Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 813 - Gene Hoglan Speaks: Dark Angel’s Return, Streaming Struggles & The Future of Metal

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 813 - Gene Hoglan Speaks: Dark Angel’s Return, Streaming Struggles & The Future of Metal · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  This is the only life I've ever known.
• 0:02
  So, you know, being a musician, I've been on the road since I
• 0:05
  was 16 years old. So there, there's nothing new or
• 0:10
  shocking about it. I've never known any other any
• 0:13
  other kind of life. So every time the schedule gets
• 0:16
  really nuts and really crazy, I always have to stop for a moment
• 0:20
  and remind myself, hey, Gene, you asked for this, you know,
• 0:23
  when you were thirteen years old and you said, this is what I
• 0:26
  want to do with my life. You asked for this.
• 0:28
  So don't complain about it. And I never do.
• 0:31
  I'm I'm, I'm very fortunate. What's up?
• 0:39
  Everybody, it's Kefi at Ghost Cult Mag.
• 0:42
  I am thrilled to be back once again with nice Gene Hoagland.
• 0:46
  Not mean Gene Hoagland. How are you doing, pal?
• 0:48
  Hi there, Keith, how are you? I'm fantastic.
• 0:50
  Appreciate it. Yeah man, thanks for making time
• 0:52
  on the weekend. Super appreciated.
• 0:54
  So busy, you know you, you've been on tour, you have a new
• 0:59
  tour coming, you have this new album dropping in a few weeks as
• 1:02
  we record this. How the hell are you?
• 1:04
  I'm doing great. Yeah, we just got off the road a
• 1:06
  few days ago. Been I'm down here at my studio.
• 1:09
  We've been rehearsing all this, this entire week.
• 1:11
  Didn't take a day off, flew in, God, I don't know, last for last
• 1:16
  Monday or Tuesday and was in the studio the next the next
• 1:19
  morning. So it has been non-stop, non
• 1:23
  stoppity since probably summer of 2022 and the schedule is
• 1:28
  relentless, but we're used to it and that's that's totally cool.
• 1:32
  So we're really excited, very exciting period of time and in
• 1:36
  the dark Angel camp. So I've got tons to talk about
• 1:40
  and tons of tons of news ready to roll.
• 1:42
  And so that's, that's all pretty darn cool, I tell you.
• 1:45
  Right on. You know, we knew from like
• 1:48
  we've been, we know you don't take a break.
• 1:51
  You go, go, go. And I hope you do take some time
• 1:53
  for yourself, for you and Laura because you know, this way as
• 1:56
  we're learning, 2025 is no holds bar.
• 1:59
  It's relentless. We lost Ozzy, we just lost Brent
• 2:01
  Hines. Like life does not wait for us
• 2:04
  to take care of ourselves. So hopefully you're also keeping
• 2:07
  well. I know the schedule doesn't
• 2:09
  permit breaks. People don't understand how hard
• 2:12
  it is. Touring is hard.
• 2:13
  Recording is hard, living is hard.
• 2:16
  You know, I'm hopeful that since we had this big, you know,
• 2:20
  global psychotic break a few years ago, that hopefully we'll
• 2:23
  take better care of ourselves. But, you know, we're still, some
• 2:25
  of us are still slipping. Right.
• 2:27
  Well, I got to tell you, it was that psychotic grape that the
• 2:30
  world took that really amped up the schedule then, because, you
• 2:35
  know, we all had to kind of scramble to kind of figure out,
• 2:38
  OK, well, our our general livelihoods have been altered
• 2:43
  dramatically. So what to do to keep ourselves,
• 2:48
  you know, moving forward? And so, like many, many pandemic
• 2:53
  era musicians, I, that's when I got to work.
• 2:56
  That's when it got relentless during the pandemic and it just
• 3:01
  hasn't stopped since then. You know, I became a, a live
• 3:04
  streamer. I, I, I went on the twitch
• 3:06
  profile for a, for a few years. And that was a really relentless
• 3:11
  whole pile of learning I had to do.
• 3:14
  I had to learn how to go from being a thrash metal drummer to
• 3:16
  now you're in charge of running a podcast essentially on the
• 3:22
  daily basis. So that was, that was pretty
• 3:24
  exciting. You know, add that to my resume,
• 3:26
  I suppose. But you know, that's, I'm
• 3:29
  always, I'm always very used to and thankful for the, the busy
• 3:33
  schedule. I'm, I'm fine with it.
• 3:35
  This is the only life I've ever known.
• 3:38
  So, you know, being a musician, I've been on the road since I
• 3:42
  was 16 years old. So there's nothing new or
• 3:47
  shocking about it. I've never known any other any
• 3:50
  other kind of life. So every time the schedule gets
• 3:53
  really nuts and really crazy, I always have to stop for a moment
• 3:57
  and remind myself, hey, Gene, you asked for this, you know,
• 4:00
  when you were thirteen years old and you said, this is what I
• 4:04
  want to do with my life. You ask for this.
• 4:06
  So don't complain about it. And I never do.
• 4:08
  I'm, I'm, I'm very fortunate. I, my life is really easy
• 4:12
  compared to some of the guys out there that are grinding for
• 4:14
  their families, putting food on the table for their kids and
• 4:18
  their wives and all that. I've, I've got a very, very easy
• 4:21
  life in, in comparison, you know, so, so I don't complain
• 4:26
  about it and I'm, I'm in a very fortunate position.
• 4:29
  I'm very grateful to be where I'm at.
• 4:30
  So there you go. There you go.
• 4:32
  We're we're, we're grateful for you.
