BLOG POST: What's the beef between Holy Grail and White Wizzard all about?

Question: Hi, I have been a fan of White Wizzard from the High Speed GTO video, which contains original singer Luna, and i also personally like the new White Wizzard clip Over The Top aswell, which is even better. I know Luna is now in Holy Grail and he has a beef against White Wizzard. I would like to know what happened to cause the war of words between Holy Grail and White Wizzard?

Answer: It's just local band rivalry really, sparked by the spotlight which is slowly coming on both bands, in fact both bands just played Download festival in UK, and the bad blood was evident, even though both bands were backstage at the famous Donington - home of the Monsters of Rock in the 80's, I don't think the bands spoke much.


White Wizzard's mainman and chief songwriter has always been bassist Jon Leon, and his search for the perfect musicians to give voice to his vision of playing Classic-era Heavy Metal has led him through 3 different band line-ups so far.


But first a quick history lesson- Jon Leon and James Luna's roots go back to Los Angeles Hard Rock band Jetfuel, which was a fairly average band but were notable for their mutual love of playing classic- era Hard Rock, as opposed to the deathy-inspired modern metal which has prevailed since the turn of the 90s.

Heres a young Jon and Luna in the clip for Beat Paradise (2007)



Jetfuel disbanded, soon regrouping with Jon around the moniker White Wizzard. Jon also shifted the songwriting to be more straight up early Heavy Metal influenced, and the band quickly recorded a 7 song EP, which they self-released in 2007 as 50 hand burnt CDRs, complete with specially commissioned Derek Riggs artwork, with the intention of hoping to attract the attention of labels.

Jon Leon explains the transition:

"Jet Fuel was an LA band and I actually joined them in Los Angeles and that band was near it's end, because of a beef between Luna and the founder (guitar player in beat parasite video named Chris Naab). He had a bunch of issues with Luna and the band split because of those issues right after that video was shot.
      I was already working on some songs for what would become WW, and I contacted James and Tyler to come listen to some demos a couple months after that band split, because we got on well back then and I thought James had alot of talent and I felt it could be a good fit.
   They listened to them, liked them and I hunted for a guitar player....and I found James Larue on craigslist and auditioned him 1 on 1 a couple times.
    Then through some rehearsals I set up, line up 1 was born and we recorded the songs 2 months later of which became high speed GTO"


Unhappily for the band, no labels were interested,so they could hardly score any gigs, and for the 2007-8 period, White Wizzard languished in the doldrums. With no outside interest the band looked destined to follow the fate of most young hopefuls - ie a short career, before disbanding back into obscurity.

That was until Earache happened across the band in mid 2008, during our search for up and coming Heavy Metal acts to showcase on a new compilation we were planning, which led to the song High Speed GTO being a last minute addition to Various Artists :'Heavy Metal Killers' in Jan 2009.It was so last minute, it didn't even make it onto the advance promotional copies of that album.

During the discussions for the sampler, we learned the unhappy news- Luna replied that White Wizzard had recently dissolved and he was soon to begin working with some of the ex-members on an as yet unnamed new project - this became known as Sorceror a few months later.

Earache held talks with Luna and Jon at the same time, and I strongly suggested they reform the band back to the High Speed GTO line up and carry on with label backing. The pair of them had become too estranged by that point, and had developed very different visions about their future musical paths. We quickly formed the opinion that we'd sign Jon Leon as he was the chief songwriter and visionary, and indeed was holding the White Wizzard name and rights. Plus, Jon convinced us that he could easily pick up the pieces and recruit a new singer and guitarist, recruiting rookie screamer Wyatt Anderson from Florida and Erik Klieber from Detroit (ex-Overloaded) on guitar in record time, and even demoed 3 brand new songs to prove his intent.

This led to Earache signing White Wizzard to a long-term recording deal.We most probably would have signed James Luna's outfit too, but because he had no music or even band name, it seemed better to wait.When he found out we had decided to sign White Wizzard, Luna flipped out- he tried to sabotage the pending White Wizzard deal by sending me scandalous emails full of misinformation about Jon, which was pretty dumb.

Because he was the more web-savvy member, Luna held the log in details for their official website. After the split, Luna refused to hand over the domain registration info for the site whitewizzard.com, instead using it to promote his new outfit .To this day it displays a holding page dedicated to his band HOLY GRAIL.

This is the origin of the bad blood.



Within 6 months Luna had changed Sorceror to Holy Grail and then scored a deal themselves with LA's Prosthetic label. Holy Grail music is a more thrashy style of modern metal, with HM touches,its quite removed from where White Wizzard is at, musically.

White Wizzard Mk 3 was born after Wyatt and Erik - who played on the Over The Top album -both left to persue different paths, leaving Jon to recruit new members once again. In June 2010 it was announced that ex-Cellador (Metal Blade Power Metal act 2005-7) screamer Mike Gremio and rookie guitarist Lewis Stephans had come into the fold, they performed their first show at Download festival 2010.



Heres new White Wizzard line up, June 2010.

Where next for Extreme Metal? It's not Jazz.

Question: Dig, speaking about the future of metal, and extreme music. Do you SEE one? Earache is focusing on the thrash revival movement, a conservative throwback that is very fundamentalist in its approach to composition and music, it brings back the radicalism, narrow-mindedness and intolerance of the 80s with a vengeance (and sees that narrow mindedness as something to be confused with "pride" for the music and a kind of "trueness" and loyalty to the music) and pretty much only allows for music to be made in the way it was made during roughly 7, 8 years, from 1982 to 1990. Any growth, experimentation or evolution that took place after this very specific tiny period is seriously frowned upon by the conservative, reactionary thrashers. I think this scene is now as set and marked in stone as other revivals, mainly like rockabilly and we will see the aging thrashers and their followers doing and playing exactly the same type of music over and over again, with the same riffs, themes, clothes, album covers, etc, in the decades to come. Is Earache prepared to be the label for that movement?

And if intense music is to grow, do you see or can you predict WHERE it can go after all these years of experimentation with punk, hip hop, electronic, faster, slower, stonier, more bass, colder, etc types of metal and hardcore have already been done?

Would you sign, nowadays, a band like Shining (not the black metal, the Norway one) which is apparently attempting to take heavy sounds to new places?

Shining:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFEwPEhvktc&feature=related
http://www.myspace.com/shiningofficial From:


Answer: Maybe you missed this particular memo dude, but the future of 'Extreme Metal' is already being written into history by a generation of young bands playing whats loosely an amalgam of Death Metal brutality & hardcore style knuckle-dragging chug chug breakdowns, its called 'Deathcore'. It was never predicted by any journalist or blogger but was created by teenagers seeking to make the most extreme music imaginable. The scene built its success due to those bands early adoption and fanatical use of the power of the then newly-launched social networking site MySpace. From 2004 onwards, they were all over it, networking with, and building a fanbase 24/7. Curtis who is a member of Sheffield, UK band Bring Me The Horizon was so quick off the mark, he nabbed the Myspace pages of both At The Gates and The Haunted for his own private use.

The success of Deathcore bands like Job For A Cowboy, Suicide Silence and newer names like Whitechapel is proven by their high USA Billboard chart placings.They have genuine fans who still -gasp - actually buy CDs, and they are changing the landscape of extreme metal, in fact they have done so for a few years now. If there is one flaw in this theory, then its the bands' relative lack of success in the heavy metal strongholds of Europe. Deathcore bands are huge in USA but make barely a blip on the radar in say Sweden or Germany. Their success story seems to echo that of Myspace itself.

