In the early moments of our conversation, I confirmed with busy Atheist frontman Kelly Shaefer that we would limit our interview time to the industry-standard 15 minutes. Shaefer responded amiably, “As much time as you need, man.” To this, I replied jokingly, “Gosh, how much time have you got?” And though we shared a chuckle at this, neither of us could’ve expected our little phone chat to stretch to 2.5 hours over two days. (Of course, it eventually became clear that nothing less should’ve been expected from two lefty pothead metal guitarists who drink a shitload of Mountain Dew and love talking metal.)

Last week, part one found Shaefer and I delving into big, brainy, conceptual stuff, like his approaches to songwriting and singing, the birth of his genre, and the right-on-time return to awesomeness by his classic band (the new record is called Jupiter, but duh you know that).

Today, MetalSucks unsheathes partie deux, in which the tirelessly gracious, funny, and plainspoken Shaeffer (above, right) indulges my questions about more tangible Atheist business, like record label politics, the importance of good packaging, former Atheist guitarist Rand Burkey, current Atheist guitarist Kelly Shaefer (he and his “guitar still are very best friends”), the squashing of inter-band beefs, America’s shameful marijuana policies (I started it, sorry), and so very, very much more. (Spoiler: We do eventually stop talking on the phone.)

Click to read more…

Not that you care, but I have a friend named Ken Lee, and we often like to torture him with this video:

Unfortunately, that video is the only exposure I’ve ever knowingly had to Bulgarian culture. But I guess there are actually some pretty cool people there, too, ’cause the town of Kavarna is erecting (Huh-huh, he said “erecting”) a statue to Ronnie James Dio as part of their central park’s “Walk of Rock.” From Blabbermouth:

“According to Radio Bulgaria, the decision to erect the monument was taken by the municipal administration, with the most active proponents being Kavarna Mayor Tzonko Tzonev as well as leading journalists, musicians and singers.”

Holy crap. So this Mayor Tzonev just became pretty much the coolest mayor in the world, huh? Dio’s not even from Kavarna (obviously); he’s not even of Bulgarian descent, at least as far as I’m aware. The town just, like, wants to pay tribute to one of the greatest metal vocalists of all time. Awesome, right?

Here’s a pic of the mayor, one of the artist working on the statue, and the statue itself:

Click to read more…

It’s been a long time since I was a college freshman, a fact which struck me this week as I engaged in my annual tradition of sitting in Washington Square Park and watching the new crop of NYU kids move into their dorms. I love the look of simultaneous excitement and complete fucking terror as a bunch of young men and women between the ages of seventeen and eighteen get away from home for the first time; for many of them, I imagine moving to the big city only adds to the sheer “HOLY FUCKING SHIT!”ness of it all. But this was really the first year when they all looked really young to me, and I suddenly felt very aware of the age gap. Kids starting college this week won’t remember rotary phones or pagers, maybe won’t remember a time without cell phones or DVDs, and only kinda faintly maybe remember the annoying sounds your AOL used to emit as it tried to make its connection. They were being born right around the time “Wherever I May Roam” was making Metallica rich, and they’ve never jerked off to the morning weather girl ’cause internet porn wasn’t readily available.

Do they remember a time without autotune? I know my kids won’t. And I hate to sound like such a grumpy old bastard, but I worry about the long-term effects of such a state of being. If bullshit is the norm, can you have any appreciation for  non-bullshit — e.g., a time when if you couldn’t sing, you either joined a cool punk band or got a job as a bank teller? Lack of skill is no longer impedes artistic success, as anyone can be made to sound as though he can sing, audiences can be distracted from terrible storytelling by an abundance of CGI spectacle, and a woman who has never read Dracula gets away with publishing the most successful vampire books in the history of ever.

This ain’t good.

Click to read more…

Banner Designed by Cysquatch

Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

There weren’t any real hot button topics this week, so we decided to just play a fun game that used to keep Vince and Axl occupied for many a lunch period when they were kids:

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

Click to read more…

Call me a Maiden fanboy, but I really, really enjoyed this most recent Iron Maiden tour’s setlist of mostly newer stuff. Especially the material from Brave New World, an album I absolutely adore and much of which I’ll likely never get to hear again in a live setting.

Here’s some pro-shot live footage from the MSG show we attended of the band playing “Blood Brothers” from that album. Bruce’s pre-song dedication to Ronnie James Dio was one of the more touching moments of the night, and the manner in which he raises the horns and looks at his hand like it’s possessed by an insidious infection that he’d allow only for his blood brother Dio is highly hilarious and so Bruce.

Also note: the audience singing along to the chorus, loudly. Apparently I wasn’t the only one.

-VN

This guy did it for Dio. Props.