• 4:34
  And you know, we knew we, you know, we got you really early
• 4:37
  when the darkness descends, stuff started to bubble up again
• 4:40
  for the anniversary. And we knew this was leading to
• 4:44
  the upcoming new album Extinction level event, which
• 4:47
  I'm so excited for. And I feel like you've done a
• 4:50
  terrific job on that. And we're we're greatly looking
• 4:53
  forward to that in a few weeks. But you know, I wonder has there
• 4:57
  been like, obviously with Laura coming in, you know, from what
• 5:01
  I, you know, what I've heard I love and I'm looking forward to
• 5:04
  hearing the rest of the record. Do you feel like the the sort of
• 5:08
  history lesson tours have sort of influenced the new material?
• 5:12
  Is that fair to say? Well, gosh, there, I guess in
• 5:16
  terms of looking at Dark Angel's history, the one thing that has
• 5:21
  always been evident with Dark Angel is acknowledging that
• 5:26
  history, therefore not repeating it.
• 5:29
  And so that's why, you know, darkness descends did not sound
• 5:34
  like we have arrived and leave scars did not sound like
• 5:37
  darkness descends and so on. So just being very, very
• 5:41
  cognizant of, of dark angels, you know, vast history, not
• 5:46
  wishing to repeat it is has that's always a blessing.
• 5:49
  You know, when you're always in a state of, of evolution, the,
• 5:54
  the skies, the limit, you know, you don't have to be like, well,
• 5:58
  there's a certain section of fans that only want darkness
• 6:02
  ascend and burning the Sodom and, you know, perishing flames
• 6:04
  and all that. Those fans are great.
• 6:07
  Those songs are great. Do I want to write Darkness
• 6:10
  descends over again or perish and play or, you know, like any
• 6:13
  of these songs that I had a part in writing.
• 6:15
  Do I want to do that again 34 years later?
• 6:17
  I no, no, I don't. We did it, you know, so that's
• 6:21
  why I'm always into looking forward into the future.
• 6:24
  That was one of the reasons why it took me a long time to come
• 6:27
  back around to Dark Angel because I'm, I'm always about
• 6:31
  like the next, the new, the fresh, the, the, whatever it is
• 6:35
  for me. And so it was, you know, it took
• 6:38
  a while for me to reconcile the fact of like, yes, there is a
• 6:41
  way of returning to the thing that you did when you were a
• 6:45
  teenager and being able to make that very viable and like, add
• 6:50
  to its legacy, add to its worth, and it's, make it something that
• 6:55
  grows and evolves. And it's not just a return to,
• 6:59
  to, you know, some, oh, those are some fun days.
• 7:02
  Those are great. Hey, those days were great, but
• 7:05
  there's no point in returning to those days when unless you can
• 7:09
  improve upon it. And so that was the general gist
• 7:12
  of of this latest record. You know, we didn't want it to
• 7:15
  sound, didn't want it to sound like Darkness or Time does not
• 7:19
  heal or, or anything like that. I wanted it to sound like, hey,
• 7:23
  I've mentioned this in a number of other interviews, like what
• 7:25
  if Dark Angel just kept writing material, writing albums,
• 7:29
  putting out records for the last 30 odd years?
• 7:32
  Where would we be at today? Like just view it in that sort
• 7:36
  of perspective and you don't have to repeat Darkness or Time
• 7:41
  Does not heal or leave scars. We have arrived or any of those
• 7:43
  albums. It's like Dark Angels always
• 7:44
  moving forward, trying to do something a little cooler than
• 7:47
  the last thing. That's what we're always trying
• 7:49
  to do, whether we hit that mark or not.
• 7:51
  I'm not the judge of that, but that is one thing that we will
• 7:54
  always strive for is let's let's try to improve the last thing
• 7:58
  that we did, you know, so that last album being time does not
• 8:02
  heal. That was a benchmark of like,
• 8:04
  can we do something better than that?
• 8:06
  Yes, very much so easy to do. That's easy, you know so so
• 8:10
  there you go. So that's where we're at right
• 8:12
  now and I'm really excited about the new album.
• 8:14
  I've been so excited about this and I love the material.
• 8:18
  I love the music, I love the lyrics, I love the vocals, I
• 8:21
  love the artwork, I love the performances, I love everything
• 8:24
  about the record. And so I love it, but I'm not
• 8:28
  the final judge, you know, like if I'll let it, you know, now
• 8:30
  here, we're going to shove it, shovel it over to all all you
• 8:33
  folks and let you guys make up your minds.
• 8:35
  If you dig it, great. If you don't dig it, fine, But
• 8:38
  all I ask and all I have been asking is just check it out,
• 8:41
  listen to it, give it a shot. That's that's all I ask.
• 8:45
  You know, I don't think that's too much to ask and I'll let you
• 8:47
  guys make up your mind if you guys all hate it.
• 8:49
  Hey, fair enough. But I'm a pretty good judge of
• 8:52
  metal. You know, like, take a look at
• 8:55
  my list of albums I've done. I've been involved in some
• 8:58
  pretty darn cool records, and this one is a pretty darn cool
• 9:02
  record, you know, so I'm I'm really, really excited.
• 9:04
  So there you go. Right on.
• 9:05
  I I'm sure the rest of it is going to rule.
• 9:08
  I love the first track that I heard, by the way.
• 9:11
  Kind of funny, you've been involved in a comeback record or
• 9:13
  two in your career, including Testament of the Brotherhood,
• 9:17
  the Snake Flyer, you know, Banner behind me down here on my
• 9:21
  bottom corner. But also, like, Formation of
• 9:23
  Damnation was a big comeback for those guys and Oh no, oh, is
• 9:28
  that that? Was Paul.
• 9:29
  That's Paul. My bad.
