Nocturnus/Morbid Angel/After Death's Mike Browning

Mike Browning is a good poser test: Anybody who knows their shit will quickly tell you about Mike's role in shaping early Florida death metal. A founding member of Morbid Angel, he made his biggest contribution with Nocturnus. We make a lot of Nocturnus jokes, but trust me that we are all huge Nocturnus fans. I first heard them in 1991 or so on the legendary Earche comp "Grindcrusher" when their track "BC/AD" completely blew me away. I stuck with them and became a huge fan by the time I was out of high school. Lucho, Krusher, Awakening, me, and the other kids in our circle of weirdos who grew up listening to Youth of Today and Terrorizer literally talked about Nocurnus for fucking hours when we hung out. In particular I remember around 97 or 98, me and this one dude Vince (where are you broseph??) geeking out on "The Key"and making "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" noises at each other like the the keyboards on "Lake of Fire."

In contrast to many of his contemporaries (for instance the other dudes from Morbid Angel), who are complete fucking wingnuts, Mike seems like a cool, down-to-earth guy that doesn't take himself too seriously. That's a welcome change of pace, since there are way too many people who were in far less important bands who have their head completely up their own ass.

Washed up a-hole: "Do you know who I am?!?! I played bass in ROTTREVORE, you insolent fuck! Now kiss my pinkie and I'll forgive you."
Guy he is talking to: "Uh.... welcome to Olive Garden. How many people in your party?"

You don't hear his name nearly as much as you should these days, so we are super stoked to have Mike on Metal Inquisition!

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"BC/AD": Before Christ - I ruled the land! After death - I will rule once again!!

You made quite a mark on the death metal landscape in the 90s, but many of us lost track of you after that. What are you up to these days, both musically and otherwise? What do you do for a living?
Right now my band After Death is mixing a bunch of new songs we just recorded. There are 5 new songs and we rerecorded one off of our last Retronomicon CD and just for the fuck of it we recorded 2 old Morbid Angel songs Chapel of Ghouls(with The Invocation) and Angel of Disease from the Abominations of Desolation album, close to how they were done back in 1986, but still with some new elements as well. The last time we recorded was back in 2006, so we are way past due for some new material to be released! We also did a tour last October of Europe as After Death playing Nocturnus songs from The Key, which went over pretty well, so we may do that again sometime soon. Other than that I just work a regular day job for the water department in Tampa and work on my newest project a 1957 Chevy Bel Air that has become a fucking money pit, but it does haul ass!

Nocturnus was pretty out there for the early 90s. How did people react when you first came out? How does that differ from how people would react now, in a world where we've heard enough blast beats and sweep picking to sink a battleship?
The reactions were pretty good actually. I think because of The Science of Horror demo being heavier and less technical than The Key was, helped us to kind of break into a new style of death metal without going to far over the people's heads. But yeah today we might just have been the band of the week for the fucking sheeple that say they are death metal fans! Peoples attention spans these days are about as long as their dicks! And their attitudes are bigger!!!

OK, so maybe Mike is a little weird. But it could be a zillion times weirder/more embarrassing- just ask Evil D.

Are you familiar with the popular death metal band Nile? They have a lot of songs about having sex with mummies, pet sphinxes, and other weird Egyptian stuff. You had a mummy on the cover of your 7" many years before Nile came out, how do you feel about them stealing your gimmick?
Well we did use some Egyptian themes way before Nile, but actually I didn't play on that 7" you mentioned, that was after I left the band. My band After Death does a lot more Egyptian themed music now, but we don't sound anything like Nile. Our style of lyrics is also more about the magick and rituals that the Ancient Egyptians used. And we have a full time keyboard player, so we can make the whole song have more atmosphere instead of just an intro.

Classic, hilarious Nocturnus segment from "Hard N Heavy Grindcore" video. I love the part where the keyboardist talks about "thrashing where he's at" (1:20) and at 2:15 where they give advice to young bands who are thinking about moving to Florida to be closer to the epicenter of the scene.

Aside from mummies, Nocturnus' lyrics referenced all kinds of crazy shit like crystal balls, spaceships, droids, and so forth. Where did you come up with that stuff? Specifically, can you tell me what "Enter The Droids" is about?
In the beginning Nocturnus was mostly occult oriented lyrics, but when Mike Davis joined the band and started writing and had some lyrical ideas it turned more into sci-fi type stuff, so I mixed his ideas with mine and it came out to be some pretty crazy shit that I ended up writing about. The Key was pretty much a concept album about a guy going back in time and destroying Jesus Christ and taking over the world with future technology that he brought back with him.

"It was in one of the crashed alien ships that he found 'The Key' that was the finishing piece to make his time machine work"

It didn't really start as a concept album though, but as we kept writing songs they started to fit together like a puzzle and kind of ended up as a story, but each song could still stand on it's own. Enter The Droids was the part of the story where alien droid ships started attacking the Earth and the main character retreated to a cave where he built the time machine and it was in one of the crashed alien ships that he found "The Key" that was the finishing piece to make his time machine work.

Lord Browning sits atop his throne while he prepares a fiendish scheme to rape himself once he has his time machine back (it's been kind of sputtering lately when idling, probably just the O2 sensor)

Here on Metal Inquisition, we like to joke about "the Nocturnus time machine." For example, we have a whole section dedicated to "things I would destroy if I had access to the Nocturnus time machine." We also came up with a concept for scale models of the time machine. What would you do if you actually had access to the time machine you wrote about on "The Key"? I think I would go back in time to when I was a child and rape myself.
Man do you want me to make a fucking list or what!!! Hell there are tons of things I would go back and change if I had a time machine, especially some of the chicks I have met and had relationships with, that would probably be first on my list!!! I think some sweet revenge would be nice too for people that have wronged me, that's always nice to think about as well!!!

But why rape yourself when you can go back a bit farther and rape your mom and actually create yourself by raping your mom, now that's a fucking idea there!!! Maybe that will be my next concept album, so don't go stealing my idea like everyone else does!

If you were 20 years old today and starting a band, what would it sound like? What would your personal brand be?
I think I would have to say it might sound like After Death does now, pretty much I have always wanted to do atmospheric sounding occult metal! But if I was 20 again I don't know if I would have the discipline for it the way the world is today, but I would probably still make the same stupid mistakes anyway because I haven't changed much since then.

