Category Archives: Interviews

British quintet gives North American audiences The Treatment with KISS and Mötley Crüe

KISS and Mötley Crüe have likely been responsible for a lot of firsts, especially for fans who have yet to reach the age of 20. But for British band The Treatment, whose five members are still in their late teens despite their ’70s rocker imagery, these two bands have not only been big influences on the throwback rock sound heard on the recently-released debut album This Might Hurt, they’re also responsible for The Treatment’s North American debut. Currently making its way across the United State and Canada, the co-headlining bill known simply as The Tour features the young quintet as the opening act (with additional club dates for The Treatment on off dates from The Tour). Being introduced to new audiences each night, The Treatment’s singer Matt Jones talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the tour, the album and what the rest of the year has in store for this young band.

You’ve already gained quite a following in Europe, but touring with two of the biggest bands in the world is quite a way to make your North American debut.

Yeah, I mean it’s huge. We’ve all grown up listening to these bands, so to be out here playing with them in America in front of that many people is just unbelievable.

What have the reactions been like for you so far on this tour?

I think people come in early because they want to get a good spot for KISS and Mötley Crüe. We’re going on about half an hour before the main bands go on, but we’ve had really, really good responses so far. It’s been really fun, too.

With KISS and Crüe, it’s not just the front men who have been able to capture the attention of audiences. And many of the other members of each band have fronted other bands of their own. As a singer and front man, who would you say have been some of the bigger influences on you between the two bands you’re currently touring with?

That’s hard because, like you said, their all such great front men. Vince Neil was the ultimate ’80s front man, then Paul Stanley is fantastic and Gene Simmons is fantastic. I don’t know that I could really pick one. I’ve grown up listening to both bands and both bands have had an equally big impression on us, really.

You’ve had the opportunity to play with some other big rock bands like Alice Cooper and Motörhead in your homeland. As I mentioned before, we aren’t that familiar with you here, but do you already have a pretty big following back home?

We’re doing quite well at home and we’re doing quite well in Europe. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind lately, but over the last year it’s all slowly, but surely, picked up. Hopefully after this tour in the U.S. we’ll be able to go back and do some more shows. But it’s been a fantastic start for us so far.

The new album has a lot of different influences, ranging from bluesy Black Crowes kind of sounds to harder rocking ’80s-inspired stuff. I’ve noticed a resurgence in the ’70s and ’80s rock sound in a lot of newer bands, as well as bands from that era seeing a renewed interest from fans. Why do you think that sound is making a comeback of sorts?

I think it’s just because we’ve all grown up with it. I mean, it’s something passed down from our dads and our mums because our parents were around in the ’80s and as we were growing up, that’s what they listened to. As we’ve grown up, we’ve listened to what they used to listen to. So when we come to writing music and started playing guitar and stuff like that, we’d go back to that kind of music to get inspiration because that’s what we knew. I think it’s a generational thing that was handed down to us.

You also released a digital-only EP of cover songs. How did you go about choosing which songs you’d cover?

We wanted to show that we don’t just have an ’80s side to us, but we’ve got a real kind of rootsy ’70s feel as well. We wanted to choose songs that people wouldn’t automatically think we’d go for and songs that might be a bit of a curveball, especially for people our age who might not have ever heard it before. Stuff like Canned Heat and ELO and stuff like that, people who are 18 back home in England don’t really know that kind of stuff. So we wanted to breathe some new life into some great songs and hopefully people will listen to that and go back to hear the originals.

How did you discover those bands if a lot of people your age haven’t heard them in England?

When we got into rock music, we all kind of sat down and went back to the roots. So if we liked Mötley Crüe or whatever, we’d go back and listen to what they were influenced by like UFO and Slade and stuff like that. We’re all massive music fans, so we’d sit down with records from the ’60s, ’70s and even the ’50s and ’40s, and listen to as much as possible.

This tour has you on the road through September. What are your plans after that?

After this tour, we go home and have a couple of weeks off to try and recoup some energy. After that we go on tour in the U.K. with Thin Lizzy, which we’re really excited about because we’re all massive Thin Lizzy fans. We’ve actually done a couple of dates with them before and they went really, really well. So a whole tour should be a lot of fun. Then we’re back in Europe through October. Then we’ll take some time off at the end of the year to see our families for Christmas and stuff.

Evan Seinfeld combines passions for metal and motorcylces with Attika 7

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As the founding front man and bassist for Brooklyn-based metal band Biohazard, Evan Seinfeld was instrumental in the fusion of the New York hardcore sound with heavy metal riffs and hip-hop-like vocal delivery. After establishing Biohazard as one of the biggest names in underground metal, Seinfeld crossed over into acting, portraying the leader of a prison biker gang in the HBO series Oz. Seinfeld was further embedded into pop culture when he appeared alongside Ted Nugent, Sebastian Bach, Scott Ian and Jason Bonham in VH1‘s Supergroup reality show. After his marriage to porn star Tera Patrick in 2004, Seinfeld dove head first into the adult entertainment industry, appearing as as Spyder Jonez in several films. After nearly 25 years with Biohazard, Seinfeld parted ways with the band a little more than a year ago only to form his latest musical project, biker rock band Attika 7.

