Hello, everybody, welcome to That's Not Metal. We are, despite the
name, a heavy metal podcast and we have got some quality for you today
because we are back with another album, Roulette, and for it we are
joined by mister James McBain from Hell Ripper. James, Welcome on board.
It's awesome to have you here. Hello, and thank you very much for
having me guys. I appreciate it. Man. We we've spoken before because
we did an interview piece for not Fest, but we've got you here today
because your new record, Warlocks, Grim and Withered Hags, went down absolute
treat with our listeners when we reviewed it on the show. I've seen a
lot of people saying that from these you know, kind of early months of
the year, it has been one of the absolute stand doubts that they've been
going back to and it pleases me to no ends seeing like, you know,
a one man black metal project from Scotland doing the business like that,
you know, like a couple of months after it's release. How has it
been for you? Yeah, it's been crazy. I mean yeah, I'm
very glad that people seem to to like the album in general, and you
guys covered it as well, which there were some kind words there with the
Greenland's comparison. I absolutely love that. But yeah, it's been Yeah,
it's been crazy. It's the album got a lot more like exposure and praise
and all that than than what I kind of expected. So yeah, it's
good to see and it's yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, I mean
it's a record I'm particularly excited to have you like on the show to do
this for as well, because there might be a kind of typical view out
there that people have of like you know, black thrash, black speed metal,
that might not involve it being the most kind of eclectic or you know,
adventurous chorus music. What's grimming with it, Hags is a record that
opens up all sorts of doors or things for us to talk about. And
with that in mind, the album Roulette. If you are here and new,
if you just come over from the hell RiPP a page or something,
thank you for joining us. What we do here is we have got a
selection of albums that have been provided for us by James. Here. We
are going to run through them how they have affected you, and generally have
a lovely chat about some great records for an evening. James, when I
asked you for an album selection. You came back fairly quickly with them,
which which leads me to believe that these are real favorites that you always have
fairly close to hand. Like where did your mind go in terms of selecting
these, Like was it fairly painless or did it require a lot of deliberation?
Yeah, what do get kind of somewhat of a mix. You know,
I didn't want to go for like six black thrash albums, you know
that you would expect or or whatever. So I thought, I've got a
few favorites, you know, a few that, yeah, like you say,
they're close to my heart that kind of got me into this music or
really had an impact on how I write music or how I listen to music
or whatever. So yeah, it was kind of yeah, there was maybe
a list of about ten or something and a kind of yeah, narrowed it
down from there to what to what I think is a somewhat mixed Yeah,
but I guess I guess the one thing that we don't have is something on
the kind of more like long form, expansive form of black metal that I
know you're into. But you know, the new record is taking a few
pointers from that, But otherwise we are covering a lot of bases, Sam,
Hello, a bunch of albums here in the walls of heavy metal and
beyond. Some you'll be very familiar with. Some we've spoken about elsewhere pretty
recently. Last time we did one of these with the guest was when we
had Canny promotions of slumber On and she brought on like a bunch of country
records and stuff. So it was it nice to get like a bit more
grim. Yeah, I'd like to say that there's sort of most of the
bands who I was at least familiar with. There's only one of them,
which was kind of like a new like a completely new kind of experience for
me to listen to. But otherwise I was like, oh, yeah,
this is quite familiar territory, some of which I'm very fond of, some
of which is kind of like oh yeah, okay, let's go back and
get bands are used to like maybe more than I do now, perhaps,
But just going through these records as like say a good time, Yeah,
there are places where we are going to move, you know, far out
of that terrain. This is not just an episode further speed metal heads,
as James says, but I think it is good James, that your first
pick is kind of the one that sits closest to the foundation of what you
do. And we can broaden from their Toxic Holocaust and Evil Never Dies from
two thousand and three now kind of in the realms of like black Thrash.
There's a few options for you know, obviously you can go the foundations of
it with you know, Venom, Bathory, Mothehead, even today there's Midnight,
but you've gone for Toxic Holocaust. Why is this your like, you
know, first album to reach for in the kind of walls of the subsector
of metal that you largely play in. Yes, so this album, I
mean, as well as the sound of it, it was an album that
was released I mean just shortly before I got into it, or you know,
a few years before I got into it all. So it was a
fairly recent album that was kind of kicking about you know, the internet,
and people were still talking about it and as well as their later releases.
At the time I got into the band, probably around an overdose of Death.
So yeah, yeah, a few years later, but yeah, people
were still speaking about this one, you know, in the underground and online.
You would see it recommended places. But yeah, this is the album
that kind of that really inspired me to start hell Rupper. Most of all,
I'd always liked thrash metal, you know, it was the it's my
still my favorite kind of music and a lot of my favorites. When I
got into to thrash was your more I guess, technical kind of stuff,
you know, even I mean Metallica's fairly technical, megadeath, technical annihilator artillery.
The newer bands, you know, kind of contemporaries to like Toxic Holocausts,
like Warbringer, Havoc a bit more technical, a bit more complex,
And that was all the so I thought, like, you know, to
be a thrash band, you've got to be an amazing lead guitar player.
You've got to be extremely extremely good at your instrument, and you know,
you've got to be kind of perfect and very proficient. And once I heard
like Toxic Holocausts, it was very stripped down, very raw. There's hardly
any guitar solos on the album. All the songs. All the songs are
like two minutes long, like on average or something like that. And I
found out that it was Joe grind recorded it on his own doing all the
instruments, and I'm pretty sure we recorded like the drums like in someone's house,
like his friend's bedroom or something, if I'm if I'm not mistaken,
So that kind of you know, I'd always want to start bands. I'd
always jammed with friends and what wanted to start metal bands, and you could
we could never find a drummer, we can never find a singer, or
the same problems that everyone has. And over the years we kind of gradually
the kind of ambition kind of decreased, you know, we were just getting
nowhere. And when I found out, yeah, this this band that I
really like, this album that I really like, it's done by one guy
doing everything like on his own, that just kind of kick started the idea,
like, let's let's see what I can do. It's possible because at
the time, yeah, they were signed to Relapse Records as well, not
with this album, but when I got into them, like and they were
like they were a big touring band, you know, so I was like,
Wow, this guy's on his own doing all this on his own,
he's signed to a big label, he's putting out albums. Yeah, So
that just kind of got the idea and I thought, yeah, let's see
how I can do it. Yeah, I guess is that why like Evil
Never Dies in particular, because like I wondered whether you might pick something like
over Death of Death, for example, which has like new the Cross on
it, which is like the contribution to kind of the great the big bangers
of this type of music. Yeah, you know, I remember listening to
the one of the Cobra on it back when that came out. But the
fact that Evil Never Dies is kind of the most primitive one. Is that
what kind of makes it the most inspiring in a way. Yeah, I
think so, especially in terms of just I know, for an Overdose of
Death and in things he Joe Grind there was a session drummer involved, I
think it was the guy from Zeke and it was recording in a proper studio
and things still an amazing album. Nuke Lacrosse, like you say, one
of the like the metal punk kind of anthems. I guess, like one
of my one of my favorite songs. But yeah, just the fact that
this was done like completely DIY basically, and also I found out later on
that it was released on a simile the kind of would you call it sister
label to the label that released my first album, which is brew Us kind
of closely related to Barbarian Wrath, which released Coagulating Darkness, which was cool
a cool link there. But yeah, this album is just yeah, and
again it's more thrash as well actually than Overdose of Death. I think that
kind of leans more in the metal punk side. Same with Hell on Earth
the Neck, the album after this one, but this is kind of Toxic
Colocaust. That the most black thrash. There's still metal punk, but it's
you know, it's more early eighties German kind of thrash you can hear in
there, which also appealed to me as well, you know, being on
the more thrash side of things. Yeah, definitely like the way you Wore
as Hell, you have that like punch the air beginning to it in terms
of stuff that exists in that, you know, that sort of bleeding out
pointween black metal, thrash, metals, be mel whatever. That could pretty
much be like a power trip riff written like fifteen years later or something Sam
did that make it for you kind of pretty accessible about too much fuss,
Oh, I found this immediately accessible. This is, like I said,
the one I've never listened to Toxic Colic. I was like, I've heard
the name as long as when I was I just sally get around at some
point, but I'd never got around to it. So sticking this one and
going, oh, it is literally just thirty minutes of pure like speed and
black and frash, but with that kind of like that slight touch of you
like this is more on the black metal frash, I thinks, but there's
that touch of punk and hardcore and it just kind of like letting rip,
and just I found it so immediately, kind of like I can rub onto
this because when you're sharing Warriors fucking hell, and like the opening song and
like over like a sort of frashy two step riff, a bunch of like
fun sort of change ups where it kind of like changes pace and tempo,
and it just was like, yeah, this is so what I just wanted
to, just sort of gnarly frash metal. Yeah, Like when they came
through in the kind of two thousands, they were alongside like you were saying,
James, I kind of big boom of like neo thrash bands. When
you know, like the next couple of records after this have like the ed
rep curb cover art and stuff. Yeah, you mentioned a Warbringer. You're
going on tob of Warbringer at the end of this week, so kind of
just that as sort of a movement of you know, there's kind of new
thrash bands coming through. Was that like a generally exciting, you know,
thing for you to kind of be caught up in, because I feel the
time, Yeah, so I got into metal, like I said, like
right around the time that was happening probably what I don't know the when I
exactly got into metal, but yeah, between two thousand and eight, two
and ten, um you had, yeah, Warbringer, Toxic Holocaust, Gamma
Ball, municipal waste, evil fueled by Fire, all this kind of stuff
that I would discover via like the YouTube recommendations, because yeah, that's how
I got into basically everything I was into. Like you would start off on
like Megadeath and you would find out, oh, there's evil at the side,
okay, click there, and just then you would just go down like
the rabbit hole listening to all this obscure thrash and a new thrash that was
coming out at the time, and it was Yeah, it was great,
like just discovering so much stuff and yeah, and obviously I gravitate towards the
fast stuff, so I feel, yeah, it was lucky that that movement
or whatever you would call it was happening right at the perfect time for me.
When I first came to Toxic Holocaust, again, I hadn't necessarily separated
the differences between like, you know, kind of yeah pizza and high top
thrash metal and then yeah, black speed whatever. Hadn't gone down the kind
of subgenre like subsectors to quite that degree. And I think one of the
first things I heard from Toxic Holocaust was the split with the Municipal Waste,
who I'm a big fan of Toxic Holocaust kind of sat in the head as
almost like the more necro version of something like municial Waste, Like the guitar
tone on this when it's like, you know, enemy of Diesel whatever it
could be writing in that kind of Ryan waste kind of school of punky thrash
energy. Yeah, yeah, And I think, yeah, the like you
see, like the kind of more necro version the thing that kind of separates
this um album as well from other Toxic albums, as the vocals, I
guess Hell on Earth as well a bit, but it's more kind of black
metal vocals, a lot of reverb, a lot of kind of yeah neck
row sounding, and then by the time they got to kind of Overdose of
Death, the vocals were more shouted punk m style, And yeah, I
love the the vocals on this album, like the screaming whatever you would call
it that, because it is like more neck on the vocals, but there's
still a sense of fun to it, which I don't know he's get from
a lot of black metal. There's kind of a playful like let's just go
fast and have funds or energy and some of those like Shalon versa when you've
just got some six to sixty six and you just shot that out as like
as your chorus. It's kind of got that just like gleeful, like let's
just be metal ass fucking and have fun with it while sounding like legitimately still
evil in the vocals. Yeah, like you can hear on Demi he's almost
doing that kind of like vocal carpet bombing thing, just like smashing out syllable
after syllable and like there's a kind of breakdown. He riff in Damn to
Fire and he does that vocal pattern over the top of like Christ laughed his
evil laugh, you're burn for your sins, and it just makes you pull
a face of like, yeah, that's what this music is kind of supposed
to be. And something I like about this particular corner of metal, which
I guess is something that you've maybe kind of grown, like pasted a little
bit on your new album Gone, maybe a little bit more high brow.
But there's like a really back to basics approach to imagery where you look at
like, you know, gore death metal or whatever, and band had gotten
his like insane arms race about who could make you know, the most repellent,
brutal death metal subject matter whatever, and then you look at like Midnight
or Topxic Holocaust or Aggressive Effector, and it's like there's an executioner with an
axe and he's gonna kill you. And instead of feeling like, you know,
quite an old hat whatever, there's something kind of timeless about that.
You're like, oh, what's the next song on the album six six six
brilliant? Yeah, yeah, yeah, like you said, Yeah's that's kind
of what appealed to me, like the back to basics and the songs great
because especially when I was younger, you know, writing music. Um,
Like I said, I was into all these technical bands, and I was
a big fan as well when I of like tech Death. I'm a massive
still a massive fan of like Obscura and stuff like that. So when I
would write songs, you know, I would try. I had it in
my mind you had to you had to have a million riffs in the song.
The riffs. If the riffs were simple, they weren't good. You
had to be like complicated to make it good and stuff. And then yeah,
sneering at that idea, Yeah, I mean, I don't mean talking
about that was I mean, yeah, complicated riffs are great, but that
was the I couldn't when I was first getting into like this, Like I
was not a great guitar player, you know, I would um, I
was. I was into punk, and yeah, I couldn't write these tech
Death riffs or whatever, or Nihilator Megadeath riffs, and so yeah, when
I heard you know, you can write thrash back to basics like six six
six and stuff or Demise Warfare, there's like what two or three riffs in
those songs, and they're like one minute long, one and a half minutes,
two minutes long and the songs were great, so I was like,
wow, this is you can do that like some If it's simple and catchy,
it's great. And yeah, I credit like this album and a lot
of the black thrash and metal punk kind of stuff for getting me out of
that mindset of trying to do six thousand riffs per song and six thousand notes
per riff and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it changed the
way I kind of thought about writing music, and yeah, improves my songwriting
as a result. I think, Yeah, that like back to basics imagery
thing, the way they just swap all the seas for keys in Atomic Destructure
just to make it like I always misspell their name, even though I actually
spelled it the right way. I just instinctively assume that the toxic must have
a K in there and it doesn't. And you know, you're merch and
everything. It's always just goats. Why goats are still cool? And I
guess like as charmingly kind of bullish a record as this is, though,
Like you're saying, Joel grind like he's really active today on the production front,
like he's always doing mastering for people and stuff like that, and I
don't know. It's weird how something like you know, black thrash whatever,
you could probably imagine it to be a very heavily kind of band oriented form
of music, but it has something that you know, has created a lot
of these really driven kind of one man operations where you know, Joel grind
Athanarf for Midnight yourself. I suppose that even you go back to the earliest
days A kworthorne On, you know, the kind of early Bathory records.
