The Story Of Metal - Volume 02, Second Revised Edition, 2022

IN 1992, FOUR YOUNG, REBELLIOUS FIREBRANDS FROM LOS ANGELES RELEASED AN
ALBUM THAT WOULD CHANGE HEAVY MUSIC FOREVER. WE TALK TO THE FORMER MEMBERS
OF RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE – PLUS PRODUCER GARTH RICHARDSON – ABOUT THE DEBUT

ALBUM THAT SPARKED A REVOLUTION

WO R D S : DAV E E V E R L E Y

It was early evening on Sunday, February thousand police sirens wailing all at once, the line This year marks the 25th anniversary of Rage
21, 1993 when the balloon went up. To ‘Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!’ blasted out of Against The Machine’s debut album. Even
the majority of people listening to Radio radio speakers everywhere, not just once, not now, a quarter of a century after it exploded
1’s weekly chart rundown, the name twice, but 16 times. And then, suddenly, it reached like a car bomb under the hood of mainstream
Rage Against The Machine meant its gloriously profane crescendo with one word culture, that record has lost none of its power,
nothing. Why would it? A brand new hurled out with all the anger and pain that could impact or provocative fervour. It was the sound of
band mixing metal and hip hop like no possibly be mustered: ‘MOTHERFUCKER!’ Public Enemy yoked to Black Flag, of Dr Martin
one had done before, they’d yet to make Luther King and Malcolm X set to a soundtrack of
an impact outside of the nation’s rock clubs or the Understandably, the snafu prompted a deluge of cutting-edge metal.
stereos of the more clued-in metal fan. complaints to the BBC from offended listeners.
Bruno Brookes, who was unaware that an unedited Rage arrived as the gloriously shallow,
And so, when presenter Bruno Brookes version of the song had accidentally been aired, MTV-driven rock scene of the 1980s was flat on the
cheerfully announced that their new single, Killing was suspended for a week and almost lost his job. canvas with bluebirds fluttering around its head,
In The Name, had entered the charts at No.27 and In just three and a half minutes, a group of political laid out by the emergent grunge movement. In
cued the song up, neither he nor several million agitators from Los Angeles had detonated a bomb America, a new generation of hip hop bands was
listeners knew what was about to live on the airwaves. providing a vital social commentary, marrying the
happen. gritty reality of the streets with the violent
“We knew the band’s politics were glamour of a Hollywood crime blockbuster. All this
The song started with a coiled radical,” says guitarist Tom was happening against a backdrop of global
guitar and tense bassline, as Morello today. “And that the turmoil, racial tension and the threat of war in the
some guy rapped about the band’s music was a radical Middle East. In hindsight, their timing was perfect.
American police force’s combination of styles. But we
inherent racism with palpable In reality, it was accidental. Vocalist Zack de la
vitriol in his voice: ‘Some of didn’t think it was going to Rocha, guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Timmy C (aka
those who work forces are the matter, ’cos no one was ever Tim Commerford) and drummer Brad Wilk had been
same who burn crosses.’ Then going to hear it.” in various low-level LA bands, including hardcore
– boom! – the whole thing firebrands Inside Out (Zack) and Lock Up (Tom, who
suddenly erupted. Over But people did hear it, in their played on their sole album, the unfortunately
guitars that sounded like a millions. Rage Against The titled Something Bitchin’ This Way Comes).
Machine were about to start a
four-man revolution.

metalhammer.com 51

“I had been in a band that had a record deal, I Tom Morello: visionary,
had already had my grab at the brass ring,” says revolutionary, bloody
Tom. “The band got dropped and I was 26 years loves a baseball cap
old, and I thought that was it. I thought, ‘If I’m
not going to be a rock star, or make albums, I’m at GETTY
least going to play music that I believe in 100%.’
And I was fortunate to meet three people who felt “WE DIDN’T THINK ANYONE
very similarly.”
WOULD HEAR US”
The four were brought together by various
mutual friends, though Zack and Tim had known TOM MORELLO DIDN’T FORESEE RAGE EXPLODING
each other since childhood. Zack and Tom came
from similarly radical backgrounds – Zack was the “More than anything, I remember this In March, Rage embarked on their first proper
son of Mexican-American political artist Robert de connection and movement and momentum that tour as openers for Public Enemy. Thanks to the
la Rocha, Tom was the son of a white American was happening in the room,” he says. “Something controversies whipped up by the US media around
activist mother and a Kenyan diplomat father. clicked. I played so well with Tim and Tom, and ‘gangsta rap’ acts such as NWA and Ice-T,
Growing up, both had experienced racism first then we had Zack, who was a bolt of lightning, mainstream America had a poisonous – read:
hand, and bonded over their hard-left political flying off my kick drum and was in it for real. There virulently racist – relationship with hip hop, and
views – views that would shape Rage from the off. was something really special about what we were trouble was never far away. It was the perfect
doing. We weren’t analysing it or putting our environment for Rage Against The Machine.
“I wanted to ensure the protection of this fingers on it yet. It was just an intense moment for
band’s integrity,” said Zack in 1999. “Our words us all. We saw the very beginning of the potential “The tour was a needlessly controversial one,”
had to be backed up by actions, because we’re we could have.” says Tom. “At the time, rap was considered a
dealing with this huge, monstrous pop culture dangerous endeavour, and the police sometimes
that has a tendency to suck everything that is Like so many Californian bands before them, outnumbered the audience at these shows. They
culturally resistant to it into it in order to pacify it Rage’s first gig took place not at a club but at a tried to shut several down, filed injunctions –
and make it non-threatening.” party, in Huntington Beach, in the sprawling none of which were successful, I might add. We
suburb of Orange County, south of Los Angeles. were playing these colleges, and the audience
Ironically, for a band who would go on to would be 100% white fraternity boys and sorority
become one of themost successful of the 1990s, “It was a party in a house, and the place felt girls, passing through five levels of metal
Rage Against The Machine saw their very existence electric,” says Tim Commerford. “A lot of our songs detectors and pat-downs. I think the cops were
as limiting what they could achieve. didn’t even have vocals at that time. In fact, we afraid that we were going to be bussing in Bloods
played a version of Killing In The Name that was and Crips [gang members] to the show. There was
“We began with zero commercial ambition,” just the music – he hadn’t got the vocals done. You an air of hysteria.”
says Tom. “I didn’t think we’d be able to book a gig could feel the electricity. It felt like holding on to
in a club, let alone get a record deal. There was no a fucking live wire. That’s what it was: a live wire. Today, the guitarist still expresses
market for multi-racial, neo-Marxist rap-metal And it kept getting more and more live.” bafflement that anyone at all would want to
punk rock bands. That didn’t exist. So we made take a chance on Rage Against Their Machine
this music that was just 100% authentic, it was Collectively, Rage were fans of hip hop, and Tom and their political message, let alone a corporate
100% what we felt like playing. We had no recalls the band’s early days being sound-tracked record company. But their 12-track demo tape
expectations.” by the likes of Public Enemy and Cypress Hill. But found its way into the hands of Michael Goldstone,
while hip hop provided a big steer for the band, it the Epic Records A&R hotshot who’d previously
Still, it was clear to the members of Rage from wasn’t their sole influence. All four had grown up signed Pearl Jam.
the start that they were onto something on guitar music ranging from 70s rock and 80s
unique. Brad Wilk can vividly recollect the metal to punk. “Our only goal was to make music for ourselves
band’s very first rehearsal. and to make our own record – a cassette tape, an
“Our histories run deep, that’s why we were the elaborate demo tape of the 12 songs we had
ZnBaercwikxltydoecnolAancvRaeodrctehemadypairtneLa1oc9nh9de3osnt’os the band we were,” says Brad. “We didn’t just listen to written,” says Tom. “That was our entire goal. We
hip hop, we listened to all kinds of things, from never thought we’d play a show. We never thought
GETTY Black Sabbath to Led Zeppelin to Minor Threat and we’d make a record.”
the Sex Pistols. When we were getting together,
we agreed that we wanted our record to sound Garth Richardson was a young Canadian studio
somewhere between Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most engineer whose biggest credit came on an album
Wanted and Led Zeppelin’s Houses Of The Holy.”

52 metalhammer.com

ROSS HALFIN Rage Against The Machine (left
to right): Tom Morello, Zack de la
Rocha, Tim Commerford, Brad Wilk

metalhammer.com 53

A youthful Rage play FRANK WHITE
Wetlands Preserve,
New York in 1992

by hair metal B-listers White Lion. But he was “COPS were afraid.
young and hungry, and when Epic asked his boss,
producer Michael Wagener, who should work on there was hysteria”
the debut album by this hot new rap-metal band
they had signed, he was an obvious choice.

“I got the demo tape and went, ‘Holy shit.’

There was nothing else like it,” he recalls. “I went POLICE WERE DAUNTED BY RAGE’S HIP HOP CONNECTIONS
over to see them play in their jam space. I think

they played me four songs, and I was blown away, Killing In The Name. “There was a big conversation was teaching some Hollywood rock musician how

to the point where I couldn’t talk afterwards, about that,” remembers Garth. “And the band just to do drop-D tuning. In the midst of showing him,

because my stutter was so bad. I was like, ‘Are you said, ‘Fuck you, that part stays.’” I came up with that riff. I said, ‘Hold on a second’,

fucking kidding me – I’m going to be doing this Killing In The Name would be the song that broke and I recorded it on my little cassette recorder to

band?’ It was their power, and also what Zack was the band in the UK. For six months, it bring into the rehearsal the next day, never

saying. It was so fresh and so new.” soundtracked every rock club in the country, its realising that it would be the genesis of a song

Rage began recording their debut album with impassioned call-to-arms galvanising dancefloors that would have that lasting impact.”

Garth in March 1992. Seven of the 12 tracks from of people out to party. Yet, like so many of the

the demo tape, including Killing In The Name, great songs, it came about by accident. In April 1992, a series of riots erupted in Los
Bomb Track and Bullet In The Head, would appear “I remember coming up with that riff,” says Angeles when four white policemen were

on the album. Tom. “I was giving guitar lessons at the time, and I acquitted of beating African-American

“The songs were probably about 85 to 90% motorist Rodney King, despite the assault being

there,” remembers Garth. We made a few changes, filmed by a witness standing onhis balcony.For

mostly lyrically. Literally, somebody just had America,it was a moment of chaos. For

to capture them.” Rage AgainstThe Machine, who

To achieve this, the producer brought in a had already recorded their debut

full concert PA system to get the full impact album and would release it in

of the band’s live firepower. This was November, the timing was

undiluted Rage – though sometimes it unfortunately convenient.

created unforeseen problems. “All of those songs were

“The problem is that sometimes Zack’s written prior tothe Rodney King

voice went,” says Garth. “He was working it riots,” says Tom. “In some ways

so hard. The end of Freedom, where he’s the record was prescient, in that it

screaming, ‘Freedom!’, that’s just one take. saw this maelstrom of racial strife

Every time he sang, he gave it his all. and imperialist war on the

Anybody that wanted him to hold back, he horizon. When the record hit, it

was, like, ‘No, fuck off, leave me alone.’” was a fertile field for us to have the

Given the incendiary lyrical subject ear of audiences around the

matter, there was surprisingly little input world.”

from Epic. They seemed to learn their Rage see no evil, Rage were proudly revolutionary
lesson after suggesting the band remove speak no evil in – too revolutionary for America,
the line ‘Now you’re under control’ from the early 90s who were slow to catch on. Britain

GETTY

54 metalhammer.com

FRANK WHITE 1993’s Lollapalooza Tool’s Maynard James Keenan was in the running to
didn’t know what hit it be the frontman of Rage, and actually sings on Know
Your Enemy. He guested with them at festivals, such
as this July 1993 Lollapalooza show

FRANK WHITE

TibFeTiStgimaahnntCiFFnorrgmaenetmhdceieosrmcgfoooCroidondna1fict9egt9rhh6tte,:

was a different matter, as Bruno Brookes’ “I HEARD THE
unfortunate Radio 1 mishap proved. DEMO AND WENT,

“The UK was the first place people lost
their minds over this music,” says Tom.
“One ofthe principal reasons was that

there were more lax lyrical censorship ‘HOLY SHIT’!”
laws on your MTV and radio. We
never edited the curse words out of

songs, so people in the United States PRODUCER GARTH RICHARDSON WAS OVER GETTY
couldn’t even hear them on MTV, they THE MOON WITH WHAT HE HEARD
couldn’t hear them on radio. And secondly,

people over there were surprised to hear an itself featureda 1963 picture of Vietnamese monk

American band that had a view of America that Thich Quang Duc setting himself on fire in comes with being in a revolutionary left-wing

was similar to Europe’s view of America.” protestof his government’s oppression of band eventually took its toll. Tensions between

From that small spark,a conflagration began to Buddhism. It was the ultimate visual the band members grew, and Rage split up in 2000

spread, as word about Rage Against The Machine representationof protest. after just three studio albums. They have

grew. Their snowballing success had the desired “My heroes were not guys in rock bands,” says sporadically reformed since – most famously for a

effect, as a generation – or at least sections of it Tom. “They were revolutionaries who were fighting one-off gig in London’s Finsbury Park, after a

– began to wake up to the messages they were to change the world. It looked like we were going fan-led campaign saw a reissued Killing In The

delivering through the bullhorn of their songs. to have an opportunity to get in that arena. This Name trounce the Simon Cowell-backed X-Factor

Musically, too, they dragged the dormant was an incredible opportunity to engage the winner Joe McElderry to the 2009 Christmas No.1.

rap-metal movement that had briefly flared up in planet – not just with our music, but with our But they have been inactive since 2011 – a

the late 1980s back out of its stupor (in ideas.” situation that looks unlikely to change soon, with

Bakersfield, California, the members of a brand Zack working on new solo material and the other

newband named Korn were certainly paying The success of Rage Against The Machine took three members now in rap-metal supergroup
attention to what Rage were doing). everyone by surprise, not least Rage Against Prophets Of Rage (see page 44).
The Machine. They rapidly went from being
Plus, society was changing fast in the early 90s. A quarter of a century after it was released,

While sexism, racism and homophobia were still the outcasts of the Hollywood scene to a lightning however, Rage’s debut remains a landmark – the

unfortunately prevalent, there was growing rod for the alt-rock movement. Rather than point where rap and metal truly came together to

opposition to such outdated outlooks. Rage blunting their political edge, success only deliver a body-blow to the status quo.

AgainstThe Machine took it several steps further, sharpened it – most famously in 1993, when they “Human strife has not changed. Racism has not

crediting Black Panthers founder Huey Newton took to the stage at a Lollapallooza festival show changed. Things have actually gone backwards,”

and Provisional IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands in Philadelphia naked, apart from gaffa tape over says Garth Richardson. “Rage Against The Machine

on the credits list to their album – a contentious their mouths, as a protest against censorship. wrote an incredible record that was current – and

move on both sides of the Atlantic. The sleeve But the pressure-cooker environment that it will be time and time and time again.”

metalhammer.com 55

SleepleSSIn Sea

“We hated commercIal muSIc.
and then We became that thIng.
that WaS a moment of crISIS.”

chrIS cornell

56 metalhammer.com

ttle Grunge‘s founding fathers, Soundgarden watched the bands they
inspired shoot past them. But with their mighty fourth album,
Superunknown, they would help define the 1990s.

WordS: Ian WInWood portraIt: roSS halfIn

I t begins with a simple question. On the line guitarist Chris Cornell, a man whose squeeze-my-
is Ben Shepherd, bassist with Soundgarden, lemon looks and captivating voice gave his band an
and a man whose speaking voice sounds organic, classic rock quality. “Although we had only
like Tom Waits were his batteries running been known internationally for a couple of years, we
down. With a truck driver’s abruptness and had been a band for quite a long time by that point.
heavily creased look, ‘rustic’ would be a So we needed to express ourselves differently… And
good word to describe him. This evening for me personally, I finally had the tools to take the
music I heard in my head and express it in the way
Shepherd is on the stump to talk about his that I really wanted to.”

band’s fourth album, the timeless Superunknown,

which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary. I ask

him what it is that he hears when he listens to the t he album that would elevate its creators to
much the same level as some of the bands
album now. they initially influenced shimmered into view

“I’ve never listened to it,” Shepherd says in a voice

that sounds like a heavy door slowly creaking shut. in increments, the fragments of which can be

Right. What? traced back well before its release in March 1994.

“I’ve never listened to it. I turned my back on it.” Four years previously the group were riding on the

Okay. And why did you do that? Santa Monica Freeway when the radio station

“Because it went to number one. I thought, Oh KROQ tossed Get On The Snake on to the air. The

crap, we’re now one of those bands. Fuck everything,” song was from the group’s second album and major-

he says. When Shepherd says this, he sounds not like label debut Louder Than Love, as gnarled and testing a

a well-cossetted rock musician who has earned record as Soundgarden would ever make. Cornell

significant wealth from his couldn’t believe that his band

trade, but rather like his younger were being played on

self: a man whose band were a mainstream US rock station.

once signed to Black Flag He was also struck by how at

guitarist Greg Ginn’s avowedly home the song sounded on

do-it-your-fucking-self label the radio, even though “it was

SST, and who has never risen different from everything else

above this station. that was being played”.

