Dan Gapen - Lazarus A.D.

Lazarus A.D. have just put out their second album, Black Rivers Flow on Metal Blade & they are about to hit the UK with Bonded By Blood for a double headline thrash feast. With that in mind, we caught up with guitarist & vocalist Dan Gapen to chat about the album, tour, J-Biebz & animal cruelty.

Leave The Hall: I know it’s only been out a few days but how has the reaction been to Black Rivers Flow so far?

Dan Gapen: We think it’s been great. Sure you are always going to get a few haters but fuck them. The fans have been great and we can’t wait to party with all of them.

LTH: Stylistically, there’s been a noticeable progression from The Onslaught. You’ve never played straight forward retro thrash but Black Rivers Flow is definitely much more accessible & commercial. Was this a conscious decision or just something that happened as you wrote it?

DG: Well it’s obviously an evolution. We grew as musicians, and we grew as a band. We knew we wanted to experiment in the vocal department, step up the solos, and really just write a more well thought out and heartfelt record and I think that’s what we did.

LTH: You’ve worked with James Murphy on both albums. What’s it like working with a legend? Do you ever just sit back & bask in his glory?

DG: We have never met James in person. We track the album at one studio and just send it to James so he can mix and master the record. James does a great job he is top notch.

LTH: You are coming over here for a tour with Bonded By Blood soon. Who’s been the most fun to tour with yet? Anyone you’d like to tour with?

DG: Best tour hands down was with Testament. That was a tour for the ages. We will tour with anyone we don’t care, we just want to play shows and tear the fucking roof off.

LTH: We love nothing more than a thrash ballad. What are your top 5 thrash ballads?

DG: Too many great thrash ballads to just name 5. Besides I don’t want to piss anyone off cuz I left them off my list.

LTH: There are definitely not enough inter-band feuds going on in metal at the moment. Are there any bands you’d like to have a feud with? We’ll see what we can sort out.

DG: We don’t have any band feuds going on at the moment. Maybe we can start a feud with Justin Bieber he just needs to fucking go away.

LTH: What’s the last gig you went to?

DG: Haven’t really been to any gigs we aren’t playing. It’s really hard to cut away when you are on tour all the time.

LTH: Who would win a fight between Gary Holt & Gordon Ramsay?

DG: I’d have to say Gary Holt would kick that ass. Ramsay looks like a pussy

LTH: And lastly, what’s the largest animal you reckon you could kick over a set of goalposts?

DG: Dude, I can’t kick a football through a goal post let alone some animal’s stink ass.

Lazarus A.D. & Bonded By Blood are hitting European shores next month.

• 09/03 – London, UK – O2 Academy 2
• 10/03 – Bristol, UK – Area 81
• 11/03 – Milton Keynes, UK – Crauford Arms
• 12/03 – Leeds, UK – The Well
• 13/03 – Glasgow, UK – Ivory Blacks
• 14/03 – Nottingham, UK – The Maze
• 15/03 – Southampton, UK – Joiners
• 16/03 – Norwich, UK – Metal Lust @ The Brickmakers

Jeff Waters

We infiltrated the corridors of power at Glasgow Garage on November 14th, gaining access to Annihilator‘s dressing room and, rather than kidnapping him as we’d planned, settled for interviewing Jeff Waters before they played. We discussed their new album, posers, songwriting and the murky world of record label politics… And not a knob joke in sight.

Leave The Hall: This is the first headline UK tour you’ve done in ages. How are you finding it so far?

Jeff: Lots of fun! Especially being the first time in the UK and to be up here in Scotland is awesome too. We’ve done the rest of Europe over the last 6-7 weeks and its been fun seeing a lot of the new fans that we’ve gained from the last couple of albums, and neat to see the old and young fans together.

LTH: How does it compare to your last UK tour with Trivium in 2008?

Jeff: We’ve done 3 or 4 tours the last few years as guests, which is great because we targeted some different types of bands, different genres of metal, we also toured with Judas Priest a while ago. It was not really our time to go out and do our own shows… We could have, but we didn’t think it would work, that it would have been better to get a little more following behind us. We got lucky a couple of years ago with the tour with Trivium and we had an album called Metal in 2007 with a bunch of guests on it, which opened us up to new fans.