Evan Seinfeld (left) returns to metal with Attika 7 (photo courtesy Adrenaline PR)

Alongside famed motorcycle builder Rusty Coones (president of the Orange County Chapter of the Hells Angels), Seinfeld’s Attika 7 recorded its debut album Blood of My Enemies with former Static-X bassist Tony Campos (now touring with Soulfly). Having already had some of its songs (and the band itself) featured on the Discovery Channel show The Devils Ride, Blood of My Enemies sounds as tough as its members look. Seinfeld’s vocals are more soulfully angsty than before while Coones’ guitars alternate between Black Sabbath-like psychedelia and pure hard rock heaviness. As the band celebrates the release of the album today, Seinfeld takes a moment to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about music, porn and his inherent love or pro wrestling.

How did you and Rusty come to form Attika 7? Was he already a musician or did he take that up just for the band?

Rusty played guitar as a kid, but more like rock ‘n’ roll/blues guitar. When he went to prison for seven years, he kind of invented himself as a songwriter and heavy metal guitarist. It’s very hard to not be influenced by the things around you and everything is somewhat derivative of something, which is somewhat derivative of something, which is somewhat derivative of The Beatles. Being in prison that long and having no knowledge of popular metal or any of the groups we actually sound a little bit like, when he was writing music it was straight off his emotion and his experience. When he got out of prison, he had these songs he’d written and he wanted to start a band. He was banging around with different lineups until he and I connected, then it took us a year to make an album, sign a deal and find the right lineup.

What’s the significance of the name?

Because the album and the band originated in prison, Rusty was looking for a name that symbolized his struggle and the oppression that takes place in the American injustice system. Most people never go to jail or prison, and most people don’t really pay much attention to what goes on there or to the fact that so many of their tax dollars go towards incarcerating people who are nonviolent offenders or were innocent in the first place. America prides itself on being the most civilized country in the world, yet we are the most incarcerated country per capita in the world. Attica was the famous prison in upstate New York that had all those riots where so many inmates were killed by guards and it seemed like the world didn’t care. The 7 represents the seven years Rusty spent in the federal penitentiary. I’ve always hated when I heard a band’s name and it wasn’t anything serious, unless it’s a non-serious band. Music doesn’t always have to be political or serious, but if you have an opportunity to have a voice, at least be clever.

Today is not only the release date for the album, but also the deadline for the motorcycle helmet contest on Facebook. Have you decided on a winner yet?

We may extend it. We’ll probably give a prize to whoever has the best helmet on the day of release, then extend the contest. I think it’s a really cool thing to see people express their creativity while supporting the band. Our goal was just to have a million people riding around on their motorcycles around the world with the Attika logo on their helmets. Two of my helmets are at the painter’s right now and it might be something we sell as part of our merch line in the future.

The Attika logo is kind of like an anarchy symbol, but it’s also kind of like a pentagram. But when you look at it, it’s actually an A and a 7. So it represents our band, it represents chaos and anarchy, it represents the dark side. What we want it to mean, whether it’s a sticker on your car or your helmet, it’s kind of like “I’m free and this is my statement that I don’t give a fuck what you think about me.”

Which is a common theme on the album.

Absolutely. I come form the school of “say what you really mean and mean what you really say.” We tried to put that down on the album as best we could. The album has a lot of different topics, but one recurring theme is, “Be yourself. Be free. Freedom isn’t free, you have to pay for it and, once you have it, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to waste it? Are you going to squander it? If you can live forever, what are you going to do with your time?”

Being free and making good use of your time is something you obviously carry out on a daily basis. From Biohazard to Oz to adult entertainment to Attika 7, you always find creative outlets for yourself. Are you still doing any of those other things or is Attika 7 your main focus at the moment?

I never really lay out a map and say, “These are the things I’m going to do.” I’m an idea guy. I have incredibly bad attention deficit disorder, and at the same time I have nonstop creative ideas. I don’t know how to just have ideas, so I have to follow through and try to make them into realities. Not everything I do succeeds, but if I’m passionate about something I put my life’s energy into it. So, yeah, I’ve done a lot of different things – I ran Biohazard for 25 years and that was an idea I started in high school. In the ’90s we sold millions of albums and I went around the world with that group. Then I was on Oz for five years.

The adult entertainment thing wasn’t something I was so passionate about. I love sex and girls, but what straight guy doesn’t? To me, the challenge was how do you figure out how to make money having sex with as many women as possible? I thought that was a challenging puzzle. That’s like walking into a restaurant and saying, “How can I have this amazing meal, then have them pay me when I’m leaving?” That was kind of the goal and I’m fascinated with connecting the dots. I love synergy. I have a production company called Sinnergy Entertainment because my thing is outlaw entertainment, the dark side of the entertainment business. If I’m going to produce a mainstream movie, it will be a gangster movie with some snuff in it. If I’m producing porn, its hardcore and over the top. If I’m making music, it’s Attika 7. If I’m promoting parties in Las Vegas, it’s hosted by porn stars.