All goes well until :45 or so, then oh boy... the wheels fall right off the wagon. Then at 1:35 he starts talking about his Quake clan and you just want to hide out of vicarious embarrassment.

You know the guys in Morbid Angel well, right? Please watch this video of Trey Azagthoth hosting "Headbanger's Ball" and tell us what you think is going through his head. Other than, "I feel like the biggest fucking asshole on the planet."
What's funny is I knew Trey was going to be on Headbanger's Ball, so I actually saw that episode when it first aired and from knowing him all these years it was pretty much exactly what I expected to happen!!! I doubt he will ever try that one again!!!

Back in the day, it was mindblowing for someone to be able to play a blast beat, double bass, or tremolo riff at all. In retrospect, most of the musicianship was pretty amateurish by today's standards. As someone who was in one of the most technical, innovative bands of the 90s, how does it make you feel that these days every 16 year-old asshole kid can play sick blasts, sweep picked arpeggios, and 250 bpm double bass when people like you struggled so hard at pioneering these techniques?
It is all pretty relative because back then people thought that what we were doing was mind blowing and now I see these kids playing twice as fast and not even breaking a sweat. I think because the kids these days are brought up on this stuff and didn't have to progress into it or create it, that they come from a different mindset. Only problem is not a one of them have any originality, they all want and do sound like someone else and even worse is they want to be that way! There is no more originality anymore, so maybe it all has been done!

Can you imagine how amazing it would be to live next to this, then find out it belonged to Mike Browning?! My mind would explode, like if I saw Glen Benton buying Little League outfits for his kids.

When I listen to Nocturnus, I always have a visual in my head to go along with the song. For example, "Empire of The Sands" reminds me of the Jawas in "Star Wars." Did you have any visuals in mind when you were writing them? If so, share the one that you think would be most surprising to us.
The whole goal of Nocturnus was to create an atmosphere with the music and lyrics together and this has always been what I would consider success over making money, not that making money is bad, but to me this is the greatest compliment someone can say about my music. When I write the lyrics, usually the whole idea pops into my head with a title that sums it up and I have a visual of the whole song like a movie playing out inside my head so at that point the lyrics start flowing sometimes so fast I can hardly write them down before I forget them. I usually have to find a paper and pen right away and end up writing the whole song in less than 10 minutes!

"I see this guy kicking the stable door down wearing some kind of a futuristic space suit and just blasting away Joseph, Mary and the 3 wise men and then saving the baby Jesus in his little manger for last"

I would say as far as Nocturnus it would probably be Destroying The Manger, where I see this guy kicking the stable door down wearing some kind of a futuristic space suit and just blasting away Joseph, Mary and the 3 wise men and then saving the baby Jesus in his little manger for last as he starts laughing hysterically maybe with a cigar in his mouth like a true superhero would and just blasts the whole manger to smithereens!!! It would make a great movie don't ya think!!!

This song is the origin of the "Nocturnus time machine" meme:

ENTER THE DROIDS / Cybernetic cralts approaching / Through skies lit with fusion discharge / Androids from the gamma quadrant / Moving at the speed of death / Now the human race is so vulnerable / Invasion set for attack / "Enter the Droids" / Command-Mission-Destroy-Planet-Three-From-Their sun / Caught within my tractor beam / Bringing the craft to me / Disable the robot for my own use / to aid my escape / Fleets of ships are now arriving,overtaking / Physical evasion is my only demise / Left to me for my survival / Gaining data from their system,overriding / To complete my invention,the time machine / Only question is"will it function"?

Pretend you get to write the metal history books. What would you like people to remember about you and your work?
Well I have never claimed to be some kind of an amazing musician, so more than anything I would want to be remembered as the one and only Mike Browning!

More info: After Death on MySpace, Mike Browning's MySpace, Nocturnus on Encyclopaedia Metallum. Also check out this 2008 interview with Mike courtesy of I Could Die Tomorrow. After Death is currently finishing up a new album, which we'll post about when it's done- stay tuned.

Where is the double bass on the drums: Vintage Roadrunner hate mail

Some posts just write themselves, like yesterday's on Stuff You Will Hate about BOSS' Crabcore pedal. Such is also the case with this collection of "interesting" letters received by Roadrunner about 5 years ago and passed on to us by a secret source that we will simply call "Green Rage." Please thank him/her and enjoy this rare treat!

Click on any of the images to see a full-size version that you can actually read.


This fucking dipshit is an asshole of the highest order, but what's much worse is that he's not funny. In this letter he pretends to think there is a defect with the CD they sent him FOR FREE and says the singer for Cradle of Filth sounds like a girl. Here is how I would probably react: Har har, real funny, you sure taught me a lesson about how lame I am for sending free stuff to people like you. You couldn't just silently throw it away like everyone else who doesn't like it, you had to rub it in my face. Your time is clearly priceless, other than the hours you spent writing this letter and patting yourself on the back for being so clever. How about this you motherfucker, I know where your fucking kids go to school and they get out in 10 minutes- think you can get there faster than I can? Why aren't you laughing anymore??



In this letter, some gimp/mongo begs Roadrunner to send him a Slipknot CD out of pity for his disability. True to form for someone who is asking for a handout, he is not only asking for a favor but has very specific demands regarding how the favor should be done: "CDS LPS ONLY NO SINGLES. IF 2 VERSIONS SEND EXPLICIT LYRIC VERSION. IF ONLY ONE VERSION SEND IT." It's kind of like when I told Olga Kurylenko she should pity-fuck me after the ATM ate my debit card, then said "MISSIONARY/REVERSE COWGIRL ONLY NO HANDJOBS. IF 2 ORIFICES USE BUTTHOLE. IF ONLY ONE ORIFICE USE IT."


If you ever did a zine, traded tapes, or otherwise corresponded with Euros by mail in the 80s/90s, this letter will sound all too familiar. Some German weirdo is pitching them on the idea of opening some Roadrunner stores in Europe. But that's not all! He adds that "When a Roadrunner Band is on Tour or the Roadrunner Roadrage Tour is across Europe this Band or Bands make a Autographbreak on the Local Roadrunner Store so Fans can get closer to their Idols." It sounds to me like he has fully considered this idea and I cannot imagine why Roadrunner did not jump at the chance to immediately engage him as VP Retail Development, Roadrunner Europe. Then he could give the gimp from above a job and kill two birds with one stone!


