Distortion Analysis
Two dudes talking about metal music. Each episode we'll cover a specific topic related to heavy music, we'll review an album, talk about music news, expose artists we haven't heard yet, cover live tours and include interviews with artists.
Distortion Analysis
Distortion Analysis - Episode 9
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Ep. 9
Intro
TOPIC - Gear edition - an examination of Metallica’s amps.
NEWS - LIVE NATION PRICE GOUGHING - A pair of Live Nation employees joked about “gouging” fans with fees and parking costs at concerts, further adding that these concertgoers are “so stupid” and that Live Nation is “robbing them blind, baby,” according to private messages released as court documents as part of Live Nation’s monopoly lawsuit.
The Netflix of metal is out now called Thuderflix.
Elder announce new album coming out in May, their 7th album entitled Through Zero.
Former Misfits Frontman Michale Graves Signs Christian Record Deal, Announces ‘God Bless America Tour 2026’.
Ross the Boss Friedman from Manowar and The Dictators passes away at 72 - rockers are getting old.
Dark Throne have a new album coming out called Pre-Historic Metal with one of the stupidest covers I’ve ever seen - Looks like a Black Metal farmer.
ALBUM REVIEW - At The Gates - Slaughter of the Soul
MYSTERY BAND - William’s Pick
LIVE SHOWS / TOURS - Pentagram embarking on farewell tour in August.
Coheed and Cambria are touring North America with Shinedown.
Hatebreed are touring this summer with various openers including Devourment and Incantation.
The Pretty Reckless announced a US tour in support of their album Dear God.
Outro
Welcome to Distortion Analysis. For each episode we discuss various topics, music news, bands on tour, and share album reviews all focused on heavy metal. Here are your hosts, Sean McKnight and William Rizzo. Uh and we are back. Where'd you go? Hold on. I'm back. Oh, there you go. Oh what the hell? You can scroll.
SPEAKER_00Oh, the guy hit my shirt. Hello. You've caught me gloving a human skull. Where did you get that? Uh this was a uh a prop that I bought from uh one of them horror conventions. Oh it was a guy, a special effects guy who had a booth a couple of years ago and he just had this sitting on the shelf. I'm like, is that for sale? And he goes, Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01How much was it? How much was it?
SPEAKER_00Uh I think it was like, I don't know, 35, 40 bucks. That's not bad. No, and he did a great job. It's a epoxy like resin type serve uh uh substance. And uh it looks fairly realistic, man. It does. Well he just crafted the uh he just crafted that by hand. That's what it yeah. It's no shit. Wow, he did a good job. Don't remember his name, or I would plug what he does, but he's he's uh special effects guy. If I can find the name, I'll definitely mention it.
SPEAKER_02All right, yeah, bring him up. That's cool. That's badass.
SPEAKER_00The jaw moves a little bit. Look at that. Oh wow, yeah, cool. It's uh it's usually an amp talisman that I have sitting on the that's a good talisman.
SPEAKER_03I like it. Yeah. All right, we are back for episode uh what the hell is this? Nine? Eight? Nine nine? Wait a minute. Is it it's uh episode nine? Yes, nine. Thank you. And um, yeah, so we're back for that. And this time we're doing something special. Now, with this episode, I just want to point out we're doing a gear edition, which is something that we're gonna do once in a while. It's not gonna be we're not gonna turn this into a gear podcast because they're already gear podcasts. But we thought what we do is that every once in a while we break out a gear episode because we're both gear nerds, especially you are. Uh you're a little bit more active on it than I am right now. But um, but it's one of those things where we're both gear nerds, and we thought, well, we're gonna share some stuff about gear too once in a while. So uh yeah. So now in this case, uh what uh so that is our topic of the podcast. It's gear. So, William, take it away.
SPEAKER_00Um, all right, so I I really went down the rabbit hole in researching this topic. So uh a lot of fans of metal music like knowing how the music that they enjoy was created. Um, I know that when I first started getting into rock music and I heard uh Back in Black, um the the guitar tone on that album just blew me away. And I'm like, how come I can't get that sound? It's because I was using this pretty little Fender Practice in. And uh learned all about the wonderful world of martial amplification.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_00So uh what I decided might be nice to talk about is um you have the band Metallica, so I'm wrecking Metallica a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Uh Metallica? Who's is that are they an important band or something?
SPEAKER_00There's some kind of like metal band that's been around for about 40 years.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay, gotcha.
SPEAKER_00They seem to have a following and they do. Do they?
SPEAKER_03Okay, I'll look it up, I'll Google them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't know. You might have to use the uh the Tor browser to find shit on the dark web now. But uh yeah, so so I've always, you know, I've been a Metallic fan since the you know the 80s, and um their guitar tone always just was exceptionally crushing to me. So I just thought it'd be kind of cool to kind of take a walk through the yeah ampland of Metallica. Um there's they're a fascinating band because as everybody knows, they've gone through a lot of changes, a lot of changes in their lineup, a lot of changes in their songwriting approach, and a lot of changes in the gear that they use. So uh, you know, it's been in researching this stuff, it's been uh coming across like I mean, there's so much written that's been written about their gear over the years. Is that right? Everything from people who are guessing what's happening to like e actual interviews with people who are directly involved, like there's interviews of of Fleming, Rasmussen. Oh yeah, the producer, right? Anyway, for I think Bob Rock stepped in. And uh he he's you know, he remembers quite acutely. He even took notes of like settings on the amps that were used. So uh, you know, he's he's a bit of a historian on that stuff, but so so this isn't like looking to recreate the wheel, all right. But yeah, it's it's it was mostly an exercise of at least myself getting myself up to speed as to the different um uh equipment that they used over the years. So, with all that being said, um a little bit of a disclaimer. Well, a set of disclaimers. Okay, so there's I mentioned like a wide variation in what you hear, what you read online, right? You have people who have no idea what they're talking about and they're making guesses, or people that are just you know purposely putting bullshit out there, like the metal zone on the first four albums. Obviously, they wouldn't do that, right? So I tried to distill the the most pure amount of truth that I could out of that, out of that sap, you know. Um so it the other thing to keep in mind is even with the exact rig that they used, you still don't know what kind of what you know what they call studio magic was used.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, the engineering part, yeah, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00So this is all part of like w all of the ingredients that go into the the soup of what you hear on the finished product, and that's one of them because you know, standing next to the exact amp that was used on the album at the exact settings, standing in that room isn't going to sound the same as when it came out on the finished product.
SPEAKER_02No, right?
SPEAKER_00So there's a lot of things that are happening in the studio. You have things like um what speakers were used, what speaker cabinets, um, the mic choice, choice of microphones, choice of mic, placement of mic, placement of mic, what the room is like, because I've I've worked in studios.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, the acoustics, the acoustics of the room. You also have things like the compressors back in the rack in the studio itself, that kind of stuff. So, yeah, you're right. There's so many factors that influence it between the sound that's generated from the speaker and the actual recording of it back in the studio. There's so many things between those two things that really influence that.
SPEAKER_00So, yeah, you're never you're never getting the raw tone on the no, not completely, no. So, I mean, there's even like uh multi-band like parametric EQs that are on the on the mixing console that are directly influencing the sound. So we're not gonna dive too deep into those weeds, we're just gonna talk about the actual equipment. There's other uh uh elements, obviously, um like the the pickups and the guitars that are being used. Yep, that makes a huge difference.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, big time strings.
SPEAKER_00The strings, yeah, and and finally, last but not least, the fucking hands. Yeah, the player. The hands, yeah, the player, 100%. The the a famous example that gets thrown around is if I gave you Steve Ray Vaughan's guitar, and even if you knew how to play guitar, not gonna sound like him, even if it's plugged into his Fender app.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, even if I was wearing his hands on my arms, I still couldn't get it to sound like him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't think that would work.
SPEAKER_03No, I don't think that would work either.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and this is the same concept for this. Yeah, um, it's it's it has everything to do with you know, both of them are very good guitar players, but James, especially, James Hetfield has just got such a tight picking attack that if you if you if you are not at that level of uh acuity, it's not gonna sound right. Yeah, uh, it also has to do with like when you're palm muting, how much pressure are you muting the strings with with the palm of your hand? Right, you know, light touch, heavy touch, middle, what is he doing? You know, you're never gonna get that exactly.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, for as far as speakers are concerned, uh, that's pretty much yeah, there's a lot of variety, but not with Metallica. Usually the cabs that they used were Marshall cabs, okay. Uh, because he liked using these uh Celestian vintage 30 speakers.
SPEAKER_03Were they both Hammett and uh Headfield using the same cabinets, or did they use different cabinets at all?
SPEAKER_00No, they did they had different cabinets here and there. The the main thing was in the beginning, especially was the Marshall cabinets with the Celestians in them, and then once they moved on to the Mesa Boogie amps, they started using some boogie cabs because they had a different they had a different sound signature, obviously. Right. Um, and there was even a point in time where uh Kirk was using Randall amps with Randall Cabs.
SPEAKER_03What album did they switch to the Mesa Boogie from Marshall then? Like where was that transition in their album uh lineage?
SPEAKER_00That was after uh Ride the Lightning.