• 9:31
  I was going to say also, I've conversated with, you know, I've
• 9:34
  interviewed Death Angel. I know, I know Craig from
• 9:36
  forbidden. They they're in the same boat.
• 9:38
  They have a record coming next year that's going to get
• 9:40
  compared to everything they did before, right?
• 9:43
  Or it's a hard spot to be in. So I know you can relate though.
• 9:47
  And you know, you know, there's a separate thing between fans
• 9:51
  and press. And I think this is kind of a
• 9:53
  thing I mentioned offline that I might want to talk about.
• 9:56
  You know, fans are going to do what they're going to do.
• 9:59
  And we live in a sort of hyper magnified false reality with
• 10:03
  social media, right? You know, we noted.
• 10:06
  On one-on-one hand, I'm glad that people have a voice and
• 10:09
  they and the availability of music is great.
• 10:11
  Whether that's good for the artists or not is not, you know,
• 10:14
  debatable. But I think the availability of
• 10:16
  music is cool. And I think the communities that
• 10:19
  people can gather in and talk is cool.
• 10:21
  But at the same time, fans are fans and not they're going to be
• 10:26
  critical, but they're not trained critics.
• 10:28
  And I wonder, like, what is the place for for me in the future?
• 10:33
  I also still make music. I'm trying to make music with a
• 10:35
  new band but like what is the future for critics, for
• 10:38
  reviewers and websites? Do you still pay attention to
• 10:42
  reviews or you like you can't be too?
• 10:45
  Close to it. I I never have I, I, I never
• 10:47
  have like I've got 0 social media presence.
• 10:51
  Like, you know, I'm freely admit I'm, I'm, I have a very strong
• 10:55
  social media presence, but believe me, I am not online.
• 10:59
  I am, I got like the average person out there.
• 11:04
  Their their opinion it. I've got my own opinions.
• 11:07
  My own head is filled with my own opinions on what I think is
• 11:11
  right and wrong. And so other folks hard to get
• 11:14
  through this nut. So have your opinions.
• 11:18
  Everybody can crab all they want.
• 11:20
  It never gets to me. Like it just doesn't.
• 11:23
  You know, it gets reported to me by my by my associates and my
• 11:28
  partners, my business partners and those who do pay attention
• 11:31
  and they will bring things up to my attention.
• 11:34
  And my whole thing is like, I don't care.
• 11:36
  It just it it doesn't. Everybody's entitled, their
• 11:38
  opinions have them by all means, but you can't expect your
• 11:43
  opinion to change my opinion. I don't expect my opinion to
• 11:46
  change yours. Like here I am saying my opinion
• 11:48
  is that the new Dark Angel album is killer.
• 11:51
  But you don't see me going. You better agree with agree with
• 11:55
  me. I don't.
• 11:55
  I'm just saying hey, give it a shot Leo, listen to it.
• 11:58
  You make up your own mind. I'm moving forward no matter
• 12:00
  what with what I do myself. I've got a 41 year career at
• 12:07
  doing this since I was a teenager and this there's nobody
• 12:13
  who can affect my trajectory at all.
• 12:15
  Some some stranger whom I have no contact with.
• 12:20
  There's that's, that's just never going to happen.
• 12:23
  And I know people like to like to get on their, their, you
• 12:26
  know, soapboxes or whatever. That's fantastic.
• 12:29
  You have a voice. Great use it.
• 12:31
  Will I hear it? That's a good possibility No,
• 12:36
  You know, like I'm just I'm just telling you the way it is So say
• 12:39
  all you like it doesn't it doesn't mean I'm going to pay
• 12:42
  attention to it at all Like my manager is very involved in
• 12:48
  social media and you know that I have No Fear.
• 12:53
  I have No Fear of what I do. I have all confidence in every
• 12:58
  step that I take because I've got a lot of experience at this.
• 13:04
  And there's just like, I cannot comment on something like say
• 13:10
  there's somebody who is a, gosh, I don't know, like an HVAC
• 13:13
  installer, you know, like somebody who installs air
• 13:15
  conditioning and heating units. I'm not going to get online and
• 13:19
  say, hey, buddy, do you know that you're not doing that
• 13:21
  correctly? Because I know nothing about it.
• 13:23
  And so that's all I don't, I take everything with a large
• 13:25
  grain of salt. If you don't directly understand
• 13:29
  what this industry is, what this business is, the the
• 13:36
  architecture behind creating a career, then you know you don't.
• 13:44
  I don't have much of an ear for that, you know, and that that's
• 13:48
  just me, you know, telling you the way it is.
• 13:50
  You know, it's like, you know, hey, the Internet has given
• 13:53
  everybody a a platform. If you wish to use it to bring
• 13:58
  some good, then fantastic. And if you if you don't wish to
• 14:03
  do that, that's you, man. I didn't tell you what to do.
• 14:07
  You ain't going to tell me what to do.
• 14:08
  I'm not going to listen to you. So I'm not going to tell you
• 14:10
  what you should be doing. I guess you could, you could
• 14:12
  take a look at it and go, these are the same folks that 25 years
• 14:17
  ago took my livelihood away from me when they decided to stream
• 14:21
  and steal music. There's no, there's no, you
• 14:24
  know, you're putting out albums forever and making a little
• 14:26
  pittance on that, but making a little living on, ooh, got this
• 14:29
  new album coming out, going to make a little bit of here and
• 14:31
  there and all that sort of stuff that was taken from me and you
• 14:34
  don't see me complaining about it.
• 14:36
  I will make that observation here.
• 14:39
  But yeah, man, that's why I'm a cockroach.
• 14:43
  I will always survive. Musicians are cockroaches.
• 14:46
  We will always figure out a way to survive and navigate our way
• 14:50
  through whatever sort of obstacles are placed in front of
• 14:54
  us. And opinions being obstacles, if
• 14:57
  they are, they're they're just not to me.