Why do you think this style of music has kind of produced so many of
these sort of individualistic silo projects, do you get? I guess, yeah,
I've actually got a new idea. My main reason for doing it was
just because they didn't know any one else that was into this kind of music.
I guess it's the same as Yeah, I don't know. So see,
you know, you can say black metal, it's kind of you can
view it as like a like a a solitary thing, like you know,
you want to be on your own do it? Yeah, but yeah,
like you said, the black thrash, it's kind of party. It's yeah,
it's it's it feels like a very social sounding music. You can't jumple
Toe's head on your own. So yeah, I don't know. Maybe it
is simply because of bands like Bathory or later on like Toxic Holocaust doing it
on their own and people into that music just get inspired by that. I
mean, that's how it started with me, Like I said, just I
saw this guy does it on his own, I'll try it. Maybe if
it maybe if it was if it was death metal or whatever, I would
have done that, you know, like been inspired to do that more or
whatever. But yeah, like I said, just because I didn't know anyone,
maybe that's it with a lot of these people. Like it's a kind
of music where you've got to be very dedicated to the cause, Like no
one around you is quite as feverishly into like sodom, you are going to
do it all yourself. And I suppose, yeah, that's say real DIY
mentality with it, and so that's why these products still picking up and then
gathered steam and get people in following on from that basically once the sort of
like ideas are there. Yeah, I suppose one of the things that you've
got to give Joel grind credit for is like debut album out in two thousand
and three. He started this project in nineteen ninety nine. Nowadays, this
music is like, you know, it's fairly cool and there's a dedicated audience
for it and everything. But in nineteen ninety nine, I don't know how
much of a market there is for a record like Evil Never Dies, Like
that's that's peak new metal years. And you've got your Scandinavian bands like you
know, or in Noir and Nippelheim are doing kind of more old school stuff
like this, but they're always part of their own little community over there for
America, and he's like pretty out on a limb here. Even in two
thousand and three as well, the album actually comes out like it's it's your
new wave of American heavy metal and kind of like metal core bands breaking through
at that point. Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah. And
again going back to what you were saying, like the production, that might
also be a factor why people do it on their own, because it's a
it's a style of music that you don't need to be precise with production,
it doesn't need to sound the greatest and things like that, you know,
going along with the back to basics kind of thing. If you want to
do a solo again, I'll just use tech Death as an example. You
know, it's usually it's a very clean sounding, very precise, very perfect,
very you know whatever sounding, whereas yeah, you can get away with
kind of just like on like my first DP, for example, I had
no idea what I was doing. I didn't know what mastering was, and
so the first DP isn't mastered because I didn't know what it meant. Just
something as simple as that. But yeah, I think, yeah, Joel
Grind and Toxic Holocaust did were one of the first bands that kind of kickstarted
the the a new wave of black thrash, metal punk or whatever, I
guess, along with kind of Dark Throne when they came out with Cults Alive
and yeah, the then the three following ones, Circle the Wagons and and
all that, and then yeah, there was kind of a a lot of
bands that I'm into came out with stuff like kind of again, Yeah,
just around the time I was getting into metal, or late two thousands,
early twenty tens, you know, you had Cruel Force and stuff like that,
bands out of Germany. Um, But yeah, a lot of bands
have started the black thirst thing since, yeah, myself included, and yeah,
I love it. It's my favorite style of music, So the more
bands, the merrier. In my what's what's your tune? If you see
in Toxic Holocaust Live and they dropped one of these, like what pushes your
buttons the hardest, it's six to six, it would be me as well,
Yeah, sixty six. It's just it's simple, it's catchy, it's
it's just it's just so metal, just so yeah, just over the top,
like and again it's Yeah, if you listen to my first EP,
there's a lot of this album influencing it. You can hear it, like
on the song flesh Ripper, it's kind of taking a queue from six to
six as well, where there's like a little bass solo part, like based
solo drum part where the everything else drops out. That's basically taken straight from
that. Yeah, talksic Colocass all of their stuff, I mean six to
six, and then going forward, you've got songs like Bitch, Nucleacrosse,
whatever, just so much good stuff. Yeah, your second pick, But
yeah, I guess we're moving slightly backwards on the timeline that you sort of
light out there and tais when you're getting in stuff because we are going from
you know, modern black thrash back to some of the absolute core tenets of
thrash metal Megadeth pecells. But who's buying This made me laugh because we were
mucking about the other day changing other band's albums to be Megadeth by adding the
appropriate punctuation of ellipsis and exclamation marks, which I suppose for you would be
Warlocks, grim and withered Hags. But when we are looking at thrash metal
and the kind of thrash metal giants I know you said about, you know
you kind of in your early days, you didn't really know how to go
about making music that was that was technical, and you were inspired by the
more kind of primitive, you know, approach of Toxic Holocaust. But in
the new hell Ripper album, you know, some of the more kind of
elaborate arrangements with these like eight minute songs, they made me think about,
you know, classic eighties metallica, anything brutal there is obviously slyer, But
it doesn't surprise me that you picked Megadeth because technicality and dexterousness. I guess
what I hear in hell Ripper today over a lot of other band in a
similar aim to you, is that kind of manic fingers running all over the
fretboard style riffing. So of course a record like this is one of your
favorites. Yeah, yeah, like you said there, it was. I
mean in the beginning, I was inspired by the more extreme technical stuff.
I just couldn't play it. And then and then when I heard the Toxic
Holocaust in the back to basic stuff, I was influenced by that because I
mean, first of all, it's great, but then yeah, it was
it was in within my capabilities as a as a musician. And then over
the years, yeah, I think I've improved guitar playing and now I'm able
to kind of write riffs that I would have loved to have written ten fifteen
years ago or whatever. And yeah, I love I love those kind of
riffs, you know, just the fingers going everywhere. I mean, especially
the first Megadeth album actually as well, like where it's a bit kind of
chaotic, but um, yeah, just what I've got, You've got like
good Morning Black Friday, like yeah, just solos everywhere, left hand just
going everywhere. Yeah, it's it's just speed metal for me. It's just
yeah, it's proper speed. Yeah. I'm really glad he picked an eighties
Megaaneth album as well, instead of Rusting Peace, because you know, we
all know that Rusted Peace is like one of the greatest Matter records ever.
But man, Megae in the eighties, well one of the most like coked
up, angriest bands there has ever been. Yeah. Yeah, man,
it's just so aggressive, just so yeah, you can just hear it's just
pissed off, just in the in the in the sound, in the vocals.
The voice is just so angry. Yeah, it's a way to cover
for that. You've got a vocalist who cannot hold a note savings life,
just make him sound like the angriest man around and just have him snarl and
like generally sound like he wants to fight you at every second. Yeah,
that's what he's got to do. I mean, Sam, I know that
you are one of the many who have a slightly ropey relationship with Megadeth,
whether it be Dave vocally or you know, personally whatever, but it's Dave
Mustange in general. Yeah. Pieces, you've got to admit it's one of
those pretty fucking classic records, right it is. I kind of forgot that
I do genuinely quite like this record. Again, when I was going back
to it, so I was like, it is just so like full of
venom, and I was kind of like, oh yeah when they were just
genuinely furious and kind of just doing that real out there ship with the guitars
and like Joe like say, like i'd say, riffs going all over the
place and really unconvincible song strucks that they were actually like really interesting and mental
at this point in time. Like yeah, I mean there's something about these
eighties Megaaneth records like Rest and Peace is the funny one because they kind of
peeked slightly after everyone else and got the kind of most like state of the
art sound there, but that like mean nasty feel that old Megadeth had like
killing us my business is all like you know, like you said, kind
of amphetamine fueled. We've got a hit faster the metallic or I'm going to
murder someone. So far, so good. So what is like super Punky
Piecells was like a really cruel, caustic kind of atmosphere, I mean,
like the conjuring and bad ohen and not far off what you do in terms
of like dark occultism. Yeah, exactly, yeah, I would say so,
I think, Yeah, piece sales kind of for me falls somewhere like
yeah, like right in the middle of the sound. It bridges the kind
of extreme speed metal chaos of Killed as My Business and the kind of more
precise thrash technical whatever of Rust and Peace, and it just, yeah,
it just fits perfectly right in there. It gets the balance of both both
those great albums. It takes like the best elements of both, and yeah,
it's just it's just such a good album. And yeah, the guitar
playing crazy, the trade offs and the solos, yeah, yeah, I
mean, I really like when some of these kind of classic thrash bands where
we were to really color their stuff with that kind of horror mind's eye storytelling.
Like there's that tapping lead at the start of Devil's Eyeland, which is
a really like dark, ultro fiber kind of song, and it makes me
think of like Alison Hell and those other kind of like a plut examples of
bands doing that. And I always thought this album had a brilliant kind of
horror feeling to it compared to other megaf because obviously the political thing is there,
like you know, the album cover is iconic, but this album is
so oppressive that it kind of doubles up as something else where you mentioned Good
Morning, Black Friday. That beginning part always makes me think of like watching
like eighty Stephen King movies or something like it's so subtle and creepy, and
then the rest of the song takes over and easy embodying this like mass Murderer,
and it's as violent as any Sire song. That's like their contribution to
that kind of pleasure to kill, you know, Cannon and he's literally talking
about hammer smashed faces in it. Yeah, this just derange, you know,
hacken slash thrash metal zone. Yeah, and the song structures as well,
I mean yeah, just speaking about Black Friday, it's there's almost like
no kind of like repeating parts, you know, it's kind of like ABCD,
like it just kind of goes on like one part ends, then another
cool riff comes in, ends, then another cool riff comes in and a
lot of a cool thing, which he does in a lot of songs.
It's like the end by just like screaming the song title, like it will
be like a part where he just kind of please please a riff please whatever
part an outrou and it just repeats the Black Friday as a game we're killing
is my business? Keep going back to the previous album as well, stuff
like that. Yeah, I mean, I just love that genuinely demented feel
that this has. Like you can't replicate it just by being heavier or whatever.
You've got to be a little bit fucked in the head to come out
with something like Black Friday, and like the guitar to and us this is
I mean, you talk about, you know, vocally is handing angry.
The fucking guitars sound angry somehow. Like that midpace riff that comes in about
three minutes of the Conjuring is like just an absolute jack hammer. And talking
about the the structuring like wake Up Dead. Yeah, it's the second most
popular song on this album, and there is no opener and it's yeah,
there's there's no verse chorus format to it or anything. It's just like this
weird stream of consciousness of kind of riffing and tempo shifts, and yet they're
also brilliant and so catchy that you'd think it had to be you know,
laid out in such a perfect way. Yeah, And I get in the
opening to the album, it's if you want to like compare it to like,
yeah, metallic ats the complete opposite metallic. At this point, we're
doing opening like with battery or fight fire with fire, like acoustic, big
big build up openings. Wake Up Dead literally just starts with the base,
the base and drums like in two seconds in and you're into the the verse.
It's just it's straight into it. And then of course, yeah,
you've got the amazing what do you call the breakdown bridge riff, which is
one of the best thrash riffs I think in my opinion, the um yeah,
the bridge riff to that, yeah, wake Up Dead was one what
I was just like, really again just forget how this album opens, but
just you don't have any build up and again no hooks, nothing like that.
He's just full on like this on sort of weird jagged riffs coming at
you from a different sides again mussing kind of just like rambling bit in a
way that sounds unhinging, a little bit unsettling. Its building to the shouting
the song title at the end, basically over that final riff. And again,
obviously like Pecells is the biggest version of them doing on this record.
But I could have was that that does really kind of get your blood pumping
and kind of get the record off to a really cool start. Yeah,
I mean that opening riff on wake Up Dead it almost like drunkenly stumbles in
like the narrator of the song, and you say, you know, there's
not like a big hook or anything. Secretly, everything Dave Mustaine is doing
is a hook because all over that you know, they said izet with the
boy, like you know who that kind of character is, and yeah,
he's like absolutely not the conventional idea of a good singer, but I think
he uses that to his advantage on this where wake Up Dead becomes this weird,
like bizarre character kind of play and the music matches it. And you
know, within like you said, within twenty five seconds of that song starting,
you've got the first guitar solo on the album, and that feels as
part of the same, you know, bizarre storytelling. As as the vocals.
It really is like a Zarre little world unto itself. How are you
James on that kind of like strange sequence of covers that they had on those
early records, because I ain't superstitious here as a kerbl Yeah, it's it's
probably the letdown for me. It's the worst part of the record for sure.
I still kind of like it. But yeah, yeah, I mean,
yeah, it's not bad, it's just yeah, I can't remember the
last time I listened to it. I don't really yeah, I don't really
listen. I just skipped that one. Every other every other song will be
it's better than covers on the recent records. Yeah, it's true that they
do. On the last one was the Police try paper staying singing the lyrics,
But yeah, I mean, I mean the song fits that. I'm
superstitious it fits kind of probably fits more of the first album to be fair,
with the kind of what would you call it, like bouncy, yeah,
rhythm, It kind of probably fits more on like Killing is My Business.
It's a bit less um. Yeah, I mean it's yeah, like
you said, it's not bad, it's just yeah. I think the rest
of the albums it's called like a ten out of ten from me and then
that that's just kind of the one downside. Yeah, I think like for
me, it kind of fits the I do what was saying about White,
it would fit more Akilling is My Business. But for me, again,
these early records, they kind of have a weird, bizarre personality to them
that it is different than the later ones, and like I think, yeah,
these boots on to them my business probably the best one Anniky in the
UK famously not that great. Um this one I kind of have fun with
it. Yeah, I think it's it's a fun cover. It kind of
sticks out against the sort of the darkness or the rest of the album.
