2022-05-26 Metal Hammer UK

SPECIAL 30TH
ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

“IETMVHBHREYAOURCDUEMYDGLIIOCNOHKNIDNSTES”TON

FEAR OF THE DARK WAS MEANT TO SAVE THEM

INSTEAD, IT TORE THEM APART

NINOAR“ONTUEWFGHVREIAEESSLMITDESFIEAULHDTOVSCOTEHETRS” E

GHOST CRADLE OF FILTH 5FDP CHRIS JERICHO

ISSUE 362 Papa IV answers “We took mushrooms In the studio with On The Rock, God...
your questions and saw ghosts” Zoltan Bathory and Bigfoot?!

VILLE VALO • SHOOTING DAGGERS • BLEED FROM WITHIN • TROLLFEST • KREATOR • MALEVOLENCE



Future PLC, 121 - 141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London, W2 6JR EDITOR’S LETTER
Web: www.metalhammer.com
Letters: [email protected] IT’S ALWAYS
DARKEST BEFORE
Editorial THE DAWN
Editor Eleanor Goodman
IRON MAIDEN HAVE released an incredible 17 albums. While you
[email protected] might think of The Number Of The Beast or Powerslave as the mightiest
Production Editor Vanessa Thorpe in their canon, or be totally in love with last year’s ambitious
Senjustu, others have been heavily significant in shaping their story
[email protected] – 1992’s Fear Of The Dark chief among them. With confident, topical
Reviews Editor Jonathan Selzer songs such as Be Quick Or Be Dead and Fear Is The Key, it was designed
to reposition Maiden as a vital force for the 90s… then Bruce
[email protected] Dickinson quit, throwing that operation into question.
Art Editor Louise Brock Ultimately, Bruce’s departure would pave the way for an enthusiastic
return in 1999, alongside guitarist Adrian Smith, and for Maiden’s
[email protected] triumphant re-emergence on the world stage. Without Fear Of The
Associate Editor Dave Everley Dark, Maiden as we know them today wouldn’t exist
– and we wouldn’t be gearing up to see Bruce and co at
[email protected] Download in June. Maiden have played on Donington’s FOLLOW
Contributing Editor Paul Brannigan hallowed ground an astonishing six times, and we’re no US

[email protected] less excited for the seventh. Bring on the Eddies!
Staff Writer Rich Hobson As this issue went to press, we were saddened to hear
of the passing of much-loved music PR Roland Hyams, METALHAMMER.COM
[email protected] a true legend within the industry who worked with
Content Director – Music Scott Rowley many of the bands you see in Metal Hammer’s pages.
Our thoughts are with his friends and family.
Contributors /METALHAMMER
Steve Appleford, Oliver Badin, Richard Chamberlain, Chris Chantler,
Alec Chillingworth, Joe Daly, Hywel Davies, Remfry Dedman, Alex Deller, Stay metal,
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Tyler Damara Kelly, Hannah May Kilroy, Dom Lawson, Elliot Leaver, Dannii Leivers, @METALHAMMER
Dave Ling, Clay Marshall, Will Marshall, Sophie Maughan, Edwin McFee,
Joel McIver, Matt Mills, Mörat, Tom O’Boyle, Adam Rees, Alastair Riddell, ELEANOR GOODMAN @METALHAMMERUK
Liz Scarlett, Rosie Solomon, James Weaver, Christina Wenig, Kez Whelan, Jon EDITOR METALHAMMERTV
Wiederhorn, Holly Wright, Nik Young
@ELEANORGOODMAN
Cover Photography: Iron Maiden Holdings LLP Bleed From Within bundle: Press
Image Manipulation: MagicTorch, Gary Stuckey Design: John Woolford MEET THE BAND

Photography DAVE EVERLEY ALICE PATTILLO UNCLE ALLAN
Ben Bentley, Justin Borucki, Derek Bremner, Steve Bright, Janson Bulpin, Stephanie
Cabral, Duncan Everson, Nick Fancher, Andy Ford, Mick Hutson, Will Ireland, Simon Associate Editor
Kallas, Tina Korhonen, Marie Korner, John McMurtrie, Kevin Nixon, Katja Ogrin, Jake Not only does Dave oversee
Owens, Emma Painter, Tom Russell, Jeremy Saffer, Ester Segarra, James Sharrock, Hammer’s presence online, he
Travis Shinn, Frank White, Jonathan Weiner, Dani Willgress, Neil Zlozower also commissions our front
All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected section and wrote this month’s
excellent Fear Of The Dark cover
Advertising feature. We’re not sure how
Media packs are available on request he does it, tbh. Either hard
Commercial Director Clare Dove - [email protected] work… or an evil twin?
Advertising Manager Helen Hughes - [email protected]
Account Director Steven Pyatt - [email protected]
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Writer Photographer
We sent Alice to cover Besides being a veteran of the
Desertfest as it made a mighty extreme metal circuit, Danish
return to Camden’s venues. photographer Uncle Allan is
The only thing Alice loves more a renowned tattooist with his
than cats and stupid memes own Conspiracy Inc. shop in
are riffs, and Electric Wizard, Berlin. He dropped his needles
Yob and Orange Goblin brought and raised claws and lenses to
some of the best. capture Oslo’s Inferno festival.

METALHAMMER.COM 3

JULY 2022

10 GHOST 26 SHOOTING DAGGERS

34 IRON MAIDEN CONT

FRONT ROW FEATURES

8 STRANGER THINGS is back on our 34 As the 90s began, Fear Of The Dark
screens – and it’s metal as fuck. was meant to future-proof IRON

10 Tobias Forge answers your burning MAIDEN. Instead, it threw them
GHOST questions.
into chaos…
14 What’s on MALEVOLENCE man
Alex Taylor’s Slaylist? Beatdowns, 42 Why FAITH NO MORE risked it all
on the dark and twisted Angel Dust.
beatdowns and extra beatdowns.
48 Wrestler, rock star, podcaster and
15 We get in the studio with all-round legend CHRIS JERICHO
FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH.
does The Hammer Interview.
16 Life Lessons from lovable CANCER
BATS dude Liam Cormier. 54 Older and wiser, Scottish
metalcore heroes BLEED FROM
20 The story behind CRADLE OF
FILTH’s Her Ghost In The Fog. WITHIN are riding to glory.

26 Meet your favourite new queercore 60 Welcome to NU GEN: the rising
band, SHOOTING DAGGERS. scene redefining heavy music

for the 20s.

60 NU GEN 90 LIVES

4 METALHAMMER.COM

JULY 2022

42 FAITH NO MORE

ENTS SUBSCRIBE 54 BLEED FROM WITHIN

66 Think TROLLFEST are just 88 NOVA TWINS make a thrilling NOW & SAVE
a novelty band? Think again! call for empowerment. Head to p.32
for details

72 How CAVE IN are honouring their LIVE REVIEWS
late brother, Caleb Scofield.

ALBUM REVIEWS 90 GHOST have a devil of a time in
the Midlands.

80 Teutonic thrash lords KREATOR 92 LINGUA IGNOTA, ULVER and

mark a new milestone. JO QUAIL bring the rapture

83 BRIDEAR embark on another new to ROADBURN.

heavy metal adventure. 94 ELECTRIC WIZARD and

84 COHEED AND CAMBRIA get ORANGE GOBLIN cast a spell

sumptuous with their saga. over DESERTFEST.

86 DECAPITATED send out a missive 98 DEVIN TOWNSEND casts his net

from the moral maze. wide at the Royal Albert Hall.

87 MOTIONLESS IN WHITE reach 100 ARCHITECTS build an arena-

new heights. sized sense of awe.

80 ALBUMS 66 TROLLFEST

METALHAMMER.COM 5

THE BIG PICTURE

SYLVIA LANCASTER
REMEMBERED

LAST MONTH, THE alternative

community lost one of our biggest
champions. Sylvia Lancaster, founder
of the Sophie Lancaster Foundation,
passed away suddenly at Blackburn
hospital on April 12.

After her daughter Sophie was
murdered in a brutal attack in
Stubbylee Park in Bacup, Lancashire,
in 2007, Sylvia set up the S.O.P.H.I.E.
Foundation to ‘Stamp Out Prejudice,
Hatred and Intolerance Everywhere’.
Thanks to her campaign for abuse
against people from alternative
subcultures to be recognised as a hate
crime category, multiple police forces
introduced it. She also spearheaded
a programme to educate students and
young offenders about difference, and
the Foundation was a regular presence
at Bloodstock, which named a stage
after Sophie. In 2014, Sylvia was
awarded an OBE for her work in
fostering community cohesion, and
would go on to received honorary
doctorates from the University Of
Bolton and the University Of Surrey.

In a statement, the Sophie Lancaster
Foundation said: “Sylvia was
formidable. She challenged authority
and fought for what she believed in.
She will be sadly missed.”

6 METALHAMMER.COM

ALAMY

METALHAMMER.COM 7

THE HOT TOPIC

STRANGER THINGS
SEASON 4 IS
METAL AF

Demons, Demogorgons and Dungeons & Dragons:
why we can’t wait to go back to Hawkins for
Stranger Things season 4

WORDS: RICH HOBSON

THE END IS nigh. For once we’re not The X-Files and Stephen King’s IT to “SATAN!”, but Quinn’s charm shines
create a believable and fascinating through and Eddie proves to be one
talking about the world at large (though universe. In its first three seasons, we of the most likeable additions to the
the news cycle makes a compelling had everything from (mild spoiler!) cast for its latest season.
case for the contrary), but Stranger cross-dimensional demons and
Things. It’s back for its penultimate possessed kids to psychic powers, It’s a good job really, because Eddie
season, teeing up its endgame with all government conspiracies and all-out (with his kickass guitar) has a big part
manner of Demogorgon-featuring, Cold War espionage, setting the stakes to play in the episodes ahead. His
dimension-hopping, Dungeons & high for where the show could go next. shredding skills aren’t just a neat
Dragons-adjacent madness. What’s character quirk, but crucial to fighting
more, season 4 of the show is metal AF. In April, a teaser trailer arrived that the forces of darkness in the Upside
ticked plenty off the checklist (Creepy Down. While the show hasn’t had
Over the past six years, Stranger lich-demon-thing? Check. Kickass a total kvlt makeover, we did spot
Things has become one of Netflix’s guitar solo? Check. An eyeless Robert a cheeky Maiden shirt and Motörhead
marquee shows. Set somewhere Englund? *shudder* Check), but the poster in the first volume that gives us
between horror, mystery and fantasy, show’s fourth season also introduces plenty of hope for some full-throttle
the show explores the weird and often a metalhead as a new core character distortion by the time things wrap
horrifying things unfolding in the town in the form of Eddie Munson – head of up in July.
the school D&D club and guitarist in
of Hawkins, Indiana – a town that could the band Corroded Coffin. Split into two volumes, arriving on
well be the setting for a John Hughes May 27 and July 1, the show’s fourth
movie if only the teens would stop Excellently portrayed by British season really highlights the distance
getting eaten by eldritch abominations. actor Joseph Quinn, Eddie is a perfect and development its characters have
example of how the show’s creators, experienced since season 1 – which
With a core cast of D&D-loving The Duffer Brothers, are able to take isn’t massively surprising, considering
nerds alongside colourful supporting a stereotype and flip it on its head. Yes, that was six years ago. Hawkins is still
characters – including David Harbour he’s an obnoxious, D&D-loving nerd reeling after the devastation caused by
as police chief Jim Hopper and with a penchant for upsetting the jocks last season’s big bad The Mind Flayer,
a brilliantly wild-eyed Winona Ryder by throwing devil horns and snarling now attributed to a fire at the Starcourt
as Joyce Byers – the show strikes just
the right balance between The Goonies,

NEW CHARACTER EDDIE IS HEAD NETFLIX/PRESS
OF THE SCHOOL D&D CLUB AND
A METALHEAD GUITARIST

8 METALHAMMER.COM

Just your average day 10 THINGS
in Hawkins, then… WE LEARNED
THIS MONTH
PRESS Mall. Similarly, the cast themselves Things season 4 does plenty to whet
are in disarray; Mike (Finn Wolfhard), our appetites and justify why we love What’s been blowing our
Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb the series so much. Aside from the tiny brains
McLaughlin) and Max (Sadie Sink) are brilliant cast, there’s some serious RAMMSTEIN ARE BEING TARGETED
now in high school, and while Mike embracing of classic horror in the first BY RUSSIAN TROLL FACTORIES
and Dustin remain fringe D&D nerds at few episodes, including some loving
heart, Lucas finds himself increasingly A Nightmare On Elm Street references We don’t fancy their chances considering
popular as a rising star in the school’s that fit perfectly considering Freddy Rammstein’s proficiency with pyro, mind.
basketball team and Max is almost himself has joined the wider cast.
entirely isolated, still dealing with VERA FARMIGA IS THE METAL HERO
the trauma of her stepbrother Billy’s There’s also some clever socio- HOLLYWOOD NEEDS
sacrifice the previous season. political commentary snuck in for good
measure, discussing the Satanic Panic The Conjuring star was filmed singing The
Meanwhile, the Byers family – Joyce through the lens of D&D in a way that Trooper, with Scott Ian on guitar. Class!
(Winona Ryder), Jonathan (Charlie could just as easily be used to describe
Heaton) and Will (Noah Schnapp) – have heavy metal, while also showing the BLOODYWOOD WILL TOUR THE US
relocated to California with formerly mob mentality that can affect fringe
psychic-powered teen Eleven (Millie communities. Chuck in songs by Kiss, The New Delhi crew are bringing their
Bobby Brown) after the apparent death Extreme and The Cramps on the Nine Inch Naans Tour to the US later this
of Eleven’s adoptive father Jim Hopper soundtrack and it’s fair to say that year. That’s some A-game pun work.
(David Harbour). Only, we’re barely 30 Stranger Things season 4 really is
minutes into the first episode when shaping up to be the most metal GENE SIMMONS STILL RECKONS
things start to go wonky both in season of the show to date. ROCK IS DEAD
Hawkins and California, bringing both
groups inevitably back together for a big STRANGER THINGS SEASON 4, Yawn. The sky is blue, water is wet etc.
confrontation with sinister forces. VOLUME 1 IS OUT MAY 27 VIA You’re still wrong, Gene.
NETFLIX, WITH VOLUME 2 DUE
While we won’t go into any major ON JULY 1 METAL IS BACK IN ARENAS!
spoilers, the first volume of Stranger
Ghost, Tool and Architects have all
completed massive arena tours over the
past month. See, Gene? Wrong.