• 15:00
  There's real challenges in this industry that somebody's opinion
• 15:04
  or thousands of people's opinions.
• 15:06
  My gosh, I just that's, you know, God bless you for having
• 15:09
  them, but that doesn't mean I'll be paying attention.
• 15:12
  That's just the way it is, you know?
• 15:13
  Right on Lawrence was 100% right about streaming and downloading
• 15:18
  and bear Share and Limewire and Napster.
• 15:21
  He was 100% right. So history is going to tell.
• 15:25
  Everybody called him yeah, asshole for it, even I did
• 15:29
  because I was like, I wasn't. I was.
• 15:32
  My opinion was like, yes, it exists.
• 15:35
  Keep it quiet right now, because now you're putting the spotlight
• 15:39
  on all of it. Now it's now those cockroaches
• 15:42
  are scattered because you put a light on.
• 15:44
  I think the only thing that was at fault in that situation was
• 15:47
  maybe not going after the fans, the platform, the fans are gonna
• 15:52
  fan. And even this week we had a
• 15:55
  review. Deftones have a new record out,
• 15:57
  right? And we got it early and our
• 15:59
  reviewer got to listen to it. And we, somebody saw our review
• 16:02
  because I shared it everywhere using that social media stuff.
• 16:05
  And somebody was like, well, how did you get to listen to it?
• 16:07
  Who are you? And I was like, well, I've been
• 16:09
  a music journalist for 20 years and we've gotten the last four
• 16:12
  Deftones records to listen to early.
• 16:15
  And that's what music journalism is.
• 16:16
  No, I'm not going to leak it for you because I will be screwed.
• 16:19
  I will be sued by Warner Brothers forever and never be
• 16:22
  able to be seen again everywhere.
• 16:24
  I'll never be able to show my face again.
• 16:25
  Everybody that respects and trust me and they people don't
• 16:28
  understand that. Fans don't get that.
• 16:29
  They just want the thing. And that's where you understand
• 16:34
  that this has been the way things are for 40 years music
• 16:38
  journalists, 50 years. Music journalists get the
• 16:41
  advance copies and they don't leak them.
• 16:45
  The unreputable ones do, but that's just where it's like, OK,
• 16:49
  yeah, you you get it. You know, there's somebody who's
• 16:52
  going to pipe off and try to tell you your job, but you're
• 16:55
  trying to hold on to like, hey, this is this is a fact of life.
• 16:58
  You know, this is how it goes. We get the advances.
• 17:01
  No, we don't leak them. That easy.
• 17:04
  I remember there was an infamous case about over 10 years ago
• 17:07
  where your former labelmates Nile had their record leaked
• 17:10
  early and it was devastating for them financially.
• 17:13
  I know this. They really, they never saw the
• 17:16
  money, you know, because like it was, you know, proliferated and
• 17:19
  people pre-ordered it and bought it, bought it.
• 17:22
  But you know, streaming has been pretty inequitable any way you
• 17:25
  cut it. It's like a Google.
• 17:26
  It's a good search engine to discover music.
• 17:29
  I always hope that people who find Dark Angel tomorrow will
• 17:32
  find the next thrash band or a new crossover thrash band or go
• 17:35
  back and find some older bands like Cryptic Slaughter and Excel
• 17:39
  and things like that. I got into because I got into
• 17:42
  the original big thrash bands and I followed all their, you
• 17:45
  know, all the branches to from the tree.
• 17:47
  So that's my hope for people today.
• 17:50
  The availability of music is wonderful, but like, also the
• 17:53
  availability of everybody to have a comment and what do you
• 17:56
  do with your life? We're not talking about brain
• 17:58
  surgeons for the most part. Maybe a few, you know, they're
• 18:01
  not readers, Most of these folks who are online, you know,
• 18:04
  criticizing. And to me, I love that.
• 18:07
  When I heard the single come out, for example, I thought it
• 18:09
  was a banger. I was like, I love this.
• 18:11
  Please give me 10 more like this.
• 18:13
  So, you know, I don't know why some people were trying to find
• 18:16
  fault. And I agree with you, first of
• 18:18
  all, it's you got to judge slowly.
• 18:20
  I get that. Like you have your ears and I
• 18:22
  hear something in a few seconds and I'm like, Nope, not bad.
• 18:25
  But at the same time, you really can't judge a whole album on one
• 18:29
  song or a piece of artwork or a screen grab of a down, you know,
• 18:33
  of a, of a piece of, of a band photo or whatever.
• 18:37
  These digital mediums are flimsy, man.
• 18:39
  They're not. They're not as strong as like
• 18:41
  you had to go if you heard one song and then you went and got
• 18:45
  the record, let's say by KISS, you know you didn't hear the
• 18:49
  whole rest of the record. You only heard that one single.
• 18:51
  You know you heard Beth and the rest of the Destroyer is will
• 18:54
  kick your ass in. But like, you know, if you heard
• 18:56
  Beth, that was awesome. There wasn't going to be 9 more
• 18:59
  Beths on there. Indeed.
• 19:02
  Well, yeah, I mean there, there, there you go.
• 19:04
  And so it's a it's sort of a, a slow process, It's a long haul.
• 19:08
  And for those who wish to make the snap judgement upon
• 19:12
  listening to the 1st 10 seconds of the second single, OK, that's
• 19:16
  fine. And that's where I'm just like,
• 19:18
  if you, that's my only thing that I will say is like, hey,
• 19:21
  check out the the entirety of it, the all-encompassing, you
• 19:25
  know, this is a momentous occasion for dark Angel, maybe
• 19:30
  not for any of the fans, but for dark Angel, it's a momentous
• 19:33
  occasion. And the fact that dark Angel has
• 19:34
  a new record out, Hooray. Check it out If you like it
• 19:37
  killer. If you don't, man, that's
• 19:39
  that's, that's cool too. It it's either way, we are going
• 19:43
  to keep carrying on it. What we do if you wish to
• 19:47
  support the band, that is fantastic, Thank you very much.
