Warbringer's balls don't smell, and they like Sacred Reich

I recently made fun of Municipal Waste in Terrorizer for banging my ex and having smelly balls, among other things (read it here). I also called them phonies who tried too hard, along with other neo-thrash bands like Toxic Holocaust and Warbringer. It turns out that I may have painted with a brush that was a bit too broad (would hardly be the first time). Several people who I respect emailed or IMd me and said, "Bro, you fucked up, bro. Warbringer are the real deal, they're legit bros, bro," so I started to think I had made a mistake. I was still skeptical, though- I rarely make a false poser-accusation. I figured a good way to find out would be to go directly to the source and run them through a battery of tests.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that Century Media owns a controlling stake in Metal Inquisition, with Decibel/Red Flag Media's shares rounding out the mix.

They were game, so we asked Warbringer to watch the following videos and rate each one as follows:

• Is the band True or False, and why? Think about all the dimensions of their personal brands: the music itself, their image, what you think they do for a day job, what their fans are like, and if the people in the band are fat. Say a little bit about your thoughts on each video (a few sentences/a paragraph).
• Choose two finalists from the pool, one band who is The Truest and one who is The Most False and say a little bit about why you chose them.

Here is what they had to say:



Forced Entry "Bludgeon"
Hell yeah! This rules! Sweet headbanging rhythms and nice lil solo near the beginning. There's a lot of random stuff going on in this video... it has a guy grabbing a rifle and getting ready to shoot something out the window, then someone jumps into a swimming pool with a guitar and more random havoc intercut with relentless live and rehearsal performances. Forced Entry are an underrated band, probably due to being overshadowed by the Seattle grunge bands. Seattle actually had a lot of good metal bands around that time like these guys, Metal Church, Bitter End, Sanctuary, Panic and more. Definitely true!



Nitro "Freight Train"
Not only does Michael Angelo Batio's guitar have 4 necks, but it descends apparently from the realms of the beyond into his hands for ultimate ridiculous shred. Jim Gillette apparently used to shatter glass with his falsettos too. Also he has a palm tree growing from his head, which he displays proudly here. This had got to be some of the biggest hair of any hair band - can it be real? And this guy eventually hooked up with Lita Ford and is now some hulked-up MMA guy. This wins due to complete over-the-top factor, being more over-the-top than just about anything ever.



Burn Halo "Dirty Girl"
This is the new band from 18 Visions' singer. I hadn't heard of this band, and don't really know 18 Visions either, but looking at the video this is quite a departure from what I know of that. This seems pretty manufactured, and pretty uninteresting. It's kind of along the lines of corporate cock rock aiming to get some radio play. The guys in the band all make "look at me" faces the whole time. At least there are some babes in the video, I guess. False.



Prong "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck"
This song is a classic for its time. I could imagine some gothy looking stripper dancing to this song, it would work I think. Don't know what to say about Tommy Victor's mesh shirt and pleather pants thing, hard to say why that would be. But here all is well, and pretty badass. At around 30 seconds- "Catch the ball next week with Alice in Chains at its new time at midnight!"



A Day To Remember "Downfall of Us All"
Can't say I like this at all. I had never heard of happy hardcore in this context before. Judging by this I don't think it's such a great idea either. The mosh parts don't seem like such a juxtaposition because even those parts sound happy and uplifting somehow. The whole thing sounds like they could easily be singing about Jesus, and that I just can't get behind. False.



Sacred Reich "Independent"
Ok now we are talkin! This song is pretty badass. We toured with these guys a little bit in Europe this summer and they were all rad dudes. The video is pretty much a lot of shots of them, playing metal and being badasses, and all these motivational messages that flash across the screen. This is fine though, as one of them near the beginning just says "YOU RULE!". Allrighhht!



Hollywood Undead "No. 5"
This video was directed by Jonas Akerlund, the original drummer for Bathory, eh? That is a fucking bummer. Well, regardless, this is a good example of white dudes totally sucking at being rappers. Oh well, at least we can get a fucking robot to sing the chorus for us! Robots are pitch-perfect! Marvel at its digitized sheen! False.



Emmure "Sound Wave Superior"
Whoa, this is fucking gay! I had never heard this band before, but if this is widely hated, it must be because many people have functioning ears. The wiggerness doesnt help get them out of the suck sector either. And whoa... now the singer (maybe its just the hoodie that makes him look chunky?) is in bed with all these hot chicks, and he looks really out of place. Also the whole song is a chugging breakdown. The whole song! Is falling asleep brutal? False!!



Wasted Youth "Good Day For A Hanging"
Classic old-school L.A. punk/hardcore. I definitely know the name. This features the guitarist in Velver Revolver and the drummer from Queens of the Stone Age but there are no sonic connections between those bands. Wasted Youth is better than either I think. Lots of moshing and playing drums on rooftops, playing a backyard party and badassery like that. I give a hearty thumbs up.