JUDAS PRIEST ARE FINALLY GETTING
THE RECOGNITION THEY DESERVE

The Metal Gods will be inducted into the
Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. Rob Halford
has even hinted that it might be time
to bury the hatchet with KK Downing,
making it a metal miracle all around.

KORN LOVE THE BACKSTREET BOYS

Korn have done a TikTok jam of I Want It
That Way. We’d have gone for Backstreet’s
Back, personally…

WE LOVE COCKA-NU METAL

TikTokker buys metal-loving cockatoo
on Craigslist and our black hearts melt
seeing it belt out Drowning Pool’s Bodies.

FESTIVAL SEASON GETS EARLIER
AND EARLIER

Incineration, Roadburn, Desertfest…
fans have been turning out in their
thousands. Our legs hurt already.

OZZY’S HEALTH HAS BEEN
A ROLLERCOASTER

The same week we heard Ozzy only had
one operation
left, we also
found out he
and Sharon
had caught
Covid.
Here’s
to them
making
a quick
recovery.

Dear Ozzy: get better soon

METALHAMMER.COM 9

HAVE YOU EVER DONE
A SICK IN YOUR MASK?

You asked Ghost’s high priest about horror movies, Glastonbury and vomiting into
his mask. He talked about death metal, unfounded rumours and the genius of Abba

WORDS: DANNII LEIVERS • PICTURES: TRAVIS SHINN

WITH GHOST, TOBIAS Forge has “We have played a lot of festivals like Hammer: There are rumours you’re
Pukkelpop, Rock En Seine, Roskilde – playing Glasto this year - is there
turned metal into camp and ghastly a lot of festivals where we are one of anything in those rumours?
ecclesiastical theatre. The Swedish the few ‘metal bands’ but the headliner “No. Not now at least. That’s more
frontman has imagined a cast of can be Björk, Primal Scream and than I know. I might live to regret
ghoulish, sassy characters into life; Drake. We played Coachella and what I just said!”
decapitated anti-popes, squeezed Lollapalooza, lots of festivals like
a sassy cardinal into too-tight velvet that… except for Glastonbury.” How much does writing new music
trousers, and taken their 80s-indebted go hand in hand with curating the
arena rock into the UK’s biggest Hammer: Is Glasto on your bucket list? new designs/‘look’ for new eras?
venues, while the band’s fifth album, “It would be cool of course, but it’s @haxbourne, Twitter
Impera, has given them a Top 3 hit on never really been one of my most
both sides of the Atlantic. Tobias has important ones, so no. I don’t know if “They go partly together. It’s always
brought the fun back into heavy music, this is the same for Glastonbury, this is in the front of my head how a song
but with no mitre to hide behind this my interpretation, but at Coachella, if will fit into the show or if there’s
time, can he handle your questions? you’re on the bill, you don’t have to anything we can do to turn it into
play because no one will watch you what we call a ‘gag’. Gag songs tend
I got into horror movies because of anyway. Everyone is there for the big to work better in the sets, so I always
Ghost. What are your favourite horror hip hop headliner. When we played have a monocle on for that. For some
movies, and what horror movies Coachella, we went to see Dead Can people who are wondering why we’re
would you recommend? Dance there and it was a few people in not doing songs off the new album
@The_Moon_Thief, Twitter a tent. For fucking Dead Can Dance. Are already, it’s because there might be
you kidding me?! That’s why I’m just not a planned gag for them that we haven’t
“There’s two branches of horror movies generally all for those big pop festivals. been able to present yet.”
for me. There’s old classic slasher films, I would miss a lot of the camaraderie. If
as in Friday The 13th and stuff like that, you go to Graspop or Download, you go How do you feel knowing that many
but then you have the really good in there you know everyone, so many of your LGBT fans like to personally
horror films, the ones made by really people. Whereas if you go to a big pop interpret/depict your characters as
talented directors who primarily don’t festival or mixed festival, everyone is gay and/or trans?
do horror, and do other films as well. in their own little universe.” @sanguinevampyr, Twitter 
The best horror films ever made are
The Shining by Stanley Kubrick, Jaws by “Good. Great. If they find solace or
Steven Spielberg, Bram Stoker’s Dracula inspiration in what we’re doing, I’m
by Francis Ford Coppola, The Exorcist, really happy about that.”
The Omen. But then, you have classic
cult directors. Lucio Fulci was an Italian We’re not sure Glasto Have you ever done a sick in one of PRESS/ MIKAEL ERIKSSON/M INDUSTRIES
director who made a lot of films that is ready for this your masks onstage, either from
are entertaining. The House By The a hangover or the smell?
Cemetery is a classic one by him. The Erin Smith, email
horror genre is hurt by the fact you
have these really heavy-hitters who “Once on a South American tour,
come in and do these fantastic films, we had a really bad flu going on with
and then unfortunately a lot of the the band and crew. It was absolutely
genre is a swamp of really bad films.” fucking horrible. Day after day,
someone new fell apart and people
Would you ever play Glastonbury or were lying backstage in the foetal
other ‘mainstream’ festivals? position with a cork in the front and
Carly Daly, email a cork in the back, purging. That was
not cool.”

10 METALHAMMER.COM

GHOST

Papa wants to tape trade with
you! Who could refuse?

“WOULD GHOST EVER HAVE
A FEMALE SINGER? WHY NOT?

SISTER EMERITUS!”

METALHAMMER.COM 11

GHOST

What’s your favourite Abba song? Tobias had a dream,
@Dorkus666, Twitter and it came true in
“Right now, I Have A Dream. It involves the most glorious way
three chords, and the third chord
comes in at such a brilliant moment
at the third section of the song. The
first two sections are the same two
chords, back and forth. Then all of
a sudden, the third chord comes in
and… they should be getting a Nobel
Music prize for that one because it’s
so fucking brilliant.”

Back when nobody knew who was
behind the mask, what was your
favourite rumour that you heard
about yourself?
Trent Carvalho, email

“That I was tall! Especially in the Papa
Emeritus attire. In the beginning in
underground circles it was a fairly
known fact that I was in the band, so
I never felt 100% anonymous in the
early days.”

Who is your favourite Ghost - a better career. I’d love to go back and who see that as an inspiration and start
fictional or otherwise? curate their career because the career playing drums, bass and guitar.”
Bradley Stratton, Facebook of Misfits, Samhain and Danzig put
together would have been marvellous.” What weird shit do you collect?
“I’ve always been fascinated with the Robbie Gregg, email
concept of ghosts in Star Wars. They What is metal missing in 2022? “I collect demo tapes. Old death metal
appear as apparitions that can Danielle Bull, email demo tapes from the mid-80s to 1992.
converse with you. If the Star Wars saga Black metal. Death metal. Thrash
had been written a few hundred years “It would be cool if there were newer, metal. Underground music. If anyone
ago, it would have been a religion, it young bands regarded as more than reading this who sits on shit like that…
has all the cornerstones of a religion a novelty, or an underground treasure. and if you are owners of original stuff
and the idea of the elders and your More organic rock bands of 20-year- that you got directly from the band…
teachers coming back to teach you olds recognised on a little bit more please call me!”
from behind the grave is presented of a… I hate to say mainstream,
really well.” but above the pub level. I’m all Would you ever have a female
about underground, I come from the lead singer?
If you had to wipe one of the following underground, and I worship the @elyssam18, Twitter
bands from history, which would it underground music, but for the “Why not? That could happen.
be: Iron Maiden, Kiss, Misfits? resurgence of rock, we need that. I’d Sister Emeritus!”
William Hawks, email love if there were more bands that
went through a similar recognition If you could pick one metal song that
“If I had to wipe them out? Oh, that’s [channel] to Måneskin, actually. changed your life, what would it be?
a hard one. It’s an easy question, but I think they’re really cool. They won James Persens, email
the answer is hard; I have to be Eurovision because they’re great, but “I Wanna Rock by Twisted Sister. That
pragmatic. I’m a humongous fan of they’re one of the few exceptions of it is probably the earliest song that
all three bands. The one band I’d not being the end of their career. That’s I remember being able to sing and rock
choose to wipe out, and that’s not usually what happens if you’re a band.” out to. That came out in 1984 and I was
a diss, what they did was so great, is three years old at the time. I was lucky
Misfits. My control freakishness and Hammer: Have you ever considered enough to have an older brother and in
my managerial inclinations would Eurovision or been asked to do it? 1984 he was 16. A lot of who I am, why
love to go back in time and correct “No, not really, but I wouldn’t want to I am who I am, and my interests, is
a few things they did wrong. Not do it because as I said, it’s usually the because of him. That’s my first memory
aesthetically, but business-wise. end of your career. If you already have of me thinking, ‘This is who I am.’”
I would have wished for them to have an established career, then don’t do it.
Although Måneskin proved it could be IMPERA IS OUT NOW VIA
“ABBA SHOULD GET done. I hope there’s a lot of 14-year- LOMA VISTA
A NOBEL PRIZE FOR olds out there in Europe and the world
I HAVE A DREAM.
IT’S SO FUCKING
BRILLIANT”

12 METALHAMMER.COM



Alex is aaall about
the brutality…
and the PMA

THE SLAYLIST

ALEX TAYLOR

Beatdowns, brutality and bangers
– this is the soundtrack to the
mosh-pit in the Malevolence
frontman’s head

WORDS: ALEX DELLER • PICTURE: NAT WOOD

“CHIMAIRA’S THE IMPOSSIBILITY Of Reason is one LISTEN just blown away by how heavy the production was. There’s
NOW huge singalong factor, and that whole ‘Hear me now / Words
of my favourite albums. It’s so good from start to finish, I vow / No fucking regrets’ part is just so hard. I owned a live
but Down Again is probably my favourite song. I’m a big fan Head to DVD at one point, and just seeing the crowd react when they
sptfy.com/8eOF came onstage and played Imperium made me want to be in
of the piano melody and the clean chorus – it’s just a proper a band. I thought, ‘I fucking need to do that.’
to listen to
metal anthem. Alex’s Slayist “No Good At Goodbyes by GRIDIRON is my favourite
hardcore record of the past few years, 100%. It’s super-hard
“TRIVIUM were massively influential in making me want and ignorant, filled with mosh riffs and motivational lyrics.
That’s my bread and butter, that’s what gets me gassed.
to be in a band, so having Matt Heafy jump on our new When you’re in the gym something like the title track is
album [on the song Salvation] was amazing – if you told me exactly what you need.

that when I was a teenager I would’ve been bouncing off “BITTER END are a metallic hardcore band from Texas,
the fucking walls. Ascendancy was one of the first properly and I saw them play at a community centre in Sheffield. I only
managed to catch half the show because I had to go to work,
heavy albums I got - I think my mum bought it for me. but it was so high-energy, and I loved the singer’s voice – he’s
I don’t know what it is but every time I listen to Drowned And so pissed off. They’ve just got this unmatched aggressive
Torn Asunder I just envisage a circle-pit on that second riff. energy, and Means To An End is an absolute banger.

“We supported TERROR in Australia and I sang Keep Your “NASTY are Germany and Belgium’s OG beatdown
Mouth Shut with them out there, so it had to go on. I’d seen champions! I’ve known the guys for a long time and I’ve
been a fan for even longer. Me and our bassist Wilkie
the song on a DVD and I’d not heard a lot of hardcore by that [Robinson] went to see them on their Never Say Die tour
when they came through Manchester. We hung out a bit
point, so seeing dudes in baggy jeans and New Era caps afterwards and have been great friends ever since. I’ve met
their families, we’ve been on tour and we’ve been through
walking down the subways and standing around with pit highs and lows together. They’re a great bunch of guys, and
Dirty Fingers has one of my favourite breakdowns of all time.
bulls… I was instantly gripped.
“To The Threshold is one of my favourite HATEBREED “COLD HARD TRUTH have been writing some of the
hardest music to come out of the UK for years now. Their
songs, and the first one I ever heard. I discovered it round live show is terrifying, and when I first saw them I thought
I was going to get knocked out! But that energy, and that
a friend’s house – he put it on YouTube and it was just, ‘What fear of being injured… I know that’s not for everyone, but
I absolutely love it. Bound By Blood is the soundtrack to that
is this?!’ [Jamey] Jasta’s way of writing lyrics that motivate whole animal, instinctive, fight-or-flight thing.”

you in a positive but angry way is something that I really MALICIOUS INTENT IS OUT ON NOW VIA
NUCLEAR BLAST
strive for with my own writing.
“Bloodwork by 36 CRAZYFISTS is a bit of a curveball,

but as a teenager I loved all the super-catchy melodies

and how weird and different they were to everyone else.

Brock Lindow’s voice is just so unique, with that whole
‘Yeerrreelurph!’ thing going on. It’s also just a metal classic

– you put it on in the car and everyone’s like, ‘Oh yes!’

