WEBVTT 00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:05.220 Metalhead Podcast, Metalhead Podcast, go! 00:00:26.260 --> 00:00:28.000 You must listen. 00:00:28.820 --> 00:00:30.180 You must listen. 00:00:31.260 --> 00:00:32.580 You must listen. 00:00:36.339 --> 00:00:40.540 Now, here is the podcast, Metal Heads Podcast Go. 00:00:41.060 --> 00:00:44.000 Hello and welcome to the Metal Heads Podcast. My name is George. 00:00:44.740 --> 00:00:45.320 This is Jay. 00:00:45.940 --> 00:00:46.660 This is John. 00:00:47.400 --> 00:00:48.520 This is Markisan. 00:00:48.890 --> 00:00:55.580 And we're very excited to welcome guitarist extraordinaire and songwriter Chris Munzner to the podcast. 00:00:56.260 --> 00:01:25.820 Chris shreds the shit out of everything in Obscura and Alkaloid, which just released a new album last month called Newman. So thanks so much for coming on the Metalheads podcast, Chris. Thanks for having me on this podcast. It's my pleasure and looking forward to the conversation. Thank you. Where are you talking to us from? I'm in Mexico City right now, actually. Oh, yeah. A fest thing? No, no. I'm visiting some friends here and on Thursday I'm going to Argentina. 00:01:25.880 --> 00:01:55.800 because we're starting a South American tour with Obscura. Nice. And I'm basically in between events right now. So I'm preparing for the tour and I'm leaving from here, go on tour on Thursday here. First time in Mexico City? No, no, I've been here many times. I have a big circle of friends here and I just love this place. So I come back here frequently. So before we get to any music questions, and I'm not trying to step on everybody's feet here, but what's the best thing you've had to eat since you've been there? In Mexico, man, the food is so good. I like the tacos de pastor. It's like spicy food. 00:01:55.860 --> 00:02:25.700 So yeah, whenever I can get this, and then don't, I get to go to a taco place somewhere else. It's not the same, you know? So with the Mexican restaurants right in Germany, I had a very different idea of what Mexican food actually is than when you see the real thing. Yeah. Yeah. But it's so good. So yeah. I had Mexican food in Russia one time. That sounds adventurous. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead and laugh. I mean, it was, I was, it was like not even Taco Bell great. It was, oh my God. I was like, it was like they saw a picture and they thought, let's try to do that. So it's funny, 00:02:25.880 --> 00:02:55.680 because we scheduled this thinking we had to be on German time. And if I'm looking at this correctly, you're actually two hours behind me instead of. Yes, like exactly. It's 1 p.m. and it would be 9 p.m. right now. So, yeah, yeah. Both would have worked for me. Yeah. So we did this fine. So I'll throw one more thing before we get to the music and everything else. I'm in Arizona, so I'm actually closest to you right now geographically. So welcome to the great Americas, southwest and south, much south, much more southwest. 00:02:56.780 --> 00:03:25.840 Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Awesome. Go ahead, Marcus. I was stepping all over. What is that? No worries. My wife and I actually want to go to Mexico City. We're starting to plan that trip, so I might have to get some tips from Chris. But yeah, I think we just start off. I read that you began playing. Oh, yeah, I can definitely give you some trips. Oh, thank you. I read that you began playing guitar at age 11. Can you talk about, you know, what that time was like for you and how did you get into 00:03:25.880 --> 00:03:27.020 actually playing the instrument. 00:03:27.760 --> 00:03:27.860 Yeah. 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:31.820 So it's actually the first memory I have. 00:03:31.820 --> 00:03:32.040 I mean, 00:03:32.120 --> 00:03:32.400 in my, 00:03:32.740 --> 00:03:33.400 when I was a child, 00:03:33.460 --> 00:03:34.780 my parents always listened to music. 00:03:34.840 --> 00:03:35.300 So what my, 00:03:35.600 --> 00:03:40.840 some of my very early childhood memories are like listening to Elton John records and stuff like that, 00:03:40.940 --> 00:03:41.980 that my mother had at home. 00:03:42.220 --> 00:03:43.880 And my father was a big Dire Straits fan. 00:03:43.980 --> 00:03:48.420 So I always liked like rock oriented music. 00:03:48.940 --> 00:03:50.680 But when it really hit me, 00:03:50.680 --> 00:03:54.260 it was when my neighbor was in the summer of 1990 or 91. 00:03:54.320 --> 00:03:54.660 I don't know. 00:03:54.660 --> 00:03:55.720 I was nine years old. 00:03:56.540 --> 00:04:25.720 And the Razor's Edge by AC-D-Z had just come out. And as a kid, that was the first thing I heard where I really was like drawn to the sound of the electric guitar. And so I got into hard rock and heavy metal stuff. And back then, we did a lot of tape trading in school, right? So there were other kids in school. And then, oh, you like AC-D-Z, you got to listen to Iron Maiden, you got to listen to Metallica. And I remember when the Black Album came out, I didn't really like it, actually. And my friend gave me the older Metallica stuff, and I got really into it. And yeah, so I got from there, you know, listening to bands like all the kids who are listening to back then. 00:04:25.780 --> 00:04:55.460 and ACDC, Iron Maiden, I got into Black Sabbath from there and the thrash bands, you know, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer. And then I saw Iron Maiden in concert in 1993 with my father. It was actually the last tour of Bruce Dickinson when he had just announced that he's going to leave the band. And after I saw that concert, I was like, I want to play guitar. This is what I want to do with my life. And my parents, they were not supportive in the beginning because I had played piano before and I wasn't really into it and I didn't practice and I stopped going to the lessons. So they were always, now we buy your guitar. 00:04:55.560 --> 00:05:25.540 and it's going to be the same thing. But I kept insisting and then I got my first guitar in May 1993. It was a Epiphone SG copy because I wanted to be Angus basically. And then in the beginning I just learned like playing ACDC songs and Metallica songs, mostly the riffs. Then I wanted to learn how to play solos. I couldn't really get a grip on that on my own. So I started taking guitar lessons and I got a really good teacher. And within one or two years I could play like hard rock based solos, pentatonic based stuff. And then my guitar teacher introduced me to the 00:05:25.580 --> 00:05:55.260 Music of Ingramstein when I was in the summer of 94 when I was 12 years old. And I couldn't believe what I was hearing. You know, it was possible to play an instrument at that speed and velocity. And I was like, man, this is crazy. And this is then when I got into the really heavy practicing when I was like, just play guitar as a hobby. I'm not going to get to that level. So I have to really invest some time. I mean, it was actually quite strange in that time period because it was right when the 80s had ended. And when this grunge wave came playing guitar, 00:05:55.560 --> 00:06:25.460 and wanting to play guitar on a higher level wasn't really cool anymore, you know. And I was getting right at that time when Nirvana and Alice in Chains and those bands were big, I was getting into all the Ingram Malmsteen stuff and the Razor X and the Whitesnake and Luma Murder, you know, and things like that. And that was quite strange in that time, you know. It was quite opposite to the mainstream movement that was actually going on. And it was actually quite weird because back in that day it wasn't very popular to get into that style of playing. And so I was the only one in school. 00:06:25.580 --> 00:06:55.520 who played that kind of style. And I didn't really do it very well when I listened to the tapes from back then nowadays. But because everyone else was only playing Nirvana stuff, I thought, oh, I'm the shit, you know. And later on, obviously, you get older, you meet other players, and the internet comes along, and you see your reaction, nothing. But yeah, so that was basically that time, you know. There was no YouTube. I had to order these guitar instructional videos by Paul Gilbert and Richie Cotson and those guys from a shop in America. And it would take six weeks to arrive, and sometimes it wouldn't work because the tape format wasn't the same, you know. And it was quite interesting. There was a certain magic to it. 00:06:55.560 --> 00:07:25.500 because you had to really dig deep to find the interesting stuff. And so I quite, I look back on this time with a lot of nostalgia, actually. Chris, what was the first metal song you learned to play? Do you remember? I think it was the first hard rock song was probably Highway to Hell, but the first metal song was Seek and Destroy with Metallica because my father was on business travel and he went into a music store and then he brought me the Kill Em All guitar tap book. And so I taught myself to play all the riffs. And Seek and Destroy was for some reason the easiest song to play on the record. 00:07:25.580 --> 00:07:55.120 and the easiest one to learn. And later on, I started playing cover bands and stuff. We played that song a lot. So I think this was the very first metal song that I learned. I think when you start learning to play guitar, you know, with Metallica and Slayer and Megadeth and stuff, you get pretty good pretty fast, you know, because it's pretty demanding. You need to develop a good technique to be able to play these things. I'm grateful for that experience. It sounds like we picked a good Thunderdome too, because some of the formative bands. Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be a tough question to answer. It's an evil Thunderdome, Jay. 00:07:56.720 --> 00:08:23.980 I was like, why not just do it? You know what I mean? Go big or go home. You know, it's funny to hear you. That's a very interesting description of the early 90s because we all grew up in the 80s and we had similar problems to you, which was it was hard to find stuff because you had to dig for it. Right. And like you said, YouTube really wasn't even happening in the 90s and stuff. But I think it was more of a scarcity thing that you had a similar experience than we did because grunge was taken over and you couldn't find stuff. Yeah. 00:08:24.060 --> 00:08:53.520 So I've never heard anybody kind of tell that tale. That's very interesting. Second, I'd like to know. Yeah, it has to do with the age group, I think, right? It has to do with the age when you get into that stuff. And for me, it was like the age when music started to become important to me was right when this grunge thing happened. It's interesting because I hadn't in the 80s, I have memories of the 80s, but I wasn't really listening to metal back then. So I haven't really experienced it. I want to know from some of my band, I play in this band Paradox from Germany and Charlie. He listens to metal since 1970. And he always tells me what it was like in the 80s. 00:08:53.620 --> 00:09:23.580 I wish I could have experienced that. And in the beginning, you know, like, I still remember, like, in the beginning, when I started listening to ACTC and Metallica, the kids who listened to that were the same kids who listened to Nirvana. We didn't really understand that this is a cultural shift or something like that, you know, for us. This was still guitar-driven music and still rock-based music, at least in the beginning. And it was more like this Ace of Bass kind of stuff that was also popular at the time that we didn't like, you know, with everything with heavy guitars. We kind of liked it. Later on, when I got into the more technical playing, I really understood 00:09:23.640 --> 00:09:53.560 what really had happened, you know, that like when Nirvana came and took over and then all these virtuosos disappeared and all the hair metal bands and the thrash bands and it's ended their careers. But I didn't, it wasn't, I didn't really understand that it was happening at the time. You know, I learned it after the fact. That's more of an American thing though. America tends to be like, fuck you, that's over. And, and Europeans are so much more like we can do it all at once. Yeah. And you know, what's also interesting about the nineties, I mean, a lot of people say all the nineties were, 00:10:21.220 --> 00:10:23.220 I agree. 00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:53.060 I want to go back to steps and ask you who was your favorite guitarist in Whitesnake because I know you said you were in Whitesnake for a minute. Yeah for me probably Sean Sykes I'm a big Sean Sykes fan I also love Blue Murder. That's a great answer. Yeah I mean obviously I like Steve White too you know probably 15 years ago I would have said Steve White but I really I really gotten so much into Sean Sykes playing in the last couple of years like just the quality to his playing that I didn't really I mean I always loved just playing always loved the 1987 record but now I've been digging on into Blue Murder and just St. Lizzie stuff and everything and yeah he's definitely one of my absolute favorites. 00:10:53.620 --> 00:11:23.580 I was going to ask you that if you were into the other guitar virtuosos at that time because the early 90s is when you had Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson were actually getting big despite the fact that grunge was killing everything. Were you into those guys as well? Yeah, I mean, obviously I like Steve Vai. I actually think I heard Steve Vai before I actually got into Ingrid and I liked it, but it didn't cheat me as much as when I heard Ingrid for the first time. But I still, I mean, I like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson. I still like them. But then later on, after I discovered 00:11:23.620 --> 00:11:53.580 I got more into the Shrapnel records guys. I discovered Winnie Moore and Tony McAlpine, obviously Paul Gilbert, Friedman, Becker, Greg Howe, Richie Cottson, Michael E. Furkins, Joy DeFoller, all those guys. And this is to me still to this day, this is for me, this is my guitar bible, you know, all the stuff that came out in Shrapnel records in even, I mean, obviously the glorious period in the 80s, but even the 90s stuff, I think there's so many good records that came out on the label. And I think Steve Chosatrian is a little bit more accessible, I think, right? Even for people who 00:11:53.620 --> 00:12:23.580 who don't play guitar. So I think that it's a very good gateway into the... Because I think also obviously Steve Vai is probably the best businessman out of all of the world. Definitely Steve Vai. You've heard the story about how Steve Vai basically swindled the whole industry by starting his own label before his first solo record. And by doing that, he was able to take all the proceeds. I think he was making something like $7 off an 00:12:23.660 --> 00:12:52.899 album when fans were making like 50 cents if they were lucky that's if they were big he just yeah he said it cost him like i don't know 10 15 bucks or 25 bucks whatever to go put the um the uh permit in to start the label down at city hall or whatever to form an llc and he's made bank oh yeah it's a really fascinating story i just read that like recently and it's fascinating yeah i just moved so i've just moved here to arizona literally 00:12:52.900 --> 00:13:22.740 a week ago, two weeks ago. And I was in the San Francisco Bay Area before that. And I lived about a mile from Jason Becker. Oh, really? Yeah. And I never ran into him. I mean, he's homebound, as you know, but he, the local coffee shop by me had a coffee called Not Dead Yet, which was all proceeds went to Jason Becker. Yes. Wow. This is fascinating. Really? Yeah. There's all kinds of stuff in my neighborhood. He was kind of a local hero. Yeah. Yeah. He was a child prodigy, you know? He was. He didn't get a chance to do enough. I mean, as you know, I mean, 00:13:22.900 --> 00:13:51.460 He really didn't. I mean, how much did he record? I think he did these two Cacophony records and Perpetual Burn and then he did the one with David Lee Roth, A Little Ain't Enough, and I think that was basically it. And then obviously the later albums are here that other people play his parts because they couldn't play anymore. But I think it's only these four albums where he's guest solos on Dragon's Kiss by Marty Friedman, I think, and I think that's really it. That's it. Yeah, it's crazy. And he's lived a lot longer than was predicted, but at least he's still composing, so good for him. Yeah. 00:13:52.900 --> 00:13:54.360 That's terrible. 00:13:54.780 --> 00:13:55.020 Yeah. 00:13:56.480 --> 00:14:02.780 So what was your transitional band that got you from, you know, thrash into like death metal kind of stuff? 00:14:03.400 --> 00:14:03.600 Yeah. 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:14.180 There was a band that's not actually a heavy band by, by the standard now, but the band got more, where I really started to appreciate more extreme vocals was actually children of bottom when the first record came out something wild. 00:14:15.040 --> 00:14:22.800 But at that time I was listening to a lot of near classical stuff, you know, Ingway and symphony X instead of various. And I was like completely opposed to like harsh vocals and anything like that. 00:14:22.820 --> 00:14:52.000 So thrash was the heaviest stuff I listened to. And then someone said on a metal radio show in Germany and said, and it was before something while it came out in Europe, and he said, yes, now there comes a black metal band from Finland. And because the first record is like this little black metal influence, right? And then it started with the song Leg Bottom, but it sounded like a sort of Various or Inglis song. And I was like, oh, he probably mixed this up because this sounds actually really cool. But then the vocals started, you know, and I was like, man, this is sick, you know, because these vocals had a lot of attitude. 00:14:52.080 --> 00:15:22.020 And suddenly I was like, because I really nowadays, I know that it's bullshit. What I thought back then, but back then I thought, Oh, all these people in extreme metal can't play, which obviously is not true. It was a very stupid thing to believe, but that's what I thought back in the day, you know, and then this opened my mind. I mean, and I got this album and then it opened my mind. And then obviously in the same year, the sound of perseverance by death came out. This record got very hyped. And I bought this one after I heard scavenger of human sorrow. And I was like, this is amazing. And then I got all that back discography. And from there, it actually happened really fun. 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:52.040 because then obviously I was a lot into death and I wanted to play technical death metal because I didn't know much. I knew death and knew the famous bands Deathmode Angel, you know, atheist, Cynic. And then there was an announcement in Rockhart Magazine in Germany. It's a technical death metal band from Schweinfurt, which is close to where I grew up, looking for a lead guitar player. And this is exactly what I want, you know. So I called them and then Lillard the drummer, he picked up the phone and then he was like, yeah, what bands do you know? And I was like, yeah, Deathmode Angel, you know. And then he said, oh, but you got to also listen to 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:54.720 the Gorgats, you know, you had to listen to monstrosity, suffocation, 00:15:55.560 --> 00:15:58.640 disincarnate, immolation, nocturnal, all that stuff. I had never heard these names, you know. 00:15:59.020 --> 00:16:21.460 And then like it was 1999, wasn't really possible to get the stuff. So we were, so when I went to the rehearsals, he would make me tapes, you know, I would bring him empty cassette tapes. And he was like, you got to listen to that, that, that. And then he made tapes for me from all the albums that he considered essential. And this was how I got into the really extreme stuff, basically. So that's happened. All of this happened within a time period of one and a half years, I think. 00:16:22.319 --> 00:16:50.360 How old were you then, Chris? 17, 16, 17. Dang. That's kind of a common experience, though. I think even us old guys, the harsh vocals were not, like, for the first five minutes, we were all like, I don't know. And then something broke through, and then, you know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think that's a great one to break through with. I mean, Carcass might have been another one, the later Carcass Records, you know, I think might have pulled some people in, stuff like that. Entombed. 00:16:51.500 --> 00:17:21.160 I got into all of that stuff later, right? Because I didn't really discover these things in the order that they came out. I remember when I was in the necrophagist moment, it was like, oh, you've got to listen to Swan Song by Caracas, you know? And I'm a big hard rock fan of the love of Stinglissy and AZDC and stuff like that. And then when I listen to Caracas, I think that probably if I had discovered them earlier, they probably would have been a good gateway for me also, you know, to get into harsh vocals and things like that. And I really love Entombed with all those, like almost bluesy kind of riffs at times, you know? 00:17:21.579 --> 00:17:51.460 And the sound of perseverance by the way, great record. That was a cool first death record to get to, I think. Yeah. It was really essentially the last one. Yeah, it was lovely. Actually, it's not even my favorite. I mean, when I discovered the other stuff, then I liked some of the other stuff more, you know, like, we want to hear it then because we all have a favorite and they all change. What's your favorite death record? Yeah. Actually right now it's spiritual healing. Like it's, I know this is not a very common one to say that. Yeah. This is the one that I get back to the modern got James Murphy's solos, obviously, which are amazing. And for me, there's just a perfect balance from the 00:17:51.500 --> 00:18:20.980 The Raw stuff they did in the early days to when they transitioned into the more progressive kind of song, but it was still more straightforward than the stuff that came later on. Yeah. You can't go wrong with any death record, really. That's true. But you're right, that's kind of the transition record. That's the one right between where they were and where they were going. Exactly, yeah. And so it kind of has everything to it. Yeah. That's funny because I don't think we have more than two people who agree on an album from death, do we? Yeah, but it's a good thing, right? Yeah, I think we all like different ones. Yeah. 00:18:21.500 --> 00:18:51.300 Is that a controlled denied shirt you're wearing? Yeah, man. It's backwards, so it's hard to read, but it looks like it. It is, yeah. Which is funny that you had mentioned that you got into first with Death, because that's really a controlled denied album. It's just a label made Chuck use the name Death, otherwise Symbolic would have been their last album. That's true, but it's because I was listening to a lot of power metal and prop metal stuff before that, so that I could kind of connect to that. Oh, yeah, of course. I was actually listening to bands like Hexen House, which are quite underground. 00:18:51.480 --> 00:19:19.660 But I like them, you know, because I like the vocals and everything. So I was already used to this more complex kind of thing. And so the Sound of Preservation was pretty close to this kind of tech, prog, thrash kind of thing, you know. It's interesting you mentioned Symphony X, because that's a big jump going from, I mean, I could see why you would like them because of Mike Romeo, his playing. But to go from the singing of Russell Allen, who I think has got a great bluesy voice, then to harsh vocals, that's a huge, that's a 180 pretty much. 00:19:19.740 --> 00:19:49.700 It is. I mean, it was at that time where I opened my mind to, okay, I'm not, you know, because a lot of people, they're kind of very focused on one sub-genre. And for me, it was like, for me, it only matters the quality of something, right? And I try not to exclude certain things and say, oh, I just don't listen to that or to that. Like from that time on, I tried to keep a very open mind to different styles and things, no matter how technical or simple or whatever it is. It just has to move me from a... 00:19:49.740 --> 00:20:18.980 It has to be authentic. So I can get as much into stuff like even early Venom records or old ACDC stuff as into some really progressive, complex stuff. That itself doesn't really determine if I like something or not. Do you know Horrendous? I know only by name. I'm not really familiar with their music at this point. Because you're describing it right now. I mean, first of all, you're describing us too. Our tastes are kind of like that too. Get the new Horrendous record. 00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:49.680 It's so good. It is that thing that goes left and right and center and it's really more rooted in something more valuable than just... It's technical, but it's... But ACDC fans should get it. You know what I mean? I don't know how to explain it. It's a total technical death record, but I can't... It's interesting because I had recently in teaching, when I was teaching on Skype guitar, I was talking to a student of mine and we talked about... You know, metal is interesting because metal is the only genre where you can go on the one end of it, you can go very schooled, you know, you can draw all this influence from class. 00:20:49.780 --> 00:21:19.700 and jazz and fusion and progressive rock and everything and really this very very conscious approach of what you're doing right and then on the other hand thrash and death metal originally was a lot of trial and error stuff and it actually developed from punk and cross punk and that stuff and metal is actually the only genre i think where within the same composition you can go into both extremes and you can draw from both extremes right and this is always what i what i try to communicate to my students obviously if you take classical music it's intellectually 00:21:19.720 --> 00:21:49.700 It's beyond and it's like really crazy how those people came up with it but then you listen to something like old ACDs or Rolling Stones somewhere and it's super simple but there is a certain attitude and honesty to it you know and I don't think there's any other genre really can go where you can draw influences from both of those extremes and anything in between right I think this is what makes metal quite unique in my opinion You know I throw out one band you mentioned and I'll add another one which is Venom and Motorhead I think are completely non-technical in every 00:21:50.419 --> 00:22:19.300 But so satisfying and so dedicated to what they're doing and cool riffs. And I don't know that I hold, and I'm an Yngwie fan, by the way, but I don't know if I hold what he does in a higher regard than what they do. Yeah. You know, I think for me too, it's obviously, you know, when I teach, I can always, there's certain things I can explain harmonically, like how to create certain sounds and things. And it's very academic. But then I think there's also something in music that lives in between the notes where you can't really academically explain where it moves you. 00:22:19.340 --> 00:22:49.060 It's something else, you know? And what happens to a lot of people when they get more technical, they kind of lose, they think they shouldn't listen to anything simplistic anymore and they lose this aspect of just feeling something. That's why a lot of technical bands, not all of them, but a lot of them go overboard with it and it sounds too constructed, you know? Yeah, I completely agree with that. That element is missing. Yeah, and I think, I call it the X factor, you know? And I don't, because I can connect it up through so many different styles. 00:22:49.360 --> 00:23:19.320 I can tell when I'm listening to somebody who believes in what they're doing, which kind of brings me to the first Elko Lloyd record, which blew us out of the water when we first heard it. Blew us out of the water. I mean, I think it's and I heard the X Factor in that record the first time I heard it. Absolutely. Yeah. Such a good record. But that was one of the bands that came out and just hit us all across the jaw. We were all like, holy shit. And it's because it has that technical aspect, but it 00:23:19.360 --> 00:23:49.260 So there's some guts to it somewhere that's hard to explain. Yeah, exactly right. Because this is kind of how we write. And this is also, I think, representing our listening habits, you know, that we all listen to a lot of different music from the last five or six decades, you know. And when we did this, when we started this band, we basically said, you know, we don't really want to limit ourselves to the sub-chauner. Because when you think about bands like Led Zeppelin, for example, obviously, when they started all of these sub-chauners, 00:23:49.380 --> 00:24:19.220 didn't really exist, but it was a lot more adventurous. It wasn't restricted, oh, you can only use these and these parameters to stay within that. So on old Zeppelin records, for example, you have a lot of different styles on the album, but still sounding like the same band. And we're kind of going for something like the two. And obviously there's this technical death metal element. That's the elephant in the room, obviously. And then there's some progressive elements. But then there's all really primitive stuff, like the title crack on Michael Scrimo, which is more like written, throwing all the harmonies, 00:24:19.960 --> 00:24:49.320 and just like going from this trial and error approach and then you have bluesy elements you know and all of this and we were like we just want to write more like these old bands did but with all the luxury of all the stuff that came afterwards you know are there any richie blackmore guys in your band anybody a richie blackmore fan in your band i'm a huge richie blackmore fan and hannes is also yeah i mean i love describing a lot about him just there too can we talk real quick about how okolite came together in the first place who started it who mentioned it 00:24:49.420 --> 00:25:19.260 So it started in a time when Hannes and Linus and me were all still playing in Obscura. And later on Hannes and me left Obscura, then Linus was playing Obscura, then Linus left and now I'm back in Obscura. So it's a little bit funny story. But what had happened back then was we were in Obscura and we had, there was these creative differences starting to happen between Stefan and Hannes. And Hannes was like, I can't do everything I want. And that was actually before Hannes and me had left, you know, and it was like, before, 00:25:19.340 --> 00:25:47.640 Before that, I think Hannes started to spend together with Morian, right? And then they asked Danny for a guitar because we knew Danny when we were touring with Spawn of Possession. And then they were like, hey, we could need three guitars. So I was actually the last one. They asked to join the band and then we started doing a demo and things like it. We still were touring with Obscura and then the thing happened when Hannes and me left the band. And yeah, but then we started Alkaloid. So in the beginning it started as a side project kind of thing. 00:25:48.500 --> 00:26:18.440 And then it became its own band. And we're still not touring very much, but we're playing live. And I think we're a real band at this point, you know, that actually does stuff. And obviously we would like to do more. It's a difficult business, but this is how it started. And this started about 10 years ago. Yeah, 10 years ago, no, 2013. That was 2013 when we recorded the first demo. Yeah. 2015. 2015. Yeah. You'd like to have more time, but that would mean that Hannes couldn't play on 45. 00:26:18.560 --> 00:26:48.460 seven albums a year though right no but but but his output is just crazy it's insane how much he does he writes like 30 tech death epics in a year and you're like where does this come from you know and you would think that at one point it would slow down or the world would run right but no it's it's just crazy he doesn't have to practice because he's just constantly playing yeah absolutely yeah no that's actually the thing and he's so much more than just a drummer because he's a composer he writes a lot of music he's a producer all of that and he's very interesting because i mean he doesn't know a lot of theory 00:26:48.480 --> 00:27:18.420 on guitar and things like that, but he has very good ears. So he writes really complex progressions that he can't really name. He can't really tell you why it works, why it sounds good. He does it all by ear, but it's like crazy, you know? He does very good impressions too, by the way. He dropped a Kiefer Sutherland Jack Bauer from 24 on Markison, Matt and I, when we interviewed him, and literally just stopped us cold. It was so funny. He just ate it up. He was like, we're going down that road. 00:27:18.500 --> 00:27:48.460 I'm going to open that door and brush it. And we talked about TV shows and movies for a long time. Oh yeah, he loves movies and TV shows for sure. Chris, do you do any impressions to impress us? No, I'm not good with that stuff. It's only involuntarily funny if I do that. I want to throw it real quick and it's about Hannes and it's that, but it fits into the philosophy that you're sharing with us about what you guys like and how you see things and it's that he is such a good technical drummer and you guys are such technically sound musicians. But I don't see, but it makes perfect sense 00:27:48.500 --> 00:28:17.720 me that he does the stuff with the Celtic Frost stuff and the Trypticon stuff. Absolutely. Because honestly, I mean, it's kind of dinosaur rock in its way. And I love Tom and I love Celtic Frost and everything he does. But I totally get why Hannes could feel rewarded doing that. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There's a lot of stuff that people don't understand. Like when I'm touring and then fans come to the merch table and they want to talk a little bit about bands and stuff, and then they would expect it when they ask what my favorite bands are. Obviously, the musical is all over the place. 00:28:18.080 --> 00:28:47.820 But then they would expect that I only named other technical death metal bands and progressive bands and obviously I like a lot of that stuff but there's so much else you know and so much other reasons to like. I don't think you could be a good technical band if you didn't listen to everything else otherwise. It's also the thing you know like stuff like even with Necrophages back in the day when we did this and later on Obscura you know the genre I mean there was technical death metal but it meant something else than it means nowadays like the 90s first wave bands were a little bit different than the bands you have nowadays. 00:28:48.040 --> 00:29:17.980 And what we did was basically just combine different influences. And I think if you want to really understand the style of a band or a player, you have to dig in what were these guys listening to and then listen to that and see how that makes sense because you're combining, you have this crossover of different things. And that's usually why I think certain genres like nowadays technical death model, they become a little bit stagnant because the younger bands, they then only listen to bands that play the style that they want to play, but they don't dig up and break up the 00:29:18.020 --> 00:29:19.600 and see where this comes from. 00:29:19.840 --> 00:29:26.680 Because I think if you want to play like Ingwe, then obviously you have to listen to Jimi Hendrix, you have to listen to Blackman, you have to listen to Vivaldi and Bach and Paganini and these things. 00:29:27.120 --> 00:29:30.280 And you have to understand how it all comes together, right? 00:29:30.460 --> 00:29:34.180 And this is what a lot of people don't understand, right? 00:29:34.240 --> 00:29:37.420 They think, oh, all the inspiration comes from other technical dance model bands. 00:29:37.520 --> 00:29:42.220 But when we played the style on Epitaph or then Cosmogenesis, it didn't really exist like that before. 00:29:42.340 --> 00:29:44.640 There were other things that existed that we brought together. 00:29:44.760 --> 00:29:47.600 And then when you know it, then it makes sense, obviously, right? 00:29:47.980 --> 00:30:17.600 But I think to understand the style and to do something unique, you kind of have to break up the influence of what you're listening to and then do your own take on that also. Totally. A lot of these guys that you're talking about will have never heard an early Genesis record. Exactly. Right, right. And that is a building block. And I don't think, and you have to understand how you got to point A from point B, C, whatever. Yeah, no, that's a totally valid point. Yeah, I think, I can't remember what album it was, but when Michael Akrafel was writing either one of the 00:30:17.640 --> 00:30:47.600 "Watter Shatter Heritage," he said one of his biggest influences at the time was the Zombies Oracle Odyssey album. If you know that album, that has absolutely nothing to do with what he was doing at that point. But you get your influences from really different, strange places. I remember when "Liquid Anatomy" came out, I remember George saying to me, he says, "I don't know, I'm hearing some 'Yes' from the 80s." Oh, for sure. So what's this album called? It's this album that has "Owner of a Lonely Heart." 