Since having been transported from the medieval ages to modern times by a vengeful wizard, Executioner has been a busy behemoth, becoming Southern California’s only fully licensed assassin for hire. And now he has a new show on Rug Burn–the second episode of the series airs tomorrow. Having a passion for heavy metal music as well as murdering people, Executioner sat down with us to discuss how he likes to combine both into one.

1. Do the metal “devil’s salute” with your fingers and ram it through someone’s eyes.

2. When a crowd is moshing, roll a huge boulder off the stage and flatten everyone.

3. Stick someone’s face in Zakk Wylde’s beard, wait as the parasites in it eat away your victim’s flesh.

4. Chop someone’s head off and then headbang with it.

5. Trick a stage diver to jump off a cliff.

6. Force Motörhead’s Mikkey Dee to play the drum solo from “Sacrifice” on someone’s head to induce “jelly skull.”

7. Skin someone alive and use their skin to make an awesome leather jacket.

8. Bite the head off a bat, spit it at someone, and when they’re busy wiping their face, bite their head off, too.

9. Grab a guitar and jam the riff from Mastodon’s “Blood and Thunder”, remove the strings, wrap them around someone’s throat and garrote them (see below).

10. Play someone High on Fire’s new album and blow their fucking mind. Awesome album.

The 2013 Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival lineup this year features Rob Zombie, Five Finger Death Punch, Mastodon and Amon Amarth on the Rockstar Energy Drink Main Stage. The Festival area will showcase Machine Head, Children of Bodom, Behemoth, Job for a Cowboy, Emmure, Born of Osiris, Motionless in White, Butcher Babies, Battlecross, Huntress, Thrown into Exile and City in the Sea!!

For the first time ever, this year’s tour will feature four stages: the Rockstar Energy Drink Main Stage, the Jägermeister Stage and the Musicians Institute Stage will be joined by the Sumerian/Headbang for the Highway Concourse Stage, which will feature local bands, to be announced in June.

The tour kicks off on June 29th in San Bernardino and runs through August 4th with tickets on sale on sale now at www.rockstarmayhemfest.com or through www.livenation.com.

“AIC 23,” a new skit posted to Funny or Die, tells the story of Alan Poole McLard, a Film Studies Professor at a community college, who is trying to make a documentary film about Alice in Chains to coincide with the release of their new album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. Without the cooperation of the members of Alice in Chains, McLard does his best to interview other musicians that may, or may not, have influenced AIC throughout the years. The film includes cameos from Lars Ulrich and Robert Trujillo from Metallica, Unta Gleeben Glabben Globben from Necrobotica, Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart, Donnie “Skeeter” Dollarhide Jr. from the Singing Dollarhides, Mike McCready from Pearl Jam, Nesta Cleveland, Kim Thayil from Soundgarden, Duff McKagan from Guns N’ Roses and Loaded, and others. Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments.

Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, the world’s biggest hard and heavy music touring festival announces its electrifying sixth-year lineup. Artists performing on the 2013 thunderous fest include main stage metal and horror legend, festival closer, Rob Zombie, plus, the triple gold certified Five Finger Death Punch and a monster lineup that includes additional main stage bands Mastodon & Amon Amarth. The festival area is led by stage closers Children of Bodom and Machine Head as well as Behemoth, Job For A Cowboy, Emmure, Born of Osiris, Motionless In White, Butcher Babies, Battlecross, Huntress, Thrown Into Exile and City In The Sea. Four stages will be presented this year for the first time ever and the stages include the Rockstar Energy Drink Main Stage, The Jagermeister Stage, Musician’s Institute Stage, as well as the Sumerian Records/Headbang for the Highway Concourse Stage (local bands performing on the Sumerian Records/Headbang for the Highway Stage will be announced in June).

All tickets go on sale March 22nd at 12:00 Noon local venue time via www.rockstarmayhemfest.com or www.livenation.com.  The tour will stop in 26 cities across the United States and Canada as it makes its way to the Gexa Energy Pavilion in Dallas, Texas on August 4th, 2013. Dates and venues are listed below.

