Coming To Get Some Down Under With JOHN FAHNESTOCK From SNOT

Interview by Simon Russell-WhiteAs the saying goes 'get busy living or get busy dying!' This is certainly true for Greg Puciato, (the living part that is) multi instrumentalist and vocalist for Better Lovers, The Black Queen, Killer Be Killed, Jerry Cantrell's Solo Band, his own Solo band and, of course, vocalist for the now very deceased Dillinger Escape Plan.He is a man with an already distinguished career, and yet again he has turned up the heat on the majority of his above mentioned projects and is hitting our shores with his Solo outfit in Summer 2024. It feels like five minutes ago that he graced us with the first-ever Australian tours for The Black Queen, but believe it or not that was almost five years ago! Where does the time go?!Celebrating his second solo album Mirrorcell the follow-up to his debut 2020 record Child Soldier: Creator of God, this is the first time us Australian's will see Greg live as a Solo artist, with his band of course!Given the limited time with Greg I kind of wish I had a buzzer so we could talk about each project for the exact amount of time, the man is literally that busy! Recently having joined long-time friends Will Putney (producer and guitarist in Fit For An Autopsy) and three remaining members of now very deceased Every Time I Die (Jordan Buckley - guitar, Clayton "Goose" Holyoak – drums and Steve Micciche – bass) to form a new band Better Lovers. In short, this is a band that celebrates friendship, kinship and the pure love of music!Having just dropped their new single Two Alive Amongst the Dead, "this was actually the first single as a complete band, we wrote and recorded between shows on our first tour" explained Greg. Hopefully, we get to see Better Lovers in Australia sometime soon.Moving right along, recently Greg was given the honour to join Alice In Chains legend Jerry Cantrell (guitar and vocals) for a run of live solo shows, during this interview we capture Greg explaining a moment where a once long-time idol has now not only become a band member but a dear friend of Greg's, he talks about those little moments where he simply cannot believe the position is in and how a moment with Jerry on stage took him back emotionally.Greg also owns a record company Federal Prisoner which will be releasing the next The Black Queen record as writing has actually begun.The man simply doesn't stop, Greg expresses feeling partly overwhelmed with the amount of projects he has on but as he explains so well, is aware that time is against us all, so the time is now.Greg hasn't sat for many interviews for a little while, I wonder why?He went on to laugh about the chance of the Killer Be Killed boys suddenly giving him a call, to cut another record and/ or tour.He went on to explain how much Max Cavalera (ex Sepultura, Soulfly, Nailbomb and Killer Be Killed) loves to tour and is a huge influence on him.Who knows we may see another Killer Be Killed record in the future, this is something that seems very damn likely too.Greg Puciato has the incredible ability to separate styles and musical abilities between various projects, so make sure you grab a ticket for his first-ever Australian run of solo (with previously mentioned band) shows in January 2024, it promises to be a fun time.Tickets from destroyalllines.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

21 Marras 202314min

Interview by Kris PetersIt is hard to fathom that Seattle rock outfit Candlebox have never toured Australia over the course of their 30-year existence.Since emerging from the popular music location during the mid-90s grunge scene, Candlebox have gone from strength to strength, with a remarkable number of record sales and music streams starting with their 1993 self-titled album which sold over 4 million copies and introduced Candlebox to the world with songs like Far Behind, You and Cover Me.It is even harder to comprehend that it takes Candlebox calling time on their illustrious career for the powers that be to coax them over to our part of the world, but that is just what has happened with the band poised to bring The Long Goodbye Tour to our shores in January next year.With a global tour planned, and the recent release of Candlebox's final album of the same name, frontman Kevin Martin sat down with HEAVY to talk us through what has been a stellar slice of music history.We start by jokingly asking how and why Candlebox have neglected their Australian fans for so long."I've been trying to come there for thirty years," he smiled in return, "so you'll have to talk to the promotors about it. It's been a dream of mine to come out there. I have an extended Australian family over there that I love very much. I've been coming to Australia for the past 23 years and my affinity for that country goes beyond. I think I was Australian in a past life. It's just one of those things. I love that country, and I've tried to come for 30 years. I don't know why it's taken us so long. We've asked several times about coming for some festivals with Stone Temple Pilots and the guys in Live, but I guess maybe the Australian promotors just didn't think we were popular enough, but I cannot tell you how excited I am to be coming to play there. I'm looking forward to playing in the country that hopefully, at some point, I will call home."We bring up the fact that it will be a bittersweet moment for both the band and their fans seeing them here for the first and last time."I think so," he sighed. "It's gonna be more interesting for me, I think than it is for them. I'm gonna give them two hours each night of my very best, but saying goodbye to this career has been strange. All Summer long there's been times standing on stage in front of 10,000 of my closest friends, thinking to myself this is gonna be the last time I sing this song with these people. It's a strange emotion, but I think for me being home during COVID and spending time with my wife and my son and realising just how much I missed of that life with them… was pretty Earth-shaking for me. And I sat down with my wife around September of 2020 and said I think I'm pretty much ready to put all this music thing behind me and be a husband and a Father, is that okay? And she says I would be beyond grateful but are you sure you can put that away? And I said I don't love it as much as I used to. I think it was being home for such a long extended period of time that I realised that music was no longer the love of my life, nor my mistress. It's almost as though she had become a close friend that I would bump into every now and then and didn't like seeing that much. I don't wanna be an artist who phones it in. I don't wanna be that guy. So when we went back out on the road in 2021 I made sure that the shows would be played where we wanted to play. The events that we were involved in were events that I felt were a good place for Candlebox to be, and it was all leading up to this goodbye tour of 2023 for the 30th anniversary of the debut album. So I was very conscious about what I was doing."In the full interview, Kevin talks more about the final tour, what to expect, how to wrap up 30 years of music in one show, the early days of Candlebox and where they fit in, if he has achieved everything he wanted from music, the success of their self-titled debut and why he thinks people gravitated to it, the changes in music over 30 years and how Candlebox has survived, the response to their new album The Long Goodbye and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