Blessed By A Broken Heart "Mic Skillz 2"
This is clearly a joke, very silly stuff here. "Go ninja, go ninja, go!' So while I can't really give it a stamp of trueness it is one of the more entertaining videos on here to watch. The video is just going for the over-the top angle and the song itself is ridiculous part after ridiculous part, so I guess it at least succeeds at being ridiculous. Shredding is good though!



Evildead "Annilhilation of Civilization"
Fucking awesome thrash! These guys were from L.A. and underrated. Guitarist Juan Garcia is alone true as he's been in so many good bands like Abattoir and Agent Steel and is still always playing around. The band is dressed like a fucking metal band, with the exception of the neon colored red hot chili peppers shirt. But that is ok. Then there is starving children, all kinds of creatures being brutally murdered, AIDS, and all kinds of horrible stuff. Then at the end there's some politicians. Those bastards! Look what they've done! True!



Winds of Plague "The Impaler"
This is probably a little more wigger than Emmure, it looks like a rap video basically. The music is a little better though, as once in a while the guitars are doing some not-chugging. Then it shifts from being in the club to being on a field of skulls, which is a clear improvement. Unfortunately then they decide to break it down for reals at this time, and that is a clear not-improvement. Pretty false I'd say.

The verdicts
For truest I would have to give it to Evildead, just for having probably the coolest song on here. Riffs and headbanging will always prevail.

For lamest it would be a split tie between Emmure, for trying so very hard to look tough, or Hollywood Undead, who rap about myspace and other such things.

***

Closing thoughts from Sergeant D
It's too bad they don't like any new bands like A Day to Remember, but the fact that they even know who fucking Bitter End are makes them OK in my book! And if they are into Dumt then I will erect a shrine in their honor.

Suicide Silence: Total fuckfaces, no way around it

Rule number 1: Unless you're an asshole, never trust a hipster's musical opinions. They hate fun and only love Volkswagens, beards, and Hydra Head bands. But I'll admit, even I sometimes forget that they're full of shit. For example, until recently I never gave Suicide Silence a fair chance; I wrote them off like every other deathcore band that's hated by the press and loved by kids because 99% of deathcore is fucking garbage. But after learning that the also-hated deathcore kingpins Winds of Plague were actually a sweet band as well as awesome dudez, I pirated the last few Suicide Silence records and gave them a listen. It turns out they are a really fucking good band. I am also confident that if they were from Philly and had beards, all the Converge and Relapse turds would sweat their balls like they were the second coming of Mastodon.

To atone for my mistakes, I figured we should interview them. I'll admit, I was kind of bummed that the dude didn't seem to think the interview was very funny, but maybe he was just trying to be funny in his own way. I told them to try to make their answers over the top so it would be more entertaining for our old, bitter readers, but he really just came off as more stangry than anything else. He has special needs, though, so try to cut him some slack: he is from Riverside, which is more or less like being dipped in fetal alcohol syndrome immediately after birth, so you can't expect him to be a comedian on top of being the face of deathcore.

Honestly, this shit is fucking brutal. I wanted to hate this band but after listening to them I just can't, they're hella mass tight.

You have a new album entitled "No Time To Bleed," which is excellent and even better than your last one in terms of both songwriting and production. In spite of that, it seems like your band is pretty polarizing and you have a lot of haters. Why do people hate on Suicide Silence as much as they do? If you could direct their anger toward another band, who would it be? Please be specific and name names- you don't have to worry, everybody who reads this site is an old, bitter hater and will only like you better for talking a little shit. You are in a safe place... just let it happen...
I think people hate on us because of our success. We still get shit like "you're a hype band" and what not but I really don't give a shit. I think it's all good as long as they know who we are and form an opinion about us whether it's negative or positive. So after saying that I would direct everyone's hate right back to us because at least they will know who we are. So Fuck it. Fuck your site and fuck all the haters who are reading this, do you hate us so much you are reading this interview? How's that for being specific.

Wow, limited to ONLY 10,000?! With that kind of DIY spirit, it's hard to argue with statements like this one: "Suicide Silence, an astonishingly well-developed five-piece from Riverside, CA, are a true product of that always thriving underground, a band single-mindedly focused on creating rabidly heavy and aggressive music."

There are few genres I dislike more than deathcore, mostly because it is full of generic, dull bands that bore me to tears and bring absolutely nothing new to the table. However, I like Suicide Silence a lot, even though you are deathcore poster children, representing the genre just like N*Sync represented boy bands in the 90s. Why do I like your band better than all the other deathcore bands?
Because Deathcore is a cluttered over saturated genre but to ask me why you like my band is pretty stupid. When we started doing this there was no such thing as Deathcore. I'll ask you the question that I am still curious about, "What the hell is Deathcore?" I really don't even know and quite frankly don't care but I know I am where I am playing music and seeing the world and meeting my idols.

