Artist Interview

Chris "Cheese Dog" Krovatin is the author of two young adult novels, Heavy Metal & You and Venomous. He is currently working on multiple new writing projects, as well as new material with his local New York metal band Flaming Tusk. He is a contributing writer for Revolver and generally comes off as a good-natured pain in everyone's collective ass.

On June 3, I saw Marduk with Aura Noir, Black Anvil, Hod, Panzerfaust, and Natur at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in NYC. Here's what I witnessed.

• Number of hours spent being tattooed before the show: Three.
• General feeling: Just…just a little woozy.
• General feeling about the tattoo: Hail!
• Easiest way to find the Williamsburg Music Hall: Follow the guy in the Nunslaughter T-shirt!
• Disheartening sight of the night: The sheer lack of Aura Noir merch available. I wanted an "Ugliest Band In Metal" shirt!
• Onstage when I arrive at Williamsburg Music Hall: Natur from Brooklyn.
• Sounds like: Blackened thrash with over-the-top power-metal moments. Pretty entertaining overall.
• Happy time fun fact: The cover of Natur's Spider Baby EP is preeeetty fucking cool.
• Number of people in corpse paint present: So far only one, and his is pretty low key.
• Thoughts on this: Marduk is just a little too militant and nihilistic for people to dress up in full black-metal costume for.
• Unlike: When I saw Immortal in February: Half the crowd wore corpse paint.
• Next up: Panzerfaust from Ontario.
• Sounds like: Really raw, acidic black metal powered by thrashing rage and morbid chugs.
• Overall opinion: Any band that turns their mic stand into a chain-and-skull-covered inverted cross is OK by me.
• Rainbow puppy good time fact: The band's name is taken either from the Darkthrone album of that title or a German anti-tank weapon whose name means "armor fist."
• Hope for the night: That some corset-wearing black-metal chick will notice my awesome new tattoo and swoon over me.
• Only people who notice my awesome new tattoo: Two Mexican black-metal dudes, in the bathroom.
• Sustenance consumed: A cheese dog and a Lone Star over at the Levee on North 3^rd Street.
• Now, we have: Hod from San Antonio, Texas.
• Sounds like: Unrelenting death-march black metal instilled with a weirdly American sense of groove and sweep.
• Number of leather/denim vests onstage: 4.
• Number of members in Hod: 4.
• Diagnosis: True.
• "Say No To Drugs" fact: Hod's first demo is named Cry And Piss Yourself. You only wish you could come up with such an awesome title.
• Weirdest merch: Thin metal shields and blasphemous art prints by Remi from Light's Eclipse Productions. (Check his shit out at remiart.carbonmade.com).
• Other random items sold: A whole bunch of rare patches, sold, I think, by the dudes from Warhemic in Flushing.
• Patches include: A Raped God 666 patch! Holy shit, I just got a Raped God 666 patch! MEXICAN METAL DEATH SQUAD ARISE!
• On that note: Black Anvil from Brooklyn.
• Sounds like: Shred-heavy thrash with holocaustic black-metal overtones and brilliantly dark lyrics.
• Favorite song of the evening: The cunt-punching declaration of "Angels To Dust."
• Explanation: It's not a song about cunt-punching; it just feels like some huge unholy necrospirit has uppercutted you clean in your cunt.
• Members of the Metal Press Class Of 2009 present: Two that I've run into—Henry Yuan and "Grim" Kim Kelly.
• Members of the local Brooklyn metal militia present: At least six, including Lucky 13's Melody Henry, Ralph from Demilitia, and a slew of others.
• Shout outs: Done and done, son.
• Second to last: Aura Noir from Oslo, Norway.
• Sounds like: Furious black metal-inspired thrash putridity.
• Personal response: AURA FUCKING NOOOOOIR!
• Standout track of the night: "Unleash The Demon." What lyrics.
• "Unleash the demon!": "Come satisfy my need!"
• "Release the semen!": ….uuuuh…
• Aura Noir songs to look up when you get home: "Death Mask," "The Pest," "Blood Unity," "South American Death."
• Physical state at this point: Semi-conscious.
• State of my tattoo: Officially starting to throb like a bastard.
• Finally: Marduk, from Norrkøping, Sweden.
• Sounds like: Steel-plated occult war brigade marching across a field of desecrated coffins and burnt church remains.
• Peace love and happiness fact: Marduk's lead singer Mortuus studies Judo (I believe) and threw a drunken fan over his shoulder at a show.
• Performance observation: Man, these guys are killing it, much more so than the last time I saw them.
• Favorite track: "Burn My Coffin."
• Wave of nausea and exhaustion: Sudden and jarring.
• Number of times I've missed "Panzer Division Marduk" encore: Twice, once due to excessive drunkenness, once due to tattoo-inspired blood loss.
• Diagnosis: False.
• But guess what: No one really gives a shit.

