Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, metal's my religion, and yeah, it's my dope. Standing in the thunder on stage in the pouring metal rain. What a feeling, baby, the lights are exploding.

Hello and welcome to the Metalheads Podcast. My name is George.

This is Jay in the studio. This is Will on Skype, ironically. And John on Skype. And welcome to episode 50. We finally made it to half of 100. Wait, I want to call this the everything's backward episode. Because I'm sitting here looking at you guys in the flesh and looking at John and Will on the computer. When we're used to seeing them on in the flesh and you on the computer. And I have the Maryland Death Fest hoarseness. Yeah, I think we all do. Yeah, I didn't get a whole heck of a lot of sleep last night. We just got in around, well, I got in around

I'm sure Will and John was probably 2, 2.30.

2 for me, I think, wasn't it?

Yeah, I think I got in bed at 2.45.

And it's just a little after 11 in the morning.

And of course, Jay and Buick stayed up all night having fun.

Yep, this party ain't stopping yet until Jay leaves, right?

There was beer.

There was Trooper 666.

Thanks to Will.

Thanks, Will.

And a little hockey.

Video hockey.

Right on.

Well, we're going to talk about Maryland Death Fest later.

But we've got tons of recordings for you to play from the show. So we're going to just stick all of those at the very end. So make sure you stick around for that. I just want to say two things real quick because the plan was to have us all in the studio, but the logistics just didn't work out today. And I don't know what you guys are drinking, but I'm drinking coffee today. Coffee. Yeah, it was rough. There we go, brother. Coffee indeed. So we'll go into it about the coffee. The beans are from where?

What was the temperature of the roast? How long? Mine's single source, so I'll give you that much. Interesting. I'd like to know, though. Will, how do you like your coffee and John? I'm enjoying it quite a bit. It's Stumptown I'm drinking right now. Do you guys drink a black with cream, sugar? I doctor mine a little bit. No sugar, but I get a little cream. I like my coffee like I like my women. Cream and two sugars. Sorry. I'm a no cream, two trivial.

I'm a guy. I'm a candy coffee guy. Now that all of our listeners were like, coffee talk? This is fucking boring. Hey, I don't know, man. They might actually dig it. So many, I mean, how many freaking people in the metal world are like making their own coffee and stuff now? No, I disagree. Computers were just turned off all over the world. We tried. Yeah, just go to Untap to see how much beer we drank this weekend and you could just turn that computer back on. First off, before we get into the news, I know it's a day after Death Fest.

How are we all feeling today? Tired? Tired, but nice to sleep in my own bed. Yep. Only because it's just comfortable for me. That's glorious. I'm a horse. I think that was because we drank so much beer and got dehydrated. And yelling at each other with the loud music. Yeah, yeah. And I was a little deafer than I thought I'd be when I got home. We got to Bukes' house and Stephanie was talking to me. I was like, and Stephanie doesn't talk. But I tell you what, feeling all this way, definitely ready to jump back in and do it again next year.

Yeah, I'll be here. You could just tell at the end of it last year, you know, John has a bum knee sometimes. And some drunk guy bumped into him last day. John wasted no time throwing him like a fucking hockey style, like shorter check. Just get off me. He was just done and bothered with it. He walked by us about 10 minutes later rubbing his neck. He was looking for a ref. Yeah. Yeah. So we're in that parking lot. Feeling good though. We're up. We're so ready. We're at it.

Well, let's get into some news.

The first bit of news that I know it took me by surprise, and I think a few other people as well, Manowar announced a farewell tour.

Hanging up the loincloths.

Yeah. Or taking them out and back and burning them.

They can give them that guy at Death Fest, he'll wear them.

Yeah, yeah. Check out some of the pictures on the Facebook page. There's the Speedo guy. He looked like the same guy as last year, but this time he had a little loincloth with patches on it over his Speedo. Still revealing way too much for our tastes. He did a few costume changes throughout the week. He had it all planned out. He changed his Speedo from Friday to Sunday. He did. He's like, I'm going to wear that Speedo and I'm going to wear that loincloth. But anyway, anybody have any thoughts on the

The Manowar thing? Well, only this. The announcement only says, Manowar announces farewell tour, and the one quote that even implies they're breaking up says, on this tour, we're going to come out and say goodbye to you all in great fashion. And they've spoken no other way about, like, we're calling it quits after these many years. They didn't, like, elaborate in any way. Just made it sound like, at the very least, they're not touring anymore. Right. Maybe they could still do albums or something, which they don't really need. No. They don't need to do that. No. But it is still kind of a bummer.

As you know, having been a Manowar fan for so long, being a fan of any band for that length of time to hear them supposedly hanging it up is a little sad. I was never a fan, so it wouldn't be as much of a thing for me like it is for you guys. There you go. So Lars says that the new Metallica will be done this summer. Now, that means done recording. So do we see a year-end release date? I don't know. Has anybody heard any rumors about that? No, I have not. Nothing. Definitely no. All right. Well, I guess we'll see. Continuing the saga, apparently,

Ozzy Osbourne and wife Sharon have started going to marriage counseling. I'm sure that's the public face of reconciliation so that they can continue making lots of money together. And save face. And save face, yeah. How about we just keep this shit private and not tell the whole world so we have to know every step of the way? I don't problem with that. I just, I don't care. Yeah. So, I mean. There's no Bill Ward equals no Ozzy and Sharon marriage to me. You need your original drummer. Yeah. Sorry.

That's a big meme on the net, which I love, which is whenever a band gets together, some band reunites, there's always somebody who puts in the comment section, no Bill Ward equals no nevermore. You know what I mean? So if they reunite, that's my thing. No Bill Ward, no marriage. Yep. All right. So it was released that the official cause of death for Nick Menza, bear with me here, was hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Sounds like a heart attack to me. Yep. High blood pressure and clogged

Arteries. Fancy name for it.

Yeah. I'm sure I'll be coming more acquainted with that myself.

So stuff like that, you know, it makes you wonder,

and I'm not talking bad about the guy,

not saying he didn't take care of himself,

but you have to wonder,

we wonder how hard of a life these guys have led.

Had he not been to a doctor for, you know,

blood pressure medication and, you know.

Too much fast food.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's just genetics too.

Yeah.

Also true.

There's nothing you can do about it.

Yeah.

It said he'd been clean for eight years.

So, you know,

it's probably cheeseburgers or like John said,

you know,

just something genetic cumulative cumulative lifestyle.

I saw it on Reddit.

I can't find any more than that,

but there was talk on Reddit that Dave will be putting together a show to benefit Nick's family with all current and past members of Megadeth.

That's awesome.

That was what I saw on Reddit.

If it's just internet speak,

it feels legit though,

because if you were ever going to bury any hatchets that might still be out there, no better time. That's the only way they're going to get Marty back, at least even temporarily. And also, I know he wasn't rich, but I'm sorry to hear Nick Menza's family needs benefit. If you were that well-known in the 80s on some really great records that that money is not the kind of money that goes on, that's too bad. That's too bad. These guys deserve to have a little bit more than that. Yeah, I agree. Okay, Dave Mustaine told Q103 in Albany,

It's time for everyone to remember Nick and his legacy and just great performances. Tonight we're hoping to do a moment of silence. Dave added we're going to do a benefit in California. We're working out the details. We're hoping to have an open stage for all the alumni of Megadeth to come and play with us so we can help leave something behind for Nick's children which have been left in a bad way. That's great. To anyone that thinks that I don't love Nick and he raises his middle fingers. There you go. All right. Well, hopefully that'll happen.

I got two more stories I want to run with here. One is Revocation hit us this week out of the blue. Their new album, Great Is Our Sin, is coming out July 22nd. I love these guys. They're one of my favorite tech death bands right now. The new single is pretty badass. Have they played Death Fast Buke? I do not know. I think that probably means no. Probably. So maybe you'll get them in the next couple of years. I would love to. It's still one of the best live shows I've ever been to. And also an interesting news story.

In the video game world, Doom, classic first-person shooter, Doom, this would be the fifth one, I think, or four, came out. And on its official soundtrack, if you hook it up to a, what's it that shows the way? This is not the word for it, but like a spectrometer. Yeah, spectrograph. Yeah, spectrograph, whatever it is, yeah. As you see the peaks and valleys of the song being played, if you take the whole length of the song start to finish, it actually builds with the peaks and valleys pentagrams, 666. Dope, is that?

on different tracks. That's pretty amazing if they worked that in. You know, if we could take this back to the 80s, I think the PMRC would have something to say about that. Oh, yeah. You know, that's, I mean, backwards messages, whatever. But this, this seems a little more like insidious. Like they're beaming pentagrams into our brains. So I thought that was kind of cool for a technical aspect and, you know, just trying to do some cool evil stuff for the video game. I'm sold. I was going to get it at your,

I'm fucking down dude

and in the more nerdy news

while we were on Death Fest weekend

I saw an article about the

Star Wars Force Awakens soundtrack

if you get the special

vinyl

and I think the Rush 2112 does this as well

it has holograms etched

into both sides of the vinyl

and on one side it does a hologram

of the Millennium Falcon and on the other side

a hologram of a TIE Fighter

Dude, that's awesome. So I'm going to see if I can get that. Yeah, the Rush one has pentagrams. Yeah. All right, let's do some new releases. This first one, I have only heard one song yet, because it came out right before we left for Death Fest. This is B. Hexen and their new album, The Poisonous Path. So I can't really tell you much about this other than it's kind of evil, blackish, good stuff.

I've heard them before in the past, and I've liked what they've done, so I'm definitely looking forward to hearing that. Coming out before this episode we'll post is the Candlemass EP, Death Thy Lover. I know Jay is just, he just can't wait to not buy this one. That's right. Dude, I'm going to start not buying it right now. I have to tell you that, dude, I saw this story last night, George, and this is probably been her news, but it says here on Blabbermouth, Candlemass guitarist says,

Another full-length album depends on Leif Eadling's health. Yeah, and was that like his mental health? Because I know he was having some depression issues and stuff, and that's why he did that. He was bewitched. He did that other. He was behexened. Yes. Well, they, so that, I mean, obviously that doesn't mean this record, so with this, I guess the point being this could be the last Candlemas, but. Maybe that's a good thing. Not necessarily for Leif, but. Yeah, right, right. Next one. John, are you a Candlemas guy? Yeah, I love him. I just. What do you think of a new Candlemas? I'm like,

I like the Rob Lowe years a lot. I enjoyed them because I like Solitude and Eternus a lot. But at some point, when you get to X number of singers, I'm just kind of losing interest. Yeah, wrap it up always. Even though I love them. Yeah, I think John was, in particular, was really into King of the Grey Islands too, like I was. Yeah, those three. I love all three of them. Cool. The next one is the new Cough and their album Still They Pray. I really liked their last album, which I believe was called Ritual Abuse.

I've listened to this one. Unfortunately, I pre-ordered the vinyl and t-shirt combo, and then I got the promo and I listened to it, and I don't really like this one very much. So, I mean, maybe I got to go back and listen to it again. Maybe I wasn't on the best frame of mind or whatever, but it was just kind of like meandering, like not doing... Did you hear this yesterday? No, this was, I don't know, like a week ago. So they released a track or something. No, we got the promo, but I could only get like two songs in before I was like, eh, this is no good.

But something I do like, the new Dark Funeral, Where Shadows Forever Reign, that's coming out this week. The new Death Angel just released this past Friday, The Evil Divide. I haven't listened to that yet. This next album, I haven't heard yet, but I picked up their last album, and I know Buke did too, In Twilight's Embrace and Trembling. I know the last album had guest spots from the singer from At the Gates. His name is eluding me right now. But a couple different guest spots, and it was pretty cool.

So definitely gonna check that out. Then we've got the new Lacuna Coil album, Delirium.

We'll see. I mean, I heard one track and I was surprised at it. So I haven't been a fan in a long time.

You were surprised ever since their first one in a positive. Okay. Yeah. Unleashed Memories, I think, was the last one that I really liked a lot. We'll see. I'll give it a spin. I'm not gonna kill it if I haven't heard it yet. So that in Twilight Subrains, is that an EP? Because their album came out last year. I don't know. I just saw it in the list of new releases and wrote it down. Yep.

Next up is the new Lord Vicar, Gates of Flesh. If you don't know, Lord Vicar has got some of the dude that was in Reverend Bazaar. So presumably this is another album of doom. I will try and find this when I have the opportunity. And our last new release, the band Withered and their new album, Grief Relic. I read this out of the corner of my eye with apparently a dyslexia I didn't know I had. And I read it as Withered Garlic. Withered Garlic. It's a good metal band name.

I think I like these guys too

I don't remember

I think I do though so I'm gonna have to give that a listen

too much music on the brain

especially after this weekend

why don't we get into our top 5

what's your top 5

what's your top 5

what's your top 5

since the last episode

we did the top 5 bands

that we were looking forward to seeing at Maryland Death Fest. I thought as sort of a post-show tribute, if you will, we should do the top five bands you would like to see at a future MDF. Why don't we start with John? Cool. I picked a couple bands that already played there. This is solely based on me wanting to see them, not bands that haven't played there before. So should we start with the number five and work to one then, basically? Is that how you guys want to do it? Yes, sir. All right. So I'll just throw one out there.

last year's. John, really quick, before you start your list, has this list been shaped by now being at a Death Fest and seen and heard how the sound is, how the setup is? Did that make you think of taking off any bands because of that, guys? No, partially it was based on what you guys liked last year and based on what we saw this year. Okay, okay. Yeah, so in terms of sound or presentation, I just want to see the bands live. So my number five, and I was going to say based on your comments about

Skepticism last year and some doom. Not as slow, but I would love to see Swallow the Sun on a big stage. Oh, man, that's a great, that's a good one. I would have put that on there if I had thought at it. You know, we only, I had like an hour to throw together a script this morning, and while we were at the show, I pulled together three of my five, but I had to come up with two more, and it was like, just sort of like looking through my collection and going, yeah, that's a good one for the last two, because I just didn't have time. Obviously, none of us had time. I saw some Songs from the North t-shirts there, too.

I saw one too, yeah. You wouldn't be the only one who was hoping. Yeah, so that's a great one, John. The strange thing about those bands though, John, it was weird seeing skepticism. That's why I asked if you guys went that direction. It was still weird seeing skepticism in the sunlight. Yeah, it wouldn't have been much cooler in the dark. It would be weird seeing small the sunlight that too, I think. But it would just be cool. We all talked about this in the right back last night. It's kind of nice to throw in a band that kind of mixes up the pace. Yeah. Just to give you a little bit of a break, but still get some cool music. I mean, Primordial would have been

They're intense no matter what time of the day, so they're always going to be awesome.

Exactly. All right, Will, number five.

My number five would be Behemoth. I've never seen a lot. I think they would fit in well there.

Yeah, that's another good one.

Cool.

Yeah, and just a few caveats with my list. I have no idea if any of these bands have played Death Fest before. Mine is just based on who I would like to see there.

Yeah, I've got at least two on mine that I know have been there before, but I didn't catch them, so I'd still like to see them again.

Oh, that's me.

This is really the only modern band that I'm going to suggest, but I thought they would have gone in great, and I'm still crazy about this record. Vreedhammer would go over huge there, man. Yeah, I think that would be really good, too. That record deserves some attention, and it's just a killer, killer thrashy death metal album. Would have loved to have seen them yesterday. That would have been a great opener like Denouncement Empire was. Yeah, or Horrendous, which also was a great opener, too. Yes, totally. All right, Yuki. Yeah, as Will took a sip of his coffee first, I wanted to mention, I wanted to mention, it is,

This is Memorial Day here in the States. If you haven't mentioned it on the pod yet, I just want to give our respects to everyone who's fallen, serving this great country. And thank again everyone who has served too. Amen. I bet Will has some friends. Ex-friends, as it may be. And so thanks, Will, for your service. I have several. I've been doing this for 25 years now. So been to almost every third world shithole war zone you could possibly think of multiple times. And yep, I've lost some friends. Yep. So I just wanted to mention,

that before it passes. Good call. This isn't a joke. Thanks for losing your friends, brother. After seeing Wombath yesterday, you would think, all disclosure right now, Bloodbath is not on my list because I don't want to see the current form of Bloodbath. I don't like it as much as... And we got that little taste of them with Opath. Yeah. So number five would be a band that I've really been pretty high on, and it is another Swedish death band, Entrails. That would be true.

You know what you're going to get with them, but I like them a lot. So it'd be cool to see them. I could totally see that. Yep. All right. My number five. I don't think I'm going to find anybody actually complaining about this one. Not that you would, but I mean, I think we're what I mean to say is I think we'd all be in agreement on this one. And I don't know if they've played there before, but cattle decapitation would fucking rock it. Yeah. Yeah. They would. They definitely would. They definitely would. If being from the area, don't see why they probably wouldn't maybe in early days. Yeah. But especially how they've evolved right now. Yeah. It wouldn't. I didn't have a chance.

to look, but I almost would think they would have had to have played it at some point. Hey, John, number four. Another Doom band, and I know Buke loves to yell out, crank up the speakers. You know where I'm going with this. I would love to see Monolord come out and play. Oh, my God. You know, who was it yesterday, George? Bong... Bong Ripper? Bongzilla? When they came on, the bass was fucking... The bass was hitting you. I was just throwing a blank on the name. Could you imagine?

If Mono Lorde came out like that, that would fucking destroy. You would feel it on your insides. Yeah, all the bands that don't intentionally have low-end bass and still end up coming off, they would probably just destroy the speakers. Really, I should have put that on my list. That's a great poll. I will just say that I think Mono Lorde would be awesome, just not first thing in the morning. I remember John and I went in. Maybe in the afternoon.

I forget who it was.

And it was yesterday.

And after we had our fish tacos and our tank sevens and we were staying up there,

the bass was just vibrating your bones.

And I'm like,

I got to stand back.

It's too early in the morning for this.

Yeah.

Scrambling your intestines.

Yeah.

So yeah,

so my number four.

So I tried to mix up my list a little bit of bands that no longer are and would reform,

kind of like what Death Fest is for,

some smaller bands and stuff.

So my number four is a newer band,

Pile of Priests.

Those guys impressed me.

That's cool.

John, that's another great pool because that's what's so great about this festival. It's our bands like that. They can come here and shine. Yeah. You know, probably not big. We know that Patrick and the guys, you know, just did a tour. Not bad-mouthing them, but I'm sure the turnout wasn't what they could get at like a death fest. And this would be a great exposure for them. Yeah. Stick them on like a early Friday, Saturday set. Perfect. Oh, yeah. Perfect. And then we'd get to meet them. Yes. That would be perfect. Yeah. They could really.

whole five, six bands from the last year that have been in the pod and make yourself a nice little death fest in the early stages. Metal Heads Fest. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's kind of like when they put Wayne stock together. I still love that scene with Chris Farley on stage and they're shooting tennis balls at him. Yeah. I got nowhere else to go. I'll bet you any money that our festival beer would be just a tad bit better. Oh. Just a bit.

I had the power to make a festival beer, which I'm telling you, if anybody from the Death Fest crew is listening to this, you're doing something wrong by not talking to our friend here. Master Will. You know, we stopped in to get beer one morning. Bill is so, or Will is so known in the sort of beer world as we stopped to get beer one morning and there was two guys, I know you must have known them well, but they were like, Will, you got any suggestions for a good, something that will cost us not too much, but it'll be a good beer? People are asking him for suggestions at the liquor store and they knew who he was.

All right, my number four, and I kind of went along the way Will did. This is not, this wouldn't necessarily be a reformation, but I think Possessed would go over there like Great Guns. Oh, yeah. I mean, that could be. That'd be awesome. Jeff Picard in his wheelchair coming out. Yeah, that would be like a headliner. Yeah, that would be killer, man. Puke. In the same vein of, you know, it'd be cool to bring like a doom, but this time like a death doom. I think Hooded Menace would be pretty awesome. Yes, that would be cool. Yeah. My number four, I know they played only like two years ago,

I think that would be coroner I think that would be really fucking cool yeah yeah I thought corn for a second before you went into corner I was like corn coroner yeah what's happened to George yeah all right John number three number three band is played there a couple times already so this is just a personal choice would be guard yes great choice John was there album that you recommended me to last year or two years ago that I missed

I don't know how I found them. They just showed up and checked it out. Got turned on by the first song for their last album that came out. Yeah. Amazing album. Will, number three. My number three, Pyres out of Toronto, Canada. Kind of like just like John said, a little Death Doom. Slow things down a little bit. It's an awesome riffage in there, but still has some pretty harsh vocals. I think they fit in well. Yeah, I think so too. My top three are Pie in the Sky because I agree with Will. I mean, MDF does,

is kind of in the business of reunions, no question about it. They bring people together, Demolition Hammer being a great example, who weren't necessarily playing. But I'm shooting high here. My number three, I'd like to see a Nevermore reunion. And I know they're not quite a death metal band or anything like that, but I think they'd go over big there. Bring more old Dane back, come and do maybe one of their best records or a mix of all the old stuff. So that'd be cool. Right on. My number three, it's a band that I've recently become really big into. Another local band, Misery Index.

I'm sure they've had to have played here before as well. I know they played at Ozfest. I think they have. Maybe it was Mayhem. I think they have. But I'm really big into these guys right now, so that'd be pretty cool to see them. Cool. My number three, bring in the black, you know, in the spirit of Mayhem. Or not really the spirit of Mayhem, but just in the spirit of black metal and Mayhem. Old Man's Child. I'd like to see them come together. I mean, they haven't done anything in forever because, you know, Galdars and Demio.

I saw a big guy yesterday, or on Saturday, tatted up, that looked like Nick. I thought I saw somebody. Why would he be here? What, you mean Nick Barker? Yes. Because he played. Yeah, he played drums. He played drums for Nuclear Assault. He did. He did. You should have gone up and said, you know what, you look just like Nick Barker, dude. I didn't realize that he played drums for them. Yeah, no, I sent out a message to everybody and said, hey, Nick Barker's playing for Nuclear Assault. Okay. You saw him walking around, though, that's what you're saying. Yeah. Oh, okay.

His beard was shorter, so I wasn't quite sure. I was like, man, he's big, and those tats, that looks like him. But I wasn't sure, and then they announced it, so I was like, oh, yeah, it is. Didn't you get a picture with him last year? Yeah. Who was he playing with last year? Last year was with Twilight of the Gods? Or was that Hellhammer? I don't know. I don't remember. I thought he played with a couple bands last year. I just can't remember what they were. I'd have to go back and look at the thing. Anyway, John, number two. Black Metal, Extreme, Psychedelic, you guys hear me talking about them all the time.

I'd love to see how they go over on a big stage like that. That would be interesting. Cool. Yeah. Well, my number two, I just recently in the last three or four years got into these guys, and I think they called it quits, but God the Throne. See if they could get back together. That seems like something they'd do there. Yeah. I'm going to go all the way back to my five and put in a honorable mention, which would be one of my favorite records from last year. Chapel of Disease would be insane at Death Fest. That stated, where are we at here? Two.