The 2013 Golden God Award recipient, a rock icon and auteur filmmaker with insight and unlimited vision, Rob Zombie has continuously challenged audiences as he stretches the boundaries of music, film, and publishing. Now, the seven-time Grammy nominated recording artist releases his fifth solo album, Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor, which streets April 23, and includes the first single, “ Dead City Radio and the New Gods of Super Town,” along with such tracks as “Ging Gang Gong De Do Gong De Laga Raga,” “Lucifer Rising,” “Behold! The Pretty Filthy Creatures” and a heavy-duty cover of Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re an American Band.” Rob Zombie’s Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor is the first release on his new label, Zodiac Swan, through T-Boy Records/UME. Zombie’s also written and directed his 6^th feature film, “The Lords of Salem”, in theaters April 19^th (Anchor Bay).

After three gold albums in a row and ten consecutive top ten radio singles, Five Finger Death Punch continue their evolution in 2013 by releasing a new single in early May, followed by their fourth studio album in June.  FFDP are set to perform live at this year’s Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles on May 2 and will warm up for Mayhem playing this summer’s most prestigious European festivals, amongst them UK’s Download Festival and Germany’s Rock am Ring and Rock im Park.

The World’s Greatest Freestyle Motocross team The Metal Mulisha is also confirmed to perform on most dates.

Sponsors for the 2013 Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival include title sponsor Rockstar Energy Drink and stage sponsors Jagermeister, Musicians Institute, and Sumerian Records. Festival sponsors include Ibanez Guitars, Zippo, Metal Blade Records, Napalm Records, Squatch Snack Sticks, Fuck Cancer and Keep A Breast. Media partners include Revolver Magazine and Zuus Media.

In addition to catching their favorite bands live, fans can take part in a number of festival activities, including playing the newest video games, perusing vendors, attending autograph signing sessions and a slew of various interactive activities that will only add to the festival experience.

Rockstar Energy Drink will be sampling their products and providing awesome surprises for all attendees.  Rockstar will also present the VIP/Contest winner area designated as The Rockstar Lounge and the festival area Party Like A Rockstar Tent where fans can sample ice cold Rockstar and get autographs from their favorite bands.

Addition to the festival’s music and arts, Musicians Institute and the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival have partnered to create the Rockstar Mayhem Independent Artist Scholarship! This scholarship fully covers tuition and material fees for a two quarter IAP certificate (Room, Boarding and Travel are not included.) The application period runs from March 18 until June 1, 2013. Applicants must visit www.mi.edu/mayhem-rock-festivalscholarship to enter.

Fans can go to www.rockstarmayhemfest.com to keep up with additional details as they are released.

Make sure to check out this brand new video (below) announcing the official 2013 Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival line up and stay tuned to Mayhem TV for more video updates and features coming soon!

Tour dates are as follows:

6/29 San Bernardino, CA San Manuel Amphitheater

6/30 Mountain View, CA Shoreline Amphitheatre

7/2 Boise, ID Idaho Center Amphitheatre

7/3 Auburn, WA White River Amphitheater

7/5 Phoenix, AZ Desert Sky Pavilion

7/6 Albuquerque, NM Isleta Amphitheatre

7/7 Denver, CO Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre

7/10 Toronto, ON Molson Canadian Amphitheatre

7/12 Burgettstown, PA First Niagara Pavilion

7/13 Scranton, PA Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain

7/14 Darien Center, NY Darien Lake PAC

7/16 Mansfield, MA Comcast Center

7/17 Bangor, ME Bangor Waterfront

7/19 Camden, NJ Susquehanna Bank Center

7/20 Saratoga Springs, NY SPAC

7/21 Hartford, CT The Comcast Theatre

7/23 Holmdel, NJ PNC Bank Arts Center

7/24 Bristow, VA Jiffy Lube Live

7/26 Noblesville, IN Klipsch Music Center

7/27 Tinley Park, IL First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre

