Artist Interview
It's been about seven years since Mayhem released their last album, 'Ordo ad Chao,' and the black-metal pioneers have finally returned with a new opus, the crushing and chilly 'Esoteric Warfare.' In their time away, the band split with yet another member—guitarist Rune "Blasphemer" Eriksen, who joined in '95 and left to work on other projects a few years ago. Here, Revolver talks to Mayhem's newest member, Morten "Teloch" Iversen (pictured above, far left), formerly of Gorgoroth, to talk about 'Esoteric Warfare,' what's "trve" black metal, and how the subgenre's most notorious group can move past from its bloody past.
REVOLVER How long did you work on 'Esoteric Warfare'? What was the most challenging part of creating the album?
TELOCH I started on the music a year ago, and spent most of last summer nailing it. At the same time, Attila [Csihar, Mayhem singer] started on his end with the vocals and he explored different themes before he landed on what we used on this album. The recording/mixing process was done in small sessions between September and October last year, if I remember correctly. The last bits of mixing and mastering were done in January this year and the cover was ready in March. I would say the hardest part, at least for me, was to get this sounding the right way. I have no problem writing songs that sounds like Mayhem, but my problem with this album was to write a album that would be fitting to release after 'Ordo ad Chao.' First, I wrote almost a whole album, but it was too much back to the roots, and try to top 'Ordo' for me as a songwriter was not a option either—that would be suicide for me as songwriter for them. We even recorded most of the songs I first wrote, but I just didn't feel it and I had to scrap the songs and start over. So with 'Esoteric Warfare,' I tried to incorporate most of what they had done before. It seemed more suiting since there was a 30-year anniversary coming up and everything. A look back at the old material but also introduce some new elements into this plus of course my usual "Teloch way of riffing."
From what I understand, Attila says the album is about secret mind control experiments taking place during the Cold War in the U.S. and then-Soviet Union. Can you expand on that at all?
I can say it's about secret wars, darkness, that people are easy to lead. I'm not very good at lyrics, I can read lyrics for a song one time, and when I'm at the end I have no idea what I just read. Severe memory loss the doctors call it. That said, for me, lyrics could be about old types of cheese or the process of things rusting, it really doesn't matter. What matters is the way they are performed. Not degrading Attila's work here in anyway—I know he spent a very long time on this lyrics, at one point he just walked around in circles talking to himself. I think his brain overloaded with all this information he was getting into with these themes. But back to your question, short answer: No.
Tell us about the single, "Psywar."
We picked that one because it has most of the elements the rest of the album have. Also it's very easy to recognize it as a Mayhem song. We didn't want to scare away people with the the first song we released from the album, well, we probably did anyway. The Mayhem fans are not the most easy pleasing fans on earth. As long as Dead or Euronymous or even Varg isn't playing on the album, they think it's shit. [Laughs] Some people need to move on soon, dammit. Those kind of albums released in the old days is impossible to do again because of many factors—I won't even begin explaining. Mayhem looks forward and has always done so. What the fuck is going on here? I'm rambling and I'm not even drunk or fucked up.
Well, even though you have been playing with Mayhem for a while, you're now officially a member following Blasphemer's departure. How did you get asked to officially join Mayhem?
I got asked right after Blasphemer said goodbye, but at the time I had some Gorgoroth tours to do, so had to turn them down. We all know how the Gorgoroth shit went down. So after a while I was there without something to do, got the offer to continue with God Seed, but luckily Mayhem came back in and asked me to join again, so I did.
You've worked with drummer Hellhammer for many years on other projects before Mayhem. How did the two of you first meet?
The very first time was when we where doing a warm-up gig with my band Nidingr for Mayhem here in Oslo. But it wasn't until a couple of years later I started to hang out with Mr. Hammer. We hung at my place listening to music and drinking, so he was my way in to Mayhem. We also did some work together before I joined Mayhem in Umoral and Nidingr.