Sorry. Again, going pie in the sky. Let's get us a Celtic Frost review and going. Yeah. They would just, people would freak out. Yeah, I would think so. That'd be cool. I'd freak out. I know that. Number two. A band who you and I love in a pod favorite, Ahab. Ahab. Ooh, that was a nice one. Yep. Yeah, that would be really cool. I'm surprised they didn't do that. Anyway, all right. That's a good one. Number two is another one that has already played there also two years ago. And that'd be Bolt Thrower. Yes.

Which one of their members died last year? The drummer. The bassist. No, I thought it was maybe the bassist too. Are you sure it was the drummer? The drummer. All right, number one. The bassist is a woman. Yeah. Yeah, Joe, I think her name is. All right, my number one's a band that played there once before. They're back together, but they had a long period between their last album and getting back together. I'd be Atheist. I'd love to see them. Yeah, that'd be cool. Can't say I've listened to them. You should. Yeah, their first two albums are pretty damn awesome. Okay.

on Spotify right now. Will, number one? My number one, again, kind of like God to Throne, I know these guys haven't done anything recently, but Gorefest. Oh, yeah. Like I said, I don't know what's going on in the band now. I don't know if half the people are dead or they hate each other or they're all nuclear physicists now, but I would love to see Gorefest live. Yeah, me too. That's actually a good choice. Yeah, it's actually a good choice coming from Will. I mean, Jesus. Just kidding. All right, Jay. All right. I mean, you know,

because I got to say their name every episode, but come on, man. Merciful Fate Reunion. That crowd would go crazy. Yeah. That crowd would love that. That's it. All right. Well, I have nothing else to say about that. But I can't fucking. Buke, number one. Well, this is not a band from Sweden that's played here in the States numerous times, if you're wondering. This is a band by the name of Cattle Decapitation. Oh, who? I'm riding their train, you know, right now, loving these guys. Of course, album last year blew me away, so. You played it cool when I had them at number five.

I would love to see him live now. You know what? You actually need the record before this one too, dude. It's in the same vein. But imagine going in there, though. You're like, Catalyst Decapitation. And they come out with that Manufactured Extinction track one. And you hear that. It's clean vocals. You're like, what the fuck is this? That's one of those things that you race out. Like, I got to find this CD right now in the parking lot. One of the best records. Yeah. So it'd be cool to see that. Yeah, totally. All right. Number one. Another representation of Black

And this is mostly just because I'd like to see them anywhere. And that's Thrasenblatt. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, all right. Why don't we move on to what we're listening to?

All right, real quick. I mean, a lot of stuff for Death Fest. Listened to a lot of horrendous Paradise Lost, November's Doom, and just a couple albums here. A new one from Spotlight's Titles, kind of a Doomgate, Sludgegates banded. I think it's their actual, I don't know if it's their niche, I think it's their first full-length release. New one from Catatonia, The Fall of Hearts, and then Not Metal, but I've been talking about them a little bit. Bukes been asking about them. Jelly Jam's new album, Prophet, which is kind of a, somewhat of a super group.

If you like King's X and Dream Theater and Dixie Dregs, they're members from all those bands. Who's the member from Dixie Dregs when they play? Rod Morgenstein, who I would have said was from Winger, but it sounds cooler to say Dixie Dregs. It sounds way cooler, dude. Yeah. He's a fabulous drummer. So, excellent. That's it. Well, what have I been listening to? Well, the last three days, a whole lot of death metal. So, I have the last couple days been listening to some Perihelium Ship on your guys' recommendations.

Also, Bereft. Been checking them out. Which album? The new one. The one that's in the box. Oh, right. Actually, that's Hands of Despair. Okay. The album's called Bereft. Oh, sorry. There is a band called Bereft, though. Yeah, that's why I got confused. And then on George's threat of violence, I've been trying really hard to take in the Cobalt album. There was no threat of violence. I just said I thought you should listen to it. Well, that's a threat. When you're a pretty impeding force like this. When you're the godfather.

and the godfather makes a recommendation. You take the recommendation. Unless you sleep with the fishes. Or you sleep in a car for a couple hours. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's really what Will's talking about when you're dealing with a friend who is so unstable. He could just at any moment go out to the different far parts of the universe. You don't know what this guy's going to do. Yeah. Is that all for you, Will? Yeah, that's it. All right. Jay. Some variety of everything I've been listening to.

for the past few weeks. Vector is honestly one that I'm still deciding where that stands in the grand scheme of things for me, but I keep spinning it, so I guess that speaks volumes. And then I'm just going to say one other band right now. I listened on the way over on the plane to the whole new Caveller Talk record, and I'm a convert. This one's going to be spinning a lot with me. It's a very specific thing. I don't know if I would even recommend it to people, in all honesty. I mean, you got to really, I think you need to have been listening to metal since the 80s, and you need to have liked a wide variety of metal to understand what this record's about, but it's pretty

It's probably going to be way up on my list. Playing hooky. All right. Pew. Oh, these guys are killing me. A recommendation from John. I think this album came out last year. It's False Lights by Pressure Points. Yeah. Pretty cool little proggy stuff with like a little Opeth vibe to it. A little EP, like a little Doom EP that I've been listening to. It came out earlier this year by Blind Vinter. It's This Solitary Creation. It's like a three-track.

EP really cool and also album from last year like a Viking metal band it's uh it's had it right here it's into battle by Heathen 4A so I'm listening to it is also the new vector as well a lot of people say it's too long I haven't really seen that yet because you know I don't know it's too long but at the speed at which it's played it's exhausting and that may sound strange but what I mean is some of those songs are 14 minutes long and they don't stop it's insane and it's some really intricate stuff they're playing so

So is everybody sitting down? Are you prepared for this? I don't know. I have no list for listening to. Hold on. Hold on. Maybe we should just do like four minutes of dead silence here. This is where people usually get up, go to the bathroom. Yeah, see, they don't want them to. You can just move on a little and miss half of it. The last episode was finished just a couple days before Death Fest, and I've only been listening to Death Fest bands since then.

I've listened to some Sam I L impaled Nazarene nuclear assault exciter hyrax stuff like that and I'm after after the show I'm now planning to dig into some denouncement fire okay yeah I think I'll be looking into internment that's that's a man yeah that's a good one to check out too yeah so

All right. Well, how about a classic album, John? All right. Not per se metal that we know, but way back, 1973 album that was pretty damn heavy when it came out. That's the self-title from Montrose. I loved your dude. No, I love Montrose. Yes. With Bad Motor Scooter on it? That's the one. Yeah, Rock the Nation. Man, what an album that is. Make it last. It was pretty damn heavy for that time. Yeah, it was. You know how many shops I had to go into? Probably it took me 10,

I went in there looking for it. On vinyl? Yep. Were you in the antique store? Yeah, that's a great record, man. My classic album, as I was putting together my top five lists, one of my favorite albums of all time, Gorefest False, back in 1992. Excellent. Nice. Good stuff. I'm going completely mainstream this time, but it's a record that I really had a good relationship with. I know John and George in particular will have liked

this record uh queenswick queensrike rage for order oh yeah yeah old queensrike is really good that was such a quantum jump for them that record um there you go yeah yeah good good pull buke i can't think of anything right now i'm not gonna lie and say that i had time to really think of something for the script that's okay i i so i'll just go off the cuff again i probably said before how about opeth orchid why not why not yeah i i that was that was the one thing i had a little bit of trouble with and you know my deep track so they're gonna both be the same

But my classic is Hyrax Raging Violence. I know you guys are tired of hearing me talk about that. But I can't give enough props to them for their awesome set at MDF. I listened to that last night. I'm glad you mentioned that. Jay and I were playing hockey. I threw it on. If you were to listen to that now. Like for the first time ever. For the first time. Because I listened to yesterday and it sounds, personally, it was like, this is horrible. This is horrible. And Jay kept saying, you have to understand.

That's like,

was just gonna be sort of a nostalgia kind of like,

that's so cool, I like this band back in the day.

And you know, it was pretty decent for the time,

because everybody else kind of sounded like shit too in 83.

But that's why it surprised me so much,

because they sounded way better than the recordings.

At Death Valley. Yeah, they sounded great, man. They sounded like their new records sound, which are in the style of the old albums, but obviously produced in a more modern fashion. Right on. Okay, let's do Vinyl Purchases. Vinyl Purchases. Vinyl Purchases. All right, just got a couple. Neurosis released two more albums on vinyl through Relapse.

The Eye of Every Storm, A Sun That Never Sets, or two I got. This band I mentioned a couple times, Spotlights, Titles. And then I got the Skull releasing EP called The Skull. So I got that. That's it. I hadn't heard about that. I had not heard about that either. Yeah, it's hard to find. I think it's just with the actual label. It's nowhere else that you can get it, or through Discog. Okay. Will, you got anything? No vinyl, of course. I have not bought much in the last week or so, but I have intended purchases.

A bunch of stuff that I heard at Death Fest that impressed me, Scentinex, Cold, Derange, Hail of Bullets, Internment, and Wombath. So I plan on checking those albums out and probably purchasing all of them. Excellent. Jay? All of mine were Death Fest purchases. I'm going to have to think here for a minute. I picked up a copy of Raging Violence, Hyrrich's Raging Violence, because we were able to get Kate and the sign. We got the whole band to sign it. I picked up the Death, Scream, Bloody Gore reissue, supposedly Death Fest, colored vinyl. But having talked to the guys at Relapse, it was pretty clear to me that the sticker was the special issue part.

that says, yeah, okay. And I also picked up, oh, Garage Days Revisited, which I would have liked to have had vinyl for a long time now. That's Metallica. Yeah, yeah, nice little find for $20. I doubt it's going for a million anyway. $20 might be even kind of high, but glad to get it if that was all I picked up. Okay. You got anything? I just bought Twilight of the Gods vinyl yesterday. Is that Fire on the Mountain or whatever it is? Yeah, we don't know what the exact title is, but yeah. Cool. I've only got a couple things myself. I also got the Hyrax Raging Violence album also.

signed by the band. That was my only Death Fest vinyl purchase. But before we left, I also got the finally released on vinyl, Painted Wives, Obsessed with the End, The Catatonia, The Fall of Hearts, got that. Picked up ACDC Power Age, Cathedrals, The Seventh Coming, and Witch Find, Give Them Hell. Yeah, those reissues that just came out of both of the first two records, which might be the only two records. Yeah, I'm not even sure. Yeah, I'm not sure. All right, Deep Tracks.

All right, this is pretty damn deep. And Jay triggered me off when he mentioned Ozzy a while back. Jay let you off? Tipped me off. I started a buke at Death Fest Nat John. But I did trigger him off a couple of times. Thank you. You mentioned Ozzy a while back as a deep track, and I went back and looked through my collection. There's a song that he did once, I think, either as a soundcheck or as an encore. It never was played again, ever recorded again. And that was a song called You Said It All, which was off the

Mr. Crowley live EP in 1981. Wow. That's about as deep as you can get for an artist, I think. I think that's the deepest deep track ever. I think it is. Quite literally. I'm sure when we get to George, mine will be the second deepest track ever. George will be like, this is a song they thought about writing, but they didn't quite write. I wish we all could have heard it. Yeah, they didn't record it or even speak it out loud, but they telepathically sent it to me. And so it's like, I'm the only one that's ever heard it. Deep track. Will. My deep track. This may be a recycled,

one, but off Job 4 Cowboys, Demonocracy, 2012, the last track on the album, Tarnished Gluttony. I felt like that song was a sign of things to come because it's very slow and very doomy and it's very good. I like it. I like it. Was that the record you were playing last night? No, I was playing Sonny Durr. And I gotta tell you, I don't really listen to them, but I had to look at Buk and ask who it was. I thought it was pretty cool. I'm gonna stick also in that having been very prepared and hungover and all that stuff.

But I'll just go with one from my classic record, which is Rage for Order. Queensryche, song number one on slide two, Noya Regal, which I probably pronounced wrong. I don't have one. Okay. There you go. My deep track is going back to Hyrax is Call of the Gods. They didn't play it. I kind of wish they had, but it's an excellent song. All right. Well, we're about to end this episode, at least the part where we're talking to you now. But stick around because we're going to play you all the interviews and recordings from Death Fest.

But in the meantime, make sure to check us out on SoundCloud. Check us out on Facebook. I'm on Twitter at Disciple OV Metal. I'm at Opeth Fan. I'm at George's house. I'm at Brew Metal Will. And I'm at WhiteCluster69. You can also check us out on Instagram. We're on YouTube, Stitcher, and WeAreMetalHeads.com. And as always, look us up on Bandcamp and see what we're listening to. And tell a friend. Please, tell friends. Yes. If you've got any suggestions, comments, loves, or hate us, send us an email.

Let us know. Yeah. All right. Here's our Death Fest coverage. Enjoy. Hello and welcome to Maryland Death Fest 2016 coverage. My name is George. My name is Jay. This is Buke. I'm John. And this is Will. And we are currently traveling down I-70 headed towards Baltimore where we will check into our hotel, meet up with Neutrino and Galen from Infera Brew.

Possibly pick up some more beer and then we will head over to the parking lot and start getting ready for the show. So how you guys doing? We're all in the same car and we're all wearing black t-shirts and it's 90 degrees. Yeah, we are a little bit sardined in here. But it's good to see the boys. Yeah, first time ever. First time ever. And we're really close right now. We're a little packed. But comfortable.

A little bit of a J sandwich. When George gets telephone calls, my leg vibrates. So... Hold on boys, we're gonna try to speed up over the hill. Yeah, we're making a joke that this is the thousand pounds of metal rolling down the highway like the 70,000 tons of metal. What's that? It's like a V4 in here right now. Yeah. Stressing out the V6 a little bit. Yeah. So,

Yeah, we're just packed in here, heading downtown, and we'll report back more when we get there, I guess. All right? Wait, wait, wait. You can't just end it there. This is our Death Fest coverage. Well, hey, nobody was saying anything, so I figured you're doing your thing. This is fucking Death Fest, boys. Everybody feeling good? Feeling good, yeah. Yeah, feeling fucking great. I actually feel great. Exactly. Yeah. All right, well, how about we do maybe Most Anticipated Band today?

that and say,

I thought they were coming on tomorrow,

but horrendous and November's doom and the haunted.

All right.

Jay,

what are you looking forward to most today?

I got to pull out my PDF.

All right.

You pull it out.

We'll move on to John.

Horrendous and November's doom.

And I've seen them a million times,

but I still want to see paradise lost.

All right.

Well,

paradise lost.

I've never seen them.

In fact,

I was playing it all day yesterday while I was brewing.

and beer. Excellent.

Alright, you're going to have to edit.

Let's see.

We don't edit on these.

Oh, Hail of Bullets.

Right, that's today?

Maybe.

I thought that was...

Who knows?

Who knows?

I thought it was.

Maybe I'm looking at...

No, it's this...

Alright.

Oh, Sam I Am.

Yeah, that's me too.

I've been listening to that record ever since you guys were talking about it.

And they're playing that whole record, correct?

Yes, Ceremony of Opposites. Killer. Good day. Alright, what else we got? I tell you, it's cool to... I'm just looking forward to just the whole experience. I want to see Horrendous, but they come on at 3. If we get there and we miss them, oh well. We won't miss them. Yeah, we gotta be there for that. I'm just saying. No band this whole weekend do I have to see.

I'm here for the experience. I'm here for it with my friends. There you go. We're all in the same car. What could go wrong? Yeah. No, we could roll over and die together. I think we're probably weighted down to the earth pretty well right about now. Our center of gravity is basically sumo wrestler. Yes. Don't we have a better contingency plan than this? We're literally all in the same car. The president and the vice president do not travel together for this reason. We should have took separate

- Mark is coming on Sunday. Mark, if we all die, Mark, you heard this. The cops will find the debris on the side of the road, will pick up the cougar bush, they will give it to you, and you have to carry on without us. Exactly. Don't leave a beer behind. Yeah, there's a lot of beer in the back, so make sure you get that too. Save the beer. So you brought a bunch of metal beer, Will. I'm sure we'd mention it again later, but what were some of the beers you brought?

Well, on the last podcast, believe it or not, I do remember most of it. And Jay was saying that he wanted to try some of the metal beers I'm always writing about or talking about. So I have a pretty good collection. I got Trooper and Trooper 666. I got Blacker from Three Floyds. I have Troge's Master of Pumpkins. I have... That'll be Geek's favorite. Yeah. And I got... I have one 668 Neighbor of the Beast. Awesome.

to my friend Luch. I brought some DC Brow, El Jefe Speaks, which is a tribute to Clutch. I have Hopped in Half from Three Floyds, their obituary tribute beer. I have a Cataclysm beer. Damn, dude. You think this guy's a brewer or something? I know. I thought of these beers and he knows you're going to rattle on them. I brought some Dark Horse, Rain and Blood. I brought, what else did I bring? I'm probably missing a couple. But we're probably going to head to Oliver Ailes right now and go see my friend Steve Jones.

who's another heavy metal brewer. He makes a whole bunch of beers. So we go over there and buy more heavy metal beer. So yeah, we got a lot. That was a fucking list, dude. I know. So John, up there, what are you looking forward to? Hold on. I got a couple more. I got Wake Up Dead from Left Hand. I got one on Nitro and one normal. So, and I'm sure I got more. But yeah, there's a bunch. We got a lot of metal beer. It's going to be a heavy metal weekend. Hell yeah. I was saying, did we get what John was looking forward to?

For bands? Yes. Paradise Lost. Okay. That was a wasted movement. November's doom and horrendous also. John, I think, I don't know if we brought it up before. I don't think you were on the pod when this came up. Maybe for the year end you were. What do you, knowing what you listen to, do you like the new Paradise Lost compared to old Paradise Lost? Style-wise? Because they've seen a little change through the years. A little. Yeah, just a little. Oh, yeah.

I liked them better since in Requiem. Okay. Which was, what, 10 years now? I don't even know how long ago. Since then, I've liked them more than that kind of middle period where I kind of dipped out on them. John, to be fair, they dipped out on you. That's called losing the plot. Yeah. That's called implosion. One second, I guess, is the last one that I liked a lot. And then there's some iffy stuff in there.

Yeah, I like...

Just believe it's not a simple life.

A simple life is okay, but yeah.

No.

So everything from in Requiem on I've liked.

And I love the last stop.

I thought it was great.

As a matter of fact, I think it was my number six?

Yeah.

This last year?

Yep.

So, yeah.

Cool.

Well, great.

Well, Jay, you're working the mic great to start.

He's the cougar boy.

Yep.

So, here we are.

Jay, is this the first time you've ever seen the cougar bush in person?

First time I've ever seen a dude. But to me it's the guitar player from the Melvins. Yeah, the Buzz Osborne. The Buzz Osborne. I think last year they posted a photo and I said it's of Buke and Buke, George and Buzz Osborne ran into Buzz Osborne at Death Fest. Yeah, it's a little less offensive I suppose. Well last year we didn't have that. We had this, it was uncovered. Yeah. And there were two of them. Yeah. There are two of them still. But it wasn't any nightmare, correct? Yes, it was. So, I'm,

We're not going to use both of them at the same time. This is so like if you or somebody runs off to do an interview, we have one another one handy just to talk to anybody. Yeah, yeah, that'll happen. All right. Before we sign off. What's the update? Well, how far out are we? I have no idea. That's the spirit. Perfect. I'm the driver and I'm hoping someone else is navigating. I'll just keep driving until someone tells me to turn until they say stop. Yeah. Yeah.

John's riding shotgun and he's navigating. I think we got 25 miles still. 25 miles says John and we're going to live by that. All right signing off we'll be back. Yep. Hello this is Butte from the Metal Heads podcast and I'm here with the one and only Larry of November's Doom. What's going on brother? Oh a lot. I'm hot. It's a fucking awesome day but god damn it's hot. How you doing man? Larry we're doing great. You guys just finished.

your set here at Maryland Death Fest. Yep. And goddamn, we have to start this off by saying, what took you guys so long to come back here to the East Coast? You know, man, it's really weird. It's like, we have a following in America, but when it comes to, like, promoters and tours and stuff like that, it's really hard to get something going here. Overseas, like, no problem. Like, eat it up, right? Yeah, I mean, we get offers all the time, and we always just wait for,

something cool to come along and we'd wanted to do uh maryland for years and just

one reason or another scheduling or recording or whatever and never worked out and finally this year

they got in touch with us and we were like perfect let's do it so let me ask you so this playing a

one-off show like this and the re the reception was amazing yeah does this make you guys want to

and think like, hey, let's try and get that tour going. Well, yeah, I mean, we always are open for it. The problem is, it's just, like I said, it's just logistics. Plus, you know, being totally honest, we're fucking old as dirt. Well, look at our John and George here. We're not young. I'm young! How old are you? 48. Okay, well, you got me beat a little bit. I'm in my mid-40s. Exactly. I mean, you know, we're,

You know, we want to do it, but it's got to be the right thing. It's got to make sense. You know, we'll see. A lot of November's Doom's history, both good and bad, has been about timing. So, it's a matter. Like, this year, this worked out. Great timing. If we could get the good timing with a good tour, man, then it'll happen. You know, to speak for all of us here, you are one of the bands flying the flag for American metal.

And that's why I guess so many of us here want to see you guys playing out more. I mean, there's a lot of great bands in America, but I think the problem is we all kind of have the same problem. It's like the grass is always greener on the other side. Over there in Europe, they want all of us to go over there. Over here, they want the European bands and the Brazilian bands. I get it. I understand how it works.

They're like, oh, they're in our backyard. We'll see them again. And it always, it's, you know, it seems more interesting to them. It's really hard to get enough support from the business end of things for the American metal bands to really get that push, you know? I mean, look how long we've been around, and it's still a struggle for us in the States. Sorry to interrupt you, but that's what John was saying earlier. You guys have a long history, but John was saying it's still rare that they, you know, that's why we

You guys are cannot miss band. I saw you guys back in 2007 I think at Jack's in Springfield, Virginia. Oh yeah, with Daylight Dice and Saturn. Yeah, it was a great show. And then I would have seen you when you were touring with Agaloc and The Gathering, but I was too fucking hammered from the open show the night before, so I got there too late. I missed you guys. Well, you know, that's the problem too, man, especially nowadays with the whole thing where nobody's making any money doing this, which it's not about

that, but it's just simply about being able to afford to do it. Like, we don't care about earning money and buying cars, you know, please. But we just need to be able to afford to keep doing it. And the problem is, is that the only way anybody's making the money to do that is by touring. So now everybody's touring. Every, I mean, like, especially in major markets, like back in Chicago, I mean, no joke, I could go see,

Touring Acts almost every night of the week. So again, it comes down to that timing thing. For a band like ours that are a little bit more cult and a little bit more underground, it's like the trick is picking the right tour or the right fest at the right time, not trying to compete with fucking Opa, you know, or something like that. You know what I mean? I mean, it's just true. I have nothing against those guys. And you know, Larry, the crazy thing, you're a band who has almost come up on

20 years of band history. And you're making this statement here. That just shows you how the metal world is now. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I can't complain because, to be honest, Matt, we've had amazing opportunities over the years that I know a lot of other bands haven't had. I mean, we've toured Europe like seven or eight times. We've gotten to play things like this today, which we're still, like, extremely grateful. You know, like, we're, like, so grateful.

