they suck. People like God, Deceas was the only band that had any melody and hooks, they were really good, it was really cool. You know, you get whatever with that. And so when we do these records, it all comes together like that, but it's like you're saying with the topics that are what's important for a record. And this one was dark as hell. I had one guy come to me and really berate me for putting dead. He goes, Why do you have dead children on the cover of your album cover? That's that's in horrible taste. I'm like, first off, they're paintings. I could have easily taken those pictures from the 1900s of those dead families with their kids in chairs and gone with that. I didn't. I said, you know, I said, dude, this isn't metal, this is about disturbing people, upsetting the herd. It's I mean, that's what you do, yeah. You know, and then I then some people were just like, I can't listen to the record, man. It's too, it's too, it's too dark, it's too fucking you're making me think of my own death, you're making me think about when I lost my mother, you're making me think about when I lost my child and stuff. And I'm like, I'm sorry to put you there, dude, but I lived that shit for two years. I watched every fucking documentary or PBS frontline that I could find on death, and most of them were on children. And you know, I've got a grandson now that's just turned six, and I've got a son and all that stuff, and it's hard to do. It ate at me, brother. It really ate at me. And I needed to with this new record we're starting on now, I needed to wash my mind of that because it dude, it was it was intense. I'd sit there for hours, and people come in, like, what are you watching? I'm like, Oh, this four-year-old kid, he was born retarded, and the family really wants him to live, but he's not gonna make it. This undertaker's telling them he's gonna pay for their coffin because they don't have any money from all the bills they got and not to worry about it, that he's gonna do the funeral for free. And they're like, What the fuck did you want to get? Why would you watch this? I'm like, children of the morgue. Yeah, well, so that's what it is, and and that's what death metal is to me, man.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

It's a really good album, by the way, and I've been listening to it a lot. And um, one thing one thing I noticed about it is you mentioned the different styles because it it feels like speed sometimes, it feels like thrash, it feels like death. Is there one umbrella that you would classify deceased as like a death metal band or like a thrash?

SPEAKER_05 43:51

Like, is where do you guys I always say death metal from the grave, man? It's death metal from the grave. I and I tell people this all the time, too. I find it much spookier to listen. To surf ungold King of the Dead and Butcher Red Earth from a cannibal corpse. I find listening to Black Sabbath, Sign of the Southern Cross, much darker than whatever. You know, it's just it is what it is. When I was growing up, brother, I remember when Death Metal Church was called Death Metal. This is before the down tuning, the gurgling vocals. I'm sure you had those demo bands that were doing it, us being one of them. Um but it's just something that I don't know. It's it's it's it's more of a feeling for me than a sound. It's it's a vibe, and that's what I'm trying to always do going forward as the arranger of the of the songs, is to try to find that thing to kind of swoop people, man. Like smoot them at fast speed. But to be able to pull it off with any energy speed, that's not as easy. And just so you know, just a little thing I haven't said much in public yet, but we're working on a new record now, and it's called Well Versed in Ghastly Tales. So it's gonna be another, you know, this one's more ghostly and crazy, creepy shit. This is what we're good at. And like I said, I gotta worse my mind of the children of the morning. It just was getting too real. Everything on it was so real, and even some of the last couple records had stuff on like Alzheimer's disease or or like mothers like people killing their children and stuff, and I was just like, enough of that.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

William, got another question?

SPEAKER_00 45:27

I'm just as you're talking, I'm thinking about a comment that someone made on I don't know what kind of social platform it was when they were trying to describe disease because it's related to this question. They they said that you guys did not fit in any kind of uh traditional mold because you were uh what was it that he said? It's like you were too punk too punk for death and too death for punk, and also uh you were too technical for I think it was like uh thrash, but not enough thrash for it it just you didn't fit neatly into any category. And as I began to look into your albums when we were getting ready for this talk, um you can see the progression and you can see how different the riffs are. I'm a guitarist, right? So I'm looking at everything through a guitar player lens, and the riffs are very different. They're not just melodic, it's you can hear the Iron Maiden, you can hear the Judas Priest, and you can hear the death influences, and you can also hear the dedication to the songwriting. And that was what really just hooked me in with children. It was just this is just it was a complete, it's like a journey that you go on.

SPEAKER_05 46:43

Well, yeah, well, thank you for that, brother. Because I we we I can speak for me being the arranger, I want those songs to be memorable. I wanted that lead-off track, Children of the Morgan, to be catchy. I wanted a chorus. We get out and play that live now. We've got the we've got the crowd doing it now. They're starting to pick up on it. You know, you play it enough, they're gonna pick up on it. And and that's I'm all for anything. Like I said, I don't care how technical you are, how good a player you are, if you can't write a fucking song, I don't got no time for you. I'd much rather listen to the Ramones who could write 100 catchy songs in a row, D D Ramone, even if it's a one-note variation, than anything from Watchtower or anything from Cynic. It's just bands like it just doesn't do anything to me on that level. And you got a band like Rush who can write technical stuff and be memorable, and that's you know, part of it too. Yeah, I thought you were a guitar player, either that or you had a nice pawn shop.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Hey, do you guys have any plans to play that album, like children, for example, like front to back, like all the way through? Like live?