There is a lot of debate surrounding what is or is not defined as "black metal." Where do you stand on this subject?
It's pretty easy: If you think it's black metal, then it's black metal to you. Fuck what anyone else thinks. Then again, there is some rules one have to follow to call it black metal. I, for instance, think black metal died in 1995. Well, that's when I stopped following this so-called scene anyway. To me, nobody is playing black metal anymore. Black metal was just a trend, and as all trends they die, then they come back and die again. [Laughs] Nah, fuck it.
Is it hard for you or the band to escape Mayhem's past? Do you ever get tired of people asking questions concerning the '90s?
For me, its very easy—I just don't reply on those questions. The other guys I don't know, but I know almost every metal musician here in Norway is fuckin' fed up with the whole thing and getting questions about it. Maybe now, 20 years later, is time to focus on the main thing going on here now—the music.
By Dan Epstein
Avenged Sevenfold and their fans have been referring to this summer as the Summer of Sevenfold—and for good reason. The band is not only putting out an innovative new mobile video game, 'Hail to the King: Deathbat,' and headlining the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, they are also releasing an expanded (and overdue) 10th-anniversary reissue of 2003's 'Waking the Fallen,' the Orange County hard-rock band's second album. Dubbed 'Waking the Fallen: Resurrected,' the reissue is slated for release on August 25 via Hopeless Records and is available for pre-order right here.
Here, Avenged Sevenfold guitarist Zacky Vengeance—one of the founders of the band—looks back on the group's early days, A7X's evolution, and the impact of 'Waking the Fallen.'
REVOLVER Why reissue Waking the Fallen?
ZACKY VENGEANCE We feel like that album was truly a pivotal point in our career, and a defining moment in the development of Avenged Sevenfold's sound. Brian [lead guitarist Synyster Gates] had just joined the band, and that's when we started incorporating dueling leads and guitar harmonies. It's also when Matt [vocalist M. Shadows] started really singing instead of just screaming—and not just on choruses or small parts here and there. So we wanted to reissue it and make people aware, and give people more of an insight into what was going on with us at the time—what was going through our heads when we were making those songs, what the demos sounded like. Basically, just giving people a chance to take a look back at our career, and remember and realize that we came from pretty humble beginnings.
What was life like for you back in 2003, when you were making the album?
It was fun! We were young, we were all living with our parents for the most part, and we were all driving our shitty cars over to Matt's parents' garage to have completely informal writing sessions that were basically all about trying to impress each other with the riffs we came up with, and trying to incorporate our personal influences into the songs. And afterwards, it was all about going to Johnny's Bar and getting as many cheap or free drinks as we could! [Laughs] And then we'd wake up hungover and start the process again. It was a lot of fun. There was no pressure, and it was basically about a bunch of friends getting together and making the best music that they could.
You can really hear the beginnings of "the Avenged Sevenfold sound" on this album.
Yeah. On our first album, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, we were listening to more obscure heavy-metal bands and hardcore bands. But this time, it was like Matt was listening to Pantera's Far Beyond Driven, I was listening to Metallica's …And Justice For All and Master of Puppets, and Brian was bringing in all this Iron Maidenesque stuff on guitar. It was like we were all realizing that it was okay to like these really huge metal bands, and we wanted to incorporate some of that stuff. We weren't afraid of what our peers were gonna say… At that time, where we come from, it wasn't cool to not be an underground metal or hardcore band, so for us to throw in the influence of bands that had actually had some mainstream success was kind of risky. But it was what we loved, man, and we were incorporating all of those things. We basically decided, "We don't care what anyone thinks about us—this is music we love to make! Let's do it!"
This was the first Avenged record to really feature Synyster Gates as a full member, right?