“I don’t like the production of Of course, this was at a

that record,” he says. “I don’t like time when the tectonic plates

how it sounds. I don’t like how it beneath the very foundations

looks. If people like it then I’m of modern rock music were

flattered and I’m honoured and soon to buckle and crack. The

all that ‘make people happy site of all this activity was not

bullshit’. But, for me, when an located on the San Andreas

album is done, it’s done, it’s time fault, but the hitherto

to move on to something else.” unheralded and charmingly

Here – and there is rain-soaked North-Western

a reasonable chance that he city of Seattle. Before you

knows this – Shepherd is talking could say ‘the times they are

out of his hat. Even before the a-changing’, Soundgarden

passage of time had enabled had been joined at the major

listeners to properly separate the label table by fellow Seattle-ites

wheat from the Weetabix of the and kindred spirits Mother

rock music released in the Love Bone, Alice In Chains,

1990s, it was obvious that Nirvana and, later, Pearl Jam.

Superunknown was the most Nirvana bassist Krist

exceptional offering from a Novoselic claims that it was

band whose overall body of Soundgarden’s decision to

work is rarely less than sign with A&M Records – and

exceptional. Painted on a canvas CHARLES PETERSON the advice given by the latter’s

that may as well have been hung Smile if you think then-manager, Susan Silver –
on the side of a 15-storey your album’s going
apartment building, the 16-song to sell a few. that had given his own three-

piece group the confidence to

set cruised from the impossibly sign with the Geffen label.

claustrophobic (Limo Wreck, 4th Of July) to the oddly And then it all happened. Within four weeks of

anthemic (Superunknown, Black Hole Sun) to the each other, Nirvana released Nevermind and Pearl Jam

downright playful (Kickstand). The album – as unveiled Ten, and suddenly scores of well-groomed

Soundgarden themselves would never dream of hard rock and metal bands found that overnight their

putting it – exploded into the sky, debuting at No.1 futures had been cancelled and their pasts negated.

on the US Billboard Hot 200 chart and going on to sell With what was at the time almost a footnote, on

more than five million copies in the US alone. October 8, 1991 Soundgarden released their third

“Musically we were ready to try on a lot of new album, Badmotorfinger, a record that, despite paling

clothes, in a sense,” says singer and occasional in comparison to these other two ➻

metalhammer.com 57

Heading into the “I lIke that Some people
Superunknown: (l-r) Kim don’t lIke uS. I lIke that
Thayil, Chris Cornell, We’re Smarter and that
Matt Cameron and Ben We’re darker than them.”
Shepherd.
ben Shepherd

albums, would sell more than a million copies Shepherd – this despite the bassist claiming to
dislike the sound of Superunknown. “He totally
in America. thought outside of the box. Then again, I’d just
go in there, record my parts and then leave.”
Suddenly – and it really was very sudden
Kim Thayil remembers the recording
indeed – it wasn’t so much a case of the Jet City experience rather differently. The guitarist says
that Soundgarden “were strong-headed
being placed on the map, but rather there no enough not to do anything that we didn’t want
to do”, and so Michael Beinhorn’s reputation as
longer being any maps at all, just a handwritten “a taskmaster wouldn’t really have worked with
us because we would have stood up to that. He
sign that pointed to one destination: Seattle. wasn’t a drill sergeant, but he could certainly be
a monumental pain in the ass. If he got us
“When Nevermind came out and Ten came motivated he did so by being the flea on the
elephant’s bum.”
out, this was the year that we released our For example?
“He was difficult because he’d want us to repeat
fourth album,” says Soundgarden guitarist Rehearsals for the things over and over again, whereas we wanted
Kim Thayil. “We’d been a band then for seven DASuevpaceesmtrusbnteukrndo1io9w,9nS3et.oauttrl,eaitn things to be fresh; we certainly didn’t want to beat
years. We’d toured the country more than something to death. I remember I played the main
once in a van. So I think we definitely did look riff to Limo Wreck for about two or three days, over
and over again, trying to hone it down and to get
at those albums and think, well we’ve the sound right. Now as far as I’m concerned, he’s
the engineer, so he can be concerned about the
definitely paid our dues, so it would be nice if we sound. If he’s having me play a riff over and over
again for three days trying to get a good amp
had a bit of that actual success rather than just I think we knew that what we were writing was sound, then he’s wearing out my fingers in order
to impress his ears.”
critical acclaim, you know? At the time, we were different from what we’d done before. I knew that In the intervening years other stories of
complications of a different kind have leaked
getting by pretty much on positive [press] reviews internally we were now really stretching our limbs.” into the public domain. Several years ago, Cornell
revealed that he was “drunk” for the recording
alone. It would be nice to be able to buy a home, of Soundgarden’s final two albums. On hearing
this today, Thayil says: “Chris said he was what?
I remember thinking, because at that time I was r ecording sessions for the album began at Drunk?” in the same way he might say: “Chris said
living in the same place that I lived in when I went Bad Animals Studios in Seattle in July ’93 he was a sabre tooth tiger?”
to college. That kind of security would make the and ran for almost three months. In an “Alcohol was never part of our creative process,”

emotional and musical investment worthwhile.” effort to fully re-imagine their sound, the

Cryptically, Cornell describes the writing band took the unusual decision to record each

process for Superunknown as being “as easy or as track one at a time. It was an exacting process. And

difficult as we wanted to make them”. Writing in order to help shape their material in the

sessions began after the band’s appearance at unforgiving confines of the studio they enlisted the

1992’s Lollapalooza tour. The process was reactive, services of a producer whose pursuit of specific

rather than mapped out in advance. sounds for certain songs was recognised as being

“We’d listen to the material we’d gotten together relentless.

and then analyse what we had, what we felt about Michael Beinhorn began his musical life as

it and what it said about where we were as a band,” a musician in the 1970s. As a producer he made

says Thayil. “Nothing was premeditated. We his bow with the great jazz pianist Herbie

weren’t the kind of band that talked about that Hancock, and by the time Nirvana had rerouted CHARLES PETERSON

kind of stuff.” the musical A To Z, he had worked with Red Hot

“I can’t say that we knew that what we had was Chili Peppers and Soul Asylum, among others.

significant in a wider sense,” says Cornell, “but “To me, Beinhorn was an innovator,” says Ben

58 metalhammer.com

SOUNDGARDEN

says Cornell. “It was never an a world where commerce was “people Would Shout out:
inspiration for writing songs. If frowned upon and where it seemed
anything, it slowed us down. But if a that there had to be some of kind of ‘Spoonman!
song was written, then I might get deception involved in getting mass Save me!’”
drunk in the studio. There is the amounts of people to buy your
thing of making things as difficult music. That was the world that we Meet the real-life inspiration
for yourself as you can. You still hated. But not just that, we took a behind soundgarden’s single.
triumph, but if there’s no platform on the fact that we hated
impediments in the way then it, as in: ‘Look, we hate this – we of all the people who have
sometimes you don’t really get hate commercial music.’ And then inspired songs over the years,
a sense of achievement out of it. we became that thing. So now few are as interesting as Artis
So making things difficult for what do we say? That we were The Spoonman. A street
ourselves was definitely something liars? It was a moment of crisis, performer from Seattle, he
that we did.” although I think it was less for us inspired and appeared on Soundgarden’s
because we weren’t a band that had 1994 single, Spoonman.
If Cornell – or any other member had overnight success.
of Soundgarden, for that matter Artis began playing spoons at the age
– was blind drunk during the “But we toured with Guns N’ of 10. Following a stint in the US Navy, he
recording of Superunknown, it doesn’t Roses, and saw what the ultimate began hitchhiking and busking around
show. Mixed by Brendan O’Brien, it end result of that kind of thing the country in the early 70s. “I have felt
was unveiled to the rest of world on could be. And that wasn’t a strong urge to be a musician/performer
March 7, 1994 and a day later in the something we were comfortable since I was a young boy,” Artis told Classic
US. Reviews were effusive, and with. It wasn’t something we Rock. “Spoons became an inadvertent
advance chatter volcanic. Better yet, aspired to; we were self-conscious vehicle. I started making tips in 1974, and
in the three years that had elapsed on stage in a 60,000-seat stadium.” lived on it ever since.”
since the release of Badmotorfinger
Soundgarden had been the But then everything changed In the early 80s, Artis appeared on stage
beneficiaries of that most precious again. Just a month after with Frank Zappa. “I played along with a
of things: word-of-mouth buzz. The Superunknown had been introduced drum machine and got to tell Zappa when
ground, clearly, was prepared for to its waiting public, Soundgarden to turn it off,” he says. “I always thought of
the eruption that followed. Within were in Paris, on tour with another it as conducting Zappa.”
seven days the album was the most Seattle band, Tad, when their tour
sought-after property in America. manager took a call from their But it was as an unlikely muse
then-manager Susan Silver relaying for Soundgarden that Artis shot to
for all their achievements the news that Kurt Cobain had prominence. The attention that came via
inside and outside of the called time on the alternative Spoonman was welcome. “I’d be driving
studio, there was a nagging movement by firing the finishing along and someone would shout out:
doubt at the heart of gun. What followed, according to ‘Spoonman! Save me!’ It was awesome.
Soundgarden. The profile of other Chris Cornell, “was a strange and I got gigs I wouldn’t have gotten for at
bands from their home town both emotional night”. least a year or two. I’m still celebrated
lessened and enlarged the impact of and complimented some places I go.”
Superknown’s success. And that, really, was the end
of that. On an individual level Post-Spoonman, Artis released his own
“There was an impact that the Soundgarden would continue album, Entertain The Entertainers, and
record had that was definitely piled apace, releasing one more album, continued to play on the streets of Seattle
on top of all the other success Down On The Upside, in 1996, and elsewhere. He appeared on stage with
stories that were coming out of before disbanding the following Aerosmith (“Steven Tyler called me out
Seattle at that time,” says Thayil. year (they re-formed in 2010 and of an audience of 10,000 to sit-in”), and
“We felt that what was good for released the excellent King Animal Cornell’s later band Audioslave.
Nirvana was good for us. Without album in 2013). But the passion
that context, whatever success and energy of the movement as a After a lifetime of struggle with
Superunknown would have had whole had been sucked from the drink and drugs, Artis has been clean
would have been more personal. room. Within months of Cobain’s and sober for more than five years. He
But because of that wider context, it suicide, listeners signalled a set up a non-profit organisation Artis
made the success a lot bigger, but weariness with the tone of The Spoonman’s Soup Spoon Fund as
also in some ways a bit smaller, if despondency inherent in much a vehicle for mental and physical health
that makes sense.” alternative rock. This they did by programs (there are plans for a fundraiser
voting into power a related yet fundamentally later this year). But does this one-off
A corollary to this was a city-and movement- different movement, spearheaded by Green Day. character have a philosophy for life?
wide uneasiness regarding the pursuit of What remains is music that has aced the test of
commercial success. This was a musical first. The time. Of this, no record stands taller than “If you have a philosophy for life, live it
alternative generation of the 1990s was a Superunknown, an album that, even a generation and keep your mouth shut about it.”
movement ridden with guilt. And despite the fact on, still stands coiled and rattling with turmoil,
that Superunknown utilised the marketing and trouble and spite. On the subject of which, the metalhammer.com 59
promotional tools of the day with some panache final word goes to Ben Shepherd.
– with videos for the album’s five singles (most “You know,” he says, “I like playing the iTunes
notably the magnificently creepy clip for Black Hole festivals for those Apple robber barons. We play
Sun) being shown on heavy rotation on MTV – this Superunknown and people are all: ‘Yay, we’re
was a concern from which Soundgarden were happy!’ But then we get to Limo Wreck and
not excused. suddenly they’re all: ‘Oh, Soundgarden is dark!
No wonder they never got to be as big as Pearl
“It was the first time that successful bands Jam.’ I like that some people don’t like us. I like
became very self-conscious about what success that we’re smarter than them and that we’re
would mean for them,” says Cornell. “We felt as if darker than them.”
we had to explain ourselves. We came from

press In a year of game-
changing albums,
Machine Head’s 1994
debut Burn My Eyes
stood out. Inspired by
riots and religious cults,
this is the story behind
an absolute classic

Words: dom LaWson

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machine head

memteatlahlahmamemre.cro.cmom6161

rode my bike through identity. Meanwhile, Robb needed help robb Flynn: al Jourgensen’s
the riots,” Robb Flynn to record his audition for Ministry’s loss is very much our gain
remembers, thinking touring guitarist role, so he enlisted
back to the disorder drummer Chris Kontos, a veteran of the Machine Head line-up set about
that spread across San Bay Area hardcore scene with the likes establishing themselves as a ferocious
Francisco’s streets in of Attitude Adjustment and Grinch. new force in the Bay Area and beyond.
1992, sparked by the
riots in LA, where more “One of Chris’s bands had a rehearsal “Tony got us our first gig in Las Vegas,
than 50 people would be killed and more place in Oakland, three blocks from a club show,” Robb recalls. “We went
than 2,000 injured. The unrest had where the stabbing incident happened down to Vegas, played to 40 people and
begun after the acquittal of four white at the gas station [as documented in then got wasted! Ha ha! After that, we
police officers charged with beating Machine Head’s Triple Beam, from last had a couple of things under our belts
black motorist Rodney King. “People year’s Catharsis album]. So going into and right about that time Joey [Huston]
were fighting police, cars were being lit this neighbourhood, we were bringing became our manager and that’s when
on fire. Police were trying to chase me guns, we had hoodies up, just trying to things really started happening.”
down, gang bangers were trying to be super-incognito and it was tense! But
chase me down, it was crazy, but I just we got in there and Chris had this high- f Machine Head’s demo hadn’t been
had to feel that chaos, soak it in. I was tech boombox so we could record in enough to convince Al Jourgensen,
possessed to be there, and a lot of that stereo, and we just sat and jammed. It it certainly grabbed the attention of
intensity came out in Machine Head.” was exciting! As far as I was concerned, Roadrunner Records, who signed the
They’ve become such a permanent, that was it. Chris was in bands that were band in 1993 before even having seen
unquestioned fixture in the metal world doing stuff… I was at ground zero… I’m them play live. With the likes of Fear
that it’s easy to forget the monstrous hoping to tour with Ministry… so there Factory, Sepultura, Obituary and Type O
impact of Machine Head’s first album, was no talk of him joining the band.” Negative on their books, Roadrunner
Burn My Eyes. Released by Roadrunner were the perfect home for Robb’s
Records on August 9, 1994, it was hailed As Robb notes with a wry smile, the epoch-wrenching take on the metal
as an instant classic and became the call from Ministry never came. Instead, blueprint: all the band needed was a
label’s biggest-selling debut ever (an Robb powered ahead with his new debut album worthy of their burgeoning
accolade it retained until Slipknot’s band. Completed by bassist Adam reputation. With Tony Costanza
breakthrough in ’99). With its ground- Duce, guitarist Logan Mader and departing and Chris Kontos returning,
breaking blend of thuggish grooves, drummer Tony Costanza, with whom this time on a permanent basis,
vicious thrash and hip hop bravado, not Robb wrote several songs that would Machine Head were ready to deliver the
to mention frontman Robb Flynn’s end up on Burn My Eyes, the first goods on tape. Recorded at Berkeley’s
incendiary lyrics, Burn My Eyes did more Fantasy Studios, and produced by
than most to redefine metal in the 90s. legendary metal guru Colin Richardson,
In fact, forging a new path for metal Burn My Eyes’ ultra-modern metal
was precisely what Robb had in mind anthems perfectly encapsulated both
when he formed Machine Head as Robb’s intense focus and the self-
a side-project, while still a member inflicted chaos of the young band’s lives.
of Bay Area thrashers Vio-lence.
“I love those guys and I loved all the
music that we made together, but I was
ready for something else in my life,”
Robb recalls today. “So I quit Vio-lence
in ’92. Right around that time, Ministry
needed a touring guitar player. They
were fucking massive at that point, it
was the Psalm 69 era. They wanted to
hear some stuff and I don’t know why,
but I had some chip on my shoulder and
didn’t want to send them old music.
I wanted to send them new music.”
Robb had already written a handful
of new songs, including Death Church,
a slow-burning monster that was
purposefully distinct from anything
he’d written with Vio-lence or his
other former band, Forbidden. With
syncopated, grinding riffs redolent of
Godflesh and Neurosis, and lyrics that
went straight for religion’s jugular,
Machine Head already had a strong

“We had guns and our getty
hoodies up, trying to
be super-incognito”