“I was a bit late on the uptake with MACHINE HEAD, and
I think Imperium was the first song I heard. I bought Through
The Ashes Of Empires because of the artwork alone, and I was

“TRIVIUM MADE ME WANT
TO JOIN A BAND, SO HAVING
MATT HEAFY ON OUR NEW
ALBUM WAS AMAZING”

14 METALHAMMER.COM

Ivan Moody in the
studio, making sure it
all runs like clockwork

IN THE STUDIO

FIVE FINGER
DEATH PUNCH

Sixties vibes? Futuristic sounds?
Psychedelic revolutions? Vegas’s
finest are shaking things up

WORDS: MATT MILLS

STICK ON A Five Finger Death Punch who knows how long this is gonna go other, they tell a story. It sounds like
on for? Let’s go back to the studio.’” a coherent band.”
album and you know what you’re in for:
radio-ready metal anthems with Ivan THE FACTS What was it like making music What do you mean by a 60s and 70s
Moody grunting out the most abrasive ALBUM: during the pandemic? vibe? How are the songs ‘futuristic’?
of earworms. However, the times they 9 “The fact that we couldn’t go anywhere “When you listen to music from the
are a’changin’ for the Las Vegas quintet. PRODUCER: forced us to be even more focused. We 60s and 70s, there was a specific vibe.
The pandemic killed touring for 2020’s Kevin Churko live in Las Vegas, which can be the If you look at the world now, and what
F8 album, and they’ve added new lead STUDIO: most motivating and most distracting happened in the last couple years, there
guitarist Andy James to their ranks to The Hideout, place in the world. Ha ha! It’s usually has been a paradigm shift. Compare
replace Jason Hook. According to band Las Vegas 24/7, but it wasn’t 24/7 anymore. We the 50s with the 60s – they were very,
founder and rhythm guitarist Zoltan EXPECT: were wondering, ‘What else is there to very different. There was a psychedelic
Bathory, the new world has inspired 5FDP’s anthemic do but write songs?’ It focused us even revolution: an explosion over what the
a more eclectic ninth album, taking more on the music and the writing.” world is and what’s important. That’s
from the 60s and modern science alike. rock tapping happening now and this record,
into all-new What did Andy James bring to sonically, fits perfectly. We also have
What’s the timeline for new music? influences, from the album? the metaverse and cryptocurrencies –
Zoltan Bathory: “We’ve finished the 60s psychedelia “We love his British sense of humour. what do they mean? People look at what
record. I don’t have a solid timeline. I’m to futuristic We’ve spent the last two years together freedom means very differently, so
so confused about time. What day is it? technology and he is hilarious. He was a legitimate how do you put a soundtrack to that?”
Ha ha! I’m thinking end of July, maybe guitar hero before he joined this band;
August, [when the album comes out].” he had, like, six solo albums. I was a fan You’re also re-recording 5FDP’s debut,
of his work. So it was like, ‘Let’s let him The Way Of The Fist. How’s it going?
The pandemic started very shortly loose!’ He’s very easy to work with.” “That’s how this whole thing came
after your last album, F8, came out. about: ‘We don’t wanna do a new album
PRESS What was the mood in the band at Zoltan Bathory: no idea what How does the new album because we just did F8.’ We were like,
the start of lockdown? day it is, but man, can he play compare with F8? ‘Let’s re-record The Way Of The Fist’,
“We always wanted F8 to “We have a lot of unexpected because it was literally recorded in my
have its own cycle, but it stuff on the record. We’d be living room. We’re still probably gonna
was T-boned. Originally, working on a song and do it. But, after the first couple of songs
we didn’t want to record something comes out, and [on the new album], we were like, ‘This
a new album, because we we’d go, ‘That almost sounds is so special; this is amazing. Let’s not
didn’t get to tour that 70s’ – this late 60s/early 70s interrupt this flow.’”
record. We wanted to wait, vibe. There are other things
but then it kept going on that are super-modern and 5FDP’S NINTH ALBUM IS
– two weeks to two months almost futuristic. When you EXPECTED THIS SUMMER
to two years. It was maybe put these songs next to each VIA BETTER NOISE
a year into the pandemic
when we realised, ‘Man,

METALHAMMER.COM 15

FOR AROUND A decade and a half, Canadian bands, regardless of style, seem THERE ARE A LOT OF SLICES TO
to have that thing, and I’m not entirely sure THE CANCER BATS PIE
Liam Cormier has been one of metal’s where it comes from.”
most reliable party-starters. The Cancer “The pie chart of all of our influences would
Bats frontman exudes righteous energy, A BIT OF DIVERSITY MAKES be huge, for sure! I feel like we’ve always been
boundless enthusiasm and an infectious YOUR SCENE SO MUCH MORE into the heavy stuff; all those metal influences
lust for life. Whether it’s onstage barking INTERESTING from our youth are there. How could we ever
out raucous hardcore anthems or excitedly deny our love of Sabbath? But we also have
fidgeting around on his sofa talking to us “We’re all from the same little chunk of that punk spirit in us as well, and we come
via Zoom about his love of nature, Beastie Canada, and there isn’t much overlap to from that underground scene, so that’s also
Boys or his karaoke skills, Liam is a much- what we do. A band like [genre-blurring such a big part of what we do. And all the
needed dose of positivity in a scene that punk provocateurs] Fucked Up are going alternative rock and the touches of rap…
often takes itself way too seriously. Here’s to do their thing, but you wouldn’t start I could be here for days naming bands that
what he’s learnt from it all so far. I think we’ve tried to borrow from.”

AC/DC WERE MY FIRST LOVE I LOVE GIVING PEOPLE THE
LIAM SHOW
“I remember buying an AC/DC live double

cassette as one of my first ever albums. “I’m not sure when I felt fully comfortable

It was the sickest – it had this fold-out of onstage, but I’ve always just tried to be myself,

the band playing onstage in front of, like, and I’m a positive and upbeat person. I said

a million people. When I was really, really something onstage once, some quip, when

young, I thought they were the sickest our amps cut out or something and people

band. My dad was into Rolling Stones and laughed, and I liked that feeling, so I carried it

Allman Brothers, and that was the music on. Now, it’s some of my favourite parts of our

that we listened to together, but I liked show. I love the between-song banter. I love it

AC/DC! I’d go to hockey practice, at like six LIFE LESSONS being the Liam show for a little bit. You have
to be honest when you’re playing music. I can’t
or seven in the morning and I’d get myself
going shouting ‘TNT!’, get up and be this badass,

which, looking back, that isn’t me. What you see

was kinda intense!” up there is 100% me.”

BEASTIE BOYS LIAM WE AREN’T ROAD-
TAUGHT ME TO SICK ANYMORE
BE MUSICALLY
OPEN-MINDED “We’ve drastically had to
change the way we tour.
“Beastie Boys have always A lot of it is down to Mike

been my guiding light in [Peters, drums] having

my life. Being really young CORMIER kids. We never tour for
in the 90s, you weren’t more than three weeks now
meant to listen to all these – those days of being on
styles of music – you had the road in a van for three
to figure out whether you months are gone, because
were into grunge or rap it makes you… weird. You

or whatever. Then here is The Cancer Bats frontman on go a little nuts, and when
this band who were into Beastie Boys, sleeping on rocks and you’re young that’s
everything. They were into awesome. When you have
jazz, they were into punk, screaming Miley Cyrus songs nowhere to live, you’ll go,
it was hip hop, they ‘Hell yeah, I’ll sleep on the

skated. I felt like those WORDS: STEPHEN HILL • PICTURES: SID TANGERINE floor!’, but we’re not those
guys were the gateway young road dogs anymore.

into being more confident, The most important thing

like, ‘Oh, I can be into everything and a band who sound like that, because people is that the shows are better these days.”

it’s totally cool.’ Because they were the would just say, ‘I’m not going to see your WE WILL NEVER GET TIRED OF
coolest guys on the planet. Beastie Boys Fucked Up rip-off band!’ You’d go to a gig PLAYING OUR COVER OF BEASTIE
were like a shield; if they liked it then and know that all the bands were doing their BOYS’ SABOTAGE
I could do what I want.” own thing – Alexisonfire were doing their
own thing, Billy Talent are doing their own “When we put out Bears… [Bears, Mayors,
CANADIAN BANDS LOVE thing. No one looked at those bands getting Scraps & Bones, 2010] and Sabotage was the big
HEAVY VIBES successful and thought, ‘Oh, let’s change
song, I felt really proud of that. Especially the

“I think there is a Canadian sound, our band to do that!’ A great scene should video, because we didn’t do too much with

especially for heavier things. When be like that.” the song. We just made a heavier version, so

you listen to Neil Young records, I wanted to do something super-
there are heavy tones and heavy creative just to show people that
vibes to those records. It’s a vibe
that has always existed in heavy “HANGOVERS SUCKED, thosewereheroesofmine.Justso
rock that has influenced us as people knew that we got it, that
Canadian bands, which means
that whether you’re playing BARFING IN A BATHTUB wewantedtogoforthesamevibe
metal or punk or hardcore or just as them or Spike Jonze would have
rock, you have that weight. All SUCKED, IT WAS ALL putout.Itwasourofferingto
VERY OVERRATED” them. And we’ll always play that
song, we’ll never be too cool to

16 METALHAMMER.COM

CANCER BATS

Liam Cormier: positive,
upbeat, and a massive
Beasties fanboy

METALHAMMER.COM 17

CANCER BATS

“All together now! ‘Oh, I’m just
a girl, what’s my destiny?’”

“I WOULDN’T LOSE MY VOICE BEWARE THE KARAOKE
DOING THE CANCER BATS SET,
I WOULD LOSE MY VOICE “I love karaoke, but I had to stop doing it on
DOING KARAOKE” tour. I wouldn’t lose my voice doing the Cancer
Bats set, I’d lose my voice doing karaoke. This
pretend that this wasn’t a huge moment in our I partied and I did all that stuff. I became is about 2005, 2006, and they’d say that there PRESS
career. It’s one of the best songs ever, and why straight edge at the age of 21, so I already was going to be karaoke after the show, and I’d
wouldn’t I play it to make people happy and knew that hangovers sucked, barfing in be there screaming Just A Girl by No Doubt and
have them party super-hard every night?” a bathtub sucked, it was all very overrated. it would fuck me up. Because you’re singing
When I met all these people who cared more songs you’re not used to singing, so you’re
FILL YOUR SPARE TIME about music and wanted to do that more screaming whatever comes up: Johnny Cash,
WITH ADVENTURES than anything, have band practice on a Friday screaming, Miley Cyrus, screaming. People
night instead of going to the bar, I was way get too excited and it fucks you up. So, I have
“Now when I get time off, I tend to spend it more into that. Instead of partying I was to hang back and look after myself.”
going on these gnarly motorbike trips. I still doing street art, that is always what kept me
appreciate that side of things, trying to push excited about that.” DON’T EVER TAKE YOUR
myself on a heavy, multi-day trip. Your hands SURROUNDINGS FOR GRANTED
are all beaten up and you’re sleeping on a rock I AM HAPPY TO BE THE SOBER
– there is still that part of me that craves that. DESIGNATED DRIVER “Where I grew up and went to high school
I think I’m trying to figure that out still: why I lived on the edge of town, and so I was really
is there this constant need to explore and be “By the time Cancer Bats started touring I was into mountain biking through the woods and
ripping? Brain, what’s up?! I don’t think that I’ll about 26, so the idea of drinking just wasn’t the forest and going and sitting by a stream
ever be able to sit still – that’s where I find joy.” a thing for me. But you really see the worst and listening to Björk! So mellow! But then
side of partying on tour at that age. I was you get the call to leave the town when you’re
STRAIGHT EDGE HAS HAD always the person who would drive; everyone a little older, every 18- or 19-year-old wants
THE MOST POSITIVE IMPACT would party, jump in the van, be super- to do that. But over the last couple of years,
ON MY LIFE annoying and I’d just drive all night. That having to be back home, I’ve realised that
just became part of the way our band worked. I love seeing those same places again. I still do
“A lot of people find out about straight It was key to our well-oiled machine.” those rides, it’s just that I’m on a dirt bike now.
edge when they’re really young, but It’s important to take note of those things.”

CANCER BATS’ PSYCHIC JAILBREAK IS
OUT NOW VIA BAT SKULL RECORDS/
NEW DAMAGE RECORDS

18 METALHAMMER.COM



THE STORY BEHIND

HER GHOST
IN THE FOG
For Nations, formerly the home of
CRADLE OF FILTH Metallica and Anthrax. Their first two
albums on the label, 1996’s Dusk And
How a summer of drinking, psychedelics and bothering Her Embrace and 1998’s Cruelty And The
pensioners helped create an operatic black metal classic Beast had turned them from corpse-
painted outsiders into music press
WORDS: MATT MILLS darlings, while their the video that
accompanied the title track of 1999’s
IT’S A BEAUTIFULLY sunny day THE FACTS next door and pretending that he’d From The Cradle To Enslave EP even got PYMCA/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP/GETTY
RELEASED: lost his grandma so he could do some a few plays on MTV – something that
in the summer of 2000, and Cradle Of 2000 filming”, says Dani. would have been unthinkable a few
Filth are tripping balls in a field in East ALBUM: years earlier.
Sussex. The band have temporarily Midian Yet amid all the shenanigans, Cradle
relocated from their native Suffolk to PERSONNEL: Of Filth managed to write one of the Despite a series of line-up changes
the town of Battle, and are currently Dani Filth (vocals), most pivotal and enduring songs of during and after the EP, band morale
standing in the exact spot where, 934 Sarah Jezebel Deva their career, Her Ghost In The Fog. The leading up to Midian was high.
years prior, William The Conqueror track, from 2000’s Midian album, laid Founding guitarist Paul Allender
and King Harold II waged The Battle (vocals), Paul down the musical template they’ve was back following a four-year hiatus,
Of Hastings. As they bake in the Allender (lead followed ever since. A minor MTV hit and they’d also tapped drummer
sweltering heat, they see long-dead guitar), Gian Pyres at the time, two decades on it’s the extraordinaire Adrian Erlandsson,
soldiers trooping past them. (rhythm guitar), most-played number in the band’s famed for his work in melodeath
Robin Graves setlist, aired more than 500 times. speed freaks At The Gates.
“We had taken some magic (bass), Adrian
mushrooms”, Cradle Of Filth singer “I wish we’d never written the “It was like a fresh beginning, but
Dani Filth recalls today. “We saw Erlandsson bloody thing”, says Dani drily. “You’re we were reuniting old friendships at
ghosts and all manner of things.” (drums), Martin going through the setlist, going, ‘We the same time”, Dani remembers.
should really play this! We haven’t “Everybody wanted the band to be
Dani reflects on these psilocybin- Powell played this for a while! Oh wait, we’ve successful. Everyone wanted to work
induced apparitions with the air of (keyboards) got to play Her Ghost In The Fog. That hard and play hard.”
someone talking about visiting their HIGHEST CHART puts paid to that, then!’”
nan for tea. That’s because it wasn’t POSITION: TO WRITE HER Ghost In The Fog and
out of the ordinary. For Cradle Of Filth, The track didn’t quite turn Cradle
that summer was routinely insane. N/A into superstars, but it did mark the the rest of Midian, Adrian Erlandsson,
point where they well and truly left Gian Pyres and keyboardist Martin
Holed up in Parkgate Studios in the underground behind. The band Powell moved in together. The Cradle
Battle, Cradle were animals. They were were already in the ascendency by that House, as the singer now calls it,
young and their stock in the metal point. Having made their name as was in the band’s stomping ground
scene was rocketing. They partied black metal malcontents infamous of Ipswich. “It was at the bottom,
hard. They drank. In Dani’s carefully for their blasphemous ‘Vestal funnily enough, of Cemetery Road”,
selected words, they “fraternised” Masturbation’ t-shirt, they had taken he says. “It became quite synonymous
with locals. At one point, their friend, their first steps towards something
horror director Alex Chandon, dropped approaching respectability when
in and promptly started terrorising they bagged a deal with influential
pensioners in the nursing home down independent metal label Music
the road. “I remember him going