00:30:48.300 --> 00:31:17.240 Yeah, there's one like Flo loves it record, and I love this record, even though the name is getting me right now, and Hannes loves it. So yeah, there's definitely a huge influence. And even on the new album, yeah. Yeah, I was going to get to that. I thought George was full of shit. I'm not going to lie. I frequently am, but I called that one. I wrote him back, and I was like, dude, you're 100% right. I was so wrong about this. And we asked Hannes. Oh, yeah. He was all about it. Oh, yeah. So especially when it comes to the vocal harmonies. Actually, the main riff in Karma Panic, the opening track, 00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:47.600 is actually inspired by the who it's actually inspired by pinball wizard but the vocal harmonies are definitely yes you know and also on a new record this song fulls desire has this part in the middle with the choirs and the keychain this is very much yes and also another band is saga you know like early songs for the vocal harmonies like this is definitely where a lot of this influence comes from i was going to make a joke and ask you this about saga because you guys have dyson sphere on three different albums you've got how many is it nine parts of it now it's nine parts it's 00:31:48.240 --> 00:32:17.520 Right. And that's a big saga thing. They did that for their first eight albums. They had all those tracks that were all part of their Einstein story that went on for decades. Right. I was laughing when I saw it. I was like, geez, I don't know if any of those guys are saga fans. I totally have the blue. So that's funny you mentioned them. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm glad to hear you reference Yes's vocal harmony stuff, too. And it just makes me pause to ask you if you've ever heard John Anderson's first solo record called Elias of Sunhillow. 00:32:17.620 --> 00:32:46.300 No, I haven't had that one. Oh, it's so good. Okay, I'm just throwing it out. Definitely going to check it out. Probably not for you, George. No, George might like it. No, this is a joke that we have a George I have. I know he's not a big John Anderson fan. Oh, you can't do John Anderson. Yeah. You're warming. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I like 80s, yes, better than like 70s, yes. He's not King Diamond, but he is kind of an extreme. He gets up there. 00:32:47.620 --> 00:32:48.740 or whatever. 00:32:49.060 --> 00:32:50.880 Yeah, but there's some vocalists that are hard to get into. 00:32:51.060 --> 00:32:52.500 Also, like John Archer, Fateswarning. 00:32:52.600 --> 00:32:55.880 I love early Fateswarning stuff, but it took me a long time to get into his vocals, right? 00:32:56.020 --> 00:32:58.460 In the beginning, I thought it sounded funny, and I was laughing about it. 00:32:58.480 --> 00:33:02.920 And the more I get into it, I'm like, wow, this is actually a genius level, the stuff that he does. 00:33:03.080 --> 00:33:04.340 But it's a little bit of an acquired taste. 00:33:04.360 --> 00:33:06.820 It takes a little bit of work, you know, to get into it. 00:33:07.140 --> 00:33:09.340 That's common for Prague, though, in general. 00:33:09.500 --> 00:33:10.060 It really is. 00:33:10.320 --> 00:33:10.420 Exactly. 00:33:10.580 --> 00:33:14.360 And therefore, it's more rewarding, because the stuff that you can get into instantly, easily, 00:33:14.520 --> 00:33:43.960 more quickly, right? And the stuff you have to work for a little bit more usually stays with you longer. That's how I feel about it very often. I can see if I was trying to introduce a friend to Heavy Metal and I had Master of Puppets in one hand and an alkaloid record in the other hand, I would give Master of Puppets and be like, you're not ready for this other one. Exactly. Definitely, yes. I completely agree. So, go ahead, Marcus. Oh, yeah. I was just going to say, because we've talked about Hannes and you seem to have a similar outlook on music. 00:33:44.540 --> 00:34:14.399 and clearly your friends and you've played together in bands a long time. I just wondered how you guys met in the first place. Yeah, I still remember the day. Actually, the day we met was the day that Chuck Schulliner died, actually. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I was playing in a local thrash band, and we were opening for Tom Angel Ripper from Sodom, like on a weekend show. He played with his solo stuff where he does these beer drinking songs. And so we were on the bill in Hannah's band back in the day, and they were called Devil's Cry. And actually on that show, they played Centric Flow, which later ended up on the Cosmogenesis record. 00:34:15.419 --> 00:34:44.379 And that was in 2001, hopefully in December 2001, if you remember that. And then, you know, back in the day, it wasn't like nowadays when you play metal, don't there's all those people who are really into like different styles and all that. And they study the instruments and stuff. But back then it was a little bit different in 2001. And he had this backpack that had some patch, I think it had a Dream Theater patch on the backpack. Oh, the Symphony X patch, but also a Mayhem patch, right? So it was like, okay, this guy is cool because he also listens to stuff all over the place. Like, 00:34:44.560 --> 00:34:45.000 He's diverse. 00:34:45.320 --> 00:34:47.460 I talked to him and I was like, "Hey, these are some cool patches." 00:34:47.580 --> 00:34:50.679 And then we started talking about music and then we discovered we got to, 00:34:50.800 --> 00:34:51.740 we like a lot of the same stuff. 00:34:51.960 --> 00:34:58.520 We were talking about chess stuff and played like Alan Halsworth and Mike Stern and stuff like that, which never happened in a metal show back in the day. 00:34:58.660 --> 00:35:00.700 Nowadays it's a more common thing, but then it wasn't. 00:35:01.120 --> 00:35:02.340 And we were like, "Oh, this is really cool." 00:35:02.440 --> 00:35:03.960 This is actually how we met. 00:35:04.720 --> 00:35:06.180 But yeah, so he was playing with Devil's Stride. 00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:09.880 And then shortly after that, I joined Necrophagist. 00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:14.300 And then a couple of months passed by and then we had these problems with the original grammar, 00:35:14.440 --> 00:35:43.500 because he wasn't really into it anymore. He didn't really want to record the album anymore. And we were thinking, man, who could play it? And then I was like, man, a couple of months ago, I met this guy at this show, you know, and then, but we hadn't exchanged numbers or anything back then. So I actually, we Googled him, we found a website of his band that had an email address, right? And then I was like, hey, would you be interested in auditioning for Necrophages? And he hadn't, he didn't really know Necrophages at the point. The first record was out with the drum computer. And so I sent him a link to this. And this was actually before it became, 00:35:44.420 --> 00:36:14.060 a thing, right? But, and then this is how we started playing together. And since then, yeah, we had all of these bands. I mean, we played Necrophages, then we did Obscura, then we did Alkaloid, then we did Eternity's End, and I play on his solo records, he plays on my solo records. So yeah, so we have like a, if we counted together, there's probably 20 or more. It's crazy. Yeah, it's a great friendship. I wonder if he still has that backpack. I wonder too, yeah. I need to ask him about that, because that's really what got the whole thing rolling, you know, that's how it started actually. Yeah, it should be in a museum. Yeah. 00:36:14.420 --> 00:36:14.700 Yeah. 00:36:15.260 --> 00:36:15.820 So fun. 00:36:16.640 --> 00:36:18.220 I'm glad you mentioned Alan Holtzworth. 00:36:18.340 --> 00:36:19.220 Are you a big fan of his? 00:36:19.540 --> 00:36:20.160 I'm a huge fan. 00:36:20.200 --> 00:36:21.860 It's probably when it comes to solo playing. 00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:24.180 It's hard for me to name a favorite guitar player because he's like, 00:36:24.340 --> 00:36:25.400 I like for different reasons, 00:36:26.020 --> 00:36:27.460 but he's definitely for me, 00:36:27.540 --> 00:36:28.620 like he's for me, 00:36:28.760 --> 00:36:30.480 he's like the absolute top level. 00:36:30.520 --> 00:36:30.660 I mean, 00:36:30.800 --> 00:36:33.260 there's so much depth and beauty to his playing music. 00:36:33.720 --> 00:36:34.880 So I want genres out the window. 00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:35.580 Why don't you name, 00:36:36.220 --> 00:36:39.440 so first five of your favorites that come to mind and you can correct. 00:36:39.440 --> 00:36:39.640 What do you mean? 00:36:39.760 --> 00:36:40.420 Like genres or? 00:36:40.640 --> 00:36:43.520 Guitars from any genre that you really appreciate and love. 00:36:43.680 --> 00:36:43.760 Okay. 00:36:43.820 --> 00:36:47.040 probably this would look very different tomorrow but like right from top of my head very 00:36:47.160 --> 00:36:50.820 spontaneously when it comes for solo playing it's different influences than for my riffing like my 00:36:50.940 --> 00:36:56.140 riffing is more band influenced right when it comes to solo players when alan holsworth probably 00:36:56.720 --> 00:37:01.880 that's the one or two definitely a big fan of greg how also which isn't too far i love greg how 00:37:02.080 --> 00:37:07.780 so good yeah yeah because he also has this really deep harmonic language and how he combines the stuff 00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:12.140 with it with the funk stuff and the grooves and even the neoclassical stuff is amazing his fusion stuff is 00:37:12.760 --> 00:37:41.900 I mean Parallax I was so obsessed with that record for years and I transcribed so much stuff from it so yeah it's Aaron Halsworth there's Greg Howell I'm a big Winnie Moore fan also because he was the way he evolved I mean I love Minds Eye definitely one of my favorite New Classic albums but also like the stuff he did later when he started adding all these Larry Carlton influences into his playing and I think he's a really interesting player and quite overlooked and there's so many then I like she liked it hasn't had a lot of output like Josh Christian from the band Toxic isn't an amazing player like the stuff he does on Think This 00:37:42.140 --> 00:37:44.060 that just really changed my life. 00:37:45.240 --> 00:37:47.020 And this is a hard question, right? 00:37:47.140 --> 00:37:48.040 Because there's so many. 00:37:48.040 --> 00:37:53.180 I probably, I mean, all the guys, I could mention all of them, you know, it's tough, man. 00:37:53.960 --> 00:37:55.680 I got a piggyback question on that. 00:37:55.780 --> 00:37:57.820 It's kind of a little weird, but I think it's fun. 00:37:58.360 --> 00:38:03.800 So if you could, obviously you're a tremendous player, you can play in a lot of different styles, 00:38:03.960 --> 00:38:09.180 but if you could absorb the guitar powers of any guitarist, living or dead, 00:38:09.480 --> 00:38:38.900 and incorporate that into your own skills, said the comic book writer. Yeah, it would probably, I mean, yeah, I think that would probably be Alan Halsworth. I mean, obviously, probably he wouldn't have had the right hand technique to play technical death metal versions and stuff like that, but I can already do all of that. You already do that. Exactly. But if I could play like that, if I had that thing, I mean, because he wasn't a metal player, obviously, right? But I think with the outside playing, it does a lot of the stuff he played was really offensive and really, like, 00:38:39.599 --> 00:39:08.820 uncivilized, right? Like really has a lot of attitude in it, which is why I think it works so well, why you influence so many metal players, obviously, right? And I think he wasn't really into heavy music, obviously, but I mean, if you would have that ability, but then be into heavy, heavier music, you know, it would be amazing what you could do with that, you know? That's funny. Because Eddie Van Halen, he got bored with everybody. And around the fair warning time, right? He started talking about how Alan Holdsworth, he started getting into him. He was just blown away by, 00:39:09.280 --> 00:39:10.900 how good he was and he got to meet him. 00:39:11.360 --> 00:39:13.740 But you know what he told him? He used to tell him, calm down. 00:39:14.260 --> 00:39:17.640 Eddie Van Halen used to tell Alan Halsworth, calm down a little bit. 00:39:18.280 --> 00:39:24.820 I think they became friends because didn't he actually, he helped him out when he had some issues with his label and his record deals. 00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:28.780 Yeah, I think Eddie Van Halen helped to get road games to EP on a bigger label. 00:39:28.960 --> 00:39:29.060 Right. 00:39:29.720 --> 00:39:35.400 And also there's a jam record where they jammed together at GRT back around that time period, 1982 or 83. 00:39:35.500 --> 00:40:04.980 You know, speaking of fusion slash jazz guys who influenced metal, did you guys see Alden Yola had a real serious heart attack? Oh, yeah. I saw that. Oh, wow. I think he's out of a danger zone now, but yeah, I saw that it was. Oh, I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, I hadn't heard a follow-up, so I'm glad to hear he's, because I guess it was like pretty severe. Yeah. I see his posts all the time, and he wouldn't even think that, just seeing how he looks. He doesn't look like. He takes care of himself. I think so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other guys, just unreal as a player. Yeah, Jeff Beckner. 00:40:05.520 --> 00:40:35.200 I don't listen to Jeff Beck as much as I should, mostly because here's the thing. Recently, I've been listening a lot more like 70s guys. I've been on a huge Robin Trauer kick, for example, recently. All the first couple of Robin Trauer is just incredible. And Jeff Beck, I listened to a lot of players who are influenced by Jeff Beck, right? I mean, all of the 80s guys. I mean, all this Greg Howe style, even this rock fusions, I wouldn't even exist without Jeff Beck, you know? But just when he died and I saw how many people were influenced by him, I was like, 00:40:36.820 --> 00:41:04.760 I mean always was aware of him obviously right and I knew he was very good and everyone looked up to him but this is one of these players I got into now like after he died and so many people pay tribute to him you know I think Michael LeFerkins fan for example like the stuff he does with the web and everything and now I'm like okay now I see where he got that from you know so this is this is one of these things one of these older players that I just never really got into until now so I'm not really familiar enough with his stuff yet to 00:41:05.580 --> 00:41:34.440 He'll get his hooks in you at some point. Especially his 70s fusion record. His fusion stuff. I saw him in 83. I was in high school in 83, I think. Wow. And I was blown away. I mean, it was actually him, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page all on stage. Okay. Yeah, it was this thing called the Ronnie Lane Arms Tour. They did Ronnie Lane. Didn't they all do that? Yeah. Yeah. And they all did separate sets because it was a benefit for the guy from the faces. 00:41:36.660 --> 00:42:04.560 But I think back now, then I was there to see Jimmy Page because I was such a Zeppelin fan. And now when I go back and watch all that old video, I'm like, I don't care who I would have seen as long as it was just Jeff Beck that night. Ronnie Lane. The singer? Is Ronnie Lane the singer? I can't remember. I don't know much about the faces. I know. I only ask because there's this Jeff Beck live concert I have and the guy from the faces comes out and sings and it's so fucking good. The guy sings like a motherfucker, but I don't know if his name, I don't know if it's Ronnie. 00:42:04.780 --> 00:42:34.480 I never got into that with Rod Stewart and all those guys and Ron Wood were all part of that. Yeah. Yeah. So can we talk a little bit about the conceptual ideas and Alkaloid and who comes up with those? And I don't mean musically conceptual. I mean, lyrically conceptual. Yeah. This is all Morian, our singer slash guitar player. Like he did all the lyrics for the album. Super smart, intelligent guy. Like he always has all of these concepts in his head. I mean, I think there's three or four different areas we go into. 00:42:34.520 --> 00:43:04.160 So one is obviously all this Dyson Sphere sci-fi stuff. He's really into that and into this concept and into this idea. But then obviously he's not a physicist, so he has a physicist friend that actually helps him out with some of the stuff to make sure we don't talk any bullshit in the lyrics. So we have that. Factually accurate lyrics. Yeah, we try. I mean, Dyson Sphere is still a very conceptual thing. Who knows if it exists somewhere? Maybe, you know, we have a civilization. 00:43:04.520 --> 00:43:34.280 It's developed like us millions of years ahead. You know, who knows. Star Trek. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Flo actually doesn't like the Star Trek version. I mean, I love Star Trek, but Moran, he's like, oh, this is a super simplistic version of the Dyson Space Concept. Yeah, but what are you going to do in a 45-minute TV show episode, right? Exactly. You can't really go much into depth there. And then we have this whole Lovecraft kind of thing that's on each record. There's something connected to that. Especially Moran and me, we are big Lovecraft fans. And then there is this, 00:43:34.500 --> 00:44:04.420 that you have in songs like Furner for a Continent and Cephalopods, which is kind of a mix between the two and the new album, it's Alba Hour and A Fool's Desire. Because Flo, Morian, we call him Flo because his real name is Florian. His artist name is Morian, right? So we call him Flo. He loves Antarctica. He goes there a lot. You know, he once went on a ship with people that actually worked there for like three months just to, he actually paid money to be there. Wow. I want to do that. Yeah. So like he took a long time off from his, 00:44:04.500 --> 00:44:34.480 you know from his composition shop and went there so he actually went there and it's still very fascinating it's one of the last big mysteries you know on this planet that that still exists and i think these are like these are the main four three or four areas that we go into and then there's a whole theme about fungi and alkaloids and all that stuff obviously also right you know the antarctic thing fits in with the lovecraft thing too because it does thinking of the mountains exactly yeah because you don't know what's under the ice you know it's been there for millions of years and 00:44:34.520 --> 00:45:03.760 And that's fucking scary. Yeah. Yeah. And so what I, that's what I was super inspired. It's cool that those meet for him too, then, and that he has an interest to go. That's the end. Is that up or down? That's down. I forgot. Down. Yeah. It's down. Okay. Where does he live as a normal course of life? In the Netherlands. He lives in the Netherlands where he actually works as a composer for modern classical music. He gets ordered to write like children's operas, for example, or stuff for certain events. 00:45:04.520 --> 00:45:32.940 And so that's basically his main thing that he's doing. Cool. I could be reading liner notes, but I'm not. Have you guys had one or one artist do all your album covers? Yeah, Christian Weiss is his name. He did all three album covers. Is he just somebody you know, or is he somebody that you just contracted to do it? Actually, we knew him from earlier because he did the photo session for Obscura for the Omnivium record back in 2010. And so we got the contract. 00:45:35.380 --> 00:45:39.940 like a lot of like a condens really liked his style so you know for example he did like all 00:45:40.020 --> 00:45:43.580 these last couple of he must release and stuff like that he's really good photographer very artistic you know very 00:45:44.160 --> 00:46:04.480 bring some very unique ideas for his so as a matter of example with the first record did you go to him with a concept or did he have a group of photos and he would like actually he came with the concept we said we want something we didn't really want to do corpse paint because it's such a cliche and over and thing when we're a black metal band we were like could it be something 00:46:04.500 --> 00:46:34.080 like corpse paint but different and maybe a little bit more scary. Do you have any ideas? And then he came up with this idea of this, how do you say in English, this stuff that you use when you build houses. We put this in our faces to make these weird masks, you know, and to look like these weird like mutilated faces that you see on the first record. Like a prosthetic or a, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know the English word, but it's like the time that you use when you build houses and stuff like that. It's, it's. Laster? Yeah. Yeah. Right. That, right. You put it in your face and it dries up, you know, and then he makes, 00:46:34.500 --> 00:47:04.200 these weird forms out of them. And then obviously we can't do this live, you know, because you can't really see anymore. There are no eyes on that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So what is it? What's the word in German? Lame or tone. Okay. Well, I was going to ask you, Chris, so you were diagnosed with focal dystonia, which impairs your hand coordination. Obviously you've been able to get over that, but I just want to know, you know, what was that like? How is it going? 00:47:04.480 --> 00:47:34.260 and how does it affect your playing now? Yeah, that's actually interesting because I mean, I still have it, but the thing is, I really learned in the last couple of years to arrange myself with that. So what happened was, it started around 2008 or 2009, you were touring with Obscura and I noticed that on some parts, my middle finger just wouldn't come down anymore and I wouldn't hit the notes right and I would miss the note and play at that note or something, get sloppy. And I thought at the time, oh, I need to practice more. Sorry, because we're touring now, I don't have the same practice routine. 00:47:34.480 --> 00:48:04.440 So I started practicing more. And the more I practiced, the worse it became. And I had no idea what was going on because it wasn't a very well-known disorder. And then it started, you know, and I just tried to keep playing, you know, because I thought, okay, something must be wrong with my practice habits or something. I need to just, the finger didn't not only miss the note, but it started curling inwards, you know. And then it gets to when I couldn't even use the finger anymore. And I always thought I need to practice more, right, and more practice the word. And then I went to different hand doctors. I thought maybe it's Kapal Tunnel Syndrome or something. 00:48:04.480 --> 00:48:10.000 and nothing worked until Linus Clausen, the bass player, was now an alcalot joint 00:48:10.160 --> 00:48:33.120 and his father actually has his own orchestra and things like that. And Linus talked to him on the phone and described my symptoms. And then his father said, oh, that's vocal dystonia, right? So I got diagnosed. I think he gave me the name of a doctor in Germany. I went there in October 2011, got diagnosed. And what actually happens is through over practice and overly repetitive movements that you're doing for many hours every day, 00:48:34.120 --> 00:49:04.080 What starts to happen is that in the brain, the movement centers for my index finger and the middle finger, they start to overlap. And so what happens is that whenever the index finger presses down the string, the brain sends a wrong trigger impulse and the finger curls. And it still doesn't, it could all be something else for dramas. It could be between the feet, you know, it could be different finger pairings on the hand. Some players have it. I have a very mild case. I mean, some players have such a bad case. They only see the instrument in the same room and it triggers something in the brain and the whole hand starts to curl up. So there's a really extreme case. In my case, it's only 00:49:04.580 --> 00:49:33.900 when the indexing comes down, this finger definitely messed up my technique a lot because also the other two fingers, they start spreading out and trying to compensate. And they still don't know why it happens. They're doing a lot of tests and they figure there's certain traumas that all people who have this kind of experience a certain wrong attitude to practicing, maybe a little bit of attaching your sense of self-worth to your skill on the instrument and having a very obsessive kind of way of practice together with maybe some, 00:49:36.780 --> 00:49:39.820 I think it's because you're too fucking metal for your body 00:49:40.430 --> 00:49:40.560 probably 00:49:42.820 --> 00:49:58.260 I have a tongue-in-cheek but I assure you quite serious and respectful suggestion and it's that you write a tune that takes into account this condition and utilizes the compensation things that you have to do for it and there cannot be a more metal name for a song than a focal 00:49:59.180 --> 00:50:00.140 that's actually true right 00:50:00.740 --> 00:50:30.020 Because there was this band with Jeff Loomis and Keith Merrick called Conquering Dystopia. And then my friend Penelts and Romskazam, he said, oh, you should do a band with Terry Cyre, who also has this condition. You should call it Conquering Dystopia, right? It's interesting. So I learned then, obviously, that's one of the reasons I left Obscura for a while, so I could focus on retraining because when you're touring, you constantly have to cross your threshold, right? In a studio, I can still handle it, could still handle it very well, but like when I have to play 100, 200 shows a year, I don't have time to do retraining. I have to go over my list. 00:50:30.140 --> 00:50:59.740 I have to be careful for a couple of years until I learn how to manage the whole thing. So I did a lot of like therapy classes online and also some teachers in town and learned a lot about these like somatics, this kind of like thing where you start to observe your muscle. Your muscle tension, right? It's a sense that gives you a sense of feedback for the state of your muscle tension, learning about what happens with the larger muscle groups when playing and all of these things. And that improved a lot my condition and I started understanding. 00:51:00.160 --> 00:51:28.600 There's a connection between your emotional state and your muscle tension in your body. So some people say, oh, just work on your emotions, but you can't just change your emotions or personality. Sometimes you get nervous, sometimes you get anxious, it just happens. So you can't change that. But you can learn that when this happens, you get aware, okay, maybe I play a show and I'm like, oh, I'm a little bit nervous now. I can't really change that. I can't really get over it. But I notice something starts to happen. My neck muscles get tense from their attention, spreads through my shoulders and arms. 00:51:28.700 --> 00:51:58.660 and this I can address. I might still be nervous, but I can observe myself in the room and address the muscles from here and start relaxing them. And the more I practice, the more I can do this also while I'm playing. So I might be playing a difficult song and I might notice my finger starts going a little bit crazy again. And then I have these lock-in points within the songs where I'm like, it's like a computer with a CPU. When I have extra CPU free, when I'm not on 98% of my technical capacity, then I have extra CPU that I can use to address this. 00:51:58.700 --> 00:52:28.680 and then while I play, kind of resolve the muscle tension. It doesn't always work. It doesn't work in every situation, but I'm getting better and better with this. And this is why a couple of years I could play very confidently on the tours, you know, and I think I still have the condition, but I think it got better instead of progressing worse how it happens for many other players. But it was a long journey there, right? Yeah. But I had, the thing is when you have this, a lot of people contact me because I went public with it. There's also some players I have it whenever I said publicly and people 00:52:28.880 --> 00:52:58.680 They say, you know, can you give me some tips? And the best tip I can give is really you have to, it's like with everything, you have to get really interested in it and really develop kind of an obsession with it. It's kind of, I read so many books about it and then I got into the whole psychology of everything and really started fascinating me. And so I got really interested in it, even if I didn't have it, it was to the point, man, this is so fascinating. I'm trying to decipher this thing. And I started working together with my doctor and things like that. And we did many studies together. And this really, and he, my doctor says, this is the right approach, right? This is the way you're 00:52:58.700 --> 00:53:27.840 find an approach to the disorder. I wouldn't call it a disease because it doesn't really affect me outside of guitar playing. I don't have any problems with it, even though there are cases of people who have it. Like some people, there's some piano players where their whole hand is like locked in like this all the time. My case is not like this. I don't have problems on the computer or anything else and only really on stringed instruments. But I think it's also because you're just, you're dedicated to finding a way through it and a lot of people might not have that will to do it. Right. Which is understandable. 00:53:28.700 --> 00:53:58.240 But for me, music was so important. I was like, I can't just drop this. I mean, even if I couldn't play, I would still be a musician because I have all of this stuff in my head. But I was like, I need to find an approach to this, right, to keep creating. There's a corollary, not corollary, a similar situation. A lot of performers take something called beta blockers. A beta blocker is a thing that stops the body's nervous response to the physical. I mean, I don't think it's a good practice, I think, to learn it psychologically like you are. I'm not talking about a very specific disorder like that. 00:53:58.720 --> 00:54:27.740 But it's a pill that keeps your muscles from freaking out. And again, that's the cheap, easy, probably American way out. Yeah, I mean, I do one thing. One thing that I'm doing is, it's actually funny, like I get Botox injections, but they're not for anything like plastic. It's really like they go into flexor muscles. It's not for beauty. It's actually helping you. Because if it is, your doctor's doing a terrible job. I gotta say, your hand looks amazing. 00:54:29.820 --> 00:54:58.160 So they go, yeah, I just got the last one last week, actually, because my finger curls from two muscles. So I get two injections. And the last were about like two, six months. And then I get a new one. So what is the effect then? What does the Botox do? It kind of weakens. It weakens the flexor muscles of the fingers. And so the curling impulse comes, but the muscles are basically weakened. And so the curling doesn't really happen. And then the muscles always regrow after a couple of months. They always regrow. 00:54:59.039 --> 00:55:28.020 So every time they give me the injection, you have to go again with the ultrasound to find where they have to go. So one time, it happened only once, but one time he made a mistake and he actually hit my accident as well, the flexor muscles of my index finger, which are really close together. And then my index finger was more or less stiff for six weeks or something like that. I couldn't take guitar anymore at all. But it happened only one time. And now we were aware of that doesn't really happen. That's brutal. The thing is, I didn't have any tours at that point, but if I would have had, I couldn't have played the tour. That's such a complex disorder. 00:55:28.060 --> 00:55:58.040 It's so complex. It's so progressive metal disorder for sure. It really is. It really is. Yeah. By the way, I think a poorly placed shot could end up with you walking around giving people the finger for a couple of weeks. Yeah, exactly. That guy's a jerk. Why is this guy always flipping us off? What's this problem? He's smiling as he's flipping me off. Isn't that like a Seinfeld episode where that guy is in charge of him and then he figures out he has like a... I want it to happen and then you flip off Hannes and then 00:55:58.060 --> 00:56:27.460 He talks back to you in a Jack Bauer accent. That would be great. That could happen. That could happen. That would be happening. I'm so glad to hear that you've got something that's helping because when you started talking about this, it's not the same situation, but it reminded me, I don't know if you're familiar with the band Zero Hour. They're an American. Yes. And doesn't that bass player have? Troy. Yes, because I was talking to his brother, the guitar player. What's his name? Jason. Jason. Yes, I was talking on Facebook a little bit because I asked him if Zero Hour got the name from the choice of while I recorded out of the sun, right? One of my favorite albums, actually. 00:56:27.480 --> 00:56:57.460 and he got the name of him. I was asking about that and then he talked a little bit about his brother. I don't, but I don't know what kind of disorder he is, but it's also something similar, right? Yeah, I think, but I think his was more, I don't know, there's, they have a song called Tendinitis on one of their albums and I tend to think that it might be something like that because he tries to play and it's just so painful that he can't do it anymore. But your story reminded me of him because they're, I don't know if you're familiar with their music. I am. I'm a real big fan of theirs and I have, I've been following them since they first dropped their 00:56:57.500 --> 00:57:27.460 first LP. Jay will appreciate this. They're a band from Pleasanton in California. I grew up in California. So they're from a similar area where Jay used to live and where I used to live. And this is back in the 90s. I got this and I've been following him. And he's just, both brothers are amazing players, but his bass work is just. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, when you hear it, you're already, it always sounds like we will be in, in using tendonitis, you know? Yeah. And so it's out there and over the place. It's crazy. And they do that live too. And so you think, oh, it's just all in the 00:57:29.220 --> 00:57:35.400 I feel bad when I hear these stories because I know people want to play and they can't anymore because they're just not doing it. 00:57:35.400 --> 00:57:41.220 But this usually happens when you push yourself to the limit or over the limit and have a couple of faulty habits. 00:57:41.330 --> 00:57:43.020 Like I definitely had a couple of faulty habits. 00:57:43.030 --> 00:57:51.980 And so the thing is with all the stuff I learned now about movement therapy, I understand that all of these disorders or injuries, they have a similar root cause, right? 00:57:52.100 --> 00:58:21.240 And I talk a lot about my students, about prevention, basically for this. Retraining to a certain degree where it's possible. And even if people don't have problems, maybe these faulty habits would prevent them from reaching their true potential. And then people tend to think, I thought the same thing. And maybe the same thing happened to Zero Hour Day. Also, you just think, okay, just need to repeat it more. And if you do it a thousand more times, you'll be able to do it. But the thing is, you're actually starting to practice your mistakes and the wrong habits, you know. 00:58:21.980 --> 00:58:51.260 As I get older, my practice becomes more observant. I film myself with a video camera or play in front of a mirror and then I observe what I'm doing and what do I need to change to be able to execute the passage instead of just repeating it a million more times. When I was 16, 17, I was practicing very mindlessly, just repeat, repeat, repeat, which is probably necessary at a certain point to build speed and things like that. But as you get older, then it's better to take a step back and become a little bit more 00:58:51.859 --> 00:59:21.080 and just doing little changes to do what you're, yeah, to be able to do what you want to do. You know, Neil Perk comes to mind as somebody who had to make a, had to relearn things once upon a time. Also, you dropped a name a few minutes ago and I wanted to review it with you just to see if A, you know this guy and B, I think he's an amazing guitar player. It's Jeff Loomis. Do you know Jeff? Have you, do you, have you, yeah, yeah, I know, I know. We've been writing a couple of times. Actually, I was, I actually wrote him back in, there was right around the time before I joined Obscura, 00:59:21.120 --> 00:59:50.620 when they were looking for a new guitar player. And I was like, oh, I would be interested. Can I try out? And he was like, oh, yeah, let's meet at Musique. But then I joined Obscura and I was like, oh, I'd rather want to focus on that now. Yeah. You mean Nevermore? Yeah, Nevermore. Yeah, it was Nevermore. Nevermore. They were looking for a second guitarist, right? Exactly. Yeah. And I just wrote him. I just left Neckrefeches and I just wrote him and he's a big fan of the Epitaph record. Oh, is he good? And then we started talking. 00:59:51.120 --> 01:00:20.200 Yeah, I didn't end up doing it, but from time to time, we write, like, superficially on Facebook or Instagram or things like that. It's funny to think that you almost might have been on this Godless Endeavor, which is one of my favorite. No, it was after the Godless Endeavor. Oh, then you know what? You didn't want to be on the next one. Yeah, I was like, yeah, I didn't. That's the one I don't really like, you know. What's it called? Obsidian Conspiracy or something? Yeah, it was such a step down from that. Yeah. 01:00:21.100 --> 01:00:49.100 He's such a monster player. Oh yeah, he's a really good player. He's also really from the old school, you know, really good tone, good vibrato. He likes all that Michael Schenger and Nakira Takasaki stuff, you know, and Warren Demartini and like, and obviously then he has all the ultra technical stuff that he's doing and it's a good, it's just a real deal, definitely. At one time, live, they had, it was him and Chris Broderick, the two guitarists in the band. Oh yeah. And I missed the show they played here in Virginia. I was like, ah, I can't go. I had no idea Chris Broderick was playing with them. 01:00:51.920 --> 01:01:19.260 I think he just toured. He wasn't on any albums. Was he still in Jagdpanzer at that point? He was. He was. But to see those two together, man, I'm really pissed. It's a pretty crazy combination. I love Chris Broderick. He was so wasted in Megadeth. He had one good album with them. But now he's playing in flames and he also doesn't really get a lot of room to shine, I think. I know. I know. I'm kind of bummed. 