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Metalheads Podcast is a metal-themed podcast featuring George, Jay, Will, John, Matt and Markisan. The guys discuss metal news and new releases, perform in-depth interviews with great metal bands, and just generally have a blast arguing about that greatest of musical styles: Metal!
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Now, here is the podcast, Metal Heads Podcast.
Hello, and welcome to the Metal Heads Podcast.
My name is George.
This is Jake.
This is Will.
This is John.
This is the return of the bitch-u-wish.
Oh, something or other.
And this is Markisan.
Welcome to episode 150, marking our 10th anniversary, 10 years of the Metal Heads podcast. Who would have thought? It's crazy, right? Yeah. And yet here we are. So this episode is going to be a little different than usual. This is going to be all about us. And we're going to do some stuff today to, you know, celebrate the 10 year anniversary.
on Facebook or elsewhere saying that people should call in and leave us some voicemails that we would be playing them in the episode. And that is going to happen. We have a number of voicemails that people left us. We very much appreciate that. And if you called in, well, then you're going to hear yourself shortly. So, Marcus, how shall we begin?
Well, I think we have to start really with a toast. To 150 episodes, 10 years. So I got to start with that so people can't see it, but we got our beers. Clink, clink. Clink. Cheers. Really a major, major accomplishment, you know. Indeed. Great. Should we talk about what we're drinking? We shall.
from, I always forget if it's modest or modist. I think it's modist. Modist. Modist. It is. Thank you for the correction, Matt. Situational Paradox. I was just there. Yes, because it's in Minneapolis where Matt is. And my buddy Brandon brought this for me and it's called Deepening. And it's a bourbon barrel aged imperial stout. 14%. It's got Vienna malt in it. Golden Promise malt. That sounds sexy.
Crystal malt, all the malts, and chocolate malts. Long boiled for 12 hours, barrel aged for 28 months. Yikes. And it is pretty smooth. 12 hours? Good God, they must like, at the end, they must have enough to make one bottle. Is that like $700 a bottle? I hope not. I have two of them. By the way, most beers are boiled for 90 minutes.
An hour and a half. Hence the 60 minute, 90 minute, 120 minute. Yeah. That, that refers to their hopping schedule, which coincides with the boiling schedule. Long boiled for 12 hours. Well, that, that I've never heard of that. It is insane. It is really smooth. I would, I would assume after 12 hours of boiling, I think should be like 55% alcohol and sold only in liquor stores.
It's only 14. I don't know what magic, what alchemy they put in it. It's called water. They just added a shitload of water at the end. Yeah. Deloitte it. And it's still strong. Yeah. Nice. All right. It does compel me to make all of my promises now golden moving forward. Just like instead of using the word decide, I will always say decide. But now we're to me.
I believe and I am drinking St. Bernard's 12. I specifically bought it today for this occasion. I thought what do I want to drink the entire time? This. So nice. Good choice. Thank you. John. All right. So Will and I pre-gamed. So let me get those in real quick. So we had Omega Beams from Mass Ed Brewing Company which is a blend of Imperial Stouts and Barley Wines.
It's double barrel aged and bourbon and cognac casks with honey and lactose. That was beer number one. Beer number two, we had Mr. Sandman XO from River North Brewery, Imperial Double Stout. And my last one, which is my current one, I had to come back down a notch just to slow it down a little. Turbo Repo from Three Floyds, which is an IPA.
Just an IPA. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I like that one. Yeah. We went big to start. Now we go even. Yeah, it was. John and I do this occasionally. We're just like kind of out of the blue because maybe we're thinking about each other a little more often than normal. It's like, hey, because I was like, hey, we're going to we may go and have lunch at this place near your house. And do you want to come? And he's like, no, I'm about to eat. But maybe I'm just going to come over to your house later. I'm like, perfect.
Let's go. And he brought over two phenomenal things. They were really good. Wow. It was good. So I am going to have a beer on the podcast this time. I don't have my glasses on. Excuse me while I put on my glasses. I'm having a great divide. Are you the cleft? You should have used that voice for one of the messages. I guess it's not your thing. Well, I kind of did. I mean, no, no, I did not. I mean, maybe I did. Oh, yeah.
Law's Whiskey House Barrel Age Yeti from Great Divide. So Great Divide makes their Yeti, and this is their Barrel Age Yeti, but this is Law's Whiskey House Barrel Age Yeti. I haven't even taken a sip yet. Sophisticated Bigfoot, baby. Fuck yeah. Love the Sophisticated Bigfoot. I'm just drinking green tea. Delicious. Our hopes have been dashed. Oh, well, you know, but I'll share my t-shirt anyway.
Which is the old creator pleasure to kill t-shirt. Nice. All right. Well, since we're talking t-shirts, I actually have a new one for a change. I'm wearing my diabolical masquerade night work shirt. And I am drinking an extremely metal looking beer from tired hands brewing called eviscerated pathway of beauty. And it's all like pointy and black and metal. It'd be a lot funnier if that was tired right hand brewing.
For me, it would be tied left hand. I'm a lefty. I don't know what your preference is. What's next, Mark? Well, first I want to see it. So Will and John, how are you feeling? Because you probably had more beers than any of us. How are you guys feeling? Good. Solid. You ready? I'm ready to rock. All right. So we got. We got the next part is we get to grill George. Oh, 10 questions because it's the 10th anniversary.
on the genesis of the Metalheads podcast. So we came up with a bunch of questions and we're going to divide them. There's 10 questions, so two questions each. So you collaborated? We collaborated. You don't know. George does not know what the questions are. And we're just going to go through it and you're going to answer as honestly and as powerfully and emotionally as you can, George. And I'm going to, and I'm not, I'm just fucking with you here, but I'm going to start us off with an unscripted question. And I think it's a,
question I've been wanting to ask George for years, which is how dare you? Well, first of all, let me say, fuck you. That's getting cut out. No, it's not. All right. So you ready, George? Yep. Hit me. All right. So number one is originally you started on YouTube with metal disciple.com.
365 days of metal. So how did that come about and what were your plans after you finished with 365 days of metal? Interesting question. So wait, did you do all 365? Yes, I did. I've watched some of them, but I haven't watched all of them. But yeah, I did. I did. First of all, good for you for sticking with it for so long. That that is indicative of what OCD makes possible. Because yes, I,
filmed and edited video for an album every day for a year.
Let me back up.
I was going to talk about this at some point anyway.
I didn't actually start there.
I started right around the year 2000 at the turning of the millennium with heavy metal reviews.com,
which was something that I set up because I was a web developer and I wanted free music.
And so I said, hey, I can make a website, write reviews, and people will give me free music. And they did. And I wrote really bad, horrible reviews. I mean, I wrote nice reviews, but they were just poorly written because I can't write. And then at some point, I decided to branch out from just metal, and I changed it to rockmusickcritic.com so that I could write about non-metal music, but never did, actually.
And then that became Metal Disciple because I was back to, fuck it, let's just do metal. And I wanted something a little more metal. At what point did you make the country BlackGaze.com? Still working on that one. Okay. And so while I was writing reviews for Metal Disciple, I had the idea.
And so I had done a 365 photo project, which photography people may be familiar with, where you take a different picture every day for a year. And it's supposed to, you know, help you see and frame pictures differently by trying to come up with something different every day. And I had done that like once or twice for a year because OCD. And I said, well, what if I do this 365 days of metal thing and I'll just put it up on YouTube?
And that was tough, but it was fun. And when I got to the end of that, I was like, well, now what? And I said, well, this is kind of more fun than writing. Because I suck at writing, but I can talk about things. And, you know, I'd heard about podcasts. And it was suggested, why don't you do a podcast? And I was like, I'll give it a try. Didn't, you know, sort of a good night, Wesley, you know, sleep well, most likely.
I'll tell you in the morning kind of thing where I didn't think it would stick. I figured I'll try it out and this will suck and I'll move on to something else. But here we are 10 years later. So I hope that answers the question reasonably well. I may have missed some stuff about the videos. That's excellent, George. Okay. Matt, you're up next. Question number two. Did you consider staying on YouTube before going the
I did.
But.
It seemed like making just audio was going to be easier.
And, you know, I could get on to more platforms that way, you know, I mean, Spotify wasn't doing them yet.
A lot of places weren't doing I think SoundCloud was the first place we hosted.
But, you know, iTunes had them. And that was, like, kind of key there. I mean, you know, that was, like, freaking cool. It was like, what? I can be on iTunes? Sweet. And, you know, we did post them on YouTube for a while. But the juice wasn't worth the squeeze after a while. So I stopped. Good. Nice. All right. Question.
Number three, George. Ten years ago, podcasts were relatively new. Certainly in the metal world, they were. What was it like for you to suddenly start recording and producing a podcast back then? And what did you have to learn to create the podcast itself? Well, luckily for me, I'd already had a lot of recording experience. I went through a recording studio production course.
at the end of the 20th century, 98, 99, around there. I mean, I've been recording my own music since the early 90s, mid-90s, probably. So I've got decades of recording experience and editing experience. What I needed to learn was, how do you do an RSS feed to get the
these things out there.
Oh yeah.
And you know,
nowadays everything is,
is,
you know,
just automated,
you know,
whatever hosting you use,
they just do it for you.
Um,
I did have to do a little RSS work at the beginning,
but I quickly said,
screw that and found someplace that I could host it,
which was SoundCloud.
Um,
so I feel like I'm losing the thread here.
Um,
what did I need to know?
Yeah.
Did you have to learn anything new? Mostly just like what podcasts were, you know. I mean, I had been listening to podcasts before. I've told the story a bunch of times where I went to see Kevin Smith and Jason Mews at one of their shows in D.C. They were pimping the Jay and Silent Bob super groovy cartoon movie. I had a meet and greet with them afterwards. And Kevin loves to tell everybody that he meets.
Anybody can do a podcast, grab some of your friends, set up a microphone and talk about something. And, you know, he told me that. And I was like, Hey, I could probably do that. And, uh, so that was sort of the beginning of thinking about it. I mean, it probably took me like a year before I actually did it. Um, but yeah. And I've been ever since, particularly now, I, I had really hoped that we could find a way to get Kevin on here for the 10 year.
to be like, hey, you know, I met you once and you inspired me to do this thing. And it's been going for years. And I just like to, you know, in his early movies, you know, there's metal references and stuff. There's King Diamond, whatever. You know, I thought it would be a cool tie in. But alas, I have not been able to track down Mr. Kevin Smith. You've never gotten a response or anything like that, George? I tweeted him once.
And no.
So I didn't try all that hard.
I did, though, the last time I was in L.A., I wanted to stalk him.
To try and not stalk him like.
That would help.
Not, not.
I mean, but yes, stalk him.
In as much as I know that he goes for walks in a particular trail that a lot of people use in L.A.
And I was happened to be going to that trail. And so I wanted to sort of like hang out in the morning and see if I ran into him so that I could be like, hey, you should come on the podcast, not to stab him or anything murdery. And, but I didn't see him. So.
So number four in our questionnaire, George, is at the time you created the Metalheads podcast, what was the metal podcasting scene like? And how did you see your podcast fitting into that? And actually, before you answer it, somebody take a wild guess and we won't know the answer, but how many do you think there are now? Hundreds, right? Thousands, maybe? Probably at least hundreds, yeah. Not 10 years ago? No.
I mean, the one that I know and used as a benchmark was the Metal Sucks podcast with Chuck and Godless. I know they have since left that and there's somebody else doing it and I've never listened to that. And gosh, who else was doing it? Josta might have been at that point? I was going to say Jamie Josta. Obviously, I didn't have any hope of trying to compete with that or even the Metal Sucks for that matter.
I really wasn't thinking about competing with anyone. Partly because there weren't many. Partly because why would I think I'm going to try and compete with them? You know, I'm just trying to do something and see if it sticks to the wall. And so. But yeah, Metal Sucks was the one that I was aware of. And I feel like there was one other one that maybe the Requiem. I think they've been around. Requiem Metal Podcast. That's true. So, yeah.
So did you think that you could offer something a little bit different though when you started Metalheads Podcast? The theme in my head was I've been around a while. I've been around 10 years longer now. And I have all these stories and things that I've experienced. And I was like, I can talk about these. And this is my experience and my thoughts on it. And I hadn't really thought about so much about the whole life talking about new releases and stuff like that.
It just sort of grew out of needing content. You know, nobody wants to just sit and listen to me talk about that show I went to in 1990 for a whole episode. So it started out as that idea and grew from there. I'm going to make I'm going to ask that question, George, but I'm gonna make a suggestion to us as this show goes on because suddenly it's occurred to me that 10 years is kind of a long fucking time. So if you think of
things that have happened in the 10 years that we've been doing this, share them, I think. And partially because I'm going to say that ever since we've been doing this, both Dio and Lemmy died in that 10-year span of time. So if you think about any milestone, things like that, maybe share. So did you consider a different name for the podcast or was it Metal Heads right out of the box? I wanted something that was not necessarily generic, but not off the wall, you know.
And I honestly don't remember how I came up with it. But I knew when I, at least when the idea came up, that I was like, that's what it is. It's simple. It's easy to remember. And it's what we are. So. You know, when the Commodores chose their band name, they just opened up dictionary and stuck their finger in. It was a true story. So they were like this close to being the commodes.
I'm not making it up as a true story. That's not like, oh, I'm so clever. They might actually have been, Jay. They just might. What's the next one? Yeah. All right. Well, I'm up again. Number six, running a podcast for 150 eps over 10 years is an amazing accomplishment, George. Thank you. You don't see a lot of shows run that long simply because of all the things that can happen.
and people's lives.
So what do you think is the secret to the longevity of the metalheads podcast or really any podcast?
Well, as I've mentioned before, OCD, although I'm kind of past that now, miracle of science or better, better living through chemistry, as they say.
But honestly, if it was just me talking into a microphone, this would have been done in three episodes.
What the longevity of this show is, y'all. And I don't mean just you guys. I mean everybody that hears my voice right now. But mostly you guys. You know, as we've come together to form this crew of the Metalheads podcast, it's like family. And so it's not just, oh, I'm going to go do another podcast. It's, oh, I'm going to go see my friends. You know, going to go see my family.
And that feeling of family that this brings keeps me coming back. And hopefully keeps us all coming back. And same thing, you know, I mean, we've met so many people through the podcast that I wouldn't have otherwise met. So that's what keeps me coming back. Aw, I'm tearing up a little. All right, Matt, number seven. Number seven. Who or what?
is the one person or band you would love to interview on the podcast that isn't named James Hetfield or Metallica. Damn. I was going to say Metallica. You did mention Kevin Smith, but you got to give somebody else now too. Yeah, well, I was thinking musically speaking, but technically I would go with Kevin Smith. But musically, who else other than Metallica? Well, all the Ramones are dead.
That's a good question. Tony Iommi. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He'd be a good interview, too, because I think he's pretty laid back, and you'd feel at ease with yourself if you could get within 3,000 miles of him, of course. Yeah. I feel like it's not out of reach. It could be possible. Never know. Anything's possible. Who is the biggest guest that's ever been on the podcast?
Will. Probably Kirk is.
Very quick wit there, George. Nice.
I wouldn't care to judge that sort of thing, even if I could instantly recall everybody that's been on.
Yeah.
All right. Moving on to number eight.
Yep. Number eight.
Is there anything you wish you had done with the podcast through the years?
Not referring to regrets necessarily, but is there anything you've considered doing that hasn't materialized yet? Hmm. Well, we've thrown around some ideas over the years about things like the Hall of Fame. You know, that's the one thing that eludes us. You know, Decibel has a really great heavy metal Hall of Fame kind of thing going on where they induct albums in an issue.
And we've talked about, but we have not been able to agree on something that doesn't have some sort of rock and roll Hall of Fame bullshit style way of inducting things. So we're still, I think, trying to come up with a solution that we all agree on for doing a Hall of Fame thing. And I don't even know if maybe that was the intent of that question, but it's definitely the answer. Not at all. Just anything in general. A Hall of Fame would be great. It would.
You spend many hours preparing, recording, editing this podcast every month. If you didn't run the show, what would you do with all that time instead? That is an interesting question. What would I do instead? I don't know, play video games? Sit at home going, I wish I had friends? Yeah, I don't know. Read a book? Yeah, what did I do before?
the podcast. I was pretty bored. So sit around and say, I suck. Oh, stop it. It's pretty lame answer, George. Yeah, I know. Right. Video games is probably more likely. It's true. It takes a lot of time. So you would, if you didn't have to do it, I don't know how many hours you would have. I will mention like 10 when we were talking about it. I don't, I don't know how many hours you actually put into that.
And then you're also doing the sister podcast, Stereo 11.
Yeah, it's a much shorter one.
So it used to be that for every hour of listening, or not even listening, of raw audio, probably took me an hour and a half, two hours.
So a five-hour episode would take 10 hours to edit.
I have improved my workflow since then.
A five hour. I mean, it's still probably like six or seven hours, but yeah. So we're wrapping up here and ask you this. Looking back on these last 10 years, what about the show? Are you most proud of? Y'all. Seriously. You know, you are. You complete me. Big heart emoji. Yeah.
No, definitely. The people that I have met and come to know through the podcast is absolutely the number one reason that I do it now and what keeps me doing it and that I'm proudest of. And you brought us all together. We may never have met if not for you creating the podcast and that is really special. It kind of blows the mind sometimes when you stop
and think about it. I mean, particularly given the number of people that I have met through here and I'll just sit and be like, man, you know, if I hadn't done this, I wouldn't know all these people. And I cannot tell you how many times in the last 10 years I have said, fuck this. I'm done. This is no, no more. I'm done. And, and then, and then Barb's like, you don't really want to do that. And I'm like, yeah, I know I'm just bitchy.
But eventually, Matt came along, he could take the bitchy from me and use it for good. You know, about the meeting people, George, thing, when I went to L.A. Decibel with Sergey and John B.T. was there, and another guy who I knew at the time was living in Los Angeles, and he came, and he's not super informed on metal and stuff, but he gets it and stuff. Anyway, long story short, he said to me at the end of, like, the first day, he said,
Do you fucking know everybody dude? Cause there was just so many people that we, you know, James was there and, um, who's the fucking decibel guy? I can't think of his name. Albert. Albert was there. Decibel, Albert, the fucking decibel guy. Yeah. Sorry. And all these guys who I knew and was saying hi to, you know, and it was, so we haven't met a lot of people because of this podcast is all I'm saying. Absolutely. Yeah, no, it's been awesome. All right. We did it.
Get it, George. How do you feel after being grilled? No, we weren't going to make it painful for you. This is celebratory. I feel a little medium well. Have a drink, George. Maybe grill me a little longer. Before we move on to our next piece, we're going to play the first batch of voicemails. Oh, yeah. Check this out. Hey, it's Dan in Winnipeg.
Anyway, so here we are, celebrating a whole decade of the Metal Eds podcast. And while I didn't really jump on the bagwagon from the very start, I caught wind of it early enough, I think, to pretty much binge-listen my way through all of the previous episodes that I missed. So it all started with Twitter, where Metal and Beer guru Adam Tepedilin. I kind of caught my eye tweeting about the two things I love most.
And then a few interactions later with him on Twitter. I found myself connected with Will, actually. I'm sure we both probably responded to something that Adam tweeted, whatever it was. Obviously, Will has the same passion I do for metal and beer. I think it was in a tweet where Will shared that he was going to be on the Metalhead podcast. Of course, I had to check it out.
And I think that's probably, I think it was my first episode. George, I can't recall if we were connected before that or not. I'm not exactly sure, but it definitely, I think that might have been the first time. So, so, you know, fast forward a bit and what began as just tuning in, it actually became a little bit of a journey as I think journey is the right word considering the length of some of your episodes. Yeah. Anyways, you know, I really felt like I got to know anyone, everyone.
I'll admit it was always a little bit of amusement and even a lot of cringe hearing my last name getting mangled by you guys during the shoutouts. But rightfully so, it's a horrific last name. So yeah, no hard feelings there. It's awful. Anyways, oh yeah, and a big thanks for having me as a guest as well. I can't remember what episode it was.
But I still cringe when I think about my performance, just like I'm kind of cringing right now, even talking about it. But anyways, huge congrats on hitting the 10-year mark. It's no small feat. And I know, and truthfully, it's kind of been, it's been a blast to be part of the journey, whether it's listening or whatever, getting the occasional shout out or just interacting with you guys, you know, through the internets there.
Anyways, here's to another 10 years. Cheers guys. Greetings Metalhead podcast. Good afternoon gentlemen, this is Derek Cullen here from Ireland. I am glad to see you've reached the milestone of 10 years. I first discovered the pod during lockdown when there was a choice between yourselves and the middle-aged Metalhead podcast and no offense to those chaps but anyone who considers Celtic Frost's Cold Lake metal
made a decision for me so i've been with you guys pretty much ever since and then i wish you another 10 years to come obviously giving the age profile of the cast and with the collective blood pressures being higher than rob halford's uh register and with prostates uh bigger than panopticon's discography we can only pray that we make another 10 years together as i count myself amongst your middle aged so best of luck anyway and um check you soon guys take it easy bye bye
G'day gents, this is Andy from Australia. I normally interact with you guys by the name of Planeta Prime, but I've now the cat's out of the bag, you know my name. I've just got over a bout of poisonous Australian diarrhea, so I can actually talk to you. Just want to say kudos for the 10 years, and thanks very much for about the four or five years that I've been listening to you guys. The show is seriously cathartic. The topics are
right up my alley including the non-metal stuff like books, movies, TV shows, that sort of thing. The banter's on point always and I love it. I've been able to connect with a few of the guys like Justin who's been on there and another fellow that interacts with you guys, Nick, champion people in my opinion that I've been able to meet. Hopefully one of these days I'll get to meet you and if you do I reckon Jay will say I'm your favourite person that you've chatted with.