Pretty much, yeah. We re-did the intro to Sound the Seventh Trumpet and had Brian put a solo on it, but this was the first time Brian played on a whole album, and contributed to the songwriting. That's when we started incorporating dueling leads. The first song that was written for it was "Second Heartbeat," and that was right as Brian was joining the band. He came in and listened to the opening riff that I'd written, and he was like, "Hey, let's add a harmony guitar on it!" All of a sudden, it turned into this Iron Maidenesque thing, and Matt and I were just blown away. I'd never been much for soloing on my own, and all of a sudden we were incorporating these awesome elements that we'd never even had before.
You recorded Waking the Fallen at NRG Recordings in North Hollywood, right? What was that experience like?
I believe the actual recording took place somewhere in Burbank, and I can't remember the name of it. It was our first time working with a producer [Andrew Murdock, A.K.A. Mudrock], and we got beat up by him—he was like, "Zack, you're not very good at the guitar, the drums aren't very tight, and you guys aren't playing to any kind of tempo. And where you should have a six-minute song, you've written a shitty 10-minute song." It was like going through boot camp, and we were pissed off. I won't lie—I hated having someone telling me that what we were doing needed to be better, or that my guitar playing was sloppy, or that the parts of our songs didn't really add up. When you're a rebellious little shithead, you don't want to hear anybody saying that. So it was a bit of a battle, but looking back, it was awesome. We learned a lot about recording, and it took us to a level of professionalism that we didn't have.
A lot of young bands find it difficult to make that stage-to-studio transition.
Totally. We were up there onstage with broken instruments, trying to be as crazy as we could, but we didn't realize that your album needed to sound good so that you could get what you're trying to do across to people. The defining moment for me, personally—and one of the defining moments in our career—was when we all got together with the producer and engineer during pre-production, and we were playing "Unholy Confessions." It was basically a riff that the Rev and I had written at soundcheck, and then Syn and Matt came in with a brilliant chorus and an almost groove breakdown. It started out as Matt screaming the whole time, because that was basically what we did, but Matt was like, "What do you think about me singing some of these parts instead of screaming them?" He sang this unbelievable melody in his extremely unique voice, and we were like, "That's it—we're incorporating singing!" We were like, "You're a great singer—who cares what the hardcore kids think of us? You need to be singing these parts!" It added a whole new dimension.
What are some of the extras on this reissue?
With the reissue, we're offering the demo tracks that we recorded for the album. We basically went into a small studio with zero budget [and with Thrice's Teppei Teranishi producing], but we wanted to hear what the songs sounded like with vocal melodies and different guitar tones before we laid it down. These demos are as real and as raw as it gets—every one of them is different from the songs that ended up on Waking the Fallen. We pulled parts out of some songs, added some to other songs and dropped some entirely. You can definitely hear the evolution.
I believe there's five demos. One of the demos ended up being a main part of "City of Evil," and was never even used on Waking the Fallen. At that point, we hadn't recorded a whole lot, so it was almost experimental—like, "Wow, this is what we sound like?" [Laughs] It's just us experimenting, trying to find our own sound for ourselves. Sounding the Seventh Trumpet didn't really sound like us, because Matt wasn't singing a whole lot, Brian's not in the band at this point, Jimmy's playing on a drum set that's about to fall apart, and my guitar playing abilities have never exactly been virtuoso. So with these demos, that was the first time we were truly able to hear what Avenged Sevenfold was capable of sounding like.
There's also a DVD of live footage from 2003, right?
Yeah, watching it gives me chills—it shows us as these young kids basically on this quest. Not much has changed since then in our attitude, or in our desire to put on a live show, but at this time we didn't have the instruments, crew or fan base that we have now. It's basically us with nothing except for our attitude and desire. We're all a bunch of skinny, malnourished kids trying to make music and dress in as much black as possible, and borrowing money from friends so we could go buy a beer at the bar. Some people only know us as this big band that plays festivals and headlines tours, but our close friends and family see this footage and they're like, "Wow, I totally forgot about those days!"
If you could somehow meet up today with your malnourished self from back then, what would you tell him?