6262memteatlahlahmammemre.cro.cmom

machine head

adam Duce gets wild inventive, he wrote about the bloody
Waco Siege of 1993 in legendary opener
getty “It was a crazy, intense time. We’d go “We smoked so Davidian. David Koresh, leader of
in and record every day,” says Robb. religious cult the Branch Davidians,
“The guys were all smoking weed. I was much Weed that was holed up in his compound in Texas
sober because I was so fucking focused when a stand-off started between him
on getting shit right. But Chris tells this We set off the and the government, who wanted to
story about how we smoked so much arrest him on charges of illegal firearms
weed that we set off the fire alarms and fire alarms and and explosives. Fifty-one days into the
almost killed everybody with the Halon siege, he and almost 80 followers died
gas that was going to be released. It nearly died” in a fire following an FBI assault. The
sucks all of the oxygen out! Ha ha!” FBI maintain they did not start the fires.
“Yeah, that’s something that got
Twenty-five years on, few fans would stuck with us because Pantera were Robb wrote about the riots in LA in
dispute the enduring power of songs popular at the time. Did we like 1992 in twisted interlude Real Eyes,
like Davidian, Block and Blood For Blood. Pantera? Of course. I’m not gonna say Realize, Real Lies and album closer Block.
With enough old-school bite to keep that they weren’t an influence. When Meanwhile, other songs took pointed
the thrash contingent happy and vast we were making Burn My Eyes, I was all jabs at religion and political corruption,
quantities of contemporary punch and about Dimebag’s guitar tone, it was the while slow-burner I’m Your God Now
invention, Burn My Eyes made a decent sickest shit ever! But musically we were tackled the horrors of drug addiction.
fist of uniting the tribes. The album’s coming from a different place. We were
impact was immediate, particularly in coming from Metallica and Slayer, we Twenty-five years later, it all seems
the UK and Europe, but until those sales were coming from Neurosis, we were disturbingly relevant to mankind’s
figures rolled in, Robb remained unsure coming from hardcore and rap. It was current state of disarray. When Robb
whether the band had a bright future. just this confluence of music and expressed doubts about the lyrics to
passion and drive, in a really intense Davidian (‘Let freedom ring with a shotgun
“We didn’t think we were going to time in our lives, and it became this blast!’) after the mass shooting in Vegas
conquer the world,” he shrugs. “We crazy mishmash of music that really in October 2017, it emphasised the
knew the shit we were playing was shouldn’t have worked. No one realised edgy, subversive power that Machine
super-aggressive and was never going it was possible. But we did it and it went Head were wielding back in those early
to fly on the radio. I wasn’t sitting there on to change stuff. It’s nuts.” days: this was music born of chaos and
thinking, ‘Oh this is going to set the rage. No compromise, no fucks given.
world on fire!’ I just remember trying to If Machine Head’s music was an
make it as heavy, intense, pissed-off, unstoppable force, Robb Flynn’s “I feel proud of what I was able to say
experimental and wild as possible.” identity as a lyricist was established in those songs,” Robb states. “I don’t
with similar vigour on Burn My Eyes. want to say it’s political, but songs like
Was he conscious of his sound being Davidian and Block were documenting
genuinely new and groundbreaking? Remorselessly furious but literate and all the crazy shit that was going on.
Machine Head got tagged with the Until then, there was a lot of fantasy
Pantera/‘groove metal’ thing, but they stuff in metal and I couldn’t connect
never really sounded like that... with it. Rap and punk rock were still
about the streets and protest and anger.
Anger, whether it was right or wrong,
just spraying it everywhere, is definitely
what was getting me off.”

As it turned out, a lot of people
shared Robb’s proclivity for fury.
Within a matter of months, Machine
Head were being talked about as
heavyweights, and following a major
European tour as main support to
Slayer, the band were soon back as
headliners. The rest, as they say, is
history – albeit history with a shitload
of ups, downs and unexpected detours.

In 2019, Robb is a very different man
from the incensed, snotty hooligan who
bellowed those Burn My Eyes classics.
But despite being older and wiser, there
lingers a sense that if a riot breaks out
any time soon, Robb will be on his bike
and into the fray before you can say
‘fuck it all’. This autumn, Oakland’s
premier riot-starters ride again.

“Think about what would’ve
happened if I had got the Ministry gig,”
chuckles Robb. “Machine Head may
never have fucking happened. Life is so
crazy like that. Burn My Eyes could’ve
been our only chance, so we had to come
out swinging and swinging harder than
any motherfucker out there.”

memteatlahlahmammemre.cro.cmom6363

KO N

As Korn dusted off their Adidas trackies for
their 20th anniversary shows in 1994,
Jonathan Davis and Munky revisited their
self-titled debut. Are you readyyyyy?

WORDS: PAUL BRANNIGAN

64 metalhammer.com

KO N

here’s a certain irony in the fact that a constant deep, dark groove with a hypnotic Ross Robinson who suggested doing a version of GETTY
rock critics were busy writing obituaries sense of melody”. it, so we rearranged it, and I remember the
for Kurt Cobain as Korn arrived at Indigo demo version of it being super heavy. We were
Ranch studios to record their debut As the band prepared to return to the UK in like, ‘Wow, this has to be on the album.’”
album. For in time, the music the July 2015 for two special shows at which they
Bakersfield, California, quintet recorded will perform their eponymous debut collection JONATHAN: “When my first band broke up,
at the picturesque Malibu studio would kill in full, Hammer spoke to founding members I asked my friend Ryan [Shuck], who went on to
off grunge just as emphatically as Jonathan Davis (vocals) and Munky (guitar), join Orgy, if I could keep the song. The way we
Nirvana’s arrival in the mainstream about their memories of recording this metallic did it was completely different to the original
signalled the death knell for 80s hair milestone. version anyway. What was I going for lyrically?
metal. Introduced by Jonathan Davis’s I have no fucking idea, brother! This was just a
electrifying call to arms, “Are you ready?”, “It was a bunch of kids from Bakersfield
Korn’s self-titled debut album is the sound of a living out their rock’n’roll dreams,” says
musical revolution – a brutal, thrillingly Jonathan. “I remember it as a really cool
invigorating re-imagining of metal for a new experience.”
millennium, which has lost nothing of its
power and impact two decades on. “If we’d known just how important the album
Forensically dissected, the source materials for would become, maybe we’d have tried to stay
its hybrid sound are easily discerned, with Korn sober for some of it!” Munky adds with a laugh.
owing a debt of thanks to Pantera, Rage
Against The Machine, Faith No More and the BLIND
woozy, noir atmospherics of West Coast
hip-hop. But in collaboration with maverick THE BIRTH OF A LEGEND, AND ONE OF THE
producer Ross Robinson, Korn created a ALL-TIME CLASSIC ALBUM OPENERS
distinctive, innovative and unique new
vocabulary for metal which would MUNKY: “The riff came from Jonathan’s old
singularly redefine the musical band, SexArt. Head and I saw them play at
landscape. some little club and I remember thinking the
On its release in October 1994, riff was pretty cool – it was in a different key,
Metal Hammer commented that but still really heavy. It felt like new territory;
“throughout the 12 tracks, there is
like something I’d never heard before.
I think it might have been

DRUGS FUELLED THE CREATION OF CLOWN, REMEMBERS MUNKY

metalhammer.com 65

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MUNKY RAILS AGAINST THE HOMOPHOBIC BULLYING DETAILED ON FAGET MUNKY: “When people first heard this, they were
like, ‘Holy shit!’ It’s kinda like Rage Against The
stream-of-consciousness thing; it was all over the CLOWN Machine on steroids. Sometimes people need to be
place. I think it’s about being blind to your told to fuck off.”
reality; blocking the shit out that you don’t want JONATHAN DAVIS ATTACKS SMALLTOWN JONATHAN: “Growing up, I was a new romantic.
to see or hear. Every single fucking time we start INTOLERANCE AND PREJUDICE. THE VIDEO FOR My favourite band was Duran Duran, so I’d wear
this up and see how the crowd reacts, it’s THE SONG REVISITED HIS MEMORIES OF BEING make-up and long shirts, and in Bakersfield – an
incredible. Metalheads love this song.” BULLIED IN HIGH SCHOOL oil and farming town – there were a lot of macho
MUNKY: “Head and I wrote the main riff for this jocks who took offence to that. I got my ass kicked
BALL TONGUE in our neighbour’s apartment in Huntington and got called a ‘faggot’ all the time. I wasn’t gay,
Beach when we were pretty high: we had been up but it got to the point where I thought that maybe
SCAT VOCALS, HIP-HOP BEATS, DISSONANT all night doing crystal meth. I’m not sure that I was gay, and just didn’t know it. It really fucked
SEVEN-STRING GUITARS... THE SOUND OF THE drugs opened our minds creatively, but they made with my head, and I had to get that shit off my
FUTURE. JONATHAN RECORDED THE VOCALS AT us push our abilities to our limits, and pushed our chest. Still to this day, it feels so good to be able
HIS FATHER’S FAT TRACKS STUDIO WHILE HIGH boundaries in terms of making the sounds we to scream it out. Bullying is not some rite of
ON CRYSTAL METH heard it in our heads a reality.” passage that people should accept, it’s bullshit,
JONATHAN: “When we moved to Huntington JONATHAN: “I remember the show that inspired and I hope this song has helped people. Every
Beach, we rehearsed in Anaheim, at a place called the lyrics. We were playing this club in San Diego, time I sing this I relive that shit. It’s my therapy,
Underground Chicken Sound. The owner then and this fucking old skinhead punk kept I guess.”
started managing us. We were all doing lots of screaming, ‘You’re not from HB [Huntington
speed at the time, but when he was tweaking he’d Beach], you’re from Bakersfield!’ I was like, ‘I SHOOTS AND LADDERS
get cramp or something, and his tongue would don’t give a fuck where we’re from, bro.’ Eventually
ball up in his mouth. We’d be like, ‘Uh-oh, he’s he took a swing at me, and Ball Tongue jumped up BAGPIPES, NURSERY RHYMES, ATONAL RIFFS...
getting ball tongue…’ and knocked him the fuck out; laid him out right NO OTHER BAND ON THE PLANET SOUNDED LIKE
MUNKY: “His tongue would freeze up and he there. They dragged him out of the club, and THIS IN 1994
couldn’t talk. He’d be going, [unintelligible halfway through the set I could see him out back, MUNKY: “Jonathan is an amazing bagpipes
gurgling noise] ‘Guuurrggghhh, gahhh!’ Odd then, jamming to the music. That tells you what kind of player, and the first time we heard him play
but funny now! This has got a great ‘hit you over fucking clown he was.” we were like, ‘Holy shit, we have to put this on the
the head’ riff: it was one of the first songs where record!’ We knew AC/DC did it, so we tried to
Head [guitars] and I developed call-and-answer DIVINE figure out the tuning and mould the riff around it.
guitar parts and it worked out cool.” This song, for me, fed into the idea of the album
JONATHAN: “When we got signed and went on to A FILTHY, ROLLING RIFF ACCOMPANIES ONE OF cover: it’s this playful nursery rhyme, but you
get real management, Ball Tongue took it hard, JONATHAN DAVIS’S CREEPIEST LYRICS; A know there’s something dark and mysterious
and I felt bad because he was like a brother to me, REVENGE FANTASY BORNE FROM OBSESSION behind it, and you can kinda sense the monster
but we had to cut our links. This was a kind of MUNKY: “This was one of the first songs we wrote emerging in the middle of it...”
salute to those early crazy days.” at Underground Chicken Sound. I remember JONATHAN: “I guess I was in a twisted state of
[future Metallica bassist] Robert Trujillo coming mind when I wrote this, thinking about hidden
NEED TO to the studio because we were considering having evils and the corrupted innocence of childhood,
him produce our first record, and he said, ‘Let’s and the dark meanings behind some of the
'I HATE YOU (WHY ARE YOU TAKEN?)' SINGS AN work on one song to see how we work together’, so nursery rhymes we all grow up with. I mean, Ring
ANGUISHED JD ON THIS BITING TALE OF we picked this one. We didn’t form a relationship A Ring O’ Roses is about the Black Plague, which is
UNREQUITED LOVE with Robert to the point where he got to produce kinda fucked up. Now I get to see big, buff, macho
MUNKY: “I remember Fieldy [bass] and David the album, but we liked the ideas that he had, and men sing nursery rhymes at rock shows, which is
[Silveria, original drummer] working on this the song structure we created that day is the one kinda fucked up, too!”
groove in the rehearsal room, and it was really cool that’s on the album.”
and funky, and Head and I wanted to put some JONATHAN: “The song is about sadism and PREDICTABLE
dissonant, diminished chords around it. There’s stalking. It’s a really dark song about basically
always something really exciting about building torturing this poor girl psychologically. I’ve been ONE OF THE ALBUM’S HEAVIEST TRACKS
songs from the ground up, and this one came known to do that... I was definitely letting some SONICALLY, WITH AN APPROPRIATELY
together brilliantly.” demons out on this album.” DOWNBEAT, DEAD-INSIDE JD LYRIC
JONATHAN: “Do you remember the band Human MUNKY: “This is one of the more metal songs on
Waste Project? Well, this song is about their FAGET the album; the riff kinda reminds me of Pantera
singer, Aimee Echo. We were really good friends meets Alice In Chains. I remember thinking it was
back in the day, and we never hooked up, and THE ALBUM’S FIRST TRULY JAW-DROPPING cool that it started with this simple figure played
never did anything, but the vibe was there. I don’t MOMENT, AS JONATHAN DAVIS LETS RIP AT THE on one string through a clean channel, and then
think I ever told her this, but I guess she’s going HOMOPHOBIC BULLIES WHO MADE HIS the riff comes in and hits you over the head. It’s a
to find out now...” ADOLESCENCE SO MISERABLE great song, but not one of my favourites on the
album.”
JONATHAN: “This is just a song about being
bored with life, about being down in the dumps
and thinking life sucks. This whole record is
super dark, and comes from a dark place. Making
it was fun, but it stirred up some dark shit, and

66 metalhammer.com

KO N

Korn today (left to right): JD,
Fieldy, Munky, Head, Ray Luzier

AN ABUSIVE BABYSITTER WAS THE CATALYST FOR JONATHAN’S PAIN

PRESS

going back to songs like this for the 20th fucking licence plate is going to rattle.’ They DISTURBING SONG, CLOSING THE ALBUM WITH
anniversary shows is a real reminder of those wanted almost like a hip-hop beat, and I loved THE SOUND OF JONATHAN DAVIS SOBBING
times.” what they came up with. We didn’t always know UNCONTROLLABLY IN INDIGO RANCH’S VOCAL
what we were doing on this record, and I think RECORDING BOOTH
FAKE that’s the beauty of it.” JONATHAN: “That song is fucked up. It’s about
JONATHAN: “This is as much about me lying to abuse, obviously. Not from my parents, but from
ONE OF THE ALBUM’S LESS CELEBRATED TRACKS, myself about my problems as hearing lies from a babysitter, and unfortunately the scars still
PARTIALLY INSPIRED BY THE BULLYING others. Looking back, I wasted so much time and remained. That song needed to be done.”
JONATHAN USED TO SUFFER AT THE HANDS energy not dealing with problems, but when MUNKY: “We knew what this song was about,
OF FIELDY you’re young you don’t always have the and we wanted to create a spooky, heavy
JONATHAN: “That’s about fake people... in part confidence to address shit in your life.” foundation for Jonathan so that he could
about some of the shit I had from Fieldy back in open those doors. When we were tracking the
the day. There are still plenty of fake people out HELMET IN THE BUSH song, Jonathan really took the memory and
there, particularly in this business, but now I relived it, and I remember Ross telling us to
don’t really give a fuck – I stay well away from TWISTED INDUSTRIAL DARKNESS, INSPIRED BY just keep playing when he broke down, so we
them, and they’re not in my life. But when DRUG-FUELLED ANXIETY were totally improvising for the last couple of
you’re a kid, 23 years old, it’s harder to deal with, MUNKY: “This was written towards the end of minutes. I remember worrying that the tape
and harder to understand why people do what the studio session, on a little drum machine. It would run out, and it did, literally 30 seconds
they do.” was mainly Jonathan, Head and Ross. I after the end of the song. It’s a scary song.”
MUNKY: “I remember we wrote this song in San remember being gone from the studio for one day, JONATHAN: “In the studio I was properly
Diego, on a boat. We had a gig in San Diego and and when I came back they said, ‘Listen to this!’ freaking out and bawling, and I had no idea
my dad had a small houseboat in a slip near there, and they had this fucking killer track. I was blown Ross Robinson was getting it all on tape until
so he said we could stay on it, so, of course, we away, and I was just like, ‘Let me put my shit on I came back a couple of days later and he said,
partied all night. But we came up with most of the it, too!’” ‘Listen to this...’ I couldn’t even listen to it.
riffs that night. It’s one of my favourite songs, JONATHAN: “This is about good old meth I listened to it to learn the words for this tour,
because it has so many parts but they all make amphetamine – about doing so much speed that and even now it’s still raw. It caused a lot of
sense when played properly.” your dick is so small that it just looks like a helmet pain in my life, but it’s worth it if it gave other
in the bush! I remember people fucking freaking people some strength and helped them to deal
LIES out about us doing electronic shit on that song, with the same sort of shit. I think the family we
but I think it’s stood the test of time. After we did have, helping and caring about one another, is
MORE SOUL-BARING SELF-FLAGELLATION FROM this record I did crystal meth for about three more magical, and that’s why I still do what I do. The
JONATHAN, ON ONE OF THE ALBUM’S MORE weeks and then I quit, and never did it again: I money and the big house is cool, but the real
LOW-KEY MOMENTS thought to myself, ‘I have a drug problem, and if pay-off now is making people happy. I know
MUNKY: “I always loved how Fieldy and David I don’t stop it’s going to kill me.’” that sounds cheesy and not very rock’n’roll, but
would think left whenever they heard stuff that I don’t give a fuck. I’m old now and I can say
Head and I were writing, and when we were DADDY what I feel.”
working on this they said, ‘Let’s do something
that when you turn up your car stereo, the THE ALBUM’S MOST HARROWING, RAW AND

metalhammer.com 67

The 90s were responsible for some of freakiest sights and sounds in metal history.
Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst and Coal Chamber singer Dez Fafara guide us
through the decadent years of nu metal.

