Metal Hammer

#METOO, MUSIC AND MARILYN MANSON 1955-2020 MAENTAALLLT-RSIBTAUSRLTahaTbeEmShbalembvaaHystyoOohotermwfo,nre,GZgukhpHassoneakiadoycyckl,owehf5tuWsoraaFtrinnyDbobeglerouPvdmeeuetedde+rt,, WIN A GHOST GUITAR TURN 10 SIGNED Inside their insane BY ANGUS! early days KILLER BE KILLED Greg, Max, Troy & Ben interview each other EMMA RUTH RUNDLE & THOU Meet 2020’s weirdest team-up MR. BUNGLE It’s been 20 years – what took so long? ISSUE342 PALLBEARER / OCEANS OF SLUMBER / SPIRITBOX / SEVENDUST / SÓLSTAFIR / ARMORED SAINT





Future PLC, 1-10 Praed Mews, Paddington, London, W2 1QY HE WAS Web: www.metalhammer.com A LEGEND Letters: [email protected] IT’S AS SIMPLE as that. Last month, the rock and metal FOLLOW Editorial world mourned the loss of Eddie Van Halen; a man US whose technique, songwriting and stage presence Editor Merlin Alderslade changed the way we view guitar music forever. It METALHAMMER.COM [email protected] seemed only fitting that we united some of metal’s very /METALHAMMER biggest and best names to pay tribute to a player who Deputy Editor Eleanor Goodman has helped influence the majority of guitarists you’ll [email protected] read about in this very magazine each and every month. Production Editor Vanessa Thorpe Eddie’s passing was another reminder that the [email protected] landscape of rock continues to change rapidly. As it evolves, so too does the discourse within it. In 2020, Reviews Editor Jonathan Selzer music continues to reckon with its place in a post- [email protected] #MeToo world, and this month, we thought we’d broach metal’s proudest and longest-standing mouthpieces, Art Editor Louise Brock Marilyn Manson. Manson has never been afraid to have [email protected] his say, but with questions around his own personal life putting him in the spotlight, we found him in a Acting Online Editor Dave Everley surprisingly unengaged mood. Read Dave Everley’s [email protected] important and insightful piece to find out more. Content Director – Music Scott Rowley In the meantime, I hope you’re all doing OK out there. Please, stay safe and look after each other. Contributors Dean Brown, Cheryl Carter, Richard Chamberlain, Chris @METALHAMMER Chantler, Alec Chillingworth, Toby Cook, Ali Cooper, Joe Daly, Laina Dawes, Alex Deller, Malcolm Dome, John Doran, Dave MERLIN ALDERSLADE @METALHAMMERUK Everley, Jerry Ewing, Paris Fawcett, Connie Gordon, Stephen METALHAMMERTV Hill, Emma Johnston, Tyler Damara Kelly, Dom Lawson, EDITOR Dannii Leivers, Dave Ling, Sophie Maughan, Edwin McFee, Chris McGarel, Ken McIntyre, Joel McIver, Tom O’Boyle, Dayal @MERL_ALDERSLADE Patterson, Greg Prato, Adam Rees, Alastair Riddell, Natasha Scharf, Yasmine Summan, Nick Thorpe, James Weaver, Christina Wenig, Jon Wiederhorn, Holly Wright, Nik Young Cover Photography: Mediapunch/Shutterstock Cover Manipulation: MagicTorch Design: John Woolford Photography Ben Bentley, Justin Borucki, Derek Bremner, Steve Brown, Janson Bulpin, Stephanie Cabral, Duncan Everson, Nick Fancher, Mick Hutson, Will Ireland, Simon Kallas, Tina Korhonen, Marie Korner, John McMurtrie, Kevin Nixon, Jake Owens, Tom Russell, Jeremy Saffer, Ester Segarra, James Sharrock, Travis Shinn, Frank White, Dani Wilgress, Neil Zlozower All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected Advertising Media packs are available on request Commercial Director Clare Dove [email protected] Account Director Olly Papierowski [email protected] Account Director Helen Hughes [email protected] International Licensing Metal Hammer is available for licensing. 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10OCEANS OF SLUMBER 54 GHOST 34EDDIE VAN HALEN WIN! O SIGNED AC/DC THIS MAG! GIBSON SG Get your free, Head to p.105 aturing for details tons of the bands in this issue from tinyurl.com/ Hammer342Mix FRONT ROW who were inspired by his incredible, 86 Melodeath mainstays DARK innovative playing. RIP, EVH. TRANQUILLITY hit a new high. 8 National treasures ORANGE GOBLIN invite 46 MARILYN MANSON has long been you to their livestreamed birthday party. outspoken, which is why we were 88 HATEBREED extend their reign as surprised at our interview with him. metallic hardcore kingpins. 10 Would Cammie Gilbert from OCEANS OF 54 How GHOST became a hit on their debut SLUMBER slap a koala in the face? album, saving Tobias Forge’s career. 89 Kvelertak’s former frontman HJELVIK 60 In the most surprising reunion of 2020, heads to the metal altar. 14 Metal meets classic pop on the slaylist MR. BUNGLE go back to their roots, with from SÓLSTAFIR man Addi Tryggvason. a little help from thrash royalty. 90 IRON MAIDEN bring the madness 66 We asked KILLER BE KILLED to interview to Mexico. 16 Get this month’s life lessons from Lajon each other, and this is what happened. Witherspoon of SEVENDUST. 72 How Louisiana sludge merchants THOU 93 Maynard James Keenan gets serious made an unlikely album with singer- with PUSCIFER. 20 Are death metallers INGESTED back in songwriter EMMA RUTH RUNDLE. the studio already?! 76 PALLBEARER continue their journey out LIVE REVIEWS of the underground, with one of 2020’s 22 Written after losing their guitarist to most heart-wrenching releases. 100 COREY TAYLOR gets Los Angeles into cancer, ARMORED SAINT’s Last Train the party spirit. Home became their calling card. KILLER BE - but how’s the album? 102 TALLAH stage a jailbreak in the state 26 Former members of Iwrestledabearonce of Pennsylvania. channel themselves into SPIRITBOX. 103 ENSLAVED enter the transformative FEATURES realm of Utgard. 34 104 FEVER333 incite another one of their EDDIE VAN HALEN, and timely insurrections. hear from the musicians 104 OBITUARY bring their Cause Of Death album back to life. SUBSCRIBE NOW& SAVE Head to p.32 for details 66KILLER BE KILLED 60 MR. BUNGLE 72EMMA AND THOU 100COREY TAYLOR METALHAMMER.COM 5

THE BIG PICTURE WHEN LARISSA MET ALISSA IN HONOUR OF Venom Prison’s ferocious new release, Primeval, arriving last month, we thought we’d cast our minds back to the summer of 2017 when singer Larissa Stupar fronted the cover of Metal Hammer for the very first time. We teamed her up with Arch Enemy’s Alissa White-Gluz for a conversation about the state of the metal scene today and how far an extreme metal band can really go. “This was the first time we had been asked to do a front cover”, remembers Larissa today. “An amazing day! Alissa was a natural and made me feel incredibly comfortable, so it was a perfect introduction to share the cover with her – we met again at Bloodstock that year and I hope our paths cross again in the future.” Quite frankly, we hope so too. Now that’d be a tour we’d go see. 6 METALHAMMER.COM

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THE HOT TOPIC 25 YEARS OF ORANGE GOBLIN, BABY! One of the UK’s most beloved metal bands is celebrating a quarter-century in the game with two epic livestreams. Frontman Ben Ward explains what we should expect WORDS: RICH HOBSON AS ONE OF Britain’s finest heavy evolved exponentially from the early Orange Goblin: British institution days of peddling Sabbath riffs by way metal bands™, 2020 was supposed of Hawkwind and Motörhead into As with most bands in 2020, Orange to be a big year for Orange Goblin. a revered institution in their own Goblin have been hit hard by the Alas, this year’s propensity for being right. Each record has built their legacy ongoing pandemic. “2020 has just a consummate bastard put paid to into an enviable monument to the been a bit of a shitshow, hasn’t it?” both the band’s summer festival run oil’n’smoke powering the motor of the Ben chuckles. “What was supposed to and planned December tour, now entire heavy metal genre, so fittingly, be a 25-year celebration for the band rescheduled for 2021. But all isn’t lost; the upcoming livestreams will feature has been completely ruled out, and on the band will be undertaking two very songs from across their discography. a personal level I got made redundant special livestreams on November 15 “Each night will be a completely from my job as a booking agent. But it’s and 16 from The Dome in London to different set,” Ben explains. “The first for the best; it gave me the opportunity celebrate a quarter-century of is from [1997 debut] Frequencies From to start my own company and start thundering stoner metal. “I remember Planet Ten to Thieving From The House Of fresh. We’ve had to make ends meet Motörhead doing The Birthday Party at God, our first five albums released on using alternative means, thus the the Hammersmith Odeon and that was Rise Above. The second night takes us release of the Rough & Ready, Live & Loud celebrating just 10 years!” frontman right up to [2018’s] The Wolf Bites Back, CD [back in May], but it’s a stop-gap, Ben Ward marvels. “To think of how with live Q&A sessions, a special film really. Orange Goblin might not always long they were around – or that Judas about what goes on behind the scenes have been my day-job, but it is the Priest are now celebrating 50 years and a few other little extras that can thing I prioritise most and pour all and we’ve been going for half that time make things extra special for the fans. of my creativity and energy into. I’ll – is insane!” People can watch from anywhere in fight tooth and nail for this band; it’s the world and the video will be hosted everything to me and 25 years is a really Around for half as long as heavy for 48 hours after the show for anyone long time – over half my life!” metal itself, Orange Goblin have that misses it too. But what makes it even more special is we can actually “I’LL FIGHT have some people come and see us and TOOTH AND NAIL bring a bit of atmosphere to the room. FOR THIS BAND” We’re a band that feeds off the audience so the idea of playing to nobody didn’t BEN WARD really appeal!” 8 METALHAMMER.COM

ORANGE GOBLIN: PRESS. ARCHITECTS: PRESS/ED MASON. BMTH: GETTY. This passion goes a long way to tour [in 2004], but otherwise we’ve 10 THINGS explaining how Orange Goblin got to persevered and formed a bond that’s WE LEARNED where they are today, from the haze of more a brotherhood than a band.” THIS MONTH London pubs to playing the main stage at festivals like Download, supporting Still, we have to press – surely there’s What’s been blowing the likes of Ronnie James Dio and Alice one moment that stands out thus far? our tiny brains Cooper at Wembley Arena (as they did in “Growing up, Pantera were my idols, WE GOT NEW MERCH! 2001) or opening Ozzfest in California. so I’m sure you can appreciate how utterly bizarre it felt celebrating my Head over to www.metalhammer.com to “In 2017 Sharon Osbourne’s office 40th birthday on tour in America with check out some of our latest designs. asked us to open the main stage and Down, performing at the House of we just thought, ‘Surely you’re mixing Blues in Las Vegas and having Phil Architects have us up – how did we get here?!’” Ben come onstage with a birthday cake to returned! Yesssss! laughs. “There have been so many sing Happy Birthday! We’re renowned good points that it’s hard to pinpoint for having a good time on tour, so ARCHITECTS ARE BACK just one. The secret to our longevity is most of the bizarre things that have that, really, we don’t have that many happened also happened when we Fuck yeah! We’ve been jamming Animals low-points to worry about; we’ve had were all at least fairly inebriated! non-stop since it dropped a few weeks arguments, but we take everything as If ever we write a book it’ll be quite back. Bring on that new album. it comes and have no airs and graces the interesting read – The Dirt will have about who we are or what we want to nothing on us!” AND SO ARE EMPLOYED TO SERVE do. There’s a lot of water that’s passed under the bridge from where we Well, what else would you expect If you haven’t heard Party’s Over yet, what started, but we’re pretty unique in that of a band that sing about zombie biker are you doing?! Listen to it right now. it’s still effectively the same guys that gangs and alien serial killers? started it that are still around today. WHISKY + VINYL = GOOD Chris [Turner, drums] came in a little ORANGE GOBLIN’S 25TH later but still wrote and played a lot ANNIVERSARY LIVESTREAMS Metallica have done a special Batch 100 of that first album, and we lost Pete TAKE PLACE NOVEMBER 15 AND version of their excellent Blackened [O’Malley, guitar] after our first US 16. GET YOUR TICKETS NOW Whisky that comes with vinyl, a Blackened FROM WWW.HOTEL-RADIO.COM zine and more. We want it. BRING ME THE HORIZON HAVE BROUGHT ALL THEIR MATES IN BMTH’s surprise EP features guest spots from Babymetal, Amy Lee, Nova Twins and Yungblud. It’s nice to share the love. PAPA ROACH COVERED BLUR’S SONG 2 We’re not sure why. Still, fair play to ’em. OZZY SHOWS ARE POSTPONED AGAIN We’ll now see the Prince Of Darkness on the road in 2022! It’ll be worth the wait. MILEY = METAL Miley Cyrus is working on a new Metallica covers album. You read that exactly right. AFTERSHOCK FEST LOOKS AMAZING Who’s up for a trip to Cali next year? IT’S CHRISTMAS NEXT MONTH Wait, no, that can’t be right. It’s only May, right? Guys?! GUYS?! BMTH: everyone’s invited METALHAMMER.COM 9