But I did if almost adds to the kind of like unhinged personality where it
kind of like you get this sudden shifting personality on this cover that is way
more flashy and showy but without the menace, but almost kind of makes it
unsettling in a different way. And that how it just kind of snaps on
a dime. Basically, it's kind of manic, like I think a lot
of early Mega Deeth was, And you know when the main reffin bad omen
kicks in and it's just like completely out there, like swinging kind of groove
with like the bass and drums popping everywhere. No one else could do that
at this point in time. Like that makes me think about like Atheist and
those kind of like early jazz like death metal bands you get in the nighties
and stuff, and the funny thing about Meganeth is they have a couple of
different classic lineups I suppose, and the one that everyone can name is you
know, the Rest and Peace one with Matty Freeman and Nick Menza. But
the Chris Poland and Gar Samuelson axis on this is yeah, serious going like
Gar Samuson, particularly to me as a drummer, but like this early incarnation
of Megadeth in general is serious business. Yeah, it's so good and yeah
it's yeah, if you listen to like the isolated drum trucks and stuff of
Gara's drumming on this album, Yeah, it's so good. It's just yeah,
it's just perfect. It's kind of reminds me of the you know,
it's not like the rhythm section. It's not like kind of perfectly in time
and you know, it's loose and it's got a groove and yeah, kind
of remin Yeah, I guess kind of reminds me of like a a more
fucked up Black Sabbath, you know, with the rhythm section being really locked
in and in a groove, but not not like not like a machine.
It's just yeah that on these records, like the Gar records, more than
the you know, the Mensa era. Yeah, but yeah, it's I
mean yeah, and speaking about the yeah, I mean, of course the
base on Peace cells. It's just an iconic thing, like speaking about that
and probably recognizable baseline and metal like it's infuriatingly catchy, isn't it. Yeah,
maybe that or for whom the bell tolls maybe yeah, yeah, that's
that's a fair competition, but maybe it's certainly it's in the conversation. Yeah,
yeah, it's yeah, it's so good and yeah going but yeah that
song ends with the screaming of the song title again in the in the outro
the peace sells part. But yeah, yeah, just like yeah, so
much. Just a great album and it was yet the album that got me
into metal. Um really yeah, that and and just As for All.
I heard them probably a YouTube or something. I heard a couple of songs.
I heard good Morning, Black Friday and probably Peace sales and I heard
Blackened and and just As for All, And yeah, from there, I
just like that metal just clicked for me. And the next day I went
out bought both albums on CD and got into metal from there on in just
started exploring Meg Death Metallica related bands, and yeah, like I said,
like just went on the related videos on YouTube and and all that, and
where do you buying this on CD? Because you're kind of the same age
as maybe did you have that kind of Everyone always complains about the two thousand
and four like remaster versions, but I feel like for us, there were
the versions that we had. Yeah yeah, yeah, the one with like
the Randy Burns mix or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was
the Yeah. I had no idea, you know, I wasn't since I
was just getting into metal. I had no idea, Like you know,
there's like eras of bands and things like that. I didn't know, you
know. I thought it was just like this, just the same band throughout.
So very shortly after this, I found what do you call it,
Cryptic Writings pre owned in the my local record store, and I it was
like two pounds or something, and I bought that, you know, expecting
kind of Yeah, piece sells like extreme thrash, and then it's it's more
of a commercial kind of yeah whatever, kind of Yeah, at least it
wasn't rest. You got trust and Cryptic Writings is problem my second favorite Magdeth
album. Yeah, maybe it's because I got into its second, but yeah,
I think it's Yeah, I think that's a great one, just very
catchy, very great commercial metal. Yeah, I mean I thought they're going
back to this. You know, Pecel was a middle of this kind of
tech thrash mayhem. They do have like the ability to craft just like an
absolute hit. And in terms of yeah, you know Peter songwriting craft,
that is a serious show of intent from this band. And you know,
again they must in on that no other singer would make that song as like
venomous and brash as it is all about. You know, what do you
mean I could have been that president? Yeah, those verses is that,
like the verse are so cartoonists that you've got to really like seethe to sell
those as like something genuine and you know, like his vocal tone or not.
Dave must Day was charged with hate at this time, but this record
like carries itself with the demeanor of someone who means it absolutely Yeah, and
then like you said, that kind of speed up in the last bit of
it. Um the one for that For me on this one of my absolute
all time favorite Meganes songs. I wish they unearthed my last Words, which
goes from one of those like really eerie intros like Black Friday too, just
absolutely exhilarating speed metal toward a force, like the last minute and a half
of that one when they do that that trick again. But for me,
that's the best one. It's unreal. Yeah, yeah, my last Words,
it's basically yeah, it's basically he ripperf like, yeah, it's just
such a yeah, it's just a black a black thrash or if you just
if you put it in that context, gets so good. Um yeah,
and again you're coming out of the the that ominous acoustic or a clean guitar
and truthing. Yeah, an amazing enter the album, like such a good
end. So it's my second favorite song on the record, is my last
Words, because it's just it's really just rollicking and just like you get that
kind of slow burn intro before, it just takes off those riffs and that's
like that's something again where they really swim you over the most where they're just
like lays drifting. You've got this engine kind of roaring in the band and
Mustaine like doing what he does but without like detracting from it, and I
think that's just the truth. They just use really well. This record is
employing Mustange effectively, but on that sort of thing, they just they nail
all those aspects now outside of outside of the title track, it's the one
on this record that kind of like, oh yeah, maybe maybe megaev are
better than you can only pretend classic MegaNet isn't good for so you know,
yeah, I can only hold up my like just like a Mustange and modern
Megade and pretend these these early records aren't fucking great. Yeah, there's a
lot on this record considering it's they're probably there like second most celebrated one overall
that like hasn't got much of a looking over the years. Like I know,
they brought the Conjuring back not long ago after dating years of Dave refused
to play it because it was satanic. But like Devil's Island is like really
catchy and kind of punky. Black Friday is like horrifying. It's a lot
of good stuff on here. Yeah, so good. Yeah, in Devil's
Island, Yet it's about one of my favorite films of all time as well
Pappy on Right, which is also a bonus. Just thought i'd throw that
in there. Yeah, are you a big rattlehead fan, James, Like
I mean you've got a bit of a mascot and the album does look like
amazing this one. Yeah, yeah, what do you mean, am I
a fan of like just the Yeah, I guess, you know, the
mascot and the different sort of you know, cover they've done with him over
the years, like yeah, he's cool with Jim Kids rubbish. Yeah,
no, I love it. I love it when Yeah, they've got the
different versions of them as well. You know, you've got this one where
he's wearing like a I think he's wearing like a suit and tat like yeah,
he's like a yeah like that. And then you've got him um yeah,
going from the going from the first album to this album, the original
cover of the first one, yeah, yeah, and then yeah you've got
on as the the what was he in the so far so good? It's
like a m what's the cover for that one? Again? It's kind of
wit. He's he's holding like a gun, like a flying has a gun.
Yeah, yeah, I can't remember it. Yeah. Then of course
rust in Peace and yeah it's cool, Like I like it when bands like
that, Yeah, like Overkill and Iron Maiden. You know, every album
it's got like the theme of the of the mascot, but just in a
different context, presented a different way. And yeah, it's something I like
to do with hell Ripper. I mean, we don't have a specific kind
of mascot. It's just kind of the goat in general. Um, but
yeah, there's a lot you can do with that. Yeah, yeah,
I like it. I think it's cool. Okay. Our next album is
our first pivot away hard pivot from from where we've been. You've been all
been enjoying the nice thrash metal, tough James. Part of wanting to do
this roulette with you was knowing that you were going to pick some you know,
some cool fast metal stuff because that's what you play. But also you
are quite open about, you know, some of the major reference points and
like inspirations for you have very little to do with that kind of music,
and I was that was surprised that we didn't get you know, it's like
Oasis or the Manic Street Preachers from like as well from what I've seen you
talking about. Yeah, yeah, I love them. Yeah, especially Yeah,
these past year or two especially, I've been listened to so much of
that. And they went to see Liam Gala go Live at neb Worth last
summer. It probably about this time last year or something. Um, yeah,
yeah, I'm into all all sorts of stuff and it's good too,
and it's fun to try and incorporate that into hell Ripper, which I don't.
I've always tried a little bit to do that, but I think yeah,
with the last album, I think I managed a bit more to incorporate
that influence a bit better than before. Well, your next pick is none
other than the Red Hot Chili Peppers and seminal ninety ninety one record Blood Sugar
Sex Magic. Now correct me if I'm wrong here. I can't remember where
I saw this, but other Red Hot Chili Peppers your favorite band, the
R and D's. Yeah, so take that, everybody, the goat vomit
nightmare guy. Here we are, James. I'll me to put some cars
on the table here. In recent years, on the strength of recent material,
by which we really mean most of the twenty first century, we have
not been a very pro Red Hot Chili Peppers podcast. We do an award
show every year where we crown the best and worst stuff, and last year
when they put out those like two seventy five minute records completely independently with no
discussion. Four out of four people we had on the award show Chili Peppers
as the worst band of the year. Red Hot Chili Peppers. Truth,
who exists in the walls of you know, extreme metal? Ah, you're
used to I guess you know, people looking down their noses a bit on
the Red Old Chili Peppers. Absolutely, yeah, no one, Yeah,
I don't really know anyone else that kind of um yeah shares the shares my
love for the band. But yeah, going back, the album is very
metal. There's a key in the magic of this title, so it's right.
Maybe it's basically beheemouth, it's basically a black thrash album. It's yeah,
but yeah, I'm used to kind of yeah. No one's yeah.
No one that I know really kind of likes the Chili Peppers as much as
I do. How are you on there? Like continued output to this day.
I liked the last two albums, not not every track, but there
was a few good ones on there. I'll listen to all of them.
The yeah, but my favorite stuff actually know the whole Yeah, by the
way, is Problem is my favorite album of all time. So so yeah,
I would have picked that here, but it's a little it's a little
less I'm quite glad you didn't different conversation. Yeah, it's a little less.
Um, it's had less of an effect on Hill Ripper. I guess
it's okay. It's more of a pop or whatever you yeah, pop commercial
whatever, sure. Whereas yeah blood Sugars, Yeah, proper like really groovy,
funky heavy heavy in parts. Um yeah yeah, Well, as you
say, we are doing Blood Sugar Sex Magic. And there are there are
two types of Red or Chili Peppers haters in the world. There are those
who take after that famous Nick Cave quote about the worst music playing on the
radio always being the Red or Chili Peppers, and there are those who think
they were a good band who fell off a cliff. I think mostly we
are at least the latter Sam Blood Sugar Sex Match from nine ninety one.
This is a Chili Peppers of another time where maybe some of that spark that
we feel is lacking it is there. Yeah, no that I do really
still like parts of this record. This is, you know, again the
continuing thing on my hate, my own hatred of albums over seventy minutes long.
Yeah you court some have a bad moment to listen to a se album
on a war path. There's just been a lot of them, and this
is let's I mean, this is where I'm like, no, but I
do know there is stuff I do really like on this record that is kind
of undeniable great rock songwriting. So I was kind of like, yeah,
you know, I'm like, of all the Dalku the pepper salags, you
pick, you picked the probably my second favorite of them. Yeah, okay,
so James blood Chucker sets Magic. You said it's not your favorite,
which I kind of assumed it would be when you picked him, but the
one that is the most relevant tell us about your kind of relationship with you
know, I guess you know where you're Red Hot Chili Peppers love sort of
began in general, but then specifically bringing us to this record and why you
picked it. Yeah. Again, probably maybe similar to like the Megadeath Metallica
stuff that Redel Chili Peppers were the first kind of band that I really got
into as a kid. I heard Yeah, I went by the Way came
out, so probably yeah, I say, probably around like two thousand and
three or something. I heard that and I heard the single by the Way,
and I really liked it, Like it like for some reason, it
just stuck with me and they became like my favorite band afterwards. Like just
so I was like what eight years old, seven or eight years old or
something, and I for some reason it just stuck with me, like at
that time, and I it was the first time I'd had like a favorite
band, you know. I listened to music as a kid, like I
always love music, but it would kind of just be like random songs or
whatever. You know, I'd like certain songs, but this was the first
time i'd like gotten into a band. And I remember, yeah, getting
by the Way and the Live at Slaying Castle dvd. M listening to that
and just yeah, just loving it. And I don't know, yeah,
just for some reason just clicked with me, and it's just became my favorite
music. Um and yeah over the years, yeah, you know, I
just just discovered more of their stuff. I went to the I was yeah,
like I said, I was a kid at the time, like seven
eight, so I didn't really use the internet. I didn't know that.
You know that again, different eras different um, different sounds, you know.
So the second album I bought was um, well, the second album
my parents bought for me was one Hot Minute, which was yeah, it
was the only beause I didn't I didn't know, and I was like,
I went to HMV or I think it was a Virgin at the time,
and um, yeah, I was like, oh, I can get a
Red Hut Chili Peppers album. And I didn't know which one to pick.
And I think, yeah, probably for some reason, the the cover art
or something probably stood out to me for some reason, I don't know,
and I got that one and I didn't like it at all. Remember now,
now again it's one of my favorites. I really listen. I absolutely
love it. It's so it's very like heavy metal, like very hard.
Yeah, it's a great album. But yeah, at the time, like
going from yeah, you know I love I love the song that by the
way, and yeah, probably like can't Stop the Zephyr song and all that
kind of stuff, you know, the commercially commercially and accessible ones, and
then go to then here in one Hot Minute where like You've got Warped or
Coffee Shop or something like that, where it's really aggressive and abrasive sounding,
and yeah, I didn't like it, and then yeah, kind of just
I kept I just went on from there like I had friends at the time
that we're into the band, and they kind of they knew a bit.