-VN

Thanks: Nick Tieder

With dollar signs in my eyes, I have seen the next great supergroup: Heaven & Hell with Phil Anselmo as their new singer. I mean, I don’t think that’s actually gonna happen, but I think it would sell a lotta tickets.

Anselmo did, however, join the band on-stage at the Dio tribute performance at the High Voltage Festival in London this past weekend. According to Metal Insider, even guest vocalist Glenn Hughes “was surprised by the Superjoint Ritual mastermind’s unscheduled appearance” during “Neon Knights.” I hope this very not-good fan-filmed footage isn’t the only record that exists of the performance — hopefully something pro-shot, or at least some photos, will appear online soon.

-AR

Buried in a press release about Whitfield Crane doing a guest gig/Dio/Peter Steele/Paul Gray multi-dead-musican tribute show with Costa Rica’s Sight of Emptiness* was this awesome news from Mr. Crane:

“It’s ON — UGLY KID JOE is back. We are talking about doing shows next year, in addition to studio time. I’m stoked.”

I don’t know what’s up with burying reunion news in press releases about other shit, but all I can say about this particular reconciliation is: YES!!! (Note: Apparently this news has been on the band’s MySpace page since May. I’d like to thank every one of you fuckers who e-mails me every day to tell me about your friend’s awful unsigned band, to tell us to post about something we’ve already posted about, or to express anger over my hatred towards Parkway Drive for not making any mention of this news. Sheesh.)

Click to read more…

Hey Suckfaces, the Big Four live in Sofia, Bulgaria concert/movie thingy has encore showings tomorrow in select markets and you should totally go! It’s the most fun ever. Even if you’re lukewarm on a band/the bands, the theater-going experience is novel and pretty easy to like. It’s communal (like a concert) and comfortable (good for old people who listen to the Big Four). Plus, the little things: set breaks are excised; the audio is that Live Aid quality which disguises not even the smallest flub or shortcut, almost sickeningly real; close-ups of guitar shredding abound; and mosh pits are way more fun in a movie theater.

But if you just can’t make it to this exciting cinema-concert event cuz you’re in jail still from the Lakers celebration parade or you’re a piteously ugly John Bush fan or whatever, here’s what you’ll miss:

Click to read more…

Fuck taking a photo together. What we all really wanna see is The Big Four jam, dude. For one thing, it would just be cool to see all those dudes rocking out together, maybe on a jam of some old metal classic that everyone could find mutually agreeable (if ever there was a time to pay tribute to Dio…). For another thing, since the number of people in the world who ever actually got to see Mustaine play with Metallica or Kerry King play with Megadeth is roughly equivalent to the number of people who actually paid to see Jonah Hex this weekend (e.g., almost no one), it would be terrific wish fulfillment.

Of course, it will probably never happen, because God forbid everyone put their egos and bullshit aside to do anything too cool. So for now, we’ll have to settle for Scott Ian helping to sing one chorus of “Peace Sells” with ‘Deth. ‘Cause, y’know. When I think great singing, I think Scott Ian.

Skip to the 2:40 mark for fifteen whole seconds of crossover dreams come true.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

Musically speaking, I can think of way worse people than Ryan Adams. But insofar as haircut models and metal fans go, I’d really like to take a shit in the guy’s mouth.

First of all – and I say this as a dude who is often told he “doesn’t look metal” – if you marry Mandy Moore, you forfeit your right to wear a Kreator shirt. I know that’s a really arbitrary rule and, no, I can’t back it up with thought or logic, but it’s still a rule ’cause I say so.

Second of all, if you’ve ever called the lyrics on Death Magnetic “profound,” shove your favorite Kreator shirt up your ass. (“What don’t kill ya makes ya more strong.” Yep, that’s some John Donne shit right there.)

And third of all, if you’ve ever written an ironic metal song called “Evil Weekend” for a band called “Werewolph,”pull that Kreator shirt out of your ass and hang yourself with it.

Unfortunately, I am powerless to prevent the evils caused by this man who has the same haircut my mom had in the seventies. And so our friend Stabitha Christie at Metal Insider tell us that Mr. Adams “has written eleven songs inspired by Dio’s funeral.”

Click to read more…

My top 5 artists/rock bands constantly change but right now I’d have to say these are them!

# 5 – Robin Trower

One of the greats!

Click to read more…

But he, like, totally had it coming. He was the singer for some band called Beneath the Sky.

I’m kidding. I don’t endorse violence against untalented people. Just front row games of Uno.