WOULD YOU SLAP A KOALA FOR WORLD PEACE? There’s nothing Oceans Of Slumber’s Cammie Gilbert won’t face down. Even having to smack a marsupial WORDS: ALI COOPER • PICTURES: TAYLEE PHOTOGRAPHY ARMED WITH THEIR eponymous Is it hard when you’re in a couple in fill that isn’t normally there. It’s very a band and you’ve just had a ‘domestic’ nuanced and intimate between us, so fourth album, US prog metallers Oceans but then need to go to work? a lot of times we have it all out onstage Of Slumber aren’t letting the chaos of so we can communicate better after the 2020 stand in the way of their next Oscar McMunn (Facebook) show and apologise or reconcile. It’s phase. We asked you lot to send us your intense and people have noted it, like, best (and weirdest) questions to grill “For us [Cammie and drummer Dobber ‘When you turn and sing to him, that’s vocalist Cammie Gilbert, and you did Beverly are an item], this is easier than, so dramatic!’ It can be tough spending not disappoint — from potential cover for example, a more serious kind of job. that much time together, touring when songs to band disputes, world peace It might be a little more difficult to work you’re grumpy and crammed into a bus, and… gardening, Cammie bravely takes together but this is a creative realm, you get kinda prickly but we always on the ultimate Hammer challenge. and such an expanding realm within make up. We leave it all on the stage!” a person’s internal psychology that it How awesome are your hobbies and allows us to be interwoven tighter How do you manage to keep your inspirations? Metal food? Metal pets? together. Without him being able to voice in good condition? Metal gardening? Metal knitting? understand this part of me, things would be more difficult, but he Bethan Edwards (email) @HellsHobbits (Twitter) understands something that’s hard to explain. I’ve been very upset with him “I’m really bad about taking care of my “I started gardening at the beginning of onstage before, though; we’ve had huge voice, but as long as my throat doesn’t the pandemic and now I have a little blowouts at shows and I’ll turn to him hurt then I assume I’m doing OK. There garden graveyard for all the things that at one point in the song and I’ll sing at are different ideas about what your voice didn’t catch on. I’ve been really good at him. We go through these motions on needs. My instrument is internal so just growing rosemary and aloe vera – it’s stage and it’s like we’re cascading and talking warms my voice up. To me, it’s like an alcohol garden for garnishes for arguing and communicating. I can hear more about being mindful that your alcoholic drinks so we use rosemary for when he plays the drums differently, body is in good form, that you’re not Moscow Mules. Next step: moonshine!” when he’ll play the snare super-hard or putting too much strain on your voice. he’ll have this super-aggressive drum I do a couple of trills to acknowledge What are your favourite and least the highs, I drink lots of water, and favourite things about Texas? Oceans Of Slumber: I avoid post-show yelling in a club prog metal and cool because that can be damaging. It’s Brad Millet (Facebook) more about avoiding stuff than doing anything extra. I tried all the techniques “My favourite thing is that it has many before and my voice just got more tired.” different climates and terrains – the desert, the swamp, the hill country, the What music do you listen to outside coast. I’m not a super beach person but of metal? one of my favourite things is going to the coast in the fishing districts, which Jess Piplow (Facebook) is a bit different from beach culture. My least favourite things are the searing “I love artists like Tracy Chapman, heat and the Confederate people, Tori Amos, Tom Waits and Nick Cave, although where we are in Houston is Queens Of The Stone Age, old-school incredibly diverse. It’s a beautiful, big stuff like Luther Vandross. Anything old state and I love the Southern that has a dark vibe and carries an hospitality, but you’ll melt walking to ominous atmosphere, I’m into that.” your car if you’re not careful.” 10 METALHAMMER.COM

OCEANS OF SLUMBER Cammie can’t recommend any vocal exercises, but she can recommend some dark and ominous tunes “WE’VE HAD HUGE BLOWOUTS ON STAGE” METALHAMMER.COM 11

OCEANS OF SLUMBER Is rock as dead as everyone keeps Koalas, you might want to saying it is? How do we save it? start legging it now… Toby Dunford (email) “People say that because the landscape of music consumption has changed. Rock and metal have this foundation on tangible exchange – you went to the concert, you bought the shirts and the album, you met the band – it’s this direct interaction. Streaming has changed that to where everything is singles-based and video-based, so the foundation of exposing people to other kinds of music or changing what they expect from their music has changed. Pop is like candy; you can have a giant tub of shitty candy, but metal is a filet mignon. It takes time, it’s cultivated, it’s this heartier meal that isn’t meant to be wholesale. I think in this landscape of overproduction and oversaturation, everybody’s making music and other genres are pumping out music so much quicker than rock and metal. There’s more to cultivate there, so it’s getting shoved out and pushed down and getting lost in this big glossy YouTube and influencer society. I don’t know how to save it other than the people who appreciate it maintaining that integrity, that they continue to share stuff and expose it to people around them.” You’ve covered Nights In White Satin metal is a catch-all for a lot of things so and execution of his voice. Singers like and Kashmir. You have a history of cool is subjective and there’s something Anita Baker for that belting and big, such incredible, epic covers that are for everyone within prog. It has the powerful voice. Chris Cornell for so tastefully executed! What’s next? biggest spectrum of sounds within showing soul through grunge and a subgenre versus more consistent ones heartfelt expression with voice. Layne @J1sonofagun like black metal and death metal.” Staley, who was a first love/voice crush because his voice is so raw and soulful. “We have some Donny Hathaway What would your dream tour be? Tracy Chapman for the same idea – she planned, a couple of country songs, plus wasn’t necessarily a phenomenal some personal covers that I want to do, Ricky Wilson (Facebook) singer, but you felt so much heart from acoustic versions of a John Legend song, her voice. Minnie Riperton for making for example. For Oceans Of Slumber, “I like to cascade things so I would love me wish I was a soprano. These artists I think there’s more Type O Negative to tour with a band like Anathema or show the full realm of what I aim to planned because we love them, people The Gathering, any band that Anneke do and what I try to execute; they need to be more amped about them. van Giersbergen is in because she’s inspired me to expand my voice and There’s a long list, we love doing covers!” amazing. To have a more sensitive jams give acknowledgement to every part of tour, because we go on tour with such my voice and wanting to use it all.” Is it possible to make prog metal cool? heavy bands normally, I’d say 40 Watt Sun for the really moody and heavy-in- Would you slap a koala for world peace? Stephen Brooks (email) the-feels kind of show.” Tony Elkington (Facebook) “That’s such a messed-up question! At Who are your musical influences? the prog metal festival here in the US, “Poor chlamydia-ridden koalas already Prog Power, there’s a distinct subculture Tom George McHugh (Facebook) have it hard enough and I have to slap difference. You have the people who him for world peace? That’s a big wear black vests with patches, then you “With singing, it’s a bit different to just trade-off and it’s like the butterfly have what I call ‘metal goth royalty’ them being my influences because effect; a butterfly flaps its wings and who dress almost Colonial and they’re you’re moved by what other people do there’s a hurricane, I slap the koala and all vampiric, then you have prog people but you’re not really trying to mimic there’s world peace? I’d have to smack in khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirts what somebody else sings like. Luther the koala. The koala’s going to recover looking like they work in IT. You go up to Vandross, nobody can touch him for his and I’d immediately get medical them like, ‘You’re a metalhead?’ They’ll prowess when it comes to performance attention for the backhand I had to give cite every album and band changeover, him. I’d have to apply the ice pack and and you’re like, ‘Well, you look like you smack that koala – ‘I’m sorry, you’re just left the Apple Store but OK!’ Prog gonna save so many lives!’” “CAN PROG METAL BE COOL? OCEANS OF SLUMBER IS OUT NOW THAT’S A MESSED-UP QUESTION!” ON CENTURY MEDIA 12 METALHAMMER.COM



Addi Tryggvason tips his hat to Duran Duran and Autopsy THE SLAYLIST ADDI TRYGGVASON Sólstafir’s frontman talks us through the journey that spawned Iceland’s premier post-metal masters WORDS: RICH HOBSON • PORTRAIT: IRIS DOGG EINARSDOTTIR “I KNOW A LOT of people talk about tape-trading LISTEN metal, but suddenly here was British new wave goth and Love NOW Under Will changed the way we listened to music. Speaking of networks, but I didn’t really get involved in that until around Britain, JUDAS PRIEST are one of my favourite bands, but if ’95 when Sólstafir formed. We’d make cassettes for our demos, Listen I had to pick a song it’d probably be The Green Manalishi (With which then made us dive into the underground pool to trade to Addi’s mix The Two Prong Crown). The [Fleetwood Mac] original is OK, but those cassettes and posters with fans and other musicians. at tinyurl.com/ it’s not even half as good as what Judas Priest can do with it. But before all that, around ’88, I went to a friend’s and he’d got AddiSlaylist this cassette that said ‘SLAYER – Reign In Bloodpest’ written THE SMASHING PUMPKINS have this song Mayonnaise on it in pencil, because he’d just recorded a copy of his cousin’s from Siamese Dream and whenever I hear it I just think, record. It’s funny, I still have it! The first thing that hit me ‘Damn, I wish I’d written that song.’ It’s very melancholic – was the guitar of Angel Of Death – the riff is mindblowing and the Pumpkins so often get stamped as being part of grunge, when that Tom Araya scream kicks in? Insane. but this song shows just how different they are. I also love NEIL YOUNG, especially the Rust Never Sleeps album. There AUTOPSY are my favourite death metal band. Around the are two versions of the song My My, Hey Hey on there and time of release – 1991 – I got a copy of Spanish Metal Hammer there’s just this cracking guitar sound – even if it’s not strictly while on holiday with my parents. I got it for the pictures of heavy metal. He came to Iceland in 2013 on my birthday and course (I couldn’t read Spanish!) and there was a see-through a friend of mine was working backline, so I got to be part of flexi 7” attached, where one side was Twisted Mass Of Burnt the crew too. We were all waiting for the holy grail to be put Decay and the other was Eternal by PARADISE LOST; both onstage – ‘There it is, Neil Young’s amp!’ We tried to be these songs coloured my youth. I’m not even sure I had any professional, but nobody could resist going to look at this death metal records at that point so it changed my tastes 50s Fender amp that he’s been using since the 60s. completely. ENTOMBED changed death metal in 1993 with Wolverine Blues and it just exploded - I even played in my own One of my first favourite bands was DURAN DURAN. One death rock’n’roll band at the time. That album was great, but of the only magazines we could get in Iceland was Bravo, from it got even better with the follow-up – the single Damn Deal Germany, and I remember opening it and getting a poster Done is one of my all-time favourites. I could put up on the wall. There’s something about A View To A Kill that makes it special and Simon Le Bon’s vocal lines Around ’95 I heard FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM thanks to are glorious. A lot of people look at them as this superficial our old bass player Halldór [Einarsson]. He went to England band but they were around for ages before they were famous and ended up in a store – I’m pretty sure it was Resurrection – like The Beatles, playing in leather jackets and carrying Records in Camden. The guy in the store wouldn’t let him out knives until [people around them] dressed them in suits and unless he brought a Fields record, so he came home with that made a boyband of them! I’m a huge JOHN LENNON fan – I and inevitably when we were playing together, we’d also listen actually got into his music before The Beatles. I really identify to music together – stuff like Darkthrone, Norwegian black with songs like Instant Karma – even more because his voice tears out of his mouth; his vocals get shredded on that song, “THE BEATLES WERE something I can relate to!” PLAYING IN LEATHER AND CARRYING KNIVES” ENDLESS TWILIGHT OF CODEPENDENT LOVE IS OUT NOW VIA SEASON OF MIST 14 METALHAMMER.COM