My wife is Lupe Fuentes, aka Little Lupe, and I also manage her career. She’s an incredibly amazing woman who actually now has a music group called the Ex-Girlfriends. It’s an all-girl group and all the girls are really hot and really small and really exotic. They sing and dance and it’s all choreographed, so they’re something like the Spice Girls. It’s funny the power of sex. Last week after the girls’ dance rehearsal, we went to a diner to get breakfast and talk some business. There’s this diner in North Hollywood and there’s always people eating there, and it’s a bunch of Hollywood flunky guys wearing T-shirts with the name of their production company on the back. We sat on the other side and as we were walking out I went to the bathroom and when I come out the whole place is in dead silence staring over by the door. When I look at the door it’s my wife and her friends standing there. It’s just incredible the effect it has on people.

Haha. Yeah. Well, with the album out today, will we be seeing Attika 7 on the road sometime soon?

Absolutely. Back in the day, Biohazard was an underground, non-commercial band. We always made our money touring and selling merchandise. Other bands would sell albums and stay home, but I never did that. Not because I didn’t want to, but we just never sold a lot of records. And the records we did sell were based on touring. But now we’re a brand new band. We’ve got no expectations for this. But we’ve got an amazing lineup. We’ve got Scott Reeder from Kyuss on bass, we’ve got Zach Broderick from Nonpoint playing guitar, we’ve got Tommy Holt from U.P.O. on the drums, Rusty and myself. We rehearse at Rusty’s motorcycle shop, Illusion Motorsports in Orange County. We’re tight as hell and we really feel like we have not just a great sound, but we’re a great a live band and we’re really developing our act. Now that the album’s out, we’re really pushing to get tour dates solidified so we can go out and play this for people.

At the end of the day that’s what I’m passionate about is connecting with people through music. Porn is a way to make money and it’s kind of a joke. My friends I grew up with love to text me little one-liners about how funny it is that everybody watches porn and now somebody they’re friends with does it. For me it’s even funnier because it’s me, I’m doing it. But I’m not passionate about it. I’m passionate about the message of the Attika 7 Blood of My Enemies album. I’m passionate about the messages behind “Crackerman” and “Blood of My Enemies,” and I love singing “Serial Killer” and “Devil’s Daughter” and “All or Nothing.” And that’s kind of how I live my life, so I feel like I’m sharing my philosophy and my ideals. This is who we are as Attika 7 – we are all or nothing and we stand for what we believe in and fight for what we believe in. Whatever you’re into, whatever you believe, be passionate because this is the only life you’ve got.

Rusty and I are working on a concept for our own tour where we bring our whole lifestyle deal out. The culmination of the whole thing would be the band playing, but Rusty builds some of the best bikes in the world for the Sons of Anarchy show and real bikers. I see a different bike every single day that Rusty is customizing or adding to. That’s something Rusty and I are both passionate about is motorcycles and the freedom you feel from riding them. Rusty’s very well known within the motorcycle world. We’d love to have a tour where we bring 50 incredible bikes for people to check out, a bunch of hot and famous girls, whether they’re porn stars or models or just super hot chicks, and bands are playing and people are eating delicious food and drinking and maybe getting tattooed. Maybe we’ll have a side event where there’s a cage fight or something, like a rolling Thunderdome.

You seem like the kind of guy that might be into professional wrestling. Am I right in guessing that?

I was on your website last night and it’s very cool. It reminds me of me and Rusty, in a way, as people who have an entrepreneurial spirit who are like, “These are the things I love. I love heavy metal and wrestling, so I’m going to combine them in a website.” I think that’s awesome. Not everybody who likes heavy metal likes wrestling and not everyone who likes wrestling likes heavy metal. It helps turn people on to other things, but at the same time it makes you realize there are a lot of other people who like the things you like. I was a huge wrestling fan as a kid, so I can talk wrestling with you all day.

Have you ever parlayed your heavy metal career into anything wrestling related? It seems like your style of music would be a good fit with a lot of those guys.

I’m in my 40s, so as a kid I was a huge fan of the WWF, the NWA, the AWA, and I used to go to lots of wrestling matches and see all the old-school guys like “Superstar” Billy Graham, Dusty Rhodes, Ken Patera, Ivan Putski, Baron Mikel Scicluna, the Wild Samoans and my favorite wrestler was Mil Máscaras. Me and my friends used to build a wrestling ring in my friend’s back yard and emulate what we saw on TV. Everybody’d be a character and I understand the mania that it is. I got an autograph from George “The Animal” Steele in his heyday and I still have it. It’s on a trading card and I think it might be the only autograph I own.

I’ve become friendly with a few wrestlers over the years. The Undertaker is a bro of mine, he’s a metalhead. I know Tazz, who is a cool dude who always used to wear a Biohazard shirt to the ring. He’s used some of my music in the past. I come from Brooklyn, a place of street fighting and gangsters. So I write music about confrontation and the fight, in general. The fight could be a war, a wrestling match, your personal struggle with drugs, people who are after you, your war with yourself, your war with the world. And a lot of people connect with the adversarial thing. With Attika 7, every song sounds like someone’s fight entrance music. If I was a wrestler, I’d come walking out to the intro from “Crackerman,” the first thing on the Attika album with the bell ringing and Rusty playing that Sabbath-y guitar riff.

With all the things you have done, did you ever consider becoming a professional wrestler?