I'd say, "Don't do anything differently—just enjoy the ride, man!" Those moments in life were as challenging as life can be now, but it was all an amazing experience. I hope other bands can look at this and realize that no one is handed this—it all comes with a huge price, and it all comes with a lot of hard work and extremely tough decision-making. But there's also the chance that, if you really believe in yourself, you can take it to a whole new level. So I wouldn't change anything, man. I believe that all of the hard decisions we made were the right ones.
MORE AVENGED SEVENFOLD: Check out our gallery of A7X, Korn, Trivium, Asking Alexandria, and many more rocking hard on the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival.
Sure, Iron Man may share his name with the classic Black Sabbath cut, but we all know that Batman is the most metal superhero. He's dark, angsty, sports a particularly demonic silhouette, and most importantly, despite all his super Batty doodads, he's human—just like the rest of us dark, angsty, demonic headbangers.
Considering his status as the most metal of superheroes, it was only a matter of time before Batman starred in an awesome metal music video. And that time is now. Watch below the badass animated clip from the band Children of Batman for their song "BATFACE"...which, by the way, bears a striking and totally credited similarity to Dethklok's "Face Fisted."
As always, let us know what you think in the comments. Happy #BatmanDay!
Ill Nino's new album, 'Till Death, La Familia,' hits stores today. In celebration, the group has teamed with Revolver to premiere the music video for their single "Live Like There's No Tomorrow." Check out the high-octane clip below and let us know what you think in the comments.
The band is currently rocking hard on the Victory Records Stage at the 2014 Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival.
Canadian hard-rock band Theory of a Deadman will release their new album, 'Savages,' on July 29 via Roadrunner Records. In anticipation, the band has teamed up with Revolver to premiere the entire album stream right here, right now. Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments!
To pre-order 'Savages,' visit iTunes or Roadrunner Records' webstore. For more on Theory of a Deadman, visit their website and follow them on Facebook.
By Dan Epstein
It's a blisteringly hot afternoon in the summer of 2001, and the thousands of drunk and sunburnt headbangers in attendance at the Toronto stop of this year's North American Ozzfest tour are in a deeply foul mood.
Already enraged to the boiling point by Crazy Town's flaccid set of sub-Chili Peppers rap rock, they are considerably less than stoked to see fellow Southern California nu-metallers Linkin Park take the stage; before Chester Bennington can even grab the microphone for the first song of their set, the band is already being pelted with a rain of cans, CDs, and other detritus so torrential that Revolver—initially observing the show from just off to the side of the stage—is forced to take cover behind guitarist Brad Delson's wall of guitar amps.
And yet the band plays on, feeding off the crowd's energy and blasting it right back. Though Linkin Park's songs, drawn entirely from their 2000 debut 'Hybrid Theory,' are more pop- and rap-oriented than many of the metalheads in attendance would prefer, the band's high-energy performance—which includes Bennington whirling about the stage while wrapped in a Canadian flag—eventually wins over most of the once-antagonistic audience. Even the angry fat kid in the front row who doggedly chants "Fuck you! Fuck you!" throughout most of the set proves no match for Linkin Park's steady assault; by the time the band leaves the stage, he's slumped exhaustedly over the stage barrier like a doughy rag doll…
"I think a lot of those Ozzfest shows were like that," laughs Linkin Park co-frontman Mike Shinoda, as he and Bennington relax and reminisce with Revolver outside their North Hollywood rehearsal space in May 2014. "We'd have the stage for maybe 30 minutes, and we spent the entire time trying to get them on our side."
"Even if they didn't like our music," adds Bennington, "we wanted them to go away saying, 'Man, that was a kickass show!'"