They were a bit older, so they knew a bit more about the band
and all that, and they were like, oh, you should listen to
you know this, this album, this has got under the bridge on it
and give it away of course. And yeah, I just got into all
the commercially kind of the commercial songs, like the kind of popular ones.
And then yeah, now all my favorite, all my least favorite songs are
probably the commercial ones. Like maybe it's because I've heard them too much or
maybe yeah, I don't know, but yeah, like this album's just packed
with amazing songs to me, just like good hard rock songs with amazing guitar,
especially the guitar that appealed to me a lot John Frushanton just yeah,
great guitar, and the backing vocals as well, like the harmonies. I
love the Beatles as well. When I was that was one of the first
bands I got into as well, The Beatles and maybe the harmonies of the
vocals kind of maybe something about that appeals to me. I don't know.
Yeah, I also have a kind of early association the record in the My
My, My drum teacher. I as a teenager almost I was like exercises
kind of taught me like a bunch of the beats from this record, because
they almost work as like warm ups and stuff. And still to this day,
if I sit behind a kit and I just need to like instinctively bring
something to mind to warm up, it might be like, okay, mellowship,
slinky and be in B major, I kind of get going immediately,
or like that stuttering high hat beat in the title track, like it's full
of little stuff that's like that that kind of catches the ear. And then
there's Breaking the Girl, which has almost like you know, a nebriate and
kind of rolling like tom beat in that song, and I think that's the
stuff where, you know, that's like an acoustic song, but it's not
a really you know, stiff, wet ballad or anything. It's got this
very textured, evocative, you know, it's got the kind of melotron flute
sounds, and I think, you know, the quieter songs in this kind
of era, they have that sort of, you know, that nineties alternative
kind of mood to them that kind of works with what was going on at
the time. But again, you look at that drum part from Chad Underneathan,
It's like, how did you come up with something like that for like
a song like this, and it's got this really topsy turvy drum beat,
Like there's there's a lot of invention in the Chili pep Is at this point
in time. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, And like again with
the there's quite a few quieter songs, and yeah, I think the best
one or one of the best quieter songs sold to Squeeze, like wasn't even
on the album. It was they decided they had enough quiet songs, so
they voted that one out. And I think that's a lot of people's favorite
songs from that era out of the quiet ones. But yeah, even the
B sides as well, Like they've got Sick of Mechanico if that's what it's
called it it's just a yeah, it's key just talking it whatever. Yeah,
whatever. Again, it's got those of Kay's in it black metal stuff.
But yeah, that's like that's like super punky, super super hard,
super fast. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, there's a lot of
cool stuff going on and with the production as well, which I didn't notice
that the like as I was younger, but as I listened to this album
more, there's a lot of cool stuff you know, going on in like
your different speakers and in the back ground that you don't really hear, which
yeah, appeals to me. And yeah, bringing it back to hell Ripper
that the production as well influenced this new album, just having stuff in the
background kind of creating atmosphere similar to a lot of like the nineties albums,
you know, just quite atmospheric with the production, I think, which,
yeah, it's just something I like, it's one of those albums that you
kind of like, it's kind of crazy that this album is as big as
it is because it's so dense and has so much going on. It's like
say, seventy two minutes long, full of all of these different moving parts
and so like production touches alongside some like really out there musical ideas with the
rhythms and guitar lines that like it feels and was countintruited for this to be
one of the biggest rock amms ever, But then you've got give it away
and the vision just like undeniable kind of like commercial rock hits all in there
and in this like weird psychedelic seven minute opens it is. It does going
to hold a real impressive craft of it in that way. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, like you see just the trucks like under the Bridge or give
it away, like yeah, massive, massively accessible, very successful and a
probably a good choice that they were kind of the singles rather than maybe something
like Sir Psycle Sexy, which might not might not have went down too well
on reading, yeah or whatever. I guess, you know, the kind
of the heavy funk grooves were, like you know, how fat and loud
the basslines are. They do have a sonic power to them that makes sense
on like a hard rock kind of numb like, you know, largely I
agree with what you're saying about the singles being some of my least favorites on
this. The exception is my probable favorite Chili Pepper song is Suck My Kiss,
just for pure boisterous energy on it. Yeah, because the bass groove
just like slaps your teeth in when when it comes in. It's almost like
punk in attitude in terms of like how agro and like throwing its weight around
it is. They're playing and hitting so hard on even key of this with
that you know, suck mark a chorus delivery like it's yeah, so smacker
of a tune. Yeah, and the like the guitar solos and that and
stuff are just like like chaos as well, like yeah, yeah, I
mean yeah, it's a great one. Um yeah almost, I think,
yeah, almost all the songs I like, and again, probably the letdown
for me and this one is the cover of their Red Hot, which I
mean it's what it's like one minute long and it's right at the end of
the album after what I think, right, I'd basically treat that as an
outrav in it yeah, yeah, so yes or Psycho Sex is like the
perfect end of the album. I think, like one of my favorite bits
of music is that like end guitar solo thing that sounds like Jimmy Hendrix.
Yeah, and then it comes into their Red Hot for one minute and it
doesn't really add anything, and yeah, the album's already what's seventy two minutes
long at that point or something. Yeah, and like it's like that's like
a sexy I totally forgot because a record that I have like listened to a
lot more than this one, honestly is The Predator by Ice Cube, which
is one of my favorite hip Hop Records, and the baseline of the psychosexy
is used in You Were Going to Take My Life by Ice Q, And
I guess that's like a degree of you know, credit. If your baseline
is slick enough for a member of NWA to want to wrap over it,
you've probably done something pretty decent. Yeah, I mean, yeah, everyone,
I think everyone agrees that, like Flea is just Flees one of the
like the best basis like ever, I mean, like again in this era
when they're all like at the peak of their powers. Yeah, it's a
pretty unfuckable with record in that regard. Yeah, that whole period, like
the kind of I mean, the whole early days, but like especially I
think the Mother's Milk and the Blood Sugar, Sex Magic, the Psychedelic sex
Funk era. Um. Yeah, it's just like extreme energy just like just
yeah, it's just crazy energy and really infectious and really yeah just yeah just
kind of makes it makes makes the good songs even better just because of how
with conviction they're played. Yeah. I say, it's just like Meganeth,
where like the only thing you can really fault on it is the vocals because
the band are so kind of on ten and doing really interesting, unique,
creative stuff that I'm kind of like, I don't see how anyone can musically
find fault with this record. Again, if you're an antiqu Key this is
you know, going to rub you the wrong way with his vocals and lyrics,
but when everything else around it is so fun, creative and interesting,
even like some of his vocal hooks actually then like when they really sink up
with the music, even though I'm like, I don't know how you could
have a problem with this, like how does he roll his rs in the
words give it away? He's baffling, They're not there, Like if you
are just like Dead Scent set against the Chili Peppers kind of you know,
as a rule, like keyts on that song will probably be like a night
Terror too, I think generally, again, when he locks in with what's
going on, it works super well. And the way like the Chili Pepper
to day are like the least cool thing I could imagine. They sound cool
when they're locked in or like a groove like the power of Equality or whatever.
And there's something about, you know, the songs on this record and
the way they sequence together where it almost feels like a kind of stream of
consciousness jam session that ended up producing these massive singles like the way You've Got
if you have to ask, kind of flowing out with the parrot of equality,
and you know you've got Chad doing his thing, Fleid and his thing
for Shanty doing his and it's obviously like lesser conventional rock guitar riff there as
we might think of a sort of a more textural thing. And then there
you do have this kind of laid back delivery from Key This which is really
slacking and casual and almost feels like you could be in the room like listening
to this come together in like completely in in real time. Yeah yeah,
I would agree with that, yeah yeah. And then um, like it
is a long record. I mean, part of it's kind of like that
nineties CD era when they like stop thinking about fitting things to vinyl or whatever
and just got well long. But it is such an organic album with a
real sense of the kind of players in the room together that it makes it
much more listening to build me like if you've got to give some credits to
like Ruben as well, because it is, like I saying, it's I'm
acculately produced record and it is unfathomable how it massive it got them, like
obviously he goes even further when you get to like Californication and by the way,
but like the mega hit on this particular record is a course under the
Bridge. I'm largely kind of non plustered by that song. I'm more drawn
to, you know, than more liquid kind of grooves then you know,
acoustic guitar Buy a fire on the beach in California with a fucking flower crown
on my head or whatever. But like over a billion plays on Spotify that
song. Wow, well that's crazy. I still want a bit of a
soft spat front of the bridge, like like again, I don't need to
like go out, doesn't it if it's coming on, like I'll find myself
singing along with it, like the moment that chorus comes in, just out
of instinct, almost like like an imposer can't fight. Yeah, James,
are you a fan of a Anthony Kidis the lyricist? Sometimes? I mean
I think as well, it goes it kind of goes with what I like
and metal as well, like again going with the hill Rupper stuff, but
just a completely different like theme. I do like some over the top like
nonsense like sometimes, you know, sometimes it is just fun to um.
You know. Sometimes I'll have the songs you know that are a bit more
serious, you know, like on the new album you get You've got like
knuckle a van, You've got whatever. But sometimes it is fun just to
bust out none fucking Armageddon six six six or something like, you know,
just some over the top. Yeah, I guess more ridiculous fun type stuff.
Yeah, so shut loosing your inhibitions basically like to worry about anything.
Twinkled Twinkle, little star shining down on my blue car driving down the boulevard.
She was soft and I was hard rocking to the beat of the funky
ass meters. She has one of those built in heaters, like it's the
chicken Chicken d do you mean like a banshee in something like kiss just makes
me laugh every time, like creamy beaver, hotter than a fever. I'm
a given because she's the receiver, like he's He's a silly chap, isn't
he? There is like there's a humorous disconnect between that and like you said,
like hold on earlier, you were kind of all sensitive looking for like
a long term relationship. Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, the contrast
between yeah, I could have lied or whatever and Psycho say coming to media
that have sucked my kiss is the one that just so I can't bind him
being serious and I could have lied. Yeah, so jar I kind of
treat him as a cartoon person, like I can't do him seriously, adds
All. Yeah, I mean yeah, some of the lyrics are ridiculous,
but I mean I don't know, it just it works for the band,
like I can't imagine like any other other like vocalist or whatever. Like yeah,
like again, like you know, like you might you might not be
a fan of his voice or whatever, but it's he's he's recognizable. It's
yeah, he's just got like his own thing. Like he certainly as a
knack for like you know, catch a little vocal with rains, give it
away and stuff. Like when he's almost got like the rhythm of the vocalist,
he's just saying words that fit in with that just so there is a
vocal doesn't matter if it makes sense, but he's just gonna this is gonna,
you know, stick in your ear. Just the flow of these works.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, a lot of the things when you're
like reading the lyrics. Sometimes you sometimes like things just seem so unrelated or
random or whatever, but there could be a reason for them. You know,
it might just be a little subtle. You've got to dig deep into
the poetry. Yeah, exactly. There's been like the most removed from the
sound of Hell Ripper pick that you've brought forward. I'm sure people will be
curious, you know, where direct influence will be and you're playing a songwriting
and stuff. You mentioned some of the production, but you know, how
does someone who like favorite guitarists John for Shanty come to making the kind of
music that you make and applying that as an influence. Yeah, so,
I mean some of the guitar if you listen to Hell Ripper, there's a
lot of them. I get, like, like the funk style, so
I like to, you know, mute the strings with my left hand instead
of the right hand, so the right hand is constantly like just going like
just playing a lot in the left hand kind of dictates the rhythm by muting
it, especially in a lot of my guitar solos. You might again it's
like just using it in the Helleper context. You probably can't tell just because
of Yeah, just because it's put in such a different context. But yeah,
I know it's something that I'm conscious of just because I know how I
learned to play guitar and how I'm using my own techniques. But yeah,
especially in the lead guitar, rhythm guitar as well. But the solos,
there's a lot of rhythms, a lot of things that don't start on the
beat. They start like on the like just after the beat or whatever,
like a riff, the bridge riff to all hell the Goat for example,
it's kind of a weird rhythm. What else Hell's rock and roll? The
second solos, like you can hear you can hear that kind of what to
call it, the yeah, the right hand the left hand muting thing.
But yeah, so yeah, especially the guitar playing, you know. Yeah,
and like I mentioned before, the production on this album, like I
love the drum sound on this The snare is huge, Yeah to me.
Yeah, a lot of stuff going on in the background that you might not
hear. You know, there's like random piano notes sometimes that just kind of
accent the guitar. You know, similar to what Metallica did on what was
the song Welcome Home? You know, the first note is a piano note
underneath the guitar. Just add something and little things like that. You know,
it might not be super obvious or whatever, but you know it's that's
that's just where I get some of my ideas. Yeah, yeah, listening
to a guy explained how he applied the lessons of sas like house Xy to
a song called all Hail the Gout. I hope is the ba for your
buck that people feel they get with this podcast. All right, your next
two picks are what I'm going to call with your bloody well timed picks because
this weekend Grave Pleasures have released a new album and Cannibal Corps have been touring
in the UK. So I've been very much enjoying these things. Anyway.
Cannibal Corps and a Visceration Plague is where we go next. And you know
what we were saying about, kind of picking some classic bands, but being
quite pleased to get to talk about some of the albums in particular that you
brought forward. None more so than this really, because Cannibal Corps are like
the final word in death metal. They are absolutely out of questionable. If
you like death metal, then you know them, and no one has represented
death metal over thirty five years quite like Cannibal Corps. A lot of albums
though, you know, won't get their time in the press, no retrospective
looks or anything like that, and a Visceration Plague is one of those kind
of less poured over gems that might get lost. Yeah, yeah, I
was. I was actually looking at the Metal Archives reviews and like all of
their like last whatever albums are like very consistent, like a eighty three or
something eighty three percent average, and this one's slightly less than seventy nine.
I mean, Cannibal Corps are very consistent. So yeah, yeah, but
yeah, this seems to be like the kind of least liked out of the
more recent albums, which I don't understand. Personally, it's my favorite Cannibal
Corps album. Again, maybe a lot of these albums that I'm picking.