Back to your point about the Thrash bands being retro- I disgree, because I think the bands are merely using Thrash and NWOBHM as a reference point to start over again. Basically to many of the young bands we deal with, Destruction is just cooler than say Cradle of Filth. Bringing Thrash & 80s Heavy Metal elements back into the metal picture is just as valid and probably more contemporary than the abominations we have had to endure over the years- Hip Hop, Goth, Electronica and even bloody Opera have all been added to the metallic palette with short-term success, but I'm sorry, for me, Jazz becoming a big thing in metal will be the final nail in the coffin.



Its all about demolishing the ensconsed. Last week NME magazine- not known for having a finger on the pulse of metal trends- actually recognised that ENFORCER were pushing the metallic envelope and named them as among the Top 50 risk-takers in music. They were right to compare ENFORCER to Bjork, Jack White or Lady Gaga, because in 21 year old Olof Wikstrand the band boast a True Heavy Metal singer who wants to be, first and foremost a showman, and put on a show for his fans.

Fenriz from Darkthrone agrees. He knows a thing or two about decent music- he's just reviewed ENFORCER 'Diamonds' with a 9.5/10 mark in Rock Hard magazine:

ENFORCER "Diamonds" Heavy Artillery/Earache 2010

I am 12 years old again! WO HO!!! it's the early 80s and the more i listen to this album the more i realize that 2010 will be THE SUMMER OF ENFORCER for me (along with THE PAST and Kate Bush, by some freaky coincidence).

First of all i started my promo shouts for darkthrone proclaiming that we start the new decade with REAL heavy metal, and i guess i knew this album would come along and solidify my stance with ease - it even has that studio production that only THOSE WHO KNOW use these days - it is that of heavy metal like 3 first DIO, the guitars taking up very little impact on the parametres and with no comprimation, Enforcer have the balls to DO IT RIGHT and even minimize the fuzz on the guitars. Yes in the fashion of old they have understood that the drums and vocals drive this type of metal best for all time, with the bass supporting the drums like they should. I am thrilled that Earache decided to stand behind this release, because it will have a huge signal-effect to EVERYONE - and now the kids can finally understand how it was in the 80s again, by getting THIS album and not all those other heavy metal bands with the modern sound but old riffs. they are mostly sad to me compared to this firework.

Many will like their straight ahead speed metal pounders, I for one adore their beautiful songs - like KATANA or WALK WITH ME. I swear those songs gave me goosebumps the FIRST time i heard them, and it gets stronger every time - so far i got around to hearing the album 7 times and in Fenriz-time that means 70 times. ELDERS AND KIDS, BREAK YOUR CHAINS AND OPEN YOUR HEARTS TO THE SUMMER OF ENFORCER!!!

9.5 out of ten points for doing this in 2010. MAXI BALLS! TAXI!!!


I'll leave it to the blog readers to make their own mind up.Which do you prefer- a new NWOTHM band with a Heavy Metal singer or an instrumental jazz-metal skronk outfit? Leave your comments.

Heres Enforcer live on stage:



Heres Shining live clip:

BLOG POST: Why do the biggest bands come from the smallest towns?

Question: Im wondering for you which type of scene would produce the better or more focused bands? By this i mean the large city scene or the small town scene, two examples i can give which are both down under ( recently came back from a gap year in australia) is byron bay home to parkway drive and geelong which is home to the red shore. It seems to me that kids from the smaller scenes do more to keep their bands alive eg not getting rid of members as is could be difficult them and also keeping shows going because there seems to be the feeling that if they stop booking them the scene will die. Im wondering are bands from smaller scenes generally more business savy and hands on that a band from a large city where they can obtain things proffesionally quicker? From:

Answer: This is a great question, and you sum up this perplexing, but little-known fact - that the biggest bands do not seem to come from the major cities, as you might expect. Most often the biggest talents do hail from the smallest cities or towns. I'll try to explain why below.


Look at Nirvana from Seattle (Aberdeen, actually which is tiny) or Slipknot from Des Moines, or the countless bands coming out of Wales in recent years here in UK.It is a proven fact that in the Music Biz, the biggest bands, and certainly the ones who have the most impact on the scene, simply do not come from the major cities. No one has the definative answer for why this is. It defies logic. Every armchair pundit and blogger has their own pet theory, so feel free to comment below.

I think in the 70's to 80's era, bands in major cities did have all the advantages- they had a head start because they were closer to the media and record companies, and so got opportunities to be visible to the notoriously lazy A&R scouts, which the out of towners would not get. That's why so many of the 70's and 80's top tier Rock acts hailed from London, LA or New York. Its not like that nowadays of course.


I'm talking generally of course, but my own experience of running a label bears this out. Earache as a label has signed over 150 acts over the years from all over the world, and I'm pretty sure we've only signed 2 London bands - Pulkas and Akercocke - and that makes it less than 1% of our signings hail from the biggest UK city.We never planned it that way. Its weird when you think about.

As for the causes, I think its to do with the fact that musicians in major cities have a lot of options, they will probably hold down a decent job to be able to even afford to live in a comfortable metropolitan lifestyle. Much as they would hate to admit it, musicians I know from big cities all seem to be highly fashion conscious, and so make music with one eye on the prevailing trends. Bands from unfashionable towns have no such qualms, often they make music just for fun.They are unconcerned about trends, and can perfect their songs and style far away from the gaze of the metropolitan elite.

In this always-on, always socially-connected era, many bands are building their fame and fanbase via the internet, so actual location is rapidly becoming even less important. I also think that the rise of the affordable budget airlines in the last 2 decades has meant that new bands can travel much further distances in search of a receptive audience.

BLOG POST: Rammer- Toxic Holocaust- Cauldron connection?

Question: Other than being awesome and two of the bands being canadian. is
there really a link between rammer, toxic holocaust and earache\'s own
cauldron? I heard they shared members once. Im wondering if you guys can
confirm as wikipedia isnt the most reliable source of info. From:

Answer: I've never been to Toronto but there's no denying the city's influence on the worldwide metal scene. Rush is probably the biggest rock band to come from the city, not forgetting the immense Anvil, right up to the modern day HC bands like Career Suicide and Cancer Bats.From afar, it certainly seems to me that the Toronto scene always has something quirky and peculiar about it, it doesn't follow any prevailing American trend, usually it starts its own.

In the underground metal scene, its common for many members of bands to swap around and I think the connection between the bands you mention is drummer Al 'Biddle' Chambers. He was in two of the most influential Toronto bands in recent years, who both sadly split before gaining much international fame. Al wielded the stix in early pre-Cauldron band Goat Horn, who were a stoner-doomy Heavy Metal act, before that he occupied the drum stool for local thrash-speed-crossover merchants Rammer who were amazing aswell.