Now this letter is refreshing! He's not being a dickbag whiner, asking for free shit, or an annoying Euro, he's just a Roadrunner fan who is understandably concerned about the direction the label started taking around this time (1995ish). As a diehard Fear Factory and Machine Head devotee, he simply asks "Where is the REALLY heavy stuff? Where is the death metal? Where is the double bass on the drums??" And isn't that what we are all trying to find out during our time here on this planet?? Where *is* the double bass on the drums?


Hoo boy... this reminds me of the insane bullshit that covers the label of Dr. Bronner's soap. The scary part is the complete lack of awareness at play. Any time someone seems to lack a fundamental understanding of reality, it's unnerving because you never know what the fuck they'll do next. They operate on what seems to be their own bizarre logic system that has little or no relationship to the way the world actually works. When Z-level, local metal bands send their godawful demo to Roadrunner it's certainly kind of pathetic, but at least it makes sense: they are in a metal band, and Roadrunner puts out metal records. I always wonder what possesses some weirdo like this fruit to contact a label like Roadrunner, and how they might react if rejected. I imagine this guy is the heir to some insane fortune that his father made selling essence of honeysuckle in the 1920s or whatever, so he doesn't have to work. Instead, he spends his days wandering around, sniffing bicycle seats and park benches. When he gets the news that Roadrunner signed Billy Talent instead of him, he flips out and some poor girl waiting for the bus ends up in a dumpster behind 7-11, fragments of a shattered Dresden Dolls CD jammed into her skull.

Putting out the Disincarnate album alone is enough to atone for Roadrunner's sins of allowing Methods of Mayhem and the nu-Misfits to enter a recording studio

Conclusion
Working in the music industry might sound glamorous, but there's more to the job than the cool stuff you read about in No Glam Fags or The Wild Rag. For every "ZOMG all my dreams are coming true" moment like the time you get to help Donald Tardy wash his 1992 Chevy Luv while he tells you stories about Scott Burns' farts, there's decidedly unglamorous stuff like taking Tom Araya to 8AM Sunday mass with his daughters. We think that getting letters like this make it all worthwhile though, and welcome any other informants like "Green Rage" to share with us!

We don't know anybody at Roadrunner, but if you do, please pass this on to them and ask them to get in touch! There are few labels who have contributed more to metal than they have and we would love to work with them in one way or another. For starters, let's bro down with Mike from Killswitch and talk to him about the rad Devastation "Idolatry" longsleeve he wore when I saw Overcast in 1998.

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A quick detour through bummer-ville

The best song from Left With Nothing's criminally underrated EP- check out a live version here. They were a rare combo of fun but also super intense and emotional, like Seattle's other ex-Trial/Undertow/Himsa regretcore band Everything Went Black, and I had a lot of fun at their shows.

Sorry to end on such a serious note, but we would like to express our sadness for the recent loss of Brian Redman, formerly of RR band 3 Inches of Blood. I knew him from the Seattle hardcore scene, where he played in Trial and the really-fucking-great-but-unknown Left With Nothing, one of my favorite Seattle hardcore bands. He was funny, friendly, and had a motherfucking INTEGRITY tattoo on his chest- you really can't fuck with that! I wasn't BFFs with him, but many of my Washington friends were and he is dearly missed.

The worst death metal song of all time: Six Feet Under "Amerika The Brutal"

I know what you are thinking after reading the title: "Dude, have you ever heard Cianide?!" Don't get me wrong, Cianide definitely fucking suck. They are wizard-level masters of being jaw-droppingly terrible. In fact, sometimes I can't sleep because I'm just curled up in the fetal position in the corner of my room, holding myself and rocking back and forth because of the scars carved deep into my soul from just the few moments I've spent listening to their seemingly endless stream of recordings. The reason I am going into so much detail about fucking Cianide is because I want you to understand that I know exactly how wretched they are. Only then will you believe me when I say that, hands down, "Amerika The Brutal" by Six Feet Under is the worst death metal song of all time! Let's look at exactly what makes it so awful...

Please watch this video in full before reading any further. And yes, this WILL be on the test.

Chris Barnes is stangry
I think I have mentioned it on here before, but I'm a huge fan of Loveline (only the radio show, the TV show was awful). One of the hosts, Adam Carolla, came up with the term "stangry," which describes someone who is simultaneously stupid and angry. I really can't think of a better term for Chris Barnes, as his whole post-Cannibal career has that kind of directionless, inarticulate anger directed at SOMEONE who is responsible for, well, all the bad stuff in the world. He reminds me of an old, half-blind moose who gets shot in the leg by a bowhunter and just runs around smashing into stuff, bellowing at the top of his lungs and lashing out at whatever is around him in an attempt to get back at whoever made him feel this pain and rage.

Here are the lyrics to the Old Skull song "Homeless":
People that don't have homes
I look in their eyes...
I see sadness
They don't have enough money to pay the rent
Because they don't have good enough jobs.
Why don't they have good enough jobs?
BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE A GOOD ENOUGH EDUCATION!
WHY DON'T THEY HAVE A GOOD ENOUGH EDUCATION?
BECAUSE OF WAR DEBT!

Least sophisticated lyrics of all time: Six Feet Under or Old Skull?
I am not a fan of affected, figurative writing (unless we're talking about Hipster Runoff), especially when it comes to the lyrics. Please just get to the fucking point, I am a busy man and I don't want to spend time deciphering "coded messages in slowed down songs," to borrow a phrase. That includes the post-Dillinger Escape Plan school of "long witty/sardonic song titles." And don't get me started on Discordance Axis' song titles. That said, even a meat-and-potatoes writer like me must add a certain amount of style to his/her work or it just gets weird. Unless you're The Dwarves, who come off as (extremely creepy, fucked up) geniuses when they have song titles like "Let's Fuck," you can't get away with just stating the facts... which is exactly what SFU does, in the least interesting way possible.

I have discovered a new disease: Chris Barnes' Syndrome, in which you turn into a treant shortly after starting a terrible band.

If you watched the Old Skull video above, you will notice two things 1) their music so loose and noisy that it inadvertently sounds like Nuclear Death and 2) the absurdly simplistic lyrics make Discharge sound like James Joyce. But I can forgive them: as you may have also noticed, they were 12 years old when they recorded that song.