SPEAKER_03After Ride the Lightning, so that would have been Justice, or uh no, Master Puppets rather. Yes, so puppet. Well, yeah, uh you can really hear that then. If you listen to the sound of puppets versus lightning, there's a big difference there.
SPEAKER_00It is a big difference, that's right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it sounds so much fuller compared to Light Ride the Lightning, which sounds much thinner based on like the production itself. Yeah, compared comparatively.
SPEAKER_00The the Marshalls they were using on Ride were a lot thinner sounding than some of the like the the very high gain amps that were available then, yeah. Um and and it they just uh kind of a unfortunate circumstance that led to them doing that transition. So I'm just I'm gonna I'm gonna back up. I'm gonna start with Kill Em All because that really is the beginning of this. The other thing is like there's a difference between studio rigs and live rigs.
SPEAKER_03Oh, 100%, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Especially now, yeah, where they're using modeling uh digital, yeah, yep, yep. Using like uh fractal axe effects, I think, live, but in the studio, they're using all this vintage shit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yep.
SPEAKER_00So that's something to keep in mind. And this is also this is going to be mostly about James's tone because for a good chunk of their career it was James playing everything.
SPEAKER_03Well, and for the solos, and yeah, and his stuff, and those riffs are really definitive of them, I think, even more so than the solos are. Yeah. Because his like look, Hammett's a brilliant player, don't get me wrong. But at the same time, though, I find his solos get kind of generic, where he does a lot of the same tricks every time. So there's nothing that stands out as a signature thing to me. So I mean, some of the signature solos for sure, don't get me wrong. But there's a lot of stuff that he does, and like it kind of sounds like a lot of the other solos. Whereas those riffs, though, it's like that's part of what why you listen to them. It's those riffs, you know. It's like total high fuel. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh so we're going back now in time to 1983. Kill them all comes out. What they're using at the time, there was a guy in South uh Southern California uh named Jose Arradondo, and he was someone who he was a uh uh one of these mythical amp gurus that knew how to hot rod amp uh you know the circuits, and he modded an amp that James Hetfield had. It was a Marshall uh Super League amp from like the I don't know, the late 60s or something like that, but like one of the first, like it was a plexi, basically. And it had this mod in it, and the they call them Jose mods. This and he's not he he passed away in like 1994, but this guy had a very prolific career of juicing up a lot of well-known players amps like Eddie Van Halen. Oh, I don't know if it was um or George Lynch was another one. Oh, no kidding. Wow. I think he did one for uh Ingve. And what he does is he he increases the he adds it like a gain stage. So at the time when he was doing this late 70s, early 80s, the marshals that were out back then were not exceptionally high gain amps like you have today. Yeah, they were, you know, you had to really heavily boost an amp with like a boost pedal in order to push it the you know, the front end of it to where it would break up a lot easier and uh a lot you know sooner at lower volumes and all that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so he modded this one amp that James had and he used that amp on Kill Em All with a a pedal called the Proco Rat. It was a distortion pedal.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I think I've I think I know that pedal actually.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's been around for eons.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, and that's basically the sound that you're listening to. Uh the 1959, it's not that's not the year, that's the model number, the marshall of the Marshall Head he was using. Uh Kirk was using also 1959 Super Lead 100 watt head, but he had a uh a tube screamer hooked up here, which is a boost, and also his, you know, he's got the watt pedal too. Very, very simple beginnings, right? All right, so then uh year uh year, yeah, the next year they do ride the lightning. So what ended up happening was in the beginning of 1984, they had that amp get stolen, the one that was modded.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00Uh apparently they were playing a show in Boston and somebody went into their van and took a bunch of shit out of it, including this amp that was like his prize possession. Oh I guess that was the actual impetus for him writing Fade the Black. No way. I didn't know this. Yeah, I mean because he said in interviews, like, uh, well, I wasn't like suicidal about it, but you know, I I was like, Man, that was my favorite fucking amp.
SPEAKER_03I didn't know, right? I didn't realize he wrote that about that. That's so funny.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um so they had like basically they had they were still supporting Kill Em All. They hadn't even started riding Ride the Lightning yet, and so they're just doing the last few shows, and they were set to go off to Europe to record uh Ride the Lightning. Um so they go there and they're all depressed because their equipment got boosted. Um apparently he tried a bunch of different amps. They went to Copenhagen, to Denmark. Um, and apparently he said that he tried every fucking Marshall amp in Copenhagen to look for a good sound, and he ended up finding um uh an amp called it was another Marshall, it's called a JMP, it was uh 2203, and it's basically the precursor to the JCM 800, which uh everybody was using in the 1980s. So this is right before the 800 came out, and actually the the JMP circuit is the same exact circuit that went into the initial JCM 800 batch. Oh, interesting. So they're technically the same amp, but cos technically they look different.
SPEAKER_04Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So uh he finds this amp, um and he uses this uh uh with with his uh a tube screamer just like Kirk had on the last album, added in to kind of boost the tone of it. Again, because it it wasn't a modded amp yet, and he needed more uh gain than what the amp naturally produced on its own. Uh this was later modified by a different guy called Ken Fisher at uh something called train wreck amps to allow um something called uh preamp bypass. So in an amp, you have the pre-amp and the power amp, right? Sections. And the you want to think of the pre-amp as like like the brains of the of the operation, and then the power amp is the the muscle that pushes the wattage. The preamp adds color, adds tone, it adds you know, tone shaping and and gives it a voice and a clarity to the to the guitar tone. So you can bypass the pre-amp section and go straight to the power amp. If you have, say, an amp that you like better than that amp, but you want to use that power section. So they had it modified to be able to do that. And what ended up happening was um this is right around the time where they started getting into Mesa Boogie amps, right? So they recorded the amp using the JMP with the tube screamer, which I guess Hetfield didn't like. He said it made it sound too fizzy. Okay, yeah, he wasn't a fan, he just it sounded he said it sent along the lines of like uh it it was like it it coded it and it made it sound like shit.
SPEAKER_04Oh okay.
SPEAKER_00Now I I love boost. I love boosting amps and it you know, boosting an amp uh has the effect of like tightening up the low end because it gets a little flubbby when it's it's just straight into the amp with no effects. Um and if you want to tighten that sound up a little bit and add a little bit more um you know uh dynamics, yeah, it um then you would add a boost. So that was like ride the lightning. Then they go and they record the album. All right, but then you have at some point between then and when they started writing Master Puppets, is when they found uh Mesa Boogie amps. And all of a sudden they started doing this thing where he bought this amp, it was called the Mark II C Plus Mesa Boogie, it was one of the earlier ones, but um this was one of the first like true like high-gain amplifiers that was available back in the the mid 1980s that was created just for metal music because it was getting more hyper in the 80s. So what uh Hetfield ended up doing for Master of Puppets is he connected the Mesa Boogie to the JMP that was modded to bypass the preamp section. What really weird, yeah, and it basically like I I don't know, that's how he they ended up with that tone. So it's they call it slaving. Was it going through both? No, no, so so guitar signal was going into the Mesa Boogie preamp section. Okay, that preamp section was being slaved directly into the martial power.
SPEAKER_03Oh, oh, oh, oh, okay, I got you. Okay, I was wondering. Okay, all right, I got you. I'm with you now.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and then coming out of you know, whatever four by twelve cabinet he has shit, wow going on. Yeah, it was it was weird. I didn't expect I heard this, and then I learned a lot about doing this uh uh this piece here because I knew they were into Mesa Boogies, but I didn't know that they combined them like that.
SPEAKER_02No, uh-uh.
SPEAKER_00And we're gonna see the the uh this continued combining of different amps as we kind of move through the different albums, but even to like a greater degree than that. But that tone was so different though when they did do that, it was a huge shift in their sound. Oh, yeah. They well, uh, in addition to all that, they used uh a parametric equalizer that the James did, and to further sculpt the tones. So, like I said, you know, it's it's you're not just getting the raw tone on the on the finished product album, you're getting something that's been excessively tweaked, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Big time, yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_00Um, and that was a combination was uh used both live and in the studio. So when they recorded the album, and then when when they out went out to support Master Puppets, that was the the live rig setup, too. Um, this setup persisted through Garage Days re-revisited. Okay, same type of slaving the the Mesa Boogie Mark II C or Plus Plus, whatever it is. I love that into the JCM 800. So when I say JCM 800, I'm saying that interchangeably is the GN the GM.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, as the Mesa, yeah, I gotcha.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. All right, so now we're up to Justice, all right. 1988. One of the amps that he was using, he called it the Crunch Berries Amp. And I think I think he cut out like the the cardboard Crunch Berries from the cereal, and he like taped it to the front of this one Mesa Boogie. And uh this Crunch Berries amp is actually a very um popular, you know, it's like very well known. Everybody knows that that's the amp okay that was on all these albums. So he used the Crunch Berries Mesa Boogie. Um now they they um they became a lot more complex on Justice with their sounds, with their tones. You know, and and and now all of a sudden you start seeing people starting to critique and complain about the sound that it, for example, the sound it sounded too dry, it didn't sound right. When I first heard it, it was it was like being in heaven. Yeah, but I didn't know what the hell I was listening to. It sounded heavy, and that was well.