NICE GUYS FINISH last, they say. With I remember being so excited about performing around 20-plus years, it’s more than likely you because the lead singer of R&B band Cameo’s know there’s a black guy in the band and you nearly three decades in the music business and son went to the school, so Larry Blackmon was might not come to the show if you don’t like a whopping 13 Sevendust albums under his belt, sitting there watching me perform. I feed off that. The band and I have been very blessed metal’s nice guy Lajon Witherspoon proves that the energy from people so the show must go and it’s been an incredible experience for me, old adage spectacularly wrong, regardless of on even if they’re looking at you wondering I’ve been very lucky. If there’s anything I can the odd drama the industry has thrown at what the hell you’re doing. We’ve had that do to promote the metal community, that’s him. As Sevendust unleash their new record, a few times. We opened for Creed a few years exactly what I’m going to do because I’m gonna Lajon reflects on the highs and lows of his ago and we came out onstage to people looking be around for a long time.” tenure in music, including his musical roots at us like, ‘What the hell’s going on? Why is set in soul, funk and country, attending the the black man with dreadlocks yelling at us? METAL RUNS IN THE FAMILY Grammys, and winding up on national news Did he say a curse word?’” in association with a murder trial in 2008. “My son is four years old and he thinks he’s in a metal band right now! I love my kids doing METAL TAKES HOLD OF YOU YOUNG whatever they want; I want to introduce them to music and I find it beautiful that they love “My father played guitar and bass in a disco all kinds of music, from metal to country. band, so music was always playing everywhere. They’re playing ukulele and Kingston has I grew up listening to R&B, gospel and rock. a full-on electric Fender amp guitar that he I started listening to country when I got older, rocks on a continuous basis in his bedroom then it turned when I was about 13 when beside his drum kit. That probably gets played I heard Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy and Jimi at 7am at times but we’re allowed since we Hendrix. I fell in love with metal and it seemed [were] in quarantine.” like I got on a ship and it just never stopped.” NASHVILLE’S MUSICAL HISTORY DREAMS CAN COME TRUE IS INFECTIOUS “As a young man, I remember saying to the LIFE LESSONS “It was incredible growing up in Nashville band, ‘Wouldn’t it be crazy if one day we had around not only my family that played music kids and we were married, we had a tour bus but also all the and our wives country artists. and kids could Everywhere you LAJON come out?’ All go, there’s music. those things I enjoy it even happened years more as an adult later, it’s still because I couldn’t hard to believe. get into many Staying together places as a kid. takes respect, Last time we WITHERSPOON theloveofthe were staying in music and each Nashville, we other, letting went down to go each other out and walk the breathe and streets but we keeping things didn’t leave the He might be one of metal’s good guys, but the Sevendust equal. I feel a lot hotel because the frontman has had his fair share of turbulence and tragedy of bands don’t guy playing in take things the bar was better equally and that than anyone we’d WORDS: ALI COOPER tends to tear ever seen!” things apart SOUL AND METAL ARE VERY SET AN EXAMPLE – when you’ve got one guy driving a Ferrari SIMILAR WORLDS and another riding a bicycle to the studio.” “I try to be a positive role model, not just for “My first band were Body & Soul. We were black kids but for every kid out there, because YOUR BAND IS YOUR FAMILY a funk rock band and we opened up for rock I’m a father. I definitely have a positive outlook “Sevendust is a family and I feel like we started and soul bands like Mother’s Finest. We played and I plan on continuing to be focused on something we can’t stop! I look out in the all the places in Atlanta, Georgia. We thought welcoming people into the metal community crowd and see people my age that started we were playing metal just because we had that might be afraid and think it’s not cool. It’s with us when they were 20 and now they have a double kick bass! I still try to make my metal definitely cool, there’s every walk of life here three kids. Some of them are older and have as soulful as I possibly can. Soul and funk and that’s what I love about it. I make light of their grandkids coming out for shows! What definitely have the same camaraderie as metal; it but it’s a serious thing. I believe there’s more could you ask for to still be relevant in I can go to a metal show one night and an R&B racism everywhere, but I haven’t seen it in this industry? It’s very beautiful to still be show the next and still have the same amount my 20-something years in Sevendust. If you acknowledged; I’ve always said you can either of fun and see the same passion. For me, music haven’t seen Sevendust and we’ve still been love or hate us, but you’ll be damned if you is a healer. I think this world would be can ignore us.” even crazier than it is right now ALBUM #13 IS A BREATH OF “CREED’S FANS WEREwithout music, song and lyrics.” FRESH AIR LIKE, ‘WHAT THENO TWO GIGS ARE THE SAME “Blood & Stone shows a band that’s HELL’S GOING ON?’” been together for a very long time “My first gig was crazy! We played at and has grown. I think it shows us PRESS a private high school’s talent show. 16 METALHAMMER.COM

SEVENDUST Lajon is fortunate to have not encountered racism while fronting Sevendust METALHAMMER.COM 17

SEVENDUST “WE WERE TWO GETTY ROWS BEHIND 18 METALHAMMER.COM STEVIE WONDER” that we were able to take a break and get back to life, be with our families and be husbands to our wives. It reflects on this album that we were able to unplug for a minute, so this one shows a whole different side to us, it’s a very well-rounded album. There are some different things we haven’t tried before – I really wanted to sing on this album and I got the opportunity.” BAD PRESS IS… BAD PRESS “We can’t help Casey Anthony [suspected killer in 2008] liked Sevendust, then that mean lady Nancy Grace went after us on the news, what a nightmare! ‘They wrote a song about the little girl, it was a message!’ No, it’s not, we don’t know the girl. I’m sorry it’s a terrible thing that happened, but what the fuck were they talking about us for? We’re just this band from Atlanta, Georgia trying to make it and all of a sudden the press are like, ‘Oh my god, these devil worshippers!’ I don’t even know what ended up happening with that, I feel like we need an apology. Of all the bands in the world, we’ve done everything upfront and I hope that we’ve been nice to everybody, but to be labelled with that was crazy. They say even bad press is good press but that was not cool!” SOLO ALBUMS TAKE TIME “A solo album is something I’ve always wanted to do and it’s always been in me. Now I’ve had time to slow down so I’ve been able to work on it in my little breaks here and there. I’ve been working with a good friend of mine, Sahaj Ticotin from the band Ra – he’s such an incredible human being and partner to work with. There’s label interest, which I think is really funny – you forget that the days of record deals aren’t over and some people are still signing acts. It’s fun for me to go through the whole process of people listening to my jam and telling me if they like it. I’m getting ready to write another batch of three or four songs, I have about 10 right now that I feel are very strong. When the Sevendust thing settles down, I’ll start leaking that stuff out.” THE GRAMMYS ARE SURREAL “Our Grammy nomination was such a pleasure and an honour. A lot of people say the Grammys suck but whatever, you have your opinions. For me, as a young man growing up and watching the Grammys on TV with my parents and grandparents, then to be a part of it in 2016, it was incredible. Me and my wife were sitting two rows behind Stevie Wonder and I said, ‘Are you freaking kidding me? He can definitely hear me talking about him right now!’” BLOOD & STONE IS OUT NOW VIA RISE



COVID isn’t slowing down Ingested, not by a long shot IN THE STUDIO INGESTED Less than a month after releasing their fifth record and Mancunian death metal heroes Ingested are already well underway with their next chapter(s) WORDS: RICH HOBSON THE FACTS spring, then once that’s done we should changing too much because we don’t ALBUM: be putting the final touches on our next want to be one of those bands that takes FOR SEASONED ROAD warriors 6 record, too.” something people liked and completely PRODUCER: changes it, but there’s definitely a sense Ingested, the complete halt of touring That’s one hell of a work ethic… that we’re a lot more developed as represented an enormous change to Nico Beninato “We’ve got no excuses! To be honest, if musicians now and we wanted to bring a lifestyle they had begun almost 15 we weren’t using this time to get on with some of that to the sessions.” years ago. Luckily, they’ve approached STUDIO: other things, I’d come out of it really the pandemic less like a roadblock and disappointed. We’re continually writing With the next record coming so more like a custom ramp to launch Kimera – even when we’re at the recording soon, do you see it as a companion themselves headfirst into enough Recordings, stage. Even some of the tracks from our to Where Gods May Only Tread, or recording projects to make even Palma de Mallorca latest album [Where Only Gods May Tread, a change of direction? metal’s most prolific creatives sweat. released August 2020] were written “It’s the next step in our evolution, for Between remastering their very first EXPECT: long before we got into the studio. That certain. At the same time, we’re never EP, re-recording 2011’s The Surreption last track – Leap Of The Faithless – was going to go so far out that we lose track for its 10th anniversary and starting A groove-laden originally intended for the last record of why our core fans like us in the first work on album #6, drummer Lyn Jeffs lumbering but didn’t quite fit so we held it off.” place. This new record will still be rooted sat down with Hammer to tell us how in the history of Ingested, but we will everything is coming along… modern death What benefit do you see in also never write the same record twice.” metal leviathan re-recording those past releases? Back in the studio a little over a month “Honestly, we’ve never been entirely What do you think the biggest change after your last record was released happy with the mix on The Surreption has been between your early records PRESS – you’re eager! – we were just too new to things to and now? “Well, we usually tour a lot – around argue. Similarly, we’d gone in to do our “The way we write those songs, to be five to seven tours a year – which will original demo with a producer who had honest. Touring so much has really take us around the world and into 100+ worked with a lot of bands, but had shaped the way we approach songs; shows a year, easily. We were on tour absolutely no idea about death metal in the beginning we were writing with with Decapitated when the pandemic – we were the first death metal band a much more technical mentality and broke out, so we figured we might as he’d ever heard, let alone worked with! it wasn’t until we headed out on our well use that time to get writing and first full tours that we saw some songs recording again.” With the free time we’ve got worked really well where others didn’t. at the moment, it made It evolved our mindset in terms of Whereabouts in the process are you? sense to go back over those writing to realise something didn’t “We’ve just remixed and past releases and give them need to be so complicated, brutal or remastered our very first EP a polish. The demo EP was technical to be effective – the songs [2006’s Stinking Cesspool of easy enough as we had access that went down the best often turned Liquefied Human Remnants] to the stems, but for The out to be the simplest.” after getting hold of the Surreption we’re re-recording stems and multi-tracks, it with a really talented STINKING CESSPOOL OF with the hope to get that out producer friend of mine – LIQUEFIED HUMAN REMNANTS between December and Nico Beninato of Kimera IS DUE DECEMBER 2020, THE January. We’re also setting Recordings. We won’t be SURREPTION IN SPRING 2021, up to re-record our second AND INGESTED’S SIXTH RECORD record [2011’s The Surreption] IN LATE 2021 which we want out in the 20 METALHAMMER.COM



THE STORY BEHIND LAST TRAIN HOME BY ARMORED SAINT Written in the aftermath of losing their guitarist to cancer, this inspiring anthem became the hallmark calling card of the US metal mainstays WORDS: DOM LAWSON • PORTRAIT: TRAVIS SHINN BY THE END OF the 1980s, Armored THE FACTS our fondest memories of that tour was Armored Saint (left to right): RELEASED: when Dave made this funnel thing to Dave Prichard, Gonzo Sandoval, John Saint were beginning to wonder if the 1991 piss in, so you could put the tube outside Bush, Joey Vera - Hollywood 1988 world was conspiring against them. ALBUM: the window of the van and take a piss, Formed in Los Angeles in 1982, they and we wouldn’t have to stop. It was Not just an insanely gifted lead had released three widely acclaimed Symbol Of Salvation a great idea, but it was also a bad idea! guitarist but, as Bush notes, the most studio albums and become major Ha ha ha! We just got piss all over the natural leader in Armored Saint at the players in the burgeoning US metal PERSONNEL: place. It was funny!” time, Dave Prichard had discovered underground. What they definitely that he had leukaemia after taking hadn’t done was conquer the rest of the John Bush Despite slumming it across the States a blood test to assess his suitability for world: an oversight vocalist John Bush (vocals), Jeff with no tour support and a strong a powerful acne medication. wearily attributes to the fact that Duncan (guitar), chance of frostbite, Armored Saint Armored Saint didn’t tour Europe or the Phil Sandoval were buoyed by their last tour of the “That was a death sentence in the UK until much later in their career. (guitar), Joey Vera 80s, which took in shows with both 80s, it was a pretty severe form of (bass), Gonzo Michael Schenker and Ted Nugent, cancer,” John says. “They’ve made a lot Perhaps surprisingly, then, Bush Sandoval (drums) alongside some sold-out headlining of strides with leukaemia now, but back and his bandmates – bassist Joey Vera, dates. Unfortunately, their efforts then it was pretty bad. So his illness, guitarists Dave Prichard and Jeff HIGHEST CHART would prove to be futile, at least in the band being dropped and our whole Duncan and drummer Gonzo Sandoval POSITION: commercial terms, and an even more future being so uncertain, that was all – were only one year away from devastating bombshell was just around what propelled us towards just writing recording what would become their N/A the corner. songs and not worrying if something biggest and most celebrated album, was totally out of the box compared to Symbol Of Salvation. But as they began “We got home and we officially got what Armored Saint usually did. And DAVID PLASTIK/ICONICPIX to contemplate penning a follow-up dropped, so we didn’t have a label,” that’s where songs like Last Train Home to 1987’s Raising Fear, all was definitely John shrugs. “That was the moment came from.” not rosy in the Armored Saint camp. when we truly started saying, ‘Right, forget it, we’re just going to write songs DAVE PRICHARD PASSED away “We knew we were going to get and we’re not going to care about dropped by our label at the beginning anything. We’re just gonna write!’ We on February 28, 1990, midway through of ’88,” John Bush tells Hammer. “We weren’t on a label so why we would we writing sessions for the new Armored were going to do another tour but the look for a particular style, when we Saint album. The band took several label withheld tour support and said don’t know what the future holds months to mourn their friend and to they weren’t paying for it. So we went anyway? So we started writing, and work out exactly how to proceed, but it out in a van and drove from LA to right after that was when we found out Syracuse, New York, across the country about Dave’s illness with leukaemia.” in January, and it was freezing. One of 22 METALHAMMER.COM