20 METALHAMMER.COM

CRADLE OF FILTH

with debauchery. You can use your after the cemetery in horror author Cradle Of Filth kissed goodbye to the
imagination: three single lads in quite Clive Barker’s 1988 novel Cabal and its underground with Her Ghost In The Fog
an established band partying a lot.” later film adaptation, Nightbreed. Just
village. Someone’s wife has tendencies
In late June 2000, the whole band as the Midian of Barker’s book was towards witchcraft and she’s preyed
decamped to Parkgate to record upon by religious folk, although it’s
Midian. For a young extreme metal a hub for all manner of monsters, so more for the fact that she’s a beautiful
outfit – Dani was only 25 at the time – woman. She’s attacked and murdered,
the residential studio was the height of the album was about “an amalgam of and the narrator wreaks his revenge.
opulence. “It was down near Hastings, mythical beasts”, with Her Ghost In The It was a rape/revenge story.”
a beautiful part of the world, and Fog ticking the ‘Victorian ghost story’
everyone had their own chalet”, he says. Musically, the track strayed further
“We had a cook there! It was gloriously box. Specifically, Dani drew on the from black metal than Cradle ever had
hot, so we took trips down to the beach. before. They’d never fully been at home
It just felt like you were on holiday!” inspiration of Tim Burton’s 1998 in the genre to begin with, but Her Ghost
movie Sleepy Hollow, itself based on In The Fog drastically dialled up the
Dani still found time to write lyrics melody. Paul Allender and Gian Pyres
for the album amid the ceaseless Washington Irving’s 1820 short story laid down a web of high-flying guitar
partying. The album itself was named The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow. harmonies, while Dani and back-up
singer Sarah Jezebel Deva traded shrill
“It was a continuation of my love barks and operatic croons respectively
during the chorus. It’s in this space –
affair with the gothic romance”, Dani somewhere between black metal,
melodeath and classic British metal –
explains. “One would assume it takes that Cradle continue to live to this day.

place in a mythical 18th-century Cradle’s epic new sound was matched
by its sonic sheen, courtesy of producer
“WE HAD TAKEN MAGIC John Fryer, who had previously worked
MUSHROOMS. WE SAW GHOSTS with Depeche Mode and Nine Inch
AND ALL MANNER OF THINGS” Nails. It was a direct response to their
last album, Cruelty And The Beast, the
final mix of which was so awful that,
upon hearing it, Sarah Jezebel Deva
apparently ran out of the room in tears.

METALHAMMER.COM 21

CRADLE OF FILTH

Dani Filth: working hard
and playing hard

“THE LABEL WERE LIKE, ‘THAT
WORKED – REPLICATE IT!’, BUT

YOU CAN’T. IT WAS CONJURED
UP BY THE CIRCUMSTANCES”

“Cruelty… was basically one member but…’ I remember he came down Cradle’s one-time touring partners MARTYN GOODACRE/GETTY
really wanting his drum kit to have kind of early to the studio. They were Emperor had vastly expanded their
a particular sound”, says Dani, still setting stuff up, so we just said: sounding, Mayhem were making the
referencing former member Nick ‘Pub?’ Ha!” Nietzsche-inspired Grand Declaration
Barker. “And when you get a sound like Of War, Enslaved were becoming
that, you can’t have massive guitars As quintessential as Doug Bradley more prog, and Ulver had embraced
on top; it’s like elephants walking over and the increasingly polished Cradle atmospheric experimentalim. As Dani
a rope bridge.” sound were, Dani believes the secret puts it: “Black metal was being super-
to Her Ghost In The Fog’s success was seded by a more avant-garde form.”
Also helping to make the number its video. The OAP-bothering Alex
a standout was its opening narration, Chandon directed the clip, which cast Her Ghost In The Fog may have failed
which sat somewhere between the the band against a snowy backdrop to chart, but it became a regular
poetic and the ridiculous. “The moon, with jagged trees. It was reminiscent of staple on MTV. It also marked the
she hangs like a cruel portrait”, boomed classic silent-era German Expressionist beginning of Cradle’s time as a
actor Doug Bradley, aka Pinhead horror movie The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari. genuine commercial force in metal,
from the 1987 movie Hellraiser (itself something that continued through
directed by Clive Barker). “Soft winds “It was at the end of that era where the follow-up albums Damnation And
whisper the bidding of trees / As this loads of big gothic horror movies were A Day and Nymphetamine.
tragedy starts with a shattered glass being made”, Dani states. “We’d just
heart.” It marked the start of a fruitful had Sleepy Hollow and, before that, “As with most things, Her Ghost In
relationship between Cradle and Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s The Fog was a case of the right place at
Doug – the actor would later return Frankenstein. There were continental the right time”, Dani says. “You have
on the Godspeed On The Devil’s Thunder films like Dracula Rising; Brendan a massive success with one thing and
and Existence Is Futile albums. Yet Fraser’s The Mummy had a huge gothic then the record company are like, ‘That
Dani has no clue how the collaboration vibe to it. People were spending a lot of worked – replicate it!’, but you can’t.
came about. money on horror movies at that point Her Ghost In The Fog was conjured up
and I think that sort of cinematic line by the circumstances. You can’t predict
“I think our manager at the time filtered through.” it, you can’t replicate it.”
contacted him”, he guesses. “I think
the conversation started with, ‘There Cradle’s musical shift also coincided CRADLE OF FILTH HEADLINE
isn’t much money in the budget, with the increasing eclecticism of some DOMINION FESTIVAL ON JULY 29
of black metal’s other leading lights.
22 METALHAMMER.COM



YOUR SHOUT

THERE’S
MORE THAN
ONE MEMBER
IN HALESTORM
…and other
blindingly obvious, Lzzy and Halestorm: #TWEETS
pleasantly insightful sorry, just Halestorm
and downright Know what’s
excellent opinions with Arejay, Josh and Joe on the many of us, Jason was the man in hilarious? We spent
you lot shared with 50 years laughing
us this month cover too, plus a signed print, Metallica in the 90s. at people who ‘saw

HALE YEAH so hopefully plenty of people Bill Roberts, email a UFO’ and then
the US government
Bought the Halestorm issue to looking for more Halestorm for We love Jason, and we’re glad he admitted they’re real.
frame the Lzzy cover [issue #361]
to go alongside my Lzzy cover their buck got to pick that up! feels comfortable enough to Gama Bomb
from way back in 2017! Five years
is too long between covers for POSITIVE METAL HEALTH open up on such a huge time in (@gamabomb)
such an amazing band but I’m his life and career. Plus, we’re big
glad I could add to my collection! Nothing great ever
Erin, email It’s so great to see Lzzy Hale being Load and Reload defenders here, comes from staying

We’re glad you approve! Lzzy so open and vulnerable about so there isn’t much from his time in your comfort
is one of the most beloved and zone. Are you brave
iconic figureheads of the modern her mental health struggles. As in Metallica we won’t stand by! enough to discover
rock scene, and with good
reason. She rules. Halestorm someone who has also struggled IN THE GENES that greatness in
rule. End of. Thanks for picking that didn’t have bands talking yourself by diving into
up the magazine. the fire? Everything
about this kind of stuff when Can people stop asking Gene
FAILSTORM in this life is Hard.
I was a youngster, it’s a breath of Simmons whether rock is dead Choose your Hard…
Do Metal Hammer even know that
there is more than one member fresh air. now, please? We get it, the and do your best.
in Halestorm? I love them but I believe in you.
I love all of them. Arejay, Joe and Grant Smith, email music’s passed him by and he’s Lzzy Hale, Halestorm
Josh deserve some recognition
too - hopefully the next cover One of the greatest things Lzzy not plugged into the scene any (@LZZYHALE)
will reflect this. It was a great
article, though. has done for the rock more. We don’t need him I’m very proud to
Gemma Opie, email have played a big
scene is bringing Gene Simmons: when tarnishing all the great part in broadening
You’re right: Halestorm are a unit the conversation he gets an idea, bands around right
and, quite literally in the case of about mental he runs with it now. Someone the horizons of
Lzzy and Arejay, a family. That alternative rock (or
said, last issue’s cover feature felt health right out show this man whatever you’d want
very much to be predominantly to call the scene in
Lzzy’s story, and so we gave her into the open, Spiritbox, the broadest sense).
the spot. That said, we did also
do a limited online run of issues where it needs Jinjer and Zeal The variety of
textures & vibes that
to be. As the & Ardor and heavy bands are now
“allowed” to include
saying goes, tell me rock is is providing us with

it’s OK to not dead or boring some brilliant art.
Rou Reynolds,
be OK. at the moment. Enter Shikari

Tom Derbyshire, (@RouReynolds)

’STED-Y AS Facebook
HE GOES Asking Gene to

Jason Newsted is stop talking about

clearly happy to talk about something is like asking The

his time in Metallica now [The Joker to stop chuckling at stuff. KISS: DENIS O’REGAN/PRESS

Big Interview, issue #361]. It was Humanity will die out, global

an excellent read to be able to warming will blow up the planet

see his brains being picked about and we will all return to the

such a crazy time for the band. stardust from whence we came

Rob Trujillo is a killer bassist before Gene Simmons stops

and Cliff Burton is a god, but for giving his opinion on things.

24 METALHAMMER.COM

LETTERS

BIG DEBATE

When Killswitch Engage’s Jesse
Leach told us that the metalcore
scene was “over-saturated” in
the wake of KSE’s early success, it
prompted a lot of conversation…

Rammstein: in a metal mag?! Shocker! surprised magic was made when HE SAID
they teamed up?
HOPE FOR THE FEST “There was an over-saturation of bands who were
RAMM IT DOWN churning out this big riff, heavy verse, melodic chorus
Dare I actually hope we’re going thing. It felt tired, like labels were looking for those
to get a full festival season this Just when I thought Metal Hammer bands because they sounded like a band who were
summer? It seems like too much were finally done ramming Ghost becoming successful.”
to ask for, but with only a few down our throats, it looks like
cancellations (Distillers at Download they’re now gonna be throwing YOU SAY
fest, etc), everything seems to be Rammstein at us until we’re all sick
going ahead? of it. There are other bands out there. Jesse is right. There were practically no metalcore bands
Carly Sanders, Facebook Just saying. who came after KSE that were half as interesting, good at
Chris Bone, Facebook songwriting or even as heavy. It was a weak scene.
We have every single possible digit Josh Willert, Facebook
crossed at once. Just think how good It’s almost like we’re a metal
that first drink at UK Tech-Fest/ magazine and the Ghost and Blessthefall, Atreyu, We Came As Romans, Miss May I,
Slam Dunk/Download/Hellfest/ Rammstein albums were two of the Pierce The Veil, Of Mice & Men… I disagree, many of
Wacken/Dominion/Bloodstock/ biggest metal releases of 2022 so far, those bands soundtracked my youth… and they still do!
ArcTanGent (delete and add as or something. IT’S ALMOST LIKE Jessica Meacher, Facebook
appropriate) is going to be! THAT, ISN’T IT, CHRIS? ALMOST?!
I like Killswitch but they can hardly be the first band to
DUO WIN-GO KILLER COVER accuse others of being derivative. When was the last time
Adam D didn’t recycle a riff?
Love the Ibaraki album and I think Was so glad to see that it was the James Bryant, Facebook
it’s great to see two unique metal Killswitch Engage issue that made
personalities like Matt Heafy and it to my local Barnes & Noble when Every scene has ‘weak bands’ but when you look at the
Ihsahn come together like this. the Innovators covers finally hit bands that came up with Killswitch - Chimaria, Shadows
I hope we get more meetings of the States [issue #360]. One of my Fall, God Forbid, Poison The Well etc - how many of
great minds like this one in the near favourite bands of all time and those bands are still here now compared to bands like
future. Great interview! finally on the cover of my favourite Architects, Bring Me The Horizon and Bullet? Those later
James Peplow, email metal magazine! bands are obviously doing something right.
Jared Smith, email Jami Hill, Facebook
We also love it when a plan comes
together! Ihsahn helped to define We know our lovely US readers have Killswitch Engage pretty much perfected metalcore in
an entire genre and continues to to wait a little longer than most to two albums so the only way is down from there.
innovate with everything he does, get their hands on Hammer, so we’re Tom Simpson, Facebook
while The Heaf remains one of glad it did the business for you!
the most vital metal minds of the JOIN THE BIG DEBATE AT FACEBOOK.COM/
modern era. Who can really be METALHAMMERREADERS