Anyway, all the best guys. Congrats on the 10 years. Hopefully there's another 10 more at least. Thanks very much. All the best. Congratulations, Metalhead Podcast. This is Hardy, a German listener based in Ireland. And I think I have been with you for the last four years or so. And I'm probably of the age of some of your gang musically socializing the early 80s, which is clearly the golden period of metal. And after having lost touch with the metal world for a long time since the mid-90s,
I discovered my love for heavy sounds back about 10 years ago, but don't really have friends to hang out with and talk metal. So you are my adult metal family, and it feels like hanging out with you on the pod every time you release a show. I've also joined the Friday fun on Facebook, and everyone there has expanded my metal world. So thank you for that, and keep going for another decade, please.
Hello, Metalhead. This is the captain wishing you a rampaging, bloodthirsty birthday complete with cake, sparkles, and uncontainable torrents of rage. May your next ten years be chock full of fun, good health, and fiery skull-fucking eyeball-melting piss and sound. Take care. All right, that was our first batch of voicemails. Stick around. Before too long, we'll do another batch. Cool. Nice.
So now we're doing the 10-year roundtable. And we're going to have a few topics of discussion here. And the first one is, what the hell were the rest of us doing 10 years ago? And what was our relationship to metal before we were actually on the cast? It's complicated. So I don't know if you want me to go first in there. We can do reverse order. How do you guys want to do this?
Let's do it like always. Let's make it a conversation. All right. Well, so well, first, before I even do that, I just realized because I'm going through all the memories and everything. Ten years ago, when George is putting this podcast together, my buddy Jason and I debuted our first comic book at C2E2 in Chicago. And it was the first attempt at Voracious. It was called Cretaceous.
and we self-published it. But that was like a big thing for me because I willed it into existence with Jason. And, you know, that was a big first step. And then we haven't stopped making comics since. And I'm going to interrupt you with one more world news fact that happened in the last 10 years because it was an event that affected the podcast. The fucking pandemic. We all went through that together. No, right back at you with Air Markson. I'm just trying to make sure I pepper this thing with 10 years. I like that. I like that.
He just keeps thinking of random tenure facts and that's kind of fun.
I mentioned that one because remember when it fucking happened and then we didn't see each other for two years or some fucking thing and then we did the pandemic podcasts and stuff and that's all seems like ancient history.
It does.
Thank God.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, in terms of metal for me, like 10 years ago, I was listening to a ton of heavy music back then, just like I am now.
I wasn't really talking to a lot of other people about it. And I was going to shows in Chicago alone for the most part. The captain was here and he liked metal, but he wasn't as into metal as I was back then. And he lived deep in the horrible suburbs, like an almost an hour and a half away. So I ended up going to a lot of shows by myself. I wasn't able to share those experiences. The only other thing that really happened back then,
I did have this Yahoo group site that my college buddy set up a few years ago after we graduated. So it's maybe like 2004, 2005. It was called the Mental Metal Breakdown or something like that. And we started posting recommendations for metal regularly, but most of my friends in there got domesticated, as usually happens. And then it just turned into like a once a year thing where we would check in at the end of the year and then share our top albums of the year lists.
But by 2014, 10 years ago, only maybe two or three of the guys from the group would post albums, and they wouldn't even do that many. But the thing that I liked about that was that I was writing out descriptions of albums. And I did the lists, and I haven't stopped doing that. I haven't stopped writing descriptions of things. And I think writing out how I felt about
Albums or just describing them in creative ways helped me connect to metal more because being by myself but also as a writer so I was doing it for myself not a reliable community of metalheads like we are now it was just you know it was more of a solo affair for me and that's what I was really looking for before I even got to the metalheads podcast was just people that I could hang out with and talk about metal with you know it was definitely a solo
It was a lonely handjob, if you will, but still quite enjoyable. Uh-huh. All right. Matt, would you care to follow the handjob? Well, it's always hard to follow you, Marcus. How many do you end on that note? Gosh, 2014. I think, strangely enough, it was probably 2009 where I finally started to get back into good music. And so I was definitely well into that journey, but still.
which I still do today. I'm doing a lot of kind of like retro, active, looking back, learning things. My cousin, Aaron, who a lot of you have met, who lives in Philly, he was kind of my sidekick in, you know, going to shows, hanging out, bouncing music off of each other. I can't remember what year it was, but I had started kind of the Dad of Northern Darkness moniker. I made a blog and it was one of those things that, I mean, it kind of relates to our conversation.
of like,
hey,
I'm a dad and I like heavy metal.
I'm going to start a blog.
It's a good idea actually.
You know,
like every six people has a dad and likes metal and has a blog that they write about.
And so I think I,
um,
I mean,
if you've never done anything like that,
it's good to do.
And George,
I'm sure you can relate to this,
like to the nth degree of like,
it's a lot of work to do that.
I mean,
just to do a blog and to write review.
It was basically I was reviewing shows and music.
And I realized that I am actually a lot better at talking about what happens at a show than I am at describing the music. Yes. So going to a show, I should remember this one show where I think it was Cannibal Corpse. First time I saw them, you know, going, seeing them. And then like, it was super hot. And so the, the girl serving beer was right in front of my cousin and I, and she like put her hands in the thing to give me some ice. Cause she could tell I was hot and I had the ice. And I remember thinking like, God, I'm like going to get sick.
from this or something because people have been dunking their hand in it all night.
Like three days later, I just had a wicked sinus infection.
But telling that story, I realized that, you know, like I said, I'm better at just talking about stupid stuff than that.
But yeah, I mean, that was me in 2014.
Right on.
John.
Right.
So for me, doing a lot of what I'm doing now, but maybe some of it on a smaller scale,
I'm on a larger scale. Working up to random dudes at a brewery and saying, hey, do you like do the Metalheads podcast? All right, let's not get ahead of where I'm getting to that. Okay, I'm working to that. But yes, that's part of the plan. Yeah, so I originally in my world, I used to do some online DJing stuff. I had two online radio stations at Live 365. One was a predominantly progmedicine.
and I also played a lot of extreme metal on there. Stuff that I liked. And surprisingly had over 6,000 followers online. Me, listening to my music, go figure. And I had a second site that did all dark ambient music. Which on Live 365, there was only a handful of stations, maybe. And I'm not just saying this, that had more listeners than I did for that. So I did that. And I went to a lot of shows. And I was involved in the DMs.
DMV, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, or excuse me, Delaware. That's up in the, that's the tri-state up in the. Del Mar. Yeah. DC, Virginia, Maryland area. And that's how I came to meet Will at Port City wearing, we have told this story before, wearing an Opus shirt. And he just happened to be behind one of the bar areas, pouring areas. He says, hey, do you like metal? And I think I gave him kind of a snarky look like, I'm wearing an Opus shirt, dude, really? And that, like,
was chocolate and peanut butter right then and there. I'm assuming his next question was, do you like Dick? And I immediately said, hey, let's go out back by the pallets. So, yeah, I was involved in this scene a little bit. I was a little bit of a metal deadhead. I used to follow bands around. I traveled all around the country for shows all the time. I don't do that much anymore because it's just too much work. So I was involved in my local scene, but I was
Like I said, I was traveling all over the place.
Going to shows.
And you're a little old now, John.
Oh, I am.
I was showing up at shows.
I have friends.
George, I don't know.
Did you ever meet my friend Babs at Prog Power?
I don't remember.
It's been like, I was going to say 10 years, but obviously it's not been 10 years.
I don't know.
Because her name would stand out because she goes by Babs.
Anyway, I remember once just showing up, I don't know, a random weeknight in Buffalo to see Opeth.
And I walked right by her in line. And she's like, what are you doing here? Because she knows I live in Northern Virginia. I would go to shows. I would just get on a plane and go to see shows all the time. Nice. And follow Opeth. I used to follow Porcupine Tree around, do some brush shows all over. So I was involved in the scene, but on my little world. So. Cool. All right. Well, when did you actually start that, though, John? Was it 10 years ago or was it before that? Which part? You like following bands around.
That's going back 20 years. Oh, wow. Yeah, maybe. No, even further, because I was flying back and forth to the West Coast to see some of my favorite bands in the Bay Area. I'd go home. I'd say, hey, I'm going to come home for the weekend. What are you going to do? I'll see you guys and then maybe go to a show or two, which I used to do all the time. Yeah. And John's being modest, too, because he knows a lot of people in those bands as well. Don't talk about that. That's me being a bragger.
Yes, I know. You're not talking about it. I'm talking about it. Mark is on and was privy to a conversation with TR and myself. TR has been in many of those situations with me as well. And we had, that was, that'll come up later. That's another thing I want to bring up for this podcast, but we had a wonderful day off together. But to get, one last thing, I'm sorry. I want to mention, George, yes, you're right. Being in the DMV scene and knowing Will and going to metal nights at Port City and then at Fairway,
is how I met George for the first time by walking up to him and saying, hey, man, are you that metal guy on the podcast? And then saying, I don't know why no one listens to you. The alkaloid's cool. That's the honest to God truth. And George was kind of like, wow, you actually did listen. Yeah. I went back to Barbara and I was like, this guy knows who I am. Yeah. Shortly after that, John or George went over to Will and said, hey, what's up?
What about that big guy? Is he retarded or something? Will just said yes. But he's cool. He's alright. He can handle his beer. Yeah. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. That was at Fairwinds, right? Yep. I remember that. Alright, Will. You're up. I mean, John covered a lot of it because obviously John and I came up through this kind of together. But yeah, I was brewing beer for a living and
And I realized that there was no place in the DMV, the Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia area. If you just want to go hang out and have a beer and listen to metal, there was no place to do it. There was a place called The Big Hunt that had some metal on the jukebox. That was kind of it. So I decided to start having heavy metal nights at different breweries I worked at. And John mentioned two of them.
And that's where I met John. And I started a Twitter account as a brewer who liked metal and started getting a little bit of traction and got a decibel because of that Twitter account. Thanks to Adam Tepedillon. And yeah, and then through Twitter, I met you, George. And you guys were like, well, you should come on the podcast. Yeah, I remember. I remember the first time meeting you in the parking lot.
I do actually a lot at Jack's.
Well, why is that story so familiar for all of us who live here?
I bet you were behind Jack's one night.
Jack's is an Afghan restaurant now.
Yeah.
They expanded, I guess.
Yeah.
The Afghan place took over Jack's.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I bet they loved that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's so funny.
Ironically, I do actually, weirdly enough, have a tangential connection to the family
that owns the Afghan restaurant.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's how that's how I kind of got here.
I just like I started doing a lot of metal stuff in the DC area and providing a snowflake safe place for metal heads.
The first one you did at Port City and I still have the flyer somewhere in the house here.
A lot of people showed up for that first one.
Well, it was a good crowd.
Yeah.
And I was not really.
Well, I should say I was surprised.
But thinking back, I was not surprised because there was no place for a bunch of metalheads to go. And I would put out like, hey, send me your songs. I'm going to create a playlist based upon what you want to hear. So it's whatever, you know. And I don't know, it was weird because I got like 5,000 requests for Opeth. That was me. Yeah.
Yeah, I just wanted to create a scene. I mean, there was a scene, obviously, already, but I just wanted to create more of a scene. And then I just carried it through to the different breweries I worked at until we were hosting our 200th metal show at Atlas, like a live show. Nice. And I give a lot of credit to Mel Chris from DCHeavyMeld.com because we teamed up quite a bit in the early stages from the three or four breweries I worked at.
to the point that the first live metal show at a brewery that I worked at that we put on was Metal Christmas Party. So yeah. Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah, that was the first live metal show that I guess I was the producer of. Who played it? It was Genocide Pact, Gloom. Maybe that was the second one. It was Genocide Pact, Gloom, and
Somebody else. What the hell's Bill up to, man? He hasn't put out any gloom in forever. You know, I saw him at Atlas. This is probably years ago. And I sat in his car. He asked me to go out to the parking lot by the cemetery. Don't cut that out. And he played me some actually some new gloom tracks and they were amazing. And then I don't know what happened. I don't think they're abandoned anymore, to be honest. So I'm not sure.
what's going on. I feel like I saw him at Atlas a couple years ago, but a couple years ago might have gotten away from me. It might be a bit more than a couple years. But I know it's been like since that last Gloom album came out and like not like right afterward. I mean, it was fairly recently that I saw. Yeah, I mean, it was some good stuff. And man, they just I don't I don't think they're a band anymore. That's a bummer. Yeah. But I mean, they had new stuff recorded or what maybe it wasn't
I heard some tracks in a car, in a parking lot, in a cemetery. Down by the river. Across the street. Will's second home. Well, you did an amazing job with all that, Will. I just want to say that. And I know that the bands that came through Atlas and played, they are so appreciative of everything that you did for them to put on shows, everything that you did to
And I've never heard so many bands say so many great things about a one location.
I would just say this is that I'm just a fan and I'm not really a metal producer, show producer. I don't the fuck I'm doing. I just basically sunk thousands of dollars into a passion of mine. And I just wanted to make a place that was band friendly.
We never took a cut of their proceeds of their ticket sales. We never took a cut of their merch sales. 100% of all the ticket sales went to the bands. The only thing they had to do in the later years was just pay for the sound engineer and that was it. You packed that place, you charged 50 bucks a head. No one did, but you charged 20 bucks a head. You packed that place, you get all that money. You split up between the bands. We gave you free unlimited beer.
And I bent over backwards to just make them feel welcome because I'm a fan. Yep. And I just wanted to make it the place that in all their tours, they felt welcome. And there's been many, many times that bands would tell me like, you know, wow, this is really cool because a lot of times when we show up to like a bar or wherever we're going, we feel like we're invaders and we're just annoying them. Like, no, dude, I'm super excited to hear. Please, please have a good time and let me know.
I bought food for them.
As much as I could, I went above and beyond to try and just make it band-friendly and fun.
And that was my goal.
I so respect that.
And I don't do it anymore.
Life gets in the way.
And I don't really book the shows at Atlas.
In fact, I just went to go see Wayfair Atlas on Mother's Day last Sunday. And it was the first time I was there. And I didn't have to do anything. It was great. Now you know it from our perspective. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I still had to slap some ass. I mean, I saw James and Warren there. I had to slap their butts. Okay. I was going to ask if you slapped James' ass when I told you to. I'm pretty sure I did. Yeah. I mean, you don't have to ask me. I'm going to do it.
He's going to do it regardless. Yeah. But it was not, I mean, and it was, it's not, it was, it wasn't weird to pay for a ticket because even when I was the employee and putting on shows, I paid for a ticket for every single show and I pay money for all the merch. I never, I don't, I think a handful of times when they were like, you're going to take this shirt for free or I'm going to gouge out your eyes and skull fuck you like, okay, all right, I'll take the shirt, but I pay for everything. I pay for a ticket for everything.
the show when I was hosting the show.
Because I believe in it that much.
Like I was passionate that much that I just wanted to build a scene and make a place for great metal bands to come play.
Yeah.
And get free beer.
That was my goal.
And it worked.
You're being somewhat humble about it because you brought in some, in our little metal world, you brought in some big names.
And we saw the pre-show that had Crypt Sermon where they tore up that place.
You've had horrendous play there. You've had Tumult play there a bunch of times. Dude, we got a rare appearance of Shape of Despair there. We had Evokin. You got them to come down for that. I mean... Mortis Gold. Yeah, Dave was great to see. Utkiaru all the way from, you know, over there. I mean, there's just so many bands that have... And bands started wanting to come there, not because the gate was going to be super great, because it only held, what, one...
$250. But it was everything else that came with it. I mean, you could see bands would get there, and they would immediately hang out in the bar with anyone that was there beforehand. And you just sit there and talk to them for about an hour before the show. There's no pretense. It was cool. I mean, George and I would get there early anyway because we had to do breakfast at 5 p.m. Hell yeah. Pandemic killed that off, though. Stop off and for a beer at 4.30, then go for breakfast at 5 and then come back at 6. And then bands would just be hanging out waiting.
the start. It was awesome. Yeah. The good old days. I did what I could. Oh, you did plenty, man. Seriously. I like what you said about, you know, not taking free stuff and paying your way. And as I mentioned earlier, I started all of this for free music. I know, right? But it didn't take long for that to not be the reason because, well, first of all,
All they send you are mp3s, which is crap anyway. But it was more about the love of doing what we're doing. And, you know, I've never made a dime off this. I've sunk thousands of dollars into it as well. Now people will be like, like, okay, the Scala album just went up for preorder on vinyl the other day. And as soon as it did, I bought it. Because I always buy my friends shit.
And I was talking to Chris later because I was trying to get him to call in for the show. And I was like, oh, by the way, you know, congrats on the vinyl, you know, pre-order. That's freaking great because it's a great album. And, you know, it doesn't have a huge reach like some other things do. So it's awesome that the vinyl's coming. And he's like, yeah, man, I'll send you one. I was like, dude, I already pre-ordered that shit. You know, not to toot my own horn, but I thought it was funny that I went
from give me free music to please don't give me free music over the course of 10 years. But George, that's kind of cool on both sides of it. Think about it. You bought it anyway because you're friends with Chris, but you wanted to support him. And yet he still said, hey, I'll send you one. That's a cool thing to be in that position to have both things happen at the same time. Yeah. It really is. I think what we're learning here is that all of us had our own passion for this stuff.
in our own way. Yeah. Which is kind of cool. Definitely. Well, and it shows, I think, these examples. It's really, it's about the community. You know, this podcast is about us coming together, but it's also about the larger metal community that we, you know, we want to have everybody feel welcome, have everybody, you know, have a good time. And, you know, we, we, we don't, we're not false. That is, that is the true meaning.
of the podcast. We are not false. We're not phony balonies. Yeah. And we've met so many people on the podcast who have offered to give us free stuff and we're like, no, we're just going to buy it. You know, we love your music. That's why we have you on the podcast. We want to talk to you. So we want to support you. Yeah. Now I'm very much want to make it known that it's not about getting free stuff. It's all about the music. 20 years ago, not so much, but.
Although we do get a shit ton of free albums. That's from the labels though. Yeah. And those PR firms are different, Marcus. Yes, that's true. Bands, we want to take care of them. But again, most of that stuff is MP3 and I'm going to go buy the flack anyway. Of course, yes. Yeah, I would say that even though we get a lot of promos, if I like it, I'm going to buy it. And in fact, I was getting annoyed because the new Atrophy album came back and I know I'm on, this is my Wilson, but I was like, well, how do I physically buy this?
Like it's not on Bandcamp
Like the new Cary King's not on Bandcamp
In fact I was looking at the 2014 list
And for some reason Exodus is blood in blood out
It's not on iTunes
It's not on Bandcamp
Like where the fuck do you buy this
And I try to listen to it on Spotify
But I got rid of my premium
And it's like I listen to five seconds of a song
And it goes into a commercial
And I'm like where can I buy
Like where can I spend
Take my money please
Amazon
Yeah, no, but that happens to me too. Well, there'll be some weird album in somebody's catalog, and I'm like, how come I can't fucking buy this? Discogs is also good because you can get most, you know, they've got the variety of formats. Amazon is good because you can find like a used CD for $1.50 or something. Yeah, something, yeah. Well, they have a lot of music digitally, but do they do flack? No, they don't. That's why I go for the $1.50 CD, get it, and I rip my own flack. Yeah, I gotta go to the queue for the flack. Yeah, Cobuzz. I don't use anything. Cobuzz, yeah.
So that's why I just bought the carry king and the gate creeper on co-buzz. So I get the high res. Yeah, that's the nice part. Yeah. Yeah. I think I have used that once or twice actually. Wait, what is co-buzz? How do you spell it? Q O B U Z. Yeah. It's kind of like high res Spotify with option to buy. Yeah. Yeah. So if you digitally, yeah, like you could, you pay like a hundred and
I don't know 50 or whatever for a year's subscription. Unlimited streaming. Unlimited streaming like Spotify, but it's high res. And an app or a website or both. Both. And they have just really rare shit. Like I was looking for an album by this band called Dracula Jones. That was a local Syracuse band. And they had that shit. They do. It's yeah. And sorry. And if you have the subscription, you get a discount on my res.
on the high-res buying. So I do that because like the Gate Creeper, 24.96 was $7. Yeah, George and John might have a problem on that site. We buy all these old high-res albums like, 96, did you get this yet? Yeah, the new Paul Bearer is only like $4. Wait, so I just went to this website, but it's telling me that I need to spend $10.83 a month. That's the, yes, but if you do it, they'll bill you
for the year up front.
And then it's like a subscription.
I did for a full year.
But you can buy albums individually.
Yeah, you can.
They just cost more.
Yeah.
But man, the high res for some albums, if you're an audiophile, if you're not an audiophile, then don't waste your time.
But if you like.
He's got the heaviest.
He needs that.