SPEAKER_03I mean, well, for me, I liked it because it has this stripped down quality to it. Yeah, it was more raw in a way, like but raw, but also technical. Like you could raw in a good way. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like there was an evolution to it that it felt like a step forward, it didn't feel you know what I mean, it didn't find it felt like they were going back to some old school thing, it felt like a next step to me. Correct. So yeah, and they're in the evolution of their sound. So I like I actually really like the sound of justice. Except except for there being no bass on it.
SPEAKER_00Except for there being no bass. That's right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And that's a whole other story. Yeah, that's a whole other podcast.
SPEAKER_00Uh they used um that Mesa Boogie as a preamp section, like I mentioned, and they they sent it into something called a is a a power amp, but Mesa Boogie Power Amp is called a strategy 400. So they no longer needed to slave it through the Marshall. So now we had like two distinct Mesa Boogie components, right? The actual amp head itself.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00And instead of so he was slaving it just not through the Marshall and it was going into the Strategy 400 power amp.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00I don't know how like who knows you know how it gets when you know you're you you have time on your hands, you're writing an album you're trying a bunch of different things. Oh yeah. We did it when we were in the studio and I tried a bunch of different shit.
SPEAKER_03I used to work in a studio called Susquehanna Sound in northern Pennsylvania. I used to work in there as an assistant engineer. We spent one day 10 hours just on drum sounds I believe it. That's all we did. We just moved mice around we were going back to the board and then you know and then just changing all the shit and then 10 hours that's all we did was work on that drum sound and that was it.
SPEAKER_00So yeah yeah but it's worth it in the end if it sounded great but it was just you know it's a bitch to get there but yeah it's very tedious that's true. Yeah it really was yeah and the same thing happens with you know getting a usable guitar tone.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Oh 100% yeah it's every bit as strenuous yeah I I and I think that that's how we came across the the using the Mesa boogie uh power and they were doing some alchemy shit in there man. Yeah yeah and now you have uh also he was getting a little more um creative with the clean tones clean tone um so for example um um there's a couple songs on on justice where you have just like clean guitars and for that he's using a Roland amp which is it's a a JC120 which is really it's known for its clean tone.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So as it makes sense for that makes sense for a Roland that actually does make sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah okay um this amp later found itself on the road as well that they were using so like if it I their live shows were so tightly managed that they were able to just say I want to do this and then I want this to happen and this song and that and and you know the the technicians they figure everything out. Yeah oh yeah so they built you a foot controller that you said oh really okay if they want that for your lead tone press button two when you want to go to clean it's the and you'll use a different amp and you press button three and it you know it's it's custom tailored to your needs.
SPEAKER_03Yeah and that's what they did for him um so basically they would he was using the the Mesa into the power amp and then for the cleans the roll and JC 120 uh for the for the clean section that's awesome um also graphic equalizer plus a parametric equalizer in the loop that they used there was no reverb at all uh and then there was also lots of post processing EQ okay that makes sense so that's that's how they kind of tailored the the justice tone so it it's even though it sounds raw like that uh it it was heavily sculpted so yeah sculpted into a raw form yes yeah yep no complaints interesting though but now that you say that that totally makes sense of why it sounds so thin because they never put together my engineering brain didn't put that together that there was no reverb on what they were doing.
SPEAKER_00But that makes a lot of sense none at all shit wow okay yeah that's interesting so now we get to the polarizing self-titled black album the black album yeah and the introduction of Bob Rock running things uh and them basically taking a whole totally different songwriting approach yeah I remember being pissed off at the time because I'm like great great right when I right when I start heavily getting into Metallica go and change the formula yeah couldn't make one more heavy as fuck brutal album right right right right that I could go and the direction they go in is definitely more mainstream at that point.
SPEAKER_03Oh definitely when they were going kind of brutal and then yeah because it seemed like they were like it was it seems like they were building up to something more fast yeah with with justice and then especially with like black and then you know some of the heavier songs on there and then all of a sudden this left turn and it almost feels like a radio album.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. And they left all the way to the bank.
SPEAKER_03Yeah well it was heavy I mean it was heavy in a different direction heavy yeah but that's that Bob Rock influence where he he knows how to deliver that big cavernous kind of sound in his studio down Hawaii. Yeah so he's I think that's probably they wanted to go down to Hawaii and record with him but but uh but yeah that's where his studio is but it's one of those things where he gets that just like that massive like stadium sound.
SPEAKER_00Yeah it was larger than life.
SPEAKER_03Yeah he did that with Motley crew uh that's right like theater pain and stuff like that was him uh just building up you know their yeah so now what were the amps on that though?
SPEAKER_00Well how did the rigs change uh uh this was a slightly different uh makeup of amps now we're getting into the territory of them starting to use more than just one or two things right so they're using his main tone came from Crunch Berries oh okay so using crunch berry Mesa um there was also they also got a uh a Mark IV Mesa Boogie that's involved in this um a Mesa Boogie Strategy 400 power amp like in the previous album okay they had a the modded 800 that they edit in to flavor things a little bit okay as well as uh an 8a mp1 preamp although I don't I don't couldn't figure out if that was something that that Kirk was using the the ADA preamp. I'm not sure I don't I think it might have just been Kirk using that.
SPEAKER_03Well that's interesting because so it doesn't sound like it was a big a big leap in terms of a change of equipment. So but it does but that just goes to to uh illustrate the point about how much of an impact the engineer has and also where they recorded the studio they recorded in because that's album is so dynamically different from anything they did in the past.
SPEAKER_00Yeah and then different sound yeah but but but it sounds like the gear was almost like the same yeah and it because it was his hands you know turning the knobs yeah and you know they I think they were saying in interviews if I remember from back then that they were like you know how can you expect us to keep putting the same material out well yeah no I don't I I don't blame that evolution of sound at all.
SPEAKER_03Yeah uh it was just an interesting departure from where they were and where they went and then just that severity of the sound change. But it was just interesting to hear that the gear is like because I expect you to say oh well they switched over to this amp then and then they did this and uh you know I expected all these changes I'm like it's basically the same list. So I mean the one pre-amp's a little bit different but I mean aside from that that wouldn't have changed the sound of that that drastically no no that had to be that was more Bob Rock and then his the studio magic doing that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah very interesting yeah um they even um they had uh the equipment manager I can't remember the guy's name um he was stuffing foam and blankets around the speaker cabs uh to to aid with sound isolation yeah and then after this album got recorded they built these actual speaker coffins that the speaker cabs would sit in to isolate themselves oh like a little booth for the cabinet oh that's interesting yeah oh cool wow crazy that started that started after the black album oh weird okay well you may not I don't know if you'll see that in like like I didn't watch any of the um behind the scenes stuff that's come out over the last 20 years where they're in the studio and all that yeah um you might see it on there okay so take a look for that so that lasted them for a good five years um you remember how long that tour was oh yeah it went around the world like three twice on that tour. So did I yeah so did I um I uh and they were and like you said they were heavy as fuck I had no problems with I mean I said as long as they play older material too yeah I'll be happy as shit. Yeah and they did and they did yeah so five years passes as you know a lot of shit was changing between 1991 and 9596 as far as music tastes were concerned yeah for sure we're leaving metal behind grunge came pretty much took over and I think they saw that there really wasn't a place for the type of metal that you know the saxon of of the the saxons of the world uh were doing in the 80s like nobody nobody was into that stuff anymore right and you know they're trying to make a living so I can kind of understand that so now we're at 96 and we're talking about load and I'm gonna do two of these together load in 96 and reload in 97. Oh okay all right yeah uh this is when they discovered mid-range frequencies and stopped scooping the hell out of everything that's such an accurate statement that's a holy shit that's awesome yeah loads where they discovered mid-range tones well I mean mid-range frequencies and then if you if you listen to it it's like this is a drastically different guitar you're right though that's such a that's such an apt description where their sound went though yeah it's like they just figured it out like hey wait a minute there's a bunch of mid-tones here and mid-frequencies we can work with so yeah yeah yeah all right so keep going I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt that's all right uh well now they're changing equipment around a little bit um load was described as uh AA meetings and band drama I was looking for the people that like make these comments and the different posts he means in band drama but uh so now they're using something called the Mesa Boogie Triaxis Triaxis is a preamp it's a rack mountable preamp unit into um the Mesa Boogie Mark II C plus or maybe not into it but they used it with it so they still had the strategy 400 power amp on load they were still using so so the Triaxis as a preamp had to have a power amp to go into and it was going into this this strategy 400 thing. So you know kind of the same makeup uh a Mesa rack mounted Q and uh a Jose modded Marshall super lead so uh at that point um the the the this guy had just passed away in like 94 Jose Ardondo and so they managed to get one and I think I think this is at the point that Kirk was supposed to have Jose mod his Marshall too but the guy passed away before he could finish it. Oh wow so um interestingly uh this guy has like a lot of uh like uh there's a lot of lore about Jose uh and the mods that he did where he was adding a game stage uh and doing other things like adding clipping diodes and stuff um but there the you know heard of Friedman amps right oh yeah so the guy Friedman obviously knows who this guy was and he s got himself uh one of these Jose modded amps and he studied it he took it apart and studied it and now you can buy a Friedman amplification Jose mod oh version of their I forgot which which