Like Old Skull, Chris Barnes' approach to writing lyrics seems to be "make an angry statement of fact regarding my opinion on a social or political issue." The problem is that he is 42 years old, so he can't use, well, actually being a child as an excuse. A couple highlights from this song:

Listen it's a fucking joke and they make you believe it on the TV
That's how they deceive you-
I watch and I listen and I question their reasons
You know what, I don't fuckin believe em

I worked in print shops for years when I was younger, and this reminds of the kind of thing that I'd hear at work there. Printing basically attracts the same people as framing, roofing, carpet laying, and other bottom-of-the-barrel trades: lots of alcoholic felons who have a chip on their shoulder and want to tell you all about it. You'd be standing there doing some mind-numbing bullshit like punching holes in booklets for 9 hours, and one of these guys would come over to you, lean in as though he was about to tell you something really important and say, "Those fuckin' politicians, man, they're all a bunch of fuckin' liars! I don't believe a goddamn word out of their mouths, they're just in it for the money, man!!" It's really uncomfortable, because what do you say?? I would usually just shrug, nod and say something non-committal like "Well I guess they're not getting your vote, are they?" and hope the guy would go wander off and rant at some other unfortunate motherfucker.

I'm not afraid to speak my own mind
I don't use the first amendment to hide behind
I'm guaranteed that freedom, I'm born with that right

First of all, in one breath he says he's not going to "hide behind" the First Amendment, then in the next line he reminds us that he is actually guaranteed freedom. There's always the possibility that he's got some kind of overthought-yet-insane Constitutionalist position, but I'm going to chalk it up to stangriness again. It has that "you're not the boss of me/you can't tell me what to do/you don't know me/you're not my real dad" vibe that's a sure sign of stangry.

Fart jokes: Never not funny!

If Terrence & Phillip made a death metal video, it would be this
I'm willing to bet Barnes has seen more than a little South Park in his day. What stoner doesn't take a few industrial-strength bong rips then stare at Comedy Central for hours on end while they shovel Doritos into their mouth and laugh way too hard at marginally-funny jokes? Based on the Video Toaster 2.0-level animation and 6th grade art direction, I'd say Barnes is a big fan of the Terrence & Phillip movie, although I'm not sure that he understands it's a joke in which the central premise involves how laughably awful the movie is.

This is seriously a picture of Chris Barnes with his riced-out Lancer Evo. I don't really even know what to say about this... there are so many levels of meaning in this image that academics will probably spend decades unraveling it and filling volume after volume of cultural studies journals with vain attempts at articulating the postmodern implications. It's like a white trash Horn of Plenty!

He was probably too baked to catch that part, and just nudges one of his bandmates out of his weed stupor, points at the TV and says, "Dude... we should our next video like that. I love cartoons, man!!" then they high-five and start laughing uncontrollably. After a minute, Barnes pauses for a second to ask "Wait... why are we laughing??" The other guy gets all serious for a second, then cracks up and says "Dude I don't even remember!!" and they laugh for another 10 minutes.

Here are couple of the best moments where SFU uses images and sounds to beat you over the head with his stangry political opinions. They start out pretty much dumb and straightforward, but by the end of the video it gets real fucking weird:

Racism is wrong! If you're an identical twin, don't hit random black people on the street with your purse!

Corporations have twisted the political system to serve their own corrupt interests! Also, there is a doll in a bikini that rides really high on her hips like they would wear in a ZZ Top video!

America is a country of greedy, shallow materialists whose avariciousness is exceeded only by their lack of self-awareness!

Uncle Sam is really a zombie! A zombie who wants your money!

Uh... I'll be honest, I'm not sure what this part is all about... probably something really deep though, let me get back to you!

OK, this is towards the end of the video. At this point they were probably just high as fuck and turning knobs on the computer to see what it would do. They thought this part looked "trippy" so they put it in the video.

You could literally grab just about every frame in the video and it would be so full of subhuman stupidity that you would probably faint in horror... so if you watch the full video, please make sure you are seated!

Like Pokemon, Chris Barnes is going down the natural path for his species and will soon evolve into his ultimate form. Protip: If you're a stangry stoner for too long, you turn into The Dude! Just ask my stepdad.

Kids, don't smoke pot!
I'm not really into the "scared straight" approach when it comes to talking to kids about drugs, but if you are, just have them watch this video. Then press "stop" on the VCR and turn to face the classroom authoritatively, arms crossed. After an uncomfortable moment of silence in which everybody reflects on the horrors they just witnessed, say "This is your brain on drugs. Any questions??"

It turns out that Bad Dudes was right after all.

I strongly support your band's decision to alienate its core fanbase

Once a band has a good thing going, they usually like to throw it all away by changing their style up for reasons that only God knows. Rather than get angry about it, I applaud bands who flush their hard-won credibility and support down the toilet. Why? Because it's funny. It's funny to see the nerd rage from their fans, and it's funny to watch the band members get defensive or flustered when they realize that everybody hates what they've done.

In this post I will share a few of my favorite moments in which bands have dramatically changed their style for the worse. I will explore each of these self-clownings along three dimensions:

• Why they changed: I will take a guess at what the practice room discussions were in which they decided it was a good idea
• Fan reaction: Exactly how did fans react to the betrayal?
• How badly it fucked them: On a scale of 0-10, how badly did it impair the band's ability to receive income in the future?

In all seriousness, I cannot fathom what could have a) possessed them to think this is a good idea or b) convinced Century Media to release this. I'm really not joking here! If I was the dude at CM who was responsible for the bottom line on the Cryptopsy account, when I heard the demos I think my feedback would be something like: "Dudes, I totally respect that you want to do something different and that's awesome but I have a fucking mortgage to pay. Putting clean vocals on a Cryptopsy record is basically taking food directly out of my family's mouth so that you can 'explore the boundaries of extreme metal' or whatever bullshit you just said to me. If you want to experiment, do it on your own dime. Now get the fuck out of my office and go write 'None So Vile Part 2'!"