SPEAKER_05 47:40

I would I would love to do that. We did the fearless one uh a couple years ago. I would love to do that. It's just a matter of getting to sit down with everybody and really do that. That's that's one of the things I would like to uh fix up on when I was telling you about homework and playing live. Sometimes it becomes I don't want to be playing paranoid Iron Man and you know and warpigs every the same set all the time. Yeah so sometimes I try to mix that up. I'd love to do that. I I'd love to do a lot more stuff. It's just a matter of anybody in the room long enough to really learn it. Like Mike Smith was never a big fan of the blueprints for madness. Someone was like, Do you play that all the way? Mike's like, I'm not fucking relearning that. I was like, I can't understand. Mike don't even like the MAT record. But um, I was just like, I would love to, though, Sean. I would love to.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Oh, I'd love to see you guys do that. Um uh so what uh so so we'll start to wrap this up. Uh any last questions, Your Wayne?

SPEAKER_00 48:33

Uh how much hope do you have that real true metal will last into the 2100s?

SPEAKER_05 48:43

The real true metal? I'm not even sure it's really, really lasting in full right now. I'm not really a lot of bands that I love growing up, don't do it for me anymore. The only band I still love it in my favorite band of all time is Iron Maiden. Now, yeah, they're like their albums, most of their albums that come out. I did worship the book of souls. And the last one they did, not as much. I do like it, but it's it's a different kind of Iron Maiden, but bands like Judas Priest haven't done I haven't liked Judas Priest in 30 fucking years, at least. Maybe, maybe it's let me think. It's actually it's actually 40 years since I've liked Judas Priest. The last one I can even stomach is Defenders. I don't even like that loud. But somebody's been into the stuff that people call, I don't know. I won't go into this, but there's a lot of there's a lot of cult um underground heroes that are a bunch of dick douchewad motherfuckers that I just know because I've seen it with my own two eyes. And you know, and I just leave that alone because he each their own. That's like people with me and my my issues with Mormon Angels are like, I can't believe you don't like Trey, he's so cool. Me and him smoke five joints together. I'm like, yeah, you're smoking your fucking marijuana. He's your buddy. So you know what he fucking did to me? He had the fucking plug pulled on us, he fucking had us fucking thrown out of a fucking show because we were talking too loud. You know, and on top of that, yeah, they're ripping ripping friends off, not playing shows, etc. etc. But no, I don't, I I would love to say yes to be genuine with you, brother. I don't think it happened.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

What is coming up uh album-wise from the crotch cricket?

SPEAKER_05 50:14

The crotch crickets, yes, me and my grandson Carson. Well, we're working on some stuff right now. I don't really want to give anything away. We got some big major players on this one.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

And unfortunately, we need John now.

SPEAKER_05 50:25

Like he was he was gonna be first in line to do death metal vocals with me. But it won't be long, yeah. The crotch crickets live, though, brother.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

Okay, all right, but if I'm just I'm waiting, I'm waiting for a crotch cricket. Um Do you have any like uh any any um tours you want to plug coming up here, King? Like you're guys coming up on the road or anything?

SPEAKER_05 50:46

We've here's something really weird. Okay, so as far as the United States goes, we played pretty much every state in the United States except for Alaska and New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

How did the Hawaii thing go? Didn't you get sick?

SPEAKER_05 51:03

Hawaii is the weirdest thing ever. All through COVID, never got sick, never had a problem. Once every 10 years I get sick, I got sick a day, two days before the show in Hawaii. Luckily, my van was already there. I was gonna be the last one to fly out. I got I had a hundred degree fever. I was like, I tried to get up and walk down the stairs to think it out, and I just about fell down the stairs. I was so dizzy. And they were like, you can get on the first plane, you're gonna go to you're gonna go from uh Pennsylvania to San Francisco. You'll have to wait that out eight hours. So you'll get on another plane for eight hours, fly in the ocean, over the ocean, get here, and you're either gonna be really, really sick and can't do it, or you're gonna be like, I wish I didn't come because I'm so sick and I gotta do it. So they're like, I said, Well, I said, We're here, fuck it. And I said, you know what? Just go ahead and play the show. So they played the show, and I said, Does anybody know the lyrics at all? And a couple, I think our drummer, Amos, and uh Shane, our guitar player, they did the vocals at the show, but Shane was like, I don't know what you're saying, man, but I know where the grunts go, I know where the noises go. They pulled it off. So that happened.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

So now they did that. I was wondering because I was following that online going, what the hell are they gonna do? And then so so they subbed for you and they just kind of grunted in the city.

SPEAKER_05 52:16

I wanted to take a TV with a microphone and buy a satellite, you know? Like, oh, that would have been awesome.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

That would have been awesome.