If you like the sound of heavies and we've all pimped that headphone out to the death, there's some great stuff you can get on there.
for dirt cheap if you sign up. Yeah. So do it, Will. Do it. Do it. Peer pressure. I got rid of Spotify for a reason. You might like this, Will, because you can't. It's expensive. It's more the cost. Yeah, it's more the cost. But you can stream everything. And they have a pretty, George, would you agree, they have a pretty decent metal roundup every Friday? Yeah, they do. It's actually really good. Yeah, I guess my thing is I don't want to stream things. I want to buy them. Well, you can do both here.
That's the great thing. Yeah. That's that's George got me hooked. He's like, dude, you can do both. And I'm like, damn you. And so you get the discount and it's cheaper than Bandcamp for higher res. That's why I wrote to Bandcamp and said, hey, could you start, you know, I don't know, showing the resolution of the files on the site? Because it's by label. I found out. I have no idea what I'm getting other than flack. Is it 1644? Is it 2444?
48 is it 2496 what is it and their response was buy it and find out
it wasn't that but it was something equally ridiculous that was completely unhelpful and i was just
like i love you band camp but i contacted a specific label i can't remember who if it was
peaceful or something and i asked them that and they're like that's a really good question and they
started remember i don't know yeah yeah yeah they started putting their when it was high res they would put it
So I would just assume if it wasn't there, it was 16-bit. And if it wasn't and they were high-res, they'd be 24 or 48. They started doing it. So yeah. Yeah. We'll use both. As much as I love Bandcamp, that's something they really need to think about. I agree. To not know what you're getting. When you're downloading, you can have that auction maybe. Because while I love to support Bandcamp, if I see an album on Bandcamp and it's on Kobuz and they're the same price,
for high res.
Cobas is high, the high res.
I'm like, well, I'm going there because I know what I'm getting.
You know, the band camp.
Maybe I'll get that, but maybe I won't.
And I've gotten burned on that at least once trying to have faith in band camp.
And then I didn't get the high res.
So that's something they need to work on.
One other label I think I've told at least Markisan a J about not label, but vendor lasers edge.
Ken, he actually sells high res on band camp.
And he charges more for it. And he has every right to because it's better sounding. And that's there. But that's them. And I think Peaceful are the only places that I've seen that actually put the high res stuff up. Well, hopefully places like Kobuz and any other high res stuff coming down the pike will eventually make it so that they feel the need to do so. Yeah, I agree. I have to go back. Like I said, I bought a couple things off them, but I didn't know that they had a whole subscription and everything off. Yeah.
Yes.
I wish there was a social aspect to it like Bandcamp
because I'd like to be able to see what John's buying and see what John's got.
Yeah.
That's the only drawback.
Yeah.
There's no social aspect to it.
So do they do can bands do messages about stuff?
No, they can't.
I love that part.
I don't think so.
It's like a really good version of buying from an Amazon or iTunes type situation.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
They tend to have reviews, like pulled from, scraped from some sites or whatever. But it's like one single write-up from somebody. Yeah. Right. Well, we should move on to Jay about what he was doing 10 years ago. Yeah, let's hear some Catatonic Society stories. I want to interject, Jay. I'm sorry, real quick, since you're dropping little tidbits from 2014 to now. Please.
the San Francisco Giants won a World Series. It's been 10 years. And I've been suffering for 10 years since then. But Jay, I just wanted to get a little history lesson in there. So thank you. And I say that because I was at Will's house saying I had to sit next to a Philadelphia Phillies pillow. I was like, blah, blah, blah, blah. You've started a movement, Jay. That was the first. That was a perfect factoid. Yeah. Just throwing that little bit out there. Well, 10 years ago, let's see. I was in Berkeley.
I lived in Richmond before we left there. And yeah, I was doing the band and that was fun. And that was probably my involvement in metal other than the fact that I was just obviously listening and a fan and stuff. And let's see. So if it was 2014, it was the year before we put our record out. So we were just playing around and writing songs and stuff. Well, to brag, I wrote all the songs. So I was writing songs and stuff.
I think it's taking guitar lessons too. I do that periodically. And then my relationship to metal other than that was just that like you guys are just listening to metal and stuff and going to shows and all kinds of jazz. So it is kind of funny though too that that 10 years, I mean, I don't live in California anymore and just don't have a fucking job. Nor am I in a band. So those three things are all different. You know, I'm really disappointed that we never got that new Catatonic album. I mean that when I say it.
Now that you're out there in the middle of nowhere by yourself, you should look into doing things the way I did them. Maybe you can actually make something useful. Yeah. I don't know. I'm going to say something that you're going to find really weird, but I think I'm done playing. I don't even know if I'll play guitar anymore. Well, if you need to send those guitars anywhere, you know where I am. The truth is that it's funny, man, this retirement thing. I don't have a job anymore, so I just do whatever I want whenever I want.
I like to go outside and do things. And it's awfully fun to feel like I felt when I was 15 when all I did was listen to music. And I'm kind of enjoying that. You know, like I don't know if I want. Yeah, it's not maybe, maybe. But the truth is, is that I don't know. There's some things that have changed about how I feel about what I want to share with the world and stuff like that. And the truth is, I don't know if I want to share that kind of thing with the world, you know. So that sounds dumb.
It's not supposed to sound as big as I'm saying.
And I'm just like...
You can J.D. Salinger that shit.
Well, I wonder how I had such a motivation to be like,
I want people to hear my music because I just don't feel like that anymore.
So, you know, I had ideas coming out my butt and we wrote the second record.
But it's not an unhappy thing.
I like it.
I like where I'm at.
So, yeah, that's all.
I came out here to be quiet, I guess.
Fair.
But it is funny to think.
So there are those are huge fundamental changes, you know, in my life 10 years ago. Yeah, no longer working. I had this career for 22 years in California. I mean, the career was longer than that, but I was in California for 22 years working and did the band thing and lived in California, you know, and all those things have changed. So, yeah. Well, and also now you, I assume you won't be able to see as many shows as you used to see because you're out in the middle of nowhere, Jay. Yeah. Yeah. You could.
stuff does come to Tucson and that's about two hours away so it's not impossible by a long shot and if you really care about something and you're willing to drive a little further El Paso is not you know within reach and in both of those instances you know you just get a hotel room for the night or something like that they did just actually announce an Alice Cooper date in Tucson and I really thought about it for a second but this time next week I'll be in Austin what's that I said this time next week I'll be in Austin
What are you doing in Austin? Seeing friends. Oh, nice. That's still probably like eight hours from you, but. You're getting a light show every night. Everything in Texas has eight hours from everything. Yeah. Jay, you're getting a light show every night. That's true. Yeah. I love where I'm at. That's the trade-off, you know? Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. I know. Totally. Totally. You know, I got good internet out here, so I'm not suffering for access to music and stuff. And I was worried. I have to be honest with you. When we were moving here, I thought,
It could be so shitty out there that it could affect my
Your internet's better there than it was in Berkeley and Richard
It's just as good if not
I think it's better
The Starlink thing and it's great
It's so funny
Starlink is amazing
So yeah
That was 10 years ago
And just like you guys
I wouldn't have been combing through new releases and stuff
The way we do it on the podcast
But I was a fan of metal
and you know like I was ever since I was a kid so
been going to shows when they came to town and all that stuff I mean 10 years ago we're probably
there must have been a maiden tour that year I'm like I feel like maybe that would have been the somewhere
back in time era kind of thing or something I can't remember yeah
yeah where they played like only three shows in the states I think for that
it was I think right they didn't play it oh no that was uh John that was um
the one they filmed the 666 film they only did I think three in North America didn't they
Yeah, but then they toured more after that. They came back. It was that record. They did a record that I liked, and I know I think Will vociferously hates. And I can't think of the name. It's someone that's Eddie on the Tank. A Matter of Life and Death? Yeah, they did literally two or three shows in the States for that. Yeah, I'm not a big fan either. I'm not so good. I was giving the finger. It's number one. It's number one.
I look so mean right now look at I know he's all like I'm going to kill you I've only hated two Iron Maiden albums well I actually only hate three albums in my entire life here we go they all have they all have dark covers I think huh it's just well what's the third one and trust me book of souls yeah oh okay what's the other one and death and the one that's really really really fucking black none more black
Yeah, but you like this is Spinal Tap, and that's an all-black cover. Yeah, but I don't know if I own it, so. What? No, I'm not saying I hate all albums that are black. I just say the three albums that I hate have dark covers. Thank you for clarifying. Yes. Yes. I want to make sure. Jeez. Jesus fuckers. Jesus. And if anyone had, like, if I need to clarify, I fucking hate the black album.
Do you though? Do you? By the way, they stole their album cover from Spinal Top, by the way. Just in case anyone's wondering. Yeah. It's blacker than black. I hate that album. Fucking. I love that album. Okay. I was going to see if you wanted to say anything about, you know, what it was like for you 10 years ago. I know we talked, did the interview about the whole podcast thing, but if you had anything else you wanted to add about, you know, your life back in the day.
Not really. I mean, it was very different from now. Maybe not significantly, but socially, definitely very different. Different outlook on everything. So I prefer being here than there. That's good. MySpace dead in 2014? Say again? MySpace? I was saying, was it dead in 2014? That's a good question, John. Yes.
Probably sorta started. I did. Socially, media-wise, don't you think? I was definitely on that a lot. I was. So, I don't remember, though. Yeah. Okay. I didn't really do MySpace. I think I started with Facebook. Same. Facebook is what got me off of MySpace. Yeah. Well, that's what got everybody off of MySpace. Pretty much. Anyway, all right. All right. So, what's the next one, Mark Zahn? It's our Metalheads Podcast Origin Store.
Okay.
I guess you're up first.
I guess I get to go first.
First in or last in first goes.
Right.
Right.
Dad.
You know the reference?
Life.
Life.
Last in first out.
I always,
I always tell my,
every time we park in a parking lot,
I always tell that joke to my wife from a vacation.
National Lampoon's vacation.
First,
first ones in,
first ones out.
Right.
Russ.
Right.
Dad.
That's an accounting term, by the way. FIFO and LIFO. First in, first out, last in, first out, last in, last out. Yep. So I think, you know, we've probably talked about origin stories before, but we thought it would be a good idea to do it on this podcast because we can always come back to episode 150 and be like, oh, this is how it all started for everyone. Yes. So for me, you know, obviously I'm the newest addition, but not that new anymore.
because it's almost six years. It's those four pandemic years that kind of like flew by really fast. Yeah, good point. Yeah. Six of them. Wow. Yep. Yeah. And at that time, you guys had just put out a call to invite listeners on the show. And I thought that was really awesome because as I was saying, at that point, I had only, you know, I didn't really have that many people to
to talk to about metal. And I just started listening to the podcast on a little before that, I think. And I just, I had tried a bunch of other metal podcasts, I think, because I just really wanted to hear what people thought about albums and what was happening in metal. But you guys really drew me in because of your rapport with each other on your knowledge. And, you know, I don't think I've ever said this before. But in all honesty,
I swear to Krom, this is true. I just loved listening to Jay talk. At the time, I was like, who is this sexy down to the ogre voice of a man? Because his voice is so unique. You know, I can't count in my life the amount of times that people have asked me, are you on the radio? And I was on the radio when I was a kid. I was in high school.
And my friend's dad was the manager of the local radio station. And he asked me one time, do you want to be on the radio? And just, I was spending the night with my friend and I was on the radio for about six months, but I had the overnight shift. And I was, I fell asleep in church on Easter Sunday one time. And my mom said, that's it. I swear that's true. And then people frequently will ask me or when I used to work in the library, not to talk about me some more, but we had this big open,
center in the middle of the library. People from the fourth floor would come down and complain and say, man, you got to shut the fuck up, dude. And I worked there. My voice carries for miles, you know. It's funny. I mean, I loved all you guys on the show, but it's just Jay's voice. I've just taken by it. I really was when I first heard it. So, um, so yeah, so that call went out for listeners guests. I emailed George or maybe sent you a message on Instagram. I don't remember. Yeah. Um, told you I was interested in coming on. You scheduled it. I jumped on the cast.
And I was fucking awesome on it. And just kidding. But yeah, joking aside, I had the best time in that show. I really did. And, you know, as a listener, I felt like I knew you all. And people often say this. Even I've gotten that, too, from people now. They feel like they know us on the podcast. And I definitely felt that when I was listening to it. But then to get to interact with all of you.
You learned the truth.
Yeah, I'm over it now.
But yeah, just getting to interact with all you guys and like to do those segments.
I love the segments.
That was a great idea.
And I was like, oh, I'd really like to participate in one of those segments.
And then I got to do it.
You know, I heard it every month and I actually got to do it.
And, you know, of course, I got to hear Jay talk to me and melt my loins into a puddle with his sugar doom bellow.
That was a great.
What was the transition to you staying? Will we just come back next week or next time? I don't remember if you invited me to come back to do the Top 25 on the show. I feel like maybe you did. So it was either on the show because you guys like talking to me, clearly. And I think you invited me to come on to do Top 25. So you were on and then you weren't on for a few and then you were back for 25 and then you stayed or was 25 the next launch? 25 was the next one I did.
I did that one and then after that no George he was like hey you know sometimes not all not everybody can be on the podcast do you want to be a fill-in guy an alternate yeah you want to come off the bench son and I was like sure I'd definitely do that and so I think I filled in I don't know how many times two or three times like for will I think it was for will but yeah and yeah so
I did that a couple times and then after that
there was just a point where George was like
listen we need you to be on every episode
I think you just didn't stop coming
you were just we were like why is he here again
I don't know but there he is
I'm not going to say anything you're going to say anything
I don't know
I actually I specifically remember you saying that to me because I you know
it touched me
I'm glad I was able to touch you
yeah yeah
the last six years.
But yeah, so then I came on.
I've been on every episode except for one, I think, in the last five and a half years that I've been on.
I think I've only known as one.
Do you remember the reason you weren't on that one?
Probably.
I can't remember.
I feel like you maybe moved Markisan and that's what it was.
It might have been the schmoo.
I feel like it had something to do with one of the moves.
It would have to be something pretty serious because I would pretty much cancel anything for the Metalheads podcast.
I think that's what it was.
I think it was because the timing just didn't work out for you guys moving.
Yeah. Actually, I thought I was going to miss the last one because I had C2E2 with Dave, but then it got moved. So I didn't miss it. It was a moving target last month. So yeah, that's my origin story. And it was great because, you know, I thought, oh, it would just be great to be on one episode, you know, like, oh, I hope they ask. I hope I get the call. I hope I'm lucky enough to be on with these guys. And I did. And then just, I mean, obviously we had a really,
a good cast and a good rapport and everything. And I love that because it was just something that I was searching for in my life. I needed to be able to talk about metal and you guys filled that hole. So. We filled the hole. There you go. All right. Well, let's move on to my favorite origin story. And we filled your hole. You got it. By the way,
Markison, you're not allowed to talk during this part. Am I not wrong in saying this is a different Markison than when he first started when it comes to the innuendo? Oh, for sure. Because at first you're like, I don't know about this. Then, like a couple years later, you're like throwing slabs out like anything at us. He had to acclimate to the Dick Jokes. It took a little while, not long. He just said, make sure, you know, I got to know these guys were okay.
And once the floodgates open, it's like, holy shit. Because I specifically remember, too, in the beginning when those were thrown around and I would react because I'm very animated. And Will would point it out on the cast. He's like, look at Marcus. He's so uncomfortable. Now he's like, you're bunking with me on this trip, bitch. Maybe it was because, you know, I didn't know you guys as well. And now six years later, we've been around each other. You were just feeling us out, Marcus.
I was like, should I say this on air? What's going on? Should I stay or should I go? Awesome. All right. I like Matt's origin story. Let's get, man. Wow. So, I mean, in terms of the podcast itself, I think, I believe I saw like an ad on Facebook and listened to probably the first, well, obviously I listened to the first episode. I really dug it because I felt like I was listening to,
You know, like, just dudes talking about metal. Like, this is awesome. You know, there's no good, because, you know, to what we talked about earlier, you know, there was a Metal Sucks podcast. There was the Josta podcast. And they were, you know, they were, I know these musicians. I'm interviewing them. But this is like normal people talking. And I really dug that. And I skipped ahead to what was, you know, the most recent episode. Took that in. I think it was everybody was approaching a Maryland Death Fest.
And then I feel like I started to banter with y'all probably on Twitter a little bit and then I know you had mentioned going to Valken which I think was 2017. It was. And then I feel like George you and I started talking a little bit more about that trip. And then planning how to get tense to each other and stuff. Yep. Yep. Yep. A lot of logistical talk which I was like this is awesome you know Eric and I were going and I knew you and Chris were going and so.
It wasn't that Wednesday night, but it was that Thursday morning we met. And you had the cougar bush out and we were down from there. The cougar bush. Man, the funny thing is I found some of those photos the other day. There's this one of you, like, I think you're interviewing Eric. You're holding the cougar bush, but you're still giving the horns. One of my favorite photos ever. But it was kind of like we, it was that morning we set up like a text, like a group.
text and we were like best friends after that and uh like the next three days were just fabulous
yeah i think i knew within like 24 hours i was like i love you yeah exactly it was it's one of those bonding
experiences and um we all did the the uh the post-mortem together which was awesome yeah and then um
you would kind of ping me about coming on and i think at first i was kind of hesitant and then
I was trying to remember the name of the band. That was my, like an episode I sat in on. And I think after that, I kind of became a member. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty much, yeah. Keep coming. Keep coming. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I was like, I don't know about this. And then I was like, no, Matt, you should do this. Why were you so hesitant, Matt? You know, I feel like, to be honest, I don't even remember why. I think he felt he was too chatty.
Probably. I didn't want to take over. Did he even talk that first episode? Even when we asked some questions, did he talk? No, because like my first actual episode as an official member was, what was that band with Danny Loker that came on? Oh. Blurring. Oh my God. Is that where somebody got bit by a dog? Yeah. We need to pimp that somehow. Metalhead's podcast, where people might get bitten by a dog. Bitten by a dog, yeah.
That was a total shit show that night. I'm talking to the stuff that came on his mouth. Yeah, I was like, oh my God, this is Danny Looker, like the guy. I can't wait for the Dog Bites and Blast Beats podcast. Matt, I will tell you, I remember George sending out a message and said, I love this guy. He's joining. Yeah, Matt was cool. Okay.
It was that simple.
That was my heart.
I was like, I love him.
Oh, yeah.
My favorite team.
I mean, it was, I don't know.
It was fun.
Like, it was really interesting to listen, you know, for as many episodes as I had
and then, like, wake up in Germany one morning and, like, damn shit.
Like, I'm literally talking to him face.
Like, his real voice is now, like, stereo because I could hear it in both ears, you know, in the flesh.
Coming out of that big fat face.
And then he got drowned out by that constant replaying of that one song that I even watched a video on YouTube for. I even know it. My favorite part of these memories is the voices you guys use for each other back then. Hilarious. All right. You good, Matt? Yep. All right. John.
We've already gotten part of the story. Sorry. Yeah, we have. And so my part of the story is I already knew Will beforehand. So me being here is because of Will. I love you, Will. Because he kept saying, I keep telling these guys, they got to get you on too sometime. Because you like metal, but you like different metal. Which, had I known back then what that meant, I don't know. It's key, you guys. No, he did. He told me a couple times, like, I've been,
I got the okay to come on and I came on for the mid-year episode 29.
And it was, I don't know if this was me that suggested this, but you guys said you were doing a mid-year top 10. And I think I made a joke about doing 11.
Yeah, this goes to 11. I think we did 11 instead.
And that was the smoking episode. I brought this up to Will earlier where I said smoking about 47 times.
And smoking has not been used since that episode until recently. And I'm like, hell no, I can't say smoking anymore. No one says smoking on this podcast. But that's on another podcast. Yeah. You say it all you want. I don't give a shit. But yeah, I came on an episode 29. And then I think George, you guys asked me to come back. And I came back with Will for the mid year. Or no, not the mid year, excuse me, the year end. Yeah, sounds right. I think I came back first for Will to run. Oh, yeah.
for that one. And then you asked me, I was in London with TR doing the metal deadhead thing. We were in London to see Opeth. And you sent me a message. I was in, and I said, it's here. I said, they want me to write a review for an album. I don't even know how to write a review. I agreed to it in London. I was like, well, I don't know how to write this shit. And I came back for the mid or the year end. And then I think I came back for a couple episodes. I think I came back once.
with the franchise.
Yeah.
We came back for one.
And I think I did another one.
Will and I were on together.
And then I think in episode 50, I think you made a comment.
Well, yeah, you don't have to go home.
You could stay if you'd like.
I was like, oh.
I'm most likely to hear you in the morning.
Yeah, okay.
We have a place for you here, John.
So I was on a few between 29 and 49.
But then at 50, I have been on since then nonstop.
And you're probably like really seriously.
It's John's 100th episode. Oh, no, dude. I've got like 100 and I'm well over 100 now, surprisingly, but 100 straight. Yeah. 101 straight. If you count from 50 to 150, that's 101. And even though this is 150, there's more than 150. If you go and look at it. Oh, all the specials we did. Yeah, specials and stuff that I didn't count as episodes. All the times we were in a back parking lot, post-show hammered talking. We had some really interesting in quotes.
I literally was not asked to leave and I'm still waiting to get my eviction notice.
I believe you have my stapler.
I have that stapler right here, by the way, except mine's black because it's more metal.
Of course.
But it's a black red.
But this is a sling line, baby.
My my work.
They're the best staplers.
They are.
My pharmacy has one on the counter, a red one.