amp head it is that's cool but it's the exact same modification if you want that right on this but that head's like 3700 bucks oh ouch yeah so that was um those were the main items that we used on load the Mesa Boogie TriAxis pre-amp into the Strategy 400 power amp the Mesa Boogie Mark II C plus which is the Crunchberries amp the Marshall Super Lead that had the mod on it plus the Mesa rack mount equalizer now this is where they start getting a little nuts with the outside equipment they also used a matchless amp a little combo matchless amp like a 15 watt matchless because they wanted to they wanted to fatten up the tone a little bit they didn't want it to be so you know compressed and apparently this Bob Rock guy is a tremendous collector of vintage gear. So he of course he goes and he digs out a bunch of this old classic shit here guys try this shit one thing was the matchless amp another amp that's on that album is a Fender twin I had no idea there's a fender twin on that shit in there yeah um there's also a Vox AC30 in there wow they were getting old school there's a Vox in there too damn and they introduced the Mesa boogie triple rectifier huh this is right around the time when the triple rec was was coming out you know um um the these were like the Mesa boogies of the 90s the dual recs and the triple oh okay gotcha so um yeah so they say they you know put a bunch of all these things together and then they added these these these really wild boutique kind of amps um not not so much boutique but you know what I'm saying it's just you know atypical amps for a medical metal for sure yeah for sure partone so um that's kind of like that was in it was a very intentional move away from the way that they was you used to doing things and the other departure that they made with with Lode was all of a sudden James started having uh Kirk write riffs he had him start writing parts he never had him do that and and and like they they started like co-writing. Okay it was crazy so he wasn't just like doing solos anymore it was um kirk wrote a lot of riffs on load for the first time tracked rhythm parts so you know how like I didn't realize he played such a uh sort of a side role to James that way where James was kind of did you know yeah that's interesting okay huh I mean I'm not gonna say that there are no Kirk riffs anywhere I don't know their music that well to know that yeah yeah yeah but it's like 98% James mainly James wow up till now right and so this is the first time that he's letting Kirk track in the studio because the way they used to do it was he would track all of the rhythms himself. Oh okay and then he was just gonna put the leads in the leads okay gotcha Kirk is no slouch of a player I've seen I've watched him play master of puppets and he's tight as fuck. He's at least as tight as I used to be when I learned the song in high school so he's no slouch. Yeah right um but this is the first time that he actually like recorded uh rhythm sections in the studio yeah so that was pretty neat um so now we move to to reload uh and there's a slight shift where they start using something called the wizard amp wizards are I think I think that's the amp that uh Tony Iomi uses oh okay um so they used the wizard modern classic as the main amp but they still had the Mesa Boogie Tri Axis into the Strategy 400 they still had the Mesa Boogie Crunchberries they still used the Mesa Boogie rectifier as a blender blending it in uh as well as the modded Marshall and the roll in JC120. So now you have a veritable soup of amplifiers and it just you know it it works. Um I listened to some of reload I've never really sat down to listen to it it's it's not bad.
SPEAKER_03I don't really dig the songs but like the production is okay. It's okay yeah um but yeah they're not they're not the band that put out it's kind of generic sounding though that's when they the their sound just kind of got like I don't know boring to me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I was very bored listening to it. You know it was just kind of like studio it was over studio ish I think I don't know how else to that you know what I mean over studio over overproduced would be I guess the description and that kind of goes against I think what they were going for because they wanted it they were it was very by design by intention they wanted a looser guitar sound.
SPEAKER_03And he even said um I was having I wanted a you know a more expanded well uh sound stage of our rhythms but I couldn't just get that by doubling well that makes sense though too because their style at that time definitely went more bluesy. Oh yeah so that would make sense that they went more of a loose guitar not such a tight you know yeah okay that makes sense those were really not like metal riffs yeah well they weren't really metal albums either yeah they were like hard yeah but I mean for a hard rock band it wasn't bad I've heard a lot worse than that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah so for whatever that's worth then they should have changed their names for those two albums to Hard Rock oh but many people say that all right well let's uh let's move to the the high point oh here say uh yeah the high point all right all right also described as plugins and sadness plugins and sadness yeah that's great I have a veritable smoggers board of guitar amplification units you have James's rig which was the Mesa boogie he added a something called a diesel VH4 um I've heard of diesel amps they're they're very expensive but they're also very high gain they have very distinct sound to them he also had the wizard and also had the modded marshall so he's got four different things cooking in that soup of his had the Mesa boogie he also had his marshall he also used the Vox also used a park amplifier not a mental not a metal amp huh I don't think no you know park I never heard of that one I've I've s heard of them just I I've I've never played through one I think it's like a I think it's an actual like kind of boutique amp.
SPEAKER_03I don't know shit like a jazz app or something.
SPEAKER_00Yeah maybe it's definitely not a high gain amp by any means okay it's there for it's there strictly for um coloring the tone a little bit okay interesting right and then he all I guess he used something else called an H and H amp. I don't know what that is never heard of it and didn't have time to H you have no idea yeah uh no reverb on any of the guitars totally dry so when you talked earlier about that raw tone this is where it all went bad because I tried listening to St. Anger today never did you know that I never listened to St. Did you ever listen to that before?
SPEAKER_03I was afraid were your fears confirmed? Yes they were oh that's a horrible album it's so it was like oh uh okay so the guitars are not too and then I kept hearing and I just thought if you wanted to redo Garage Days there's other ways to go about that I got that they were going for that sound but I mean drum sound my God everything everything everything the tone of that whole album's horrible yeah yeah I did not enjoy it so no point to me uh by that point I was fully out of Metallica yeah same here yeah yeah I heard about it long after the fact and I'm like oh they put an album out oh well because they won't well load I was slip load I was slipping on and then reload I was out and then Saint Anger I listened to once and I'm like never again yeah I never need to listen to that album again ever.
SPEAKER_00Nope hold on all right Death Magnetic a return to form yes that was a much better album James had a boogie uh as his main the Mark II C plus the Crunchberries amp was the main guitar uh the main uh amp then also there was an ampeg in there there was a crank crankenstein another high gain amp from the you know the the early 2000s okay uh you don't see too many of them around anymore but um I I don't know if the tube is solid state and the diesel v h4.
SPEAKER_03It's funny you say that because I have an ampeg baseamp right there. Oh okay and it's got the collapsible tube head that collapses down in the cabinet.
SPEAKER_00Oh man you're gonna have to bring that out and it even lights up.
SPEAKER_03There's a light that'll light up the the tubes and the rack when I open it up. So yeah, it flips down inside the cabinet and then there's the matching base for it.
SPEAKER_00It has a matching base. That's badass.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's this base right here.
SPEAKER_05Oh.
SPEAKER_03Look at the headstock.
SPEAKER_00Look at that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then this one has a longer story to it that I'll reveal at another time, but I'll drop a hint. Okay. So here's the hint. Uh that I'll tell I'll build out the story later. But um this amp is very unique. I haven't seen many of these. And I did see it in a music video, though. If you watch Joan Jet, um I love rock and roll, yeah, the bass player is playing one of these, right? Okay. Here's the interesting thing that's part of that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I remember that story. Yes, you're going to have to say that story when we have it.
SPEAKER_03So we'll come back to that story later. I don't want to I don't want to disrupt your amp. Uh it's all right. We'll leave that hanging. Right here is the matching amp for it, too. Uh right here. So I'll uh so some other time I can break that out and try to display it or something, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. So but yeah, I uh I get it. Ampeg, well, that one is the base amp, but you know, I um so I'm I'd be kind of curious what his sounded like, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00It was uh it was a solid state ampeg of 160, I think it was called the 160 Supreme or something. I don't know. Um so Crunchberries was the primary tone on Death Magnetic, which I like that album, actually. I can listen to that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was a definitely a listenable album compared to like like the first the other three or four albums they did prior to that. So that was definitely a return to well, and it reminded me when I listened to it, it had a vibe of like not tonally, but songwriting-wise, it had this return to me of like justice a bit. Okay, yeah, yes, stylistically speaking, yes, yeah. I mean, it would they weren't the same songs, but you no, no, no, no, no, no. But I mean it it felt like they were trying to go back to that, like that that uh that that era a little bit more of their songwriting. That had to be because of the backlash from the previous uh that's what I would have thought because it was almost like they were trying to get their integrity back a little bit on that album. At least I don't know if there's that that's anything to do with anything, but that's kind of what I felt as a fan when I heard that album and then you know and learned more about it, it kind of felt like they were trying to get something back from before.
SPEAKER_00So you oh yeah, I would totally agree with that. And by also you have the other uh aspect of uh Newstead being out.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_00I forgot when exactly when he left, but a lot of people were pissed off because uh they gave him so much shit because he had done some kind of side project, yeah, put out a demo, and they're uh I like James and Lars had a fit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Outside bands.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, they came out later and they kind of admitted that they were really taking out Cliff's death on him a lot. So that's where a lot of that animosity came from and wear him on justice and stuff like that. They were just like emotionally going through a lot of rough times with that, and unfortunately, they directed it all at him. They actually came out and said that. So I think that was also part of like you know what motivated a lot of their the stuff that they were doing, sound-wise and studio-wise, and right things like that, too.
SPEAKER_00So they definitely hazed the shit out of him. Oh when he first got in the band. Um, I I read that they played all kinds of like nasty ass pranks on him and shit, you know. They were real dicks to him.