Earache had our eyes on both of those bands for quite a while, but we didn't offer any record deals at that time. Eventually when Rammer split around 2007 or so, the entire rhythm section decamped to join Joel's Toxic Holocaust which was a smart move for both of them.Meanwhile after Goat Horn split, mainman Jason Decay swiftly assembled Cauldron with the aim to bash out some NWOBHM-inspired Heavy Metal.After hearing the Cauldron debut EP, Earache finally stepped in to sign the band. Cauldron write an amazing tour blog which is well worth checking out for behind the scenes stories, pics and clips of their life on the road.Reading it will crack you up- go
HERE and HERE and HERE.

Another weird Toronto band connection is the big selling Indie-rock band Crystal Castles now have the most recent former Cauldron drummer Chris Rites in their ranks. In fact when Cauldron played London Old Blue Last pub last week with Enforcer, Chris, Alice and Ethan from the Crystal Castles came out to watch and support the band, which I thought was pretty cool!

STOP PRESS: I asked Cauldron mainman to give me more info and here's his explanation of the connection:

When Goat Horn first moved to Toronto in 2001 Rammer was one of the
first bands we hooked up with to do gigs with. Over the years we
became quite good friends with them and when Steelrider left Goat Horn
in February 2006, Al from Rammer offered to fill the drum slot. Al
continued on with me into Cauldron and had also started playing with
Toxic Holocaust at this point. He became very spread thin between the
3 bands and eventually chose to do the Toxic thing full time. Phil
(Rammer bassist) also ended up going to Toxic which ultimately became
the end of Rammer. Al has since quit Toxic and now plays with Toronto
band Diemonds. Cauldron has since had 3 drummers and Al has come back
a couple of time in between to fill in.

Jason


Heres RAMMER with "Uprising of Death", I never get tired of this clip, its great!



Heres Cauldron,filmed playing at the famous Toronto Opera House for their official clip "Chained up In Chains"



I would add Goat Horn's legendary video but YouTube makes it a private clip now for some stupid reason.

BLOG POST: Red XIII - terrible name, terrible band?

Question: Hi Dig, I've asked and had answered (cheers!) a few questions on here before but im sure you get so much of this these days so if this never gets answered then I'll understand!
I was just wondering if you had the spare time if you would possibly be able to tell us your personal opinion (holding nothing back!) of the 2 songs my band Red XIII has online from our forthcoming debut album, the songs are on our myspace @ http://www.myspace.com/screamredxiii
I thought of doing this when I was reading through old questions answered on here and you had done a somewhat similar thing a few years ago, and personally I would just really like to hear your opinion on our music as someone who is the owner of a reputable record label and has signed and launched some bands that influence us massively!
You can also download the 2 songs for free @ http://rapidshare.com/files/373494418/FREE_SONGS.zip
Thanks for your time! From: redxiiibooking@hotmail.com

Answer: OK if you read this blog on a regular basis, you'll know that probably 75% of the questions I get are from bands searching for a deal, and "just want an opinion".Its drives me nuts. I avoid all such questions because its not a free A&R service.You couldn't resist asking it though could you? Too bad- you think its clever and will get your band into the spotlight, instead you are now in the cross hairs, dude....

I decided to have some fun with your band-thought it might be fun to review you in the style of a big-shot Major label A&R guy, like youtube A&R guy phenomenon Bertie "Big" Balls.In reality his opinion would not be too different from a snotty puerile Lambgoaters one. Hope you enjoy Berties letter!

From the desk of Bertie "Big" Balls:

" Red XIII? What kind of a shit name is that? From Blackpool I see? That's hilarious! Lads- do us all a favour and jump off the famous Blackpool fucking Tower because that's the only way it seems you'll ever get anyones attention.

I checked your twitter feed and it has exactly zero tweets! Are you fucking kidding me? What kind of terminally lazy fuckwits are you? Let me put it this way- fucking Lady Gaga has sold 10 million albums and is the biggest Pop Star on the planet, yet SHE can still be bothered to tweet to her fans on a daily basis. Meanwhile you retards just sit on your arses and expect fans to flock to you. NOT.GONNA.HAPPEN.

Same thing on Youtube- I checked you out, and found 2 clips of your shitty, no-hope band online. Fucking hell, you really are sad bastards- my neighbourhood pets are more famous than you, and one of them is a goldfish. Even my local cat has got more youtube views than you, and it doesn't think the music industry owes it a living.

I bet you boy-geniuses all think you got wicked sick hairstyles, well let me tell you something - fringes went out in 2007, and now its 2010 so stop copying Oli Sykes for gods sake.You look like ponces. I know its hard, but try looking fucking metal for once, get some Possessed and Maiden shirts, buzz it off, or better yet, grow your hair long. To be fair at least drummer Greg doesn't look like an emo faggot. Good on him.

I see you are actually active on Facebonk- the famous 'Social Notworking' site. Congratulations, you and 400 million others now spend hours handing over your personal data to the government for free. Suckers.

The art- OMG?! are you kidding me!!? Who did that gorilla stuff? A 5 year old?

Now we get onto the really fun stuff-- the music. You proudly put "Metalcore" as genre, which is so out of date its not even funny. Trouble is- I don't hear any metal- just shitty no talent chug chug riffs. Hey-where are the shredding guitar solos? No solos means no metal. The truth is, you are not a metal band, period.

I don't know why you wasted 10 minutes of my precious time.

Goodbye and good luck.

Kindly yours,

Bertie Big Balls, Chief A&R Scout, Bigshot Records Ltd."

OK- I'm out of character now- I repeat the above review is harmless fun,a joke, no harm intended, it's just to liven up the blog a bit. I do hope you got a sense of humour!

Heres Bertie Big Balls himself starring in 'A&R, The Movie'. Its so true!

BLOG POST: Lightning Bolt and other bass-guitar-driven bands.

Question: do you think its possible the guitar is an over used instrument in rock music? by that i mean its now become the convention. do you see it as a possibility that band that use the bass as the main instrument eg lightning bolt, death from above 1979(when they were around), exit international and palehorse are actually reshaping rock music because they are using a different instrument as the lead or is it possible thease bands are being seen as gimmick bands. im curious as to your opinion on this its just 90 percent of bands seem to have the guitar/bass/drums line up and im wondering is there is room for going from that whilst still being taken seriously? From:


Answer: When it comes to bass-lines versus riffs, riffs win every time for me dude.But I agree it pretty cool to listen to bands with a different slant from time to time.This group of bands you mention, well I've never really seen them as connected or as being part of a common scene, just because they choose to have bass-guitar as lead instrument, but I take your point about how it breaks the convention of the traditional drums/bass/guitar/vocals set up.The reason the conventional set up is so successful is because it offers the full palette of sonic frequencies, in my opinion, it just "works".

From the 70's onwards,the dub and reggae scenes have had bass-lines taking the lead and some of the biggest post-punk rock bands at that time also built their songs around bass-lines - undoubtedly by taking major influence from the dub scene- the guitar was somehow relegated to the role of providing flourishes or fragments of noise instead of riffs. Bands like Talking Heads, Killing Joke spring to mind. Public Image Limited might well have been the first to spearhead this singleminded fixation on basslines, because at the time John Lydon often proclaimed Dub was his main influence, after Sex Pistols folded.

Nowadays of course the bands you mention have ditched the guitar all together.For me personally its an interesting diversion to listen to them for a while, so cheers for the cool question!

Here's Lightning Bolt- 2morro Morro land. Watch the amazing drummer - he's just killing it on the kit.Awesome display.


