Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Matt Fox: Shai Hulud

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Matt Fox: Shai Hulud · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

0:00
Well, God Die, die by Well by j B sy all days die.
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All right, today we have Matt Fox from Shihlud. We're really stoked.
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Shihlud obviously is a band that is extremely influential in the metal core scene
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and uh and even a lot of the hardcore scene, i'd say too.
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And we're just super super grateful for for Matt and be able to hang out
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with you and chat shy Lude and all the things that you're doing in the
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world. So, hey, Matt, thanks for hanging out for a little
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bit. It's gonna be a good time, I think. Oh, well,
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thanks for having me on. I do appreciate it. Yeah, We're
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we're super so let's uh, I don't even know where to begin. I
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mean, shy Lude has been a band for almost what at least twenty five
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almost thirty years at this point, we're a couple of years away from thirty
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years now, which is probably hard to believe. And you're like one of
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the few, if not only like remaining like band member who's been a part
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of it for the entire band, right like you, you're the only person
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right yep. Sad to say, but I started it with some friends way
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back in nineteen ninety five. So yeah, like you said, we're coming
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up on thirty years extreme, really hard to believe. What I'm curious is,
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have you guys been a band longer than you have had members? Because
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I think there's more than thirty members of Shy Lude. Hasn't there been close?
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If not, I don't know how. I don't know if I want
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to answer that. Yeah, we've had We've had a you know, a
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evolving door of sorts, unfortunately, but I couldn't tell you the amount.
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All I can tell you for certain is the Wikipedia page is wrong. It's
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like just big. It's like a big running joke. I see friends on
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there that have never been in the band that just liked the band, So
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you can't take Wikipedia as fact that they were. They friends of you,
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friends of yours that are like, you know, I'm just gonna put my
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name on Wikipedia just so that I can say that I've been a part of
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shihood. I don't know. I never confronted a couple of them about I
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never confronted anyone about it. Somebody just directed me to it once said you
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should check this out. So I looked, and I said to myself,
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who's this guy. Who's this guy? And wait, I know him.
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He was never in the band. He was never in the band. So
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yeah, not not entirely true. There. I've been thinking about doing that
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on mx p x's page because I technically played with mx p X once.
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I threw a piece of pizza at the base and it actually plucked the strings,
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and I think that counts as playing with MxPx. So I'm gonna I'm
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gonna put my name on mxpx's page. Pizza strings, Yeah, pizza strings,
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you got it. Why would you throw a piece of pizza at the
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bass? I mean I just kind of threw it in that general direction and
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ended up pinning the bass. So also, you were like sixteen years old,
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and that's what not even I was like just stupid. Yeah, I
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was just an idiot. I was maybe a fourteen fifteen years old. A
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fourteen fifteen year old me was an idiot too. Well, let's talk about
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those years then. Okay, obviously, you know Shihlud's been around forever,
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but I would imagine that you were starting to do music, maybe even prior
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to Shihlud. Can you talk a little bit about how you even got into
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music. Maybe you're one of those kids that for six you know, for
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your sixth birthday, you're like, I want a guitar, and then all
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of a sudden you're playing guitar. And here you are thirty years later,
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still playing guitar. So I don't know what was the like impetus for you
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and what's the beginning of that story for you to start playing music. Well,
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I always I fell in love with music early on, and there's no
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real reason why I didn't live in a musical household. My mother never listened
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to music, at least not openly. I know she had an Aba eight
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track and a Billy Joel eight track. Those are the necessities right there.
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Yeah, but I don't know that she I don't recall her ever playing them.
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I was just always listening to the radio and finding new music that I
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liked. You know. It started with Well, my first favorite band wasn't
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even because of the music. It was Kiss and obviously just because of the
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get up. I fell in love with that and bought a couple albums,
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but I didn't hear them until a little later. As I recall it,
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my first favorite band because of the music was the band from Australia called Men
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at work. Oh yeah, yeah, I love that album. That's what
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business is usual, I think. Yeah, so their first two albums were
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really important to me. Business as Usual in Cargo, uh. And then
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from there I got into Journey, you know, which was just a little
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bit heavier than your average rock at the time, at least from what like
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I'm talking about being six seven years old, right, so, especially coming
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from an abba household, right exactly, So I didn't know. I didn't
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know where to find heavy metal or what heavy metal was, but I started
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with Journey. And then once MTV got on the air, you know,
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I got into Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot. Then one of my all time
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favorites was Motley Crue once they put out Shout at the Devil. Got into
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a little bit of rat stuff like that, you know. And then one
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day I was hanging out in the local neighborhoods clubhouse and this I thought he
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was like an adult, but thinking back now, he couldn't have been more
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than two years older than me. But he smoked, so I thought he
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must be like seventy years old or something, you know. That that was
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yeah, I didn't know. So he said, have you heard Metallica yet?