I'm grateful to be here at MDF. I mean, we don't take this lightly. This is like an honor for us to be here. And doing this and doing like New England Metal Fest, all those things, like we've had some great opportunities. So don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. We're very lucky overall. But I wish we could do more. I wish we could come back more. But at the same time, I guess it's kind of cool because it just makes you guys that much more fucking eager when we do come, you know. We'll come eventually, you know.

So taking a different direction, how was it working with Annika from the Gathering? Oh, Annika, she's a doll. You know, I mean, we've known her for a long time. You know, she's like a personal friend, especially of Paul. You know, they've been good friends for years. And she's great to work with. She's really professional. She's really nice. But she's no bullshit either. You know, she's a pro. I thought the song that you guys did with her on was a photic, wasn't it?

Yeah, we did the song "What Could Have Been." Yeah, she's great and we've been lucky enough a couple of times to have been able to do it live. We played like a year or so ago, we played that song in Europe with her, you know, in front of like 10,000 people. That was fucking incredible. And nerve-wracking too because we do that song, I'm the only instrumentalist on stage. There's no drums. All pressures on you, Larry.

If I fuck up on an Annika song, fuck. And you know, we all know, us metalheads, we are so forgiving. No, not at all. You'll notice every, I would, you'll notice, you know, and there's no, and that's a clean song. There's no distortion I can hide behind. I can't thrash around and pretend like I'm doing it on purpose. No, if I fuck up, everybody knows. Everybody's picking up on it. But you know, she's great, man. She's, she's, you know, I'm glad to see her. You know, she's an

It's been a couple years since

since Bled White comes out what you guys plans now we're actually were like about halfway through

We were writing the new album. We took a little detour because this came up. Originally we were talking about trying to get into the studio now. When we found out a few months back that we were going to do this, we said, "Well, alright, we can't pass this up. Album can wait, this can't." So we put off the writing a little bit so we could prepare for this and some other things we have going on. I'm hoping we're going to get in and record

I think the plan right now is looking around September/October which means new album would come out like early 2017. Now we you know Dan and Kevin here they come in from out of state. No they come in from out of state and we have to ask it for us we this every year is a given that we're gonna be here right but you know we plan our lives around it you guys as a band it sounds like you know just like you said you even have to put the recording on hold for you guys.

to come here, right? Yeah, well, I mean, it's just, you know, it's just one of those things. I mean, especially for a show like this, and it still wasn't perfect. We still fucked up a little bit, but I mean, for a show like this, we wanted to make sure that we had our shit together, you know? So we were like, you know, you can't really be really practicing and rehearsing and going over your shit if you're also trying to divide your time with songwriting. For me, I know for me and for Paul, we have, we have to do it.

I have to totally be in a headspace. Not to be cliché, but it's true. When it comes to writing, I have to totally focus on writing and not be thinking about, oh, we got a show next month or we got a video, blah, blah, blah. We made the conscious decision to say, okay, we got to get out of this headspace. We got to get into the live mode again and get ready for it. That's why we had a couple other offers for some things to do in this summer. We said, no,

You know, Blood White, like you said, it's going on two years old already. And so we wanted to make sure that we did new material first, and then we'll get back out there. You almost have to say, and let me say first off, I misspoke. I said, for Corey here, I said Dan. So let me correct myself for that. But in this internet age that we live in, metal bands are putting stuff out all the time. Right.

You guys found to try and stay, I hate to use this term, but... To keep yourselves in the forefront so people don't forget about... Relevant? Relevant. Yeah. Are you guys trying to do live videos now? Just to say, hey look, we're still here. You know what, to be honest with you, and this may not be the smartest business model, we only do what we fucking want to do. Okay.

I mean there's a lot of bands that put out material not because they're super inspired or because they have great material but because they need to have a new album out so they can tour and make money and I have nothing against that because that's a lot of that's how they live that's their business but for us it's like whether we if we decided to put out a new album every year it would only be because we were ready for it but if we take three years then it's because

That's how long it takes us. I mean, it's not the smartest thing to take so long like we do. You know, in between albums, in between videos, and all that shit. And we've had managers and record labels and everybody tell us, you guys need to do more. You need to do more. You gotta put out like a lyric video or something. Right. And I'm not against any of that stuff, but we only ever do shit if we feel inspired to do it. What is the one thing that has seen the band

And just in the last 16 years, what's the one thing that stands out for you that has changed the most? You're like, my God, I can't believe we're at this point now. Is it like bands doing the self-release on Bandcamp? Is it the vinyl? Well, I mean, it's a cliche thing, but I mean, the internet changed everything. You've got to figure, I started playing with bands in the 1980s, you know? So the whole way the internet changed everything,

And yeah, sure, in some ways it changed it negatively, but it also, overall, it has benefited a band like us because now we can reach out to so many more people so much more quickly, you know, whether it's through things like Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Spotify, Facebook, all that shit, it makes it so much, I mean, even just like how we set this interview up, you know, 10, 15 years ago,

This would have had to be a whole long drawn out process.

Contact the PR, we're a message, we're a phone call.

And everything. And now it's like so much quicker. And I think that quicker point to point between the listener and the musician has made everything so much better overall.

Do you wonder at that point, does the mystique of being in a band, like that audience band interaction, that kind of separation creates a mystique and you actually worry whether that mystique going away is a bad thing?

Oh sure, you know what, here's the thing, it has changed the whole mystique factor, like big time, but the funny thing about it is, I can only speak for myself, we were never, we were never Agaloc, you know what I mean? We were never that band that was like, we don't talk, you know, to the fans that much, and we don't put out videos, and we blah blah blah, we're like in the dark, you know, making this creepy cryptic music, that's cool for them.

We were always the kind of people that were like, we play music, but we're not, we ain't shit, we're just people that happen to play music. And I, part of what I love doing this for is meeting people. Because there's a lot of people that I've met that started talking to me at a show or emailed me just because they were like a fan or whatever you want to call it.

You know, there's no reason for any of us to be acting like we're above anybody else.

That's what it comes down to. We're just people plain and simple.

I don't consider myself a visionary or anything like that.

I love a call out. I love it. I love it.

You know, I just, to each their own.

If that's how people want to conduct themselves, that's their business, I'm not going to say yay or nay.

But for me, I'm not a visionary.

I like to write music, I like to play music. If you guys like what I do, that's awesome. If you don't, okay, you know. I love to be creative, and yeah, having positive feedback helps. It's great. It lets me know that it's worth putting it out there. In this internet age, when people can just throw feedback like that, a quick post, how much weight do you put on there? You have to learn.

I hate his long hair.

I mean, if you go on YouTube, you see there's people that leave comments about how they hate that we look like we straighten our hair.

And I'm like, "Really? What are you looking at, dude?"

And these are dudes, you know? I'm like, "Why are you even looking at my hair, dude?"

Like, you got some issues to work out, you know?

I'm jealous.

I'm sure probably.

And you know what?

Over time, when I was younger, not even that long ago, I used to let all that shit really get to me.

The whole blabber mouth and everything.

Yeah.

And now you get to the point where you realize that it doesn't matter.

Usually, for one thing, the dissenting voice is going to be the one that speaks loudest.

So for every one jag-off on YouTube or wherever, you've probably got like 20 other people who dig it that just don't say anything. They like it and they keep their mouth shut. You have to realize that. And don't let people... The only time I get angry is if people get like really overly personal or something and I might be like, shut the fuck up, you know. Or the only other time is if people ask something more

like when I have people say like, "Oh, well, you guys sound like you're really influenced by such and such fan." And I'll be like, "No, you know, I'm not." Or I might be like, "Oh, yeah, totally." You know? If somebody puts on one of our songs and goes, "Wow, that really sounds like Pink Floyd." I'm like, "Yes, it does." And I did that on purpose. So, on the Pale Haunt, we were talking earlier, there was almost a band shift to a little different sound.

Where did that come from? It was kind of gradual. A lot of people thought it was because we changed guitar players and it did make a difference. Vito coming into the band, it did make a difference. Vito's great. He brought a new angle musically because he writes differently than I do and he brought in something that wasn't there.

that kind of gradually started with the knowing. Where once we did the knowing we were like, we were kind of, Paul and I especially were feeling like we wanted to move in that direction. I don't even know what you call it, but whatever it was that we wound up with with Pale Hawn and Novella. And to Welcome to Fade was like a weird transitional. Because there's elements of what you heard later on that, but then there was still some of the old

I think it was just, honestly it was just age. I mean, I listened to stuff we did on like Scope's Jardive and The Knowing and I know some fans love it but to me, I hear young guys that I wouldn't do those ideas now. Now being a band from the states as opposed to like from overseas, you think there's any elements you guys bring in that might not be from a European band playing? Well see, I mean that's the funny thing is a lot of what we bring in to

what we do actually doesn't have anything to do with metal. I know all of us. Because that's a funny thing about us is that we don't listen to a lot of metal and a lot of our influences. Like me and Paul are like really into stuff like Peter Gabriel. Wow. And so that's been like melody wise and concept wise that's been a big influence on us. The Doors. A lot of like 70s Bronx.

I grew up on that. You know, that was, you know, when I first joined Doom, we were kind of doing a little bit more typical, traditional death, Doom kind of stuff. But then once I got more comfortable, I started being able to show a little bit more of just who I am. And a lot of my influences are, you know, yes, King Crimson, you know, Captain Beyond, all this kind of stuff. Captain Beyond is a good pull. Yeah, that's one of my favorites.

And so I started incorporating a little bit more of that. But by the time it goes through the process with the whole band, it sounds like November's Doom. It comes out more metal. Yeah, it's just the way we do it, you know. So I think that's kind of what it is, is that we draw a lot of influences from other stuff, and then we put it through that filter or whatever of us, and it gets heavier, and it, you know.

Did you expect to see yourself here years later still doing this? To be the band that people traveled multiple states to see you guys? Well, you know, to some degree that's already happened. I mean, you know, it's interesting to see, you know, now we get respect from certain people that we didn't get 15 years ago. You know, and that's cool. I think some people just respect you because you stuck

get in there you know but um it's hard to say man i mean i don't like to we've had so many ups and downs and health i mean you know paul's got serious health issues i've had some really serious health issues over the last five years and that that's other things that have kind of when i'm getting back to that timing thing that has derailed us a little bit makes you more grateful too for what for every so i just don't count my chickens at all i'm just like if we're here in five years and we're doing it

and people respect us more. Awesome. You know, I just try not to jinx myself. And we're just kind of taking it like one album at a time, one year at a time, so on and so forth. So we'll see. You kind of hit the nail on all my questions. So because future is thorough. Hey, it's day one of SNN. Anybody else looking forward to seeing the next few days? Yeah. I mean, like I want to see, I was really excited to see Sinister and now they're not coming. Yeah, we were excited to see Destroyer 666.

6 and Thule Contra. Right. Yeah, and Sinister covered one of our songs before. Are you serious? Yeah, and I was hoping they might play it, but oh well. Now, when a band covers your songs, are you like, you assholes better get that shit right? Yeah, I mean, and I've been listening to them since I crossed the sticks or whatever. So, yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, we want to see our buds in Paradise Lost. You know, last night Goblin was amazing. Yeah, he was amazing. That was a great set. Torrid. Yeah.

My buddies in Jungle Rod I saw they sounded fucking tight as fuck. I want to see all that. You know more than anything not even naming names I'd love to see stuff that I don't know that I haven't seen. I love to be turned on to shit and walk away going oh man I found a new band you know. If that happens this weekend that's awesome. That's what's great about coming to these festivals. You see that one band you walk away you're like oh man that's amazing.

Well, for the middle-heads, did you already ask him all the beer questions? No. Oh! What's up? Will, he is actually a brew man. He brews beers. Okay. So my question to you, being from Chicago, do you guys like beer? Yeah, I don't. I'll be honest with you, because of health and, you know, getting older and everything, and I'm patting my belly, if you can't see that right now. You look like a young man. Come on.

I'm in my mid-40s, so I have to be more conscious of it, but I don't drink it as much as I used to, but yes, I do like beer. And I know that Vito and Gary especially, like half of us are definitely beer guys. So, well, I brew beer for a living, so I'm always wondering if fans like beer, and if so, from their local towns, like what beer do they like? Oh, gosh.

I've hung out at 3 Floyd's plenty, you know, the 3 Floyd's stuff, those guys are great and everything. God, that's a fucking tough question to be put on the spot. I'll follow it up with an even, what I think is an even question. Are you vegetarian? No, I'm pescatarian actually. Okay, so you don't go to Kuma's Corner? Yeah, I do actually because as being pescatarian, I mean you can get, you can get,

I get the mac and cheese and stuff there a lot of times.

So you've been there and you can worship at the altar of Kuma's Corner.

Yeah, Kuma's is cool. Lockdown's cool.

Chicago is a fucking awesome place for brews and food.

Which again, patting my stomach again, is not an easy thing, man.

It sucks.

Larry, we'll end this interview. It's an honor to talk to you, sir.

You guys have a safe trip home and we'll look forward to what you guys are doing next. Yeah, I'll be wandering around here tonight, man. So let's have a drink together or something. Thank you for joining the podcast, brother. Thank you so much, guys. Have a good time, brother. Hello, this is Buke from the Metalheads podcast and in a lucky twist of fate while watching The Haunted, while talking about my love of Opeth, I have found the members of Wombat.

Gentlemen, please introduce yourself.

- Uh, Jonny, singer.

- Håkan, guitarist.

- I'm Johan, the bassist.

- And you gentlemen are bringing Swedish death metal to Maryland Death Fest.

You guys first time here in the States?

- Yes, very first time.

- Yeah, first time.

We've been around for 22 plus years.

And first time in America at all, so...

It's crazy you guys have a 22 year history and this is your guys first time here in the States. Why did it take you guys so long? Don't ask me. It's basically like we had a good go when the birth of Death Metal in Sweden came around. We were one of the first bands that came around and at the end of it it just it kind of went to shit and then we had a big haters.

for a long, long time. And then after 20 years, 19 years actually, we started working on some new material thinking that let's do something like nostalgic and we put out a few re-releases and stuff like that throughout the years but figured out let's make a go at it, let's make a new fucking album and thinking it would be one-time thing, like a one-time project, bringing in friends to do all sorts of things on the album.

We figured what the hell. And the album we're talking about, Downfall Rising. Amazing album. That's why you guys are one of my bands personally to check out. I have to ask you guys this first off. Sweden, especially the death metal scene, has seen a lot of melodic death metal come around and stuff like that. But you guys have seemed to stay true to death metal at its roots.

"Dreams", have you heard of them? Yeah. "Skin Eater", not so much "Death Metal", not so much "True Death Metal", but still Swedish. But where's your guys' influences come from? Well, it's just the passion of Death Metal. I mean, we all listen to Death Metal on a daily basis. I mean, we discover new bands every single day. You get new bands from all over the fucking globe that kicks ass, literally.

That gives so much inspiration. And I mean, we've never really stopped. Even though we quit in 1994, we never stopped playing death metal. We've been in death metal bands throughout thick and thin. When it was out of fashion, when it's in the fashion, when it's whenever. We've always stuck to it and played old school death metal because we love it. And it's our passion. And yeah. It's who you are. Yeah, it's who you are. And us here in the States, we're a bunch of metal fans who love Swedish death metal.

because we don't have our own. You know? You guys fucking bring the music that we love here stateside. You know? But I have to ask you guys though, with the Opeth and the Inflames, was it hard not to be influenced by that at all? Not really though. Not really. I mean, they're doing their thing and they're doing it fucking well. I mean, look at Inflames. They're one of the biggest exports in Sweden at the moment. And Opeth as well. They're touring all over the world.

They're doing it well and I wouldn't discredit them for anything they've done at all. But it's just not our thing.

Now where are you guys from exactly in Sweden?

Yeah, we're from the middle Sweden. Yeah, a little place called Sandvik.

Yeah, last episode we interviewed the guys from Hyperion. They're doing amazing work from Sweden. You guys continue to put out great music.

How's the scene over there now? Yeah, it's pretty damp, I would say. Not that much old school at all. We do get quite a few. I mean, you get Black Morty's putting out a new album. You got Rogga from A Million and One Projects. I mean, he has Rip Spreader. He's got fucking Paganizer doing all sorts of shit. And then you got bands like

from Gothenburg playing old-school Swedish death metal filthy fucking stuff and there's so many bands that underground bands that no one gets to know really outside of Sweden and they're fucking amazing is it hard with so many metal bands coming out of Sweden to try and even still with a long history like you guys have is it hard to stand out from so many bands

I don't think it is. I mean, we've got our personalities. We're playing music that we love. We're playing the way we want. We're playing the music that we want to hear. So, I mean, if people think that we're a part of whatever, like, if we're sounding like another band, fuck them. So what? We're playing the music that we love and the music we want to play. So, that's it. True without. Yeah. So, you guys, okay, so I'd like to know how you got hooked up with Death Fest.

And you're both drinking American beer. How's that going for you? I didn't have a choice. Is that the band beer? It's a bit like water, but it's hot outside, so it goes down well in the hot weather. Will brews beer. So he doesn't like that beer because it's like water. So how did you guys get here? How's been the trip and all that stuff?

New York for a few days went to Duff's and had a few beers with the guys there and fell in love with Brooklyn and these guys went over to Tampa. So why did you go there? The reason was that we had two of our members couldn't make the trip so we had to bring in extra people and actually on the album on Downfall Rising we had two guys Jeremy and Taylor playing on the album and they actually mixed the album as well and they jumped in.

because they knew the songs from playing on the album and all that. So these guys, Joan and Håkan, they went down to Tampa into the birthplace of death metal. In the actual Morbid Angel D's side, Ice to Earth, all those bands started out in that actual lot of rehearsal spaces. They went there, rehearsed, so they brought some Swedish death metal to Tampa Bay and picked their way up from a 19 journey up here and then here we are.

playing Swedish Death Metal for the American crowd. I have to ask you, with so many years in the scene, is there any band you guys still play with that blows your mind? You're like, "My god, I can't believe we're still playing with this band or we're seeing this band play live now." Every day. Every day. I find new bands all the time. I mean, as I mentioned before, we have Death Metal Mastermind in Sweden. It all got you once on.

are amazing we got blood mortized we got pewter a.m. We got sorcery coming back up again now with a new album so many bands that i mean and then all the young kids as well i mean all the kids starting new bands that they might not have been signed but they got demo bands and they're doing their thing and they're playing hm2 swedish proper death metal and and bringing back the thing that we were doing back in the day what did you guys grow up what were you guys

When I was growing up it was just black metal but eventually I got this contact with Hawken and Johnny and it was yeah it was most black metal. I think it's mainly for myself it's like old school death metal like everything from the start from like Death Mantis Master and then going onwards and then finding out about like more of Daniel bringing the atmosphere into it and then yeah the fucking repulsion

doing that nasty fucking gnarly grinds thing. And then we discovered like punk bands like Discharged and Doom and stuff like that. And Dicemic. And it all just came together in this massive big fucking bang of amazing music that I think the first ones to bring it all together was like Nihilist. Like they had it straight on. Now I have to ask, is there any band from back home?

have wanted to see, but for some crazy reason you've never been able to see them yet.

Entombed, I think, with the line, and proper Entombed with the original line-up.

Fortunately, like in a couple months, there's a reunion gig with proper Entombed.

And they were playing Left On Path and Clandestine with the original line-up.

And so that will be a dream come true. That's like a childhood dream to see them again.

and we've seen them loads of times. Asentuned and Asentuned AD and all that. But never asked with the full perfect lineup with that early, early, perfect sound. Yeah, so granted I'm a little biased because I'm a metalhead and all I listen to is heavy metal for the most part. But when I think of Sweden, the only thing I can think of is the only music that comes out of Sweden is heavy metal. Is there actually any other music scene? I'm being a little bit facetious, but you never

I've ever heard of big pop artists, except for ABBA, but is there any other big music scene aside from heavy metal? Please tell me the answer is no.

Don't push my bubble.

There's loads. I mean, you got the punk scene, the cross punk scene. It's massive. I mean, it started in England with Discharge, but at the same time, you had Antisemix back in 1982 playing cross punk that any old school death metal band you'll hear, I promise you, they will have inspiration from all of the

and it all started in England and Sweden. In England, in Sweden you had Antisemex and then all the band that follows like Sweden has Wolf Brigade, Skietsystem, Disphere, stuff like that and then you have all the other Gothenburg part of things which I guess is metal so it doesn't really count into that but I mean with

With all the metal bands in Sweden, is it kind of hard starting out? If you guys were starting out now, would it be hard with the scene so full of so many bands? I think so, I think. I believe so. So many bands doing it, right? So many bands now. I think it's hard, but at the same time, if you're passionate about it and you just go for it and you have a drive for it and that's what you want to do, you'll get there eventually.

So us listening to so many Swedish bands, you guys being from Sweden, do you try to go out and try to listen to other bands that aren't from Sweden? Just because you're like, "Oh, we've heard them so many times." We're going to listen to the Florida Death Metal. Or we're going to listen to whatever. I mean, if you're asking for bands outside of Sweden or America, you've got loads. I mean, you've got Revlon Flesh from Germany, for example.

the Swedish death metal tradition. And then you got all the British bands, all the classic ones, obviously, ball, throw, carcass, all that. But then again, I mean, you have a few of the Dutch bands like... What's your friend's band? What? What's your friend's band? It's okay, don't worry, don't worry. We're very drunk, so...

Yeah, check out the Dutch scene and the German scene with Death Metal. It's amazing.

So I have to ask this. I'm a big Opeth fan. What do you think about what Opeth is doing now from where they first started?

I'm not a big fan of the 70s prog rock thing. I love Opeth.

Is Mike like a big hero back home or do people think he's an asshole?

Nah, I think he's just one of the guys.

He's just another guy. So, of course, this is a podcast. They can't see this, but your fucking beard. Has this been growing since the band started? Because it's literally, like, down to your waist. It's only for 13 years this one's going, so... It was down to the knee. What happened? I was drunk. You tripped over it? No, I got caught in my zipper.

Awesome. So, what's your guys' future plans for the next year? Are we gonna expect a new album, a tour? Maybe you're gonna try to come back or just this may be the only opportunity for us here in the States to see you guys. What's your guys' future hold? Well, we got loads of stuff coming up. I mean, we got two splits coming up. One with, oh, here we go, Departed Souls. That was the band I had. I forgot to mention earlier from Holland. And we're playing in Sweden and Finland, Germany.

