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…Max Cavalera recently revealed during a radio interview (video above) that he’s working on his autobiography with British journalist Joel McIver, who has previously penned such metal-themed tomes as The Bloody Reign of Slayer and Justice for All: The Truth about Metallica. The forward will apparently be written by Dave Grohl, who collaborated with Cavalera as part of his Probot project back in ’04.
I’m gonna tell you right now – I don’t usually get all “fan-girl” and nervous talking to people, even those I greatly admire on an artistic level. When I was told I was going to be interviewing Rex Brown, the fact that I was going to be talking to someone who helped mold my musical tastes as a kid didn’t hit me until probably an hour or so beforehand, and that’s when, admittedly, I started to get a bit weak in the knees. I started to remember so vividly hearing Pantera’s “Floods” for the first time on a family road trip to the Midwest, how it chilled me like nothing else ever had, and those days speeding down 95 in my first car blasting Cowboys from Hell. As one of the founding members of Pantera – up until their unfortunate end – he helped open the gates for a great deal of us to the world of metal. With his involvement in Down, as well as Crowbar, that love for many of us was kept alive.
Of course, with his recent departure from Down, some may have been wondering what else, if anything, Rex had next up his sleeves. Thankfully, there’s plenty.
As soon as I answered the phone, one of the first things Rex said to me (with a laugh) was that he’d been “giving interviews all day.” That in itself I thought was a true testament to someone who, even after over two decades working at it, is not looking to give up anytime soon – a fact that’s emphasized by his enthusiastic involvement with his new band Kill Devil Hill. The new project, featuring Vinny Appice (Heaven and Hell, Dio, Black Sabbath) on drums, Mark Zavon (Ratt, 40 Cycle Hum) on guitar and Jason “Dewey” Bragg (Pissing Razors) on vocals, is currently on tour and looking forward to releasing their yet-to-be-named debut album early next year on SPV/Steamhammer Records.
Talking with Rex was not only an experience in that he’s someone I have long admired; it was something getting to speak with someone so excited and hopeful about his current conquest. After over two decades playing music – through the triumphs as well as the hardships – to be as enthusiastic and passionate is not an incredibly common thing. I think that’s something that all of us can not only appreciate, but hopefully aspire to.
Clearly, MetalSucks is the best media outlet of any kind in the entire universe, but a close second would have to be High Times. The fantasy I have in my head is that the magazine’s offices are constantly shrouded in a cloud of weed smoke so thick everyone has to call out to one another and walk slowly with their hands extended to ensure they don’t crash into anything — kinda the human equivalent of gondolas turning through the canals of Venice — and then once a month someone is like, “Oh, shit, dude, we have a magazine to print!” But I’m sure it’s actually much more professional than that.
ANYWAY, the reason I mention High Times now is because they’ve done two things this week which are extremely metal. First, they debuted a new track by 3, which is called — wait for it — “High Times.” So that worked out pretty well. You know we got nuthin’ but love for 3 here at MS — in fact, we recently debuted a new 3 track ourselves, “React” — so we highly recommend that you head over to the High Times website and check that shit out. 3′s new album, The Ghost You Gave to Me, comes out October 11 via Metal Blade.
The second awesomely metalicious thing High Times did this week is get Phil Anselmo really stoned and do an epic four-part interview with him, in which he discusses, amongst other things, how he smoked herb for the first time when he was six years old. That is fucking YOUNG, dude. At least now I know what to do when I wanna ensure that my son is the next great heavy metal front man. You can check out part one of the interview below, then go here to watch the rest.
-AR
[Anselmo interview news via Metal Injection]
via WWTDD
So much of this week ended up being devoted to the Big Four that I honestly don’t wanna think about any of those bands again for at least the remainder of the year. So to wrap this shit up, here’s everything Big Four-related we did this week:
And don’t forget — you still have until midnight tonight to vote on which reader will take over MetalSucks a week from today… although, honestly, at this point Justin Gosnell pretty much has it in the bag.
See ya next week.