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And I said, no, this is nineteen eighty six, and he,
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as I recall it, he put on the second side of a Master
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of Puppets cassette, which started off with Disposable Heroes. All right, if
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you know that song, and once that, once that kicked in my life
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was changed. I'd never absolutely that's the first time in my I mean,
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I loved Motley Crue, I loved Swiss's Sister, I loved Wasp, but
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nothing had ever resonated with me before like Disposable Heroes. And then from Metallica
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it went all into eighties thrash metal. This is like the the year of
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eighties thrash metal as far as I'm concerned. You had you know, Metallica
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put out Master Puppets, Slayer put out Rain and Blood, Meganeth put out
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Pace, Cells, Nuclear or Salt put out Game Over. So there was
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just tons of new metal for me to get into at that point. Yeah,
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I never really turned back. Just a few years later, I got
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myself into hardcore and that just kind of added to everything. But my first
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love is always going to be eighties thrash metal. Well, what were some
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of those hardcore bands that all of a sudden just you know, flip that
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switch for you there as well. Well, hardcore was like this mysterious thing
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that I knew about. Well, I thought that I knew about it,
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but I didn't know where to find it. So I got into first mostly
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from all the T shirts that Metallica war. So I got into Misfits,
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GBH exploited, you know, all the all the hardcore, hardcore punk bands
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that all the metal bands I listened to thanked in the liner notes. I
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went out and checked out. But the band that really resonated with me hardcore
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wise, my Metallica for hardcore was Bad Brains. Absolutely yeah, foremost first
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and foremost to this day still my biggest inspiration regarding hardcore. The reason that
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I played guitar at all is doctor know of the Bad Brains, specifically from
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their first record, The Roor Cassette. Yeah, understandably, so, I
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mean there's so much, there's so much there to pick from that definitely does
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something to a person's soul, right, I mean that that's gonna that's gonna
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flip the switch for you, right, Yeah, Absolutely, Bad Brains was
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I mean, I can't even overstate how much of an influence they were on
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me. I started playing guitar and mimicking the way Doctor No plays. That's
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why. Because I love thrash so much. Yeah, because I love thrash
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so much. People think that I'm a real metal player, like that I'm
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a shredder and I can downpick really fast, and I can't. My style
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is more flowy, like Doctor Knows on that rour. Hassett is going back
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to the point of the question you asked. When I started with music,
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I had an inclination towards drums when I was about eleven, So I started
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playing drums, and when I was listening to metal full on, I was
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a drummer. So that's when I got into hardcore, Bad Brains and Suicidal
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Dead Kennedy's and all that stuff. That's when my guitar style started to take
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form. Yeah. Well, speaking of which, you've probably played more other
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instruments than guitar in most most of the outfits you've been with, right,
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I mean, I would say at this point it's mostly guitar, but I've
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filled in on bass for a couple of bands. In nineteen ninety four,
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if you want to count this, I played drums for strong Arm for one
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show. Wow, it totally counts it could go on a Wikipedia page.
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At the very least, that's right. I think it might be on there.
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Really, well, at least you're more deserving of that than some of
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the people on the Shihlud Wikipedia page exactly. Yeah, I did play a
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show with them on drums in nineteen ninety four, a long time ago,
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which is oddly enough. That show was the show where I met Steve Kleisath,
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who ended up playing drums in both strong Arm and Shihlud just a few
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years later. So let's talk about the formation about Shihlud again. You're the
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only original member, so you were there at the very beginning in nineteen ninety
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five. What was that like? I mean, were you guys just like
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high schoolers who just wanted to play some music and start a band, or
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was there something else going on. I'm just curious about that story about how
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specifically shi Hulud came together as a band. Sure, I would say it
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was more college age. I think I was. If we started ninety five,
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I think that would make me twenty three. So I would say when
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I was just before I was twenty three, around twenty two or so,
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I was working in a music store with one friend. I had another friend
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that I used to go buy records with. We used to go to this
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little punk rock shop in Florida called far Out Records, and my friend and
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I would go to the store and always talk about and purchase hardcore records.