21 Marras 202313min

Interview by Kris PetersOne of the most endearing aspects of music is its natural ability to connect on so many levels. For the music lover one song can have a profound effect on your mood or dictate your path to an extent, but on the flip side, from a musician's perspective, music has so much more to offer.While many are content to stick to a limited scope in terms of creative output, others need more plentiful and different outlets to satiate their hunger.Faith No More bass player Billy Gould is one such person.Universally lauded and loved for his role in the band that has helped shape the sonic direction of music on so many levels, Gould also feels the pull of other sides of the musical landscape. Desires that need to be fed but can't be satiated in a full band or within hard rock/metal constraints.These musical callings are far removed from the universal appeal and acceptance afforded to Faith No More, but for Gould at least, they are of equal, if not greater, importance.He found that a number of years ago with the project Talking Book, an outfit that relies more on musical textures and exploration to paint an immersive sonic landscape more in touch with your inner being than your impulsive urge to purge your sins.Along with Talking Book bandmate Jared Blum, Gould is preparing to release the soundtrack for The Eclipse on November 24, a film that forced Gould to tap into a fresh side of his musical mentality and express his creativity like never before.HEAVY had the pleasure of talking with Billy Gould recently, and we start by asking him how he is feeling on the cusp of the soundtrack release."Good," he enthused. "We've never really worked on a full feature film before like this. For the first time we didn't know if we were doing it right (laughs), but it came out alright. The director was really happy. I saw it on a big screen, and I was really happy with the way it all came together. It was a little intimidating when we first decided to take it on."We ask how he came to be involved with the movie and director Natasha Urban."I've known her for a decade and a half," he said. "She has made a lot of other films that are interesting. She made a film in Nepal following a young girl as she grew up in different stages of her life and what happened with her family and I just kept in touch with her. We had spoken earlier about Talking Book records and I sent her a copy of that, and she liked them so she kind of knew the stuff we did. She is really into visuals. Obviously, as a director she is a visual person, and she sent me some photos when she was in a place called The Valley Of The Moon in Uganda, and we almost used that as a cover for an album back in 2011. So w kept in touch and when she decided to do this film she said I was the first person that she really wanted to do it. She knew the aesthetic that I take into things like this, and we saw some clips from the film, and they were very… evocative, with some stuff filmed in Super 8. Some of it was very textured, some of it was very saturated and to me her visuals are like what we do with sound, so I thought it would be a good match."In the full interview, Billy talks about the pressures of carrying a whole soundtrack on their backs instead of contributing just one song, the process of writing musical scores to a movie, creative music with a cinematic feel to it, how different writing for a movie is compared than with a band, how the writing process forced him into a different headspace and how he coped with that, the origins of Talking Book and future plans and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