• 19:50
  And if you don't, then OK, you know, if you want to come out to
• 19:54
  the show and buy a shirt, beautiful, thank you very much.
• 19:57
  If you just want to listen to the songs on Spotify and never
• 20:00
  support the band that is. Totally your prerogative, and
• 20:04
  we're going to survive either way.
• 20:06
  Absolutely. Right on, how did you get hooked
• 20:08
  up with reverse records as putting this record out and I
• 20:12
  saw the pre-order packages are fantastic.
• 20:15
  There's so much cool stuff. Right.
• 20:18
  Well, that's our own imprint essentially.
• 20:20
  You know, it's it, it comes from our, our, our management has or
• 20:24
  my management, you know that that's been Rob Schalcross, his
• 20:28
  label since Rob and I've worked together for pushing 20 years.
• 20:32
  We've worked together for 19 years now.
• 20:34
  And so the fact that he handles all my biz and that sort of
• 20:37
  thing, the fact that for me, this is only my opinion and my
• 20:43
  experience. For me, a record label, there
• 20:46
  are many kick ass record labels out there that do great, but in
• 20:51
  for what I am looking for with my career.
• 20:54
  A record label has become obsolete if I'm not in charge of
• 20:59
  it. So we are at the point where we
• 21:03
  can. This is a self perpetuating sort
• 21:05
  of situation that we have and the finances of a record label
• 21:09
  and the limitations of record labels don't have any of those.
• 21:14
  There are limitations to what we can do, of course, but I am very
• 21:17
  committed into, you know, record well, record labels have sort of
• 21:22
  kind of made themselves obsolete over the years.
• 21:24
  I think, you know, many record labels, you don't see a lot of
• 21:28
  mom and pop stores everywhere. You know, there's there's no
• 21:31
  record stores anywhere. So getting hard, hard copies of
• 21:34
  things is not all that important when you could have a
• 21:37
  fulfillment center in territories all over the world.
• 21:41
  Take care of your stuff. That's many, many record labels
• 21:45
  are now pretty much mail order anyway.
• 21:48
  So I'll create my own mail order.
• 21:50
  There you go, You know, So that's where just for me, in my
• 21:53
  opinion, record labels have become, you know, extinct.
• 21:57
  So that's where we will level up this event to be able to have
• 22:02
  its own legs and do its own thing.
• 22:04
  And Dark Angel will always be able to create whatever we want,
• 22:08
  when we want. And that's, it's been another
• 22:11
  beautiful thing that's happened. It's like there are many
• 22:13
  setbacks that that come with having putting out records.
• 22:17
  And we've had a number of setbacks on this one, but
• 22:20
  there's been no hard like deadline of our well, we're
• 22:23
  going to drop you guys if you can't make that deadline.
• 22:26
  No, we just, we can move the goal posts ourselves and that's
• 22:30
  fine. That's how that works.
• 22:31
  So there you go. I love that and I have something
• 22:34
  that I have preached. I do some music marketing and I
• 22:36
  give some advice to bands and one of those things is a record
• 22:40
  release date does not have to be permanently fixed.
• 22:44
  It can move if you have to move it.
• 22:46
  And it's not a tragedy. It's the business.
• 22:49
  This is the business we're in now.
• 22:51
  But yeah, shout out to you for having that foresight.
• 22:54
  I'm really excited to see how this plays out for you.
• 22:57
  The merch looks amazing, the beautiful looking cherry red on
• 23:01
  the vinyl. I love the shirt with Barry,
• 23:04
  everybody at the back with the album artwork on the red, on the
• 23:08
  black shirt with the red and I love these packages.
• 23:12
  You've been offering not a lot of money.
• 23:13
  Like if you're a super fan and there are a lot of Jean and Dark
• 23:16
  Angel super fans out there. I know I've met them and I am
• 23:19
  one. There's some incredible stuff.
• 23:22
  You can get actual equipment used on the album sent to you.
• 23:27
  Not even for a lot of money actually, like cheaper than I
• 23:29
  would imagine it. It really probably should cost
• 23:32
  or what you know, collectors would pay.
• 23:34
  So I was really impressed with that.
• 23:36
  And you know, hopefully the pre-orders are doing what
• 23:38
  they're supposed to do for you. We've been promoting the news
• 23:41
  and the tour. So we got the upcoming tour.
• 23:43
  You still doing Darkness Descends because of course it
• 23:46
  needs to be heard. But how many more new songs can
• 23:49
  we expect in the set list, along with some other old favorites?
• 23:53
  Well, you know, the, the one thing to get back to the
• 23:58
  packages and things like that, that is all due to the
• 24:01
  management at reverse records. That's, that's, that's Rob
• 24:04
  Shawcross's maneuver. So many kudos to Rob Shawcross
• 24:09
  for having that sort of vision to be able to put these packages
• 24:12
  together and be constantly thinking about things like that.
• 24:15
  Get your heads together, get your your sticks together, make
• 24:18
  sure you got, you know, strings and things like that that people
• 24:21
  can might be interested in. So I, I give Rob shop cross the
• 24:25
  absolute credit for that. And now, when it comes to like
• 24:28
  the new, the new tour and things like that, the darkness descends
• 24:34
  the the dedicated darkness descends tours or shows are I'm
• 24:39
  not saying they'll never happen again.