01:01:24.700 --> 01:01:51.040 So less chops and more money than Dave would have given me. I'll take it. Yeah, exactly. He'll pay his bills. Yeah, that's a good thing. Even Dave had problems, didn't he? Oh, yes, he sold all his stuff. He sold his gear and he wasn't a guitar anymore. Yeah. He fell asleep. If I recall right, he fell asleep on his arm. He had his hand over the chair or something. Yeah. And then, boy, he really came back on fire in that record. No, it was the second. 01:01:51.120 --> 01:02:20.640 The United Abominations. That was a good record. I think he had one comeback record before that. I don't remember that. I think that was the one after that. Chris, you've mentioned Necrophagist a lot. We haven't really talked about it that much. I feel like that's the band that really kind of puts you on the map. We talk about what it was like to get in Necrophagist and what that experience was for you. Earlier I talked about Defeated Sanity, right? 01:02:20.780 --> 01:02:50.740 This technical test model band that I joined when I was 17. They're still around actually doing really amazing stuff and they're touring worldwide and everything but that was my first real band you know and they were on a sampler together with Necrophages where some songs from Necrophages they were on. When I joined Defeated Sanity they gave me CDs there on the road, mostly underground samplers and I didn't like most of the stuff on that but I heard Necrophages that was followed by the autopsy on that and another song that didn't end up on the first album but I was super impressed right 01:02:50.780 --> 01:03:20.740 because they had this ingway type of guitar playing but then this brutal death metal stuff i was really into them and i thought this band is amazing and then in defeated sanity it didn't really work out because we were creatively different some different ideas you know and then i literally called me because we remained good friends and he was like and i had the first album that had the email address of moment in there so i wrote an email and said i just want to try out you know for an average yeah you can try you know he sent me a tap for two songs and so i learned them i went to call through 01:03:20.760 --> 01:03:50.440 where I lived and went to the restroom, played for some of the songs. And then obviously we did Epitaph. My friends were laughing about me. They said, you're never going to have a career. If you keep doing stupid stuff like this, you should play a top 40 band. Top 40 band. Casey Kasem. With your career, you know. And none of those guys make music anymore. We all have friends like that. Yeah. You know, and then, but then we did Epitaph and then the album obviously went much bigger than we ever expected. I mean, I thought it had some potential, but I didn't think it would, 01:03:50.740 --> 01:04:20.720 It wasn't really mainstream, but it started a real underground movement, really. And that's like 2004, I think. 2004 just came out, exactly. And then, obviously, I had some personal problems with Mohamed. I didn't really want to be in the band anymore, but it had put me on the map, right? People knew my name from this. So then when Hannah said we both joined Obscura, obviously, we were like, oh, two and X-Men are in that band, so we're going to check that out. And it's definitely still, I mean, it's a blessing and a curse at the same time. Obviously, it was my entry card 01:04:20.760 --> 01:04:49.840 the whole game. I don't know if I hadn't shot Necrophages, maybe something else would have happened and I would have had a career. I don't know. The frustrating thing is that whenever I make a new record, there's always someone on Facebook or Instagram who writes, oh yeah, that's nice, but when do we do a new Necrophages record? I'm like, man, I did 16 or 17 albums. You could have listened to those. 20 years ago. Yeah. It's saying, man, yeah, the new stuff is nice, but that was the real deal. Maybe it's what some people feel about. Man, I feel I improved so much as a player. 01:04:49.940 --> 01:04:52.240 I want people to listen to the new stuff. 01:04:54.480 --> 01:04:58.560 But it's a badge of honor because they're saying that record is so good. 01:04:58.600 --> 01:04:59.900 You know what I mean? 01:05:00.200 --> 01:05:01.080 So that's kind of cool. 01:05:01.260 --> 01:05:03.820 Oh, that's when Necrophages was good. 01:05:05.340 --> 01:05:08.020 Master of Puppets came out 40 years ago, dude. 01:05:08.940 --> 01:05:09.720 And everybody's probably... 01:05:09.720 --> 01:05:10.880 Same thing happens to them, right? 01:05:11.020 --> 01:05:11.960 I talk to Tony McAlpine. 01:05:12.480 --> 01:05:14.420 People tell Tony McAlpine all the time, 01:05:14.500 --> 01:05:15.760 oh, do another maximum security. 01:05:16.040 --> 01:05:17.260 This album already exists. 01:05:17.320 --> 01:05:18.400 Listening to my new stuff instead. 01:05:18.720 --> 01:05:48.700 You can still listen to that record if you want to, it still exists. But that's what it's like. So the first alkaloid release was self-release, correct? Yeah. And then you guys eventually transitioned to Seasons of Mist. Yes, and Lipid Anatomy also. So now the new one is the second one in Seasons of Mist. And without, I'm not digging for dirt or anything, I'm just curious, how is that relationship? Going from a non-signed or self-release situation to 01:05:48.740 --> 01:05:50.900 that, like, how did that come about and are you pleased with it? 01:05:50.900 --> 01:05:52.240 Kind of a big label, too, Jay. 01:05:52.540 --> 01:05:53.860 Yeah, it was a great label. 01:05:54.180 --> 01:05:55.380 You know, we all find lots of stuff. 01:05:55.580 --> 01:05:56.040 Yeah, here's the thing. 01:05:56.160 --> 01:05:58.120 The owner, like, I don't know if he's the owner anymore. 01:05:58.760 --> 01:06:06.800 One of the big guys that works at Gordon Conrad, he worked for Relapse Records when we were there in Obscura, and when we did his first American tours, he would always help us out. 01:06:06.880 --> 01:06:10.620 He would give us some money, give us some tips because it was our first tour in the States. 01:06:10.680 --> 01:06:13.580 We didn't know, you know, he helped us rent a van, gave us a GPS. 01:06:14.600 --> 01:06:17.720 Like, he helped us a lot and he drove with us for a couple of days sometimes. 01:06:17.900 --> 01:06:47.380 So we had a good friendship with him. Later on, he left Reader's Records, went to Seasons of Mist. So the fact that we know this guy makes this cooperation really easy, right? Because he's actually an old friend and we know that he's a big music nerd. He really loves the music. Obviously, when you do things on your own, you're a little bit more in control of obviously all the money we made and the crowdfunding went to ourselves, but you have to do all the promotion yourself, right? And it's a lot of work aside from the music and we're also focused on the music that none of us really can be asked to do it. 01:06:48.260 --> 01:07:17.600 So we're happy that 11 does it. Obviously, the communication could be a little bit better with them. They're a little bit slow with responding sometimes. But the good thing is, I have to say, when I saw the physical copy of the new album, I just saw it last week. I just got it last week. They really did a great job with the media book that they did and everything. John, you have that, don't you? He's reaching back for it. Yeah, there it is. There it is. I love these things. They put a lot of love and work into it. 01:07:17.640 --> 01:07:20.140 and detail, you know, into this. So this is actually really amazing. 01:07:20.680 --> 01:07:24.460 Did they go back and grab the first record at some point and do something like that? 01:07:24.540 --> 01:07:32.840 No, I don't, I don't know if there's actually a shift, if there's a plan to really do the label. I think it kind of would make sense. I know because people still want to get physical copies of it. 01:07:33.080 --> 01:07:33.300 Yeah. 01:07:33.960 --> 01:07:40.320 Because I believe we're sold out on that. And yeah, it might be an idea to do this at one point. Yeah. 01:07:40.940 --> 01:07:41.100 Cool. 01:07:41.280 --> 01:07:44.380 Just do it when Taylor Swift and Adele are not releasing albums. 01:07:44.660 --> 01:07:47.180 So you can at least, you can at least get the vinyl made. 01:07:47.619 --> 01:08:17.180 Oh, that's right. I forgot about the vinyl. Oh, it's yeah. I think it's okay. I guess there's still some issues though. I think it's finally slowed down a little bit with the just general population. Where does seasons of mist come out of? I actually don't remember. I think they're based in the Netherlands actually. Well, that's cool. And again, so you knew the guy from Obscura, you were in Obscura when you first met him and stuff. So is it, he's the label head, this guy, or is he? Yeah, I think he's the label head. 01:08:20.960 --> 01:08:47.220 I mean, I have to say we don't normally go through labels to do interviews. And so we did this time with season of mist and we were a little hesitant actually, but clearly it's worked out. You're a little. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kudos to you. Seasons of mist. Can I also point out to, I'm not trying to like overly praise you man or anything, but I think one of the reasons we want to go through label is you guys seem like a big deal to us. I think you're all such serious 01:08:47.580 --> 01:09:17.220 and stuff that it just feels weird to just drop your line to be like hey can we chat? Yeah but people do that and I'm usually up for that because I love talking metal, love talking music, love talking to my philosophy, love meeting like-minded people so for me I'm actually always up for this apart from the fact that it's good promotion for our music you know but I just sometimes I feel like you know this is these formats are a good chance to spread or to get some ideas out or some share some philosophies you know that people don't really know about something you know and sometimes I feel like 01:09:17.259 --> 01:09:46.819 people to hear something, some music, and they kind of misunderstand and misrepresent some things. And it's like when the questions are good, you know, it really gives you a chance to get some viewpoints out that might be inspiring to other people. Thanks, Chris. I mean, I think that's what we like about doing this podcast. We just really want to hang out with you. Yeah. That's how it feels about the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. When I started it, I didn't want it to be this like stale, like question and answer session where it's 15 minutes and I say, 01:09:46.880 --> 01:10:16.140 How did you enjoy making the new record? And what's your favorite song? You know, the stuff that everybody does. I wanted to do something that's more like a group of friends hanging out, drinking beers, talking about music. And, you know, the organic side of being a music fan. You know, Chris reminds me of John. And I think John was the only one there. Jonas from no longer Jonas from In Flames. This was just like talking to him. We just talked about we ended up talking about Kiss for 10 minutes. 01:10:16.860 --> 01:10:46.100 I remember that, yes. It was actually at the gates, I believe. Oh, at the gates. Yes, at the gates. Because I think it's really important to remain a music fan. I know so many people, they've been in the business who are like, I don't even listen to music anymore. I don't listen to metal anymore. It's kind of, oh, I grow out of this attitude. It's kind of, I think you can hear this, I think, in the music. I think you need to have, you need to, I really try to always keep this childlike euphoria, you know, for listening to music because this is the main motivator for me to do music. When I write music, 01:10:46.440 --> 01:11:16.200 I still want to feel the same kind of excitement when I write something I kind of want to feel that excitement and that's coming across that you're just you that you love music so much just by talking to me that's why we do this podcast yeah because we love it I don't think it's something you'll have to try it you know what I mean I think there are those of us who are just born and it's just you're fucked dude you're stuck with music for the rest of your life I can't help it you know my father sometimes says oh if you hadn't gotten into this you could have done something else I don't feel like I'm not yeah but it's I don't want to do anything else I don't want to do anything else 01:11:16.820 --> 01:11:46.200 I'm exactly where I want to be. Even if focal dystonia took your hand, I think you would be able to play with a hook. Or I'd do something else. Or arrange something. Play another instrument or learn to sing or just write songs and produce or whatever. I certainly wouldn't stop making music. Robbie Shanker. That raises an interesting question. What did or do your parents do for a living? My father is an engineer and he ran his own business for many years, but he 01:11:46.240 --> 01:12:15.660 is retired now. And my mother was a teacher for English and French in school. I can totally see engineer and English and French teacher translate into a kid who plays music. That totally makes sense to me. Especially the engineer part. I mean, it's interesting because my parents, they love music both. They both play piano. And in my family, there are actually a lot of professional musicians, more from the side of my mother's family. So my uncle, he has his own orchestra. 01:12:15.700 --> 01:12:44.880 He has perfect pitch and all of his children, he has five children and they're all professional musicians. They all play in orchestras like the big state funded orchestras in Germany or in theaters, you know, in musicals, all these kinds of things. So there's actually a lot of professional musicians in my family, but they're more on the classical side of things. When I get into heavy metal, obviously it was always looked down upon a little bit. And that's why I liked it so much when I discovered Ingwe, you know, because I was like, suddenly I could bring these two worlds together, you know, like there's a rock attitude, but a guy can actually play like the guys in the orchestra. 01:12:45.780 --> 01:13:15.640 But Chris, you were saying how your parents didn't really approve of your affinity for the devil's music. But how do they feel now that you're considered a guitar virtuoso? How do they feel about your... Here's the thing. I mean, I had some arguments with my father over that because even after many years, even after many worldwide tours and successful releases, he was still like, don't you ever want to do something else? This seems so stressful. And I'm like, you know, we're having this conversation now since 25 years and we could 01:13:19.200 --> 01:13:45.120 I do because he plays piano, he likes music, he kind of understands the element. He doesn't like the music I do most of the time because it's too heavy for him, obviously, and the harsh vocals and the blast beats, it sounds like most of the time, but he can appreciate the technology. He's obviously, he tells his friends very proud of them doing a big tour somewhere, he's like, oh my son is doing this and that, but he's also because he was a businessman, you know, so he always sees it from the, also from this side of things, 01:13:45.260 --> 01:14:13.960 And obviously, if you take the music business and you compare it with something else, then the amounts of hours you put into it and what you get paid in the end of the day doesn't really correlate well at all. And he's well-meaning with that. But then he told me about, I think the turning point where he really understood it was when a friend of his, who was a doctor, talked about these people who do the mountain biking for a living or do these really extreme competitions and they die all very young because they get their heart very big, you know, and a lot of them don't get very old and they know it. 01:14:14.440 --> 01:14:43.440 But they still do it because they have to. They can't do anything else because they're obsessed with it. And I told him, you know, for me, it's the same thing with the music. I know I'm never going to make the same money that I could make as an engineer or something like that. But I'm doing what I want to do, you know, and I can make enough that I can make a good, okay living from it, you know, and obviously that depends on everyone has a different standard, what qualifies as that. But, and I guess that's when he understood, you know, I was like, I'm cursed with it. I can't really change it, you know. And so I think there is this mix of kind of, 01:14:44.420 --> 01:15:14.400 being proud of the Google's my name is a lot of things that you did and he obviously knows all the tours we're doing and new records that come out even though he doesn't really like the music on the other hand there's that man you work so much you work all the time but you make related little money and if you were an engineer's job you would just have a regular week and you would really make some decent money but you wouldn't be happy I wouldn't be happy that's the thing right that's right and yeah and you know I mean it's that's a hard thing to relate to some people which is that you love what you do so much that it makes up for the difference in the cash like you're just like hey man it's like 01:15:14.440 --> 01:15:43.940 I'll live off of this if I can do this all the time. But it's also, it's so funny. We've talked about this before with numerous guests and also just amongst ourselves, which is, and I've often thought about this, which is the music bug, you know, that you get this thing. And it's, it's to the point where when you meet somebody who tells you they don't like, you say something about music and they're like, I don't really like music. And you think, what? It doesn't, it makes no sense to you. You're just, do you eat food and drink water? Do you have a soul? Yeah. It's hard to explain to people, you know, it really is. 01:15:43.960 --> 01:16:11.300 And it goes along with the theory of that. We don't really know why we like music. I mean, like as a species, there's no scientific explanation why certain things make us all sound sad and whatever it is. And so it's such a mystery and it's just such a great place to spend. And listen, when you tell your pop that you're on the metal heads podcast, it's all going to turn around. I don't think it's going to turn all the way around and go down. 01:16:16.060 --> 01:16:43.920 Well, I mean, we probably should move on, but I have a couple more questions. We haven't touched on this, Chris, but you have released three solo albums, I believe. Sure, yeah. Can you talk about what the process is like and how it differs for you from recording with a band? Right. On my solo records, when I did the first one, it was like because back in the day, I did the first one right after we did Omnivium, we recorded the Omnivium, 01:16:45.140 --> 01:16:50.960 I had many old ideas and I was just like 01:16:51.330 --> 01:16:54.260 after I finished the Solar Score Omnivium I was like oh I'm going to do a solo record now 01:16:54.260 --> 01:16:57.720 I didn't really have a lot of songs only like random ideas I'm just going to 01:16:58.150 --> 01:17:01.340 do it right every day you know a couple of hours 01:17:02.450 --> 01:17:05.820 and really I wrote the album within three months and another three months until 01:17:06.150 --> 01:17:09.680 they were recorded and then six months after the initial idea the album was actually released 01:17:10.000 --> 01:17:13.940 you know and I mean nowadays when I hear the album I think 01:17:13.940 --> 01:17:43.680 It could be better, but back in the day I was like, this is the best I can do now. And my idea for this was that in a band context, obviously you have to restrain yourself a little bit all the time because songs and the vocals, you can't really put your thing out all the time. You can't say, oh, just because I know this technique or this theory, I have to put everything in all the songs all the time. But on a solo record, I was like, I just enjoy the freedom to have no restrictions left. And I can just go anywhere I want. So that was the main idea for the first one. And I wanted to show everything. 01:17:43.940 --> 01:18:13.780 that I've learned. It was a typical guitar player kind of record. I mean, I've always loved instrumental record. All the Shreppnell albums, obviously, I'm a big bit. It's basically my Bible. That's my musical DNA and all the fusion stuff I like. So it was always a dream of mine to do this. And the first one kind of combined this with the more heavier influences of the more modern music. Second one, I focused more on the riffs, actually, the second solo record. And the third one that I did is actually a real tribute to the glorious Mike Marnie era, you know, like the early McAlpine, Tafolla, maybe more Greco kind of record. 01:18:13.940 --> 01:18:42.260 I wanted to do something else because I just loved the style so much. Whenever I listen to these albums, it takes me to a happy place. It's such a nostalgic thing for me. And yeah, that was the cool thing about Solar Records. I'm in control of completely everything. I mean, in my own band, It's kind of the same, but we choose a certain genre. We play this neoclassical power metal thing, so obviously it's a little bit more restricted. Whereas on my Solar Records, I can go anywhere I want. I can put a fusion track in the middle of the album if I want to. I can put a country track there if I want to. So no one's really telling me, oh, you can't do that. 01:18:42.740 --> 01:19:12.020 And that's kind of what I enjoy so much in the show. And obviously the guitar is the focal point on those three records. And it helped me actually to work better in a band context, you know, in a band where I have to compromise, like Nacloid Obscura, where there's other people writing as well. And I write also, but if you kind of integrate yourself. Right. Is it because you have that outlet that you can do this a lot? Exactly. That's exactly that, right? I have this outlet. So I'm like, anything that doesn't go in there, I have other outlets to do this. And that makes me work better in a band context. 01:19:12.160 --> 01:19:42.120 If this was my own thing, they would be very difficult to sometimes take myself back from it and say, okay, we're not using this one. I can see that because if you get frustrated, you're like, I'll just do my own thing later. Yeah, yeah. I see that happening in a lot of bands, you know, and I could, because I like so much different stuff, I couldn't do just one thing, you know, like I like so much different music and I mean, obviously a bad guy, like a lot of, even Obscura already allows for a lot of different things because the show is very open, you know, but still there's always things I can't do in the band context and I'm like, I need to have another outlet for this where I'm 01:19:42.660 --> 01:20:12.020 to realize my vision completely, you know, and that helps me so much. So I assume you're going to do more than just based on what you've said. Yeah, I kind of have a plan to, I mean, I still have Eternity Zen, my power metal band, we did three records as well with that. But for now, my plan is, now there's a lot of tours happening the next five, six months, but I, maybe not a full, I don't know, maybe I want to do an EP, but the next one is probably not going to be so much in the near classical style, but I want to do more like a rock fusion kind of thing. 01:20:12.160 --> 01:20:42.120 You know, like what different chord changes and things like that, different types of grooves, maybe different equipment, playing more on a Stratocaster and things like that. So I have a little different soundscapes than what I'm doing in the metal bands. So I wrote a couple of songs for that and I will see how I'm going to record that. I want to do a more stripped down kind of lineup. I'm really like a trio and record a lot of it live, you know, to have a little bit more like something very different from what I've done before. That's my vision for now that I wrote five or six songs for this. And as soon as I get a little bit more time, I want to do a little bit more. 01:20:43.280 --> 01:21:11.700 Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. If you're going to do something fusion, I really would, I mean, I love everything to begin with, but if you do some fusion stuff, man, I'm really down with that. Yeah, because this allows me to do, you know, a lot of harmonic language that I can't always use in the band context, right? And that allows me to play over more interesting chord changes and things like that. And also like some groove kind of stuff that you can't really do. You can get just as crazy as with the stuff you're doing now. It just sounds a little different, but some of the stuff's even crazier. 01:21:11.780 --> 01:21:40.660 It's even crazier. For me, the intense fusion stuff and the metal stuff, both of it, I call it all like it's high energy music, you know, high energy, high intensity music. I mean, this is what I want to play. And this is for me, it makes a difference if I listen to more original orchestra or Spawn of Procession. Both of it is like high intensity, high energy music, you know, and this is kind of. I was just going to mention John McLaughlin. I mean, people say, oh, it's jazz fusion. And you watch him play and you're like, what the fuck did I just watch? Yeah, exactly. 01:21:40.800 --> 01:22:10.780 I once had a guitar teacher and he was the guy who turned me on to John McLaughlin and he was like you need to go get Birds of Fire and stuff and I loved it and I got it and I was like how does he do it and he goes because he's fucking John McLaughlin man that's the answer for the question yeah it's great I think actually I think what he said was he's Mahavishnu John McLaughlin you know what I mean like he's because John's in Easton that's a great record though I'm glad you mentioned them and he I follow him on Facebook he seems like such a 01:22:15.060 --> 01:22:40.720 He's in his late 70s now or something, right? He looks great, though, doesn't he? I mean, he looks like he's in his 50s, but he's got to be in his late 70s, yeah. Jay, I think you and I found a video of him and Jeff Beck playing, didn't we, after Jeff Beck passed, and it was just like jaw-dropping to two of them. It was something from Mahubesh New Orchestra. They did one of their songs, and I can't recall what it was, but it was Jeff ripped off the riff in one of his songs, and purposely, you know, 01:22:42.440 --> 01:23:10.180 But I always liked the early John McLaughlin thing where he used to play that double neck guitar and the volume up on the other one for this sympathetic resonance. I thought that was a brilliant concept. I really admire him. I think he's a wonderful player. Yeah, he's incredible. I haven't checked out what he's doing now. I see what he does live, but I don't know what his records are like now. But he does, I think Mahavishnu does stuff now still. I don't know. 01:23:10.220 --> 01:23:39.880 I mean, I'm also now as early stuff is 70 stuff. And then obviously the acoustic stuff, it's the kind of stuff that I know I'm not really familiar. I haven't even been following what it's been doing in recent years. Yeah, me either. Yeah. But in any case, sorry, Marcus. No worries. Does anybody have any other questions? I have one last question, but I didn't want to get the most important question, don't you? Is it the question? The question? Oh, that's interesting. Which question is that? The three? Oh, I didn't send it to him. We can try it. I bet Chris could do it. Oh, you can do it. 01:23:40.220 --> 01:24:10.160 I have another question. Let's see what happens. Okay. So the question we normally have is what three albums would best describe people to you? You to people. Like what three albums would help people understand you better? Any genre, records you've made, records you've not made. That's not the question right now. So three of my own records or three records by other people? Other people. It could be records that you do, but it could be something that influenced you. It could be something you just love. 01:24:10.220 --> 01:24:40.100 It's stuff that makes up your musical DNA and makes you who you are. Let me try this. Oh, he's gone. So I try to, I mean, it's impossible to reduce it to three because usually we give people time to think about it. So yeah, but I do it very spontaneously. So from a pure guitar playing point of view, it's probably the album Parallax by Greg Howe from 95, simply because I spent so many hours for years transcribing that stuff. 01:24:40.220 --> 01:25:10.180 and a lot of the stuff that I was thinking, how could it be done, influenced my own approach to things that came later on. So I think without that record, and when people listen to it, they always tell me, oh, I can definitely hear this. Another one would be the Alvin Nostaratu by the American band Hellstar. Wow. Nice. That's a deep. That's a deep pull. Yeah, but it's a unique mix of neoclassical and speed metal and thrones. 01:25:10.240 --> 01:25:40.160 and the way I write riffs in Obscura as well as in Eternus and as well as on my solo stuff is so much like this baroque kind of riffing when I'm in that kind of zone. This is so much inspired by Hellstar. So if you listen to the last Obscura record and then you listen to Nosferatu, then you're like, ah, okay, you know, I mean, it's different vocals, obviously different kind of drum pacings and things like that, but you can definitely tell how this kind of baroque harmonic minor riffing thing, you know, that I like to do is, 01:25:40.240 --> 01:26:09.500 inspired by that record. I think without that record, I wouldn't write the way I do it. You've blown me away by choosing that. That's such a cool thing to bring out. Without that album, I wouldn't write the way I do it. You wouldn't be who you are. Yeah, so these two records are definitely things that people can hear. The third one, I don't know. I don't think people can really hear it in anything I do, but it's just something that I love so much. And that's the album Headless Cross by Black Sabbath. 01:26:09.580 --> 01:26:39.560 and I just love the vocal melodies. I just love the bass lines on the album. I just love the way things are arranged. It's so different from any of the music that I play, obviously. But some of the ideas, for example, I know you hear the bass intro in Obscura's Forsaken and then you listen to Nightwing on the Headless Sports record, you know. So a lot of it, this is not really a guitar record, obviously, but it moves me on an emotional level for the vibe that it has. It has this kind of, I know a lot of like old school Black Sabbath 01:26:43.800 --> 01:27:09.480 We've debated this. It sounds more like Survivor than it does Black Sabbath stuff. But if you see it for its own thing, as its own band, you know. Sure. And for me, this is just something, and I don't really know why it is, but this record has stayed with me for so many years. And every time I put it on, every time I show it to people, I listen to something like Devil and Daughter or When Death Calls, I always get goosebumps. It's like the thing that I said. Wow. You can't really describe why it is. It's just something. 01:27:09.580 --> 01:27:39.200 that happens. I think, first of all, the Tony Martin era has its set of devotees. So there are people who really live and die by that. And also, another thing, I thought I heard that he, that Tony Omi was going to revisit it. I said that. Yeah, I saw that story. Tony Martin. It's been out for a long time that they should be remastered because you can't stream them on Spotify or anything. Didn't they just meet up the other day? Yes. I saw a picture on Facebook. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. And lastly, I would like to recommend to you, if you don't have it, 01:27:39.240 --> 01:28:09.200 I know I'm always making recommendations, but Tony Omi did a record with Glenn Hughes called Iomi Hughes, which is so fucking good. Is it the Seven Star album? No, it's called Iomi. I really like Seven Star also. This one came out post 2000. Early 2000s, wasn't it? And it's heavy as fuck, but it's so good. It's such good hooks. Glenn Hughes is such a good singer, but they didn't deign to call it Black Sabbath. It's so good. And I would think a Tony Martin era guy might 01:28:09.240 --> 01:28:39.180 because I like the Clannius stuff also. And I also like when Ian Gillen was in the band. Like with Sabbaths, I like almost. I like. Oh yeah. I was born again. Oh yeah, me too. I mean, I really loved it. I mean, I had this most of my favorite Sabbath record, but I really loved born again. Actually Sabbath is also one of those bands where like almost all of the. We did born again on a Thunderdome, on a previous Thunderdome. So we debated this. It's another perfect day. Just remix and remaster. God. Because yeah, I think it'd be a completely different album if it's remastered. Sometimes I think, sometimes I think, 01:28:39.240 --> 01:29:09.000 I think like this I'm going to agree with you. It's a bad production. Some that can play into the mic. Oh yeah. Production is one thing but I wouldn't mind hearing a remix just to pull out some of the instruments. They're going to do it. Yeah because the remaster yeah. Those are out of order right? Yeah half of the remasters are them just turning the volume up on the songs. Well he found the original tapes and he says it remastered but I'm going to totally side with Chris here and say that record's got an extra level of scary to it that it would not have if it was produced. 01:29:10.360 --> 01:29:38.500 It's definitely the scariest Sabbath record, I think. I mean, Disturbing the Priest is one of the scariest sounding songs ever. Oh, yeah. From a Deep Purple devotee, also one of Ian Gillen's finest vocal performances is on Disturbing the Priest. It's insane. But he hates that album, right? I think so, yeah. I think he does. If they actually put out the remastered remix edition, we have to have Chris back to get his assessment of it. That's a shit. I hate it. 01:29:39.220 --> 01:30:08.900 I've mentioned this a few times. There is one out there. Somebody went and found the original Master Tapes. This was years ago. It was like in the era of Napster. And I got my hands on it. And it just sounds more like a blues rock record. They took all of the fuzz off of it. And it's still Born Again, but it sounds more like a Zeppelin record or something. I don't know how to explain it. It sounds like a Purple record. You know why I bitch about that album so much and others around that period? 01:30:08.960 --> 01:30:38.920 because that's when the big drum sound came out. Remember Phil Collins had the big drum sound early with the Booms during Peter Gabriel? They had that huge big sound in the early 80s and that album suffers from a little bit of that 80s kind of pumping up that kind of harsh sound. Maybe Bill Ward was needing the help by that time though, John. What's that? Maybe Bill Ward was needing a little help by that time. No, it wasn't that. It was in the production. I wish they would warm the sound just a little bit more and take some of that kind of harsh 80s. 01:30:38.960 --> 01:31:07.340 He's kind of, it's almost, it's a cold sound, you know, and trust me, we all grew up, except Marcus, he didn't grow up that early. But we all remember that stuff, you know, how they went with the big, even Rush did that stuff, and I was like, ugh. Chris has completely charmed me with his three choices, though. He went with the Tony Martin Black Sabbath, a Hellstar record of all five. I know. And a great album. And a great album record. That's perfect. Honestly, in the hour I've known you, that was the perfect free play. And I have to say. 01:31:08.960 --> 01:31:10.220 It's very different from what I play 01:31:10.860 --> 01:31:12.440 And you killed it too, Chris 01:31:12.740 --> 01:31:15.340 Because, you know, normally when we have a new guest 01:31:15.560 --> 01:31:16.540 That we've never had on the show 01:31:16.940 --> 01:31:17.920 I do send that question 01:31:18.260 --> 01:31:19.120 Totally forgot 01:31:19.560 --> 01:31:20.300 And it didn't matter 01:31:20.580 --> 01:31:21.740 Because you nailed it 01:31:21.780 --> 01:31:23.160 Nailed it right off the top of your head 01:31:23.560 --> 01:31:25.080 One of the best answers we ever had 01:31:25.180 --> 01:31:26.260 In a sparking debate 01:31:26.940 --> 01:31:29.200 And it also leads into my last question 01:31:29.280 --> 01:31:31.940 So I'm glad that you got to do that 01:31:32.340 --> 01:31:32.720 That top three 01:31:33.420 --> 01:31:34.740 So I'm going to do this last question 01:31:34.740 --> 01:31:37.000 And then we'll move on to the other sections 01:31:37.720 --> 01:32:04.680 So the final question is, you've been playing guitar for a long time, doing music a long time. You've had to deal with adversity in the focal dystonia. How would you describe your guitar sound to people after all these years of playing? What is your guitar sound now? How would you say what it is? Do you mean tonally? It's a little weedy, emotionally, whatever he wants. 01:32:06.260 --> 01:32:06.760 And yet, 01:32:06.970 --> 01:32:07.540 the thing is, 01:32:08.260 --> 01:32:08.400 I, 01:32:08.820 --> 01:32:14.980 this is pretty hard to answer because I am still searching for any, 01:32:15.140 --> 01:32:16.040 I know what I want, 01:32:16.160 --> 01:32:18.240 but I mean like the player I want to be, 01:32:19.240 --> 01:32:19.800 it's like, 01:32:20.720 --> 01:32:27.560 I can hear glimpses of the player I want to be on maybe the last three or four records I did. 01:32:27.720 --> 01:32:28.960 So there's maybe the new Alkalite one, 01:32:29.060 --> 01:32:30.800 the last obscure record of All Addiction, 01:32:31.400 --> 01:33:00.820 the last Paradox album that we did and the last Eternity's Endro, but this is maybe the last Solar I got on. This is right here, glimpses of what I would like to be. Nowhere where I'm like, okay, maybe I have a little bit of the player I want to be is always there. It's just fucked up because you're an awesome player, but still, the pursuit. I love that. For me, the longer I play, the more I hear what I don't like, you know, the more I know what I don't know and the more, even though I probably, yeah, I play better than 20 01:33:00.900 --> 01:33:30.820 20 years ago, but 20 years ago I felt better about playing because I was more naive, you know. So I think, okay, okay, so here's the thing. I think I kind of know how I want to describe it. At least what I would like to be is like, I would like to have kind of like the aesthetics of the old classic players. So it goes from the 70s rock infusion players to the 80s shredders and 80s metal players combined with 01:33:30.860 --> 01:34:00.480 in a more modern kind of genre, right? So obviously we have a lot of influence from post 2000 stuff and later stuff. And I kind of, I would hope or wish that my playing is kind of, you know, because here's the thing, when you think about modern metal, like the modern stuff, people think a lot about the animals as leaders and periphery stuff and things like that. My stuff is nothing like that. I have nothing against suspense, but my stuff is nothing like that. I'm a very old school. 