So that's my story. It's all because of Will. Will convinced George to have me come on and I didn't go home. Yeah. I stayed on George's couch. All right, Will. I think you're up. That's a good one. The origin of Will. We talked about a lot of it already, but yeah, I talked to you guys via Twitter and
Somehow you guys were liking the idea that there was some guy who liked heavy metal and brewed beer. So you invited me on. And when John was over at my house earlier tonight, we were talking about like, what was the first episode I was on? And if we're doing a 10 year anniversary and I have a 10, I have a top 10 or top 20 or whatever. I have a year end list for 2014. Already in the bag that I did on the podcast.
And I was like, well, if I was on 10 years ago and we only do one podcast a month, I must have been like early on. And I earlier we used to do more than one a month. Right. And then John was like, no, you were like on episode like 502 because they were doing like one every day. I was on like episode 20 or something, I guess. That's the earliest I could find was 20. But you were on before that, though.
Yeah, I was on, off and on. And then Jay, we interviewed Jay, I think on episode 24. I should let just John tell the story because he's the one telling me all this stuff. Go, go, you tell it. No, no, no. Well, anyway, anyway. Yeah, and I met you at Jaxx, I think, for the first time, correct? I don't remember. What was it? I think it was a Sound of Thunder show, maybe, or they were playing. Maybe. Maybe not their show, but they were playing. No, it wasn't.
their show. It had to be something like, I don't know. Something way cooler. Was it yesterday's Saints? No, because I didn't know them until after I knew Will. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe it wasn't. But anyway, the first time I met you was at Jack's in West Springfield, Virginia. The legendary venue that it used to be, which is now in Africa. I know. God. You know, weirdly enough, I wanted to kind of replace, not replace,
But replicate Jax
With Atlas
We just didn't have the space
Like we just couldn't get
The bigger bands there
Because we were limited to 150 people
Did you see Hassan's post the other day about Jax?
On Facebook?
No
He just posted a picture of it
And you know
And apparently
It's been like 10 years since Jax closed
Yeah it's been a long time
It wasn't great but it was our place
Yeah
What I find really weird now is way back then, I'm like, oh my god, I gotta drive all the way to Jack's. I would kill to go to Jack's for every show now. Yeah, and I mean, Jack's is maybe 15 minutes from my house, 15 minutes, and poor Jay is like, oh, I gotta drive like, well, you know, it's only two hours away. It feels like two hours in our neighborhood. I'm too lazy to go to Baltimore, which is 45 minutes to an hour. Fuck that, I won't go anymore.
I really do. And I've had these ideas in my head that go in one ear and out the other in about a nanosecond of like, oh, maybe I just open up a venue. I've now had, I don't know, 10 years of experience of producing heavy metal events. I'd invest in that with you. But there's no money. The way I would do it, there's no money in it.
The only one who would make money is beer and food. You have to find a happy medium there. I would want to have great food and great beer. I would do the same thing. I would never want to charge bands to play there. I would never want to take anything from their ticket sales. I would never want to take anything from their merch sales. There's no way you're going to make money.
absolutely zero on this but um i mean in the whole thousands probably but uh you've had
thousands in your hole wow that's a pretty big accomplishment oh yeah it's only the past week but um
no but uh i mean you'd have to obviously if you're gonna open a business you'd have to find a happy
medium where i would never charge a band but taking a cut would not be unreasonable if it was a fair cut
Yeah, you can do it there.
That's just it.
It's just not my spirit, and that's why I won't do it.
I just completely understand that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you guys all understand.
It's just more of like, that's why I will never do it.
That's why I don't run a business, because I'm too nice.
I won't take people's money.
Well, what you could do, I came in this late, but if you had a place like, say you've got
like a building or whatever, you could rent it out for other things and then do metal shows
and do those for free.
You know what? It's interesting you say that because that's what Jax, when Jax switched over to Empire Nova. So basically they got sold and they used to do hip hop. They used to do all kinds of stuff. They're like, hey, we just need to make money and we're not going to just do metal. But my heart wouldn't be in it. Right. So it would just be like, I just couldn't do it. I will never do it. I'm just going to retire into obscurity. I'm kind of already retiring.
to obscurity. I'm pulling a J. I'm J-ing this right now. It's the way to live. Anyway, that's how I guess that, I don't know, John said most of it. That's how I came to be here in the podcast. Twitter. Twitter and Jax, that's it. Are you really going to retire early, Will? No, I can't retire early. My son, William, is 10 years old. Yeah. So I have another eight years until he is out of high school. Another four years after that,
So public math,
public math,
John and I were talking about this earlier today,
public math,
12 years until my son is just out of his bachelor's degree.
Yeah.
And I'll be 65.
Yeah.
So in 12,
in 12 years,
I will be a public math.
64,
two,
three,
63.
I'll be 63.
So I'm not retiring until I'm 63.
I'm next in line,
Markisan I'm under a year.
I knew it was coming, but I'm under a year. Under a year. That's great. So leaving in under a year, but I'm under a year. So for the federal government standpoint, I have 20 years of service in the federal government and I am over the age of 50. I can retire early, but I will be fleeced. Yeah, you can't. You got to stick around. Yeah, I got to stick around. Like I there's I and I'll be worth between my Marine Corps retirement and federal. You'll be doing all right. Yeah. No, I'll be doing OK. I'll probably make more money retirement.
now. Yeah. But I have to wait. Yeah. Get away. I'm next. I'm, I'm due in less than a year. Will I go? Probably not. But keep in mind what made mine possible. Cause I'm only 53 is cause my wife is like older than me and she retarded and a legit retirement age and we get our healthcare for through her. And I've been with the state of California for 22 years. So I'm not making nearly what it was when I was working, but we're doing all right. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard to pass up though. Jay. It's really,
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm really surprised about not playing music. I'm really surprised by that. Yeah, it surprised me too. As pretty much obsessed with, you know, Randy Rhodes and all the stuff you've been doing like the last year in terms of, you know, learning Randy stuff and practicing stuff. I don't know, it's just kind of fun to be a fan again. Like I think it's something that you'll, it'll be hard, John will know. And what I mean is when you retire, suddenly you start to remember what you felt like when you were 12, 10 and you didn't have to fucking do anything.
And I do lots of stuff, but my schedule is so wide open now that I'm not, I don't know, I just don't have a lot of drive. That feeling may come up later on for me, Jay. I think there's kind of an obligation to it too, because even if you just start a song or whatever, you kind of want to finish it. Because I think about this, I mean, I'm not close to retiring, but, you know, I think about writing, you know, would I still write comics if I was retired or would I just stop?
I think I might just stop just to do what you're saying like I just want to listen to music hang out like it's so much fun to just be solely a fan of music yeah I kind of get it and by the way it's made my listening experience sort of deeper like I use my imagination a lot more like I did when I was a kid you know it's cool yeah okay so we'll talk about how I got here which was through that band in that so we've made our record in 2015
And I actually found George just because I was looking for people to review it. I was like, hey, dude, would you review my record? Because I liked some of his reviews I read and things. And he wrote me back and said, I'm kind of not totally doing that that much anymore. But how he said, how about this? We're doing a podcast. Why don't you come on the podcast? And we'll do that. And that was when we still played music on the podcast. So we played a couple songs from the record.
But more importantly, leading up to the day, George and I were chatting via email a lot and discovering that we had similar experiences and how we discovered heavy music and, you know, and just became friends and stuff. And one thing, George is the only one I've ever told this, and I can't imagine he doesn't remember it, but he might not, which was about, it had been a while, I'd gone through, my brother had died.
And meeting George was like one of the first like new people that kind of entered my life. And then I was like, Hey, here's this cool new friend of mine. And it just sort of felt like after this kind of loss, like to have, you know, like a new person come in and it was like a kind of a big deal to me. So, um, and that was, I mean, after I'd been on the podcast for a while, but I just mean to say that, you know, we hit it off like you'd like the rest of you guys. And, um, I think pretty quickly after the,
We did the episode that I was on. I mean, I think it was sort of like, do you want to come back? And I was like, yeah. I was like, I'd love to keep coming back. And we just, it was that quick. We were just like, yeah, fuck it. Let's just keep going. Yeah. That was the joke that Jay came on, do an interview and never left. And we started that next episode, which was introductions. And then I say, Hey, and I'm still here. And if I remember right, I said, I've been sitting here in front of my computer. I wouldn't know where everybody went for the last two weeks. But, um, and the cool thing was,
So my first episode as a cast member was we interviewed Ice Dirt singer John Barlow. John Bonham? Isn't that funny? Matt Barlow. Matt Barlow. I was like John Bonham was the drummer for Led Zeppelin. Well I said John Barlow. Oh Barlow. Yeah Matt Barlow. It's actually Matt's brother that was on here that day. John Barlow. And that was cool and
And then we just, you know, and by that time, we just decided I was going to stick around and we all chatted and stuff. So that's pretty cool, Jay. Like, yeah, my first interview was Matt Barlow. It was cool. That's really cool. My first interview being, uh, uh, what was it, Matt? Uh, Lilker. That's pretty cool too. That's awesome. I was thinking the same thing when you said that. And I was like, I didn't even think about that because at that point I was just used to having people on, but you don't think about the people that are new in the room and going. Yeah.
Wow, that's very cool. Yeah, and that was, yeah, well, in any case, and that was it, you know, and just, and then obviously we've all been a group of friends since then. I kind of don't, my conception of the podcast is that we've all been here the whole time somehow. That's the way it feels, yeah. Yeah, so, and especially now hearing Markisan saying that he's been here six years, which seems wrong to me somehow. But that's six of the ten, so. I think I'm thinking of, John, you can bear,
me out on this that Neil Peart liked to complain that, you know, even 40 years in, he was still the new guy, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it also helps when the rest of your bandmates tell you you're the new guy 40 years in. Yes, that's right. So the only other thing I'll mention is then there were, of course, these, and we'll talk, we're going to talk about some memories next. So we, so it's the plan, but you know, then there was like the first time I got to meet George in person. And then the first time I got the rest,
I remember hugging you at Dulles Airport. Yeah. I remember we stopped and ate and had hush puppies. And I don't remember what our main dish was. We got hush puppies as an appetizer. At Dulles? I think it was at that World of Beer that's not around anymore. The one out there. Holy smokes. One thing about being in a band, it's so hard to keep a band together. It's so hard because somebody's always a prick or something. Or has real life
problems or pain or whatever the fuck it is. So I value those places in my life. Like I am the most loyal motherfucker in the world. And so if I can have, you know, five good friends for this long with no drama, that's not that easy to do, dude, to find five people like that. Our drama is so minimal too. It's like Will and I fight over Clutch and Opeth. I mean, that's our drama. Yeah. That's pretty easy.
There's a funny joke, and it's a religious thing. I'm not a religious man, but I always liked this joke, which was the most hard, the most difficult thing to believe about the Bible was that Jesus had 12 good friends when he was 30 years old. And I mention that only because we're a band. And I think about that all the time, about the parallels between a crew of podcast dudes and a band and the problems you have.
I mean, even now we still have them. They're just not dramatic ones. It's just scheduling problems and, you know, things, the things that come up. And it's just like, oh, it's like being in a band. I can never get Will to fill out his shift at the fucking recycling center. I'm always constantly juggling that. Just talk to Juan. It's rare. I don't even know who Juan is. Juan Darpanis? Juan Darpanis. It's nice, though, dude.
It's nice to know you've got a group of six friends and you can get together without fear that somebody's going to blow up. But here's the key. And when John was over earlier tonight and we were watching some Bill Burr and then after that we kind of talked about Dennis Leary a little bit and then after he left I was watching a little Dennis Leary. And you know what the key is? Come out. The key to a good marriage is you come out, you talk to each other, you
Fuck. And then you go back in your same different bedrooms. And that's us. Come out. Come in. John and I were the closest of the six of us. John and I were the closest. And we see each other like once a month-ish. Yeah. Depending on the schedule. Typically pre-game before something like this. Every time. You know what the key is? I don't see George every day. I don't see Jay. If I saw Jay every day, like my dick would be so sore. I'm mad in the situation.
How many snuggies does a man need? If I see Markisan, good God, how many times do I need to be tackled in a parking lot every day? 57 times. Yes, 57 times. The key is you stay the fuck away from each other, you come together once a month, you love each other, and then you go the fuck back home. Yet we still talk to each other even though we're at home 24-7, which is funny. For sure, for sure. That's nice. It's just nice.
It all blew out of me saying how I came to the podcast. And it's why, you know, I immediately had a connection with George when I met him. And I was like, this is going to be my friend, you know, and then you guys. And then we all became friends, you know, of course. No, no, it's, it's really special. You know, I really appreciate it. I can't even imagine not doing the podcast. Like, it would be such a huge, huge monumental absence in my life now. So I just look forward to seeing you guys. You'd be like a temple of void.
Yeah.
Yeah, we had a couple more sections, but we can just skip those that, you know. Let's do the Metal Memories. I think we go right to Metal Memories. I think we've covered those other two sections. I think you're right. I did this, but I'm going to say it's just that one of my highlights was that decibels. All right, well, let me, I want to introduce voicemails again before we do it. I apologize, please. No, no, it's quite all right. All right, before we move on to the next piece, let's do another batch of voicemails.
Metal Heads Podcast. Keith B here from Dripseed Records, Arctic Sleep, Unearthed Elf, Chopping Mall, all that shit. Congratulations on making it through a decade of real, actual podcasting. Love the show and appreciate your support over the years. Keep doing what you do for 7 million years.
Hey guys, this is Chris aka Neutrino. I go way back with the Metalheads podcast news. I am the OG fan, okay, before anybody else was. Everybody else is second or worse and they're all posers. I was there when it was just the Metalheads podcast and the Metal Sucks podcast, which sucks. And I love you all. Congrats on the 150th episode. I've been to Valken with George. I met Matt there.
They're my bros forever. I love all the other guys. J, Will, Marcus, John, John. I've been to NDS with you guys and Decibel and all sorts of other shit. And I wish you 150 more. Keep it sick. Hey, this is Trevor Portz from Ashen Horde and Abhoria. And apparently one of the most frequent guests to the Metalhead podcast over the past 10 years. So, man.
And congrats, guys. Absolutely amazing. 150 episodes, 10 years. I mean, the fact that anything I've done has lasted that long makes me feel like anything anyone has done that's lasted that long is just kind of amazing. So, you know, remembrances, I have so many fond memories, ridiculous memories of things on the show. But, you know, I think back when I first got in touch with the gang, I had just put out the first Ashen Horde record,
which was like the first thing I'd really done all solo by myself it was kind of terrifying I put it out there in the world and I think it was the the website actually gave it a decent review and that's how we came into contact and I got invited onto the show and I'd never done a podcast I hadn't done an interview in a bazillion years because I hadn't really done much in terms of music in the interim since I was my probably late teens so I was fucking terrified I had no idea what to do I wasn't sure like did I need
to be this uber creepy metal guy or could I just be who I am which is certainly kind of the antithesis of the music I play and took about I think 30 seconds to realize that the normal me was going to be the one that was featured and you know the crew was super welcoming they asked ridiculous and hilarious questions which was awesome and you know not only was it great for the band and for me it was I made some really
good friends that I've kept all these years, met them in person, and am honored to still be part of the kind of extended family of the show. So that's that. Every time I put something out, I'm always excited to get to go on and talk about it, and even more so just to hang out with my friends and do my favorite thing in the world, and that is just talk about metal and, of course, be asked very strange questions by Will,
So anyway, that's it. That's my ramble for the day. Again, cheers to you all. So awesome. It's, again, I'm just so honored to be part of this. And here's to the next 10, next 150 episodes, of which I assume I will be a part of probably 100. So there you go. Take it easy.
Hello, George, Jay, Will, John, Matt, and Morkizan. This is Zach from Utkiaru calling on behalf of the band to congratulate you all on celebrating 10 years as a podcast. A very monumental achievement as both listeners and luckily enough that we have been able to be participants as well.
There's so much that we love about the podcast. Sharing beers, talking about classic rock and metal, of course, whether it be in person or virtually. We've always had a great time. I believe we have to give a special shout out to Keith from Arctic Sleep. I think as the story goes, he was the one who mentioned us to you guys.
And then I also believe that Matt was actually at one of our first shows at the Triple Rock in Minneapolis. And, you know, he didn't say that we sucked too bad. So glad that you were able to, or glad that you felt that we were good enough to continue to support. Because I remember for me personally, that was not a great show. The other two guys played great, but that was a rough one for me.
So, yeah, we definitely appreciate the support over the years and, you know, you guys having us on. Also got to give a special shout out to Will for always booking us at Atlas whenever we've come through. Straight up supporting one of our tours and creating a beer for us. That was a pretty unforgettable experience. So, yeah, on behalf of, you know, Ukiaru, myself, Dustin, and Noel, we just want to say congrats again.
And we hope that, you know, maybe we'll be able to continue to connect either, you know, at a show at Atlas or maybe meeting up at a future Decibel Fest. So, yeah, wish you guys all the best and continued success. And, yeah, here's to another 10 years. Cheers. And you're goddamn right. This is a hams. Cheers, guys.
Hey, Metalheads. It's TR, otherwise known as the Metalheads Butler. And I have to congratulate you on 10 years of serving up the metal. And as long as you're serving up the metal, I'm serving up the beer. So I appreciate being part of the Metalheads family. And I wish you as many years as you wish to keep doing this. And I have to say that 10 years,
The amount of consumption of metal and beer on your part is staggering in probably more than most third world countries. So you are to be commended. All right. I'll see you guys in the future. Bye.
the fucking years of the Metalhead podcast. Holy shit. Keep up the good work. Stay true to your family and your friends. Stay in school. Fight school, that is. Never, ever stop fighting. Never stop lifting fucking weights. And it's to ten more years. No. No.
A HUNDRED MORE YEARS OF THE METALHEADS FUCKING PODCAST! MOTHERFUCKERS!
I'd say first and foremost, all the times we got together. Absolutely. Always been a highlight. Which has really been quite a few times, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know about you guys. I actually put a list together. I don't know if you guys did that or not. No, go for it. I don't want to cut anyone off. Do you want me to do my real quick? I mean, they all kind of, all right. I don't want to be rude. I'm sorry. I apologize. Be rude. Do it. I'll do them really quick, but they, most of them apply to you guys. Meaning the reason,
is why I put them on here. Obviously, my first appearance on the podcast is a metal memory. All right. So let's get that away. Here we go. The chicken's first appearance. Nice. That was important to me. Hold on. Wait for it. Wait for it. The chicken's first appearance. The chicken's not working, George. What do you mean the chicken's not working? I don't hear it. He's on. Can you hear me? He can hear you. We don't hear the chicken.
You don't hear that? Just keep pumping and choking that chicken. Well, it's working on my end. We can all say literally, we hear nothing. We just see you choking. Choking. Over and over. Wow, his eyes got really big. Choking the chicken. All right, my next one. Will stripping naked during the year-end episode and possibly dry-humping George. Possibly. Possibly. Allegedly.
I have no recollection of that. That's why I said possibly George, Will, and I freezing our asses off at Drake while watching Horrendous. Yep. All right. These are all decibel related, so it applies to all of us. The first decibel, metal and beer with George and I and Will at 2017. So the first year we took over the couch, me, Jay, Will, and Looch, we took over the couch at the Sheridan, now the Marriott. First decibel with all of us together. Awesome. First decibel, we took over the back room at Monks.
and all ordered a Pliny on the first round. Yes. All right. Keep it going. First time I drove by Matt in an Uber and flipped them off and told him to go fuck himself. Matt is laughing. Recording on an Airbnb boat that Jay and John BT had where Will bled all over a white leather couch only to say in the middle of recording, wait, are we recording an episode right now? That which led to Jay operating
on his elbow at the hotel the next morning. That's right. Thank you, James, for creating that memory for all of us. Yes, and he does mention that. Yes, James. All right, two more. James, you bitch. Matt Markison and I leaving the fest early in 2023 for taco dinner and then a laid-back music beer session at the hotel, which eventually led to this year's day off day one that we did. And then this last podcast, or last Decimal Fest,
Minus Jay, unfortunately, we wish you were there, Jay, was by far my favorite because we had so many people that came and hung out with us that were listeners as well as us. It really was. This last one was special for me. Oh, yeah. It was hard leaving Philly that weekend. It was. And I didn't even care that I missed the first day at the venue because it was Markisan a TR and I, and we just kind of bounced around. We had the amazing TR revelation. He was not going to be the
which was he'll never he doesn't have to lift that down he needs to embrace it hell yeah we found another great bar to hang out in that was 10 times better than the place we were going by yep what's the name what's the name of that place john and i were like glory glory glory oh how did i forget that yeah how did we forget that's the word you probably say most well yes i mean you usually had a hole but the hole is silent
I'm going to list off a few because you've knocked in my memory. One is the decibel I didn't mention but it was just so fun taking over that couch and just being a pain in the ass all day long and drinking with Carcass and Dan Lilker and Jay rubbing the guy from At The Gates wrong. Hey look there's the guys from At The Gates. Yeah. And what he says to me is yeah I've never heard that fucking one before so fine. Highlight for me honestly Will meeting Looch. I love Looch so much.