SPEAKER_03I mean, yeah, they were real asses.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so yeah, but I thought that that would have died out by three albums later.
SPEAKER_03I guess kind of kept it going. I don't know what that was all about.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. So yeah, but I know a lot of people were not happy about his departure, and I think that also was something they were thinking about after you know, when they were do starting to do Death Magnetic.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, the the right around that time, so that's in 2008, about 2010, the fractal axe effects comes into the picture, right? And you first start seeing it um um uh where he's uh James is using it to blend the tones from the Mesa Boogie and the the diesel amps together, right? And it just it it was just so much more uh uh uh tunable in the fractal. Instead of doing it like the the the the the hardware version of it where physically connecting the amps and all that, now you're using these plugins. Um and it sounds pretty damn spot on. So they they uh didn't do any live shows with the fractals until about 2013. But by by 2013, it had gained a foothold in their uh uh their arsenal of amp stuff. At this time, this is when Kirk got together and got an endorsement deal with Randall Amps, which was several and several uh albums, um, but not exclusively. Like so he would mix it with like the Mesa and or the Marshall. Um he used these for touring and recording in addition to the mazes. That's that's that. And then you have I didn't even know this album existed. This is how fucking out of the loop I've been. It's hardwired to self-destruct in 2016.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I am confessing that I have not learned about that album until you just said it right now. Yeah, I knew nothing about it. I didn't know, I thought there was I didn't know there was a thing between that and the new yellow M72 or whatever the hell it's called. Oh the 72 seasons or whatever seasons, yeah. That yeah, um, I didn't know there was another album between uh uh wow, boy, I'm out of the loop too. What's it called again? It's called Hardwired to Self-Destruct. Oh my god, I had no idea. What's is it have you listened to it?
SPEAKER_00Isn't that the album that has that song? Uh what is it, fuel on it? Give me fuel.
SPEAKER_03Fuel is on reload or something or load.
SPEAKER_00Oh, maybe it is. You know, you're right, you're right. Never mind. Never mind.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think it was on there. But uh, but but did you listen to that album? This this other one you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I wasn't that it was okay.
SPEAKER_03It wasn't bad, it just uh again it was does it is it remind you of anything? Like because you know, Death of Magic reminds me of Justice a little bit. Was does yeah, does this other album remind you of anything of theirs? No, not really, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I know and I don't want to say like, oh, it stands on its own. I mean, it I'm not saying it sounds unique, it just it's it's there and it's not bad.
SPEAKER_03I'll have to look, I'll have to hunt that one down. I haven't even listened to the new one, the later, the latest one, because I'm kind of at that I don't give a shit about Metallica stage, and there's so many other albums I want to listen to that I it's a time factor for me, too. I only have so much time in the day, and I'd rather listen to something that I'm really jazzed about than just listening to the Metallica. Yeah, then I've listened to some Metallica thing I don't give a shit about. So so interesting. I gotta go look this album up.
SPEAKER_00And it's not the equipment is very similar to what they used previously.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Uh, this is 2016, so they had the Crunchberries was blended with the diesel. That's what the tone is, the bedrock of the tone, with the Jose modded Marshalls sprinkled in to taste. And then Kirk is using his Randalls mixed in with his Marshalls. So interesting, you know, but again, it's just another album of okay, when are we getting back to the real metal?
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00You know, now we're getting to 72 seasons. This is 2023.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh one comment I found about this album was it's hardwired but less heavy. And then the person right after him said, dude, it's literally heavier than hardwired's tone. This is what I was thinking about in the beginning of like the wide variation of like people's opinions on the internet. So you have to be careful about what you read. And I was trying to sift through all of the the chaff to get to you know, what's the reality of the potatoes or what they were actually using, who really fucking knows versus who's talking out of their ass.
SPEAKER_03Well, what what did you listen to the album? I did.
SPEAKER_00And I actually will listen to the whole thing.
SPEAKER_03Oh, is it good?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's it's okay. It's it's it's not bad. Um I I said, damn, actually, uh these first I listened to the first three songs, and I said, This actually kept my attention. The riffs are not bad. Okay. Um, but you know, it's a different metallica we're talking about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and I'm totally fine with this. Live they use the AxeFX studio using all the analog gear, right? They're not they're not using the model or oh, they're not using the plugins and stuff this time. Yep.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00On this amp, the Jose modded Marshall Super Lead is used on every single song. It's blended with the Mesa Boogie, Crunch Berries, the Diesel VH4, and the Wizard Modern Classic. How can you have that many amps for one fucking guitar tone? And this is also going back to what I was saying about like the tricks used in the studio. One of the things that you do, uh, you I'm sure you know is like you layer guitars. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you do yeah, you do overdub and stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was doing like you know, three, four, five guitar tracks and snatch them all together. And and not only that, on uh last several albums, he talked about how many mics they use to mic the amp. Oh my god, I can't imagine like 10, 8 to 10 SM57 on on the cabinet. And I'm like, how could you I can I get like one by the cone and one for real noise?
SPEAKER_03Or turn on one amp? Why? That doesn't make any sense to me, even something like from an engineering standpoint. I don't know where they were going with that, what they were hoping to achieve with it. If it now, if they're different model mics, that would make a little more sense, but the same model mic that like an SM58 or whatever they were using, why the hell would you have more than two? I don't get that.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. I I don't know if in that example, I don't know if all 10 were SM57s, but there were multiple SM57s, and then there could have been some other.
SPEAKER_03I mean, if they were staying if they kind of were positioned them like uh like greater distances and getting more room tone in between the amp and the mic and stuff like that, yeah that makes sense. But if they're all on the same amp and around the same positioning, that that doesn't make any sense why they would want that. I don't know. Well, that might have been one of those musician things where they were telling the engineer what to do, and the engineer's like, okay, but not but knowing that it's bullshit.
SPEAKER_00It could have been that I I think he did make a comment about something about the uh keep uh the making the microphones be out of phase or in phase, I don't remember which okay.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I kind of know what they're I know what they're talking about on that, yeah. Yeah, but you don't need like yeah, but you still don't don't need like 10 mics for that. That's absurd. So yeah, I mean two mics would do the same kind of trick, but exactly a little dabble deal. Yeah, you don't need like why do you need like 10? So whatever.
unknownI don't know.
SPEAKER_03That just sounds like them like masturbating then the in the studio to me.
SPEAKER_00That's just like Kirk is a total gear whore, man. Yeah, he's he's even admitted it. He's like, I have all kinds of electronic gadgets in my house, so when new guitar gear comes out, he bought all this shit in the 90s, all of these like uh effects units and rack units, and yeah, yeah, uh the what some of the descriptions I read about what he kind of uh you know system he was running was like I you you lost me. You play guitar, just fucking play, man. So I don't know, it was it was quite and now like he Kirk owns a 58 or 59 less Paul, and the thing is gorgeous.
SPEAKER_03Are you talking about the green one? Greeny, yeah, I've seen it. I know what you're talking about. I remember when he bought that guitar. I read about that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, if you need to buy a house, just sell that guitar.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But he is so far down the fucking rabbit hole with his guitars collecting and vintage amp stuff, and you know, it's very it gets very addictive. I mean, you see what I'm doing, it's like yeah, I know, I get it.
SPEAKER_03So I get it, yeah. Yeah, so yeah. So that's your guitar is worse than I am, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's just merely a stuff.
SPEAKER_03Well, I've had I've had a lot of bases over the years, so I've got I've had a collection, you know, BC Rich's and Gibson's whatever stuff.
SPEAKER_00You know how to get rid of stuff.
SPEAKER_03I do, I do, yeah. I was actually pretty, yeah. Well, sort of. I still have some some lingering here that I'll never get into this slide. But uh no, I I was I was not too bad with you know trading stuff in and you know that kind of thing. So I was easy, it was easier for me to let go, that's for sure. Right uh, right uh well, thank you for the the the gear overview, the history that was that was awesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I enjoyed very much.
SPEAKER_03Well, me too, because like listening to go through the descriptions, every time you talked about it, I I was listening to the sound in my head of those albums and going, Oh, yeah, that kind of connects the dots. Yeah. Because you know, when they went from like uh a good example was when they went from say Lightning to Um Puppets, yeah, they went to the Mesa Boogies at that point, and then the sound got so much fuller. Yes, you heard it. Like, I mean it got really big at that point. That's right. Um, comparatively to the first two albums, like you know, because they sound of course now, of course, they're you're also talking about like lower production, you know, uh costs and things like that that played a role. The studio has always played a big role, but that sound though, because I mean the guitarist, uh one of my uh one of my best friends, the guitarist my band Red, uh my friend Paul, I I was working with him like over the last 20 years or however old we are now, and then he had that same evolution in gear. So he went from like a Marshall, then he went to like uh uh then he was a Mesa boogie, then he went to Houston Katner for a while, and then stuff like that, and then and we even did this crazy trick when we played live where we would run his HK cabinet direct into the board, and then I would they would mic my bass cabinet instead, so we were like the opposite of normally how you did it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no shit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the reason we did that was because I used to use pedals and I had this Altech cabinet and stuff that had this unique sound to it, so I wanted the bass sound, I didn't want the direct sound. So we used to mic, we used to use we used to mic my bass cabinet, but then his H and K amp just sounded so freaking amazing, yeah, it was just easier to run it more cleanly into the board to get the a more of your sound out of it. So, you know, so you find all these rigs just from your own stuff, and yeah, so hearing all that was kind of a cool, you know, to you know, return to that. So yeah, thanks for all that research, man. That was awesome.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, I should have done that 30 years ago. Well, as they you know, as they evolved, it's just like I remember when uh a buddy of mine was saying, uh, he goes, You know that they used maces on uh on puppets, right? And I'm like, What what do you mean? I didn't know because I I all I knew was the poster that I had up in my uh studio of them playing live, and uh there's a wall of Marshall.