Since the band's beginning 30 years ago, Def Leppard have become rock-and-roll legends with more than 65 million albums sold worldwide and two prestigious Diamond Awards to their name. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal pioneers' latest milestone is Mirror Ball, Def Leppard's first live album, which comes out on June 7. In addition to the new release, Def Leppard is kicking off their national tour on June 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Along with the album and tour, guitarist Phil Collen and the guys will be releasing the book Def Leppard: The Definitive Visual History. Collen's musical interests have expanded over the years, and in 2004, he decided to express himself via another creative outlet in a band called MANRAZE. Joining him in the group are Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols and Simon Laffy of Collen's former band Girl. MANRAZE's new album, punfunkrootsrock, will be released on August 2 through Rocket Science Ventures in U.S. and Canada. Still, despite everything he has going on, Collen found time to share with us some of his craziest live-concert experiences.

TACKLE OUT FOR THE AMERICAN MARKET
"The first weird onstage experience that springs to mind was on the '87 Hysteria Tour, in the round (staged in the middle of the arena like a boxing ring). We were playing an acoustic song and I was sitting on the drum riser. I looked up and saw everyone immediately in front of me and all the way up...pointing. I kinda looked around but then realized that my Levi's had completely ripped open and everything was hanging out and actually everyone was pointing at my bollocks."

A MILLION AND COUNTING...
"This one wasn't scary or anything but just really interesting. We were playing in Philadelphia on the famous Rocky steps for the Live 8 Concert. There were a million people in attendance. It was really weird seeing that many people in one place. I couldn't see past the first 100,000."

TEARGASSED
"This was in the '80's—I can't remember the exact year—but we were playing in Switzerland. We were killing it. We were actually playing really, really great. And then all of a sudden, at least half the audience disappeared within seconds...just running out the doors. I couldn't quite figure out what was happening until the tear gas hit us on stage. We had to stop playing and that was the end of that. Some idiot in the audience had let off tear gas."

IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL YOUR GUITARIST LOSES AN EYE
"After being in a band for, like, 30 years, we've obviously seen and had a bunch of things thrown on the stage at us—ninja stars, scissors, a live cat, a three-foot-long double-headed dildo, bottles, etc. But the one that really affected me most was getting smacked in the eye by a heel from a woman's "Fuck me" pump in Portland, Oregon in '83. I remember it really hurt and it gave me a black eye but I kept on playing. It wasn't until a few years later that I discovered it was the trauma from the shoe that led me to having cataract surgery at the extremely young age of 30 something (you don't usually get them 'til you're about 60, right?)."

SLICKSTER
"Me and Joe [Elliot, vocals] are the only two band members fortunate enough to have not fallen off the stage. However, during the guitar solo on 'Foolin' at the Meadowlands Arena in '88, I made one step forward and realized I was looking at the ceiling. I slipped so fast I turned upwards. All the lights were on me because we were playing in the round. But the weird thing about that was seeing the ceiling then feeling the bump. I actually didn't know I had slipped because it all happened so quick. I had slipped on oil from all the smoke machines. I jumped up really fast and thought I had gotten away with it until a fan in Boston said he'd seen one of our three shows at the Meadowlands. I asked him what night he went and he said, 'The one where you fell over!' Obviously, I'm not as slick as the oil."

RevolverTV was at Rock on the Range a few weeks ago, partying with the record 70,000 fans who came, saw, and conquered. While we were there, we hung out with many of the performing bands, which included Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed, Staind, Asking Alexandria, and many more. Below, Korn, Puddle of Mudd, Black Veil Brides, Hollywood Undead, the Damned Things, Escape the Fate, and Rev Theory remember the late, great "Macho Man" Randy Savage, the 10-time pro-wrestling World Champion and noted Slim Jim spokesman who died on May 20.

RevolverTV was at Rock on the Range a few weeks ago, partying with the record 70,000 fans who came, saw, and conquered. While we were there, we hung out with many of the bands, from Korn, Hollywood Undead, P.O.D., Puddle of Mudd, Rev Theory, Sick Puppies, and, of course, our buddies in Black Veil Brides. Watch below as Christian Coma and Jake Pitts of BVB share some of their raunchiest road stories. And get the RevolverTV app for your smart phone for all the exclusive backstage clips and interview.