HAMMER STEREO What’s been blowing our office speakers

BLEED FROM JO QUAIL CAVE IN COHEED AND BLEED FROM CANDY GREG PUCIATO
WITHIN CAMBRIA WITHIN
The Cartographer Heavy Pendulum Heaven Is Here Mirrorcell
Shrine “A genuinely “Fat, meaty riffs Vaxis II: A Window Of Shrine “Deconstructed “So good you
“All the transformative The Waking Mind “A huge step up – could almost
heavyweight journey through and grungy, it should see BFW hardcore for stop mourning
metalcore uncharted, groovy, spacey “Consistently ace, guaranteed Dillinger’s demise”
anthems” vivid territory” C&C never get the acclaim shredded
goodness. disappoint” they so deserve” eardrums” PAUL BRANNIGAN
ELEANOR GOODMAN JONATHAN SELZER Love it!”
LOUISE BROCK RICH HOBSON DAVE EVERLEY CONTRIBUTING
EDITOR REVIEWS EDITOR VANESSA THORPE EDITOR
ART EDITOR STAFF WRITER ASSOCIATE EDITOR
PRODUCTION EDITOR

PRESS

METALHAMMER.COM 25

NEW NOISE

SHOOTING
DAGGERS

The queercore band taking the fight to the misogynists

WORDS: DANNII LEIVERS

‘WE ARE QUEER, and we’re gonna IN SHORT Bea, arching an eyebrow. “And I’m Shooting Daggers are
always like, ‘Why wouldn’t you expect breaking down barriers
live!’ roars Shooting Daggers’ singer Sal SOUNDS LIKE: us to be heavy?’”
Salgado Pellegrin, on We Will Live, the The balls of about the high standards of beauty
penultimate call-to-arms on the the patriarchy Sal and Bea formed the band in that kill women mentally,” says Sal.
band’s fearless new EP, Athames. being stamped London in 2019, releasing their debut “If you don’t reach the standards, you
on by a steel demo EP that October with a different don’t exist.”
It’s a lyric that sums up the steely toe-capped boot drummer. After a line-up change,
eyed attitude behind the band’s FOR FANS OF: Raquel, a long-time London resident “If you’re pretty, you’re someone;
brutal, yet triumphant, hardcore punk. Sharptooth, and band booker on the local scene, if you’re not, you’re less valuable, and
Heavy music is a place where people G.L.O.S.S, joined the ranks in November. that’s just the reality,” adds Bea. “You
can find a home, when they feel they Bikini Kill don’t get representation if you’re fat.
don’t belong anywhere else. But for LISTEN TO: “I’ve noticed people are more open Even if you’re a lesbian and you don’t
a community that prides itself on Manic Pixie to booking different bands,” says give a shit about men, still society will
inclusivity, metal and hardcore can Dream Girl Raquel of the progression she’s noted judge you for your appearance.”
still be unwelcoming spaces for since she started working at shows
women, the LGBTQ+ community 15 years ago. “At least you have some Elsewhere, the nihilistic Liar tackles PRESS
and people of colour. representation on the stage. It’s sexual abuse (“It’s a rape revenge song”,
changing, really slowly, but now there explains Sal), while Missandra, a song
It’s those intolerances that the trio are a lot of bands speaking up with that the band have reworked and
– made up of French vocalist and their views. When I was younger, you rewritten from their debut EP, seethes
guitarist Sal, Italian bassist Bea Simion wouldn’t see a black metal band that with hatred for patriarchal systems
and Spanish drummer Raquel J Alves was anti-fascist, or a queer doom band which belittle and oppress.
– are determined to eradicate. Inspired like Vile Creature.”
by the riot grrrl movement, G.L.O.S.S “‘Misandry’ is a word men’s activists
and Black Flag, alongside queercore “But even though hardcore is a safe made up to insult feminists, like
peers Sharptooth and Pupil Slicer, space for us, there is still a lot of work ‘Feminazi’”, adds Raquel, explaining
they’re fiercely and noisily taking their to do,” Bea cuts in. “It’s still very white. that the lyrics aim to “take back”
own space in metal’s traditionally It’s still very misogynistic. A lot of girl the word from those who brandish it
white, cishet male scene. and queer bands still don’t have a space. as a weapon to diminish feminism.
You still need to have male respect: “Women didn’t make up that word
“We’re vegan, we’re feminist, we’re when men respect and like you, that’s
women, we’re queer, we’re political, so when other people like you too. Men
we’ve got a lot to say,” says Sal. “Our for sure still own the scene and they
music shares our perspective on our decide who is cool and who is not.”
place in the scene, and in the world.
I feel like you still have to prove you’re WITH THE NEW line-up secured,
worth something and you’re not a poser
when you’re a woman in the scene.” the band headed into Crow’s Nest
Studios in Croydon during lockdown,
“Sometimes people come to us, to record their new EP, Athames. Its
and they say, ‘When I saw you going seven tracks burn with disgust, fury
onstage, I didn’t expect you to be and injustice. “[Opener] No Exit is
that hardcore, that heavy,’” adds

26 METALHAMMER.COM

SHOOTING DAGGERS

to say, ‘We hate men, we call “It’s quite radical,” the vocalist says. over two nights at a sold-out Electric
ourselves misandrists.’” “Anger is a sentiment that gives you Ballroom in Camden.
power. It makes you do something.”
The song is one of the most “People were taking selfies with us
incendiary three minutes of music The band’s ferocity and empowering and posting pictures of them with me,
you’ll hear this year. Over a frantic messages have struck a chord. In as though I was a rock star!” laughs
battery of ugly guitars, Sal bellows, November they played the biggest Sal, clearly relishing her first taste
“This is our reality/ They gatekeep our shows of their lives so far, supporting of notoriety.
individuality… I AM SOMEONE!” Aussie punks Amyl And The Sniffers
As that suggests, the band have got
“WE’RE VEGAN, WE’RE wide-scale ambitions that extend way
FEMINIST, WE’RE WOMEN, past the boundaries of genre and the
WE’RE QUEER, WE’RE POLITICAL, scrappy pubs and venues usually
SO WE’VE GOT A LOT TO SAY” reserved for punk.

SAL SALGADO PELLEGRIN “We want to hit the mainstream!”
exclaims Bea. “As long as you’re real,
and you don’t change your ethics, you
can become a big band, make money
off music, become professionals.
We don’t think punk bands can’t
go mainstream.”

“To play out of our bubble is a good
thing,” continues Raquel. “We want to
spread a message and the more people
who can listen to it the better.”

That message is palpable on the
cathartic EP closer, You Can’t Kill Us,
an aural assault that Bea describes as
a “pure queercore anthem”.

“It’s pure rage that says, ‘We are
here. We’re not going anywhere,” they
say triumphantly. “We’re going to take
our space.”

ATHAMES IS RELEASED ON MAY
20 VIA NEW HEAVY SOUNDS

METALHAMMER.COM 27

NEW NOISE ROUND-UP

NEW NOISE

CALLOUS DAOBOYS

Violin-wielding mathcore mavericks love
crazy songtitles and hate religious cults

WORDS: MATT MILLS • PICTURE: OLIVIA KEASLING

COME TO GRIEF

Savage sludge miserablists using
extreme metal as therapy

WORDS: ALEX DELLER

WHAT’S IN A name? With Come To Grief, the answer’s
a lot. Not only is the negative sentiment entirely justified,

but the band feature two members of legendary 90s sludge/

NOBODY KNOWS HOW to doom progenitors Grief – and the rotten apple certainly

Regarding Time Loops, the latter their hasn’t fallen far from the tree.

pigeonhole the Callous Daoboys. current single. Their next album, “The running themes are, as usual, pain, betrayal,

“It’s always cool when someone Celebrity Therapist, continues the depression, despair, world annihilation and eternal

compares us to Converge or The trend. Due later this year, its title takes suffering,” says Jonathan Herbert (vocals/guitar) of the

Dillinger Escape Plan,” the Atlanta a jab at cults, especially Scientology, band’s first full-length album, When The World Dies.

band’s frontman Carson Pace and the manipulative behaviour they “As Jonathan says, there’s a lotta pain,

tells Hammer on a video call. use to ensnare people. anxiety and hopelessness,” agrees Terry IN SHORT
Savastano (guitar/vocals). “I see this
“But, also, we get Panic! At IN SHORT: “It’s a title I’ve had in my world through a very dark lens, and SOUNDS LIKE:
The Disco comparisons. It’s head for years,” Carson the bullshit and assholes I deal with A sludge metal
on an hourly basis inspired this record shitpit of fear,
the weirdest thing.” SOUNDS LIKE: explains. “Scientology has no end.”
Give them a spin and you’ll Mathcore, noise that celebrity centre, of emptiness
and tech-metal course, and the idea of and despair
understand why people someone like Tom Cruise
struggle, as the band’s teaming up going to therapy tickles me.” As with fellow sludge survivors FOR FANS OF:
manic hardcore darts off and getting Eyehategod, there’s a real sense of Grief, Noothgrush,
the walls à la Botch and really pissed The singer elaborates: sickness running through Come To
at each other Eyehategod

The Chariot. However, FOR FANS OF: “The record is basically about Grief’s material, and Terry in particular LISTEN TO:
they’ve also filled out Botch, Respire, losing your loved ones to has witnessed some turbulent times. Life’s Curse
their ranks with synth cults, as I have in various
Pupil Slicer “In 2012 I was committed to a mental

and violin players to add LISTEN TO: different ways. I was raised institution for a little while and the only thing that got me
discordant background A Brief Article in a Christian cult, so when
noise. Baroque pop it comes to anti-vaxxers, through was my family and my music,” he says. “This is
intermittently lifts you from Regarding QAnon and the alt-right, it’s
Time Loops pure therapy for me.”

Therapy it might be, but the struggles are real and

their polyrhythmic hell, while a bummer to see a lot of people that ongoing, with Terry admitting his anxiety and depression

spoken-word samples come thick and I really love falling into stuff like that.” are worse than ever. Between them the band suggest

fast. Long story short: they’re It’s a good thing the Callous Daoboys’ spending time outdoors and nixing social media as partial

beautifully batshit. name and music have staying power, coping strategies, but with an album titled When The World

Despite the restless genre-hopping, since Carson wants to make a scene- Dies you have to wonder whether they think there are any

Carson admits, “I’d never say that I’m wide splash. “I hope this band inspires positive outcomes for humanity.

a good songwriter. I pride myself on a hundred great bands,” he declares. “I do feel we’re heading further and further in the wrong

titling things.” Fair enough. Not only is direction,” concludes drummer Chuck Conlon. “Can we ever
his band’s name genuinely memorable, A BRIEF ARTICLE REGARDING TIME
LOOPS IS OUT NOW VIA MNRK come back from the mess we’re in? I’m really not so sure.”

he’s penned songs called Flip-Flops At HEAVY. CELEBRITY THERAPIST IS WHEN THE WORLD DIES IS RELEASED ON MAY 20
VIA TRANSLATION LOSS
A Funeral, This SimCity Ain’t Big Enough EXPECTED LATER THIS YEAR PRESS

For The Both Of Us and A Brief Article

28 METALHAMMER.COM

NEW NOISE ROUND-UP

BLACK VOID

Solefald vocalist flips the script
on his melodic side-project

WORDS: RICH HOBSON • PICTURE: JØRN VEBERG

IN SHORT IT’S BEEN BARELY 12 months bilious hardcore punk. This wasn’t snarls of Antithesis, an album whose
just a stylistic choice either – it bleakness is underpinned by the
SOUNDS LIKE: since Lars Are Nedland unveiled his was ideological. Nietzschean nihilistic philosophies
Bilious black art-metal act White Void, but rather espoused in its lyrics.
metal being than returning to his day job as vocalist “To obtain the right vibe, I told
played by nihilistic for avant-garde BM expansionists Jostein that he could only play “Question everything,” Lars says.
crust punks Solefald, Lars has again assembled downstrokes,” Lars explains. “He had “The foundation of our knowledge, the
FOR FANS OF: a motley crew of musicians to explore to beat the strings rather than picking basis of morality; Nietzsche tells us
Darkthrone, the ying to White Void’s yang. them. It did wonders to the aggression to think and to be critical. I think that’s
Anti Cimex, of the guitars, even if it meant him a virtue.”
Hellhammer “I found myself needing a contrast,” bleeding all over the place.”
Lars says of his new project, the fittingly ANTITHESIS IS RELEASED ON
LISTEN TO: named Black Void. “Something raw The resultant blood, sweat and tears MAY 27 VIA NUCLEAR BLAST
Reject Everything and hard. Uncomfortable and unruly. are almost palpable in the visceral
A flipside of the coin if you will.”

Joined by drummer Tobias Solbakk
(of Ihsahn’s solo band) and guitarist
Jostein Thomassen (who plays
alongside Lars in Borknagar), Black
Void’s debut album, Antithesis, finds
them reaching into the noisesome
swamp of first-wave black metal
to find the crossover points with

ONI IN THE KNOW

One-man visionary What your favourite
enlists a punk bands are listening to
legend and metal
icons for celeb- HANGMAN’S
studded project CHAIR

WORDS: DAVE EVERLEY • PICTURE: TRAVIS SHINN “THEY’RE A FRENCH band.