Cryptopsy
Why they changed
(Translated from French)
Guy 1: I'm bored with death metal. Remember when we got that metalcore guy to sing on our last couple records, and everybody hated it because they want to hear sick-ass death metal not a poor man's Suicide Silence? We should do something even more zany than that for the next record.
Guy 2: Totally! Don't forget that we also made a decision at that one band meeting to write boring songs with 5,000 nondescript riffs in them instead of catchy, simple shit that you couldn't stop listening to like on our first few albums.
Guy 1: Yeah, yeah, I remember, quit nagging me about it. Anyhow, I've been listening to a lot of Diecast and Poison The Well lately, we should totally do that thing where they have half-assed death metal vocals, then the guy starts singing and when you hear it you're all "Dude, that's so beautiful!!" and a single tear rolls down your cheek. Oh, and let's wear leather pants with buckles on them in the video.
Guy 2: Pass the poutine, please.

Fan reaction
"Wat"

How badly it fucked them
8.5/10. Perhaps someone from Century Media can chime in and tell us exactly how far their sales have plummeted, but I have to guess that their transition to "shitty Killswitch Engage" was pretty much a death blow. The only reason I didn't give them a 10 is that Flo will always be able to sell instructionals to shut-ins who would rather practice their double flamadiddles than deal with the terrifying prospect of leaving the house.


Pantera
Why they changed
Phil: Fuckin' a dudes, I'm fuckin' high as fuck man... Let's do some new shit, I ain't down with these fuckin' powederpuff jams. I was just sittin' here feeling the fuckin' high, and I saw something... I saw the fuckin' universe!! I looked into the middle of the sun, and it told me that the four of us were put on this Earth for one thing: To create the NEW GENERATION OF POWER GROOVE!
Everybody else: Right on bro, power groove, hell yeah! But hey, can we just play "Strutter" one more time before we reinvent the steel??

Fan reaction
"Duuuuude, what the fuck man?! Quit yelling and shit! It makes my fuckin' head hurt! Why are you all aggro and shit, I thought Pantera was a rock band? Quit screaming, man, my chick is gettin' freaked out! Fuck this, I'm putting in my Vinnie Vincent tape to get her in the mood again." *Rides away on his Mongoose, plastic comb stuck in the back pocket of his size 28 jeans*

How badly it fucked them
0/10: They timed their makeover perfectly, coinciding with the death of glam and the mainstreaming of angsty "hard rock." You can think of the revamped Pantera as the angry, brutish brother of Alice In Chains in many ways. Both got high way too much, but in addition to having a strong self-detructive streak, Pantera enjoyed turning his anger on others.

This is a double dose of painful; it manages to be horribly embarrassing like you're watching your uncle's shitty cover band in which he wears a Harley-Davidson do-rag at the same time as a high school battle of the bands where they're playing a Fender Squire through a Peavey Bandit. Amazing job, guys! Hipster Runoff has nothing on Metallica in the post-ironic humor department.

Metallica
Why they changed:
Needless to say, volume upon volume has been written about the several dramatic shifts in Metallica's style. What could I possibly add, especially since I have always thought they were pretty terrible? Perhaps because I am an outsider, I believe I have a fresh perspective. I'm thinking that it went a little like this:
*establishing shot of a calendar that says 1989 on it*
James: OK guys, how do we follow up "Garage Days?" It's way better than any of our real albums, and it's all fucking covers, WTF. I don't know where we go from here. *sighs, throws up hands in frustration*
Kirk: Since we're obviously out of ideas and rich, why don't we just have fun with it and make the lamest fucking "hard rock" record we can, just for a joke??
James: Ha ha ha, I love it! Yeah, and I'll adopt this Southern redneck persona even though I'm from Bakersfield. It will be hilarious! Then after a year or something we'll reveal that it was all a put-on, everybody will have a good laugh, and we'll get tons of press.
Kirk: No, no, let's do it Andy Kaufman-style and never let on! We'll play it straight, and people will always be guessing whether it's a joke or we're really that fucking stupid. It will be way funnier that way!!
Lars: Totally! Also, we should make my snare so tight, ringy, and absurdly loud in the mix that it sounds like someone is banging on the side of a battleship with a ball peen hammer in time to the music!
James: Dude, come on. Let's not get carried away. We can't go too far over the top or it will be too obvious that it's a joke!
*shot of the pages on a calendar peeling off and blowing away in the wind until it says 2003*
James: LOL, guys, I can't fucking believe nobody's gotten the joke yet!! We need to do something so ridiculous that nobody can possibly miss it and everybody will catch on to the joke. Lars, what was that idea you had for a snare sound a few years back??

Fan reaction
Many fans were ready to tar and feather them after the black album, and brought out their torches & pitchforks when they heard "Load." By the time "St. Anger" came out, most people kind of realized it was just a tired joke that had run its course, and maybe chuckled a little bit when they saw the video where they played Disturbed riffs in the prison yard. "Death Magnetic" was met with about the same reaction as someone wearing an Austin Powers Halloween costume in 2009: "Dude, you should probably go home and change. It's gonna be a long night if you don't."

How badly it fucked them
0/10, seemingly. Despite that they are perhaps the most hated band in all of metal, I still see 14 year-olds with bowl cuts, acne and bad posture wearing "Ride The Lightning" shirts as they follow their parents around the mall looking surly just like they did in 1989. Like Led Zepplin and Bob Marley, they have a mystifying ability to move merch to every new generation of shitbag loser teenagers, so what the fuck do I know about how much Metallica sucks?

Argh, I don't even know what to say about this... I hadn't watched it in a long time since Lucho uploaded it. I don't even think it's funny anymore, they just sound like legit morons that would deliver potato chips to bodegas or something and yap about their band endlessly: "Yeah man, we're playing at L'Amours, opening for DBC and Lawnmower Deth. You should come check it out bro, we'll blow your mind bro!"

Anthrax
Why they changed
*The band is sitting in the living room at Charlie's parents' home in Queens*
Joey: It's just not the same anymore. Ever since our practice space burned down, I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. The insurance forms say that the damage was only a few hundred dollars, but I feel like my youthful enthusiasm and whimsical, carefree outlook on life also went up in flames that night. *halfheartedly flips through a Judge Dredd comic, dejected*
Scott: I know, man. The other day I tried to put on my Adidas warmup suit and do borderline-racist rap poses in the mirror, and I just wasn't feeling it. And when someone told me that Billy Milano was actually a pretty smart, funny guy who was just "playing a character" in SOD, I couldn't even bring myself to shout "NOT!". I kinda feel like it might be time for Anthrax to break up...
Charlie: Snap out of it, guys!! *bursts into the room* We're not going to let this tragedy get the best of us! Let's channel our pain into writing a new record. It will be moody and repetitive, much slower, less fun and catchy than anything we've done so far. Also, we'll take the title from the name of a famous painting or something to sound deep, and the songs will be punishingly long to send the message that we have a lot to say!
Scott: Perfect. That will show everybody that we've grown up and we're not just the class clowns of Thrash High! We'll finally be seen as mature, legitimate musicians and get the respect we deserve from both fans and critics alike. Man, this is going to be great.
Charlie: Then once we find a guy with the least possible charisma, stage presence, and distinctive voice, we'll fire Joey and replace him!
Joey: Guys, I'm right here... I can hear everything you're saying.
Scott/Charlie: Shut up, Joey. Go play with your Transformers and make a new "injun" hat.