7/28 Clarkston, MI DTE Energy Music Theatre

7/30 Atlanta, GA Aaron’s Amphitheatre at Lakewood

7/31 Tampa, FL Live Nation Amphitheatre at the Florida State Fairgrounds

8/2 Austin, TX Austin360 Amphitheater

8/3 The Woodlands, TX Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

8/4 Dallas, TX Gexa Energy Pavilion

Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Stages and Artists:

Rockstar Energy Drink Main Stage

Rob Zombie

Five Finger Death Punch

Mastodon

Amon Amarth

Musicians Institute Stage               Jagermeister Stage

Children Of Bodom                                Machine Head

Behemoth                                                   Job For A Cowboy

Emmure                                                        Butcher Babies

Born Of Osiris                                           Battlecross

Motionless In White                               Huntress

Thrown Into Exile

Sumerian Records/Headbang For The Highway Stage

City In The Sea

3 Local Openers

The compilation called Patlapse features artists such as Dillinger Escape Plan, Mastodon, Baroness, Pig Destroyer, Death and many more.

Egan, Relapse’s Director of Sales, passed away on February 18 after a struggle with pneumonia and related complications.

The bands on the compilation have agreed to waive royalties for the tracks so all of the proceeds of Patlapse will go to a college fund for Egan’s teenager daughter. The album can be found on Bandcamp for $5, but more can be donated.

The label released this statement: “If you were lucky enough to know Pat, you will remember him as a fun, funny, hardworking, passionate lifelong metalhead who left an impression on EVERYONE he came in contact with. If you never got a chance to meet him, but you’re familiar with Relapse Records or some of the bands on the label, Pat was instrumental in the success of almost all of the bands and records Relapse has released over the past decade. ”

You can check out and purchase Patlapse here.

REVOLVER Based on our previous conversations, man, I’m pretty fucking stoked for the Dillinger record…
GREG PUCIATO Ya know what? I hate to always be the person that’s like, “This is our best new album,” because I think every time it’s the best one. I’m realizing that all you can try to do is take an honest snapshot of where everyone is at the moment and hope that that place happens to be good when you look back at it. When you’re in it, you’re too emotionally attached to it to really gain any kind of hindsight to it. Now that we’ve been around for a while, I can kind of be a little bit more objective and see what records were the ones where we made big leaps–the obvious ones, like Calculating Infinity, was a big jump, and I feel like Miss Machine was a really big jump. I feel like our work on Option Paralysis was like us refining Miss Machine. It wasn’t like we were making colossal jumps. This is the first one since Miss Machine where I felt like, Wow, all of us as individuals and collectively are moving into, like, some other phase of our career.

I think we’ve all just gotten a lot better as individuals and we’ve already had our fucking growing pains and we’ve already fought our brains out. We went from being kids to adults together. We kind of all realized our strengths and how to leave one another alone and not have ego clashes. I think this record is the record where we’re like adults now. People have gotten married or we have serious girlfriends, like, really major shit has gone down in our lives, and it just seemed really…it seemed like less edge-of-our-pants, not knowing if we were gonna pull it together.

When did you guys really start writing material for this record?
I’d say we started in January

Yeah, Ben has pretty much always played all of the guitar on the records, right?
Right, when we lost Jeff , in all honesty, we lost a live guitar player. But it wasn’t like he was a creative force.

Are you the kinda guy that’s always sort of working on lyrics or do you really start focusing on it when you’re really writing the album?
I’m always writing stuff, but I don’t tend to hang on to it. I feel like especially with music like this, I feel like Dillinger’s lyrics are somewhat different to me than I would approach another band. It’s very much a fucking therapeutic, like, subconscious type thing for me that I haven’t done in three or four years. So I really wanna get something out of me and, like, dig something out of my system while we’re writing. I can’t really feel that attached to something if I’ve already emotionally resolved it. A lot of times if I’m writing something, nine or 10 months later when we record it, I start to realize, Hey, I don’t even really care about this anymore. I already kind of worked through this in some other way besides screaming about it. I usually end up throwing a lot of lyrics out and writing everything really close to when we’re recording just because then I can feel attached to it still while I’m singing it. So it doesn’t become just consonants and vowels coming out of my mouth.