LTH: Do you think that’s how it worked? Do you think that perhaps the outside attention solely on the guests diluted the impact of the album?

Jeff: No, I think before that it was always an underground following since, I guess, ’93, at least in the UK where it just kind of dropped off. The rest of Europe we were doing really well with King Of The Kill etc so it depends where you are. In certain countries like England where a lot of people have never heard of us, or have just heard the first couple of albums, they think it’s our first tour since Never, Neverland!

LTH: People are thinking it’s some kind of reunion tour?

Jeff: There are some people who think we went away in the early 90’s and now we’re just back again. And we kind of did in the UK. The Metal album opened us up to more people, and they start talking and it spreads, and with the internet if you have something that people are interested in or think is good then it doesn’t matter if the record company pours money in or not.

LTH: What do you think Trivium and their fans would make of the lyrics to The Trend?

Jeff: If you look at how things work, going back to Sum 41 and Blink 182 in the late 90s, early 2000’s, seeing these guys with Iron Maiden and Slayer shirts, and I knew that if I was 16 years old and listening to these bands I’d want to know who was on their shirts. A lot of the Trivium fans who were really into them 3 years ago, some of them stay Trivium fans and some of them wander off and find other bands that they like. That tour generated a lot of interest in us in the UK because we were completely unknown here and that helped us.

LTH: What do you think of the whole Thrash Revival and bands like Municipal Waste and Evile?

Jeff: There are a lot of good bands that are listening and learning from the early stuff. It’s the same with everything, there are some labels that just try to sign that because they think it’s hot – ‘Hey, you’ve got to sound like this or be like this and we’ve got to dress you like that, shoot you just like the early Metallica photos…’ you know, and there’s young bands that are doing that. But there are also, like Evile for example, genuine, great musicians who really love the music. Ol (Drake) from Evile is an amazing guitar player, you can’t ‘fake’ that or ‘pose’ learning Marty Friedman.

LTH: The new album ‘Annihilator’ is the most aggressive release you’ve had in a long time. Is this you putting it out there for the die hard fans, saying that this is what we’re all about?

Jeff: We just take every album and do a record. We don’t talk about it, it’s mostly Dave (Padden) and I and we hire a drummer to play the drums. We don’t really pre-plan or think of anything, we just do it.

LTH: Is there a set routine to writing an Annihilator song?

Jeff: It’s pretty well the same each time and sometimes you get lucky, you get something that’s good or better, and sometimes you think it’s good and later you look back and go “Ooh that wasn’t that great”. If you’re honest as a musician, you’re gonna find some songs that are not so good and albums that are not so strong, and then you’re gonna find some classic, kick ass good stuff. AC/DC doesn’t have ten Back In Blacks and Annihilator doesn’t have ten Never, Neverlands!

LTH: What do you think creates these classics? Is there a certain frame of mind or vibe you can get into?

Jeff: You just get lucky. When you’re really trying hard to do it, it usually fails. You can’t think ‘Oh my god I’ve got to write something that’ll sell…’ because it doesn’t work, especially in metal. It’s not like pop music where you can sit down and say ‘I’m going to target this to be the suckiest chorus and the most catchy bit…’ Though, in the back of your mind with metal you do want a catchy chorus cos you want people to remember it. There are formats to songs that make them easier to listen to and maybe get you more fans but I always like to screw things up and put parts in the middle that make no sense…

LTH: That’s what makes it an Annihilator song!

Jeff: …And you can never have big commercial success with a name like Annihilator anyway!

LTH: Self-titled albums are often considered to be a bands definitive statement. Would you say that’s what you were going for with the new record?

Jeff: The stupid answer to that is we couldn’t think of a good title! We usually look at the songs and Dave and I will shoot back ideas, sometimes we think we have the title and then later on we’ll look and say ‘no, we’ll try this’. So I’ll send him some titles and usually they’re song titles – King Of The Kill, Alice In Hell, Never, Neverland, Set The World On Fire, Refresh The Demon, Carnival Diablos… I can keep going on that! – We looked at the song titles on the new album and none of them made for a good album name so one of us just said ‘why don’t we just self title the thing!’.

LTH: There are no guests on the new album, and as a result it’s quite stripped back and streamlined. But were you influenced by any other bands or music during writing?