16 Marras 202313min

Interview by Kris PetersThere is so much music being released on an hourly basis in the modern age that sometimes it is necessary to hedge your bets and look into outside interests that could possibly align with your own in an attempt to combine forces.This is much easier said than done, especially considering that something like that would usually involve having to work with other people thus reducing the individual impact of your work. The smarter - and infinitely harder - way to do things is to diversify on your own, but that then poses even more problems of having to make two projects work rather than one.The lucky (or more lateral thinking) few manage to dip their toes into two projects and weave their sonic tapestry into one wholesome product, as seen recently with US rocker Kurt Deimer who has combined his love of film with that of his music.In recent years Deimer began work on a horror movie franchise called Hellbilly Hollow, writing, acting and producing the films to an ever-growing fanbase. And what one thing do all good horror films possess?A metal soundtrack.Which is where Deimer found his niche, slotting his new track Doom into Hellbilly Hollow in the pivotal closing scene.Deimer has so much more going on both musically and on film that HEAVY just had to make time to chat with him to find out more."I have two movies coming out in 2024," he corrected. "Scared To Death and then Hellbilly Hollow which is my horror franchise that I started. Doom features in the epic final scene of Hellbilly Hollow, which I why I originally wrote the song. It's just a slammer, man. It's bringing rock and roll to the world the way I do it and hopefully everybody sees that it doesn't sound like everything else.""We needed a good, epic song for the final scene. I wrote the song originally for the movie, that's what inspired it, and you can have a lot of doom in a horror type movie that's scary and a lot of scenarios that create that doom feeling. But I also write to try to help people realise other things that are going on in the world and things I've gone through in my life. I wanted to also point out that drug abuse - whether it's heroin or cocaine or any drug of choice, pills, whatever - can also create doom in ones life."In the full interview, Kurt talks more about Doom and how it fits in with the movie, other songs that will appear on the soundtrack, the storyline of Hellbilly Hollow and the whole franchise, having a role in the Halloween remake, other new songs he has recorded and what he plans to do with them, his love for Hoodoo Gurus and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

15 Marras 202310min

Interview by Kris PetersWhat started as more of a way to fill in time during COVID before expanding its reach across three albums, the Leviathan trilogy set in motion in 2021 by Swedish symphonic metal legends Therion finally draws to a close on December 15 with the release of Leviathan III.It has been a spectacular sonic journey from the band, with each album exploring different musical territory while still paying homage to the sounds that have seen Therion endure more than three decades of sustained success.Featuring choirs and orchestras and the ever-present operatic mastery of Lori Lewis, Leviathan III is more than just the final chapter of a period of time that tested the resolve of us all. It is also an emphatic statement of individuality from a band that pushes most every conceivable boundary of the metal spectrum and comes up trumps every time.Vocalist Thomas Vikstrom joined HEAVY from Sweden to help put the final bow on an enduring legacy three years in the making.We speak with Vikstrom more than one month out from the official release date of the album, so we pose the question of what sorts of emotions this period of inactivity and anticipation evokes."The waiting is boring, but it is what it is," he shrugged. "I'm very pleased with the result, and it will be fun to hear what people think about it. We're also preparing for going to Mexico in January. We're going to follow this up with a tour, so we start off in January in Mexico City with a full symphony orchestra this time. Then we're planning on going through Europe and maybe China. It's gonna be a lot of fun. It's funny, because for people this will be a new record, but for me, I have already digested it. For me, it's not a new record anymore because I've heard it so many times."It has been an epic journey over three years and three albums in bringing the Leviathan trilogy to life, and we ask Vikstrom if the reality of the process lived up to his expectations."That was not the plan from the beginning," he replied, talking about having an album trilogy. "We started to write for a new album, me and Christopher, and exactly when we started - almost on the day - the COVID came and there was lockdown. I couldn't go there, and he couldn't come here, so let's send files forward and back and write like that, which works good today, actually. It's a pity we can't meet, but it did work. Since it was the lockdown it was hysterical. You could go to the supermarket once a day, that was it. So there was not much more to do but write new songs and work and order food from Burger King (laughs). So we started to write, and I was asking Christopher what kind of direction do you want to go with this album and his answer was it's gonna be good… Okay (laughs). That's a bit vague (laughs). In the end we had so many songs in different styles, everything from the hardest almost in the borderlines to pop because we just wrote. So Christopher said let's not make one album, let's make three and put them out in a short period of time. That's how the story was."In the full interview, Thomas reveals how Leviathan III wraps up the series, the musical aspects to Leviathan III and how they fit together, the vocal dynamics between himself and Lori Lewis and how they structure them, getting the balance between so many eclectic styles of music, the upcoming tour and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

