GENERAL MUSIC

Who came up with this? Was it a band effort or was there one lone genius amongst you?
I don’t remember how it came up, all I know is that it’s been an idea for as long as we’ve been a band.

How did you pick the videos? Were there any that you had to scrap for logistical or aesthetic reasons?
We were just trying to think of the videos that were the most memorable from the early 90s, and the most ridiculous, and then we had to weed out the stuff we didn’t think we could pull off. I almost chickened out of a couple things, but it turns out I’m totally susceptible to peer pressure.

How long did this take and what was the difficulty level, especially to recreate certain scenes?
Andrew and Akina Cox, who put the whole thing together, came up to Seattle from southern California and shot all the video spoofs in 3 or 4 days. That was mostly easy, we just got to be ridiculous as per usual. I’d guess that 95% of the work was Andrew animating and treating the footage to make it look legit. That guy is so talented, bands with money should hire him to make their videos.

What is your opinion of Kickstarter now?
I can see how it could be complicated in some situations, but our experience was all positive. It was really a bunch of buddies chipping in cause they wanted to see it. And Andrew taking it so seriously, all that was radical.

Have you considered a sequel?
For now we’re back to finishing writing the next record. Booooo!!!

This isn’t a question, but you running like Kiedis in slo-mo is the most impressive visual I’ve ever come across.
I think 2012 is going to be a Bud light year.

Decibel Magazine

Chances are if you haven’t heard Wolvhammer, you may’ve read some of drummer Heath Rave’s Deciblog rants on the virtues of Pantera’s Power Metal opus, peeped his Varg “visionary” tattoo primers, or checked out members of Wolvhammer in mid-tour exploit.

“I definitely think this is a well thought out lineup for a tour,” beams Rave on the opportunity. “Although the four bands make sense together, at the same time, their styles are really quite unique between them and their legitimacy can’t be denied. We’re definitely honored and privileged to be asked to open up the Chicago show, and my mom and step dad will be there that night. I hope they stay for Watain.”

In any case, we really want you to hear Wolvhammer before they hit the lights in Chicago, so we’ve embedded the track “Writhe” for pre-ticket buy perusal. “Write”, a lava-flow black track with Northern traits, appears on the group’s 2011 LP, The Obsidian Plains. Now, we don’t hear the “concrete, sewer and human skewers” influences, as cited on Wolvhammer’s Facebook page, but art is always open to interpretation and our interpretations are: Wolvhammer is harder than J. Bennett’s tits on a February night in The Gopher State and blacker than the ex-ashes of the Fantoft stavechurch.

Wolvhammer will exclusively play the songs of black and night at:
April 14 – Chicago, IL – BUY TICKETS

** For the complete Decibel Magazine Tour dates, please visit the Decibel Magazine Tour WEBSITE.

** Visit and like Wolvhammer on Facebook.

Decibel Magazine

Two of our most memorable live concert experiences ever happened at Unsane shows in Seattle. This NYC trio originated from the same scene that spawned Helmet, Pussy Galore, Boss Hog and a bunch of other earhole-scraping noise mongers in the early 1990s. Between their Am Rep/Sub Pop label connections and the general loud/heavy/distorted aesthetic, they shared something of a bond with a lot of the early grunge bands of the era. Thus they found their way out to Seattle with some frequency and were (usually) greeted quite warmly. Witness two of our personal highlights:

1) Our first Unsane show set the bar high. Already floored by the sheer relentless force of the horrific sound coming from the stage, it almost seemed normal when lead vocalist/guitarist Chris Spencer turned his head mid-song, projectile vomited off the side of the stage and then continued to sing/play. We’re not sure if he’d gotten some bad clams from Ivar’s, had a bit too much to drink or, like us, was simply nauseated and queasy by the rotten sound emanating from his band.

2) The next time we saw Unsane, they were opening for Entombed on the Wolverine Blues tour. This was, unfortunately, not Unsane’s crowd. People are considerably more open-minded these days when it comes to mixing and matching extreme bands. But back in ’93 or ’94, the death metal scene in Seattle didn’t want to know about Unsane. When the band wasn’t experiencing total apathy, it was being heckled. They handled it like champs for the most part, but something caused original bassist Pete Shore to fucking snap mid-set. He threw down his bass, raced into the admittedly thin crowd and got right in the face of his antagonist who (figuratively) rolled over like a submissive puppy afraid to be roughed up by a bigger dog. Mr. All-Talk wanted nothing to do with Shore and the set resumed with no more incidents. Classic.

It is with great excitement, then, that we premiere a new track, “Ghost,” from Unsane’s upcoming Alternative Tentacles album, Wreck (out on March 20). We’ve been listening to this bruiser nonstop and can assure you that it perfectly captures the tension, brutality and nervy edge we witnessed in those early live experiences. It’s not raw like sushi, it’s raw like a skidding-twenty-feet-on-rough-pavement road rash. The kind where you gotta pick rocks out of the bloody mess that was your skin. So, without further ado:

We cannot with any certainty assure you that any of the above sorts of incidents will occur when Unsane are on tour with the Melvins this spring (see dates below), but the band’s live sound will not fail to leave an impression. Nor will Wreck. You have been warned.

