Away Team

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It is 100 degrees in the parking lot of the Walnut Creek Amphitheatre in Raleigh, NC and I am being escorted to Straight Line Stitch’s bus. Well, to the back end of the bus to be accurate, As I tweeted at the time, I’ve done a lot of things in the back of an equipment trailer, but never given an interview, so my thanks to Straight Line Stitch for popping that cherry for me. In the interview we touch on Alexis’ R&B roots, her love of Stevie Nicks and Korn, and the work ethic for one of the hardest touring bands I know.

Away-Team: I am sitting in an equipment trailer with Seth and Alexis of STRAIGHT LINE STITCH here at the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Fest and it is going to be a hot one today, the temperature is predicted to hit 103. So how do you handle the heat like this when you are out on stage?

Seth: I just drink lots and lots of water. And I try to get her to drink lots of water.

Alexis: (holding a beer in her hand as we speak) I never do what I am supposed to do (laughs). Beer is colder to me! It just tastes better.

Seth: She’s like, ‘water has no flavor!’ But I don’t care, you have to hydrate! It’s good for you…

Alexis: He mothers me. If I die from the heat, at least I’ll die on stage, I’ll die happy and full of beer!

Away-Team: Does the heat affect your voice at all? Or is the set so short that it doesn’t have time to mess with your voice?

Alexis: The set is short but it is so hot that it feels like an eternity! I’m up there thinking we’re on the fifth song and we’re on the third song. The affects you because you get winded and tired, and as a singer, you think, ‘if I sing this note, it is not going to come out right.’ (laughs)

Seth: It affects our guitars too, strings stretch, and swell, and go out of tune, but you deal with it the best you can. Yesterday our show was awful! Our guitars would not stay in tune; it was so bad. It sounded like cats fighting on stage!

Away-Team: So when you can feel it derailing like that and you can’t reel it back in, do you just put more energy into the set? Just hope the crowd overlooks the out of tune guitar, the missed note, and just vibes on the energy you’re putting into trying to put on a good show?

Alexis: Yes, yes.

Seth: You jut gotta show your poker face to the crowd, ‘hey, ain’t’ nothing wrong here!’

Alexis: More than likely they won’t know there is something wrong going on until they see you up there looking at each other or throwing a fit. If you react badly then they’re like, ‘oh damn, this is a shitty show!’ but if you act like it doesn’t bother it, it doesn’t faze you, then it’s just rock n roll.

Away-Team: At that point it is just the PA’s fault, the sound system is bad, it isn’t the band’s fault! (everyone laughs)

Seth and Alexis: Yes! Exactly!

Alexis: (acting innocent) I don’t know what’s going on, it sounded good to us. (laughs)

Away-Team: So you guys have been around since 1999/2000, Your ‘debut’ was a combination of atmospheric interludes with bursts of manic full bore metal, where The Fight Of Our Lives see you blending the two much better. Is it maturity as songwriters? Was it all new material or did you take things from the past 10 years…

Alexis: Excuse my language but it was a conscious effort by the band to say fuck everything else! Let’s just make an album that we as a band can be happy with.

Away-Team: That was the end of my question, was it because nobody was riding you this time saying, ‘do it this way, don’t do that. We want to hear this…’

Alexis: We basically just knocked the monkey off our back and said, ‘This is about us first and foremost, this is OUR dream.’

Seth: On the last record we did what they said, and nothing happened for us, on this record we did what we wanted, we put our hearts into it, and I think it transcends to the fans, and they can see that and hear that. So in that alone it has done more for us.

Away-Team: Well if it feels right to you, then it should come across in the music and most certainly in the live show.

Alexis: It definitely resonates more with our audience.

Away-Team: I’ve heard of you guys out on the road on every tour it seems for the last 4 years. I’ve seen you on huge tours like this, and playing tiny little rooms in a one horse town in the middle of nowhere in North Carolina. I see you guys constantly on bills of shows everywhere. When was the last time you had a break?

Alexis: If you are not touring, if you are not performing, and you’re not recording then what are you doing? We have got to stay busy, that is our whole bread and butter. Whether it is a big one a little one, somewhere in between, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we don’t care, we’re gonna play.

Seth: Also in this day and time everybody and their brother has a band, so if you’re not on the top, always putting yourself in people’s faces, always doing shows, they’re going to forget you.

Away-Team: At some point though you have to recharge your batteries don’t you? Or is that what the studio is for?

Alexis: Sometimes we’ll have a week off here and there; very seldom we’ll have a month off.

Seth: We’d love to do a month on and a month off that would be the perfect scenario. But if an offer comes up, you gotta take it!

Away-Team: The band hails from Tennessee, but actually you all live all over the US and OUTSIDE the US, how does that help or hinder being in a band together and say when it comes time to write an album?

Alexis: I think it is good that we have a little bit of distance at times.

Seth: When we write everyone has their own ideas, and we’ll put them all together, send them around to everyone else, and then come together for about a month and write an album. We don’t put out a song unless everyone is 100% happy with it.

Alexis: Basically we make it work. We’ll tour, then go our separate ways and write. Then when it is time to get back together, we’ll take all our ideas and put them in a big kettle and hash them out and make something of them.

Away-Team: I’ve read one of your main influences is Stevie Nicks, how do you go from Stevie Nicks to the kind of vocals you do now?

Alexis: I fell in love with Stevie Nicks through my step dad. He had a bunch of records of hers, and I would look at them and say, ‘she’s really pretty and kinda kooky, I love that about her.’ So I checked out the music finally and fell in love with her as an artist. It was actually my brother who was into the heavier stuff, Pantera, Ozzy, and Korn. And he introduced me to that kind of music and I fell in love with that genre. I’ve always wanted to be a singer but not necessarily a heavy metal singer. I was the cliché; I wanted to be the black girl that was doing R&B. That’s what I went after. But when my brother introduced me to metal, he showed me a whole new world, and I fell in love with it.

Away-Team: Since you brought it up, do you find it hard being accepted first a female in metal and secondly a black female in metal?

Alexis: I think if I were being a poser I’d have a harder time…

Away-Team: You mean like say Jada Pinkett Smith?

Alexis: Whoa! She was doing her; I’m not going to say nothing bad about that, I plead the fifth. (laughs) She did her thing, and…. We’ve got to embrace each other we can’t be knockin’ each other down. Speaking for myself if I was fake and I wasn’t a good person people would see through that… But people can tell I’m genuine and I don’t use the color card, I don’t use the female card. It’s just about us making music that we love and music that we are trying to get out there. I think people respect that, so no, it’s not hard for me.

Away-Team: What is the best part of being on a touring Festival like this and worst…

Alexis: The fans! The fans are the best part! The bands too the bands are the best part. The worst is the heat, that frickin’ heat…

Seth: And the dust! When we play in parking lots like we are going to do today, there is nothing but a big dust cloud raised by the audience, and it sits right on us on stage. You breathe that in and you got big boogers in your nose…

Alexis: Speaking of race… everyone’s going to be brown today!!! (laughs)

Away-Team: Unity through dust!

Alexis: Yes! Yes! (laughs)

Away-Team: What is the worst name of a band you’ve been in?

Alexis: Smooth As Silk… that was my all girl band.

Away-Team: Was that your R&B phase?

Alexis: Yes, but I still listen to R&B, I listen to everything!

Away-Team: As I think all good musicians should.

Alexis: Yes, me too, I love all kinds of music, all music.

Away-Team: After Mayhem winds down and you wash all the dust off, what’s next for Straight Line Stitch?

Seth: Afro Punk Fest in New York and it is FREE so come on out and support us at the stage! It’s on August the 28th. Then we’re doing a hometown show, first hometown show in about 2 years on September 26th. We’re excited about that! Then we were supposed to go to Europe after that but the band we were supporting had family issues and canceled the tour.

Alexis: They’re having some hard times but we still love them.

Away-Team: Well good luck with the rest of the tour, continued success, and thanks for hanging in your equipment trailer with me.

Seth: Thank you, careful in that heat. DRINK WATER!!! Maybe you’ll listen to me because she won’t! (laughs).

There is a long list of people to thank for making this and all of our Mayhem Fest interviews happen, so, forgive me if I forgot anyone, but thanks to Lilly at Roadrunner, Bill at eOne Music, Rikki, Natalie, and Jessica at Adrenaline, and Laura Jean with Mayhem.