ARMORED SAINT soon became apparent that the sheer but it’s still a family. Back in 1990, we into the mix. One song immediately strength of the material that they had knew that that was how we were going stood out, however: the titanic, been writing compelled them to move to get through it.” heart-rending melodic feast of Last forward and make a new album. With Train Home. Written toward the end Gonzo’s brother (and original member) SYMBOL OF SALVATION was of writing sessions for Symbol Of Phil rejoining the band on rhythm Salvation, the song was not a direct guitar, the retooled Armored Saint had released on May 14, 1991, through tribute to Dave Prichard, but its lyrics kept things very much in the family. Armored Saint’s new home of Metal seem unbearably poignant in light of Significantly, the band’s line-up Blade Records. A 55-minute hard rock his untimely passing: ‘Crossroads of my remains exactly the same today. and heavy metal tour de force, it life / Feel my body glide / To a place I need sounded like the work of band truly to be / It’s within my sights / When I get “That family feeling is super- hitting their creative stride, with there I’ll be free…’ important to this band – even though everything from skull-rattling thrash I know that we made Symbol… and then to trippy, blues-tinged ballads hurled “Maybe it’s in there subliminally”, I left the band and joined Anthrax! Ha John suggests. “At that time, what I’d ha ha!” John says. “It kind of ended for “BACK IN THE 80s, sometimes do is just babble over things a while, but we got back together and LEUKAEMIA WAS A to try and get a melody. It would sound made Revelation [released in 2000] and DEATH SENTENCE” like I was saying words but I really we’ve continued on as the same guys, wasn’t, I was just trying to get the so it’s always been like a family, for JOHN BUSH melody across. For some reason, better or worse. Families sometimes whether it was my idea or somebody have a little conflict here and there, else’s, we were playing that song and trying to write it and the lyrics just came out. I sang ‘Last train home…’ and just repeated it. That sounded like a cool title and it just happened. Not to get too spiritual about it, but it METALHAMMER.COM 23

ARMORED SAINT John and co made it up as they went along. Fortunately, it worked out well seemed very organic. Then the lyrics “WE WERE EXPERIMENTAL BECAUSE WE DIDN’T KNOW took shape.” WHAT WE WERE DOING” Not just the catchiest and most JOHN BUSH anthemic song on an album full of John Bush: and we could play Mad House [from band may struggle to ever write a song wildly dynamic moments, Last Train family man March Of The Saint], which bordered on that hits the emotional bull’s-eye with Home also seemed to be a major thrash, and then we’d have a moody quite the same ferocity as Last Train ballad like Isolation [from Raising Fear], Home. Although memories of the STEPHANIE CABRAL milestone in the evolution of the so we were always all over the place. making of Symbol Of Salvation will In retrospect, I like it all. We were always be tinged with great sadness, Armored Saint sound. While the band’s experimental, but it was because we the songs that came out of those tough didn’t know what we were doing, and times have sustained Armored Saint first three records had been largely that’s the truth!” through many decades. rooted in traditional metal, with a Armored Saint played Symbol Of “Oh man, Last Train Home has a huge Salvation live in its entirety as recently chorus and it’s easy for people to sing strong and obvious influence from as 2018, and John Bush grins at the along to!” he beams. “It’s certainly memory of the crowd response every a moody track and it’s explosive at the Sabbath and Priest, their fourth was night, particularly during same time. It has a cool breakdown Last Train Home. As he that people really seem to get drawn incredibly diverse and fervently notes wistfully that into and then it ends with another big chorus. But it’s a hard song to sing! contemporary. With its unapologetic he can’t wait to There are some high notes in there. pop sensibilities, Last Train Home was get back on the road My voice is very different from how and play songs from Armored it was in 1991, so sometimes it’s an a significant detour for the former trad Saint’s excellent new album, opportunity for me to stick the mic out Punching The Sky, to an increasingly there for the crowd, because I really metal diehards. Thirty years later, it’s broad and passionate fanbase, need a breath! Ha ha ha!” John Bush also admits that his the band’s biggest song, from an album PUNCHING THE SKY IS OUT NOW VIA METAL BLADE that remains their most definitive work. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the first three records,” states John. “Delirious Nomad [1985] was like the mischievous kid, March [Of The Saint, 1984] set it all up and Raising Fear [1987] has some great moments as well, but I don’t think we really hit our stride until Symbol…, and that opened the door to what followed. Suddenly we had a lot more security about our identity. We weren’t thrash, we weren’t a hair band, we were a hard rock band 24 METALHAMMER.COM



NEW NOISE SPIRITBOX One of 2020’s breakout bands are channelling all sorts of horror into their ever-evolving sound WORDS: YASMINE SUMMAN WHETHER THEY’RE SOUNDS LIKE: Stringer, the band is a labour of love Spiritbox: IMMERSED in true crime podcasts born from the frustrations of Courtney spooktacular Something you’re not finding her identity in her previous or creating horror in their music videos, not sure whether music. She and Mike played in record everything and edit it ourselves. the Canadian, genre-splicing Spiritbox metalcore crew IWrestledABearOnce, We’re all in our late 20s, early 30s and – named, quite literally, after a device you want to and Courtney has opened up about we’ve all collectively toured a lot. I can’t that supposedly helps you contact dance to, or get that time and how the lack of creative afford to go on a DIY tour across ghosts – immerse themselves in all absolutely bodied input weighed heavily on her. Canada. Like, if we have one bad tour things unusual. “It’s weird but I’ve in a moshpit to I’ll just be ruined and our band will always been interested in dark stuff,” “It was weird; we were out playing have to end. We’re DIY, not by choice, says vocalist Courtney LaPlante. FOR FANS OF: shows [with IWABO], playing these but by necessity.” “I think it’s an anxiety thing; it’s a way songs nobody on stage wrote,” she for me to explore things that make me Polaris, Tesseract, explains. “[It was] like, ‘What is this? YOU MIGHT ALREADY be familiar anxious, but in a ‘safe’ way.” Within I don’t want to do this, I don’t connect with this song.’ It just hit us after with Spiritbox following the viral Following their 2017 self-titled Temptation a couple of years that we wanted to success of Holy Roller, smashing rock debut that established a love for have our own identity and start fresh, radio charts, earning more than progressive metal, their more recent LISTEN TO: make our own music.” a million views on YouTube and nabbing singles Blessed Be, Rule Of Nines and more than twice that many streams. Holy Roller eagerly indulge other Holy Roller Courtney gushes that her latest stylisations, borrowing a few venture has garnered a reaction that metalcore-styled riffs and dropping even she couldn’t anticipate, saying “it’s in nuggets of industrial sounds. found an audience and they’re growing Courtney takes a page from her with us. The freedom of having a new inspirations Deftones and Tesseract, band is like the freedom of having no stressing that Spiritbox won’t be limited baggage and having no preconceived in their creative endeavours by the notions of what it should sound like. pressure to be conventionally heavy. It’s been very freeing for me.” “What those bands both have in Courtney’s career gave her two common is fluidity,” she explains. pivotal entry points into the industry, “They can pretty much do whatever both at the start and end of the 2010s. they want throughout the song; it can Transitioning from the internet’s become heavy, they can do screaming sparse resources of pirating sites to vocals, but then also the song can take a world of online, 24-hour accessible a turn and be very beautiful, uplifting streaming or Youtube videos that can and melodic. There’s never a sense teach anyone how to be a sound from their fans of, ‘Oh, you guys sold engineer in 10 minutes has certainly out, you have singing!’ or like, ‘Oh, this refined her approach to music. is too heavy.’ Those are the bands that are my biggest inspiration as far as not “I’m very happy with how technology having boundaries of how they sound.” has taken us now,” she says. “I literally don’t think our band would exist Spiritbox’s journey is something the without the technology and the singer describes as a “very unique band accessibility of today. We’re almost as experience, unlike the traditional way.” DIY as you can get. We do send music Founded by her and husband Mike out to be mixed and mastered, but we 26 METALHAMMER.COM

SPIRITBOX Courtney is still unable to wrap her head not, because that’s something that says, “even more so than all the visual around it all, especially considering the resonates with a lot of people who are horror. We wanted to explore something whole song was written in two hours. battling a mental illness.” like that. It’s something that I find even “It was just something that was fun for scarier than a ‘scary movie’ because it us to play on tour!” she laughs. Courtney describes how other hits closer to home.” real-life situations, like losing a family Touching back on their love for all member, can also be the things that The next release on the horizon is things horror, Courtney explained keep you up at night. “That honestly something for fans to get excited about. that the Holy Roller music video was stuck with me a lot in the movie,” she “We’re going to put out a full-length actually inspired by Ari Aster’s album,” Courtney reveals. “[It means] blockbuster folk horror, Midsommar. “WE WANT TO we don’t have to have every song “That movie is scary towards the end,” EXPLORE REAL- we create feel like a single; we can the singer says. “Honestly, one of the LIFE HORROR” experiment more and have more fun most chilling parts about it, to me, is exploring different song structures. just the main protagonist: how she’s I just feel like, over the last couple of unsure if she’s losing her mind or years, everyone in the band has decided that we also sometimes want to have fun when we’re playing our music!” SPIRITBOX’S DEBUT FULL-LENGTH ALBUM WILL BE RELEASED NEXT YEAR VIA RISE METALHAMMER.COM 27

NEW NOISE ROUND-UP NEW NOISE HELLRIPPER A one-man blackened speed metal project from Scotland has somehow produced one of the most exciting underground albums of 2020 WORDS: DOM LAWSON RAGE OF LIGHT Trance-metal? It’s a thing, and Rage Of Light are the band taking it to the next level WORDS: DANNII LEIVERS COMING SCREAMING OUT “I don’t think Hellripper’s sound is “WE STARTED AS an online band. The way this music of Aberdeen, Hellripper has steadily particularly unique and that has never was written, it was not supposed to be played onstage.” become the hottest name in the been my intention”, he notes. “For this When Rage Of Light started brewing their euphoric world of blackened speed metal. album, the primary goal was just to concoction of melodic death metal and reach-for-the-lasers One-man riff machine James McBain write eight good songs. I wanted fast trance five years ago, it was initially a way for the band – then started the project in his bedroom songs with good riffs, catchy choruses vocalist Melissa Bonny, keyboardist and founder Jonathan back in 2014. Six years on, he’s and plenty of guitar solos. Hopefully Pellet and guitarist Noé Schüpbach – to blow off some creative just released one of the most I’ve create an old-school vibe steam. Then in 2017, the Swiss metallers uploaded a cover unrelentingly balls-out IN SHORT with a modern approach!” of Amon Amarth’s Twilight Of The Thunder God to YouTube, metal albums of the year, Although 2020 has been The Affair Of The Poisons, SOUNDS LIKE: followed by a version of Lady Gaga’s Judas, and what had and the underground buzz ruinous for just about surrounding it is deafening. Skull-rattling, everyone, James’s stay-at- started as a bit of fun, began to blossom speed-fuelled home approach to making “The original goal was to black-thrash with music now seems like simple into something far more serious. IN SHORT record a few songs at home, a hard-on for common sense. Nonetheless, “There were some comments from the b-movie horror hardcore fans who were offended by the SOUNDS LIKE: put them online and maybe FOR FANS OF: a live incarnation of Hellripper cover”, laughs Melissa, who also fronts a few people from the local continues to flourish and, symphonic metallers Ad Infinitum. “But As Melissa puts it: scene would like them”, James Toxic Holocaust, when all this madness is over, most comments were super-positive.” “If Arch Enemy recalls. “It started completely Midnight, they will be back to rip again. and [German Witchery Rage Of Light’s clubby take on the rave and techno Viking metal classic has now notched band] Scooter had a baby!” through necessity. I simply LISTEN TO: “The plan is to keep up almost 2 million views on YouTube. FOR FANS OF: didn’t know anyone at the releasing music, keep playing But most importantly, it secured them Vampire’s Grave a platform to ensnare audiences with Amaranthe, Arch Enemy, Scooter time that was into this style shows and hopefully the of music, so I’m surprised band continues to grow”, says their brash and vivid 2019 debut, LISTEN TO: Imploder, proving they were more than and very grateful that the music James. “But there are no plans for Mechanicals has reached so many people around Hellripper to record as a ‘full band’ just a covers band. Now signed to Napalm the world.” at the moment. I live in a remote part Records, they’ve spent lockdown writing new material and Based around shady goings-on in of Scotland, so getting together to are ready to take things to the next level. “We wanted to VOID WORKS PHOTOGRAPHY 17th-century aristocratic France, with rehearse is complicated. Doing it all make something that takes a little of both extremes”, plenty of “possession, witchcraft, child at home is definitely the most explains Melissa. “The aggression of death metal and the sacrifice and poisonings”, The Affair Of convenient way!” extreme of trance so we could create a good balance!” The Poisons maintains the old-school ethos that’s informed every Hellripper THE AFFAIR OF THE POISONS IS A NEW RAGE OF LIGHT ALBUM IS EXPECTED NEXT OUT NOW VIA PEACEVILLE YEAR VIA NAPALM release to date. 28 METALHAMMER.COM