Thirteen years after being steeled in the crucible of Ozzfest, and millions of record sales later, Linkin Park have grown into one of America's biggest rock bands. But now they're ratcheting the kick-ass up another notch: Their new album, 'The Hunting Party,' is not only the hardest and heaviest thing they've ever released, but it's also their first album to pack the sort of guitar firepower that would actually appeal to your average headbanger. If they'd released this album back in 2001, perhaps Linkin Park—who head out on the Carnivores Tour with Thirty Seconds to Mars and AFI on August 8—wouldn't have had to work so hard to win over the Ozzfest crowds that summer.
"This isn't the heaviest record in the world," Bennington says, "but this is the heaviest Linkin Park record. You have to put it in the context of Linkin Park, not in the context of heavy music, because then it makes sense."
"We know that Slayer exists," seconds Shinoda. "We know that Exodus exists, right? So we're not going to say we wrote a 'heavy' record, in comparison."
But while it's true that 'The Hunting Party' isn't going to make anyone forget 'South of Heaven' or 'Bonded by Blood,' its potent mixture of punk, thrash and hard rock—as heard on such bracing tracks as "Keys to the Kingdom," "Guilty All the Same," "Mark the Graves," and "A Line in the Sand"—is a pretty a ballsy move from a band that's drifted deep into experimental/electronic territory on their two most recent albums, 2010's 'A Thousand Suns' and 2012's 'Living Things.'
The abrupt change in musical course, says Shinoda, happened last August, when he happened upon a lengthy post on 'Pigeons and Planes,' one of his favorite blogs. A lament for the current state of rock, which came with the self-explanatory title "Rock Music Sucks Now and It's Depressing," the essay struck a deep chord with Shinoda. "I totally connected with what this guy was saying," he says. "He was a rock fan, and he was a little bit bummed out that rock didn't have the pull that it used to have, and that the rock genre has so many bands in it that you wouldn't really classify as 'rock'—people like Mumford and Sons, and Lorde. And I totally understood where he was coming from, because I feel like I'm listening to a lot of stuff on rock radio that sits somewhere between a car commercial and Nick Jr. It's so safe, so OK to listen to with mommy and daddy…"
Shinoda had already submitted multiple demos to the band for their follow-up to 'Living Things' when he came across the post. His first reaction was to pen a thoughtful response that was published by the blog, one which concluded, "At the end of the day, a movement will never be about one song, one album, or one band. A movement requires leaders who are restless, brave, and fucking disruptive." And then, as if to underline his own words, he proceeded to toss his demos out and start over in a more aggressive direction.
"It all finally clicked one day," he says. "I was listening to the stuff I was writing, and I realized it was so derivative. It wasn't cutting edge, it wasn't ahead of the curve, and it wasn't doing the things that I wanted to listen to. I'd already played the stuff to the guys, and they were like, 'Yeah, we like that, let's do that!' And then, the next time I saw them, I was like, "You know those songs I already played you, that you liked? I want to throw them in the trash…and I want to do this."
Bennington was immediately on board with Shinoda's new direction. "Chester, to his credit, he got where I was coming from right away," says Shinoda, "but that's not surprising, because that's totally in his wheelhouse. He was like, 'I want to do that all day!'"
"The bands I was listening to when I was growing up were all doing really innovative shit—Jane's Addiction, Alice in Chains, Nirvana," Bennington explains. "And I listened to a lot of punk music like Subhumans, Exploited, the Descendants, the Misfits… I even got into Napalm Death when I was about 13. And I would have killed anyone who put on any kind of pop in my presence. Bands like the Refreshments and the Rembrandts, that music fucking angers me to this day. And the same thing is happening now, where there's all this stuff that feels like the soundtrack to 'Friends' or 'The Wizards of Waverly Place.'"
The other members of the band—Delson, bassist Dave Farrell, drummer Rob Bourdon, and DJ/keyboardist Joe Hahn—took a little longer to come around, however. Though Shinoda has emerged over the years as Linkin Park's main songwriter ("Everyone in the band writes songs, but mine mostly seem to be the ones that everyone votes for," he shrugs), Delson has been his main musical foil throughout. "In the studio, Brad and I are the ones really pushing stuff forward," he says. "We could only do what Chester and I wanted to do if Brad got on board. But in the beginning, he was humoring me. He was just doing it because I wanted him to do it."