For more STRAIGHT LINE STITCH click here.

Featuring: Buckcherry. With support from Hell Yeah, All That Remains and The Damned Things
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Rams Head Live – Baltimore, MD

Photos by Marcy Royce.

What a great lineup Jagermesiter has assembled for the Jagermeister 2011 Music Tour. It started on Wednesday, January 19 and will conclude on Thursday, February 24, 2011. BUCKCHERRY is the headliner with support from HELL YEAH, ALL THAT REMAINS and THE DAMNED THINGS.

So let’s get this party started. Or as BUCKCHERRY would say, “It’s A Party” and we’re going “All Night Long!”

The night kicked off with THE DAMNED THINGS. And the venue was not as full as I thought it would be. But that is because they took the stage at 6:35 pm. A bit early for most headbangers. This is a band that I’m not familiar with their music. I do know that of the 6 members, they’ve come from 3 other bands. Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley hail from Fall Out Boy, Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano are infused from Anthrax, and Keith Buckley and Josh Newton injected from Every Time I Die. WOW! Cool stuff right there peeps. They debuted last June as THE DAMNED THINGS and are a heavy metal super group. Their first single, “We’ve Got A Situation”, was released in October 2010. While they performed well and with much energy, I just couldn’t get into their music. However, most of the crowd was into them.

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Next to take the stage was ALL THAT REMAINS. They are a metal core group that formed in 1998, so they’ve been around for some time. They have 5 albums under their music belt and their latest offering, “For We Are Many” was released in October of 2010. Members include Philip Labonte, Mike Martin, Oli Herbert, Jason Costa and female bass player, Jeanne Sagan. Jeanne really had me entranced while I photographed the band. She can compete vocally with the boys. And why I say that is because she can ‘growl’ with the best of them. The band was tight and musically sound. Once again, however, just not quite my type of music.

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Rams Head Live was now beginning to fill the empty spots from earlier in the evening. People were steadily trickling in the door where my post seemed to be most of the night. I felt safe at my post because crowd surfing was beginning to increasingly build. Moshing too! And this place is great because it’s large and they have big screen tvs all over the place. So I didn’t miss a beat of any drum or the strum of any guitar or the singing of any lyric.

Now it was time for Baltimore favorities, HELLYEAH. Holy cow! This heavy metal super group just took over. The heat was building as the bodies moved forward. I shed my sweatshirt but regretted that decision as I became soaked with flying water. The crowd was working themselves into a mini frenzy. This band has a history as well. Chad Gray and Greg Tribbett slid in from Mudvayne, Tom Maxwell comes from Nothing Face, Bob “Zilla” Kakaha jumps in from Damageplan, and, of course, the great Vinnie Paul comes from non other than Pantera. While the band formed in 2001, they didn’t become a full fledged group until 2006. Their first release was in 2007 along with their first live show, right there at Ram’s Head. Chad Gray made mention of how this place and the fans were special to them. The crowd ate up the attention. I could feel the intense crowd support. Their second release was in July of 2010. They performed a few songs I recognized. Such as “Hell Of A Time”, “Better Man”, and “Alcohaulin’ Ass.” Chad Gray was on fire. The guitars were wailing. The drums were pounding. And I was in heaven. Captured some great photos during my brief time in the press area. HellYeah leads with such a strong performance that they could have been the headliner for the evening. But not for this tour.

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BUCKCHERRY was up next!

Lights were dim, and figures began appearing on stage. They took the stage like a huge hurricane. A intense wind swept over the crowd, from the front of the stage and permeated to every corner of the place. And then wham, lights revealed the one and only, BUCKCHERRY. It was such rush! As Josh Todd began the first words of “Dead” from their August 2010 release, “It’s A Party”, the crowd just went crazy. It seemed every fan in the first few rows were singing along and fist-pumping as well. The band was tight and sounded great. 

As “Rescue Me” started, I began to realize that Josh is like the energizer bunny, full of so much energy and moving around to almost every square inch of the stage. It seems, to me anyway, that Josh is inspired by two great frontmen, Mick Jagger, of the Rolling Stones, and Steve Whiteman, of Kix. Moving, gyrating and working the crowd as he belts out the lyrics. I had a hard time keeping up with him. Which brings me so stage right. Since I just had an interview with Keith Nelson a few weeks earlier, I was eagerly visiting stage right often. What a great guitarist. Keith interacts often during each song with the fans. He was throwing guitar picks out to the crowd most of the night. Even trying to get some to the second level of Rams Head Live.

After I finished photographing the third song, “All Night Long” from their new release, I made my way back to my post. All kinds of thoughts played through my head such as, high energy. Tight and solid. Love what they do. Jager infused. Awesome sound. One of the most tattooed bands of this day. Mezmerizing solos. Hooks and riffs, I like. And then Josh does the greatest thing. Thanks the fans for supporting rock and roll. Totally cool! I love when bands recognize the fans as the reason the music is still alive.

The setlist for the evening was: Dead, Rescue Me, All Night Long, Everything, I Want You, It’s A Party, Next To You, Lit Up, Slammin, Lawless & LuLu, On Set, I’m Sorry, Crazy Bitch, and for the encore Out Of Line and Whiskey. Playing current songs as well as digging some out from the early days. AWESOME! I love when bands do that, shows they care about the early stuff just as much as the current release. Digging into the catalog makes this gal happy! I was kind of surprised, though, that the band chose to end their set with lesser known, lesser popular songs that weren’t huge hits. They played most of the hits in the middle to end of the night. But hey, they gotta do what they love as well as what the fans love. So I’m sure they chose that setlist with careful thought and consideration for all involved. The fans loved BUCKCHERRY this night, no matter the course of the setlist.

Although the night included some minor issues and flubs, what band doesn’t have that happen live. And Josh was having a hard time with his vocal range about half way through the night. Performing almost every night apparently had begun to show at Rams Head. He didn’t give up though, and that I commend him for. He adjusted and moved forward, giving it his all. Being a true fan, I did notice these things. However they surely didn’t majorly detract from the great performance by BUCKCHERRY. Can’t wait until they pass close by again. I’ll be there, once again!

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Special thanks and a shout out to Pavla Mikula, with Stache Media, for making this opportunity happen for me and the Away-Team. You, my dear, do indeed ROCK!

Hell Yeah
Jagermeister Tour
February 12, 2011 – Rams Head Live, Baltimore, MD
Photos by Marcy Royce

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DOWN — the New Orleans band featuring CORROSION OF CONFORMITY guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan, drummer Jimmy Bower (EYEHATEGOD, SUPERJOINT RITUAL guitarist), bassist Rex Brown (ex-PANTERA), guitarist Kirk Windstein (CROWBAR), and vocalist Philip Anselmo (Superjoint Ritual, ex-Pantera) — has scheduled the following dates:

March
4 – New Orleans, LA – The Hangar
5 – Maxwell, TX – The Cotton Gin
6 – Houston, TX – Warehouse Live
11 – New Orleans, LA – The Hangar #2
April
28 – New York, NY – Best Buy Theatre
29 – Philadelphia, PA – Trocadero
30 – Sayreville, NJ – Starland Ballroom

For more DOWN click here.

EDITORS NOTE:
‘Hopefully this trickle-in theory will mean there is a full fledged tour coming soon? How about we just announce ALL The dates already????’

Have you ever been entranced by a band at first listen?  Knowing that, even though you can’t pinpoint it, there’s something special about that band?  Revelation Theory, as they were known then, first took our ears by storm back in 2005 with the hit single “Slowburn”.  I remember being taken back by the soaring vocals of Rich Luzzi, backed by the harmonies of Matty McCloskey, and the heavy riffs of Julien Jorgensen, and having just that feeling.  Turns out I have good instincts.  Since then, they’ve added more fuel to that “Slowburn” with the addition of killer axe man Rikki Lixx, an abbreviated name, and a sophomore album that produced four hit singles.  Six years later, as Rev Theory prepares to release their third major label effort entitled “Justice”, I had a chance to chat with guitarist Julien Jorgensen about everything from producers to presidents.  Keep reading, but be careful… my theory is that this “Slowburn” is about to become an inferno!