WO R D S : DAV E E V E R L E Y

On October 27, 1995, a rising band GETTY X2 Korn’s Jonathan Davis: one of the “In ‘92 or ’93, the clubs weren’t happening,
from Bakersfield, California, played founding fathers of nu metal. nobody was playing them,” says Dez. “But then
their first British gig at London’s LA2 you started seeing Coal Chamber, Deftones,
club. Their self-titled debut album System Of A Down creeping into these places. Korn
had caused a minor stir among the would bring busloads of people up from Orange
country’s more clued-up rock fans, County. Everybody had to sound different and look
800 of whom were here tonight. different to stand out. We went from wearing
Their name was Korn, and if they weren’t an Dickies and having our hair braided to getting way
entirely unknown quantity, then they certainly more in touch with our goth side. That’s why we
counted as dark horses. Especially singer Jonathan dressed so crazy.”
Davis, a former mortuary assistant, who
whispered, gibbered and shrieked his way through At the same time, something was stirring down
a set of songs about insecurity, twisted sexuality in the swamps of Florida. Fronted by
and child abuse. sometime tattoo artist Fred Durst, Limp
Bizkit were creating waves in Jacksonville. More
Korn sounded like nothing else. They took the explicitly indebted to hip hop than most of the
rap-metal of Faith No More, Rage Against The bands in California, their singer nevertheless wore
Machine and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and twisted his outsider status on his sleeve.
it into unrecognisable shapes. Guitars were
downtuned, lyrics were several shades of nasty “We were the black sheep – or the white sheep,”
and they even busted out a set of bagpipes. It was says Fred. “Not quite hip hop, not quite metal. But
the sound of tomorrow. we didn’t give a fuck, and we always tried to say
that fairly blatantly. That was one of the things
Within a couple of years, the scene they that became dislikable about us.”
spearheaded would be the biggest noise in rock.
The bands who came in their wake were an unholy Limp Bizkit may have been based 3,000 miles
collection of misfits, weirdos and dead animal- from Los Angeles, but they became honorary
huffing madmen. This movement would soon be members of this new fraternity of misfits after
branded nu metal. But really, it was the sound of Fred pressed his band’s demo into Korn’s hand
the lunatics taking over the asylum. when they played Jacksonville.

Los Angeles was dead in the early 90s. Hair They jumped on board at the right time. The
metal was gasping its last, Aquanet-choked scene was gaining traction: Korn released their
breath, and the snooty grunge hipsters who had debut album in October 1994; Deftones’ debut,
stepped into the breach wouldn’t be seen dead Adrenaline, followed a year later. The scene gained
on the Sunset Strip. Instead it was left to a bunch further momentum when Sepultura released their
of unknown local bands to build something from visionary Roots album in early 1996: the track
the ground up. Cutaway featured Korn’s Jonathan Davis and DJ
Lethal of the then-unknown Limp Bizkit alongside
One of these bands was Coal Chamber, whose the unwitting scene godfather, Mike Patton of
singer Dez Fafara loved punk and 80s synth-pop. Faith No More.
When Coal Chamber started in 1994, they played
standard-issue alt-rock. It was only when they By the time Limp Bizkit released their own
decided to downtune their guitars that they debut album, Three Dollar Bill Y’All$, in 1997,
noticed other bands doing a similar thing. things were speeding so fast that it was all Fred

68 metalhammer.com

“I got to fight back against
the bullies. Ironically, they
started to like the music”

FRED Durst on the negative aspects of success

Coal Chamber. Devildriver’s
Dez Fafara (top left) is
hardly recognisable!

metalhammer.com 69

ESSENTIAL

LISTENING

THE ALBUMS EVERY METALHEAD SHOULD OWN

Korn

KORN 1994, EPIC

Cult C Korn’s debut

lassic was, and is, the
lodestone of nu
metal . It had

traces of Faith No

More and Rage

Against The

Machine in its

DNA, but those

bands’ music was

as dark as One Direction compared to the burnt

offerings presented by Jonathan Davis. Whether

he’s wheedling and screeching his way through the

haunting Daddy or cranking up the bagpipes for the

otherworldly Shoots & Ladders, this was music made

without a blueprint. Wholly visionary and utterly

startling, it still sounds like the start of a revolution.

Limp Bizkit Limp Bizkt: nu metal
heroes… or villains?
SIGNIFICANT OTHER 1999, FLIP/INTERSCOPE

Breakt Subsequent

hrough events sullied “There were 15 girls bent over with
their reputation, strawberries up their butts”
but at this point,
FRED Durst looks back on his wild ways
Bizkit were still

untouchable.

Their second

album crackled

with energy and could do to hold on to his red baseball cap. the ones coming to see us,” says Dez. “They
“It just happened,” he says. “We didn’t have wanted to feel like they had something of their
invention, the own. To feel like they belonged to something more
time to pay attention. I was literally bullshitting powerful than themselves.”
likes of Nookie and Re-Arranged found Fred playing anything to keep the band going. We were
laughing every day at the fact that it even existed Ozzfest’s success spawned a rash of copycat
the role of dumb jock to perfection, while the Method in the first place.” events, most notably Korn’s Family Values
extravaganza, which kicked off in 1998. Limp
Man-assisted N 2 Gether Now gave them hip hop Fred might have quickly presented himself as nu Bizkit played both events, and played a key role in
metal’s jock-in-chief, but he insists that the burgeoning hedonism that marked the start of
credibility. But beneath the braggadocio were real underneath the potty-mouthed braggart in the nu metal’s imperial phase.
baseball cap was a shy, insecure man still bearing
emotions: anger, fear, humour and insecurity. The the scars of childhood bullying. His band’s success “I’m a guy who couldn’t shake a stick at pretty
was a massive “fuck you” to all those people who girls and get them to date me,” says Fred. “I went
perfect balance wouldn’t last long; their next album had made his life hell. from that to roomfuls of people who’d do anything
for me. I definitely enjoyed myself as much as I
featured all the showboating but none of the wit. “They’d ruined my life, and I thought they’d could. One time there were, like, 15 girls bent over
ruined our fans’ lives as well,” he says. “I really and there was this other girl putting strawberries
Slipknot thought that people were identifying where I was in their butts. We were all like, ‘What the fuck’s
coming from – a guy who finally got to stand up going on? This shit doesn’t happen outside of
SLIPKNOT 1999, ROADRUNNER and fight back. The irony was that the bullies Mötley Crüe videos!’”
themselves started to like the music.”
Just when you In the wake of Ozzfest and Family Values, the
This outsidership – personal and musical – bred floodgates broke. Nu metal became a truly
MUST thought it was a camaraderie between the bands. mainstream proposition. Korn’s Follow The Leader
and Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other were huge
HAVE safe to go into “Every time Coal Chamber played, I’d call System global hits, paving the way for a new wave of bands
the water, this to open for us,” says Dez. “In the early days, before to ride their coat-tails. There was Static-X, whose
they became popular, Limp Bizkit would stop by singer sported a hairstyle that resembled a bizarre
18-legged, and say hi. When Coal Chamber did our first record, electrical accident; Orgy, a bunch of eyeliner-
Fieldy loaned [original Coal Chamber bassist] sporting hair metal refugees who came on like
mask-wearing, Rayna his gear.” Duran Duran in leather onesies, plus Snot, Human
Waste Project, Videodrone, Adema and countless
dead Nowhere was that gang mentality stonger than other long-forgotten outfits, all with their own
on the Ozzfest. Founded in 1996 as a two-day ‘crazy’ shtick, all cranking the dial up to ‘weirdo’.
crow-huffing festival held in different cities, by the following
year it had become a hugely successful travelling Most unhinged of all were a nine-piece from the
monster churns circus, and a lightning rod for freaks and weirdos backwaters of the Midwest who wore boilersuits
onstage and off. and horror masks, and huffed the corpses of dead
into view. birds before they went onstage. Slipknot were a
“Ozzfest was incredible,” says Dez. “It was the
Slipknot wasn’t their debut – they put out a first time the US had ever seen anything like it.
Those kids who went to school dressed like the
self-funded affair with a different singer in the bands they were into and got shit for it, they were

mid-90s – but it nevertheless applied a 10,000 watt

jolt to the nu metal scene and beyond. This was a

truly toxic miasma of hatred, alienation and

fist-to-the-face craziness, fuelled by the sort of

small-town frustration that comes from living in

America’s least-glamorous city. The bone-rattling

likes of Wait And Bleed and Spit It Out were smart

and heavy enough to bust Slipknot out of the

confines of the scene: this was nu metal for people

who didn’t like nu metal.

70 metalhammer.com

THE FACTS

2001 ’s best-selling album
worldwide was the
Linkin Park debut
Hybrid Theory. Bye bye, nu metal…

7million is the number of copies sold
of Significant Other. No surprise with
singles like Nookie and Break Stuff

31was Dez Fafara’s age when Coal
Chamber released their debut,
eponymous album in 1997

$6.4 millionistheamount
grossed by the first
Family Values Tour in ’98

GETTY X3 The 18-legged, dead was the size of the advance Slipknot
crow-huffing monster received for signing to Roadrunner

that is Slipknot. 98 isthecombinedScrabble
score for the names of all
System Of A Down: political, take their toll. Members of Korn and Deftones four members of System
bonkers, bloody brilliant struggled with drug addiction, as did three- Of A Down
quarters of Coal Chamber, who split up following
truly incredible experience on every level, and their third album. “The drugs and the money THE FINAL
they would eventually keep the freak flag flying bullshit was tearing us apart,” says Dez. WORD
almost single-handedly throughout the 00s. But
even as they were making a name for themselves, Limp Bizkit were having their own problems. OUR HEROES AS RATED BY THEIR PEERS
the more astute onlookers were starting to notice Their third album, the none-too-subtly titled
the writing on the wall. Chocolate Starfish And The Hotdog Flavored MONTE CONNER
Water, had been a huge mainstream hit in 2000.
“It was definitely starting to play itself out,” But for everyone who loved them, there were 10 PRESIDENT • NUCLEAR BLAST
says Dez. “There was a certain band – I won’t say who loathed them – and especially loathed Fred.
which one – who put out a record, and when I One of them happened to be their own guitarist, “F or me, nu metal’s defining characteristic
heard it, I went, ‘This is it – the scene is dead.’” Wes Borland, who quit in 2001, partly out of would be its thick, downtuned guitars and
embarrassment at what the band had become. simple groove-based riffs with many bands
In 2000, Linkin Park released their debut album, incorporating rap-style vocals with a hip hop
Hybrid Theory. It was an instant success, selling “There was a monster living out there, and he mentality and fashion sense. There was an honesty and
five million copies in 12 months (sales eventually had a red cap on,” admits Fred now. “I was emotion in the vocal performances and lyrics that had
exceeded 10 million). The band sounded nu metal thinking, ‘That guy? Who the fuck is he.’ It was like rarely been heard before. Everything I just described
but looked like a boy band. They didn’t swear, Tyler Durden from Fight Club.” can be found on the 1994 debut by Korn, the
didn’t drink and they certainly didn’t shove revolutionary band who completely invented the
strawberries up anybody’s arse. They drove a stake It was Bizkit’s disastrous 2003 album, Results entire genre.
through the heart of the scene that spawned them. May Vary, that banged in the final nail. It single-
handedly knocked the bottom out of what was left Max Cavalera of Sepultura was very influenced by
It raised expectations to unrealistic levels. of the scene. “We went underground,” says Fred that Korn debut and led Sepultura in a nu metal
A band like Coal Chamber, who looked and sounded simply, though you could argue that the decision direction on their 1996 Roots album. It was quite a
like an explosion in a nail factory, stood no chance had been taken out of their hands. controversial move at the time and it initially alienated
in this new, hyper-commercial climate. many of Sepultura’s diehard fans, but over time, Roots
Over the next few years, nu metal became a went on to be a huge success and became a career-
It didn’t help that the personal and chemical dirty word. Some bands ploughed on (Korn, Limp defining moment.
excesses of the past few years were starting to Bizkit), some wisely ducked out (System Of A
Down), some reinvented themselves as The nu metal sound still lives on today, influencing
straightahead rock’n’roll bands (latecomers-to- new bands like Five Finger Death Punch. Like with any
the-party Papa Roach). Some, such as Slipknot,
even remained on an upward trajectory, though innovators connected to a
they were firmly in the minority. scene, pioneers such as
Korn, Deftones (who
But then a strange thing happened. The passage weren’t strictly nu metal),
of time and a lack of a decent scene for misfits to Coal Chamber, Slipknot,
latch onto conspired to create a nostalgia for nu
metal. For proof, take a look at the lineup for this Disturbed and System Of
year’s Download festival: Korn, Slipknot, Limp A Down have all
Bizkit and Coal Chamber will all be making an transcended genre
appearance. Nu metal has become classic rock. The categorisation at this
rehabilitation of the league of freaks is already stage, and are simply
underway.
known these days as
“I look back on it and I see how significant it is,” great metal bands.”
says Dez, who reformed Coal Chamber in 2011.
“The biggest bands on the planet right now are metalhammer.com 71
from that scene – Slipknot, Korn, System Of A
Down. The reason is that it was so different. The
music, the look, the people. There was something
in that scene that was real to the core. We were
proud to be part of it.”

Now, the lunatics are back. The asylum is theirs
for the taking once more.

rammstein

As a reunified Germany came to terms with its new identity,
six musicians from the East Side were discovering their own.
This is the story behind the remarkable birth of Rammstein.

WORDS: Dave eveRley

main image: press/ Joachim gern lake Lorenz can remember Someone informed him that the Wall
additional reporting, clawfinger and farmer Boys: malcolm dome exactly where he was when the had fallen that very night, smashed by
Berlin Wall came down. It was protesters nearly 30 years after it had
November 9, 1989, and his punk been erected. It was a momentous
band, Feeling B, were playing occasion, albeit one that prevented
a show in West Berlin. Nothing Feeling B from getting home. “It was
unusual there, except for the fact that not possible,” he says. “The holes in the
the future Rammstein keyboard player wall were closed with people. It was so
and his bandmates were natives of East busy we couldn’t get back. We had to
Berlin – a city that had been physically, stay the night in West Berlin.”
politically and ideologically separated
from its western twin for decades. On a global scale, the fall of the
Feeling B had been allowed through Berlin Wall was the most momentous
the concrete barrier that split the city to event since the end of the Second World
play a gig as part of a government drive War. It sparked off the reunification
to show the decadent, capitalist West of Germany and set in motion a chain
that the hardline socialist East wasn’t of events that would end in the
the monster on the doorstep it was dismantling of the USSR and the end
frequently painted as. As the band of the Cold War.
played, Flake spotted some familiar
faces in the audience – faces from East But for Flake and Feeling B, it had
Berlin that shouldn’t have been there. a more detrimental effect. “It changed
“We noticed our friends had come so many things,” he says. “Nobody in
in”, Flake tells Metal Hammer today. East Germany wanted to listen to East
“I said, ‘How can it be that they got to German bands, because now they could
West Berlin? It’s not possible. Did they listen to the real thing. Everything
have to jump the Wall?’” was possible now, where it had been
forbidden in the past. And so everybody
tried to make new things.”