UNSANE tour dates with the MELVINS

04/11/2012 The Blank Club San Jose, CA
04/12/2012 Great American Music Hall San Francisco, CA
04/13/2012 The Troubadour Los Angeles, CA
04/14/2012 Casbah San Diego, CA
04/17/2012 House of Rock El Paso, TX
04/19/2012 Mohawk Austin, TX
04/20/2012 Warehouse Live Houston, TX
04/21/2012 One Eyed Jack’s New Orleans, La
04/23/2012 The Social Orlando, FL
04/24/2012 Double Down Live Gainesville, FL
04/25/2012 The Loft at Center Stage Atlanta, GA
04/26/2012 Amos’ Southend Charlotte, NC
04/28/2012 The Note West Chester, PA
04/29/2012 Webster Hall New York, NY
05/01/2012 Turner Hall Ballroom Milwaukee, WI
05/02/2012 Otto’s Nightclub DeKalb, IL
05/03/2012 The Firebird St. Louis, MO
05/04/2012 Exit In Nashville, TN
05/07/2012 Trees Dallas, TX
05/08/2012 Santa Fe Brewing Company Santa Fe, NM
05/09/2012 Galaxy Concert Theatre Santa Ana, CA

Decibel Magazine

Ever wondered what a You Can’t Do That On Television skit full of jokes about black metal would look like?

Well, so has alt-country crooner/Mandy Moore arm candy Ryan Adams, apparently: His new internet show “Night Sweats” marries over the top disheveled chic and a dash of self-deprecation with Fenriz jokes, corpsepaint, a synthpop loving slice of talking pizza, and a playlist that features Burzum, Satyricon, and Emperor.

Would the show be better if Alanis Morrisette played Balphazar? Probably. But it is still an odd enough duck to warrant embedding the Halloween episode below.

Also, while Shane Mehling ably took the piss out of Adams’ metal release Orion a couple years back, the dude’s cover of Maiden’s “Wasted Years” is pretty fucking flawless by my lights.

Adams’ latest record is Ashes & Fire. On tour for it, he’s covering Dio…

Decibel Magazine

Yeah, the real world sure does suck. The bottom line is forever letting the wolves off the leash and if they don’t end up clawing at your door they’ll sure as hell shit on your lawn. The only way out is money. And in this business, the uncomfortable truth is that, ultimately, in a roundabout way, it is the advertising dollar that puts the food on the table.

But so what? It’s no so degrading. We’ve done worse, probably, and no one at the Deciblog has gone moonlighting to sell sunflower spread to housewives, or dressed up as Tony the Tiger and gone pushing Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes store-to-store—at least, not yet. There’s gotta be a reason for this, and it sure isn’t integrity [if any breakfast cereal manufacturers wanna hit me up, be advised that I’ll wear that suit for 50 bucks per day but insist on daily allowance of one family sized box of the sponsor’s product].

Perhaps it’s ‘cos the advertisers prefer a face, someone to pin their brand to, celebrity kudos…. All that shit, and who’d want a deciblogger for that? With that in mind, why don’t metal bands start pitching themselves for TV ad spots? They have done it before; the business model for music is famously fucked anyhow, and to be honest, gurning with a can of soda isn’t as bad as selling out the jams (if selling-out was even possible or worth it in this everything-for-free age).

Setting aside the fact that companies such as Scion A/V are giving the underground scene a shot in the arm by at least throwing some money into it, a short trawl YouTube reminds us that metal guys can do commerce. Yeah, Gene Simmons, CEO of multinational rock conglomerate and occasional bassist, might have taken the commercialization of music making to a degree level but surely some alpha hesher like Matt Pike could be the new face of Heineken with few objections from the Hall. So long as the casting’s tight and there’s no repeat of Ozzy taking Corpsegrinder’s rightful place as the face of World of Warcraft, what’s the worst that could happen? Anyway, here are just a few examples of the potential escape route from skid row for all bands slumming it on macaroni and no cheese.

We’d post the awful KISS Wal-Mart commercial but that’s a step too far. That silly ol’ goat Gene Simmons supping on Dr Pepper though, we can just about live with that.

Giving credence to the argument that says that prolonged use of corpsepaint can finetune your commercial sence, is ad-slut and self-decapitator Alice Cooper, pushing a neat line in stationery and hotel rooms.

Iron Maiden’s “Phantom of the Opera” sold Lucozade but their road safety campaign was more on the money, and proved what most of us suspected all along: only crash test dummies could get down to No Prayer for the Dying

Mastodon maverick Brent Hinds selling pharmaceuticalsand doing yoga was pretty funny and all, so too Suffocation’s spot for the History Channel but if you’re looking for someone to take the lead in the balancing act of artistic integrity and hawking shit to the masses, let Judas Priest be thy guide.
Sparkomatic car stereos:

Plus the hugely underrated Turbo (for which our very own Adrien Begrand batted for when justifying our shitty taste was all the rage) brought out the best in self-promotion from the Metal Gods.

“Stop on the red, cross on the green, never take a ride in a stranger’s machine” … Now that’s wisdom you can’t buy.

Decibel Magazine