AWAY-TEAM:  First off I wanna congratulate you on the upcoming tour, and the release of your new album “Justice”, which hits stores Feb. 15th.  It’s an amazing piece of work.

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  Thanks bro!

AWAY-TEAM:  Your last album “Light It Up” was a tremendous success.  This time around you’ve enlisted the services of super-producer Terry Date.  Aside from his stellar resume, what made you pick a guy like Terry?

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  Umm, I think it was just obviously, like you said, we’re such big fans of all the records he’s done, and the bands he’s worked with.  And ya know, I talked to my A & R guy in Kansas City, we were playing Rockfest in 2008 I think it was, we were in the middle of the cycle for “Light It Up”, and… I’m sorry 2009, and he had said to me “Man, to capture the sound and energy of you guys live…”, which is what we wanted to do, “I think Terry Date would be perfect”.  I looked at him and was like “Absolutely”.  So he reached out to Terry, and Terry was interested, and we felt like it was just the right fit.  Definitely the right guy for the music, and the record we were making.

AWAY-TEAM:  Was there a certain quality that you feel like Terry was able to bring out in you this time around? I mean, what was the recording process like?

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  Terry is great at capturing the true essence of the band.  And ya know, he’s really great at capturing the character of a band.  I think that’s why his records stand the test of time.  Recording with him was awesome, he pushed us to… basically we recorded the bass and the drums live off the floor.  The record was really raw, and it was a really good experience.  We didn’t take any shortcuts, we really dug into the parts, and he was just a wealth of knowledge.  So the whole process was awesome, from stories from what he had done before, to all the little tricks he had up his sleeve, the whole thing was just a treat man.  It was a good time.

AWAY-TEAM:  On first listen, the title track “Justice” gives you the impression that the song was written for a certain someone in Washington, D.C.  The video for the song even further supports that belief.  Is that a correct assumption to make?

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  Well, I think ya know, we had written the song a while back with some good friends of ours… our intention was kind of a bit political, we were a little bit upset about what was going on in the country at the time.  We’re really not a politically driven band, so we weren’t really going to use the song, and it sort of brought itself back into the fold when we were writing this record.  We just felt it was indicative of a lot of things we were going through.  Ya know, socially, stuff that we were pissed off about in our own industry.  Just a little frustration going on in the music industry in general.  So we felt like it was the perfect song, it says a lot about our fight, what we’ve been through the last eight years as a band. It also encompasses the full body of the record as a whole, so we felt like it was the right song to use as the title track.

AWAY-TEAM:  The song “Hollow Man” features your bassist, Matt McCloskey singing leads.  How did that come to be?

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  It was just… Matt had actually written that song when we were on tour, probably a year and a half ago.  It was just one of those that came out in the back of the bus, and literally made it all the way through.  And I think it made it because it was just a real honest song, and Matty had sung it originally and just kinda did it on the record as well.  It was from him, and from his soul it sounded great with him singing.

AWAY-TEAM:  So was this just a one shot deal? Or is this maybe the start of an Alice in Chains type thing where, as Jerry Cantrell would put it, you have two lead singers?

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  Well, I mean we’ve sort of felt that way for a long time, we just never had the right opportunity to showcase it.  I think that this record we do alot of sort of, I mean obviously we’ve done alot of harmonies in the past, there’s alot of counter-melodies and counter-vocals in there.  We just try to feature Matty as much as possible, and we feel like this song is definitely the stepping stone…

AWAY-TEAM:  With the last album, the WWE took notice.  They actually made “Light It Up” the theme song for Wrestlemania 24.  Then you went on even further to work with them, giving them “Hell Yeah” and “Voices”, and you were even part of a WWE skit?

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  Yeah, we did a couple of skits with them backstage.  It was actually pretty funny, we’re big fans of Festus and Biscuits and Gravy…Jesse & Festus, they’re funny, they’re characters.  So we actually got to do some skits with them backstage.  It was fun.

AWAY-TEAM:  Cool!  Now “Enemy Within” seems like a song that’s tailor made for the WWE.  What inspired that song? And are there any plans for the WWE to use any of the songs off of “Justice”?

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  That song was written as a full collaboration with the whole band.  I’m really proud of that song.  It’s just a sort of “Take the world over” song, and “take a look at yourself in the mirror”, and all that type of thing.  We felt like it was a bad-ass tune, I mean if you think it could be for the WWE that’s cool.  We wrote it kind of for ourselves, and it’s fun to play live so we’re excited to put that one in the set for sure.

AWAY-TEAM:  As we speak, you guys are on the road making the 20 hour drive up to Denver.  You guys have toured relentlessly, and with a new album to kick off 2011, there appears to be no end in sight.  When you’re out on the road like that, how do you escape and find solace, just to keep from going insane?

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  Well this one’s a little.. we’re on a radio tour right now, we’re in a van and it’s really close quarters.  We’re actually having a bit of fun with it, because we haven’t done something like this in a while.  We’d been fortunate to have a bus during the last touring cycle; we’re all taking turns driving, and so we haven’t had much time away from each other in the last two weeks.  When we are on the road in the bus each of us have things we do during the day to kind of… we have our own tour regiments, ya know, some of us like to go to the gym and at least get a shower, and other guys just chill in the back, play video games, and watch movies.  Ya know, write songs, nap… some guys nap a lot, ya know what I mean? (laughs)

AWAY-TEAM: (laughs)

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  Everyone’s got their own thing, and when it comes to like an hour and a half before gametime, before the show, we all start getting in the same mode.  We have a pre-game warmup that we all rock out to, and we put a playlist together, and the cameraderie kicks in, and we take the stage together.  So when it’s like an hour out, we’re ready to go.

AWAY-TEAM:  What do you do to get amped up for a show like that?  Is there a certain song or album you listen to?

JULIEN JORGNSEN:  Yeah.  We have a ton of go-to’s.  I mean, on the last record, the last cycle we had “Whiskey in the Morning” by Buckcherry, some newer stuff from Filter, we had some Avenged Sevenfold, some Pantera on there.  Followed by some Jäger and some Monster Energy Drinks. We have the Matty Mayhem special cocktail, which consists of Monster Energy Drink, and the Monster shots (The Hitmen), and Jäger.  So we usually pound a few of those before we go out there.

AWAY-TEAM:  (laughs) Sounds like you’d have to pound them! Holy Shit!

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  (laughing) It’s a good time brother, it’s a good time.  Well back in the day we used to drink Jäger and Monster out of a bowl. Cuz we didn’t have cups, ya know we drank them out of those cereal bowls.

AWAY-TEAM:  (laughing) Lap it up!

JULIEN JORGENSEN: (laughs) We’ve graduated to shot cups that Jäger gave us.

AWAY-TEAM:  (laughs)  Despite the tremendous success of “Light It Up”, ya know, aside from the wrestling fans and the true rock fans, to the casual fan Rev Theory is still a bit of an unknown for some reason which is a sin.  Is that a role you’re comfortable with? Or crave?  Ya know, cuz some bands don’t want the spotlight if it means sacrificing who they are.  Or is that something you’d like to change?

JULIEN JORGENSEN: I mean, we wanna get our music out there to as many people as we can.  Ya know I think that the last record was a great stepping stone for us.  I think it got our music out to alot of people, and I think that we’ll be able to kinda build on the success of that, and I think this record is that record to do it.  I think it’s a defining record for our band, and we’re really proud of the whole record.  We’re really excited to present this, I think that if we can get it to the people’s ears, they really gonna dig it.  It’s not that we love the spotlight, but we’d definitely love to grow the band, and grow the listenership because we feel like we have a really great record.

AWAY-TEAM:  I agree.  I think after this one you’ll be drinking outta pint glasses. (laughs)

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  (laughs) That is awesome. I hope so brother, I hope so.

AWAY-TEAM:  Well hey man, thanks for your time.  It’s been a great pleasure.  Best of luck with the new album and the tour, I know you’re gonna do great.  Look forward to seeing you when you make your way through Florida, and we’ll do this again.

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  Yeah man.  Stay in touch. Come out to a show. 

AWAY-TEAM:  For sure.  Thanks again Julien, talk to you soon. 

JULIEN JORGENSEN:  Be good. Thanks Jason. Bye.