I wanted to be a wrestler when I was a kid, then you meet the guys and realize how big they are. Rusty’s 6’6″ and is as big as any pro wrestler I’ve ever met. People think he’s a wrestler all the time when we go out. People ask Rusty for his autograph and they have no idea who he is. He’s huge and jacked with long hair and a beard and when he walks into a room people are like, “I don’t know who that guy is, but I want to know him.”

I know a ton of MMA fighters and I trained on-and-off for years. I’ve written music for a couple of brothers from Long Island, Matt Serra and Nick Serra. Matt fought in UFC and they’ve both fought in all different leagues and I wrote music for both of them.

But I was always a wrestling fan and I used to picture the way Hulk Hogan would command a crowd back in the day. In the back of my mind, I was always way more Baron Mikel Scicluna. I always identified with the bad guy who had a foreign object down his pants.

For more information, go to www.attika7.com.

Wayne Static returns to the road with Static-X’s Noise Revolution Tour

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Static-X, led by Wayne Static, returns with the Noise Revolution Tour (photo courtesy FiXT Publicity)

It was just a few months ago that I talked to Wayne Static about his debut solo album Pighammer, his first musical release since his influential cyber metal band Static-X went on hiatus in 2009. And what a difference a few months can make. This time around, Wayne is using the Static-X name once again and focusing on the metal he forged with that band on his Noise Revolution Tour, which includes newer industrial metal acts Davey Suicide (read my interview here) and 9 Electric. Apparently the name change has provided the band with a jolt of recognition as the tour (already a few weeks underway) has added a second leg beginning Aug. 1 (with genre pioneer Prong playing several dates) and a third leg beginning Sept. 7 (with the addition of Winds of Plague and The Browning), including a performance alongside pro wrestling, freak shows, carnival rides and more at the Gathering of the Juggalos on Aug. 8. Before he whoops it up with the Juggalos, Static once again talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about using the Static-X name and more.

When I talked to you last December, you were just about to hit the road to promote Pighammer. Now you’re on tour as Static-X, but isn’t it the same band you had for your solo tour?

Yep, I’ve got the same players. I wanted to use Static-X again and everybody else doesn’t really want to do it anymore. I figured I’d just keep the same guys I had and it’s a great band, so here we are.

You played a good bit of Static-X stuff on the last tour, but focused on the Pighammer material. How are the shows and set lists on this tour different from the last tour?

I’m just playing one song from Pighammer to plug the record. Then I’m focusing the set on the old-school Static-X stuff. We’re opening up with the song “Wisconsin Death Trip” and closing with “Get to the Gone” and playing a lot of older stuff.

Now that you’re operating as Static-X again, has the role of any of your band members changed? Will it become a more collaborative thing moving forward or will you still be the main creative force in the band?

Wayne Static’s new Static-X gives older songs a jolt (photo courtesy FiXT Publicity)

It’s always been me form day one. Whether it was Static-X or my solo stuff, I wrote everything and produced everything. To give an analogy, Static-X was always like Ministry, which was always Al Jourgensen and a bunch of other guys, or like Nine Inch Nails, which was always Trent Reznor with a bunch of other guys. As long as my players are great players, everything’s going to be awesome.

Do you think you’ll stick with this lineup or do you foresee any changes as things progress?

Right now everything’s pretty tight, so I’d like to keep the same lineup. It wasn’t my fault the lineup kept changing in Static-X. I worked really hard to keep the same lineup, it’s just not always possible. I like the lineup I have right now, so we’ll keep running with this as long as we can. If it has to change at some point, it will.

You’ve assembled a great mix of bands on this tour with Davey Suicide, 9 Electric, Prong and other bands joining you later in the tour. How has this package tour compared to your other recent tours, where you mostly had local openers in each city?

It’s really cool. I’m friends with the opening bands and they’re both newer bands from L.A. It’s fun to go out and everybody knows each other, so it’s awesome.

Do you have any plans to follow up this tour with any additional touring or recording?

Yeah, this tour ends in September. We’re going to take four days off, then we’re going to start up on the West Coast and do the whole U.S. again with a different package. That’s going to run through the end of October, then we’ll probably do some international stuff and we’ve got another tour planned for early next year in the U.S.. We’ll probably just keep running as long as we can and maybe do another record late next year.

Was part of your motivation for going back to the Static-X name to benefit from the potentially more recognizable name and reputation the band established?

Photo courtesy FiXT Publicity

Yeah, it helps having name recognition. When I was touring as Wayne Static, we had a pretty good showing at every venue. But maybe some of the casual fans that don’t know my name didn’t show up, but so far it’s been a great turn out and it’s been awesome.

Do you anticipate that name recognition possibly creating other opportunities aside from getting more fans to the shows, such as soundtrack contributions and other things you were known for in Static-X’s previous incarnation?

Yeah, we’re always working on that stuff. Those things pop up from time to time, but it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with touring.

How does the stage production on this tour compare to what we saw on the Wayne Static tour?

It’s pretty much the same straight-up show. We’ve got a few more lights with us, but other than that it’s just a good time. We play a bunch of old songs and have a good time.

For more information, go to www.static-x.com.