IN SHORT THERE ARE MANY benefits to Morgue, but Jake is much more than It’s like, doooom doom
a dude with a great contacts book. Oni – Type O Negative-ish,
SOUNDS LIKE: growing up in the Cayman Islands, but has been his brainchild since 2014, in a way. I’ve known
The New New a lesser-known one is having Iggy Pop releasing their djenty debut album, them since the
Wave Of American as your parents’ neighbour. “I’ve known Ironshore, in 2016, but this is a complete beginning, as we have
Heavy Metal Iggy since I was 14 years old,” says Jake reboot. “The only similarity is that I’m common friends.
FOR FANS OF: Oni, frontman and mastermind behind doing the vocals, and it’s the same They’ve played in
Lamb Of God, the project that bears his name. name,” says Jake. “But besides that, it’s French hardcore
Chevelle, Blindside a completely different thing.” bands for a long
Jake enlisted the punk godfather time, and I knew
LISTEN TO: to appear alongside another friend of This latest iteration swaps knotty all their previous
Secrets his, Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe, on complexity for a more direct assault bands!”
Secrets, the impactful first single from inspired by 00s nu metal and hardcore.
Oni’s upcoming second album, “I want to make the music that I want CARPENTER
Loathing Light. “Randy’s a huge Iggy to hear,” says Jake. “I just want to leave BRUT
Pop fan, so it was cool to get them both something cool behind.”
on the same track,” he says.
LOATHING LIGHT IS RELEASED
That track was co-written by LOG’s ON JUNE 17 VIA IRONSHORE
Mark Morton, while another song, War
Ender, features aggro-hip hop duo City

METALHAMMER.COM 29

HOARD BAPHOMET T-SHIRT
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NUCLEAR BLAST Hefting this eight-LP box set could prove
as harmful to your health as one of Max
£159.50 Cavalera’s detuned riffs. Comprising the first
four albums, a stack of rare tracks and a book,
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tinyurl.com/soulfly-box
Bleed From Within are marking the release of sixth album Shrine with a deluxe
package that’s as hefty as the bounce on new songs Stand Down and Flesh And Stone. CONJURER HOODIE
You get the feeling the Scots’ triumphant open-top bus parade is imminent, and
although this mammoth bundle won’t get you a seat to watch it on Pall Mall, it £30
includes everything else. Your choice of orange or orange/silver marbled double
vinyl and digipack CD cover the physical music side, with a wall flag for extra Yes, yes, we all know that a band called
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different t-shirts to choose from, a longsleeve, snapback, and either a tie-dye spangled with stars and moons by way of
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tinyurl.com/bleed-bundle Páthos zip-up is also pretty special.
tinyurl.com/pathos-hoodie
30 METALHAMMER.COM

HOARD ALMIGHTY

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Whether you eat as daintily as an elf or The lightweight design of these swish kicks Jason Christopher – go-to musical accomplice
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What better way to send birthday hails to If you think subtlety’s overrated and want Not content with simply watching Powerwolf’s
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METALHAMMER.COM 31

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IRON MAIDEN

Released in May 1992, Iron Maiden’s ninth album, Fear Of The Dark, was designed to future-proof Britain’s
biggest metal band for the decade ahead. Ironically, it ended up putting the band’s entire existence in jeopardy

WORDS: DAVE EVERLEY

IRON MAIDEN HOLDINGS LLP.

IRON MAIDEN

IRON MAIDEN

n August 28, 1993, the decapitated Dying lacked fire and energy. Even longtime Maiden artist
head of Bruce Dickinson was Derek Riggs’ cover seemed uninspired - Eddie bursting
shoved onto a metal spike in out of a grave had been done bigger and better on 1985’s
front of several hundred Iron Live After Death.
Maiden fans by the band’s
deathless mascot, Eddie. “No Prayer For The Dying was a huge backwards step,” Bruce
later acknowledged. “The fact is that it sounded terrible.”
The symbolism was hard to
miss. This wasn’t just the climax The album didn’t impact drastically on Maiden’s career,
of the final show on the tour in though its chart positions in the UK and US were lower
support of the previous year’s than its predecessor (No.2 and No.17 respectively, compared
Fear Of The Dark album, it was also to No.1 and No.12 for Seventh Son…). Steve Harris, ever
the last show of the singer’s 12- the staunch defender of all things Maiden, refused to
year tenure with the metal icons. acknowledge any significant dip in quality.

The gig was being filmed at “The album surprised quite a lot of people, but there are
Pinewood Studios near London a few good things on it,” he told a French magazine in 1996.
for an MTV special titled Raising “I don’t really have many good memories of the tour, though.
Hell. It was part rock concert, part magic show – the latter Bruce was bored out of his brains, that much was obvious.”
courtesy of illusionist Simon Drake, who provided suitably
schlocky interludes involving audience members being “When Bruce came back from his solo tour, in 1990,
burned alive in coffins and semi-naked women having their I realised then that he didn’t have the same fire onstage
hearts torn out while tied to a rack. with Maiden as he did with his own band,” said Steve.
The gory finale, involving Bruce being shoved in a ‘iron “It seemed like he was going through the motions a bit.
maiden’ torture device before Eddie lumbered out to So I asked him, ‘Are you still happy? And he assured us that
separate the singer’s ‘head’ from his body, was the he was totally, 100% still there.”
culmination of a journey that had begun several months
earlier, with Bruce’s realisation that he no longer wanted to Bruce Dickinson may have been all-in on Iron
be the singer in one of the world’s biggest metal bands. Maiden for now, but he knew something still
Speaking to US TV journalist Charlie Rose in 2017, the needed to change for the band to regain the ground
singer laid out his reasons for leaving. “I was having my they’d lost with No Prayer For The Dying. Metallica’s
little artistic dark night of the soul,” he said. “I was thinking, The Black Album, Nirvana’s Nevermind and Soundgarden’s
‘I am in an institution, and I will die in this institution if Badmotorfinger had been released within a two-month
I don’t do something about it.’” period in the autumn of 1991, instantly reshaping the rock
His decision was as unexpected as it was drastic. Fear Of landscape and leaving Maiden in danger of becoming
The Dark hadn’t just righted the Iron Maiden ship after an irrelevant, Bruce Dickinson feared.
uncharacteristically wobbly period, it had updated their
musical and lyrical approach, jettisoning some of the “I was starting to think, ‘Well, I’d better have a serious
musical excesses of the past and bringing the band more in word with the chaps, and find out how far they are prepared
line with changing contemporary musical tastes. Maiden’s to go to take a chance with the band’s reputation in order to
career didn’t exactly need saving, but Fear Of The Dark had try and do something artistically that’s really, really new,’”
set them up for a new decade. Bruce told Metal Hammer in 1992. “So I had big chats with
Now everything was in turmoil. Nicko [McBrain, drums] and with Dave [Murray, guitar]
and Janick and everybody, basically just playing devil’s
Maiden started the 1990s in an unfamiliar advocate the whole time, saying the world is really changing
position: with their backs against the wall. – not like a bit, but a lot.”
1988’s Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son was heavy
on proto-prog metal epics, and the band’s Getting Iron Maiden to change overnight was like trying
first headline appearance at the Monsters Of Rock festival to pull a handbrake turn in an oil tanker. Despite the
and subsequent tour had seen the East London quintet disappointment from some quarters at the way No Prayer
playing in front of an impressive wall of fake icebergs. But For The Dying had turned out, Steve Harris was adamant that
as the new decade dawned, those kind of musical and visual the band record the follow-up in Barnyard Studios too, this
excesses were starting to feel outdated. time with Martin Birch as co-producer.

That problem, as bassist Steve Harris saw it, would be Happily, Maiden’s new songs were better. Breathless
easy enough to solve: they would go back to basics. Maiden’s opener Be Quick Or Be Dead – co-written by Bruce and Janick
commander-in-chief had recently converted a barn on his – captured the energy of vintage Maiden, but drew its
Essex estate into a studio, christening it Barnyard Studios, inspiration not from fantasy, history or the supernatural but
and the band would convene there to record a new album from current hot-button news subjects – in this instance,
that stripped away the flab. corporate corruption in general and recently deceased media
tycoon Robert Maxwell in particular.
Their plans were thrown into chaos when guitarist Adrian
Smith left the band just before they were due to start The singer’s attempt to drag Maiden into the 1990s was
recording. He had become increasingly unhappy with life further evident on Fear Is The Key, which addressed the
in Iron Maiden, and the decision to record in Steve Harris’s public’s hypocritical reaction to the AIDS epidemic. It had
barn was the final straw. “Adrian wasn’t fired, but he didn’t partly been inspired by the death of Queen frontman
quit entirely willingly,” Bruce Dickinson later said. Freddie Mercury in November 1991. “There’s a line that
goes, ‘Nobody cares ’til somebody famous dies,’” Bruce told
There was a ready-made replacement at hand. Hartlepool- Hard Force magazine. “As long as the virus was confined
born guitarist Janick Gers was a veteran of the 80s rock to homosexuals or drug-addicts, nobody gave a shit. It’s
scene, and had appeared on Bruce Dickinson’s debut solo only when celebrities started to die that the masses began
album, Tattooed Millionaire, released in May 1990. to feel concerned.”

Unfortunately, Maiden’s first album of the 90s was Another Dickinson/Gers song, Wasting Love, could be
underwhelming. Released in October 1990, No Prayer For The viewed as a companion piece of sorts. “It’s about those who
jump from one bed into another, those who sleep with
whoever comes their way, without giving or receiving
whatever they’re looking for, because they are very lonely,”

36 METALHAMMER.COM

IRON MAIDEN

Iron Maiden at 1992’s
Monsters Of Rock (left to
right): Steve Harris, Dave
Murray, Bruce Dickinson,
Janick Gers, Nicko McBrain

GETTY “FEAR OF THE DARK WILL
MAKE A HUGE IMPACT,
WE’RE GOING STRAIGHT

INTO THE 90s”
BRUCE DICKINSON

METALHAMMER.COM 37

IRON MAIDEN

said Bruce of the song. The slowburning track was the Dave and Steve onstage at
closest Maiden had come to writing a ballad since 1980’s Vorst Nationaal, Brussels,
Remember Tomorrow. Belgium, on August 17, 1992

Even Steve Harris was updating his approach. The time they’d properly toured the continent. The rabid
bassist’s Afraid To Shoot Strangers was a seven-minute, reception that greeted them showed there was life beyond
prog-tinged anthem inspired by the first Gulf War, which North America, Europe and Japan.
had taken place at the beginning of 1991. The song centred
around the dilemma faced by a soldier who doesn’t want The first leg of the Fear Of The Dark tour ended in
to kill enemy soldiers, but knows he has to or someone November 1992, after which Bruce Dickinson flew to Los
could kill him. Angeles to work on a second solo album, but something
was nagging at him. He’d tried to raise his concerns during
Afraid To Shoot Strangers was one of only two songs on the tour about Maiden’s unwillingness to address what the
Fear Of The Dark that called back to past Maiden epics. singer saw as the band’s flaws.
The other was the title track: seven minutes of building
malevolence reputedly inspired by the bassist’s own “Everyone looked at me as if I had lost my mind,” he wrote
nyctophobia that would instantly become a live favourite in his 2017 autobiography, What Does This Button Do?. “Maybe
and remain a staple of the band’s set to this day. I had, or maybe we were on the slow trajectory to a luxurious
creative extinction.”
Of course, Maiden were too savvy to throw the baby out
with the bathwater. The album was bulked out with tracks It was while he was in Los Angeles that he picked up
that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on their earlier a copy of the LA Times that was lying on the floor. Flicking
albums. Some were great (The Fugitive, the Charlotte The through it, he came across the Quote Of The Day section,
Harlot-referencing From Here To Eternity), some less so – featuring an epigram from the 19th-century author Henry
The Apparition was forgettable at best, while the woeful James: “All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous
football hooligan anthem Weekend Warrior was more unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.”
Vauxhall Conference than Premier League.
The quote resonated with him on a deep level. “At that
Tellingly, Bruce and Steve didn’t write any new songs moment, I decided to leave Iron Maiden,” he recalled.
together. The bassist put it down to circumstances, but it
meant there was little room for this pair of alpha dogs to Stepping away from one of the world’s biggest metal
iron out any issues that were brewing. bands was easier said than done. He had to inform his
bandmates, of course, but Maiden’s stalwart manager Rod
In interviews at least, Bruce was in full cheerleader Smallwood was due to visit Bruce in the studio imminently,
mode. Fear Of The Dark, he insisted, was the album that and it made sense for the singer to inform him first.
would reposition Maiden as a vital force for the 1990s,
a band that could go hold their own with the younger acts “I said, ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news’,”
they had inspired. Bruce told the manager. “The bad news is that I feel I have
to leave the band, so I thought I’d tell you first. The good
“There’s a break between Fear Of The Dark and the old news is now you have a whole new solo artist to manage.”
Maiden albums,” he told Hard Force magazine in 1992.
“I really believe that it will make a huge impact, we’re going
straight into the 90s, this time. When they’ll listen to it,
I hope they say, ‘We thought that the last Metallica was
good, but check this out, now!’”

F ear Of The Dark was released on May 11, 1992. The
idea that this was the start of a new era for Maiden
was underlined by the cover. In a major break with
tradition, the band’s management invited artists to
submit illustrations for the album sleeve – until that point
the sole preserve of Derek Riggs, who had created Eddie and
whose artwork had adorned every Maiden cover since their
debut single, Running Free.

The image they opted to go with came from illustrator
Melvyn Grant, who reimagined Eddie as a feral forest-spirit
glaring malevolently from the bough of a tree as a full
moon hung in the sky behind him. They didn’t completely
dispense with the services of Derek Riggs – one of his
illustrations graced the cover of the album’s first single, Be
Quick Or Be Dead, but that would be the last time his artwork
appeared on any Iron Maiden sleeve.

These musical and visual shifts didn’t harm the album’s
chart positions. It returned Maiden to No.1 in the UK charts,
and reached No.12 in the US. The subsequent tour, too, was
a success. It included their second headlining show at the
Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington, four years
after their first. That gig featured a guest appearance from
Adrian Smith during the encore of Running Free, a fleeting
glimpse of the three-guitar line-up that Maiden would
employ in the 21st century.