72 metalhammer.com

rammstein

metalhammer.com 73

rammstein

Flake would become one of those
people. Just a few years later, he and two
of his Feeling B bandmates, guitarist
Paul Landers and drummer Christoph
Schneider, would co-found a new band
whose provocative sound and warped,
sardonic worldview was simultaneously
linked to the nation’s divided past and
symbolic of its bright, united future.
Their name was Rammstein, and they
would go on to become the biggest,
boldest and most controversial German
band of the last 25 years.

ike Flake, Rammstein guitarist never, ever ask till
Richard Z. Kruspe grew up in what lindemann if he’s
was East Germany. But where got a light
Flake says that he loved life under the
socialist government – “Life was free All that changed drastically after the for five beds or even a floor came, he
of trouble and pressure, we all had Wall came down. While western music offered them space at his house.
enough money to live,” – Richard had had previously been easily accessible on
a more complicated relationship with the radio (Flake: “It was the only thing “We stayed and had parties there,”
his native country. that East Germany was not behind the says Flake. “And from time to time we
“The thing about East Germany is West in”), the appetite for it suddenly came back to visit him, and so we
that it was great to grow up there, until exploded – and now it was readily became friends.”
you were 12,” he told Hammer in 2014. available to gorge on.
He had moved from his hometown of Till was a former swimming prodigy
Schwerin to East Berlin in his late teens. “When the Wall finally fell in 1989, turned musician. When he met Feeling
“You were presented with the illusion it was the beginning of a new era for all B, he was playing in the Schwerin-based
of a very healthy society, which worked of us,” says documentary maker Carl G. art-punk band First Arsch. He was soon
unless you asked questions – and you Hardt, who first met Feeling B in the invited along to the extra-curricular
don’t ask questions until you’re 12.” mid-80s (see Made In Berlin, p.45). “But jam sessions that would eventually sow
Both men agree that there was we quickly realised that no one in the the seeds for Rammstein.
a thriving underground music scene West was waiting for us. The structure
in the capital. The authoritarian East of the East German music industry “We met without aim, without a plan,
German government forced bands to collapsed completely. There was hardly just to play for two hours,” recalls Flake.
apply for a licence to make music, a any demand for East German bands; “It wasn’t a band, it was a meeting
process that involved playing in front western bands dominated all the point for us, just to do something
of a commission of eight or 10 suited opportunities to perform. The eastern different from our real bands. It was
people. An arty, livewire band like bands whose music had helped bring like a therapy group.”
Feeling B could fudge the audition by about the collapse of the system
changing their lyrics and toning down were now forced to reposition and One of the first songs this un-named
some of their more energetic songs. reinvent themselves in order to gain collective wrote was named after the
Few acts were turned down. a foothold in this new, thoroughly town of Ramstein, scene of a 1988
“There were a lot of bands, and we commercialised music business.” airshow disaster in which 70 people died
were all friends with each other,” after two planes collided in mid-air. As
remembers Flake. “We played with Feeling B managed to get with the word got around about this side-project,
each other. If we needed a guitar player, programme. The band released two they became know as the band with the
we took them from another band.” post-reunification albums, 1991’s Wir ‘Ramstein song’. “Later people would
“There was new band every day,” kriegen euch alle and 1993’s Die Maske des say, ‘This is the Ramstein band’, and
says Richard, whose pre-Rammstein roten Todes, both of which Flake says later it became ‘This is Ramstein’,” They
bands included Das Elegante Chaos were more successful than the one they soon adopted it as their name, adding
and Orgasm Death Gimmick. “There released before the Wall came down. an extra ‘m’. ‘Ramm’ translates into
was a scene here where everyone was English as ‘ram’, as in ‘battering ram’,
making music with other people. But at the same time, Flake, Paul and while ‘stein’ means ‘stone’. Ram-stone:
I loved that idea. So much excitement, Christoph had begun jamming with a name that suited their sound perfectly.
so much music going on.” a trio of other East German musicians:
Richard Kruspe, bassist Oliver Riedel For nearly a year and a half,
“At the stARt and drummer-turned-singer Till Rammstein existed alongside the press
we just went Lindemann. And soon, this half- members’ regular bands. Sometimes
onstAge in ouR serious side-project would overshadow they would play on the same bill as
stReet clothes everything else. Feeling B, taking the money they
oR undeRweAR” earned from the latter and investing it
lake first met Till at a gig near his back into their new project. Flake finds
Flake lORenz future bandmate’s home in East it difficult to pinpoint exactly when
Germany. Feeling B would often ask Rammstein became their main focus.
if anyone in the audience could put
them up for the night. One night, Till “It wasn’t a point, it was a feeling,”
was in the crowd. When the shout out he says now. “We played a lot of shows,
and we felt that the people were
fascinated. And we were fascinated
ourselves. We felt it could be great.”

74 metalhammer.com

Many of those early shows took place English at school. “I saw a lot of East rammstein
in small towns in the old East Germany, German bands that sung in very bad
where Feeling B were still popular. The English to people who didn’t understand Remarkably, they won, and used their
legendary Rammstein live show was English – it was absolutely stupid,” says prize to record a set of demos, which in
still a few years off, however. “At the Flake. “But if you really want to tell your turn attracted the attention of German
start we just went onstage in our emotions, you have to speak in your label Motor Music, who offered them a
street clothes, in our underwear,” says mother tongue. It’s not possible to tell deal. Before they could get in the studio,
Flake. There were early attempts at your emotions in another language.” there was one hurdle to overcome.
pyrotechnic displays, using fireworks
they’d bought for New Year’s Eve Squat culture had blossomed in “The record company told us we
parties and stockpiled. Recalls Flake: post-reunification Berlin. Taking had to choose a producer,” says Flake.
“One time we took them to the show, the lead of Feeling B singer Aljoscha, “We didn’t know what a producer was,
and thought, ‘This is great!’ And so we bands and artists would take over because we didn’t have them in East
did a little bit more.” empty buildings and warehouses, Germany. Nobody needed a producer
semi-legally or illegally. One of these for anything.”
East German crowds knew the buildings was a set of apartments in
members from their previous bands, the city’s Prenzlauer Berg district, The band were instructed to hit the
and loved them. West German crowds which became home to Aljoscha’s new shops and write down the names of the
had no idea who they were, and many political movement, Die Wydoks, as producers on the back of their favourite
early gigs in the newly accessible well as a film studio and a pirate radio CDs. When they returned and told the
western half of the country were station. It was in this building, too, that label they wanted to work with Bob
sparsely populated. “Nobody came to Rammstein recorded their first songs, Rock and Rick Rubin, they were politely
our shows,” says Flake bluntly of their inspired by the change in the air and told to scale back their ambitions.
appeal in the west. the hangovers of the recent past.
The man who ended up overseeing
The band’s connection with their ammstein’s approach may have Herzeleid was Swedish producer Jacob
former home country ran deeper than been radical, but their journey was Hellner, best known for his work
just crowd numbers. Till elected to sing surprisingly conventional. The band with 90s rap-metal middleweights
in his native tongue from the start. This entered a demo tape into a competition Clawfinger. He liked the demo tracks
was partly down to the fact that they in which the first prize was studio time. he had been sent, though it was seeing
had all been taught Russian rather than the band live that convinced him.

“…it’s the dogs. they take
it too far, right?”

press/f.l. lange “if you wAnt to tell
youR emotions, you
hAve to speAk in youR
motheR tongue”

Flake lORenz

metalhammer.com 75

rammstein

American Horror Story
season 23

His only stipulation was that the band from where the band ate to what the your ass off, and they come in and go,
come to him to record. They reluctantly songs sounded like, had to be agreed on ‘Yeah, that’s great, but that’s not us.’
agreed, decamping to Stockholm’s by all six members. You get desperate. I might have said,
Polar Studios, before moving to Jacob’s ‘Maybe you want to think about this
own recording space. “They let us do what we did,” says a bit more, maybe you want to give it
Ronald, who worked in tandem with another chance before you dismiss it’
Things didn’t get off to the most Jacob, “and when we thought we had – stuff like that.”
auspicious start. The studio was a version of it, we’d go, ‘This could be
cramped and it was hard for Richard to cool’ and get the band in. They would According to Ronald, getting the first
get the guitar sound he wanted. Factor listen to it and then they would have song right took seven days. But once that
in a problematic cultural gulf, and what we later called their famous was locked in, it was smoother sailing.
Rammstein were unhappy. German Conference – where they went Any friction was clearly forgotten by
outside into a room, a living area at the the time the album was done – the
“The way Jacob worked was almost studio. They would sometimes talk for band asked him to come back and work
office hours,” says Richard. “So we’d be 10 minutes, sometimes for two hours, on their second album, Sehnsucht.
left on our own during the evenings and until they formed their opinion. Then
at weekends. We didn’t speak Swedish, they’d come back and say, ‘It sounds “I created the Rammstein sound on
or much English, and felt very alienated. really great, but that’s not Rammstein the first two albums,” says Ronald
We couldn’t go anywhere, nor do – can you do something else?’” today. “I find it difficult to say, but
anything, so our mood wasn’t the best.” that’s my credit.”
They tried multiple mixes, altering
Things were particularly complicated levels, shaping guitars, raising and ammstein’s debut album was
by the fact that the producer only spoke lowering the volume of the vocals. released in Germany on September
English and Swedish while the band There were moments of comedy. 25, 1995. Its title, Herzeleid, roughly
only spoke German and Russian. The translated to ‘Heartbroken’ in English
communication issues became more – a reference to the romantic problems
apparent as work progressed. The band more than one bandmember was going
were unhappy with how Jacob was through while they were writing it.
making their music sound, a problem “I was breaking up with my girlfriend
and it was very tough,” recalls Richard.
“they sAid to mix the “I’d never experienced anything so
tRAck like Bon jovi. emotionally hard before. It left me
they weRe seRious” drained. Unless you’ve been through
something similar, then you can’t get
ROnalD PRent, mixing/maSteRing to grips with the way I felt. Till was
going through something similar, and
neither party could resolve due to “At one point, somebody said, ‘You as he was a good friend I stayed with press/eugenio recuenco.
linguistic barriers. Jacob hit on know what, maybe we should sound him for a few months. I suppose we
a solution: he suggested bringing in like Bon Jovi. Can you do that?’ And helped each other out. In fact, the rest
an outsider who spoke both languages. I said, ‘Sure.’ It was dead serious. So of what was to become Rammstein
The man he called in to save the album we mixed the track like Bon Jovi, and were also suffering personal problems
was Dutch engineer Ronald Prent. got really close to it. They’d come in of their own.”
and listen to it and say, ‘Man, that’s Their collective state of mind wasn’t
“‘Save’ is a big word,” Ronald tells amazing, we really sound like Bon Jovi, helped by the fact that Herzeleid was
Hammer. “It wasn’t lost, but it wasn’t but that’s not us.’”
where they wanted it to be. We met and
went through the music. I tried to get Richard later said that the process
into the guys’ heads, and into Jacob caused tensions between the band and
Hellner’s head, to understand what Ronald, but the latter has a different
they were looking for.” view of it. “Sometimes being in the
studio is like a little community where
Nailing that first song was a long and you’re locked up with each other for 12
sometimes fraught process. Rammstein hours a day,” he says now. “You work
worked as a democracy – all decisions,

76 metalhammer.com

off to slimelight, chaps? press/erik hackenschmidt. Carl G. Hardt grew up in the GDR and met
carl g. hardt words: melanie aschenBrenner translation: Belinda cooper. Box images: press/stefan schudlich Feeling B at a festival in 1987 while he was
producing a film about music and young
“till hAd gloves on people. His footage of East German bands
thAt shot spARks. i Am and Rammstein’s early days is included
not ceRtAin they hAd in his forthcoming documentary, Achtung!
peRmission to do thAt” Wir Kommen, Und Wir Kriegen Euch Alle
(‘Look Out! We’re Coming to Get You!’).
matthiaS SayeR, FaRmeR BOyS
What haPPeneD aFteR yOu met
slow out of the gates. “After we released – the days of six men wearing street Feeling B at the FeStival?
the first record, nothing happened,” clothes were over. A penchant for pyros “a few days later, [singer] aljoscha
says Flake. “Nobody wanted to buy it was increasingly apparent, too. turned up on my doorstep. we cooked
because nobody knew about it. We just dinner and drank red wine, and he
played and played and played, and “They had a lot of fireworks and also explained why his band absolutely had
slowly the people in the crowd got fire on the stage,” recalls Matthias to be in the film. Because aljoscha was
more and more.” Sayer, singer with Stuttgart groove- clever and funny and overflowing with
metal band Farmer Boys, who energy, he quickly had me convinced.
Zak Tell is the singer in Clawfinger, supported Rammstein on several dates we set up a day to shoot in hohen
the Swedish band whose Jacob Hellner- in 1996. “Till had gloves on, which Viecheln, a village near the Baltic sea.
produced album Rammstein had liked. would shoot out sparks as well. I am a funky, well-attended punk festival took place there, and
In late 1995 and early 1996, Clawfinger not too certain they had official it ended up in the film we made. the film is called Flüstern
took the German band out as support permission to do some of it back then. und Schreien – Whisper and Scream; it opened in 1988 and
on a handful of shows. You had to have the right permits, and was successful.”
the chances are Rammstein were What WaS the SituatiOn like FOR BanDS aFteR the
“They asked to do it. Simple as that,” slightly bending the rules. But it looked Fall OF the Wall, in 1989?
Zak says today. “We were very wary of very impressive. They knew what they “in this newly reunited germany, no one was waiting for
them at first. Here were a band wearing were doing, and really did make an bands from the east. so feeling B, for example, went on
military uniforms, singing in German impression on everyone.” tour in the united states. some of the musicians from
and rolling their ‘r’s. We were worried the scene gave up and looked for jobs so they could
they could turn out to be fascist or Nazi Mainland Europe was starting to take make ends meet. others started new bands with new
idiots. So, we got a friend who spoke notice of this strange band from the names and new concepts, such as subway to sally, the
German to translate some of their old GDR who looked and sounded like inchtabokatables, tanzwut, in extremo, and of course
lyrics, just so we could satisfy ourselves little that had come before. But their rammstein. you can see by the names where these bands
with what they were all about.” Eastern Bloc background still presented were going on their musical journey – towards the us and
a degree of culture clash even back the rest of the world.”
By the middle of 1996, Rammstein home in the reunited Germany. hOW DiD yOu FiRSt StaRt Filming With RammStein?
were headlining their own tour. The “shortly after christmas of 1993, aljoscha called and
venues were small but sold out – there “They were about 10 years older than suggested that i film what was tentatively feeling B’s last
was the sense of an underground band us and they had also been through the concert in June 1994. he also told me that paul, flake and
starting to get a lot more attention whole East German system, so we christoph were already working on a new project called
from a wider audience. It helped that found it difficult to relate to their rammstein. my cameramen filmed a two-hour feeling B
the band’s striking visual image was experiences growing up – it was very concert. the same year, i first filmed rammstein.”
starting to come into focus onstage different to what we’d been used to,” WheRe DiD yOu Film them?
“i had discussed it all with paul and flake. they said proudly,
‘there’s a great building on the edge of the city, in the
countryside, with a built-in studio. that’s where we’re
producing our first music cassette!’ in my mind i was seeing
abbey road studios, and i was excited that some colour
would come into the film, and we wouldn’t just be filming
in squatted apartments, in courtyards and basements.
when i got there, though, my cameraman and i found
a little cottage in an overgrown garden. in any case,
deafening music was now blasting from the house’s every
crack and joint, and a large dog charged towards us,
barking aggressively.”
What haPPeneD next?
“paul held the german
shepherd’s head still while we
filmed her wagging tail. in the
film, you can see the dog politely
knocking on the musicians’ door
and then running curiously
around the room. the camera
takes a ‘dog’s-eye view’, and
my cameraman then went
around the room in the dog’s
place. during the ‘dog walk’,
the musicians are introduced
individually from her perspective.
i’d found a successful way to
bring the band into the film.”

metalhammer.com 77

rammstein

a lot could go wrong here...

says Matthias. “This wasn’t a negative new audience. That same year their Before he co-founded Rammstein, Flake
really, just a little odd for us. It seemed masterful second album, Sehnsucht, Lorenz was a member of Feeling B. An
we had very little in common, even turned them into stars across mainland East German underground art/folk-punk
though both bands were German.” Europe, dragging the first record up by band founded by in 1983 by charismatic
its bootlaces in the process. singer Aljoscha Rompe, they released three
he six members of Rammstein are albums between 1989 and 1993. Aljoscha
the first to admit that Rammstein “After the second record, people died in 2000 after suffering a severe
were a tough proposition for many remembered the first,” says Flake. asthma attack. In 2007, Flake oversaw
people to get their heads around. “We had a gold record with Sehnsucht the release of the compilation Grün & Blau
But like most things relating to this and about five years later, the first (‘Green and Blue’). Here, the keyboard
record went gold.” player looks back on his time on the East
German scene with Feeling B…
“in RAmmstein we weRe
tRying to get Rid of All tell uS What
kinds of censoRship” it WaS like
gROWing uP in
RichaRD z. kRuSPe eaSt geRmany in
the 70s anD 80s.
deceptively enigmatic and frequently Over the next few years, Rammstein “well, i loved it all images: press. Box words: daVe eVerley
misunderstood band, there’s a method weathered a series of storms, taking in because it was
to the madness in everything they do. everything from onstage arrests and the only thing
misguided accusations of Nazism to i knew. the rent
“Part of the reason Rammstein a wrong-headed guilt-by-association was about 25
were so progressive is that we felt so in the wake of 1999’s Columbine school bucks. if we
much censorship back in the day,” massacre. Today, they stand as one of played a show
says Richard. “In Rammstein, we the great success stories of the last two with the band,
were trying to get rid of all kind of decades – and certainly one of the most we would each
censorship – from other people and unlikely. No one could ever have seen get about 100
from ourselves, too. I think that’s that coming. Especially not these six bucks. that
why we all went, ‘What the fuck, we misfits from the other side of the Wall means i had to
don’t care.’” who have spent 25 years and counting play a show every
bucking every trend imaginable. two months to
That single-mindedness would pay survive. insurance
off a couple of years later when cult “We never could be a western band,” was 10 bucks
director David Lynch selected them says Flake, “because we learned in a month, for medicine and stuff, and the rest was more
to appear on the soundtrack to his our youth that it’s important to work or less free. we never had to get out of the apartment,
1997 arthouse movie Lost Highway. together and one person is not that we never had to care for a job, we were never afraid
Suddenly, this insane German band important. And that is why we are for anything. the only thing we were afraid of was the
with the flaming jackets and funny still together.” third world war.”
accents were opened up to a whole DiD yOu liSten tO any WeSteRn ROck muSic
gROWing uP?
“of course. we only listened to western music. there
were professional east german rock bands called
puhdys, karat and Berluc - they were good musicians
but bad ideas.”
DiD BanDS have tO Be aPPROveD By the State?
“you had to play for a commission, and then they would
decide if you could get a licence and officially play or not.
But all bands made a special set just for this evening
- they played the slow songs, changed some words
so it was not so evil. most bands got the licence.”
Feeling B’S SingeR aljOScha WaS SeveRal yeaRS
OlDeR than yOu. What WaS he like?
“he had a lot of energy. we were the serious people who
made the work, and he was a crazy guy who had the ideas.
and so we worked well together. he was the head and we
were the foot.”
What DiD yOu leaRn FROm him?
“i learned that everything is possible - just do it. don’t think
what other people think. don’t care.”
DiD yOu eveR have any gigS Shut DOWn By
the authORitieS?
“no. But sometimes we were so drunken that we had to
stop the show, because aljoscha was asleep while the
show was on.”
WeRe Feeling B an anti-eStaBliShment BanD?
WeRe yOu againSt the authORitieS?
“‘against’ is not the real word. we sung about personal
things. if you say some things about the world, you have
to start with yourself - with your own opinion. we sung
about us: ‘why i don’t feel well.’ and then you the listener
have to make you story. we were never openly against
the government because we liked to play and we didn’t
want to risk losing the licence. But in our hearts, we liked
the gdr. we didn’t like everything about it, but we liked
the main idea of socialism.”