SPEAKER_05 52:24

And then so now it's now it's down to I still have to go to Hawaii to complete that. But it's Alaska, New Hampshire, and I'm in New Hampshire. So coming up at the end of next month. Um I don't know the exact dates, but it's at the end of next month. We're playing a show in New Hampshire for the first time ever. Going up, we're leaving, yeah, we're going from there, we're going to Maine, and then we're going into Canada, and we're going to be doing a festival up there called the Toronto Pit Fest. It's uh the Dead Brain Cells are playing, the old band BBC. Um there's some more bands on there. I think it's the guy that was in negative King's Thrash, whatever the fuck they're called. They're on it, some other bands. And we're doing another show in Toronto, we're coming out, we're playing Rochester, we're coming home. Then in the summer, we're going over to Europe, we're doing three festivals in a row. We're doing I one is something Alcatraz, one is rock party, something. I don't know. It's Belgium, it's Germany, and it's um what's the third one? The third one Czech Republic. And it's like it's like Testaments playing and Voivods playing and talking satiricano. So it's gonna be probably like 10,000 people or something. Who knows?

SPEAKER_03 53:30

We're doing three in a row.

SPEAKER_05 53:31

We're doing Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. The Saturday, we're gonna do a one-off show in the Netherlands gate that night. So we have those four shows. Um after that, we're kind of where we are is where we are. We just came off, we just did a couple shows down in Florida and Atlanta. We went down and played it with us violence and gunslaughter. And um for what they were. They were fun for what they were. It was nice to see some friends down there, but I want to really get writing the new record and stuff, and I want to play a lot of the live shows. Our drummers got another band, he's got a lot of shows booked right now, so gonna have to figure that out somewhere. But we're definitely staying busy, as I said, you know, we're working on Wellverst uh and Ghastly Tales for the next record, and uh just being us, man. Just being us, and you know, as I've always been, and I hope Sean, I hope I'm the same guy that you knew all those years ago might be.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

Totally, man. Totally.

SPEAKER_05 54:26

Maybe maybe a little maybe not not as big in the chin, maybe. I got more chance, I don't know. Um definitely not as great as well. But I just, I mean, I want to say myself. My guys have stood behind me, they've supported me, I've supported them, we're we're family, you know, we're getting older. Some of us are getting into the fourth quarter of life and all that kind of shit. But you know, we just want to do what we do, and we don't care if we're popular, and and I don't give a fuck what anybody thinks about me, good, bad, or otherwise. I take the bad reviews, the good reviews, it all is what it is. But at the end of the day, man, I just gotta be happy with what what I put on all my time on you know, here on Earth. It's it's my epitast. It's the other guy's epitastis. I'm proud to say, 41 years in, I'm still super psyched to play in it, man. And and I got I'm trying to go another 20, 30 years, man.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 55:14

Uh any last questions, we have uh let's see. Oh, by the way, for those of you that are in that area, the piranha pit fest is May 1st and May 2nd.

SPEAKER_05 55:27

There you go. Yes, and we're playing the we're playing the Friday.

SPEAKER_00 55:31

Okay. On the first. Uh are you a Gigi Allen fan?

SPEAKER_05 55:35

Yes, I like Gigi Allen. Um my wife loves Gigi Allen. We're up here in New Hampshire, so you know how it goes. I think he was more talented than people gave him credit for. He had some song. You know, he's a little silly. Um, we got a drink for the motorwheel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

All right, cool, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 56:04

Thank you, brother. Nice meeting you, Sean. Great seeing you, brother. Oh, good.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

Hey, um, let's stay in touch here. I'll get I'll reach out to you on Facebook or something, and let's see if I can connect you with somebody to help you find with that, find that puppet.

SPEAKER_05 56:17

Yeah, send me those pictures he took all those years ago.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Yeah, yeah, and I'll email you the pictures and stuff. So uh yeah, and then we'll just stay in touch and we'll figure it out. So thanks again for doing this for with us. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_05 56:27

Hey, much love to you guys, brother and Sean. Great seeing you again, man.

SPEAKER_01 56:30

Yeah, you too. I'm gonna stop the.

SPEAKER_05 56:33

Right on, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

It is time for music news. We gotta get that noise on here, man. We do, I know I have to work on that. All right, so uh so I saw on the music news end of things, William Shatner has announced a new metal album that will include covers of Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest, along with originals, and he's got Henry Rollins and Zach Wilde are contributing to this.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:53

This is the part where you're gonna tell me I was just full of shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:56

Nope. That's for real. What did you think? He's 94? Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:03

What what uh it uh uh it's not uh I'm having a stroke over here, dude. Because I don't understand. This is the same guy who did uh didn't he do was it what was it, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds or something? He did that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

He's also covered, I think, Smashing Pumpkins and some. Rocket Man, he did Rocket Man. Rocket Man, he did Rocket Man by John, yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

I knew he was into music, but metal?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

Yeah, now he's doing a metal album. Yeah. Okay. Alright. I'm hoping I'm just hoping it's in true Shatner style, because he I don't know if you're but you've heard him sing, so he doesn't really sing. He kind of like talks.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