Jayne County returns to her punk rock roots in various ways

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There once was a Georgia boy named Wayne County who had so much trouble figuring out who he was he had to move to New York (then England) and become Jayne County before finally feeling comfortable with herself. Along the way, Jayne helped pioneer the original wave of punk rock of the late ’70s, got cozy with Andy Warhol and his Factory and toured the world with backing bands such as the Electric Chairs. Having returned to Georgia a few years ago to tend to her ailing parents, County usually reserves her performing schedule to a couple of shows a year in Atlanta. Tonight’s one of those rare occasions as the queen of gender bending punk headlines the NYC Punk Tribute Night at the Star Bar with her newest band the Electrick Queers. With bands such as the Forty-Fives (as the MC45s), the El Caminos and Ghost Bikini paying tribute to the likes of the New York Dolls, the Dead Boys, Blondie and Devo, County will also be celebrating her birthday. As she prepares for this historic occasion, County talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about her legacy, her kitties and her crush on WWE Champion CM Punk.

You were once a big part of the New York music scene and tonight you return to your roots in more ways than one by paying tribute to that scene in Atlanta, where you got your musical start.

Most of the New York bands weren’t originally from New York anyway. Hardly anyone was actually made in New York because everybody grew up somewhere else. The B-52’s made it in New York and they were kind of provocative and played CBGB and Max’s Kansas City and all that, but they were from Georgia. I’m from Georgia, but I was considered a New York CBGB/Max’s band, so that’s the way it is. The MC5 weren’t from New York, they were from Detroit. But it doesn’t matter, they played CBGB.

So the show is in the spirit of the New York scene?

Yeah. I originally wanted to do a tribute to CBGB and the New York scene, but it was simpler to just do a tribute to the bands that were around at that time and the scene that was happening. So, yes. You could say it is in the spirit of the era.

We have a DJ and all night long it’s going to be music from that era. And we’re going to be doing some of the English music, too, because the scenes criss-crossed between England and New York. So we’ll have Patti Smith and the Ramones, but we’ll also have The Damned, the Sex Pistols and stuff like that because that was a big influence on the New York scene and that style of music. It’s just going to be a good night of great music.

This show is also a belated birthday party of sorts for you, right?

Yeah, yeah! My birthday was earlier, but I didn’t really get a chance to celebrate. Ow! One of the cats bit my leg. Why are you biting my leg?!

What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. I’m going to be celebrating my birthday, too. I didn’t really get to celebrate it properly. So I can’t wait! I might get a little fucked up after, but not before the show. But they’ll probably have to carry me home.

You became known not only in New York, but also in Germany and other parts of the world, during that time. But in recent years you’ve basically been playing once or twice a year in Atlanta. Do you have any plans to get back out there and do more shows outside of Atlanta?

I cut back when I retired because of illnesses in my family. My father died and my mother is still very ill, so I had to cut back on a lot of stuff. But I am coming out of my retirement and I’m going to start doing more stuff again. I’m never going to tour extensively because I can’t do that anymore anyway, but I am going to be playing a bit more now. On Sept. 8 I’m playing The Viper Room in Los Angeles. We got a lot of good feedback from the recent New York show at the Bowery Electric. We packed that out, it was standing room only, shoulder to shoulder. It was fantastic and I had a good time. We got such a good reaction that we’re getting calls from all over the world, but I can’t start doing Spain and Germany and going from country to country again. So I’m just picking the best of them and doing what I want to do. I think that’s a good position to be in.

I’m playing with my original Electric Chairs guitar player Elliot Michaels in California, but tonight at the Star Bar will be with my Southern band the Electrick Queers. We’re going to be going out of the country because we’re working on doing a big show in Paris with the Electrick Queers. I love having a local band to do stuff with here, but I’d love to take them over there because they’re fantastic. A lot of musicians are in different bands, but why can’t singers be in different bands? There’s no reason I can’t have a bunch of different bands and play with different musicians.

Your Electrick Queers guitarist Jet Terror not only plays in other bands, but he’s the stage manager for WWE. You have previously professed your crush on WWE Champion CM Punk. Has Jet ever been able to arrange a meeting for you?

Oh, God. I love CM Punk. I have such a crush on him! I think he’s absolutely gorgeous, but he’s a great wrestler, too. I love watching him and I’m a HUGE fan. Maybe for my encore at the Star Bar I’ll put on my CM Punk T-shirt.

But I wouldn’t want to impose on him and I think it would be tacky to ask him to introduce me to him. If it came up in a natural situation, it would happen. But I don’t want to push it. But if I was at a wrestling show and there was a little party afterwards and he was there, believe me, no one would have to introduce me. I’d just waltz right up and be like, “CM Punk! Oh, my God. I love you!” I’d be like a little girl and I’d probably scare him to death.

Do you still have that CM Punk action figure I gave you for your birthday a few years ago?

Of course! Are you kidding me? Oh, my God. I cherish it. In fact, I wrapped it up and put it away because I love it so much I didn’t want anything to happen to it. I have a lot of kitty cats and they like to chew on anything.

You recently posted a picture on Facebook of an actor who will be playing Wayne County in a movie. What else do you know about this movie? Have you had any input on how you’re portrayed?

I don’t think it’s a big part of the movie. There’s a lot of people in the movie with small parts because it tells the entire story of CBGB with different people from bands cutting in and out. So they got Caleb McCotter, this kid from Savannah, Georgia playing Wayne County. That’ll be interesting to see, but I hope they don’t make me look like a total fool. They probably will, but I’m glad to be included in the movie. But that kid they got is gorgeous. What a hoot. Little blue-eyed boy playing Wayne County. But I did speak with the director and have some conversations with him, yes.