Avenged Sevenfold dominated the 2011 Revolver Golden Gods last month, both onstage and in the fan-voted awards, so it makes sense that they should grace the cover of the new Golden Gods issue of the magazine, which is currently on newsstands and available online here. The band members took home the Best Vocalist, Best Guitarists, and Album of the Year trophies, and their six-song headlining set was the talk of the evening, climaxing in collaborations with Duff McKagan, of Loaded, Velvet Revolver, and Guns N' Roses fame, on GN'R's "It's So Easy," and Vinnie Paul, of Hellyeah and Pantera, on the latter band's "Mouth for War." That crushing performance is being broadcasted as part of VH1 Classic's hour-long Revolver Golden Gods special, which features highlights from the three-hour show and premiered this past Saturday (watch the trailer here). In the new issue, we interview guitarist Synyster Gates about the momentous night. Here's the best of the rest of our chat.

REVOLVER You guys won more trophies than anybody at the Golden Gods. What was going through your mind as you guys won so many awards?
SYNYSTER GATES That it was set up somehow and I don't know what the reason is for it. But we certainly don't deserve it. I don't know, it was very hard to explain. It was very surreal. 'Cause nobody told us, we didn't have any clue it was going to be like that. So it was pretty surprising, shocking, and awesome. We were really happy that we performed after all that shit, too.

Your fans voted for you guys, that's why you won. It was your fans voting online.
Was it really? That's pretty crazy.

So what are you gonna do with all your trophies?
I got a spot for them at my house. They're going to go next to a couple of other really cool awards that we've gotten over the years. Maybe next to a [MTV Video Music Awards] Moon Man or something. How about that?

We were all trying to keep it a secret that Lars and Robert from Metallica were going to be introducing you guys before your headlining performance. When did you find out about that?
Probably an hour before we played. It wasn't completely confirmed, it was just a rumor. And that's the thing: Anybody in our camp, if anybody gets wind of anything, they don't keep shit a secret.

Other than Lars and Rob, who were you excited to hang out with?
Dave Coverdale from Whitesnake and the lesser known Coverdale and Page [the collaboration band between Coverdale and Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page]! A matrimony that occurred for one album, I think. One of the greatest, Jimmy Page. I was a huge fan of that. He was really, really nice. Chris Jericho, he's a friend of ours. So lots of cool people, you know?

That's awesome. One of the biggest moments of the night was when you guys played "Mouth for War" with Vinnie Paul. Were you nervous at all about that?
It's just one of those real fun, brutal songs. So we do a little bit of it, but when you actually delve into that stuff and get your head in there and learn the riffs and lyrics and all that shit, it turns into a different world. Playing that kind of stuff, you just completely transform into a different person for the minutes that you play it. That song is just so shreddy. Just the rhythm alone will destroy your forearms after you're done playing it. We've written some pretty shreddy shit before, but nothing of that caliber. And we really wanted to go out there and shred like we've never really done before.

Another special collaboration during your set was when you guys played with Duff. You guys didn't get to soundcheck with him, so how do you think the performance went?
I thought it was great. I play a little bit of drums, too, and Vinnie is an idol of mine personally, so probably playing with him would've been the coolest part of the show for me. But certainly a close second, if not a tie, was listening to Duff sing in my mic. It's, like, raw as fuck. That guy just has that rock-and-roll punk-rock-esque voice that sounds shitty, and awesome, and just dirty. It's cool. That was pretty rad.

He was harmonizing with Matt, M. Shadows, perfectly.
Yeah, singing perfectly in tune. He just sounded like a fuckin' scummy punk rocker. He has that awesome, really soulful dirty voice that's so, I don't know, so much a trademark of Guns N' Roses. I didn't realize he had done so much of the vocal work, adding so many cool textures.

Matt said onstage that you guys don't usually play TV shows or awards shows. How come?
Yeah, I probably sound like a douchebag, but it's more from insecurity. We never played TV-covered events. We don't play stuff like that. We don't think we sound good. And we don't want to—we're kind of an arena band. We just want to sound fucking big and gigantic and it always just thins out over TV. But because of how good you guys have been to us, and we heard of how cool this thing was going to be—a huge event—we really wanted to do it. And we're so glad that we did. It was unbelievable.

In the new issue of Revolver—which is on newsstands now and available online here—we interview Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars, whose band, Mötley Crüe, took home the inaugural Ronnie James Dio Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 Golden Gods show in Los Angeles last month. During the course of our chat, we asked Mars what actor he would like to see play him in the much rumored movie adaptation of Crüe's bestselling 2001 autobiography, The Dirt. His answer surprised us...

"This is gonna sound really strange: I think that Seth Green would probably play me more like me than anyone else. He's not a very tall person, like I am, and he's kind of off-kilter–he's warped a lit bit. [Laughs] I think he's very deadly serious about the stuff he does when he does act, and he's kind of a comedian–I'm kind of a goof-off, too."