By John Katic

The year is shaping up to be a impressive one for Andy Biersack and Black Veil Brides.

They’ve already released The Wretched and Divine: The Story of the Wild Ones, which debuted at No. 7 in the US; they’ve unveiled a motion picture, Legion of the Black, done two North American legs and one European leg of the Church of the Wild Ones tour — and they’re up for two Golden God awards.

Let’s not forget they’re also featured in the March 2013 issue of Guitar World, which you can check out here.

We recently sat down with Biersack, the band’s singer and founder, and got his thoughts on the Golden Gods. For more about this year’s Golden Gods awards, head here.

REVOLVER: Golden Gods-wise, you guys are up for an award in the Most Devoted Fans category. What makes your fan base so special?

I think, obviously, we are noted for having a very dedicated fan base. There is a visual, aesthetic part of it where you have the makeup and the costumes. The devotion of the BVB Army, with its very big online presence, is amazing. We’ve been fortunate from the very beginning. It was something that was really able to spur on our career.

When it came to record labels and management, people didn’t give a shit until the fans sort of forced our way into places. You can’t deny a band whose fans are so dedicated. You can’t deny a band whose fans will literally do anything to see them win the awards. We’re very appreciative to the fan base. That mutual feeling of appreciation is something that really helps.

Do you think part of it might stem from early on, especially with your “lyrics of the disenfranchised”? Do you think they struck a chord with fans who were preached to with pop music and that made you guys a great alternative?

Absolutely. The message of the band goes hand in hand with the fan base. We never made attempts to say we were anybody’s role model or the be-all-end-all of what people should look up to. We have always just been very open about the fact that we have difficulties and we are messed-up people just as our fans are. We kind of wanted to do it together with them. With that being said, the feeling of comradery between us and the audience has really always been there.

Bands talk about their audience bringing their kids to shows. Have you seen fans bring their parents along for the ride?

Our shows have always been sort of an all-generations thing, people from 6 to 60. The other night, we played a show and we had a woman who was probably 70 to 75 years old, and she was there alone and she was singing every song. On the other end of the spectrum, there was a 7-year-old on his dad’s shoulders and the dad is singing along. You have the teenagers as well, of course. We are a band that stylistically crosses a lot of barriers and generational gaps. The heavier portion of the band, the modern music elements, the visual part of the band appeal to a younger audience. For an older audience, we have chops and great songs that are reminiscent of the things that were great about rock and roll when they enjoyed it. We’re the kind of band that can cross those lines.

True. You aren’t going to sound foreign to someone who grew up listening to a Motley Crue or a W.A.S.P. Your music has modern elements, but it isn’t going to turn off a listener who’s in his or her 40s or 50s.

Honestly, it boils down to songs. Good songs are always good songs. People can listen to a song by an artist such as a Van Halen, and no one in the room is going to go, “Oh, this is terrible.” Good songs cross those lines. Our focus on the record was to make them as good as possible, and those things will stand the test of time and relate to any audience. I’m not going to name any names, but we certainly have a lot of counterparts in bands that are popular, drawing well, selling well and are of the same age group as us. My point is always, where are the songs? What is memorable about this?

On the subject of songs, “In The End” is up for Song of the Year at the Golden Gods. If I remember correctly, that was the last track you did for the album. Did you have the complete concept of the album laid out at that point, and how did the story coincide with writing all the album’s lyrics?

It all started with a short story I wrote on a plane and then spiraled. I had two friends, Patrick Fogarty and Richard Millwood, who were very dedicated artists and friends of ours. When we got home, I gave it to them and told them about that story and said maybe we can do something with it. As a band we sort of dissected it and built the record out of it.

Do you write as a unit?

Every song has a different process. There will be some songs where it comes together right away and we’ll all be sitting around and know it. Then there are songs that take quite a while. A song like “Nobody’s Hero,” for example, took a lot of days of back and forth with our producer, John Feldman, with “The chorus should be more like this or that.” A song like “In The End” came together fairly quickly.

I think a lot of people overlook or are unaware of the fact that you are extremely talented musicians. You have a classically trained musician in the band and a guitar duo that’s reminiscent of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing of Judas Priest.

I think that is something we’ve always liked with that guitar duo. Even on stage, it’s sort of “classic” rock and roll.

Is there anyone in particular you’re listening to right now?

We are big fans of a band out of Europe called CRASHDÏET. They have come out to a bunch of our shows but haven’t toured much in the US just yet.

Black Veil Brides have a few more dates in the US before taking the Church of the Wild Ones tour to Europe for April. The band returns home to the US to be part of the Vans Warped Tour, which runs all summer long. Keep up with their current tour dates at officialbvb.com.