NEW NOISE ROUND-UP SHARPTOOTH One of the year’s best very hardcore albums is also one of the most vital. Here’s why… WORDS: PARIS FAWCETT IN SHORT FOR SHARPTOOTH’S LAUREN with nuance and introspection. “People more of a chance that your rights are who don’t know me think I’m this gonna get taken away from you”, she SOUNDS LIKE: Kashan, hardcore is as much about the terrifying, anal-retentive offended says. Transitional Forms opener message as the music. A compassionate by everything person and that’s not Say Nothing (In The Absence Of Consent) A destructive and outspoken powerhouse of like me at all!” she laughs; her similarly attacks the swathes of whirlwind of a frontwoman, she grew up in a music well-balanced and thoughtful lyrics on hardcore bands screaming so loudly scene that encouraged its community mental health, misogyny and politics while saying so little. In a world full white-hot to protest and filled gigs with spoken- back this up. of half-hearted hardcore, you never political rage word activism. doubt Sharptooth’s passion. And when For Lauren, her politics defines her Lauren Kashan roars ‘I’ll die for my FOR FANS OF: “That’s what most of the shows were band because it has to. “Existing in beliefs’, you have to believe it’s true. all about”, she notes. “You felt like you the world as a person of marginalised Comeback Kid, were part of something bigger and more groups automatically puts you in TRANSITIONAL FORMS IS OUT Stray From The important than a music scene. You felt a position of having to give way more NOW VIA PURE NOISE Path, Employed like you were part of a movement.” fucks about politics because there’s way To Serve Sharptooth’s latest album, Transitional Forms, is an antagonistic crusher that LISTEN TO: rallies its own movement. Lauren commandeers with a scorching vocal Mean Brain performance, screaming lyrics that refreshingly counterbalance destruction IN THE KNOW What your favourite bands are listening to YEAR OF SACRAL RAGE THE KNIFE “These guys are from Athens A sudden lifestyle change helped these – a hybrid of Rush and old-school hardcore bruisers craft a killer of a debut speed metal. They’ve got super- smart arrangements WORDS: STEPHEN HILL and imaginative riffing, but they also IN SHORT “ALL OF US in this band turned on life. Their debut album, Internal do heads-down Incarceration, is a hardcore album ’banging with real SOUNDS LIKE: straight edge after we were hanging brimming with both the snarl and snap conviction. Their out at the same shows together and of the genre’s very best, while being singer has a glass- Empathetic, realised that we had all been affected laced with a pathos and poignancy far breaking falsetto, soul-searching by grief, addiction and substance abuse, beyond most bands’ first efforts. too, which I’m lyrics delivered all from the actions of those that we a real sucker for. in a concrete- were close to”, remarks Year Of The “I believe that this band, this scene My bet: they’re heavy, crushing Knife frontman Tyler Mullen. “It gave and our lifestyle has helped all of us going to evolve hardcore prism me a belief system, a focus and find a sense of integrity and morality dramatically. inspiration to make a positive impact that we didn’t have before”, Tyler adds. Watch this space.” FOR FANS OF: on the world. That’s what straight “I don’t write ‘typical’ straight edge edge is to me; there’s no negative lyrics, but I come from straight edge PHILLY BYRNE, GAMA BOMB Jesus Piece, associations any of us have with it.” mindset of trying to overcome the Knocked Loose, negativity and toxicity of our society.” The Delaware quintet are youthful, Strife but they’re wiser and more mature than INTERNAL INCARCERATION IS OUT a great many of their peers, both in NOW VIA PURE NOISE LISTEN TO: their musical output and their outlook Get It Out METALHAMMER.COM 29

HOARD DEVILDRIVER T-SHIRT ALMIGHTY £17.99-£18.99 Box sets, underground oddities and all the essential merch you need this month Seriously, how many black t-shirts with a goat- headed demon does one metalhead need? Yep, you’re right – all of them. This slinky little number also features snakes, fire, fangs and the band’s trademark cross of confusion. https://tinyurl.com/ddriver-tee SODOM CREW FACE MASK GENESIS XIX – DELUXE BOX SET £6.66 SPV/STEAMHAMMER Tell the Chancellor to go fuck himself with these microfibre masks. Every hundred sold £57.99 will mean £100 being given to crew workers, with further donations to #saveourvenues AS GREAT AS it is to hear the early titans of thrash move beyond their sonic and the Crew Nation global relief fund. roots, sometimes you need someone to hold the fort, and even with a refreshed https://tinyurl.com/crew-mask line-up, the latest album from Ruhr Valley barbarians Sodom does just that. Still riffing like rabid dogs fighting over a forearm, Genesis XIX is awash in raw, SABBATH PIN old-school adrenaline, and the band have devoted the same amount of energy towards creating this limited-to-2,000 box set. Inside its lidded housing, you’ll £5.29 find the album itself on double, exclusive and apt splatter vinyl, as well as in CD digipak form with a poster inside. There’s also a huge A1 poster, along with a vinyl Show your appreciation for the late, great slipmat, Sodom soldier-sporting face mask, an A5 photo card signed by all the Ronnie James Dio’s contribution to the Sabbath bandmembers, a 12-inch patch, sticker, and a flag, perfect for announcing where canon with this beyond-cheeky enamel pin your true metal allegiance lies. – there’s even a purple glitter version, which is perfect for Neon Knights everywhere… https://tinyurl.com/sodom-box https://tinyurl.com/sabbath-pin 30 METALHAMMER.COM

HOARD ALMIGHTY GHOST JUMPER ALPHA WOLF T-SHIRT VOLBEAT RUM III £55.99 -£60.99 £15.99 £48.90 What better way to usher in the festive season Since they’re based in Australia we’ve never Rum is a cruel mistress. You find a top-end and celebrate the birth of our lord and saviour been quite sure quite what this metalcore mob tipple and they either change the recipe or Jesus Christ than with this itchy Chrimbo know about wolves – we would’ve thought it’s a limited batch. Thankfully, Volbeat’s run jumper emblazoned with the blasphemous dingoes would be more their speed. Still, it’s of aromatic elixirs has a third act: more Papa Emeritus? a nice – and suitably bleak – shirt, eh? ‘accessible’, but the taste of redemption distilled. https://tinyurl.com/festivepapa https://tinyurl.com/alpha-tee https://tinyurl.com/volbeat-rum3 THE BLOOD AND THE SWEAT MOTÖRHEAD CANDLE NICOLAS CAGE GIFT WRAP £7.95/£11.99 (KINDLE/APPLE BOOKS) £29 £4.94 The definitive tome of NYHC legends Sick From the people who brought you the beer- Imagine how terrified your family when they Of It All’s Lou and Pete Koller. Featuring scented Heavy Metal candle comes this equally find and find a tower of Christmas gifts all contributions from the two men, and many aromatic tribute to the late god of rock’n’roll, neatly wrapped in paper featuring Nic Cage’s other heavy music luminaries, this is a must Lemmy. Headbanging is a trusted method for beaming face. Just remember: put the bunny for all and any hardcore fans. inhaling the smoked whisky vibes too. in the box before wrapping. https://tinyurl.com/soia-book https://tinyurl.com/motor-candle https://tinyurl.com/cage-wrap AC/DC TRUCK JUDAS PRIEST: 50 HEAVY METAL YEARS MOTÖRHEAD/PRIEST COLOURING BOOKS £27 £79- £495 £11.99 Not just an awesome 3D puzzle, this Back In This 648-page tome celebrates 50 years of Sharpen those crayons and get ready for some Black tour truck also allows you to recreate Priest! Pore over hundreds of unseen photos, positively brutal colouring in. Whether you scenes from Stephen King’s much-loathed in the standard, leather- and metal-bound want a pitch-perfect Screaming For Vengeance Maximum Overdrive – a film about killer cars versions or a special edition in aid of Glenn or to go outside the lines with a lime green that features a rockin’ AC/DC soundtrack. Tipton Parkinson’s Foundation Charity. Orgasmatron, the world’s your ruddy oyster. https://tinyurl.com/acdc-truck https://tinyurl.com/priest-fifty https://tinyurl.com/colour-metal METALHAMMER.COM 31

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EDDIE VAN HALEN GETTY H“EIATCPNLAWOAMANTESHEFTELR”RIKOEM From blowing Sabbath offstage with his band to influencing everyone from Dimebag to Adam D with his playing, Eddie Van Halen’s impact on the metal world was unlike any other. We celebrate the life of a true legend, with a little help from his friends and peers WORDS: PAUL BRANNIGAN 34 METALHAMMER.COM

EDDIE VAN HALEN METALHAMMER.COM 35

EDDIE VAN HALEN T he godfathers of heavy metal Rock’n’roll didn’t know were starting to feel their what had hit it when Van age. 1978 was supposed to Halen burst onto the scene be a year of celebration for Black Sabbath – their 10th “Let’s hear it again,” the producer “We sat there going, ‘That was anniversary - but in reality, said. “We gotta record it. Right away.” incredible…’,” Ozzy recalled, “and the group was falling apart. “The fun then it finished, and we were just too of being in a rock band was dwindling Eddie Van Halen had been finessing stunned to speak.” for me,” Ozzy Osbourne later admitted. his solo showcase onstage in Hollywood “I don’t think anyone’s heart was in clubs for the best part of three years. “I didn’t know very much about Van it anymore.” Ozzy had actually taken As often as not, he would perform Halen at all,” admits Tony Iommi, “but a leave of absence from Sabbath in the classically inspired instrumental when I first heard them it was like, autumn ’77, officially to spend time with his back to the audience, so that ‘Bloody hell!’ They were so energetic, with his father Jack, who was dying of no one could see exactly what he they were great players, they had good cancer. When NME interviewed the was doing. The secret technique songs and we were just like, ‘Wow, singer in November ’77, he seemed the guitarist was shielding involved blimey, these are really good!’” in no mood to return to the unit - using both his hands on the fretboard “I just want a simple life for a while,” to tap out notes at light-speed. Van When the tour reached London, he insisted – and when Sabbath Halen would later claim that he hit Iommi collared his good friend, Brian performed War Pigs and Junior’s Eyes on upon the idea while watching Led May from Queen, to join him side-stage BBC TV’s Look! Hear! programme in Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page play the at the Hammersmith Odeon to watch January 1978, former Fleetwood Mac solo from Heartbreaker one-handed the hot-shot Californian at play. frontman Dave Walker was tasked with during a show at The Forum in lip-syncing Ozzy’s vocals. So it was Inglewood, California in August 1971: “The pair of us watched Eddie Van something of a surprise when the “It’s like having a sixth finger on Halen do his stuff, and it was just singer returned to the fold ahead of your left hand,” he told Guitar World. glorious,” recalled Brian, “almost too the Birmingham band’s departure to “Instead of picking, you’re hitting glorious to take in. To see this guy Toronto to record their eighth studio a note on the fretboard. Nobody was romping around a guitar like a kitten, album, Never Say Die! Though old really doing more than just one stretch just running and taking it to places tensions occasionally surfaced during and one note real quick. So I started undreamed of… There hadn’t been fraught studio sessions – “we were all dicking around…” anything so shocking since Hendrix.” fucked-up with drugs and alcohol,” Ozzy recalled – all four musicians were Van Halen never claimed to have “The place was packed for Van excited about the prospect of returning invented the two-handed tapping Halen,” recalls Metal Hammer writer to the UK for their 10th anniversary technique, but watching him perform Malcolm Dome, then a journalist for tour in May. Sabbath had taken AC/DC Eruption up close before slamming weekly music magazine Sounds. out as support on their last run of into his group’s swaggering update of “Everyone wanted to see them because European gigs, and had struggled to The Kinks’ You Really Got Me left the they’d already got a real buzz around match the livewire Aussies for energy, members of Black Sabbath in slack- them from the metal cognoscenti, so Ozzy instructed Sabbath’s booking jawed awe as they trooped back to their the people who regularly bought agency to find “a bar band from LA” dressing room. rock records on import. They were to open the show each night on their definitely better than Sabbath that homecoming dates. As luck would have night; they were so exciting, vibrant it, their US label, Warners, had just such an act on their books. The name Van Halen meant nothing to the members of Sabbath, so, out of curiosity, ahead of their scheduled stage time on the tour’s opening night at Sheffield City Hall on May 16, Ozzy and his bandmates Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, shuffled out of their dressing room to catch the end of the Californian band’s set. They arrived side-stage just as the group’s guitarist, 23-year-old Eddie Van Halen, launched into the second track of his band’s recently released self-titled album. Eruption wasn’t originally on the list of songs Van Halen had pencilled in to appear on their debut album. Producer Ted Templeman had popped out of the control booth at Sunset Sound Recorders to grab a coffee when he first heard Eddie Van Halen playing the 102-second instrumental between takes. “What’s that?” Ted asked. “Ah, nothing,” came the reply. “It’s just something I warm up on.” 36 METALHAMMER.COM