Significantly, it also included five dates in South America
(a sixth, in Chile, was cancelled due to pressure from
religious groups). Maiden had played a one-off show in
Brazil at 1985’s Rock In Rio festival, but this was the first

38 METALHAMMER.COM

IRON MAIDEN

“I TOLD The singer offered to tell Steve Harris himself, but Writer Jason Arnopp recalls
ROD, OUR Smallwood blocked that suggestion. “I’m sure his mind was the mounting tensions on
MANAGER, already spinning damage limitation and making plans to Bruce Dickinson’s ‘farewell’
‘I’VE GOT avoid rock’n’roll Chernobyl in the media.”
SOME GOOD tour with Iron Maiden
NEWS AND One complicating factor was that Maiden were due to kick
SOME BAD off the second leg of the Fear Of The Dark tour in March 1993. On April 16, 1993,
NEWS…’” Bruce agreed to honour his commitments, though Steve Metal Hammer
Harris later claimed that the rest of the band only found out writer Jason
BRUCE DICKINSON about his decision relatively late in the day. Arnopp joined
Iron Maiden
GETTY. JASON ARNOPP: PRESS/JASON ARNOPP. “I said, ‘How can we go out and tour and look people in in Bremen,
the eye and know there’s someone up there that doesn’t Germany, on
want to be there?’” the bassist said in Iron Maiden’s official what had been
biography, Run To The Hills, in 1999. “But Rod said, ‘He says billed as Bruce
he’s up for doing it and he’s just gonna leave at the end, Dickinson’s
and it’ll be like a nice sort of finale,’ and all that. And I said, farewell tour
‘OK. If it’s taken in that light, then that’s OK.’ Of course, with the band.
I totally regret it now.” The escalating tension between the
outgoing vocalist and his soon-to-be-
T he Iron Maiden that kicked off the Real Live former bandmates was immediately
Tour on March 25, 1993 in Faro, Portugal were obvious. While admitting to feeling
in a peculiar position: a major band playing a mixture of disappointment, sorrow,
a high-profile tour with a singer who wanted out. and anger at Bruce’s decision to quit,
Publicly, both parties adopted a grin-and-bear-it approach. Steve Harris insisted, “If he can’t give
Behind the scenes, though, things were less than rosy. Maiden 100%, we don’t want him in
Tensions quickly grew as the tour progressed. Steve claimed the band,”adding, “I think he’s maybe
the singer would step up to the plate at key shows, but phone made a mistake.” Speaking to Jason
it in when the stakes weren’t as high. at 2am in a hotel bar, a ‘refreshed’ and
unguarded Nicko McBrain, unaware he
“He may as well have not turned up at all some nights,” was being recorded, was less diplomatic,
Steve said in Run To The Hills. “And that’s when we all really suggesting that the singer had his head
began to feel bitterly towards him. Not because he was turned by US music industry “wankers”:
“He’s going his way, we’re going ours”,
the drummer said. “Fuck ’im, let’s get
a new singer… What I feel, although
in a positive way rather than a hateful
one, is good riddance.”
“This on-the-road feature gave me
a rare opportunity to interview a band
when they’re at a genuinely pivotal
moment,” Jason recalls.
“I don’t regret secretly recording Nicko
McBrain’s conversation,” he insists. “I do
wonder whether he was actually fully
aware he was being taped and didn’t
care. A few months later, I went to an
Iron Maiden party, where the drummer
grabbed me around the throat, and
pinned me against a wall. It was an
initially scary moment, until I realised it
was all in fun… Behind him, Steve Harris
stood with a beer, laughing. He told me
he thought it was a good feature. It did,
after all, display how passionate the
remaining members of Iron Maiden
were about their band and their future.
“I tend to think that rock bands
really are like marriages. After a while,
someone has a mid-career crisis, and
goes off to play around. Nine times out
of 10 they’ll come back for some torrid
make-up sex.”
TO READ THAT CLASSIC IRON MAIDEN
INTERVIEW, AND ENCOUNTERS WITH
METALLICA, KORN AND MORE, GRAB
A COPY OF JASON ARNOPP’S FROM
THE FRONT LINES OF ROCK BOOK
AVAILABLE FROM JASONARNOPP.COM

METALHAMMER.COM 39

IRON MAIDEN Scream for me, Wembley!
Bruce giving it some
Meet the man who gave welly in May 1993 on
Eddie a makeover… the Real Live Tour

Given that Derek Riggs’ iconic artwork
was almost as integral to Iron Maiden’s
early success as Steve Harris’s galloping
basslines, the band’s decision to invite
other artists to pitch ideas for the cover
of Fear Of The Dark was a bold, and
potentially alienating, call.

“We just wanted to see if we could do
something new with Eddie,” Steve Harris
explained at the time. “It didn’t mean we
didn’t want Derek involved again, we just
thought for the album sleeve itself we
would try and go for something a bit
different this time.”

Derek actually tendered his vision
for the artwork, with a ghoulish Eddie
looming over an oblivious, sleeping,
victim-in-waiting, but the group’s
management opted to go with a more
surreal depiction of Maiden’s cadaverous
sixth member, a half-tree, half-sinewy
night demon.

“My approach… was to see how
sinister I could make Eddie,” London-
born artist Melvyn Grant told the Italian
fanzine Eddie’s. “We’ve had all the
physical violence with the blood and
sharp things, now let’s instil something
more psychological.”

The striking, unsettling imagery was
well received by the Maiden faithful
and the band’s notoriously fastidious
manager Rod Smallwood, and the artist
went on to collaborate with the band on
the Virtual XI, Death On The Road and The
Final Frontier album sleeves.

Leg up! Steve Harris, Dave Murray and
Janick Gers on the Wembley stage

40 METALHAMMER.COM

IRON MAIDEN

“WE BEGAN TO leaving, but because he really fucked that last tour up for us
FEEL BITTERLY by not giving it everything he could have, which he promised
TOWARDS BRUCE, us he would.” The bassist later expressed a desire to “kill”
HE REALLY FUCKED the singer for his alleged behaviour.
THAT LAST TOUR
The private acrimony occasionally spilled out into public.
UP FOR US” When an English journalist asked Nicko McBrain if their
STEVE HARRIS singer had “shat” on his soon-to-be-ex bandmates, the
drummer couldn’t contain his anger.
GETTY
“He’s fucking leaving the band, you dipshit!” he ranted.
“He’s said, ‘Fuck you, I’m off!’ If that ain’t shitting on you
then what the fuck is?”

“Everybody was saying how sad it was, but by then we
couldn’t wait to get rid of the guy, to be brutally honest with
you,” Nicko admitted in Run To The Hills. “We just wanted
to get it over with.”

Bruce gave one final interview as a member of Iron
Maiden on the day of the Raising Hell show. Speaking to
French magazine Rock Hard, he made his disillusionment
at the state of contemporary rock and metal scene clear.
“They’re not really interesting anymore,” he said of
traditional rock gigs. “Rave parties are exactly what the
rock concerts represented in the 1970s,” he said. “That’s
where you find drugs, girls and the freedom to react the way
you really want.”

He also found time to get in one last dig at his bandmates.
“Steve is Iron Maiden,” he said. ‘It’s his thing, his creature,
nobody else but him can claim the tiniest part of the band.
He’s got his own recording studio, makes us rehearse and
record the albums at his place. The other members of the
band are delighted to work in such conditions, good for
them. As far as I’m concerned, I thought a band was
a collective thing.”

T he aftermath of Bruce’s departure was predictably
bitter. Both sides took jabs at the other in the press:
Bruce wrote Maiden off as outdated and Steve
Harris as dictatorial, Steve all but called the singer
a traitor for leaving in the manner he did.

The weight of Bruce’s history with Maiden didn’t
necessarily mean he was guaranteed success as a solo star,
and so it proved. His first two post-Maiden albums, 1994’s
Balls To Picasso and 1996’s Skunkworks, touched on everything
from funk rock to Soundgarden-inspired quasi-grunge, but
the public was unconvinced. Even a shift back to more
familiar territory with 1997’s Accident Of Birth did little to
restore his profile to pre-split levels.

Maiden themselves didn’t fare much better. The X Factor
and Virtual XI, the albums they recorded with Bruce’s
replacement, former Wolfsbane singer Blaze Bayley, were
laboured and uninspiring. When the inevitable happened
and Bruce Dickinson rejoined Maiden in 1999 – bringing
Adrian Smith back with him – their fans breathed
a collective sigh of relief. Not least because the singer
came across as a man with his hunger renewed.

“I don’t want to equal people’s expectations,” he stated,
“I want to exceed them. This band is far better now than it
was at its supposed peak… We’re going to be unstoppable.”

And what of Fear Of The Dark 30 years on? While it’s
nowhere near as beloved as classic collections such as The
Number Of The Beast or Powerslave, it stands as a pivotal
album for the band – a valiant attempt to navigate
a changing world that would ultimately be overshadowed
by subsequent events. It was the record Iron Maiden had
to make to move forwards.

IRON MAIDEN HEADLINE DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL
ON SATURDAY JUNE 11 – FOR TICKETS HEAD
TO DOWNLOADFESTIVAL.CO.UK. THEIR LATEST
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METALHAMMER.COM 41

FAITH NO MORE

GETTY

FAITH NO MORE

Having sold one million albums with 1989’s The Real Thing
album, Faith No More were poised for superstardom.

Then they released the dark, twisted and hateful Angel Dust,
and the world wasn’t ready

WORDS: PAUL BRANNINGAN

FAITH NO MORE

xl wasn’t angry, just disappointed. “We were having fun being stupid kids,” Bill told this
“Why do you hate me?” the Guns writer in 2002. “It wasn’t so much music, as just expression.
We just played whatever came into our heads. And that
N’ Roses frontman asked, a note of felt kinda good.”
genuine hurt in his voice. “It’s like
I went away and came back home By accident more than design, however, the mercurial,
to find you guys fucked my wife.” maverick quintet began to develop a loyal and diverse cult
following, swelled in 1985 by the success of their sarky,
Standing beside the singer in signature anthem, We Care A Lot. Sacking charismatic
GN’R’s backstage compound at frontman Chuck Mosley in 1988 following a rehearsal room
Orlando’s Citrus Bowl stadium, the normally easy-going fist-fight with Bill - “Having a working relationship with
Slash was equally forthright. “If you don’t like it here, him became really impossible,” the bassist insisted - seemed
just fucking leave,” the guitarist told the three sheepish, suicidal at the time, but the group re-emerged the following
shame-faced musicians standing before him. “It can’t year with a new vocalist, 21-year-old Mike Patton, and
be like this.” a slick, if subversive, third album, The Real Thing, with
Mike Patton, Bill Gould and Roddy Bottum knew this genuine crossover appeal. It took well over a year for the
confrontation was coming, given that almost every day record to connect at radio and MTV, but having sold just
for the past three-and-a-half months the trio had been 45,000 copies in its initial six months on sale, in 1990 the
bad-mouthing the Los Angeles hard rock superstars both album caught fire when rap-rock single Epic charted, going
onstage and in the media. Most of their peers would have on to sell one million copies in America.
been thrilled to be hand-picked to open for Guns N’ Roses
on the spring/summer 1992 European stadium tour booked “It was like a sick joke,” Bill recalled. “For the past 12
to promote the quintet’s epic Use Your Illusion albums, but months we’d worked our asses off and everyone had been
Faith No More had always been a particularly contrary, telling us how great we were, but we weren’t selling any
perverse and antagonistic unit. From day one of the trek, records and we were fucking broke. And then just as the label
which launched at Slane Castle in Ireland on May 16, the told us that the record was effectively dead, it all kicked off,
San Francisco band had made no attempt whatsoever to and we had to start all over again. By the end we hated those
disguise their disgust and disdain for the “circus” they had songs so fucking much.”
willingly signed up to.
Just one month before the September 2 face-off with Axl Such was the group’s enhanced profile, that when they
and Slash in Florida, Select magazine had published Bill regrouped in San Francisco’s Coast Recorders studio in
Gould’s scathing, scornful critique of the GN’R roadshow, January 1992 to work on their fourth album, MTV sent
a brutally honest assessment the bassist knew full well would a film crew along to document what was expected to be
soon enough come to the attention of the headline act. the decade’s next blockbuster hit. But when the frontman
“Every band in the world might think they want to told an interviewer “The only way to really progress is to be
open for Guns N’ Roses,” Bill told English journalist Mark ashamed of what you’ve just done”, it was evident that Faith
Putterford, “but lemme tell you, it’s been a real ugly personal No More had no intention of pandering to expectations.
experience, having to deal with all the shit that surrounds
this fuckin’ circus. I’ve always hated that aspect of rock “Patton spoke for all of us,” says drummer Mike Bordin
music and I’ve never wanted to be part of it, so to find myself today on a Zoom call from San Francisco. “Our attitude was:
being associated with a tour this big kinda sucks.” the past is the past, and we’re not going to live on it, and
Just hours before their scheduled summit with their we’re not gonna fucking try to recreate it. Because that’s
understandably pissed-off hosts, Faith No More had actually bullshit, it’s dishonest. We were never going to be a vending
taken a group vote to determine whether or not they would machine, serving up the same product. That’s just not what
walk away from the tour. Today, speaking from his home in this band was built to do.
San Francisco, Bill Gould won’t share exactly how that vote
broke down, but does admit that his personal preference was “Part of the mythology around Angel Dust is that we were
to withdraw. Having been out-voted by his colleagues, being trying to do this or that, trying to alienate people. We
subjected to Axl and Slash’s hour-long dressing-down was weren’t trying to do fuck-all except make a really fucking
as embarrassing as it was excruciating for the bassist. Before good record.”
dismissing the trio, Axl asked Bill directly what exactly he
had hoped to achieve with his incendiary diatribe in Select. As both Bill and Mike Bordin recall, their early weeks at
“We just try to stir up as much shit as we can,” came the Coast Recorders were spent jamming and “fooling around”,
reply. “We feel like that’s our job.” experimenting with sounds and samples and song
There was a beat of silence before the ridiculousness of structures. “We were united in wanting to do something
the situation caused Axl and Slash to burst out laughing. different,” recalls Bill, “but everyone had their own ideas of
The show would go on. what ‘different’ looked and sounded like.”

o be fair, Faith No More had never fitted in to any scene “And, remember, at this point, we still didn’t know Patton
or movement. Formed soon after Bill and Roswell that well, so it took a while figuring each other out. And it
Christopher ‘Roddy’ Bottum, his best friend from was clear from early on that our guitarist, Jim [Martin], wasn’t
childhood, and neighbour in the upscale Hancock Park gravitating to the new songs in the way the rest of us were.”
district of Los Angeles, moved to San Francisco to attend
college in Berkeley, the group drew inspiration from the Bay In Faith No More’s definitive biography, Small Victories,
Area thrash scene, the city’s fecund punk community and its producer Matt Wallace recalls that Jim’s exact description
long-established psychedelic rock communes, but always of Faith No More’s new material was “gay disco”. Inevitably,
had issues with the conventions and orthodoxies that defined tensions between the metal-loving guitarist and his
each genre. Such was their desire to avoid categorisation bandmates grew.
that, in their earliest incarnations, the group elected to step
out with a different singer (among them a young Courtney “I respect Jim as a guitar player, and the stuff he added to
Love) and different setlist for every show they played. the group has always been really good,” says Bill, “but we
had a hard time communicating. It was a struggle, it was
antagonistic, absolutely.”