Rev Theory’s latest album “Justice” hits stores February 15th, and the Monster Energy Outbreak Tour featuring Rev Theory, Pop Evil, Hail the Villain, and The Black Cloud Collective kicks off February 16th in Phoenix.  For more info on Rev Theory including tour dates, and to find out where to purchase music and merchandise visit http://www.revtheory.com/

Special thanks to Julien Jorgensen for making the time to speak with me, and to Steve Karas at SKH Music for making it all happen.

When we last left our Hero, Mr. Altier was chomping at the bit to get out of the house and go catch his Dolphins playing. But we had just gotten to the meat of the interview. We had discussed why Slider left Brand New Sin and we were delving into his reasons for leaving/getting kicked out. And hell, we’re 30 minutes into the interview and haven’t even really talked about the new band ELEPHANT MOUNTAIN, so here you go… (If you haven’t read the first half of our interview with ELEPHANT MOUNTAIN’s frontman and former Brand New Sin frontman, click here.)

AWAY-TEAM: And that was when about the time you were on your way out (leaving/getting kicked out of Brand New Sin)?

Joe Altier: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. You know it was in ’07. It was after the Tequila (BNS’s third album) cycle had ended I think we started speaking a little bit before that, we didn’t really start striking our friendship (Joe and Slider BNS and ELEPHANT MOUNTAIN’s guitarist) back up again until that time. I didn’t really know what the hell I was going to do. I didn’t realize I was going to end up leaving Brand New Sin. I didn’t think I was leaving Brand New Sin right up until the moment of the night I walked into that room and left. In the back of my mind, how hindsight tells me, yeah there was a lot of things that was showing me that I definitely didn’t want to be in that band anymore. But I didn’t think I was not going to be in that band until January 8th of ’08. I said ok now I’m leaving after the conversation that we had that night, the argument, and the yelling at each other, and realizing that I wasn’t happy there. And they weren’t happy, so I was, ‘If you guys have a better vision of where you’re going and you’ve got plans and I’m holding you back,’ Because that’s basically what I was told was that I was holding the band back then, and I wanted time off. I had suggested time off for everybody, I think we all needed to get our heads on fucking straight you know? I have a drinking problem and a slight drug problem and we’re all broke and my father just fucking died and my life is completely upside down I need some time off! And that’s what I asked the band. I asked the band for an indefinite amount of time off, I said we can still get together and write but I don’t want to be gigging. I don’t want to be running forward, we don’t have a record label or have any tours, what’s the fucking hurry? Why don’t we just take some fucking time off? And they didn’t feel that way. They felt that they needed to move forward at a hundred miles an hour and I’m like alright well then, ‘good luck to ya! See ya later; I’m fucking out of here!’ For me to get accused of being selfish and being the one that’s holding the band back from success then you know if you really think so then I will leave. For a long time I didn’t really speak about that cuz I didn’t want to live…the emotions were very raw and I didn’t want to bad mouth anybody. But it got to a point where I was just like, ‘Now I’m ready to talk about it!’ I don’t really give a shit what they think because they’re going to have their opinions too, but I’m telling you pretty much word for word what happened in that meeting. And I told them….I started getting a laundry list of things being told to me that what I did over there, ‘on this tour you did this, and you chose to do this over that, and one of them was you chose to work a piano gig making money other than going to open up for Drowning Pool!’ And I’m just like we never got offered a Drowning Pool show so I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. ‘Well they played it in Watertown and we had an offer’ I’m like we never had an offer, if we had an offer I might have gone through with it. And on top of that until fucking Brand New Sin can fucking pay my goddamn cell phone bill and my bills then I need to take some work over some gig sometimes I’m sorry! They called me selfish, and they said that I wasn’t in for the business, and yadda yadda yadda. It was a personal attack on me at first. In my mind I was like how dare you?!?! Man, my fucking father… I just found my father fucking dead like 2 months ago and you guys are going to fucking start getting on me about this? Fuck you! Especially when two guys in the band had already fucking lost their fathers as well so they know. Then when they started accusing me of shit, I wanted to be like alright well if you want to start making a laundry list let’s start going around the room… Ok Chris (Weichmann) let me make a list, how many times you did this, how many times did you throw a temper tantrum and not fucking do something on stage? Kevin Dean How ‘bout this? How ‘bout Chuck Kahl falling over? You know I mean we could sit here and do a laundry list of things that everyone else did too you know? But at the end of the day I finally am like I’m not going to sit here and do this. Obviously you guys have a plan; obviously you want me to go, so I’m leaving. And I think 3 years later the position that I’m in compared to the position they’re in speaks volumes of what…of what’s really happened.

AWAY-TEAM: So I guess the question where I ask if you guys are still friends or friendly is irrelevant… I don’t need to ask that question.

Joe Altier: I think we are you know?

AWAY-TEAM: Are you?

Joe Altier: We talk to each other when we see each other but we’re not calling each other up ‘hey man you know wanna go hang out?’ Nah we don’t do that anymore. When we see each other we talk and we’re friendly and cordial to each other but I mean after everything we went through it’s like almost like being in a war. You know in Vietnam with somebody and then not talk to somebody but you still have a connection because you went through some pretty fucked up shit together and had that bond. But we’re friendly. Me and Kenny Dunham actually talk more than I do with anybody else in that band but Kenny’s removed from that band as well so you know I talk to him, and I mean I’m still in contact with everybody. On some levels I got to do some business shit that still involves those guys. There’s still checks that come from Century Media once in awhile so we have to speak, but you know I’ve never seen them play since I left the band, and I really got no interest to be honest with you. It’s no offense to them I just got no interest. I think if they were called fucking John Brown’s Toe or whatever I would go and be a huge fan but that’s not Brand New Sin to me.

AWAY-TEAM: Well you and I had talked about it a little bit prior to this, about how they’re not bad. I went and saw them when they were here in town and it’s not Brand New Sin. And I wish them much luck and the stuff they were doing, the new stuff for what it was, was good. But it’s not Brand New Sin. At some point you know you went from God Below to Brand New Sin because you made this major change (music style and vocalist change). Well you just had another major change your style is different, your singing is different, your singer is different, and you don’t have a Joe wannabe after Joe left so you probably shouldn’t be the same name.

Joe Altier: Right. I think that’s just them, I mean I really think that some people in that band think that they should keep riding on those things, but the true fans are… I mean there’s some fans that have stuck by and there’s always going to be fans. There’s fans from Anthrax that are still fans of John Bush and Joey Belladonna and they’re fans of both but you know there’s COC changed a million times you know from their sound and stuff like that. I really think that honestly if you wanted to ask me what my biggest guess was for why they stuck with it is because they fucking… Chris was like ‘well you know COC changed from a punk band to a punky rock band to a fucking rock band and changed singers along the way why can’t we do the same thing?’ Whatever, I mean they can call the band whatever they want.

AWAY-TEAM: No offense, but I think COC was a little bigger than Brand New Sin as they went through all their changes. They had more name recognition so they had more at stake in that name.

Joe Altier: Yeah, absolutely. But you can’t drastically change the sound of a band and expect the fans to be there. I mean I think Elephant Mountain sounds more like Brand New Sin than Brand New Sin sounds like Brand New Sin. And I’m not really trying! I think really Elephant Mountain doesn’t sound like Brand New Sin but it sounds more like Brand New Sin than Brand New Sin does today I should say.

AWAY-TEAM: Fair enough that would be more accurate.

Joe Altier: It’s cool, I don’t wish any ill will on them, and I hope that things turn around for them and stuff like that. But I see where things are going and it’s just, if that’s what’s making them happy then fucking so be it. I know I’m happy on my end and as long as they’re happy on their end and my opinion doesn’t matter you know at the end of the day.

AWAY-TEAM: So you guys went through a lot of label shit throughout that time and looking back on it now, how much do you think that actually hampered you guys and added to the stress and the issues? And how do you think it could have been avoided or could it have been avoided?