I just consider him a really good friend and that was a fun weekend with Looch. Love staying in a hotel with Looch. We still text each other and stuff. Incomparable weekend with Matt in Vegas. I just that was like such a fun fucking time. We had so much fun. Saw great music but also just enjoyed the shit out of each other's company. Got married. Walked 20 miles and fucking had a blast. That time when I still think I got my head about that time when I met Looch. I was
meeting Will at the hotel. And this would have been the cool decibel, the carcass decibel. They're all cool. But anyway, I remember walking through the door and I reached out to shake his hand. He said, get the fuck out of here and gave me a big hug. He was like, what the fuck are you trying to shake my hand for? And I just have a lot of little memories like that where it's nice to have your friends. You know what I mean? And then the only one I'll mention is for some reason at the end of one night at a decibel, me and TR,
started to annoyingly decide we were going to talk with a Wisconsin accent for about an hour.
And I am sure we fucking must have pissed off George.
And, uh,
Was that post-tripticon?
Yeah.
By the time we got home, I was like, these two must fucking hate us.
Like, I don't know why we took off on this thing, but we were like, yeah, they got that, uh, beard deal down there.
You know, we just did this for like a fucking hour all the way back in the Uber.
And then, I know.
Oh, and then also the one Trevor was at.
And I think that was that one.
And then we kind of tried to crash that wedding. Remember there was a wedding there? There's always a wedding there for some reason. Me and Trevor's buddy went in and just started to help ourselves at the bar. And we're like wearing metal shirts. And he was kind of a mean looking motherfucker, but the nicest fucking guy in the world. And I remember these two guys come up to me and they're like, come on guys, it's a wedding. And they kind of had this sort of like, we're going to kick your ass, but please don't take us up on that kind of thing going. It was hilarious, dude. Just like we were, and we weren't.
you know whatever but there's always these little things like that mixed in you know that are just a good time and i love that guy too justin was his name maybe trevor's yeah from uh weaponizer yeah yeah jordan jordan jordan yeah really like getting to know that guy so anyway just lots of little things like that for me and none of those were even on the air moments by the way which maybe is relevant it's kind of the key yeah um i got some well
I had a couple. You guys said a lot of them already, but first one, Chasing Rainbows, Nuff said. Look at that rainbow over there. Whoa, check it out. Yeah, these first two are mine, but then I've got some more. Deciding that I was going to go to sleep, seemed like I fell off the chair. You did fall off the chair. And I was gone for like 15 minutes, and I came back stronger than me.
than ever to finish the cast. Immortalized now in Decimal Magazine where I did Reader of the Month. So that was pretty cool. Being on the show for the first time, I already detailed that earlier. Jay drunkenly breaking into MDF by slipping through a fence like he's made out of Vaseline and then later passing out by a dumpster. Which, by the way, what I'm most proud of about that was I had a fucking ticket.
You were so determined. I was like, Jay, I don't want to go through it. We're almost to the front. He's like, I don't want to wait. I'm going in. Four whole minutes. I could not fit through that fence. By the way, I don't mean to step in there, but the best part about the falling asleep by the dumpster was to be discovered by two medical crew. The cops. Who were like, you all right? And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm sleeping, man. You know what I mean? And they really checked me over and gave me a bottle of water. But to their credit, they weren't like, get the fuck out of here. They were just, they gave me a bottle.
They understood. Yeah. Yeah. Um, also, um, at MDF, just being able to park those two cars together and hanging out in the parking lot and then meeting people there coming. I thought that was really, really great. It was like, um, you get to be at the show, but you also get to hang out at the same time. You know, it was, uh, that was phenomenal. Um, same show. I have a couple MDF ones actually. Uh, Matt got his wallet song, which sucked. Yeah. But later,
A fucking beefcake albino fucking found it and then Tony awesome. He was fabulous how that connection was made I was there when it was stolen and I don't know how did we post it online there was a group in the MDF chat thing on Facebook yeah Jeff Jeff had tagged me on Facebook because somebody had written and just spelled out my name saying they had my license so but man credit for that too though because that was literally right when car
came out, Matt felt the hand go in his pocket or whatever. And it was like, and, but then, and he was like, that person just stole my wallet. And he goes, but fuck it. Carcass is on. Like literally was just like, look at priorities. He did this math. You saw it in his eyes. He was like, do I want to ruin my night right now? I do. Nah, let's go. I looked around a little bit and I was like, you know what? I'll just bump a moment. I'll be fine. It's carcass, you know? So, um, we got your back. The crazy, the crazy thing was that people took the one card that I could cancel from,
my phone. That's what they actually used at a restaurant.
And all I had to do was decline it. Otherwise, yeah,
like everything was still left in my, in my wallet.
Yeah.
That was unfortunate. Yeah. So cool.
Yeah. Smart. Yeah. He was awesome. Smart thief.
Yes.
Running a 40 yard dash in the parking lot and then tackling will.
That was the highlight. I know that was not a highlight at the time,
I was sitting in the passenger seat of the vehicle. Thanks for picking on a cancer patient. Yeah. Listen, I think you should be happy because I didn't discriminate. I didn't feel sorry for you. I knew you could. You were like, make a wish my ass. Well, Will was not pleased. He wasn't. Yeah. I mean, if you're blindsided by some. I hear him at almost.
200, 300 pound, little Indonesian dude. Five foot two. Sorry, five foot three. You know, these stubby little legs. I was sitting in the passenger seat of whoever's vehicle. It might have been Will's vehicle. It was mine. Yeah. But you weren't in the driver's seat. I was standing outside. My own business. Yeah. And you were talking to me out the window. And so I see this. I see Mark is on barreling towards you.
I'm like, oh, this is not going to end well. But not with like enough time to actually say anything. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. I would have had I had enough time to say something, but I didn't understand what was happening until too late. And I was just, it's like, you know, he's there at the window talking to me and all of a sudden, boom, he's gone. And I'm like, low, low center of gravity just destroyed me. And we just all lost it in the car. He had a mohawk.
So he streamlined. It was like the Mohawk. It was like a imagine if he had a full head of hair, he'd be at least a mile. A little drag when I saved you a little bit. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. And then we just kind of drove away in your car somehow. I don't know. Maybe you got in and drove. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. I don't remember. I was driving anywhere. Yeah, probably not. I think I think I got really sick later. Maybe John drove. John, did you drive his car?
I know I was is that the one where I only know no like I dry dry dry it was just uh yeah between uh the the high velocity impact splatter and the high speed will high speed yeah yeah that was dick move I apologize again but also it's pretty funny now it was it was like a tigger kind of like I'm gonna hop on you because I love you
It was. It was all of love. Oh, I know. I got up. I smiled. I just didn't walk up. Let's see. I really, really obviously love the fact that we became friends, but also meeting other people on the podcast. I've really, really enjoyed that. And I've fostered other relationships through that, like John and JR from Brimminghorn and Made the Mead for
the horns my comic and um i just thought we're doing another one by the way
i don't know if anybody knows that we're doing no we're doing another one like we did before
and then we're doing a barrel aged version and we're going to do a villains graphic on on that one
sweet what's that happening hope i can get them in virginia because they can't ship to virginia
anymore oh well i'll get someone else and my order is being held up right now what the motion really
John's making it now. So the first one will be done. I don't know. A few months, probably. That's awesome, man. Follow after that. So, you know, John, I've been wanting to do like a road trip to Delaware with you and will to just go to Birmingham and, you know, spend the weekend at the beach and drink as a mead and beer. And I'm going to tell you right now that can happen. However, Jen will be on that trip because she loves
She said, there is no way in hell you are going there with those guys before you go with me. That's fine. Jen's always welcome. I told her, I said, well, we'll have to go as one big happy. We'll get in our camper and we'll go out there. Yeah, you should. My friend Ben from the endless metal podcast. We met him at the last festival. You met him. I didn't get to meet him. Oh, you weren't there. I was not. I met him. Where were you? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. You met him. So him and Jeff.
So Ben does not live that far and he's like, I gotta go to Braminghorn. So to try to set that up. He's a really cool guy. I'm actually going on their podcast again tomorrow. I was like, Oh my God. Where does he live? It's pretty close to Philly. I'm not exactly the, I don't know the exact location. I think they're up that way. All right. Hold on. Well, yeah, you know, at some point we'll have to, to meld the podcasts with them. Yeah. Well, you know, um,
Will's not here. He's 90 minutes away. He actually sent me a map. Where the hell is this guy? They're good guys. They were super friendly when I met them. Yeah, they're cool. I don't know where that is. Yeah, they're cool. No, I have them on the list for potential guests for the podcast with a bunch of other things. It's all on the Google Drive. Let's see. I talked about that. Oh, so I was talking about people that I've met on the podcast.
And Keith D, Arctic Sleep, also did the soundtrack for By the Horns. And Trevor did some music for the short story that I wrote. And I talk to those guys a lot, like text those guys. And I never would have met them if not for the podcast. And also working with Matt, because Matt did the graphics for both of those. And now we've been working on a lot of graphics for the Metal Eds podcast. Some amazing stuff. Well done, Matt.
So, yeah, I was doing those graphics myself. I was like, why am I doing this when I have a master just sitting over here? So, I mean, I think that's, I like that because obviously enjoy talking about metal and doing this podcast, but the fact that we can merge some of our other like disciplines and loves into that has been, yeah, it's pretty rewarding for me. I like that. And I want to bring that out of Matt because he's so talented.
So I want him to do more stuff like that. So that's been a big, big thing for me. But and then John mentioned him. I absolutely loved that day off. I would I mean, I think it was one of the best decisions we made just to hang out. You know, I love seeing bands. But for me going to these these festivals, it's really about seeing you guys. You know, I can see bands anytime. So taking that day off and just hanging out and having fun.
And the one before, you know, we had tacos and those were great. That's my favorite, favorite time. So I love seeing the bands. But if we can have some quality time together, I really appreciate it. I want to also Melissa and Gamork at Gloria. I made a friend there and I got Gamork to go, which I'll probably have on year end. I was going to have it here. I'm going to save Gamork for the for the year end. Yeah. Gloria was awesome. I love that.
that place. So speaking of the crossover with Endless, a couple weeks ago, Will and I received a message from Nick Green of Decibel requesting a crossover episode or episodes with the Requiem guys. And so keep an eye out or ear out for that, because hopefully that will happen at some point.
Everybody involved was like, oh, fuck, oh, so, you know, we'll do it. Nice. Very cool. There's no way to know this, but it would be interesting. So, somebody ballpark it. So, the podcast's been going for 10 years. Our shortest tenure member is six years. How many concerts do you think we've seen combined? Not necessarily together. Oh, shit. And all that time. Three or four. Yeah. Couple, two, three.
Three or four. I mean, I see probably an average one a month. So it's got to be 500 to a thousand. A lot. Yeah, it's a lot between all of us. We are so metal. And then if you did number of bands, because if you go to a show, you usually see like three, four bands. Think about all the bands we've seen. That's insane. It's a lot. Could we be any more metal? No. The answer is no. That's right. And so another two.
2014 fact.
Because to me, this doesn't seem like something that changes
often, but we've been through three presidents of the
United States on this podcast.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Dang.
Jay, what the fuck?
That was a fact.
It's like.
Just simply that it's odd.
Well, it's just a fact.
It's a totally different view of things.
Yeah.
Obama was president when I first came on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, before we move on to the next item, here's some more voicemails. You're welcome.
in my metal journey. Every episode, I'm learning about a new band, or even ones that have been around but never came across my radar, and I ended up loving. Congrats again on 10 years, and I hope we get at least 10 more. Spin it metal, guys. Hey, it's Jeff Gresham. I just wanted to wish you guys a happy 10 years, and let you know how happy I am to have discovered you via my husband, Jeff. With every one of you having distinct taste in music, even I, someone new into exploring the heavier metal genres,
can find something I'll enjoy as well. The first time I met you, we met on the boat in Philly. We recorded an episode and drank a few beers. Since then, we've met up every year to hang out at Decibles and have a pliny at Monk's. I have always felt welcome. You guys are just as cool in person as you are on the podcast. I appreciate you for what you do for the metal scene, and I can't wait to see you guys again this year. See you in April. What up, Metalheads Podcast? It's Justin, a.k.
the doctor of death metal thank you bitch you met for that moniker um i'm calling to
congratulate you guys on 10 years um it's pretty sweet um especially george you know keeping this
whole thing going and all the time that all you guys put in especially him um yes i just uh sufficiently baked
And I'm relenting to George's harassment of leaving voicemails. So I'm going to do that. And, you know, I'm coming from a different angle. You know, I feel like I got to know you guys on a personal level. And that's pretty fucking cool. And, you know, especially George, like he's like not only a metal brother, but like a brother to me now. And I'm happy that all you guys are around doing this because it's,
It's awesome for dudes sitting alone in his basement. It's awesome for a dude like me who can go and hang out with you guys and chill. The fact that we can all speak the same language but all kind of have our own musical dialects is pretty awesome and engaging. I started being out of the scene and this podcast helped put me back in it in many ways.
You know, the stuff that I missed, the records that I ended up checking out, the shows I ended up going to, the, you know, again, like the people I met through the podcast, you know, Nick and Jeff and Steph and all of them, TR and yeah, it's just Eric, you know, Stacy, you know, all of them, all great people. And it's really cool. It's, you know, going from a listener to,
I know there are a lot of people probably like me that
you know
don't do that and I'm definitely
happy that I did and
yeah you guys
help me stay metal
and I love that shit and hopefully
I
make you a little bit more gayer
because
my bare dick water loves all of you guys
and loves metal
and
I can't wait to keep listening and hopefully maybe sometime beyond and be super picky about death metal. But I just hope you guys keep doing it and that I can be a part of it. So thank you. This is for Jay and Will and John and Matt and my Chicago show buddy, Marcuson, and my dear, dear, dear friend,
Fucking cheers to 10 years of metalhead podcast. More like metal babes. Am I right? Thanks for letting me talk about my vagina for four hours and for all of the good hangs and good conversation and great wrecks and great metal. You guys are the best. Cheers to another 10. Oh yeah, that was Stacy.
is.
Stacy.
Okay.
Thanks.
Love you.
Bye.
This is your Uber fan,
Nick and congrats on 10 years.
I found your podcast around 2016 by Googling best metal podcast.
I listened casually for a while,
but officially fell in love with the show around 2017 year end episode.
I've always been a whore for list.
Since then,
I've gone back and listened to all of your past episodes and look forward to each new one.
My all-time favorite episode was the chemist-dominated year-end list, with the pants being dropped and the dicks being flurped. I really look forward to your new Music Friday posts each week and have really established some of my greatest friendships through that Friday posting. I've had the honor to share beers with all of you, and you've been so cool to me. I appreciate you including me on your merrymaking when I've been around. Thanks for curating 50-plus years of metal.
for being such spectacular tastemakers. And thanks for letting me be a fly on the wall for all of your metal hangouts. Thank you, fellas. Congrats. Hello, boys. This is Eric Griffith. It's now Friday morning and, you know, I like to procrastinate. I was listening to a little big kettle decapitation on the way in and thought, Jesus, I better get this done. A little bit procrastinating a little bit is I'm a little nervous that I've only got, I think, three minutes.
And I don't know, there's something about that that just had me waiting to leave this message, even though I guess three minutes is actually a long time. That's probably two minutes more than I need for fulfilling sexual activity. But anyway, I think it's probably also just that I suppose you're going to play this on the podcast and I really don't want to say anything dumb or embarrassing. But anyways, I just wanted to say,
Thank you guys. I put you guys on when I'm driving and you put a smile on my face. Make me laugh. You guys are amazing. I found a podcast through my best friend there, Matt. I've been lucky to have Matt as my best friend since second grade. So Matthew, I know you're there. I love your brother. And the rest of you guys, you guys are amazing. I had a wonderful time out in Philadelphia getting to see you all, the love, the support. I love you guys.
Jay, I missed you. I heard you're busy mounting horses and kicking cactuses, so hopefully I'll get to see you the next time around. Anyways, thank you guys for everything. Love you. Happy 10th anniversary. Peace out, boys.
We weren't all on the podcast at this time. I know, George, you did it. I actually went to the site. I was going to say, did I do a list for this year? You did a top 100. Oh, Jesus. And you said you were having trouble with this. You actually put it on the website, top 100 with pictures and albums and everything. I'm old and forgetful and don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. I think it's George, Jay and Will did a 2014, right? You know, I have a 2014 list. No, I have a 2014 list.
but it's not on the website my list is not on the website i didn't give a shit about you back then did it oh i that's another thing i i we were talking about earlier i'm going to bring it up now because uh it was talking about the whole like writing reviews and stuff i think it was during jay when he was talking about asking about reviews and um we did do this stuff but you know what else we did not we but will did he did the brew heads columns yeah oh no no
He did. He wrote beer reviews initially for a while. And they were called Brewheads because we were Metalheads and Brewheads. That's right. And yeah, I just wanted to give a shout out to Will about that as well. So when I think about it, I think it was just George and Will that did 2014 because Jay, you came right after that, I think. That's correct. Yeah. It's one of the things we talked about when I was first on the show was George's List.
Yeah. I don't see the list. It's not. I can't find it either, George. I can send it to you guys. I just Googled it. I didn't look on the website. It comes up on Google. So I don't know if maybe like it went away. No, I remember that list. 100 best albums of 2014. That's a lot. Send me that link. I want to see how it compares to my list. There's got to be a lot of shit on that list. How do I chat? Or let me get into my thing and then I can get the list for you. Okay.
I got it.
Just I'll put it.
Yeah.
If you Google it,
it's easy to find.
So I thought this was really fun to revisit 2014 because I had actually done a top 25 back then before I knew you guys.
But the cool part of doing it now is that I can edit that if I want to.
I could do a list again,
change it up based on 10 years of reflection on albums or how my taste in metal has morphed.
And so I,
when I sat down,
I thought I probably would do that.
I expected that I would change up the list,
but in the end,
I think most of the albums on my top 10 back then actually stuck
around.
So I also found some descriptions from 2014 that I liked that I did for
some of these albums too,
which was fun to dig up.
And that segues right into number 10 for me,
which is thou heathen from Gilead media.
And this is what I wrote about it 10 years ago. The fourth full-length album from Thou is a grinding, relentless attack of sonic agoo and grandeur. Gorgeous acoustic and ambient passages give way to walls of heaviness that always seem to hold up a melody, even as the guitars continually melt hot like a marshmallow sliding off an upside-down s'more. This is an ambitious and terrifying metal treat that bubbles with sorrowful energy.
Heathen was my number 12. On the top 100 that you didn't know that you had put up there. Yeah I remember it now and it's funny because my list now the first two are the same and then after that it's like completely different and I'm like oh shit I didn't realize a couple of these I didn't see when I went look back I'm like oh well yeah that should be on my list. It's funny you were looking for reference like what was happening in 2014 and you
You already done it. Yeah. That's how when you get old, you get forgetful. It's so fucking awesome, though. I have so many lists. I can't remember them all. Anyway. All right. Matt. Yo, my number 10 primordial where greater men have fallen. I wrote nothing about it. So you're getting nothing. You get nothing. It's time to die.
All right, John.
Man, that's such a great scene.
Yes.
From Blade Runner.
Time to die.
It's the best.
Yeah, you appreciate that too, Marcus.
That's my favorite scene ever.
Yeah.
So this is the only year end I haven't been on so far since the podcast has started.
Although I did have a list, it's significantly different than my list in 2014.
Yeah.
So it is more metal and less prog.
Go figure
Anyway
So my number 10
Temple of Void
Of Terror
And the Supernatural
Their debut album
Killer
Killer
Crushing
Doom
Death
Metal
Oh
A lot of
Sorry
I'm
I'm looking at my old list
And laughing
Because
I had a Wayfarer
The Wayfarer album
On there 10 years ago
I hate those guys
Wow
Well it's funny too
Because John mentions that album. I was quiet because I'm trying to remember that album. It wasn't on my top 20 or something, but I probably liked it. I can't remember that particular one. I've got to go back and spin it. Yeah. Temple of Order is number 79. And my number 10 is my number 80. Things have changed, clearly. Just a bit, George. Just a tad. All right. So we'll have to circle back. Apparently. Jay?
Mine is a band that I had a whole lot of hope for at the time. And this turned out to be the only record that ever made I liked. Shmash, Contradiction. Yeah. I really expected such big things from these guys. And just immediately the next record was just shoegaze bullshit. Garbage. And then they started going downhill after that. But this first record was great. And well, there you go. And it remains good. You know, but there it is. My number 10. Ail Storm, Sunset,
on the golden age. Really? Pirate metal, power metal. This was my number 80 in 2014. Now it's my number 10. Solely on the strength of the song Drink. Because that is my favorite drinking song of all time. I've seen them live. Their shows are quite wild. And then you left immediately.
until the orange duck flew out. The big old blow-up duck. It was an orange, like, you know, little yellow duck from the tub when you're a little kid. Yeah. It was a giant one that flew off the stage. It just bounced around for like 10 minutes. I was like, okay, I've seen enough of this. All right. Well, Marcus, what's your number nine? I was just trying to remember my favorite drinking song. Was it Woad? No, it was Woatan. And when it goes, drink from the skull of your father. You will drink.
from your dead father's skull.
I don't know.
I've always,
always stuck with me.
I don't really listen to a lot of Wotan,
but that song is pretty,
pretty rad.
I like the Amon of Marth one.
They,
I forget what it's called now,
but they had a good drinking one on a couple albums ago.
Will,
what's your number 10?
Uh,
number 10 albums,
2014.
Awesome.
Okay.
Um,
okay.