By John Katic

Last year, Godsmack’s Sully Erna took a creative leap of faith and released Avalon.

Godsmack have shown glimpses of Erna’s world, plus some tribal influences, most notably with tracks like “Voodoo.” But Avalon fully immersed the artist into a world of musicians and collaborators. It truly shows the depth and breadth of Sully’s talents.

Recording a studio album is one thing, but making the transition to a live show is quite another. On December 18, Erna will release Avalon Live on DVD and Blu-Ray.

I recently spoke with Erna about the album, the tour and the video.

REVOLVER: Last year saw the release of Avalon, which was different yet somewhat similar to the work you’ve done with Godsmack. Can you describe the feeling of releasing an album under your own name, going out without the Godsmack brand and baring your soul to the world?

It was good and refreshing, and it continues to be refreshing. As you know, I’ve been doing Godsmack for a while, and being a musician my whole life, there is a lot of different kind of music I have played. Sometimes it is not necessarily good for Godsmack. For me, it was about exploring internally and getting some stuff out that I‘ve had inside. There are plenty of times I’m sitting around writing at the piano and noodling around, and you stumble onto some really great idea and you know at that moment that it won’t work out for Godsmack because it has a whole different texture.

They are still great pieces of music, and I wanted to release them and see what people thought. For me, the Avalon thing became internal. It wasn’t about critics and even what the fans thought. It was about creating a body of work that was really a part of me and that I have grown into. This was a record I just had to do for myself, whether it sat on the shelf for the rest of my life or it was released, it did not matter to me at that moment. Luckily, people embraced it and it has done really well and I am really proud of it. It was nice to step out of the box and not have a ceiling over my head.

When you were writing this material, where you typically alone, and were there particular instruments you wrote with?

It was a bit of both. Before I put Avalon together, I had a few pieces written like “Eyes of a Child” and “Until Then… .” From there, I started to put some members together. I had known Lisa [futureusgalleryGuyer] from a mutual friend. She had a phenomenal voice and four-octave range and was just so great but never really had a shot. Once I was starting to write and knew I wanted a female voice, I thought of her. I knew it was going to be a great fit, so I contacted her.

I introduced her to Dead Can Dance and bands like that. It just so happened that Dead Can Dance were doing this reunion tour that year. So I took Lisa to the Boston show and she was just floored. She was blown away by Lisa Gerrard’s voice and the whole mystical, hypnotic world-music vibe. She got it right away. I told her this was what I wanted to do but only modernize it and make it a little more current and edgy.

It just so happened that the percussionist of Dead Can Dance, Niall Gregory, was a Godsmack fan, so we met him that night and we all just kept in touch. The three of us became the foundation for Avalon. Lisa introduced me to Chris Lester, who introduced us to Tim Theriault. Tim introduced us to Chris Decato, and it just grew from there organically. It was just something that kept evolving. It was really supposed to be studio tracking of the music, and we really didn’t know where it was going to go.

Sully Erna Avalon Live TRAILER from Daniel Catullo on Vimeo.

Did you do a lot of the arranging for the record and for the live performance?

Yes, I did all the arranging. There was a lot of input for content when people were writing things. I told everyone to go home and come back in a couple weeks with tapes of ideas. I then started to peruse things and organize it and create the arrangements. I have to give them props for bringing in a ton of ideas. Their melodies and riffs really helped me find the path we were on.

As the frontman of a very successful hard rock band, people think of you with a Les Paul around your neck. How did it feel to stand on the stage for the first time in that environment? Did you feel sort of naked, almost?

No not at all. It was a breath of fresh air. Godsmack is such a big entity, and we’ve always been known to put on a big, fat rock show with pyro, video, big lighting and all that stuff. It’s very animated and energy. It’s like a full-contact sport. Avalon was more like the seductive side of things. It was really cool to lay back on the piano or sing into the microphone and let the music and lights take people to other places. It wasn’t awkward at all for me.

Doing the DVD at the Wilber Theater in Boston, your hometown — was that a blessing or a curse? Obviously, you have the benefit of the hometown fans, but you also have the stress of guests and such that go with playing in your hometown.

It was great. I was proud to do it in Boston. We were in a historical theater at the Wilber Theater. It was great to have all our friends and family there, along with fans that flew in from all parts of the country to be a part of it. I would do it in Boston again for sure. I’d play in Boston as much as I could as long as we continue to draw an audience. It’s a great environment. People love their music there.

Obviously, you are releasing the CD/DVD, Blu-Ray and the box set. Do you plan on taking Avalon further with a new record at some point? Will this take a back seat to other things at the moment?