01:34:00.840 --> 01:34:01.840 kind of guy. 01:34:02.980 --> 01:34:04.240 And I like to think, 01:34:04.640 --> 01:34:06.040 and I don't know whether this is true or not, 01:34:06.140 --> 01:34:07.860 it's like very much to the, 01:34:08.640 --> 01:34:09.420 or the people to judge, 01:34:09.540 --> 01:34:19.400 but I would like to think that my playing is coming from this old school kind of set of players developing into the, 01:34:20.320 --> 01:34:21.240 into 2023, 01:34:22.000 --> 01:34:24.400 but in a different way than these bands did, 01:34:24.540 --> 01:34:26.020 but with still with the traces, 01:34:26.620 --> 01:34:28.420 very obvious traces of DNA. 01:34:29.360 --> 01:34:29.520 Yeah. 01:34:29.600 --> 01:34:59.560 with still a DNA of the 70s and 80s and 90s players, but in a more modern type of sound or a more modern type, modern types of genres, actually. So it's, but I kind of think another, another renaissance or like tribute or nostalgia player, how do you call it? Like with this new wave of traditionally metal, nothing against that. I like this stuff, like a renaissance kind of thing. And I like to think that what I do is, is modern and contemporary, but coming out of the 01:34:59.600 --> 01:35:01.960 this range of players. 01:35:02.540 --> 01:35:06.660 I don't think you could do anything different if you tried, just so you know. 01:35:06.730 --> 01:35:16.180 And what I mean is because Alan Holdsworth and all these other guys mean so much to you, it's there, and you're probably far too self-critical to think that somehow you've achieved it. 01:35:16.600 --> 01:35:18.260 There has to be smart people to pick up on it. 01:35:18.290 --> 01:35:19.300 A lot of people don't give a shit. 01:35:19.350 --> 01:35:19.740 You know what I mean? 01:35:20.050 --> 01:35:21.700 A lot of people don't know that stuff. 01:35:22.760 --> 01:35:51.600 And so what I hear is a guy, I hear a guy that is probably achieving what he wants to be, but it's also on a road to another place, you know, which is like the perfect description of what you do. The mark and curse of an artist is that you're, you're always striving for that point on the horizon. Right. That you can visualize and you know, you can get there, but you're not there yet. Anybody that's gotten, feels like they've gotten there. They've probably stopped evolving and they're done. 01:35:54.500 --> 01:36:22.720 Yeah, Ingue, for example, is like a guy where you think he was already so good right out of the gate, you know, that you think that he's a kind of a finished player, like, where would he improve? But then on the other hand, players like Greg Howe, Ovene Moore, Alan Holtzweiler, all these guys, they kind of evolve over their career, you know, and over their discography. Alan Holtzweiler's Go is very different when you listen to him in Gong or Soft Machine, and then you listen to Sixty Man of Tane or something, and it is a huge involvement, even though it's still the same player, and you can 01:36:28.660 --> 01:36:52.680 I don't know if there's players who feel like they're mastering what they want and they reach the point where they want to go for me. I had this vision and dream as a kid. Oh, I want to be this player when I get older. But the thing is, I noticed that I will never get to this point. It's going to be a journey until the day I die. And maybe at one point I'll feel more confident about it. I mean, sometimes I feel confident about my output. I like the albums. I do. 01:36:52.760 --> 01:36:55.760 But then after years pass by, I'm like, oh, I would change this. 01:36:56.140 --> 01:37:11.860 And that's the motivation, right? Because you always want to get to that next level. You always want to try something new. That's what I love about talking with you, because I hear that in every single aspect of your answer, not just with the guitar, but when it comes to just listening to music. 01:37:12.460 --> 01:37:20.020 What can I offer up to, Haramarkas? I mean, that's the thing about music. There's not a fucking answer. There's not an end point. You don't go, oh, we got it. We did it. We handled it. 01:37:20.100 --> 01:37:50.000 It's an infinite undertaking that will never be solved by anybody. Yeah, the journey is the destination. It really is. And I think it's one of the things when music says so wonderful. If it's a math problem, it's not one with an answer. It's a question I want to ask just because I think there are a lot of bands that do get stuck in one particular format, you know? And that's fine. We're going to talk about Cannibal Corpse. I was thinking about that before we were going to eat. 01:37:50.140 --> 01:38:19.960 But they're not trying to progress. They're not trying to do more. Some bands where this is okay, or where this is what you expect, like Motorhead was like this ACDC, you know, Cannibal Corpse, like kind of the ACDC stress model somehow. Like Running Wild, you know, Ingram Mons. Oh, Running Wild. You always know what you get. I'm like a huge Running Wild fan. I love them, but this is one of those bands where you always know what you're getting. Exactly. Have you ever seen them play? Running Wild. No, 01:38:20.120 --> 01:38:50.080 I played with their bass player Jens Becker who played on Death of Glory and Port Real and Blaze and Stone. I played with them a couple of shows with him. He's a good friend of mine. I never saw Running Wild play actually. They're my Holy Grail band that is the one band that I want to see and I keep waiting for them to play Vaken or something where I can come see them. They played Vaken a couple of years ago but the set list wasn't so great. Jens told me one of the things that killed the career of Running Wild was that Drogen Rolf was scared of flying. And when you're scared of flying, you don't tour Asia, you don't 01:38:50.140 --> 01:39:19.640 to America. You miss a lot of markets that you could have. Yeah, they don't seem to play. I don't think it's fair of flying, but Sodom won't tour. And that's like a band that I think would probably have a huge, a much huger. What band was it? Sodom. Okay. Yeah. But they play international shows also like they play in this. Maybe it's the tour thing he doesn't like or something, but the guy, like so they just don't play a lot of live shows. Maybe that's it. But yeah. And here's the thing too, is that I feel there's a lot of bands. 01:39:20.120 --> 01:39:50.080 a lot of players who are working towards the sound and you hear those early albums and there are two or three albums and you see them progress and then they kind of get to something I feel like Chris is like he's already up there so that's why it was an interesting question to me like he's already got this amazing sound he's already doing incredible things with bands like Alkaline you know like what is next what are you trying to attain after that because we see a lot of younger bands where they're trying to work out that sound and try to get 01:39:50.140 --> 01:40:19.360 it to a certain level. And Chris's, I feel, is beyond that. So that's why it was interesting to me. I doubt that John McLaughlin is ever like, okay, I got it. You know what I mean? Probably no. Gene Simmons is like, I got it. Yeah, exactly. Because that's more like a business, you know. But someone like Alan Holtzler, for example, who was, like I said before, one of the most genius musicians of all time, he was never satisfied. I saw him live two times. 01:40:20.120 --> 01:40:50.060 I've ever seen. Every time he apologized after the song. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He had such low self-confidence. You said Alan Holdsworth? Yeah. I saw him too. He did the same thing when I saw him. He says, I didn't play well to him. I'm not feeling well. I'm like, that's the most incredible show I've ever seen in my life. Exactly. I think he was all perpetually unhappy or something about, you know, he was searching for something and he felt like he never found it. And to everyone else, it was so inspiring. 01:40:52.160 --> 01:41:19.800 Yeah, I mean, what and that so I can tell you what a great thing it is to be a fan. You know what I mean? Like you don't have to feel that pain. Instead, you we get to enjoy musicians music in a way they don't. Yeah. I'll finish it off, Chris. If that's how you feel about your playing, then I would seriously suggest starting at the beginning with Jeff Beck and moving through his whole career. That's a guy who changed so much and got better as he got older. I'm on my guitar. 01:41:19.840 --> 01:41:23.860 I don't play guitar I'm a drummer but I really appreciate good players and all my 01:41:24.260 --> 01:41:29.380 hardcore guitar fans friends would all say the shit he's doing in his 50s is better than what he was 01:41:29.500 --> 01:41:35.640 doing in his 20s his chops are 10 times better now yeah but he wasn't doing the same stuff he was 01:41:36.000 --> 01:41:40.580 experimenting with his sound and I think you would really if that's how you feel about your playing 01:41:41.340 --> 01:41:44.760 yeah and that's definitely one of those players I have to dig in and I think you would appreciate the 01:41:44.870 --> 01:41:49.820 journey that he went on yeah and I think he was overconfident which is really funny but 01:41:50.860 --> 01:42:19.240 I mean, I'm not a huge Yngwie fan. He's a little overconfident. I acknowledge how great he is. But he's very overconfident in his abilities. I think Beck was that way, but he never seemed to at least show it the way Yngwie shows it. I think, I predict, though, I really do, that if Chris, that if you dive into him, you'll be a little overwhelmed in the best kind of way. I know some of his songs, for example, that other players covered, like Rick Carl, which he constantly did, for example, on the project record. And so I'm familiar with some of these songs. 01:42:19.320 --> 01:42:21.120 And obviously one of my guitars 01:42:21.300 --> 01:42:22.940 has always recommended the Album Guitar Shop. 01:42:23.820 --> 01:42:24.940 Yeah, that's a good record. 01:42:25.360 --> 01:42:29.060 Yeah, so I definitely have already a couple of albums listed up today. 01:42:30.120 --> 01:42:32.360 I say Wired and what's the other one? 01:42:32.660 --> 01:42:37.500 Wired, Blow, Blow, and There and Back are the three that I think are just off the charts. 01:42:37.620 --> 01:42:40.720 And then finally this live one that came out not too long before he died 01:42:40.980 --> 01:42:42.740 called Live at Ronnie Scott's Jens Club. 01:42:42.940 --> 01:42:45.720 And it was just kind of a career retrospective. 01:42:45.980 --> 01:42:46.100 Yeah. 01:42:46.240 --> 01:42:47.820 You're listening to the... 01:42:48.880 --> 01:43:18.400 Oh, seriously, couldn't you do that somewhere else? Sorry, dude. T-shirt and beer check. T-shirt and beer check. T-shirt and beer check. Chris, it's probably a little early. I'm guessing you're probably not drinking a beer yet. I'm not drinking a beer. I'm actually drinking Colombian coffee and water. Probably have a beer tonight, but yeah, that's it. And the shirt is a nocturnous ratio. Nice. I like that. I'm a lot. 01:43:18.860 --> 01:43:48.540 at the market here recently. I really like this one. It's a nice one. It's very cult. So yeah. Yeah. It's one of the original prog death bands. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. All right. Markisan. I know I spoiled it earlier. Sorry. Spoiled it. Yes, but that's okay. It was a good point to spoil it. I'm wearing a control denied shirt. Love it. So they recently released like a remastered edition and I got that and I already had the original one, but I got that one too and it is pretty freaking good. And then I, 01:43:48.880 --> 01:44:17.140 Just finished a beer called The Abyss from Deschute Brewing from 2016. Shout out to the captain who actually I think just came into my house. My friend, the captain, Allison, they live a few minutes from us and they're going to carve pumpkins with my wife while I'm on this cast. But it's an imperial stout brewed with blackstrap molasses, licorice, cherry bark, and whole vanilla beans. 01:44:17.280 --> 01:44:46.680 and 100% aged in brandy barrels for 12 months. And it is delicious. Have you had it before, Marcus? I've had the Abyss. I haven't had this one. Okay. I've got probably three or four of those from that period. That particular one, 2016? Still in my fridge, yeah. I absolutely love it. That's my favorite beers. Yeah, my friends got it for me for my birthday in August. And now I've moved on to Teddy Bear Apocalypse, a triple hazy IPA. 01:44:47.300 --> 01:45:16.040 10. 1% with this awesome image of a bear that got in the apocalypse, apparently. Old Irving Brewery. It's right around the corner from me. I live in Old Irving Park in Chicago. It's one of my favorite breweries and it's minutes for me. So it is delicious. Skull. Skull. All right, John. All right. I'm wearing my Decibel 2021 Metal and Bearfest shirt, which is actually, 01:45:17.280 --> 01:45:47.240 Weir to say too big for me, which is cool. I'm going to go, John. Slimming down. Yeah. They actually made a shirt for a big person. That's the first thing. And now, because most shirts, if you're over six feet tall, the shirt's either going to be super skinny or it's going to be a muumuu like a Homer Simpson. John's really tall for people who don't know. Yeah. And so usually they kind of suck. So my first beer, I'm still working off my Creature Comforts, Tropicalia from Atlanta, from Prague Power when I went. And then I moved on. 01:45:47.420 --> 01:46:16.820 to a beer from our good friend Nick sent to Matt and myself. He wanted us to try these barley wines that he got from a place called Barn Town. Yeah, he gives me stuff from there. That's good stuff. I haven't had that one. Yeah, because he was interested. He was talking. He said, I heard you guys talking about barley wines because I'm always going on about it. And I know Will likes barley wines. Nobody drinks barley wines anymore. And it's really depressing because they're awesome beers. Yeah, but we're few and far between. It's like we're like an underground. 01:46:17.300 --> 01:46:47.260 We're kind of like 90s underground metal right now. All this great beer that no one's drinking because everyone wants to drink some like fruited sour. Oh my god every IPA has whatever fruit you can find in it. Hey don't be messing with my IPAs. No I like IPAs but I just. I do too but. I don't just I want to be able to see my friend on the other side of the table. Like when Jay and I went to Fieldworks and we had a field work time there just drinking all kinds of beers. They were all these great West Coast IPAs. Anyway it's a 01:46:47.300 --> 01:47:17.000 I think it's got peach in it. Nick, excellent. Thank you for sending it. I've been saving this for the next podcast and I appreciate you sending this to us. I will take care of you probably next time we're in Philadelphia. We'll end up in the back room at Monk's and we'll get stupid. Of course. So the usual. We do that every time we go to Decibel. Yeah. Hopefully we'll be hearing something the next month or so. Pretty soon. Yeah. I hope so. Yeah. Chris, we go to Decibel Metal and Beer Festival in Philadelphia every year because we know. 01:47:18.300 --> 01:47:46.520 Deciple Magazine. It's a way for all of us because we're in different locations to get together and hang out and enjoy metal. Yeah. I'm drinking Louisiana iced tea, which I fucking love. Man, that's the best iced tea. I'll call out Matt's beer that Matt had sent me that I was telling you. It was Wendigo, by the way, and you probably know that one. Oh, the Wendigo, yep. Wendigo, okay. I was wondering if I pronounced that wrong. And we're just wearing the, because this is from, I believe this is from the Death Fest. Oh, yeah. 01:47:46.580 --> 01:48:16.460 Yeah, yeah. It's got a few dates on the back. Yeah, yeah. The Wendigo is from Anchorage, isn't it? Anchorage brewery is great. In Alaska. Love them. Chris Freese. I was going to say, either he sits really still or he froze. He left. Fuck these guys. You were just saying that. And you're like, maybe he's just going to leave. Or either that or Mexico just fell into the ocean. Earthquake time. I have a feeling he'll be back. Yeah, I was going to say, Jay, you know, now you're in Arizona. That's something you don't have to think about that much anymore. I don't. 01:48:16.600 --> 01:48:44.880 You know what I'm in a weird... I don't blame people if they're like, why the fuck did you move someplace like that? First of all, it's cooler here than Tucson, so it's... My air conditioner's not on today. It's not hot today. And it gets 100 degrees in the summer, but it's not a bad 100 degrees. It's cold as shit at night. It's cold as shit at night. I got water. There's no earthquakes. I mean, and I have a good aquifer underneath me, and there's... And I'm free. I'm safe from fires here in this valley that I live in. You got... Yeah, but everything's poisonous. Creature box. Yeah, you got three problems. Like, Markisan set. 01:48:46.600 --> 01:49:16.560 You've got snakes. You've got UFOs. I walked in the house and there was a poisonous spider right in their house. I was like, I'm going to set up a black rattlesnake the other day. Yeah. Oh my God. I don't know why this happens, but my mom gave me this flashlight with a black light in it because when you shine it, it scorpions glow. Wow. It's like a way to find scorpions in your house. But I squashed one the other day. Actually, I'll show you the picture. I squashed one the other day. Okay. Wait, you squatch one like as in Sasquatch or you 01:49:20.800 --> 01:49:21.840 on the camera, 01:49:22.450 --> 01:49:25.180 but this is what they look like when you shine a black light on them. 01:49:25.720 --> 01:49:25.900 Wow. 01:49:26.720 --> 01:49:27.340 It's fucking, 01:49:27.390 --> 01:49:28.560 so it's predator basically. 01:49:29.220 --> 01:49:30.280 It looks like, 01:49:30.330 --> 01:49:30.420 right? 01:49:30.640 --> 01:49:31.080 Chris, 01:49:31.420 --> 01:49:31.680 Chris, 01:49:34.660 --> 01:49:35.380 but Jay, 01:49:35.570 --> 01:49:39.280 so this is the reverse of what a black light normally does when you use it. 01:49:40.480 --> 01:49:43.100 I don't know what it is about a scorpion that makes them glow like that, 01:49:43.200 --> 01:49:43.960 but that's how you find them. 01:49:44.100 --> 01:49:46.420 Either that or they're just hooking up with each other all the time. 01:49:46.540 --> 01:50:15.800 The little ones are the more venomous ones. The big ones are not as venomous. Anyway. The house was empty for a while before we got in it, but I think it's pretty bug free now, but yeah, everything's outside. Last time I was in Arizona, I got bit. I got stung by a scorpion. I got bit by a rattlesnake. But I didn't die because I'm clearly because I'm here. Yeah. I got, I was bit by a rattlesnake when I was in high school. Oh shit. So you're prepared for Arizona. That's good. Did you buy those goods today? I had to go to the hospital. My arm was like two times bigger than it was supposed to be. Shit. 01:50:18.340 --> 01:50:19.380 - I've had some boots yet. 01:50:19.760 --> 01:50:21.440 - Yeah, you need them when you're walking around. 01:50:21.900 --> 01:50:22.900 If you're walking in the brush. 01:50:23.260 --> 01:50:25.700 - I walk out every once in a while without my shoes on. 01:50:25.800 --> 01:50:26.080 - Oh shit. 01:50:26.300 --> 01:50:27.120 - It's just not smart. 01:50:27.340 --> 01:50:31.600 - Well this is just, Chris, what are the dangers in Germany? 01:50:32.240 --> 01:50:33.560 Do you have natural disasters? 01:50:33.760 --> 01:50:34.680 Do you have creatures? 01:50:35.360 --> 01:50:36.160 - We have nothing dangerous. 01:50:36.220 --> 01:50:39.040 Like I think where I live is probably one of the safest places in the world. 01:50:39.200 --> 01:50:42.320 There's no dangerous animals, nothing poisonous. 01:50:42.520 --> 01:50:44.780 There are some spiders that are a little poison, but you don't die from them. 01:50:44.800 --> 01:51:14.200 you get a nasty... Right, right, right, right. Just a lot of remod up and walking. Yeah, and then there's... Actually, I live. There's no crime. There's no natural disasters. One time we went on tour and Hannes left his car unlocked for six weeks and we came back and he didn't know. And we're like, oh, it's fine. Nothing gets stolen. So, it's really... It's almost paradise. Like, there's nothing... What town is it? What city? It's not a big city in a small village, but it's 90 minutes north of Nürnberg. 01:51:46.100 --> 01:51:49.560 I can imagine you're on tour then you come home you're like oh thank god 01:51:50.900 --> 01:51:54.680 no one's going to bother you there and I was like it's just and even it's awesome 01:51:55.240 --> 01:52:00.560 writing times it's amazing and so I really like it now obviously back in the day when I wasn't really 01:52:00.900 --> 01:52:05.160 around much in the world I was like where I want to go to a big city but I'm I'm in 01:52:06.640 --> 01:52:11.780 all the time playing shows like that and I've seen most of the world and I'm like I'm always happy 01:52:11.980 --> 01:52:40.900 when I get back to the place and I can relax. Big cities aren't all that they're cracked up to be sometimes. And we've all lived in them too. Except for Chicago, which is awesome. But let me just jump on there and just say I don't have to lock the doors in my house. And I love it. I live out in fucking nowhere now. And like literally, I don't lock my car. I don't lock the doors when I go to bed at night. I don't give a shit. I told you it's not going to make a difference. When you see those lights in the sky, they don't lock to them or they just traverse. 01:52:41.800 --> 01:53:11.720 3 million light years to get to the planet. Your locked door is not going to make a difference. Did you not see close encounters? Pulled me out through the doggy door. Yeah, exactly. Georgie, what are you drinking and wearing? I can see what you're wearing. Yes, I am wearing the brand new Stairway to 11 podcast shirt. That's a decent podcast. Yeah, that's our sister podcast that John and I do with TR. It's a rock music podcast as it so declares underneath it. 01:53:11.780 --> 01:53:41.440 just so people are, you know. I really enjoy it. I want to be on it. I want to talk about things. Well, I was going to say this. Fuck you for doing Jethro Tull and not inviting me. I don't want to do that old shit. I don't want to wait until the fuck off. Yeah, we'll get you guys on. I literally was like, wait a second. Nobody even, like maybe Jay might want to. I'm thinking, man, he's going to hate me. Yeah. I feel like you could have Chris on that podcast actually. Yeah. So yeah, this is one of two designs that I came up with for the. That's cool. 01:53:41.800 --> 01:54:09.160 Yeah, it's got the Zeppelin lettering with just, you know, retro, you know, headphones and stuff like that. So I started off with an IPA that a friend of mine, Adrienne, she picked up in New York. And I believe this is... I was just in New York City. It was brewed in Buffalo. And this is Thin Man Brewery. And this is the greatest can of beer ever. It's called Trial by Wombat. And there's a wombat. 01:54:10.840 --> 01:54:40.320 My wife loves wombats. Okay. So that was an IPA. We moved on to Drecker Brewing from Fargo, North Dakota. A double IPA. Long-haired freaky people. That was you in high school, George. Not anymore. Exactly. No hair. Are you on to number three? Number three, we've gone from a double to a triple. And this is a triple IPA. Oliver Brewing, isn't that Will's friend? 01:54:40.920 --> 01:55:10.540 That's the first one? No, that's the second one. 01:55:11.300 --> 01:55:39.520 Anyway, it's from a song from the first album and it was... Age of Winters. Yes. Ah, yes. It's a cool tune. You know, and then they became ZZ Top and the rest is history. I don't know if you like The Sword, Chris. I used to love it. I used to love it. Don't bother, Chris. You're fine. You don't need it. No, the first three albums are great. The first three albums are awesome. They're good. So many bands, you can't listen to all of them. You know, it's just so much stuff around. You're going to find that out real quick. 01:55:40.860 --> 01:56:10.500 They were kind of a heavy, stonery, sludgy, not doomy, but sludgy, stoner, rock, but metal. And then they went and tried to do DG. No, they're from Texas. Is Hellstar from Texas, too? Hellstar from Texas, yeah. I remember when that first Hellstar record came out. I remember buying it in the store. Texas has an interesting scene. I mean, also like Watchtower, you know. Oh, yeah. And they're playing again. Even like the guitar scene, you know, like with Hatchy's Kitchen, now the Stein brothers and Derek Taylor. 01:56:10.560 --> 01:56:39.400 This really underground kind of thing. Texas is interesting. It's a very interesting scene. Yeah. Have you been there, Chris? I've been on tour a lot in Texas. And I've even went on a vacation with friends in 1994. I remember this. We went to Texas for two weeks. I don't know if this is a generational thing, but I was under the impression, and I think this is a real thing, that people in Germany in particular were obsessed with the American Old West. It's true, actually. It's actually true, yeah. Interesting. 01:56:40.700 --> 01:57:10.500 Jay, I've met a lot of people from Germany that I talked to that absolutely loved the Southwest. They had such a great time there. Yeah. I don't know what the connection is. Interesting. Yeah. I don't know, but it's actually really true, especially back in the day, like the nineties and something. It was like, it was a big thing come to America and go to Texas, you know? I mean, obviously now I have to work there a lot. I've been trying to count it for years. 01:57:15.240 --> 01:57:40.380 It's amazing. You ever sit back and think, holy shit, you know, this music that I make, it allows me to explore this world in a way that I probably never would have. It's a big honor if I write something in my room, in my house, and then people connect with it around the world, and certainly in Mexico City or in Tokyo, and you have people, or even one time I played with a calculator in Egypt and Cairo, right? And you have people sing along the lyrics to your songs, 01:57:40.540 --> 01:58:10.240 and they invite you, right? You get your travels paid, you even get paid to do it. It's a big honor, actually. Even if you play related to small shows, if you compare it to a big band like Iron Maiden or something, right? But still. And now, you know what? Next big Thursday, we're starting the South American tour with Obscura. And I've never been to Mexico many times, but I've never been to South America. That's going to be insane. Yeah, it's going to be crazy. Huge metalheads there. That's what people tell me, right? So I'm really looking forward to this. Just watch the, we always mention Maiden, but if you really, 01:58:10.560 --> 01:58:39.140 I want to see how crazy it is. Watch the Rush live in Rio thing or what they did. Much smaller than the Maiden show was only 50,000 people. The Maiden show was 250,000. But to see them playing YYZ and they are looking from behind Neil Peart out to the audience and to see the whole crowd going like this. And then at one point, Kenny Lee looked back over at Alex Lifeson and they're like, what the fuck? These guys are, they play all around the world. 01:58:40.560 --> 01:59:10.520 I hope you have a similar experience for whatever level you guys play on when you're there. For the last two years, two of the best lineups I've seen in a fest are the Mexico City Festival. They have an extremely kick-ass lineup. Even this year in December, they're such a great lineup, but I can't go because I'm on tour in Europe at that point. But there's such a great show here, a festival here in Mexico City. There's so many great bands on the same way. So many bands I care that I would love to see, or I have seen, but they do it right, man. Mexico doesn't fuck around. It drives me nuts because I'm a 01:59:10.560 --> 01:59:40.460 You guys know Marcuson likes the gathering. I love the gathering. And they'll come and play Mexico City to a huge crowd and then they'll go back home. It's, hello, we're right here. Yeah, but the problem with America is they need working visas and they're really expensive. Yeah, we've got some for Obscura, that's why we're doing a lot of tours now in the States. But with iCloud, for example, we couldn't even afford it. Yeah. It's, I know, it's an ongoing battle. I know it's hard for everyone, but it's frustrating because they'll come here and they'll play 20 dates. You could get tons of shows. 01:59:40.540 --> 02:00:10.040 He just won't get big shows. Yeah, that's frustrating. Yeah, I mean, I go to a show almost every week here in Chicago. So I have to say I like playing shows in the States because I feel at least for our music with Obscura, it's like in America and Canada, the shows are better for us than Europe. Really? Yeah, especially that it's very much better than in Germany. In Germany, we don't do it. In Europe, we do good if we go to Spain or France and sometimes the UK, London, but most of them actually not. 02:00:10.140 --> 02:00:39.380 Do you draw well in the States though? It depends. But the last tour we did, we were co-edlining with Splash God Apocalypse. We had a really good turn on a lot of sold-out shows and stuff like that. And that was actually pretty good. And the last European tour we did wasn't so good in terms of the top of the show. Why do you think that is, Chris? I don't know. I think there is probably, in Europe, especially in Germany, it's like a lot of German musicians, they're jealous for other German bands who make it outside of Germany because they think they should be the ones I think that really plays into it. 02:00:40.140 --> 02:01:09.980 And there are also shows that are just not as wild in Germany. People don't go, I know this out going so much, you know, they're more reserved. In the States, I think it's probably more people appreciate bands coming from Europe. You know, you have a specific factor there. I can't really tell, maybe because our record label was American Reload Records in the beginning, you know, that might have played into it. But I mean, that side of music just does much better in the US than Europe. It's interesting. Here's my theory. I'm not a religious man at all. But one of the things that has always intrigued me about the Bible was, they said, 02:01:10.140 --> 02:01:39.820 Jesus didn't perform any miracles in Nazareth. And I always thought that was because they were like, yeah, that fucking Jesus guy. You know what I mean? He's a jerk. And so my theory is you can never perform a miracle in your own home because there's going to be a risk, man. I used to play baseball with that guy. Yeah. In Europe, it seems to be the more south we go, the better we do, you know, but in our own home region, it's really not our best market, actually. Maybe also to North America has so many technical death bands or bands that come from, there's a lot in Canada. When you guys, 02:01:40.140 --> 02:02:09.920 Last Play in the States was Alex Webster playing Big Eyes then? No, that was Alex Webber. Yeah, he always gets confused. But he's actually, he's doing, he's done all the tours for this album now with us. He's playing on the live album. Is he still with you guys playing right now? Yeah, yeah. He's doing the next three tours and he's actually probably also going to do the next album with us because he's heard about it so many times. And, you know, when we did the European tour last year and then our bass player had some health issues and had to drop out of a tour. He's so good. Alex, on a Friday, I was like, 02:02:10.140 --> 02:02:39.560 and help us out. And when he's not on tour, he's playing wedding gigs and chess gigs and stuff. So he's booked out all the time. But when he can't, when he's going on tour, he gets subs to play for him. And he was like, oh, let me see if I can sub out the gigs. And then he called me later that night. Yeah, I can. When should I come? And then the week after, on Wednesday, he arrived in Zürich out of the plane after flying 16 hours, went on stage, set up his in-year with a perfect tone, played a perfect show, zero mistakes. He's so good. And then he was like, I know, I feel a little bit tired. And I was like, hey, we do the note. I just saw him. 02:02:39.580 --> 02:03:08.700 When were you last in the States? I was last in the States in March. We played there for the last time. And that's one of the upcoming five or six months worth of dates. Are you coming back to the States? No, we're doing South America now. Okay. And we're ending in Mexico in the Monterrey Metal Fest. Then we go to Europe and we do UK and Ireland, Scotland seven days supporting Decapitated. And then we're doing a European tour with Cynic in March. Cynic. Oh. 02:03:09.600 --> 02:03:39.480 I just saw... Wait, it's Obscura and Sinek? Obscura and Sinek, yeah. We're doing iCloud shows all in Europe right now, but they're more like single shows and festivals. I just did one last week, but yeah. When Sinek played in Baltimore, Marcus and I saw them about a couple weeks apart, because you know Max Phelps from Exist also plays with Alex. Yeah, so I saw Sinek play, but Alex's kind of fusion-y jazz band opened the show, and they hadn't played in years, and I got to see the one show. Ah, yes, I saw this on Facebook. I forgot to name it. 02:03:39.600 --> 02:04:08.480 So good. Yeah, those guys are. Also, you're from Baltimore. You are from Baltimore. George and I live. He lives in Maryland. I live in Virginia. And then Will lives two minutes from me here in Virginia. So Baltimore might be 40 miles away, but it feels like basically driving to California because the traffic's so bad. Yes, those guys are close. They're very close. I'm trying to figure out if I saw you play. I saw Obscura in, it looks like July 2011. 02:04:09.240 --> 02:04:39.000 at Jack's in Virginia. With children on Bodum and Devin Townsend, right? Bodum, Townsend, and Septic Flash. Yeah, I was at that show. Yeah, I played the show. That's awesome. We've been in the same room. I didn't remember the show, actually. Chris, do you remember George that night? No, I don't. That was a really good memory of finding out just by talking to him on this cast. Really good memory. I have a pretty good memory with a lot of things, but yeah. That was the first time I saw Devin Townsend, and that was just like jaw on the floor. Like, what is this? 02:04:39.380 --> 02:05:09.140 I mean, I knew of him. It was a really weird build, right? I mean, the lineup was super. And that was at Jax? It was at Jax. Yeah, so the bottom of Devin Towns in Septic Legend. I just remember you guys were playing, and there must have been a fan going, because there was lots of long, blonde hair flowing. Right, right, right. Not yours, though. No. That's such a symptom of that venue, which no longer exists. That guy would just get the craziest bills. It was almost like a European fest a little bit, because he would 02:05:09.200 --> 02:05:38.560 They were all in the metal or hard rock vein, but they wouldn't match necessarily, which is a problem in the States. They always try to put three death bands together. This was a complete tour that we did with Children of Water. It was weird. And that's Devin in the early 2000s? So he didn't have a skull and everything? 2011. Oh, 2011. He was on the Metalheads podcast. The funny thing is the album that came out that he was touring, what was it called? 02:05:39.760 --> 02:06:09.120 Deconstruction. Yeah, yeah. You know that the orchestrations on this album were arranged by Morian, our singer. Oh, wow. He worked with Devin on that record. Yeah, so Devin stayed at Morian's place and stayed at all the orchestrations, so he's actually a big part of that. That's amazing. That's probably his most extreme album for what he tried to do on that album. I mean, some of the strapping stuff is more extreme, but his mindset was more extreme, I think, on that album. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I still, George and I love Deconstruction. 02:06:09.160 --> 02:06:39.140 I don't know about the rest of the guys. I know Markisanly likes some. Some is a little too soft for you. I know that. I'm just joking. He was a super cool guy. We got really along with him. I like him. I have a lot of respect for his musical talent. Aesthetically, his music doesn't appeal to me too much. That's exactly how I feel. I think he's amazing. Everything he accomplishes, his musicality, he's just an amazing musician. But I haven't responded to 02:06:39.160 --> 02:07:09.080 And you talked about that earlier, Chris. I haven't responded to it on that level, that emotional level. You probably would have liked him in the early 2000s more, Marcus, I think. Because ever since he cleaned up, and he's admitted this, and he said, I'm taking a break, I'm not going to make any more music, I'm just going to work in the studio. Then he got the bug, he couldn't get away from it. Like we talked about with you, Chris, he couldn't get away from music, and now he's put out like 52 albums in the last 10 years. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've seen him live, and I thought that, 02:07:09.160 --> 02:07:15.640 was really impressive. I wouldn't really put on the records, but when I see it, 02:07:15.730 --> 02:07:17.840 like, it's definitely like it. So I've seen him with the skull. 