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ARTIST
SPOTLIGHT
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Special thanks to Casey
Chaos from AMEN
(station question courtesy of Ralph Genova from WSOU) |
- If you could pick one artist, who is not a metal contemporary of yours, to jam with who would it be and why?
I don't think I could limit it to one singular artist. The idea is to have a protagonist and antagonist, a creative element and an aggressive one, an artist and an emotion. I am a big fan of Patti Smith so that would become the foundation of trying to formulate the session. Maybe Salvitor Dali and Fredrich Niche. Alejandro Jodorwsky would be another. He challenges the mind in a very different way than what people would expect. He is not ahead of his time, he's in his own. Samoth, Mortiis and Ihsahn of Emperor but not having them do the black metal thing - they were all special in their own right, not just as musicians but as revolutionaries. They helped change people, not music and that's part of what I would want to have. I would want to be able to create expression that isn't expected and branch the art to the revolution and these people all bring something unique to their approach.
- With a stage show as uniquely energetic as yours do you find that the audience reaction to your performances is different in Europe from America to Japan and throughout the rest of the world? How so?
We just returned from Japan and that is always an experience. There is a different culture over there with the fans, it is much more passionate. Like the girls, for instance, live and die by the bands. We walk into the lobby of a hotel and they are there, they follow us around helping with everything around town and when we return the stay there waiting for us to come back to the lobby again. They are there, like they live there, waiting for every band and they cry when you leave and smile when you return. It's a totally different mentality being a fan than it is in the US. Anywhere outside America where we play, we can potentially be main stage. Like when we were unsigned between labels we were the only band to play the main stage of Reading and Leeds festivals as an unsigned band and yet we couldn't hardly get a club date in the US where we're from. People follow us around the UK and Europe. 30 dates and you see the same faces over and over again from place to place. They are serious fans and very gracious to the bands. When we are on the road like that I am the richest guy in the world. We make not make any money on the shows necessarily, but it's what I have seen and what I live through when people take us that seriously and are that gracious for what our music brings to them, there is no price tag you can put on it, it is an emotional richness.
- Given the opportunity to define your future as a band any way you wanted, where would you want to be 30 years down the road? (Remember, the Beatles cut their first record on vinyl in 1963 and they ended up doing a digital recording with Lennon post-mortem in the 90s, so use your imagination)
Wow, that is a great reference. I had not even thought about it like that before. People have asked questions like that before and I've always given a different answer but that shows a kind of irreverence for the expected. That's the kind of think I would want to do to, maybe not with music but really challenge what's around me. Help change it. Thirty years from now I'd like to be a part of a society that isn't killing one another so arbitrarily. war is inherent to progress but we should become more meticulous in our revolution more precise in our death. it should be less random bloodshed and more structured in its execution. I would hope people would be more focused on the violence and we wouldn't be overrun by the mediocrity of leadership killing off hundreds of thousands at a whim without a plan. I am a dreamer, not a revolutionary myself, not in that sense . I think music can help progress the change. Look at what it has done in the past to force the grounds of revolutions. The old school punk movement, the Norwegian black metal scene. The sociological shifts that created a physical revolution. It is inevitable and I think that in the future things will continue to take that kind of shape. So, if I could be a part of helping that, maybe I'd like to be. I don't think I could be the revolutionary itself but maybe I can help someone else become one.
- You guys bottle a lot of the old school punk rock essence within your music. If you had a chance to play during any time period during the punk revolutions, which would you choose and where would you choose to play?
Iggy and MC5 and the Ramones and all the 70s punk movement didn't intend on creating the revolution that came from them. They just went out there to do things and play things that worked for them. It is something I am a fanatic about. I spend hours at Generation Records in New York, flipping through vinyl and old singles, looking at pictures... I experienced the influence of these people first hand hanging out with them on street corners and in clubs. I am infatuated by the music and the social aspects. But I am happy with where I am not and wouldn't want to be anyplace else. I am part of the anti-scene and I am definitely am good with where I am now. I wouldn't want to go back to any scene if I can have what I have now.
- Nigel Tufnel (Spinal Tap) had an amp that went to eleven and drummers who were combustible to make him stand apart... What makes you, realistically or fantastically, different from everyone else doing the metal thing right now?
The individualism and artistic rebellion that makes me who I am. On the outside it can be irritating, ugly and strange but it holds its own appeal. That's one of the gems that makes life worth living. The unpredictable nature of what I do is enough to keep people guessing and that is more than just satisfying. I don't try to intentionally be different but with all the physical things I have going on, I know I have to live day to day and make everyone worth living. The fact that I enjoy what I do no matter how I'm doing it is enough to be different from most people who sleepwalk through their lives.
- Who
'brings it' more - Dio or Ozzy and why?
- Every band has an influence or inspiration apart from other musicians. What is the driving force behind your creative activity apart from just music?
I love a lot of photographers. They capture the perception of life, a point of view and the image molds who we are and how we grow. When I was young I saw this advertisement in playboy for lithographs of Brook Shields. That is what started the obsession. The irony of the story is the photographer went through an enormous struggle for more than a decade fighting law suits and social critism for releasing the picutres. They were artistic pictures of her as a child in a bathtub. It was nothing sexual and it was absolutely consented and yet, it was turned into this legal mess with her family. The more I learned about the story the more I became obsessed. It influenced me as a person. Not only do pictures help me see into myself but the controversy of a lot of the art helps influence me both in my own expression and in my own self.
- If "the price of reality" is "the death of musik," then "coming for one's parents" should make us all "join, or die" - why do you think that is?
That's great. I never would have put it together like that, what a unique thought... amen!.
- If you weren't doing the music thing now, what would life be like in your alternative non-music universe?
If I didn't do Amen as much as I do I would focus more on my side projects. I have one in the works right now that could be landmark outside of what I've already done. I am outside of being involved with the writing and the lyrics and the music but am in the inspiration of being artistic. I have a history of unfinished side projects and running ideas that have never finished being developed but none of them were ever planned down the road. It's very spontaneous. It has to be because I never know where I am going to be tomorrow. This one has been in the works for more than two years and I want it to be satisfying in the creation. I want to feel complete with it and know that it won't be just something people look at as being on the side. Expression is my life. For this, it won't be me making music as much as creating expression. If I didn't have music I would spend more time doing things like this. I just want everyone to know they need to throw caution to the wind. a little revolution never hurt anyone from time to time, be it them revolting from their own expectation and norm or if they have it in them to create a bloody social revolution. They can't worry about what someone else might think or do, they need to focus on challenging rather than maintaining expectation. It is important to be in touch with that. |
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