78 metalhammer.com

THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF
ROCK’S PIONEERING DECADE

Relive a time when legends were born and music changed the world.
Packed with the best features from Classic Rock magazine, this is the

ultimate celebration of the Sixties.

NONOSAWLE

Ordering is easy. Go online at:
Or get it from selected supermarkets & newsagents

80 metalhammer.com

From breaking bands to causing controversy, Ozzfest has brought
metal to the masses like no other event. We look back at the festival
that broke the mould through the eyes of the bands that played it...

WORDS: RICH CHAMBERLAIN

Backin themid-90s, Slayer, Danzig, Biohazard, We had to prove ourselves to an together, but Ozzy and Tony was a OZZY: FRANK WHITE/MARILYN MANSON: GETTY
the notion of Sepultura, Fear Factory and Narcotic audience that wasn’t always fuckin’ big deal. For me, it was like
a travelling,all- Gypsy. The second stage, listening, because a lot of them were being between Mount Everest and
metal festival was meanwhile, featured the likes of just there for Ozzy. I learnt a lot Mount Fuji, and you’re a very small
batshit Neurosis and Coal Chamber. Not a from being able to watch him every pebble in an enormous valley.”
crazy. Monsters Of bad way to usher in an entire sea night – I was a young kid taking
Rock was dead, Download was still a change on the festival circuit. mental pointers from the other It wasn’t just the returning
twinkle in Andy Copping’s eye, and bands on the bill.” Sabs that made Ozzfest ’97 stick
Lollapalooza filled its lineup Twenty years on, Fear Factory’s in the memory – the Osbournes had
with dirge such as Ben Folds Five, Burton C Bell recalls that putting Ozzfest was a hit with fans and secured a huge coup by signing
Cornershop and Coolio. But when together a metal fest was a ballsy bands, but few would envisage what Marilyn Manson up to join halfway
Lollapalooza refused to put Ozzy on move by the Osbournes. “In the was to come over the next two through. Back then, adulation and
the bill, a frustrated Sharon mid-90s, metal was waning, and decades, least of all Burton. “There chaos followed the God Of Fuck
Osbourne was spurred on to create a alternative was the king,” he says. was talk of them doing it again the around in equal measure. His second
mini touring festival of her own, and “Ozzfest put metal back at the next year, and we wanted to do it show of the tour, at the Polaris
Ozzfest was born. In the 20 years forefront. We knew were part of again, but we never thought it would Amphitheater, Columbus, went
since, it’s grown beyond something special. Metal bands in last as long as it has.” down in the annuls of metal infamy.
recognition, giving us iconic the 90s and today can thank Ozzy
moment after iconic moment, such and Ozzfest for a lot, because they 1997: SABBATH RETURN While protesters picketed
as Fred Durst emerging from a giant proved to the world that metal is not outside, news that Ozzy was ill
toilet in 1998, Slipknot kicking a fleeting genre, and is full of & MANSON MANIA and unable to perform that night
serious arse from the second stage fiercely loyal fans. The bands all had sent those inside into an explosive
in 1999, and Sharon turning the a great time, too. There was a lot of IS BORN fury. Mike Bordin had chosen this
power off on Maiden in 2005. drinking going on – perhaps too particular night to share a few Black
Digging deep into its evolution, we much, sometimes!” It was the Ozzy-fronted Sabbath’s
asked 10 of its veterans to talk us first tour since 1979. With Bill Ward The1G9o9d7.OTrfuFluyctkhaetAOnztzifcehsrtisint SNuepwerYsotrakr,
through their memories from the Fear Factory’s second album, sitting this one out, Faith No
last 20 years of chaos. Demanufacture, had been out for a More sticksman Mike Bordin
year, and the band were constantly joined the Double O, Tony Iommi and
1996: THE FIRST on the road. “The album had been Geezer Butler onstage. “Those guys
doing well in Europe, but the States hadn’t done a lot together for a long
OZZFEST CHANGES is a hard nut to crack,” says Burton. time,” Mike recalls. “That made it
intense. It was emotional. You talk
METAL FOREVER about Axl and Slash getting

It would soon become a globe- “WE WERE DRIVING
touring behemoth, but the first ever THROUGH THE
Ozzfest made just three stops:
Phoenix, San Bernardino and RIOT, ABSOLUTELY
Anchorage. It may have been a slow HAMMERED!”
and steady approach, but there were
no compromises with the lineup: WHEN OZZY CANCELLED, MIKE BORDIN WAS AT THE CENTRE OF THE PROTESTS
Ozzy topped the bill, backed by

metalhammer.com 81

SLAYEEEEERRRR played the first
UK Ozzfest in 1998 as part of yet
another epic lineup

“IT WAS LIKE I’D WOKEN UP
IN A NIGHTMARE”

DROWNING POOL’S CJ PIERCE REMEMBERS THE DAY BANDMATE DAVE WILLIAMS PASSED AWAY

Tooth Grins with Dimebag, giving they’re burning the box office members of the band who shall a career and gain fans. These
him an interesting perspective of and the fences…’” remain nameless, and I said to them, bands didn’t have other mediums to
the carnage that was unfolding ‘Hey, stay semi-sober for this one. do that. If you want to be
around him. 1998: OZZFEST MAKES This show has to be tight’,” he says. a successful band in a metal
“We had a really good show. We were subgenre, you don’t have MTV,
“All hell broke loose with the ITS UK DEBUT surrounded by a bunch of killer you won’t get front-page
riot,” he says. “What did I do? bands that day, but I knew that even YouTube placement, you won’t get
I went and started drinking more. With Ozzfest a runaway hit though it was simple music, when on the late-night TV shows, and
I was shitfaced drunk. I couldn’t see Stateside, Ozzy and Sharon were we were tight and flawless, no one you’re sure as hell not going to
straight; I had to close one eye. could beat us.” get on radio. So when you get an
Somebody had gotten a golf cart keen to bring the travelling circus to opportunity like Ozzfest, you have
and we were driving through the their home turf. On June 20, 1998, Sharon ended up managing Coal to roll with it.”
riot in this cart absolutely the Milton Keynes Bowl played host Chamber’s career, and the Ozzfest
hammered. I had a hand over to an all-star lineup featuring rolled ever onwards. “We wanted Jamey reckons that the Double O
one eye, saying, ‘Oh look, Sabbath, an Ozzy solo set, Foo that festival to do well, because led by example by shining
Fighters, Pantera, Soulfly, Slayer, we felt if the Osbournes won, we all a spotlight on the underground.
ThpelalyeeOgdzezwnfeditsahtr’ysPaDUniKmtederebabaaugtt Coal Chamber and more. won, because there were doing so
much for bands. Taking Ozzfest to “For Ozzy to give his name and
“The festival had just exploded the UK felt like a real win.” put so much time into a travelling
since ’96,” says Coal Chamber/ festival, even at times when metal
Devildriver mainman and serial 2001: THE was almost a dirty word, it is
Ozzfest performer, Dez Fafara. “The incredible. Pre-Big 4 comeback,
Osbournes took the English thing to UNDERGROUND Metallica were taking out Kid Rock
America, and then brought it back to [in 2000], while Ozzy had Deftones
the UK. It was a trip. It was as if the RISES UP and the edgier metal bands on
festival was going back to its roots, Ozzfest. Ozzy led the charge.
even though it had started in In 2001, nu metal was at its peak, Ozzfest bridged the gap.”
America. A lot of the bands from reflected in an Ozzfest lineup
those early years are still around featuring Linkin Park, Disturbed, By 2001, Ozzfest’s metal summer
today, and we have Sharon and Ozzy Papa Roach and more. But scratch a camp vibe was truly established, and
to thank for that. We were humbled little deeper, and the festival was while Jasta recalls wild times
to be asked to play – there are a giving a platform to underground aplenty, some of the names have
million bands that want to get onto US metal and hardcore acts who been conveniently forgotten with
Ozzfest every time it’s on.” were struggling to catch a break. the passage of time. “There were so
many wild moments on Ozzfest, but
With Coal Chamber riding high on “Ozzfest 2001 to 2006 is a who’s I shouldn’t talk about them. People
the back of Loco, Dez recognised the who of all of the different metal are grown up and have kids now and
impact a killer Ozzfest performance subgenres,” says Hatebreed are married. Let’s say there was
could have. “Before we played, I had frontman Jamey Jasta. “Ozzy drinking, fighting and fucking, as
a conversation with some other and Sharon have given so many
people the opportunity to have

82 metalhammer.com

Ozzfest familehhh! Metallica headlined PoolDafeatwvOezwWzefeielsklitsa2mla0st0ef2rr,oihnnetNipneagwsDsJereodrwsaenwyi.anyAg ALL IMAGES: GETTY
in 2008 at Pizza Hut Park (yes, Pizza
Hut Park) in Frisco, Texas

well as crashing golf carts, but we next record after Ozzfest, so I went Jersey, the mainman was struck provided an ‘I was there’ moment
don’t know who it happened to or into the hotel room to do some down with bronchitis. Perhaps for the tens of thousands of lucky
when it happened and in what year, writing,” recalls CJ. “I was working mindful that his cancellation in swines who caught it live.
ha ha ha!” on some stuff and my phone kept Columbus in 1997 had gone down
ringing, but I kept shutting it off badly, the pressure was on to find a 2008: METALLICA
2002: TRAGEDY because I was working. It kept solution. Dez Fafara was on the bill JOIN THE OZZFEST
STRIKES ON THE ROAD ringing, and I realised something with Devildriver that day, and FAMILEH
Nu metal remained a major draw wasn’t right. I walked out of my among those bracing themselves for In 2008, Ozzfest scaled back the
as Ozzfest toured Europe and the room and I saw some of the Ill Niño the worst. mayhem, opting for just one show in
States in 2002, with the likes of guys and the Meshuggah guys, and Frisco, Texas, rather than a full tour.
POD, Kittie, Mushroomhead and everyone was crying. Everyone was “We were backstage, leaving But what a show it was. Having
Drowning Pool on board. But it was looking at me, and I thought, ‘Oh catering, and we had heard that headed up back-to-back Ozzfests,
the shocking loss of the latter’s fuck, something’s not right.’ I saw Ozzy was really sick and he didn’t Ozzy’s solo band took a step back
frontman, Dave Williams, midway my guitar tech, and that’s when know if he could play. The talk was and settled for second billing. But
through the US leg, that the tour is I found out the news. There were to get on the bus and get ready to surely it’d take a gigantic act to oust
remembered for. police barricades and a helicopter split, because there could be riots,” the festival’s founder from his
flying above us. It was like I woke up he recalls. “We thought it could go headliner spot? Enter Metallica.
“We did the UK and European in a nightmare.” really sour really fast.” But then a It was a return to the festival for
shows, and we got to play with Tool, chrome-domed, leather-sporting bassist Rob Trujillo, who had
Slayer and so many great bands,” The final three weeks of Ozzfest metal superhero swooped in and previously played as a member of
recalls Drowning Pool guitarist wrapped up while the metal saved the day: Rob Halford agreed to Ozzy’s band.
CJ Pierce. “We had the US shows and community mourned their loss. “I’m front Sabbath. In any circumstances
everything was going great, and lucky to have known Dave,” CJ says. this would be pretty mindblowing, “I remember Sharon talking
then tragedy struck.” Dave was “He was one of those stars that but it was all the more incredible about doing this festival, creating
founded dead in the band’s tourbus, burns brightest and burns out given that Halford had only recently an environment that really focused
due to an undiagnosed heart fastest. Now I treat every show like reunited with Judas Priest and had on metal bands, and really turning it
condition. He was just 30 years old. it’s the last show I’ll play, and the blasted through a full set right into a rock’n’roll circus – and I mean
“We were planning to work on the Ozzfest shows we have played since before taking the stage with the that in a positive way,” Rob says of
have been really special.” Sabs. The shit was never going to hit his Ozzfest origins. “It was an
the fan on Halford’s watch. exciting time, because we had
2004: ROB HALFORD nothing to lose, so for me to be
STEPS IN FOR OZZY “Priest and Sabbath come from a part of that in the initial launch
As Ozzfest 2004 rolled into New the same place, born and raised. We was really cool.” Jumping forward to
go all the way back to when both 2008, Rob reckons that sharing the
bands started, and so we have so bill with Metallica only served to
much in common. Any chance we push Ozzy to put on the show of his
had we were in each other’s life. “I know for Ozzy, he’s fired up,
company, and as soon as we are, the man, he wants to deliver the goods
rock’n’roll stories start flying!” he – he wants to show Metallica what
says. “We love and support each he can deliver,” he smiles. “I know
other, so whenever we can help out, how he feels. And he did; he had a
we do. In this case it was just mates great show, and it was definitely a
making sure the show went on.” special moment for me to be
Indeed, the show went on, and

metalhammer.com 83

Just when you thought Ozzfest couldn’t get any
better, it teamed up with Knotfest, making it at

least nine times more awesome!