Public Image Limited- Careering


I remember London's Palehorse well, because we had a connection to their label. I saw them many times as they were constantly supporting every band in the UK between 2002-5 or so. With two bassists going at it, they were pretty heavy, but it was more a dirge than anything memorable. In 2003 they had an album out "Gee That Ain't Swell" on UK indie Dry Run Recordings which was the label run by Earache's former sales manager Raffi Ouzounian. Raffi was the biggest Godflesh fan around, and compiled their best-of set "In All Languages' for Earache. His label also released the first post-Godflesh material from Justin Broadrick, Jesu's 'Heartache'.

Palehorse Live in London:

BLOG POST: How to clear movie samples used in Music/Video

Question: Since its argubly the most iconic video earache ever made, how easy was getting the footage and audio samples of the 1968 occult horror classic witchfinder general for the cathedral song/video? was it quite hard being as ive read before of how you've asked bands to remove samples of records before eg entombed because of trouble clearing them. From:


Answer: Cathedral got lucky because the UK film industry is more or less a cottage industry when compared to the behemoth that is Hollywood, so dealing with UK companies for clearance and permissions can often be relatively simple.By contrast, dealing with the Hollywood blockbuster movie studios is a nightmare to clear anything. Even seemingly obscure B-movies are a legal minefield of copyrights, and actors rights, directors rights, its simply too costly and troublesome to obtain permissions.

Most of the time, the only way major movie action appears in bands' video clips is when they happen to be signed to a major record company which also has affiliation to a major Movie studio. Sony records and Sony pictures, or Universal records and Universal Studios for instance. It's common for a movie studio to use material from an album by the affiliate label to promote each others projects.This synergy explains how Hatebreed's music ended up with Punisher War Zone movie

The distinctive voice dialogue of actor Vincent Price which Cathedral used in the song was lifted from the Hammer Horror (CORRECTION: Tigon Film's) flick 'Witchfinder General' from 1968. It was left up to the label to make the calls and obtain clearance, and rather suprisingly to us, the copyrights were at the time still in hands of mid-sized British entrepreneurs, who were happy to co-operate with the label on the Cathedral album and video, for a small fee. They were kind enough to supply a pristine copy of the movie for the director to incoporate into the clip. I guess its down to the fact that even recognised giants of UK cinema- actors and films which are household names here - haven't actually been huge money-spinners around the globbe and so are not repped by teams of highly paid and dubious lawyers.Polite requests to UK film companies are treated pretty favourably.

We had similar luck with dialogue samples from the legendary 70's UK movie "Scum" which was used on the debut SSS album.On payment of a small fee, it was cleared.

Heres Cathedral- Hopkins - The Witchfinder General (1993) clip, Directed by Nigel Wingrove of UK horror specialist Redemption Films, and featuring vampire/horror cult actress Eileen Daly. Budget approx £25,000.

Blog Post: LOST SOUL, when good bands go great...

Question: Have you ever let a band go from the label and then thought "oh shit maybe that was a bad idea"? Main example I can give as it was the last record i bought was lost soul. For me an amazing polish band superior to decapitated in some ways, I was listening to their newest album and for some reason I had the nagging feeling in my head "why the fuck doesnt this have a mosh number attached to it!". From:

Answer: Luckily for us, it doesn't happen too often. There aren't too many bands we have let go from Earache, only to see them thrive and succeed on another label, so mostly we are confident in our decisions. Dub War spring to mind- we let them go after 2 albums,then three quarters of the members regrouped 3-4 years later as Skindred, and instantly scored a high profile management deal, then a major record deal, got on US radio, then promptly sold 200,000 records on their debut, playing a similar style. We didn't feel like egg was on our face, we actually were chuffed for them.

Yes, Lost Soul are amazing, they seem to have evolved from being a straight-up Morbid Angel type of band to some kind of cosmic hyperspeed Death Metal band. We signed them to Wicked World/Earache for 2005's Chaostream album, and had high hopes they could follow in Decapitated's footsteps, as the band were undoubtedly very talented, and on the live shows we saw, they were just outstanding, on a par with many bigger bands, but even though they had everything going for them, and even toured Europe a little bit, for some reason nothing much happened for them sales wise. The music industry at the highest level still rates bands in a pecking order based on how many albums they have sold, so Lost Soul's poor sales meant it was inevitable they'd be dropped from the sub-label.

Bands can go from average to devastating in as little as 3 months, and this magical creative boost can strike at anytime, and for any reason. For Lost Soul it just took 5 years.

Enmity between Napalm Death & Fudge Tunnel back in the day?

Question: Dig, Your probably could have guessed this was coming since the latest issue of terrorizer went to press. Alex Newport said and due to the controversial nature of the quote i will write it in full " We were never really part of that grindcore scene, I remember Napalm Death asking earache to drop us, saying that if the didnt they'd leave, they were offended because we werent a "true metal" band, We're like yeah we arnt a metal band at all you brummie dipshits!" Im curious is this true? as they are quite serious accusations im wondering if you could clear the story up a bit of what went on. From:

Answer: Yeah I read that feature on Fudge Tunnel's 'Creep Diets' album and the most suprising thing to me is that Terrorizer featured Fudge Tunnel at all, because the band's music has not really aged that well, the only mentions I get are from readers of this blog, we never get asked for their CDs from retailers for instance.

Terrorizer, as per usual, went digging for dirt by asking their standard leading question which all our old bands get asked: "How horrible was it for you, being on Earache back in the day?" or some such nonsense, so it was pretty refreshing to read Alex Newport actually give an honest, even-handed, you could call it mature, appraisal for once. Alex speaks frankly about the bands woes, and blames the bands own shortcomings as the reason for their split.

Back to the question- one thing the feature does highlight is that not all the Earache bands back in the day were one big happy grindcore/death metal family. Far from it, there were rivalries and factions, outbreaks of double dealing and clashes going on all over the place, which for the most part have remained unreported, despite the couple of books and numerous magazine articles written about the early extreme music scene,the real cloak-and-dagger stuff remains untold.

I could tell you stuff that would make your hair curl - examples of hypocrisy, dirty tricks, and underhand dealings which would shatter most fans' long held beliefs about some of the leading grindcore bands. Stuff they've done which quite simply mocks their own lyrics and contradicts their pronouncements to the press, and undermines the lofty banner under which some of the bands ply their trade.

It's not in my interest to expose any band because most of their back catalogue remains on Earache, and to do so would be pretty dumb of me. Anyway its mostly just examples of human frailty, or ego-driven ambition - common stuff which can and does affect anyone,really.

Earache became involved with Fudge Tunnel because of a few lucky events. Earache's in-house art guy Johnny Barry became Label Manager, and his personal tastes were far from the Death Metal/Grindcore the label was known for. Johnny had been in a local Hardcore band called Filler, and so his network of contacts were definately more on the hardcore side than metal. Johnny was - and still is I think- Fugazi's UK booking agent.

Johnny steered Earache in a more HC direction for a while. His best buddies in the local Nottingham scene were an up and coming trio called Fudge Tunnel who were making serious waves whenever they played in London with the then-very-hip Sub-Pop/ Amp-Rep scenesters. The band had a 7inch out on the Pigboy label, which was operated from above the legendary Portobello Road record shop 'Vinyl Solution' which back then was home to the UK's leading HC band, The Stupids.Nowadays its the location of the platinum-selling Visible Noise label.