That makes sense. Were there particular things that you were working through with these lyrics?
A lot of stuff, pretty much everything is coming to terms with relationship issues. When you’re younger, everything is about external and “You are doing this to me” or “I’m pissed at you for this” or “You fucked this up and I’m mad about it.” I think as I’m getting older, I’m like, “Everything is my fault.” Even if it’s someone else that did it, you’re associating with that person. You’re the one that stayed in that relationship, and you’re the one that did this and you’re the one that did that. I think the older I get, the more I realize that all my lyrics are about me, even if I’m saying, “You.” It’s good, man, but the thing that sucks is that at some point, I’m not gonna be pissed about anything anymore, and then that’s really gonna be the issue, ya know?

I know. Once you find your Zen place, you’re fucked.
Yeah, exactly. I think once you cross the line of getting it all out of your system, then it becomes a real ethical issue like, Do I keep doing this because it’s my job and try to fool people? But I feel like it’s always really see-through. If you’re screaming and you don’t mean it, I feel like you can really tell.

It’s just funny to think that your job is sounding really pissed.
Ya know what’s hilarious? I was sitting in a room with, like, a Dillinger part on loop and to a normal person it just sounds like noise. I’m screaming at the top of my lungs and it just sounds like racket and I’m like, This is my job! It was the most surreal moment. I’m like, Ya know, this was a hobby at some point but now that I’m, like, doing this–this is what, to some people, accounting or graphic design is.”

How many finished songs did you guys when you came into the studio, and how many of those songs are making the record?
We have 11. Sometimes we go in and have everything 80 percent done and we’re trying to wing it as we go. This time, everything was really fixed. We really had most of the T’s crossed and the I’s dotted ahead of time. It feels really like confident as a band to be like, “Yeah, we’re gonna go fuck shit up.” That’s a good feeling. We’ve actually never had a leftover song. We said, “Let’s not fuck around and spend all this time learning all these weird rhythms and trying to make everything faster, more aggressive, trickier, and all that stuff if we’re just gonna throw it out. Let’s figure out early on if it sucks and just get rid of it.”

So what can you tell me about what the album actually sounds like?
We made a really conscious effort this time to try to do some different stuff. I feel like, as any band that’s put out a bunch of records, we have our patterns, even if our patterns are a little harder to decipher. We’ve made a really deliberate, conscious effort to be like, “The first song is gonna start differently than any Dillinger record because every Dillinger record starts with like a train wreck and ‘Aaahhhh‘ right away.” We want to do it differently this time. Ya know, “Have we ever started a song with bass before? No? Well, let’s start a song with bass.” “Have we ever started a song with just drums? No, we haven’t done that? Let’s do that.” Just anything we can do to push ourselves into uncomfortable territory now because I think that’s necessary because no one else is gonna do it.  We have to make effort to be like, “This is what we would normally do. Let’s deliberately not do that.” It’s actually made everything a lot more interesting for us. Those little things make a difference. We push each other creatively.

I saw the photo that your producer Steve Evetts posted of the studio mic after you mangled it. What happened there?
I just can’t record like a human. I just can’t do it! Steve is always kinda like, “Dude, you’ve gotta stop, like, I can hear the microphone. I can hear shit happening in there. Like, I’m not supposed to be picking this up on the mic.” And I’m like, “Dude, I can’t just stand still with my hands in my pockets screaming at the top of my lungs.” I don’t know how people do it. I feel too much of it physically. I’m so used to playing live that I cannot get this shit out of me without physically contorting and being somewhat violent.  It’s honestly not even a conscious thing. It’s like, “This is what I need to do to get this much ferocity out of me. Let me be. If the microphone breaks or the gooseneck breaks or something, we’ll figure it out.”