02:07:18.480 --> 02:07:21.360 It's just can't even describe what it's like to see him like that. 02:07:21.370 --> 02:07:26.140 Cause he was so intense. He's a lot more mellow now, but anyway, 02:07:26.940 --> 02:07:29.060 let's let's let's move on to the news. 02:07:42.540 --> 02:07:58.800 All right, first up is Ozzy's talking about working on a new album in 2024. I know most people don't care. I've actually enjoyed the last two albums. Wait, you like the last album, Church? Patient No. 9, yeah. It's got some good stuff on there, and there's some good guests on there. 02:07:58.820 --> 02:08:28.260 Yeah, I remember you saying you actually like a bunch of songs off of that. It's not, you know, calling Ozzy heavy metal anymore is just not a thing. It's a hard rock album. And the guy, Andrew Watt, I think his name is, that has produced the last two albums. I think he's done a good job of focusing him and making sure there's good songs on the album. And there's another album we're going to be talking about later that he produced, but I'm just going to go ahead and spoiler it now. He produced the new Rolling Stones album that came out yesterday. 02:08:28.840 --> 02:08:58.220 And that is also surprisingly good. You know, I mean, this is the first real Stones album in like 18 years, which is mind boggling that a band that has such a catalog. I had no idea they were even putting out an album. I didn't know it until yesterday either. My wife told me about it and I listened to it this morning and I was like, huh. So I'm looking at it and I saw the producer credit and I was like, Andrew, what? That sounds like the Aussie guy. And I looked it up and yeah, this guy does some good stuff. Stones took 18 years off between albums. I know. 02:08:58.560 --> 02:09:27.980 It's crazy. And I liked every song that I heard. I mean, are they like, you know, same level as paint it black or, or things like that? No, of course not. But they were good songs. All right. So I'll check it out. I love, I'm a huge Stones fan, but I, at some point I acknowledge at some point it's all right. The rest of this stuff is not very good anymore. Yeah. There's, there was, you know, at a certain point you're like, yeah, they're an old band and you know, they're going through the motions, but this was right out of the gate. Like for a song, angry. It's good. 02:09:28.560 --> 02:09:29.540 All right, I'll check it out. 02:09:30.160 --> 02:09:31.420 But back to Ozzy. 02:09:32.000 --> 02:09:33.400 Yeah, the guy who can't. 02:09:33.400 --> 02:09:34.600 That's exactly what we think about it, Marcus. 02:09:35.180 --> 02:09:36.200 We're talking about the Stones. 02:09:36.560 --> 02:09:41.100 He can't make a show appearance, but apparently he's ready to do a new album. 02:09:41.640 --> 02:09:45.080 Well, he said he started the album, and then they're going to record sometime in 2024. 02:09:46.300 --> 02:09:48.740 He said he's actually waiting for Andrew to be available. 02:09:49.700 --> 02:09:55.340 I'd say this without sounding mean, I hope, but Ozzy better not plan too far out into the future, if he has me. 02:09:55.380 --> 02:10:25.320 He actually said that he wants to do this album and he wants to go back on the road because he had the surgery. He had the surgery. No. There's no way. I can hardly stand. Listen, he had spinal surgery and he said that he can actually, he doesn't have back pain anymore. And then he also had neck surgery, I think, this year as well. But he said, that's it. He said, I'm not doing another one. And he's been through too much. He shouldn't. He wasn't playing that power trip thing when they announced it. 02:10:25.380 --> 02:10:54.260 I was like, no, fuck. Yeah, yeah. That was also, I couldn't think. But hey, you got Priest, you know, instead. So that was cool. But Ozzy's done. And to a reason, I could probably make this record he's talking about. But I, without being casual with somebody's life, I give Ozzy five more years max and he's gone, honestly. You mean gone from the earth? Yeah. Because he can't walk anymore. And as soon as you start falling over. Yeah, you need to just stop talking. You have a bad history of that shit. Yeah. Yeah. 02:10:55.400 --> 02:11:24.980 Stop. Stop. You're right. I did kill Leonard Cohen and I apologize for that. Yeah, I miss him. By him not playing Power Trip, apparently, like, everybody watching Priest was like the greatest. Priest in ACDC watching it was like the greatest thing ever. I don't even guess all the pictures like Metallica down in the front row just going crazy during Priest. Yeah. I saw more than one person say Priest was the best set. Yeah. I mean, Ozzy should have retired from touring a long time ago. He wanted to. His wife did. He did. 02:11:25.380 --> 02:11:26.960 No More Tours 2. 02:11:29.840 --> 02:11:33.040 Look, Marcus, this is not Kiss, okay? He's only done it twice. 02:11:33.920 --> 02:11:36.980 I believe the next tour was called Fuck Retirement or something like that. 02:11:37.060 --> 02:11:37.320 But yeah. 02:11:38.260 --> 02:11:40.080 I'm not trying to be casual with the guy. 02:11:40.180 --> 02:11:42.700 I just, you just watch him get interviewed. 02:11:43.140 --> 02:11:44.660 He's hardly, he's an old man now. 02:11:44.880 --> 02:11:45.260 Yeah. 02:11:45.840 --> 02:11:46.620 What do you think, Chris? 02:11:47.460 --> 02:11:51.240 I haven't really heard any Aussie record after Osmosis, so I don't really know what the, 02:11:51.460 --> 02:11:52.680 I heard some albums. 02:11:52.780 --> 02:11:53.800 I don't like this. 02:11:53.800 --> 02:11:55.160 It sounds too watered down for me. 02:11:56.280 --> 02:12:25.180 I love 80s Aussie, obviously a big Shafley fan and stuff like that and early Segwild and I go also but yeah I don't really care you know if he makes any record or not I kind of also believe that he's not really in the shape anymore to do tours or anything like that and I think his records are made by public relations committee you know that's kind of what it sounds like you know it sounds yeah from what I've heard I mean I'm not really having been taken deep into them but it's not like these old records where it's like no no and I'm torn 02:12:27.080 --> 02:12:55.180 Yeah, I'm torn about it because I want him to make money and still be out there, but at the same time, I don't want him to do what I'm doing. I want him to retire and enjoy the rest of his life. You know? Yeah. He's still got a good voice, though. I know, but at a certain point, just you gotta hang it up because it's never going to tarnish Ozzy's legacy, I don't think, because Black Sabbath, first metal band, right? But at the same time, I just want him to 02:12:55.200 --> 02:12:56.460 Go out with some dignity. 02:12:58.720 --> 02:13:00.080 He's a corporate entity now. 02:13:00.360 --> 02:13:01.760 I think the dignity ship is saved. 02:13:01.760 --> 02:13:03.440 He's almost like Ron Wignog or something. He's a character. 02:13:03.760 --> 02:13:06.260 I know. I just hope for it. I just want a little... 02:13:07.140 --> 02:13:08.760 I don't know. I just want some more fun. 02:13:08.800 --> 02:13:12.680 It bothers me the most, and I won't believe this, but I know Jay agrees me on this. 02:13:13.140 --> 02:13:21.720 I get frustrated with all this Aussie talk because I keep thinking that younger kids today who are into metal diminish what he did in the early 80s. 02:13:22.560 --> 02:13:24.640 It's just hard. It's rock music. 02:13:24.760 --> 02:13:54.520 No, it's not. Stop it. If you think that's rock music, then you don't have a clue. And all his, it's not just him. His wife really drags a lot of this crap out, too. And it just bums me out. I have a funny anecdote, and I told it to you guys, but it's probably been years since I told you, but it's still, it'll be fresh since it's been years. I had a friend and his buddy worked on the Osbournes. And show the Osbournes. And so that was years ago now. I mean, that was the early 2000s, right? Or something. 02:13:54.580 --> 02:14:24.340 They have a podcast talking about their life. So his buddy was in the technical crew, like camera or something like that. And he and they were loading and all the camera equipment and getting ready to do the series and all this stuff. And one of the people he worked with looked at him, he was looking around the house and looking at all the memorabilia. And he said, was he in a band or something? As the honest truth, they didn't know about Black Sabbath at all. Yeah, that's sad. They just knew Ozzy and they kind of knew him as this weird corporate media guy. 02:14:24.560 --> 02:14:25.460 And they were, 02:14:26.060 --> 02:14:26.280 and I, 02:14:26.460 --> 02:14:28.440 that's always wrong with me. 02:14:28.520 --> 02:14:28.920 That was so, 02:14:29.540 --> 02:14:30.820 that anybody could not. 02:14:31.000 --> 02:14:35.080 But that's what happens then when you're out so much in the public eye and you just, 02:14:35.600 --> 02:14:37.280 he was a huge solo artist to be fair. 02:14:37.420 --> 02:14:38.500 This is big actually, 02:14:38.880 --> 02:14:39.320 to be honest. 02:14:39.360 --> 02:14:39.660 That's true. 02:14:40.360 --> 02:14:40.420 So, 02:14:41.040 --> 02:14:42.140 probably bigger actually. 02:14:42.240 --> 02:14:42.560 He probably, 02:14:43.380 --> 02:14:45.120 when Ozfest was at its peak, 02:14:45.340 --> 02:14:46.340 probably he was bigger. 02:14:46.520 --> 02:14:46.680 Yeah. 02:14:47.800 --> 02:14:47.940 Chris, 02:14:48.300 --> 02:14:49.760 Ozzy Sabbath or Dio Sabbath? 02:14:50.640 --> 02:14:51.240 For me, 02:14:51.440 --> 02:14:51.840 Dio Sabbath, 02:14:52.360 --> 02:14:54.120 although I love Ozzy Sabbath too, 02:14:54.140 --> 02:15:24.120 I mean for me Tony Martin Sabbath as I said before is the best. Fuck you guys Tony Martin. But if I had to choose but obviously I understand that you know there's always this thing you have to think about obviously Sabbath Aussie had a bigger impact I try to imagine what it's like if it's 1971 1970 for the first time you hear that obviously nothing after that would have had the same impact and there's always the thing when you talk about older bands when they put out something new obviously it's 02:15:24.240 --> 02:15:54.120 It's impossible that it has the same impact that it had when it first hit because it was right. Of course. You don't know how heavy Sabbath was for the time and everything. So I understand that probably people who grew up with Sabbath from the beginning, obviously I have some older friends and then they laugh at me when I say Tony Martin stuff because they say, Oh, you have no idea how much this changed the game of Sabbath when it came out, you know, obviously. And later on, it can't have the same impact. But for me, for someone who discovered all that stuff later and after the fact, I enjoy more putting the 02:15:54.160 --> 02:16:24.120 on the Dio Sabbath records than the Aussie Sabbath records. Even though when it comes to their solo records, I prefer Aussie, at least 80s Aussie. I like the Dio's total stuff too, but especially like Park at the Moon, Alt in the Sim, these records, I love the two records a lot. This is the right answer, Chris. Yeah, those are good answers. Solo Aussie is the right answer. Here's an interesting point about this, and one is that I think there are a few, there's not as many examples like Sabbath where the Dio Sabbath records, 02:16:24.720 --> 02:16:30.580 - had a 02:16:54.719 --> 02:17:24.040 I'm joking. I'm making fun of myself. In the 80s, the only record you could find with Ozzy on it from Sabbath was with Solar Soul for rock and roll. That was my first one. Yeah, see, so I'm a few years older than you guys, and so for me, everything was there. It's when MTV started, I think all that stuff disappeared. Oh, interesting, John. Yeah, I think stuff like that started to, because I had, when I was 10, 11, 02:17:24.160 --> 02:17:53.679 I had I think four or five Sabbath albums already and it was Heaven and Hell, Black, Paranoid, Master of Reality, Southwise. I had all that stuff. It was all available. But at some point things did change a few years after that. You're right. But it's respectful to choose D.O. Sabbath, Chris. I back you up on that. Those are great records. The correct answer is all Sabbath. There you go. I think there's people who love all the different incarnations of Sabbath. 02:17:54.160 --> 02:18:24.120 I do. I basically do. There's a couple of one or two Aussie records I don't like so much. I don't like Forbidden so much. Which one? Forbidden, but it wasn't Tony Martin's fault. Technical Ecstasy blows. Yeah, yeah. I didn't like 13 too much. These three, I don't like too much. I liked 13. 13 was decent, but I agree with Will. It was overpolished on sound. I wasn't a big fan. Oh, yeah, I agree with that. But the songs were kind of cool, though. I like some of the songs. It's not terrible at anything, but I mean, it sounded much better live, I thought. I wish they would have 02:18:24.160 --> 02:18:26.059 that when they first did the reunion. 02:18:26.269 --> 02:18:27.120 Because they were doing the song. 02:18:27.260 --> 02:18:27.800 Oh, in 98? 02:18:28.000 --> 02:18:28.400 On the reunion. 02:18:28.530 --> 02:18:29.480 It was so fucking good. 02:18:29.610 --> 02:18:29.740 Yeah. 02:18:30.059 --> 02:18:31.719 Ah, they already did those songs back then. 02:18:31.840 --> 02:18:32.620 I didn't know that. 02:18:32.960 --> 02:18:36.179 The only one I don't really like is the last Aussie solo album. 02:18:37.340 --> 02:18:40.280 I haven't liked an Aussie solo album since No More Tears. 02:18:41.160 --> 02:18:42.480 Yeah, I guess that's a good point. 02:18:43.360 --> 02:18:44.320 Osmos is okay. 02:18:44.860 --> 02:18:45.980 It's not great for me. 02:18:46.320 --> 02:18:46.460 Yeah. 02:18:46.760 --> 02:18:50.019 But I stopped really caring after No More Tears. 02:18:50.559 --> 02:18:53.800 Bark at the Moon and Ultimate Sin were kind of my last two that I really liked. 02:19:16.000 --> 02:19:23.780 - He's so good. He's so good, man. He just got caught in a really bad period for Ozzy's career because it followed Randy 02:19:23.800 --> 02:19:25.800 and it preceded Zach Wilde. 02:19:26.440 --> 02:19:27.599 And he didn't get paid for any of it. 02:19:27.840 --> 02:19:30.219 He also got paid for Ultimate Sin. 02:19:30.420 --> 02:19:32.099 He did not get paid for Barking the Moon. 02:19:32.559 --> 02:19:32.880 Okay. 02:19:33.380 --> 02:19:36.980 He had some bad luck, but for me, this era is my favorite era of Ozzy. 02:19:37.120 --> 02:19:38.500 So, the Chevy era. 02:19:38.820 --> 02:19:39.059 Nice. 02:19:39.639 --> 02:19:43.900 Ozzy refers to it as his, who was the female actress he says he looked like at that time? 02:19:45.000 --> 02:19:45.460 Linda Blair? 02:19:45.719 --> 02:19:46.900 Arthur or something like that. 02:19:46.940 --> 02:19:47.340 Which one? 02:19:47.599 --> 02:19:48.260 Linda Blair? 02:19:48.580 --> 02:19:49.240 Linda Blair? 02:19:49.580 --> 02:19:50.180 I don't know. 02:19:51.140 --> 02:19:52.140 The Exorcist, you know? 02:19:52.140 --> 02:19:52.860 It's Exorcist 2. 02:19:53.120 --> 02:20:22.960 I'll look it up but on that it was the No Rest for the Wicked tour or excuse me um oh god his hair was so feathered on that was horrible he's wearing like this big booboo and I'll look it up and he himself was like he won't watch it he's like I can't watch that that's what Jake or Zach Wild didn't have a beard yet wasn't it yeah no no this was that was still Jakey Lee but those live shows though where he grabs Jakey Lee by the hair and just throws him across the stage have you seen these that's ultimate cinema it's fucking badass 02:20:22.980 --> 02:20:51.040 He just grabs him and rolls him and he's still playing as he's rolling. Badass. All right, let's move on to the next one. Ozzy got more talk a week. Yeah, exactly. I did not see that one coming. I blame Chris. So Chris, you see how what Hannes told you, you see what happens. This goes off the rails, but it stays on the rails. It's kind of like being in the pub with my friends. Exactly. Oh, and we'll get like we're at the pub. Trust me. Yeah. Next news item. 02:20:52.980 --> 02:21:22.680 on a new album for 2024. And I'm looking forward to that. You know, I was pretty disappointed when Dallas left Nile because I really love Dallas and Nile. But that last album was pretty awesome. So it was high on our top albums in 2019, maybe. Yeah. 2019 now. There's a song on there called Oxford something Book of the Dead that is like the heaviest fucking song of the year. File Nylotic Rights. 02:21:22.960 --> 02:21:52.460 Yep, Vile Nyrotic. That was good. George, when you and I went and saw them, Dallas was gone, right? Yep, that was when we saw them with Amorphous, Overkill, and Swallow the Sun. Yeah, those two tours collided, and DC got the only show with both tours merged together. So we got all those four bands. That was a great deal. We twitted with them once. Their new lineup reinvigorated them, so if it's as good as the last one, I'll be looking forward to it. 02:21:52.960 --> 02:21:53.440 Sorry, Chris. 02:21:54.399 --> 02:22:01.740 We toured with them in Japan once in 2010. It was a weird tour. It was Obscura, Nile. Nile was headlining. It was Nile Tripticon Obscura. 02:22:01.980 --> 02:22:02.260 Wow. 02:22:03.039 --> 02:22:07.900 Really interesting package. And it was really cool, man, because people told bad stories about 02:22:08.100 --> 02:22:11.820 Carl Sanders, that he's a difficult person and how he punches people, that touches equipment 02:22:11.910 --> 02:22:19.820 and stuff like that. And we never knew it was true. We always heard these stories. I was like, okay, you know, we have to. And then one time they were sound checking and we were coming with some suitcases and we were lifting them. 02:22:19.980 --> 02:22:49.840 Like Hannes was lifting a suitcase over the cable of Carl Sands guitar and Carl Sands was like, you are my favorite person on the tour now. And then from that moment, he liked us a lot. And he even let me play, he even handed me his like pirate guitar to play, you know, it was really cool. And Dallas was still in the band. They were nerding it up a lot about the 80s red stuff and everything. And then on the way back, when we flew back home, George Colliers flew with us and he had so much gear with it that the airlines would always overcharge him for this. And he was like, can we, can I divide the gear? 02:22:49.980 --> 02:22:50.620 between you guys, 02:22:50.740 --> 02:22:51.740 so I don't have to pay extra. 02:22:52.040 --> 02:22:52.840 We did that. 02:22:53.320 --> 02:22:56.140 And he was inviting us to Burger King like 15 times or something. 02:22:56.240 --> 02:22:57.960 We were waiting in Abu Dhabi for like, 02:22:58.200 --> 02:22:58.660 we had to wait. 02:23:01.100 --> 02:23:01.980 That's an awesome story. 02:23:02.160 --> 02:23:02.300 I'm, 02:23:02.340 --> 02:23:03.320 I have to say, 02:23:03.880 --> 02:23:06.860 I'm a little disappointed that Carl didn't punch you in the face. 02:23:07.310 --> 02:23:07.580 Oh no, 02:23:07.680 --> 02:23:07.980 it didn't happen. 02:23:08.420 --> 02:23:09.560 I can't even believe that the story, 02:23:09.720 --> 02:23:10.220 you know, 02:23:10.360 --> 02:23:10.700 so it's like, 02:23:11.370 --> 02:23:13.060 I think we learned a little something here. 02:23:13.060 --> 02:23:16.540 You guys didn't mess with their stuff and Carl appreciated it. 02:23:16.840 --> 02:23:18.660 It was all the other bands that were doing jackasses. 02:23:35.539 --> 02:23:48.860 They're like cannibal courts. They do the same record over and over. But the last one was a reinvigorated lineup and it was just really good. They really came out. Is anyone missing the key part of this story in 2011 when Trypticon was playing? I know. 02:23:49.360 --> 02:24:18.480 It was an early Tripticon. And we love Tripticon. You guys are cool, but Tripticon's fine. So was that the first Tripticon record then, I'm thinking? It has to be, right? Yeah, it was fun. The first Tripticon album is the last Celtic Frost album, but you know. We had Steve DeCharge was playing bass for us on this album. And then like Tom Warrior asked, because Steve DeCharge was also playing an obituary, and Tom Warrior asked him, are you guys still playing Circle of the Pirates? 02:24:19.380 --> 02:24:48.660 Steve was like yes and Tom was like maybe I can show you how to play it right now. What death album did Giorgio play on? Human. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Marcus that's the greatest death metal band ever. It was the human lineup which is Cynic, Death and Steve DeGiorgio. I know. I don't for some reason I was thinking he was. Although individual thought patterns is pretty badass band too. And is that also the one that Andy LaRock played his solo on? Which one was it? Andy LaRock from King Diamond. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 02:24:49.380 --> 02:25:19.340 He does four or five solos on that one. Yeah. So good. All the death lineups are awesome. Yeah. That's true. But yeah, I mean, back to Niall. Love the last record. I've really liked Niall over the years. We got a video of Carl Sanders laying down vocals for the new LP. And he said it's going to be pretty brutal. I mean, I think all the Niall albums are pretty brutal. But yeah, looking forward to that. I love it when you have these kind of older statesmen in metal and they put out an album that 02:25:19.380 --> 02:25:49.340 Hey, youngsters, this is how it's done. You know, I feel like Niles done that. Incantation's done that. It's what Judas Priest did with Painkiller. Exactly. And we know Judas Priest. That's a new album too next year. I didn't. I forgot to put that on here. You should have put that on here. Judas Priest did the same thing with Firepower. I thought that was another album that stands out in their career. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned about them doing the, and I don't really know this dude, so please, somebody enlighten me. 02:25:49.380 --> 02:26:19.340 me. But they also posted a guy doing guest vocals named Jason Hosenstein. He was on Violin Melodic Rites, but he also did something on Cannibal Corpse. I'm looking at his stuff. He must have been in a band called Lettrous Nocturne. They posted that we were very proud of the fact that this guy was doing a guest vocal on the record. Jason Hosenstein. I don't know who that is. Huh? I don't know who that is, Jay. Okay. He's too cool for school. He's a guy that they, I don't know, he's got a couple 02:26:20.359 --> 02:26:49.320 So long story short, they also have a guest vocalist on the record, but it looks like he was on Violin Milotic Rights, too. Oh, let me see. Violin Milotic Rights, I have it right here. I was looking at his discography to see what the fuck this guy was. When I made my move into metal from hardcore, Niall was one of the first really big bands for me. So I've always been really attuned to whatever they're doing, you know? Yeah. So it is really 02:26:49.340 --> 02:26:51.480 It's really cool to see them still be able to perform 02:26:51.780 --> 02:26:53.500 on a high level given all this 02:26:53.700 --> 02:26:55.360 time that they've been out there as a band. 02:26:55.800 --> 02:26:57.620 So that and Carl is like 02:26:57.940 --> 02:26:59.360 60, dude. Yeah. 02:26:59.880 --> 02:26:59.940 Yeah. 02:27:01.120 --> 02:27:01.480 All right. 02:27:01.780 --> 02:27:03.040 So next up, 02:27:03.860 --> 02:27:05.480 filming has wrapped on the 02:27:05.660 --> 02:27:06.800 sequel to Heavy Trip. 02:27:07.480 --> 02:27:08.960 Who thought we would get Heavy Trip 2? 02:27:09.700 --> 02:27:11.380 Who here has not seen Heavy Trip? 02:27:11.960 --> 02:27:12.920 I have not seen Heavy Trip. 02:27:12.980 --> 02:27:14.100 I don't even know what it is. 02:27:14.600 --> 02:27:17.399 It's the Norwegian movie about 02:27:17.420 --> 02:27:47.320 I guess I saw this with the band right where they start the band. Yeah. Yeah. Where the drummer dies in the van where they play the show in the end where the singer pukes in the audience. Isn't that one? I think that's one. Yeah. It's like they're trying to get to this festival to play. But they don't. Yeah. But they don't really have a gig there. The singer lies to them because. Yeah. It's good. It's funny. It's amusing. You know. Yeah. I didn't. I just didn't get the title to bring a bell when I saw this one last year. But in answer to your question, George, like even the producers didn't think they were going to make another album. 02:27:47.400 --> 02:28:16.960 But it's endured. It's got a fan base. Did you like it, Chris? Do you remember liking it? Was it funny? Or is it a comedy? No. You don't get enough heavy metal-themed movies, so when you get them, you kind of, you know, unless they absolutely suck, at least in my case. What I liked about it was like that, you could tell the people who made it, they knew about metal. It wasn't superficial. Yeah, Deathgasm was like that. Did you see Deathgasm? That's probably my favorite. No, this one I didn't see, but isn't that the way this is? 02:28:19.840 --> 02:28:47.380 I don't know I'll look at it I know the band but the only thing I can tell you for sure is it takes place in New Zealand and it's super fucking funny and it was made by metal fans I don't know I'll look and see if it was they're actually putting out a comic sequel to deathgasm right now so that's been fun to read another news I tried to watch the metalocalypse movie the other day and I couldn't get through it even though I used to love that show yeah 02:29:15.240 --> 02:29:16.560 But this sequel, 02:29:16.660 --> 02:29:46.640 I'm really interested into it because they actually they mentioned a little bit about it and they said that the band is in jail their band's name is impaled erectum which is fantastic they're in jail and they're getting offered to play at the Wacken open air festival Wacken they're imprisoned did I say what did I say you said Wacken who the hell says Wacken what are you doing over there buddy I'm a little drunk so yeah so they're at Wacken but and so the guitarist's father is ill and so they have to find 02:29:46.680 --> 02:29:49.100 a way to break out of jail and go to the fucking Vaken festival. 02:29:49.580 --> 02:29:54.940 And it was filmed in Finland and also at the Vaken open air festival in Germany, 02:29:55.480 --> 02:29:59.140 which apparently was this epic mud bath. 02:29:59.290 --> 02:29:59.900 Cause it rained. 02:29:59.980 --> 02:30:01.080 It's always an epic mud bath. 02:30:01.840 --> 02:30:03.100 That's how I got my wound. 02:30:04.160 --> 02:30:08.660 So I'm really curious to see the footage that they got from that. 02:30:10.580 --> 02:30:10.900 But yeah, 02:30:11.000 --> 02:30:11.480 this is cool. 02:30:11.550 --> 02:30:13.480 Cause I did not expect a sequel to this. 02:30:13.680 --> 02:30:43.660 The Producers didn't expect a sequel to it because it didn't make money, but it's one of those cult classics, you know, that has endured. I mean, I think it has a huge, like a really high rating. If you go to like Rotten Tomatoes, like 94% or something crazy like that. Unfortunately, I don't trust Rotten Tomatoes anymore. I don't trust it either, but they were getting paid off for years, you know? Yeah. Or they like people vomit, you know, with bad reviews or something. But no, I mean, if it's getting ratings, then yeah. So yeah, I'm definitely 02:30:43.700 --> 02:31:13.640 Definitely looking forward to it. Yep. And our final news item. Tool says that they're going to start working on a new album next year. So we should expect that by 2037 based on the last one. It would be amazing if they came out with a new album in like within a year or two. That would be pretty cool. I'm going to give all you Tool fans a heads up right now. I've already heard or read a few just quick blurb interview stuff and how they're talking about their recording. 02:31:14.020 --> 02:31:43.520 process. It's not bodied. This is coming out anytime soon. It's weird too, because they've been talking about this since like fear inoculum release, which was 2017. Was it really that long ago? Yeah. I love tool and you know, I don't care how long they take, but you know, they do talk about this. They've also talked about remastering all their albums on vinyl. And that was, I think that was 2017 as well. 2019 market song. 02:31:43.700 --> 02:32:13.660 Not in 17, because you were on the podcast when that came out. Oh, the album came out in 2019. I think they were talking about remastered albums in 2017. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, I misspoke. I love Fear Inoculum. So you know what's funny, John? I know you just got the Heavies headphones. I don't know if Chris knows about the Heavies headphones, but they're fucking awesome. They're heavy. I listened to Fear Inoculum on that, and I already love the album. Completely different experience, because you know that album's really layered. You know, it demands that you'd listen to 02:32:13.660 --> 02:32:18.480 it under the cans and it's phenomenal. I hope they actually do 02:32:19.290 --> 02:32:22.380 do something with their older stuff because it's not that it sounded bad 02:32:23.050 --> 02:32:27.420 but if they put that much effort into their albums I would like to hear them 02:32:28.180 --> 02:32:31.140 maybe kind of revisit them. I think Rindema could be cleaned up a little bit. 02:32:31.320 --> 02:32:35.340 They've been talking about remastering. They've said it in 2017 02:32:35.640 --> 02:32:39.280 that they were going to do all the albums. Maybe not the newer ones like Fear Inoculum 02:32:39.520 --> 02:32:43.640 but they just haven't done it yet. I just hope it's not this typical remaster 02:32:43.660 --> 02:33:12.880 They bring the levels up. There we go. You know what? If they're involved, then I feel more confident about it. You know who works with that band, though, John? And he has all my faith. John fucking Barresi. Yeah. Oh, I mean, Harisi makes the deal, and those are amazing. And I told George, because he includes even this stuff. He includes all the fade outs on all songs, which I love, because I hate fade outs. Yeah. I don't think we talked about what John Barresi is going to do last in line now, too. 02:33:13.660 --> 02:33:42.360 I think he's going to do all that stuff now just because there's such a great reaction to the first. I actually love hearing when because in some fade outs, you're like, no, keep going. He's doing a killer solo. It's fading out. And I want to hear the end. And I love that stuff. So I hope that we get more of that. Actually, Chris, I gained a new appreciation for Vivian Campbell, who I always thought was pretty good. But I did what we're talking about is Joe Barresi remastered and remixed. 02:33:42.800 --> 02:34:12.780 Holy Diver. And he, as John was pointing out, he left on all the fade outs. There's no fade outs on the record and everything. And you get to hear that band sound more like a band. And also, Vivian King just kicks ass throughout. He's an amazing player, especially on the first two Dio records. I love his playing. It's a little bit, he always says, you know, it was kind of like a less controlled Sean Sykes. It's a little bit more accidental stuff in there, but that's kind of what makes his style. You know, you can't really copy it. It's like what Paul Gilbert said when he did the Dio record recently, where he did the 02:34:13.819 --> 02:34:16.900 He said he could practice 02:34:16.950 --> 02:34:21.160 in sophomore year, but he couldn't reproduce it like that because a lot of the stuff happens 02:34:21.340 --> 02:34:25.000 in the moment. It's so accidental. And a really cool style. And that's really what I like. 02:34:25.230 --> 02:34:28.120 Like, Vivan Campbell, I think, is a really aggressive kind of player. 02:34:28.640 --> 02:34:29.040 Yeah, yeah. 02:34:29.560 --> 02:34:31.680 So I really, really like that. 02:34:31.980 --> 02:34:34.960 You know what Barisa needs to do? You know what Barisa needs to do, right? 02:34:35.660 --> 02:34:35.960 What's that? 02:34:37.060 --> 02:34:37.860 Sabbath born again. 02:34:39.379 --> 02:34:42.580 You know, he's also a monster magnet basic guy. 02:34:42.740 --> 02:35:12.040 and he does the tool stuff. I love the guy. He's great. Fuck yeah, dude. I'll take a chance. I'm down for anyone that includes those extra bits. Yeah. Chris, what do you think about tool? I mean, as a, I'm not a big fan. I know in Alkalakis moments it sounds like tool, but they're mostly written by Hannes. He likes them a lot. I, it's one of those bands, you know, it's weird for me. Sometimes there are certain bands that you're kind of expected to like as a musician. So I have to play progressive battle and I just can't get into them. 02:35:12.760 --> 02:35:41.040 is actually one of them. Interesting. I should like it. I understand. It's interesting. It's a little bit, but I don't know. It's one of those things also where it really doesn't appeal to me emotionally for some reason. I mean, it was all this stuff because my ex-girlfriend, it really was one of her favorite bands and she listened to it all the time. And I was always hearing this music and I was like, I understand it's smart, you know, and there's something to it, but I just can't get into it. And it's also why you're my ex. 02:35:42.180 --> 02:35:42.340 - Cool is 02:36:12.020 --> 02:36:41.940 I agree and disagree because I agree with what you're saying but I feel like there's a lot of progressive bands that take from Tool. Sure. I mean, Marcus, without question, they're influential on modern progressive metal bands. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. Yeah, I think Lateralis would fall in that category. That's the best. But Jay, I also agree with you. I think they are lumped in when they shouldn't be for most of their albums. Like their first two releases, I mean, it's not even remotely close to progressive. No, I, 02:36:41.980 --> 02:37:10.540 I like the music videos and the visuals. Oh, the stop motion animation. Yeah, way ahead of their time on the videos. Isn't that guitar player actually working in Hollywood for the big movies and stuff? Absolutely. I want to say he was on Terminator and maybe Jurassic Park, right? I think he does all those videos as you probably point out. But now that's stated, Carbon Phrases definitely has a tool influence to it, right? I mean, like you can hear it. It does. 02:37:12.000 --> 02:37:41.740 The Opener, obvious tool influenced to it, so definitely. I mean, it's just like the other guys in the band like Tool a lot. I don't listen to them, really, but I don't think they're bad or anything. It's just not true. Thankfully, the other guys in the band like them. That's the thing when you have a band. When you make a band, you have to have some overlap, obviously, of stuff. If everybody loves Tool, it's not going to work. I love Chris's Fuck This Tool Bullshit. I'm going to go do my solo record now. Exactly, right. But everybody, I've gone to the prison to Running Wild, you know. But everybody, 02:37:41.980 --> 02:38:11.960 There's like an overlap of things we all like. But it brings his own influences in there. That's why it works. You know, if everybody had the same influences, it wouldn't be as good. The dude now colloid that likes Alan Holzberg, that guy's all right. I like that guy. I think he likes Frank now, too. That guy's all right. Here's my thought on Tool. If Tool is Prog, it's Prog you can play on the radio. You know what I mean? And it's just... Yeah. It's crossover. It's Prog Metal, but it's also crossover. Prog Metal can... 02:38:13.239 --> 02:38:18.000 It could be porcupine tree, it could be watchtower, it's completely different. 02:38:18.260 --> 02:38:19.440 Same thing with avant-garde. 02:38:20.220 --> 02:38:30.000 Avant-garde doesn't exist anymore. I think we talked about this, it doesn't really exist anymore because if you're avant-garde it means you're doing something nobody else is doing. But it's become a tagline now, unfortunately. 02:38:30.180 --> 02:38:41.960 I feel like nowadays it seems almost like we live in a kind of a renaissance era, kind of. You have this new wave of traditional heavy metal movement, we are great bands, you have this movement of death metal bands that sound like the 02:38:41.980 --> 02:39:11.940 90s death model bands. You have these festivals with all the 80s bands. You have all these guitar players on Instagram. You were trying to decipher the techniques of the 80s guys. It's kind of like a new generation living again through something all the time. Like in the Renaissance era, kind of. That's kind of how I feel. Obviously, it's getting more and more difficult to do something that hasn't been done yet. And doesn't it make you feel a little older, too? It does. It does. I mean, my approach hasn't even been that I need to do something new all the time. I just want to do something that 02:39:11.980 --> 02:39:41.880 I like this is nostalgic this is also okay for me. Whereas some other people I got for example like Moran Hannes they more have just like progressive mindset it always needs to be something. And I think all of these things have their justification to exist you know. But I really think the era we live through now yeah this is kind of in metal especially it feels like a renaissance to me. For sure that totally makes sense to me yeah I mean especially since part of that generation is now dying off you know the stuff that's being looked at. 02:39:41.960 --> 02:40:10.260 What's going to be when there's no AZ-DZ and Iron Maiden and Metallica when these bands are gone? When Sabbath is gone? We talked about this. We actually had a discussion about what is going to be the next big metal band. And what I said is that I think there isn't going to be one, but it's really going to be the festivals where you have just lots of different bands going on. That's going to be the big draw. Look at the bands we mentioned in that, Marcus. The biggest band was probably what, Macedon? 02:40:10.900 --> 02:40:39.440 And that group of the Hedda you're talking about? No, but I mean, that level, Gojira. Biggest metal bands in the world are going to be Avenged Sevenfold and Five Finger Death Punch. Biggest corporate bands in the world. Just went around and sailed all the places Maiden fills. That ship has sailed. That's gone. That's never happening again, I don't think, for metal. That's not any disrespect to any bands out there. Just think about it. Maiden's still playing in front of 50,000. 