EDDIE VAN HALEN Zakk Wylde and Eddie Van Halen toasting Dimebag Darrell at his public memorial service on December 14, 2004 GETTY and so new, and they made Sabbath Eugenia’s dreams of a fresh start for of The Beatles prompted a ‘British look old. They sounded like the future.” the family. The new immigrants Invasion’ of the American ‘hit parade’ arrived in Pasadena later that month, in the mid 1960s, and having been From an early age, Eddie Van Halen and took up residence in a modest charmed by the smooth melodies of was acutely aware of music’s three-bedroom, single-bathroom London’s The Dave Clark Five, the Van capacity to captivate, charm and apartment they were to share with two Halen boys formed their first band, The bedazzle. As a small child, Eddie other families. Broken Combs, with Eddie on piano would sit enrapt while his father Jan, and Alex on saxophone. In time, Eddie a professional musician who performed “When we finally arrived in switched to learning drums, while Alex with distinction in jazz bands and Pasadena, it was rough,” Eddie told began playing guitar, but they would orchestras, practised clarinet in the an audience at Washington DC’s soon swap instruments. “He could play family home in Nijmegen, Holland. On National Museum of American History, [The Surfaris’ 1963 instrumental hit] occasion, when his Indonesian-born during a February 2015 talk convened Wipeout and I couldn’t,” Eddie later mother Eugenia was required to work as part of the Smithsonian’s What It recalled. “I said, ‘OK, fuck you. I’ll play night shifts, Eddie and his older Means To Be American series. “We your guitar.’ Forget the piano, I don’t brother, Alex, would be packed off lived in one room, slept in one bed. want to sit down – I want to stand up to Jan’s musical engagements, their My father had to walk three miles to go and be crazy.” mother hoping that their presence wash dishes [at the Arcadia Methodist might inhibit their bohemian father’s Hospital], he was a janitor at the “My brother would go out at 7pm predilection for extensive post-gig Masonic Temple, at Pacific Telephone, to party and get laid, and when he’d drinking. In reality, it did nothing of my mom was a maid… We used to go come back at 3am, I would be sitting the sort, merely strengthening the dumpster-diving for scrap metal, in the same place, playing guitar. I did duo’s impression of the music scene as then go to the scrap yard and sell the that for years.” a free-spirited utopia. When Edward metal we found.” was five and Alex six, Eugenia enrolled In 1971, the Van Halen brothers and the children in piano lessons with “We were two outcasts that didn’t fellow teenager Mark Stone formed a Russian concert pianist who lived speak the language and didn’t know a power trio named Genesis. With locally. “If you’re going to follow in your what was going on,” he said, referring to Eddie on vocals and guitar, Alex on dad’s footsteps,” she warned the pair, Alex and himself. “So we became best drums and Mark on bass, the trio “it better be respectable.” friends and learned to stick together.” played note-for-note versions of songs by Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and In March 1962, the Van Halens left Music would serve as an escapist Cream. Upon discovering that a rather their apartment at Rozemarijnstraat 59 outlet for the brothers. The success better-known rock band named Genesis and set off to board an ocean liner existed in England, the Pasadena trio bound for America. Letters from “I DIDN’T KNOW became Mammoth. In 1974, somewhat relatives in California had fired MUCH ABOUT VAN reluctantly, they recruited cocksure, HALEN. WHEN Indiana-born vocalist David Lee Roth, I HEARD THEM... formerly with their local rivals Red Ball BLOODY HELL” Jet, to front the band. The Van Halen brothers were more than a little TONY IOMMI wary of the flamboyant, peacocking, motormouth singer - “Ed and I couldn’t stand the motherfucker,” Alex once bluntly admitted – but David had his METALHAMMER.COM 37

EDDIE VAN HALEN own PA, enough confidence to power David Lee Roth and Eddie was something completely different, GETTY the national grid, and a devoted Van Halen: a marriage and Dave was on his way to becoming following among Pasadena’s female of convenience the ultimate frontman.” high school population, so a marriage of convenience was struck. When Mark “THAT FIRST VAN On the evening of February 2, Ted Stone was replaced by Chicago-born HALEN RECORD Templeman watched Van Halen Michael Anthony Sobolewski, who SIGNALLED THE perform in front of a subdued would later drop his Polish surname, END OF ROCK AS Starwood crowd. Formerly a member of it was David who suggested they WE KNEW IT” ‘sunshine pop’ band Harpers Bizarre, rebrand as Van Halen, and supercharge Ted was now a hotshot producer their live sets with more accessible, SLASH (having worked with Van Morrison, less technical songs to seduce club Little Feat and Californian hard rock audiences. “It’s very impressive,” he is a virtuoso.’ They were just another band Montrose) and A&R executive at said of the group’s old repertoire, rock band until Edward cut loose. David Warner Bros. He returned to the club “but you can’t dance to it.” The new was brilliant onstage, but it was Edward on the following night with company Van Halen mission statement, David who really grabbed us. So I started chairman Mo Ostin in tow, and insisted, would be to make every day booking them shows in Hollywood.” insisted, successfully, that Warners seem like a Saturday night. In came sign the band on the spot. hits by Aerosmith, ZZ Top, James For all Eddie’s ability, it was actually Brown, David Bowie, Bad Company, George Lynch’s blossoming reputation “When Van Halen came onstage Kiss and Queen. The revamped group as a guitar player that led Kiss duo it was like they were shot out of quickly carved out a reputation as the Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons to see a cannon… they performed like they area’s hottest good-time band, drawing the Pasadena band in West Hollywood were playing an arena, and not a small hundreds of teenagers to their riotous club the Starwood one evening in Hollywood club,” Ted recalled in his backyard gigs… until, inevitably, cops 1976. By now Van Halen originals – autobiography A Platinum Producer’s Life descended to break up the party. While showcasing a sound they called Big In Music. “Right out of the gate, I was David had a quick wit, a big mouth, Rock – were eclipsing the cover songs just knocked out by Ed Van Halen. It’s pretty boy looks and a complete lack of in their high-energy sets. weird to say this, but encountering shame, it was the shy, permanently him was almost like falling head-over- smiling guitarist by his side who was “I had gone to the Starwood the heels with a girl on a first date. I was so the group’s true star, as their peers night before with Lita Ford and seen dazzled. I had never been as impressed quickly realised. Van Halen and The Boyz,” recalls with a musician as I was with him that Stanley. “I remember The Boyz night. When I think back on that night, “Eddie was pretty special,” recalls covering Detroit Rock City and I was it wasn’t just one thing about him Mark Kendall, who later found fame as thinking, ‘Boy, this a great song’… that grabbed me. It was his whole the guitarist of LA rockers Great White. and then realised it was mine! But Van persona. This guy, when he played, “I’d look into the crowd and I could Halen were just a powerhouse – Eddie see the guitar player from every band I knew watching him. Eddie was the man, the king, it was unquestioned.” “We were jealous, and we were all trying to play catch-up,” recalls future Dokken guitarist George Lynch, then playing in LA-area band The Boyz. “We thought, ‘Oh boy… this guy’s going to change the world.’” Word of the band’s snowballing popularity soon reached LA-based manager Catherine Hitchen, a vivacious Londoner who looked after local acts such as Yankee Rose and Sorcery. Always keen to make useful contacts, David Lee Roth invited Catherine to check out the band at a party at his doctor father’s house. “When we got to the house, which was in a ritzy area of Pasadena, there were cars parked everywhere, and we had to park quite a way away, and walk over in our platform shoes,” the now Catherine Harris recalls. “We could hear the music from streets away, and when we got into the party it was crazy, absolutely crazy. The first thing that hit me was Edward. He was unbelievable. He was playing with his fingers over the frets, which nobody did then, and I was absolutely blown away. My friend and I looked at each other and I said, ‘Oh. My. Goodness. This kid 38 METALHAMMER.COM



EDDIE VAN HALEN Eddie’s handprints are on the Eddie and Lemmy at the WITH LEMMY: GETTY. Hollywood Rock Walk. When he Hollywood premiere of looked completely natural and passed away, grieving fans left unaffected; he was so nonchalant in tributes at the site Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey his greatness. Here he was, playing the most incredible shit, acting as Van Halen album on stereos worldwide, these little Panasonic cassette players if it were no more challenging than every bedroom guitarist had a new gold and he played me Eruption into You snapping his fingers.” standard to aspire to. Really Got Me, and it was just like… Wow. Besides the guitar pyrotechnics, Ted immediately booked the quartet “Edward has a sense of adventure,” the overall vibe of Van Halen was very into Hollywood’s Sunset Sound studios. David Lee Roth declared, neatly energetic, and very new-sounding, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and encapsulating the guitarist’s mindset. very fresh-sounding. It had a ton of The Doors had all used the facility in “He will dive headfirst. We’ll see if attitude, it was just in-your-face. the past, and Van Halen’s demo there’s water in the pool later.” sessions would prove to be a breeze, “As soon as that record came out… with the quartet recording live, rolling “I can remember the specific place it was 1978 so I was 13, and I hadn’t through 25 songs in a matter of hours. where I first heard Eddie Van Halen,” picked up the guitar yet… that Though the perfectionist Van Halen said Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash in signalled the end of rock as we knew brothers had some misgivings about 2010. “I was at this elementary school it. Everything that had happened up the results of the hastily arranged to that point all sorta changed.” session – “We popped it [the demo “EDDIE WAS TO cassette] into the player in my van OUR GENERATION “Mark my words,” wrote Rolling Stone and expected to hear Led Zeppelin WHAT HENDRIX magazine’s Charles M Young in his coming out,” Eddie later confessed, WAS TO HIS” review of the album, “in three years, “but we were kind of appalled by what Van Halen is going to be fat and we heard. It just didn’t sound the way DIMEBAG DARRELL self-indulgent and disgusting, and we wanted it to sound” – they were not they’ll follow Deep Purple and Led about to question Ted’s authority. At that we used to break into after school Zeppelin right into the toilet. In the the end of August, the group returned was over, and we used to skate and race meantime, they are likely to be a big to the studio with Ted to cut their bikes in there. [Future GN’R drummer] deal… Edward Van Halen has mastered debut album. Steve Adler, who had just become my the art of lead/rhythm guitar in the best friend around that time said, ‘Hey, tradition of Jimmy Page and Joe Walsh; Put simply, that album, unfussily check this out…’ and he had one of several riffs on this record beat anything titled Van Halen, is one of the greatest Aerosmith has come up with in years.” hard rock albums in history. From the pounding Michael Anthony bassline When the album came out, the that introduces Runnin’ With The quartet hit the ground running, Devil via the dazzling Eruption and the punchy cover of You Really Got Me (Ted Templeman’s banker for ensuring that Van Halen, unlike his former charges Montrose, would secure a hit single) through to the effervescent Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love – a song Eddie wrote as a joke to take the piss out of punk rock – the irresistible, harmony-drenched I’m The One and Feel Your Love Tonight, and on to DLR’s long-time party piece, bluesman John Brim’s raunchy Ice Cream Man, and aptly titled rocker On Fire, the album is the purest distillation of hedonistic, liberated, sun-kissed Californian rock music ever committed to tape. It’s fast cars, endless nights and loose morals, cheerleaders, cheeseburgers and cocaine, Daisy Dukes and bikini tops, breaking surf and teenage rebellion, with every trace of self-doubt and self-restraint eradicated. Just as The Beach Boys supplied the soundtrack to American adolescence in the 1960s, and the Eagles owned the 70s, with their stunning debut Van Halen boldly declared that the 80s would be their playground. And if David Lee Roth sold a new generation a brand new American dream, it was Eddie Van Halen’s jaw-dropping virtuosity that made the album truly sing, his sweet, outrageously playful, seemingly effortless and utterly electrifying playing lighting up the sky. From the moment the needle dropped upon the 40 METALHAMMER.COM



EDDIE VAN HALEN mixing headline dates in Japan and Eddie and his beloved, continental Europe with support unmistakable Frankenstrat shows and festival appearances. When they rejoined Sabbath’s Never Say Die! tour in America, the promoters should really have hired a crime scene investigator to draw chalk outlines around Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill onstage every night – Sabbath were being absolutely murdered. Back in Los Angeles in the first week of December ’78, their first world tour completed, the band received an invitation to a party from their record label. Warners wanted to present the quartet with platinum discs, as their debut album had now racked up sales of two million copies in the US alone. Held at the Body Shop on Sunset Boulevard, LA’s only all-nude strip joint, the shindig was a suitably raucous affair. The next day, however, Van Halen were back in Sunset Sound with Ted Templeman, working on album number two. With each successive release – Van Halen II (1979), Women And Children First (1980), Fair Warning (1981), Diver Down (1982) - Van Halen grew in confidence and stature, assuming the mantle of America’s Greatest Guitar Band. In 1983, the quartet entered the Guinness Book Of Records after securing the highest-ever fee for a single performance, when Apple Computers co-founder Steve Wozniak paid them $1.5 million to headline the ‘Heavy Metal Day’ of the 1983 US festival above Ozzy, Judas Priest, Scorpions and Mötley Crüe. “It was the day new wave died,” said Crüe frontman Vince Neil, “and rock’n’roll took over.” Though Eddie somewhat dismissed the idea of Van Halen being labelled a heavy metal band – “to me, heavy metal is just rock’n’roll. It’s a feeling put out at a high volume” – his influence upon three subsequent generations of metal musicians is inarguable. In his free-flowing, uninhibited, boundary-flouting playing, other musicians heard the sound of liberation – and his influence would be heard in the playing of everyone from Dimebag Darrell to Killswitch Engage’s Adam D. “He was to our generation what Hendrix was to his,” superfan Dimebag commented. “He plays Eruption and you go, ‘Shit, I never heard a guitar sound like that in my life!’” “In the guitar hierarchy, where Jimi Hendrix is God, Eddie was Jesus Christ, the Second Coming,” says Zakk Wylde, who joined Eddie onstage at Dimebag’s funeral in 2004 to toast the former Pantera guitarist. “Ed broke through less than 10 years after Jimi passed, but he sounded like the 42 METALHAMMER.COM