• 24:41
  But now that is a part of the recent history that is now
• 24:45
  behind us, because now we're going to start focusing on the
• 24:47
  brand new record. So I mean, I'm if there's
• 24:50
  somewhere we're doing it all darkness descends set is, is
• 24:55
  warranted, then, you know, fantastic.
• 24:57
  We'll, we'll, we'll, you'll be open to the idea.
• 25:00
  But now we got the new record and so you know, we're not going
• 25:03
  to look I would to play the entire new album.
• 25:10
  I'm that into the new record. I would love to do that.
• 25:14
  And we're not going to you know, we're going to we're going to
• 25:16
  take it easy on people. So, you know, probably play 5
• 25:19
  songs, maybe we might get to a 6th.
• 25:22
  But there's any number of the songs on the record I would love
• 25:27
  to play. There's not one song on this
• 25:30
  album for I'm like, I don't think this is, I don't think we
• 25:33
  should ever play this one live. No, I'll play all of them live.
• 25:35
  And that's one thing our vocalist, Ron Reinhardt, was
• 25:38
  really preaching to us like, hey, we got to be ready to play
• 25:41
  every single song at any point. And you know, Ron is a good, you
• 25:47
  know, he's a good instigator or, you know, just just a good
• 25:51
  influence in that regard. And I'm I'm behind it.
• 25:55
  You know. Are we going to play every song
• 25:57
  on this tour? No, but we're going to play a
• 25:59
  number of them, let you hear what the new Dark Angel stuff is
• 26:02
  about. And, you know, we've been
• 26:03
  playing a couple of the new songs live the foot.
• 26:05
  We've been playing the first two new singles live so far.
• 26:08
  We're going to add another few songs to the set from there.
• 26:10
  And, you know, hopefully people will be like, hey, man, we did
• 26:15
  your we did your stuff. I want to buy that record down.
• 26:17
  I like those songs. I'll go to the merch booth and
• 26:19
  pick up the album or the CD or whatever it is, or go check it
• 26:23
  out on your on your streaming services.
• 26:25
  You know, just as long as people are just listening to Dark
• 26:28
  Angel, that's all that matters. If we get to sell a lot of
• 26:30
  actual physical copies, fantastic.
• 26:33
  But if that doesn't happen, but people are like, hey, yay, dark
• 26:37
  Angel, I'm going to buy a shirt or I'm going to go to the shows
• 26:40
  or I'm just going to support the band.
• 26:41
  That be a positive, you know, a positive thing for the band,
• 26:46
  then fantastic. We will take everybody we can
• 26:48
  get. Absolutely.
• 26:50
  We'll we'll we'll take your support and appreciate it.
• 26:53
  Thank you. The metal is like a a will take
• 26:55
  you in any condition. Come on in exactly Rob's a beast
• 27:01
  man. I am I'm so I'm so thrilled and
• 27:05
  I love this tour. This line up on this tour is
• 27:08
  like a dream come true. Sacred Rike, one of my Phil is
• 27:11
  one of my personal heroes Hyrax everybody you know violence with
• 27:16
  Sean midnight void interceptor. I mean, these are in a
• 27:21
  incredible bands, you know, like to to pull out for this tour.
• 27:25
  So I think it's going to be a lot of fun, like a lot of music
• 27:27
  history for old heads and new to discover some of these bands.
• 27:31
  They should know you should have these albums beside Darkness
• 27:35
  descends in the new record. You should have oppressing the
• 27:37
  masses and you need to have you know, you need to have Surf
• 27:41
  Nicaragua and ignorant. You need to have these in your
• 27:44
  collection if you're a thrash metal person.
• 27:46
  Of course, absolutely. You know, Phil is one of the
• 27:49
  best vocalists in in thrash metal.
• 27:52
  I've always loved his voice. We asked Bill to sing for Dark
• 27:55
  Angel back in 1987. He was still in high school so
• 27:59
  he couldn't do the tour with us. We lost our vocalist.
• 28:01
  Then we reached out the hey, if y'all can you do this?
• 28:03
  He's like, man, I'm still in high school.
• 28:04
  I can't help you guys. So there you go.
• 28:06
  And you know, I mean bodies on bodies by violence is one of the
• 28:10
  kick ass riffs of all time kick ass tunes.
• 28:14
  And you know, violence. They got that great line.
• 28:16
  And what is a kill on command? I've always thought this line
• 28:18
  was great. The ones I love the most are the
• 28:20
  terrorists who boast of their car bombs while our bombs are
• 28:23
  bouncing off their heads. What a classic line.
• 28:25
  That's awesome. And high rack.
• 28:27
  Neil Katyn de Pena is he was my one of my very, very first metal
• 28:32
  buddies when I was like 1213 years old.
• 28:35
  He was, he was my metal pal, you know, so I mean, Kate and I go
• 28:38
  back 40 plus years. So this is going to be a great
• 28:42
  gathering of some, some just thrash metal lunatics and come
• 28:46
  on out and have a great time. It's going to be a night of
• 28:49
  relentless metal like Dark Angel.
• 28:51
  We got our our work cut out for us to keep everybody there and
• 28:54
  go, you know, like catch our pummeling this, you know,
• 28:58
  there's you're going to get pummeled all night long, you
• 29:00
  know, so we know we've got we've got our work cut out for us to
• 29:03
  keep everybody there. We're definitely up to that
• 29:06
  challenge. That's right.
• 29:07
  I am, you know, so and we all are.