He likes sing talks kind of.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like that kind of like the way he kind of delivers his acting lines, it's that kind of like uh, hey, you know, didn't you? That's right, yeah. So it's kind of like that style.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:52

That's why when I read it, I'm like checking the calendar to see if it was April 1st and shit. That didn't sound right.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:58

I know, right? I'm just I can't wait for this thing to come out. So I'm really we have to review that when that comes out. Oh, we will. Oh yeah. Okay, cool. Uh I saw Tesla has signed with Frontier Records, which has been scooping up a lot of the old album uh uh bands from like the nineties, I think. Oh really? So yeah, Frontier Records. So I think they're doing that, but it was kind of crazy to see Tesla uh you know sign with another.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:22

I didn't think that was still around.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:24

Yeah, who knew? So they're still they're still touring and stuff too, so yeah. So there's that that's coming up, so I guess new album from them. Um Iron Maiden have an official documentary called Burning Ambition coming out in May. Oh wow. Nice so yeah, I mean not soon. Yeah, I didn't do they have any other do you know if they have any other documentaries? Well, I thought they had like they have some live shows. Yeah, like you know, I know they had you know live albums and stuff, but I don't remember a lot of like or like a documentary right focused on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:56

I don't think so. So or if they if if they did, it must have been at least 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:01

Yeah, something like that. So but that's I mean, that's good. I think that should be a good watch. I think it's supposed to be coming out on Netflix if I'm not I have to look that up. But yeah, I think that's gonna be cool. I'm anxious to see that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:11

Uh another band that's been around since the dawn of time.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:15

Yeah, there you go. Um, now according to recent interviews with Roddy Bottom and Mike Patton, it looks like Faith No More is over, like for good. Were you a fan?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:26

Yeah, in the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:28

Yeah. Later on, not so much?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

Or I I um what what did I have? Uh uh uh Fool for a Lifetime, uh the first one, what was it called? The real thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:40

The real thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

Yeah, yeah. I mean it was it was quite distinctive music at the time. Um because you were you're also looking at the beginning of Grunge coming out, you know, and so it kind of had to kind of carve out its own niche that wasn't part of that whole movement. And uh I thought they did quite well for themselves. I never got to see them live, unfortunately. Me too.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

I was always regretting that because they were one of the bands I really wanted to see. Yeah, no, unfortunately, I don't think that's gonna happen. He's I know Mike Patton's wrapped up in like Mr. Bungle and Tomahawk and stuff like that that he's doing. So they're doing a new Tomahawk tour, in fact. Oh well, but yeah, so he's back on the road with that. But they I think they all kind of set up, came out and said, Yeah, we're we're kind of done.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:24

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:25

Um, now here's an interesting piece of uh news. Sebastian Bach has replaced D Snyder and Twisted Sister as their front man.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

Yeah, what do you think of that? Uh I'm glad it's gonna be temporary. Yeah, because he's not the one.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:52

He's not the one.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:53

No, no, but I wish him luck. I hope he does well and he enjoys it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

He's not the one.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:59

No, not twist his sister, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:02

Yeah, well, uh from what I under from what I read about it, it's just because they had shows coming up and D Snyder had to back out due to his physical aim, unfortunately. So, and he kind of got sidelined because of that. So I guess they still had to do these shows, so they were looking at least, I guess, as a temporary, like you know, way to kind of just do the shows. So that was my understanding that he's just there for those shows. But I don't know. I don't know if he's they're that they'll continue on without with him or not. So I guess it depends on how the shows go. But I'm I'm just trying to wrap that up in my head. What what he's gonna sound like singing their songs. I can't that's I'm having trouble computing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:38

Well, I had the same reaction when Axl Rose was gonna sing for ACDC. Oh, you know, and I just I I I you know he put a lot of effort into that, but I I just couldn't I couldn't deal.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:49

He put a lot of effort into sucking, I hated that. Oh yeah, I felt bad for the fans because if I was a fan, I would have been pissed because he sucks live. I'm not a fan of him. So I've seen Guns and Roses, I was not impressed. Really? Oh, yeah, no, especially by him. So it was one of those things that when I saw that thing about AC DC too, I was like, I was like kind of horrified for the fans of AC DC. Uh yeah, and then he's sitting in a chair the whole time, just like, yeah, whatever that was.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

But well, hopefully this goes better than that. Yeah, well, you know, I guess I guess I'm not gonna be a dick about it. I mean, if it hopefully does well.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:25

Well, one of the things that's great about it, I don't know if you've seen the images, but people are having fun with AI because what they're doing is they're taking like the old, like uh D Snyder when he's got the big hair and the crazy makeup, but they're putting this they're putting Box face on that body, and it looks really funny. So it's just like if you get a chance, yeah, look that up. It's like set MasterBach's Twisted Sister. I'm sure you'll find it. And if you look it up, you'll see the you'll see the pictures.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:49

Oh, you've yeah, you have a a shot of it up on the channel.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think yeah, that's right. I did put it up on our feed. So there, yeah, so you saw it, so there it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:57

Oh, I saw that and I went, ooh, creepy.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:01