You’ve also done some great artwork. Are you still creating art these days?

I haven’t had any shows in a while, but I’m still working on a painting. I just finished two and I’m starting another one. I’ll be selling them, but all the money goes to my cat house because it’s a good way to pick up extra money for my kitties. When people buy a piece of my art, it’s a donation to the Jayne County Cat House. I’m going to have to start a series on the joys and pains of kitties with a lot of cat drawings. I do a lot of political stuff, but I get kind of bored with all the political ones so I’m going to start doing some Egyptian cat things. I’m just bored with the political world, but I go back and forth.

For more information, go to www.jaynecounty.com.

Mark Tremonti offers a harder edge on “All I Was”

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As the founding lead guitarist for Creed, Mark Tremonti has been responsible for some of the most well-known rock songs of the past decade. Tremonti’s success continued with Alter Bridge, a band that wrestled a good bit of attention out of WWE fans by providing pay-per-view theme songs and, more importantly, having its song “Metalingus” used as entrance music for WWE Hall of Famer Edge beginning in 2005. With the members of Creed reuniting for an upcoming tour, Tremonti releases his first solo album All I Was on July 17. Before a CD release show and the Creed tour, Tremonti takes a moment to talk about the album, appearing on Raw and other rock-and-wrestling connections.

Your solo album is a good bit heavier than what you’ve done with Alter Bridge. And from what I understand, your Alter Bridge bandmates are also working on heavier music separately. Why do you think you all are simultaneously going in heavier directions with the stuff you are working on independent of one another?

Alter Bridge has consistently gotten heavier over the years. But I’ve always been the metalhead in the band, so this has been an opportunity for me to do whatever I wanted to do on a record, no holds barred. So I pushed all my roots out on this record. As far as Scott [Phillips] doing a heavier thing, he’s working with John [Connolly] from Sevendust and John did all the writing for the record. He’s the heavier writer, so he just got thrown right into doing a heavier thing. With Alter Bridge we’ve always kind of balanced the dynamic between the heavy stuff and more of the atmospheric kind of stuff.

One of the heavier songs you did with Alter Bridge was “Metalingus,” which WWE Hall of Famer Edge used as his entrance music for many years. Did you write that song specifically for that purpose or was it something he heard and asked your permission to use?

Mark Tremonti (center) gets a little more metal with his debut solo album "All I Was" (photo by Daniel Tremonti)

He just liked the song and used it. He contacted us and asked us if it would be cool if he used it and we were all about it. We’ve gotten tons of exposure from it and it’s been great.

And that led to you appearing on Raw at least once a few years ago…

Yeah, we did a little backstage skit where we were playing acoustic with Edge there and it turned out pretty cool.

Edge isn’t the only WWE star you’ve worked with, though. You’ve also worked with Chris Jericho‘s band Fozzy, right?

Yeah, I did a solo on one of their records. We were in the same studio at one point and I just went upstairs and tracked a solo with them. That was probably seven years ago.

What do you think the attraction is between you and WWE? It seems like you just happen to keep working with wrestlers in different ways, and those two wrestlers in particular are somewhat similar in many ways.

Yeah. They’re both into rock for sure. Everybody in WWE are just the nicest people in the world. You see them on TV and they look all menacing and mean and tough. But when you really get to know them and meet them they’re very nice folks.

Have you always been a wrestling fan or is that just something that came about more because they were fans of your music?

Ever since I was a tiny kid, my oldest brother was a huge wrestling fan. He’d have wrestling on the TV all day long, so I know everything there is to know about old school wrestling. Now that I’m often touring, I’m not able to keep up as much, but when I was a kid I knew everything there was to know about wrestling.

Would you say the similar aesthetic between wrestling and rock may have influenced your writing style in any way?

I would say we share a lot of the same fan base. I think rock ‘n’ roll and wrestling and all-American stuff like that finds a home in both camps.

Photo by Daniel Tremonti

All I Was comes out July 17. Will you be touring behind that any time soon?

The first official show is on the CD release date, and immediately after that we go on a Creed tour for about five or six weeks. Then I plan to do a tour to support the solo record after that, so that’ll be in September and October.

How do you juggle all these projects without losing your focus? Does one band take priority over the others for you?

Whatever I’m working on at the time gets my 100 percent attention. So they’re all my priority, I just have to plan in advance to make sure they all get their due time. So far we’ve been able to balance it all.

For more information, go to www.tremontiproject.com.

Suicide is a promising solution for Davey Suicide

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Courtesy FiXT Publicity

Suicide is usually a rather depressing subject. But when it comes to Davey Suicide, the it’s more of a glass-half-full kind of thing asserting that when you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up. And with a celebratory sound that is equal parts industrial angst and heavy metal sleaze (think Rob Zombie meets Mötley Crüe), it’s clear that Davey and his band are having too much fun to want to off themselves anytime soon. With a self-titled debut album due out early next year (preceded by an EP this October), things continue to look up for this gothy-glam rock star (or, as his first single attests, “Generation Fuck Star”) in-the-making as he just finished a few dates opening for Wednesday 13 and hits the road on July 15 as the opening act for Static-X and Prong on the Noise Revolution Tour. As he prepares for his biggest tour to date, Suicide takes a moment to tell Wrestling with Pop Culture just how bright his future will be.