-AR
Sebastian Bach’s new record is surprising and unsurprising. That is, no one who has witnessed the former Skid Row singer’s recent playdates with members of Asking Alexandria and Black Veil Brides could be shocked by Kicking And Screaming‘s slick, modern vibe. Plus, a clue was provided by each of Bach’s personnel moves, be it a 21-year old guitar prodigy, or a producer of tight radio rockers (Shinedown, Saliva) and lovable old guys (Iommi, David Lee Roth). And duh it’s 2011: For mainstream rock, the choice is big production or small potential. And there is nothing small about Sebastian Bach.
Anyway, those were my thoughts during the opening notes of Kicking And Screaming. But the album’s surprise element mounted with each song: He pulled it off! Yes, Bach is great at bright, pop-punkish hard rock throughout the totally lovable Kicking. Eventually it dawned on me that Bach might’ve been supplementing — not discarding — his OG fans via cavorting with scenebros, dissing of today’s Skid Row, and tabloid-friendly barroom antics. Via producer, boy wonder axeman, and his own snarling edge, his aim was a collection of jamz for both sensibilities and their overlap. Via classic Bach thrust and charm, Kicking is a Skid Row fan’s newest friend.
Last week, I spoke with Baz about Kicking And Screaming‘s creative team, singing high, being high, Steven Adler, John 5, Phil Varone, and tons more in an epic MetalSucks interview that crescendos from chill (excited new album chatter) to silly (an impromptu stoner giggle party) to rampage (invective against the Skid Row he never bargained for). Read and laugh!
Man — MetalSucks photographer Miikka Skaffari has really outdone himself this time! His photos always kick ass, but these latest shots, of Down performing in San Francisco last week, are a whole other kind of epic, epic, awesome, epic. See that shot above? That’s just a small taste of the killerness (killerocity?) of this batch of pics. Jump ahead to see the rest — they are really, ridiculously great!
If you’re not a musician, last night’s Metal Masters Clinic 2 — held prior to Anthrax’s so-secret-everyone-knew-about-it show at the Best Buy Theater in NYC — was probably a massive bore. But to everyone else (like me!) it was a wet dream come true; Mike Portnoy having a drum-off with Charlie Benante, Ellefson talking about famous Megadeth bass riffs, Frankie Bello talking about watching porn and playing bass at the same time, all of them jamming on some classic tunes together, and, most notably, this:
Ian, Bello, Benante, Ellefson, Portnoy, Kerry King and Phil Anselmo performing two Pantera cuts. It’s the kind of staged event that might otherwise be cringe-worthy in its attempt at spontaneity, but who gives a shit? As a fan it was really cool to see all those guys jamming up there at once. It was also my first time seeing Anselmo perform Pantera songs live.
Well, this is interesting.
Ex-White Zombie bassist and feminist rawk pioneer Sean Yseult recently posted a song called “Dawn of the Horrible Gorilla!” to her Soundcloud page — but it’s not a new Yseult solo jam, or a new song at all. Yseult explains:
“Dimebag Darrell, Sean Yseult and Philip Anselmo created this absurdity at 6am after a long night of drinking on a Pantera/White Zombie Tour in ’92. Recorded on Darrell’s 4-Track in his hotel room, the song was made up on the spot with Darrell on guitar (and drum machine) Sean on bass, and Phil singing. This comes from a cassette from Sean Yseult’s archives, never heard before!”
No shock given the circumstances under which it was made: the song isn’t really all that good. It’s also VERY 1992. That being said, it is a fun peek into what three young metal stars were doing with their free time — hey, you and me will never get drunk and record a song with Phil Anselmo, that’s for damn sure — and at this point, I think any long-lost Dime recordings are pretty valuable, no?
The track is not currently embeddable, but you can check it out here.
-AR
Thanks: Paul Bigue
Interview with Jimmy Bower about Down… by HecticCase
I don’t think this news is gonna come as a galloping shock to anyone, but at least now it’s official after nearly two months of speculation: Rex Brown will not be returning to Down. Drummer Jimmy Bower, also of the great Eyehategod (among other bands), confirmed it in a recent video interview with Metalchroniques.fr (above). Here’s his quote:
“We just wish him to find peace within himself and be healthy, and we weren’t seeing that for Down. We have Pat [Bruders] now. Pat’s playing bass. Pat’s from New Orleans. Makes sense. He plays with Crowbar as well.
