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Prepare To Be Baptised With MARC LOPES From METAL CHURCH · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Hey, what's going on? This is Mark from Metal Church and uh we
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  will be coming over in a couple of weeks for a full on Australian tour
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  and we are pretty damn excited about it. Very good Mark, thanks for
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  joining us today. Thank you pleasure. So as your Cyber middle Church hitting
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  Australia in a few short weeks for a run of the show, starting in
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  Melbourne on December forty eighth and going through Prinsbane and Sydney before finishing an Adelaide
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  on December seven eight. But I actually a few weeks off yet, my
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  but you get packed it ready to go. I'm ready ready to go.
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  Yeah. We just came off the road doing a bunch of dates here in
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  the States, so we're all ready to go again. We got one we're
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  doing like a I call it a warm up show, but we're doing a
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  show a couple of days before we we're Australia here in California to get the
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  get the pumps rolling again, you know. Yeah. Goes like you do
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  a bit of traveling the tour these days. So what's one tree item that
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  you never leave home without when you're traveling? My headphones, they're essential.
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  It about that. Oh man, it's just it's it's the escape item,
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  you know, It's the only thing you have to make you feel like you
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  don't have to deal with the rest of the world. Just hold out that
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  the time Right's gonna be a mettle Church's first trip out here since twenty nineteen.
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  Mate, it's a aslide from the tragic obvious. Probably what what's changed
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  with the band it sits throughout here last? Well, the set list is
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  tremendously different. It's really heavy on the first couple albums and our new album
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  and yeah, I mean we're having a really good time and uh there's a
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  lot of energy. Anybody that's seen me play live in anything like my roster
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  bar or anything knows that I am pretty much a hyper maniac that hasn't changed.
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  Good good. I've write a little bit for us Brood like tell us
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  what can a Strian fans expect from the show is Well, from what I
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  understand uh from the last tour. Uh, the set list will be drastically
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  different. Like I said, it'll be focused on the first three albums and
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  the new our new album, So I expect a lot. We're playing a
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  bunch of stuff that's I don't think it's ever been played in Australia, so
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  it'll be cool. And we added a couple of things just for this tour
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  as well, So it's gonna be a pretty wild night. It's gonna be
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  good. It'll be heavy, that's for sure. Yeah, I'll bet this
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  or the outvice to respect. But like none of us are getting into youngest,
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  how do you guys compensate us spys for the fact now that you can't
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  do some of the things that you bele to do back in the day on
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  stage. Well, for me, I can do anything that I did when
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  I was twenty, so it doesn't matter. You know, I work out
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  a lot. I'm big into fitness, and I stay real consistent on the
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  road and everybody, you know, everybody in the band, Kurt works out
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  a lot, and you know, everybody just stays healthy. Definitely better than
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  a lot of bands out there in the age category, you know what I
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  mean. So you know, there's definitely no there won't be any handicap so
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  to say, for us playing live, you know what I mean, It'll
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  be it'll be wild. I mean, no, we were not. You
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  know, there's no jumping and doing David Lee, Ross Splitz or anything like
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  that. But you know, still it's still cool. You know, I
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  did you touch all these couple of songs by but Your a relasi third a
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  studio album, Congregation of Annihilation back in May these years. That was received
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  by the fans amazing, like way beyond our expectations. It charted in like
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  six different countries. It was in the top twenty in the US, which
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  is the highest ranking metal church record ever. It was in the top like
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  twelve or something in Germany, which is the highest ranking metal church album ever.
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  So and it was like number one all over the place for Amazon.
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  So it's been it's been pretty wild. Definitely more than we imagined, you
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  know. I mean we we went in and just you know, me and
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  Kurt worked extremely hard writing the material, and I just wanted to make a
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  metal church record for the next era of the band. You know. We
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  weren't trying to copy anything that we've done before, that they've done before.
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  But still keep that spirit and that energy going, you know, and I'm
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  pretty be pretty proud, you know, not pretty, we are absolutely proud
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  of what we did. Yes along those lines of my life, the press
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  relays calls that are returned to metal churches, musical roots. Would you agree
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  with it? And if sorry, was it was it a conscious effort going
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  into it that you wanted to recracy Well, when we first started writing the
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  material, most of them, a lot of material that was written at the
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  time was for the next record with Mike. The material that they did with
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  Mike was definitely more on the hard rock metal, you know, that more
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  type of more style. For me, I come from the I'm into heavy,
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  heavy stuff. I love heavy music, and uh, you know,
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  the first two albums for me were always the ones, so I was going
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  for that vibe. Uh So we ended up you know, and Kurt realized,
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  you know, once we started to work, he felt out my vocal
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  style and what I was, what I was doing, and and and you
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  know, we worked it from there and we wrote, you know, a
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  whole bunch of brand new songs and that's what ended up on the record.
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  And that's why it's got a way more aggressive edge and probably you know,
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  even definitely will stay more so in that vein for the next record as well,
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  probably leave me a little bit more so. And Kens also said that
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  the new album is starting a new chapter in the Middle Church like legacy.
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  Is that just in reference to you now fronting the band or does he mean
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  musically as well? I think it means both. You know, he didn't
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  want to. You know, you've already done what you've done, and it's
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  well and it's amazing, you know, the dark and you know, blessing
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  in disguise or even damned if you do those those records have already made their
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  statement, and uh, you know, if we're going to continue on and
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  carry the legacy, you know, it was the idea was to take everything
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  that they've done so far and then you know, what can we add to
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  it and make it a new, fresh approach to what what's already had been
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  done, you know what I mean? So and that we feel like we
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  definitely have accomplished that, and you know, I think we've I believe we've
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  only touched on it because you know, now that we've been playing a lot
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  live together and we're together a lot, we definitely have it, you know,
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  a better grasp of what each or you know, definitely of different kind
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  of vibe and we can go off of each other now more so than when
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  we were putting this record together. And of course this is your first album
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  as a singer after my now passed in twenty twenty one? My Life?