We got shit ton of stuff coming up and we're actually at the moment writing our new album as well. So we got the rough foundations for about nine songs ready for the next album. So if you're not here you're out of fucking luck. That's what I'm saying. Because you guys aren't coming back to the States anytime soon. Possibly. You never know. You never know. I mean if anyone books us we'll be here. That's it. We live to play live so we love it.

Well, anybody else have anything else? I got anything else. We appreciate you guys taking the time, man. Yeah. We appreciate you. Literally, you were one of my bands, the band I wanted to come see. So I thank you guys for the time, truly. Thank you very much. Hello, and welcome to Maryland Death Fest Day 2, where we will recap the fun and havoc of the previous day of Death Fest. With me is, oh, by the way, I'm George, and with me is Will.

John. Jay. Natrino. And Buke. And I don't know, I think yesterday was pretty successful, at least for, I know it was for me, I don't know about everybody else, but I guess why don't we talk about, you know, what everybody thought about yesterday, what your favorite bands were, you know, that kind of shit. So, who wants to start? I guess I'll start, I'm right here.

Yesterday by far was probably

Gruesome. They killed it.

And if you just, what was great about it

is you literally just close your eyes, you would think you're listening

to death. Especially when they played Open Casket.

It was amazing.

All right.

I don't know if I have a favorite band.

I kind of like them all.

Maybe November's Doom because I haven't seen them in a while.

And it was cool talking with Larry afterwards.

So Gruesome was cool.

Paradise Lost was cool.

That's all I have to say about that.

Yeah, Buk did an interview with Larry from November's Doom, so that should be interspersed in here somewhere, so check that out. Jay, what'd you think? As much as I was zapped by the end of the day, and even though it wasn't necessarily the most musically whatever, Mayhem's production, just the way they looked, sound, felt, the vibe, was pretty killer, dude. It was a great way to end the day. Yeah, it was. Yeah, I agree. No, Mayhem. I meant a few words.

Mayhem was awesome. They played the whole record, the whole first one, the Mysteries, and just put together really well, a really good vibe. Sounded really good, and I also enjoyed Samael and Wormed. It was always fucking amazing. So who was the biggest poser here that you wanted to kill and just destroy in the name of the true cult? Buke.

Buke, your response? Definitely not Mayhem. I took that time when everybody was enjoying that to walk around and look at other things. But The Haunted won the day for me. I've been a fan of them for a long time. People can say they're maybe a little too accessible as a metal band. I like them. They were fun. I never thought I'd get to see them. I didn't understand. I lost some points in my book because he's wearing a Wu-Tang shirt. Yeah, well, what's up with that?

I don't know why he was wearing Rutan. But the only thing that's disappointing about Haunted was that I wanted them to play God Puppet and they didn't, which is by far their coolest song. They played Bear You're Dead. They played 99. I'm fine. Cool. You know, I got to go with John a little bit on the November's Doom. When they started playing, I kind of forgot how awesome they were. I mean, I've always liked them, but just hearing them live was like, oh yeah,

I should have been anticipating this a little more. But I think my favorites were probably Samael and Mayhem. Actually, Horrendous was great, dude. Yes. Yeah. By the way. They were not horrendous. What was up with that? Yeah, we had John and George and I were saying that they must have, after the first show, must have gone out and said, we are horrendous and thought, oh, wait, we should have thought about this name a little bit. Yeah, but they were great, dude. Super tight. And I thought kind of more old school sounding live than they are in the album.

I like them better live. I have both their albums, but I like them way better live. I had, it just seemed, although it was kind of weird because literally the bass player looks like he's 12. Yeah. It was a little weird, but yeah, they were good. Yeah. Samael was my number one going into this that I wanted to see mostly because Mayhem's been around once in a while. Whereas Samael, you know, I was talking to John about this and I forgot.

to a cathedral semi-el show like 10 years ago and it got canceled for some reason and uh so that's the only other time i've ever heard of them coming around they had they came around with amorphous in 2008 i think that's all okay well before we move on neutrino being the big mayhem fan that he is they were saying last night you guys really enjoyed being able to see the whole album start to finish how was that awesome yeah did they play anything else off of that after they had finished the album no

didn't address the crowd just got on got off awesome mayhem should be yeah mayhem was was very cool um and despite i mean they're they're really for me they were kind of neck and neck with samuel at the end of the night because i was like ceremony of opposites is an album i've loved for 20 years and well i mean i've liked mayhem for quite a while too but uh but damn that stage show i mean and they like had

They had lights, but they didn't have lights. And so I was trying to take a picture of Attila, and I could not get in focus because he was standing in the dark, which is, of course, where he probably always stands. Where he always dwells. Yeah, but there was also a lot of smoke. Yeah, a lot of smoke, and they were lighting up the smoke, which looked really fucking cool. Yeah, and when there's smoke, you can't focus. My only issue with them is I really wanted to see Hellhammer being a former drummer, and he's just so

And all I got was like maybe his head popped through the smoke for a second.

Those drums are so huge.

Yeah, but it was... I got to see another great.

He was wearing a pretty headband.

I thought so, I caught that little white headband.

Yeah, but it was cool.

Sorry, Gally mentioned an interesting point. He told me if you read the liner notes for that album, they clearly say in there that no triggers on the drums were used.

He's awesome.

They said when they played last night he didn't have them either, which just makes that even more impressive.

And normally he triggers everything. Including Tom's snare. Oh, so this was a true old school song. And I don't know who I mentioned to first. It might have been Jay or John or somebody. But looking at Attila up on stage and the way he moves all slow and creepy like, I was like, dude looks like the emperor from The Empire Strikes Back. Or I said Papa from Ghost. Yeah, that too. It definitely looked like a stop motion character from like a 19th century.

1960s like horror show like the way he just kind of like jerked and moved real slowly yeah like it in my two cents not being a huge black metal like um historian so to speak and and not knowing the whole history of mayhem and being my first time seeing them it was cool like the the stage presence the sound it was it was cool like it was like i felt like okay i'm witnessing a witnessing history for a long time metalhead never seen mayhem before i thought it was awesome yeah and i think if i could have got

and like decent pictures they would have been pretty damn cool the backdrop was really cool too they had a cool backdrop behind them which was basically the album and um he called to mind to me with his twitching the whatnot and i and i don't mean this insulting chris i think is the best one to know that this is uh both insulting and not insulting at the same time is that famous immortal video the um what is the winter moon or no uh diabetic diabolical full moon mysticism

And because there's a lot of that and that. They do a lot of the head twitches and he was kind of doing that. But it worked. Yeah. Well, I mean, black metal is like halfway comedy if you think about it, you know. Yeah. So there's no insults. The background was cool during Freezing Moon. They had like a spotlight that created like a full moon on the background. That was super cool. That was awesome. I also want to mention the band Cold. This was their, apparently their first U.S. appearance.

I reviewed those guys at least 10 years ago. So I was really interested to hear them. I thought they sounded good. I think the singer, his makeup, makes him look kind of like the dude on the album cover for Disturbed's Down with the Sickness or whatever that fucking album is. You know, the little penis-headed looking guy. He looks kind of silly. He does.

One thing I wanted to mention that was very much a surprise is Gruesome was not supposed to play yesterday. Yeah, and we were right and we were all in the parking lot and we it was supposed to be sinister sinister so it was like okay I don't know who they are let's go all everyone went out to the car to get a break get some water have a beer whatever and then I think it was John. Yeah, it's like hey that's that's Gruesome playing I'm like I stopped my ears parked up like you're right and like we all we all just like like drop everything it took off. Yeah, and it's funny because you all left

and just left the truck open. And I'm like, I was about to go after you guys. And then I was like, wait, okay, Dan and Corey and Kevin. And I'm like, I should have told you when I was leaving, I told the nine circles guys, just close it. I've locked it. Just close it. But I didn't realize. I was like, I am not going to just walk away from, because what if they go in and they don't close it?

Go around real quick. Day one impressions of Death Fest for you guys who've never been here. Was it, did I live up to it? Better? Cheaper? I guess that is me. I've never been to it. I thought it was great. It was, in a weird sort of way, I don't know why I had this impression that it was going to be like this huge parking lot and only like 200 people in it. I don't know why. I thought that. I just thought it was like a bunch of people like meandering around. There's music playing, but it was very much like a concert.

I don't know why I had this impression in my mind. It was just like more of like a carnival and that there's music playing. It's definitely like everyone goes to the stage and then that is over. Everyone goes to the other stage. I mean, there's obviously got all the merch and stuff. It would kind of be nice if the merch was more like in where the bands are and everything because you wouldn't have to be. So you could still like see the bands and shop at the same. I want to shop and listen to music at the same time. But beer was really expensive. It was $9.

a beer. And sometimes I didn't want to go out to the car. I mean, I had hardly any beer yesterday. But what I... We didn't have ice. Yeah. We have a lot of ice now. I got some this morning. But overall, I thought it was well organized. There wasn't too many hiccups aside from Suddenly Gruesome started playing. But you talked today, we're getting ready for day two, that they're playing again today. They said at the end of their set that they are playing again today. Oh, I was wondering if they do that. That's awesome, dude. So I hope they play either different songs or

more death songs.

And at the end,

they started playing pull the plug and everyone lost their shit.

And then all of a sudden they stopped and I was like,

no,

they pulled the plug.

Yeah.

They pulled the plug.

John.

It was,

yeah,

I've been to a boatload of different festivals.

This one was probably the biggest space wise.

It was cool.

There's no hassles getting in.

I thought it was actually much easier.

I thought it would be.

My only complaint being the oldest person here is fuck.

We need more places to sit.

Even,

even if it's in the sun,

But other than that, I mean, it was fine. I mean, I enjoyed everything. The only hiccups, there was a few minor sound issues here and there, but... Paradise Lost kind of sounded weak. Yeah, it did not sound good. Yeah, the bass was bad. It just was in and out and popping. You know, Metal Chris, I was talking to him about that, and he says most of these sound systems are set up for, like, hip-hop and concerts like that where there's a lot of bass on, so, you know, when you have metal, he says, like, he was worried that Mayhem's gonna sound like crap because it's gonna be all bass and you wouldn't hear the, you know,

The Tinny guitar sound. But I thought it was good though. I thought the sound was good. Anyways, that's what I thought too. And I was waiting for him to tell us all fuck off. Like the movie Headbanger. What people? Fuck you. I just wanted that. It was just my favorite part of the movie. First of all, it's good to be here with all my friends, man. To have everybody in the same room at the same time. And a nod to Galen, who joined us yesterday but already flew home, right? Is he in the plane?

Yeah, he's still here. We have the same flight back. Oh, okay. But he was in a different hotel, I guess. Yeah. He's probably going to Soundgarden to buy up all the vinyl before we get there. And Neutrino, of course, crashed with us last night. But that's like the first and foremost. Second, I thought it was pretty well organized. Definitely the heat. We were all bitching about that yesterday. And it's just cool to have that many also vendors in one spot. They have like three or four or five tenths worth of vinyl. Worth.

going through.

And I found,

we all found a few things.

And I agree.

The beer was,

of course,

too expensive.

The Death Fest ale,

I didn't think was very good.

Did you like it,

dude?

Not at all.

Yeah.

I mean,

it's,

it's okay.

I think part of the problem is literally within three minutes,

because it's in a clear plastic cup.

That's warm.

No,

it gets skunked within three minutes.

So,

your first sip,

your first two sips may be good.

And then after that,

it's going to smell and taste horrible.

Who is that brew buying?

Evolution of Maryland. Evolution of Maryland. You should brew it next time. Yeah. Yeah, really. We'll get Will to do it. And then also, I learned a personal good marathon way to drink about 10 beers. As long as you drink a water after every beer. Sit down every once in a while, sit in the shade. Just figure that out now. Yeah. I mean, I was, you know, I basically started five or six buzzes throughout the day. And it worked. I was fine, you know, and we all went out and had a good time afterwards. Yeah, John got these like little, what are they, eight ounces?

bottles of water.

Yeah, I just like open one up and just like drink it all in one gulp and then go grab another one and drink it all in one gulp and then go get another beer.

We might be screwed tomorrow.

Might have to find some more.

We'll plow into that stuff.

Yeah, I agree with Jay.

The best part of it was just hanging out, you know, with everybody, meeting everybody, hanging out in the parking lot, slamming beers.

The heat is just kind of unbearable for a few hours there in the middle of the day. I don't know why they don't have a cool down tent or something like that. Where people can just chill and have some fans going or something. I mentioned to George, why is there no amusement park mister? That we could all just go through real quick. They have that at some outdoor events. They actually invested in two super squirters. I'm sure you noticed that did nothing.

from the front of the stage.

I kept saying, is there somebody drunk peeing up there?

I will say this.

If you did go to where they do have this area underneath the overpass where there's picnic tables.

And it's pretty spacious.

There's a lot of tables.

But, you know, obviously it's shaded there.

You can sit down.

And there's actually a weird breeze that goes through there.

So if you, I ducked in there for a few times.

So that was help.

But yeah, I mean, it's not really that hot.

It's like in the mid 80s.

But of course, we're all outside on a hot parking lot, all wearing black.

Tomorrow I'm wearing white. Of course, that's when it's going to rain and it won't fucking matter. Wait, what are you wearing today? We are all wearing our brand new Metalheads shirts with the logo by Christophe. Look, sorry to interrupt you. Look at the podcast veteran Will now with the transition. Man, the guy's been on some podcasts for a while and he gets the transitions down. I like that. I like that. Yep, so we're all going to look like we're staff members or something because there's like six of us wearing the shirt.

That's why all these guys yesterday in the parking lot were like, Buke, where's your hat? So as soon as the gates opened, it was a mad dash to get to the fucking hats. Because these things by day two were sold out. I was thinking about trying to get one, but I missed the boat on that. That's what he just said. Oh, last year. Maybe I'll see if I can get one today. I want to point out that some of these guys got vinyl, but just for the record, I have not bought any vinyl. I have been very good. I looked a little bit

I did get the death scream bloody gore bobblehead as did will yeah it's over in my bag and I think that's all I bought that's the coolest toy I mean that's the coolest thing that I've seen for sale there that wasn't that was kind of unique oh thank you yeah that was the other thing as I got the

Death Fest poster. So I'll hang that up down in the studio or something. We trailed off in the middle of Chris's comments there. I'm all done. That's all you have to say about that? Yeah. So for you guys who flew in, if Mayhem wasn't here and you flew in for Death Fest, take them off the bill. He wouldn't have come. Would this have not been

to come? Experiencing what you experienced yesterday? I mean, Mayhem was sort of like the main reason why I finally pulled the trigger, you know? Because you, not as a knock to you, but you like a lot of the, I would say, obscure bands that fill a bill like this. So I was really surprised you hadn't come for years. Yeah, I'm surprised too. It just took me a while, I guess. And, you know, I didn't have any friends here. Only I got some bros. There you go. Yep, yep. And it used to be a lot more death metal, not as much black metal.

Yeah.

So like very obscure like grind and shit. So it's more diverse these days.

I was rattling off bands who were playing last night still at the other venues. He's like, oh, yeah, it's an old school grind band. And yeah, it used to be just that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Like old, like weird death metal acts that like reform just for death fest and stuff.

I know they're death metal and all, but I think the first time that I was really inspired to come, but of course couldn't, was when Bolt Thrower played. I was like, ah, I want to go see Bolt Thrower.

But I guess that's not gonna happen again anytime soon. Shit, I was gonna say something. Anyway, got anything else? We didn't really get the overall... Oh no, I guess it was first time attendees. Yes. Who are we looking forward to seeing today? That's a good one. Bring up the list. There you go. I know... So today is... Hellbringer, Demonical,

Again, Deranged, Hyrax, Halo Bullocked. I'm really excited to see Exciter. Testament, Toulous, Atrophy, Impaled Nazarene, and Nuclear Assault. I'm not as intrigued by the first few bands. I'd like to see Demonical and maybe even Hellbringer. But the first band I really want to see is Toulous. And then it's just like from there on out, I want to see Hyrax, Halo Bullocked.

It's Exciter, Testament. Really, really want to see Impaled Nazarene and Nuclear Assault. So what do you want? Yeah. Why this thing is going to be awesome to have Nuclear Assault and then followed right by Testament, like too old school thrash. But I want to see Demonical. I already saw Gruesome, but I think I'm looking most forward to, which I said before, is Atrophy, just because I've never seen them. And they only put out two albums, as far as I know, back in the late 80s, early 90s.

and it would be great to see them live. Cool. John? I'm a free agent today, so I really don't care. I'm just going to float around and enjoy everybody. Like a butterfly? You're going to sit down a lot. I'll be sitting down a lot, enjoying the cool breeze over by the smelly overpass. I think it was when Samael was playing, I was watching the traffic go by overhead. You can't really see the cars go by, but you can see the big

I was like, wouldn't that be so fucked up if an 18-wheeler just careened over the edge and took out Samael? That'd be pretty fucked up. Because of the smoke, dude. I'm telling you, the smoke was going up over the overpass on Mayhem. And I was like, these people must be like, what the fuck? Because it was pretty fucked up. I mean, they really cranked the smoke up for Mayhem. Samael, too. I mean, I was like, I can't take any pictures because there's so much fucking smoke. Yeah, it was bad. I didn't like them. Personally, I thought I was watching Romstein.

Or the bassist looked like the guy from Limp Bizkit. I thought he looked like the dude from the original Star Trek series. I had never seen an industrial metal thing like that. It was weird seeing the drummer with that stand-up synth drum kit that he had. That's Zai, man. He's a badass. It was real weird. I'm glad you guys got to see them. That's what's cool about this. There's so many bands here that people want to see. I'm glad you guys can really see who you want to see.

I'd be lying if you said times we're all not bored at some time. Yeah. You know. Like right now, for instance. Every time you go on an extended monologue, I'm like, nap time. I want to say yesterday, the highlight for me also, we pulled off a couple of great interviews that you may have heard or will hear. That's right. You also interviewed Wombath. Yeah. Yeah, we interviewed Wombath, November's Doom.

And we'll get more today. Yeah, as I say, do you have anybody lined up today yet? It's all fluid. Right. I got Satan atrophic, so. Cool. Yep. Right on. It's Satan today. No, Satan's tomorrow. Yeah, but they said they're going to be here today. Yeah, that's cool. All right. All right, well, does anybody else have anything else to add or should we go get something to eat? Let's go get some late. Let's get brunch. Brunch. A mental brunch. Brunch. Putting my mother-in-law?

All right, well, we will either report back again tonight or in the morning or even during the day if the mood strikes us, I guess. Neutrino will be leaving today. Thank God. No, I'm actually sad. We've made a great friendship with this pod, all of us here, and he's going to be leaving us. I'm kind of bummed about that. Now, knowing, you know, having come and met us and hung out and whatnot,

If you had that knowledge before, would you have stayed for the second or third day? I don't know. Those bands kind of suck. Yeah, but you could have still just come and hung out. If you didn't have a flight, you could just hang out in the parking lot today or tomorrow and just be like, what's up? And they would not have to pay for a ticket. Actually, he's got a ticket for today. I do, but I don't know, man. It's rough out there. Move it to the convention center. Indoor Fest. Yeah, why not?

I was saying we are about the six palest white dudes in the world. I think it was, it might have been Jay that I was with. We were walking in the merch area and I overheard somebody with an accent going, yeah, this is just like Tuska. And of course Tuska Open Air in Finland is a pretty badass festival. My sister's been there. He was comparing MDF to European Fest? Well, yeah. And I thought that was kind of strange because I'm like, Tuska's got to be

Way better than this. They probably meant the beers are $7. Yeah. But, yeah, I think they do it outside. A, it's probably cheaper. B, so they can have that European festival vibe going on. But, I don't know. AC is king. Yeah. Can they put blocks of ice around? What they do with those European festivals is rent one of those giant, huge party tents.

The massive ones

I went to Ross Guild one year in Denmark

and that's what they have

it's like giant tents

Yeah

It just like covers the whole thing basically

It'd be like

It'd be like three huge tents

would cover the entire Edison lot

It'd be awesome

Yeah

I was actually thinking that

but I didn't say it

because I thought that would be really ridiculous

I mean it'd be great if they did it

but I just think

Think about how much more

improve the lighting

and everything would be on stage too

Control your environment

Yeah

And it is fucking hot

It's fucking hot. Is it going to be hotter today? I think so. Oh, fuck. I was hoping it was going to like... Yeah, what guys? We're fucking... This is what we do being metalheads. We fucking do it. We suffer for our art. Yes. All right. Let's go eat. We'll talk to you later. Hello. Welcome to Maryland Death Fest parking lot. Day two. Or day three if you're the Nine Circles guys who joins us right now. Yes.

Right? Look at that transition. I'm really getting good at this stuff. Hi, Buke. I love you. I love you. Hey, Buke. How you doing? Kevin? Hey. He's back again. Lauren, say hi. I'm allowed? Hi. I'm allowed. And Jay's here. And Jay's here. George, Will, John, they're inside seeing Gruesome right now. We saw Gruesome yesterday or we heard some of them. Gruesome's doing stuff. Yeah, Gruesome's doing death stuff. You know what's just as good as Gruesome? Drinking many beers in the parking lot. So we're out here drinking

We did nothing. Okay, you guys did nothing. We were planning on doing mini-sodes for every day of the festival like we did last year. Just too drunk. We're going to do a full Sunday episode, like a full recap of our festivities. How the mighty have fallen, Jay. Which ones? You know what I did? I'm not even playing a time. We were never mighty. I was confused. We were never mighty. I will say this about our day yesterday.

Just to interrupt, speaking of the drinking the beers, we got back to the hotel last night and everybody told me, yeah, I had two beers yesterday. And I was like, well, there's like 20 that were drunk. We're maybe 25, 30. It was us, dude. We drank all the beer. And everybody else in our party was like, we had two beers. I was like, well, where did it all go? We drank it all, dude. We had a good time yesterday. So to wrap up day one, Corey, I'll start with you. Your thoughts on day one. And now George and John are back. Day one meaning Thursday or day one? Yeah, okay. You guys have been here for both days. So give us a rundown so far.

I hope you understand how far back my memory is.

It's required me to reach.

Goblin.

Goblin.

Goblin for days.

Goblin was amazing.

You guys have been saying, what was it?

What made Goblin?

So Claudio Simonetti's Goblin.

He did the soundtracks for loads of classic horror movies, Dawn of the Dead, all kinds

of Italian horror movies.

And he played them live.

Wow.

So it's not like death metal or anything.

Anything going on in the background?

So you know what this is from? Yes. You saw clips from his actual movies playing with the songs that were being performed in front of you. That's awesome. Yeah. And it wasn't very, it wasn't metal, but like there's such an overlap between the metal community and the horror-loving community. Like, there's lots of interweaving, and people went nuts for it. It was amazing. It was stunning. And he's just this like 60-something-year-old Italian dude, and he's just like the sweetest guy in the world, and he like loves his shit, so. Okay, so that was the highlight of Thursday. Then a flash forward, fast forward to yesterday, Friday, when the Edison lot opened.