“We love Rex to death, man, and wish him the best. He has a new project as well — Kill Devil Hill with Vinny Appice— and I know he’s having fun doing that. He gave Pat his blessing, so it was on a good term. But he will not be back.”
Teenagers are always doing stupid, embarrassing shit in public, especially the ones who listen to metal. One of the most popular (and potentially humiliating) things a kid can do is enter their high school’s talent show, in particular if they make the mistake of playing a metal song in hopes of impressing their peers. For example, when I was in 9th or 10th grade, I was in a horrible band that played a Black Flag song in front of our school. Nobody thought it was cool, they just laughed at us. Thank god Youtube didn’t exist then, like it does for these dumb kids who embarrassed themselves by trying to be cool in front of their peers.
Rex Brown is not participating in Down’s current tour, and this interview seems to suggest that he’s never coming back to the band. And so, in an effort to get some clarification, The Delaware County Daily Times, your leading source for rock and metal news, decided to ask Down’s Pepper Keenan outright whether or not Brown is still Down. His answer?
“I don’t know what to really say on that; he’s not out of the band, but he’s not playing with us live.”
Well, that’s reassuring!
A couple of weeks ago I was flipping through the new issue of Decibel when I got a paper cut. In between bouts of crying, I was able to communicate to a MetalSucks Mansion Monkey to tell Vince that I had taken ill — gravely ill, in fact — and that he might need to try and carry on MetalSucks without me forever, or, at the very least, for the next few weeks.
My point being — I am not a very tough dude.
But Phil Anselmo is.
It seems that while doing a show with Down here in NYC last night (Note to selves: How were we not there?!?), Mr. Anselmo got whacked in the noggin with guitarist Pepper Keenan’s instrument (during the song “Lifer,” which, according to this tweet from Sirius XM’s Jose Mangin, Anselmo had dedicated to Dime), and consequently started bleeding from the head.
And he just kept performing anyway.
Bad. Ass.
Here’s some fan-filmed video footage… you can get a good look at Phil’s injury starting around the 2:03 mark:
You can check out more videos at Metal Insider, who first alerted us to this story.
This obviously isn’t the first instance of a vocalist not being a sissy-cry-baby-face — in just the past year, I’ve seen Made Out of Babies’ Julie Christmas and Trap Them’s Ryan McKenney suffer similar injuries (although I think those were accidentally-self-inflicted) — but it is the most Anselmoey.
-AR
No, seriously — COREY AND ANSO FUCKING KILLED IT THIS WEEK while we were at the Golden Gods, didn’t they? I’m still catching up, but I’ve been getting a serious boner from reading all the shit I didn’t write this week. Some of my favorite pieces that neither Vince nor myself had anything to do with:
Unfortunately for all of you, Vince and I are now back full-time, and you’ll be stuck with us all next week. See ya then.
-AR
Kip W. and I arrived in Austin, TX the night of Tuesday, March 15th. We’ve never flown in before Wednesday, the official start of the music portion of the festival, but that we felt compelled to be there for all of Wednesday’s day-time activities speaks to the volume of metal at this year’s festival. It was amazing and even overwhelming at times, but too much metal is never a bad problem to have. After a tasty burger at the Jackalope and some delicious but incredibly spicy chicken-wings that would leave our arseholes tingling the following morning, we headed to bed to rest up for the madness to follow. Sleeping is metal. Kip’s righteous snore is definitely not metal, but thank Odin for earplugs.
There was a lot of action on the first day of SXSW: face-punching hardcore via the Brooklyn Vegan day party, a ripping set by recent Ironclad signees Turbid North, and of course the MetalSucks-sponsored Sumerian Records showcase featuring Animals as Leaders, Veil of Maya, The Faceless and more. There was even the somewhat odd but nonetheless fun sight of watching Phil Anselmo play a guitar in his old-school hardcore project Arson Anthem. Deetz and videos after the jump.