Fan reaction
If you ask 100 different people about Anthrax's lineup changes, you will get 100 different answers. Some popular ones: "They would be better if Scott Ian sang," "They would be better if they kept Neil Turban," and "Cry for the Indians."

How badly it fucked them
5/10. Not too badly, actually. I mean don't get me wrong, Anthrax has been fucking horrible for over 20 years, but their first couple albums are so, so good that you can look past the new stuff, brushing it off as though it's just a phase they're going through (although if that phase was a person it would be old enough to drink). In any case, what it comes down to is that nobody will buy their new albums, but people will still go see them in hopes that they'll play the old, good songs. It's not unlike those washed up old bands like Cutting Crew or whatever that only play county fairs and riverboat casinos. Only unlike Cutting Crew, Anthrax used to put the NYHC logo on their merch.

Hasta next time...?
What did y'all think of this concept? There is certainly no shortage of content for future installments: Slayer, Celtic Frost, Sepultura, and Carcass to name but a few. Should we do more?

Winds of Plague ain't got shit on our steez

I love mash culture. It makes me feel like I am on top of all the latest developments in youth culture when I find a band that combines seemingly disparate influences, and because I am so culturally literate and young-at-heart, I totally get what they are doing. I love to smugly explain all the references to my clueless friends who still think of "World Demise" and "Far Beyond Driven" as "their new stuff." For a few minutes, I can forget that I am turning 31 in six weeks and have been going to hardcore shows since 1989. With that in mind, you can understand why I am such a big fan of Winds of Plague.

We blogged about this sextet of Southern California moshers a while ago (here and here), so if you are not familiar with them please take a few minutes to brush up on the band. Our printer is down at the moment, but we'll pass out a handout that has hard copies of both posts before we leave today. They'll be on the conference room table next to the Panera bagels and juice. There's also one of those cardboard boxes of coffee, please help yourself- we have Sugar In The Raw as well as Sweet N Low for Delores and Gail, our two administrative assistants who are also diabetic.

"[Being a wigger] isn't that tricky, you just say ignorant shit over and over."

Anyhow, the big idea with Winds of Plague is that they combine moshcore ala Hatebreed with symphonic black metal. You've heard that before, but Winds of Plague adds a wiggerish slant that would make Rick Ta Life blush. I feel like we mocked them pretty mercilessly in our first post about WoP, so I was really happy to see that Johnny Plague, the singer, posted in the comments and had fun with it instead of being a butthurt pussy like Short Bus Pile Up and Waking The Cadaver.

Since they were so cool, I figured we should find out more about what makes them tick. I caught up with them on the Summer Slaughter tour where they were playing with Dying Fetus, Suffocation, Origin, and a bunch of boring bands like Born of Osiris with names in the format of "____ of ____" that I had never heard of and didn't watch.

Affliction also makes a brand for girls called Sinful. It is even more atrocious and tacky than their flagship brand, but at least the ads have moderately attractive girls in them who are giving you the "I've been up for 65 hours on a coke binge with the guy from Buck Cherry" stare

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the Summer Slaughter tour is sponsored by Decibel Magazine, which is also owned by Metal Inquisition's parent company, Red Flag Media (this blog is the flagship piece of the viral marketing and social media division of Red Flag). Oh, and it's also sponsored by Affliction, which has nothing to do with our corporate structure, but is hilarious.

On wiggers
In retrospect, maybe it would have been better to warm him up a little bit, but I was too impatient and I cut right to the chase with Johnny. In my best Tom Brokaw voice, I tried to sound very frank and down-to-earth when I said "Have a seat, Johnny. I think you know what we're here to talk about: wiggerish arm movements." I thought he might get mad, but to my surprise, he was pretty sheepish about the whole thing, even apologetic!

I put on my best moshbro costume for the show, topped off by a New Era hat which I cocked at a jaunty angle. After all, when in Rome, do as the wiggers, right? (Photo by Kristen Randall)

He started by blaming someone else. "Not to point the finger, but I'm definitely going to have to put the wigger elements on our friend John, who recorded with us on that album. He also played on the new album, but we told him to tone it down," Johnny explained. I'd like to believe him, but as you can see in the photo of us above, he was wearing a Sworn Enemy basketball jersey and a backwards baseball hat. That's two strikes, my friend. If I go through your records and find a Downset CD, you're busted! He also credits moshcore pioneers 18 Visions with inspiration. "18 Visions had it going on. Speaking of wigger, remember when James had like fuckin' dreads and JNCOs?"

"I've grown out of the puffy vests. I had to give it to my friend that lives in Reno so I'm not tempted."

Life on the road can be tough. Just ask Metallica and Kid Rock, both of which have penned sorrowful, melancholy songs in which they sit on the tour bus looking wistfully out the window. Perhaps Winds of Plague will write their own version soon, because Johnny was not enjoying himself on this tour. I kept trying to get him to talk about wiggers, but he kept drifting back to how annoyed he was with this tour and wanted to go home. To bridge the gap, I asked him about touring with Suffocation. By inventing the slam riff and pioneering the use of 808 bass drops in death metal, they arguably created wigger slam metal, yet they have actual black people in the band, which makes things much less black-and-white (ba-dum crash!).

Lucho Metales with Mike Smith of Suffocation. Lucho is making awkward hand gestures in an effort to "be down." Mike appears to be holding his own penis. There is a cheap-looking door in the background.

Johnny wavered a bit, suggesting that "They have black people in the band so that's automatic street cred. I didn't know about [Mike Smith's] rap album, I wish I did before though." Despite such an initially authoritative answer, it seemed like he doubted himself, or was at the very least not yet comfortable with using the w-word. "I don't really know what to say about that, or... like... the word 'wigger' in general..." he stammered, recalling Sarah Palin when Katie Couric asked her which newspapers she read and Palin answered "A-all of them."