What did you guys think of yesterday? I thought yesterday was great. I say that having only seen what none percent of the headliners. We stayed through some mail and then head over move moved on over to soundstage and Ramset again late evening stuff. Yeah yesterday was good. You know horrendous. I feel I feel like yesterday was the the big sound the big Edison lot day. I think it was too. November's doom was amazing. I thought paradise license was great. Hey Kevin how about the haunted? Yeah yeah. He didn't like the haunted. He was.

He was upset they didn't play all against all. Right. I'm kind of surprised you didn't do Mayhem. I mean, do you have, you're black metal, you're both black metal guys. You're just not Mayhem fans. You mean Mayhem's bassist and friends? No. Hey, Hellhammer, Necro Butcher, and Attila, that's good enough for me. What'd you say? Bassist and friends? Yeah, Mayhem bassist and friends. But, you know, making up for that, we got Horrendous, which was great. November's Doom was good. I'm still on, I'm still on, that's still on. Worm was great. I enjoyed Paradise Lost. I enjoyed,

We got over Svartjurn at the Rams Head. The dude was jacking himself off half the time. It was just black metal for days. Corpse paint, the whole nine yards. But they were fun. The group of guys was kick-ass over at Soundstage. There was a lot going on yesterday. It was a lot of fun. Secrets of the Moon, less so. Overrated. Very overrated. I saw your Instagram pictures for that. They were touted. Full disclosure, I hadn't listened to them before. But they were touted as

Black Metal, like really awesome shit. And I was like, oh, this is not really Black Metal and not that awesome. So... It was also bad timing. Bad timing. They followed Svartzer, which was like, oh, well, you know, now I just kind of want to, after that, take a nap because that was really intense. So, compared to years past, this is the same, pretty much the same setup. Everything is pretty much the same, right? Yeah. Anything different that you guys would recognize? Setup-wise, yeah. Lineup, obviously, is a bit down from last year. I think last year's lineup was the best they've ever had. But...

Last year was strong, but can you guys remember a year and all the years you came with all these cancellations? No. No, we've had what, three or four of them already? We had three or four announced yesterday? When we poured up, yeah, Sinister. Sinister. Discharge apparently is not happening anymore. Phil Condra's still upset. Phil Condra's still upset. Hey, Kevin, it's far too dowdy. Run it quick, I won't get your input. Destroyer 666 cancellation, not everybody is as web savvy as we are, and I saw a few shorts here yesterday, and I bet those guys were like, fuck. Thanks, bro.

Okay, so I have to ask, Kevin, you were pretty upset. You said, I think your Facebook post today is Haunted You Had One Job. Yes, and they fucked it up. Okay. They have two songs that are worth it ever. Hollow Ground, which they played, and that was great. I love it. And then there's their biggest single to date, All Against All. Over 99? That's their biggest single, All Against All. And they didn't play it. And I responded on Facebook.

you fucked up and to their credit they were like I'm gonna like the status because we did fuck up yes we did um I don't think that's what you're supposed to read through that message but you know all the subtext that can ever be read they saw that and they're like you are right hollow ground was great but we did fuck up because we did not play all against all I am sad as a band and therefore I will like the status and then maybe do better next time to which I say good job for liking the status I feel good um and do better next time and do all against

All Against All. We're never going to play All Against All because that was a song recorded during Peter Dolving. But again, during the Peter Dolving was 99 and they played that. Right. Everyone will never live this down. What do you want me to do here? Yeah, I agree completely. You know what? Hey, I'm not upset because they played a couple songs off Exit Wounds off their last album and I enjoyed that album. So whatever. I mean, I'm not horribly upset because I was not expecting Hollow Ground and they gave us that. So I'm like, all right, great.

It's the same way like Cory put it. If I feel 65 plays a concert and they don't play blue, they fuck up. In the Haunted, their biggest single is All Against All. If they're going to play 99 over All Against All, different singer still, they're fucking up. Okay, so we were talking about this when we got back. The Wu-Tang shirt. You guys like that? Yeah, Wu-Tang's awesome. Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothing to fuck with, man. Exactly. He came on stage, I'm like, I know what the logo is, you know, the yellow,

I was like let me get closer let me see if it says something. Marco Aro knows what's up. That's all. You wear that shirt I've seen this entire festival. So I have to ask Lauren you're an amazing girl you come here to support your man and as a fan. Totally apathetically. How is this for somebody who you know likes a little music but comes here? This is not my favorite year. I love her. It's not. It's really not.

You're bored silly, right? Yep. I hope your phone has enough battery and stuff to last you the day. I'm leaving soon. Jesus Christ. Well, it's good hanging out with you, Lauren. Yeah, well, Lauren, we love you. She may come tomorrow, but again, this year is more about the drinking than the actual seeing bands that are worth it. I guess we'll see you next year then, sweetheart. Well, let's be completely clear. Maryland Death Fest is amazing. The bands are amazing. At this point, am I... He almost said mayhem. He's secretly upset about not seeing mayhem.

Or is it not upset about saying that the Mayhem Fest is not continuing anymore? I'm secretly upset about not seeing Mayhem back in 1994. What I was going to say was MDF, as amazing as it is as a situation, it's only become as amazing as it is because of the last year of meeting you guys and having this experience in the parking lots. This is what makes MDF. And this is why we're here. If you guys would come here, I'd be sad buke sitting here in the parking lot. I'd probably find a way down here. We'd just sit here by ourselves and drink and talk about life, buddy. It's all good. So, guys, as we're about to end the

I want to see every other band after this. I probably won't be out here again. Maybe. I don't know. Hey, I want to see all the bands. Tomorrow I'll be out here all fucking day. I'll be at the car a few times today for beers.

I'll be here all day until the testament. I could probably leave halfway through testament and come out here and have some because we don't need to see all the testament again. I love testament live. So yeah they're great I love them but I've seen them a dozen times so why you know. Literally after we saw them with anthrax on one tour. I just saw them with Slayer like a month ago. Yeah not me though. I have to show you guys what to without puke. Okay well this is a report from the parking lot on day two at Maryland Death Fest. We will talk to you guys

I'm trying to end it you need a clean ending we'll talk to you guys later okay so after interviewing Corey and Dan the nine circles guys in the podcast here on day two I fucked up with my best friend I'm here with George George day two Edison last year we were here by ourselves what are you thinking today or how are you feeling right now you know I mean it was great last year just you and me the bonding everything you know it's like your first time but

I gotta say, you know, and it's unfortunate because we didn't really see each other all that much yesterday. No, we really didn't. But I gotta say, I really love the whole group mentality. You know, we got so many people here this year, and it's just so much more fun with this many people because, you know, there's generally somebody in the group that you can go see a band with if... If they want to go see them, yeah. Yeah, it's like, if I want to see a black metal band, I can grab one of the guys that are into that, and if you want to see a death metal band, you can do the same.

That's sort of why we didn't hook up too much yesterday because we were off kind of doing our own thing. But yeah, so I mean last year was great for what it was, but this year is also great for what it is. Now we have a family here. Exactly. It's a family and I got to say I really love that. I mean, you know, metal in general, I've always considered the metal fans to be a family. It's like, you know, we can be diverse in our backgrounds in so many different ways, but we all come together.

with metal and I just love that I really do I mean as far as I'm concerned everyone in this show is my brother and sister in some way or another I just haven't maybe met him yet and I just I you know as sort of a really uh misanthropic uh anti-social person this is the sort of thing that makes me feel part of something this is why we all like metal because like look we have a group of eight people here or so over our shoulder hanging out this is why we love metal because

You know, metal brought us all together. This is our second man of war song. Metal is what brings us all together. This is what it's all about. You know, just like you said, we didn't get to see each other yesterday. Not for, of course, anything wrong with you and I. No. Just simply, we have so many people with us. You were doing interviews and stuff, and there was a lot of bands I wanted to see yesterday, so I was just like, I'm going to stick with that.

You know, it's cool. Yeah. Gruesome. Did you go up and see them on the stage yesterday? Because you just got back from seeing them a second time. Yeah, I watched them a little bit yesterday. Because you guys were coming out when I was going in. I went in and took some pictures and did some video and watched them for a couple songs. But, you know, I really kind of wanted to get back and hang out with the group. So I didn't catch the whole set. This time I watched almost all the set. And, you know, they really are awesome.

It's funny because Matt feels obliged to let everyone know, "Yeah, we sound like death," if you're wondering. It's because we're a tribute band because they must get a lot of shit from people. They must. If they have to say that, they must. Yeah, so they want to be clear that, "Yes, we're supposed to sound like death." So, whatever. I don't care. Chuck's not around anymore. There's no death. This is the next best thing. However, when we were at lunch today, Galen pointed out that

I'm probably going to quote him wrong, sorry, but essentially what I took, the gist of what he said was he didn't really think that Chuck would be behind it all that much, that, you know, for whatever reason, whether it's like ripping him off or just maybe not comfortable with the idea, I don't know, but that did sort of put a little crimp on my enjoyment of it.

I was like yeah I mean it would be it would suck if Chuck was not behind it but for those of us that are fans it's still pretty damn cool well you saw him again a second time Chrisome again yeah I made a point to go see them again I ran in there and stood out in the hot sun and loved it and what I like today is they actually played two songs from leprosy they played a open casket and born dead and it was was born dead right they played yeah

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was great. It's funny because they played Closed Casket, which is their song, and then they played Open Casket. You'd think they'd play Open Casket and then Closed Casket. So, seeing Death years ago, you said, what, earlier you saw him in 93, 91? Yeah, I think I saw him in 1993 at the Mad Monk down in Wilmington, Delaware, and I was stationed at Camp Lejeune. Could you close your eyes today and transport yourself back in time? Imagine that is Death on stage. Yeah, and that's what's remarkable about Gruesome is they literally sound exactly like it.

I don't know if he had to just like somebody he was just singing one time and someone said wow you sound like Chuck or he had to train his voice to do that I don't know how it happened but I think the one of the biggest reasons they sound like death is actually Daniel the lead guitar player that dude is amazing and I've seen the death to all tribute and I would say gruesome is actually better at playing death songs

And I know some of those guys were in death. But I will say this. The first time I saw Death to Tribute, I forget the lead singer's name in Death to Tribute, the guy from Cynic. He could not play like Chuck. He couldn't sing at the same time and play at the same time like Chuck could. Now granted, here you have Matt playing basically rhythm guitar and Daniel's playing lead guitar, where in death, Chuck did lead guitar and vocals.

That's too all. It was much, much better. But to be honest, I would say Gruesome does a better job. Weirdly enough. And a lot of it is, it's the voice. It sounds exactly like Chuck. Spot on. Spot on. You know what makes you wonder, why did it take this long for this? Me? You know, they always have that thing too soon. I don't know. But, you know, to go back to what you were saying, George,

about what Galen was mentioning. I heard Galen say that, and I died a little on the inside too, but my question is, where's that coming from? Where's Galen's information coming from? I think just being a fan of death, and when you're a fan of a band, you kind of pay attention to what they like, what they don't like. I mean, I know for me in the 80s, Metallica, I was like, okay, what is Metallica like? What does Metallica dislike?

I've patterned a lot of my thinking after that. But if you're a fan of a band, you might pick up on what they like and don't like. Maybe as a fan, he just kind of realizes, well, that might not be what Chuck would care for. So, just to kind of validate what George said, as much as I personally love them, the Misfits would not be as big as they were if James didn't wear that t-shirt all the way through the fucking early 80s, dude.

Dead Kennedys and stuff like that. I probably never would have got under those. Sex Pistols. I got the Sex Pistols because of Dave Mustaine and he had the sticker on his guitar. And same thing with the Misfits and the Dead Kennedys and stuff like that. But I think the point Galen was trying to make, how was Chuck as a person? With his personality and maybe statements he made, interviews, was he a nice guy? I have to disagree. Galen's not here to defend him.

And I even kind of was like, okay. But I have to tell you, I think Chuck was a really laid back dude. And I think he would have thought this was fucking awesome. Yeah. The only thing I can base it off is listen to the Howard Stern show and Richard Christie, who's one of the guys on the Howard Stern show, who's a drum, who was the drummer on Sound of Perseverance for Death. And he was his, his one of the, he was a fanboy of Chuck. He was the controlled D9 drummer also. He was on Ice Earth and now he's in Char Walls Dam. Anyway, he was friends with Chuck and he said Chuck was

He was like the most laid back goofy fucking awesome dude and that's the only thing I have the base off of that Richard Christie said he was laid back and on the other hand you know if Chuck was you know somehow like magically in the sky and able to look down upon this he might have a different perspective on it now than he would have when he was alive he might be like I'm so glad that somebody cared about my music enough to do a tribute you know maybe alive he'd have been like ah fuck that shit tribute bands but but you know looking down

from his cloud in the sky with his angel wings or possibly looking up from hell, you know, who knows. He might have a different perspective on it of like, that's great. I'm so glad that they're keeping my stuff alive. I have a good question. Has, while Chuck was alive, did anyone do a death cover, an official death cover song? I do not know. Somebody must have. So did he never give anyone permission? Well,

Going to music law here, once you've released music to the public, there's a compulsory license. So you can't necessarily, like, you know, people tell politicians they can't use their songs. That's playing the actual recording of the song. But there's a compulsory license where if somebody wants to cover your song, as long as they pay the licensing fee, they're allowed to do so. Now, I'm not a music lawyer. There may be loopholes where the band can stop you.

Well, I have to add to that and just say this though, you make a very important point, Will. What year did Chuck die? Uh, I guess. Ninety... I forget. Ninety-nine or two thousand one, somewhere around there. Like from, like, ninety-two to ninety-eight or whenever he died, dude, Metal was in a huge lull. I mean, death was not fucking cool at that time. They were cool to guys like us, but you know, something like Death Fest wouldn't have happened. So my point is, people weren't necessarily clamoring to cover him, I think, no matter how much they loved him. Yeah. Here's another point.

is Chuck did a famous cover song painkiller on sound of perseverance so Chuck obviously was okay with covering someone else's song so he'd be cool with someone covering his songs good point it does seem likely very seem likely George I just want to give you shout out for drinking all the Atlas beer it's good stuff man thank you so that was our cool little gruesome recap here it's a 14 no it's a 239

For your non-military time people right now. Pulling in, the monocle was playing. They sounded right up my fucking alley. And I love those guys. They sounded amazing. Too bad we couldn't make it there and see them. But you know what? There's always another time. Just one thing. I just noticed that Robin, the bassist in Gruesome, is also in Durketa, which I'm a huge fan of. Those fucking... That band rocks. It's like two women and two men from Pittsburgh.

They are awesome. Can I just say that in this whole weekend, that's the first time I've heard anybody say they liked anything that came out of Pittsburgh. Hey, hey, I went to graduate school of Pittsburgh. No, but that's a hockey reference. That's our midday check-in again with the guys on here on the Middle Heads podcast. Fuck the Penguins, and we'll see you later.

The Metal Heads Cooler. And we are reporting again from Death Fest in Maryland. We are here with Will. We are here with Buke. We are here with John. And we are here with Will's fans. And it... Will's fans! We have bonafide... Will's friends are here, some of which are bonafide listeners. We've

I'm Sean Hendry. No, last names. You get yourself arrested. Oh, sorry. I'm Sean. I was called Pantera at one time. Let me think. Did you hear that, B? Because he used to be called Pantera. That's okay. I like that. You guys were here yesterday and Thursday? Yeah, I got here Thursday. Yeah? What have you liked most so far, dude? Fucking Mayhem was amazing. And let me point out that these guys are sucking off the Metalhead's teat. They're drinking our beer, wearing our shirts.

They're shameless bastards. But they're fans. But they're fans and we're glad to have them. I've known Sean for years. God damn, I will promote. Yeah. I don't think I've ever been to a metal show ever in my life since I moved here and not Sean. Yeah. Like when I moved. No disrespect to Sean. Sean's that guy like you're like, I know that guy. No, he's everywhere. He's everywhere. Like when I moved down here 16 years ago when Sean was probably 10, I think he was at the show.

I'm sorry wait 10

I'm 31

alright so 16

he was 15

that 10 like 10 was so insulting

that was fucking

that was 13 dude

back the fuck off

the point

the point being is this guy

he's literally at every show

and he's always in the mosh pit

always

yeah sports podcast

and he loves beer

and most importantly

he's at this show

He enjoyed Mayhem. Who are you looking forward to? Sean is leaving here with the fucking Metal Heads podcast shirt. About fucking metal bands and beer. I don't know what a fucking... That's a good way to spend a weekend, bro. What are you looking forward to today? Uh, fucking... What's the name? God damn it. No, we're all looking forward to them. Testament is going to be good, but I've seen them like seven times. Everybody's seen them seven times. You want to hear that? You're full of shit. I don't remember the fucking lineup. Yeah, Testament's good enough, dude. Nuclear Sol... Oh yeah, Nuclear Sol...

So yeah,

exciter,

Tyrex,

hail of bullets.

I only have Edison lot.

Yeah,

we're doing atrophies here at Edison lot.

Uh,

what are you looking for?

What's your name,

bro?

Tom,

and you are one of the group.

What are you looking forward to today?

What have you liked so far?

Tom,

Tom,

Tom,

he has almost the same last name as John,

but it's with a K and an A instead of a C and an A.

Tom.

Hi,

So you have enjoyed so far and are looking forward to? I've enjoyed Gruesome. Never heard of them, but didn't realize they played like a death tribute. Pretty much exactly. And I'm looking forward to Exciter and Testament and Nuclear. You old school Exciter fan? You remember the Dan Bieler days? You know, Violence and Force, Long Live the Loud? Hell yeah. Me too, bro. I'm seriously just kind of, I'm excited about them. Yeah, I just want to point out that Tom is wearing literally a creator out of the dark. Out of the dark.

And that shirt is probably as old as the album. Is it from the show? 1988. I saw that tour too. They might have had DRI on that bill. I wonder. Do you remember who was on the bill? No, I don't. I either saw them at the Bayou or at the Eastside Dance Club in D.C. I really don't even remember anymore. Old venues are long gone. You're older than the venues at this point. Sorry, bro.

that I have no clue about, but I really enjoy the heavy music and the camaraderie. Having a few beers and a nice outdoor venue type of environment. It's fun. Tom's the other one of the guys who I love because he loves beer and metal. It's like, that's my world. Will has two wheelhouses. Beer and metal. And Tom's one of them. I'm going to get some of these other guys in here. Come here and say hi, man. What's your name, bro? Fucking David. David, I know you said you've been here since Thursday.

It's my fucking fucking David. It's fucking David.

His Christian name is David. First name. David. You're fucking. Who have you liked so far? What are you looking forward to? Mayhem. Fucking haunted mayhem. Nuclear Assault tonight. Oh my. No, Venom's tomorrow. I'm so sorry. Fuck that. That's okay. We're looking at the whole show. Are you serious? Oh man, it's been amazing. My first MDF and I'm like, just a drunken haze. Just night and day. Four days of fucking party.

It's just nonstop. Partying, drinking, sweating. Yeah, and blood. Don't forget the blood. The mosh pits have been brutal. My body's bruised up and down. I mean, it's great. It's fun stuff. I gotta tell you, I watched the haunted pit, and it was so fucking hot at that time that people were just kind of walking around in a circle, dude. I saw one dude in his fucking, like, he was in a Speedo just running around, just kind of walking around. He was like, he was sweating bald. Speedo guy spotting. Yeah, he's been... You saw a Speedo guy? He's Speedo guy. Dude, I was staring right at a Speedo at the game.

He's wearing one today brother. We saw him already. He's got a loincloth. He's waving in the wind right now. I fucking love it. God damn it. Who's playing right now? This is the end of Taloost still. Taloost? Yeah. Hyrex is up next. We gotta get another beer in us too, man. I like your style. I like your style.

What are you talking about? I'm just glad this is not a podcast and a video cast. Six packs! We got six packs in the car right here. We've all got a six pack in us right now. I'm going to talk to some of your bros. What's your name, brother? Steve, brother. Steve, you have been here for the whole show.

Oh no no I got here kind of late at 2:00 p.m. Ish today or yesterday today okay so you haven't seen much yet no this is the first year for me brother what you're looking forward to uh hyrax like and um hail of bullets is and excited right now I know god damn it we need to get in there though why are you like rooting this for me you know I did let's wrap it up you and I gotta go watch hyrax right fucking now all right be good okay well I gotta hand it off to you because me and my bro gotta go see hyrax at this moment all right beaks gonna wrap it up we're gonna

I was gonna say my Puerto Rican friend your name thank you for sir what's your question for me your name Ariel Lopez oh no last name it's okay no last name right now is this your first death fest no this is my fifth one what do you think of the lineup so far and how long have you been here awesome I'm here since Thursday okay who you looking forward to seeing or who

What have you been excited to see so far? Definitely Exciter. I was a fan since 20 years ago. And Halo Bullet's gonna be great. Obviously Nuclear Assault, the Mosh is gonna be killer. Oh dude yeah! I'll see you there. You know it. I just want to say that Ariel is one of my brothers, of my many brothers, of metal and beer. This guy is a crazy beer nerd and a metal head. I'm trying my best.

Well, that's it. That's the Middle Heads Podcast update from the parking lot. Hold on. We have another Middle Heads Podcast member here. Just say hi. Hi. I'm John. That was John. Okay, we'll see you guys later. John, what are you drinking? Yeah, John, what are you drinking right now? I'm drinking a Double Duck Pin by Union Craft Beer in Baltimore, and it's excellent. Thank you, Will. You guys cannot see right now, but John is an impeding force in his boonie hat.

I know you make fun of you know what John said yesterday only a Giants fan would realize it looks cool John says you realize it looks ridiculous now but you wish you were in his hat okay so that's metalheads podcast parking lot update four or five who knows what we're up to now so I'll talk to you guys later

I'm here with

Buke

John

and we are to

we're going to interview

Atrophy

old school Atrophy

the band that I was most excited to see

the entire Maryland

you're how old now?

so this is going back to like

20 year old Will

oh no

probably like

17 year old Will

you never thought you'd be

fucking sitting here

I was 23

yeah

I was 17

absolutely

so

So I got four members that are here and they should introduce themselves. So introduce yourselves. Ryan Zimmerman. And what do you do with the band? Singer. Yes. We have to introduce because it's audio. Tim, Kelly, drums. Rich Olsen, guitar. James Gulotta, beer drinker. And he also plays bass, by the way. Oh, wait, wait. Here's the other guitarist. Hey, what's going on, man? How you doing?