EDDIE VAN HALEN GETTY new age. It was like he came from Family business: Eddie onstage with Tool’s Adam Jones posted three broken another planet.” his son, Wolfgang Van Halen heart emojis. Machine Head mainman Robb Flynn called Eddie “the G.O.A.T. With Van Halen’s profile raised “EDDIE WAS JESUS [Greatest Of All Time]”, adding: “My immeasurably by the national television CHRIST, THE mind is seriously blown right now. coverage given to their appearance SECOND COMING” I cried. He was one in a billion.” at the US festival, the quartet’s 1984 album yielded their first US No.1 ZAKK WYLDE Having battled cancer himself in single, Jump, and took up a five-week recent years, Tony Iommi’s tribute residency at No.2 on the Billboard Zakk recalls. “He came up to my hotel to his old pal carried an added level charts; it would go on to become Van room afterwards and he was playing of poignancy. Halen’s second 10 million-selling my Les Paul, with the bullseye, and the album. Ironically, the album that kept guitar was hanging around his knees “I’m just devastated to hear the news it from the top spot was Michael like Jimmy Page in 1975. He was playing of the passing of my dear friend Eddie Jackson’s Thriller, which featured the every Led Zeppelin lick that he knew, Van Halen,” Iommi wrote. “He fought on-loan guitar skills of a certain from back when Van Halen played a long and hard battle with his cancer moonlighting Dutch-born guitarist covers. It was insane, I had Jesus Christ right to the very end. Eddie was one on hit single Beat It. in my room playing Jimmy Page licks of a very special kind of person, a really on my guitar. Quite a night.” great friend. Rest In Peace my dear Even the wildest parties must one friend till we meet again.” day wind down, and the first cracks in That childlike sense of wonder the VH world came with the exit of intrinsic in Eddie’s playing from his In one of his last major interviews, David Lee Roth in 1985. Emboldened by very first time seeing Jimmy Page with Music Radar, Van Halen was the success of his debut solo EP, Crazy onstage never seemed to fade. asked if he had any advice for aspiring From The Heat, David branded the guitar players. His answer was guitarist a “dictator” as he departed. “All we’re trying to do is put some wonderfully simple. “Nobody cares about Van Halen excitement back into rock’n’roll,” he without David Lee Roth,” he sneered. said as his band’s 1978 debut was racked “Bottom line is, you’ve gotta love in record stores worldwide. “It seems what you’re doing,” he replied. “There Labelling David a “clown”, Eddie like a lot of people are old enough to be are no rules. You have 12 fucking notes… Van Halen responded in the most our daddies and they sound like it, or do whatever you want with them.” cutting terms. they act like it. It seems like they forgot what rock’n’roll is all about.” “Eddie reminded us that music is “The problem with Roth was that he freedom,” says Halestorm’s Lzzy forgot who wrote the songs,” he noted. Eddie Van Halen’s passing on October Hale. “He inspired all of us to be “I wrote them. And the songs are the 6, after a long battle with cancer, hit the unapologetically ourselves when it heart of our music. I never listened to rock community hard, and tributes comes to technique or how we see the his words. I couldn’t have cared less poured in from friends and fans alike. guitar. Rock stars don’t fade, their what he was singing about.” On Instagram, Slash posted a single magic is passed down and lives forever black and white image of Eddie Van through all of us. I believe that not just Van Halen promptly recruited Halen with his self-made ‘Frankenstrat’ this generation, but many generations former Montrose vocalist Sammy guitar and wrote ‘RIP #EddieVanHalen’. to come will be influenced in some way Hagar to front the band, and the by Eddie’s legacy.” new-look quartet scored Van Halen’s first American No.1 album with 1986’s 5150. Three consecutive Billboard chart-topping albums followed, each a little more sophisticated and mature than its predecessors, though Eddie’s playing remained joyously unrestrained. Sammy departed in acrimonious circumstances following 1995’s Balance album – “Balance was like pulling teeth,” he told this writer. “Things had got very dysfunctional by then” – but Eddie forged on, recruiting Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone for the confusingly-titled III album. Though the album received the worst reviews of his band’s career - “The fundamental problem with this album is the songs,” one UK rock magazine declared. “They’re shit” – the guitarist never lost his passion for the music… or the attendant lifestyle. In Japan to promote Black Label Society’s Sonic Brew album, Zakk Wylde caught up with Eddie in Tokyo, where Van Halen were booked to play three nights at the historic Budokan venue, and ended up partying with his hero into the wee hours. “Van Halen opened up with Unchained and Ed was just killing it,” METALHAMMER.COM 43

EDDIE VAN HALEN GARY HOLT, WE LOVE EVH EXODUS/SLAYER Metal’s biggest names pay tribute to a legend, “The first time I heard and pick the songs you need to know about Eddie, I didn’t even play guitar yet, and Eruption just DLR and EVH: destroyed me. Of all the guitarists that dream team made me what I am today, he – along with Uli Jon Roth – is the reason I’ve got 44 METALHAMMER.COM a whammy bar on almost every guitar I own. Eddie’s responsible for where my technique started, as well as how I used to modify my guitars. I’m lucky as hell to have been born in the era I was, to have seen him perform so many times, to have attempted to steal so many licks! RIP Eddie. I owe you everything.” Favourite song: Romeo Delight “The main riff is killer! Eddie is showing his rhythm chops with the downpicked riff, and the volume swells in the verses are just sick. Such an amazing song!” SEBASTIAN BACH “I was lucky enough to get to know Eddie when Skid Row opened the Balance Tour in 1995. I was lucky enough to see the original Van Halen Fair Warning Tour, Diver Down, and 1984 Tour. Eddie’s name in itself was an adjective or a verb to me and my friends. The words ‘Van Halen’ meant the ultimate in cool, the ultimate in being the best you can be, and the ultimate in fun. Thank you, Edward Van Halen, for a lifetime of inspiration. And partying.” Favourite song: And The Cradle Will Rock “This is my favourite Van Halen song: ‘Have you seen Junior’s grades?’ This is the song that made me want to rock as hard as I could for the rest of my life.” NITA STRAUSS “As a guitar player, I’m inspired by technique, chops and all the usual stuff. But what inspires me the most is hearing guitar that sounds fun. Where the joy that comes from the player’s hands overshadows all technique and becomes the first thing you hear. That’s what EVH has always personified to me. Some guitar players make fast guitar playing seem intimidating. Eddie made it sound, well, fun! The more Van Halen I heard, the more I felt that ‘I gotta learn how to do that!’ feeling. His bravado, reckless abandon, inventive style and constant smile drew me in as a fan.” Favourite song: Catherine “The first time I heard this, I thought, ‘Where did this guy come from?’ The expressive, dark, haunting note choices were a stark contrast to that smiling Southern California guitar hero we were all so familiar with. It instantly made

EDDIE VAN HALEN VAN HALEN, SEBASTIAN BACH, NITA STRAUSS: GETTY. ALL OTHERS PRESS. me more of a fan, because he was able Tom Morello… it was life-changing. lock themselves in their room for to do something so vastly different.” There was an attitude, an unmistakable countless hours of practice. Thanks for signature sound. That’s the goal, right? the motivation and inspiration, Eddie!” ALEX SKOLNICK, There’s a million shredders out there. None of them have the catalogue of Favourite song: Hot For Teacher TESTAMENT undeniably banging tunes to back it up. Being different, being original, playing “As a kid who loved heavy metal and “I’m one of numerous for the song… I’ve always identified with motorcycles, I was on Cloud Nine individuals who has EVH that. That, and he loved to tinker with hearing the blending of those two loves to thank for inspiring the his gear. That’s what Eddie meant to in Alex’s drums at the beginning of development of a skillset that has me. He was a pioneer and an innovator.” Hot For Teacher. Add Dave’s hilarious brought great joy. Yet this extended ‘I don’t feel tardy’, Eddie’s finger-tapping group goes beyond fellow guitarists. Favourite song: Panama technique and the high vocal harmonies His thinking outside the box, from of Michael Anthony, and you get one of instrument building and tone tinkering “This is my power song! This is my my highlights of growing up in the 80s.” as well as unique song structures, riffs Number One getting-ready-to-go- and – oh yes – solos, has also inspired out-and-cause-some-carnage tune. SOPHIE LLOYD, countless music producers, luthiers, I listen to it when I’m getting ready to designers and other creative types. go onstage. Panama turns a regular, GUITARIST/YOUTUBER With all due respect to the fun band humdrum weeknight into a hip- known as Van Halen, the influence of thrusting, four-on-the-floor, air- “When every guitarist first Edward is beyond anything we’ve guitar-laden ultra-sesh.” heard Eddie play, they were witnessed in this lifetime. It’d require both amazed and petrified. a much larger format to properly TROY SANDERS, He made everyone step up their game. convey – perhaps an encyclopedia. Eruption was the first two-handed Thank you, Eddie Van Halen.” MASTODON tapping lick I ever learned when I was 15, and 10 years on I still can’t get enough Favourite song: I’m The One “I probably got to see Van of it and use this technique in almost Halen seven or eight times all of my compositions. I guess I like “It’s a blend of Edward’s revolutionary over my life. Every time solos that are outrageously silly, with guitar virtuosity and the group’s fun they came through Atlanta where mad techniques and super-speedy runs feel of a wild party. In terms of Eddie’s I grew up, I would always go, and I even that the listener just can’t help but sit licks, it contains the ‘kitchen sink’ of travelled to the south-east of the US to back and smile at. I want to play solos elements – innovative pull-offs, two- see them. So I got to see all three eras; that will make people smile as much as handed wizardry, wild bends, unheard- the David Lee Roth, the Gary Cherone I do every time I listen to Eddie play.” of tremolo bar technique, harmonics, short-lived Van Halen phase, and the scrapes and other disruptive noises Sammy. So yeah, Van Halen’s incredible, Favourite song: Eruption somehow made to work beautifully.” absolutely love ’em. Overall, I’m just glad that they existed, and that’s what “Forty-two years on, and Eruption MARK MORTON, has bred the desire of thousands and remains the greatest guitar solo ever. thousands of guitar players that are on I first heard it when I was just starting LAMB OF GOD this Earth right now.” on guitar and to say it’s been an inspiration is an understatement. The “Eddie Van Halen is the sole Favourite song: Ice Cream Man emotions Eddie portrayed with just one reason I ever dreamed of instrument is incredible, only matched playing guitar. Literally “I was part of a Metal Allegiance tour by his jaw-dropping technique.” millions of people all over the world on a cruise ship. I was the vocalist for have found a passion for music through this song, Alex Skolnick was on guitar ADAM D, his work, and I’m grateful to have been – dressed as Eddie Van Halen – and on one of them. Van Halen were a stylistic bass was Wolfgang, Eddie Van Halen’s KILLSWITCH ENGAGE predecessor for bands like Pantera, and son. I looked up at the sky and there that heavy on the downbeat, head-bob, was nothing but stars. I realised we “Van Halen was the swagger and strut type of riffing were in the middle of the ocean, playing soundtrack to my entire certainly passed down to us as well. Van Halen songs, and it was a wonderful childhood and adolescence, They set the standard for so many styles moment that I’ll never forget. So of all especially Eddie. I remember being and versions of what hard rock and the amazing Van Halen songs, Ice Cream a little kid, hearing him, and thinking, metal would become. Eddie Van Halen Man sticks out as my favourite record.” ‘How the hell is he making all of those will be loved and celebrated forever.” crazy-ass noises? I wanna do that!’ Even CHRIS KAEL, after playing guitar for 25 years, I still Favourite song: Mean Street think that! To me, he is one of those FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH guitar players where you just have to “It’s at the top tier for me. People often hear him play for like, one second, and refer to ‘groove metal’ in the context of “The first riff I ever heard you immediately know it’s him. He just Lamb Of God, and I’d say that’s a pretty from Eddie Van Halen was had so much personality, attitude and fair description, but Mean Street is just Unchained, when it was in uniqueness. To me, that makes him the about as groovy a riff as you can find in pretty heavy rotation in the early days greatest rock guitar player of all time.” hard rock and heavy metal.” of MTV. ‘Duh-duh! Chug-chug-chug- chug.’ Such a great rock riff. And, the Favourite song: Girl Gone Bad MIKEY DEMUS, SKINDRED beauty found in Cathedral? Eddie was doing things on the guitar that none of “1984 is one of my favourite records, “When I was a kid, I wasn’t us had ever heard before. And, upon ever. The band feel electric on Girl Gone a studious or technical guitar hearing Eddie, everyone knew that it was Bad, and Eddie’s parts have so much player. Virtuosity was never time to step up their game. Bassists like damn attitude. Yeah, they may not be my thing. But when I heard myself included! Eddie’s playing made executed perfectly, but the conviction EVH for the first time, just like with anyone playing a stringed instrument and vibe is undeniably badass. There’ll Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keef, Dimebag, never be anyone else like him.” METALHAMMER.COM 45

MARILYN MANSON 46 METALHAMMER.COM

MARILYN MANSON Marilyn Manson was a new type of metal hero: an articulate spokesman, fearless in expressing himself. But as the discourse in music changes, are #MeToo and ‘cancel culture’ too close to home? WORDS: DAVE EVERLEY GETTY understand that you have to There’s an empty, black silence. ask a question like that, but Marilyn Manson – one of modern I don’t want to talk about music’s most articulate figures and rumours as much as I want to a man who never ducks a question – talk about music.” has hung up. Marilyn Manson is speaking This wasn’t the plan. The plan was down a phone line between Los to talk to him about his new album, Angeles and London. We Are Chaos, and his place in the era of #MeToo and Cancel Culture - a time So is there no truth in it, I ask? when the more toxic aspects of old- “Like I said. I won’t qualify it with school rock’n’roll behaviour an answer.” increasingly won’t wash. It’s fair to say that our conversation is going downhill rapidly. We never get as far as that. The So you only want to talk about the reason: I have ventured into an new album? You don’t want to talk area that Manson clearly does not about the allegations against you? want to engage with. It turns out that “There’s no allegations against the way to silence Marilyn Manson me, and I’m not going to talk about is to say three simple words: Evan it. Rumours…” Rachel Wood. METALHAMMER.COM 47