Joe Altier: You know I think it hampered quite a bit. I mean we got in and we’re pretty much playing the game, we played the fucking game! When you’re in there and you gotta play the game you gotta play by some certain rules, and some people in the band didn’t want to play by those rules. We had labels telling us different things, we wanted to call certain things, we wanted to call the record The Tequila Record, they wanted to call it Tequila. We’re like, ‘No it’s The fucking Tequila Record!’ They’re like, ‘No, Tequila!’. So it’s things like that that happen to every band and the changes between labels and the lull between the first record and the second record I really think contributed to Slider being kicked out. I think if we had if Now or Never (BNS’ first label) stayed intact or if we immediately went to Century Media (BNS’ third label) instead of going to somewhere else, cuz we had the offer to go to Century Media right away, I think Slider would have weathered that. Obviously without getting further or going through more examples it absolutely did hinder us because that lull between the two albums we lost a member and it sent us on that path that we were on, and it changed things. I just think that… I wish… I don’t wish we could change anything else because there wasn’t anything we could do. I mean everything that I got now I’m learning not to do you know? We made a lot of mistakes along the way on the way we handled our band and I think we entrusted other people to do things. Not that those people weren’t competent, I think we should just have been more involved and more educated on what we were doing, and maybe not so fucking drunk all the time how’s that sound? You know, I mean it’s cool to play rockstar and get drunk and stupid BUT…

AWAY-TEAM: Well you know I was talking to Brian Fair from Shadows Fall about that and musicians are musicians for a reason. A) They’ve got talent. B) because of that talent and because of the time spent in the garage or in the bedroom practicing they didn’t study a lot in school, they’re not necessarily you know rocket scientists and they don’t study business and they never had to although maybe even as far back as the 70s they probably should have. But that’s why you have managers and accountants and agents and shit because they’re the ones that are hopefully working for you. But today starting out because you don’t have the big machine that you used to churning out these bands, labels etcetera… as a band you have to do everything! You have to be your own manager, you have to be your own accountant, you have to know how to read a contract and know what it means and fight and negotiate for what you feel you need to get out of it, and you haven’t had to do that in the past.

Joe Altier: And that’s really where I’m at now, it’s like these kids nowadays are going to have to educate themselves and not just going to be a guitar player. They’re going to have to learn how to do accounting for their band, they’re going to have to learn how to talk to merchandise companies, they’re going to become… you’re going to have a graphic designer in the band, you’re going to have someone who can engineer your record, you’re going to have a lot of things. You’re going to become a multi-faceted person, that’s how you’re going to become successful. And we don’t come from that, we just missed it by two years and we’re still learning and Shadows Fall are doing it themselves now.

AWAY-TEAM: Yes a hundred percent.

Joe Altier: I went and saw them and visited with them when they were in town and they’re old friends of mine, and it was really cool, but it was funny to watch them now than it was 6 or 7 years ago. They’re still out and they’re back out selling their own merch they’re taking turns ‘hey Matt it’s your turn to be at the merch table.’ Somebody’s taking care of merch, someone’s doing this and someone’s doing that. I mean they still have a guitar tech and they still got a tour manager and stuff like that but they’re a business now and they act that way because they know if we want to make it that’s what we have to do.

AWAY-TEAM: And it’s not so much even about making it, it’s about protecting yourself. You know it’s not about becoming the next Metallica. It’s like you said, it’s about paying my goddamn cell bill, it’s about making sure that at the end of the day we have something to show for this other than some kick ass music. We still have to pay bills, if you are smart enough to be able to control your band then you can do it, but unfortunately you are the one that has to do it now.

Joe Altier: Yeah you know and that’s really what I kind of did the past two and half years educating myself. I got away from the business, and I kinda fell back in love with music and playing covers and found myself again and figured out what I wanted to do. I don’t have to sell, I mean do I want to sell a million records, fuck yeah that’d be cool! But if I could sell 20,000 records of my solo record 20,000 records of Elephant Mountain and do it on my own, play some shows here and there, I’ll make a good living. I’m making a good living now and I’m not even selling 20,000 records. And I’m investing my own money so I don’t have anybody to yell at other than myself if something doesn’t work. I don’t go to the label, ‘Oh my god you motherfucker! You cut me off from tour support! You did this you did that.’ I use Just Joe… Just Joe playing covers is how I fund my record label Just Joe. It’s a help fund as part of the funding of Elephant Mountain. I help with that, it’s completely how I fund my solo shit. So you know some people like ‘well you know don’t you want to…’ I don’t want to play covers but it’s how I fund things because it’s easy, because I get to go play for 3 or 4 hours and I have another 20-21 more hours in the day to do my other shit….for now. It’s not where I’m going to be 4 or 5 years from now playing piano bars.

AWAY-TEAM: And thank you Neil Diamond for Sweet Caroline, you’re paying my bills!

Joe Altier: I don’t mind it and if that’s really where my life ends up and I just end up selling a couple thousand records and I’m still traveling around the United States playing in piano bars and playing it, that isn’t even so bad. That ain’t even a bad backup plan in my mind. So I think I’ve set myself up for a really good life in this business whether it’s gonna be all originals or small covers or more covers and then some originals. Either way I’m happy, I’m playing music, I’m still traveling, on a much smaller level, but I’m still traveling so I’m happy dude, completely happy.

AWAY-TEAM: Very cool. I have this song from a band and I won’t mention the band (Brand New Sin) but they covered Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd and it blows Shinedown’s version out of the water. Why was it recorded and why was it never released?

Joe Altier: It was recorded because the second label we were on… instead of Now or Never we were on Barter Records which was a Sony imprint. They asked us to start doing some covers cuz they figured well maybe we’ll release a single of a cover, of you guys doing a cover in order to launch you guys. Van Halen did it; I mean a laundry list of people who ended up getting careers after they did a cover song… I mean Shinedown… that’s really what broke Shinedown. So me and Slider had always played around with it and we’re like alright let’s record it. It’s a much simpler version, no pun intended, but there’s two verses missing and we did it as a demo to show the label what we could do. We’re like alright let’s do this, we’ll shorten it down a bit one chorus, one solo, out. We don’t need to record the whole song, why do that if it’s only a demo. So we did it, we did it real quick, we sent it to them. And they basically said ‘we don’t know if this would really work, we don’t know if this is tangible, we don’t know if people remember who what song this is.’ And six months later fucking Shinedown sells a million records because of Simple Man and now I mean it really jump started their career and everybody knew who Shinedown was and then all of a sudden they re-released the singles that happened before Simple Man Fly From The Inside and 45 and then it was dude it was really a catalyst! If anyone would argue with me differently I would call them stupid. Simple Man was everything for that band. I mean I don’t know maybe it wouldn’t have worked for us at all, maybe it was Shinedown’s moment, but it would be interesting to see what do you think Shinedown would have done it if we went for a full radio campaign? If we fucking released it before they did? I don’t know man I don’t know. But that’s why we recorded it and we recorded a few other covers at that time we actually recorded Billy Idol’s Rebel Yell which I’ll have to send you sometime too.

AWAY-TEAM: Yeah cuz my girl would dig the hell outta that, I could see you doing Billy Idol.

Joe Altier: It kinda got shelved and then we went through this whole process with that label and we just kinda went nowhere and then we ended up with Century Media a year and a half later so that was why it was recorded and why it was never released they didn’t think it was gonna work. ‘Oops’

AWAY-TEAM: Did you go back to them and say, ‘Ummm….’

Joe Altier: Absolutely like. ‘Jesus man way to go!!!’

AWAY-TEAM: So who are your musical influences or is that what Just Joe is? Is Just Joe where you sing… or is it kind of an example of your musical influences?

Joe Altier: Yeah I take… it’s everything… I do 1200 songs, just about 600 of them I don’t ever want to play, but I do because I just got to do it. And there’s about 600 I really love. My interest in musical influences go from Otis Redding all the way to Metallica. I mean if I made a list my biggest influences it’s fucking mindboggling, right now I’m listening to Zac Brown Band and I love it so. But it kinda encompasses a lot of things and a lot of genres: Skynyrd, Metallica, Pantera, The Eagles, are probably some of the biggest ones and Social Distortion.

AWAY-TEAM: So how did Elephant Mountain come about? How did you and…you and Slider obviously apparently started talking again…

Joe Altier: Yeah, we started talking again. We talked about writing some songs together and then my guitar player John suggested. ‘You and Slider and me and Luke (our drummer) should get a bass player and we should just jam together.’ So it kind of organically came from me and Slider talking about writing together to John forcing us to kind of jam together. And on a cold night in January of ’09 we got together and we started jamming and in a nutshell that’s how Elephant Mountain was born. We got a buddy of ours from Cortland to play bass and then we ended up getting a B3 player a year later in January of this year and voila here we are here’s Elephant Mountain.