Maybe it's because it's the first one I got into, so it's you know,
it's nostalgia or it's whatever. But for me, the songs on this
album are just catchy, like they're I mean, all the Cannibal Corps albums
are heavy, but this album is heavy and the most catchy, and yeah,
yeah, it's just a great album for me. I was kind of
wondering because I listened to the two Cannibal Corps records either side of this one
before, but never because it's again, like you see people rave about Kio.
Torture was the first Cannibal Cooks record I could have listened to as a
sort of metal fan when it came out out, and so and then I'd
never kind of bother to go back to this one, And so I stuck
on for this, and I was like, why is this one overlooked?
It was like, Cannibal Corpse fucking rule, and this is every bit as
good as all of the other recent Cannibal Corpse records I've listened too. So
I was just gonna, like really surprised that this is over look because like
the moment Priests of Sodom starts, and I'm just like, yeah, here
we go. Here's the brutal riffs, the drumming riffs that the drummings are
just like pulverizing you corpse kind vocals having like a real clarity and purpose while
still being just brutal as fuck. It's It's everything I want again, the
definite one. I was like, I was kinda hoping you would be able
to expabe me why this is the kind of like Black Sheep of almost like
the more recent Cannibal Corpse records, or like IPEC that's more recent but like
last year and fifteen years of Cannibal Corpse records. Yeah, I mean,
yeah, I've got no idea why this is the like the least liked or
most overlooked or whatever you would say, like yeah, like I say,
it's my favorite and I can't really tell. I mean, it's it's just
Cannibal Corpse but in it, yeah, it's Yeah, I've got no idea.
I mean yeah, yeah, I guess like Cannibal Corps in general,
I mean like like brutal kind of Florida or New York death metal, I
guess is one of the areas of extreme metal that you might not so immediately
hear in Hell Ripper. It probably makes more sense than the metal Chili Peppers,
but they're kind of major points where you're taking cues from from Cannibal Corps
and a record like this, Yeah, I think especially this is the album
that got me into extreme metal, like as a whole other than Thrash,
if you want to count that but like death metal, black metal stuff,
this is the album that got me into it because of the catchy I mean,
it's like to me, like it's accessible, like with like for death
metal, for metal standards, it's it's accessible. It's like really, it's
just so catchy. M there's choruses, memorable choruses, memorable hooks, and
that was something that appealed to me from the start. Like it with me
because yeah, when I was when did this album come out? Nine,
two thousand nine, I think yeah, um, so I probably got into
them probably two thousand and ten or something. It was it was in between
this and Torture that I discovered this, and I was always of the kind
of um mindset, you know, like death metal and stuff. It's just
it's just it's just screaming, like it's there's no tune. It's just it's
noise. It's horrible, you know. And then one of my friends was
like, I'll try this, like and um, I think it was too
decomposed and that's got like one of the coolest rhythms, Like it's it's such
a it's not what you would think like when you hear if someone said I'll
listen to this death metal, and I heard that it's like it's so catchy.
You can sing it, you can hum along to it, you can
even dance to it if you want, like um, So that is what
like kind of stuck out and yeah again affected my songwriting heavily because I realized
you can make heavy, brutal stuff catchy and accessible yeah sounding. So their
songwriting in that respect, it's just it's what I think it's influenced Hill Ripper.
I'm with you that. I think me and you probably got into Cannibal
Corpse at Basic at the exact same time because this was the latest one when
I got into them. The title track was one of the first songs that
I really fell in love with, Like that song is a total classic now
and to gate when it was fresh. But like the album overall is quite
overlooked. I like it more than Kill personally, and I think it is
this first run of work, Yeah, this first run of working with Rutan
when they'd kill of this ration and torture for me and they get better on
everyone with those And like again, Cannibal Corps were like an exposure point to
something totally new. Was there kind of I guess with everything that comes with
Cannibal Corpse in terms of the ascetic and everything like, because they are I
guess the first band to go full on with like the horror and gore and
stuff that most people come across and when or young, I mean even now
to a degree, but there is a sense of something quite taboo and genuinely
scary that you shouldn't be listening to about it. Yeah, I mean it
always helps when you're fifteen years old and you can wear a boochered at birth
t shirt, you know, yeah, like you can be like, you
know, it's just again again, it's over the top. It's it's extreme,
but but not too extreme. You know. It doesn't go into well
some of the stuff does I guess, well, I think it made also
the butt the barn stuff. Yeah, it's like the most kind of explicit
and uncomfortable I like, like evidence in the Furnace. There's no body parts
or whatever listed at that time. Yeah as a title, it's still pretty
fucking menacing in it. Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, and that's
one of the songs I heard first as well. Yeah, it's it's so
catchy and again it's really technical without you being able to tell, like the
the the guitar parts and stuff like, there's so much going I mean,
of course, the famous video is from like um Frantic Disembowment, like the
you know, the like kids just ridiculously the hands are moving everywhere, like
but it's not what you would think is like you know, like a technical
death metal band or whatever. Cannibal Corpse. It's which I think is a
good thing as well. You know that the things are complex, but it's
so well done that you can't even tell. It just sounds like like I
said, it's very accessible, but at the same time, there's like weird
rhythms, weird time signatures, really complex guitar parts, and I think that
I like about Cannibal as well is that they're as well as the complex guitar
parts and all that stuff, Paul's drumming is kind of it's just like straightforward
and like primitive and makes the songs just heavy. But there's no fancy doing
loads of technical stuff is he just provides like the bat bone. I think
he's one of the most underrated drummers because you're right, he used to kind
of blast in the whole way through. But when you think about the structures
and arrangements that he has to work in. He's always so on top of
it, like he's doing like the most technical like order of parts. He's
just doing kind of basic parts during Yeah, and that's what just kind of
makes it heavier, I think, you know, just instead of trying all
these technical stuff or whatever, he's just going dun dun, dun, dun,
dun dun. And that combined with yeah, the the like the pummeling
guitars, and then George's one of my favorite vocalists and extreme metal that he's
just got such a that he's got the death metal voice. Really like everything
combined, and like I said, with this album, I think the songs
are catchier than other albums. People I guess disagree for the most part,
but I mean, yeah, yeah, Visceration Plague, it's so like the
song itself is just so heavy soul headband headbanging like yeah, and then yeah,
you've got compared that to like Scalding Heels on one and a half minutes,
just like it's like a thrash song, but just with extreme production and
death metal vocals and uh yeah Paul's drumming. Yeah, it's it's like a
thrash song, but it's made death metal because it's Cannibal Corps scorning. How
we were almost like that like guitar for the sort of the dual harmony thing,
but it's like really mangled and then well I do remember that that's kind
of like a fresh and heavy melting, but because it's just got that added
brutality to it from Cannibal Corpse, it just it is heavier. Yeah,
Like I argue what we mean about this, I'm being really catchy because again
I didn't listen this at the time, but I think which short twousand and
nine the Definite Artists. I was purely like a Death Corp kind of fan
at point, but I think if you played this to me, I would
have gone with this immedia at that point. But I kind of like I
thought, you know, they were that step further. They were too brutal
for me. I was more into like, say, definitely they did.
They didn't quite fit with that, but I'm like, no, I could
have stuck some at the time and had a good time of this because it
is right like on evidence in the furnaces when they've got the cop burn in
my fires Corps burn hook, like there's all shit like that will all across
of that. I'm like, this has like an accessibility, but it's not
like polished and like clean. As a result, it's still nasty, gorso
death metal, but it's just it's not slopping and like impenetrable. Yeah,
every record is just a master class of like catchy vocals, you know,
the kind of them enter the Temple of Sin, Enter the Temple of City,
kind of repeating part on Priests of Sodom and my Mind is a Cauldron
of hate. Like it's just such a cool line. It's so evocative and
Priest of Sodom as well, what you're saying, like the opening like ten
seconds of that song are just what Cannibal Corps is about. And I think
if you were putting this record on as your first ever exposure to Cannibal Corpse,
you couldn't ask for much better in the opening ten seconds to demonstrate what
band you're listening to. And there's something funny about how they have that quality
on so many of their albums across so many It's like, you know,
when people put Vial on a decade before they get devoured by vermin immediately,
it's the same thing here. And it's with kill the Time to Kill exactly
right. Yeah, it's so so brilliant at them, and I think this
record, I always think of it as being one of the most intricate ones,
Like I think Paula said, it's the album that he recorded the drums
to a click track on, which he doesn't normally do. So there is
a particular like heart racing, like you know, blasting, trying to stale
on top of things quality too, and there is a lot of like you
know, really short sharp shocks on this that just go mental. Like you
look at the trap lengths on this Cannibal in particular, and there's a lot
that's like two minutes, you know, beheaded and burning natural. Yeah,
and I suppose that when you hear Alex or paul talk about kind of where
they're like brand of death metal vell from, they always talk about like the
brutal end of eighties thrash with you know, Cannibals is kind of their extension
of like Dark Angel, an early creator, and that does a few connections,
like you know where where you live, James, and that's obviously you
mentioned the scolding hale and stuff like that. It's so exciting. I mean
like carniv a swarm like actually sounds like a swarm of bees on that opening
guitar. Like they really know how to match a title to a tune.
And again you can hear Pauls go mental on those blasts. Yeah, yeah,
it's yeah, Like I said, ye, it's the Maybe that's why
it appeals as well, because it's like very thrash influenced and just filtered through
the Cannibal Corps. Yeah. I think it's definitely one of the most manic
records. And so I can you know, again, someone who makes the
music you make, I can see why this one in particular for me,
I go this era and then they go on to do torture of like Scourge
of Iron on it and stuff. But even Vince and imagine now some of
the best stuff I think of late years is when they lurch on like a
slower pace and Cannibal Corps, you know, they continue to just be so
godd and heavy like as a sonic force. They are just so imposing and
intimidating. A Culdron of Hate is really like churning and kind of horrible and
grim. But the title track is one of the best death metal songs ever
written, Like, yeah, every album album you can count on them to
do something that's like, wow, is a literally perfect death metal song.
I can think of absolutely no way for you to have made that song better.
And they again, I saw them like two nights ago, and they
do like a career spanning setlist by a song off like almost every single album.
They easily could do one or feature if they had longer in the night,
but every album has, you know, something just eternal like this does.
And I think particularly me a visration play the song. You hear again,
a lot of this record is quite manic, but you can hear their
capability for not just you know, kind of violence and gore and stuff,
but this kind of musical atmosphere of like impending horror and you know, the
sense that you know the end has come. And that riff that's slow,
you know, pummeling is like the zenith of it. It is so staggeringly
heavy. That work, slow lurking groove is so evil. Yeah, and
then and then the vocals come in and you can and you can sing along
with the verse. It's everything corpsman, it doesn't that song it's so catchy,
and yeah, that's what appealed to me about the band from the first
time I heard them, like just how is it so heavy? But it's
so accessible, so easy to listen to, so easy to sing along with,
and yeah, it's just yeah, I just love Cannibal Corpse and yeah,
I mean maybe musically the biggest influence on hell Rapper personally is probably like
Eating Back to Life. Yeah, it's basically a thrash album, like songs
like Skullful of Maggots and stuff like that. But yeah, this was the
first album that got me into extreme metal like as a as a genre as
a whole, so that's probably affected why it's like my favorite. And yeah,
just the nostalgic thing. And I remember, yeah, just getting really
into extreme metal from here from there, and you know, just finding other
similar catchy stuff, you know, like probably like blood Bath again was one
of my first death metal bands and got tracked tracks like Eating, which I
think is one of the best death metal songs again, just because it's so
catchy you can sing along to it. Um, that's what I like about
That's why. That's that's what I like in like death metal, when it's
catchy you can sing sing along too it, like um, so a lot
of my favorites are like that, and I guess that's why I think I
like Black Thrash as a whole as well, because it's a lot of it
going back to like Toxic Cold Cost like six six six for example, it's
you know, you can it's stuff you can chant along too, it's stuff
you can memorable. Um if it's done well, Um yeah Sam, first
time on this album, that title track is a fucking all timer in it.
That's what I wasking, Like God, that is why that that is
like the centerpiece of this record again, because a lot of talking is you
know, all out attack and kind of like pace and then you get the
obit where they'll kind of lunch in a groove a bit. But that toald
you what they kind of they do, take their fat off and just they
be menacing and slow and you like an atmosphere and can be like yeah,
but it's just what they talk. Chemicals can just do it all. And
that one though, is like so like when he's yelling at the end of
my end, trails are in my hands over and over again. Plague leads
to death to plague leads too, kind of sludgy bit of a breakdown leading
into the solo. How fucked up the solo can sound like it is,
Yeah, just everything a death metal song should be. Like, I can
see why that is the one that has stood the test of time from this
record in particular. Yeah, I think you can really hear, just carefully
laid out there over like four and a half minutes, what patient craftsmen they
are. And I think that's the thing that people who talk about Cannibal Corps
like they are just the great songwriter, Yeah, but a really good songwriter.
People who talk about them like they're just the ultimate meat and potatoes death
metal band, Like what you were saying, James, I think they are
the band who have best applied technicality to just the pure, you know,
root idea of what death matter is because they are the cunniest songwriter. It's
too Deacon composed. If that was the first song you heard, that stump
part with the two D compose and how it double time that goes in that
part. Yeah, one little thing absolutely makes the song. And I think
again, that's where I can certainly say hell Repper taking cues from Cannibal Corps
is the way the intricacies of the songwriting make these like technical frenetic births.
Just the catchier songs can like evidence in the furnace that everyone those stabs in
the intro is just yea and everyone is different, like like the repeated goes
like Donne done and done done, Like you know, it's different. It's
perfectly arranged to be like memorable and recognizeable, and that to me, that's
what makes them the best deathmt A band of all time. I don't think
there's any one of their peers that puts like as much attention to the minutii
of detail in making the songs as good as they can be. And certainly,
like you know, from a musicians point of view, they've got to
be inspiring and like how absolutely relentless they are in never seeming to age right,
like people all the time took about death just metal bands in general,
you know, slowing Down and Cannibal play so much harder than most of the
big bands that people are talking about there, and there's like not a fucking
speck of rust on them, I know, and Corps Grinder still when milling.
