Recent Writings: Slayer, Cynic, Xasthur

I’ve recently written a few articles here and there that I wanted to share. First is a web-exclusive interview I did with Kerry King for Revolvermag.com. In it, we talk about Slayer’s 30th anniversary, playing the Big Four shows, raising snakes and more. It’s also a good bookend for my blog about going to Germany and seeing Slayer from Jeff Hanneman’s guitar pit at Wacken.

Next is an article I wrote for the Broward/Palm Beach New Times on death-via-prog metallers Cynic. The interview focuses mostly on vocalist-guitarist Paul Masvidal’s life growing up in South Florida (since that’s where the publication is) and gives a different perspective on why death metal blew up in Florida. The story was also picked up in the Miami New Times.

Finally, I interviewed underground black-metal firebrand Malefic, the “frontman” for one-man band Xasthur, about giving up on metal for Self-Titled.com. The feature, previewed in HTML here and presented in online magazine form here, also features amazing photos by Bryan Sheffield of Malefic both with and without his corpsepaint. In the interview, he was incredibly candid about everything from the pain he’s endured making his music to the betrayals he’s suffered from the music industry. It’s one of his final interviews (I thought I had his last one), and I’m honored he gave interviewing another go. Also, his final “metal” album, Portal of Sorrow, is actually quite good and I highly recommend it, especially to Ennio Morricone fans.

I’ve got a lot more writing that will be published soon, including pieces on Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Nick Cave and more. I’ll post updates here as they come out.

Xasthur image by Bryan Sheffield

On Stands Now!

The current issue of Revolver magazine—with Zakk Wylde on the cover—has an article I wrote on Iron Maiden in it. Bruce Dickinson was really open with me about how he first discovered that he could be a singer and the uncertainty in Maiden’s future. Up the Irons!

All Yesterday's Parties

After Sunn0))) and Boris closed out All Tomorrow’s Parties fest last night with their Altar performance in upstate New York, DJ Kool Herc—the man who basically invented rap—did a DJ set. It was pretty amazing watching the master put together a perfect dance set, including bits of James Brown, Michael Jackson (and the Vincent Price poem from “Thriller”) and basically an encyclopedia’s worth of breaks on the best hip-hop records.

Partway into his set, in walked Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA, who had played a sort-of aggressive set at the same time as Altar (I went back and forth between the two.) He just kept riling the crowd saying, “You’re all looking at me like you’re scared. You guys can’t make eye contact for more than four seconds.” He performed great nonetheless. Anyway, in the presence of Herc, he was nothing but reverent. He nonchalantly stepped behind the turntables and said hello. Check out the pic above. It was one of those rare moments where you felt like you were seeing something rare and historic. GZA grabbed the mic and talked about what a legend Kool Herc was and thanked him before leaving. I’m glad I got to see it take place.