AWAY-TEAM: So you have a full-time B3 player?

Joe Altier: Yes he’s in the band. He’s a grandfather he’s 55 fucking years old! He’s been around for years. He played in a band called Bloodline that was signed to Columbia which was Joe Banamassa and yeah it was just a bunch of guys that were all bloodlines of guys from the Allman Brothers and The Doors and everything else. Lou is the B3 player of that band. He’s had a history of being in bands in Syracuse and nationally for years.

AWAY-TEAM: So who is Joe Banamassa a bloodline of?

Joe Altier: Joe Banamassa senior… nobody famous (laughs)…he’s a wicked guitar player.

AWAY-TEAM: Oh yeah I know who he is, I’ve seen him a few times, I just… cuz you were talking about being bloodline of stuff and I was trying to figure out who the hell he belonged to.

Joe Altier: He was just a wicked guitar player as a young kid and he’s from Syracuse area he grew up around here.

AWAY-TEAM: Oh I didn’t know that.

Joe Altier: Yeah he’s a local cat, that’s how Lou ended up in the band because Lou played in his solo band so…

AWAY-TEAM: So for those that don’t know Brand New Sin and don’t know Elephant Mountain how would you describe your sound?

Joe Altier: Pure rock ‘n roll motherfucker! That is the best way man! I mean I think we sound like a lot of different things, and I just think we sound like just straight up rock ‘n roll a very classic style. I think Brand New Sin was a very classic style of rock ‘n roll and metal and I really think that Elephant Mountain is a real classic style of rock ‘n roll I think we sound like a band that should have been around in like 1977 more than 2010 but we have a twist obviously with my vocals. I think that’s the best way to describe our sound it’s just rock ‘n roll, no frills.

AWAY-TEAM: You just released The Last Days of Planet Earth which is the first album for Elephant Mountain and how can people find it?

Joe Altier: So since we don’t have our proper website built yet you can find us on Facebook and that will lead you to CDBaby and you can find all our stuff on CDBaby. iTunes. And eventually we’ll have our own, we’ll have our website built it’s actually in the process right now. That’s the best way to find us is on Facebook and then we actually have a MySpace page you can find us on there and then both of those places will link you to how to buy the record. You can actually buy it physically or you can download it for real cheap. The actual physical CD is a little bit more because of shipping and everything else but you can get the download for like 8 bucks 8 or 9 bucks and if you actually find me in person or you’re in Syracuse you can buy it for 8 bucks.

Damn, we talked forever! There you have it. No holds barred. You want the straight shit, you go to Joe and ask a question, and the straight shit is what he is going to give you.
My thanks to Joe Altier for taking time out of a Dolphins game to talk for 90 minutes to me about EVERYTHING.
You know that ELEPHANT MOUNTAIN’s The Last Days of Planet Earth was in my top 10 of 2010. So go here, or here, or here to get yourself a copy of it. You’ll thank me for it later.
And my thanks to Melissa Dolak who went above and beyond editing and transcribing the interview from hell.

ARSON ANTHEM — the project featuring Philip Anselmo (DOWN, PANTERA, SUPERJOINT RITUAL) on guitar, Mike IX Williams (EYEHATEGOD) on vocals, Hank Williams III (SUPERJOINT RITUAL, ASSJACK) on drums and Collin Yeo (PONYKILLER) on bass — will embark on a short headlining tour of the Southern U.S. at the end of January 2011. Joining ARSON ANTHEM on the trek will be fellow Housecore Records artists HAARP and WARBEAST.

ARSON ANTHEM dates:
Jan. 25 – Spartanburg, SC @ Ground Zero
Jan. 26 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade
Jan. 27 – New Orleans, LA @ The Hangar
Jan. 28 – Forth Worth, TX @ Rail Club
Jan. 29 – Fayetteville, AR @ Drifters

ARSON ANTHEM‘s full-length debut, “Insecurity Notoriety“, was released on October 12 via Anselmo‘s Housecore Records.

“Insecurity Notoriety” tracklisting:
Naught
Foul Pride
Isolation Militia
More Than One War
Insecurity Notoriety
Pretty Like That
Initial Prick
Crippled Life
Polite Society Blacklist
If You Heard This You Would Hit Me
Hands Off Approach
Has Been/Has Been
Primate Envy
Death of An Idiot
Codependent and Busted
Kleptomania
Teach the Gun To Love the Bullet

For more ARSON ANTHEM click here.

From KKDowning.net:

“It seems that the time has come for us to put the touring wheels in motion for our next world tour in
2011!
It’s funny but these days around – about this time – I can’t help but reflect on the past when we had to
load the touring van ourselves. Sometimes in the ice and snow, being afraid that we would get frostbites
on our fingers and not be able to play the gig!
I remember one winter we had a gig at Hull City Hall in England. We were driving in heavy snow when we
hit black ice and the car hit the motorway barriers so hard that it was never able to be driven again.
However, it was fortunate that a passing farmer saved the day by letting us pile into his old Land Rover and was kind enough to drive us to the gig!
It seems just like yesterday, as they say, that we were on tour with our good friends Budgie, Accept,
Warlock, AC/DC, Saxon, Pantera… to name just a few. Very good memories indeed!
Actually, I have just received a copy of Accept‘s new album “Blood of the Nations“. And was really happy that Wolf and the boys are still creating great classic metal. I think it was back in ’81 that Priest
and Accept hit the road together for the first time and what a great tour that was! I really hope that we can meet up with the guys next year, at least on some of the festival dates and have a good laugh
when talking about the old times.
It was our great fortune, as time passed, to go on and tour with almost every band that you can think of. Some tours included very cool line-ups that many people may not even be aware of: e.g. Priest, Whitesnake & Iron Maiden / Priest, Scorpions & Def Leppard / Priest & UFO… and the list goes on.
People often ask me what it’s like to be on a tour and I always say the same things about it: simply
it’s the hardest thing that you will ever do, but you wouldn’t change it for the world. The travelling
becomes such a major part of your life that you actually feel like a piece of luggage yourself! But
I must confess when you get to go to places that you have never been before like Korea, Turkey,
Romania, Columbia etc. it’s no surprise that you feel like the luckiest man alive. I guess mainly
because for me – growing up as a kid – thinking of going to any of these places would have been
pure fantasy.”

For more JUDAS PRIEST click here.

Music Industry veteran and metal musician Steve “Buckshot” Seabury brings you “Mosh Potatoes – Recipes, Anecdotes & Mayhem From The Heavyweights Of Heavy Metal“. Almost 5 years in the making, Simon & Schuster the publisher, has moved the street date from November 30th to November 16th due to the heavy anticipation of the release. The book is now available for pre order online and will be available all of book stores, your favorite record stores and many mail order companies.

Seabury has set up a charity for the artist proceeds from each sale of the book to benefit The Meals on Wheels Charity. “This organization is very dear to my heart because it provides for so many great people, people like my own grandma. For the metal community to stand together and help these elderly people experiencing financial stress is a true blessing in my eyes.” The Meals on Wheels Charity provides a great service by delivering over a million meals a day to senior citizens who are experiencing economic hardships or disabilities and cant afford to buy food.

Mosh Potatoes features 147 exciting recipes from legendary icons like Lemmy, Zakk Wylde and Lita Ford to the thrash titans of Pantera, Megadeth, Testament, Overkill and Anthrax to the hair metal bands of Guns & Roses, Dokken, LA Guns, Steel Panther, Twisted Sister to the mayhem of metal including Mudvayne, Lamb of God, Shadows Fall, Hatebreed and Devildriver to death metal pioneers of Napalm Death, Obituary, Death and Sepultura and the book wouldnt be complete without the future of the new school like Municipal Waste, Skeletonwitch, Lazarus AD, Evile and Moth Eater.

If you live for metal and like amazing food then you will without a doubt love Mosh Potatoes. So put the beers on ice, fire up the grill and Cook Out With Your Book Out!!!

To pre-order MOSH POTATOES click here.

Backstage Auctions is is presenting the Rock Gods And Metal Monsters Auction, an unprecedented hard rock and heavy metal online auction event. “Almost every item being offered in the auction is “iconic memorabilia” and is easily identifiable to a specific artist or band,” explains Backstage Auctions founder Jacques van Gool.