SPEAKER_03Marshall, yeah, it's Marshall, Marshall, Marshall. It's always yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But uh so it was nice to know about it.
SPEAKER_03Well, we'll do more uh future gear episodes because I'd love I would love to do a guitar episode with you. Cool. That's gonna be fun. So we can do guitars and some stuff, you know, bass is whatever.
SPEAKER_00I like fun.
SPEAKER_03All right, so I guess we will move on then to uh music news. I'm still looking for that goddamn sound.
SPEAKER_06Damn it!
SPEAKER_03I still haven't found it yet. All right, anyway. Um, so you saw the articles I sent you. Um, what did you think about that Live Nation prize gouging article? Did you see that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um well, first of all, that didn't tell us anything we didn't already know.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00But I mean, to have to have people just just recklessly laughing about how people are getting screwed by it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So the article was about Live Nation, and they found out this sort of behind the scenes thing where they found out that not only were they gouging fans, which again, you know, as you pointed out, we all knew, but then they they found out that people that worked there were actually it's so flagrant that they're just making fun of the people, they're making fun of the fans for being so stupid and being robbed blind. Yeah, they're robbing them blind, and they're actually admitted to that. Yeah. And then, you know, and it's all these private messages that came out uh as a result of their, you know, of their flagrant, of their just like of their of their behavior, basically.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So, you know, I don't know what can be done about it though. Like, I know I know a lot of the concerts I go to here locally in Portland have nothing to do with Live Nation, which is one way to circumvent is just to avoid their concerts. But right, then you go to some concert though that is like an artist that you really are done. Like, I went to see the ELO or like you know, farewell stuff like that. Yeah, and you know, you're stuck with Live Nation. Like, what else are you gonna do? There's no other so I don't know what else to do about that. I mean, artists like Pearl Jam would come out against those guys, but it's like, you know, there's only I I don't know how to stop that.
SPEAKER_00I I don't know, and that there is no answer. It's it's um well, I'm the answer lies in something that people would not commit to doing, which is not supporting artists that use Live Nation. Yeah, and that's really what it has to come down to because this is this is capitalism at work. Yeah, these fucking companies, man, all they understand is oh, we're not making money. Now we have to make a change. Yeah, but until they come to that realization, it's fuck you, buddy, you're paying what I tell you to pay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, with all those like outrageous fees that they charge. I mean, it's like it's no it's no wonder that these concerts get slightly like so ridiculously expensive. Yeah. So I mean the cheapest. Yeah, well, that's the thing. The bands aren't making any money, so it's like all going to the to the corporations that run this shit. So that's what I'm saying. Fucking terrible, man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've read just in the past, I don't know, six months of like two fairly large acts that are basically saying, sorry, we can't really go out on tour anymore. We crunched the numbers and it's just gotten too expensive. Uh you know, it made me think like, how the hell did bands put on big ass world tours with multiple buses, yeah, dozens of trucks, like when ACDC would do a world tour, how much money could that possibly have cost? But they made it work and they made money, and they made money, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03But different world now. Yeah, because I've read that too. They're the uh one of the bands I read that that won't tour anymore, I think it was the cranberries or somebody, they were saying like they just uh they just can't afford it, like they can they can kind of play regionally, like around where they live, right? But they can't do a big tour because it's just the cost and you know the offset just doesn't make any sense. That also happened with category seven. Um that side project with uh John Bush and uh Phil DeMell and those guys. Um, they wanted to do a tour, but then they're like, we crunch the numbers and it doesn't we can't do it. It's just it's gonna cost us money. So they're they're like, you know, we can't tour. So yeah, it sucks.
SPEAKER_00Like you said, it's a different world and it's not in favor of uh human happiness, or artists for that matter. Oh yeah, yeah. Um, it's all in favor of greed. Yeah, yeah, it's no different than the the uh private equity funds that buy up, you know, hospital groups, yep, yep, you know, things that you wouldn't your 401k. What the fuck are you doing buying my 401k up, man? Yeah, leave it alone.
SPEAKER_03Yep, the same thing with these these big venues and stuff. So just another case for supporting local artists and smaller shows whenever you can.
SPEAKER_01There you go.
SPEAKER_03All right, so did you see that there's also a Netflix of metal called the Thunder called Thunderflix?
SPEAKER_00I didn't know about it until you mentioned it, and I checked it out. Did you what'd you think? Yeah, it's funny because they said the subscription fee is 666 for the first uh month or something, and then it's like it's like 66.66 for a year. Oh, okay. Is that what it is? Uh I think so.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's funny. That's funny. I think I don't know. I was looking at the lineup, I was like, there's some cool shit on here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's not bad.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was kind of surprised. It's got documentaries, it's got concert footage. Yep, it's got a lot of music video stuff on there. Yeah, so and some of the acts were like, Oh, they got some obscure shit on there. I was like, I was fairly impressed. So, you know, check out thunderflicks.com. There you go. Netflix of metal, if anybody's like that. Who knew, right? Uh, all right, so Elder, new album coming out by them. Uh, should be out in May. Wait, can't we? Now, by the time this podcast is out, the album will be out. It's called uh Through Zero.
SPEAKER_00So I listened to the song that they released over the weekend, and man, I didn't hear that.
SPEAKER_02Is it good?
SPEAKER_00Mashed my face in.
SPEAKER_02Is it good?
SPEAKER_00Oh, the melodies are so perfectly perfect in that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I love that band.
SPEAKER_00You'll dig it, man.
SPEAKER_02Cool.
SPEAKER_00I I like uh Floating World. Is that the name of the album that they I think so? That's Reflections of a Floating World or something.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, something like that. Yeah, no, that like that. I've been really getting into them. Um, it would be amazing to see Elder Tour with Pelican and Ulver.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that would be badass.
SPEAKER_03Wouldn't that be a killer tour? That'd be or with Sun or somebody like that, that the the big sort of instrumental tour, that'd be badass, man. So so we'll see.
SPEAKER_00I'd be down with that. Pelican and and i if it only included Russian circles, man, I'd dig that.
SPEAKER_03There you go, there you go. Uh all right. So did you see that former Misfits frontman Michael Graves uh signed with a Christian record label?
SPEAKER_00I I don't know anything about him. Do you know who he is? I I know he was the singer for Misfits. Right. Okay. I don't know. I never heard him sing.
SPEAKER_03Well, oh, you never heard him sing?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. Um, their album uh Famous Monsters is really good. Okay. So if you're like, you know, if you like the Misfits at all. Now it's of course it's not you know Danzig era or anything, but right, but uh I saw them in CBGB's with him, with Graves, and they were fabulous. That was the show that Scott Ian jumped up on stage with him and stuff like that. Okay, yeah, I saw him at C B C BGB's in the 90s, and then it was like before they closed, yeah, yeah. It was with him, and then uh Scott Ian from Anthrax got on stage with him for like four songs, and then that was awesome. And then, yeah, so I got to see that show, and I was like right up front. So, but yeah, they were really good, but then I guess he got kind of again, we're not gonna get political, but he got kind of mega trumpy, I guess. And he and he and he he's doing a God bless America tour, I guess. So we'll see how that goes. But I did see that his tour or dates at least in the UK were canceled because he of his uh political views. So and now he's actually like yeah, and he's acting like the victim now. He's like, Oh, well, they're coming after me, whatever, and I can't play anywhere. So just heads up.
SPEAKER_00He made his bed, he's got a lie in it.
SPEAKER_03He did. Um, Ross the Boss Freedman from Man of War and the Dictators passed away recently. Well that's 1972. No, so there was Ross the Boss.
SPEAKER_00Uh it's only 20 years away from me.
SPEAKER_03Were you a man of war guy? No, no, didn't get into the big into the big epic war metal. No, no, no, okay.
SPEAKER_00No, but I watched when he passed, I watched a couple clips of him, and he was pretty good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Oh, you know, it just dawned on me that, and you mentioned that you know, 20 years away. Um, yeah, I am I'm like closer than that. And it's one of those things where I was just realizing all these rockers are and it's been happening, but you know, they're getting old. So yeah, you know, this stuff happening is kind of like like a reality check, I think, of mortality in a lot of ways, but then also just the idea of like you think of these guys as sort of immortal figures that never will go away, but then let me pass, then you know, these guys that you know you think would be there forever. I know. So, but it just reminds you that to appreciate them while they're here, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Well, Neil Pearl is a great example, yeah. Yeah, uh, you know, yeah, fucking um Chris Cornell.
SPEAKER_02Yep, how the fuck that happened?
SPEAKER_00I'm still reeling. I yeah, yeah, well, I think his brother died from natural causes, didn't he?