• 29:09
  So we're we're really excited. We've had such great press over
• 29:13
  this last few months of our European sojourns, I guess, and
• 29:17
  just everything we've been doing over in Europe and down in South
• 29:20
  America and everywhere we've been, just, you know it, We seem
• 29:23
  to be catching a fire and people seem to be really getting behind
• 29:26
  the band and just going holy moly, Dark Angel is bringing it
• 29:30
  like crazy. And that is our intent every
• 29:33
  single night. So it's going to be a pretty
• 29:35
  relentless evening of thrash metal, especially coming from
• 29:38
  the Dark Angel side of things. So we're excited to share it
• 29:41
  with everybody. Right on.
• 29:42
  What else you have going on this fall?
• 29:43
  In addition to the Dark Angel tour, you have anything else
• 29:46
  brewing up? Right.
• 29:48
  Well, directly after Dark Angel, like directly like a few days
• 29:52
  afterwards, we kick into the death to all the symbolic
• 29:59
  healing tour, which is going to be celebrating the the 30th
• 30:03
  anniversary. Is it 30th?
• 30:05
  I guess it's 30 of symbolic and to a lesser degree, since none
• 30:10
  of us were necessarily involved in spiritual healing album,
• 30:13
  we're going to focus on some of that.
• 30:14
  But it's you know, the symbolic album is going to be you know,
• 30:17
  you got Bobby Kobel myself and also Stevie D you know, Steve Di
• 30:21
  Giorgio. I've said this many, many times.
• 30:23
  First of all, Kelly Conlon on base on symbolic did a fantastic
• 30:28
  job. And just for me, Stevie D was
• 30:33
  symbolic is a Steve Di Giorgio record because he was involved
• 30:36
  in every single bit of that album except the recording.
• 30:40
  You know, all the rehearsals, all the the months and months
• 30:44
  and riding tons of killer bass lines and and all that sort of
• 30:48
  stuff. So it really is the the sort of
• 30:51
  dream line up, you know, like of of of the guys who aren't Chuck,
• 30:57
  you know, Bobby myself, Stevie D what a kick ass lineup playing
• 31:01
  these songs really, really well. And our vocalist, Max Phelps.
• 31:05
  I mean, Max is amazing. Like he's one he's one of my,
• 31:10
  you know, favorite frontman. He's just, he's, he's got such,
• 31:14
  he's got such care for the material.
• 31:17
  He's got such care for the legacy of death, the legacy of
• 31:20
  Chuck that he really, you know, he, he, he takes a lot of care
• 31:24
  in providing what E what each era needs vocally, you know, and
• 31:30
  I mean, he could be, he could be, he could have one voice and
• 31:33
  just hit it with one voice for the entire everything.
• 31:36
  And a lot of people would be willing to settle for that.
• 31:40
  There are folks that probably can't, they can't do what Max
• 31:43
  does, but Max takes the time to, you know, these albums are down
• 31:47
  here, these albums are up here and these last albums are way up
• 31:50
  here and Max hits everything. And that's, that is truly what
• 31:56
  what we should be doing as a band that's trying to pay
• 32:00
  tribute to our friend Chuck. You know, like that's kind of a
• 32:03
  necessary thing. And that's why death to all is
• 32:06
  the only band that does what we do.
• 32:08
  Nobody, nobody touches death to all.
• 32:10
  Nobody can Like it's, it's that's that's why I'm so proud
• 32:14
  of that to all. And, you know, having having
• 32:16
  Chuck's family being so into us, that's important to me as well.
• 32:21
  You know, it's like to to honor to honor Chuck, to honor the
• 32:24
  legacy of Chuck's music and and also our own legacies as well
• 32:29
  involved in death. It's very important to to do it
• 32:33
  right. You know, we were all there for
• 32:34
  a lot of this, a lot of this band.
• 32:37
  So being able to represent it on a nightly basis is is pretty
• 32:41
  darn important to do it well and you know, come correct.
• 32:44
  I guess it is. You know, that's what we try to
• 32:46
  do with death to all. Absolutely.
• 32:47
  Nicely said and I I'm thankful. I've seen many Death to All
• 32:51
  tours and lineups and I'm always thrilled and nice words about
• 32:56
  Max and Steve. Steve's incredible and
• 32:59
  absolutely. He's kind of like Leslie of
• 33:02
  Primus there. It's like it's not even really
• 33:04
  base after a while. It's like, what alien shit are
• 33:07
  you doing with your fingers? But like incredible, incredible
• 33:10
  musician and guy. And Max is lovely.
• 33:12
  I got to meet him a couple of times and see him a couple of
• 33:15
  times. He's wonderful.
• 33:16
  Great job and yeah, we're pumped.
• 33:18
  And Bobby is no slouch eater. I.
• 33:20
  Love, he's no slouch and. Super.
• 33:22
  Kind, super, kind. Takes times with the fans.
• 33:25
  Still to this day appreciates that people appreciate him.
• 33:29
  There's something to be said for that.
• 33:31
  You know, there's a, you know, there's a whole new generation
• 33:33
  of players that they are masterful, but I don't know if
• 33:36
  they have the humility or I don't know if they have the
• 33:39
  wherewithal in the professionalism like that.
• 33:41
  You know, I think the older generation will show the young
• 33:44
  guns how to do it so we can continue to have this thing.
• 33:48
  Just just for a last thing, because it's been on my mind
• 33:51
  lately. I'm sure you're tired of getting
• 33:53
  this question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway because I never had
• 33:56
  before. I'll give myself some credit for
• 33:58
  restraint in the past, but I'll say now, do you get tired of
• 34:01
  hearing about Lars Ulrich and the drum part at the end of 1
• 34:05
  and Darkness Descends being basically identical?
• 34:07
  I don't want to know. You never said that he ripped it
• 34:10
  off. It's obviously inspired by
• 34:13
  They're very similar. Obviously One is 1 of
• 34:16
  Metallica's signature songs. And hey, Metallica's Metallica,
• 34:19
  they're the biggest band in the world.