The auction, which is scheduled to go live on Halloween, features amazing pieces direct from the private collections of:
Rudy Sarzo (QUIET RIOT, OZZY OSBOURNE, WHITESNAKE, DIO), Graham Bonnet (RAINBOW, MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP, ALCATRAZZ, IMPELLITTERI), Scott Rockenfield (QUEENSRŸCHE), Kip Winger (WINGER), Scott Ian (ANTHRAX), Bobby Rondinelli (BLACK SABBATH, AEROSMITH), Andy LaRocque (MERCYFUL FATE, KING DIAMOND) John 5 (ROB ZOMBIE, MARILYN MANSON) and Al Jourgensen (MINISTRY) just to name a few. “When we designed the hard rock and heavy metal themed auction, we really tried to build an event that was not only unique but give fans and collectors access to pieces of rock history that were equally rare and one of kind and we have definitely achieved that goal,” says Jacques. The auction catalog features over 50 Gold and Platinum records awards, guitars, stage props, artist stage worn apparel, master recordings, rare concert posters, original artwork, photos and the list goes on and on.

“It’s not an every day event that you can stand behind and grab on to Al Jourgensen‘s infamous “skull and bones” microphone stand which he used extensively on many Ministry shows and rehearsals. The historical relevance of that one piece in the rock community is well documented,” says Jacques.

Equally impressive is the private collection of Concrete Management co-founder, Walter O’Brien which features a jaw dropping collection of RIAA record awards presented to him while managing Pantera and White Zombie. On a more personal level, Sarzo and Bonnet have both offered up vintage “rocker apparel” that they wore on stage, during photo shoots and really cool music videos.

The auction wouldn’t be complete without a few guitars, drum kits, stage props and handwritten lyrics. Amazing pieces that Scott Rockenfield of Queensrÿche, John 5 of Rob Zombie and Kip Winger have pulled out of their personal collections are sure to get quite a bit of activity during the auction.

“While this is a stellar line-up of artists, we are still adding headliners to the event, which is exciting. It will be interesting to see who makes the final cut,” says van Gool.

The event, aptly titled the Rock Gods And Metal Monsters Auction, is a not-to-miss opportunity for fans and collectors around the world to own an authentic piece of one of the most significant genres of music history.

The auction, which will be held on-line at Backstageauctions.com starts on October 31st and will run through November 7th. A special preview of the entire auction catalog will be available to view beginning Sunday, October 24.

For more info click here.

HOUSECORE RECORDS hardcore punk act ARSON ANTHEM and MySpace Music are currently streaming the band’s entire upcoming October 12th release, Insecurity Notoriety, right now! Head over to the MySpace Music main page to be directed to the stream.

ARSON ANTHEM is comprised of metal greats Philip H. Anselmo (Pantera, Down, Superjoint Ritual), Hank Williams III (Superjoint Ritual, Assjack), Mike IX Williams (Outlaw Order, Eyehategod), and Collin Yeo (Ponykiller). The band was brought together in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with Mike Williams moving into Anselmo’s spare apartment after his home and possessions were destroyed. Through this connection, Williams and Anselmo spent time listening to Anselmo’s irreplaceable hardcore music collection. The members relived the days of early 80’s hardcore bands, such as Discharge, Negative Approach, Sheer Terror, and many others. It didn’t take long for the music to squash their cabin fever, and inspire them to create a new venture that is now ARSON ANTHEM. Anselmo knew of the underrated, yet unbridled percussion skills that he and William’s mutual friend Hank Williams III possessed, causing the contact to be made and the band to come together. Finally, bassist Collin Yeo was recruited, and the sound was born. “All we had to do was meet and jam,” states Anselmo. “Fucking perfect, fucking real, fuck all.”

For more ARSON ANTHEM click here.

As it turns out, the levees broke long before Katrina. In the ’80s and ’90s, New Orleans birthed musical lineages that would haunt the underground and rule the world. Detuned and devastating, they rose from the swamps and from the amplifiers of men who knelt at the altar of The Almighty Riff. Who toiled in their Iommic studies and learned those lessons as if their lives depended upon them. They populated and propagated the pedigrees that brought you the dope-sick sludge of Eyehategod, the cinder-block doom of Crowbar, the brash Southern crossover of Corrosion of Conformity (via North Carolina) and the platinum power-grooves of Pantera (via Dallas, Texas). That’d be Jimmy Bower, Kirk Windstein, Pepper Keenan, Rex Brown and Philip Anselmo, more or less. But mostly more.

For the members of DOWN, it’s home. Sweet home. It’s ground zero. For a state of mind beset on all sides by too much tepid water, too many pills, barely enough weed and never enough Black Sabbath. Yeah, it might seem like the only way you could draw a straight line between the industrial wasteland of Birmingham, England—birthplace of Sabbath (and Judas Priest) to the festering cultural bouillabaisse of the Big Easy would be with a pencil and a ruler, but that ain’t necessarily the case. At least not since DOWN have been around, which by all accounts dates back to 1991, when then-Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo and Corrosion of Conformity frontman Pepper Keenan would trade tapes and listen to the doom-ridden prophecies of certified Sabbath heads like Saint Vitus and Trouble as well as Pentagram. Therein lies the genesis of DOWN, the eternal brotherhood into which Bower, Windstein and (eventually) Brown were later initiated.

Which is to say Sabbath is pretty much the key here, the origin of the bloodline, as it were. As loud and heavy and stoned and powerful as you can handle it. The coda to the film in this very package tells the tale: “Bust Up, Tune Down, Sabb Off.” And as DOWN’s 2004 Ozzfest appearance indicated, the Drab Four smile upon DOWN like DOWN smiles upon their own many and misbegotten spawn: the fans getting their faces ruled at the shows on this DVD, the kids who started bands after being inspired by what they heard; the kids who aren’t kids anymore but grown-ass men with highly respected (and respectable) musical outfits of their own. The names are many—too many to mention here, perhaps—but they wear their DOWN t-shirts (and DOWN tattoos) with pride.

But we were talking about New Orleans, where the wards teem with secrets and crawl with ghosts. You can see ’em in the Clarence John Laughlin photographs that grace the inner sleeve of DOWN’s unstoppable 1995 debut, NOLA. The product of floods, sweat and beers, it was an album of wall-to-wall motherfuckers without a filler cut in the bunch. From the towering Vitus-inspired doom of “Temptation’s Wings” and thundering power-grooves of “Lifer” and “Underneath Everything” to the haunting thickly muscled swamp-swing of “Stone the Crow” and the ultimate reefer death-dirge that is “Bury Me In Smoke,” the album chiseled a template in granite like a headstone in a potter’s field.

DOWN played roughly 25 shows between ’91 and ’02, with Crowbar bassist Todd Strange holding down the low end with all 400 or so pounds of his substantial girth. But soon Anselmo, Keenan, Windstein, and Bower were crisscrossing the globe in their other bands, and Down was necessarily placed on the proverbial back burner, a “side project” that looked increasingly like a one-off as the years passed and the individual members soldiered through the hard-won triumphs and squalid tribulations of the lifer experience. And yet in 2002, DOWN emerged from their self-enforced slumber with DOWN II: A Bustle In Your Hedgerow—and with Anselmo’s Pantera bandmate Rex Brown now on bass. Not unlike its predecessor, the album unleashed gargantuan bolts of detuned lightning like “Lysergick Funeral Procession,” “Ghosts Along The Mississippi” and “New Orleans Is A Dying Whore.” DOWN, it would seem, were back, edging ever closer to something like full-time status. But it was not to be. Not yet, anyway.

The day of reckoning came in 2005, when DOWN reunited in the wake of Pantera’s permanent and untimely demise. The following year—that’s The Year Of VI in Down-speak—the band stomped all over Europe for six straight weeks while a crack camera crew shot the concert film you currently hold in your sweaty paws with a certain sense of anticipation that can only be satisfied by pressing PLAY. Performing sold-out shows across the Old World with no promotion, no record label and no opening band, DOWN tore new ones from Hamburg to Stockholm and back again, culminating in an unannounced set in front of untold tens of thousands on the main stage at the Download Festival in Leicestershire, England. What you’ll witness on the enclosed audio-visual extravaganza is the unvarnished (“sour notes and screw-ups included,” Anselmo tells us) deliverance of the fucking goods from that six-week excursion, the merciless reaming of an entire continent, and the true grit of five lifers in the Brotherhood Of Eternal Sleep.