I know that's a that's a little rough on the eyes. Um, all right. Do you have any other music news?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

Uh didn't mention this last time, but last month we lost uh Mark Sowickis, who is the guy who was in Inpatigo, which is a seminal death metal band from the early 90s, late 80s, I think, but definitely early 90s. Um was a big influence on a lot of different bands. Uh I I think um on Exhumed. Uh and and um I don't know, just I I don't I don't think they said what the reason uh uh what he passed away from, but I mean he he was a he was a major player in the very early stages of of that genre. So was he still active musically? No, I don't know if he was doing stuff, but like they hadn't put out any kind of records in oh geez, at least what was it late 90s, I think was the last studio release. And I think they had released uh some like live shows since then, like compilation type things, uh but that but nothing like was you know a full-length studio work. Gotcha. So and they were they were on um they were on Wild Rags records. Oh really? Okay, yep. Yeah, um, so they were uh kind of a they had a cult following. So they didn't break out into the mainstream part of death metal if there even was such a thing that you could call it, but uh you know they were they up they consistently remained underground. But you'll hear people who you know, anybody who's anybody cites them as an influence. Oh, right on. So also uh I just read that there's not gonna be any more godflesh. Oh, I saw that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:48

Yeah. Um uh again, the singer has like a physical something, is it he had a hernia? Hernia, that's what it was, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:55

And it was a very complex hernia that he had that they just did the surgery for, and they basically told him, Yeah, you're not your your your days of screaming like an uh absolute maniac are over. Uh- if you want if you don't want you know want to have to come back in here and redo this. Yeah, so he's got other music musical projects. It's uh um uh Justin uh Broderick.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:18

Broderick, yeah, Justin Broderick, I think. Yeah, yeah, right. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:21

Yeah, and he's an OG too, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:23

I mean, he goes back to oh my god, yeah. One of the one of the originals going back to the early Erach days, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:29

Holy shit. So that's that development that uh we have new venom that's gonna be coming out in May. Oh, I did not know about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:38

New Venom record called Into Oblivion. Oh, cool. I did not know about that. Who are they signed to? Do you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:45

I don't remember. Uh, but they did release a single from the album, and it's pretty rockin'.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:52

Does it sound like Venom? Like old Venom? Oh, yeah, uh cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:56

Yeah, it's but with like modern production, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:00

No, like updated uh Chrono's still got it. Does it cool right on? Yeah, cool. All right, and that's coming up. Uh you say May. Uh May 1st. May 1st. Okay, cool. All right, anything else? That's it. All right. That moves us into the album review of the episode. And this uh this episode, we are reviewing uh, of course, Deceased, because we just got done talking to King there. Uh, we were reviewing Deceased, uh, the new deceased album Children of the Morgue, which is their most recent album. Uh, they just released that one in 24. And uh, what did you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:45

Uh it's fantastic. Really, and I never I never really seriously sat down and listened to anything more than um look of the corpse. Um, and and this represents such a maturation of that style of theirs. And I I don't know, there's not a again. Here's another record, there's not a bad song on it. They all stand individually on their own excellently, and then they combine to tell the story. Yep. And it's it's just great. The production on it is fantastic. The I love the riffs, the guitar work on it is fantastic, and it doesn't, it doesn't subscribe to traditional death metal at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:26

No. Well, he calls it death metal from the grave, but then during the course of their uh of the interview, of course, with him, I was asking him about their style because they're all over the place, but it's all them at the same time. That's one of the things I really like about it because there's such a variation to their style, but not in a way that it ever feels like you're they're leaving their own identity, you know what I mean? They're not come they're not compromising that at all. It's still solidly deceased, but then they they'll stick their toes in like something like with Terra Naut, which speed what to me is very speed metal, it's just like just like very just onslaught of speed, and then but then you come off with something like children of the morgue, which is like almost like reminiscent of Maiden, both in the guitar, but then the length, uh the sort of the epic length of it, yeah, and then his storytelling, but with more like uh it's almost like if Maiden did like a death metal song, yeah, in a way. Like a hard version of Maiden, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So something like that. So they have, and then you have something like the Gravedigger, which is like really just sort of like um uh more like maybe more thrashy and a little more doomy, like that, because you think it's doomy, um, so that one's a little more slow in plotting, but then you you get hit with like eerie wavelengths, and that's totally like voivod. So you know what I mean. So they have these like they have these influences you can hear uh within woven within the music, but you never feel like they're ripping anybody off.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:54

No, no, like you mentioned Gravedigger, and I just the one of the comments I wrote down was it the death metal priest. Yeah, totally, 100%. Yeah, and and and it doesn't come out forced, it comes out sounding like as a natural byproduct of their songwriting, yeah, totally. So uh eerie wavelengths, uh the tightest of thrash, crafted with meaning, versus carry-on slayer grooves, and and it it just has a very distinct flavor of Slayer.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:25