In September, hard rockers SOiL will hit the road with Tantric in support of their latest album, 2013′s Whole, which marked the return of original lead singer Ryan McCombs. In anticipation of the tour, McCombs and bassist-vocalist Tim King shared some behind-the-scenes stories behind the making of the record.
For more on SOiL, visit SoilTheBand.com, Facebook.com/SOiLmusic, and Twitter.com/SoilTheBand.
- The album was recorded over the course of six weeks in Los Angeles, California, with Producer Ulrich Wild.
- The band stayed at an apartment complex and adopted a stray cat Ryan nicknamed "Junkyard."
- Tim ate Mexican food at least once a day for the entire recording session (taking only one day off).
- Ryan drank Captain Morgan at least once a day for the entire recording session (taking only one day off).
- Photos for the new album were shot by photographer Stephanie Cabral in Ulrich Wild's studio and along a bridge overlooking the city next to a homeless man.
- Drums for the new album were tracked in only two days.
- Tim took an "orange break" everyday under an orange tree behind the studio and ate one hand0picked orange. (Some believe to counter act all the Mexican food.)
- There was absolutely no auto-tune or studio "tricks" used on the album. The band was going for an organic and natural vibe.
- The cover concept for the album 'Whole' was derived from a magazine article Ryan was reading on the flight to Los Angeles.
- Tim broke apart the entire dresser in the apartment the band stayed in (mostly on top of the band's tour manager's head) and rearranged the furniture so they would not get charged. And it worked!
- During the last week of recording 'Whole,' Tim played an MS benefit concert at the Whiskey a go go alongside such greats as Glen Hughes, Rick Springfield, and Billy Idol to help the MS charity set up by longtime publicist friend Nancy Sayle. Two days later SOiL performed at the Whiskey, as well as, as a "wrap up" to the recording session.
- The band took a night off during the recording session to surprise SOil guitarist Adam Zadel with a bachelor party in Las Vegas.
- It took two days to recover from the bachelor party in Las Vegas.
- The band beat the hell out of the rental car they used during the recording of the album because they purchased the "damage waiver" and wanted to get their money's worth.
- The album was mastered by James Murphy at Safehouse Productions in Tampa, Florida. James is best known as a guitarist in the death-metal bands Death, Obituary, and Disincarnate, all of which were childhood favorites of Tim and Adam.
- During their stay in Los Angeles, SOiL discovered their favorite new game: "Cards against humanity."
Revolver's sister publication Guitar World talked to many of the hardest-rocking bands on the road this season for the magazine's Summer Tour Survival Guide in the August 2014 issue online. Here, we're sharing the interview with Trivium's Matt Heafy (pictured above, far left), in which he reveals how he plans to beat the heat and tame the crowds on this summer's Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival.
REVOLVER Tips for playing in extreme heat?
MATT HEAFY Luckily, since our band is from Florida, we're never really hot.
One item you'll carry with you at all times this summer?
Me and some of our crew guys have trained and learned jiu-jitsu. So my 10-by-10 jiu-jitsu mats, my gi and my yoga mat—those are the essentials.
Considerations when playing an outdoor show versus an indoor show?
As far as set lists go, I believe there is a certain threshold of speed and technicality that doesn't translate well live under any circumstances. There is an extreme side of music to our band, and if you play very fast and very brutal, it does literally get lost in the air.
Primary gear you'll be playing this summer?
It's just my [Epiphone Les Paul Custom] signature guitars. There's just no purpose for refrigerators of stacked gear or pedal boards upon pedal boards. I cut all that out and our tone is clearer, and it's the most powerful it's ever been right now. I've always believed that the less space between my fingers and the listeners' ears, the better.
Tips for winning over a tough crowd?