Yeah, I was literally taking the two nights ago. I was like,
how is your next stood up to all this like Toma, right,
I had to have surgery. Yeah, I know. It's it's crazy.
Yeah, like what this I think the tour right now is seven weeks at
the row on something like that. And he's doing that every night. Yeah,
and he's doing that every night and he's done it for however, how
long has that he's been in the band, like thirty years almost thirty years
monstrosity before that, you know, yeah, exactly. It's and and then
he's his voice is just not like like age that his voice is just so
good still. Um yeah, and it's it's like you know what you're getting
with a Cannibal Corpse album, but it's never that's not a bad thing.
You know. Sometimes bands can be predictable and you're like, oh, I
know I'm going to get this album. And but like you said, have
like you said before, every album, Yeah, every album they have like
an amazing so like you know, like a few amazing like eternal songs yeah
on it. So it's like, oh, I know I'm going to get
a new Cannibal Corpse album, but I know it's going to be good.
Like I know exactly what it's going to be, but I know it's going
to be good. So it's so it's yeah, it's like a it's really
cool, like and yeah, it's just great that they haven't felt the need
to I mean, to be fair, actually they have like grown and changed
over the years. It's just like you don't notice it because it's so good,
like from the first albums till now, Like I mean, I guess
Vial was kind of the change where they got really different like technical and stuff,
and they got George in the band and stuff. But yeah, it's
a band that, yeah, you just know what you're getting. You know
it's going to be good. There's no need for surprises really, which I
think is great. Yeah, this is just like masterful death metal. And
they've got like fifteen records of that. Yeah, sadly sick record. Speaking
of Beast Milk and Climax is your next pick? Unbenoaths to you, James
when you sent the He's over. We did a whole album club on Climax,
telling history and everything, just a couple of months ago, and we
have just reviewed the brand new Grave Pleasures album, which is the band that
continued on from from Beast Milk. I listened to the review. I listened
to the review Yeah, I haven't listened to the album yet, but I
listened to the review, so I'm excited. Well, so basically we've been
like deep in the zone for this already, but I was just happy to
talk about this on someone else's watch for Yeah, like the just me all
the time. Here's something that you know, someone that people like him will
hopefully listen to. He says, Beast Milk are great. We are again
reach venturing outside of metal doesn't seem like as quite a larger jump because we
are still in the underground and kind of underground metal. People all love this
record, but it is still interesting again to hear coming from someone like yourself
whose music doesn't sign anything like this, tell us about your love of Beast
Milk. Yeah, when did I heard Beast Milk for the first time?
When Climax just came out, or maybe before it came out. I think
it was like The Enemy or something had Yeah, one of those had,
Like I think it was some sort of like exclusive stream of the album or
something they had any stream Climax, Yeah, yeah, something like that.
Yeah, And I remember um because I'm a massive fan of bands as well,
Like I'm a massive indie and British rock fan. You know, I'm
a big fan of Arctic Monkeys, Editors all that kind of stuff, and
this and this kind of I can't remember, but one it kind of appealed
to me like, oh, this might be cool. It looked it looked
kind of metal, like the band photo like they looked metal. They were
in like yeah, it's got a skull. They were in like sleeveless T
shirts and stuff. I thought, yeah, this could be cool. And
then yeah, I heard Death Reflects Us and I was like like, that's
one of the times where I was just like wow, this is like,
you know, just something just like yeah, to me, it's like one
of my top five favorite albums of all time, no, like no doubt,
like it's just it's one of those albums. I think it's just such
a special album. Like I heard it and imediately I was like, well,
this is like a unique sound. It's something that I think like it
just clicked with me immediately. I was like, this is amazing. Um
again, when was when did Climax come out? Yeah, thirteen, so
yeah, what was I was like eighteen at the time, So yeah,
it's still appealed to like the metal side as well. You know, it
was had the very metal aesthetic, the the relating to like toxic holocaust,
I had the nuclear war theme, the all that kind of stuff. And
yeah, it was again just going back to how it influenced hell Rapport,
it would have been just because it was catchy, like the songs were just
so Yeah, it's just a perfect album, Like the songs are well written,
it's catchy, it's it's a unique album. I think, Um,
a lot of albums sound similar, you know, it's not like a complete
different genre. But the whole production, the whole us, the whole the
sound of the band, the everything, I think just had something special at
that time and a big I'm a big fan of the demo as well,
and the the EP afterwards as well, the um whatever the EP was called
Usual Deluge or whatever it's called. Yeah, A big fan of that and
the the what was the demo called White Stains on Black Yeah, black Teape
or something. Yeah, massive fan of both of them. But this album,
like the production of the atmosphere, um yeah, I mean there was
this moment like this album is the one that caused a real stir when it
came out, and there was this moment when they were the coolest new band
that every wanted a piece of before all those kind of more fickle areas of
the press all like backed off when they became Great Pleasures, but like yeah
again ten years later, such a cult classic. So many metal musicians will
pick this as they're like, this is the record I'm going to have a
bit of a boogie two record, Sam, we've done this album recently.
I mean, like Elliott, who couldn't be with us for this episode,
but he was saying, how like he's not really put Climax down since we
did it, and then I haven't even then reviewing the new album, which
we both love as well. Have you got any like further feelings on Climax
coming back to it, looping back to it once again? Well, like
you, it's because of going back and listens to a lot more than weak
and gray Piaces. I've kind of again got a new apprecire of this because
there is there is a difference to be small gray Pleasures that has become kind
of clearer and Plague Boys, because I think this is this is a darker,
more like sinister cold record in a way, but it's still it's every
bit the catchy, infectious rock ham played by like a punk band, but
there is just there's a look. I don't know thin. This is just
more morbid. This album wasn't about it, but it just I was like,
God, this is such a just one of a kind, Like the
only band that matches are Grave Pleasures, essentially the same band. Like yeah,
like this record to me, like you know, I labored for ages
on that album Club, but it's just like the most hedonistic desperate dance party
of a record, like thirty eight minutes of shaking every bit of joy and
energy out of your body because you've got to use it all up before the
world explodes, and that sensation becomes more and more potent, you know,
every year, all the time. It's just bottled energy. This record,
like you mentioned, you know, Death reflects us. That opening riff is
like this fucking clarion call to action, like the most insistent masses risk but
the the like melodic guitar and that comes in again. I'm trying to put
myself in your headspace and be like, what about this would appeal to the
hell ripper guy. That guitar line is fucking incredible. Yeah, again,
just something that just occurred to me. One of the things that they do
well with the songwriting is in Death reflects Us, like they they kind of
have multiple choruses almost, and a lot of the songs, which I love
because there's like you don't know which part is the chorus really, so you
need you sing. You sing like all of the choruses, if you know
what I mean. Like, for example, you've got the when We're Sleeping
yeah kind of bit yeah, and then the actual different place yeah exactly.
So I mean I guess it's like a pre chorus. I mean I guess
technically, but it's as effective as a chorus. So and that is something
I try and do with Hell Rapper. I think that's something I like having,
I mean as many catchy parts as possible, but especially like the pre
chorus and chorus. I like to have the pre chorus almost as effective as
the chorus. And that is something that just came into my mind there when
you were speaking about Death Reflects Us and how influenced Hell Ripper and my songwriting
in general. And yeah, I mean yeah, shortly after I heard this
album, I mean, this was this was like you say, it was
like they became the cool band to kind of listen to, and I think
they might have been maybe maybe I'm completely wrong, but I think they were
the band that kind of, along with In Solitude, kind of brought that
golf influence into into metal, like you know what that at the time.
You know, a lot of bands afterwards started introducing kind of gothic elements and
past punk elements, like I know it's been done before, I'm not.
It's that those two are like suit like Sister by In Solitude, we came
out the same years as exactly the kind of the school of bands that you
know, regular listeners will know because I go on about them all the time,
but like the most the kind of school of bands I feel most connected
to right now, like they are my bands. That's my thing that I'm
really part of. Is this kind of loose grouping of bands in the underground
that kind of navigate that border between goth and heavy metal, where yeah,
great pleasures like unto others, tribulation, tribulation, you know, Devil Master,
stuff like that, And this record and Sister are like where again separate
to that kind of twenty tens occult rock thing that kind of started to become
recognizable as like a bit of a bit of a scene and a bit of
a sound, even if it's quite loosely associated and spread all over the place.
Like ten years old, you know, the legacy of this record and
Sister as well, like still growing super strong, and you know, people
like you James are still wanting to you know, be involved with with stuff
like this. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah,
the yeah still now like you can hear like a lot of bands Hill
Upper included, You can hear like Tribulation influencing stuff like I think, yeah,
those three bands, especially in Solitude, Beast Milk and Tribulation. Yeah,
like I said, they kind of brought this like post punk influence into
the metal at that time that kind of spread to the underground and yeah,
it's yeah, it's just great music. Yeah. I mean, like again,
like you're saying, the kind of imagery that they've built up is so
distinct, and so there's like they built like a real recognizable trademark kind of
world for themselves, you know, Nuclear winter Surfing, the apocalypse, Let's
go to up and now everybody is like exactly like and you know, like
genocidal crush. You have these incredible pop songs, but they're rapid us been
the language of you know, yeah, like Death and the maccab and stuff
like that, and just you know, because I've been rinsing the new album
so much, I've just been marveling at how like I'm immediately distinct they are
wet again, even in the minu shy, but like they and a fair
bit on that new record, and there's new stuff in there they haven't really
tried before. But how many bands out there right now, particularly melodic ones,
not extreme ones like this Isn't My Sugar or something, can you say
you actually can recognize from the ground up in terms of like drum beats and
the kind of rhythms they base their songs on. It's there on the new
album, on you know, Disintegration Girl or whatever, and going right back
to this, it's all over it, those like pounding tom parts, the
way they've pretty much trademark now that clap clap beat that you get in Genocide
Crack, and it's always fun. Yeah, like the surf yeah, the
surf beat. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's just great. And yeah,
I was torn between whether it picked this one or resplendent grow teste by code
because Matt it is a yeah, just I think almost everything Matt does.
I'm like a fan of almost everything, like Hex Vessel. I think it's
great. But in terms of yeah black metal, resplendent, grotesque and you've
caught me on the right day and we're in the I never noticed that.
Love it, but yeah, resplendent grow Teste one of my maybe my favorite
I guess is it the metal I guess so twenty Yeah, for sure.
It's just probably my probably my favorite black metal album of all times. So
I was kind of torn whether or to choose that or this, but I
think this had more of an effect on me, and um, it led
to me, you know, starting a post punk band as well, like
and R Yeah, did you like this a little be Smolt worship project?
Yeah? Basically yeah, so that's still available to people to listen to.
It is indeed, Yeah, it's called Lockhowell. Nice kind of yeah,
be smolk, be s milk Editors type of negative, a bit a bit
more black metal kind of stuff in there as well. But yeah, it
was around the time Yeah be Smoke came out and it's like, wow,
this is just so um it's probably yeah, probably my first like exposure to
post punk as well. You know, I feel like so many metal dudes
probably did the same thing and started like a little post punk thing on the
side after this came out. That's that's what I mean. I think it
brought it in to the like the underground, and a lot of these bands
started incorporating that kind of elements, like I think, similar to the way
like Onto others are doing now as well. Like I know a lot of
people who like unto others, but they don't even know whose Sisters and Mercy
are, you know, And yeah, I guess because I've got to come
from a heavy metal background. But it's that that bridge point in exactly.
So it's I think, yeah, like that was my first Like I had
no idea really. I liked Beast Milk and I liked in Solitude like Sister,
but I didn't really know like post punk, yeah, or postpunking golf
type stuff like yeah, I wasn't really familiar with Sisters of Mercy. I
had heard of them, and I didn't know yeah or whatever, you know.
Just so yeah, it's it's it's strange that it kind of appealed to
the underground metal as it like so much. I guess maybe because the guys
had a metal background so they were kind of known in the scene, or
Matt was by being in all those black metal bands and stuff. Yeah,
it's just yeah, I'm glad I found it. I think I mentioned this
in that the anchor, But it's like it's the imagery of the music,
the kind of the darker side to its aware even though it is postponed,
that's going to make it immediately more appealing to metal fans, where there is
a darkness, a sort of ma carve element to it. So that's one
of those things that are like you can put this on and even if it's
musically not metal, a met fan's been hearing kind of go, this is
like one of our lot playing this sort of style, so we can start
to really get into it from that. Yeah, I mean, can you
mentioned obviously Matt was in you know, he's been like Dodheims guy by this
point and stuff that's real cred. But like, yeah, like nowadays in
Great Pleasures, they've got like one of the guys from Ranci Pazuzu, Yeah,
who are like one of the weirdest, most out there like extreme bands
on the planet. Um, and I think you know what you're saying about
how it kind of spread around the metal underground. I guess because they were
like guys from metal backgrounds. I think that was obviously their their their blessing
and their curse, because I also think that's why part of why they've never
broken out anywhere else. Yeah, it's just a weird little metal thing for
us, little metal freaks in the corner, Like no one seems to realize
that their songs are fucking enormous and should not just be. Yeah, worst
bands have just ripped off their sound basically and made it popular. Yeah,
it's anthemic in the way the heavy metal is as well, because like some
of those old post punk bands, you know, they might not they they'll
be in that like deep gloomy register and might not kind of lean away from
it for like choruses or anything that much. And then you get surfa.
The Apocalypse is like more Danzig than it is Ian Curtis or something like that.
Yeah, that's what I like about I mean, I'm a fan of
post punk and all that, but sometimes you know, it does get a
bit seemy. It's very I mean, the whole thing about it is kind
of you know, it's like very machine like. But what what Be Spilt
did is it's very Yeah, it's very ill. Yeah yeah, it's it's
very metal like it it's it still sounds like it's got a bit of metal
in it, like just the whole layer, the atmosphere of the the guitar
and the theme's imagery and I think, yeah, that just appealed. And
yeah, it's just it's a unique album. I think nothing sounds like even
the following Grave Pleasures and stuff, though good, I don't think quite match
be s Milk. I think the like the that group of people had something
like together that like just such good chemistry. Um. I know the guitarist
that left, he went on and done the album with Hello Hello black Hole.