15 Marras 202322min

Interview by Kris PetersAustralian extreme metal outfit The Amenta recently released a brutal album called Plague Of Locus, boasting an assortment of cover songs that have inspired the band and their music.The selection of bands paid homage to has a number of surprises amongst some expected tributes, ranging from local black metal bands like Nazxul and Lord Kaos to alternative acts such as Alice In Chains, Diamanda Galas and Killing Joke. It is an eclectic and broad list of artists, going a long way to giving us a better insight into The Amenta and what makes them tick.To celebrate, The Amenta embark on their first headlining tour in over a decade, kicking off on November 16 in Sydney and taking in an appearance at this year's Froth & Fury festival in Adelaide. It is a tour metal fans around the country have been screaming for, and one which sees blackened sludge machine LO! supporting for most shows in a twin sonic assault that promises to be as intense as it will be visually stunning.Keyboard/sampler Timothy Pope sat down with HEAVY to tell us more."You never know what to expect with any release," he began, "but more so with covers. People might not know a lot of the bands we covered, or maybe they knew the songs too well and don't think we do good versions. You never really know how people are going to receive it but so far it's been almost exclusively really positive."We ask Pope why now was the right time for The Amenta to make this album."It was something we almost started doing almost accidently when we started recording our last album Revelator," he explained. "We've always been a band where basically anything we write we record and it gets released. So there's not a lot of additional stuff floating around. There's no B sides or nothing we can put together a special release with, so it was a deliberate decision of let's try and record a couple of songs that we won't put on the album, but we'll just use the fact we're recording to get them done as efficiently as possible. Then if we need to do a Japanese import version with bonus tracks or anything like that then we've got some tracks. We recorded the drums of the Alice In Chains song called Angry Chair and also the drums for the Halo song Rise. We recorded them at the same time we recorded drums for Revelator, and at one point we even talked about having those songs on the album anyway. But as we went through those dropped by the wayside, and we decided to concentrate on the songs that we know are going to be on the album. They sat there for a little while not doing anything, and then we were talking about doing something with those songs and thought we would build it out to something more rather than just have two songs on Bandcamp. As we discussed it we came up with all this idea of all these bands we wanted to cover, and we decided to pin them all around this new song that we wrote especially for it and make it into a bit more of a solid release. Something that people could get their teeth into a bit."In the full interview, Tim talks more about the covers chosen and why, the broad spectrum of influences and how they shaped The Amenta's sound, how much the songs were changed from the original versions, the process of reworking each song, the awesome album cover, the one original song on Plague Of Locus and if that is a hint at the future direction of their music, the upcoming tour and what to expect and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

10 Marras 202317min

Interview by Kris PetersThe modern age of music is far more demanding than it was even ten years ago.To be able to give your band the best chance of success, often band members multitask with other roles within the music industry, trying to give themselves and their bandmates the best opportunities.One such way is to put on your own shows, not only to give your band gigs and exposure, but also for networking purposes. Combining the two is an arduous, often thankless task, but when done right can have great rewards.Just ask 100 Years War vocalist Lacca, who not only fronts the rising metal outfit, but also has an annual festival by the name of Metal In The Mountains.With this year's recent event a resounding success, HEAVY sat down with Lacca to talk more about the joys of music and spending time with his band."It went really well," he enthused. "We had a great crowd. It was the first time in the open air in the middle of Beechworth, right behind the old courthouse where Ned Kelly was tried. It's a nice historic area with all these old buildings. It was warm weather. The sun was out, we were really blessed in that regard. The weather's always a concern when you're doing an outdoor gig, but we got a real good deck of cards this time. We tried to go outdoors last year, but it was wet, so we had to hold off."In the full interview, Lacca runs through the bands on the day and how they performed, fills us in on the hot sauce competition, putting together a show the size of Metal In The Mountains, the diversity of the line-up and why he made it that way, 11 Years War, upcoming new music, touring Japan and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

9 Marras 20239min

Interview by Kris PetersThe beauty of being a solo artist is the complete freedom of total creativity.While the burden can weigh too heavily on some performers, not so New Zealand-born and Melbourne-based multi-instrumentalist Rachel Trainor, who releases her debut album The Way Back Down under the name Nighteyes on November 10.A sonic tapestry combining dark rock, folk and electronica, The Way Back Down portrays a plethora of emotions, culminating in somewhat of a musical journey as told through the songs of Trainor.Trainor, who also has a history in circus and cabaret, gives herself fully to her debut offering as Nighteyes and offers a masterful soundscape that has to be listened to across the whole album to fully sink in.Rachel sat down earlier this week with HEAVY to talk about the album."I'm really excited," she smiled. "I'm also pretty nervous. I think it's my first release with a solo project so doing everything myself is a learning curve (laughs). But I'm really looking forward to having this album out. I've been recording it and working on it for two years, so it's gonna be nice to have it all done."We ask Trainor to tell us more about The Way Back Down musically."It's kind of got a bunch of different sounds on it," she measured. "I'm really inspired by artists like Chelsea Wolf and Darkher. I really adore the way that some of those artists mix genres a little bit. There's some electronic vibes in there; there's some heavy, doom elements; a little bit of post rock as well. I made it so all of my influences have come together."In the full interview, Rachel talks more about the sonic landscape of the album, the challenges of being a solo artist with a full band recording, what sorts of things she focussed on going into her debut album, the meaning behind the title, the singles released and how they represent the whole album, her circus and cabaret background and how she utilises that in her music, Friday night's album launch at Whole Lotta Love and more.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/heavy-music-interviews--2687660/support.

9 Marras 202313min