I'm Casper I play guitar and I do bongs. Beer bongs? Beer bongs? Regular bongs? I have to say when I was really really I have to say I was a little disappointed at the end when you guys were like oh we're gonna play beer bongs and then like oh I got caught off like really?

for a living so I yeah so yeah so I I was really hoping to hear beer bong

we were gonna do it either way they just wouldn't let us do it we were just gonna do it

just run out of time they were just like no more and when you know we didn't want the other band to to have to suffer while we play well yeah and exactly that's a class that's that's a classy yeah exactly

The thing is, if you have 10 bands go 4 or 5 minutes over a piece, next thing you know you're an hour behind, so the promoters get in trouble, they get fined or whatever. So that was the point in that. Even though Beerbong is a minute and 30 seconds or whatever, I think we could have pulled it off. I wish you would have pulled it off. I know, I'm sad too, man. I'm sad too. Last show we played, they... You got beer? Yeah, I think the last show we played, we made the choice to play Beerbong and we didn't play pre-same.

And then everybody was like, oh, I can't believe. And they were pissed. Because I'm like, you got to do beer bong. How could you not do beer bong? But then they're like, why didn't you do preacher? And I'm like, you can't win, man. So we did a lot of stuff tonight. We got, I think, maybe 12. We got 12 songs. Or I think 11. You got to hear that. You like that, man. Definitely. That's one of my favorites. Slipped through the cracks. You know what I mean? Obviously, the crowd reacted. Yeah, no doubt. We love it, man. And we love their support.

And, you know, the new, what we're working on is new material. So, me, as far as a new guitar player, I just can't wait for the new album to come out. So, you know, it's in the works, man. We've all got new songs that we want to work on and that are lined up. And, uh... Because these guys have really, they've really dedicated themselves to really trying to play the way it was played by the other guitars. Adding their own flair and squealing some cool stuff and doing their thing.

what the other guys did but now I think for the new album they really want to show what they can write and what they can do and we're gonna and James and I and Brian will still keep it the old atrophy cool thing so I think it's gonna have a really cool blend it's it's you know because they know this guy he he sang on our first demo I mean he's been he's been a buddy of ours the chemical dependency demo he's doing backups that you know that first demo came out when 80 I was four no I'm not saying that for like

It's a knock on you guys. I'm not saying that's a be-a-knock, but did you guys think you'd be here in 2016 still playing Death Fest? I thought back then we would still be doing it, but then when everything got cut short on us and we couldn't make money and the record company, yeah, Grunge killed us. We were almost angry at Nirvana for ruining everything, but how could you be angry at someone for writing songs and making millions of dollars and people loving it?

It's like there's nothing wrong with that music. We didn't have to die because of Nirvana. Yeah, exactly. But for guys who've been in this for almost, for longer than a couple decades now, is there anything you wish you would have done differently then from where you're at now? No, seriously. Probably would have tried to keep our contacts and people that we met.

I thought it was going to be there forever and I just was kind of lazy I guess when it came down to it so we're going to be up on our contacts and our fans and try to just stay in the limelight even if we're not doing anything we're just writing we're going to go on Facebook and just say hey to everybody. You know talking to Will the surprising thing that got me with him is that Will was like these guys I love them and all of a sudden they were just what the heck happened? So what do you say for those couple years where you guys were

just gone. A couple years? Okay. I'm being nice. Yeah. No, I think we all kind of just got on with our personal lives and realized that, you know what, we can't make money doing this. We love doing it. And the funny thing is we never stopped playing. Like, as soon as Atrophy ended, I joined another band in Tucson. And I played and played and played. So what other bands were you in in the last 20 years? We played together, James and I, in a band called Maniac Kill. It was like almost a dancing type band. The singer had this low, crazy voice.

We just added some cool flair to it. Then we played in a band called Head Circus together. Then he went and played with other bands. I played with other bands. I never stopped playing the drums. I just always play. I play every day at home. I play every day with other bands. We always love Atrophy. Atrophy has always been our home. I have to say it shows because you guys, literally, I was saying earlier to James that seeing you guys play live tonight, it's like you never lost a step.

It sounds exactly like it did on the album when I was listening to it back in the late 80s, early 90s. So to me, it was amazing. So to the point that it sounded like you guys had been friends and occasionally got together seven times a week to go keep playing this music. It's like that old saying, riding a bike. I mean, I didn't even listen to the CD to go, what did I do back then? It just came back to me.

Yeah, whatever I did, my hands just went there and did it. And poor Brian, he lives in Arkansas. I think he's literally jammed with us four times at practice in the last eight months, and then he played a show with us in L.A., and then tonight. And that's all this poor guy's been able to do with us. The four of us have been practicing three days a week, working and working and working. And he comes in here and he's like, how fast are we going to play puppies tonight? I don't even know. And he's just got to jump on it and do the best he can.

Well, I have to say, being a fan, that I literally could, I have not listened to, you know, Socialized Hater or Violent by Nature that much in the last 25 years. But, you know, once a year or something, I put them on. But I can still recite almost every word, every lyric, because it's, like you said, it's like riding a bike. But, when did you guys realize that, you know what, it's time to, as Will said, get back on that bike again?

We were forced into it. I think we were forced into it. I was pulled out of retirement. I'd say coerced. Yeah. Because we all wanted to do it. Had a little push. Had Maryland Death Fest reached out to you guys for a couple years now? I can elaborate on that a little bit. What happened was I joined a little band in Arkansas and I specifically asked them not to put my name on anything.

because we were doing covers and what not. And anyways, a guy got in touch with me. He saw my picture, contacted my drummer, and it turned out to be this guy named John Thomas. And all actual reality of it is he is responsible for us getting back together. And he's a rabid fan. He contacted Tim and said... He's like 21 years old. I'm like, how the hell do you know? He says to Tim, he says, well, if we could do it, you know, if I can get everybody back together,

would you guys do it and he even tried to get in touch with Chris and Chris said no you know he's a doctor now so yeah he's doing his thing so I called Tim and I said who is this guy and it doesn't mean any harm and he said well no he really doesn't and I said well you know would you want to do a couple shows and I said well I said yeah we can do that I said I still think I can do it what spurred him on though he was like you know would you guys ever do a reunion and I said it just can't happen

I said I haven't spoken to Brian in 15 years or so, a long time. We just haven't talked to each other. And I said, but I would do it in a heartbeat because I love atrophy. I'm still playing the drums. I would do it in a heartbeat. And that just set him on fire. He said, I'll find Brian. I'll find everybody. I'll ask everybody. And I'm like, okay, go for it, dude. Tim, interesting point with that. How did you guys avoid the bad blood that seems to... It still there.

There's no bad blood. But how do you guys seem to avoid the bad blood that seems to come to the surface with fans who have a long history? I think you actually, it kind of goes away after a while because when you're in your teens, 20s, there's a lot of testosterone in a room. You guys are competing for attention as well as women and other things like that. And I think that does play into it. As we get older, you know, the little shit, it doesn't really matter.

You matured and I think it's more about the music than it is me or him or any of us and I think we know as a combined team we can accomplish what we want to accomplish and that's that there is still quite a few fans as well as new fans so I think I think that's the bottom line is and I remember telling John I said I would never he's like you know what if Brian doesn't do it and I said we can't do it without him because you can't

It won't sound like atrophy. It will not work. In 2016, you guys playing Death Fest now. Was there ever a point where you guys were like, yeah, guys, we're getting called back to Death Fest. People want to see us. Let's do something new. Does that push you guys to come up with new shit? Like a second breath for the band? Actually, a lot of the fans that we've seen on the shows we've done are younger kids. They're like in their early 20s.

And a very young kid today. I'm not knocking on Will, but Will being in his 40s, you guys were his number one band coming here. Like last podcast episode, we did our top three bands we're looking forward to. You guys were his number one. That's what I heard. There was a guy from Florida that came all the way out and said, I'm just here to see you. Some guy from Costa Rica said, I came all the way here just to see you. And it's just like, holy crap. Does stuff like that, guys, like maybe make you guys think like, hey, you know what?

We could still do this again. Not make a living off of it, but we could put something out for people to like. Right. And I think that's what it is. It's about the fans. And I think that's what pushes us. I mean, there's a lot of Rabbit fans. I just spoke to three gentlemen from Mexico. They flew here just to see us. That's crazy. Exactly. That is awesome. And when you hear that. You know what? You talk about humble. That's an amazing feeling. It is. They came for you guys. I just had a guy stop me and he said, you were my inspiration. You're my number one.

And I'm like, dude, there's, you know, come on, there's, come on, you know, that's ridiculous. But, you know, it is, to him. To him. To him. Right. And so it is, it's very inspiring to have people like you

And then the fans love it too. So that inspires you to keep doing it. But really, I do it for myself because I just love it. But Tim, for those years when it was kind of, for lack of saying, you guys kind of dropped off. Yes. Was it hard to kind of keep it going? Like, you know what? People still know us. Was it hard for those years? Like, guys, we have to keep on almost in a sense like Anvil. Like, you know, if we keep on,

We keep on grinding the stone. I believe Tim, a guy named Jim Gibson, and James, they got another singer after I left, and they tried to carry on for a while. It wasn't actually. Chris was gone. Brian was gone. We were a local Tucson band all of a sudden, and I was just like, and then I quit. I was like, I'm not doing anything. That was one of the big points that you made, Will. You're like, this is the lineup. Well, most of it. Most of it, yeah.

You're like, this is atrophy. This is it. And we tried to keep it that way. I mean, you know, we needed, we wanted at least three original members. And, you know, I think that, you know, gives us a sound. And I hope that, you know. I don't know if you guys would ever do it with another drummer, but I would never do it without Brian. I would never do it without James. You just can't. You can't do it. You can't just go out there and play covers. It's not the same. It's not. I mean, James wrote.

So many of these songs. A lot of people think Chris Likens. Chris wrote a ton of stuff. But we all wrote it together. I think the record company just kind of fell in love with Chris and just thought he was like a genius and wrote. And he was great. So he's like Steve Harris then. Well, I'm like Steve Harris. Yes. But I think Steve Harris actually does write just about everything. So, hey James, let me ask you this. James is really running. When those CDs. He's name over everything. I mean, he's all over that CD.

James, when those rocky middle years were happening, did you ever think, I'm just going to throw in the towel, I'm just going to stop? You know? I threw in four or five towels. Yeah, I'd given up and there wasn't really anything going on for me in Tucson musically. I sold all my shit and bought, sorry, can I say shit? I sold all my fucking shit and paid some bills and there was a long time, I hadn't picked up a bass in ten years.

These guys were teaching me songs that I wrote. And I'm like going, no, no. Songs that you wrote, you're like, what did I do with that? And they're going, well, what they did on the album was, that was me. That was you who did that. And I blessed their heart because, yeah, they stared me in the right direction. But, you know, when it came down to the final decision, me and Tim had the final decision. Right or wrong. But at the end of the day, was there a point when you're

We're like, yeah, you know what, there's this calling for us to come back, but really we live far away, you know, it's a hassle. What was the main motive for you guys being here? Facebook. Really? Social media. Social media. Really. Very powerful. I mean, you can do so much as a band through social media that you didn't have decades ago. Plus we got to use the name Atrophy again. Like if we all got, like if James and I said, let's start a new band and call it

It's like you're starting from scratch. It's like people really like atrophy. I love atrophy. I've never stopped. I had a lot of regret that it didn't work and that we had to just break up and Chris went his way and Brian went his way. It was sad. I had a lot of regret. Why didn't we do it right? I don't mean to interrupt you, but do you ever think about back in the day, but do you ever think with the quality of the product you put out, why didn't we fucking

Why weren't we the major band? Every day. I think it literally, I think if we put out four albums, maybe our fifth album would have exploded. And you know, and it's like that John Thomas, it's so funny because when he contacted me, he's like, you're my favorite band ever. And he's like, Metallica's cool, Megadeth's cool, Slayer's cool, but Atrophy. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? How could you say that? You know? And then some guy on Facebook said, Atrophy is my number one favorite freaking thrash band ever.

John Thomas said, well, who's your second? He's all Slayer. And it's like, you can't say that. How can you say that? But you are somebody's favorite band. Yeah, but literally like, you know, Will here. Atrophy's my favorite band. Like, Will coming for all three days, you guys were his number one. And it's crazy that it resonates. Testament? It resonates. I want to see you guys. Seriously. Yeah, because I was such a huge fan. Like, what happened? Like, I was literally in high school when you guys were,

where socialized hate and violent by nature. I'm like, well, what happened? Where did you guys go? And I was so excited. And I literally, I said this earlier, but it's not the atrophy from 20 years ago, 25 years ago. It's not those guys. I said on the podcast, in the last podcast, I had a man called, but no, it actually is those guys. And I was so excited. I mean, you have to go back and listen, which you guys probably won't. And it sounded like the old after, didn't it? No, and that was the thing. It did.

That made me super happy. Three things. One, you guys sounded like you never skipped a beat. It's almost like you've been playing together for 20 years. Two, is that I wasn't the only person reciting every lyric note for note. You guys saw it. There was a ton of people who knew your music and you haven't put out new music in 20 some years. I told Brian, make sure you get everybody to come close. You didn't have to. The third thing was, as you guys saw, the little kid running around the mosh pit. It was super cute. I have two kids.

of my own who are very young. I would love that to be them. I had to point that out. You did, yeah. It was super adorable. And to answer your question, I think I hear a lot from fans, what happened? You guys were just kicking ass, you were at the top of your game, and we were waiting for your third album, and you guys were, you know, something was going to happen. For instance, for lack of a better term, on top of the world. We were for a little while, and you know, I think

our third album we could have pulled headline tours and started. Easily. And it just it wasn't in the cards you know when Chris left it it really changed the dynamic of the band. It didn't change for like us like when we were in Europe I remember I went out to lunch with Chris and he said I'm leaving the band I have to do my I'm going to med school and all that stuff and we had done two shows without Chris because he was he was taking his MCAT I think tests and stuff and Rick just you know

and played great and we were like i think we're gonna be fine like we can do this

without chris you know we love you know he chris was awesome don't get me wrong but we were

like we can do this and then when chris left we even played some local shows and chris came to the shows

and we jammed and we had jim gibson i think playing at the time but then the record company just kind of

said chris is gone like how you how could you guys you know how can you go on it's like well easy we can do

What's interesting nowadays is that now we have Bandcamp and now you have iTunes. You could be anybody. I could record something and put it on iTunes if I pay them enough. Plus there's no record company anymore. Right, yeah. So you can just do it on your own and that's the difference between what you guys were saying earlier about you didn't have social media back then. You have it now. Social media pushed you back into this. Now you have Bandcamp. You have iTunes. You have all these self-recording, self-promoting, self-recording things out there.

Another interesting thing is that back in the day when we were touring with Sacred

Reich and Corner, we were playing for fans and we were trying to prove ourselves.

Like, you know, Corner is awesome.

Sacred Reich is killer, but check us out.

And we put on a really good show and people were like, you guys are cool.

I came to see Sacred, but you guys are awesome and blah, blah, blah.

But then after we stopped playing, 20 years went by.

It's almost like we got more popular.

Yeah.

It's like, what happened to those guys?

These albums were really cool.

Where'd they go?

I don't understand what happened.

And it almost created more of a dynamic. You know, like... But you know the interesting thing about Spotify and those music services, you could type in any band like you guys. And, you know, you search related artists. People land on you guys. And I think that's where we live in this age now. Like, you know, James and I were talking earlier. People find you guys now and they're like, oh shit, who are these guys? There's a kid that came up, we signed the set list.

for him tonight. His name's Nick, and he's 21 years old. I'm like, how do you know about this? And he's like, I was looking on YouTube, I was checking out other bands, and he did exactly related things, and he said, you guys popped up, and he's like, how could I not know about this band? As far as the, okay, what happened was we actually put out another demo tape, and, you know, Road Racer paid for it. We went back into the studio, and I actually thought,

Some of the songs were good. I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on the vocals. The vocals were kind of weak. We sent it off to them. And I think when that happened, I think we were going, oh, yeah. And they lost interest in us. And, you know, we were locked in for seven albums with Road Racer. And if they dropped us, who gives a shit? I mean, we actually thought that it was a golden thing. No, I thought the third album was just a done deal. And we just sent them some music showing them like what we're working on.

We weren't like this is ready, this is done. We were just kind of showing them what we were up to and they just looked at it like it was a done masterpiece and they didn't like it and it was like, well, this is just shit we're working on right now. So they were looking for more like a finished product? Yeah, a finished product. You know, and you know when you're on fire and this is the record label's fault, they push you a little too hard sometimes. I've heard. And what happened to it was we had some unfinished music that we were still working on. We went in the studio and like he said, we just laid it down.

And instead of saying, you know, this is good, you know, you guys can use this or use this, they didn't support us. And I think, you know, in all honesty, I think we were a little hurt by that. Yeah. Because Monty Connor was the owner of Road Racer, and he was one of our hugest supporters in the beginning. He just loved our band. And, you know, the other dynamic is music was changing.

And then Nirvana was coming out. You had a whole new sound. You had Korn and everything. And I think people kind of stepped over a little bit. They were like, oh, this is cool. This is heavy. It's different. And, you know, everybody knows who's of our age. The music changed that day. It really did. And I blame Kurt Cobain for it. Just kidding. But, you know, as a James, I'm going to ask you a question because James mentioned this earlier.

What do you guys credit, because I've seen so many bands from decades ago, say the most brutal stuff about other members, why do you think you guys have been able to avoid that? Yes, you may have dropped off a little bit just because life came up, but you guys haven't slinged shit about other members. Because before we were bandmates, I think we were friends, lovers, you know.

In all honesty, I used to look forward to going to practice. I used to look forward to going on tour. It was a life experience. When you share that with somebody, it is. It's an intimate thing. Of course it is. Of course not that way that James just expressed. It is. It's a very intimate thing. You have to love that person. One of the big things is I think we've always supported one another. One another, yeah. I think that's very important.

I spoke to Exciter about this over breakfast one day. And he said, you know, we had our little falling out. But we're better friends now. Yeah. You know, we have kids. We have grandkids. And that's, you know. Have you guys ever had that really humbling experience when like a big damn band came to you guys and they're like, man, you guys were our inspiration back in the day. We love you guys for what you guys did. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

When we played in LA, Exciter was pretty excited at what we did. That's awesome. I'm sorry. You know what? For us here in the podcast, again, I speak for Will. He loves you guys. You guys are his number one. It's an honor to talk to you guys. What will, as we finish off this interview... A new album, possibly. We're hoping. We're really excited about work. Brian wants to work on some lyrics.

He wants to write with us. He doesn't want us to just send him, like, here's four songs. They're done already. Throw some lyrics on top. You know? Put lyrics in, yeah. Right. And I think, you know, Rich's new door band, he actually used to practice two doors down from us. Fuck you, Rich. You're on the door. Right. But one of the things I've heard from the fans is they want the old school sound in today's world. Yeah. Because for some reason, it seems to have gotten lost.

They almost want a shitty recording too. It's like, don't be all polished. Don't make it all overproduced. Just do that socialized hate recording. It's like, well, we kind of want it to be a really killer recording. As musicians, you always want to get better. And I think a lot of bands, and that's one thing I will say about Testament, they've always remained very heavy and true to their era. And I think that's one thing I want to try to... Does playing like a death fest like this and singing to other people, does that like...

Like, stoke your guys fire more. Like, hey, look, there are people here who went up. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, did you guys recognize, like, when you're on stage, I know you're playing and you're concentrating, but did you guys recognize when you were on stage how many people were, like, singing along and how many people were, like, raising their fists at the right time? I can tell you right now, I was telling these guys, we were playing and we did Right to Die. And there was one blonde-haired guy out in the crowd that just went,

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. High-fived his buddy. They high-fived two other people. They jumped in the pit. I caught that that was his favorite song, and we played it, and he's like, yes. And he just loved it. I saw him in the pit, and he was just so happy. That makes me play so much better. If I have one person come to practice, I play ten times better because I get to play for somebody. Gentlemen, we look forward to what's going to happen with you guys next time.

It's an honor to speak to you guys. For Buke for the Middle East Podcast, and Will, we're signing off. Thank you guys. Super, super big pleasure. Thank you. Hello, and welcome to day three of Maryland Death Fest. My name is George. This is Will. John. Jake. Closing out Buke again. And it is morning of, actually, sorry, this is day four. I keep forgetting. This is day three for us, but it's day four for,

Anybody that's been here the whole time. So that means it is Sunday? It is Sunday. It is Sunday. Yes, but without the question mark. I'm like, uh, yeah. So it's Sunday. It's the last day of the festival. And we're going to talk about how yesterday went. So I know for me, I was just telling the guys that I think this weekend is about the thrash bands.

Awesome Exciter was awesome.

Personally, personally, I think Hi-Rex stole the whole weekend partly because of how incredible their set was and where it was placed. If they'd been a headliner and they played like that, you would have expected it. But they were, you know, probably not somewhere in the middle of the pack, maybe not even to the middle of the pack. And they just fucking tore the place up.

I mean the energy the passion the fans I don't think they were expecting it but they lost their minds the the pit was crazy everybody was chanting and you know throwing horns and uh... Katen was out in the crowd a couple of times it was like the best it was like the best 1986 and 87 thrash shows you remember and all kinds of energy was this a one-off for them had they been touring before this yeah yeah I'm embarrassed I'm embarrassed in years no they played

stuff like this and I'm embarrassed to say they played Oakland just a few weeks ago and I didn't make it. Yeah, but they get out there. They get out there. Yeah, so it was very reminiscent of what shows were like in the 80s and how that passion and energy, you don't see it a lot anymore. I mean, it's sort of like the contrast was immediately apparent compared to all the other bands that were here.

Most bands get up on stage. Hey, we're deranged. And then they're like, this song is about Satan. And that's all they do. And if they even say anything. And then they just play their songs. They get off the stage. What's that? Mayhem didn't even introduce themselves. No. They need no introduction. Right. But that's part of it. Mayhem didn't even say anything to the crowd. They got up, played their set, left. Yeah, but that's part of their mystique. You know.

But, you know, well, yeah, I mean, if they were a more normal band, I would call them on it, too. But, you know.

Hyricks worked the crowd, too. Like, he was like, it was this big heavy metal, we're all in this together fest thing with him. They had sing-alongs. And they were just tight, too. I mean, that was the other thing, they fucking played killer. It made my weekend. Definitely did. Best band of the weekend for me, so far. I mean, we'll see what happens today, but I can't believe anybody else is going to come out and kill that.

Now, yeah, like you said, they engage the crowd, which if you engage the crowd and you win them over, you've got them in the palm of your hand, and you can whip them up to a more furious mental state where they're just going and losing their minds, whereas, you know, an intense death metal band may whip people up in the pit or whatever, but the people standing around the pit are still just standing there with their thumbs in their asses going, okay, okay, that's usually me.

I literally cried for half their set. Jay saw it. He was taking my glasses off and just rubbing my eyes because it was like the religious experiences where the people at the church and the dudes speak in tongues and they're just bawling and stuff. I was like, this was so amazing that I lost it. It was the essence of what you loved about metal in the 80s. Everything.