By early 90's I'd become keen for the label to branch out a bit from the Grindcore/Death metal scene, Helmet's "Strap It On" album was a fave of mine at that time, so it seemed logical to snap up the buzzworthy locals Fudge Tunnel to the label.

The signing did cause some friction- from memory, it was Fudge Tunnel who were more antagonistic to Napalm Death than vice-versa - Alex, Dave and Adrian just weren't impressed with Repulsion or chuffed with Napalm Death's music. In truth they were typical Indie-Rockers, influenced by bands which were deemed cool by their peers- Big Black, Helmet and Nirvana.Its fair to say, Fudge Tunnel pretty much looked down on the underground extreme metal scene which Earache was spearheading, and for some of those bands in that scene, the hostility was mutual.



Fudge Tunnel were the ones who insisted that Earache give them a different label identity so they weren't lumped in with the DM bands. It was a sensible request, given the narrow minded tastes of most grind/Death Metallers,and come to think of it, most Indie-Rockers are equally as narrow-minded, so Earache changed its own logo into a slicker 50s era style to appease them.

The irony of course is that Alex Newport's first proper European tour for Fudge Tunnel was with Brazilian metallers Sepultura, this was where he met and ended up marrying one of Gloria Cavalera's daughters. Being part of the Cavalera family spurred his relocation to the USA and being part of the successful Nailbomb project for Roadrunner.It was undoubtedly a metal band, but I assume the more punky aspects of the group was mostly Alex's input.

Alex nowadays is a successful producer- his claim to fame is the recording of System Of A Down's first demo which led to their signing to Rick Rubin's American Recordings.

Decapitated's decision to carry on is perfectly understandable.

Question: I was wondering what you think about Vogg's decision to carry on with Decapitated after the death of his brother Vitek, recruiting an entirely new lineup in the process.
Are the band still contracted to Earache? If a new album is in the works, will you be releasing it? Prior to the accident, the band were undoubtedly a leading force in death metal in recent years. Do you think the quality and spirit of Decapitated can be upheld with just one remaining original member? From: jaymz__allen@hotmail.com


Answer: Personally, I think it is perfectly reasonable for Vogg to recruit new members and carry on with his band in 2009, after the tragic death of his brother/drummer Vitek and the fact that singer Covan is still slowly recovering from major head trauma sustained in Decapitated's horrific tour bus crash while on tour in November 2007.

Your question almost presumes that the band lost all the members through normal circumstances, be it musical differences or whatever, when in fact Decapitated suffered a tragic accident which decimated the band.The circumstances behind the new line up are not trivial. Undoubtedly, Vogg's motivation is 100% pure and contains an element of "carrying on" in the face of adversity. The new line up of Decapitated is also a way to pay tribute to the fallen Vitek, and recovering Covan.

Decapitated lost a member before -in 2005 original vocalist Sauron chose to quit Decapitated to persue other musical interests -he formed a punky/jokey/goregrind band. Covan was quickly recruited as Sauron's replacement and the band carried on.

A quick history lesson: Earache/Wicked World signed the band in 1999 and recorded 4 albums by Decapitated from 1999-2006, during which time we are proud to say the band went from teenage Polish newbies to one of the world leaders of the technical Death metal scene.By summer 2007 the band had reached the end of their contract with us, and despite our best efforts to re-sign the band, they and the management chose to ink instead with European powerhouse Nuclear Blast.

So from the summer of 2007 onwards, the signing of the bands lucrative new deal with Nuclear Blast meant we became quite estranged from Decapitated, through no fault of our own, and we certainly weren't involved in any of their career plans from that point on. One consequence of the Nuclear Blast signing was that original bassist Martin suddenly quit the group and relocated to a new life in California. Martin was not present on the tour bus during the accident.

When the tragedy struck, it was deep into Eastern Europe in Belarus near the small town of Gomel, the tour bus was taking the band to that nights concert when it crashed head on at speed into a lorry heavily laden with lumber. The bus was completely destroyed, members of support band Crionics also suffered many broken bones, yet by sheer fate Decapitated guitarist Vogg escaped with pretty minor injuries. News took a few days to filter back to us, so we held an ebay auction to donate money to the emergency Vitek fund. Vitek passed away a couple of days after the crash and Covan was for a long while in a coma.

In the couple of years since the accident, Vogg helped out on the road with fellow Poles Vader and was also, we hear, offered the rhythm guitarist job in Morbid Angel, which he turned down.

If Vogg/Decapitated does decide to record any new material it will be for Nuclear Blast, and even if its brand new line up, I for one would applaud such a move, as it would prove that the band's spirit can triumph over tragic circumstances.

Here's Decapitated live show in Nottingham, December 2004 with Sauron:


Decapitated - Live @ Rescue Rooms 2004 - Full Live Show on muzu.tv

Record labels don't decide where bands tour, Tour Agents do.

Question: I have two questions really, not very related, but relevant none the less. First, I've noticed that on every tour I've been to, the bands playing are rarely all on the same label. Just recently this struck a chord, who decides what bands go on a tour, and do labels ever have any say whether or not their band goes out or is it the band's decision?

Secondly, I'm in a death metal band called Hadean Reign and we write an ABUNDANCE of songs. I've read lots of interviews with bands getting ready for an album and they'll say things like, "we already have 34 songs written," and stuff like that. My question is, when signing a band what are labels looking for in terms of album writing frequency? Do you want a band to be able to write 30 songs and put an album out every year or two, or do you prefer them to sit and gain momentum on tour and take time with material? From: stanleyx2002@hotmail.com


Answer: Record labels traditionally sign bands up to a 'Recording Agreement' which governs the releasing of material to the public on recorded formats- CD, LP, Digital etc- and collecting the money from record shops, legal download sites etc. Very often the live performances of the act is not covered in such a deal because performing live is a seperate type of business, which has specialist types of companies called Touring Agents who deal with it.

For some reason the whole Touring Agent side of the business is less well known to the general public, mainly because the Touring Agencies do not spend as much time promoting themselves as the record labels do, The agencies tend to stay in the background quietly planning the live appearances and tours of the bands they represent.

Much like labels have a roster of acts, most of the bigger Touring Agencies boast a roster of performers too. Some of the biggest examples are CAA who boast AC/DC, Green Day and Radiohead on their books, William Morris Agency with Lady Gaga, Slash and Prince. Their are agencies who specialise in Rock and Metal like The Agency who rep Muse, Paramore and Trivium.

Agencies are typically the ones who negotiate the live performance fees for a show by the acts they rep, and in recent years the live touring circuit has assumed a huge level of importance for bands- just as the importance of record labels has declined due to less people actually buying music, and rampant illegal downloading. Agents negotiate the fee with the concert promotor who is the one putting on the gig, selling the tickets and taking the gamble.

In many ways, its now arguable that a knowledgable, dedicated touring agent who works hard for a band is more key than having a record label on board, but it must be noted that rarely do agents actually finance and fund the touring, they just supply a list of clubs and dates they booked for you, then its up to the band to finance the tour, so its not ideal for new unknown bands. To provide the finance to meet the huge costs of touring, you'll need an old-fashioned record company, as Agencies - like typical middlemen- rarely take risks with their own money. So bizarrely, Record labels aren't dead yet as we have had to reinvented ourselves as financiers of tours.