The singer (left) looks a LOT like me in this picture and the one at the top of the page, kinda creepy! The rest of the guys look like they would change my oil on a Saturday morning while listening to Deftones via the local "hard rock" station on a boom box.

Along those same lines, it must be kind of awkward because I'm sure you have a lot of friends in similar-sounding bands, and when you talk to them, you both know that Suicide Silence is not only way more popular than their band, but also better. How do you deal with that? When you can tell one of your friends is jealous, bitter and/or butthurt because you are more successful than he is, how do you put him in his place without being a total fuckface?
Everyone just fucks around and talks shit and says things like "Shoulda wrote a better record." or "Maybe if you weren't on so and so records you'd be doing better?". Most of the time you have to be a total fuckface, no way around it. It's not like it isn't the truth it is just the way it is.

Jeff Foxworthy: "If you're in a deathcore band, and you sell mesh shorts... you just might be a wigger."

Deathcore and wiggers seem to go hand in hand. For example, I was at a Four Year Strong show last night and saw half a dozen kids in mesh basketball shorts and Winds of Plague basketball jerseys. Even though you are from Riverside, which is choked with wiggers, you don't seem to be too into that stuff (although you do sell mesh shorts and flat-brim hats). Why do wiggers like deathcore so much? Why don't you guys wear puffy vests like Johnny Plague?
Seriously? I don't really know how to answer that? We don't wear stuff like that because we aren't like that. Riverside used to be packed with boot wearing skin heads and punks? I used to wear trench coats and and push mosh? Why did I do that? I wanted to get peoples attention and/or piss people off. Thats probably why these kids look like wiggers? Somebody they idolize wears that shit too and they wanna have the attention their idols do.

Speaking of wiggers, I'm sure you are familiar with the moderately popular deathcore band Waking The Cadaver. In case you didn't know, the singer now sells Amway products on MySpace, so if you need shampoo, energy drinks, or meal bars, he can hook you up. How do you think women feel about buying cosmetics from the guy who wrote "Chased Through the Woods By A Rapist"? What do you guys do for spare cash when you're desperate?
I personally don't care, but if I need to make money I sell things that you can't buy in stores. If you know what I mean?

We didn't have hot scene girls at hardcore shows in the 90s, but kids these days don't have motherfucking EXCESSIVE FORCE! *cough* OK, I can't lie. We definitely got a raw deal- Dan Gump is hardly worth trading for Melissa Millionaire. I'll try to make myself feel better by counting how many backpacks and pairs of denim shorts are in this video.

You are from Southern California, which makes me think of all the awesome hardcore bands that I moshed my balls off to in the 90s: Adamantium, Excessive Force, Wrench, Throwdown, and especially 18 Visions. I tripped the fuck out the other day when I was at a gas station and they played Burn Halo, the new band featuring Jame Shart, the former singer of 18V. Did you ever see 18V? What did you think of their transition from JNCOs and dreads to Velvet Revolver-meets-Marilyn Manson? What do you think the future holds for Jame Shart and Burn Halo?
Yeah I've seen 18V i never was a big fan but I used to love Adamantium. I really thought 18V fell off hard in like 03-04 when James started looking like Scott Wieland? I really don't know what the future is for them or him? I think they will tour and try and get big in the main stream but even if they get any big success it won't last long. No one with even the slightest heavy side lasts in the main stream anymore it's a pathetic scene. Maybe if James' last name was Jonas there would be a chance.

In 2009, girls that look like this listen to Skinless, I Declare War and Suicide Silence. We were lucky to have The Great Kat. Why wasn't I born 15 years later? Fuck life.

I started going to shows in 1989. Back then, absolutely no hot girls went to shows or listened to hardcore, metal or whatever. Fortunately for you kids, it seems like there is no shortage of hot, crazy scene girls at shows these days- in fact, Suicide Silence seems especially popular with them. What would you do if you were transported to 1991 and your shows were suddenly full of nothing but outcasts and chronic masturbaters in XXXL Morbid Angel shirts, as was the case back then? What advice do you have for up-and-coming bands as far as chicks go?
If I was back then I'd be stoked because it'd be easier to spot the hot chick you want to party with after the show since there were hardly any. As far as advice for up-and-coming bands, I'd say be ready for a continuous dry spell in metal chicks because grunge is coming to ruin it for you. So take what you can get!

Perhaps the most compelling endorsement of their status as a legit metal band is the seemingly endless stream of subhumanly stupid white trash fans flocking to see them in this video

Please watch the following videos and give me your first impression in a few sentences:

• Nitro
  
• Mordred
  
• Disconformity
  
• Forever The Sickest Kids
  
• MOD
  

Which is your favorite and why??
I'd rather not waste my time watching any of that crap. It will just piss me off more.

Bro. There is this thing called a "gym"...

That's it for us. Thanks for your time, is there anything you would like to add?
This interview put me in a bad mood.

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