You just finished opening a few Northwest dates for Wednesday 13 before hitting the road again with Static-X and Prong. What were the shows with Wednesday 13 like for you guys?

I thought it was great. Our band goes really well with Wednesday’s band with the visuals and the crowd and stuff. I thought it was a great match, everyone got along really well and most of those fans were awesome. I like the Northwest, too. There’s a lot of trees and there’s just a different energy with the people up there.

The Static-X tour will be a much more extensive one. And the lineup is cool because there’s a thread of similarity between each band, but you’re all also unique within the lineup. What are your anticipations from that tour?

That tour goes all the way through September 2, so we’re on it for almost seven weeks. I think it’s going to be awesome, though. We’re probably the least metal of all of them, but I think we’ll probably be the one that stands out, for better or worse. We grew up listening to Static and Prong and stuff like that, so it’s cool to go from being a kid and knowing their music to touring with them. It’s a very interesting transition.

Your name has come up recently because of the upcoming album and tours, but I recall hearing of you a few years ago. Weren’t you doing some modeling or something like that?

Courtesy FiXT Publicity

I always get stuck being on sets with my friends and they’d be like, “Hey, we need somebody to do this shirt.” I wouldn’t say I was a victim of circumstance, but I’d always take pictures if someone wanted to take photos. But I started a clothing line called Killers Never Die, so you may have seen me doing stuff with that, if we were doing a big group thing where we had a bunch of models and stuff, I would jump in there with whatever shirt I liked at the time. But that was never an aspiration of mine. Getting photos taken is just part of being an entertainer and stuff, so it was just something that came along with being in music.

Your debut album comes out in a few months, but what’s your background when it comes to music and art?

This is the first album under Davey Suicide, but I’ve done music all my life. I also tattoo and paint and do art every second of the day. But this album embodies everything I’ve been working towards and it’s probably my proudest accomplishment. I’m excited to share it with people. I’m more excited for the future than where I’ve been. I was in some regional acts and stuff, but this is the first one that’s getting press in Revolver and doing kind of big stuff.

Who are the other guys in the band? Are they people you’ve worked with previously?

Courtesy FiXT Publicity

Needlz [keyboards] and Frankie [Sil, bass] grew up in Youngstown together and have been friends forever. Eric [Griffin, guitar] and Ben [Graves, drums] have been friends forever, and Ben was one of the first guys I met when I moved to Hollywood. We had talked about doing a band for a while, but the stars just kind of aligned at the right time as Frankie, Needlz, Ben and I were working together and needed a guitar player. Ben knew Eric, and the monster was born.

This tour ends just before your CD is scheduled to be released. Do you have any additional touring plans to promote that?

We’re working on a bunch of stuff. We’ll have a little bit of time off, then we’ll be back on the road again. We’re going to be road dogs and it looks like we’re going to get to the U.K. a little sooner than I thought we were. So we’re excited for people to finally hear the record. It’s tough, sometimes, playing for people who only know a song or two. So it’s going to be exciting for people to get the whole experience of what we are.

For more information, go to www.daveysuicide.com.

Malice returns with a “New Breed of Godz”

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Although today’s music fans may not be familiar with the name Malice, the band has become legendary in the heavy metal underground since its inception more than 30 years ago. Malice not only toured as the opening act for theatrical hard rock legend Alice Cooper and thrash favorite Slayer, but also had a then-unknown Metallica as an opening act in 1982. There has been an absence of Malice for the better part of the last two decades, with its last full-length release (Licensed to Kill) coming out in 1986. But the band is back with the same evil intentions it always had with the new album New Breed of Godz, a collection of re-recorded classics such as “Against the Empire” and “Godz of Thunder,” as well as four new songs. Core guitarists Jay Reynolds and Mick Zane were joined by original bassist Mark Behn in the studio to record New Breed of Godz, with new members including Helstar singer James Rivera. With some California shows this weekend, Malice plans to tour Europe next month, with a possible North American tour this fall. Staying busy with Helstar and Malice, Rivera takes a moment to talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about metal’s resurrection.

This being your first album with Malice, what was your input, especially considering that much of the album is re-recorded versions of older songs?

My input on the new material was where we need to be and go musically. Malice was a band that a lot of people don’t even know who they are. They had a big thing going on pretty much at home, but not anywhere else. The first time I remember seeing them was when I was with a friend of mine who was totally into them and kept insisting that I go see them. But back in the day, when I lived in the Southern California area in 1987 or something, there was a band I was helping out called Daggers Edge. They took me to a show and I want to say it was Stryper, W.A.S.P. and Malice, but they were all going to see Malice and it had nothing to do with the rest of them. I was like, “OK, who’s this Malice band?” I had no clue. Then I saw them and was like, “Wow! Killer. Sounds like Judas Priest.”

Ever since I’ve gotten involved with the band, I’ve really wanted to do stuff from the first record when they were a little bit more Judas Priest metal. The second album was a little more Hollywood, but there were some great songs throughout the band’s career.