I believe that there's a fine line between berating and being strong and encouraging. I've seen a lot of frontmen get very angry at a crowd when they're not getting their way. They stomp their feet, yell at the crowd and demean them. That's one way to lose a crowd even further. I find that if you come out with a unified feeling, allowing the crowd to be a part of you, you can still be aggressive and empowering.
Highlight of your band's set list?
Usually when we play "Strife," people get into it. It's cool to see the power of a single. If not, then definitely "In Waves" gets reaction.
Advice for a band just starting to play live?
Practice your instruments. I'm always shocked at how many guitarists out there are terrible but still get accolades. Hopefully they know who they are, and hopefully they start practicing and practicing what they preach. Anything any great guitar player has ever done is possible for any other guitar player. Anything you see, you can do; it just takes time, practice and dedication. That goes for singers as well. Too many of them rely on backing tracks live.
We were signed to a major label at 18 years old, and we've made every mistake you can make being in a band. I'm happy we did those things early. You have to make mistakes to know how to fix them. You have to have guitars break and go through technical difficulties. I wouldn't change any of those things. I would rather hear a singer struggle to hit a note and have emotion versus hearing it though a computer.
Also, you have to take care of yourself. Part of being in a band that tours and plays every night is you need to perform at 100 percent as a live musician. Sure, there are people that can live unhealthy and be drug addicts and alcoholics and still play well, but I'm not one of those people, and I think a majority of human beings are not those kinds of people. So on the road I'm very strict with myself: no caffeine or alcohol on show days. On days off, I'll allow myself a coffee or a beer or two, but aside from that it's very healthy living. It's about performing at the maximum capacity for the people who are there to see you do what you do.
By Richard Bienstock
It's been 16 years since Godsmack released their self-titled debut, and in that time they've become one of the biggest bands in hard rock, with a slew of hard-charging hit singles like "Whatever," "Straight Out of Line," and "Crying Like a Bitch," and millions of albums sold. Their new release, 1000hp, which introduces a wider range of textures and colors into the band's trademark aggro-rock sound, looks to continue their long-running success. Lead singer Sully Erna recently took some time to talk to Revolver about 1000hp, the future of Godsmack, and how the band relates to the metal world—and to one another.
REVOLVER 1000hp features plenty of old-school Godsmack-style hard rock, but the band also branches out into some different areas.
SULLY ERNA I totally agree. To me, songs like "1000hp" and "FML"—which has a bit of a Nirvana punky thing in the choruses—are in one category. Then there's "Generation Day" and "Nothing Comes Easy," which are more epic and weird and unique and artsy, that are in another category. Then there's straight-up songs like "Locked & Loaded" and "What's Next" that are in the same category. And it's kind of funny how the songs are paired up like that. I think that was one of the benefits of everyone in the band having their own stuff when we came in to do this record. Because somehow we weeded through all this music and found a way to make it work. And in some way it brought a uniqueness to the album.
Hard rock and metal has moved out of the mainstream over the past decade, and yet Godsmack's last three albums—Faceless, IV and The Oracle—each debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200. What's the secret to your success?
ERNA I wish I knew the answer to that because I'd just keep doing it! What I can say is we kinda made a rule when we first started this band to just honor the music. To write for the music rather than our own egos or self-esteem or anything like that. Because all the guys in this band are really talented and can play so much further beyond what we deliver on the albums. But we always had an understanding that we didn't want to write that kind of music. We just wanted to write really good, melodic songs, and it didn't matter how fast the guitar player played or how intricate the drum parts were. It was more about getting the best music out of us. We just assume that if we feel really strongly about this music then there will be other people who feel the same way. And so far we've been right about that.
Musically, Godsmack sits in an interesting spot in that you're a modern-day rock band, but you broke through in an earlier, pre-Internet era. Do you feel more a part of current music, or more like a classic act?