He ‘s like, “It’s so funny, man.” He was saying the other day, “If I didn’t know what band was tracking, I could tell what singer is because the microphone is in no where near the condition or placement of where we started by the end of the night.” Whatever. As I said, I  don’t want to fake anything. I can’t just be in a room and be like, “You want me to be more pissed off? OK, let’s try more pissed off,” and then have my hands in my pocket and be like, “Did that sound pissed?” I like to approach singing the way a guy like Daniel Day Lewis approaches acting. You’ve gotta really fucking think about what you’re singing about and get that emotion fresh again in your brain. Be pissed as if you’re screaming. If you were fucking yelling at your friend or fighting with your girlfriend. You wouldn’t be standing still with your hands at your sides and screaming at the top of your lungs.

Have you guys ever thought about working with someone other than Steve? It seems like a pretty typical thing for a band at a certain point to do when they say, “We need to mix things up. Let’s work with a different producer.”
Yeah, we thought about mixing with someone different because I think that mixing drastically effects the final sound sonically, but as far as engineering and producing, Steve’s been there since the first record. There’s a certain language that we kind of have to speak when we’re referencing these songs and he speaks it. It’s just easier now because Steve hears it instantly the same way we do. He knows. We speak gibberish in the studio, and we all get it. It makes it really easy to move quickly.

Are there gonna be any guest musicians on this record?
Yes, but I am not at liberty to say. I’m pretty, pretty sure we’ll have some fairly heavy hitters on here, which is pretty cool because I think it’s…we’ve had Brent on Ire Works‘ “Horse Hunter.” I think this time people are gonna be like, “What the fuck?” about some of the people.

I know that it didn’t really affect the recording of the album, but what happened with Jeff leaving the band? He went to film school, right?
Jeff is a really creative guy. I think he was like, “I’m killing myself onstage every night playing guitar in these other guys’ band and I’m not maybe utilizing all of my creative talents. I’m away from my wife, and we have a house together and now she lives in it by herself. Maybe I have to start doing what I’m gonna be doing when I’m 60 instead of doing what I’m gonna be doing for a few more years.” It was really amicable. There was no fight. We saw it coming. We could kinda tell that maybe his heart was starting to wander a little bit.  He’s always been really into film. He stays up at night watching horror movies and knows every little stylistic thing about every weird horror director. So it wasn’t that big of a shock. I didn’t know there was a film industry in Detroit so that was the shock. I was like, “Wait, you’re leaving the music industry to go to film school in Detroit?” That’s like going to fucking lifeguard school in Alaska or something. What’s happening? He’s kicking ass at it.

So who’s the new guy?
We don’t have one, to be honest with you. We played that California Metalfest with James Love who was the interim guy from between Brian and Jeff. We don’t know if we’re gonna have him for the full record cycle or whether he can even commit to it. After six years of domesticity, it’s a little daunting to be like, “I’m gonna get back on the pirate ship for a few years.” We’re actually really not pressed about it. We know that the record is the most important thing. If the record is killer, the other stuff takes care of itself.

I guess the other big thing going on with you guys would be signing with Sumerian Records.
We’ve known Ash for a really long time, especially me being from Baltimore. He’s kind of always been in this weird, parallel trajectory to us as far as coming from a similar scene and having big aspirations of where he could go from where he started. It just made sense. That’s all I can really say about it. We had to mutually bring to the table for one another.

It was just nice to talk to someone who wasn’t 60 that owned the record label. They didn’t have to unlearn things. A lot of record companies have to unlearn all of these things because the paradigm shifted and now they’re trying to adjust. Whereas that record label grew up in the collapse of the record industry, so they already understand the differences between the old way of doing things and the new way of doing things. It’s just also, for me, really killer to have the guy that owns the label live a 15 minute drive away from me. We can go talk about shit really easily instead of last time where Season of Mist is in France and you have to send an email and they don’t quite understand you and there’s a language barrier. We can just go get food and be like, “This is what we’re thinking about for this video. I’m gonna bring my laptop and show you this guy’s videos.”  You bring a laptop and show me some guys that you think are cool instead of just being like sending links, typing lots of emails. Everything just feels like when you’re a kid and you’re all in the same room together and get it done really quickly.

