Caught In A Mosh: December 2012

ilentertainer | December 1, 2011

Trevor Fisher’s taking the month off, so, in his tradition of picking greatest-hits bits of his column, the IE staff has selected its “Caught In A Mosh” favorites since its 2007 debut. Punctuating the chronology are his top-5 records from each year, which will then be capped by his best-of-’11 next month.

Metallica vs. Megadeth, July 2007
Kill ‘Em All vs. Killing Is My Business . . . And Business Is Good: This pairing is hardly fair to Dave Mustaine. He co-wrote half Kill ‘Em All‘s songs, so not only does he lose this battle of debut records, he loses to his own songs.

Beatallica, August 2007
Mosh: Any ideas for another metal/pop act bash up?
James Lennfield: Barry Manowar.
M: You’ve obviously already given this some thought.
JL: Can you imagine Barry Manilow with a big honkin’ sphere and a loin cloth? But Beatallica is Beatallica. It’s not like if the catalogs run dry, then we would move onto something else. Then you’re kind of, it kind of cheapens the original.

Best Of 2007
1. Down Over The Under (ILG)
2. High On Fire Death Is This Communion (Relapse)
3. Skeletonwitch Beyond The Permafrost (Prosthetic)
4. Maylene & The Sons Of Disaster II (Ferret)
5. Superchrist Headbanger (Rock Saviour)

Nachtmystium, February 2008
Mosh: What is Nachtmystium’s current relationship to the black metal scene?
Blake Judd: You mean the scene we came from? The super-underground, über-cult shit? Those people don’t like us anymore. But you know what? Those people, that’s a revolving door of people that are 18 to 22-years old. I was one of those people. I was a fuckin’ super-hardliner; I didn’t listen to anything that wasn’t made on a 4-track. But you evolve and start listening to more [music].

M: Have you outgrown it?
B.J.: Yeah. That kind of music, especially that angle of it, attracts people who are uncomfortable with themselves. I was one of those people: a teenager. The attitude is still there, it’s just all these insecure idiots trying to uphold this “I’m an elitist! Arrr! I’m at my mom’s house!”

Reptoids, March 2008
Turns out Reptoids were a lot more interested in working with [producer Matt] Bayles than Bayles was working with Reptoids.

“I e-mailed them a few times and nobody ever responded to me,” Melissa Koehl says with a hint of embarrassment.

“They’re like, ‘Reptoids? More like Repturds,’ Karen Binor quips. Sanford Parker may not have technically been the first, but Binor and Koehl have no doubts he was the right (“He made it sound so heavy,” Binor emphasizes) choice. Now they’ve found their producer, Reptoids need to find their niche in the local scene.

“We don’t fit in anywhere,” Binor only half-jokingly complains.

Metalocalypse, June 2008
Mosh: You’ll occasionally hear people say “Metalocalypse” is insulting metal fans. But you seem to truly have a love for the genre.
Brendon Small: I don’t buy that at all. I think that’s kind of bullshit. I don’t think they’re really watching the show if that’s what they think. Basically our show is about celebrity-ism. About how the last 10 years it’s been all about celebrities, and we’re showing five people who can hardly function.
M: And they just happen to be a metal band, right?
BS: Yeah. They’re nearly autistic, like most celebrities are. They can’t do things by themselves. The show gets to be about metal.

Best Of 2008
1. Nachtmystium Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1 (Century)
2. Grand Magus Iron Will (Rise Above)
3. Testament The Formation Of Damnation (Nuclear Blast)
4. TYR Land (Napalm)
5. Lair Of The Minotaur War Metal Battle Master (Southern Lord)

TYR, March 2009
Mosh: What about lyrics? How do you decide if you’re going to do a song in English or Faroese?
Heri Joensen: That’s an issue for me, that I’m not quite so comfortable with. It’s very difficult for me to write a lyric in Faroese that I’m satisfied with. It’s much easier in English because I’m used to hearing heavy metal in English, and it sounds much more natural to me.

M: I would have thought the opposite, but that makes sense.
H.J.: Yeah, there’s no famous heavy metal band that sings in Faroese so there’s no way for that to sound natural.