Jeff: Nope. Dave listens to a lot of newer stuff, and a lot more music than I do. I tend to watch Dallas reruns and I listen to old school stuff when I pop music on. Everyone gives me shit cos it’s the same old shit that I keep listening to over and over again for 25 years, so I’ll put on Fabulous Disaster by Exodus, an AC/DC or Slayer record or Kiss Alive II before we go on stage…

LTH: Do you ever feel like you’re running out of inspiration, that there are no more riffs to be written and played?

Jeff: A little bit, for guitar players, 99% of riffs are coming from somewhere else. The greatest players – Hetfield, Van Halen and all these guys – have admitted in interviews, I’m not just saying it, that their stuff comes from here, here and here. In my case it’s a little easier as I didn’t limit myself to liking two or three bands and guitarists, I liked 50 so it’s a little easier to not repeat myself. All of these influences come together and you end up getting your own sound. I write all the music now, and after a while you start playing something and think ‘This kicks ass! I really like that riff!’ and Dave will say “Err, you used that on the 4th album!” or “That’s a Slayer song, Jeff!”

LTH: So how do you cope with the pressure when it’s all resting on your shoulders?

Jeff: There is none! We don’t have one of these record deals where you sign with a company and they own the publishing, merchandise, live profits and the masters to the albums; a big long contract that never ends until the record label wants it to end, and then you’re sent out in a van with $7 a day a for two years, slaving away. We licence albums, we record it in my studio with our own money, give it to a record company and they put it out – I still own it – and 3 or 4 years later I get the rights back. So there’s no pressure at all, in fact when I was shopping for this last deal with Earache, I don’t think they’d even heard the album.

LTH: So do labels know that you’ve got an album finished and then they come and approach you?

Jeff: Labels know what we’re going to sell in Europe. They’ll know how much Annihilators last album sold, and think ‘If we put a little money in, maybe it’ll sell more’. That kind of deal is great for us because we retain the rights to it and control everything. The downside is, the label won’t do anything for you, because they’d rather sign a bunch of 20 year old kids – and they can sign 5 of those bands – and make them do whatever they want, just pimp them out there while the kids don’t make any money. We just finish our record and say ‘here you go, take it’ but we don’t get the promotion that a band would normally get and we won’t get on the cover of magazines unless we sign our lives away. When people ask “Why haven’t you got bigger and why don’t you get more promotion?” Well, that’s the 100% real reason why things are the way they are – we decided that we didn’t want to sell our soul.

LTH: So are you happy with the situation?

Jeff: Oh yeah, it works great because we can control the music and we control the business side without a record company. But it’s experience and luck; I signed my first deal to Roadrunner in 1989 and they made us pretty popular – without them we wouldn’t have had a career and they’re an amazing label – but that was a sign your life away deal. We just got one in a million luck that they dropped us in 1993 because they cleaned house on metal. Unless you were gonna sound like Biohazard, Pantera or Sepultura, leave. It was a blessing in disguise for us, we probably had the usual deal of another 5 albums and 20 years or whatever, and because they dropped us we were able to start this new model, way back in the early 90’s.

LTH: 2010 is the 20th anniversary of Never, Neverland and a lot of thrash bands have been playing through whole records as a celebration of classic albums. Is that something you could see yourself doing… maybe a DVD release? I’d love to see the Annihilator – Never, Neverland Blu Ray!

Jeff: No, we’ll leave that to Megadeth and Priest! I bought the British Steel one, I bought the Rust In Peace one but you’re not gonna buy the Never Neverland one! It’s a different thing for us… maybe business wise in a few countries it’d be a great idea to make money, but we’re just happy doing what we’re doing now, and I would’t want to put Dave through that. It’s coming up to 8 years he’s been here, it’s his and my band now and that was the past. We’ve never had that. It’s always gone album by album, different singers, different line-ups, different production and song writing styles, and it’s never been like one or two good albums and the rest sucked, so there’s no point in going back and doing the reunion thing. We’d have to go back and do King of the Kill too ‘cos that one sold huge! And Set the World on Fire…

LTH: Every couple of years just keep doing reunion shows…

Jeff: I love it as a fan! But I wouldn’t want to do it for Annihilator.