This obviously doesn’t really have anything to do with the below story, but it still seemed somehow appropriate. Also, it makes me giggle.
You’ve known for some time that MetalSucks’ own Corey Mitchell is collaborating with Phil Anselmo on the legendary front man’s autobiography; hopefully you’re already familiar with Corey’s work not just via MS, but through his excellent true crime books, such as Savage Son and Pure Murder. If you’re not, you can check ‘em all out here.
Corey is now combining his various passions into one awesome event at 2011′s South by Southwest festival: Corey will moderate the fest’s “Reel Murder: From Crime Scene to Big Screen” panel, which will discuss “how murder has become big business in Hollywood.” In addition to Corey and Mr. Anselmo, panelists will include John McNaughton, who directed one of the most infamous true crime films ever made, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Ami Canaan Mann, daughter of filmmaker Michael Mann (Manhunter, Heat, Public Enemies) and director of the upcoming true crime film The Fields, and Hart D. Fisher, director of the serial killer thriller The Garbage Man.
The event will take place on March 15, and sounds like it’s gonna be a blast. You can get all the pertinent details here, and check out the official press release after the jump!
[Like my colleague Vince Neilstein, I too feel compelled to share with you, the readers, some "under-appreciated gems" that deserve your attention and consideration for your personal "Best of 2010" lists. Some of these may have suffered from lack of promotion, or simply may have gotten lost in the shuffle amid higher profile releases. Hopefully this informal series will help rectify that -- and not give too much away in advance of the publications of the staff lists on December 16.]
Pantera, much like their cultural forebears The Beatles, assuredly will never reunite. Even if we could discount the untimely, cataclysmic death of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott in 2004 at the hands of a mentally disturbed assassin whose very name doesn’t deserve repeating, the fractures that resulted in the band’s dissolution have only deepened with time, categorized by seemingly endlessly feuding between factions of the surviving members and their surrogates. This year’s expanded 20th anniversary reissue of Cowboys From Hell – coincidentally timed with a boxed reissue of John Lennon’s solo discography — provides a view of what we can expect as Pantera’s legacy matures and amplifies, namely that music industry machinery will take advantage of contractual opportunities while the estranged and quarreling factions collect deserved checks and dangle demos, live versions, and previously unreleased “vault tracks” (such as “The Will to Survive”) to disproportionately feed our insatiable hunger for more.
We didn’t cover Dimebash 2010, a simultaneous tribute to Dimebag and benefit for the Ronnie James Dio Stand up and Shout Cancer Fund. Why, you ask? I don’t have a good answer. It was on literally every other metal site in the world, we don’t flatter ourselves that you read MetalSucks exclusively, and while I can’t speak for Vince or any of my other peers here at MS, I personally didn’t have anything even remotely interesting to say about it. A bunch of really cool people got up and jammed on some classics. It was for a great cause. It looks like it was a lot of fun. Go to Metal Insider if you still haven’t seen any footage from the event.
One thing which really might have pushed the event over the top from really cool to HOLY SHIT AWESOME, though, would have been an appearance by Phil Anselmo. Of course, Anselmo and Dime were on bad terms when Dime was murdered, and Dime’s family — specifically, Vinnie Paul and Rita Haney — have not made amends with Anselmo since, and have even speculated that some violent statements Anselmo made in the press prior to Dime’s shooting may have inspired the murderer. So when rumors started circulating that Anselmo was actually gonna be at Dimebash, well, that was a pretty big deal.
Anselmo didn’t appear at the event, though — but he was, Haney has now revealed, supposed to. You can watch the below video interview to get the full scoop, but the gist of it is that she no longer feels that Anselmo bears any responsibility for Dime’s murder, and while the situation is still sensitive, she seems to have finally come to peace with Anselmo. Perhaps more interesting — and sadder — still: Vinnie Paul still hasn’t.
