Here’s the thing about Ray Mazzola, vocalist for New York’s own Full Blown Chaos: the guy has a natural born gift for storytelling. I learned this back in February, when I was lucky enough to be invited to dinner with the members of Soilent Green, music video auteur extraordinaire David Brodsky, and Allie Woest, Brodsky’s partner/producer/sometimes editor/general right hand. Full Blown Chaos were on a temporary hiatus from touring at the time (a hiatus which, their fans will be pleased to know, is now over), and so Ray joined us, and within seconds of sitting at the table, he was trading war stories from the road with Soilent Green/Crowbar drummer Tommy Buckley. And, as nice a guy as Buckley is and as many good stories as he had to tell, he just couldn’t keep up with Ray; I won’t repeat any of Ray’s stories second hand ’cause I could never do them justice, so I’ll just say that I can never again hear Napalm Death’s “The Code is Red” without bursting into hysterical laughter.

So after dinner I interviewed Soilent Green guitarist Brian Patton (and some of the dudes from Car Bomb, who also showed up at some point), and then Ray was cool enough to sit down and let me pick his brain for a little while – and to share one of his special stories with our readers. To say that the story is a doozy would be to put it mildly. Little wonder this dude is such a charismatic front man.

Above, watch the David Brodsky-directed video for Full Blown Chaos’ “Halos for Heroes,” from their album Heavy Lies the Crown; after the jump, read the full transcript of my conversation with Ray.

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“Man, do I feel sorry for you,” Brian Patton tells me as he chain smokes his way through what must be at least his seventh cigarette in the last hour. “You gotta transcribe this with my accent!” He’s referring to the Nawlins drawl which gives Patton and his Soilent Green bandmates – vocalist Ben Falgoust (also of Goatwhore), drummer Tommy Buckley (also of Crowbar), and bassist Scott Crochet (also of Hostile Apostle) – the easygoing air of southern gentlemen. It’s a little off putting, actually, considering that a) these dudes make some fucking furious death/grind/sludge and b) have endured about as much hardship as a band possibly could, including line-up changes, label changes, murder/suicides, and, of course, the wretched effects of Hurrican Katrina on their native turf.

But the band seems unphased, and with good reason: they have an awesome new album, Inevitable Collapse in the Presence of Conviction, coming out on their new label, Metal Blade, on April 15; and just twenty four hours prior, they completed shooting performance footage for the video of their new single, “Antioxidant,” with director David Brodsky (it’s that clip above, and you should definitely watch it at least twice – it’s arguably Brodsky’s best work to date).

I was lucky enough to fulfill every fan’s wet dream of having dinner with the band the night after the shoot; afterwards, Patton let me grab a few minutes to pick his brain about the new album, producer Erik Rutan, the state of metal today, the influence of non-metal music on Soilent Green’s work, and more. Read the full transcript after the jump.

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