LTH: Even though Annihilator fans themselves might want it?

Jeff: They don’t. I think most of them think ‘keep doing what you’re doing’. The thing about Annihilator is, you buy one CD and you like it, but the next one you might not like it at all because we go a different way. But our fans know that if they don’t like this one, maybe they’ll like the next one!

LTH: Do you have anything in mind for the next one at this early stage? Any ideas so far?

Jeff: 10 pop songs. Michael Jackson covers.

LTH: That’s definitely the way forward.

Jeff: We’ll just write and see what happens!

Annihilators new self-titled album is out now on Earache and they’ve also just re-released a wheelbarrow full of old albums.

Treat yourself. Before Ewen buys them all.

Stephan unleashes the double horns of doom

We love Hail Of Bullets, so Leave The Hall was massively happy when we got the opportunity to ask a few questions to guitarist Stephan Gebédi. As well as asking him about his favourite riffs, influences and his opinion on the Dutch music scene currently, we also continued our research into band members’ ability to kick hypothetical animals high and far. Just in case anyone thought we were proper journalists, like.

Leave The Hall: On Divine Winds has had a pretty much unanimously great reception including a rare 5/5 from us. I take it you are happy with it? How does it compare to the release of Of Frost & War?

Stephan: That’s awesome, thanx a lot! Yes, we’re very happy with the album. It definitely turned out the way we wanted. The production is a big step forward compared to Of Frost And War. As far as the music goes, I think we stayed true to our style yet managed to avoid an ‘Of Frost and War’ part II. OFAW may be a bit rawer and this one’s a bit more epic I guess, but both albums are unmistakingly ‘old school death metal Hail of Bullets-style’.

LTH: You’ve all previously been in well-established bands. How does life in Hail of Bullets compare to your former experiences, both in writing and touring?

SG: Apart from Ed (Gorefest) and Theo (Houwitser) we’re all still playing in our other bands (Asphyx, Thanatos). The main difference is that everything is a bit more well-thought out with this band; We come up with a concept and try to combine the music, lyrics and artwork as good as possible to get the whole picture across. I’m not saying this will work for everyone, but if you play the album loud, read the lyrics and look at the artwork you might find yourself in the middle of the battles we’re singing about. We don’t do long tours but we more or less focus on short blitzkrieg attacks; flying or driving to a city or a row of cities anywhere in Europe and attacking them with full force. We played a large number of festivals and club shows so far and they were all fun to do. There’s a good atmosphere in the band and we get along fine. The main reason for us to play in a band is still to have fun.

LTH: Is it hard to drag Martin away from the History Channel for gigs?

SG: History channel?! I don’t even know if the guy can afford a TV set as he’s the only one in the band trying to make a living by playing in 2 bands (Asphyx and HOB) , haha , but seriously, his knowledge comes more from reading or actually devouring books about WWII. Of course he also watches documentaries, but historical books seem to be his main source for inspiration.

LTH: What’s your favourite battle?

SG:I think the battle for Stalingrad is one of the most brutal and important battles ever thought; it was one of the main turning points in WWII.

LTH: Have you had any ideas for future albums and would you consider moving your lyrical focus from World War 2 to other conflicts?

SG: That’s up to Martin. he comes up with the concepts and then we all discuss whether this will work or not. I don’t think we’re limited to WWII. We could also go for more recent conflicts or go back to the crusades or anything but on the other hand WWII has so many interesting sides and so much unexplored ground to cover so we might focus on another chapter again next time… we could also choose for 10 songs with individual subjects, who knows. We just released this album and it’s too early to think of a new album yet

LTH: The death metal scene in Holland seems to be stronger than ever at the moment with yourselves, Pestilence, Asphyx, Gorefest, Sinister and others all producing great work recently. Any reason for it? Are you all just really pissed off these days?

SG: The Dutch death metal scene was pretty good in the nineties. in the beginning of this century the female fronted gothic metal bands took over and Holland was only known for those bands and that totally sucked of course. There still were some cool bands around but they didn’t get noticed. The last couple of years some cool bands from Holland like Legion of the Damned, The Devil’s Blood, Asphyx and Hail of Bullets have gained more popularity again. Of course not all the bands I just mentioned play death metal but they definitely put Holland back on the metal map again. I guess we had something to prove to the world with all those Dutch gothic metal bands getting all in the attention in the international press…

LTH: What was the last gig you went to?