Touring packages most often include bands from the same Agency, its common for a headline act to take out newbie bands who recently signed to the same agent, as a stepping stone to a live career, and record labels hardly ever have a say in this process. This is why bands on the same label don't tour together much.

The last 10 years or so has seen an even bigger change in the touring landscape though. The rise of the super-promotors like Live Nation which have grown to become massive companies involved in the touring business.Live Nation has a financial turnover which dwarfs even the biggest Agency.

Live Nation grew out of a chain of US radio stations and its advertising business to eventually controlling numerous live venues and stadiums in the USA.Used to taking gsmbles and coming out on top, Live Nation turned the traditional record business on its head by signing Madonna for a reported $100 Million advance to cover her touring and recording for a number of years. Live Nation run the successful Download metal festival in the UK and numerous high profile events.


On the subject of number of songs recorded for an album, its a proven fact that the more songs a band has written and ready, the better the resulting album with be. Like most jobs, but especially in the creative songwriting process, the more you practise it, the better you get. You'd be surprised how many famous bands struggle to write material, many trivial things can disturb the writing process, but pressure to produce a follow-up after a big selling debut album often results in the dreaded "second album syndrome".

I think I read recently about ex-Earache band The Haunted had something like 40 new songs written and ready for a new album, which is remarkable as when they recorded for us, like most bands, it was more like 9 or 10 maximum. 40 potential new songs means the new album will be amazing.

Being prolific in the songwriting dept is brilliant and is exactly what labels are looking for.Prolific bands who can write under pressure are like gold-dust.

Why do labels release split-LP, split-7 inch etc

Question: In my few years of experience with Grindcore, I have noticed that many releases by bands are often split releases, after a quick bit of research, to my knowledge earache has only released 5 splits. Is there any particular reason why split releases are infrequent under Earache?
Cheers
Alex Layzell From: internecide@googlemail.com


Answer: My second release as a label was a split LP- HERESY/ CONCRETE SOX, and you are right, a lot of grindcore bands early output on other labels was often released as a split. The reason is mostly financial, and the fact that most grindcore bands songs are short, so when times are tight, as it always is with upstart labels, it would seem almost like a shameful wasteful use of resources to release say 8 songs by Heresy, total time 15 minutes, on a long player vinyl which can hold 45 minutes of music. The clever idea would be to look around for a compatible band to share the available space with. This would require bands to be community minded and not competitive. Luckily Heresy and the Sox were good buddies at that time, so it was easy to put together.

During the era of grindcore's first wave, costs of recording were astronomical, because it was the analog tape era, brand new Ampex multitrack tapes cost £200 each, which allowed a maximum of 15 minutes of recording time. Many bands were restricted to this time limit for that reason. Recording an album of say the standard 45 minutes required £600 in tape costs alone, which was far beyond the reach of most new bands budget.

Earache's early releases sold a lot of copies which meant budgets were'nt so tight, meaning the later bands on the label were afforded the relative luxury of enough budget in order to create their own full length albums.

In later years bands would often team up for a split release if they were keen to be connected together due to a friendship or for the purpose of highlighting a fave band. The Napalm Death/ Coalesce split came about because Earache was gearing up to sign newcomers Coalesce (after a well received 7inch on our 'New Chapter' series sub-label) so we persuaded the always open-minded Napalm Death guys to help showcase this new Hardcore band for us by doing a split release with them.It was a massive boost to the newcomer band to be associated with, and get the seal of approval from the undisputed grindcore kings. As it worked out we declined to sign Coalesce because mainman Sean's successful painting and decorating business, which he owned and operated, meant he was unable to tour the band.

Earache's sublabel Necrosis followed the same idea with two newcomer Death metal bands on CD- Carnage and Cadaver were first released together on one CD disc, to save money and resources. As both their debut albums were relatively short, about 30 mins each, it seemed sensible to place them on one CD, which can hold 78 mins of music.

Outside of my label, in recent years I'm seeing the 4-way split LP getting more common as 4 bands team up and pool resources to create a long player vinyl. Nowadays its not the cost of recording which stumps bands, software now allows unlimited recording time for virtually zero costs, its the costs of making vinyl which is the stumbling block for many bands individually. A 1000 copies of even basic 12 inch wax can cost £2000 easily because it is a super-medieval process, wasteful in the extreme, and vinyl is in fact a big lump of a non-renewable petroleum product, and the price of oil is at an all-time high.

Will the New Wave of True Heavy Metal (NWOTHM) bands have to modernise their style to succeed?

Question: Do you think the nwothm bands at some point will have to adapt with the times to get anywhere i mean as much as i love cauldron, white wizard and enforcer im sure at some point the market is going to dry up as people will tire of that sound and do you feel that the bands may have to take a more modern metal approach sort of like what evile have done with thrash or biomechanical or even the other extreme like aussies electrik dynamite have done eg keeping the traditional metal elements but sprinkeling a touch of modern aspects? From:

Answer: I think you are missing the point dude, the new young NWOTHM bands on the Earache label like Enforcer, Cauldron and White Wizzard all play HEAVY METAL precisely because they aren't into what passes for metal in the current climate. If you talk to them, they just don't have an appreciation for or even relate to the likes of Pantera, Lamb of God, Mastodon, and certainly not Killswitch Engage/Bullet For My Valentine or whatever is deemed 'metal' by 99.9% of the metallic population.

To these bands, downtuned guitars, sludgy riffs and extreme growly vocals are seriously unhip. In the 90's and 00's some geniuses thought that Metal was better when mixed and matched with hip hop and hardcore, then symphony orchestras and even opera divas got in on the act too, and almost unbelievably, these abominations somehow became the acceptable face of modern metal to most people.

Luckily not everyone agreed- to the NWOTHM musicians all that modern stuff is just laughable. Instead they crave a return to a sort of 'authenticity' in metal, and from where I'm standing, that's what this New Breed of HM bands signify more than anything. That's what the "True" stands for in NWOTHM. If you meet the guys, they are pretty snobby about this being the only way Heavy Metal should be in the 10's. I guess time will tell if they are right.

Olof from Enforcer can explain his vision better way than me: " I think it's because we take things all the way, making heavy metal something spectacular again, both musically and aesthetically and I think that frightens people in the 21st century. If you look back at almost all bands since the early 90's and forward the bands forgot about taking it all the way. Somewhere in the musical progression bands forgot about attitude and looks. What's so fun with that? If I go and see a band I don't want to see some lazy old dudes playing around, laughing about what they do, dressed in their regular clothes. I want to see something spectacular, a show, see some enthusiasm and get infected by the energy on stage or even get scared. Nowadays what Heavy Metal has turned out to be is so damn mediocre."



So there you have it--it's about the singer, songs, and showmanship, stupid. Though way too young to remember it, Olof's definition of metal is based around the spectacular sight of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Scorpions and Dio etc in their pomp, not the monochromatic vision of say, Morbid Angel, Dimmu Borgir or Cradle of Filth and their ilk. Yes I agree the roots are unashamedly retro, and the sentiments pretty naive, but at 21 years old Olof Wikstrand still has plenty of time to develop a more unique character, and I believe given enough time and enough budget to achieve his aims, Enforcer will in the future put on the some of most spectacular live shows his generation will have ever seen.