MARILYN MANSON It’s just gone 11pm in California and Manson in the 90s: just after 7am in the UK when Marilyn a folk devil to plague Manson calls. These aren’t common God-fearing America hours for interviews, even among rock stars. But Manson isn’t so much and co-producer. “Sometimes I will “I wasn’t trying to be a hero…” He GETTY a night owl as someone who lives in think faster than a lot of people can sounds sincere when he says that. But a permanent state of timelessness, keep up with, but Shooter would do whether he intended it or not, that’s curtains closed, shutting out not just something before I even finished my precisely what Marilyn Manson was. the light but the world too. sentence,” he says. he Marilyn Manson mythology He’s charm personified. Off the bat, Whether We Are Chaos restores emerged fully formed in the mid-90s. he asks if we have spoken before. We Manson to the place he once occupied Here was the latest folk devil to have, twice: once briefly at an aftershow in the cultural landscape is another plague God-fearing America: a deviant, party following his first UK gig in 1996 matter. For a while, back in the late 90s, a drug fiend, a corrupter of the nation’s and once in similar late night/early Manson was at the front and centre youth. This was a man who was said to morning circumstances around the time of things. He wasn’t just making the have smoked human bones (true) and of 2003’s The Golden Age Of Grotesque. conversation, he was the conversation - had one of his ribs removed so he could On both occasions, he was funny and newspapers wrote about him, protesters perform fellatio on himself (not true). insightful, the smartest person in the lined up outside his gigs, the religious “I was never trying to be controversial conversation by a long stretch. right called for him to be banned, or shocking,” he says now of his everyone from Eminem to one-hit notoriety circa Antichrist Superstar, “but He’s no less smart today, though his wonders The New Radicals dropped his I was aware that the key to upheaval is answers are longer and more rambling name into their songs. But it hasn’t felt hitting somebody directly in the face, than I remember. A jokey question like that for a while. Is that fair to say? putting a mirror to them and saying, about how he’s spent the last six ‘This is you.’” His aim was “to shake months – has he learned to make “Fair enough,” he says reasonably. things up: religion, Christianity, sourdough bread or has it been one long “I never felt I was [the conversation] basically. More than that, to make absinthe and crystal meth isolation at the time. I knew that I was doing people see that politics and religion party? - prompts a four-minute things that obviously weren’t going to are secondary to art.” response that begins with Manson make the entire world hold hands and The controversy that surrounded emphasising that “heroin, crystal sing a Pepsi commercial or Kumbaya. him overshadowed just how meth, things that are a one-way road to I wasn’t trying to be a hero, I was trying destruction, have never been my choice to be me.” in life”, before taking a lengthy detour to recap the holy trinity of albums he made during his late 90s/early 00s imperial period (Antichrist Superstar, Mechanical Animals, Holy Wood), and, finally, alighting on the psychological machinery that drives We Are Chaos. “It hasn’t been until now, with We Are Chaos, that I’ve felt it’s something that’s true to my heart, because I wasn’t afraid to show all of the pores of my face, the eyelashes, the cavities of my teeth, the cuts on my chest,” he concludes. “All of the elements that have made me who I am. We’re all built on our experiences, and made stronger by them, not weakened.” As the conversation proceeds, it becomes clear that this is a pattern: a question is followed by a long- verging-on-the-verbose answer that occasionally veers off on obscure, opaque tangents before returning to the main thread. Attempts to cut in or steer him onto other topics don’t work. Marilyn Manson is ultimately talking about what he wants to talk about, which is his music, his art and his new record. This is fair enough. We Are Chaos is undeniably a top-tier Manson album. It continues the artistic resurgence that began with 2015’s The Pale Emperor and carried on through 2017’s Heaven Upside Down. He heaps credit on Shooter Jennings, son of late outlaw country icon Waylon Jennings, and Manson’s current chief collaborator 48 METALHAMMER.COM

MARILYN MANSON revolutionary he really was. This was In The Movies, from his 2009 album Evan Rachel Wood a world away from metal’s play-acting The High End Of Low, “is about my with Marilyn Manson rebellion. An outsider with a Christian fantasies. I have fantasies every day in September 2007 school education, he made it OK to be about smashing her skull in with different, challenging people to think a sledgehammer.” (By early 2010, for themselves and be themselves. Manson and Wood had reconciled and got engaged, but they later split up and By taking on the bullies – church, did not get married.) government, school – he empowered the powerless to do the same. Manson Words and actions aren’t the same wasn’t an amoral demon but an thing, of course, but still: if a friend told unlikely moral compass, a rational you they were aggressively stalking and voice in an irrational world – something harassing an ex-lover or fantasising proven beyond doubt after sections of about taking a sledgehammer to their the media unsuccessfully tried to pin skull, you’d wonder about the nature of the blame on him for the 1999 massacre their relationship. at Columbine High School. “I thought, ‘Instead of feeling as if everything in But Manson got a free pass. He was art is misunderstood, confusion is the allowed to behave like that. He was an way you change culture.’ It’s important,” artist. He was a rock star. he says of the latter event, which inspired 2000’s Holy Wood (In The nce, a rock star’s job was clear cut: White) was accused by his ex-girlfriend, Shadow Of The Valley Of Death) (“My they were there to entertain us, but Jack Off Jill singer Jessicka Addams, of pride and joy,” he declares today). also to live out our fantasies for us. raping and abusing her in the 1990s, Fame, money, drugs, sex – harmless, during Ramirez’s original stint in For all that, he still played the role responsibility-free fun, with no one to the band. of rock star, to the point of cliché. His answer to. Except when it wasn’t. 1998 autobiography, The Long Hard Road Things have changed in recent years. A week after Addams made her Out Of Hell, made no secret of his drug Male musicians and members of the accusations on Facebook, Manson use, or the groupies that surrounded music industry are being asked to fired Ramirez. “I have decided to part the band. In one memorable section of answer allegations that range from the ways with Jeordie White as a member the book, a deaf girl named Alyssa joins toxic to the criminal. This year, former of Marilyn Manson,” said Manson in Manson in the studio. By the end of the Of Mice & Men singer Austin Carlile a statement. “He will be replaced for passage, she has been covered in cold was accused of sexual assault by the upcoming tour. I wish him well.” meats, had sex with keyboard player multiple women (he denied the Madonna Wayne Gacy and been allegations), while allegations of rape, Ramirez himself neither confirmed urinated on by Manson and bassist sexual harassment and abusive nor denied the allegations, saying: Twiggy Ramirez. In Manson’s telling, behaviour levelled on social media “I do not condone non-consensual sex she wasn’t being exploited. “I think at Holy Roar Records founder Alex of any kind… If I have caused anyone she, too, found it to be art and was Fitzpatrick prompted an exodus of pain, I apologise and truly regret it.” having a good time,” he said. bands from the label and Fitzpatrick’s own resignation (“These allegations Manson himself addressed the Like many newly minted rock star are false and I am doing everything situation a few months later. “I did not celebrities before him, he began I can to clear my name,” he said in divorce Twiggy as a friend or brother, moving in circles that were previously a statement). because I still care about him greatly,” closed off to him. He dated actor and This new reality has intruded into he told Kerrang! magazine, in their future #MeToo activist Rose McGowan, Manson’s world. In 2017, his then- Christmas 2017 issue. married (and split from) burlesque bassist and on/off right-hand man artist Dita Von Teese and later began Twiggy Ramirez (real name: Jeordie This accountability is long overdue a relationship with rising Hollywood across the board. But it raises the GETTY star Evan Rachel Wood. HE DOESN’T question: what’s the job of the rock SOUND ANGRY star today? Wood was 18 years old when they OR EXASPERATED. met; Manson was 36. According to THERE’S A “It’s hard to say,” replies Manson. Wood in a 2016 interview with Rolling CALMNESS IN HIS What follows is another long and Stone, the narrative of ‘big bad rock star VOICE. BUT HE’S confusing answer that takes in his corrupting innocent young starlet’ CLEARLY NOT aspirations as a 15-year-old (“The basic wasn’t accurate. “I met somebody that ENGAGING WITH concept was, ‘Maybe I’ll meet a girl, promised freedom and expression and WHAT I WANT that would be cool’”), the difficulty no judgments,” she said. “And I was TO TALK ABOUT. craving danger and excitement.” Still, their relationship was complex and combustible. When they temporarily split up at the end of 2008, Manson effectively admitted to harassing her on the telephone. “And every time I called her that day [Christmas Day 2008] – I called 158 times – I took a razorblade and I cut myself on my face or on my hands,” he told Spin magazine in 2009. In the same interview, he proclaimed that the song I Want To Kill You Like They Do METALHAMMER.COM 49

MARILYN MANSON people have in distinguishing between Marilyn Manson in 1998, Brian Warner and Marilyn Manson circa Mechanical Animals (“I would always say, ‘They’re just names’”) and, inevitably, his new chronic pain in my body, among relationship I resorted to self harm. GETTY album (“When I did this record, I did, other symptoms.” When my abuser would threaten or for the first time, the painting for the attack me, I cut my wrist as a way to album cover”). In fairness, he does This wasn’t the first time Wood disarm him,” she wrote. “It only made give an answer to the question – “The had spoken publicly about the abuse the abuse stop temporarily. At that job of a rock star is to entertain people” she had suffered during a previous point I was desperate to stop the abuse – but it’s buried deep in his response relationship. In February 2018, she and I was too terrified to leave.” and so mundane I don’t hear it until gave similar testimony to a House I play back the recording. Judiciary Subcommittee. During the 2019 hearing, another of Manson’s former partners, the British- Speaking recently to a journalist Wood didn’t name her abuser in born Game Of Thrones actor Esmé from Classic Rock magazine, Manson either hearing, though some connected Bianco, also gave testimony about an was asked what scared him. “I’m her testimony with Manson. In a March abusive relationship she had been in scared of the possibility that art – and 2018 article headlined ‘Why Is Nobody during an unspecified period of time. people’s freedom of speech – is going Talking About Marilyn Manson’s to be choked,” he said, referring to ‘Fantasy’ of Killing Evan Rachel Wood?’ Neither Bianco nor Wood has named a “mob rules mentality”. Given the in reference to Manson’s 2009 Spin their abuser, and there’s no suggestion things he’s said and done over the interview, US magazine Glamour either was talking about Manson. But years, real and perceived, is he pointed out that the pair’s relationship speaking to him now, it seems wrong surprised he’s never been ‘cancelled’? began when she was 18 (in Wood’s 2019 not to address Wood’s testimony testimony, she confirmed the abusive specifically and the #MeToo movement “I don’t think…” he begins to say, relationship she was referring to was in general. After all, if Manson had then stops. “I think that’s not a subject underway when she was 18 years old). nothing to do with Evan Rachel Wood’s that’s even worth addressing, because testimony, then the people putting two it’s something that… To answer your It quoted a tweet from the actor and and two together online are way off question, you can go back to the very activist Patricia Arquette, that referred and he’s being unfairly tried by social first thing I said about Antichrist back to the same 2009 interview. media. It must be frustrating, and Superstar/Columbine. That answers “Marilyn Manson Cutting himself 158 terrifying, to be judged like that. your question.” He repeats himself. x’s when he called Evan Rachel Wood “That answers your question.” after breakup it’s not [LOVEHEART What did he think when he heard EMOJI] it’s abuse”, the True Romance her say it? There’s a pause. He’s referring to his comment that star had tweeted the day before. “confusion is the way you change “This is where I head out to the culture”. That maybe artists shouldn’t In 2019, Wood shared a photo on photoshoot, because I talk about have to explain themselves, but let their Instagram of a 2010 shoot for Elle music,” he says. “I’m not here to talk art do the talking. But there are some magazine. “The day of this photoshoot, about rumours.” things we’d like to talk to him about. I was so weakened by an abusive relationship,” she wrote in the caption. Is it not worth addressing? In April 2019, Evan Rachel Wood – “I was emaciated, severely depressed, “I understand that you have to ask at the time starring in the TV show and could barely stand. I fell into a question like that, but I don’t want Westworld – appeared in front of the a pool of tears and was sent home to talk about rumours as much as California Senate Public Safety for the day.” In a second photograph I want to talk about music.” Committee in support of the Phoenix shared at the same time, she wrote: So is there no truth in it? Act, a proposed law that called for an “[Two] years into my abusive “Like I said, I won’t qualify it with extension of the statute of limitations an answer.” on domestic violence crimes from three years to 10 years. As part of videotaped testimony, a visibly distraught Wood gave details of an abusive relationship she had been in for several years with a man she met in her late teens. She told how the man, who had “hidden a terrible drug and alcohol problem from me”, cut her off from her friends and family and threatened her during bouts of jealousy-fuelled rage. She detailed how the man had forced her to partake in acts of “fear, pain, torture and humiliation”, which he would videotape and threaten to leak. There was much more to her harrowing testimony, including instances of beatings and rape, plus death threats against her and her friends. The picture she painted was one of mental and physical abuse, resulting in “complex PTSD, including disassociation, panic attacks, night terrors, agoraphobia, impulse control, 50 METALHAMMER.COM