ANYWAY, here’s some other shit we happened this week:

• We’re streaming Watain’s Lawless Darkness and the Monolith/Voyager split.
• Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable talked about his new band and Sick of it All’s Lou Koller concluded his “Quintessential Guide to Hardcore.”
• We spoke to Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd and Heaven Shall Burn’s Maik Weichert.
• We checked out Thou’s Summit.
• We met the world’s youngest Nile fan.
• We wondered if Opeth ripped-off Immortal.
• We came up with awards that could be named after metal stars.
• Vince isn’t that into Kylesa, and has some advice for Portal, too.
• Anso thinks that No Prayer for the Dying is the worst Maiden album ever.
• As it turns out, Fred Phelps is still an idiot.

Next week we get to debut that video we were supposed to debut this week, and we have another stream, and some other stuff I’m probably forgetting. ‘Til then, enjoy your weekend!

-AR

Yesterday we wrote about Dio’s public memorial service, which took place this past Sunday; unfortunately, since no one from MetalSucks was actually in the area and able to attend, all of our info was second-hand. But those magnificent bastards at Metal Injection sent the great Johnny Orlando Jr. to cover the event and have filed the below exclusive report.

Mostly it’s interviews with Dio fans who are, generally speaking, somber and sincere if not necessarily hyper-articulate (see the quote in our headline), but the best parts come towards the end – first when Mr. Orlando Jr. interviews one of the protesters that was pictured in our article yesterday and actually gets him to participate in duet of a song I won’t spoil for you, and then when he interviews Dio’s biggest fan, who… well, just watch, I promise it’s totally worth it:

By the way, I estimated that there were 75 protestors at the event, a number I pulled directly from my anus; those of you who were there say it was far, far less. Needless to say, that information makes me very happy, so thank you for sharing. How far less, though? Did anyone even see Fred Phelps there? The fact that Johnny interviewed a guy who was also photographed by the AP makes me think there really must have been, like five or ten protestors. Either that, or this dude is just an attention whore, and will be joining Dio in Hell just as soon as his God can send him there. Vanity is a sin, dude!

-AR

Remember how the incredibly nice people from the Westboro Asylum for the Criminally Insane Baptist Church were going to picket outside of Ronnie James Dio’s public memorial service this past Sunday? I have no idea how many people actually showed up for that protest (there’s no mention of it on WBC’s oh-so-charming website, and I can’t find the number in any news reports of the event), so in lieu of being responsible and not just publishing some random figure I made up, I’m going to do just that and assert that my original estimate of 75 whack-a-dos was accurate. This number is based on some photos of the protest that have been posted online – it really doesn’t look like that many people showed up. It also doesn’t look like those people were exactly on-point with their message.

(AP Photo/Jason Redmond)

Okay, Dio is going to Hell. I don’t agree with that statement, but I understand your point of view and why you’re here protesting at the man’s memorial service and -

Wait, what?

Click to read more…

Dio died. Isis broke-up. Bret Michaels is back in the hospital. And I just used Dio, Isis, and Bret Michaels in one thought-stream, which, I’m sure, offended somebody.

Luckily, we did manage to have some fun this week:

• Sick of it All’s Lou Koller is counting down his top ten hardcore albums, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa is counting down to the end of L O S T, Batillus’ Fade Kainer is counting down ’til the band can get the fuck outta the studio, Agenda of Swine’s Pete Benumb is counting down to MDF, and Cynic’s Paul Masvidal is counting down to achieving a higher level of being.
• We spoke to Steve Joh from Century Media, Tara Johnson from Disembodied, Emil Werstler from Daath and Levi/Werstler, and Travis Stever from Coheed & Cambria.
• We checked out the latest release from Rosetta.
• Sergeant D. has new slamz 4 u.
• The best music video ever of the week is by… Goldfrapp?
• There are plenty of things we’d rather do than listen to a new Attack Attack! song.
• Endorsement of the new Avenged Sevenfold single = flame war.
• You guys are still arguing about my Korn review. Seriously?
• I’m still upset about John Bush leaving Anthrax again. Seriously.
• We used to love Sweden, but we had to kill it.

And hopefully no one awesome will die or break-up next week.

-AR

When you tune into the premiere broadcast of The Second Annual Revolver Golden Gods Awards tomorrow night on VH1 classic, you’ll see the final public appearance of our beloved Ronnie James Dio. You’ll also see Jerry Cantrell and Mike Inez of Alice In Chains, winner of roughly half of the meaningful awards, enjoying the metal community’s validation of their potentially dicey comeback effort, the magnificent Black Gives Way To Blue. You’ll see metal codgers like Rob Halford, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, and Lemmy bathe in much-deserved adulation. You’ll also see potentially ho-hum performances pumped up by mega-drummers: Rob Zombie with Joey Jordison (in his debut performance), Fear Factory with Gene Hoglan, Brian Posehn with John Tempesta (and Brett Anderson girl call me srsly) and Slash with Dave Grohl.

But at a mere 60 minutes, the broadcast can’t capture all of the April 8 event’s super moments and silly gaffes. Here’s a few things you won’t see:

Click to read more…

God hates fags, Dio, and a decent fashion sense.