02:40:40.920 --> 02:41:08.580 I like the band, but isn't this band Sabaton? Aren't they pulling? Oh, Sabaton's... Yeah, they're pulling. They do in Europe. There's a few, it's funny. But over here, they don't drop. There's not a lot that are universal. Sabaton probably couldn't fill a club here, or could fill a club. They probably do pretty well here, but that would still be small compared to Europe, though. Yeah. It's funny. We were talking about that a minute ago, about Europe versus America, who's big where and stuff. It's so odd. I thought they were going to have line on that and figure out. Yeah. 02:41:10.920 --> 02:41:40.600 European band though to me. Yeah. Jay, just real quick. We mentioned, Chris mentioned Saga earlier, big band, you know, from the 80s and they started in the 70s. They're huge in Germany. They can't play a show in the States. They're from Toronto. Isn't that weird? They can't get anyone here. And they had a huge radio hits in the 80s, you know, but they play Germany. They play a sold out tour every time. Go Jaron Mastodon on our headline in the Mexico Metal Fest. I was mentioning. We're playing there with Obscura. 02:41:40.980 --> 02:42:10.880 Oh, you're playing? Oh, yes. We're doing the South American tour, and then the last date is actually Monterey. Wow. Yeah. It's on us playing with Triptocon. With Triptocon, yes. Lamb of God is pretty big, too. They're big. Yeah, they're also playing on the date, yeah. I think they're headlining the second day. Yeah, we also play the second day, yeah. But you're never going to have an arena band in the States again for metal, I don't think. It's going to be hard. It's going to be festivals where you have lots of 02:42:10.920 --> 02:42:40.840 different bands. And I think that has more to do with the landscape than the band. I mean, sure. Yeah. Because everything's so consumable and short now and blah, blah, blah. And it could change. You never know when a band's going to rise and take control. As long as Taylor Swift's at NFL games. Oh, God. I'm so tired of Taylor Swift. I just wonder. I don't want to see any more news about Taylor Swift. I'm so annoyed. It's like everywhere now. Yeah. Well, she's infiltrated the NFL. I saw a funny thing, and this was before that she was dating that guy. 02:42:40.900 --> 02:43:09.560 And it was somebody was there at her show. And they were like, I can't believe we're talking about this. And then they wrote on it, their little meme said, I can believe that there are this many Taylor Swift fans, but there cannot be this many people who go to football games. To Taylor Swift, you know, man, it's something about the guys from Alkali. They come on and we go places. We haven't gone before and we go a lot of places. Trust me. But we like to venture a little more. I think it's the extremely, Chris, what are your feelings on Taylor Swift? 02:43:10.920 --> 02:43:13.300 I'm not really familiar with. 02:43:13.720 --> 02:43:14.520 Oh, thank God. 02:43:14.800 --> 02:43:15.840 Let's move on to the next thing. 02:43:16.060 --> 02:43:16.440 Here's the thing. 02:43:16.470 --> 02:43:18.220 When I was teaching guitar to music school, 02:43:19.160 --> 02:43:21.580 I always had to listen to all the stuff that's popular right now, 02:43:21.720 --> 02:43:22.660 like the HE and everything. 02:43:22.840 --> 02:43:24.640 So I was a little bit more in the loop. 02:43:25.420 --> 02:43:26.860 But in the last couple of years, 02:43:26.960 --> 02:43:28.360 I've only been teaching on Skype. 02:43:28.520 --> 02:43:30.200 So it's only like fans that want to learn my stuff. 02:43:31.020 --> 02:43:31.880 And I really haven't, 02:43:32.460 --> 02:43:35.020 I don't know when was the last time I've listened to the radio anywhere. 02:43:35.270 --> 02:43:35.660 I think so. 02:43:35.660 --> 02:43:36.000 I really, 02:43:36.540 --> 02:43:38.780 I'm really just not familiar with it at all. 02:43:39.520 --> 02:43:39.900 Go with it. 02:43:40.360 --> 02:44:10.240 That's our world. Stay there. You just earned like 35 points in the metal meter. That brings you up to a total of 35 points. That's one of our new releases. Yeah, let's go. New releases. This week's new releases. Yeah, they are. Spend your hard-earned money now. All right. First up, Cannibal Corpse, Chaos Horrific, their 15th album. 02:44:10.780 --> 02:44:39.660 Our resident Cannibal Corpse fan, Will, is not with us today. But I can... Let's just say it's another Cannibal Corpse record. It was Will's album of the month last month. I mean, I talked about this a little bit earlier. I brought it up. I think it's really good. But there's absolutely no surprises on here. It's kind of like with ACDC, you know. Same song structures, tempo shifts. But you know what? It doesn't fucking matter because it's Cannibal Corpse. It's a quite limited style. You know, it doesn't have too many parameters. 02:44:40.380 --> 02:45:10.340 So much you can do with them. Otherwise, it turns into another band. But it consistently kicks your teeth in and pummels you into a quivering body meat sack. And that's what I want from fucking Cannibal Corpse. And they can't go anywhere else because if they do, then it ruins everything before that. What I thought was interesting, before the album came out, they put out the video for Summoned for Sacrifice. And that's not really the Cannibal Corpse style. Cannibal Corpse is all about serial 02:45:11.379 --> 02:45:40.060 and just, you know, horrible, gory things happening to people. They're not, they've never been like, particularly on the satanic side of things. And Summon for Sacrifices is what? I mean, you know, it's just a blip on the radar of the album, but it is curious. When I think about it, when you think back to 1998 or something, when Gallery of Suicide came out, it was quite a progression, actually, from the early records, right? I mean, it was quite, it was, for that time, it was actually quite progressive and some things on there that, 02:45:40.780 --> 02:46:07.660 that was still within the framework of the style, but taken to the maximum. But obviously, the last 10, 15 years or something. Last 10 or 15 years. Hey, if there's a surprise in this record is that it came so fast after the last one, and that's about it. I mean, it did come pretty quick. Yeah, but I think we're all going to say the same thing as Cannibal Corpse. I mean, and that's fine. I like it. There's nothing wrong with that. 02:46:10.380 --> 02:46:40.040 They play and continue to not have to have second jobs. It will be Will's number one album of the year, which is consistent. Really? You think it is? It might. It's definitely top five. Yeah. We'll see. I'll call it right now. So next up is probably something else from Will's list, and that is the new Dope Lord album, Songs for Satan. It's their fifth album. They're a Polish. They're labeled Stoner Doom. I wouldn't really call it Stoner Doom. Stoner Doom's a little more Sabbath-y to me, maybe. 02:46:40.360 --> 02:47:10.060 This is pretty stoner, dude. I don't know. To me, it's heavier than a lot of stoner doom stuff, but I think it's just more doom. You know, I mean, bands like, oh, who's that one? Jay left the one with the freaking lizard guy on the cover that we like. King Gizzard. King Gizzard. King Gizzard and the lizard wizard or whatever. Lizard King or whatever. You know, that's stoner doom or elder. That's like stoner doom. You know, to me, this is stoner doom anywhere. This is proggy stoner now. This is like slow rumble fuzz, dude. 02:47:10.120 --> 02:47:39.180 Yeah. Is it fuzzy? It is pretty fuzzy. I'm not a big fan of that style and I don't like smoking weed, but if you enjoy one or both of those activities, you're going to get high on this fucking dope lord. Yeah. Yeah. I've always, I've always been kind of like on the band name. I'm like, it's just kind of a dumb name, but I do kind of like the music. So that's why when you say it's not stoner doom and their name is dope lord. I know. Kind of wrong, George. 02:47:40.120 --> 02:48:05.280 A little bit. But yeah, I mean, it sounds like all the kind of Stoner Doom stuff where they have that fuzzy kind of guitar layer. There's not much variety to it. You know, it's good for the genre. If you like that genre, it's got good solos to it. If you like that, I think you'll like this. It's just not my jam. I don't know. I don't prefer that kind of music, but yeah, I listen to it because you put it on the list. You're welcome. 02:48:08.380 --> 02:48:38.340 Next up, we have the new Krieg album, Ruiner, their ninth album, New Jersey Black Metal. I think it's their first album in nearly a decade of new material. Wow, I didn't realize that. Is it New Jersey now that he lives in Richmond? I don't know. I took New Jersey from Metal Archive because that's where it said it was. But I know he lives in Richmond now. Yeah, Neil. He also writes for Decibel. Decibel. I never got into them that much. Yeah, it's too bad Matt's not here because I think he would like to be a good one. 02:48:38.360 --> 02:48:43.140 I'd like it well enough I mean it's you know it's pretty much straight up 02:48:44.861 --> 02:48:51.480 second wave third wave whatever wave black metal here's the thing with it I think it's pretty 02:48:51.770 --> 02:48:58.600 solid black metal album it has a lot of that drum galloping to it with those kind of swirling black 02:48:58.750 --> 02:49:04.420 metal guitars over the top and they just keep that going throughout the whole album so if I had a 02:49:04.420 --> 02:49:34.400 The criticism of it, it would be that I'd like to hear a bit more variety or some tempo shifts on it. And I feel like this band could incorporate some other elements into their sound that would make them more dynamic. But when you just said they haven't been around for a long time, now I kind of get it. They got to get their sea legs and then maybe they can move into something else. But I feel like they have room to do more. It's good black metal. But if they inject something else into it, I think they can go to 02:49:34.420 --> 02:50:02.220 to another level. Yeah, I was kind of hoping for a little more out of this than what we got. You know, what we got is adequate, but I was hoping for a little something extra and didn't get that. Yeah. Still, Chris, have you listened to any of these records that we're talking about? No. I've heard the new panel one, but the others I have. On the whole list, I've only heard the self-pay on one, but yeah, we're getting to that. Okay. Yeah. Self-paying on. It's fucking good. Oh, yeah. Spoiler. 02:50:04.440 --> 02:50:34.400 New Primordial Album How It Ends. It's their 10th album, Irish. They're still calling it Black and Folk, but I... It's a screen metal. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't call this Black Metal anymore. Not even close, yeah. Yeah, but it's still pretty cool. I'm not as big of a Primordial fan as I used to be, but I still liked it enough to pick it up, so... Anyone else? It's solid. I didn't know what to expect from it. I didn't dislike it at all, but I didn't hear anything that... 02:50:34.800 --> 02:51:04.400 I know Markisan and I have the same period we like the most from them which is that kind of middle late 2000s stuff it hasn't really ventured much different from a lot of the last couple albums but it's still solid stuff though yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna completely go from both of you and say I think it's great and I think not only that but in here there's a couple reasons why but one of the main reasons is that if I didn't know he was Irish I would guess he was Irish his writing in the lyrical sense is so fucking Irish 02:51:04.420 --> 02:51:34.380 And there's something that appeals to me about the Irish poetry thing, or the Irish poet thing. I think it's fucking great. I thought the last one was really good, too. Cool. Listen, I'm a huge primary defend. I have all their records on vinyl. I was super excited for this one. I got the deluxe edition of it. But I, unfortunately, I feel like it just turned out to be an okay record for me. I think it starts off with a bit more aggression and fire than 02:51:34.420 --> 02:52:04.220 Exile Amongst the Ruins, which I liked. And that was fun. But the LP kind of, it quickly kind of slowed down and kind of settled into the cruise control for me. And yeah, it's still primordial and I still kind of enjoy spitting it, but I just kind of found it to be a bit of an underwhelming effort. You know, John was talking about that middle period, you know, like, you know, so like to the Nameless Dead, 02:52:04.400 --> 02:52:09.240 or something like that's my favorite from yeah i don't expect bands to in gathering 02:52:09.500 --> 02:52:16.200 wilderness nameless dead really good i want to punch but um you know i don't expect a band to 02:52:16.580 --> 02:52:22.580 duplicate like my favorite records because there's um songs there's records i like i love where 02:52:22.710 --> 02:52:26.920 greater men have fallen like wheeled lightning to split the sun which is the last track on that it's 02:52:26.960 --> 02:52:30.980 like one of my fucking favorite songs one of the greatest opening tracks ever in that album 02:52:30.980 --> 02:53:00.760 That's the end track, though. No, I'm saying on that album. The opening track is just amazing. Yeah. This one, I don't have that feeling with it. You know, it's fine, but I don't know. I feel like I hope this is not how it ends for Primordial. I don't think it's meant to be taken literally. No, it's not. But it could be because Primordial does not put out albums, you know, a lot. No, I know. I think that you and I being semi-lukewarm, Jay loving it. 02:53:01.619 --> 02:53:30.320 I'm surprised by the variation here. I think maybe they've settled in. Because it might be one you guys need to spend a little more time with. Or maybe I'll be like, eh, after four listens, I'll be like, okay. Yeah. I don't think, I think it's, it might be my least favorite Primarky album. Also, I hate the cover. I absolutely hate it. Oh, but it's a take on something else though, Marcus. I was reading it. I know. I read about it too, but I still hate it. Yeah. 02:53:31.939 --> 02:53:59.960 I don't dislike it at all. I think it's a decent album. It's just I like the other stuff better. I'm struggling because Primordial is like almost a lock for my top 25. I don't think it's going to make my list so far. But now I've got the heavies headphones. So I have listened to it on there and I still I just kind of feel the same way. But I will listen to it a few times more because I do love Primordial so much. But I kind of wonder if maybe it might be time to hang it up. 02:54:00.340 --> 02:54:00.620 Yeah. 02:54:00.940 --> 02:54:02.180 I have to listen to this. 02:54:03.240 --> 02:54:05.060 It was my thought to be honest. 02:54:06.020 --> 02:54:07.180 Let's talk about self-reviewing. 02:54:07.600 --> 02:54:07.760 Well, 02:54:08.360 --> 02:54:09.320 before we do that, 02:54:09.600 --> 02:54:10.060 I want to, 02:54:10.380 --> 02:54:11.600 it's come up a couple of times now. 02:54:12.010 --> 02:54:13.440 I want to talk about these heavies again. 02:54:14.100 --> 02:54:18.480 I think I mentioned on the last episode that I had gotten my pair and, 02:54:18.480 --> 02:54:19.800 and undersold them completely. 02:54:19.940 --> 02:54:21.440 And then I undersold them completely. 02:54:22.600 --> 02:54:23.940 And Markisan got his, 02:54:24.420 --> 02:54:26.540 which caused John and Matt to both order them. 02:54:26.740 --> 02:54:27.600 John has gotten his. 02:54:27.800 --> 02:54:27.860 Yeah. 02:54:28.040 --> 02:54:57.820 because I said I was waiting for you guys first to get them because you waited so long to get them. Mine came in one month. Yeah. George was like, you talked about it on the episode and then I got mine and I listened to them. I'm like, George, what the fuck are you talking about? These are amazing. They've opened up all new fucking musical experiences. This is like the Star Trek of headphones. Okay. It's like brave new worlds have been open to us. Okay. It really opens up the stereo field of what an album is supposed to sound like. And, you know, 02:54:58.040 --> 02:55:27.320 Because we're all kind of freaking out about them so much, I thought we would revisit that real quick and just be like, you know, we're not getting paid to say this, but we bought ours. These headphones are amazing. I don't know if you know what the heavies are, but they're headphones amazing. It sounds like something. The thing is, for someone who likes music a lot, I have some terrible listening habits. I have time to listen to music in the car when I'm traveling on the plane. On the plane, I usually bring my shitty like... You should get these. 02:55:28.840 --> 02:55:55.720 They're made for metal. Sennheiser, the people from Sennheiser, lead these heavies and then work with metal musicians to try to make the perfect headphones for metal. I'll put it this way. For newer albums, I don't know how much better it sounds. Like, for instance, George and I were talking about your guys' new album, which I believe was released in 2496, wasn't it, George? Yeah. 02:55:58.020 --> 02:56:25.660 Great. That's great for flack. And it sounds great. It does. But I found that albums that didn't have that kind of sound quality that you listen to with these sound even better because it pulls out, like you said, Marcus, on things you haven't heard before. I've been going on, not disclosing anything that you won't find out about, but George and I have been listening to a certain Van Halen album right now for other reasons. 02:56:26.780 --> 02:56:56.500 And I've been sending messages like, what the fuck? Because you're hearing things that you don't normally hear on your other headphones that it pulls out. And that's the beauty of it. If you're a fan and you want to go under your cans, you should think about investing. If you realize how much are they? They're like 300, 300. And I think Matt sent me the coupon email if I got them for $40 less. So I got 260. But yeah, I remember how much I paid on Kickstarter. Cause we, 02:56:56.800 --> 02:57:26.760 George and I got them when they had the campaign and Matt got them later. Yeah, I paid like 150 when I pre-ordered them a year and a half ago. Yeah, I think that's right. And to be honest, if you want good headphones, you have to pay something for them. You're just not going to get headphones for 50 bucks. They're just not going to be that good. Exactly. And I have consistently replaced my Bose headphones because sometimes I wear them when I hike and stuff and I sweat and they tear up and shit. Long story short, they're 300 bucks, the ones I buy. And Bose 02:57:27.640 --> 02:57:28.320 I've had Bose. 02:57:29.030 --> 02:57:30.820 Bose have solid stuff. 02:57:30.950 --> 02:57:31.220 They do. 02:57:31.500 --> 02:57:31.960 They're fine. 02:57:32.400 --> 02:57:39.220 I've always had Sennheiser, so I was really intrigued when they put this up on Kickstarter and were like, you know, it's the people from Sennheiser. 02:57:39.730 --> 02:57:40.980 Those are the headphones I preferred. 02:57:41.780 --> 02:57:43.640 And these are even better than the ones I had before. 02:57:44.360 --> 02:57:47.680 But what I really like, and George tried to share this with us on the cast. 02:57:48.300 --> 02:57:56.040 When you turn them on, there's like this metal voice on it that said, like, power on, hell blocker on, 02:57:56.060 --> 02:58:25.620 which is like the noise cancellation. It's hell blocker activated. Yeah, something like that. I don't know what it is. It's very satisfying to hear that. It's like Vin Diesel. That you can use them both wired and Bluetooth. And you don't have to turn them on to use them if you're wired. But you should because it sounds a lot better. It sounds pretty good though even wired without the hell blocker. I didn't even know you could because I'm used to turning my headphones on. And today, 02:58:26.060 --> 02:58:55.720 I played them with it not turned on. And then while the song was playing, I turned it on. And it was like twice as loud and clear. Nice. That's the only issue I have so far is some albums that are lower volume releases are still a little hard to get a pickup on. Some of them. Today, I tried something new. For the first time, I plugged. I've been doing the Bluetooth. I plugged in my heavies and I plugged it into a headphone amplifier. And I listened to Newman. 02:58:56.600 --> 02:59:25.940 Yeah. And oh my God, that was amazing. It's like, it sounded good before, but it sounded even better. They're the best headphones I've heard for metal. So yeah. I mean, listen, we have no sponsorship. They should sponsor us for all. They should as much as we talk about them. But they are the best headphones I've ever heard for metal records. And that's no joke. And they sound good for other records. So don't get me wrong. Hard Rock sounds great because there's a lot of stuff. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, 02:59:27.641 --> 02:59:56.040 I never would have guessed. I've been blowing money on headphones for years looking for something that like ups the game a little bit and never until now have I found this oh shit moment of such a vast improvement in sound quality. I will say I did not use them for this podcast because my other headphones are much better for this podcast. Why don't I run user podcast? I wouldn't do that, but I'm saying the volume levels are better. Okay. I tried them. We had them 02:59:56.080 --> 02:59:58.780 before you guys came on and I was like I'm not getting the same volume levels 02:59:59.420 --> 03:00:03.360 just the last thing I'll say is the battery life is really good because I've been using 03:00:03.570 --> 03:00:23.560 bluetooth I've never used bluetooth headphones forever I've always plugged it in because I just thought that was going to be give me better sound but the bluetooth is is the connection's great and you should get better sound and wired technically you should I haven't been listening to it that way just because I wanted to try that bluetooth and I do really like that because I can just walk around the house 03:00:24.619 --> 03:00:53.340 That's pretty awesome. That's yeah. Anyways. All right. Now let's move on to Sulfur Aeon. There we go. Seven Crowns and Seven Seals is their fourth album. German Black Death Band. We've been fans of these guys for years, particularly Jay, I know is a huge fan. What's that? Yes. Chris is a big fan. Yeah. And we got the promo and. We got the promo a long ass time ago. It was like two months ago. 03:00:53.580 --> 03:01:23.240 And nobody said anything. And I was like listening to this going, this is amazing. Why is nobody saying anything? Particularly Jay. I'm like, because it's so early. I think we got, I did last cast. Yeah. I had it in my, what I've been listening to. And then you were like, Oh, finally, somebody said something. Yeah. But no, this is a great album. Yeah. Great. And I, and I don't know, sometimes when it's like, there are things that we put in the box sometimes that we all love and nobody says a fucking word about it. You know what it is? I think it's one of those. I think it's also too, 03:01:23.580 --> 03:01:53.460 It's two months out before release. I feel awkward talking about it and people don't even know about it yet. We can, but I like to kind of talk closer to the release date. I feel this one, it sounds quite different from the last one. I still don't know if I like it as much or more as the last one. I have to listen to it more, but the last one had this really monolithic kind of huge. I don't know. I put this on. I just instantly saw these pictures. 03:01:54.120 --> 03:01:55.620 I thought it was more spheric. 03:01:56.300 --> 03:01:56.460 You're right. 03:01:56.700 --> 03:01:57.700 The new one sounds more, 03:01:58.620 --> 03:01:59.960 it's not necessarily a bad thing, 03:02:00.060 --> 03:02:02.140 but it sounds more like a band playing actually. 03:02:02.370 --> 03:02:02.460 Right. 03:02:02.700 --> 03:02:03.160 But I didn't know. 03:02:03.320 --> 03:02:05.540 I kind of liked the last one. 03:02:05.800 --> 03:02:08.980 The things were so obfuscated and you didn't instantly understand what's happening. 03:02:09.070 --> 03:02:10.020 You had to listen more like, 03:02:10.030 --> 03:02:10.160 Oh, 03:02:10.280 --> 03:02:10.600 what's going on? 03:02:10.600 --> 03:02:11.040 And the new one, 03:02:11.760 --> 03:02:13.000 you understand it more instantly, 03:02:13.220 --> 03:02:14.520 which can be a good thing. 03:02:14.620 --> 03:02:19.540 But I think sounds like with Mobile Angel in this kind of like Lovecraft kind of realm. 03:02:19.630 --> 03:02:23.220 I sometimes like it when it's not so clear instantly what's going on, 03:02:23.250 --> 03:02:23.480 you know, 03:02:25.439 --> 03:02:53.360 It's a big Lovecraftian Black Death with more haunting atmospherics like George said this time around. I appreciate that. It is different than the last one and I love the last record but I don't want a band to do exactly the same thing and that's the cool thing about this. Yeah, I wouldn't want them to do exactly the same thing. I think it's a little bit more obvious. It sounds sometimes a little bit more like a melodic death metal band. Yeah, I can hear that. Yep. 03:02:54.279 --> 03:03:23.080 But a cool and consistent band, and I'm really excited to press on this too, because one of the things that I have liked about them so much was that so many metal bands kind of touched the Lovecraft thing a little bit. And that atmospheric thing, that murky thing they do and everything works so good with it. And I'm pretty sure all of us have read some, if not all, Lovecraft. I have read all of it. Yeah, I think Sulphur Aeon does it, if not the best, 03:03:23.540 --> 03:03:53.520 of the best Lovecraftian sound by far. I think... Consistent band. It's not a bad record by a long shot. I mean, I'm going to agree with it being... The atmospherics, I need a little bit more of it, but it's great. It'll be on my list at the end of the year. So in terms of Lovecraftian metal albums and conveying the Cthulhu sound, I think that the previous Bluedouse Nord album, Disharmonium, Undreamable Abysses, that is what it sounds like when the 03:03:53.560 --> 03:04:23.520 Great Old Ones are coming to consume your world. I would agree, you know. Yes. The last two Blisod Nord albums. Yeah. It is just crazy. But anyway. It's just like complete darkness. I think it's beyond Lovecraft. I think, I think, I think Mermaid Angel did this quite well, you know, in the Steve Tucker. Oh, sure. I mean, it's pretty good. Yeah, definitely. And then it was this band Portal from Australia. I mean, it don't really do. Oh, yeah. But it's like really scary music. It just sounds like really like straight 03:04:23.560 --> 03:04:53.300 from hell. That stuff's great. It's super technical, though, too. Yeah. George, those last two blues outdoors are nightmare metal. I like put that on. I'm like, man, fuck, I'm starting to think of some bad shit right now. I don't want to go to sleep. It's true. All right. Our last new release is the new album from Woe, Legacies of Frailty. It's their fifth album. They're a U.S. black metal band. This is back to a solo. 03:04:56.500 --> 03:04:57.720 I think I'm 03:04:58.820 --> 03:05:01.120 I said this is just a singular guy now isn't it 03:05:01.420 --> 03:05:05.480 I think that's correct John yeah so this is a band that benefited 03:05:05.660 --> 03:05:07.640 from me having the the new headphones 03:05:08.640 --> 03:05:10.980 because I've never been a big whoa fan in the past 03:05:11.640 --> 03:05:15.660 I know Will has and this is an album that I put on 03:05:16.140 --> 03:05:18.480 just to do my due diligence of like 03:05:18.560 --> 03:05:20.680 all right it's a new album I should check it out for the podcast 03:05:21.340 --> 03:05:49.240 And then next thing I know, I was like, holy shit, this is really good. This is the album that, you know, we talk on Messenger every day and I was pushing this one for you guys. And that's why I listened. Yeah. And because I liked the previous albums, but this one is, I don't know, just much better to me. It's darker, more complex, just better songwriting in it. It's great. It's really good. I've listened to it a ton. Yeah, it's really good. 03:05:50.200 --> 03:06:19.720 Yeah, I thought it was, I'm not a world fan, but I thought this was pretty good. I think, Marcus, you and I listened to it on New Music Friday. We were talking about it, and I thought it was good. George and I saw them. Where did we see them? What was that Forest Fest we went to? Really? They were there? The Shadowwoods? Yeah, I think they played at Shadowwoods. I feel like they did. They might have. It was at night, though. And I remember you said you wanted to stick around and watch them for a little bit. Maybe I'm wrong. I thought we saw them. That was Vastum. 03:06:20.699 --> 03:06:49.940 The fucking new Vastum record is so good. But I mean, I could be wrong. I may have thought they were there. Maybe we saw them early in the day. I don't know. I can't remember. It's possible, man, because they weren't really on my radar until I mean, they were, but they weren't really on my radar until this album. Now, this one, by far, I think I like the most of all their stuff. Oh, yeah, I agree with that, John. Like I said, I like, whoa, I don't know if they've made my list before, but I've always kind of liked them. This one, it's another. 03:06:50.100 --> 03:07:19.540 level for me. I think they leveled up. It's just weird because it started out as a solo act then it became a band and now it's back to a solo act. Yeah. I think so. That's cool. All right. Yeah. He was like Chris was saying when he does his solobs I can't do everything I want to do this guy's like this band is limiting me I know it's go back to doing it myself. Kick everybody out do it yourself. Yeah. All right let's move on now to what we are listening to. 03:07:43.319 --> 03:07:48.580 And we are going to ask Chris, what are you listening to these days? Mostly old stuff. 03:07:49.500 --> 03:08:18.780 So I've been listening, wrote, actually, I prepared for this task. A couple of albums that I've been listening to recently. So one is by the German band Holy Moses, the album The New Machine of Liechtenstein from 1989. Very super technical thrash metal. The rest of the discography is not like this is the most technical one. It's more in this Voywoods, Watchtower, Corona, kind of run lots of odd meters, crazy solos. The drummer was Uli Kursch, who wrote a majority of the record. He later played with Halloween. 03:08:18.900 --> 03:08:23.720 when they did better than raw on these kind of albums yeah but i really underrated record like for 03:08:23.830 --> 03:08:28.700 everyone who likes technical thrash metal i definitely recommend checking this one out i've been 03:08:28.880 --> 03:08:35.240 listening to the don docken solo record up from the ashes this is an incredible lineup with bill white on 03:08:35.350 --> 03:08:40.060 guitar and chel noram on guitar it's also a very old record from 1990 you know some for me some of the best 03:08:40.740 --> 03:08:45.600 oh that was the first post docken record yes and for me this is some of the best solos in hard rock 03:08:45.620 --> 03:09:15.120 like the guitar work of Bill White. Bill White was actually in Watchtower on the first Watchtower record. So it did a complete 180 in terms of the style. Yeah, and John Norrum plays on it. Mickey D, who was right after he left King Diamond, and Peter Baldis from Accept. It's a phenomenal record, in my opinion. I've always loved The Wicked Sensation by Linschmour, the Dokken split, and really haven't listened much to the Don Dokken solo record until recently. I think it's really amazing. It just sold me on it. I actually just discovered Dokken, believe it or not. 03:09:15.600 --> 03:09:17.760 about them, but I just never really gave them a chance. 03:09:18.020 --> 03:09:21.720 Like this, this, this, this Don Dockin solo record. I like it more than any Dockin album. 03:09:22.420 --> 03:09:23.880 I'm going to, I'm going to get it today. 03:09:24.460 --> 03:09:26.140 Yeah. Then I've been listening to this band. 03:09:26.740 --> 03:09:28.360 They only made one album. They were called Oracle. 03:09:28.800 --> 03:09:32.740 It's a U S power metal kind of band from 1992. 03:09:33.659 --> 03:09:42.480 It's like pro power thrash kind of with like very high pitched vocals and super long songs with like loads and loads of riffs. 03:09:42.580 --> 03:09:44.560 And every song the riff count is super, super high. 03:09:44.940 --> 03:10:13.960 It's not super accessible, but it's one of these things when you listen to it. The album's called As Darkness Reigns by Oracle. Singer was also in Mystic Force. I think he died a couple of years ago. They only did one record in 1992, like some neoclassical type of guitar leads. Very underground album that I think people who like this American style of power metal would actually really like. Then I've been listening to this also very obscure album from Italy from the 80s, 1988. There was this band called Arza Milch. 03:10:14.000 --> 03:10:43.980 I'm not sure if you ever heard them. And they sound kind of like Fate's Warning. Like 80s Fate's Warning, but on speed. Like it's kind of like Awakening the Guardian with like Walls of the Elder Halloween. Nice. Wow. And a very bad production. Like Super Dicataton is horrible, but for some reason the production helps to give this album a really interesting atmosphere. But it gives it that nostalgia feel though, right? It does. So I don't know what this would sound like if they, I mean, the song would still be good because they're 03:10:46.739 --> 03:11:12.620 It's kind of neoclassical, but not in the way like 90s, Europe, how about bands? It's very different. It's more like inspired by the romantic era, I would say. So it's really unique. And there's really one of these albums where I think there's no other band that really sounds like this. Really, really interesting. I've been listening to the very first Amorphous EP, Privilege of Evil, from 1991. It became a melodic, death model band, but they did it really like old school. 03:11:14.020 --> 03:11:43.980 I think that had a soft spot for this Finnish death metal from the early 90s because it sounds so rotten and so from the depths of hell it's just pure evil. I mean the road didn't even know what they were doing they were young kids at that point but there's just such an atmosphere to it that I think this is like someone says what's death metal supposed to sound like pure death metal I would always say it's like this record. And another one I've been listening to is this band not the 03:11:44.040 --> 03:12:13.800 Indie Rock Incubus, but the Death Metal Incubus, they were later renamed O-Proprium. The album Beyond the Unknown, also from 99, is kind of like Sepultura-ish Death Thrash. Also like lots of riffs, crazy solos, very super, super raw. I think they were Christians actually, they had a Christian lyrical theme, but also a lot of like horror movie stuff. The cover looks a bit like the Tombs of the Blind Dead movie. Yes, I really love that record. So that's some stuff I've been listening to. 03:12:14.540 --> 03:12:42.660 It's a good selection. Mostly very old stuff, but yeah. I want to check some of that out. Man, I got a lot to listen to from your recommendations. Yeah, but I'd be curious to hear what you think about it because some of it's like super underground, but like all the people I showed it to were like, oh, this is actually awesome stuff. Oracle caught my attention when you mentioned that. I'm just glad you mentioned Tunes of the Blind Dead. Not many people know that. I find a lot of people in America who know that movie. I love that movie. That's one of my favorite horror movies. It's so good. Yeah, it's so good. 03:12:44.020 --> 03:13:13.920 But Oracle, they were actually called Prodigy before, and they had to ruin because of the Technoprotigy or something, and then they released the outman's name, Oracle. Yeah, but then they basically disappeared. It's really amazing. Cool. I'll check that out. Thank you. Nice. All right, Markisan. I can tell you, John, I'm drinking this fucking Belgian triple from Una Henny. That one's really good. I like that one. I mean, I've had it before, but it's been a while. Love it. All right, so what am I listening? 03:13:14.020 --> 03:13:42.660 Yeah, let's see here. All right. First one for me is this fucking thing just came out. Dream Unending Worm Star Path. This is a split LP from 20 Buck Spin. Came out yesterday and we got the promo a few days before that. And it was another quick drop from the label. They put out two molds new record like this as well. And I love this record. Worm is fast becoming one of my favorite bands. They just get more epic. 03:13:43.180 --> 03:14:12.660 I think my friend Phil Tugas is playing guitar for them. Oh, really? Yeah, he played in Eternity's Ant, my power metal band. He played in our second record, Unyielding. Nice. I think he's doing the solos in Worm or something. He plays in Worm. We saw them at Decibel. They were great at Decibel this year. Yeah, they were amazing. They hadn't played live much. It might have been their second show or something. I don't know. But yeah, I love Worm. I feel like they're becoming one of my favorite bands. They just get more epic. They get weirder every time they put something out. They're heavy. They're theatrical. 