Yeah.

But let's see what everybody else was into.

But no, but at least, coming into this though, you hadn't mentioned much of them.

Is that kind of what added to this, that surprise that, not saying you weren't excited for them, but did this add to that?

Like, wow, they really blew me away.

Because you, not that you, you know what I'm trying to say.

Yeah, yeah, I do.

And it does, because while I'm, I've been a fan of the band, you know, since like 86, 87, they were never like high on my list of like, oh, I love these guys so much.

They were just like, yeah, they're one of those cool bands from the 80s that I like. And so I wasn't expecting much. They were one of my anticipated bands because I've known them so long. It'd be cool to see them. But then hearing them and hearing them come off like that, it just blew my mind. It was like skepticism last year. I thought I'd like them, but it just was like, whoa. After my two biggest bands dropped, they were my top because I actually kind of know what they're about now. I've checked them out.

I mean even his website like he signs everything if you buy stuff from him he'll sign it before he sends it out and everything just like they said in the show he was like we don't just he said we're not going to just disappear we're going to come down there and drink beer with you guys after that's just what they did they were down in the crowd immediately taking pictures drinking beer it was like a man of war show but cooler yeah yeah I mean Jay and I both took pictures with Kayton and two of the other guys in the band and yeah and then we

went over to their booth and each bought the double-sided album Raging Violence and Fear, Power, something like that. I want to test Will and John right now. Are you guys DRA followers at all? Do you know them enough a little bit? You know their lead singer is Kurt Brecht? Would you know what he looks like? Maybe not. Shit, okay, because their drummer from This Is The First Album, their drummer is named Eric Brecht and he looks just like Kurt Brecht.

So long story short, their drummer back in the day had to be Kurt Breck's brother, the singer from DRI. It does not take my word on it. I mean, that's exactly what the fuck he looks like. So that was, and I didn't know that, to be perfectly blunt. Yeah. Because when I had this, I had it on cassette, and it didn't have all these pictures in it. Right. But anyway, so Jay and I each picked up the vinyl, and the entire band signed both of them for us, so that was pretty cool too. And the guitar player slipped me a guitar pick, which was cool. That's right. He slipped you his what?

It rhymes with pick. So yeah. So yeah, I mean, that was definitely my highlight. I can't imagine anybody today beating that. I'll get to that when we talk about today, but who else has got something? I know Will's got something that he was really into yesterday. Yeah, I saw Atrophy, so that was really cool. They were around back in the 80s.

Late 80s, early 90s, they had two albums, Socialized Hate and Violent by Nature, very social conscious lyrics, dealing with animal testing and nuclear war and warfare and all kinds of stuff, drug addiction. So they haven't played really together in like 20 years except for the last couple months. And we had a great interview, John Buk and I talked to them for a while. And we went backstage to their trailer and they were just,

The nicest is an understatement. Yeah. But they're set to me. It sounded like they've still been playing for the last 20 years. And they had two new guitar players. So they had Brian, the lead singer's original, James, the bassist original, and Tim, the drummer. They're all three original members. But the two guys who were playing guitars and their names slipped my mind right now. But they've known those guys for a long time, but they're brand new to the band. But they sounded just like

they did back in the day. I mean, they didn't skip a beat. It was great. Plus, there was like a two-year-old kid in the mosh pit, which stole everyone's heart. It was kind of cool. Very interesting interview with them. I want to ask you guys both a question, though, about the interview. Because you were back in the trailer. Like, how are the artist accommodations? Was there food and beer stuff for them, or what was it like? Didn't look like there was any catering at all. There was a little table in the corner. You know what trailers that you see at construction sites? Yeah. You're walking back through them. There's no,

Six of them. You know, each band has their own. Inside the trailer, they had, you know, water, maybe some snacks. Yeah, there was like some, like bag of Doritos, you know, like a basket. But there's not like, you know, catering. You see like TV shows or anything like that. Yeah, it was certainly nothing special. The interesting thing, and if you, if, I don't know when George is going to get, put the interview in, maybe before or after this, learned how some young bands in the 80s,

The problems with record contracts and deals like that. We learned from Atrophy yesterday that they were locked into a seven-album contract. Good Lord. Yeah. So at the time, they're probably thinking, man, this is awesome. But then when you start trying to deal with things that are around you, not taking off like you think, but you're still locked into that. Yeah, it was probably a shitty deal, too. Probably. You're talking to them. I think they were saying that.

They used the word Nirvana, Kurt Cobain several times. It just killed metal. And what was interesting is that they said they did put out a demo to Road Racer. He kept saying Road Racer. It was Road Racer before it was Road Runner. Right, yeah. So they put out a six-song demo to the record company. And I guess Atrophy's mind is like, hey, this is an unfinished product, but we're working on the new album. Here it is. And I guess the record company...

company was sort of like, well, this isn't good enough. Like, what are you doing? Are you getting lazy on us or something like that? So I think things just started falling apart. And they, I think the road racer dropped them, I think, or something like that, but which is a shame. But they said, yeah, never would they ever knowing now, now, now knowing what they know, they would never have gone into like a seven, seven record contract. But at the time they were super excited about it. Yeah. Who wouldn't be? Cool. Did anybody else, uh,

You blow your skirt up yesterday? Well, there was just one guy. I thought Testament put on a great set. Just the sound wasn't all that great. As we were talking earlier off the pod, it was really hard to hear Alex Golan's guitar. Nuclear Assault was awesome. I haven't seen those guys in probably 25 years or plus. Good to see.

Dan Lilliker up there. They sounded just like they did back in the day. They put on a really good show. Got to see Gruesome again for the second day, so that was cool. Something that was cool last night is that Chuck Billy was wearing a Gruesome shirt. Obviously, Gene Hoagland was drumming and DiGiorgio was on bass, so two former guys in death. Then Robin, who's the bassist in Gruesome, she was backstage handing guitars to Eric Peterson. There was this whole Gruesome death testament.

sort of family going on last night. It was kind of cool. Yeah. Cool. I drank a lot of beer yesterday. I'm with John. You can save me. I'm with John on that. I watched a few bands here and there. Grissom was cool again to see. Although I was hoping they would have played a few more different songs, but I got no complaints about that. Hung out in the lot a lot with everybody. Just bouncing around and just hanging

out with people more than anything else. I mean, I listen to every band, basically. But I have to agree with Jay and Buke. It was not like in the Sounded Testament at all. And I think it was locational is what it was, because the bass was just popping. But they sounded great from the parking lot when we were hanging out listening to them. Oh, they did sound better. They actually sounded really good back there. I mean, Chuck, you could hear everything perfect crystal clear back there. So I was having more fun just hanging out with people. Got tired

looking at loincloth guy, which I've been complaining about the whole time. But other than that, it was fun. We'll do it again today. We'll find somebody to like today. Yeah. Jay? I was disappointed that Nuclear Assault did as much political proselytizing as they did. I was like, come on, dude. That's what they do. I know that's what they do, but I have to tell you, it just put me off or something. But that stated their set was cool, so don't get me wrong. Where were you? Sometimes out at the car. I probably got 40% of that set. Oh, okay. Yeah. Not unlike John and Buk, I drank a lot.

I had a lot of beer yesterday like a lot of beer I must have well I had a lot of beer so yeah I lost count at a lot how many like beers in a lot is that like was what measure of unit is that I don't know but I'll tell you this we had to have had 10 yesterday dude maybe more than we had some after at another location and then I another facility and exciter was probably my second favorite band of the day oh and Hale of Bullets was cool but they were on like so quick after

for high-risk it

I'm having a blast. And then when you feel like it, you can walk over and watch a band. And then if it's somebody you don't care about, Hatchback is open, beer is cold. And we must have met 30 cool people yesterday. And I don't remember any of their fucking names. Yeah, I'm going to be spending most of the day out there today if I'm not at the merch booth. There's only two bands I really care about and they're at the end. So don't expect to see a lot of video from me today. What do you guys all think of the merch booths? I really haven't browsed them. Yeah.

Same. I was saying earlier, I was a little surprised there weren't as many labels here. I mean, there's some, and it's cool. I think there's three that there's the Seas of Mist, Relapse, and then who's the one that has Makewell again? Do you guys remember? The sort of the C? No, it's an S. I don't know. I can't remember. Those guys were cool. They helped me look for something. So I haven't really done much. I'm not looking for shirts because I'm not looking for bandanas for my body because none of them are going to fit. No. Last year, I was like, none of the,

Nobody had anything over at 2X. If George and I are walking for shirts, we're going to the CDs and the vinyl. If Will and Jay are looking for shirts, they're shopping all day. Yeah, I'll say with the merch, it's kind of interesting to me because it's like, you know, 50 booths all selling the same stuff, it seems like. And the one thing I wanted to get here, which I'm like, oh, I can get it at DeathFest, it's a chain wallet, and not a single person has a chain wallet. Why? We need to... Because there's some leather goods.

Because it's not 1996 anymore. I was thinking we should look and see if they have any empty vests that we could put patches on as opposed to ones that already have shit on there. Yesterday, I love you guys and I try and always do all I can for the pod. John and I sat through a whole fucking set yesterday to go find Matt Harvey just to talk to him. Say, hey, are you available for an interview?

When he was done signing, we stood there, we met him, shook his hand. He said, yeah, I'll be around. I go back to the booth where he says he's going to be. Wasn't even around. Fat bastard. That was our day yesterday. A lot of hanging out, doing stuff, talking to John. Did you have any bands that you liked? No, nobody. Everybody sucked. I've only seen Demonical play. That was probably the only one going into yesterday I was really excited for except for Hail of Bullets. But the social scene took over.

The social butterfly spread his wings and flew away. All right. So is anybody looking forward to anything today? I know me, like I said, really only want to see Satan and Venom. Really looking forward to seeing Demolition Hammer. Oh, that's right. Saw a lot of shirts by them the other day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. No, that's it.

Anyone and all of them, I don't care. It's all of them. Yeah, I'm going to float around that too. I did actually see Satan twice in the last year, up to and including about four, maybe a month ago, maybe a month and a half. Venom, I'm excited about just because I saw Venom Incorporated, which I really can't say enough about how good that show was. But I haven't seen Cronus, so it's like I'm collecting collectible cards now at this point, and I need the Cronus card. So I am looking forward to Venom.

They are of course the last night by that time we'll all be blasted and fucking tired and wondering how long it's gonna take us get home so it remains to be seen if we're not all like two songs in and like let's get the fuck out of here but we'll see I uh I forgot to mention that uh I am sort of curious about internment Mark was like really big on them and and I was listening to them and they're actually pretty cool so uh we'll see if they actually sound good here a lot of the death metal stuff just sort of turns mushy here but you know I have one other um death fest fact too which is

which is just that I took my shower. We have been showering when we get home. But I showered this morning instead of last night and I was waterproof for about 30 seconds because of all the fucking sunblock we're using. Buick, anybody today? Wombath. Oh, yeah. Because those guys have been really cool. Been hanging out with them all weekend long. Nocturnal Graves, I'm excited for. Disaster. These guys have been around for a long time, but their new album has me pretty

I mentioned it on the pilot a couple episodes back. Other than that, just a normal day to see what we can, you know, things bring me. Cool. All right. Does anybody else have anything they want to say before we lock it up? No. All right. We'll talk to you later. Okay. So here we are. This is Buke and Jay and Will from the Metal Heads podcast. It's an honor that we have these guys right now. I can't believe we're actually speaking to them. This is the

Satan right here closing.

I haven't introduced himself.

We will.

They're going to be one of the last bands closing out the lot here.

Tell them and introduce yourselves.

What do you guys do in the band?

Hi, I'm Graham.

I play the bass.

I'm Steve Ramsey guitar.

Brian vocals.

You can tell right by the hair.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

So, like I said, I've written this guy's stuff down.

So bear with me, guys.

This is kind of a big moment for us.

So throughout your history, you guys have had shared members, many names, and many names.

Can you kind of talk about the name changes and what's brought that about? Do you consider it one continuous run? Do you consider them very different expressions that you've done? Please, anybody who'd like to chime in. I think the first name change came about because we got the first album, Courtney Act, although now it seems to be like a legendary album. It was the two places that we were playing the most were England and Holland. And the two main magazines in England, Holland Karang and Archie.

SHOT Magazine gave us very mediocre reviews and because we were young and naive we thought we were doing something wrong and we changed the name we thought the name was connecting us with black metal and death metal and Satan and all that and we never really had anything to do with that we just thought it was a cool name for the band and then it's the best name really you know how many bands probably start with that now they're like shit it's already taken someone's got it yeah someone's got it and they've had

I want to go through the list real quick that we got Satan then we went to Blind Fury we were back to Satan again correct me if I get any of these wrong we went to Pariah and then we were back again to Satan did I miss one and we're going to talk about Blitzkrieg too it's basically the same band just we moved a few members around the core of the band was virtually the same through that era you know so which one of my questions was who came up with the name of Satan because that is like the heavy metal copyright of all time

I came up with the name and the logo when I was at school. I was about 14, 15 at school and I had it written on the back of one of my workbooks at school. This is before we even learned to play guitar. You were just drawing logos out. It's just amazing to me that that name even back then was not taken yet. Like that's crazy. Well, judging by the amount of problems that we encountered because of that name, I can understand why. I'm sure you guys parents

My parents are all accepting and loving of the name. They're like, "Oh man, that's great!" Yeah, the school was saying, "Yeah, come on and play at the school!" Yeah! Even now, you know, coming through customs. Oh, you guys are in a band, right? Yeah. Okay, what's the name of the band? Satan. Oh. I have to tell you, I was outside the door and it says Satan and I was like, "I don't know, it's gonna get kind of sketchy." You know what I mean? Yeah, who are we about to walk in and see in here? Uh, Brian, if I can focus on Blitzkrieg for a minute. How has, and for

"Metallica's" cover of "Blitzkrieg" affected you in any way? How do you feel about it?

Well, it's kind of a double-edged sword really because on one hand you have people that think that it's a Metallica song and that "Blitzkrieg" are doing a cover of a Metallica song. And on the other hand, you have the attention that it brought to us. So it's kind of weird and, you know, musically it's wrong. Their version is different.

I spent quite a while on the telephone telling Lars what the lyrics were and what the chord progressions were. They still got it wrong. But it's Metallica's version and it's a great version. I mean what can you say about it? They've done it as they've done a lot of other songs. They've made it their own and that's fine. I'm quite happy with that. Definitely the respect and honor is there. It's just a compliment if another band does that for your music.

Of course. And also it exposes you guys, you know, to millions of people around the world. I think basically, you know, what it's kind of done is fans of Metallica have thought, well, what impressed these guys when they were young? And they've gone off and they've found the albums, they've searched for the albums that Metallica have said, oh, I have this in my collection, I've got that. So, you know, we've picked up on a lot of people from that, both Blitzkrieg and Satan. Because you look in an audience, your typical Blitzkrieg and Satan audience,

now. And a lot of them are kids that weren't even born when we did the first album.

Well, I was born. And I actually bought Courtney Act independent of anything else. But we're also some of those guys who grew up in Metallica too. And I think you're right. I think that brought a lot of people to you and Diamond Head and so on and so forth. Yeah, for sure. What area of England are you guys from?

Northeast.

We're all Geordies except he's a man.

I'm from Washington.

The original Washington. Old Washington. Yeah. Okay, so Steve and Graham, you guys have been doing stuff together for 36 years. How does that happen? Give the one piece of advice you have to upstart bands right now. How do you do things for 36 years? Don't do one album, then fire your singer. You know what? I'm just going to mind. Could you answer this, Brian? That would be good. Yeah, he's probably right. We actually agree with that as well.

Yeah.

It's a kind of strange thing because it's kind of like being married almost.

Yeah.

You know, so we haven't had a divorce yet. We'll get on pretty well.

I wasn't even a thought about having a different bass player for me.

Yeah.

It's kind of one of those things we moved on and did stuff with Skyclad, you know.

Yeah.

And all through that we've just stuck together so we just get on.

I'm sitting to you guys at 33 right now and it's crazy to even think that you guys have that history like that.

Yeah.

When bands now can even make it a year.

Yeah.

It's remarkable. So you guys are doing tours, you're doing festivals now. Do you feel you're bigger than you were in '83? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Especially worldwide. We were reasonably popular in England and Holland, but we did one support tour in Germany in the mid-90s with Running Wild. We never got to headlay in any shows or sit anywhere else but Holland, Belgium and England.

So we're getting you here in the States now. Can you talk to your boys back home? Can we get running wild over here now? Maybe you guys tour with them? They never play the States. They've never played over here. Yeah, there's many people who would want to see them. Do you guys feel like you've been well-treated in all those places where you've gone? Well-received? You like the... What do you guys credit this second breath of life with? Is it the internet? Yeah.

I mean like Kurt Cobain, they're probably even a shotgun inside.

Don't get me started on Kurt Cobain. There's a story there, really.

We interviewed Atrophy, if you know those guys from Arizona, local thrash band in Arizona. We interviewed them for a while and they just went off on Kurt Cobain and Nirvana and the whole grunge movement that just killed music.

Basically, I'll tell you what it was. Back in 1981, Blitzkrieg wrote a pack of about six or seven songs.

and we were sorting out enough songs to do an album. And one of the songs we were doing was a song called Calming the Savage Beast. And our manager had got a piece of fan mail from a guy in the States who said, oh, you know, have you got any tapes or whatever, you know, songs by Blitzkrieg. So he sent him a tape with the song Calming the Savage Beast on it. Years later, I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit.

And it is calming the savage beast. The guy that we sent the tape to was Kurt Cobain's cousin. The bastard stole absolutely right. That's a scoop right here. It's crazy. I'm assuming you've told the story before many times. It annoys the fuck out of me. And he didn't even have the common decency to stay alive long enough for me to sue him. Maybe if you would have worn flannel, you know, you could have, that's why you missed it.

I had the great pleasure of seeing both your last San Francisco shows, which were packed. And the crowd dug the shit out of it. And I got to just tell you, you're both playing great. Brian, I don't know how you're singing like you're singing at this point, with all due respect to the fact that we all age. I mean, you're hitting the highest of the highs, man. It's just wonderful. So just my A, my hat's off, and B... How do you do? What do you do, man?

You want to hear that line, don't you? You want to hear the line from Rockstar. Are you a lot of pussy, man? No, I don't smoke and I drink Jagermeister. It's a tonic, now I know. It's a healthy diet. Speaking about drinking and a man who was famous for it, you know, the world just lost Lemmy a couple months back. Guys have, I'm sure, plenty of Lemmy stories.

Runins with him throughout the years. Right? The world lost an amazing voice. Yeah, an absolute legend. Did you cross paths with him? Yes. A couple of occasions. The first time I met him was in a bar in Hammersmith in London. And I'd gone in there with a friend of mine, Andy. I was staying in London. He used to manage the EF band. And he took me down the bar and Lemmy was in there. And Lemmy said, what are you drinking? I said, well, I drink whiskey.

I still do, you know, scotch whiskey. So he said, right, not a problem. So he got me a glass, a half pint glass and had the glass filled up with whiskey and put it in front of me. So I drank it. So he had it filled again and I drank it and he filled it again. And I was absolutely wasted. Really? The next time I met him, I walked in the door and he was there. He came walking over. He said, Brian, the whiskey guy, I've got one on the bar for you. He did it again.

All of the behind the scenes story I hear about him are just like that. He gave me a shitload of booze and he remembered me next time. He was put on this wheel just to cripple people. He'd be just standing, he'd be going, yeah, this is easy. It was Ronnie Deal. The year that we played Wacken Festival in Germany, Ronnie had the dressing room next to ours. And I was sitting in the dressing room and I heard this commotion outside and so I went out to see what was on. And it was Ronnie Deal.

He was sitting outside having a bit of sun drinking a cup of tea. So I went outside and sat next to him and we chatted for two hours about all sorts of different things. What struck me about Ronnie James Deva was what such a nice guy he was and what blew me totally away was he actually knew who I was which was really quite remarkable. This is the part I find interesting. You have these huge rock stars who get humbled by other huge rock stars. It's very interesting.

I want you to know that actually my question about what do you do was based on the fact that I once read, to keep your voice in shape, that I once read an interview with Ronnie and he said, I smoke a joint before I go on. And I swear and I consider you honestly a singer of his caliber. I really do. And so it sounds like you live like he lived. Kind of, but I don't smoke a joint before I go on. So what was it, maybe something in the water over there, but you know, you look at them. In specific, in Newcastle upon time.

What do you think it was about that time? Because you see all these pockets around the world, like the Swedish deaf bands, the American, Florida deaf bands, and then your area. What do you think it was about that time that was just breeding bands and artists? A couple of things. We've got a venue, Newcastle City Hall, and every band that toured the UK would play there. So the Scorpions, the Priest, Rush, all those bands would play there. So we had that for starters.

every band we could go and see. So there was a lot of influence of that kind of music there and it was always packed. And I think most of the bands that you hear from the new wave of Chevy Metal are from really working class towns. What influenced it was the working classness of... And then London and stuff, you know. And I think the North East is like that, you know. And the kids are looking for something else to do. To get out the kind of the life. Yeah, the life.

to a certain extent. The punk scene influenced a lot of the new wave of British heavy metal bands. Because that was quite a big thing in the mid-70s. Well, later mid-70s. So that had an influence on us. But from here, Newcastle Pontine is seen in one of those places that for other people would be like New York for punk and things like that. There's a lot of heavy metal coming out of there. I think it was down in Neat Records as well, who kind of took all those bands and given them a window to the world sort of thing. I mean, fair enough, they weren't the best record label.

in the world. They sort of pushed a lot of the bands forward from the new cast.

Yeah.

Can I ask about the judge character, if I will? How that kind of came about? Is it something you guys kind of think of as your mascot at this point? Like an Eddie or something like that?

Kind of, yeah. The judge represents all the songs that we write about are social events and history and stuff like that. And it's all about the evil that men do to themselves. And the judge is judging them. And it's like, he's kind of like,

The opposite to the guy at the pearly gates. What do you call him? St. Peter. He's the opposite to him. He's like the judge in the figure game. So he's safe. He's kind of like the guy that's welcoming you into hell because of the evil that you've done. You know, you look at all these bands still going and stuff like that. Has there ever been talk of really trying to reunite all your bands from back in the day?

for like almost like a festival or not like a going away tour but like let's just get the gang back together and just blow people away with one huge fucking festival maybe back home get you guys get priests get made in get everybody together and just it almost is with bro fest yeah it kind of almost is but um when you guys are not wondering about going to festivals because i see we just have this here when you guys go to those big festivals and you play them with other bands how

How much interaction with the other bands are you guys actually able to have? A lot? Yeah. Because we all came from the same areas. I'm sure backstage it's like seeing family again and it's just the best of times. We have to ask you this, we were talking on the ride over. Are you guys football fans at all? You guys? Yeah. Are we talking football? Yeah, real football. Only you guys could call a game football. Real football, yes. Who's your guys club?