In Cologne, Germany, Anselmo sends “Lifer” out to fallen Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell, who was gunned down onstage in Ohio in 2004, “and all our other brothers we lost along the goddamn way.” There’s Keenan, a close-up of his grizzled mug. And that fucking riff. The one from “Lifer” gets us every goddamn time.

Nottingham’s Rock City gets a face-full of “New Orleans Is A Dying Whore.” Keenan and Windstein churn out the opening salvo like it owes them money, on twin SGs, no less. In Copenhagen, the lighters come out for “Jail.” Backstage, the living legends of Europe’s metal underground turn out in force. There’s Cronos from Venom in Manchester, England. The dudes from Witchcraft in Stockholm. The black metal trifecta of Fenriz (Darkthrone), Satyr (Satyricon) and Frost (Satyricon, Gorgoroth, 1349) in Oslo.

At Download, Bower’s drums sound like fucking cannons and Rex’s bass, bulldozing. It’s “Bury Me In Smoke,” the grand finale to end all grand finales—and a sea of thousands to match a riff a thousand years wide. It’s before noon and the sun is blazing, cooking all that tender British flesh to an angry pink crisp. There’s a pit … make that several pits. There’s a false start, followed by threats and allegations. But the riff rides out, steamrolling everything, transcending all. And then the band’s performance and purpose is cemented as Anselmo tells the swirling masses, “Live long, live legendary.”
These are the precise words DOWN lives by.
Good advice.

J. Bennett
Los Angeles, 2010

Diary of a Mad Band hits stores on October 5th, and features a 2 CD full concert, live in London! The DVD highlights documented footage marking the 2006 return of DOWN from the practice room through their first European tour, and a bonus behind-the-scenes featurette entitled ‘Tyrades and Shananigans’. The DVD closes in at a blistering 130 minutes!

DVD: Diary of a Mad Band
w/ BONUS DVD FEATURETTE ‘Tyrades and Shananigans’
1. Lysergic Funeral Procession
2. Lifer
3. Losing All
4. Rehab
5. New Orleans Is A Dying Whore
6. Ghosts Along The Mississippi
7. Learn From This Mistake
8. Underneath Everything
9. Temptation’s Wings
10. There’s Something On My Side
11. Hail The Leaf
12. Lies
13. The Seed
14. Eyes Of The South
15. Jail
16. Stone The Crows
17. Bury Me In Smoke

2 CD: LIVE IN EUROPE
1. Losing All
2. Lifer
3. Lysergic Funeral Procession
4. Rehab
5. Temptations Wings
6. Ghosts Along The Mississippi
7. Learn From This Mistake
8. Hail The Leaf
9. New Orleans Is A Dying Whore
10. Lies, I Don’t Know What They Say But…
11. Underneath Everything
12. The Seed
13. Eyes Of The South
14. Jail
15. Stone The Crows
16. Bury Me In Smoke

To pre-order Diary Of A Mad Band click here.
For more DOWN click here.

New Orleans, LA’s DOWN is pleased to announce three killer pre-order bundles, available for purchase now in preparation for their upcoming 3 disc (2 CD/1 DVD) release, Diary of a Mad Band, hitting stores on October 5th, 2010. All pre-orders include an instant MP3 download of ‘Stone the Crow’ live in Dublin! These packages are a must have for every DOWN fan!

• Pre-Order Bundle #1 - Diary of a Mad Band 3 disc (2 CD/1 DVD) set – $18
• Pre-Order Bundle #2 – Diary of a Mad Band 3 disc (2 CD/1 DVD) set with limited edition pre-order only T-SHIRT – $30
• Pre-Order Bundle #3 – Diary of a Mad Band 3 disc (2 CD/1 DVD), limited edition DOWN 3’x 5’ FLAG, limited edition pre-order only T-SHIRT – $45

Guitarist Pepper Keenan affirms, “The DVD is an in-depth look at what five boys from the wrong side of the tracks can achieve when motivated by the will to escape hard times, fueled by an unexplainable quest to destroy live and be embraced by the love of fans whom we had not had the pleasure of meeting yet. This is how it’s supposed to be: rock solid.”

Vocalist Philip Anselmo adds, “This is a semi-ugly glimpse into what would end up the perfect building blocks to a much more prosperous future! Raw, distorted, unpredictable, and with a freshly mended spine in tow, these shows were desperately important to us as a cohesive unit. Take this trip through the old days with us at your own risk, and don’t forget to bring some aspirin!”

Diary of a Mad Band features a 2 CD full concert, live in London! The DVD highlights documented footage marking the 2006 return of DOWN from the practice room through their first European tour, and a bonus behind-the-scenes featurette entitled ‘Tyrades and Shananigans’. The DVD closes in at a blistering 130 minutes! See below for a complete tracklisting of the set:

DVD: Diary of a Mad Band
w/ BONUS DVD FEATURETTE ‘Tyrades and Shananigans’
1. Lysergic Funeral Procession
2. Lifer
3. Losing All
4. Rehab
5. New Orleans Is A Dying Whore
6. Ghosts Along The Mississippi
7. Learn From This Mistake
8. Underneath Everything
9. Temptation’s Wings
10. There’s Something On My Side
11. Hail The Leaf
12. Lies
13. The Seed
14. Eyes Of The South
15. Jail
16. Stone The Crows
17. Bury Me In Smoke

2 CD: LIVE IN EUROPE
1. Losing All
2. Lifer
3. Lysergic Funeral Procession
4. Rehab
5. Temptations Wings
6. Ghosts Along The Mississippi
7. Learn From This Mistake
8. Hail The Leaf
9. New Orleans Is A Dying Whore
10. Lies, I Don’t Know What They Say But…
11. Underneath Everything
12. The Seed
13. Eyes Of The South
14. Jail
15. Stone The Crows
16. Bury Me In Smoke

If that isn’t enough for a rabid fan, a 180 Gram triple vinyl version with a bonus DVD will be available on October 26th! DOWN features the all-star line-up of vocalist Philip Anselmo (Pantera, Arson Anthem), guitarist Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity), guitarist Kirk Windstein (Crowbar, Kingdom of Sorrow), bassist Rex Brown (Pantera), and drummer Jimmy Bower (Eyehategod, Crowbar). Based in New Orleans, LA, DOWN boasts an intense domestic and international fan base. Their last album, III: Over and Under has scanned over 113,000 copies, and internationally, DOWN has seen staggering sales of over 1 million. Regarded as one of the most explosive live acts of our generation, DOWN is constantly touring the globe. Stay tuned for tour dates in the future!

To pre-order Diary of a Mad Band click here.
For more DOWN click here.

Amazon.com has set a an October 5th release date for DOWN‘s forthcoming double-DVD/CD, The Diary Of A Mad Band, via Down/Ada.

Down feature in their ranks guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan (CORROSION OF CONFORMITY), drummer Jimmy Bower (EYEHATEGOD, SUPERJOINT RITUAL guitarist), guitarist Kirk Windstein (CROWBAR), and vocalist Philip Anselmo (SUPERJOINT RITUAL, ex-PANTERA).

The Diary Of A Mad Band captures Down in all its sludged out intensity. This special DVD/CD collection features over 130 minutes of live video footage + a full never-before-released concert. The CD is different from the DVD.

About The Diary Of A Mad Band being caught up in legal issues, Anselmo commented to BraveWords.com recently: “You know something, man, I really haven’t the foggiest notion what all that crap’s about, man. They’ve been back and forth with this damn company so many times and if I said anything right now I’d be a liar ‘cause I don’t know. I’m letting the bigwigs deal with that. I really wish I could tell people. An honest answer, but I just can’t do it, man, so I’m gonna keep that lip zipped, so I don’t know.”

In a July 2010 interview with Altsounds.com Windstein said, “The way we look at it now is that we’re not downing it, no pun intended, but we’re so much better than that now, because when we got back together, Phil had only just gotten over back surgery, but it’s a very good representation of where we were at then and it’s a good rock and roll movie regardless.”

To pre-order Diary Of A Mad Band click here.
For more DOWN click here.