Primordial, May 2009
Mosh: I’ve read a few interviews lately with the band, and it doesn’t seem you are too fond of “Pagan metal.”
Alan A. Nemtheanga: Yep. Completely. Ninety-odd percent of it, possibly even more, is rubbish – one small step up in retardation from power metal. Happy, jokey, jolly, frivolous, meaningless dross for gaming nerds. There are some worthy bands of course . . . Moonsorrow, Temnozor, Drudkh, Negura Bunget, Vrani Volosa, Ereb Altor off the top of my head. Most of these new pirate/beer-drinking/ muscle-bound mythical-warrior/troll bands have more to do with Hammerfall than Bathory, for example. Of course, I have many friends who play in these bands, and they respect and find my stance amusing, but Primordial has really nothing to do with this scene despite obviously having some parallels and helping to forge it. If people want escapism, romanticism, and five-minute festival workouts to clash alehorns to, then fair enough, but that boat left me well behind, thankfully.

Master, July 2009
Mosh: What was it like coming up in the early-to-mid-’80s Chicago metal scene?
Paul Speckmann: This was the bomb. I remember auditioning some semi-famous drummer back in the day at his practice room at some old factory and getting to see Blackfoot supporting Def Leppard in seats set up in front of the first row at the Aragon because he worked security there. The guy sucked, and we only tried twice to rehearse with the fool. Anyway, there was a real friendship between the bands during this period. It wasn’t unusual to see the guys from Trouble or Zoetrope in the audience at the shows we played at the Whale and other places around the city. I went to see these bands over and over again in the day. I still laugh when I think about that legend [Zoetrope/Trouble drummer] Barry Stern, the first time meeting him in line at a Motorhead concert. He had the biggest afro I had ever seen, with a small cowboy hat on top of it!

Skeletonwitch, November 2009
Mosh: You hear so many stories about how Glenn Danzig treats opening bands.
Scott Hedrick: I really, really admire the guy. The second day of the tour we’re hanging out in our dressing room getting wasted, partying, carrying on and shit. He finished his set, Danzig comes back into his dressing room, which is right next to ours. We didn’t know this, but he’s like “Who the fuck is in there being ridiculous?” And his security told him it’s Skeletonwitch. So dudes from our band are hanging out in the room, and all the sudden the door gets kicked in and Glenn Danzig is like, “What the fuck is so funny in here?!” It was dead silence for five, 10 seconds or whatever. After the silence, we’re all shitting our pants thinking we’re going home, and he’s like “What’s up? I’m Glenn,” and shakes everybody’s hand and gives us a heavy metal pep talk.

Best Of 2009
1. Mastodon Crack The Skye (Reprise)
2. Harbinger Doom On You (Planet Metal)
3. Slayer World Painted Blood (American)
4. Novembers Doom Into Night’s Requiem Infernal (The End)
5. Funeral Mist Maranatha (Ajna Offensive)

Darkthrone, April 2010
Mosh: I noticed Devastation (from Chicago) is a Top Friend on Darkthrone’s Myspace page. What does that band mean to you?
Fenriz: In 1987, I started tape trading. I got in touch with Nicke Andersson (Entombed, Hellacopters) and many others of course, but the great thing is that he had all these great U.S.A. demos and bands to share, and Devastation just floored me. It was so tight, the snare rolls were so fine, mmmmm-hmm, that band was a-rockin’! I played it to the guys of Darkthrone and Valhall too, of course, and traded it onwards to others . . . and I never stopped liking that tape, throughout the ’90s as well and the ’00s . . . almost 20 years.

Chris Black, November 2010
Mosh: How difficult is juggling three bands and a record label?
CB: I also collect penguin figurines and enjoy long walks on the beach. There are moments when I am overwhelmed, but for the most part it all comes naturally to me. I don’t manage boredom nearly as well.
M: If tomorrow you had to give up all but one . . .
CB: . . . I’d stick to collecting penguin figurines.

Best Of 2010
1. Nachtmystium Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II (Century)
2. Dawnbringer Nucleus (Profound Lore)
3. The Ocean Heliocentric (Metal Blade)
4. Barn Burner Bangers (Metal Blade)
5. Armour Armour (Hells Headbangers)