Oh, yeah, I can hear that. I can totally hear that, yeah. Um, The Reaper's Nesting was one of the songs that also stood out to me. I I felt like when I was listening to the lyrics and and the the storytelling that he was going through, I felt I don't know if you I don't know if he would say this, but you know, because King has his own influences and we just heard that. But it also it had like uh some of it has like a merciful fate vibe to me, like in terms of just like some of the themes and the way the songs kind of like connect together and things like that, just like that same kind of like old school, like Melissa or going back to Don Brass or something, you know, something like that, those concept albums that they were doing. This kind of felt simple like reminiscent of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:06

Yeah, it definitely evokes the feeling. That's that's a great uh analogy because that and I I think it's one of his like big influences.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:14

Yeah, oh he definitely, yeah, he loves I think early Merciful Fate especially.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:17

Yeah, but it it does come off that way. Um I I just have uh it it's just melodic as hell uh chorus again. It's one of many several songs on the album that have like a very melodic chorus. Yeah, just just it's just interesting for a band of that of that intensity to have catchy choruses.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:36

Big time and catchy guitars, like like you said, uh when we were interviewing him, you can hear the maiden influence in the guitars, yeah. So you can totally hear that the way they're kind of doing the dual leads and things like that. There's definitely a lot of that overlapping dual guitar kind of vibe that comes from them or early priest or those kinds of albums, yes, yeah. But then mixed with death metal and thrash and speed and all this other stuff, kind of in this one big, you know, melting pot of stuff. Yeah, so yeah, it's really a diverse album. Um, and I wish I'm I'm hoping more people will you know catch on to that because it really deserves you know a lot more attention.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:11

There's not much out there now, metal-wise, that sounds like that. No, no, so no. If you think about the fact how they've managed to through the years maintain that individual ism of their brand compared to like all of the copycat hate to pick on a genre, but like like the slam genres, slam death metal, yeah, where it's just this cookie-cutter approach to writing that kind of music. And yeah, these guys are so far from that that they're they're hooking you in. And I meant what I said when we had them on about when I watched them play, the the the the vibe of the show changed.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:53

Yeah, I believe that.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:54

And away from the the the insanity and like the the aggression and and meanness to like, hey, we're all having a bull fucking blast like it's the 1980s again.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:05

And then when they were done, ghoul came on and went right back to fucking smash your head it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:13

Yeah, but I can see that. I can see them having that vibe. That totally makes sense. So yeah, no, I was digging that. Um, anything else to say about the album?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:21

No, it's just it's fantastic. Yep. Get yourself the a copy of it. Um, and and just I I don't know. I I would I would count that as one of the better albums of the 2020s that I've heard metal-wise.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:39

Yep, absolutely. So it's a classic uh sounding album, but it's also contemporary and new at the same time. So children children of the morgue by deceased, check that out. All right, that means we're moving on to the mystery band. And this time it was your pick. So who do you got for me this week?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:07

Okay, uh, don't know if you know these guys, but I'd like to turn your attention to Warrior Soul.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:13

Oh, I do know Warrior Soul. I am a fan. Oh, cool. That's okay. Turn on to the well, turn me on about the album that you like because I definitely like these guys. Um, I find them to be a very tragically overlooked and underrated band for their time. At least my opinion. I didn't they never I think they could have been a much larger band, but I don't know why they just never made it there, but I don't know. So it is weird. Yeah, but what album you got for me?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:44

Uh Drugs God and the New Republic.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:47

Oh, yeah, that's a good classic album. Let me see. Do I have that one? I'm trying to think if I have that one. Hold on. Uh, because I have some of their stuff here in my collection, too. Yeah, that's such a classic album, man. Oh, that's so good. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I have it. I was gonna say, I think I have that one. So I have that, and also have Last Decade, Dead Century. Yep. And I have the Space Age Playboys. So I have that one too. So yeah, unfortunately, mystery album busted or mystery band busted on this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:20

There'll be more to come, don't worry.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:22

That's gonna happen. That's gonna happen. Where sometimes I'll hit a band you'll know, you'll hit a band I know, and we'll just like ah, I know that one. So, but we still have to talk about them because of cool bands, and then you know, oh yeah. What was about Warrior's Soul that wanted that wanted you to kind of expose them? Like what why them?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:38

Uh, so this dude I was uh friends with in high school, um, he was he was the the rocker of the school, long hair, cowboy boots, and um he was all he was all into all kinds of just metal. But uh, so we had a uh a talent show every year, and our senior year, he got up there with his band, and one of the songs that they did was uh We Cry Out.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:07

Oh, yeah, good. Oh, I love that song. So good. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:10

And that was my introduction to Warrior's. He's like, Man, you've never heard of Warrior's Soul, you gotta get this album. Yeah, went out and bought the tape, and I'm like, man, this is this is really different. Because back then, in like 9091, you didn't have much in the way of like like really distinctive rock, like like you know, hair metal was dying out. And so what was I listening to back then? Living Color. Right? I was listening to uh starting to get into like the Ramones, which they had been around a while, but then all of a sudden I found these guys and I'm like, oh, this is pretty damn cool. And then a year or two later, they came out with the follow-up album with uh Drugs uh God in the New Republic.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:50