The NWOTHM scene is currently dividing the opinion of fans and journalists like no other. Newcomers Steelwing (average age 19) on Nuclear Blast received a thorough bashing and a paltry 4/10 review from extreme metal specialist mag Terrorizer. Steelwing were bashed for basically being unoriginal,because they choose to play an outdated, 30 year old Heavy Metal style.The same mag praises the likes of Landmine Marathon for successfully recording a straight-up copy of the Earache circa 1990 sound. While I'm happy to see our 90's era back catalog being so influential with new bands, I fail to see the logic in bashing a band for playing 1980's metal while praising one which worships 1990's metal. Its a matter of taste, I guess being retro is only cool if you copy the right decade?

There is a precedence for this- it has been pretty hip in metal circles to appreciate Black Sabbath type retro riffs for years, the entire genre of Doom Metal is pure unadulterated Black Sabbath worship, so you could argue that retro metal in some guise has always been around in the underground.

If you like no frills, heads down Heavy Metal make sure to catch ENFORCER & CAULDRON on European and UK tour in May, this is what you can expect:



Heres Cauldron and Enforcer causing chaos backstage aswell, on current May 2010 tour. UK better watch out!

Why doesn't FUGAZI have a MySpace page?

Question: You sort of answered this before but in this interview with ian mackaye http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0B-6E3lMHI&feature=related he mentions how when he tried to book a show for the evens he was told that "if your band doesnt have a myspace page you really cant be serious about this". Im curious how long do you think myspace as a site is going to last in regard to being the norm for bands? i mean both dischord records in dc and also tragedy in portland oregon have both made stands against the site. Im wondering as well do you think theres a danger that one site is going to control peoples access to music? From:

Answer: Actually I checked and it seems FUGAZI is indeed on Myspace, and its actually operated off and on, by Ian Mackaye himself, so that's that theory blown. Dischord is on it too but its a fan site, unofficial. The Evens do have one, again unofficially run, but Ian Mackaye approved nontheless.

Dude, there are plenty of bands who are anti-everything and shun all publicity, if you dig deep enough underground, you can find them. I remember a militant 80s anarchist/DIY band that refused to send their tapes in the post to me, because the postal system is "owned by the Government, and we are against Government".Fair play to them for adhering to their strict beliefs- they advised I pick up a cassette in person at a gig, which was usually free and in a squatted venue. I admired their stance, the militancy and steadfastness of their worldview was very appealing at the time. One question nagged me though- how did the band expect the fans to travel to those gigs? By the Government-owned road, subway and rail networks no doubt. The band meant well- but this apparent paradox was lost on them. They were just caught up in this "I'm more punk than you" attitude that was prevalent then.

Myspace is just a free way to have a webpage, the server space alone and ability to stream tracks and interact with 200 million music fans would have cost a band $2000 a month prior to Myspace's launch in 2004.Believe me, running a band website prior to 2004 was a pain in the ass, I know because I ran plenty in the 90s and early 00s. So, millions of bands and fans flocked to the service, because it was easy to set up, and also a ridiculously cheap bargain. MySpace has been so successful that I've argued in previous posts that in many ways it is the face of the entire Music Industry nowadays. Its still the first place I turn to, to listen to a new band I've heard about.MySpace has actually helped launched the careers of dozens of bands in the last 6 years- Emo and Deathcore in particular would'nt have happened without the fan-interactivity and sheer networking power which the site offers.

Even so, many bands exist out there which are anti-anything that is wildly popular. Outsider art is not meant for consumption by the mainstream, pop culture.



Some of the most 'Troo Kvult' Black Metal bands now shun MySpace completely and only release material on cassette, limited to 100 hand-dubbed copies with hand-drawn art. Imagine that in 2010- no Mp3's! You could be forgiven for imagining that these type of bands are the last of the true renegades, living outside the confines of Society's sheep like hordes.The reality is often more mundane- often its a couple of Bro's living at home in Mom's apartment in Michigan, working a factory job daydreaming that they were in Norway instead, then corpsepainted up on the weekend for the cover photo snap.

My hometown is Nottingham, UK near Sherwood Forest, so I grew up with the folklore of the original outlaw and renegade Robin Hood, its the default attitude round here. Talking out outsiders, when we first signed Mortiis, he actually did live in a shack in the middle of the woods, with no electricty, and no water. we were quite impressed by his tales of having to trek for an hour into the nearest town to use internet and communicate. True story, that.

Heres the Ian Mackaye interview, its worth listening to, he is a fantastic speaker on the subject of Punk and the DIY attitude, with a great story about Wino (The Obsessed):

Earache vinyl run-out groove inscriptions

Question: Hi Dig!

Recently, I bought some old Earache's vinyl records. After I took a close look at them I noticed that some of they have inscriptions near matrices. For example:

Scorn's Evanescence has 'Le sange et sur la lit' and 'It's a...it's a...'
Entombed's Clandestine has 'Is it a bird, is it a flute?'
Napalm Death's Haromny Corruption has 'How chuffed' and 'What a bloody doss'
Napalm Death's Mass Appeal Madness has 'Swinging Thumb Jump Side' and 'Screaming Gai Side'.

Do you remember anything about those (and others) inscriptions like that? Could you provide some more information about them?

Thanks! From:

Answer: Yes I remember them well, these inscriptions were a fun part of the process in the mastering/cutting of Earache's vinyl records. The process of making a vinyl record is a lengthy and costly one, but would always start with me making a visit to a mastering/cutting studio in London. During the 90's about a dozen mastering houses existed, my only time at the famous Abbey Road studio was to cut the Napalm Death debut 'Scum'.I also visited Utopia, and The Exchange for a few of early masterings but eventually settled on one place.

Over a hundred of Earache's 90's vinyls were cut at one location - Transfermation studios (based in the Stock-Aiken-Waterman studio complex at Lant St, near Tower Bridge) and by one man- Noel Summerville (pictured above). He is the NS inscribed in the wax. Luckily, Noel had worked on many 1980's UK heavy metal records like Motorhead, so the extremely heavy fast music Earache was creating wasn't that alien to him. Besides that, Noel was also a very likeable fella, he turned what easily could have been a stressful experience, into a pleasant afternoon. Also I must mention the affable Irishman Richard Dowling who mastered the majority of early Earache CDs aswell. Note - this was in the era before the CD 'loudness war' broke out which affected the whole mastering scene.

The cutting session would usually last all afternoon, at least 3-4 hours, and is a laborious process involving the mastering engineer physically cutting the music via a specialist acoustic lathe into a soft acetate 13inch disc. Getting the depth and width of the groove correct (deep grooves make it bassier, wider groove means louder) would require an expert eye and ear, and this was the talent of the mastering engineer. Many of the Earache recording sessions were extremely low budget but the expertise of Noel somehow made them sonically comparable to major-label-budget releases. Two acetates would be cut, also called laquers, for A and B sides - then would be sent off to be processed (involving dipping them in vats of molten silver oxide to make an inverse copy of the grooves) which would eventually produce the solid, hard metal plates to physically print the final vinyl which goes on sale.