SG: I went to see Sadistic Intent at the Baroeg club in Rotterdam last Thursday and they seriously kicked my ass! I’ve been a fan of the band for many years and this was my first chance to get to see them live and I enjoyed every minute of it! The circumstances were not ideal and they suffered a bit from technical problems, but still they managed to put on a killer show!

LTH: You are no strangers to a monstrous riff, but what are your 5 favourite riffs of all time?

SG: The mother of all riffs has to be the main riff in ‘Black Sabbath‘. I think I could fill the entire top 5 with Iommi-riffs, but let’s try a bit harder:

1. Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (main riff/opening riff)
2. Slayer – Raining Blood (opening riff)
3. Infernal Majesty – Night of the Living Dead (slow riff in the 2nd half of the song where the singer shouts “…And Kill all that lives…”
4. Massacre/Death – Corpse Grinder
5. Dark Angel – Darkness Descends (opening riffs)

but I also could have mentioned a lot of riffs from Possessed, Celtic Frost, Bolt Thrower or even God of Thunder by KISS

LTH: Do you have any plans to tour the UK in the near future?

SG: We only played one show in London and one in Ireland so far, so we definitely have to come back next year and make up for that. we already told our booking agency to play the UK again, and he’s waiting for the right offers. A short UK tour early next year would be awesome

LTH: And finally, what’s the largest animal you reckon you could kick over a set of goalposts?

SG:I don’t know how big your cat is, but I could give it a try…

Hail Of Bullets’‘s new album, On Divine Winds is out now on Metal Blade. Read our review here then go out, go to some sort of music shop, find a copy and buy it to discover what something worthy of 5 Grimmetts really sounds like.

Patrick Pintavalle

We’ve caught up with Patrick Pintavalle, guitarist of one of Leave the Hall’s favourite bands, The Absence. In a break from tradition, we actually interviewed him rather than making up some comedy answers & going back to wanking. Turns out, he’s a lovely guy that could kick a field goal with a possum. You wouldn’t get this kind of hard-hitting, fact-finding journalism anywhere else, would you?

Leave the Hall: Your new album has been out a couple of weeks now, how has the reception been compared to your last 2 albums?

Patrick Pintavalle: Its been cool so far. I have been  reading some reviews and there are some great ones and some alright ones. I don’t think we can please everyone. That’s how it goes I guess.

LTH: Why the big gap between Riders of the Plague & Enemy Unbound? What have you been up to since 07?

PP: We went through line up changes with drummers and bass players. There were a few tours that slowed us down as far as writing goes. I think we will be putting out more material a lot sooner than this record. Since Jeramie is back in the band we are already starting to write new music.

LTH: Erased is about Total Recall which makes it one of the greatest songs ever written. Any plans for more Arnie based songs?

PP: HA HA HA, I dont think so. It was a great movie that we always bring with us on tour and watch it on the road. We know every quote and bad one liner in it so we just had to make it a song.

LTH: Our review of Enemy Unbound suggested that “Peter Joseph and Patrick Pintavalle play the guitar like men who have sold a ball to Satan”. Is this true?

PP: No not at all. I think we are just old. I guess we are like wine in a way. We have been playing guitar since we were teens and now are in our mid thirties. Peter might have sold the devil something along the way. HA HA HA.

LTH: You’ve got Tom Englund guesting on the new album. How did that come about?

PP: Tom and Peter were using the same guitars a few years back. They met through online chat Myspace etc. Pete asked him one day if he would be interested in throwing a lead down and he said yes.

LTH: You’ve toured with Destruction, Vital Remains, Grave & Nuclear Assault among others. Which band has been the most fun to tour with? Any bands you’d like to tour with in the future?

PP: Amon Amarth was probably our favorite band to tour with. They were great guys. Very friendly and we would tour with them again in a heart beat. Destruction was a great band as well and we would tour with them again as well.

LTH: Peter, why the move from Caparison to Suhr? Can we have all your Caparisons now that you don’t play them?

PP: He actually made the switch to Ibanez, however that fell through and now hooked up with Suhr and is very happy with that company.