We’ve been flooded with e-mails this morning from fans who have been outraged to learn that the Westboro Baptist Church plans to picket Dio’s public memorial service on May 30. And while protesting at a memorial service is certainly disrespectful, “outrage” is not the feeling that bubbled up inside of me when I heard the news. Oh no. The feeling was more like… amusement. Why, you ask? Well, because I don’t see how anyone can take these clowns seriously. To wit:

Click to read more…

Everyone has already come forth to pay tribute to Dio (totally appropriate) or talk about the time they met the man and what a class-act he was (also appropriate), but soon people who never really knew him will start to say they were his best friend (like that time Marq Torien claimed he and Layne Staley were best buds), or try to re-write history (I can’t believe Vivian Campbell hasn’t made a statement yet), and bands will start covering Dio and Dio-era Sabbath songs for no better reason than it’s an easy way to get the crowd on your side. Dio was an incredibly talented musician – it’s amazingly inspiring and almost impossible to believe that his voice was still in such amazing shape, or that anyone actually managed to stay cool and not sell-out for that long – but the meaning of his passing goes beyond even that; although he died of cancer and not old age, his death signals that metal’s founding generation is getting older, and that, like my family’s table the past few Thanksgivings (fewer and fewer members of “The Greatest Generation,” more and more people who won’t a remember a time when we didn’t have the internet), the landscape is going to look increasingly different in the coming years as the Dios begin to disappear and the Hetfields become the elder statesmen and the Adlers become the seasoned veterans and the Mansoors become the young bucks. Dio’s death has, for lack of a more sensitive term, subtext; it’s for this reason that, with all due respect to every member of the metal community who passed away between December 8, 2004, and May 16, 2010, the loss of Dio has had a greater impact on the headbanger populace than any since Dime was murdered.

And the way you can tell is because those deaths not only struck a chord with us, the metal faithful, but have managed to become news outside the realm of heavy music as well. I found out about Dime because my mother called and woke me up and frantically told me to turn on the radio because “a famous heavy metal guitarist from a band I think you like was killed;” likewise, yesterday I was in therapy when my shrink asked me, “Didn’t a very famous heavy metal singer pass away this week?” (My shrink is roughly the same age as Dio, and also of Sicilian descent; he was tickled when I told him the story of Dio’s grandmother and the birth of the horns, as his family used to use the same symbolic hand gensture for the same purpose.)

And so it is that two of the most noteworthy pieces written about RJD’s passing have come from media venues not traditionally known for their metalocity.

Unfortunately, while one of those pieces is incredibly awesome, one of them is incredibly lame.

Click to read more…

If you’re like me, you’ve spent the last few days alternately frozen in shock and smiling in remembrance of the great Ronnie James Dio. For us the fans, there’s little else to do but crank the many classic Dio records and camp out on Blabbermouth, tearfully reading the innumerable anecdotes and tributes to the man, his work, and his impact. That means you’ve also read how RJD treated his musical brethren — with care, warmth, and love. And it’s not like the man is measured by how many people to whom he showed kindness; the guy really meant it. Here’s how I know:

At the Golden Gods awards back in April, I was staked out at the ass end of the black carpet. This year, however, it was prime real estate thanks to VH1′s That Metal Show, whose set acted as a backstop for the trickle of metal guys who’d just finished answering the same four questions all along the press line. It was an impromptu legends lounge, as Ozzy, oblivious, strolled unnoticed behind a genial Zakk Wylde, Lemmy snuggled with the beknockered Corey Parks, Jerry Cantrell and Mike Inez gabbed with Dave Lombardo and Kerry King, and Alice Cooper hugged Dave Mustaine (and everybody else). The Testament guys were there, Marilyn Manson was there, the Korn guys were there; also packed into this 15′ by 15′ space were Slash, Robert Englund, John 5, Robs Halford and Zombie, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, Scott Ian, Deftones… and everybody was goofing around while waiting to chat with TMS‘s Eddie Trunk and his co-hosts. The mood was amazing. I felt like I’d jumped a fence into Coolsville, or as though one of those illustrated rock star dorm posters had come to life before my eyes. Don’t front; you would’ve loved it.

Anyway, I rotated to the other side of the TMS set for some elbow room and saw Ronnie being interviewed by Trunk and crew. Of course, I was scanning RJD’s face, body language, and speech for clues to his condition. He looked good. Moments later, he stepped down from the set, and passed right across my toes en route to the venue. Reflexively, I blurted out “We love you, Ronnie. Get well soon!” at which point he stopped, looked me in the eyes, and, with a smile, gave my forearm a reassuring squeeze. At that moment, he and I were alone on the face of a planet of pure white. That’s just how he makes you feel.

Click to read more…