SPEAKER_03He did, yeah. Well, but yeah, Dinebag was murdered, but uh, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I don't know, man. It's a it's a short road. It is. Think it's long, and then you're being shown to the off-ramp before you know it.
SPEAKER_03Well, you think it's forever, and then that kind of stuff happens. That these guys just disappear after being there forever. So that's right. All right. Um Dark Throne have also another album coming out called a new album called Prehistoric Metal. Did you see the cover for it?
SPEAKER_00I looked it up. What did you think? It looks like a Neanderthal man, Cromagnum. But did you did you what did you think of him holding the pitchfork? I I don't know. It just it it it reeked of it's the year 800 and I want to revolt.
SPEAKER_03But doesn't that like didn't he look like a farmer to you? I look I thought he was he looked like he really is pissed off about that. He used to deal with a bunch of hay, you know what I mean? That's that's the that's the kind of look look, I I get it. I understand black metal bands, they they they keep the the budget down, they want it to look like that raw, that raw look of a black metal album that old school Norway. I get it, I totally get it. But that was just fucking lazy to me. He was literally standing there going with the fucking pitchfork, right? Making the uh the you know the face with the pitchfork, and that's it just from here up. He could have been wearing fucking pajamas from there down, we wouldn't know. Stupid image, yeah. But see, that's my point, and it's just against the white wall. I'm like, come on, man, yeah, what a little bit and what did you go out to the fucking barn for that? Did you just grab the pitchfork out of the barn real quick and go, Oh, use the pitchfork? And then it's called prehistoric black metal. I'm like, How is this prehistoric? I mean, there's nothing prehistoric about this. I mean, maybe show I don't know, show a dinosaur or some shit, but I don't know what the fuck are you going for here? And then the album cover itself, I was just not only felt like it was lazy, but it looked like a farmer, yeah. So, I mean, you know, come on.
SPEAKER_00I think that's the definition of phoning it in.
SPEAKER_03Uh, yeah, that's that's how I would feel, but at least go out into the woods, like a good black metal band does, and then you know, take your pitchfork out of the woods or whatever, and then you know, at least make some sort of effort. You did it in like your fucking kitchen or something. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, how do you know he didn't he wasn't pissed off about like evil spirits? Like the evil spirit came down and fucked my gun. I'm on the war path.
SPEAKER_03You make a solid point. I'm I'm projecting here. Maybe that's what he was pissed off about. I don't know. But the way he stood there with the pitchfork, I don't know. I just felt it had something to do with farming. That's all I know.
SPEAKER_00Very unmetal.
SPEAKER_03I think too.
SPEAKER_00It was more uh more like um, oh, what's that guy? Uh uh Max Jasker's farm. Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the black metal version of that. Yeah, you go. So there you go. All right. So that is out now too, or coming out now too. Uh all right. Uh, did you have anything else in Metal News? Nope. Okay, that moves us over to the album review of the episode. Which was my case, my pick this time. And I went with At the Gates, Slaughter of the Soul. And uh, one of the reasons I picked that album was because of, of course, unfortunately, Thomas Lindbergh's recent passing, the singer. Uh he died of cancer, unfortunately. He was 52, and he was a very influential figure within the Swedish death metal scene, uh, like in the early 90s for sure. Because they formed at the gates around 90, and then uh Slaughter of the Soul came out in '95, and they had some of their albums in there, and and they also had some other bands he was involved with at that time. And I was reading that um some of the other singers and other musicians uh basically came out and said, Look, without him, there was no Swedish scene. I mean, there was like you know, uh bands like Dismember and also Entombed and yeah, those bands. And if you listen to At the Gates, there it has that Gothenburg kind of Swedish guitar sound. Yeah, very similar. You can hear it, yeah, for sure. Um, now I think his vocals separate and distinct them, make them definitely definitely link back to the Swedish thing for sure.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Well, he used a heavy metal pedal. Um it was a boss heavy metal pedal, which is was kind of like the secret sauce in the other albums where they would just jam all the controls up to max.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh but they didn't do that. Like I I read that um he had the heavy metal pedal, the HM2 was feeding directly into a metal zone. And it was the the the the distortion on the heavy metal pedal was all the way down to zero. Yeah. And then whatever signal that was got passed into the metal zone to be fully um sent into whatever amp he was used. I forgot what it was. Um I can't remember the amp. But it used EMG 81 pickup.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00So it was uh you know a pretty uh pretty commonly used active pickup at the time for stream metal stuff. But yeah, I mean when you listen to that, you could hear that it's it's uh the Gothenburg sound.
SPEAKER_03Yep, yep. So what did you think of the album?
SPEAKER_00I fucking loved it.
SPEAKER_03I loved it. Have you heard of it before you listen to it before, have you? No, no, never really.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I meant to, I meant to, and uh funny. Uh my younger brother bought the album on vinyl. Oh wow. And every time I went into his room to tell him something, I'd look over and I'd see that fucking album sitting there and be like, oh, one day I gotta listen to that. One day I'm gonna listen to that. So one day, about 15 years later, I'm like, oh he still has this record. The shit was warped. Oh no, because he wasn't he, I don't know, it wasn't sitting right or something.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it's a drag.
SPEAKER_00So I'm like, ah, I'll get to it one day, and then one came yesterday.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, then you do you go first. I'm gonna shut up and I want to hear what you think of it. Now I have my I have my notes here too. Okay, because I want to be like you when I grow up. So go ahead and give us let's go through your notes.
SPEAKER_00Oh, how flattering. This is sick, big sound, brilliant songs, over-the-top guitar work. It's by every means a classic. This is peak guitar tone territory, delivered with conviction, pushing the future, remembering the past. Oh, good.
SPEAKER_03That was great. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I think that's very accurate.
SPEAKER_00Um the the thing that I don't understand is the way that it starts. I have what the fuck is this noise?
SPEAKER_03Oh, that weird metallic thing they do in the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what that is, but the the the note I have is that uh this album feels like the band is just flat out attacking you. It just feels like this onslaught of like metal that's just being leashed at you. Like it just feels like they're impressive. Yeah, it just feels like they're coming for you. You know what I mean? Yeah, so and I love it though. It's like this just onslaught. Um, you only really get a few moments to catch your breath, like when they do some of the clean guitar breaks in there, yeah. You know, when they kind of get away just before like some of the solos and some of the bridges that they have in there. Um uh uh and especially during their uh now that you get you get those good clean guitar breaks, but then towards the ends of the the end of the album, you get the flames of the end, which is an instrumental thing they do at the end, which comes out of left field, and to me that sounded like it belonged on the matrix soundtrack.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it didn't it didn't fit with the album.
SPEAKER_03It was no, it was so out of left field.
SPEAKER_00It wasn't bad. I have uh evil intro, trippy, hypnotic main riff, and orchestration of madness. Yeah, but it really didn't feel like stylistically it slid in with all the other stuff. Maybe that was by design.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's right. That's what I thought too. It just seemed like this odd thing that just came out of nowhere that didn't really belong with the rest of the album. So I don't know what they were going with that, but it was it was that's the only kind of breaks you get on it, though, because the rest of it's just this fucking onslaught. It's like if you listen to Suicide Nation, it starts off with that shotgun blast, and then it's just blam, and then it's just and then the whole album is like that. That's what that I thought that was kind of the one of the signature songs on there that really personifies that album.
SPEAKER_00And it's comes in right after Into a Dead Sky. Yeah, yep, yep. Which is like this chill track, it's very very pretty song, and then it comes back in with the shotgun blast.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I did notice a lot of Sabbath influence.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I can hear that, yeah. Good call, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and you know, not not that that's a bad thing, it's just part of the style. Yeah, I I appreciate it when you wine and dine me a little bit. Uh because you know, the bands that are just straight ahead brutality, yeah, from beginning to end, it's like I can only take so much of that. Sometimes I want a concept album that's just really well crafted.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Songs make sense together, it tells you a story, but it's just healthy as fuck.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You know, well, and and albums like you're pointing out there that are kind of just complete brutality, they're also very one-dimensional. Yeah, you know, it's just like the same thing over and over and over again. And it and it and that to me loses its power, if anything. It's just like it just kind of like a movie with just like constant special effects. It's like, well, okay, we've seen that, now it just kind of gets old. So, but with something like what you're talking about, that winding and dining thing, where they kind of weave in and out, and it's like slow, and then, like you said, that one song kind of leads up to to to suicide, uh, to the to Suicide Nation, where um you get that kind of like lull where you kind of like, oh, I can relax, and then all of a sudden, bam again. So, yeah, no, I like that dynamic, that back and forth thing. Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00It's a beatdown that stops temporarily while the uh person who's hitting you changes the bat to the other hand.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they're getting tired of hitting you with the other one.
SPEAKER_00I really, I really enjoyed the guitar work on this album. Oh, it's so good. Um, it's just such a nice uh the the riffs are very unique. Yeah, I'll say that.
SPEAKER_03Um, because it got some Iron Maiden going on in some of the leads there.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, oh yeah. Uh and Nausea. Uh I had uh Little Iron Maiden thrown in, then Slayer.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Yeah. Uh Unto Others, Great Acoustic Bridge. Uh in uh the song Need, the rhythms on that fucking song are crushing it. My God.