LTH: You really like the whole Gothenburg movement of the nineties, who are your 5 biggest influences?

PP: Soilwork, Archenemy, Edge of Sanity, Entombed, Opeth

LTH: And lastly, what’s the largest animal you reckon you could kick over a set of goalposts?

PP: I am watching SportsCenter right now and I think I could kick a possum or a cat with out any problems. I wouldn’t be a favorite of P.E.T.A. though.

The Absence‘s new album, Enemy Unbound is out now on Metal Blade & we reckon you should go buy it now.

Ivan Moody

Our second interview* for the site is with none other than Ivan Moody of 5 Finger Death Punch. Leave the Hall correspondant and self-confessed 5FDP fanatic Strachs met up with the vocalist and metal icon to discuss what makes him tick and give a little insight into the band.

Leave the Hall: Good day Ivan.

Ivan Moody:S’up?

LTH: It’s pretty safe to say that 5 Finger Death Punch are one of the most revered and critically lauded bands in metal right about now and are on a seemingly unstoppable mission to conquer the hearts of every music fan worldwide. I’ve got to ask you sir, what’s your secret?

IM: Well playa, it’s like this. We basically take styles of our favourite bands, yo – Crazy Town and Ill Nino – and combine them. Like my main, main, main man Freddy Durst said, it’s about my g-g-generation. Or, kinda taking shit from 10 years ago and putting some metalcore riffs in there. Pretty cool that no-one has noticed! Yeahhhh Boiiiiii, open the skyyyy!

LTH: You are undoubtedly the middle finger of this generation. Like a seething, unpredictable and dangerous mix of James Dean, Elvis, Johnny Rotten and Kurt Cobain only exponentially more charismatic and influential than them all combined. Who has helped you to nurture this incredible gift?

IM: Well you know I gots to break this shit down. My fuckin’ brother of metal and my inspiration, the Dre to my mutha fuckin’ Snoop has got to be Dez Fafara. To be in not one but two of the greatest bands of all time is off the hook! Coal Chamber are so influential to me yo, their music is like my blood and shit. From a technical, riffing side, we’re totally influenced by Coal Chamber, and that ain’t easy yo, only a handful of bands can step to this shit and match Coal Chamber. Then the crazy mutha fucka comes out with DevilDriver – the most extreme and brutal band of all time. It’s like get the fuck out of town home dog!

And getting a beard tattooed on your face? Forget about it! That shit is radical!

LTH: You’ve touched on your influences briefly during this interview, and it offers a fascinating insight into the world of 5FDP that I, for one am thrilled, excited and, frankly, a little over-awed by. If I may peer a little deeper into the well of metallic perfection that is your life, what are your top 5 albums?

IM: Broseph, I only need one albizzay up in this bitch. Only one album can step to me, step to me motherfucker and that’s Fieldy’s Dreams.

LTH: Ah I knew it! Superb choice! I must commend you on your flawless taste. It has been speculated upon by scholars of this fine art that you were lyrically influenced by Fieldy and I feel that my choice of studying this for my thesis is now vindicated by your revelation. There is so much more depth to your lyrics though, Ivan. Would you care to shed some light on them?

IM: Well the key to success in this metal game is you gotta come across as bein’ a bad ass jock. I gots that demographic cornered bitch. If you can be homophobic and call people faggots too then it’s all good yo. I likes to think my lyrics are a window to my soul, like Durst or Wes Scantlin. You got to overcompensate for your deficiencies as a man playa, so I talk about knockin’ punk-asses out and fuckin’ dominating these hater fools, and if you can do it posing in MMA shorts then it totally means it’s true.

And let me tell you something, it’s nothing to do with me being really unpopular at school and girls laughing at me, calling me Ivana, then the bigger boys would push me and I was like “one day you’ll step to me and I won’t piss my pants! I’m gonna be a singer and work out to be real big too! I swear! I swear it… I swear it…

LTH: It’s ok Ivan, let it all out.

Have a tissue, take a minute.

IM: Yeah, so as I was sayin’ I’m a bad ass. You liked my joke about bein’ a fragile pussy just there right? Haha I hate faggots! I’m totally not gay! No siree!