• 34:20
  They transcended metal to rock and other things and I'm proud
• 34:23
  of them. And I mean, I'm a huge fan, but
• 34:25
  also when I first heard one and it's amazing, I was like, Oh my
• 34:30
  God, this sounds exactly like a song I know from Dark.
• 34:33
  Like I remember it the day I heard it.
• 34:35
  I was like, this is darkness. This is that song.
• 34:38
  This is the first song on that album.
• 34:39
  Like, the first thing you hear is the beat, and then it's this
• 34:42
  main riff at the end of this incredible song by Mantalga that
• 34:46
  no one, you know, no one has ever acknowledged it.
• 34:49
  I don't even think he's been asked about it.
• 34:51
  And I love Lawrence, and I'm not hating on him because we just
• 34:54
  prayed earlier. But like, are you tired of
• 34:56
  hearing about this? And do you have kind of a
• 34:58
  definitive feeling one way or another about it?
• 35:00
  Oh gosh. Well, I guess at the end of the
• 35:03
  day, Metallica are our godfathers, so they're allowed
• 35:07
  to do whatever they like. We've all taken enough of an
• 35:10
  influence from Metallica in every way possible.
• 35:13
  If we get to add little back into the pot, great.
• 35:16
  There's a lot of other bands that Dark Angel has also
• 35:18
  similarly influenced, but the Metallica, they get to do
• 35:21
  whatever they like. So that's that's awesome.
• 35:23
  But I never even think about it. I shoot, man.
• 35:27
  I mean, I remember getting the phone calls from my pals who
• 35:30
  were hearing the song because that was like their, their first
• 35:33
  single that was getting played on KNAC back in LA back in the
• 35:37
  day. And, and I didn't listen I'm, I
• 35:39
  listen to my cassette. I didn't listen to the radio too
• 35:42
  much, you know, And so I was getting the phone calls from
• 35:45
  pals saying, hey, man, have you heard that dude?
• 35:47
  You know, and then the first lyric is darkness, you know,
• 35:51
  like, and I'm just, I'm like, I haven't heard it yet.
• 35:53
  But then when I heard it's like, OK, well, there you go.
• 35:55
  And in one ear, in one brain and out the other, you know, I, I
• 36:00
  never even thought about it. The the press brings it up way
• 36:04
  more than I ever think about it, you know, So which is which is
• 36:07
  great. That's very awesome.
• 36:08
  I mean, I appreciate the fact that that if we have had some
• 36:12
  kind of, you know, hey, that's our if we've got something that
• 36:16
  can be tagged along with a hashtag of Metallica, kick ass,
• 36:21
  there you go. But you know, Lars is the
• 36:23
  godfather of thrash metal drumming, James, Dave Mustaine,
• 36:28
  you know, all the guys, Gary Holt, all the godfathers, you
• 36:32
  know, Jim Durkin, Carrie King, Jeff Hanneman, all the
• 36:35
  godfathers of riffery back in the day and all the great
• 36:39
  drummers that have done their things.
• 36:40
  And you know, I mean, that's we hey, we wouldn't be going boop
• 36:45
  bam, boop bam, boop bam boop bam boop bam boop bam boop bam
• 36:47
  thrash metal beat without Lars putting it on the no like the
• 36:50
  letter demo. So there you go.
• 36:52
  You know, I've I've I've taken enough from Lars that, you know,
• 36:56
  if I could add something back then kick ass.
• 36:59
  But I will admit, James Hetfield plays that beat better than Lars
• 37:03
  or me ever did. Like James Hetfield, there's
• 37:07
  ribs. You remember when they were
• 37:08
  doing the drum thingy together 30 years ago?
• 37:11
  James just destroying it. I'm like, God, I never, I never
• 37:14
  played. It's good.
• 37:15
  To jump on the drums and his son is quite a good drummer
• 37:18
  actually. Caster.
• 37:19
  He's been master Dan. Yeah.
• 37:21
  He's quite a he's quite a great drummer himself.
• 37:25
  Yeah. Just thanks for humoring me with
• 37:26
  that. We bring it up.
• 37:29
  It's it gets asked of me. Hey you guys interviewed Gene a
• 37:32
  lot. If next time you talk to him,
• 37:34
  ask him is so I was like, you know what, but I will and I
• 37:36
  appreciate that And you know, I'll tell you like to me and I'm
• 37:41
  and a shout out again to, you know, rest in power to Jim.
• 37:44
  You know, dark Angel, like Exodus was there at the
• 37:46
  beginning and they just came out a little bit later than the
• 37:49
  other bands. Absolutely, or we'd be talking
• 37:52
  about dark Angel and maybe not Anthrax or Metallica or Slayer,
• 37:55
  but we are and I'm really glad that you've, you know, had this
• 37:59
  comeback. I appreciate you making the
• 38:01
  space to do this, to be comfortable with your artistry
• 38:04
  and your history, to be able to bring this span forward for
• 38:07
  everybody else to hear and appreciate.
• 38:09
  I'm grateful as a fan, so thank you and I cannot.
• 38:12
  Wait. I'm really, yeah, of course.
• 38:14
  And I really am excited for extinction level event and it's
• 38:18
  right around the corner so. Why don't you?
• 38:20
  We'll. Freddie Murphy's birthday.
• 38:22
  Freddie Murphy's birthday weren't up.
• 38:24
  And we will see you. Yeah.
• 38:25
  And we will see you on the tour. Thank you, as always, for being
• 38:28
  kind and generous. Gene.
• 38:29
  Thank you. Excellent, Keith.
• 38:30
  Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
• 38:32
  We'll see you on the road, man.