SPEAKER_02Right on.
SPEAKER_00I was totally it's it's just very, very well played.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I mean, overall, I think it's it's it's just I don't know how I hadn't sat down and listened to it before then. I I don't know what I was thinking. I think I was thinking that it was gonna be overly melodic, maybe.
SPEAKER_03Oh, really? Okay, gotcha. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I mean it it really wasn't. No, nope, no. That's a classic. So check out At the Gates, Slaughter of the Soul. Right on. All right. So that leads us on to the mystery band. And it's your turn. So what you got for me?
SPEAKER_00Uh I was working as a delivery driver in a in a pizza joint when I was like 16. And the guy who was the chef was this cool dude who got me into the Ramones one uh one week he comes into work. He's like, You like music? I'm like, Yeah, I like uh you know, cream and ACDC. He's like, look at this, and he gives me Ramones on vinyl.
SPEAKER_02Oh, which album was it?
SPEAKER_00Uh actually it might have been no, it wasn't the greatest hits. It was uh uh shit. I can't remember. It's it damn it, I can't remember. Okay, but uh it's got like a million fucking songs on it. Um so then I gave it back to him, he's like, What'd you think? I said, That's it was awesome. I taped it, and he goes, Good, here's the next one. And he did an album by a band called uh The Vapors. And it was the name of the album was New Clear Days. This is not a an aggressive uh album by any means. This isn't like the El Bith, this isn't like the Um At the Gates. Uh it's basically like a punk record, but it's extremely well done. They're totally locked into themselves, and it's just really good songwriting. You ever heard the song Turning Japanese? Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's them.
SPEAKER_03I have heard them. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The name sounded kind of familiar, but I couldn't place what the connection was. I didn't really think if I heard of them or not, but yeah, no, I know that song. Yeah, that's their song. Okay, so turning Japanese is their song. Okay, cool. Yeah, I don't I can't I have to confess, I don't know of anything else beyond that, though, because I never really looked into them beyond that song. So I knew the song, but uh didn't know anything else beyond that. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00It's great to drive to. Oh yeah. It's great to have on in the car.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00And um the my favorite track on it is News at 10.
SPEAKER_03News at 10. Okay. Yeah. News at 10. All right. So the Vapors, New Clear Days is the album. Okay. That's the album, yeah. All right, all right. I will make note of that, and that is my homework between now and the next episode.
SPEAKER_00Very late 70s, early 80s ish type punk. Does it hold up? What a glorious time that was. Does it does it hold up? Oh, totally.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean it's uh well I'm not gonna say it doesn't sound dated.
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah. Well, but I I mean there's songwriting though.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. You're not gonna turn it on and be like, I I this this just doesn't even I I can't understand this. You're not gonna say that.
SPEAKER_03Okay, okay, I'm down. All right. Yeah. All right, thank you, sir. The vapors, I will look that up. Okay, that moves us on to the last segment of our episode, which is the live shows and tours. Um, yeah, sorry for the confusion on the old Drying Crusher tour there.
SPEAKER_00Uh did I did I mention something about that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you said that, yeah, because it was the old it was the old tour. I didn't realize. I thought they were gonna bring that back or something. They were just posting about it. It must have been like an anniversary or something.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I did say something to you about it. I'm like, how did you know how I felt about it? Yeah, because I I guess I mentioned it, but I was I was, you know, I was I was I was doing stuff on Saturday night.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all good.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00But I did remember to bring this down. Okay, what's that? This is uh an original shirt from the grind crush.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god, wow, holy shit. You have the Tor shirt. So you can see that's rat. That's awesome. Look at that. Wow, the shirt's in remarkably good shape, too. Oh, I take care of myself. Look at that, dude. Wow, that's awesome. What's the front? Flip it around.
SPEAKER_00I was at the uh what is it? The um one of these two sh New York shows. Yeah, I don't remember which day we went. Wow. Look at that. This is the front.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's cool. Man, that shirt's in like really good shape, dude. Yeah, and I've worn it a bunch of times. Have you really? Wow. That's it doesn't fit my fat ass anymore, but that's all right. What a hell, that was a hell of a tour.
SPEAKER_00All right, speaking of the current tours, and oh, I wanted to say one last thing about that. Yeah, yeah. The Grindcrusher tour that was in England included Carcass and Bolt Throw.
SPEAKER_03I saw that, yeah. What was the tour in the US? What was that? Who was on that tour?
SPEAKER_00Nocturnus and Godflesh. Oh, okay. Now I'm not gonna complain that I got to see Justin Broderick, original from Death.
SPEAKER_02How was Godflesh live? Oh good.
SPEAKER_00So fucking loud, I could my ears still ringing. I he basically was standing there with his guitar, and uh the guy I went to the show with could fucking vouch for this, and I didn't have any ear protection, and all he was doing was smacking the strings of the guitar, and it was feeding back like crazy. And he just went up to the microphone and he kept saying, God, God, God, and then finally, at the very end, like two minutes of just he finally just goes and then the fucking drums kicked in, and it was just like my ears were fucking destroyed that night. Holy shit, they were amazing.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. That sounds awesome. Uh all right, so that was yeah, all right. So that was the US. That was the US. That was the US. Yeah, and yeah, that that that that but that European tour looked amazing. Uh all right, so as far as who's on tour now, uh Pentagram is embarking on their farewell tour in August. So shocked. Yeah, well, I mean, Bobby's like 150 years old. I know.
SPEAKER_01No, I'm shocked they're doing it.
SPEAKER_03I know, I can't believe that they're you know that they're still doing it, but there they are, man. So I'm I'm anxious to I want to try to catch them since this is the last one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so yeah, they are OGs, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, big time, but they go to back to 70 something, 70, whatever tours. They go back pretty far, man.
SPEAKER_00To our listeners, if you want to see the real shit, go check them out.
SPEAKER_03Go check out Pentagram. So, yep. All right, they will be on tour this for their farewell tour this August. Uh, Cochine and Cambria are touring North America with Shinedown. Uh Hate Breed are touring uh this summer with various openers, including Devourment and Incantation, which I thought was kind of a weird mix.
SPEAKER_00A little bit, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Right? I don't nothing against either band, but just stylistically, it seems like a weird combo with Incantation opening for Hate Breed. Am I missing something there?
SPEAKER_00No, no. I think um we're starting to see more and more of these odd billings.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'm very suspicious of uh whether they're doing that because uh they think that they might be able to get more people to attend. Because like we talked about in the last episode where there was the Incredible range of bands on that uh festival that you had.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I was like, I don't know, I don't know if I got I don't know if I got to make this comment, but one thing I was thinking was like, how can you have all these rap acts on a bill that builds itself as a rock and metal festival? Right. Yeah. What is what is Wu Tang clan doing?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, where why are they there? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so that's when I started thinking, you know, I I think they're just tired of like well, not I don't want to say tired of not making money, but I think they want to protect themselves against taking a huge loss. Yeah, a number of people that are not gonna go.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Because it's oh it's a bunch of rock bands, I don't want to see that shit. But if you add in other stuff that maybe other people want, so maybe this is something like that.
SPEAKER_03Maybe, I guess. Uh to make it more diverse, though, I suppose. Yeah, uh, yeah, they just seem like a weird pairing though between those two bands. Just totally is stylistically, yeah. Uh then the Pretty Reckless also announced the tour and supported their new album called Dear God. So they're gonna be going out on the road here, too. So we do have a lot of bands that are kind of coming up here. Uh, when's that sun show? Isn't that coming up?
SPEAKER_00It is Friday night.
SPEAKER_03Ooh, right here. Cool. So in the next episode, we I want to hear how that went.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my buddy just texted me and said, make sure you wear uh you bring your earplugs because these guys are fucking loud, man.
SPEAKER_03Have you seen them before?
SPEAKER_00Once.
SPEAKER_03Once.
SPEAKER_00They handed out ear protection.
SPEAKER_03Oh, did they really? Were they that were they that loud?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Weird. And some girl walking around in like a monk's robe with a little plate just of earplugs, no key. Yeah. I was like, oh, am I really gonna need it? Take it, dude. Just take them. And then I you could feel it in the seat, man. It's just like the the low end is unbelievable. It's on god.
SPEAKER_03It's just the two of them, right? Just the two of them. Just the two of them. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Hopefully this time I'll see them with the smoke machines, because if last time they didn't have the Oh, so the smoke machines are part of the stage.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00They come out of the mist and they're they're big fucking robes.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. I saw the way the hoods and stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Cool. It's pretty cool. So I'll let you know.
SPEAKER_03And by the by the time this thing airs, of course, it'll be in the in a yeah, in the past, but uh hopefully, hopefully people are gonna go check them out.
SPEAKER_00Well, hopefully the world will still be around for people to see the episode.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, we'll see. So we'll give that time.
SPEAKER_00All right.
SPEAKER_03All right. Anything else and and live shows that you're aware of? No. All right. Well, I think this is a wrap then. I think we're done uh with this episode. What do you think?
SPEAKER_00It feels about right.
SPEAKER_03Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_00So chock full of goodness.
SPEAKER_03Chock full of all the metal. Thank you for joining us. Please share our podcast with anyone that appreciates heavy music. Be sure to visit our social feeds and drop us a comment with your thoughts on the podcast.