K2Toe0lr1nA0’vs, icMvleubaneraklycyhdaertset…ahmeiUnKg Ozzfest in Rob Halford, OuzpztyoOasnbnoouurnneceaOndzzNfeikstki2S0i1x0x
of those team

84 metalhammer.com

Ozzfest Meets Knotfest 2016: Zakk Wylde,
Geezer Butler, Ozzy Osbourne, Sharon
Osbourne, Corey Taylor… We’re not worthy!

reconnected with that tribe, to the “Jonathan and Fieldy took a trip were blowing it – we didn’t know SteelkPnaonwthtearc’ts iMf iicthbaitelhSimtarinr wthoeuladrnse’t
Ozzfest universe. Because I was on to Jerusalem. I chilled on the beach what was happening!” says Stix.
the Metallica team, and only doing in Tel Aviv. That show was like a “But that’s how they are. They clap “Bringing it” was made difficult
the one show, it was like, ‘Wow!’ I vacation. It was great that so many really fucking loud, and then they go due to the baking conditions of San
was excited, but I wish we could people in that part of the world silent and wait. Because we talk Bernardino, California, in early
have done more. Maybe in the could come together and enjoy a lot between songs, that silence September. “Our set was at
future, we’ll be able to.” music. They could sit back and went on for a while. But it was 12:30pm, and we performed in
forget about their differences for a a fantastic experience.” nearly 100˚ Fahrenheit [38˚
2010: OZZFEST day and enjoy some good Celsius]. It was brutal.”
HITS ISRAEL… rock music. Music can do that; music The Japanese crowd may have
If launching a metal festival in can be a real healer.” reacted well, but Michael isn’t But Ozzfest once again proved
mid-90s North America seemed convinced that their unique humour itself as the ultimate exposure
a bold move, taking said festival to 2013: …AND was well suited to the festival. opportunity for rising bands. Twenty
Israel was fucking insane. Again, THEN JAPAN “I think most of the comedy, the fun years in, it remained a major draw.
Ozzfest bucked the trend, holding a Becoming ever more ambitious, part of everything we do, kind of “We weren’t expecting a large
one-day show in Tel Aviv in 2010. Ozzfest pushed into Japan, with went over their heads a little bit,” he crowd, however, it was massive. We
First and foremost, there were a two-day bill topped by Slipknot says. “Because they’re so PC there, it did a meet-and-greet with a line
security concerns given the and Sabbath in Chiba City, 25 miles was hard for people to go, ‘Oh, OK, that was an hour long,” she says.
relatively recent history of conflict outside Tokyo. In an unlikely culture am I supposed to enjoy this or not?’ “Any band I know of would definitely
throughout the region. Then, on a clash, Steel Panther were But I think it went fine. It went so suck a dick to get on that bill.
business level, who knew if this sandwiched between acts from the good, we’ve hardly been back since!” Unfortunately, it’s not that easy, ha
untapped market really gave two Far East, so they decided to play one ha ha!”
shits about a metal show? As it of the most controversial songs they 2016: OZZFEST
turned out, Ozzfest Israel was one in could think of. COLLIDES WITH Ozzfest’s history may be littered
a long line of highlights for the fest. KNOTFEST with booze, stolen golf carts and
“Our drummer, Stix Zadinia, said, For its 20th anniversary, Ozzfest even riots, but it’s not always
“I had no idea what to expect,” ‘Alright, let’s play Asian Hooker!’” joined forces with the new kid on wall-to-wall carnage for everyone
says guitarist James ‘Munky’ says frontman Michael Starr. “I said, the block: Knotfest. The result was a involved in the show.
Shaffer, whose band, Korn, ‘You want me to sing Asian Hooker?! one-off, two-day super-show
sub-headlined for Ozzy. “That show C’mon, man! Alright!’ I went out to featuring the likes of Slayer, “I saw Sabbath play in 2013, and
was crazy. The crowd was huge and sing it, and people knew it, and they Megadeth and Disturbed, as well as that was life-changing,” Jill says.
went nuts. I had no idea that it enjoyed it.” Sabbath and Slipknot. “This time, I opted for vacuuming
would be as great as it was. Just the tourbus and laying in my
being in that part of the world, The crowd reaction was different “It was mindblowing that we were bunk listening to the massive
there’s a different energy over there. from what Panther were used to, asked to be part of Ozzfest,” says Jill firework show that was going on.
There are all of these religious though. Instead of laughter or gasps Janus, whose band Huntress, played I fell asleep after hearing Ozzy
beliefs at every angle. It felt like the of shock, they were met with an on the first day. “It’s so big that you introducing that, and I dreamt of
spiritual centre of the Earth, and you overwhelming quiet. “In between get instant gratification from your demons and rivers. It was perfect.
could feel that clearly. I had a great the songs in Japan, they are performance. Of course, that’s not a Ozzfest meets Knotfest was a
time; it was a great experience. The absolutely silent, because that is good thing if you blow it; we knew perfect marriage, and I’m hoping it
Ozzfest guys did a great job.” their culture. We were thinking we we had to bring it, hard.” comes back. If anyone can do
it, Ozzfest can.”
ALL IMAGES: GETTY It’d be rude to go all that way and “WE PLAYED ASIAN
not take in the sights, right? Or at HOOKER IN JAPAN!”
least top up your tan. “Everyone felt
safe and secure, and we were able to WHO LET STEEL PANTHER PLAY AT OZZFEST JAPAN? COME ON, OWN UP...
explore a little bit,” says Munky.

metalhammer.com 85

“I don’t thInk Satan haS
done quIte aS well aS I
have In the paSt year.”

86 metalhammer.com

The Devil’s

ADvocATe

In late 1996, Marilyn Manson was riding high on the success
of his breakthrough album Antchrist Superstar and his

reputation as America’s bogeyman. That was when Metal
Hammer caught up with him for one of his most in-depth

and revealing interviews ever.

Words: Jonathan selzer

getty I f you find yourself wondering “I feel very much in control of
where the line between fact what I’ve become, he says. “Even
and fiction lies when it comes the false elements of what people
to Brian Warner, aka Marilyn perceive me as are part of what
Manson, be prepared for a Marilyn Manson has always been.
long stint. It’s not just that, in It’s always been about being a ball
the wake of self-fulfilling of confusion. I think I’m the
prophecy that was Antichrist source of endless conversations
Superstar, its protagonist’s status as in many households, confusions
rock’n’roll’s most potent icon has between parents and children,
taken on all the religious anger amongst religious groups,
connotations the word suggests. and that in itself is an important
Whether he’s your saviour or Satan’s part of culture. It makes people think.
representative on Earth, he’s become a figure Everyone who reacts to Marilyn Manson finds
attributed with almost mystical powers, whether themselves in some way exposed and
in terms of his hold over the nation’s disaffected transformed. He has a habit of amplifying people’s
youth that resulted in a congressional hearing, or true nature – the bigotry and venom luring in the
the debased practices he’s supposed to have Christian psychology, the aching hunger
performed, all dredged up from the fevered ids of for more building up within his fans – to the point
a religious right all as beholden to an apocalyptic where everyone in on the act takes on a specific
reckoning as Antichrist Superstar is. role, becomes a parody of themselves.
The Marilyn Manson phenomenon has become
I’m staring into the eye of the storm, in a hotel theatre, a vivid portrayal of what is actually one of
room 23 floors above New York’s Time Square. the most fundamental stories of all – the rite of
Down below, the arcane figures and acronyms of passage. Marilyn Manson himself is no exception.
the DOW Jones Index race across their ribbon “I feel that in this past year, making the album
screens, leaving you in the thrall of your own Antichrist Superstar was something that each
ignorance, and a few blocks further down, a digital person has to put themselves through to really
clock counts out the last days of the millennium. become themselves. Everybody has to go through
that sort of transformation in their own way. So
Manson’s iris-bleaching contact lens has the now I feel more like me than ever. Because
effect of making him look like some divinely Antichrist Superstar, in a sense, has come and gone.
stricken visionary, his eye tuned into different I’ve lived through it and now I want to go beyond it
frequency. For a man who has received death and write a new album with a new perspective.”
threats, bomb threats and bans, he appears
remarkably serene.

metalhammer.com 87

Manson: the god Of ‘shock hazard,’which I thought was
F**k in full effect. ironic. That was why I chose it. It has
a very powerful, totalitarian element
to it, which is very rock’n’roll. But I getty x2
think it described perfectly what I set
T he trouble with being labelled out to do. And what I predicted I would “I think you’re right. That’s why I hope
“shocking” by the so-called moral have done was to become a superstar that what I say affects a generation that
guardians is that there is a by going against the mainstream to hasn’t built that structure up. Because I
temptation to come to the defence of become part of the mainstream, grew up with that structure too. So
the accused by denying that they’re but opposing it, by accepting the that’s why it was just as hard for me to
shocking at all, even though the paradox of that. try and decide what I believed, if I was
evidence may be staring at you from going to be in charge of my life, if I was
the other side of the dock. “People complain and say that going to be a victim or I was going to be
I’m portraying Nazi imagery, but I in control.
The typically English response to would be one of the first people
Marilyn Manson has been to pass off that would be destroyed by the “I think that a lot of people are afraid
the hysteria as a storm in a teacup Nazis. That’s the irony, that I’m that it’s easier to not think. It’s easier to
(despite the fact that America is a very making fun of Christianity in saying just accept things and to not question
large teacup), reducing everything to that it’s fascist, but at the same time, them. When you question them, you
cartoonish insignificance. That’s I’m saying so is rock’n’roll. It’s all the have to start worrying about believing
incredibly lazy. There is a story to be same.” in yourself. And so many more people
told, and the only way to understand are content with just being told what
Marilyn Manson is to get involved, to Do you think every decade needs they believe.
credit him with that power, watch him something more to be shocked by?
take effect. “There needs to be someone who leads “People can’t even decide if they like
the pack and changes the boundaries a rock album. They have to read a
The title of “Antichrist Superstar” that have been set by the people before review. ‘Well, it’s got five stars on it – I
sounds as though it was calculated to them.” think I’ll buy it’. People in America, by
shock. nature, prefer to be told what they
“Absolutely, and the symbol for the The Beatles once said they were think than to think for themselves. It’s
album is the universal symbol for bigger than God. Maybe only in just a matter of fear.
America would the reaction to that
statement have been so violent. “Once you cross that line and make
“I’ve said that Marilyn Manson was that transformation, you can’t imagine
bigger than Satan, because people align being that other person you used to be.
me with Satanism, only taking half of It’s just like Nietzche’s Superman, the
what I represent. I don’t think Satan idea of mankind in general, to someone
had done quite as well as I have in the who’s experienced so much more is like
past year, or made the Christians quite a lower form of intelligence. You almost
as mad.” have pity, in a way.”

They seem to think that you’re his Particularly in America, religion
embodiment. seems to have even less sympathy for
“I am to them. To me, I don’t consider mankind than you do.
myself evil, or what I do necessarily “Right. Here, religion is more of a hat
wrong. But by their definition, I’m that people put on when it’s
probably as bad as you can be, which I convenient, if they’re trying to make
aim to be, because I aim to destroy
their definitions.”

Imagine a middle-aged woman in the
mid-West, whose whole life had been
based around the Christian creed.
Then you come along and say it’s all
shit. You can see how she’s going to
get a little pissed off. Maybe people
react the strongest, not just because
you’re denying their God, but because
you’re taking away all the structures
they’ve built their lives on.

“I’m SayIng
ChrIStIanIty IS
faSCISt, but So IS
roCk’n’roll.”

88 metalhammer.com

marIlyn manson

Marilyn Manson. the band:
(l-r) Madonna Wayne gacy,

twiggy Ramirez, Manson,
Zim Zum, ginger Fish.

money or to make themselves feel as such a capitalist country, making I’m not trying to control them, I’m
though they have something money out of it is the only tangible trying to open their minds. In a sense,
worthwhile in their life. I don’t think means they have to measure their that’s controlling them, but by
people are really spiritual in America. I beliefs. Do you feel that you’re destroying one part of Christianity,
think very few people here even have a engaged in a cultural war as much as a you’re creating something very similar.
spirit. It’ s a lot different in Europe; religious war? I think that if you know that – at least,
people have a greater appreciation and “Or even political, because it’s really a going in to it – it’s not as dangerous as
understanding of music and art, and struggle of power. It’s not even so much what you’re destroying.”
want to discover and find meaning about God, it’s who’s going to control
behind it. Here, people would rather the minds of America’s youth, because But you found your own sense of
sensationalise. That’s why Marilyn it’s who wants to take their money. Do freedom without a guide. Wasn’t it
Manson has always been a mockery of they want to buy my records or do they more of a disposition than a choice?
sensationalism. When people are want to throw their money on the “Well, I don’t think I feel as though I
mocking me as a gimmick, I’m offering plate? So I don’t think a lot of ever belonged. I always felt like an
mocking gimmickry.” times they care what their kids are outsider. One thing that occurred to me
listening to, they just want to make is that there are certain people that
There’s an alternative view; that sure that they’re listening to them. don’t really belong on earth, that earth
religion is actually fundamental to has the potential for such greatness,
America, it’s just that because it’s also “But I’m trying to set people free and but something with the potential for
let them be controlled by themselves. such greatness also has the obligation
for such terribleness, and some people
belong somewhere else. I don’t know
where that somewhere else is, but I feel
like I don’t belong here, that I can say
what I have to say, just like other
people.”

metalhammer.com 89

In the light of recent attacks, do you to be your own God, what I’m writing
feel that Marilyn Manson has become now is my relationship to the life of
a sign of the times? Christ on earth, as a martyr.”
“It is a sign of the times, but it is no
different, really, from the Beatles or Do you really see your battle in biblical
David Bowie or Jim Morrison or Elvis terms, if on a smaller scale?
Presley. There’s always someone for “I think so, and I think not even on a
each era who sums up the zeitgeist, and smaller scale. John the Baptist, when
that’s what I’ve become, but maybe he sat down – and probably he was on a
more potent than the ones before. lot of drugs – and wrote the Book of
Revelations, it was clearly open to so
“But I think that it’s just as necessary many different interpretations, and
as the story of Jesus in the Bible. I think Christianity evolved so many of its own
he was a person like all the ones that folklores. There’s really no mention of
I’ve mentioned, and like myself, an Antichrist figure in the Bible at all.
someone who came from beyond The only time the Antichrist was
everyone’s understanding, and had
ideas that people couldn’t grasp, and getty x2
some people wanted to worship him,
and some people wanted to destroy
him.

“I think, strangely enough, he’s more
similar to me than Christians would
like to believe. That’s what I’m
exploring on the new album I’m
working on. If Antichrist Superstar was
about my relationship to the story of
Lucifer, his fall from grace and wanting

Satan will see you now.

mentioned was earlier in the Bible,
when people who disbelieved the
teachings of Jesus were considered the
Antichrist. It was more a body of
people; it wasn’t even a figure.

“So I studied it more and more, and it
was always fascinating me, because I
thought that if there was going to be an
Antichrist, particularly in this era, it
would be an entertainer. That’s the
form of media with the most
possibilities, more than politics or
religion, because it is politics and
religion in one.

“I was always really terrified by the
idea of the end of the world but as I got
more into it, I felt like that was what I
wanted to be the centre of. So I think
there’s a lot of close relationships,
biblically, to what’s happened.

“Y’know, maybe it’s intentional, me
pushing it that way, or maybe it’s a
prophecy. I remember reading
Nietzche’s [philosophical novel] Thus
Spoke Zarathustra. He mentioned that
there will come an age when an
Antichrist will really capture the hearts
of everyone, will fascinate everyone by
its own destruction, and he would hate
himself to become himself.

“I read that just recently, and that
really described a part of my life as it
happened. I think a lot of people have
been intelligent enough to have the
insight to predict things like Marilyn
Manson. I don’t think they were
necessarily speaking about me
specifically, but it seems to fall into
place.”

90 metalhammer.com

marIlyn manson

afew blocks down, that clock’s still “In the Bible, Armageddon was very Marilyn Manson:
ticking. And I’m thinking, the immediate. They weren’t speaking America’s most wanted.
closer it brings us to zero, it’s not about our time, they were talking about
madness that we stray into, but a ten or twenty years from when they especially with trips to Mars and
terrifying rule of law, where everyone wrote it, and it’s always been the case. science becoming so involved, in some
assumes the power to judge, where There’s always been the fear of ways it’s poised to disprove, finally, the
everyone tries to reduce God into mankind bringing about its own existence of God. But at the same time,
human terms as their own personal destruction. maybe it’s poised to prove the existence
witness, the only guide we’ve given the of God, but not in the way that we’ve
authority to take us past midnight. “I think it’s interesting now, because, always thought it to be – that God is
part of man.”
I actually believe in Marilyn “I’ve trIed to
Manson. I take him at his word, if only debate wIth Christians on the one side, the kids on
because he’s got the story straight. I ChrIStIanS and the other – who, primarily is Marilyn
know the one about the Apocalypse, I’m tIred of It.” Manson trying to infect?
how anyone with the arrogance (not “I’ve tried to debate with Christians,
necessarily a criticism) to believe that and I’m tired of it at this point, because
they’re their own God always assumes they always like to fall back on the idea
the end of the world is nigh. So the that it says so in the Bible, and that’s
story goes, the moment He comes their only defence. I’d much rather
down to see us for what we really are speak to someone who has a fresh
(and surely that what Marilyn Manson mind. The younger you are, the more
is all about – to be seen for what you you hold on to what I try and hold on to,
really are), that’s it. Over. Wipe-out. which is really magic. The idea that if
Judgement has been served. you believe in something, if you have a
dream, it can come true. It’s innocence.
It’s only a story. Religious imagery,
even the Apocalypse, invoked as “What kids don’t realise growing up
metaphors for what are, basically, very is that people don’t really care whether
human urges. they’re Republican or Democrat, they
don’t care if they’re Christian of
“That’s the way all literature has Satanist, they only care about making
been. I don’t see why the Bible should money. People just end up being played
be any different. It’s just a book. I know as part of that. That’s fine with me.
it’s interesting the era we’re in now, That’s what America is. I’m not saying I
because so many people think that hate it, I’m just trying to show people
technology is so evolved, but I think a what it is.”
hundred years ago, people thought the
same thing. T he ultimate paradox is that locked
into the freakish figure of Marilyn
Manson, the vivid green blusher,
the scars visible just beneath his vest,
the insubstantial yet towering
presence, isn’t just an exemplary
Christian, but an exemplary American
too. No wonder he’s the devil made
flesh.

metalhammer.com 91

Tenehpoveootenlmvyheemodnwoobuvtesehhrdeinetmhbdeautsthykeaesalibrhrusamve; ALL PICTURES: PRESS

lTisrtaicnkg

742617000027
(sic)

WaSituEAryfenaldceisBnslgeed
FTraatitleSLrPpiemiudtrbIAittNnyOudurtTseorryn

Liberate
Prosthetics

No Life
Diluted
Only One
Scissors

6P.RS7O83H5...D.1AM4CCCU.WHO.RIJCJ2CORRAANE.KE0EIDMPISYC.YGTASEBRFHJJTUISOYOAEDAOL:RHRNHYMRWGDONELAOSRISOIO:NSOLSA:PTROS:SNSYE::PONA::GRRVENGB:MUOCORDUA:UBIPCCDRTISISALUTAJUNSISALSNRMSISRSOOGSINNON

92 metalhammer.com

The Story Behind...