You’ve been performing with other bands for about the same amount of time that Malice has been in existence. Did any of those bands ever play with Malice or anything like that?

Courtesy Freeman Promotions

No. The way I got hooked up with Malice was me and Jay were in a classic ’80s metal tribute band called Denim and Leather based out of Las Vegas. The guy that put it together used to have members from Leatherwolf, Metal Church, Malice, Helstar, and eventually he got Jay and me in the band and that’s how we met. It went back to that show in San Diego and here we were 25 years later and he would just not let up, saying, “You’re going to be singing for Malice, dude! This is going to be the best shit ever.” Then we got invited to play the Keep It True festival and that’s where everything started. That was about a year ago.

With the new album out for just a few weeks, will you be going on tour to promote it?

Things are in the works to do a tour from Los Angeles to Texas. What we’re doing right now is we’re trying to capitalize on the markets where we’re both strong – from their past and who I am. I’m from Houston, so I’ve got a big following in Texas, and they have a following in California. But the big plan is to do a full-on U.S. tour in the fall.

You’re best known for your work with Helstar. Will you continue working with that band or are you working solely with Malice now?

No, Helstar is still my number one priority. We just had our 30-year anniversary show and we’re releasing a double live album and live DVD of the show we just did in Houston. We’re touring in Europe starting August 29 through September 15. That’s going strong and Helstar is basically my baby. That’s my bread and water and it is a priority project. Malice is a band I’m hoping is going to run parallel along the lines of Helstar and I’m more than happy to give it that chance. I have a tribute band called Sabbath Judas Sabbath that I keep busy with and I have seven chapters all over the world. Between all of that stuff, I’m kind of like a carpenter: “Where can I build? I will build. Give me a hammer and some tools and I’m there.”

How does the dynamic with Malice compare to your other bands?

Actually, I’ve become a lot more melodic with my singing. I’m doing more high-pitched stuff constantly, which is what they were known for back in the day. That exercises my voice, which is a good thing, and it allows me to do something a little bit more straightforward and commercial. I think if everything is done right promotional-wise, label-wise and business-wise with Malice, this band could actually take leaps and bounds over anything I’ve ever done in my life. That’s where my head is at and my heart is with it because I’ve put so much work into it. Helstar’s always going to be more of an underground band at this point. We’ve all decided and realized we’re never going to be Metallica or any of that stuff. We can keep putting out great records, we can tour Europe, we can do this, but we’re going to have a fan base. But I think Malice can actually take me to another point if everything is done right.

Why do you think the band has already reached that level previously?

Courtesy Freeman Promotions

Well, they kind of did. So far the album has gotten phenomenal reviews. For me, we’re talking about filling the shoes of some guy that was considered one of the greatest singers in the world. I think with all the great reviews, the one thing that’s different – and this is not only coming from major magazine writers in Germany and major promoters in Germany – when we did that Keep It True festival, the one thing I always heard was, “I just hope you can nail the stuff live because when we saw James Neal, he sucked live.” I said, “I kind of have to agree with that.” When the Keep It True show was over, that’s when the guy from SPV came to us and said, “I want to do a contract.” That’s a really big compliment to me. What you do in the studio and what you do live are two different things. Then I also heard straight from the horses mouth of the band, “Yeah, he was never good live. He did a couple of shows that were OK, but for the most part he never could do it.”

When you have Atlantic Records backing you up with thousands and thousands of dollars, I guess you can sit in the studio for two fucking months and do the vocals. I never had that treatment. I go in and I do the vocals in two weeks for every project I’ve ever done in my life. That’s it because I figure a song a day is all you need, not three months. I think that has a lot to do with why things are in a more positive spin now. The producer took what James Neal did and incorporated it with me. When I started this thing I would do everything just like James Neal did and he’d stop. He’d be laughing through the glass and be like, “Come here.” I’d be like, “Oh, shit. What did I do wrong now? What’s flat and what’s sharp?” And he’d be like, “Everything’s killer, but it sounds just like the old guy. I don’t want that. I want it to sound like you. So what we’re going to do is change that line.” I was real skeptical at first. But then when the band started hearing it, it was like, “Fuck yeah. This is metal now.” So I was like, “OK. Let’s keep going this way.” So being in this band has been a great thing for me.

This style of metal has never gone away, but it’s definitely been a while since it’s been mainstream. However, it also seems like there has been a resurgence of ’80s metal a of late. Do you think Malice could ride that wave to bigger success?

It’s resurfacing, that’s for sure. And it’s a good thing to know that we’re still some of the main ingredients from the old school that are around, because if we weren’t around it wouldn’t exist. Accept is fucking bigger than ever, Iced Earth and all these bands from back in the day are bigger now because of a new generation of kids that are into it. My son just graduated from high school and when he comes to the shows he brings 80 people that are all into metal. It reminds me of the old days in the ’80s when you’d have a garage band and play a backyard party and, dude, you’d have 500 people in that backyard. It’s kind of going back to that again and I think people are just getting tired of garbage and going, “Hey, this is the real music. This is musicianship. This is what it takes.” There’s a lot of bands out there that are very corporate and boring and I often wonder how the fuck these guys got there.

For more information, go to www.malicemusic.com.