03:14:13.000 --> 03:14:42.960 and they're just fucking unpredictable and i really enjoy that then dream unending they also turn in a couple of stellar tracks i love their their first album i like their first album i love their second album song of salvation and of course some of the players are in two mold which i think influenced the new two mold album the last dream unending and but these songs that they put on this split are like an extension of that and they're very 03:14:43.000 --> 03:15:12.780 You know, it's an album length split. Each one is a pretty good sized EP. They both get about 20 minutes on it. Yeah, it's quite good. And they did it because I can't remember, John, was it like a couple of years ago, they both released albums and they were kind of trying to do an anniversary of that or something like that. There's a tie in because they're both on 20 bucks, Ben. They both released albums at the same time previously. And yeah. So even though they're very different, 03:15:13.060 --> 03:15:42.960 I don't know there's something about it that it goes together even the warm stuff sounds a little different it says more of a gothic vibe to it this time which is cool all I like the last two albums or the last album the last EP and this more than the previous stuff I mean blue nothing that's awesome was phenomenal it was a couple minutes longer it probably would have been my favorite album there damn it yeah so it was my EP of the year even though we didn't do that we sometimes do that but we didn't do it last year yeah 03:15:42.960 --> 03:16:12.360 That's cool. Because our episodes are too long already. Yeah. So I love that one. I've also been listening to Pupil Slicer. George, you'll appreciate this blossom. I love that album. That's grind, you know. It's grind. I wouldn't call it grind. It's grind. I wouldn't call it that. But was it your album of the month? I don't know if it was. It was definitely on my mid-year. We just talked about it. So I had heard it when you mentioned it, I think maybe on mid-year, but I only listened to it once. 03:16:12.560 --> 03:16:41.340 I liked it when it came out, but I kind of put it aside because we just had so many other albums. We get so many other promos and everything. So I came back to it last week and it just really clicked with me. And they played this kind of, I wouldn't call it grind at all. I would call it math metal. It's like really kind of complex, but catchy at the same time. I really love the way the album shifts and it's brutal. It's beautiful, but it's just very unique. It does have a bit of grind in it, but it's got so many other things in it. 03:16:41.400 --> 03:17:09.960 It's hard to categorize. It has definitely evolved from the grind roots. Yeah. I really like that record a lot. I actually bought it on vinyl from Bucket of Blood the other day just because I've been listening to them so much. I'm like, I have to have this on wax. And then the next album I have on my list is Cult Burial, Reverie of the Malignant, self-released. This is another album that dropped yesterday, I believe. But I've been spinning the promo for a few weeks now. 03:17:10.300 --> 03:17:38.420 And they play an aggressive, sinister style of black and death doom. And they have these kind of great melodic guitar passages that kind of slice through that heavy darkness. And I like that eerie, snarling aura that's on the album. It's spooky and furious. Really good combination. I really like the last Cult Burial record. 03:17:39.080 --> 03:17:42.320 This one's even better than that. I think I'm going to be spinning it a lot. 03:17:43.060 --> 03:18:06.900 Then the next one is Blood Oath. Lost in an Eternal Silence on Caligari Records. Really high on this debut record from Chile. It's just a really compelling, fun mixture of 80s death thrash and early 90s, I would say, prog death. 03:18:07.760 --> 03:18:37.460 You know, when it was like in the early stages of progressive death metal, the riffs on the album are fantastic. But what really stands out to me on Blood Oath is the wild oddball bass lines and the rollicking drums on this. The rhythm section for this band is fucking killer. It's really cool. And I don't say that much about albums that come out. So if you haven't heard this one and any of that sounds intriguing, 03:18:37.520 --> 03:19:07.020 You know, give it a shot. I mean, it kind of reminds me of some like sadist stuff, which actually I think didn't say just released an album too. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So probably reminds me a little earlier. Sadist. Yeah. We just got the promo. I'm not sure if it's out. It might've come out yesterday. Oh yeah. Not it's in the next couple of weeks. I haven't listened to the promo yet. Next album on my list is a hundredth of stars, pallid scavengers on a necrotic husk independent release. 03:19:08.961 --> 03:19:37.140 Ripping Black and Sludge Metal with really big Doom sections folded in. And I've liked the band's first two albums, but this one blows those away because the production, George production, so much better. The first two were like muddy, kind of cavernous, and that really worked against the band because they have this very high energy style. 03:19:37.520 --> 03:20:07.420 This one kind of cleans that up. It cleans up the murk and completely uncages that like massive guitar sound that was always there, but you couldn't really hear. So I'm excited for this band because I think they've found a producer. They found a way to put out their music that really makes them shine. Selenoplexia, Exalt and Despair, self-released. I just found out about this band. 03:20:07.540 --> 03:20:36.460 from Meteor Gem. Meteor Gem is an awesome metal record shop here in Chicago. I buy quite a few things from them. They just sell metal, which is awesome. And the band is also from here in the city. And they play this blackened death metal with an atmospheric, almost cinematic scope. And so I'm kind of digging that one. Seraphic Entombment. Sickness Particles Gleam on Everlasting Spew Records. 03:20:37.520 --> 03:21:06.960 I'm sad Matt's not here, but in the words of the immortal Matt situation, this is dirty, dirty death doom. And it's a fantastic debut record. They weave these long dirges of unsettling cavernous death metal, but with big funeral turns, funeral doom turns. And the shortest track is eight minutes. I think the longest one is like 13 minutes. 03:21:07.520 --> 03:21:37.200 I think only five songs on it. But each song is like a crawl through an eerie section of Swamp. And I really dig this. It's also kind of a clever the way they do their death metal. So I've always liked kind of Doom mixed with that. And, you know, it's nice to see a debut where they kind of nail it, you know. Obviously, there's always room for improvement, but really great debut. And then the last one on my list is a band we've talked about before, Battlemaster. 03:21:38.040 --> 03:22:07.460 Greed, Greed Gripped, and Spell Spoilt self-released. This album came out fucking today. And it features Andy Horn, our friend from Alive. Yeah, that's why it sounds familiar. Yes. They actually talked about it when we interviewed them, and I was like, fuck, I need to listen to this. And I actually like, no offense a lot, man, I like Battlemaster better. But this band has been around for 20 years, and they play this fantasy-themed, black and dead, 03:22:07.540 --> 03:22:37.480 So you get sorbstabbing songs about barbarians, owlbears, fucking dwarven mischief. And it's great. And I really liked the last record and this one's even better. And so I got to listen to it a little bit this morning. They had some songs that were out already, but I get to listen to the whole album this morning. But I remember when we interviewed Loud Night and they told me about Battle Masters. I had to listen to this. I was right up my alley. Listen to it. And then I immediately got the album and then I bought a T-shirt. 03:22:37.540 --> 03:23:07.500 of Battlemaster. So it's cool that they're putting out another new record. So you guys should check that one out. Definitely. All right, John, what do you got for us? All right. I got a long list, but we've already talked about half of them. So it won't be that long. Oh, boy. All right. So my first one, a band called Becker Quillish. I hope I said that right, but I'm sure I got it wrong. The Flesh of a New God, the second album from, here we go with that phrase again, avant-garde metal. They got black metal, just in a 03:23:07.520 --> 03:23:37.100 Death Metal. They're an Italian band. They're on I Void Hanger, so expect what you don't expect. Yeah. Which is typical I Void Hanger releases. Yeah. All right. I did not think I would dig this, not because I don't like the band. I just never got into it, but I actually liked the new Sirith Ungle album. Dark Parade came out yesterday. They're, you know, an 80s U.S. power metal, which they call that now, which back then was just a U.S. metal band. It's good. 03:23:37.140 --> 03:23:41.400 I like it's solid I've enjoyed it the couple times I've listened to it 03:23:42.460 --> 03:23:47.220 we mentioned the Marcus I mentioned dream unending and worm star path the split it's great 03:23:48.080 --> 03:24:07.100 John I just want to go back to Sirith Ungo I listened to that I thought it was terrific and the band just announced that their 2024 is going to be there last year that they tour yeah and I think the last they kind of reformed and redid the albums not this one but the one before it and that one was good too yeah this one's even better it's even better yeah so I 03:24:07.120 --> 03:24:35.000 I kind of want to see him on tour because I think, I mean, they've been around him a really long time. Over 40 years. Yeah. They were inactive for a long time. But the new albums are fucking, the singer sounds exactly like he did back in the day, which is insane to me. Yeah. And if you like that, better. Yes, I agree. That's what caught me is I was like, man, he sounds really good, but it just, it doesn't sound forced what they're trying to do, which right now, Chrissy mentioned is tread metal. 03:24:37.100 --> 03:25:07.080 big right now everyone's starting to do that and these guys are one of the original bands you know from that period and it's a good release it's a great record john yeah so if you like if you're a fan of these newer bands that are doing that go back and check out some of these older ones that started it Markisan you mentioned dream on ending and worm the split star path great i love so good it's you know 20 minutes from each band that's perfect you know my next one obsidian tide the grand crescendo it's the second album for a 03:25:08.920 --> 03:25:37.080 It's got a slight opiate opethian feel to it, but it incorporates to kind of the Middle Eastern Israeli kind of folk stuff with it. It's cool. Dig it. Next one. Omni Vortex Circulate. They are a Finnish kind of technical death metal band. Jay, I think you liked their first release when it came out a few years ago. It's good. I like it. And I like technical death metal, but we talked about this earlier. A lot of the bands now, it's because 03:25:37.120 --> 03:26:07.080 become sterile because it's just all about technicality and there's nothing else to it. Chris said that just perfectly. Yeah I agree 100% and I like I'm a prog guy so I love technical playing but at some point it's okay what else is there and I think that the Omni Vortex has some interesting things on it that I like. We mentioned Primordial, Soul for Aeon yep both good albums although I like the Soul for Aeon more. Another Ivoi Hanger Weirdo album 03:26:07.120 --> 03:26:35.740 which seems to be their whole catalog, which is what I like about I Void Hanger. Vertebra Atlantis. Oh, yeah. Dialogue with the Eeriest Sublime. This is really good. Good, John. Second album, like Black Death with some proggy elements and some symphonic elements. It's hard to describe. If you like Cosmic Petrefaction, the main guy from that is part of this band. It's cool. So different from Cosmic Petrefaction. Yeah. 03:26:35.860 --> 03:27:05.820 But it has that kind of spacey kind of outer realm feel to the scents and keys that they use. And the last one, which we haven't mentioned yet, but I thought I'd give it a plug, the new Wolves in the Throne Room Crypt of the Ancestral Knowledge EP. It's a two-song black metal, atmospheric black metal, two-song kind of dark folk dungeon Sith. So four songs. It's a solid EP. I like it. I always like Wolves in the Throne Room, but this is kind of cool because they're mixing both 03:27:05.840 --> 03:27:35.600 Both their styles together are one little thing. It's awesome. I almost put that on my list too, but I had so many other ones. I was like, I'll forget it. But I just saw Wolves on the Throne Room. And I, if you haven't seen them live, they're phenomenal live. Didn't Galen give you some crap about not? Galen gave me some crap. So we had Galen on the podcast. Wolves on the Throne Room came here to Chicago. I didn't tell Galen that I was going to the show and he gave me crap for it. And I was one of my buddy, the captain. 03:27:35.840 --> 03:28:05.460 And I've talked about this before. His mother passed away. I kind of want to just focus on him. I didn't want to focus on a thing. I didn't want to bug Galen. But next time they come through, I will contact Galen and we'll have some beers before or after. And they play some wolves because they were amazing. And it was cool because Captain came with me to the show and his girlfriend, Allison, also came. She doesn't go to a lot of metal shows, but she really likes wolves in the throne room. And they had a really good time. You know, if you haven't seen them live, they always, 03:28:05.840 --> 03:28:34.620 They're very theatrical. Their stage presence is amazing. And they just, they bring it on stage every single time that I've seen them. Nice. Nice. All right. Were you done, John? Yeah, that's it. All right. Jay. I'll be quick, partially because I've been moving. And so that has slowed my role a little bit, but now I'm here and settled. So for Eon, I've still listened to the horrendous record. I really think that's fucking great. Chris has to get that. 03:28:35.860 --> 03:28:36.620 I've been to you 03:29:05.860 --> 03:29:35.120 I need to keep go back to Newman, put it back in and spin it again. It's going to be in my top, probably my top 10 of the year. We do a top 25 list at the end of the year. Such a good fucking record, so I'm kind of pitching that to people right now. But I spent more time listening to that record than anything else this week. I think there's so much stuff that comes after multiple listens. There's more things to... I even double-played them. Sometimes I listen to a song. What's this on the album? Did I play that? 03:29:35.860 --> 03:30:05.800 This album was done over such a long time period because we started writing many years ago and then I tracked the rhythm guitars for Sanas back in November 2021 actually and then after that I went on tour with Obscura for a year or something then I finished my solos so it wasn't super fresh in my memory everything in the meantime the guys had worked on the vocal arrangements and things like that right so when it all came together I was like wow you know and then there's even some stuff I mean I record it but I'm like 03:30:05.840 --> 03:30:35.500 I don't even remember we put these in there. So for example, there's like these little solo fills in the opening track. And I was like, I was to flow, man, it was a really good idea that you put these on there. And he's like, no, I didn't play a single note of this. This was you. I didn't remember what he did. I didn't even remember. Who is this guy? Yeah. And I'm going to say, I liked the album. And then I listened to it on the heavies because I wanted to digest it because I like progressive metal, 03:30:35.540 --> 03:31:05.520 But sometimes it takes me a little bit to get into the really progressive metal. And when you put on those heavies, completely different. Like I could hear all of those things and really appreciated like the album so much more than the first time I listened to it. So just, just a stellar effort there, Chris. I have one thing to mention too, because there's people who might be listening who don't really know alkaloid. I think we've talked about alkaloid a lot in previous episodes. So I think people do know, but there's one other thing that we're kind of 03:31:09.319 --> 03:31:35.360 It's super fucking heavy. I mean, you guys are a fucking heavy man. I think it's actually, this album is much heavier than the last one because the last one obviously had a lot of this progressive rock influence, which is still there in a new one, but like really put the focus more on the death model, I think this time. And I think this was on Perzo. Yeah, like Hannes, he's a genius man when it comes to dialing in the tones, like with his amp settings and the microphone, the experiment so long until he has the perfect tones. 03:31:35.540 --> 03:32:05.220 And you listen to it and you're like, yeah, this is the guitar tone I always wanted. But this was actually unproved. Like, let's put a little bit more gas metal in there this time and let's make it more heavy. And it's funny because there's a lot of nuanced conversations that we're having here, but one of the things I love more than anything is fucking heavy. And it's heavy as fuck. And you've achieved in places that sort of Andy Sneak, never more dense guitar tone, which is one of my favorite fucking guitar tones. It's just so fucking electric and yet, 03:32:05.560 --> 03:32:07.600 organic at the same time. So yeah, 03:32:08.260 --> 03:32:10.980 I've been listening to them a lot and that's, 03:32:11.460 --> 03:32:13.220 I listened to it more than anything else this week. 03:32:13.460 --> 03:32:14.260 And I'm glad I did. 03:32:15.140 --> 03:32:15.420 Chris, 03:32:15.520 --> 03:32:16.400 I don't want to ask you, 03:32:16.540 --> 03:32:16.680 I mean, 03:32:16.720 --> 03:32:21.140 obviously you moved more into progressive death metal and now you're doing Alkalide. 03:32:21.240 --> 03:32:21.640 Is this, 03:32:22.440 --> 03:32:22.760 I mean, 03:32:22.820 --> 03:32:25.380 is this the band you always kind of imagined doing? 03:32:25.540 --> 03:32:29.780 Is this the music that you always kind of imagined doing for progressive death? 03:32:30.819 --> 03:32:31.620 With Alkalide, 03:32:31.620 --> 03:32:32.820 it's actually more like a, 03:32:33.680 --> 03:32:34.260 how do you say? 03:32:34.860 --> 03:33:04.420 It's really more like a group effort where the thing really happened accidentally just by the different players and characters. And for some reason it turned into what it is. It's not really, there hasn't really been a plan or something for this. And I think Alkaloid is the vision of everyone involved. If you would hear more what solely my very personal vision would be, I think the Last of Square record is closer to that because this is a record where I wrote a lot of songs alone. 03:33:05.020 --> 03:33:34.700 So I love songs like the Neuromancer, Solaris, the Beyond, in Adversity, these kind of things. They were like how I kind of envisioned. And what you hear, Alkaloid is really more what happens from everyone. Even though individual characters write complete songs and things like that, but still the songs grow so much by what everybody else. The song is greater than the parts. Have you ever written like a whole song for Alkaloid? I did. I did. The new one I did, The Fungi from You Goth. That's my song I wrote on the first one. I wrote All the Mountain Dew. 03:33:36.580 --> 03:33:41.240 That's why I introduced you as guitarist and songwriter, because I know you write songs. 03:33:42.480 --> 03:34:04.760 Yeah, and then I have obviously my own bands, like Obscura. I wrote a lot on the last record. Then Eternus, and I write basically everything on my solo stuff. And then there's some bands where I only do solos, like Imperadox or Retromorphosis, which I just joined. But I love it. It's something where everybody writes. It's really one of these. Normally, it's strange, because normally I don't believe in these things. Normally I always find a band has a better quality with one or two main songwriters. 03:34:04.820 --> 03:34:33.220 Oh, really? Interesting. But Alkaud is really one of these weird cases where I really think it works. We're equal partners in it. That's very interesting. And I haven't made a very good experience with this, but Alkaud is the first band ever where this actually works, right? That's awesome. That's cool. For some reason. Yeah. I want to just say one thing about Alkaud. I will go on record and say I was the person that said this is the one band to rule all. 03:34:34.820 --> 03:35:04.440 when they released Liquid Anatomy, just so we know. It was my whole Lord of the Rings thing about it. I was also pretty drunk when I said that. I got one band to rule all. We just have to play live more because the band exists since 10 years, 3 records, but we played, I think we played 8 shows or something, so we really have to, we really want to try to get some tours or something, but yeah, it's difficult. Hey, Albert. We financed, everyone is older, so yeah. Yeah, good decimal. I would definitely love to do that. Oh, we'd love it. Yeah. Hannes was there with. 03:35:04.860 --> 03:35:34.780 Yeah, that's right. He played with Tripticon there. That's true. All right. And he is a working razor. I have a working razor, so we only need to get 40 other guys. So yeah, we'll see about that. Sweet. Yeah, right. All right. My list, it's longer than usual, shorter than Markizons. I don't know how many I have. I don't know, at least 50. But I've only got nine. And some of these are metal. Some of these are not. 03:35:34.840 --> 03:36:04.800 So I'm going to try and go through it relatively quickly. This first one is not remotely metal, and that is the new Blink-182 album One More Time. Really? I was surprised. I was like, well, let me just check it out because, you know, I like my bubblegum punk. You know, it's my dirty little secret. And it's not bad. And the title track for this song choked me up a little bit because, you know, the one guy quit the band and 03:36:05.479 --> 03:36:23.300 This song is basically about, everybody's leaving, it's talking about how the one guy got cancer, you know, Travis Barker was in the plane crash and got burned really badly, and the song is about how stupid they are to not get along, and how they're all brothers and they love each other, and they want to do this one more time, and I was just like, 03:36:24.560 --> 03:36:27.440 No one cares about Blink-A-M-182, but next album. 03:36:27.620 --> 03:36:28.820 Right, next album. Okay. 03:36:29.160 --> 03:36:30.720 If you like sitting, that's all it matters. 03:36:31.440 --> 03:36:31.740 Exactly. 03:36:32.699 --> 03:36:34.660 That's probably the worst offender on here. 03:36:34.700 --> 03:37:04.680 So it gets better from here. Next I have Filth is Eternal. Find out their, I think it's their first album. It's kind of hard. They're not on Metal Archive because they're not, they're more like hardcore punk or something, but they're heavy and Decibel, you know, pimps them on some of their stuff. I like it. Next up is a band called Photo Crime and that's Photo with an F, not a PH. It's their fourth album, Accelerated. I don't, I'm not exactly sure where they're from. Previous albums were sort of 03:37:04.700 --> 03:37:34.680 Sisters of Mercy like which I'm always into the God of Electronic stuff. I do. You did not like the show though, George. Yeah, no, the show was bad. Show was bad. But this album adds a little bit of a Leonard Cohen vibe too. So very cool. Next up is the new Gridlink album, Coronet Juniper, their fourth album. They're a New Jersey tech grind band. You might actually dig this one. Hey, if you like Pupil Slicer, you might be able to get into this. This is not like 03:37:34.720 --> 03:38:04.680 Like noisy grind. This is you say grind. And then I am skeptical. Hey, if you like pupil slicer, you might like the gridlock. This is maybe not really grind either. I listen to it, George. I listen to it. It's pretty cool. It's called grid link. I've heard of it. Coronet Juniper next up leaving the metal realm briefly. The Jesus and Mary chain. I was in the I'm doing a bit of a been doing a deep dive on them. I was in the car the other day and the 03:38:04.700 --> 03:38:34.260 The Song Head On from their third album Automatic came on the radio. And I was like, hey, I know this song because the Pixies covered Head On. And I was like, oh, damn, I have to listen to this. I haven't listened to these guys in forever. And I'm really enjoying just, you know, going back, listening to the old Jesus and Mary Chain stuff. Back to Something New just came out. The Lion's Daughter Bathhouse, their fifth album. Fifth album? Yeah, they're from St. Louis. I'm just like... It's like a progressive sludge. I don't know. 03:38:34.300 --> 03:39:04.120 So it's definitely getting a little more accessible, but it's still pretty cool. LA metal. But it's cool. I like it. And if Matt was here, he'd back me up. Yeah. I liked the last time I think was on my top 25. I don't know how I feel about the new album though, George. It's yeah. I wasn't sure at first I started off and I was like, this is maybe a little more sleazy. Yeah. But then by the time I got to the end, I was, I was a believer. So not a believer, but a believer. Okay. 03:39:04.300 --> 03:39:33.900 Only three more. One of them I already mentioned, so I'm not going to go into it. The new Rolling Stones album, Hackney Diamonds, their 26th album. Holy shit. And their first in 18 years. So, you know, they're at least 3,000 years old. That's crazy. Next up. They're older than me. Yeah. That's not possible. Yeah, it is. No, it's not. Yeah, it is. Chris, I don't know if you know this, but John is 107 years old. Yeah. I look good, don't I? Thank you. Thank you. I look good. 03:39:34.280 --> 03:40:04.240 And I have all my faculties, which I'm pretty damn happy about. And I mean, his hair. Come on. It's a little gray, but it's still there. Minus two, I wouldn't tolerate, but it's a super deal. Hair? Well, we're going, I don't need hair. All right, two more. Tarpond, Petrol is their second album. They're a Swiss doom band, or I like to call it Alice in Sludge. That was good. I like that. Because it's heavy, sludgy doom stuff with vaguely Alice in Chains leg. 03:40:05.199 --> 03:40:34.160 It's lane-ish. It's lane-ish. And last up, this one's not out yet, comes out next month in November, but we got the promo and this is Zoth, X-O-T-H. Oh, yeah. ExoGalactic. It's their third album. There's Seattle Tech Death Thrash Band. And this is what I was referring to earlier as Tech Death Having Depth. It's not just, this is not an, okay, I like Archspire, but this is, you know, but that is 03:40:34.300 --> 03:41:01.600 very much like the epitome of like drum triggers and just like very sterile, albeit extremely crazy and whatever tech death. This has a lot more going on than the average tech death album. And it's super cool. It's definitely going to be on my list. So it's good. Oh, big words, George. That's right. Or X off. 03:41:04.720 --> 03:41:34.220 I don't know what Jay's doing over there, but his head keeps getting big in there, and then I see his arm. Everything's big. That was a little weird. I realized that looked a little... I just realized how odd my arm was looking. I'm just waiting for a pterodactyl to fly into that room. That's my pterodactyl sound. Right now, Chris, man, I could have left two hours ago, and I decided to stay. I need to do Thunderdome. Yeah, we're so close now. Let's do Metal Thunderdome. 03:41:34.300 --> 03:41:34.420 Now. 03:41:39.181 --> 03:41:40.300 Metal Thunderdome. 03:41:42.480 --> 03:41:43.600 Metal Thunderdome. 03:41:43.600 --> 03:41:46.980 Metal Thunderdome. 03:41:47.380 --> 03:41:48.700 Two bands center. 03:41:49.120 --> 03:41:50.280 One band leaves. 03:41:50.620 --> 03:41:52.120 Metal Thunderdome. 03:41:52.720 --> 03:41:57.980 So, as you know, Metal Thunderdhome, two bands center, one band leaves. 03:41:58.500 --> 03:42:02.200 Jay gave us the ridiculous task. 03:42:02.920 --> 03:42:32.760 It's a ridiculous task this time that I will let him explain, but fuck you, Jay. We've done some interesting ones over the course of time, and then this is one of the more obvious ones that I think we've avoided for item. We've avoided a lot of stuff for a while. Yeah, but I got to thinking, you know, and it's just 1986 produced two seminal records that do represent some genre-specific type stuff, at least on one end of the spectrum. Long story short, Master of Puppets and Rain and Blood, 03:42:32.920 --> 03:43:02.880 both came out the same year so that's what they have in common not to mention they did kind of both spring out of the same scene and i kind of felt like when i chose this myself that one of them was a slightly more obvious choice but now i'm not so sure and i'll just say this it's a sophie's choice of a thing you don't necessarily choosing one doesn't mean you don't like the other one but that's the way it feels though it's i choose this i feel like i'm like neglecting the other one so i don't know 03:43:02.880 --> 03:43:32.860 I'll make one final comment about the quality of these records and they both are legendary records but neither of them has one bad song on them and you know member of the beast could have done without Badlands and you know a peace of mind could have done without the one about the dinosaurs you know and I'm the one about the quest for fire I like quest for fire and I'm just talking about Iron Maiden but I can sometimes pick a right there's not a lot of perfect records these are both pretty perfect and with that 03:43:32.900 --> 03:44:02.820 I cast it to the crew and you gotta choose one. And feel free to rationalize it however you like, out loud or in your heart. Yes. And Chris, as the guest, you get to go first. Okay. I've been thinking about this for quite a while because both albums are hugely influential for me and Money Model, even though actually none of the two are my favorites by each band. Would you please share what your favorite is? I agree. I agree with you. So my favorite Metallica record, 03:44:02.900 --> 03:44:32.860 is actually South of Heaven, but still. Me too! But here's the thing. This kind of helped me with the German. I love both, Martha, for the reasons you mentioned. But it's super close. I think both albums are super important for me personally as a musician and for the development of the genre of everything. I give a slight, tiny preference to Rain Blood. And the reason is because of our uncompromising 03:44:34.960 --> 03:45:04.860 itself, I like other Slayers stuff more because I also like Reign Blood and the slower songs and the longer songs and I think Reign Blood is basically one thing that they're doing but the fact that someone did that to such a degree, how uncompromising it is. This itself, like the attitude to this kind of album so special, you know, and kind of 03:45:04.880 --> 03:45:33.300 for a lot of things that came later on. Even though Metallica probably has some more epic songs on Master of Probitz, the longest songs, the production is better, the guitar tone is better. There's many reasons to choose Master of Probitz over Rain. But for me, the thing that decides this is basically the attitude of this like not giving a fuck and non-speed, you know, pure aggression and completely being completely uncompromising, which I think is a very, it's a very bold artistic statement to do this. 03:45:33.400 --> 03:45:35.440 And for that reason, 03:45:35.530 --> 03:45:36.340 I chose Raining Blood, 03:45:36.630 --> 03:45:42.360 even though I love Master of Puppets and there's many reasons I could give why I would prefer that album. 03:45:42.520 --> 03:45:45.540 But just being uncompromising with your artistic vision, 03:45:45.710 --> 03:45:50.340 I think there's a few albums in history that are like Raining Blood in that regard. 03:45:51.440 --> 03:45:51.940 Outstanding. 03:45:52.010 --> 03:45:53.260 And a great rationalization. 03:45:53.420 --> 03:45:54.660 It's a machine gun of a record. 03:45:54.980 --> 03:45:56.400 So Marcus, 03:45:56.600 --> 03:45:57.180 don't do your worst. 03:45:58.240 --> 03:45:59.240 Metal Thunderdome, 03:45:59.700 --> 03:45:59.920 1986. 03:46:01.840 --> 03:46:02.560 First of all, 03:46:03.380 --> 03:46:30.160 I can't believe we haven't done this matchup before. It's fucking so obvious and so awesome. I honestly didn't even think of it. I think I was trying to think of something more complex for some reason. So shout out to you. Kudos to you, Jay, for fucking putting this one out there because all these casts, we haven't done this one. But yeah, that said, easy pick for me. Super easy pick for me. 03:46:34.900 --> 03:47:02.600 This is my fucking water bottle. So, yeah, listen, I like Metallica. I love Slayer. And obviously both of these albums are watershed records. That's Opeth. Good. Nice, George. But I've lost count of how many times I've listened to Rain in Blood. And if I want classic thrash, Slayer is the band that I love. 03:47:03.760 --> 03:47:32.200 I'm going to play Random and Blood. I'm going to play South of Heaven back to back. South of Heaven, as you all know, is my absolute favorite Slayer album and one of my all-time favorite records where they slowed it down and didn't rest on the laurels of Rain and Blood and did something different. And I thought it was just phenomenal. But Random Blood, like one of my favorite records. I don't even, I'm going to look for Thresh. I don't even think of Metallica, to be honest with you. 03:47:32.640 --> 03:48:02.300 Recently, Dave Lombaro was in the news because he told Metal Hammer that he thinks Slayer is the best of the four, the big four bands, which is, you know, Slayer, Metallica, Anthrax. And obviously he's biased as a former drummer of Slayer, but I completely agree with that. I don't. Slayer to me is head and shoulders above those other bands. And Rain of Blood is my measuring stick for albums as well. 03:48:02.740 --> 03:48:32.520 The runtime on it, anything that is less than that is an EP. Yep. Totally arbitrary number. Arbitrary. Completely arbitrary. Just me. That's how I do it. But it's the best. Yeah, which is like 28 something. Yeah. 29, I think. Yeah, 20. Something like that. That reminds me, Chris, that I wanted you to take something back to Hannes. You know, on this podcast, Hannes is basically like the every drummer. Because he's in, we like to joke, 03:48:32.640 --> 03:49:02.540 that he's in every freaking band out there. Because, you know, it's every album that comes out. You're like, oh, yeah, there he is. Yeah. But if he didn't play drums, then he mixed it or something like that. Exactly. But Dave Lombardo is making a play to be the American every drummer because he's in every American band now. So he was in Testament. He was in Testament, Suicidal. I saw him with the Misfits. He's in the Empire State. 03:49:02.640 --> 03:49:32.540 Bastard Band that I just was my album of the month last month. So he's coming for the throne. Just tell Hannes to watch his back because Lombardo's coming for him. All I know is that legendary bands right now. But listen, Dave Lombardo, can he do a Jack Bauer fucking impression? Probably not. Hannes wins. All right, Tom. Whoa, everyone on my screen just shifted in position. Yeah. 03:49:33.040 --> 03:50:02.560 Yeah, I might as well, for whatever reason. Marcasson has his hand up. I'm number one. Oh, now I'm number two. I don't know what happened. It shifted again. All right. Okay, so, yeah, John. All right, not my pick. The Matt situation just sent me his pick. Oh, yeah. Nice. Yeah, because I sent him a message while we were talking. I said, this is the least bitchy episode I've ever been on. And so I told myself I was going to have to get pissed and start yelling for no reason. But then I realized I should get his pick. 03:50:02.640 --> 03:50:32.220 The Matt Situation is going with Slayer. Of course he is. Yeah. Yeah, Matt Situation. I'm thinking that we are safe to say Will is going to go with Slayer. Yeah. Yeah, of course. And here comes John. So wait, so Slayer already won, so we really don't need to do any more of this podcast. I really don't care what you think. I'm still going to get my pick. Do it, John. I'm going with Metallica. Actually, no, I'm going with Megadeth, Peace Self. 03:50:35.300 --> 03:51:01.460 That's your 86 album, John. That was my 86 album. That and Fate's Warning. Right on Candidate. Nice. But with Jay's pick here, which I think is a great pick because I do love both albums. And I would go with Slayer because I think Dave Lombardo is infinitely better drummer than Lars. Although Lars does what he needs to do on this album. He does. However, Slayer doesn't have Cliff. 03:51:02.620 --> 03:51:32.580 That is evident on this album, but the attitude of this album, and I love the airiness on this album more than Slayer's. You're right. It's an onslaught for 28 minutes. It doesn't stop. It's the same thing, and I like actually that Metallica is a little more spacey in their sound. I mean, the thing that should not be in Orion. There's some Lovecraft there. Fuck. And then, of course, everyone always talks about Battery and Master of Puppets. Fuck you guys. Damage Incorporated. Damage Incorporated. 03:51:32.620 --> 03:51:36.660 It just destroys everything Fuck it all and fucking no regrets 03:51:37.240 --> 03:51:39.020 And also it's just a great name for a song 03:51:39.420 --> 03:51:39.600 Yes 03:51:40.819 --> 03:51:43.540 It should have been just the name of like their fan club or something 03:51:43.630 --> 03:51:44.840 You know, Damage Incorporated 03:51:45.100 --> 03:51:46.440 No, no, no, I wasn't, that's a good point 03:51:46.500 --> 03:51:48.800 But really the song that sold me between the two albums 03:51:49.140 --> 03:51:51.280 Is the song that's the least thrashy 03:51:51.380 --> 03:51:52.800 And that's the thing that should not be 03:51:52.860 --> 03:51:53.860 I just love that song 03:51:54.480 --> 03:51:55.640 I love everything about it 03:51:55.740 --> 03:51:59.400 And I'm going with at least Cliff and Kurt 03:51:59.620 --> 03:52:00.820 My boys from my hometown 03:52:01.779 --> 03:52:28.980 But still, if we had to choose, there'd be a third column, and it'd be Megadeth for me. I didn't think Slayer was going to kind of clear the tables. They ran it. Oh, right. You go last. I forgot. I'm so used to being the last in line. Dio reference, sorry. So I love both of these albums, as I probably made clear earlier when I told you off. Choosing one over the other is very difficult. 