Slipknot

IT WAS 1999. In terms of changing the face of metal, Slipknot’s self-titled album
– their first proper label release – was as important as the likes of Black Sabbath
or Judas Priest. So how did they record an album that fused all elements of the

genre to make one of the most pissed-off albums ever recorded?

WORDS: TOMMY UDO

If truth be told it was really “It was violent. Things Taylor who the band had met when
my wife who persuaded were getting broken. It got they faced off against Stone Sour
me to sign Slipknot,” in a Battle Of The Bands contest.
Roadrunner Records crazy really quickly ” Craig Jones was tapped to replace
supremo Monte Conner Donnie, but he was moved to
tells Hammer. “I really ROSS ROBINSON samples and Mick Thomson joined
wasn’t sure. I liked them as lead guitarist. When Josh
but I was prevaricating. That and a terrible. No one really gave a fuck crank out metal all night. Shawn bolted, Corey suggested a
character that they had in the about music, so we formed Crahan would come down and replacement: James Root from his
band at that time – called, I think, Slipknot,” says Corey Taylor. they’d start plotting things out. old band, Stone Sour. The band
The Baby [aka the mentalist When he left at 5am, they had found DJ Sid Wilson later on, and
Cuddles – Ed] – swung me.” Shawn Crahan used to frequent worked out the blueprint for the the incarnation of Slipknot that we
a club in Des Moines called The band that Slipknot would all love to hate was formed.
Welcome to the mid 90s, a Runway where cover bands and eventually become. Then he got
period that seems almost as remote tribute bands would try to fired because he was scaring the There were a few labels
as the Dark Ages in terms of the outshine each other in their customers away. “We literally had interested in Slipknot, particularly
phenomenal changes that we have slavish imitation of other bands. people pull up, see me and Shawn in the wake of their debut release
seen in heavy music and in the When the only two original metal sitting in the window, floor it out Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat, essentially
lives of nine [or so] crazy kids from bands in Des Moines that he liked of there and go to the Amoco a collection of demo-quality tracks
the Mid-Western USA who had an broke up, he knew it was time for station across the street.” that gives us a snapshot of a band
idealistic American dream to scare him to do it himself. Along with not quite fully formed.
the living piss out of the whole vocalist Anders Colsefni and Paul Slipknot’s live shows around the
motherfucking planet… Gray, he formed a band called Meld. period between 1995 and 1998 “There were a few tracks on that
Local drummer Joey Jordison was were occasionally shambolic record that were good that ended
“Slipknot is still the heaviest persuaded to come and watch them affairs, played out in bars in the up being redone on Slipknot’s
album ever to make it onto the rehearse: one song they played bad part of town to at best first Roadrunner album,” says
Billboard Top 3,” says Corey Taylor. that night was called Slipknot. He indifferent and at worst hostile Monte Connor.
“There’s no doubt that the album knew there and then that he had to crowds. Line-ups changed: original
opened the door to a lot more very be involved. guitarists Donnie Steele and Josh As well as Roadrunner’s Monte
extreme bands crossing into the Brainard left, the former after he Connor, producer Ross Robinson
mainstream,” says Monte Connor. Joey Jordison worked as a night “found Christ”, the latter lost – then riding high on the success
manager at a gas station. He’d interest. Anders Colsefni left in of his work with Korn and Limp
“It set the bar,” agrees original leave band practice at 10pm, take a 1997 and was replaced by Corey Bizkit – had heard the album and
drummer Joey Jordison. radio and TV to the gas station and went to Des Moines to see the band
himself, intending to sign them to
In retrospect, Slipknot’s 1999 his IAM imprint. After seeing them
self-titled album was a major and hanging out with them in strip
change in metal. Until then, bands bars – “Des Moines’ main form of
were still caught up in the fallout entertainment,” says Corey Taylor a
from grunge, and while the tad wearily – Robinson was
lightweight pop-metal of bands impressed by their dedication and
such as Korn, Limp Bizkit and by their vision. It was the
others were keeping hard rock alchemical reaction that would
alive and on permanent rotation on turn base metal to gold.
MTV, there was nothing outside of
the underground to challenge the Thanks in part to Robinson and
old guard of Slayer, Metallica and Monte Connor’s wife, Slipknot were
Megadeth, nothing with any real signed and travelled out to
original substance. Robinson’s Indigo Ranch studio in
California to start work on the
Slipknot had no idea what they album. For a time, Robinson
were going to sound like when they seemed to be the only person who
formed: stuck in dead-end bands was totally convinced by Slipknot.
and dead-end day jobs, they As far as the band were concerned,
wanted to do something – they’d written the album for
anything – to get the fuck right themselves and had no idea that
out of that life. “Back at the time, anyone else outside of their friends
there was no metal going on in Des and family would buy it.
Moines, there was no hardcore,
nothing. We had all been in bands “We hadn’t recorded the album
that had opened up for each other, yet; we hadn’t gone out and
and the scene had become just toured; we didn’t know how people

metalhammer.com 93

“Ross had me pounding that kit so hard that my hands were
bleeding. They were covered in these bloody bandages”

JOEY JORDISON

were going to take us. So we’d just muthafucker with a brain?/I’m hearing strangest manner that had/Broke Boiler room: Slipknot
written the songs for us. There was no voices but all they do is complain/How away my tear spout”. go to work.
audience until then,” says Corey. many times have you wanted to kill/
Everything and everyone – Say you’ll do It may have sounded like horror Roadrunner ever had, with only Coal
The band travelled economy class it but never will/You can’t see California comic stuff to some critics, but there Chamber coming close. The rapid
in those days and slept where they without Marlon Brando’s eyes/I am my was a basis in the very real human success of the album owed a lot to the
fell, on couches and on armchairs if Father’s son/He’s a phantom, a mystery pain that some of the band’s rather shrewd decision to buy
they were lucky, but on hard floors if and that leaves me/Nothing!/How members had suffered. Rumours of Slipknot onto the opening slot of the
not. Ross Robinson has a reputation many times have you wanted to die?/ child abuse, suicide attempts and a 1999 Ozzfest tour. The band struck up
as a producer who lays down It’s too late for me/All you have to do is mania for self-slashing added to the a good relationship with Jack
challenges to bands to get the best get rid of me!” band’s mystique. Osbourne, who had a hand in booking
work out of them; with Slipknot it was subsequent tours. Without the
a two-way street. The song was inspired by the In an interview with Metal benefit of support from press, radio or
schizophrenic ravings of a street Hammer at the time, Joey Jordison MTV, the album became a cult item
“I was working out every day just dweller that the band met in New York said: “You stick nine guys together that went platinum within three
to stay on top of that record,” when they were visiting the offices of who have had no outlet for their months of release. This allowed them
Robinson, a man who seems to Roadrunner Records to sign their whole lives, and you live in Iowa and to obviously shock the shit out of the
hyperventilate with enthusiasm in recording contract. you come out on a fucking stage, mainstream; the music and the image
everyday conversations, told Hammer. then you have some shit to portray. guaranteed fodder for the ban-it
“It was spontaneous, it was violent. According to Mick Thomson: “He We were walking around like ghosts, brigade in the wake of the Columbine
Things were getting broken. We were was running around, screaming it at slitting our wrists open saying, shootings. But the first people to turn
out there away from anyone else, everyone. Though I think his choice ‘Please take a look at this, look at their noses up were not concerned
nobody dropping by or hanging out, it of actor was pretty cool. He was off what we are trying to do’. When we Conservative Christians, it was the
got crazy really quickly.” his shit.” put it together and came to doing a metal underground, who wrote them
live show all the elements of being off as nu metal canon fodder.
“Ross had me pounding that kit so In the more defiant Surfacing, downgraded, not appreciated, being
hard that my hands were bleeding, Corey sings the lyric: “Fuck it all/ given nothing because we live in Joey: “If you listen to a song like
and that was when we were just Fuck this world/Fuck everything that such a shithole, all that came out. Get This from the digipack, or
setting up the drum levels. My hands you stand for/Don’t belong/Don’t There is no way you can go through Surfacing or [sic] or even like fucking
were covered in these bloody exist/Don’t give a shit/Don’t ever life thinking everything is great Scissors, the roots are death metal,
bandages,” says Joey. judge me.” because it’s not. Look at all the thrash, speed metal, and I could go
fucked-up shit that goes on. The on and on about all those bands. I
“Ross Robinson pushed us and we But the truly terrifying Scissors, an world is a sick fucking place. The know all the songs, and I know every
pushed back,” says Corey. “It was a unconnected, rambling stream of fact is you can come to our show and fucking label… the underground
fight. Ross was throwing punches at consciousness evocative of a get all your aggressions out and go metal kids should also be happy
us. He was so into it. You can hear deranged killer, was the album’s away feeling relieved. I want because the current success of
that on the record.” ‘money shot’, the equivalent of Linda everyone to get a rush of emotion Slipknot, on songs like Surfacing and
Blair’s 360 degree headspin in The from it.” [sic] that have super-fast 16th-note
“It’s a piece of magic,” says Exorcist or the chest-burster in Alien: double-bass – none of those fuckers
Robinson. “We made it for us.” “I play doctor for five minutes flat/ The band’s self-titled debut album in the other bands they lump us in
Before I cut my heart open and let the was the most successful record with could contend with that.”
It was a brutal, desensitised air out/Three bugs, a pound of dust/
catalogue of rage and despair. It was Some wind spilled before me In the
like a fusion of the most extreme
hip-hop with the most extreme metal.
In the raw blast of Eyeless Corey Taylor
screams: “Insane – Am I the only

94 metalhammer.com

THE MIND BLOWING STORY OF
ROCK’S GREATEST DECADE

From Queen and Pink Floyd to Aerosmith and Bowie, uncover the magic and
madness of rock’s defining decade. Packed with the best features from
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THE EPIC SAGA OF THE BAND
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Featuring exclusive interviews with some of the band’s main protagonists
alongside a look back at their key albums – from Nursery Cryme to The Lamb

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THE
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NEW MILLENNIUM,
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SCENES: THE WHOLE
WORLD WAS CHANGING

AND METAL WAS
CHANGING WITH IT.

metalhammer.com 97

iron maiden

Steve Harris, Nicko McBrain, Bruce Dickinson,
Dave Murray, Janick Gers and Adrian Smith
backstage at Chicago’s UIC Pavillion during
their Brave New World Tour, October 17, 2000

“having three lead
guitarists gave us
a different edge”

Steve HarriS

98 metalhammer.com

iron maiden

How we Made

Brave New

world

When Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith returned to Iron
Maiden in 1999, the pressure was on the metal legends to
deliver an album that could take them back to greatness

WordS: dom LaWSon

GeTTy i t might be hard to imagine now, but Iron winding people up. People realised, ‘If they can
Maiden were struggling at the end of the still do this live, can they still make a great record
1990s. Today, the UK’s undisputed kings of together?’ It posed a question, and [prompted]
heavy metal casually stalk the globe with a great deal of discussion.”
vast, eye-busting stage productions, at the
peak of their powers and more successful The Ed Hunter tour kicked off in the US on July
than ever. But after two good-but-not-great 11, 1999, continuing for 31 dates that noisily
albums with vocalist Blaze Bayley, who replaced confirmed Iron Maiden were back to reclaim their
Bruce Dickinson back in 1994, Maiden were visibly throne. It ended on October 1 in Athens, at which
battling the law of diminishing returns, playing point the band were in the thick of writing and
in smaller venues to smaller crowds in many parts recording the album that would either put them
of the world; their status as metal’s unassailable back at the top of the metal tree… or not. No
standard bearers was now in question. pressure, then, for producer Kevin Shirley, who
had mixed feelings about being offered the job
But in 1999, the news that Blaze was gone and of facilitating such an iconic band’s comeback.
Bruce and guitarist Adrian Smith (who had quit
Maiden in 1990) were to return to the fold sent “To be honest, when I got the call I was less
the band’s global army of fans into a state of enthusiastic than I should have been, because it
wide-eyed hysteria. A new, six-man Maiden appeared to me that they were a band that had
(Bruce, bassist Steve Harris, drummer Nicko maybe lost their way,” he recalls. “I was concerned
McBrain and the newly named ‘Three Amigos’: because I’d had a look at where they’d been and
guitarists Dave Murray, Janick Gers and the the trajectory of the albums. It seemed like there
returning Smith) announced that they were to was a pattern emerging and it didn’t look good.
tour the US and Europe and then, most excitingly, So I was apprehensive about it.”
make a brand-new studio album.
He needn’t have worried, of course. If one thing
“From the moment we started the songwriting has characterised Iron Maiden’s four-decade
process, we saw the tour as being just a small reign, it is a steely determination to never
blip on the way to making this record,” Bruce let the fans down. Combined with the kind of
told Hammer’s Clay Marshall in 2000. “[It was] confidence that only comes when you know you’re
something to cheer us up. The tour, in many the best, Maiden arrived at Guillaume Tell studios
ways, was the beginning of the campaign for – a converted movie theatre in Paris, a brisk
this album. It started the ball rolling. It started stroll away from the Champs-Elysées – with

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iron maiden

To be honest we really dig a lot of the
Blaze-era stuff, but, you know...

an abundance of musical ideas and itself. With countless ideas and half- GeTTy
a shared desire to make the best record finished songs flying around between
possible. In a sense, it must have felt Maiden’s numerous songwriters, Paris shadows. Armed with both short,
like business as usual for Steve Harris, finding enough material for a new sharp singalongs such as explosive
Bruce and the others. But as far as album was never going to be difficult. opener The Wicker Man and the
their new producer was concerned, What was more potentially problematic rampaging The Mercenary, plus
a new era demanded a fresh approach. was how the songwriting credits were towering, elaborate epics like The
going to be divided up, but any fears Nomad, the Maiden sound was receiving
“Obviously I grew up with the that the newly convened Maiden a subtle but significant upgrade.
old-school recording methods, where line-up would end up bickering were
you’d record the drums first, then soon dispelled. Maybe due to simply “It was a band finding their feet in
the bass and the guitars, and it took maturing as people or because this the studio again, finding that natural
forever,” Kevin explains. “But I could was too good an opportunity to fuck chemistry,” says Kevin. “Maiden is just
see how there was this intangible up with ego battles, Iron Maiden were different – you can’t change Maiden.
energy you’d get, just from having a firmly united front. I tried to introduce new elements, like
musicians playing together. So I was the orchestra in Blood Brothers, to give
dead keen on Maiden doing that. “The first thing that has to happen, things a very grand feel. But you can’t
Steve, in particular, was very hesitant and which did happen, was everybody say, ‘Look, I think gallops are passé!
about it. He said he didn’t think it was pretty cool and laidback about Let’s go with something else…’ because
was gonna work, so I said, ‘If it doesn’t getting their songs on or not getting that’s what Maiden is. They come in
work then we’ll go back and do it as their songs on,” remarked Bruce. with a ready-built identity and you
you’ve done previously, but let’s give “Everybody was aware that everybody can’t fuck with it. It would be
it a try!’ Pretty much, as soon as had to have a bit of give and take. We irresponsible to fuck with it, for one
they’d done one or two run-throughs, were reading off the same script.” thing, and why would you want to?”
he said, ‘I never want to work another
way again!’” “People brought in different ideas Preceded by a single, The Wicker
and I guess Steve had the bulk of Man, that emerged three weeks
“There was always gonna be them,” Kevin notes. “He really is prior, Brave New World was
a different edge to a certain degree the keystone in that organisation released on May 29, 2000. As their
anyway, with the fact we have three – every song goes through Steve, world tour loomed, Maiden would
lead guitarists [now],” Steve Harris and especially back then, with the have been delighted to note that the
noted in 2000. “That in itself, I would’ve reforming of that line-up. Over the album received almost universal
thought wasn’t going to be an easy last 20 years and the last five or six praise from the rock and metal press,
thing to handle, but Kevin handled it albums that we’ve done, it’s evolved
brilliantly. I do think he has given us a little since then, and it’s become
an edge because it is just working with a lot more collaborative. But they
someone new and someone who is very needed to have that one solid anchor
positive, and he has a great vibe about and that was Steve.”
him. The studio is not my favourite
place to be. I would rather be onstage, With their bass-playing general
so to be able to say I enjoyed it is guiding the ship, Maiden duly conjured
important and to work with the right some of the strongest songs of their
people is important.” career. Listening back to Brave New
World nearly 20 years on, you can hear
With their working methods the excitement in the air as Maiden
refreshed, attention turned to the album bashed anthems and epics out in the

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