I know over there it gets a little, you know.

Yeah.

I'm He Sun and I'm Newcastle.

Okay.

So the local zombies are good.

So what, do you guys both agree that you hate Man U, right?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I think they're like the Yankees here.

Yeah.

Will we get a follow up to Adam by Adam?

Yeah.

Ooh.

No.

Watch out the spot.

Yes.

The last album was the first time that we ever wrote more songs than we needed.

So there were 15 tracks written and completed for the last album and we chose 10 for the album. So we're all ready halfway there on the next one. Some of those tracks that were left off were brilliant tracks, you know, but we... My favorite track didn't go on the album that Russ wrote. Did you record it? Was it recorded? You didn't just write it, you recorded it and just didn't get put it on? Yeah, it was the same old. I asked this question with the most respect, not saying you guys are old, but...

So playing the style of music that you know just saying what it is playing what you guys play have you have you realized that guys you know how much longer can we really do this like after a show now the bones a little more you know hurting the joints a little more sore now you're thinking maybe we should you know one more tour and that's it. We still feel 18 in our heads so you know you kind of ride over you get some adrenaline running and you do what you do on stage. You're a 20 again. It doesn't matter how I feel after the first chord the adrenaline

up here we're still 18.

Actually, they all have hair, so up there they really are 18.

Because you got more than all three of us once again.

I don't know how you're doing that either.

Usually.

Anything going on outside the band that any of you guys want to talk about?

Brian, I'm kind of looking at you. I know the Skyclad thing is...

Skyclad, well, I mean we're working on the new album, which is probably seven years overdue.

This sort of, the same revival thing sort of interfered with it slightly, but we're starting to get our act together now.

The guys, I'm saying, I'm hoping that the guys, while I'm here, are writing some stuff for the new Blitzkrieg album so that I can start writing lyrics when I get back. But also, in England, I have the honor to play Alice Cooper in an Alice Cooper show, which we're doing quite a bit. And it's great fun because we don't just, it's not five guys getting up on stage,

We do the whole show with the guillotines, the snakes, everything. Whatever you see at an Alice Cooper show, you'll see at my Alice Cooper shows. It's really great fun. Wow. This is completely, I feel embarrassed for knowing that. I didn't know that either. It's Alice Cooper's Nightmare. If you go onto my Facebook page, you'll find a link to it. Go and have a look. There's videos there, there's photographs. We sent a photograph of me dressed as Alice to Alice.

And Alice sent back a photograph of himself dressed as me.

That's all right.

Have you had...

I might have it on my phone.

Did you know Alice a little bit?

I've never met him.

He's one of my heroes really.

But um...

What's your favorite Alice Cooper record?

Oh...

I...

Constrictor I think.

Oh fair enough.

Going a little bit more towards the later era there.

Well middle, I mean not anymore.

So bands that have a long history like you gentlemen do, they kind of stumble somewhere along the way. With Celtic Frost, we know they're called Lake. That's kind of well regarded as their what-the-hell moment was that. How do you think you guys are avoiding a moment like that? Or looking back on it, you guys have an album where you're like, oh! The Blind Fury album, for me, it was such a drastic movement from Gordon the Arc to Blind Fury.

It was written as a Satan album.

More a vehicle for the singer than it was an album by us.

Looking back on that you're like "Ahhh!"

Maybe we shouldn't. It's still a great album.

It was just such a drastic movement from the first album.

Are there any other bands out there right now that you guys have really been hooked on since you guys have done this?

I like tooling things like that.

As from when you guys first started to where we're at now, your metal has gotten a lot more aggressive.

Have you guys become a fan of that?

That wasn't really your thing?

I'm more into the tuneful harmony guitar. I'm more clutch man. That's the kind of music I like. If I did anything else, that's the kind of music I'd play. I wanted to get this on mic because Brian and I were having a nice conversation while you were getting information. This is the Alice Coopers. Is it stationary or are you touring a little bit? No, we're just starting to get a tour together. It's hard because we can't do small

We've got to do large venues to get all of the props and everything in. But we're getting more and more gigs. People are coming back to us now and the Hells Angels in England want us to play for them. So that's got to be good. Don't do anything wrong. You guys get in, get out. No, they're cool. Oh, the Hells Angels like you. Oh, wow. That's a great group of guys to have on your side. Don't anger them. You've been super generous with your time.

So, do you have anything you want us to get into? You know, my standard question, so I brew beer for a living. So, I know you said you like whiskey. Do you guys drink beer? Have you had any beer here in the United States on all your tours that you've liked? Do you like beer? Yeah, we like the Boston one. Boston. St. Adams. Yeah, there's a couple of ones from Boston, I remember. I like the only American beer. They're all known in craft beers down there. They're so small. Yeah, we do like them.

Okay, well gentlemen, we won't take more time again. It's an honor for all of us here at the Mental Hits Podcast. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you. Hello, this is Buke. It is 445 on Sunday. So now we're joined by Mark. You finally made it, brother, for your first Death Fest. Howdy. Thank you for having me. Of course, man. So how's everything going so far? This is a spectacular experience. We torture people this way, and yet I'm having a good time, and that's what I love about it.

Yeah, it's finally starting to cool off a little bit. Yeah. Cloud cover is good. God bless the clouds. Satan bless the clouds. Bring on the darkness. We did a nice interview with Satan. Yeah, how did that go? Amazing. The women are just gorgeous. Very British? Very. Very. Heavy New England, yeah. That's not even British. That's like what French Canadian is to the French accent. That's what Newcastle is.

is to the English accent.

Yeah.

And I heard you ask the most important question.

Football.

I did.

All right.

I did.

They said one Newcastle, one Sunderland.

Yep.

Enjoy the second tier.

But my favorite.

Enjoy relegation, right?

And I know they're pissed about it.

My favorite part of the Metalheads podcast to date is when you said to Tom from Allfather,

do you care about football?

He goes, no, I don't give a fuck about football.

He goes, I care about heavy metal.

And I was like, every British person you hear, you want to say, who's your football team? And he goes, I don't give a fuck. I care about heavy metal. And that was the coolest thing I've ever heard. Yeah. So gentlemen, Dan's also here with us and Corey, our friends at Never. From the Nine Circles. Please check them out. Nine Circles podcast. These guys, a very professional job that they do. Well, you guys, new episodes, you guys, new episodes come out every Wednesday, Tuesday, Thursday, Monday, Monday. Okay. Monday. I picked four. Yeah. I picked.

So, gentlemen, highlights of the day so far. Dan, I'll start with you. Really liked Denouncement Pyre. Yeah, they were fantastic. Honestly, the guys in Wombath, who we both talked to Friday,

Fantastic dudes and their set was awesome. That's really all I've paid attention to. You know, we just had Disaster but was not really paying attention. We had Shed the Skin who like sounded fine but was not really paying attention. I have to be, I'm a little disappointed in Shed the Skin because they sounded like they would have been awesome but the audio was not very good. You could not hear the guitarist on the left at all. It was, so the sound quality was not good but I liked what they were doing. So, you know, one of my

They sounded great, but I ran into the problem where they sounded great, but I kept wanting to get closer and closer and closer, but as they got close, the vocals, you know, the range spread out more, so when you were on the fence, you really couldn't make out the vocals or anything like that. Mr. Corey taking a relaxing break, leaning back after you spilled a beer in his truck. I spilled about a quart of a beer, yeah, it happens. You know, it's better than the situation we got over there where there's a little glass everywhere. Kevin broke an entire bottle. Could you echo everybody? Hi, Kevin! Hi, Kevin. Well, I've been with you guys all day. I think I would echo the same.

Denouncement Pryor was an amazing way to start the day and Wombath were as amazing as they were nice of people from yesterday. It's been awesome. It's been freaking awesome. Awesome. Will? Day three I was very excited to go see Denouncement Pryor. They're like the perfect kind of black metal band for me because it was death black metal and black and death I guess you would call it. So they were awesome. I actually liked them better than two members

from the announcement pyre were also in the other band that was two sets later. But I like them better. And then interviewing Satan. That was awesome. You and Jay did a great job. I was just sort of strap hanging, checking it out. You asked your questions about the area that you'll be hearing later. It was a fun interview. Satan's come up later tonight. Those guys started in like 79 or 78.

to me is here, here a guy, the guys from Satan, like literally having like, oh my God, like I met Alice Cooper. Oh my God. Like I met Lemmy. Like, but you're up there. Yeah. Like you're up there with them. And so it's really interesting to me to see. It's like Bruce Dickinson saying like, oh my God, like I just met Rob Halford. Like, holy crap. Like you guys are all in the same league. Like it's so that part to me was very,

Cool and almost endearing that they're so humble. Dio, like he was talking about Dio. He's like, Dio's my hero. I'm like, aren't you guys the same age? Dio may be younger than you. But it was great. That just, to me, it, you know, like when we think about these metal rock stars and it, and they're just like, we hold them up on this pedestal. But when you physically talk to them, like, it humanized them. Like, oh my God, like,

You had this huge rock star that's like, oh my god, like, Dio. Like, I met Dio. Like, it's weird. I'm not explaining this well, but it humanizes them to the point that it's like, oh yeah, you can geek out about another huge international rock star. Just like, they're probably geeking out about you. And that interplay between Alice Cooper, which you'll hear on the podcast earlier or later or whatever, but it was really, that was my coolest moment. John? I'm going to switch it up and say

I liked Denouncement Pyre like everybody else. Yeah, they were cool. You even said today nothing was really pulling you one way or the other. No, yeah. And so I enjoyed going out there. Will said we got to go see this band. And I was like, let's go check them out. And I enjoyed it. It was good. Minus, you know, 1245 in the morning, my chest getting just pounded hard, which was cool. Don't get me wrong. I just wasn't, you know, bearded up enough. I have to say that when I went up to Denouncement Pyre and got

really close and just the base was just hitting you in the chest you're like man i just ate fish tacos um yeah i'm gonna step back so i step back with john i was like i gotta get back a little further so for our listeners who uh you know like our beer discussion you switched it up i see you doing another pour right now yeah so uh john and i had a hop stupid from lagunitas which is in the bible uh so the extreme guide to beer yeah the brutal truth about this uh the ibus okay the international bitterness units

So yeah, so it's in the Brutal Truth Kyther Extreme beer. So it's like when John and I get together, we pretty much always have to have a beer from the Bible. We call the Bible. Yeah, Adam. So it was cool because they have a decibel magazine table here. Is your issue in there? Yeah, so I'm... He's in every issue. No, I'm not in every issue. But Dan Clagajar. Dan, if you're listening, please call me and tell me how you pronounce your last name. But Dan and I are in the latest issue of decibel.

in the Brutal Truth column. And it's just like, you know, ask Adam some questions. So Adam gives John, Dan, and myself some... He favors us a little bit because we all promote the book so much. And we appreciate it beyond belief. And it's awesome. Like, I fucking love it. Thank you. Okay, we'll talk to you guys probably... If you don't hear from us later, you'll talk to us tonight during our post-Death Fest drive home.

Well, Maryland Death Fest 2016 is now in the books. We are all crammed into Will's vehicle and headed back down 695 at the moment, heading for 70. So, I gotta say, I think this was a pretty good year, all told, all things considered. Yeah, it was killer, man. Probably the most relevant thing to say right now is we just watched Venom wrap it up.

It's cool to stand that so close to Cronus. Yeah. Open with Witching Hour. He sounds just like Cronus. A little weird to not have the other guys there. And they also probably put a little bit too much faith in the new albums. Bless their hearts. But they made sure to intersperse with old songs pretty much every other song. Up to and including the song from Cast in Stone. The Reunion record, which was the first one where they all three back together again. So that was cool. That's a good song too. And Satan was good too.

And we did a great interview with Satan today.

That's excellent. I can't wait to hear that.

I think for me, the bookends today were my favorites.

Denouncement Pyre opened and they sounded pretty awesome.

And Venom closed it and they sounded pretty awesome.

Satan sounded good.

So yeah.

There was a good...

Mark suggests...

Mark seems to be all hot about this band Interment.

And I gotta say I liked Interment.

I thought they were really good.

Swedish death metal band.

Yeah, I was standing next to him when we were watching it. He was losing his mind. It was good. He loved it. Yeah, they were brutal. I mean, they just were one of those bands that just come out and there's just like no compromise, 100 miles an hour the whole time. It was funny because I actually got my phone out to do something. I forget what I was doing and he put his hand over my phone and he's like, to kind of motion, like, knock that off, watch this band. It was funny. I appreciated it. What did you, well, John, this was a low-key day for you, John.

I actually saw more bands today than I did yesterday. Oh really? Yeah I was there at the beginning for Denouncement Pyre. I liked them I thought they were cool. I was with the guys for an interment. I was off to the side to watch the girl take her clothes off and put them back on the whole time. She was kind of a skank. But yeah and then Venom was cool but you know we watched from the parking lot and listened just because I was tired of being in there so. And Satan

I sat off to the side a little bit and George joined me and Bukes showed up and I was just cranky and tired at that point so but it was a cool day I had a good time I thought it was oh and it was interesting too that John and I were both noticing that Satan and Venom are both from Newcastle and so two Newcastle bands closed it you know some 30 years after I'm sure they were just sitting there thinking yeah this will just last for about a year or something like that so that was kind of

Any other standouts anybody wants to mention? Demolition Hammer. Oh yeah, you know what dude? They did sound great. That was the fastest circle pit I've ever seen in my life. And it was interesting because it was kind of like on this little bit of a hill and I was standing at where the bottom of the hill was. So people were flying down. They just kept crashing right into the area I was in. I was like, I gotta get out of here. But it was a crazy circle pit. Like the fastest one I've ever seen. It was cool. Demolition Hammer killed it. It was great.

They did, and to be honest, Buk and I were in the car during that one, but we opened up the vent on the top, and I swear to God, dude, it was like listening to a really good bootleg. The sound was good. It couldn't have been better. And then when I came in and saw how old that front guy was, I was like, wow. They've been around for like 30 years. I think they said they haven't done anything in like 25 years. Oh, so they were literally just non-active. Did you kind of know them a little bit? Me? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mentioned earlier in the podcast I was a big fan of Tortured Existence, their one album. It's one song, 44 caliber brain surgery. So as a sniper in the Marine Corps, we changed it. I forgot. 308 caliber brain surgery. So yeah, I've always been a fan of that band. And it's one of those weird things like with them with Atrophy, who played yesterday. It's like one of those things like, yeah, I loved them in high school. You haven't heard much about it. It's like, am I the only person who ever knew this band existed? And then you get there, it's like,

The Young Kids Are We're Wearing Demolition Hammer Shirts. There's huge circle pits and people are losing their minds to sing along with the songs. It's like, all right, good. I'm not the only one. And it's cool that they're kids. Yeah. I always like that when you see the younger generation appreciating the older stuff. It's great. Yeah, up to it, including Venom, which there was a lot of young kids there for that. They were all singing. I mean, everybody clearly likes the first two records, but people were singing along and really excited to see this kind of legendary guy come. I mean, Cronus is a bit of a lemmy in his way, you know.

Did you guys hear the rumor when Kate Middleton and the prince got married? I guess Cronus is somehow related to her, like a third or fourth cousin? No. And there were people who were joking like Cronus in the Buckingham Palace and stuff. It's going to be funny to the wedding. The one thing that I do want to say was pretty interesting is so Cronus came out and he said, okay, that's it. It's all goodnight. And it kind of like started packing.

up. And then the reaction of people immediately around me was like, what the hell? Wait, wait, you can't leave. You gotta play Black Magic. You can't stop. Or Black Metal. You can't stop. And then he came back out and played Black Metal and people just lost their minds. It was great. I mean, that song is the whole reason for the fast when you think about it. You know what I mean? That was like the beginning and all that. So what was everybody's kind of view just overall of the way it was organized and food and drink and so on and so forth?

The food was alright. The drinks were alright. The drinks in the car were better I thought. It's to be expected at any festival like this. Space is huge. That's cool. The stages are apart enough where you can not have to walk that far but they're not that close to each other so they can spread out. Only thing I'd like to see, I wish there were more tables to sit at because I'm old and cranky and I last this song before I gotta sit down.

But I enjoyed it. I thought it was cool. And they kept the schedule pretty tight, I thought, for the most part. Almost every day. So I go back. There's room for more tables. So. Yeah. And it's pretty cool that you don't have to deal with the changeovers. You know, it's just like five, ten minutes, if that, between bands and you're up and running again. I will say one thing, though. It was kind of nice. I think I don't know who pointed it out. Whoever did can say. But we got a little bit longer changes.

a couple times today, like about 10 minutes instead of 5. It's kind of nice, I thought, just to give a little extra. Take the earplugs out. Just readjust, yeah, set up again, you know, and I kind of like that, but I get being on the schedule their own, so. Well, not to mention when they're really close, like, I guess I've seen Satan a couple times in the last 6 months, but still I left before Satan ended because I really wanted to get up front to take pictures of Venom. But if I had not seen Satan, I would have had to have skipped a song or two to,

Really get myself positioned because that's what people were doing. What was your overall take on it Will? Yeah I second what John said was really well organized you know they were very much on schedule. Bands dropped out they filled holes like grew some plate twice. The food options I thought were pretty good there was that one smokehouse thing that had some pretty good barbecue. I mean a lot of it was typical stuff like corn dogs and you know burgers but I mean I thought there was a variety.

And there was even like a vegan hot dog stand, which I didn't eat, but at least you had that option for, you know, people. Weirdos. Vegetarian weirdos, Jay. It was actually called the Weirdo hot dog stand. I don't know if you remember that. You know, something I said earlier, I kind of wish the merch was more interspersed where the bands were. They were kind of separated in the back in like a different alleyway almost, like merch alley. So it would be kind of nice if they were more out where the bands were. So that way you could kind of shop merch as you're watching.

the bans. The beer options were okay. It was expensive. But I think the first day I bought one beer and then I didn't buy another beer out there for the next two days just because there's better stuff in the car. I'll say this. The security was pretty good but almost too lax to a certain degree. Because all they asked you to do was raise up your shirt when you're walking in. But we were smuggling beers in.

I mean, you could have brought anything you wanted in that place. I mean, it implies that if anything bad is going to happen, it's going to taste, you're going to smuggle it in around your stomach. Yeah, yeah. It's like, well, you could have a bomb in your shoe. You could have a gun in your pants, you know, in your pants, cargo pants or something like that. But, so that's just like the security out, like coming in, coming back. But it was nice that you, you could go out to the car, sit down, charge your phone, have a beer if you want. And then you could get right back into the venue with, within,

two minutes like there was no wait really to get back in and then also about the security that i swear the only security guards they hired to man like right in front of the stage were all metalheads like some of them were crowd surfing like some of them they weren't even wearing earplugs all all three days and they were like you know pumping their fists and banging their heads i even saw one of the cops banging his head out by the gate um so it was like that was that part was kind of cool like they were you know they weren't jerks at all they were actually great security guards you know manning

in front of the stage. I liked that part. That was good. Are you saying that it's unusual that cops aren't jerks? No, no. No, no. The cop was actually banging. I actually saw him. I was like, excuse me, officer. Did I just see you banging your head? He goes, yes, you may have. Well, Caten from Hyrex actually made a special point of thanking the security guards saying they were the coolest ones he's ever seen. They were clearly there just to help people not get hurt.

They're just throwing you right back around. They're just like, go around the back, buddy. So, Buk, what do you think, man? Well, I was letting everybody else get their piece in. My highlight band, Wombath, being a fan of Swedish death metal, they played old school Swedish death metal, and they played it well. I just got a feeling as we left, I'm like, man, it seems like Friday was just here. I don't know what happened to Friday and Saturday.

And today we're driving home now. Three days kind of went faster than two did last year. Yeah, it really went fast. So much fun. I've said it numerous times and I'll make it brief, but the parking lot hang is my favorite by far. You know, a lot of the merch is really obscure for some of the stuff I was trying to find. Same for a lot of the vinyl. Sorry.

Vinyl was obscure also for me so I walked out here with very little merch. You got a gruesome shirt, you got a Wombath shirt, you did get one album. Yeah I got one. One vinyl, was that it? Two shirts and a vinyl? I think everybody here didn't get much themselves. It's pretty low-key. No, not really. Like last year, Georgetown left with fucking stacks.

Yeah, it was quite a bit. Did you spend more time in Merch Alley last year? Nope. Just the same. Yeah? Yep. Is it because you had everything already? No, it was a lot of obscure stuff. Maybe having a more active child where work, I've been, you know, she's almost two, so I'm spending a lot more of my time playing with her where I'm not maybe listening to as much music,

So a lot of the stuff maybe isn't on my radar. Oh, no, dude. They were obscure, some of them. There was some, like, black and death labels there that were just like, dude, I, none of them. Never heard of any of these. I didn't know much of the stuff here. That stated there was always, and I suppose there always is, a good representation of old school shirts. And then some of the more popular stuff shirts. I picked up three records, I think. Maybe four. So I got a few things.

I just picked up two CDs. I was going to pick up some vinyl and I just never wanted to deal with it in terms of leaving it in the car, being out and holding it all day. So I just picked up two. What CDs? I got the new gruesome and I got the last Migwa, which I already had the digital, but I finally got a hard copy. So I think George got four records, maybe. No, I only got one. I got the Hi-Rex record. And then I got... You bought some stuff at Relapse, I thought. Nope, I did not.

I got the bobblehead at Relapse and I got the show poster to hang up in the bar.

Okay. And we also met, by the way, in the parking lot and had a really nice conversation with some of the guys from Relapse. And we'll have to talk about it later, but they gave us a lot of insight onto running the label and the death releases and the bobblehead. And they want to do an interview with us, which we will certainly try to set up.

when we might have the chance to talk to the guy who created the bobblehead.

Yeah, and the bobblehead we're talking about is the cover of Death Scream Bloody Gore. So you've got the guy holding the goblet with all the little Skeletor guy. It's really cool. I got one instead of George. They're all individually numbered up to 1,000, so it's cool.

And you've got two of the 50 they brought with them, he said, and they, of course, were all sold out. All right, any other thoughts? Anybody?

I had a great time. It was great to see everybody. It was great to have Jay out here. It was a blast. Thanks for coming. I'll say thanks to Will for driving too. You are welcome. Thank you. Alright too. Good times. Alright. We're going to try and do a podcast from the studio tomorrow morning so we can actually do an in-studio episode with Jay.

Worst case scenario, we'll keep it brief, but I think we can pull something off. Yeah, I haven't written a script yet. I'm going to try and bang something together first thing in the morning. So yeah. So all of this Death Fest coverage should be in the episode that we'll be recording tomorrow morning. And also before we forget, we did conduct an amazing interview with the guys from Satan. Very good interview. So we can say that Satan is on the podcast.

Yes.

Yes.