My list was more of kind of a, you know, 10 years gone. It's a little bit of a fanboy list. But my number 10 right now is Judas Priest, Redeemer of Souls. Interesting. Might hear that one tomorrow. Maybe. I might, yeah. I mean, not, it was, this, this album is not nearly as good as, what is it called, John? Invincible? Invisible. Invisible. Invisible.
I think it's invisible. Invisalign. I know Jay likes Redeemer of Souls a lot. Hey, I'm going to say this. I think Redeemer of Souls is underrated. I'm not saying it's underrated. I mean, it's my number 10. I mean, it's a great album. But what's weird is when I look at the new album now, like, you know, it's not that good. It's not as good. It's not that good. It's as good. Not a lot is as good as this new one. I'm telling you.
All right, nice. I knew it was going to come up at some point. I sure do like the way you riff your guitar. Mm-hmm. Okay. Sometimes the boys just got to riff that guitar. All right. Well, I guess we're going back to me because we had to. Yes. So number nine for me is Agaloc, the serpent and the sphere. Nice. And in 2014, this is what I wrote.
The First Descriptor that comes to mind when I listen to The Serpent and the Sphere is Elegant. This record is a meditative merge of folk and black metal alchemy. Beautiful passages of finger-picked guitar passages, soft keyboards and harmonies, and instrumental murmurs serve as serene seismic shifts before the earthquakes come. When Agalak does unleash the tremors, the contrast is undeniably stirring, like the mythic Norse monster Jormungur, who is destined to rap,
Its serpentine scales around the earth. The tracks on this great saga will continually coil around your brain with each listen. All right. But it's great to listen to these albums again because like I didn't listen to that one in a long time. Yeah. I agree. Good exercise. All right, Matt. My number nine, Cannibal Corpse, a skeletal domain. Uh-huh. Indeed.
I think that'll come up again. I think so. John. All right. My number nine. Horrendous. Ectasis. Oh, wow. Their second full-length album. Missed that one, too. Yep. All right. The Tasty album. Tasty. Well. Sir, what are we doing? Number nine? Yes, sir. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine
and overkill, White Devil Armour. Nice. All right. Nice. My number nine is, I really loved this band's previous record, but they were still kind of on a hot streak. Goofy as fuck, but super fun. Trollfest, Captain Chaos. Trollfest right around this time and Boom Blah Bossom was the other good one. It was so great to see live and such a fun band on record.
Nice.
My number nine, Corrosion of Conformity.
And their album, Nine.
This was, Pepper Keenan had left the band, not left, but he was on a hiatus to go back to down, I think.
And Mike Dean took back the vocal duties that he had previously done before Pepper joined the band.
And this was a very rockin' COC, like old school, it was a little more hardcore punky.
album than the Pepper stuff. So, yeah. That kind of shit speaks to you, George, for sure. Yes, it does. All right, number eight. All right, number eight for me is Tomb's Savage Gold relapse record. This is by far my favorite Tomb's album. Oh, yeah. And I had a real blast re-listening to this. It was in my top 10 in 2014, and this is what I wrote about it then.
Rampage of drums rarely stop, even as Mike Hill pours his acid vocals over the top like a xenomorph bleeding all over a space freighter. There are brief moments when Toomes lets you rest on sound pillows of atmospheric decay, but then the crush motor chugs back to life, and the pummeling of double bass pedal and sludge razor sonics resumes. Savage Gold is ten rounds of no-nonsense, grim aggression that will leave you battered but begging for more.
And FYI,
Mike meeting Mike Hill at decibel was also probably a memories list.
Oh,
yes.
Absolutely.
He was great.
I actually just came upon,
I was looking through some old photos and there's a J lookalike photo.
We did.
Yeah,
that's right.
That's right.
We were at the upstairs venue for that.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh,
I thought it was Igor.
You and Igor.
Are you filming?
You silly kid
All right, Matt
All right, number eight already mentioned horrendous
Ignesis
Yes
John
All right
I think in this one will be mentioned at least one more time. My number eight is Paul Bearer foundations of burden
I can't imagine anybody else listing that
Probably my favorite from them
But I have an interesting relationship with all their I like their stuff but I never know how much I like it but I do like this one a lot so the last one is obvious yeah yeah I was gonna type well my number eight incantation dirges of Elysium nice my number eight primordial where greater men have fallen I thought about that one it's two
It's good.
Yeah.
You know what else is two?
My number eight, Judas Priest Redeemer of Souls.
That's three twos so far.
I'm glad.
I'm glad.
Nice.
Going after that one.
Nice.
All right.
Mark us on.
Yeah.
My number seven, we'll just mention it.
Incantation Dirges of Elysium on listenable records.
So I'll say a little bit about it.
So everybody knows that I love incantation.
What?
But.
This album was not in my top 10 in 2014. It came in a bit lower when I did that list before, but on
reflection, this album has risen higher in the ranks for me and just in my esteem over the years.
Cause it really, it like, it continued to return to form for the band that started on Vanquished and Vengeance, which is the record right before that a couple of years, I think maybe 2012.
And this was, for me, Incantation's best record since The Infernal Storm in 2000. So I like all their albums, but the albums they released in that 14-year span are definitely my least favorite in the catalog. So Dirge has really got them out of that kind of solid but less memorable period, I would say. So this album is savage, murky devastation delivered through a direct
sewer line, but it has a phenomenal guitar tone on it. Not like any of the other records, I don't think. And a lot more harmonized guitar passages that I think just separates this album from the previous ones. And they also do this massive 16-minute doom epic at the end, which was a little bit surprising because they hadn't done a mammoth closer like that since Diabolical Conquest. And so, yeah, love it.
Roll it. Mate.
Yidoki already mentioned.
My number seven, Temple of Void of Terror and the Supernatural.
All natural.
Nice to hear the Void Temple coming up again.
Yeah.
Nice.
All right, John.
All right, my number seven, I am going to guess that this will not be on anyone else's list, and that's okay.
But George got me to listen to this. And you'll know why in a second. But my number seven is the debut album from Honest Grossman, the Radio Covenant, a.k.a. pre-alkaloid album, which I remember George saying. Dork Farkas? Not Dork Farkas. This is alkaloid, pre-alkaloid. I remember George saying, well, if you like alkaloid, has anyone checked out the new or Honest Grossman's album before this? And I hadn't. I went and listened. I was like.
What? This is amazing. So this is Hannes Grossman's first foray on his own, but literally everyone from Alkaloid is guesting on this album at some point. So. Can I also say that Dork Fartress should be on the Metal Memories, because that's a really good one that has endured. They no longer exist anymore, either. They're done. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Well, because I called them Dork Fartress, they got probably upset and decided we're not going to go any further. We can't go past this.
We got to be careful about these things. That's a good point. I'm kind of bummed because I like Dark Fortress a lot. I see there's no pleasing you. What? All right. Will. We at seven? Yes, sir. Eight. Obituary. Inked in Blood. Nice. If Obituary puts on an album, it's going to be on my list. That's weird.
Your List, Your List, It's On Your List. Mine is Judas Priest, Redeemer of Souls. There it is. Another one. It contains one of my favorite post-Rob comeback songs, which is Sword of Damocles. That's a great song. And John, I know you don't like spoilers, but that's the one they pulled out one night only in the store so far. But I don't think they're going to... I know the list tomorrow, John. We've got one more day to go. Well, you're not going to hear it.
out once. And that didn't work. But it's a shame because I love that song. I listened to it. It's a great song. A stronger record than it gets credit for. Richie's whole era. First, first, first, first, first, first, first, first, first, first, first, first, first, first,
That was well placed. Hairway to Steven. Nice. Wow, we're flying through this list. Let's keep it going. Yeah, number six. Number six for me is A Sanctuary, The Year the Sun Died. Nice. So this was another album that I had lower on my list in 2014, but it's one I've just, I've continually gone back to it, especially since World Dane.
Yeah, right? So good. So this was a reunion record for Sanctuary. They formed in 85. They put out two studio albums at the end of the 80s, Refuge and Into the Black Mirror. Into the Mirror Black. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Both awesome. Both awesome. Yeah, I was a huge Sanctuary fan at the end of the 80s. Right, so good. But then they disbanded before they really got going, right? So then you fast forward 20 plus years later. Oh, hold on. Back it up. They became Nevermore, basically.
Yeah, but I never liked them. That's true. What? You're all fired. That's true, but this band, you know, 20 plus years later, they get most of the original lineup back together to play some shows and then end up writing this album. So when I heard that news, John, I was actually really happy because Nevermore had seemingly broken up in like 2011. Yeah. They didn't confirm it, but like two of the band members left and I love Nevermore. That was like my band back then.
So at the time this was released, I wasn't as into it as I am now because it wasn't Nevermore, right? And I wanted more Nevermore at that time. But now that some time has passed, I just really appreciate Sanctuary as a different beast from Nevermore. And I really appreciate it. Exactly the right answer, Marcus. You get both bands. You get both. Yeah. And they have that more traditional power thrash. With a gothic stomp to it, you know?
So this particular record has less thrash on it than those first two. But freaking World Dane sounds amazing on it. And the production just makes the songs feel like these big anthems on it. Really great. Great. He's one of the few singers I've seen live that was still awesome live. He really was. I'm happy that I got to see Sanctuary on their first tour. Wow. That's awesome.
on their last world tour.
Because I saw them on Refuge Denied, and then I saw them at Valken when everybody else went somewhere else.
I saw them in the rain.
I don't know, but you all left me there, and I was up on the rail for Sanctuary.
Was it in the main stage?
Yeah, it was main stage.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, and that was not that long before he died. So I'm extremely thankful that I saw them on the Refuge Denied tour and at Valken for this tour as well. I feel like I've seen both versions or both the band with both singers. I feel like I've seen Sanctuary. But I have to check. I definitely have seen them with the new singer. Really? I have not. Yeah. Played at Prague Power. Oh, okay. God, I feel like I saw them again, though.
With Warl at Prog Power also. I have to look. 22, 21 Prog Powers. I can't remember everything anymore. I had a lot of fun. I do spin this one regularly. It hadn't been a while, but I really, really enjoyed this record again on vinyl too. If you say Warl Dane to me, I picture looking up at the, was it Harder Faster? So Harder was left, right? Harder Faster were the stages.
Yeah. So I'm looking up at the harder stage. Yeah. At World Dane at the front of the stage from the from the railing but like off to the side in the rain coming down and he's just like he's not screaming but you know that is my that is the memory that sticks with me of World Dane. So it's so beautiful. You watch Ross the boss. Yes. We watch Ross the boss. Yes. That was the first day. I don't know.
You guys were like we're gonna go over here and see these bands and I'm like all right
fuck you I'm gonna see a singer
Who does that?
I know
Well we did that a lot actually
There's so many bands at Valk
You know you gotta
There's only 10 stages so
I did see both versions
Okay
Both with Warhol and the new singer
And I've seen them for more a thousand times so
Yeah
It's awesome
Very cool Mark's on good pick
Thanks
Matt number
Six. Six. Atlas Moth. The old believer. Nice. I almost put that on there. Nice. Stavros. What happened to them? I don't know. I mean, he's, I'm friends with him on Facebook and he's still alive. But yeah, I haven't seen any new music lately. I mean, they're in Chicago, Marcus. Can you ask around? I know. I mean, their last album was really, really high on my list. I gotta ask the fuck around.
You're right, Matt. What am I doing? That was a comma noir, right? That was like pre-COVID. I think that was 2018. I think that's when I debuted on the metalheads 10 years ago. Or not 10 years, six years ago. I feel like we saw some of them, didn't we, George? We did. At Club 611 or whatever it was. No, that wasn't Cafe 611. Not at a spot. Some of them, was they Wolverhammer or whatever the name was? Oh, yeah, Wolverhammer. Yeah. We saw a couple of them from them, didn't we? Yeah, yeah. That's true. I thought we did. Yeah.
That was, God, what show was that? That was Amon Seuss. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like you and I in the fog bank. In the fog, yeah. In the fog. It was fun, though. I had a good time. I wonder if they still do shows there. I bet they do. It's only like 10 minutes from here, and I haven't been there in years because the sound is so bad. It's bad. All right. It's my turn. Yeah. Number six. You did yours, Matt? Yep. Atlas Moth. Yeah. All right. My number six. I'm thinking I might be the only one with this on the list.
But I think we all like this band to some degree. The Skull, For Those Which Are Asleep, which is the first album with the three members, formerly of Trouble. And it's basically a Trouble album, but a little more modern sounding. I just saw them live. Who was singing for them? I know they're still going, which is great. Really? They're still continuing. That's not good.
That's not cool at all, man. Eric Wagner is the skull. Yeah, I know. But whenever it's cool, they're still playing. But yeah. Little sun there, Jay? Look at the redneck I got, dude. You are a redneck, but not right here in the middle. Just kind of funny. That's his bolo. That's the nose that keeps it. Yeah. Anyway. Will. Yeah, Will.
I just want to follow up one thing that John said with the skull is that
yeah in what was it February 2017 skull played Atlas Brew Works yep Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl they beat that goat douchebag Tom Brady sorry not sorry George
And yeah, so I watched the Super Bowl. It ended. I was with my kids. We celebrated. Eagles won. And then I went right to Atlas and watched the Skull. And the Skulls waited until I got there to play. That's awesome. No, they just waited until the fucking game was over. They started playing before I got there. But that's my story. Anyway, what number are we on? Six? Six.
666. The number of the pick. I'm going to be completely alone on an island with a volleyball named Wilson on this one. And most of you guys may have never even heard of this band. The Order of Israfel. I know them. Yeah. Their album Wisdom. Doom Metal album. Very satanic.
I remember that. Fucking love it.
Mine is Sluggest Gastronomicon.
What?
Okay, I totally missed that.
I did not.
What the hell kind of list was I looking at when I built this?
Yeah, this is where I get nervous because you just pulled all sludge.
And when John was at my house early, he was like,
you know Temple of Void came out with that.
What? Yeah. Clearly my. Yeah. I get nervous. Yeah. My research was clearly flawed for this year because that should be on my list and it's not. It's such a good album. I just bought the sludge box set that they put out. Is it a vinyl box set? It's a vinyl. It's yours. Everything is a more less splatter. It's everything is three hours before the new one. Yeah. Well, the newest one. And it comes with
a big slip case with new artwork. It's pretty gorgeous. Sounds awesome, too. Well, I'm going to call an audible here then. And Agaloc, kick to the curb. All right. My number six is sludge. Nice. Fuck that. Alba's so good. I hope he gets around to doing something else. I know. I'm like, hopefully. I was actually going to say, you're the one that talks to him. You should talk to him. Find out what's going on. He's not. I will reach out to him.
He's not posted much. And you may remember, he got pretty severely COVID-ed. Yeah. And then he was giving updates on the record. And this was like right when it started. And it wiped him out. And then he's just gone quiet about music of light. So I don't know. Yeah, that was 2018 too, because that was the first year I was on the cast. They were on my list. They were on everybody. They might have been number one that year, actually. It's entirely possible that he's moved to the desert and just doesn't feel like making music anymore. Yeah, he's your neighbor. No, no, no.
He lives in the desert, so that wouldn't work for him. So I looked up the skull because they played with Candlemas. I saw him here, and it's the guy's name who sings now is Carl Aguil from COC and Ball. Oh, shit, Carl. Oh, wow. Okay, that's fair. He was awesome. I'm Facebook friends with him, too. Stop the clock. Rewind. He's from Corrosion and Conformity and what? Blind?
Is he on the Blind album from C.O.C.? Yes. Oh, I like that guy. That's actually one of my favorite C.O.C. albums ever. Vote with a bullet, bitch. Yeah. Vote with a bullet. I know this wasn't the point of the conversation, but who's singing for Candlemas now? Is it still the original? Jonas? The original guy came back, remember? Oh, no, no. I just didn't know if he was still there. Oh, yeah. No, he did the last two albums, and he's still with them. He was amazing. That guy is old as fuck. He's the greatest.
And both of those records were really good. The first one was a little better than the second one, but they're good.
Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing, George, you got to, you got to do the, um, voicemails cause we're halfway. All right, let's do another batch of voicemails. Hey guys. Uh, this is James calling in to give a gloriously metal appreciation as the, uh, voicemail line, um, said I should do or George.
So, 10 years, you made it. Hell yeah. Congratulations. Hold on. That was a beer opening. You didn't hear it. Yes, it's a rolling rock. And yes, Will, I know this beer is gone. But I just want to call and say a huge congratulations. Also, George said I was supposed to talk some trash here. So here's the prerequisite dogging on Death Doom because, come on, it's a record you're excited about. You guys are in the Death Doom. It's got the Death Doom record, right? Well, I'm looking over the list. It's rolling on the record.
that only leaves mention of what's this other thing? Was this Inner Arm a show in Will's arm? No, we're not talking about it. No, but seriously, 10 years of doing something is awesome and something that should be commended. It's hard to keep doing the thing. It's hard to keep people's attention and it's hard to keep after something, especially something awesome. I think it's something you guys should be proud of. To say it's sounding cheesy, I think too that it's easy not to reflect on kind of this community that you've built and how excited some people have been. You know, I can't be the only one who's ever,
I've been listening to Metalhead's podcast while they were doing some mundane task like cleaning gutters or, you know, shoveling snow in a driveway. Thinking like, hey, this isn't that bad. Especially somebody who moved to this part of the country and didn't really know anyone and then being around you guys and getting to know you. It's like, I already knew you before I met you and then knew you. But anyway, I hit all my checklist points. Huge congrats again. And here's, cheers to 10 more years.
See ya.
See ya.
What's up guys?
This is Warren.
Just wanted to give you a shout out.
Thanks for being around for 10 years and kicking fucking ass.
And thanks for having me a guest on the show.
Um,
found out about you guys from going to a show at Atlas and then the rest is history.
So I'm giving a will a half smack.
And,
uh,
just want to say congrats guys.
Cheers.
Hey,
this has been the Analyst Metal Podcast.
Hey boys.
Happy anniversary.
10 years.
There would be no endless metal podcast.
That's for damn sure.
If there wasn't a metal head podcast,
you guys continue to be such a huge source of inspiration for my
blathering on and guests blathering on.
And sometimes we have our Markisan,
which has been a lot of fun.
Having one of your metal heads on endless metal,
how you guys stay on top of as much music as you do.
is truly astonishing, especially because you do it for free. But God, is it a gift to all of us who love the metal in the many different genres. And also the last beer recommendations, you know, even once in a while, a scatological or salad humor,
from Will. I think that's who is the master of that kind of humor. Appreciate that as well sometimes. Anyway, boys, keep it up and look forward to leaving a message in 2034. I'll be 63, but I don't think much will change. Later. Hey, Metalheads Podcast. This is Jess just calling to wish y'all a happy 10th anniversary here.
and say what's up. I found y'all back in 2020 during the pandemic and just a funny little tidbit or story here. I actually used to sit and listen to the podcast while I had your website pulled up with pictures of each of your faces of each of the hosts so I could try and put a face to a name and figure out who was talking when. But four years later here and I'm still kicking and
Seems like I might even know y'all a little bit by this point but uh George, John, Will, Matt, Mark Sanjay, what's up? Shout out to Justin for all the death metal recs as well but yeah thank you all for all of the metal recommendations and bands you've introduced me to both through the Thunderdome and your endless and stuff and also all the great beer recommendations as well so cheers thanks for the t-shirt also and happy anniversary again.
Hello, hello. This is Josh Thomas calling from the Maritime. Halifax specifically. I just want to say, first off, I'll get all the generic shit out of the way. You guys have been killing it for 10 years, and I don't think you guys really just appreciate how much you've contributed to the metal scene. Being able to hear all these interviews from the artists we love is a huge deal, especially with the quality you guys do.
We actually fucking talk about the metal, you know? Half the time I go to a metal podcast and they're talking about fucking golf all of a sudden. I don't get it. But anyways, I discovered you guys way back, you know, fucking on Thrasenblatt's Facebook page seeing that Joel did an interview with you guys. What's that? Been in love ever since. While I'm talking about them, hey, Mr. Violet, where's album five? Where's album five, dude? We're still waiting. Anyways, but I do gotta say I want to give some constructive
You guys probably didn't notice. They talk about penis a lot. There's a lot of cock in your podcast. And I think that it's kind of, you know, low-hanging fruit. It's kind of like the balls you guys talk about. And I really wanted to give you some, like, proper stuff of substance to really, you know, make your guys' podcasts have us, the listeners, thinking, which is why I want to read you guys some philosophy. You know, get out of all that penis shit and really,
We'll start you guys off with this quote from Kant. In his Critique of Pure Reason. Why don't you guys chew on this? For if a question is absurd in itself and calls for an answer where none is required, it not only brings shame on the propounder of the propounder of the question, but may betray an incautious listener into absurd answers, thus presenting, as the ancient said, the ludicrous spectacle of one man milking a hego. Ah, fuck, it's all still cock-joke! Fuck! Oh shit, how do I hang up? Fuck!
Hey guys, this is your old buddy Mark. I'm going to do a t-shirt and beer check first. I'm wearing my Temple of Void bone chain shirt. And I just came from Able Baker Brewing in Las Vegas, Nevada. After a recommendation, Jay, in the disney map situation, who said they went there when they went to Psycho Las Vegas.
I was in town for a work conference. I'm in the Las Vegas airport. But I went to those places listening to the podcast as I walked around. I just wanted to call and express my appreciation. You guys have done a lot for me. It's been 10 years. I used to make Spotify playlists and that's how I got on your radar. I was just listening to episode 47. I drove out to George's house with John and we hung out.