LTH: You were involved in a car accident recently. I, along with millions of others, kept a vigil at my 5FDP shrine, praying that you; sweet, blessed urban poet would pull through and live to shine your bright, beautiful light into our cold, dark hearts once again. I understand this is difficult, but would you like to tell us about it?

IM: Well dawg, it’s like this. Everyday is a new day, I’m thankful for every breath I take.
I won’t take you for granted, so I learn from my mistakes. It’s beyond my control, sometimes it’s best to let go, whatever happens in this lifetime. So I trust in love (so I trust in love), you have given me peace of mind.

IIIIIIII feel so alive, for the very first time. I can’t deny you, I feel so alive. IIIIII feel so alive, for the very first time. And I think I can fly… Fly… Fly…

I’m writin’ a song about it, it’s gonna be a fuckin’ original smash.

LTH: I, like so many other dedicated acolytes am fit to burst with sweet, sweet anticipation of your future musical endeavours, something that, in my humble opinion, promises to be the zenith of man’s musical achievement to date. What’s next in store for 5 Finger Death Punch?

IM: Well motha fucka we just bought some Papa Roach CD’s at a charity shop so we’re gonna see what we can take from there. Plus I been studying some of John Cena’s interviews and been looking for some lyrical inspiration within his mad rhymes. Plus our guitarist used to be in Hilary Duff’s band so we gonna get him to bring some more of her trademark shreddin lead sound over to this bitch and totally beef it up, injectin those mad ‘roids into our tunes like I do to my ass.

LTH: We all know that your band cannot be matched in terms of compositional skill, lyrical genius and technical ability, but if you could give some advice to aspiring metal musicians, who one day aspire to be in a band that makes such a difference as 5 Finger Death Punch or, god willing to even share a stage with you in future, what would it be?

IM: You gots to stay faithful to the classics dawg, pay your fuckin’ dues and win the fuckin’ war. If I hadn’t spent my formative years – 1999-2001 – listening to Spineshank, Adema and the Kings of Metal – Puddle of Mudd, then I wouldn’t have been able to produce the cutting edge shit I’m bringin’ today. Also dawg, let me tell you something, if you ain’t got a coloured, plaited beard or maybe a Mohawk you can forget about makin’ it in this business bro.

And bitch, if you ain’t got tribal tattoos, I just gots just one thing to say – ‘1, 2 Fuck You!’

LTH: Superb, ribald wit Mr Moody, It has been an honour and a privilege to spend this moment discussing your phenomenal musical career.

Thank you Sir.

* Disclaimer: No, we didn’t really interview Ivan Moody. This is, however, exactly how it would have gone.

Chris Barnes

Our first interview* for the site is with Chris Barnes of Six Feet Under. He was also a founding member of Cannibal Corpse & was a member of Finnish death crew, Torture Killer. We catch up with Chris following the release of Graveyard Classics 3 to get his views on the current state of death metal.

Leave the Hall: So Chris, your career has spanned almost 3 decades now. Six Feet Under have got 8 studio albums plus 3 Graveyard Classics releases. You also did the first 4 Corpse albums, numerous guest slots on other albums, toured the world & were one of the first people to use the now famous “death growl”. What are you most proud of?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: You got more than a little flak for the track One Bullet Left featuring Ice-T, fueded with Seth Putnam of Anal Cunt, left the world’s biggest death metal band & recieved mixed reviews for every SFU release. What’s the biggest regret of your career?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Are you planning on touring the UK any time soon?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Have you listened to the latest Corpse release, Evisceration Plague? Erik Rutan produced it & he produced the SFU album, Commandment. How do you think the two albums compare? Why didn’t you use Rutan for the new SFU?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Recently, we’ve seen a massive shift in the death metal scene towards technicality & speed. There’s also been a huge rise in the number of bands mixing death with other genres. What are your thoughts on the current deathcore fad? How do you think these changes will affect a band like SFU who eschew the tech side of things?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Any bands you feel deserve a wider audience? Any underground recommendations?

Chris Barnes: Duh Duh Duh Duh!!

Leave the Hall: Anything else you wanna add, Chris?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Thanks for your time! It was great to meet you.

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: That’s us done now, Chris.

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Ok.

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: See you later, Chris.

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

* Disclaimer: No, we didn’t really interview Chris Barnes. This is, however, exactly how it would have gone.