I considered calling in Snoop Dogg for an emergency wigger deprogramming session after hanging out with Johnny for the evening

WoP also share the bill with wigger slam pioneers Dying Fetus. I was thinking Johnny would have taken advantage of the opportunity to compare notes and ask Fetus how to be a slam wigger. Had he ever sat down with Fetus singer Jason Gallagher and asked for tips? "On how to properly do it? No. It's not that tricky, you just say ignorant shit over and over."

"Honestly I don't even know what 'steez' means. Is that even a real word?"

On the left is 18 Visions singer Jame Shart rocking his vintage look of dreads and Excessive Force shirt. Also pictured are Earth Crisis vocalist/weirdo Karl Beuchner (far right, with red eyes) and Metal Inquisition's Director of Latin American Communications Jose Galvan Jr (in blue)

Not ready to let him off the hook, I asked him about my favorite line from my favorite WoP song, their wigger mosh anthem "Reloaded." In this song, one part that makes the moshbros go crazy goes "Bustas fall down when we're barking commands. Atlas ain't got shit on our steez." Having moshed my balls off to it earlier that night, I asked for more detail on exactly what Winds of Plague's steez were. Finally the dam broke. Johnny let it all out, all the shame, the lies, the wiggerish secrets he'd kept inside for so long.

If you haven't seen this video yet, you are missing out. This rivals Biohazard's "Punishment" video as an instruction manual for wiggerish arm movements.

"Honestly I don't even know what 'steez' means. Is that even a real word?" he said plaintively. "The wigger stuff is from our one music video," he volunteered. "The video was an awesome idea that wasn't done well. It was supposed to be over the top. I had a great time doing it, and I guess it's cool because we had fun, but in the big picture it's not really the way we wanted to be portrayed... yeah. Going into it I was like, 'Who the fuck watches music videos, anyway? So let's just have fun with it.' We didn't have much of a budget, our friend had a nice car, so we just said fuck it." While the band was generally happy with it, Johnny had some ideas on how it might be improved. After a thoughtful pause, he reflected that "the guys did a great job on it. But there should have been more chains, more large black women."

Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy used to play in a wretched hardcore band called Extinction. When I saw them in 1997, he had dreads and was wearing a puffy DKNY vest like this one. Now he is married to Ashlee Simpson... I am convinced he somehow gained access to the Nocturnus time machine to pull that one off!!

Most musicians are comfortable to stay within the narrow, conventional definition of what it means to be in a band. But like Dave Mustaine's ventures into the coffee business, Sammy Hagar's tequila brand, and Kiss peddling, well, absolutely anything, Johnny has dreams of being a stylist-slash-image-consultant for bands like his. As the band works on repositioning its brand, Johnny is getting the ball rolling by making some small changes to his personal brand. "I'm gonna say, I've grown out of the puffy vests. I had to give it to my friend that lives in Reno so I'm not tempted," he said, looking down and picking at the table as though he was craving his Nautica vest like a tweaker fiends for a bump.

Totally would, even though she has an ice cream cone tattoo. Her excellent eyebrows make up for it. What is it with the kids these days and their tattoos of junk food? Back in my day, you got tattoos of skulls, monsters, and the Black Flag bars, not fucking candy!
(In case you are wondering why I included this picture, she plays keyboards for Winds of Plague)

On chicks
With the wigger discussion behind us, we moved on to the second most important item on the agenda: chicks. As long-time readers of this blog know, I have advanced-level game, so I wanted to talk shop with one of the few people who might have even better game than me, if such a thing is possible: a dude in a band.

Hot Chicks With Douchbags, metalcore edition: Semi-Gothic Keyboard Hott is surrounded by a horde of Southern California Wiggerish Moshbags

Johnny is a modest guy, so he was hesitant to offer any suggestions on how I might improve my game. "This isn't really the best question for me. I mean, I don't have any game, I really don't. And I'm not afraid to admit that. But basically, just be loud and obnoxious, hang around the merch table and try to trade free shit for head I guess!"

Johnny, if you're reading this, please tell me you know this girl and will introduce me!!

He wasn't nearly as timid when I asked him when band had the most haggard groupies, though. Literally without a split second of hesitation, he said "Blackguard. I love them to death, don't get me wrong. They're kind of a folkish metal band. I dunno man, they just attract some real, uh, winners." I'm sure it's pretty slim pickings on these metal tours, which Johnny confirmed. "Dying Fetus pull some fuckin'... dude I don't even know what the word would be... trollish, stone age type women. I'm not saying they're hooking up with them, I don't know if that happens, but they're there in full force, drunk as fuck."

Drummer Art Cruz showed me some pretty sweet gambits he uses to snare groupies, such as a variety of magic tricks like the one where he made a coin seem to go through my hand. It was cool, but I started to get uncomfortable after a minute because I thought he was going to kiss me or something. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Jeff Foxworthy: If your band sells mesh shorts... you just might be a wigger!

Metal Inquisition + Winds of Plague = hella mass tight bros
I am not sure why so many people pick on Winds of Plague. As you can see they can take a joke and will make you mosh your balls off, and I'm not sure what more you can ask of a band than that. I thought they were going to be uptight dickbags, but it couldn't have been further from the truth. Even if you don't like metalcore, you should pirate their album to show your support!! Every click counts, my friends!!

Check out Winds of Plague on MySpace and Twitter

Billy Milano speaks! (like a painfully unfunny brain injury patient)

We are proud to present an interview with the notorious Billy Milano, singer for the legendary MOD! That said, it's a shitty interview. I guess I shouldn't be even a a little bit surprised, but his answers were uninspired, terse, and boring. I'm still kind of let down in spite of having low expectations, he really phoned this one in. I did my best to spice it up with some of my own comments, but you can only polish a turd so much. The harder you try, the more you get shit all over yourself, and it's still a turd.

Immediately after this picture was taken, Billy the Hut put this poor AIDS victim out of his misery by eating him

What are the lyrics to the Crab Society North Song "You Nigger"?
Your link didn’t work so I don’t know if it’s really a song. I don’t think it is but it it were a song it was probably very short and had a dark tone to it. Yuck-Yuck.
[We just pasted the link into an email; apparently he only knows how to click URLs, not copy and paste it into the address bar. I know he's on the wrong side of 40 so technology isn't really his friend, but this was the first sign of trouble. Also, he has an AOL email address- do you think he spends a lot of time seeing what's in keyword megaforce?]