ERNA Well, we certainly never considered ourselves an Internet band. But then it also always really bothered me that when we came out, it was during a period when the Korns and Limp Bizkits and all that was blowing up and, no disrespect to those bands because they made a huge impact on the music scene, but we got lumped into that category and I used to hate it because I knew we weren't that. And our first record was definitely a hybrid of so many different influences that I was personally listening to at the time. I was listening to Alice in Chains. I was listening to Nine Inch Nails. I was listening to Pantera. I was listening to Metallica. It's no wonder that record was kinda all over the place. But I think as we started to go down the road we began to identify our strengths. We knew we weren't going to be a rap-rock band. We knew we weren't going to be a techno band. Our roots rely on what we grew up listening to. The Sabbaths. The Aerosmiths. The Judas Priests. That kind of straight-up hard-rock/metal sound. And even with that, we never really considered ourselves a metal band. We always rode that line, but we never put ourselves in a metal category. Most of our stuff, it's more traditional hard-rock music. And that's who we are, man. We're just a hard-rock band.
Godsmack has been a band now for almost 20 years. Have there ever been times where you guys were on shaky ground with one another?
ERNA Oh, yeah. This band has almost broken up several times. At first it was just the learning curve of having the band hit big and being on the road relentlessly. That first tour lasted, like, three and a half years, I think. We were robots. We were machines. All we did was tour, tour, tour. That'll destroy anybody. It starts to break you down, and then what you do is you're so exhausted that you start drinking and self-medicating in order to keep going. Because the show must go on. And that creates a lot of drama. So we fought a lot. At one point we brought in therapists and everything to work with the band. Because we lost the brotherhood. We lost the love for the music and for each other and we were fighting so much. It was just a mess. Luckily for us we got over some of those mountains.
In 2010 you recorded a solo album, Avalon, and a few years before that the rest of Godsmack got together with [Ugly Kid Joe vocalist] Whitfield Crane and did a record under the name Another Animal. What happened there?
ERNA There was a lot of tension around that. After the IV record there were times when Tony [Rombola] was really bent with me because he got to a place where he started to write more, and he wanted more of his stuff on the records. And I was just like, "Okay…but, you know, it's still a band here. And me being the main songwriter, don't think I'm ever not going to write music." So we would pick half of his stuff and half of mine and try to make a hybrid of it. But for some reason he would take it personally when I didn't pick this song or that song of his. And so then the guys went and built a fucking record [Another Animal] off of stuff that we didn't use but could have probably revisited later. And that created a lot of shit. Because Avalon, that was completely different. It was a complete disconnect from Godsmack. It wasn't even the same style of music, nor did I want it to be. But I felt like those guys were doing shit where I was like, "This is kinda not cool. You're competing with us. What're you guys thinking?" And that created a lot of static. It wasn't good for a while. But again, we went through it, had it out and talked things through. And we realized that we have a really special brand here and it would be foolish to not get past this stuff. Because really, it's all just egos and bullshit getting in the way. And now? We're getting along better than ever. We're tighter than we were when we first met. And that's the god's honest truth.
You're going out on the road soon as the headliners on the Uproar Festival tour. What else is in store?
ERNA The band's gonna hit it hard now. We've taken enough time off, and we've regained our strength and we're ready to work. We're going to probably do two records back-to-back and I'm sure stay out on the road for the next four or five years. Which could be great or could be a fucking disaster! But I think if we pace ourselves, which we've learned to do, and don't just grind it to the bone we're gonna be okay. More than anything though, we're just looking forward to getting out in front of the fans again. We can't wait.
The title track and lead single off '1000hp' is available now on iTunes, and pre-sale bundles are available at Godsmack.com. The band will headline the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival later this year—see dates here. The album pre-order will be live on iTunes July 22.
New York Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera famously walked out on the field to Metallica's "Enter Sandman." However, with the pitcher retiring at the end of last season, ESPN's 'SportsCenter' has launched a new ad that jokes that the band now has to look for something else to do. Watch the clip below.