Drugs God in the New Republic, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:52

Yeah, and and it's just it's just like um uh an evolution to me of that the previous album. Um I don't know. I mean, I think they they unfortunately didn't get the attention that they deserved because of all these things. We've been talking about oh yeah, you know, the state of what the industry was back then. Nobody cared about like it was crazy how quickly w people were turning away from like just straight ahead rock. Oh yeah, big tune, yeah, you know, in in the service of grunge. And I I like some of the uh grunge stuff that came out back then, like Soundgarden. I you I just can't get enough of that stuff, but but that I don't know. And and I've I actually tried, I'm like, what kind of category do they fit in? I hate people say don't you don't want to put everybody in categories, but like how would you describe their music? And and it I think one of the descriptions I read was that they were like um not shock rock, but it was um damn, I can't remember the the phrase that was used, but it was it It was definitely distinctive from the other stuff at the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:01

Yeah, oh they were very distinctive because they had to me they had an early Soundgarden vibe. Like if you go back to the early Soundgarden stuff because his voice kind of reminded Like Louder Than Love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you go back to that era, they kind of not not quite the same, but they're sort of in that same wheelhouse, I thought. I would agree with that, yeah. So so but they also I thought they also had kind of like a New York thing going on, because they had that sort of an attitude of like a New York kind of hardcore band in a way. Yes, you know what I mean? So I think that was part of the identity crisis with them a little bit because they they I think they sort of identified in that scene a little bit, but they didn't match the music necessarily per se, at least not with his vocals, like some of the musical stuff that they did outside of his vocals maybe maybe lined up with that, but a lot of it just didn't he had that kind of operatic thing he did with his voice, which had an amazing voice. So the guy's a hell of a singer, but he was also one of those singers that was hard to put your thumb on compared to what, like you said, what was going on at that time. So, because they were almost like comparatively, uh almost like a progressive metal band in some ways, if you guys you know what I mean? Yes, so that I definitely so between that and then this sort of the R core hardcore identity, I think a lot of people just didn't get them. No, yeah, and then they also had the political kind of stuff that he, you know, then that was also part of maybe what maybe isolated them a little bit as well, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:22

I had forgotten about that, and I went and pulled up one of their more recent records, and I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but uh I I got about two or three songs in, and he started singing about how um the World Trade Centers were uh uh came down because people planted bombs three months beforehand, and I had to turn it off. I'll be honest with you, because I'm from New York, man, and I I fucking know what I saw. Yeah, and I I I just I I couldn't I couldn't deal. So I'm like, you know what? I don't need that kind of I don't need that in my life right now, but I still dig what they did back then, and the music wasn't bad. The new music wasn't bad, it's just like oh he's he's being uh he's a conspiracy guy now, very edgy, yeah. And you know what? That's fine, it's a free country. Sure, of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:12

More power to him, but also you don't have to listen to it either. So yeah. Okay, uh all right, so Warrior's Soul and the album is Drugs God and the New Republic. So check it out. Uh all right, so that leads us up to the last segment of the show, which is about uh upcoming live shows and tours that we're privy to. Now, speaking of politics and controversy, the whole punk in the park thing has been completely canceled. Did you see that? Yeah. So they're just like, nope, that's it. So after the uh other bands kind of like getting wind of this thing and then pulling away from it. Then uh I guess the fans pulled, I guess everybody's pulled away and they just were like, nope, that's it. It's done.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:04

Well, we we talked about the show a couple weeks, a couple shows ago. Yeah. Uh when the cat uh they Dead Kennedy's pulled out, or no, they're playing it, but they're playing like one show, but not the tour.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:16

Or not the collection of shows.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:18

They didn't want to play like after they played the show because people had already bought tickets, they were gonna do it again.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:24

Yeah, they just did they didn't want to they didn't want to diss the fans. So and and if for the people that are already bought tickets, so that's where they were kind of committed to still doing like I guess there were one or two shows they were gonna do. Right. And then, but then that was they were gonna be like, okay, we're done after that, because we don't want to be associated with the guy who you know, because the guy was like, you know, now it don't matter either way, anyway. Now it doesn't matter anyway. So yeah, so if you have so punk in the park is gone for political reasons.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:48

Uh oh, just to throw out there, Jell-O Bay Afra, I'm reading, just had a stroke. Oh, I didn't know about that. Just had uh a hemorrhagic stroke and he's recovered from it. When did that happen? Uh week ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:03

Oh, that's why I didn't hear about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:05

He just had is he's is he in the hospital? Yeah, but he's he's he's recovering. It's just okay. But he has who knows what it's you know, what what he's gonna be like. Damn, I hope he comes out of that okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:18