I think it's called right yeah, um, and that's cool as well.
Um, but it's not be s Milk, you know, it's just
yeah, yeah, I think just those people had something like special. Um.
Though my huge Grave Pleasures fan like a Mother Blood is one of my
favorites as well. Mother Blood is my favorite. Everyone I'm in the fair
enough the most basically all tens for me, but like yeah, yeah,
I would put them all basic call like nines and then be smolk it like
a ten. Yeah. But like I think what you're saying really you've touched
on something there that I guess I've tried to express for quite a while.
But like postpunk off the is that mechanical thing. Yeah, Best Milk Slash
Grave Pleasures sound like a bar band. They sound like they are just absolutely
tearing through this stuff and they're in that You've got a rollicking chorus like you
are now and Yeah, but like the rhythm and the guitars and everything,
there's there's that organic, pounding, raucous like hacking their way through it.
Like they put the punk back in post punk in a way, and I
think that makes it more more tangible, Like that bit I'm obsessed with when
the piano slide happens in Love and a Cold World and it just rings the
whole thing in. It's just fucking rock and roll like carnage. Yeah.
Yeah, it's yeah, Yeah, it's very rock and rule as well,
like you're seeing Yeah, just it's yeah, you've got a song, and
yeah, I get I think the production as well as a big part of
it. Yeah, we had sound in it. No record ever like this.
It's so like so like reverbed and stuff like that. It's like if
you like looking at them live and stuff when you see them, Plue lives,
like a lot of the guitar parts are basically kind of like yeah,
it's like very punk, like very kind of misfit style almost, but with
the production on top and the and all the added like all the added stuff.
It's yeah, just really yeah unique. What's your favorite tune on this?
Probably Genocidal Crush? Nice maybe that was mine for a long time.
Loving a Call well probably now, but like maybe maybe Surf the Apocalypse,
But Genocidal Crush I just think is um the chorus is just the it's it's
like the danciest catchiest yeah one one. It's probably like it's maybe in my
top like ten favorite songs of all time. Genocidal Crush. Just the verse
is so good as well, just the way you know, the build up
with the like the snare like Dunta di Dent it didn't and then it sucks
sucks, yeah like that like yeah, it's a yeah, I mean yeah,
it probably changes all the time, to be fair. It's yeah,
really good songs and yeah, yeah Sam for your Mind still from Last Time
it's that I've come on to Genocide and Crash a bit more as well,
like just on these reason listener I mean again really is Yeah, it might
change every time I listened to it now because it's it's so just it's all
it's all tense. Yeah. Yeah, so being a fan of great pleasures
going for which I'm glad you are. You're gonna be spending the new album
this week? I will be. Yeah, I just need I've been.
I was always seeing Cannibal Corps as well, so I haven't like kind of
I just got back when Thursday from that and kind of still been doing like
what do you sometimes listen to the podcast? So you know, thank you?
Yeah, I know I put on the podcast. I thought, yeah,
let's see see what they're seeing about it, get me in the mood
for it. Yeah, you say, do you think it's as mad that
they are such a tiny band still as like we are always saying, because
this album was the one moment when they flirted with a bit of main three
attention from the Enemy and the Guardian. That which is mad because it is
a more kind of underground sounding record than certainly would tell you the last two
which I think you could probably play on radio and they'd sound pretty great.
But like, ever since the name change, the rest of the world they're
just not giving them an inch, and they continue to just write like the
most world class songs of anyone in this kind of line. Yeah, I
think maybe it was just a loss of momentum or something with the Yeah the
like so much stuff happened, you know, like, yeah, they should
surely it's been long enough now for people to go, oh, Great Pleasures
actually a great band in their room, right, I know about a lot
of a lot of like kind of band success is kind of building on the
momentum, and eventually they reached that stage where you know, like people know
them and then they can kind of like, uh, you know, relax
or do what they want. But I think, yeah, I mean I
love Great Pleasures, and if it was up to me, like yeah,
they would be like everyone would listen to them. But yeah, I think
with all the stuff happening, you know, they'll line up completely changing and
then the name change and then they signed to Sony. I think it was
so I don't know if the Yeah dream crash, Yeah, it's like the
Columbia or something, and that the kind of most difficult one to get into
is yeah bizarre, Yeah, and yeah, I know I read an interview
with I can't remember it was one of the members of Grave Pleasures, but
I think they said like they were kind of conscious to try and write something
that wasn't Best Milk on that album, like they wanted to kind of,
yeah, make the album its own thing. They didn't want to copy Beast
Milk, which is perfectly understandable. But maybe just something from that didn't click
with people. Maybe the label was a bad fit. I've got no idea.
I've got no idea of what maybe just all this stuff happening and then
yeah, I mean now they haven't done anything for what was it six years?
Like or yeah, is that when the album came out? Six year
Yeah, So I mean if you're not doing anything in six years, it's
difficult to kind of build up the momentum. Yeah. Then they are the
most tragically like looked out of a band. Yeah, I mean I love
it, And I mean Matt's doing cool stuff with what do you call it?
Hex Vessel. Still he's also doing the Death Trip as well. That
when he became at Black Now Yeah, and he's yeah, he's doing loads
of stuff, so it's yeah, Hex Vessel kind of I think became his
main thing after it's older than the Beastmill, wasn't it Like that's going to
go into the sort of late sort of two thousands. So yeah, but
yeah, he's since like the Grave Pleasures album. I think he's released like
what maybe three or four Hex Vessel albums or something like that, So I
mean, yeah, I mean, if if he's just if you're just preferring
to do that, and I mean, yeah a Ramsey PISUSU as well or
doing stuff. So I guess they've all got other projects and stuff to be
working on. And if you know, I mean, they don't force themselves
to put out albums and it means we get better songs after six years then
if they rushed and all that, so it might not make them Metallica level
huge, but we get good songs out of it. Yeah, I'm very
glad they're back. The new record is fucking wicked. You were gonna love
it in terms of like the extra production, flourishes and stuff that. Looking
forward talking about Blood Sugar Sets Magic earlier. Okay, final album choice from
James, It's what I'm sure you know it's Iron Maiden and Live after Death.
James, is this a pick because you couldn't decide which studio album to
pick, so you went for the live album with a lot of different stuff,
or is there a particular love for Live after Death that makes it your
maiden record. Yeah, it's a particular love for Live after Death, especially
I think the songs on here. I prefer listening to these ones than the
studio versions for a lot of them. But yeah, this one again similar.
There's a pattern with all these albums or basically albums that kind of got
me into metal or something in some form or got me into music. I
remember when I was younger, I'd not really listened to Again, Yeah,
I wasn't like a big metal fan and all that I knew of like I
are made in a new like a number of the Beast and run to the
Hills and stuff, and I like that it was cool. Like I said,
just I wasn't a metal head. I wasn't really fully aware of like
you know, like metal as a thing. Yeah. Yeah, I'm kind
of saying, well I made and they weren't technically the first metal band I
liked. They are the band I kind of credit with turning me into like
a metal head. Yeah, and I so I knew that, but I
never really listened to. I mean, I remember I was in bed one
night, like it was like late one night, just flicking through the TV
and I think it was BBC four had on Flight six sixty six and I
was like, oh, cool, I are made in whatever. And then
I realized I absolutely loved it. Like all the songs that I never heard
before, like it is High for example, just rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
and stuff like that. I was like, wow, We've never this amazing,
Like I never heard of that, like and then the whole documentary to
go with Light six sixty six as well, um like yeah, And I
remember it was on BBC four for like a month straight, like every night.
Basically used to do that shit all the time. Do you ever watch
that Heavy Metal Britannia thing where they have like, oh, like the old
Great whistle Test stuff. It was Flight six sixty six and then it was
like heavy Metal Britannia right after, and that exact documentary is where I saw
all like the new with a Briach heavy metal bands the first time, like
diamond Head and all that yeah, and then yeah, then afterwards they would
have a thing called like heavy Metal at the BBC or something exactly. Yeah,
and then then I think they would like rotate it every day so it
would be like, oh, um, like yeah, I remember, yeah,
I used to watch all of that. Anything any metal documentary, any
rock documentary that's been on BBC four, I've seen it. Yeah. But
yeah, so I got into Flight six sixty six and I was like,
yeah, this amazing whatever, and then yeah, basically, I mean Live
After Death is basically just the same as Flight six sixty six, but back
in the eighties when I and they're like at the top of their game,
even though it's filmed like halfway through, halfway through their tour, I think,
like, so they've so they've done like loads of shows and they're tired
during the recording of this show. But yeah, for me, I think
it sounds amazing. The energies there. Um, the listing is great,
you know, it's kind of it's almost like the greatest hits of the time,
which so I guess choosing the live album is almost cheating, I guess,
But I mean you've got like Reme of the Ancient Mariner next to yeah,
like Revelations and how it would be thy name, Iron Made In Power
Slave. It's like it's it's basically the greatest hits but played with the energy
from the eighties. Yeah. So I don't know if you would have be
watching Saxon on the All Great Whistle Test, but you were noting ahead early
was it was Live after Death and early point for you too. Yeah,
amazing again one of those bands that will kind of like so on the present
for like game into Metal that like giving as you're getting to me, you're
just going to be getting into Iron Made In because they're going to be everywhere.
I remember catching some of those BBC things. I didn't quite watch it
as much of you, but I was like I have, yeah, like
sticking this on though, because I'm not listening to this, this particular live
album for a good while. It is just that it's nice to just sort
of get a reminder that, like God, Iron Made In, like in
the eighties are just untouchable, aren't they. Like when you can open your
life doing the opening two songs off Power Slave in Aciety and two its Beinn
and then dropped the Trooper straight after, and it's like bands just being able
to do that is just insane in it just out of lives because when I
was just ended up watching they have the whole like live recorded concert on YouTube,
as why I stuck that on just to watch the whole thing kind of
get the visual to go along with it as well, and it's just like,
man, it's so it's so good, even that I say they are
can be burnt out from touring at this point, but they are just giving
it everything and and just it is it is right, it is that greatest
hits off thing. I was like, it's quite heavily focused on Power Slave
being you know that. But if you just take the best songs of Power
Slave and then you just slot in the like untouchable hits off of the other
previous records, You've got essentially the perfect live album, haven't you. Well.
I mean this is like, you know, Iron made an slap bang
in the middle of their peak era live document and made and tend to treat
live albums more importantly as like chapter markers than any other band. I think,
like still to this day if you are a hardcore you know up the
Irons made until I die kind of fan then releasing the live album at the
end of the touring cycle that you went to is like a thing. And
I've yeah, I've got like fifty ironmade and DVDs like yeah, forever do
with like more. I am made the live album CDs and you'll have most
other bands, but like this. Of course, you know nineteen eighty five
of the World Slavery Tour, one of the most famous metal tours of all
time, famously played to like three hundred and fifty thousand people at the first
Rock in Rio. They did four nights at Long Beach where this is recorded,
five nights at the Hammersmith Odion where this ID is recorded. Fucking wild,
Like everything about this is stooped in history. I mean, even with
like all of the incredible album covers for their studio efforts, like probably the
most famous collection of covers of any metal band, A Live After Death one
is like right up there as a contender for the very best one, isn't
it. Like all the details like the HP Lovecraft quote here lies Edward the
head all that shit. You don't get that anymore. And I guess you
know Live after Death being the one that calls to you. You know,
We've not done many discussions of live albums to kind of in depth on the
show. And this is pretty much the most iconic heading that a live album
of all time, every single like Iron Maiden cliche, an idea that you
have ingrained into you about the Iron Maide and live show, apart from the
ones that are tied to songs that come later, like Fear of the Darker.
But all of it, you know, comes from this, all of
the scream formulong, beach, all of that, the stupid stage pantern,
like you're in California, why are you doing a Bruce forsythe like nice to
see you, to see you nice. It's so weirdly English, but like
it's all all comes from this, like you were saying, Sam, the
Churchill's speech into Aces High is one of the great iconic starts to any live
album. Yeah, and you've got like an intro tape that you play for
every show that you've tried to make your thing. Nah, No, we
haven't got to that stage yet. Um. Usually yeah, we just come
on and kind of starts smashing, Like to think about one, that's that's
just what every other band doesn't use. Run to the hills at the moment.
Yeah, Yeah, usually we just come on like smash the symbols and
you know, like do a big noise. Yeah, I'd love to have
something, but yeah, yeah, we did an album call about not long
ago, about somewhere in time because they're kind of upcoming, like Fiend tour
that they're doing, and that obviously takes him into their like later eighties slightly
more textured and progressive era, which is just after this album. This is
just you know, pure absolute heavy metal era I made. And I imagine,
of course you probably are a fan of like seven seven, seventh Sern
and so on. Like lots of people have their favorite metal record. Yeah,
my favorite is Power Sleeve and probably why this is my favorite fair enough
yeah thing because it's yeah, like you said, it's basically it's it's like
the Power Slave Tour and it's got um. Yeah, but yeah, I'm
a fan. Best songs on there, yeah, power Slave in rhyme of
the Ancient mariner Um. I think probably my favorite one from Power Slave or
one of my favorites is back in the Village and Wow. But the only
person on Earth he's ever said that I liked it. I know, I
like it to be fair but wow. Yeah, it's so strange. I
didn't realize like when I started, Like like you would go on like Reddit
and it was like, oh, rank the Power Slave songs or forums or
whatever, and they'd be like, right, they're all ten out of ten,
but this was a zero out of ten. Everyone hates this, and
I'm like, we've always got those everything, Like it's like Invaders on a
gang Bland on Number of the Beasts, which is my favorite record, And
yeah, I don't I don't like those songs the best, but I do
like those songs. Yeah, yeah, Back in the Village it's just it's
so speed metal for me. It's just the guitar is cool and fair enough.