“The feeling was that Jim was intentionally subverting
the record,” Matt Wallace revealed.

For his part, Jim told a UK rock magazine that making the
album was “very unpleasant”. Bill’s memory is that, even
as he was coaxing/bullying contributions out of Jim, the

44 METALHAMMER.COM

FAITH NO MORE

Faith No More in New York City “NO ONE COULD
on July 28, 1992 (L-R): Mike UNDERSTAND WHY
Bordin, Bill Gould, Mike Patton, WE WERE FUCKING
Roddy Bottum, Jim Martin WITH THE FORMULA”

BILL GOULD

GETTY

METALHAMMER.COM 45

FAITH NO MORE

guitarist was telling anyone who’d listen that his band’s new
songs “sucked”.

“We knew we were making a challenging record,” says
Bill. “And so we had to be really, really solid among
ourselves, that what we were doing was the right thing to
do. More than Angel Dust being a ‘fuck you’ to anyone, it was
like, ‘If this is our shot, and it might not work,then let’s all
feel good about it.’ And it was obvious that Jim didn’t. And
by the end of the tour cycle, it was clear that Jim had to go
for us to continue.

“But it was a complicated time. The Real Thing did really
well, and that was the first time, personally, that I ever got
any professional validation in my life for what I did. People
were taking what we were doing somewhat seriously, and it
meant a lot to me for us to really drive that home. So any
kind of energy that diluted from that really got to me.”

aith No More previewed their new album for their

record company president Bob Biggs at the end of

February 1992. Bob could not disguise his unease with

what he heard. It’s now part of the mythology of the album

that he delivered the brutal line “I hope nobody bought

houses” when the playback ended, though the band’s

manager is also credited, in some tellings of this anecdote,

with this zinger.

Angel Dust was no one’s idea of a hit record. Dark and

twisted, and occasionally almost unlistenable, it was shot

through with self-loathing and disgust and paranoia and

misanthropic spite. Beneath its surface sheen, The Real

Thing had its trangressive moments - the easy-listening

Edge Of The World was written from a paedophile’s

viewpoint, The Morning After outlined the aftermath of

a murder - but there was a genuine sense of revulsion

running right through its follow-up, from the mocking,

viciously sarcastic opener Land Of Sunshine through to

the white trash ramblings of RV, from the nightmarish

screeches of Malpractice and the unhinged, edge-of-

breakdown Caffeine through to the deceptively perky

Be Aggressive, Roddy Bottum’s graphic take on sub/dom

fellatio (‘You’re the master and I take it on my knees’) and

on to Jim’s brutal composition, Jizzlobber. There were

moments of great beauty too - the melodic majesty of

Midlife Crisis, the hooky Everything’s Ruined, a haunting Just a few more steps
take on John Barry’s Midnight Cowboy - but the pervading to your left, Jim…

impression was that Angel Dust was a knowing, wilful act

of self-sabotage. “We over-compensated by saying we didn’t give a shit,”

“No one could understand why we were fucking with the recalls Bill. “It was like, if we were gonna get shot in

formula,” Bill told this writer in 2002. “The key phrase from the face, we’ll pull the trigger ourselves. It was a bit of

the label was ‘commercial suicide’.” a juvenile way of going at it.”

“We were challenged at every turn,” recalls Mike Bordin. Certainly, from the outside, pushing the record first

“Management were like, ‘Are you sure you wanna do this? to Guns N’ Roses’ audience seemed a typically perverse

This is weird.’ The label basically said, move. Today Mike Bordin point-blank

‘What the fuck are you doing? This “ANGEL DUST WAS refuses to see the GN’R tour in Europe as
is not frat boy goodtime music!’ And ALWAYS PERCEIVED anything but a wonderful opportunity
I want to say clearly, that yes, we were AS US GOING IN THE - “I love Guns N’ Roses, and I’m
challenged at every turn, sometimes WRONG DIRECTION” eternally fucking grateful to them for
internally, sometimes externally, but putting us on their stage, and allowing
we made the fucking record that we their audience to get a two by four right
wanted to make.” across the teeth every fucking day” -
but admits that opening for GN’R and
“One early review said, ‘This Metallica on their co-headline US
is possibly the least commercial

follow-up to a hit record in the history BILL GOULD stadium tour was “difficult”.

of recorded music.’ And we took pride “You had Metallica playing The

in that, 100%, everyone loved that shit. But also, deep down Black Album, and Guns playing the hits from Appetite [For

you knew, it wasn’t going to work for a mass market.” Destruction] and Use Your Illusion, and we’re out there playing

Released on June 8, 1992, Angel Dust entered the UK Be Aggressive and it didn’t come across. People were like, ‘Get

album chart at No.2, and debuted at No.10 in America, where off, I wanna hear Enter Sandman!’ We were standing between

it racked up 500,000 sales in just three months. But the these two massive redwood [and] sequoia trees, and they’re

perception was that Faith No More had fucked up, big time. 300 feet tall and 1,000 years old, massive and eternal, and we

46 METALHAMMER.COM

FAITH NO MORE

Bill Gould on Angel Dust’s
most provocative track,

Be Aggressive

GETTY were a tiny fern on the ground that needed some sunshine… “No other rock band would dare
and that may not have been forthcoming. write a song like Be Aggressive,”
Faith No More’s longtime producer
“But look, we didn’t expect to be Whitesnake or Bon Jovi, Matt Wallace once said, and the
we didn’t go into this band wanting to own 15 houses and man had a point; in the 30 years
three Learjets and have 17 supermodels on speed dial,” he since its release, the track’s mix of
laughs. “We knew we were a challenge because we were perky cheerleader chants, dirty
selling something that people didn’t know. If you’re dealing metallic guitar and lyrics detailing
with unknown quantities, it can be tricky. Maybe 30 million sado-masochistic gay sex has yet to
people didn’t buy that record, but it meant something to be replicated. So outside-the-box
those who did.” was Roddy Bottum’s masterpiece
that even the usually unshockable
Bill sighs when asked to evaluate Angel Dust three Bill Gould thought his best friend
decades on. had gone too far.
“When I first heard the lyrics Roddy
“Angel Dust was always perceived at the time as us going wrote, I thought, ‘Why the fuck
in the wrong direction,” he says after some reflection. would you do that?’” Bill admits.
“On The Real Thing, it kinda felt like we were attractive to “But not because it was a homo-
people, but on Angel Dust, it just didn’t feel that way. It felt erotic song. It was more that, where
like we had to take a beating for the way we ran our show, I came from, writing songs about sex
so it was never that gratifying.” was a cheap way to go. Madonna
does shit like that, not Faith No
“We made a lot of stupid mistakes,” he admits. “But we More. So that was my initial reaction,
were real, we were honest. I really like it and when we signed but I let it go, because it was Roddy’s
off on it, we were happy; I thought, I can live with this, song and it was important to him.
however things go. And, you know, honestly, I can still live “Now, of course, I think it’s an
with it. People tell me that it’s a record that changed their absolutely brilliant song,” he laughs,
lives, that opened their minds. I think we did well. “and I’m completely happy that we
did it. Sometimes you have to trust
other people. But we’re a weird
group of people and that’s not always
easy. Roddy was my friend since
we were kids and he never told me
he was gay. I found that out reading
a magazine. Roddy and I connect
on so much, but on some basic
things, like communication, we have
some real flaws!”

METALHAMMER.COM 47

CHRIS JERICHO

PRESS/ADRIENNE BEACCO

CHRIS JERICHO

THE HAMMER INTERVIEW

CHRIS
JERICHO

From WWF and WWE wrestling champion to gold-plated
rock star and controversy-inciting podcast presenter, Fozzy

frontman Chris Jericho has had a storied and stellar
life that shows no sign of slowing down

WORDS: STEPHEN HILL

CHRIS JERICHO

W hen Christopher Keith Irvine have helped, but definitely, literally and figuratively, he
was born on November 9 1970, certainly gave me a lot of support. Which made it easier for
no one could have foreseen that my mom to accept, too.”
he would go on to amass one of
the most eclectic and impressive When did music first come into your life?

CVs of… well, pretty much anyone “My dad was really into rock’n’roll – he had the big stack

you care to mention. Today you know him as Chris Jericho, of LPs, and the Beatles were the ones that stood out to me.

one of the greatest professional wrestlers ever to grace the I became a huge Beatles fan by the time I was 10 years old,

sport, frontman of the increasingly successful heavy metal and I don’t mean I knew the words to Yellow Submarine –

band Fozzy, actor, author, and host of the hugely popular I mean I knew everything about the acid trips and who

Talk Is Jericho podcast. It’s incredible that the young man who [inventor/friend] Magic Alex is and the concept behind the

grew up listening to rock’n’roll and consuming professional [music-hating characters] Blue Meanies. That was the first

wrestling on cable television in Winnipeg, Canada, has gone band I really got into. But when I went to elementary school,

on to achieve iconic status in so many fields. nobody liked the Beatles! Instead, I just saw all the girls

“People often ask me when the music started getting wearing the cut-off rock shirts with Maiden, Priest,

a look-in after the wrestling,” he smiles. “The truth is, it Scorpions and Ozzy. He was the main one: Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy.

was always there – I was always doing it. It’s just that I got So, I thought that if I was going to be able to talk to the girls

recognition as a wrestler first. People would say when Fozzy then I needed to know what music they liked. I bought

started, ‘Oh, when did you first want to be in a band?’ And a cassette tape of Blizzard Of Ozz and it was a complete

I’d say, ‘Oh, I dunno, about 20 years ago!’ I’ve never been game-changer. Then I became a heavy metal fanatic.”

one to limit myself to one thing, I always wanted it all.”

It’s fair to say he got it all. We sat down with one of How about the wrestling?

metal’s most charismatic characters, to find out how “My grandmother was a really big wrestling fan, and

his story unfolded. I remember watching it with her. She passed away in 1978,

so I was seven, I had been watching it that long. She loved

What are your memories of the good guys and hated the bad guys, and I secretly loved

your childhood? the bad guys. There was a wrestler

“Well, my father [Ted Irvine] played in “FOZZY WERE LIKE called Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura, and she
the NHL, the hockey equivalent of the just hated him. I thought he was cool as

Premier League, from 1967-1977. So, THE ORIGINAL shit; he had all the feathers and a jewel
my first few years we moved around STEEL PANTHER” in his chin and I thought he was fucking
a lot. We started off in New York City, great. That was kinda how that all
St. Louis, and then ended up in Winnipeg started. Early on I loved music and I loved
in Canada, which is where he was from. wrestling, and that’s just kept on being

I had a famous father who was a pro cultivated throughout my entire life.”

athlete; that maybe rubbed off on me in a little bit of

a way. But, I remember, I always only ever had two goals: Do you remember your first wrestling match?

I wanted to be in a rock’n’roll band and I wanted to be “Oh, sure. October 2, 1990 in Ponoka, Alberta. The venue

a wrestler, and I just worked on how to manifest those was called the Moose Hall, there were only 125 people there,

two things.” but it felt like Madison Square Garden or The O2, people

screaming and going crazy. It was me and a guy I was training

How hard was it growing up in a country as vast with, Lance Storm, who has also gone on to have a fantastic

as Canada? wrestling career. It was a 10-minute draw and I got paid $30 in

“When you’re a kid, it’s not so much about what is around a white envelope. At the time I had been working in a deli for

you, you don’t know what’s out there. That’s one of the five bucks an hour, and I worked out that I got paid almost as

things I loved about wrestling; you could see wrestling much money in 10 minutes as I did in an eight-hour shift!

from Florida or New York or wherever, and then you start I was rich! Hearing the crowd cheer and react, and getting

looking at rock magazines and seeing all these bands from paid to do something you love to do was the greatest feeling.”

around the world: ‘Wow! There’s a heavy metal band from

Japan! I guess rock is this universal language!’ That’s How about the first gig?

cool. There was also a big British influence in Canada, “About 1989 in Winnipeg. My high school band was called

because we’re part of the Commonwealth and we’re Scimitar, the sword that Sinbad The Sailor uses, and the ‘T’

brothers, don’t ya know! So, I would watch all these in the name was the sword on our logo. It was a battle of the

classic British shows on CBC, kinda the sister to the BBC. bands; you had to play one original and one cover. Our cover

I remember watching The Goodies, then it turned into was Peace Sells… by Megadeth. We were a three-piece band,

Monty Python and onto Fawlty Towers, so I just had this and when the guitar was meant to come in, the cable fell out

huge influence of British rock’n’roll and comedy in my life of the guitar and we had to stop and start again. The worst

from 10, 11 years old. We just had a cool sense of a worldwide thing you could do! Never stop, you gotta go!”

flavour where I grew up.”

The 90s was an incredible time of flux for both the music

How big an influence was your father on your life and wrestling industries. What was it like to be in the

and career? middle of all of that for you?

“Your dad is just your dad, right? I remember not really “It was certainly an interesting period. In the early part PRESS/ADRIENNE BEACCO

realising that it was a big deal he was a pro athlete until of the 90s a lot of my wrestling career happened abroad,

I got to about 16 or 17 years old! ‘Whatever, it’s just my dad!’ and the music was changing a lot in the States. Honestly,

What was important was my dad’s attitude towards if it weren’t for Pantera, there wouldn’t have been a metal

me, because when I expressed these goals I had with band to hang your hat on at that time. I could kinda get with

wrestling and with the band, he recognised that same grunge, but when it became the nu metal thing, I just didn’t

thing he had been through. So, subliminally, it might get it. Limp Bizkit? What the hell is that? I still don’t get it.

50 METALHAMMER.COM