Um, all right, so also coming up is a show called Incarceration. Incarceration, which I think is like I don't know if that's a tattooing thing or or not, but it's in July in Mansfield, Ohio. And uh it's got a pretty big lineup here. Uh some of these bands are a little more mainstreaming. Uh they have Disturb, Papa Roach, Cypress Hills on there. Um you see Ginger's playing it though, too, Revolution Theory. So that's one of the days, and then another day they've got like Bad Omens, Gojira, Machine Head, uh, Hate Breed. So that's another Lakuna coil. So they got some decent bands in there, and then finally, now I don't know why, but on Sunday, uh, and I don't get it, but Limp Biscuit is headlining. Huh? Yeah, see, that's the reaction I had. Because I can't understand why they're having such a resurgence right now because they're headlining these big festivals. Headlining, they're not like one of the second or third tier bands, they're headlining, they're like the band, right? Yeah, yeah. So do you get it? Because I don't get it. I'm missing something here.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:32

Uh it it has to do with you know, the saying nostalgia is a bitch. Is that what it is? It's nostalgia stuff. I mean, I think it's people looking to recapture what they were doing 20, 25 years ago, going to festivals and getting fucked up and having a good time, and now they're saddled with families and responsibilities, and they just want to go relive. And this conveniently gives them that outlet, even though if you asked most of them, they they don't listen to Limp Biscuits still. They don't have that city in the car anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:07

If you look at the bands on the same day they're playing, they're playing with Motionless and White, which is very heavy. There's uh Norma Jean, also very heavy, Luna Lorna Thorne, all these like heavy bands, yeah, and then they're in there. And I'm like, none of these other bands line up with that. So I'm like, I just don't understand what the appeal is. That's the thing I keep having these brain farts on. Whenever I keep seeing them, is these headlining in these big festivals with all these bands are up against. So I'm just like, you know, I'm just I don't know, I'm missing something. It is odd. Yeah, it is odd.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:38

But if you remember back to like the the Lollapalooza shows and how diverse those were for sure. Like what was what was dinosaur junior doing playing with Allison Chains?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:50

Right. Well, I I saw that Lollapalooza, I was there for that one. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. And I loved it. But Lollapalooza was supposed to be diverse, yeah. It's just that Limp Biscuit has ended up on these big festival things where they're end up with these like death metal bands and other like really heavy bands, and then they're in there and they're headlining, and then that's what I'm thinking. So I don't know if there's a bro culture thing that they appealed to, or or if it's just like a nostalgia thing, like what you're saying, but that's the thing that just blows my mind that they're headlining these big shows. So and then it seems like it just came out of nowhere, like they just sort of appeared in the last year and have been headlining these shows. Am I missing something?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:30

I don't know what it's about. I I I think we're running out of big acts. Oh, maybe that's what it is. That might be.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:23

Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah, they recorded down there. They get this, they got special permission to to to to set up down there.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:28

They got permission to play down there.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:30

They did, they did, and they recorded down there. They recorded an album down there.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:34

They must have hired a ton of hookers and got a bunch of cocaine. But you imagine like just any old band being like, Oh, we want to record down there. The French authorities be like, uh, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:45

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know how they what pull strings they pulled to pull that off. Wow. But yeah, and it's a really interesting album because it's their songs, but in a different, like it's almost like a different song in a way, because they had to they couldn't take all these like amps and stuff down in there, obviously. So they're using a lot of acoustic stuff, uh, and they're using some different instruments down there, so they had to kind of repurpose the songs in some ways. So like some of the songs are really different, they're paced differently, things like that, just to kind of go through the catalog a bit and then have these songs sort of repurposed for recording in the space. So, yeah, so Josh Hami did some interviews about and talked about and stuff, and just you know, and talked about what they were doing, but now they're kind of taking this sort of um set of recordings that they did on the road, and then you know, they're doing this kind of set like they did in the catacombs. So I thought that was pretty cool. So keep an eye out for that. Cool Queens of the Stone Age. All right, you got anything else?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:38

Uh I I kind of brought it up when we were talking to Kang, but like the show that he talked about that they were gonna play up in Montreal as a really just kick-ass lineup, the Piranha Pit Fest. Piranha Pit Fest. Yeah, it's May 1st and 2nd. Listen to this. It's macabre. It's Gorgasm. Oh wow, cool. Uh uh Lividity, deceased. We played with Levidity back in the day, and there's still a um there's also gonna be let's see, Atrophy, uh Dead Wolf, Entropy, Disgust. Yeah, I mean it's it's it's just that's a killer line.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:23

That's a hell of a that's a hell of a one is that all one day or is it spread out across a couple days? Two days. Two days, okay. And that's in Montreal?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:29

Yep. Cool. So if anybody has any plans of wanting to go up there, you know that the the snow is melting, it's getting warmer. Check it out. And uh, you know. Look at it look at the bright side. If you try to get back into the United States to come home and they don't let you back in, they think you, you know, you kind of cause all these problems, and just stay in Canada here. It's awesome up there, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:53

Just stay there and just come back. Yes. Wait till everything blows over. There you go. Give it a couple of years, and you should be able to. All right. So I think that's it for this episode of Distortion Analysis. So uh join us next time for a bunch of other metal stuff. Uh, yeah, and then we'll go from there. Metal cool. Thank you for joining us. Anyone who appreciates that we need to say, or please drop us a comment, visit your thoughts on the podcast.