I’m working on new material now and I’m not sure where I’m going to go with it. What worked on Avalon is that we really didn’t know what we were writing. We just knew we wanted to do a certain kind of vibe for the album. We had an idea in our heads. What worked for us well was that it was a massive left-hand turn from what people expected from me for a solo record. They had no idea and might have thought that it was a solo rock record.

For me as I write again, I’m not sure if I want to pigeonhole myself into that genre. Luckily there are enough colors on that record; I can go in any direction. I could strip in down and do what Adele does acoustically or I could take it to another level and do more orchestration. But again I’m not going to premeditate it too much. I’m just going to write with certain members again. We’ll see where the music takes us. I want to keep people on their toes and not let them predict what the next record will sound like.

I think you can’t help but draw some comparisons to the music of Led Zeppelin and what keeps them so vital to this day. They didn’t stand pat on Led Zeppelin II, they evolved.

Exactly! Zeppelin is the perfect example. They just played what they played. They have stuff from reggae to rock to blues. You name it. They had so many different colors on their albums and that’s what made them special. By no means do I ever compare myself to Zeppelin, but I do feel Avalon was magical. I think my job as an artist is to just continue to write the best music I can write and hope people embrace it.

Avalon Live will be released December 18 on DVD and Blu-Ray. There also is a limited-edition box set that contains 5 DVDs: the double disc, Avalon Live, shot in Boston at The Wilbur Theater in 2D, on Standard and Blu-ray; The Making of Avalon Live, a 40-minute documentary of behind-the-scenes footage from the concert in December; The Journey to Avalon documentary, an hour-long version of the acclaimed doc seen on Palladia, and a bloopers and outtakes DVD of Sully in the studio along with videos from Avalon.

The box also contains two CDs: Avalon, the studio album, and Avalon Live, the live show from Boston. Other items include an autographed limited-edition coffee table book, an updated version of Sully’s personal memoir, The Paths We Choose, a limited-edition poster from the Wilbur show and a limited-edition T-shirt, a Sully Erna hat and necklace, commemorative backstage pass from the 2010 tour, a guitar pick and custom hand-made incense chosen by Sully.

Buy the box set here.

By John Katic

Texas Hippie Coalition released their third studio album, Peacemaker, August 14 through Carved Records.

The band — Big Dad Ritch (vocals), John Exall (bass), Wes Wallace (guitar) and Timmy Braun (drums) — blends Pantera-style riffs and energy with vocals that sound a bit like ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons.

We recently sat down with Wallace to discuss the band’s work ethic and new album.

GUITAR WORLD: When did start playing with Texas Hippie Coalition?

I stared right around the first of the year with the Rollin’ tour. I was involved then with the writing of the new album, Peacemaker.

I can’t think of a band these days that tours more than THC. Do you guys ever get to go home?

It’s been crazy. We get a week or two here or there or maybe a month to come home. On this run, we’ve been gone already for a month up here in the North. We just did the Ride for Dime.

Peacemaker came out about a month ago. Can you talk about that process of making that album?

It’s been a long time coming. We did that in January 2012. We all flew over to Los Angeles with Bob Marlette.

Do you write in the studio?

Actually, we wrote the whole album in Los Angeles. We did it all in about three or four weeks. Every day, we’d go over from 11 a.m. until about midnight and just write.

There seems to be a little more of a blues influence on this record.

It definitely has a different feel than the last album. We touch a lot of different areas with it. It’s not so much an “in your face” metal album. I grew up with a blues background. I’ve always been into blues and metal.

Obviously, the band started in Texas. Are you from Texas as well?

Born and raised! We all grew up around the same area near Denison. Our drummer is actually from Oklahoma City. Rich, John and I all grew up in the same area.

Did you have any particular influences?

When I started playing, I was into Nirvana. Stevie Ray Vaughan was one of the biggest that I came across first. Then I heard Dimebag and Pantera and I lost it on that. I loved metal from then on. I grew up on classic rock like Boston as well.

What are the band’s plans going forward?

We have four dates coming up in September with Lynyrd Skynyrd. We’re really excited about that. When I heard we were going out with them, it was really cool because me first concert was ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Can you understate the importance of touring often?

You have to constantly be out there and promote your music. There are a million other bands that will if you won’t. The more you get your face and your music out there, the better off you’ll be. We love it too. We love to see people all over the country and not just let them listen to the record. It’s tough being out for that long, but it’s worth it in the end. We all get along good so it’s easy to ride down the road with these guys. We have a good team.

Texas Hippie Coalition are touring to support of Peacemaker, which is available at iTunes Follow them on Facebook and their official website.