Are you guys gonna actually put out other bands on your Party Smasher imprint?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ben and I have been kind of stockpiling some side projects over the last couple of years. Ben has Giraffe Tongue , and I’m thinking now we might do that on Party Smasher. I don’t know if my project with Max Cavalera is gonna come out on that. Then I’ve got another project with this guy Josh , who is in Puscifer and does an electronic thing called Telefon Tel Aviv, and that’s called The Black Queen and that’s gonna come out for sure on Party Smasher. I think we’re just gonna start unloading now that we have a solid home for the label. We can just be like, “If I wanna do a weird avant-garde solo record and make 500 of them, here’s where it’s coming out.” It’s kind of a nice feeling.

Where does your project with Max stand right now? I’ve heard that Mastodon bassist Troy Sanders is a part of that, too.
It’s crazy. That thing is just becoming a big snowball of people. Me and Max started hanging out and we wrote really quickly and we were talking about all these old metal records and talking about old hardcore records and punk records and we had a lot of similar reference points. We were like, “We could make a pretty sick fucking punk, thrash fucking type album.” Then Dave Elitch who’s a buddy a mine was like, “I wanna play drums on this.” For a minute, Nate Newton from Converge was involved and he just couldn’t do it because he was so involved in so much already. Then Troy expressed interest. It was kind of, like, a drunken party night type thing and he was like, “I wanna play bass. Can you imagine if all three of us were singing?” I’m like, “Fuck yeah!” Just like raging at 4 in the morning. Then the next day, I texted him and was like, “I don’t know how serious any of us were,” and he was like “Dude, I’m totally serious.” I was like, “Fuck. This has now just achieved…like, this has to be awesome or else we’re fucked.”

We’re gonna finish the Dillinger record and I think we’re going right into the studio the beginning of January and record this other album and hold it. We can’t put it out the same time as the Dillinger record so we’ll hold it for maybe eight or nine months, and at the end of 2013, we’ll move that thing. It’s really crazy. It’s really surreal. It’s just all fucking good. Life is good.

• Black Country Communion – Afterglow
• Cradle Of Filth – The Manticore & Other Horrors
• Eagle Claw – Timing Of The Void
• Early Graves – Red Horse
• Family – Portrait
• Flyleaf – New Horizons
• Hearts & Hands – Hearts & Hands
• I Legion – Beyond Darkness
• Kamelot – Silverthorn
• Killing Joke – MMXII
• Maelstrom – It Was Predestined Re-Release
• Neurosis – Honor Found In Decay
• Parkway Drive – Atlas
• Stallone – American Baby
• Thrice – Anthology
• West End Motel – Only Time Can Tell

Metallica always seem to find a way to keep their place atop the metal kingdom. With both the band’s spirit and that of fans raised after the throwback Death Magnetic release, James, Lars, Kirk, and Rob take a break from working on their follow-up to hit the road this summer and play their landmark “Black Album” in its entirety. The excitement is palpable.

One of the events where this takes place is Sonisphere Spain (held in Madrid) which sees Metallica sharing the bill with other great bands such as Soundgarden, the Offspring, Slayer, Limp Bizkit, Mastodon, Evanescence, and Machine Head. It is here that it becomes obvious why Metallica are the biggest metal band on the planet. While the others seem to feel fatigue (Machine Head) or sleep through their set (Limp Bizkit) or need a warming-up period (Soundgarden), the Four Horsemen put on an extraordinary show. (Admit it, their recent performances have been nothing special, at least here in Spain.) The band destroys the stage immaculately on songs such as “Hit The Lights,” “Master Of Puppets,” “For Whom The Bells Tolls,” “Battery” (accelerated as always), “One,” and, indeed, that full review of the album that launched them to world domination. Listen again to “Wherever I May Roam,” “My Friend Of Misery,” or “The God That Failed.” Each produces indelible memories for an audience of more than 60,000 people filling the Getafe Open Air stadium.

If you couldn’t make it out — or the memories from last weekend are still a little fuzzy — you can relive some of the festival’s biggest moments in the photo gallery below, courtesy of photographer Rob Fenn.