That's a big yeah. I mean the riff on there, it's like,
you know, like very left hand hammer hammer on pool off kind of
thing, similar to the they kind of like Megadeth like thing. So you're
the only person who would say, live after death the only way to make
it more perfect back in the Village themselves. Possibly possibly, Yeah, I
do love that. Like touring Power Slaves, it's such a cocky album somehow,
because like there's often you know, Seventh Son and that they're they're thoughtful
records. Ace is high like two minutes to midnight when that riff comes in
on here, they are such like cock sure flamboyant heavy metal songs. It's
the most maiden ever sounded, just like absolute rock stars. And then when
you have Piece of Mind right before it with the Trooper, just like you
know, the most absolute gung ho flying the flag for heavy metal thing that
you can imagine. Like those early Dickinson albums in particular are so just like
Beasts. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree, and the yeah and You've
Got Yeah, it's just such a it's just such a like like the whole
live show thing, like the whole presentations there, you know they all they're
all dressed and they're their spandex there and trousers going on in the eighties.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's like the whole live show thing. The
energy is amazing and yeah yeah, and Live after Death is like a super
aggressive performance as well, Like it's not their most finessed live show, Like
you know, you mentioned, they're kind of tired. I think like Bruce
probably does sound better on some of the later ones like Rocking Rio and stuff
like that. He kind of has his quality on here of almost like shouting
every single line so relentlessly in these eighties shows. But this is just them
like again you know, youthful Iron Made and just throwing themselves into fired up.
Yeah, like just barreling through these songs that their lives depend on it.
Yeah, Like a lot of my favorite stuff is kind of like that.
Like if you like the one of the first like Metallica live thing,
like they kill them all one where Hetfields like really tired. Yeah, you
know his voice, he's like sometimes he's like losing his voice, like throughout
some of the songs he's not really in tune and stuff, And it's like
one of my favorites. Like just the kind of the energy is there in
that, like the energy of the live show kind of just it's more important
than like the being one hundred percent perfect like sounding. I think that's it's
because like you can listen to the m versions if you want, the sort
of the Pristian version, but having this lives and particular being these songs sounding
really just raw and and maybe a little bit rough around the edges, but
having that passion and that intensity to that you don't necessarily always think of when
you think of Iron Made in so it's cool to have this sort of document
of them. Eighty five one. They are just so like, let's just
attack. There's evan we've got And when we watch the video with like Bruce
is like waving the flag around and the trooper like frantically like and it just
characters entire performance. It just gives you songs a different energy to their studio
counterpart. Yeah. I mean you can really hear on this, you know,
captured on record from Long Beach Arena thirty eight years ago, how much
that Steve Harris engine, Like the power and force on his base on is
staggering. It is like peak machine gun pointing at the audience. Harris Like
they seem to play Flight of Vicarus on this so much faster than the album
version. Yeah, and yeah, I think maybe one of my favorites from
this one's probably Revelations. I was about to say that, Yeah, like
one of the most sensitive songs they have in their arsenal at this time,
and yet the main riff at the start is like comically brash and loud.
Yeah, and it's been a while since I watched the actual thing. I
listened to it. It's I listened to this whenever I listened to like Iron
Maiden really unless it's like a later period, like I usually listen to this
instead of the studio versions. It's been a while since I actually watched it.
I'm pretty sure Bruce Dickinson like plays the guitar on Revelations, like the
third guitar or something. Yeah, it makes sense to film to be because
one of more sort of detailed songs. But like again the caller response before
the faster section with the bum cheer bum. Yeah, like it's again just
essential you know, heavy metal moments. Yeah, and yeah, it's like
you mentioned, it's like right in the middle of the eighties. It's like
proper. It's like it's heavy metal, like it's before we before they did
their like Seventh Son and all that, before they got a bit more complex
and stuff. And yeah, just it's just right in that period of proper
just heavy metal. Yeah, I mean, I still I haven't said that,
you know, from a hell reperspective. Again, obviously, there's been
lots of talk about this kind of this black speed metal project, which is
a genre that you know traditionally works in kind of small violent doses. On
your new album, it's branched out more if these kind of you know,
multi pronged, like elaborate epic songwriting, and I was wondering, you know,
what we might get from you in terms of that side with this with
this album Roulette and again, yeah, we've mentioned Metallica prog bands like Opeth
or whatever, but I guess it's appropriate that we have just like the quintessential
metal explorers when it comes to these kind of epic tracks. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean the harmonies I remade in kind of you know, they're known
for the guitar harmonies, and then every heavy metal band afterwards like like do
the ironmediate like it's just become like the heavy metal thing. And of course,
yeah, hill Rapper used that a lot, especially on the new album.
There's a lot of harmonies. When I listened back, there's like so
much guitar harmonies, and yeah, that's probably like eighty percent because of iron
media. Yeah. Again, you know, in terms of what you're saying
about kind of you know, again stumbling across this as a kid and stuff
like that. Like when I first heard Ryan with the Ancient Mariner, I
had never heard like a thirteen minute song before, you know what I mean?
And then when they perform it on this again, like the first five
minutes of it are such insane gusto, Like we're talking about this record,
they just shotgun the whole thing. But live that like midsection with the creaking
boat sounds and everything. Yeah, somehow it's even cooler live than it is
on record. And that's the kind of thing where a lot of bands could
try that and it just get lost because they're in this massive arena space and
you've stopped the bangers to do this weird, off putting kind of slow thing.
But for Iron Made, it becomes one of the biggest moments of theater,
which they really understand. Yeah. Yeah, that was my favorite song
initially, Rayman the Intient Miner. Like when I first heard well, flight
six sixty six, As I mentioned before, like when I first heard flight
six six six, Ray raym of the Intient Maner was like like I never
heard it before, and I was like, wow, this is yeah,
that's amazing. Uh yeah, thirteen minutes, I was like wow, this
like it seems to never end, and like it goes to the quiet bit
you think it might end, and then it comes back with the scream when
when the base brings it back with that high register. It's like the most
stirring moments in the maid and Ga like even you must like that song sad,
although that's like that song is incredible, Like that is how you write
a thirteen minute epic is like the blueprint for doing that. And this live
performance a bit how it just you know, it's smack bang in the middle
of the set like bruces the weird rambling thing, but to introduce it and
then they just go into it. It was like, you know, this
is a lesson than what not to do when a bird shit's on you or
something. You know, this one was written long before, in the Victorian
time when they could smoke weed legally and all that, Like yeah, going
off all about that, and it's based on a poem like like it's so
but it's like the song, it's just it's just all the possible because again
that first part but it is still really just like rocking heavy metal. And
then is when you build to the theater of the sort of the middle part
of the slow stuff part and when it builds back in it is, like
I say, it is the textbook exam of how to write that kind of
metal Weapon, and I'm guessing like the newer Hell Ripper record, when you've
got those longer, kind of more storytelling songs on there was this yeah sort
of thing like when you looked at a song like round with Inch Mariner when
you're writing them. Yeah, yeah, especially, Yeah, it's always kind
of when you're writing a longer song, it's always you know, you know,
more difficult because you're like, you're you're a weird trait, you're trait
of you are aware not to make it drag on and yeah, I have
so many longer songs. Yeah, exactly, me too, And but a
lot of my favorite songs are longer songs, Like even bands like I'm one
of my favorite bands ever, Opeth, even Metallica, I mean all their
songs are like eight minutes long. And yeah, you've got the rhyme of
the ancient Mariner or merciful Fate, you know, Saints Fall, stuff like
that, they're done so well. But there are so many long songs that
are not done well. And by the time, by the time you're three
minutes in, you're like, wow, it should not end, and you
look and it's like ten minutes left, and you're like Jesus so that the
ancient man. Yeah, So trying to kind of yeah, trying to like
study you know, like study that's the right word, like how songs like
that work and why you like them even though they're so long and so yeah,
like yeah, storytelling and stuff. Just try to keep them interesting.
M Yeah, but yeah, Iron Maiden or a band I think do it
well for the most part. Yeah, I mean the new hell Ripper record,
like were saying earlier, it's kind of moved into a lot more topics
around, like mythology and you know, like dark Scottish folklore and stuff like
that. And you know, I don't necessarily see you go in full history
nerd charge of the Light Brigade like like I know them, but they've done
their fair share of stuff like that, and you know that maybe one of
the kind of the great bands who kind of instilled that interest in like literature
and that slightly more academic side of heavy metal, I guess than just you
know, acting like a maniac whiplash. Yeah, you know, it's funny
with what you're doing as well, Like there isn't really another form of contemporary
music outside of just going like straight to folk music and stuff like that from
the kind of the appropriate regions that feels as ripe for telling those kind of
stories as heavy metal is. Yeah, I guess so yeah, yeah,
I've never really given it much thought, to be honest, but yea,
I like even the stuff they invent almost becomes like its own mythology, Like
everyone knows the story of the man waiting to be hanged in howebby of that
name, you know, it might as well be something else that has been
written before them. Yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, they're Yeah.
The lyrically they're like great and a I believe eve, I mean going
back to the the Scottish thing with hell Rapper what do you call it,
Number of the Beast is influenced by Tamil Shanter I believe. So you've got
that there, But that's a little link there, I guess. But yeah,
Iron made and definitely kind of exposed um like me as well to a
lot of yeah, literature and stories and you know, Flight of a Chorus,
um, Yeah, Rum of the Ancient Mariner, stuff like that,
Like definitely kind of it's like some of these bands that m yeah, when
you're a younger, when you're younger, especially or for me, like you're
more inclined to be interested in like a topic because you're like, oh,
wow, I heard it in an Iron Maiden song. It must be cool.
You know, all this is cool because whatever whoever sang about it.
So yeah, they they can be credited for getting a lot of that kind
of stuff into people's minds again and you know, like again Number of the
Beast, with all the kind of the Ferrara that had around. It's like
releasing everything then you know, attacking that on this but it's like still fresh
and they were probably still people out there upset about that. You know.
That's still that's still cool to me. And I think, obviously not as
a as a not as a child of the eighties, the people who tend
to hold this record the closest are those people who are like, you know,
kids when it came out and it was like the heavy metal gateway or
whatever. I really value like you know, live recordings and everything of these
great bands at this time because they kind of tap into that thing that you
maybe don't appreciate growing up at a time when they are older. You know,
music's got one so much more extreme or whatever. Like these classic bands
as like genuinely dangerous and having that kind of allure of darkness to them.
For I made it's particularly interesting because a lot of people to think they're kind
of lame or whatever. But like again the type track power Slave on this
and that has that like live intro of that horrible whale. Then they brings
it in and like the sheer bluster and force of their playing on that song,
there's a real convincing like darkness and heavy when you hear them playing that
here. Yeah, yeah, like going back to yeah, just what you
said, they're like the the live stuff from this time, Yeah, I
think, yeah, being someone like from like they got into metal, like
how long what was this eighty five? I got into metal what twenty five
years after this? Almost, So there was so like I was, I
was kind of exposed to you know, Yeah, I knew about Cannibal Corps
and whatever, death metal and stuff. So yeah, like you say,
stuff like this, it doesn't seem so provocative or so dangerous or whatever now,
but yeah, back then it would have been crazy and sometimes like yeah,
going back like like live albums to kind of get that across again,
going back to Metallica, as I always do, like the live live in
Seattle. Yeah, that album, that's just it's like Metallica but double speed
and ten times more aggressive than the albums and everything. And yeah, it's
it's good to hear because often not in these cases, but yeah, sometimes
the albums when they were released at that time, the production doesn't like do
them justice as well, you know, like the early seventies or say eighties
or whatever. Or I guess even if you want to say, like Metallica
as the example and Justice for All, maybe doesn't even do the songs justice.
And now you get the live albums that sometimes are recorded better than the
album the albums that they're on more aggressive or whatever. And that's yeah,
why I picked this. I just think the songs sound better or are played
me or maybe it's just the way they're played. I just prefer these versions
to the studio versions for the most part. Yeah, hilarious. Have they
even turned Running for You to a night minute song? Isn't it? That
little stage be a bit in the middle of that just cracks me up?
How like pantomime it gets just get fun like yeah, and it matter how
that's like such an iconic live song for them, and yet they don't actually
do it on like two out of three tours. Nowadays, they've got like
so many tracks that are able to grab the spotlight certainly, Like, how
are you on seeing Maiden? You know these days? Are you still into
Eddie pottering about and having his little fights with Yannak and that? Yeah?
I think. I mean, it's part of the whole thing I have.
I've only seen them once and it was the final Frontier tourn haven't seen them
since actually, but yeah, it's it's all. Part of the thing is
that it's like a Goods it's a stage show. It's kind of what you
expect. It's it's fun that kind of it fits their image, you know.
It's yeah, it's it's meeting. They can do whatever the fuck they
want kind of. I mean, yeah, they're gonna bring out a guy
in a goat costume to you know, rock out with you. Oh,
We've got people in gold masks all the time coming off on stage and crowd
surfing and I love it. I absolutely love it. Maybe maybe we'll get
to the stage where we can have a twenty foot goat wandering around. That
would be amazing. Also, just god damn, the last few minutes of
Hall'll be by Name live just like absolutely nothing psychic. Yeah, new Hell
Ripper album, Warlocks, Grim and Withered Hags is out now, is excellent
if you are listening to this as it goes out. Hell Ripper are touring
in the UK this week with Warbringer. James I swear me and your band
are slightly cursed in terms of dates never lighting up, but at some point
on the cycle it's got to happen because the record Rips. Thank you so
much for thank you coming on and chatting heavy metal with us. Thank you
so much for having me man. Yeah, I appreciate and thanks for the
kine words, and thank you for listening to my thoughts on Chili Peppers and
their lyrics. Yeah, so Psycho Sexy. It's been a pleasure. Go
check out Hell Ripper. We are going to be back here within the week
with our next round of album clubs only that's a matter Patreon, and we
do a show here every week where we're talking about all good news stuff.
Thank you everybody for listening. See you next time.