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  Was it a difficult album for you coming into an established band, like I
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  know you've done stuff before with Russall Boston let us pray, but it's a
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  whole different sort of pressure. Oh absolutely, I mean the pressure was immense,
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  you know. I you know, I also have to I think what
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  I did was I approached I approached it as a fan. You know,
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  I was like, what would I want to hear as a fan personally if
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  I'm on the opposite you know, the shoe was on the other foot here,
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  so to say. And you know that's you know, that's how I
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  wrote it. I you know, I went into you know, the old
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  stuff and nitpicked you know, the things, the little nuances and little things
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  that I would always liked about it because you know, you know, obviously
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  you know you love it, but you know what what what made it tick?
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  You know, And you know it wasn't like, oh my god,
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  I need to do this and I need to do that, but like,
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  you know, just to get an idea of going into it. But once
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  once we started, you know, once I started laying down the tracks,
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  you know, I just I was myself, you know, I you know,
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  I definitely wasn't like, oh I needn't have to sound like this or
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  right that to sound like that. You know, I kind of knew.
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  I kind of just you know, I knew what I was going for.
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  I heard it in my head how I would want to hear the new Metal
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  Church, and that's what I went for. You know, I thought the
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  guys pretty much encourage you to stamp her in personality, under putter from the
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  stop. That was. That was the beauty of it. You know.
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  I remember when I did the audition we I had done. I had done
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  Metal Church, Metal Church, and I did two versions. I did one
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  that was more traditional to the record, and then I did one that was
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  my way, and uh it was you know, and it was cool because
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  they loved it. They thought that was great and you know, and and
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  like Kris City goes, I want you to be your own, your own
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  self, and you know, this is a new era of the band,
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  and for us to go forward, we have to have this identity, so
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  you know that. And I hats off to him for that to give me
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  that freedom that are writing every song with him on the record. Which he's
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  never done before. So that was pretty wild. Yeah, you sort of
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  a later did this a few times by it, but it sort of got
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  a little bit more datail, Like what what lessons did you learn from doing
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  this album that you think you're going to carry into doing the next one,
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  Like the second album is lifeless. That's a good question. I don't know.
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  I maybe a little bit less is more, you know type of thing.
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  Maybe, I don't know. I mean, I I it's hard to
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  say. I mean, I definitely learned about my myself, you know,
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  vocally, definitely trying out new techniques and do doing too, you know,
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  some different stuff that I wouldn't normally have done, which was great. It's
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  kind of cool because it's something I always wanted to do but never took the
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  time to do it, you know what I mean. And but but it
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  but it but it suited this so great. And uh, I mean I
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  I approach every song differently, you know, you each song is its own
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  it's its own entity, you know. It's kind of weird like on the
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  on the record, just the bonus tracks, and the reason they ended up
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  being bonus tracks is because we like the nine songs that encompassed the record.
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  They conceptually and vibe wise fit together, and it was kind of we had
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  this thing. It fit the title, it fit the whole subject matter,
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  everything around it was. It was cohesive. The bonus tracks were just cool
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  tunes and with those, which was interesting because there was a couple that were
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  very unstylistic for me and we weren't going to do them originally. And I
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  turned to Kurt and I'm like, you know what, let me give it
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  a shot, because you know that I could let me, let me go
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  outside my my comfort zone a little bit here, and they were fun,
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  you know, it was a less is more approach, and I just I
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  thought that was cool, you know what I mean. Will we do that
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  again? I mean maybe, I don't know, you know what I mean.
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  We just don't know. You can't really predict. There's no there's no
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  like preemptive strike we got, you know, we just you know, I
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  just know that I'm going to go in there and I want to write driving
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  stuff, you know, like pick a God and co and you know,
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  and Congregation and you know those are my Those two songs pretty much would represent
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  my my vibe on everything. You know, the way you have fights lit
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  up when you were telling that that might was fucking was actually quite inspiring.
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  Bro. Yes, it's it's a it's been a you know, it's a
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  dream come true. You know it sounds cliche, but it's true. I
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  mean, I grew up with the listener to this band as the first two
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  Orcids have always been on my to go to playlist. You know, I
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  always love when I you know, there's a few singers that I go to
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  that I'll listen to that get me all fired up whenever I would go to
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  play and you know, David Wayne would be one of the Americ Adams would
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  be another, and then you know like Bruce and or you know, I
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  just I love that aggressive high or the low, and you know, I
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  would go to listen to. Fear Factory is another huge band of my that
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  I love, love, and so it's kind of like this encompassing thing.
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  But they were always on that playlist, is what I'm trying to say.
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  So for me to go, you know, from when I'm on stage and
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  I look over and I see the big metal church banner, and then I
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  look over to my right and I see Kurt standing there. I'm like wow,
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  you know, and we're playing like you know, uh, Gods of
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  Wrath and it's like what I'm this is crazy, you know, Buggle.
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  That's so love God for tonight, Bright mettal Church. He's out here from
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  December to forty, taking off in Melbourne. I'm gonna pup along to the
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  Brisbane ship. Might say, catch you art from the audience and give you
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  a wife. Awesome look forward to it. Man, we cannot wait.
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  Address you dy brother. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. All
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  right man, thank you great, thanks for having me my pleasure, Bright
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  tact. All right man. Bye,