With looks like this, one can only imagine the high-caliber pussy that he is surely drowning in

In your Hard N' Heavy interview, you talk about "life on the road", and banging the caliber of girl that would have also banged Poison back then. Did you feel it was necessary to lie and make up these stories because a camera was on you?
You know my initials are the same as Brett Michael's. I find it ironic that you mention Poison besides I have no respect for anyone who fucks me and wants to brag about it.
[His initials are BM. I am not sure if our readers abroad know this, but in the US that means "bowel movement," or "shit."]

Here is a curious collage of Billy Milano images that I found in an equally curious article about him on a bear blog (I'm not talking about the kind of bears they have at the zoo)

You were in SOD and then MOD. Do you ever talk to Dave Mustaine about how he should have named Megadeth "Netallica" instead? What do you think of "Slayer 2"?
Never cared to ask Dave about that shit, Slayer 2? I actually think there was a band called slayer from Texas or somewhere and Slayer in LA was a band at that time. That is something you need to check on.
[I seriously think he missed the point of this question. I know he is not going to be in MENSA anytime soon but honestly... it's kind of sad to see a human being who is this dense!]



In the MOD video for "true colors" you wear many hilarious outfits, in order to mock the look of other styles of music (glam etc), yet we couldn't help but notice that in the portions where you are dressed as yourself, you are still wearing spandex cycling shorts. Can you tell us more about the decision to wear those?
Ha ha - BUSTED!!! No, seriously I always wore them for comfort and nothing more. I will say this I bike 20 miles a day in Austin Texas and don’t wear them so I find this also Ironic.

In this horribly dull video, Billy tries his hand at improvised, observational humor... and fails miserably. Don't come crying to me when you realize you pissed away several seconds of your life that you'll never get back on this before frantically mashing the "stop" button.

An argument has been made by some that the cost of medical care for illegal immigrants is not as costly to the US economy as caring for the medical needs of the overweight Americans. Do you care to comment?
Yes this is true, I have read that argument and it has valid points but let me embellish. No illegal immigrant should be given FREE health care or GOVERNMENT sponsored health care when American citizens who do NOT have health care can and are denied.
[I think he also missed the point of this question. Hint: we were calling you fat, Billy the Hut]

A girl is sitting next to me as I write this. When she saw this image over my shoulder she said, "Who is this guy? Why is this image online?! What is he doing??" All I could say was, "Uh... he's the singer in this crappy band called MOD, I have no idea what is happening in this picture but it's funny."

Aside from SOD, what other musical influences do you have? And you can't answer "Anthrax" or "Scott Ian" to this question.
Hardcore Punk.
[I can only assume he is talking about Fat Nuts, 25 Ta Life, and Fury of V]

You made a song entitled "Wigga" in which you mock suburban white kids who dress like poor black people. Can you tell us more about this phenomenon? What do you make of wigger slam metal?
This question is about as relevant as the interviews some journalist gave me for the Decibel interview. NEXT! [Translation: I can't think of anything entertaining to say]

"Wait where am I again?"

When most people see Danny Lilker, they think he looks like he has Down's syndrome due to his retarded face and tiny baby teeth. What was your reaction when you first laid eyes on him?
He looked like a stoned mop.
[Now THIS is funny!! Come on Billy the Hut, you can do better than 1 for 13!]

For the past 20 years you have relied heavily on Jewish musicians to make a semi-decent living, yet you are an anti-Semite. How do you reconcile these two facts?
I converted to being a Jew in the 80’s. I like bagels and have an accountant name Murray, Oi vey such a thing. My Jewish friends only know me by my Jewish identity. “ Sol mehaya Lowenhidlebaum” His name is my name too. Or wait that’s “John Jacob Jinggleheimer Schmit”.

This is 1 million times worse than BrokeNCYDE and Crazy Town put together and wrapped in swastikas

When you were making the video for "Wigga," and you realized that you had become the thrash metal version of Weird Al or The Offspring, what went through your head?
Thank you, what I was thinking was Most metal bands sing this evil shit and their the biggest pussies walking. I am far from a pussy and just wanted my song and record to be fun. Music used to be fun. Everyone is so fucking serious they need to get laid or at least take a shower they will feel better.
[This is certainly true. Maybe he would like screamo crunk??]

Please read our review of "USA For MOD" and share your thoughts on it. In particular, can you comment on this part?

"Man of Your Dreams" – 3:40 I had to look this one up, because even though it's one of the longest songs on the album, I didn't remember it at all. Then I remembered it was a song about Freddy Krueger. How original!! I imagine Scott Ian feeling like the older brother does when the younger brother copies everything he does

First off your links don’t work. That would be kinda of what Dimebag was feeling about Scott, Right? Baaazing!!!

Like if you get a skateboard, and your little bro makes his own out of an ironing board and rollerskate wheels and follows you around all over the place. Not only does he get it all wrong, it's embarrassing for everybody involved, but you don't tell him to stop because you know how bad it would hurt his feelings. But you know Scott must have been like, "Dude... you gotta find your own voice... we already did the Freddy thing. At least write about Jason."

I was SOD. I am an original- they (ANTHRAX) Stole SOD’s voice.
[wat]

When we were writing these questions, we took bets on whether you would have a good sense of humor about it or be a butthurt pussy. I bet $5 that you would try to come up with witty answers to the questions in an attempt to show us up, maybe even putting in a few playful jabs of your own every now and then to avoid looking like a complete pushover. Who is right?
How can I possibly know whose right? I don’t know what the other person you made the bet with said.
[I'll admit, this was a tough question that didn't give him a lot of room to move, but even then, what a shitty answer]

That creepy bear article about him has a comment that declares "His butt is definitely NOMy."

That's all we have. Would you like to add anything? Thanks!! Oh, and what is "Bushwackatees" about?
Your mom’s hairy cunt! Peace Nigga.
[I feel vicariously embarrassed for Billy the Hut when he tries to be shocking like this because it's not even slightly offensive, it's just tiresome and dull]

* In case you haven't yet, please make sure to read Billy Milano: Evolution of MOD on BearMythology.net!!