The final part of the session after the A & B sides were cut would be the fun part for me. After the inscription into the run out groove of the catalog number - using a special diamond tipped pen - the engineer would ask for any other identifying marks or relevant info. It was common back then for bands to leave cryptic messages for fans on these run out grooves. Mostly these inscriptions were thought up on the spot by me, and are nothing profound. It's often just the stupid sayings which people in the band were chatting about around the time, captured on wax.

Noel is still available for mastering audio, via digital files - hire him at
iMastering.

New trend of bands licensing their records to labels.

Question: Here's an interesting one- do you think when it comes to larger bands labels are actually losing power? by this i mean tom g warrior famously set up his own label and licesned the last celtic frost and the new trypticon records to century media, and from what ive read and seen with interviews with the owner of seasons of mist the only item they have the right to sell is MA's albums. Do you think that thease privaliges are only really open to the bigger band as im sure if a newer band came to a label saying "we dont want to sign to you but we will lisense the record to you" the label would tell them where to go. I'm curious about your thoughts on this? From:

Answer: Well, I take your point, and its definately happening more and more these days. The tables are slowly turning as labels perform a service for the artist, rather than the artist work for the label.To be able to license, the artist takes all the upfront risk in recording the album, and might turn in a stinker maybe. Bands can still come unstuck this way- imagine if Celtic Frost had self-recorded and then sought a licence back in the day for their 1988 Glam-Rock album 'Cold Lake', do you think there would have been any takers? What about Apollyon Sun? I highly doubt there would have been any takers for that either. Financial ruination of the artist would be the inevitable outcome. Bands only take extreme musical risks when it's someone else- a label, usually- picking up the tab. Allowing bands the financial freedom -so they can be as creative as they like on the recording- is an often overlooked function that a label provides.

Also- have you noticed that some of the biggest bands in the world, the ones who own their own copyrights, are also some of the most restrictive regarding online usage of their catalogue? Ever tried to buy The Beatles, Metallica, AC/DC or Led Zeppelin on iTunes or Spotify? They aren't there. Huge bands can play by their own rules and if they don't want their music for sale online, then that's their choice.

Its all about risk versus reward. Underground Punk bands know all about this, many have been recording, manufacturing and selling their own records on a DIY basis for decades. Achieving any level of lasting global 'success' using the DIY method requires hard work and sweat on a continuing basis, so the most successful true punk bands- Fugazi, NoFX - fully deserve their rewards, having spent decades building up rock solid relationships with their fanbases.

The internet and social networking sites are changing the whole dynamic of the relationship between bands and their fans, and the common consensus of the blog-terati is that record labels are dinosaurs who serve no purpose 'cept to be a useless middleman coming between the fan and band -usually fleecing the artist along the way for good measure.

The impression that popular blogs like Mashable and Techdirt give about labels is so one-sided, its unreal.They urge bands to stay away from the music industry, and to use 'FREE' as their promotional tool, and 'TH' INTERNETZ' as their distributor, then, they advise, fame and fortune shall surely be theirs. Wow, if only it was that easy! I speak from experience because I tried it myself last year with our Irish thrash band Gama Bomb.

Speaking as an Indie record label owner myself - I maintain we do have a unique role to play in the signing and development of new bands. There are some bloggers who understand the time, money and energy that labels, and Indie labels in particular, expend to break artists out of obscurity into a career. It has always been a pet peeve of mine that artist-owned labels - even ones set up by iconic, multi-platinum names- have rarely unearthed and cultivated any long-term artists or bands. Seems smart artists set up clothing lines nowadays, not invest in new acts. The reason record labels can do a better job than artists on their own, is primarily because we spread the risk.

The Indie band OK GO had a hit viral video,sparking 50 Million views, and so became 'internet famous', but were dropped soon after, and now record for their own label.Somewhat unusually, the band were gracious enough to admit that the investment and financial backing they received from prior label EMI is what got the band off the launch pad in the first place.

Even legendary bands can come unstuck trying to do it DIY. Public Enemy are one of the greatest Hip Hop artists of all time, trailblazing the scene in the 80's and 90's. You'd think they could find a license taker for their forthcoming album, especially as this year is the 20 year anniversary of the game-changing 'Fear Of A Black Planet'.

To raise the capital to fund the album, Public Enemy turned to Sellaband.com, which enables thousands of fans to join up together to fund -in $25 chunks- new albums or projects by bands. It seemed the ultimate way for bands to connect with fans, and be funded by them, finally removing the need for traditional record company involvement. Last months closure of the site meant that thousands of fans lost interest, and even after a last minute takeover of the site, Public Enemy seem no nearer having an album coming out. The downfall of the much-lauded Sellaband.com received fewer column inches than its formation, but hey, why let the truth get in the way of a great story eh?

I'm all for trying new things,but ultimately I reckon it comes down to whether artists trust music-type people, or trust the tech-type folks more. We are two very different cultures.Also in a sea of mediocre bands, who do fans trust to present and promote the best new music, some faceless tech guys who developed a snappy algorithm, or a label which knows about career development?

Here's the Celtic Frost interview which sparked the question- I should point out that my label Earache has never had any dealings with Tom, in the 80's he was signed to German label Noise, then in later years Sanctuary- both now folded. Since the comeback, Tom has paid for and owned his own recordings, and licensed them to Century Media.

Easiest way to get into the Music Biz? Help a new band out.

Question: So i was watching the great documentry that came with the blessed are the sick reissue, I noticed the guy being interviewed with suit who once roadied for morbid angel who had gone on to high paying white collar employment, and it got me wondering where do most road crews for bands come from is it Students who want extra cash? friends of the band? agency guys? guys from other bands between their tours or all or none of the above? quite interested as he seemed to be an example of a person who successfully left the road behind them. From:


Answer: People often ask me "Dig, how can I make a million dollars in the Music Industry?", "Well," I glibly reply, "start with two million". The Record Biz, at the top end of the scale, is like a frenzied, unregulated poker table -the players make eye-wateringly huge bets on bands, not even because they actually like the music - but simply to eliminate the other players seated at the table. Its a tough business which is best avoided by the unwary or the non-committed. Competing for the attentions of artists or generally just feeding the wasteful, out-dated machinery of the Biz will suck all your time, energy and money.

The easiest, most painless way to break into the Biz is by helping a new band out, nearly every new band I know could use some help- even simple stuff like hiring a van and driving to the gigs stumps many. Actually I meet a lot of people these days who tell me they work at the summer festivals, not in the booking of the bands, or anything cool like that.I mean the more mundane, behind the scenes logistics of running the festival- building stages, running the electric cables, setting up the backstage areas etc. Thousands of people make a living doing this every summer now.



The summer festival scene has seen a huge growth recently, there must be over 100 metal/rock festivals taking place across Europe this summer 2010, Earache itself aims to attend at least 12 festivals in 13 weeks from May-August. About two decades ago, there were just 4 or 5 festivals for metal across Europe, nowadays there aren't enough free summer weekends to book fests in outdoor fields any more, so promotors have expanded their reach by booking a metal fest on an off-season cruise-liner -see January 2011's 70,000 Tons of Metal. Its a big gamble but I sure hope its a success for them, as more festivals means more live opportunities for our stable of bands.

You can drop into the biz from anywhere, no qualifications needed cept a willingness to work long hours for little reward. Industry folks come from all walks of life- Entombed once famously had a manager that was ex-Wall St, he would be trading stocks one minute and then selling swag on the road the next.