And you know, it's been a while. We used to talk a lot more than we do. I'm sorry that that happened. But you know, life gets in the way. But all I wanted to do was call and express gratitude. Life is about gratitude, right? And all I have for the Mental Health Podcast is gratitude. I was looking for something at the time. I needed some people to show me the way. Since then, what you all have done, honestly, changed the life.
and I appreciate that.
I've got a cool record collection.
I go to cool concerts,
not as much as I used to.
July 26th,
Metro Gallery,
Baltimore,
horrendous,
two mold.
If anybody's going to be there,
please let me know.
Five years to the day,
I saw two mold at Atlas Brew Works,
which was amazing.
So I've had a lot of cool experiences.
Thank you guys.
I appreciate you doing all this.
Go back and listen to episode 47.
I went to a nice Iron Maiden concert. We talked about it. It was fun. So yeah, all I got to say is keep doing what you're doing. I'm still out here. We're all still out here. Rock on. It's been really fun to watch and listen to what you all have done. I hope to see you guys soon. So take it easy. My congratulations. Don't ever quit unless you feel like it. Godspeed. Take it easy.
All right, so my number five, and man, I had not listened to this in a long time, Nux Vomica, self-titled on Relapse Record. I think this band only put out three full links, and over that time, they had evolved from more of a crusty punk sound to this chimera of death, black, doom, noise, and ambient metal.
And this is their final record And it's phenomenal There are only three tracks on it But they're long The first one's 13 minutes Then 12 minutes Then 20 minutes And they're just chock full of Really captivating dynamics Just depth, atmosphere, complexity And they just make each song flow beautifully Like this odyssey of heaviness And I like that because it's like a gem This band's gone, you know And 10 years ago
I was listening to this a lot and now I get to go back to it because we're doing this podcast. That's pretty fun. Bitchin. All right, Matt speaking of bitchin. Right, right, right. Number six. Solstafir. What? I think is how it's pronounced. Yeah, that's a good one. Come on. They're good live too. Really good. They is. They is. John. Right. My number five. Fenn. Karrion Skies.
Oh, yeah.
Atmospheric Black Metal.
UK.
Yep.
All right, Will, what is your number five?
Bloodbath.
Bloodbath.
Grand, Morbid Funeral.
That was initially in my top ten, but it is no longer.
Not because I don't like it.
It just didn't work out that way.
All right, Jay.
Exodus, Blood In, Blood Out.
This is the one that came right before Persona Non Grata. And it's really good. It's as solid as Persona Non Grata. So if you like that record and you haven't listened to this one, it's worth your time. Nice. My number five. For the first time on this list, but not, I'm assuming, for the last, Behemoth the Satanist. Ace. That might be right around where you had it before. Let's see.
bound to the number.
No, it was
not in the top. It was 11.
Yeah.
What the hell was I thinking? I don't know.
Yeah, so I did.
I'm glad Marcus, because I went looking for your list to try to do this one because I
remembered that 100.
I didn't remember it. I thought the 2015 was the first one we did.
I have the need for mead.
Oh.
Let's go.
All right.
Well, Marcus, what is your number?
What's my turn?
It's your number four.
Let's see here.
Okay.
Number four for me is Woods of Desolation as the Stars on Northern Silence Productions.
This is still one of my favorite black metal albums to listen to because I just love the layering on it.
It's got lots of haunting melodies mixed with this craggy array of hooks. And even though it's depressing, because it's black metal at heart, the band just really delivers that sadness with these towering riffs of positivity. I don't know how to describe it. It's like uplifting evil. I think I've had other albums like this, but that's what it feels like. It's very anthemic. It feels good, even though it's sad.
And so I wrote a little section about it in 2014 and it reads,
As the stars feels like the musical incarnation of a dark fairy tale come to life.
It's the sound of little red riding hood and her snack basket about to be devoured by the big bad wolf.
But just as his jaws open above her head,
red puts a secret sword through his snarling maw and snack time is back the fuck on at grandma's.
Okay, then.
I love reading these old things I wrote. I'm like, what the fuck was I talking about? I love it. Guidance counselor would like to see you this afternoon. You know, I did get, I got brought to the guidance counselor for stuff that I wrote. So a couple of times they, they brought me like they got involved. I wrote one thing about, um, a futuristic samurai who commits seppuku and they're like, what the fuck? And I used to wear a black trench coat every single day.
Was this in a pre or post Columbine world? Oh, of course. It's pre. It was in high school. Every day I would only wear black because metal. But I get to wear a trench coat. And so there was these girls who would call me Zorro and stuff like that. But yeah. So I got brought in because of what I wrote. Yeah. It turned out fine. But still. But still. Yeah. All right, Matt.
I want this to be the summer summary of my childhood. There was these girls that called me Zorro. They would come up to me in the hall. There was girls they would call me Zorro and they would hold my hand while I was walking down the hall. Girls spoke to you in high school? Oh yeah. What the hell is that like? I don't know. I was scared. I didn't date in high school ever. I don't know if I ever was mentioned as a cast but I was kind of scared of it. But there was a lot of girls that were
interested in me and not so much
yeah all right now matt my number five i believe this has been mentioned
egg lock the serpent and the spear yes number five or number four me
sorry or yes yes i thought i was losing it drinking
All right, then, John. All right. I don't know if this won't be mentioned. Maybe Marcus, I mean, that's all I could think of. It would, if it does. Well, number four, Lantlos, Melting Sun. Oh, I like that one. Yeah. I have it on vinyl, I think. That was back when I bought vinyl. Yeah. Different, definitely a different album for them where they dropped all the kind of atmospheric black metal, went pretty much
It's just straight post-metal and doom and shoegaze. It's a really cool atmospheric album with all those elements. Love it. Absolutely love it. But it's dropped a little because the next three I like a lot more for a lot of reasons. I love the Lantlos album. I had it on here, but it's not on my list. It would be like number 11 for me. But I don't know. At any point in time, John, I could put it as high as three, probably.
I do really like it. I spin it on vinyl quite a bit. Yeah, it's a great album. Alrighty, Will. Number four. Number four. Thank you, John, for pointing this out that this was released in 2014. It probably should be higher on my list, but Temple of Void. There we go. Terror and the Supernatural. I'm wearing the shirt. Not that shirt, but I'm wearing a TOV shirt. I bet I know what Will's, but I'm wearing a shirt. Come on.
I bet I know Will's number one. Oh, okay. I have an aside. So that's also a memory because when we had him on the podcast, I actually got to describe that album cover while they were on it and they loved it. Yeah. That was a really fun time. Yeah. My number four is Agalok, The Serpent and The Sea. Oh, it's three now. Nice. Nice. Nice.
coming up and in the top three probably it'll be goat whore constricting rage of the merciless no it's on the list George it's not on the list honestly of of the last six records or so that's my least favorite one well then yeah sorry but but it's good it's just it was it was on my list and I got dumped for something else I cannot believe that you are not a whore for goat whore I feel exactly the same way no
No, no, no, no, that was a perfectly reasonable assumption. All right. Well, I stand erected. That one's on my honorables. All right. So we're in the top three here. It's been mentioned maybe twice. Primordial, where greater men have fallen on Metal Blade records. This is probably, yeah, I think it is my third favorite Primordial record after the Gathering Wilderness and To the Nameless Dead.
And I think, you know, at their best, no band really delivers melodic black metal and gloomy folk with that kind of soaring passion and that triumph that Primordial does. And I think this album really showcases that ability. And I think a lot of it has to do with Alan Averill's vocal performance in general, but in particular on this record, I just feel like the emotion in his voice comes through.
So well on it, especially on the closer, which is wheeled lightning to split the sun, which is one of my all time favorite primordial songs. And I know I brought it up before on the cast for a top five or something, but I love that song. Sometimes I just want to hear that song. I'm an album guy. I like to hear the album, but every once in a while, I'm like, I just need to play wheeled lightning to split the sun. Yeah. I love primordial. I was the last record.
He didn't do it for me, but everything else I've loved so much from that band. Yeah, he's got a special voice. Very unique. Yeah. And I wish he would come on the cast. I was this close. He talked to me and then he stopped. I forgot. Yeah, he totally goes to John Arch once upon a time. He did. Well, I've done with John Arch and then he never brought me back again. He was like, yeah, I remember that too. Yeah. Yeah. Ah, well, I'm not surprised. He is kind of like
that if you listen to his podcasts or interviews and stuff, he's a little bit all over the place.
So I'm not actually that surprised.
Derek, our friend and listener in Ireland who kind of set this up, talked to him and he was like, hey, what's the deal?
And he sent me like, you know, text images of text.
And Alan was like, what?
He just seemed kind of oblivious.
So he probably.
It's like he just forgot.
Yeah, it just fell through the cracks. I don't take it personally. I don't take it personally either, no. It's not a mark against him. I'm still going to love the band, even though I did not put the last album on my list. All right. My number three, Paul Bearer Foundations of Burden. There it is. The Burden of Foundations. They are indeed burdensome.
John. All right.
My number three has some of the greatest song titles ever.
Let Us Pray.
Sound of Mucus.
Slime Wave Zero.
Dark Side of the Shroom.
At least somebody remembered it.
Other than.
Is Sludge Gastronomicon.
Hell to the yeah.
So good.
Give us more.
What is it?
Salters of Madness?
Yeah.
That's not on that record, but that's such a great title. The salt is the arch enemy. Yeah. Let us pray. I just love it. That's really good. All right. Will. Number three. I'm really disappointed. I didn't realize the Sludge album came out in 2014, but my number, we're on number three. Yes, sir. Behemoth.
Bahamoth.
Bahamoth, the Satanist.
The Satanist?
Is the Trypticon going to sweep this thing or something?
Because when you say Trypticon, this is freaking me out.
I mean, it's going to be like, okay.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I don't know.
What's your number three, Jay?
Paul Bearer, Foundations of Burden.
Wow.
I couldn't agree with Will more than in a band who's got a bit of his potty past.
This one's pretty fucking essential, you know.
Not his potty past, but this is the one you can depend on.
Right.
What is that? Three or four for that one? At least three. At least it might be four. And I thought we'd hear it a lot. Yeah. And I'm sure we're going to hear it one more time. My number three is my Wilson on this list. Other than the Elm Storm and the Corrosion of Conformity. This is Grand Magus, Triumph, and Power. I consider it. Love this album. It's really good. Yes. I don't think. Are they?
I don't think they're around anymore. They are. I just looked it up while I was waiting. There's at least, well, there's one album, Wolf God, sorry, Wolf God, that came out in 2019 was the last one. And I don't remember that. So I need, I might've missed that. Like, oh shit, George, you gotta go back. Yep. I mean, you missed a hundred albums from 2014. Clearly. Today. So. All right. Number dos.
It's been mentioned. It's been mentioned a lot. Paul Bearer, Foundations of Bird and Profound Lore. Their first album, Sorrow Extinction, was my favorite album of 2012. And then a couple years later, this thing came out and it kind of blew it away for me. Just chunkier riffs, more complexity, better song craft, I think. Upgraded production, George. I think this is the height of Paul Bearer. I think so, too.
for their funeralistic superpowers. I actually, my favorite record from is actually Heartless. I like Heartless better because it's got all the elements from before, but it's proggier. It's got more depth and complexity, but I love this record. I think this is a classic. I think a lot of people, it's 10 years later, I think it's a classic record. And I also remember them playing live when they toured for this record.
And the majesty and the emotional scope of that performance, especially for the song Foundations, which is my favorite song on the record, it almost made me cry. It was that good when I saw it. They actually played the fabled, wonderful Carcass Decibel, if you guys remember. They were at that one, and that was for this tour. They were good. I wouldn't know I wasn't there. I saw them open for Enslaved one tour.
All right, Matt. Sweet. My number two has been mentioned, Toomes Savage Gold. Oh, that's a great record. I love you, Matt. Likewise. Was it Savage Gold that we discussed like 10 years ago that maybe it's an EP? No. Do I have this wrong? That's the one after that, I think.
que se ha hecho.
My number two, Trypticon, Milana, Hasmata. There you go. I've heard of that one, yeah. How has this not been mentioned yet? I guess it's going to be sweeping some number ones. Holy smokes. Holy smokes. All right, Will, number two. Grab a handle, boys. We need five more. Paul Bearer. Ooh. Foundations of Burden. This song, Worlds Apart,
I remember looking up the tablature for that song and teaching it to Evelyn on the guitar. That song is fucking amazing. If I want to remember right, I think that when you started buying vinyl again, this was an early purchase by you. Absolutely, yeah. This is literally one of my favorite records of all time. That's so good. I think I have two vinyl records. Yet it's somehow not above your number one.
It can't be
The number one is far and away
Yeah, you know, it's kind of hard
It's kind of hard
When I say kind of hard, I'm not talking about like a semi-soft
We're talking Seattle's art
Kenneth Robin
Yeah
A blue
A blue
Robin Vayner
My number two is Behemoth, the Satanist
Yeah, it is
It really was
One of the best of that year. And probably their best in our catalog. I do like the stuff they've done after it. Jesus, that's a good record. You know what's crazy about that record? In my personal sort of world in life is that their song, O Provost Lucifer, it's like song number four. Whatever reason, when, like, I somehow, I have it on iTunes and that song is omitted. It's omitted. I don't know if it's because they released it as a single.
But it's omitted. And it's my favorite. It's my favorite Bohemoth song. Oh, oh, it's Lucifer. That's so fucking annoying. Yeah, it's super annoying. Anyway, I love that album. Almost as much as I love you. My number two is very savage. It's Toomes Savage Gold. Oh, there it is. Word. So good. In the exact same place it was 10 years ago.
Nice. All right. So we're on to number one then. We are on to number one. Well, I mean, I think Jay called this one. Trypticon, Milana Kazmata. Now I'm going with a Japanese version. I will explain that in a second. It's in Century Media. In 2014, I wrote this passage about the album. In the ancient lore of the Transformers, Trypticon was the Decepticons most ruthless.
He was an actual high-tech city that could transform into a titanic dinosaur that reveled in complete devastation. Tom G. Warrior probably didn't name his band after a Transformer, but Trypticon the band is also a monstrous Doomtropolis of unstoppable darkness. So I love Trypticon's first album, but this album is just so much more textured than the first record, just mixing that black metal, Doom, Thrash, and Death perfectly.
The Thick Churning Atmospherics of it. They got those ethereal female vocals on it sometimes too that I really like. I just think it's the best album Tom has ever done and it's kind of a it's like a culmination of all the great music he's done before. And I mentioned the Japanese version because it's my preferred Milana Cosmata listening experience because it features just like Will was talking about where they omitted a track.
On the Japanese version of Milana Kazumata, there's a 10th studio track. It's called Into Despair. But it isn't just like an extra track that's tacked on to the end. They actually put it at number five in the lineup. So it's pretty integral to the overall flow of the album for that version of it. And I think it makes an exceptional album even better. And then there's the last thing I'd say about this record. I love it. I play it a ton.
But it's also wrapped in just a stunning painting by H.R. Giger.
And I love that art.
And Tom G. Warr was friends with H.R. Giger.
I actually worked at the studio with him.
You know, he got them to commit to...
I still don't understand how they did this.
But he and Martin Ayn went and saw him one time when they were no fucking buddy.
Maybe the hell hammer record with him.
And he committed to giving them
Fuck
So the record
Into the Panammonium?
Not Into the Panammonium
No, the other one
To Megatherian
Yeah
That cover
He gave them that cover
And they were like
And they were like
And they pocketed it
They were like
We're going to wait
To wave a record good enough
To put this cover on it
Yeah
But I mean
Megatherian's a good one
Nobodies
And he gave them this fucking thing
Yeah
Yeah
Yeah
Me. My number one, probably a Wilson. Trypticon. Milana. Chasmata. Chasmata. Yeah, yeah. He made that up. Wilson! Wilson, get back in the boat. John? All right, my number one, definitely a Wilson and will be my fifth Wilson on this.
That's not bad. 5 out of 10. Pretty impressed. My number one is The Contortionist Language. I love this band, but I really like this album a lot. And it's probably one of my favorite albums from the last 15, 20 years. So I'm guessing most of you don't know it. That's cool. You know, I've just realized something. I love it. I have a new category, John, for the end of the year list. And it's if you have a record that nobody else has on your list, and it's the son of somebody in another famous band or a child, then it'll be the Wilson
I'm going to remember this.
That's going to be tough to do.
Yeah, no.
I'm glad you could fit that one in there, John, that you could, you know, finagle it and make it fit.
Nicely done, George.
Contorted in there.
That's what I was going to say.
I had to move a few things around to get to the number one spot.
Tell yourself a notch to get it done.
We hear you.
Yeah, I was a little tight.
All right, well, say it. You know you want to say it. You've been waiting to say it. Lady Gaga. Absolutely. You know, I should be more prepared because I have no idea any of her albums. Keller Swift. Keller Swift. That's my number one. No, it's just the obvious. Cannibal Corpse. Evisceration. No, is it Evisceration? Skeletal domain. Sorry. Skeletal domain. Sorry.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's not an evisceration. I'm getting it. Yeah, it's a skill to the main. Yeah, good album. You know, like good death metal. If you like that. Sorry. If you like that sort of thing. Yeah. If you do. All right. Jay, what you got? We won't really fight to the death over this, but I still say Tom's height was Mono Siest. But I do agree that this is easily the best Trypticon record, Milana Cosmana.
Which one? Melania. Trumpata? Yeah. I can't add anything to it. I love Tom. I can't add anything to it either. That's my number one. Trumpata, a bunch of panties from another woman. Yeah, that too. That's right. All right. Covering the lead there. Yeah, that was my number one as well. Big surprise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, it's so good. I mean, I do spin that one quite a bit, but I put it on a few times. I still put it on. Is Tom going to do an album this year or what? We've been saying for three years now. He did say something. Well, first off, they just did you see they just released the press. They're doing an auction for the press. What do you call it? The test pressings of the Hellhammer record. Oh, wow. Five copies of it being sold through
Nuclear Blast. Nuclear Blast. I like Nuclear Blast. Yeah, I like that. Nuclear Blast and Metal Blade combined? We should start that. And he was definitely working on something. That's all I can remember. Oh, they've been working on the record. For a long time. Ever. That's how he is. I mean, it took him five years to make Monotheist or some crazy thing. All right. Well, there we are. That's done.
What else we got? How's Will on time? Short. He knows the time is short. Not Markisan short, just short. He's met you. Oh, boy. I'm just fucking with you. Come on. Oh, boy. I just playing devil's advocate. All right. So, hey, I think we should probably do
some more of the voicemails. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah, man. Get them on. All right. Here we go. Here's some more voicemails. Hey, man. This is Alex from North Dakota. And I just wanted to say that the Metalheads podcast is the most rockinest of podcasts ever to grace the beauteous earth upon which we live. Wow. You guys rockinest.
I talk so hard that it's just like wow. Did I say wow? Yeah. Totally do. Anyway, cheers. Bye. Hola amigos. This is Juan Derpenis from the Mason District Recycling Center. You know, the big box with lots of holes in it. Listen, you two old fuckers. I see you working there on the weekends illegally. And I got this number because it was written inside of the big recycling center box, you know, the hole.
Listen, amigos, you need a permit to work here. And listen, I give you a 10-year permit. Permiso de 10 anos. 10 anos. 10 anos permito. If I can be the first in line every time. Congrats. Hey, Metalheads Podcast. This is Scott Travis, drummer of Judas Priest. Congratulations on the 10th anniversary of the Metalheads Podcast. That's fucking awesome, man.
You guys are truly defenders of the faith. Here's to ten more years of spreading the good word of metal to the masses. The heavy metal world needs you guys, so keep it up. And by the way, special thanks to John for constantly reminding your listeners that I've been a Jewish priest for 35 years. Thanks, buddy. You fucking rule. Yeah, this is Joe. Worst show ever. You guys are all going to hell. See you there, bitches.
Hey, this is a situational paradox. I wanted to take a second and just kind of speak from the heart of this. And I thought the best way I could do that was to share an original poem that I've been working on since 2004. I think that someone is trying to kill me, infecting my blood, destroying my mind. No man of the flesh could ever stop me. The fight for this fish is a fight to the death.
White Whale, Holy Grail. What remorseless Emperor commands me? I no longer govern my soul. I'm completely immersed in darkness as I turn my body away from the sun. White Whale, Holy Grail. White Whale, Holy Grail. Split your lungs with blood and thunder when you see the White Whale. Break your backs and crack your oars, men.
You wish to prevail. This ivory leg is what propels me. Harpoons thrust in the sky. Aim directly for his crooked brow. And look him straight in the eye. White whale. Holy grail. White whale. Holy grail. I wrote that. Thank you.
Hello, my name is Silky G. Burrito, and I'm calling in because every time I listen to this podcast, there are atrocities committed by the metalhead known as Jay. He's eaten all my burrito friends, and he doesn't appear to be slowing down. I am living in fear for my life every single day. I beg of you other metalheads to put a stop to him before all the burritos in the land alone.
It's the metal thing to do. Also, happy anniversary. All right, Markisan. What do we got next? We're doing predictions, and this is what we think might happen in the next 10 years of heavy metal music and what we might be talking about on the show, but also predictions for us in general as a podcast, as a family here.