03:52:30.840 --> 03:53:00.180 being in a world where I have to choose one over the other, it just makes no sense. So what it ultimately comes down to is a release date. What came out first, George? Yes. March and one came out in October. That's right. So I have to go came out first, didn't it? I had to come out. I have to go Metallica because did master puppets came out in March. Rain and blood came out in October. By the time rain and blood came out, 03:53:00.840 --> 03:53:30.800 I was so indoctrinated in Master of Puppets. Okay. I mean, that was the Nirvana Nevermind of the 80s. You know, that was the album that changed everything. It like, it leveled the landscape. It was the only album I listened to from March until the beginning of fall and probably until this later album came out. You know, and it's just, you know, it blows my mind that I could choose something over Rain and Blood because honestly, if I'm going to 03:53:30.820 --> 03:54:00.800 reach for an album. I'm probably going to reach for Rain and Blood. Yeah. But gotta go Metallica. I actually thought you would pick Metallica. Yeah. Just because that's your jam. They're both my jam, you know. Yeah, but Metallica seems like more your jam. Metallica was my favorite band in the mid-80s. Yeah, exactly. Right, right, right. But Slayer was definitely a close second. I'll finish it up with the fact that Slayer was my favorite band from the first time I heard Shona Mercy and then would 03:54:00.840 --> 03:54:30.800 go down to the local video store and have them because there was no good record store and they would order me records i remember getting hunting chapel i remember getting hello weights and metallica i was a late adapter in metallica i didn't think kill them all was a game changer everybody thought it was i thought it was like oh this is good i liked it ride the lightning though read that i thought ride the lightning was a huge jump for them all's not that good it's okay it's okay it's a new wave of british heavy metal album that was the gateway to what is to come it's 03:54:30.820 --> 03:54:30.940 Bye. 03:54:31.740 --> 03:54:31.800 Bye. 03:54:32.840 --> 03:54:34.280 It's better than all right, but whatever. 03:54:34.380 --> 03:54:36.040 But then I agree that ride the lightning. 03:54:36.150 --> 03:54:37.800 I agree with Chris and Marcus. 03:54:38.000 --> 03:54:39.820 It was such a huge jump forward that I was like, 03:54:39.980 --> 03:54:41.580 holy fuck, these guys are kind of something serious. 03:54:41.760 --> 03:54:42.380 And that was close. 03:54:42.640 --> 03:54:44.460 But I was pretty obsessed with them by that point. 03:54:45.220 --> 03:54:49.700 But still, there was this underlying thread that every successive Slayer record that came out. 03:54:49.730 --> 03:54:54.640 I should also mention that these were both of these bands, major labor debuts, too. 03:54:55.400 --> 03:54:55.520 Hmm. 03:54:55.640 --> 03:54:58.560 And I'll even go on the record and say I think Master Puppets is probably 03:54:59.300 --> 03:55:01.200 number one or number two best record 03:55:01.720 --> 03:55:03.360 metal record of all time in my mind 03:55:03.640 --> 03:55:05.080 probably number two to number of the beast 03:55:05.960 --> 03:55:07.420 even with that being true 03:55:08.500 --> 03:55:10.160 and I promise you 03:55:10.400 --> 03:55:12.460 I'm not stealing off of Chris here but I think 03:55:12.580 --> 03:55:14.340 that Rain and Blood is so 03:55:14.720 --> 03:55:15.040 unforgiving 03:55:15.760 --> 03:55:17.480 and such an onslaught 03:55:18.279 --> 03:55:20.460 and I was such a Slayer fanatic at the time 03:55:20.580 --> 03:55:22.320 that I have to go with Rain and Blood 03:55:24.659 --> 03:55:25.620 it's just 03:55:25.620 --> 03:55:55.560 by the way, two really pretty different things. There was a difference between an average Slayer fan and your average Metallica fan. Oh, yeah. It was almost like Maiden versus Priest or the Beatles versus Elvis. You know what I mean? You're kind of a different kind of guy. So I'm going to go with Rain and Blood, which it's a surprise to me that so many of us went with it. That's three to two on here, plus Matt is four. And I'm going to wait out on Will, because I happen to know that, as you guys know, that Disposable Heroes is his favorite. 03:55:55.620 --> 03:56:25.520 of Metallica's song, so he might go. And Seasons is his favorite record. I'm going to wait and see how he comes out on it, but this makes me think the online polling is going to be a little closer. I mean, yeah, it's already close here, so it's, you know, obviously, when you put that out, I knew it would be close. I thought Master of Puppets would be like the hands-down winner. I did. I actually think when we do the audience poll that Master of Puppets might win. Oh, we'll do the one, yeah. Okay, interesting result then, Rain and Blood, Rains and Blood. 03:56:26.140 --> 03:56:55.600 It rains tonight. It makes me sad to not vote for rain and blood. It really does. Cause I love that album so much, but gotta do it. But this brings us to the end of the episode because we are doing something. I think you guys didn't do this in the last one. This pick from the crypt. This is a brand new thing. We're replacing album of the episode. So sorry, Mastodon Leviathan, but this is something I've been talking about doing for a while now with 03:56:55.620 --> 03:57:25.500 on. Actually, I thought about doing it as just like a Facebook thing where I would just, I have so much old cassettes, vinyl CDs of like metal bands that nobody's ever heard of that. I thought I was like, I should, you know, just start posting this stuff on Facebook for people to check out. And somehow that morphed into let's do a thing at the end of the episode where we each mention an album that we, you know, that we think people should know. 03:57:25.620 --> 03:57:55.600 out. And it doesn't have to be obscure, but, you know, if it is, great. I like it because it can be recent. It can be super old. It doesn't matter. Yeah. It's whatever you want to pull out of the vault. And Matt is not beholden to picking Mastodon. Well, we killed that whale, so. So let's start with Chris. And what records do you know about that you think people should be listening to? Yeah. Any year. I've mentioned already a couple of ones that I was going to say, like Helstan Osoratu and Adramil, Shira Melanox, and 03:57:55.720 --> 03:58:24.060 Oracle, Less Darkness, Rains, but I mentioned these in the other questions. One album I would go with is, it's quite obscure, I think. It's a Russian epic doom band called Skald. And the album is called Will of the Gods is Great Power. How do you spell the band? It's S-C-A-L-D. Okay, it's called. And they did only one record, which was called Will of the Gods is Great Power in 1996. 03:58:25.620 --> 03:58:54.460 Again, very poor production. It's epic doom in the style. It's not really in the style, but it has nothing to do with the stoner doom kind of thing. It's closer to Candlemas, like Solitude Eternus or Candlemas or like Solstice or something like that. They have this Viking kind of thing going on, but in a different way that the bands nowadays do it. They have these floating keyboard textures on top of it, and it sounds very dramatic. 03:58:54.720 --> 03:59:24.640 It really sounds like you're on a Viking ship riding into battle knowing you're not coming back. And the singer was just amazing. And the reason that the band, basically this band was the singer got killed actually. They found him dead next to the train rail. Someone crushed his skull with a rock. Very shortly after the album was released and they never did anything after that because this guy cannot really be replaced. He's kind of like a, it's to me, but then he has this Rob Halford type of like high screen. 03:59:24.720 --> 03:59:30.620 in there. What's the name of the album, Chris? It's called Will of the Gods 03:59:30.880 --> 03:59:34.980 is Great Power. And it's got a 100% rating on Metal Archive. 03:59:35.080 --> 03:59:38.740 Yeah, I only listen to this one on YouTube because you can't stream it 03:59:38.900 --> 03:59:42.480 anywhere. If I can find a copy, I'll probably buy it at one point. 03:59:43.800 --> 03:59:45.420 And it's just like one of these things where 03:59:46.979 --> 03:59:48.800 it's kind of like, okay, 03:59:49.960 --> 03:59:52.900 that would be a place, right? Because it's kind of harmonically, 03:59:53.720 --> 04:00:23.400 It's not really complex music or anything like that. So there's just, I cannot explain from a musical point of view why this album moves me as much as it does. But there is such an emotional element to it. Like when you listen to it, you really feel... I'm going to break your heart a little bit. They tried to replace that singer because they did an EP release in 2021. 04:00:23.700 --> 04:00:53.600 I'm just noticing, but I haven't... I'm gonna check what it's like. Yeah, because I saw them actually at the Hammer of Doom Festival in Germany with another singer. I forgot what band he was from. Relatively famous band in epic Doom Circles. I forgot his name, but he did pretty good. And they played basically the whole record when I saw them and they played one new song. So I was assuming they might do this EP. Super, super underground, super underground thing. But it's not everybody's cup of tea. I showed it to some of my friends and they were like, 04:00:53.700 --> 04:01:23.480 Oh, please turn this off. I can't listen to this anymore. Sometimes on tour, I play records to people and sometimes they get into it. But this was one I remember on the Oscuro tour we did last year, but that's where all people were into a lot of modern stuff and they just didn't get it. This is awesome. I just previewed some of the tracks. And it came out in 2018, so it's not super cool. No, the original album came out in 96, actually. Oh, did it? Yeah. They put out a re-release of it. Yeah, it's from 96. On Rate Your Music, George. 04:01:23.580 --> 04:01:52.600 Oh yeah, I see that. It's got a 3.73 for over 1100 ratings. That's actually really, that's really good. This is really good. Actually. I never even heard of this band. All right. Yeah. It's super underground. They're from Russia, but it's super authentic. Like it's like the thing that I mentioned before. I think Chris might have better status assignment better than the rest of it. Chris is an awesome guest. He's giving us stuff. Chris, you don't understand. We listen to so many metal albums. We get so many promos. 04:01:54.819 --> 04:02:23.240 We know a lot about old school metal because we're fucking ancient. And you're still giving us stuff that we haven't heard before. Yeah. You have to talk to my friend Phil Tugas. So I mentioned before he plays in Warm and he played in Eternity's Ant, my power metal band. He plays in First Fragment and Catholic. You should talk to that guy. Oh, yeah. Because because he knows so, so much underground stuff. I like First Fragment too. Yeah, you should get him on the podcast. 04:02:23.560 --> 04:02:53.380 because he loves talking metal. He knows so much obscure stuff. Hook us up. Keep people entertained for days with that stuff, you know? So yeah, I could try to hook you up with him. I think he'd be a great guest for the show, actually. We'll take it. Yeah. Yeah, this is cool. It's on Bandcamp and I've just been listening and previewing some of this stuff. Pretty awesome, which is cool because you probably can get it in FLAC or another high res file. So yeah, I'm definitely going to listen to this later. Let's get yours, Marcus. Oh yeah, mine. 04:02:53.540 --> 04:03:23.520 Oh, okay. I just want to shout out to George. I like this change. I think I was the one that said like album of the episode and then George changed this pick from the kryptonite and I like that because it's not beholden to just what we talk about in the episode. Exactly. It's just, you know, the album of the episode is cool, but it's just rehashing what we already talked about. So let's add some more value. You got to change, you know, as a podcast, can I get it come up with new things? So I dig this. And I was going to, I was actually going to mention 04:03:24.141 --> 04:03:53.480 this record and what we've been listening to, that section, but then George came up with this new cast, Ender. So I'm going with a glassing twin dream on Brutal Panda Records. This album was number 14 in my 2021 top 25. And in retrospect, I feel like it could be a lot higher. It should have been a lot higher actually. And the band recently announced a new album for 2024. 04:03:53.580 --> 04:04:22.820 So I went back and I spun the whole catalog and I just found myself completely immersed in their songcraft. And they play this ultra dynamic and emotionally textured post metal. And Twin Dream is their most recent record, but it just delivers just a mountain of heaviness that draws on shit. I would say post hardcore. 04:04:23.560 --> 04:04:53.520 Black Metal, Shoegaze, Doom, Noise, ambient music, and it just creates this maelstrom of end times level music. And I think it's one of the best post-metal albums I've heard in quite a while, just because I feel, I think I've talked about this in the podcast where I'm searching for another post-metal band that I could really sing my teeth into, because it's been a while. 04:04:53.540 --> 04:05:23.520 And a lot of post-bindle bands, they just kind of have one level. Whereas glassing, they're just way more dynamic, way more interesting to me. So I think it's one album that people should definitely listen to more, as I haven't heard that much about it. When glassing is reviewed or when it's talked about, it gets high accolades. But as far as mainstream metal, I just haven't 04:05:23.560 --> 04:05:53.520 I heard that much about it. I'm hoping the new album will get that kind of attention because the last record is really good. And even me, you know, I loved it. It's on my list. But I didn't understand as much how much they put into this record when I first heard it. So and I enjoy that. Like, I try to revisit a lot of albums from my top 25 just because I really like that. Let me go back and 04:05:53.700 --> 04:06:22.180 and really dig into this and see how I feel about it. Because we do spend so much time getting new music. I want to be able to go back and recognize the albums that had an impact on me the years prior. Glassing is a phenomenal band. I have not seen them live, too, which is crazy because I've seen pretty much every band live. So that's one I'm really looking forward to. Have you seen Alcohol Live? I haven't seen Alcohol Live. Come to Chicago. Have you come to Chicago? 04:06:23.540 --> 04:06:53.500 Have you been here? I've played with Oscura. I haven't seen you. I saw him. I don't know what you're doing. If you come here, we've got to have beers because now, you know, friend of the podcast. Oh, definitely. But yeah, I've just been there. I've just been there. The last year we played directly in Chicago on the Oscura 2 and the Flash Cup 2 at this time we played. It wasn't in Chicago, but it was very close to Chicago. It was basically considered Chicago. Like Minneapolis? No, no, no. 04:06:53.540 --> 04:07:23.520 No, it was actually, let me see, I can figure this out, but yeah, we basically plan Chicago every US tour that we do. It's a weird thing too, because we interview people on this podcast and then they come tour and they're, you know, I obviously in Chicago, we get a lot of the tours, you know, I go to a show every week. It is funny because it was 04:07:24.460 --> 04:07:52.460 Charlotte? That's nowhere near Chicago. I hate that venue. You know, Marcus, if you go on to their website, there's a request a show. You can request a show there. Chris, you need to go to Chicago proper. Juliet is like way deep in the suburbs. We played Red Chase in Chicago last year. A lot of people play there. Yeah, we played last year in Red Chase. And then we played the opposite of the children before until we played in 2011. 04:07:53.560 --> 04:07:55.160 We have played in Chicago many times, but no result. 04:07:55.280 --> 04:07:55.900 I've looked on the results. 04:07:57.380 --> 04:07:57.600 But yeah. 04:07:58.200 --> 04:07:58.340 Okay. 04:07:59.080 --> 04:07:59.360 All right. 04:07:59.690 --> 04:07:59.840 John. 04:08:00.940 --> 04:08:01.200 All right. 04:08:01.390 --> 04:08:07.520 First off, Chris, I want to thank you for all the deep dive albums because I mentioned 04:08:07.700 --> 04:08:08.700 this every so often. 04:08:09.000 --> 04:08:16.280 I, being the oldest on the podcast, I get maybe a little more nostalgic sometimes because 04:08:16.320 --> 04:08:20.280 I feel like I'm further extended from the albums I grew up with, but it's always so 04:08:20.360 --> 04:08:22.200 much fun to hear about albums I missed. 04:08:23.020 --> 04:08:52.020 And so you gave me a few that I have to listen to, which is awesome. That's my pleasure. I could talk about underground metal all day. Let me know what you think later on, you know, when you checked out these albums. Oh, definitely. And there's just something about that late 80s, early to mid 90s period. Because you brought it up. I agree 100%. Metal didn't die. It just went underground, you know, in that period. So thank you. I'm really actually psyched to hear a couple of those albums. 04:08:52.440 --> 04:09:22.060 So I'm going to stick in that period. I'm going to stick in 1986 for my crypt in the pick. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, because I think 86 is one of the greatest years ever in metal, to be honest. That's a good one. I mean, we mentioned Slayer and Metallica. I had to drop Megadeth. I love Fate's Warning. That came out that year. Didn't Queensryche have an album, Jay, in 86? Didn't we do? I think Among the Living was then, too. Rage Fodder. Oh, Rage Fodder is so good, too, yeah. What's that, George? Among the Living, I think, came out. 04:09:22.120 --> 04:09:52.000 That year too. Yes. And here's an album that I don't think a lot of people talk about. It's not obscure or anything, but it's not obscure. It's not, it's not talked about as much, but Chris, you mentioned traditional metal being really big right now. And this is a band. I think that you can throw some love to that help create that feel. And that's Crimson Glory's debut album, Crimson Glory. Dude, I almost chose that. It's a, it's a, 04:09:52.220 --> 04:09:54.900 - It's a great album I think to bring up if you're looking for something deep. 04:09:55.680 --> 04:09:59.060 - Midnight, everyone's - Great vocals, great guitar playing, everything's amazing. 04:09:59.580 --> 04:10:02.240 - And the funny thing is - I think I like the second one more. 04:10:02.440 --> 04:10:03.860 - Yeah, Transcendence is even - 04:10:03.860 --> 04:10:06.680 - But they're both phenomenal records. 04:10:07.340 --> 04:10:10.640 - But if you're looking for that US power, we call it US power metal now, 04:10:10.900 --> 04:10:14.300 and I think there is a big difference between US power metal and European power metal. 04:10:14.920 --> 04:10:17.980 - Yeah. - And I prefer US power metal because I don't like all the 04:10:18.100 --> 04:10:21.260 - The swirly keyboards, I like just straight guitar dribbles. 04:10:21.260 --> 04:10:51.220 Yeah, that's true. Me too. Even though European power metal was a bit different in the 80s, you know, when it was like Heaven Skate and early Halloween, it wasn't so different. The difference wasn't as big as it became in the 90s when the Walt Disney Metal thing started. Yeah, and I, don't get me wrong, I love Blind Guardian in the 90s. I love all that stuff. Sure, sure. Yeah, but they were more rough and heavy than the stuff that came in. Right, and then like guys showed up and everything and I don't like this guy, but it became very gang vocals and, you know, 04:10:52.779 --> 04:11:20.960 And then Rhapsody happened. Yeah. They're great musicians. Super musicians. But if you want some good kind of U.S. power metal, Crimson Glory is great. If you love this new traditional metal upswing that's been happening the last four or five years. Yeah. Yeah. And Midnight. I would also like to say, yeah, he was phenomenal. He can get up there with every, unfortunately it's not with us anymore, but he could sing just as high as everybody else. Yeah. 04:11:22.699 --> 04:11:49.960 I'm happy to hear that you were thinking about that one too. That's awesome. I was literally looking through the stacks and I zeroed in on that and I was like, oh, that'd be a good one. And I knew that you would like that, but I was like, oh, I'm going to go somewhere else. It's early Queensryche too. The warning. Yeah. There's also some other bands that played that style, like this band Lisa, they had this album called Programmed in 1990. That's also like warning era Queensryche stuff. 04:11:51.280 --> 04:12:20.580 I just realized that I think Candlemas, Epicus, Demicus, Metallicus came out. Bon Jovi, Slippery One Way. Which one of these things is not like the other? It's funny. I actually have one song off that album and I can't remember what it was, but it's none of the hit songs. I love that Bon Jovi album. In retrospect, at the time I hated it. Candlemas, that's cool. 04:12:21.260 --> 04:12:51.220 It just came to me. Yeah. 86 is, I think, still, it's a top five year of all time. It's the golden era. Megadeth, I think Peace Cells came out that year. Yeah. What else came out? All of the big... Iron Maiden San Juan Time, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, all of the big four had all this that year. I think even Queensryche, frickin' Rage for Order came out. Yeah, Rage for Order. Welcome to the podcast. Yeah. We've already been talking about this stuff. A couple times. I'm fuckin' hammered. 04:12:51.260 --> 04:13:20.880 I know. All right. Jay. And that was a very controlled hammered Markisan by the way. You didn't fall out of your chair. So that's something. It was smooth. I think Joe Satriani actually put out an album that year too which we talked about earlier. King Diamond's Fatal Portrait came out. Oh yes. King Diamond came out that year. Oh shit. The Dark came out that year. That was a good album. Pleasure to Kill by Eternal Devastation by Star by Black Sabbath. 04:13:21.280 --> 04:13:49.540 Black Sabbath fans. Yeah, that was a crazy year. What did you pick? Van Halen came out that year. I think 5150 from Van Halen came out that year too, didn't it? Yeah, it actually did, yeah. Shit. It's a good year. I think all the people born in 1986 came out that year. What? And also. All right, so mine, I didn't go that obscure, but on the other hand, when you talk metal all the time, you don't know what people think is obscure. 04:13:50.460 --> 04:14:14.780 And what we're really trying to choose here is, hey, this is a record you should listen to. And so I'm not paying lip service to our guest. This is really, I love the new record so much. The previous one, the Liquid Anatomy was great. But I'm going to suggest that if you don't have a copy of Mel Cuth Grimoire, you go out and get it. When it came out, it was one that swept through this podcast. We all freaked out over it. 04:14:15.540 --> 04:14:18.420 That's a very, like back to the beginning of the podcast, too. 04:14:18.580 --> 04:14:47.520 It was like first year or two. I wasn't even on the podcast then. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not that common that we are like, holy fuck, dude, you heard this? It just felt like this really weird, fully realized band who somehow managed to release their fifth record as their first record because it was so fully realized. And, you know, again, I know he's our guest today, but if you don't know Alkaloid, you need to know Alkaloid and no place better to start than their first record. So I'm going to say guest, Mel Cuth Grimoire. So can I add to that real quick? 04:14:48.160 --> 04:15:17.880 Do you guys remember the line you had me at? Do you remember that from the Jerry Maguire? Yeah. So that's when I got George. I had George at Alkaloid. That's how I introduced myself to George. We started talking and we taught. I brought up the Alkaloid album. I said, I can't believe more people don't like this. I'm like, you mentioned it on your podcast. That was awesome to be coming full circle. I know Hannes was on and unfortunately I wasn't here that time, but so this is awesome. 04:15:17.900 --> 04:15:47.340 When did this album come out? It was my first year on the podcast. Yeah, we started in 2014 and the album came out in 2015. Damn. And I think that was on all our lists, too. That was on everybody's list. And I think it was a top fiver for me. It might have been the number one of the podcast that year. I'll look it up. We'll have to dig it up, yeah. Yeah. All right. So my pick is a year older than John's pick. Oh, 85. I went back to 85 here. 04:15:47.880 --> 04:16:17.860 I'm like almost getting ready for college yes I did I was there hanging out I went with masters damn it I went with omen and warning of danger their second album 1985 metal blade records back in the early 80s metal blade ruled man you know this album and a number of other albums from this period of time have always had a special place in my heart I always 04:16:17.860 --> 04:16:47.840 used to refer to them as pre-thrash bands. Bands that were getting heavier, but it took Metallica to come along and lead the way to thrash. But yesterday I decided I'm not calling them pre-thrash anymore. I'm calling them American Wave of New Wave of British heavy metal. Because really these bands like Omen, Attacker, early Lizzie Borden, they were really the bridge between 70s heavy metal bands and 04:16:47.860 --> 04:16:49.180 that was coming. 04:16:49.959 --> 04:16:51.740 Even Metal Church, stuff like that. 04:16:52.040 --> 04:16:52.960 Metal Church, yeah. 04:16:53.220 --> 04:16:53.320 Yeah. 04:16:53.520 --> 04:16:58.760 And, you know, they were influenced by the same and inspired by the same bands as Metallica was. 04:16:59.520 --> 04:17:06.520 And Metallica was just the one that, like, took it, made it into something new and ran with it. 04:17:06.740 --> 04:17:10.160 And, you know, and then the 80s became about thrash. 04:17:10.940 --> 04:17:13.600 But there were these bands that were just in that limbo between. 04:17:14.939 --> 04:17:16.700 And they don't get enough. 04:17:17.760 --> 04:17:17.820 Yeah. 04:17:17.820 --> 04:17:24.200 Coverage, I think, these days, because they're kind of lost in that period before Thrash took off. 04:17:25.030 --> 04:17:33.320 And, you know, people that listen to Thrash later and then more extreme music, they listen to this stuff now and they're like, oh, that's like hair metal. 04:17:33.450 --> 04:17:34.060 And it's not. 04:17:34.320 --> 04:17:42.360 It's definitely heavier than Sabbath or Kiss or even Priest a lot of the time, at least until, you know, like later Priest. 04:17:43.020 --> 04:17:44.060 You remember Malice, George? 04:17:44.300 --> 04:17:44.440 Yeah. 04:17:44.750 --> 04:17:44.860 Yeah. 04:17:45.180 --> 04:17:46.240 License to Kill, man. 04:17:47.060 --> 04:18:15.440 They were like priests a little bit. Yeah, there were so many really good bands in the early to mid-80s. And they kind of died off when Thrash took over because they just didn't have a place anymore. But anyway, and this is my CD version of the album. It's a Metal Blade original. I think I may have the vinyl somewhere, and I've probably got the cassette, but this was the easiest to come by. Unfortunately, J.D. Kimball, the vocalist, is no longer with us. 04:18:15.560 --> 04:18:44.400 So many of the great people like David Wayne from Metal Church and Paul Bailoff from Exodus, you know, but great album. My favorite song off this album is Ruby Eyes of the Serpent. And I've suggested that moving forward, we start posting one song from our pick from the crypt on the Facebook post for the episode so that people can also listen to these. So we're going to be doing that now moving forward. 04:18:44.520 --> 04:19:14.480 So if you're listening to this and you don't look at us on Facebook, go to Facebook and this episode will have songs from these picks so that you can check them out. So I have a good way to finish this up a little bit and it's that I have gone. So every year we do a top 25 and then we do a combined list and that's John averages it out to see. So I'm pleased to say that in 2015, our number one record was amorphous under the red cloud. Number two was cattle decapitation. 04:19:14.520 --> 04:19:44.160 The Anthropocene Extinction. Number three was Wilderun. And number four was Alkaloid, the Malcooth Grimoire. Jay, I just looked it up too. So in 2015, we collectively agreed that the Malcooth Grimoire was the number four best metal record of the year. Not too bad for a debut. That's a record that holds up. And we can't thank you enough time for spending some time with us today, man. You're the best. Thank you. It was a pleasure, really. It was a love. Yeah, super fun, Christian. 04:19:44.520 --> 04:20:13.940 Thank you so much for coming on. And thank you for spending so much time with us, but it kind of flew by because you were really fun to talk to. And we love talking about metal. So. Oh, funny. It is five hours. Like when he Christian's like, are you going to be about five hours? They probably only be like three hours, but no, that's five hours. Four hours and 52 minutes. All right. All right. Well, we appreciate you sticking out with us. Because we know it can. We can take the. 04:20:14.520 --> 04:20:44.380 I mean, to be honest, when the cast goes long, it's because the guest talks a lot. And that's not a judgment. That means it's a good cast. You fully engaged with us. And we love that. Yeah. And we got some great recommendations. Just really, really had a, just a pleasure to talk to you, Chris. So absolutely. Congratulations on your new record. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I suspect it will, 04:20:47.880 --> 04:20:50.260 It'll be in the combined list and it'll be on all the individuals. 04:20:50.950 --> 04:20:51.080 Yeah. 04:20:52.180 --> 04:20:59.120 Maybe, maybe if you guys, if, you know, I don't know if Alkaloid will, but if Obscura comes around, we'll come out and see you. 04:20:59.960 --> 04:21:00.780 I think we lost him. 04:21:01.090 --> 04:21:01.820 I think he froze. 04:21:02.520 --> 04:21:02.980 That's okay. 04:21:04.080 --> 04:21:04.900 It was nice to see you, fellas. 04:21:06.100 --> 04:21:06.260 Yeah. 04:21:06.410 --> 04:21:07.500 Good to see you, man. 04:21:08.160 --> 04:21:08.380 Yeah. 04:21:08.660 --> 04:21:10.500 So happy for your retirement, Jay. 04:21:10.590 --> 04:21:11.580 And I love seeing the pictures. 04:21:12.440 --> 04:21:13.540 It's going amazing, man. 04:21:13.920 --> 04:21:41.580 The gnome shall protect you. It's the best. Yes. Thank you, my brother. I'm going to march him over to where he's going to live now. He's going to be cool until the cat knocks it over. Don't put it too high. He's back. I'm just going to assume Chris is off having tacos and I love you guys. Love you too. Thanks, boys. All right. Thanks, everybody. There he is. He's sort of back on. Yeah. All right. Bye. Bye, Chris. 04:22:14.319 --> 04:22:43.740 Yeah, planes will do that. Oh, man. Well, the reality is I have, like, I looked at the script. I have everything I want to talk about. Can I, can I still do that? Yeah, man. Sure. Sweet. What else is there to do? You know? Yeah. Right on, man. Podcast is life. The rest is details, just like the t-shirts. Yep. All right. Well, what do you got for us? All right, man. I'm wearing a merciful face shirt. Melissa cover bought at psycho Vegas for their summer tour last year. I'm drinking. 04:22:43.920 --> 04:23:13.500 A Hopknot IPA from Four Peaks Brewing in Tempe, Arizona. I like to drink the local flavors when I'm there. What else is after that? Okay, the news. Ozzy's talking about working on a new album in 2024. Awesome. I hope his health holds up. Man, that went way down a rabbit hole on that one. Jay was just like, Ozzy's gonna die! It was lengthy. Yeah. Oof. Yeah, I'm hopeful he's able to do it. 04:23:14.960 --> 04:23:43.360 All right. Niall's working on a new album. Cool. I haven't listened to them a whole lot for the last few albums, but I always dig their sound. Would definitely want to hear it. Filming is wrapped for the sequel to Heavy Trip. Awesome. Sounds good. Tool says they'll start working on a new album 2024. Expect it by 2037. Laughed out loud. That sounds about right. Yep. Okay. New releases. Cannibal Corpse. Chaos horrific. Really dig it. I'll go more into that later. 04:23:43.900 --> 04:23:51.460 New Dope Lord have not had a chance to listen to it, but I'm a fan. New Krieg, Runeer, dig it. Haven't heard anything from Krieg in a long time. 04:23:51.740 --> 04:24:12.820 Yeah. I was hoping I was all like, yeah, you know, nobody else was really into it. And I was like, I kind of like it. And yeah, I was like, I bet Matt likes it, but yeah, I do. I'm such a fan of Neil's column in decibel that I just, you know, I'm like, I'll take New Krieg anytime. And, you know, not, I'm not as into some of the more traditional black metal. Um, I, I found this to be good. 04:24:12.880 --> 04:24:42.840 Yeah. Listenable. I mean, in a good way. So the new Primordial, how it ends. I really dig this. I'm not like a diehard Primordial enthusiast, meaning I can't tell you if this is better than any of their other releases, but I do like all their stuff. And this included. So nice. New Sulphurea on Seven Crowns and Seven Seals. Really dig that. Yeah, that was a popular one. And then Whoa, Legacy of Frailty. I've always dug them. Nice to get something new from those. 04:24:42.900 --> 04:25:12.220 Peeps. So, yeah. All right. What am I? Yeah. What are you listening to? What am I listening to? Um, so I recently, I went to the, uh, Cannibal Corpse, uh, Mayhem, Gorguts and Blood Incantation show. Uh, saw the two where I was probably complaining on the, on the thread about not being able to park. Cause yeah, that's right. And then drove past the Cannibal Corpse drummer, which was awesome. Um, not that, you know, we waved or anything, but still I felt the closeness to him. He sensed a disturbance in the metal force. 04:25:12.640 --> 04:25:40.780 Exactly. What are you in Minneapolis for? So I made a playlist of that whole evening set list. I listened to that a lot, which actually kind of put me down the path of a Cannibal Corpse wormhole. I want to kind of just dissect all their albums. Unfortunately, I'm only three into it so far. Same thing with Gorguts. I could have them on repeat all day. I get to meet Luke. He sold me my T-shirt, which was really cool. He was super nice. 04:25:42.100 --> 04:26:12.060 Still Spinning the New Blood Incantation, Maxi Single, and then the Wayfairer Catalog, including the new one, which I think is out next week or soon. Whenever this posts. Yeah, soon. So yeah, that's that. And as well as the new Alkaloid Newman. Dig it. I was listening in prep of the episode I was late for. So yeah. Okay. Slayer and Metallica. Yeah, that was a... 04:26:12.560 --> 04:26:41.680 That was something, you know. It did not go the way most people thought it would. Okay. I have in my head what I thought that was. Oh, wait. I thought I... You texted Jay. Or John. Or John. John. Yeah. Okay, well, you can say it again. Okay. Well, I mean, I went into it thinking like, oh, obviously Slayer. And then I was like, oh, but you know what? I mean, Master of Puppets is, it's an opus. It's an epic opus. And so, 04:26:43.140 --> 04:26:44.760 I was sitting poolside, 04:26:45.979 --> 04:26:48.840 watching my kids go down the lazy river in circles. 04:26:49.520 --> 04:26:51.080 And I just started listening to them. 04:26:53.080 --> 04:26:55.040 And I was like, okay, Slayer, really, really good. 04:26:55.150 --> 04:26:57.100 And then Metallica, like, oh, this is so epic. 04:26:57.280 --> 04:26:59.380 You know, just even when you get, you know, I mean, 04:27:00.320 --> 04:27:02.620 Master of Puppets being, you know, one of the pinnacle songs, 04:27:02.780 --> 04:27:04.900 but every song on that album is so good. 04:27:05.440 --> 04:27:07.760 They all like have their own little personality. 04:27:08.979 --> 04:27:10.860 And a lot of them, I think, get overlooked. 04:27:12.600 --> 04:27:40.760 Then I put Slayer back on. I was like, this is also an opus when you actually sit down and listen to it. Also, no bad songs. No, no, not at all. And, you know, a much less shorter time commitment by half, I think. But I realized it was like that. The sound that Slayer has during that time period, which for Slayer, I came in during Seasons in the Abyss. For Metallica, I came in during And Justice for All. So literally same pairing just a few years. 04:27:40.940 --> 04:28:10.780 the future. But looking back, Slayer still has that sound, and that sound to me is that sinister sound that, you know, as a kid I was not allowed to listen to. And so when you can't have those things, that's what you'd want. And so it kind of created that mind frame for me. And literally listening to it brought me back to that period of my life, almost like revisiting it again for the first time. And while the Metallica album is flawless, I think I just crave that more sinister feel. 04:28:10.920 --> 04:28:40.880 because that is also flawless in its own way. And so I have to go with Rain of Blood by Slower. Yeah, most people did. I think John and I might have been the only ones that went Metallica. I mean, no wrong choice, you know, obviously. I gave Jay grief because I was like, this is just too hard, you know. But ultimately it came down to which album came out first. Because Puppets came out in March and Rain of Blood came out in October. And so I was already well-intressed. 04:28:40.940 --> 04:28:43.540 to the Metallica album by the time Slayer came out. 04:28:44.340 --> 04:28:48.580 Well, and to me, that was preconceived. 04:28:49.180 --> 04:28:51.840 I felt like that would be a factor for me because that album has been, 04:28:52.440 --> 04:28:54.080 I've been able to soak in it for longer. 04:28:54.220 --> 04:28:57.240 So it's more a part of my inner person. 04:28:58.520 --> 04:29:00.200 But yeah, I gravitated back. 04:29:02.000 --> 04:29:02.320 Right on. 04:29:02.500 --> 04:29:02.860 All right. 04:29:03.180 --> 04:29:04.020 My pick from the Crypt. 04:29:06.120 --> 04:29:06.940 I had to go cliche. 04:29:07.360 --> 04:29:08.620 I had to go with Crypt Sermon. 04:29:09.660 --> 04:29:10.120 That's awesome. 04:29:10.620 --> 04:29:40.060 I love this band because they are one of a handful that really like retaught me how to appreciate just straight up traditional heavy metal and just like sound heavy and epic you know we all had the chance to see them a few years ago at Decibel and that was on that would have been right after the prior release I can't think of the name of it off the top of my head but great Philly band looking forward to them playing or making some more music. 04:29:40.260 --> 04:30:10.020 Yeah, man. All right. Cool. That's what I got, man. That's what you got. Well, you got it in there. Hey, sweet. Sorry about the twins. Hey, no worries. No worries. It's a normal year. Yeah. Orioles, Orioles crept out too. So what are you going to do? Yep. Exactly. All right. Exactly. Well, cool, man. Glad that you're back home and where you belong. And thanks for stopping by. And we'll see you soon. Yeah. 04:30:10.260 --> 04:30:17.020 Sorry, I was late. I'll work on my punctuality. No worries. All right, man. Have a good one. All right. See you. Bye. 04:30:40.240 --> 04:30:45.300 TRIK ME TO PAINT AWAY!