-AR
[via Metal Insider]
When I interviewed Phil Anselmo about his Housecore Records label back in March, one of the bands he was most excited about signing was Nawlins outfit haarp. Here’s what Mr. Anselmo had to say about the band… try to picture it in his drawl to get the full effect:
“…they’re definitely classified as ‘metal.’ But they transcend the genre. They come up with such different concepts and whatnot. They’re a very different, different band – kind of in their own category, I would say. They play slow, but to call them ‘a slow band’ is absolutely unfair. They’re crushing. They are resolute. It’s a beating. They’re fucking onto something.”
A few weeks later, Vince sang their praises in an edition of “Reader’s Choice,” too, calling haarp “a less technical and more straight-up American metal sounding version of SiKth.”
So by now, you surely wanna check these dudes out, right?
Here’s your chance: haarp are streaming a new song, “All, Alone,” right here. It comes off the band’s new album, The Filth, which was produced by — you guessed it! — Anselmo himself. And it certainly sounds like something he would dig/make.
So give it a listen, then let us know what you think. Housecore will release The Filth on November 23.
-AR
We’ve written about the classes of Aaron O’Keefe before; the guy is an Ohio music school instructor who teaches his classes to perform songs by the various bands of Phil Anselmo — specifically, Down’s “Ghosts Along the Mississippi” and Pantera’s “Cowboys from Hell.”
The most logical next choice for one of Mr. O’Keefe’s classes would probably be a Superjoint Ritual song, but I guess someone decided that songs like “Fuck Your Enemy” and “The Knife Rises” were inappropriate for a bunch of kids, so we’re back to Pantera. In this instance, O’Keefe’s latest class has covered “Revolution is My Name.” It’s pretty great, even if you are guaranteed to crack up laughing when the singer begins “’68, and into the world born,” before starting to go on about the 70s and Vietnam. Some of these students are as young as twelve years old, which means they were born in ’98, not ’68.
Also kinda funny: The actual video for “Revolution is My Name” features kids impersonating the members of Pantera. I’ve always felt that the lil’ dude playing Dimebag did an especially dead-on impersonation. Here’s that clip, on the off chance that you’ve never seen it before:
Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.
While the free world breathlessly awaits the results of Decibel editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian’s NLCS bet with Exhumed frontman Matt Harvey — and even down 3-1, it’s way too early to start taunting the boss with “black black black black number ooooooone” — the rest of team dB has moved on to give you a Very Special December issue.
Yes, that’s one of extreme music’s most polarizing mugs on the cover. (You know what, let’s say “polarizing figure”; there’s nothing polarizing about Phil’s facial expressions, which all clearly fucking rule.) As usual, the man has a billion things going on. Sadly, one of them is not the fourth Down record (yet), although a new Arson Anthem slab and the 20th anniversary of Cowboys From Hell are pretty sick placeholders. For a dude that’s been somewhat, um, contentious in interviews, Anselmo is crazy gregarious with our man J. Bennett. Like Mustaine or Lars, whether you love or hate the guy, he gives great copy. And I promise that the anecdotes about early Pantera — especially pertaining to Seagal-caliber bar pummelings — will do you right.
As for the rest of the issue, there’s plenty more radness that you can see for yourself on the cover, but one thing you can’t that I’ll spoil right now is Rod Smith’s review of the Amphetamine Reptile 25th anniversary show. Shannon Selberg of the Cows is wearing mousetraps as earrings. ‘Nuff said. This fucker will be on newsstands next week, but we wouldn’t mind picking up our Secret Santa anal beads before Black Friday, so help us out by grabbing it early here.
Oh yeah, if you’re getting pumped about the Incantation Onward to Golgotha Hall of Fame shows that I’ve been babbling about the last month or so, the New York one just moved. It’s no longer at Rebel on November 20, but Club Europa, which evidently is here:
Europa Night Club
98 Meserole Ave. (corner of Manhattan Ave.)
Brooklyn, NY 11222
Shit will rule. Snap ’em up.
-AB
Like the man said, you can buy yourself a copy of the December 2010 issue of Decibel here. But we’ll love you better if you just go ahead and buy yourself a full subscription. Trust us, it’s totally worth it!!!