So I guess I'll start off. I have predictions for each one of you. All right. Let's hear it. Matt. Matt. I'm predicting that Matt blankets his entire house and a colonial size Snuggie where he lives out the rest of his days in a situational paradoxical bliss blanket of love. Seems likely. I want that. John.
becomes more progressive metal than man. He merges with an alien analog solution synthesizer from the future and becomes the Metalheads podcast AI. Oh, that's dangerous. Will, he actually makes every single Metalheads podcast. Jay, contrary to what he said about retiring from music, fuck that.
Finishes his second Catatonic Society album and sleeps next to a Mexican restaurant dumpster near every venue on his tour. Okay. I'm scared. I'm scared. Hold me. And George. George gets a Throssenblot head tattoo, moves to the woods with Joel after his kids are gone, where they live by an enchanted brook. He then starts a new podcast called A Wash in Metal with George,
Wash and Blot.
Possible?
So there you go.
Some fun little predictions that may or may not come true.
Well, let's just assume then you will get the Pulitzer Prize when they start giving you.
The Pulitzer Prize in heavy metal.
The Kreskin Prize.
I have a terrible prediction for you.
Okay.
All right, let me guess. Who's dying? Ozzy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, that's the prediction I have number one on my list. But I had him dying on stage, which would be... He's looking pretty rough. That's not going to happen. I don't know if he'll make it five more years, but we'll see. They have this new podcast, by the way, and I only know that because it shows up in my... Oh, and I have to relict. Did I tell you this story about I'm going to see Exorcist? Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Okay. Well, first off, there's this podcast that they have, and it's the Osbournes.
But they just talk about random shit. And I only see it because I'm flipping through Facebook and there it is, this little TikTok video. I'm like, okay, fuck it, I'll watch this. And Ozzy looks terrible and sounds awful and can hardly move. He's really in bad shape. But anyway, he tells, he relates the story of when they went to see The Exorcist as a band. Black Sabbath, they were touring when it came out. They came out in New York City. I remember this. And they were so fucking scared that they all had to sleep in the same hotel room that night. Yeah.
Well, first they went to see The Sting afterwards to try to get, like, wash their hands of the evil. So they went to see The Sting, and then they went back, and Black Sabbath, the scariest band in the late 60s, early 70s, all had to sleep in the same bedroom. Oh, jeez. I think that's awesome. Yeah. It's like when I saw The Ring. Oof. That was bad. It was Evil Dead for me, but to be fair, it was like 10 years old. Oh, well, yeah, that got me, too. And another one called Night of the Demons. Yeah.
I saw Night of the Days. That was right around Evil Dead time. Blair Witch scared the shit out of me, man. It did me too. That still creeps me out when I watch that. And it made me nauseous because of all the jumping. Especially if you didn't know much about it when you went into it, because it definitely feels real when you watch it. Don't tell me that. I only live like 10 miles from there. 20 miles at the most. Tracy just told me she'd never seen it, and I was like, what? Here's my next prediction, and I'd put money in this one.
Summer Activity Notwithstanding Slayer does not get back together. I don't see that happening. I truly believe this is just a little one-off. And I could see them having another summer like this where they play two or three shows. Yeah. Slayer's done. You know, we're not going to get to talk about this in a real episode before the mid-year, so I just got to say the Cary King album fucking kicks ass. Yeah, he got on it. You know, it's funny. I was just thinking like, man, this album is good, but it'd be so much better. What's up?
If Dave Lombardo was playing drums and Tom was singing. I just, yeah. Did you check out any of the live footage of them doing Slayer songs? Uh, Harry King's band doing Slayer songs? Just to hear how he does do a pretty good job with those. I think Mark, I never got into Death Angel because I thought it sucked. What? Yeah, I mean, it was terrible. When you have all these other throsh,
Throshinblats. Thrashinblats bands to choose from. Why would you choose that one? It's not. No, no, no, no, no, no. But I like his vocals better on this, but the whole time I'm listening to this, I'm like, I can hear Slayer riffs. I can hear Slayer melodies. I can hear bridges and choruses and all this stuff. But the drums aren't up to par and the vocals aren't up to par. What I want to hear. And all I want to hear is more Slayer. That's it.
As I said, I think this beats the last two Slayer albums. I like your beat. It's actually quite a bit. It's a bit samey. I mean, it's like every song is the same song. Yes. But it's a fucking good song. Okay. I mean, it's very intense. That one song is really good. It's very intense. And, you know, to keep listening to the whole thing, it's a little burning. It burns you out a little bit. But there's not a...
I listen to three songs. I listened to three songs of this and I got bored. I turned it off. I loved every song on here. You know, I have a friend. Her name is Missy Burton. And I have another friend is Missy, Missy Hanneman. Oh, okay. Yeah. I see what you did. I forget. You can be funny. Well, I'm not often.
I'm really fucking tired. Well, that's not new. I'd be interested in hearing your list. You said Aussie Dags was number one. Yeah, I didn't have a ton of predictions as far as metal goes. So I don't know if anybody else had some that they thought of. I was trying to think, but yeah, I don't have a, I don't, I don't really have a lot of predictions. Even though I was like, I wanted to do for us, but then I was trying to think of like, what's going to happen in metal?
What's going to be the next big thing? We've gotten a lot of death metal bands over the years. I feel like metal is really merging. The genres are really cross-pollinating. I'm just wondering where that's going to go. Then you hear stuff like the new Pallbearer where they're definitely moving in a different direction. I'm wondering what we're going to get with some of these bands who have maybe started
years ago that we're talking about what's going to happen with them as it goes forward um but yeah
ozzy was the one like the thing i thought it was too i hate to stick with the morbid but um i just mean this in the
most objective long-term of life sense and that's that if we have this competition 10 for 10 years from now
we're getting ready to lose a whole bunch of motherfuckers you know yeah yeah you know and and we um and that as we know
that's attrition has already started because
we are living in a world with no
deal and no lemmy and
I don't know who the fuck else right now but
Peter's deal it's just there's
yeah well yeah
uh but you know that a lot of these guys are
you know everybody in deep purple
is over 70 man you know and
on down the line well not everybody
they're guitarists not but you know
so it's a pretty grim 10 years from now
it could be a little brutal
um yeah and at the very least we're
going to lose some bands I mean even if
Some of the mortality rates don't go all the way up. You know, priests can't go that much longer. And, you know, at least we know Saxon will still be around. What's that? Don't stop. I, you mentioned me being in far away places and I am a little bit sorry that I couldn't catch the Saxon Uriah Heep tour because they did a VIP meet and greet where you meet both bands and I fucking love Uriah Heep singer and I love Saxon.
I would have loved to take part in that. They're here right now in the States. Yeah, I don't have any predictions either. I guess we're just going to be surprised. I don't know what's coming down the pike. If we're still here in 10 years, that will be amazing. I would not be surprised if we were. I mean, I wouldn't be either, but no, I wouldn't be surprised. I would be impressed. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I like this category.
I'm like, I really don't know what's going to happen with metal in the next few years.
Is it going to be the same?
Are we going to feel like we're in the same place?
Or are things really going to change?
I don't see metal becoming any more popular than it is now.
No.
Metal is just going to be metal.
It's just going to be metal, right?
It's just going to do its own thing.
To me, there's no predictions to be had.
It's just metal's been around since what the late 1960s with Black Sabbath. Yep. Which is now considered metal. Now considered doom metal. I don't know. Maybe they'll make a few more niche weird genres that none of us are going to fucking listen to. But metal's going to be metal. It's never going to be super popular. It's not going to be Taylor Swift. You're not going to see a heavy metal dude.
Dating an NFL player and making that team like super popular like it's just metal is going to be metal it's going to be our it's going to be our music yeah yeah but you never know like we're not we're not going to sell out metal is never going to sell out like I just keep thinking this Taylor Swift thing which I don't give a shit about but you know it's it's metal is just going to be our thing it's going to be niche underground genre overall
to like country and hip-hop and rap and whatever and and it you know what it's going to be ours it's going to be ours to pass along to other generations it's it it may change slightly um hopefully less saxophones sorry matt yeah and um less clean singing sorry not sorry this is like i feel like i'm listening to martin's or king of metal right now i know
No, I mean, in the best kind of way. But, you know, we can make all the predictions. But how much has, metal has changed a little bit, but it's metal. Metal is metal. And it's still going to be a niche thing for a small group of people. And that small group of people pass it along. Like, I feel like I'm at the age where I'm trying to pass along to my children. If they choose to accept it, that's cool. If they don't, that's cool. But I did my part. I mean, I guess, now I'm thinking about it, I think it might even be more
more niche because we talked about this before but there's some of the bigger bands like
Metallica and stuff who replaces them once they're gone and I think they'll still be around like some of
these bands that are big in 10 years but after they're gone we don't really know who's going to take over and I don't think it's going to be anybody so I agree I don't think there's going to be a lot I mean once Iron Maiden Judas Priest Metallica once they're gone I mean it'll be package deals
Jaren Mastodon just went around and filled outdoor amphitheaters. I mean, Maiden may be done in 10 years. I mean, that's definitely possible, right? If they're not done in 10 years, I'm not going to be very interested in what they're fucking doing. I'm barely interested in what they're doing now. I just mean, the still level will have fallen off so much in 10 years. Think about rock and roll. Think about the glory days.
That plays in Philly. I mean, Poison. Poison could fucking fill up a stadium. And who is it now? You know who it is now? It's like the Foo Fighters. Yeah, that's right. Maybe Aerosmith or Bruce Springsteen. Does Guns N' Roses still fill up places? Yeah. Yeah. Like ACDC, but there's not many. There's not many. Almost Guns. Do you remember the glory days when like, oh yeah, the Slayer or Metallica
Not Metallica. I mean, there's still some 90s. Yeah, but they could fill up a stadium. They could fill up an arena. Not a stadium, but an arena. Arena. My first couple shows, I saw Judas Priest in an arena. I saw Ozzy and Anthrax in an arena. It's a spectrum in Philadelphia. Yeah, and Judas Priest doesn't even play arenas anymore. My sound was a lot smaller. Yeah, we're seeing a fucking casino. Yeah, tomorrow, and I'm like, it looks pretty fucking small. Yeah.
to step back here two steps just because ACDC played for the first time like seven years last night on some tour that they're getting ready that they're doing now and it doesn't matter what you think of ACDC I like them personally but those guys are all fucking old I looked at the set list it was so fucking long they're like playing like 32 songs or some crazy shit wow Jesus these old bastards doing this and it's like it's some hyped up shit too so you know that's neither here nor there it's just John just or Will just mentioned ACDC
CDC, but oh, that's something I used to do too was call John Will all the time or Will John. Yeah. Another memory. I just did it. So basically what I'm getting from this is that 10 years from now, we don't want to be doing a podcast because everybody's going to be dead and nothing matters. So I'll take one step out in front of me and just say this. Some of this is not predictions and this is why we.
like music and why we search for new music. What cool bands don't we know about yet that are coming down the pike? That's the fun part, right? Yeah, that's the fun part. So, you know, and your mastodons and stuff are just every few years, but somebody will come along, knock us on our butts at our agreed niche level. But still, there's, you know, a lot of great bands to be formed out there. Yeah. I would also say that in 10 years, we'll be in, most of us will be in our 60s. Who the fuck wants to listen to us in our 60s? No one. Get off my lawn. Like, I'm all right.
Get off my lawn.
Like what am I going to yell at me?
I think you don't have sidewalks.
Get off my virtual lawn.
I mean,
I think we have to do this podcast.
So we drop.
I do.
But yeah,
but 10 years.
Well,
I already say get off my lawn.
What am I going to yell then?
Get off my sand rock patch.
Yeah.
Get off my virtual launch.
Get off my cactus, you face, snot-nosed kid. That's right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Get off my cactus. That one person that comes down once a month. These are my fucking rocks. Yeah, that's right. I'm not an easy person to get to. I got a few predictions. All right, go for it, Josh. We mentioned some of them. We're going to be spending way too much time talking about AI.
Oh, yeah, you're right. But we won't because it'll be normal by then. No. When Skyna takes over, you won't think it's normal. And then I predict that we'll eventually do an episode together in the same room for the year end at some point. Or any episode in the same room. You know, if we wanted to start, if we pick a date months out in advance or even next Christmas, it would be hard for me to say I couldn't make it. I'll say no. We did mention,
I think you got a busy schedule there Jay well
it does yes we're gonna lose a lot of second wave legacy bands no doubt about that yeah yeah all right
uh some silly ones Matt will still be bitchy but probably bitchier yes Will will finally stop complaining about clean singing no that's probably not but it's just a hope nope Jay will finally drink a beer on the cast without us asking
I can't believe you didn't drink one tonight of all the cast Jay. I'm sorry. And one prediction I know will definitely happen is all you motherfuckers will finally be part of AARP like some of us. Oh I already am. I already am. I am a card carrying member now. Yeah. Give me my discount bitches. I hate when I get shit in the mail that you know somewhere they're like hey you're
I get stuff about retirement communities.
What?
I do.
But it's because my dad and I have the same name.
And so I get stuff for him.
I think.
I hope.
This is not quite in line with that.
But I did get the colo guard thing in the mail the other day.
Oh, yeah.
Yes.
I did that.
I mean, you guys thought that's a humiliating fucking experience, dude.
No, I did the real thing.
Going in and doing the real thing.
No, it's not.
It's like the Saturday Night Live.
Somebody falls positive.
She in a box.
Yeah, that's right. Well, I mean, I had done it like a year ago and it was just a little stick. This one, you son of a bowl, you know what I mean? I was just like, and I was, I felt so silly going to the post office. I'm like, you know, what's in here. Last night's garden burger. Yeah. By the way, negative. I have like a zero PSA number and my KoloGuard made it so that I don't have to go to Kolonovsky.
Sean's pillowcase.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean,
we actually came up with quite a few predictions.
So it's weird to think what will happen with us in 10 years,
because it does seem long and we are getting older,
but we're just talking about how I've been on the cast for six years.
Right.
It did. So who knows? Feels like a lot longer, but you know. Less hair. I know that. He's all of us. John will always have hair. I predict that in 10 years, John's hairs can look exactly the same. It'll be a darker color somehow. Yeah. Just the front. You know, we said that, by the way, Will has a pretty impressive hairline, too. He's really.
I'd give a land and your hair always sits so fucking nicely dude I don't know how you get I do that nobody has better hair than Justin except John that's a tie that's a tie I'll give them a tie okay fair enough all right should we say goodbye final final thoughts goodbye toast um I'll just say it's been fun doing with this you guys and I'm glad you're my friends love you love you too buddy
that. Love you guys. All right. Well, I have one last thing to say when we're ready to be ready. Is this going to be recorded or not recorded? It's recorded. Okay. So go for it, George. Come on. All right. So I want to close out the episode with my own little speech. When I started this thing 10 years ago, there was no way I thought I would last this long. I figured I would fool around.
with it for a few shows and then it would fall by the wayside like so many of my other interests. So I'm as amazed as anyone that after 10 years we are still here and still going strong. But I wouldn't still be here if it was just me. The heart and soul of this show is the camaraderie of everyone involved. From all the hosts that have joined over the years to the guests and listeners who have all become our friends, you are what powers this pod and keeps
I never expected 10 years ago that this little show would expand and improve my friend base like it has. So many of the people that are important to me now have become part of my life through this podcast. And that means everything to me. So thanks to everyone we've met along the way and everyone we have yet to share stories and beers with. Looking forward to all those who we will meet in the next 10 years. In the words of the mighty
And according to Jay, short for this world, Ozzy Osbourne, we love you all. Cheers. Hey, that was great, George. Thank you. Louder. All right. I'm usually the guy that people have to follow after I do a speech. And now there's like mic drop right there. What can we say? That was beautiful. Thank you. And thank you for all that you do.
and all that you bring to my life because I love you all. Just like I said. I love you guys too, man. This has been like the best. I love doing this. It's like the thing I most look forward to every month. So I really appreciate all of you and thank you for inviting me into your bosoms. My bosoms always await you. Yeah, indeed. Or wherever it fits.
All right. All right. All right. Well, I think we're going to go a few more phone calls on New Jersey. Yeah. All right. Until next month, which will bring us to our mid-year all of a sudden. What the hell? Oh, my. Jesus titty fucking Christ. Indeed. I got to do homework two months in a row. I know. Thank you to everyone that left us messages.
Thank you to everyone that we know and love. We will see you next time. See you. Peace. Peace. Happy 150th.
scene out there, and yet you've managed to last all this time while maintaining grace, integrity, and above all, class. Unlike some of the other more common podcasts out there, whom I will name now. But anyway, keep up the fine work, and God save the kings of metal. Cheers. Oh, hey boys, this is Stu Matherson. I was in the New City Covenant Church in the Dean of Minnesota, and I'm flipping through
my Bible and in there is a note. It says for a good time call. So I'm like, hmm, okay. And let me tell you boys, serendipity, the word of the day, serendipity, serendipity. I call the number. It's the Metalheads podcast. We're all rejoice. I'm your biggest fan. I've listened to at least one and a half episodes. And then I realized it's your 10 year anniversary. 10 years. Oh, well done, boys. I only have 140
38 more episodes to listen to. I should get them done by at least I'm 85. Anyway, congratulations, boys. You guys rock some roll. Customer service. What the fuck? How do I work this? Customer service. I hate these fucking phones. Speak with an operator. Hello? Oh, for fuck's sake.
Hello? Is this thing on? Hello? Yes. So anyway, my name is Norman. Just Norman. I'm calling from my mother's basement. Gosh, I hope she doesn't hear me. Yeah, so anyway, I just felt like doing something wild and crazy for a change. So I thought calling and hearing.
would like, you know, totally show all those asshats on Reddit. What a badass I am getting on the Metalheads podcast and all. Like, wow, is this really going to be on there? Okay, well, if it is, please don't tell my mother. I don't want to stress her out. She's just trying to take care of me, you know, but sometimes I got to just do things for me. So, yeah. Anyway, rock on, dudes.
Hey fellas, this is Missy Burton from Maryland. Hey, um, I've been, I've been a fan for like 10 years, maybe, maybe 15 years, but, um, I have a request. Stop shitting on the black album. What I'm talking about is Metallica's fifth album, the greatest new metal black gaze album ever made ever. I mean, it's so cold. Just look at the album artwork. It's fantastic. Please.
I beg you with tears in my eyes. Be nice to this album and stop shitting on it. I mean, I know, I know that that that Washington George Burns, he really likes it a lot. Anyway, love you fellas. Bye. Hello, this is the mighty James Hetfield of Metallica. Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to say that I have never been impersonated so badly as this. But somehow,
It's freaking awesome. Yeah, yeah. Metal heads, yeah. You guys are definitely the master of podcasts. And while Will may not ride the lightning, you know that guy is riding something. Yeah. That's why me thinks he does protest too much, you know. And Justin Farrell, am I right? Yeah, yeah. Will them all let George edit them out. What a load, right? What's that? Didn't hear me?
Let me reload. Yeah, yeah. Forget Death Magnetic. It's John Magnetic now. Hubba hubba. Yeah, yeah. Our biggest selling album will henceforth be known as the Matt Album because it's bitchy as hell. Yeah, yeah. Mark Jazon. Fuck yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't tell Lars I did this. Bye.
I was flipping through the records and
founding my glorious Glory Hammer album and inside there was a note that said
for a good time call this number and it was something about a podcast and I was really disappointed but I checked out this podcast and you know what it's right up my alley if you know what I mean congrats
Hi there.
Uh, long-time guest.
First-time caller.
This is John's ass.
I just wanted to take a moment to let you all know
I've had about enough of this ass slapping.
I've been to metal shows all over the East Coast,
and every single damn time,
I'm just sitting there enjoying the bands,
minding my own business.
When out of nowhere a hand flies up and smacks me right in the face, what the hell do I do to deserve this? What gods have I offended that I can't just enjoy a show without the embarrassing sting of some guy's hand strafed across my cheeks? Face. Whatever. Please, think of the asses before you perpetrate this kind of anus, I mean, heinous act. Save the asses. Thank you.
Hey, Metal Heads Podcast. This is John Zass. First off, congratulations on the 10th anniversary. You guys have a big episode tonight, so have fun with that. Secondly, it appears George's ass has been calling and leaving messages posing as me. Sorry about that. He's apparently trying to get more flaps in his face over me, and I don't know why he would do that. I mean, things like they're equal when we go to the next one.
shows. But anyway, don't listen to him. He's just spewing out a bunch of hot air. So sorry about that. Anyway, got to go. Good luck with your show tonight. I won't be able to watch you guys on Zoom, but I'll be listening in. See you. Bye. Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Hello? My name is Dick Jason. And I saw a...
This is so embarrassing, but I was in a bathroom stall in the Portal Peak Lodge and Cafe in Portal, Arizona, and it said for a good time call, so I'm calling, but it sounds like you may be having a party, and if you're having a party, I really would like to come. Call me. Gentlemen, this is God.
I am calling this ludicrous hotline to tell you that the Metalheads podcast is cancelled. For ten years you have lowered the bar, not only on podcasts, but on talking in general. Such lowbrow bullshit every month. The worst taste in music.
And don't even get me started about the length of your shows. For fuck's sake, boys. I cannot listen to you vociferous, devil-whoring bitches whine a second longer. The Metalheads Podcast is over.
Ten years is enough. As of this moment, I will you out of existence. FOREVER!
SITAN