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Then I had a friend named Damien, who you guys may know of.
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He sings for as Friends Rust and he's got his side or his own project
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called Damien Done Well. Damian contacted me without knowing my other two friends.
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So I had essentially this band kind of formed like I was the core,
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and it branched out in other directions with these people who didn't know each other.
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So the guy that I worked at the music store with would say to
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me, we would listen to Shelter. I remember at the time Mantra by
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Shelter had just come out, and we love that record, especially when the
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really fast hardcore songs came on. So we would always when those songs came
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on, we would say to each other man we should start a hardcore band.
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And then when I would go record shopping with my other friend, we'd
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buy a cool new seven inch like maybe could have been Firestorm by Earth Crisis
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or one of the early Strife records, and we'd sit at his place and
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listened to it and say, man, we should start hardcore band. Then
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I get this call from Damien, who I didn't know, but he says,
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you know, he calls me. He says, I got your number
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from friends. We don't know each other, but I respect you for your
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bands, and maybe you know me from mine. And I said, of
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course. And he said, hey, we should start a hardcore band.
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And I said to him, you know what, I think I have the
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members. So I brought all these people together. I mean, I don't
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want to make it sound like I'm so important. These people would have eventually
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met each other, but at the time, early on and whatever it was
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nineteen ninety two or nineteen ninety three, to the best of my memory,
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they didn't know each other at that time. So we collected all together,
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and Damien happened to know a drummer, so we That was how Shilud started
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again. As I recall it, a bunch of strangers that didn't know each
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other, that just all really loved hardcore and really wanted to start a band.
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So this is what's interesting about Shihalud, is you guys start out wanting
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to be a hardcore band, but something happens, and I think it's a
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lot of it has to do with the fact that you have such a lot
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you have so many metal influences, you know, being really influenced by a
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lot of the eighties thrash metal. So there's this turn that happens and all
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of a sudden, a new genre ends up kind of being created. And
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I don't know like how much of that it was intentional, like, hey,
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let's just start doing our own thing and create our own new genre.
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But I would argue that Shilude was one of those first metalcore bands, and
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there wasn't really that sound out there yet where you're combining a lot of metal
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riffs with like the hardcore rhythm and drumming. There weren't a lot of bands
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that were like mixing that super well. And then all of a sudden,
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you guys just do that really really well, and before you know it,
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you've got this essentially a new genre. I think Za would be kind of
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in those early stages. I'm sure there's some other bands to them forgetting,
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but yeah, but Shihalude is definitely in there. I mean with late nineties
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and you guys are making this sound already. That's pretty damn impressive to basically
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be creating a whole new genre. You all. I can't take credit for
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metalcore, and I'm not sure that I want to, but there are yeah,
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yeah, yeah, there's quite a few bands that came before us.
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In fact, the first time that I ever saw the metal metalcore term was
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on an ad for a war Zone record call Really Yeah, they called it
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New York metalcore. I have the ad saved on my computer in case anyone's
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interesting ever wants to see it. Yeah. So, yeah, even the
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term metalcore was around long before we were, and there were plenty of hardcore
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bands that shifted into uh, you know, a hard rock metal type sound.
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You know, Uniform Choice did it. There was, of course before
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US, Chromags and leeway Burn, even Strife, Earth Crisis, Integrity,
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who else, Coalesce, All these bands started before us, and we're injecting
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I would argue to say, more metal than we've ever been. Coalesce had
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some pretty heavy stuff. So yeah, I appreciate it, and I recognize
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the fact that because we put the term medical medical metal core on a T
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shirt, and I think that that maybe helped popularize the term and kind of
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connected us to it, but we definitely didn't originate neither the name nor the
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sound. When I think back on the early material, and I don't mean
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to consistently talk here, but when I look back on the early material,
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I think we were more progressive than we wore more metal. Yeah, definitely,
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you know we I always say, I've said this for years and I'll
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probably continue to say it. I was just ripping off different bands than everybody
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else was ripping off. You know. I was ripping off Bad Brains and
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one of my favorite bands that really helped me introduce melody into some of the
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riffs a band called JFA, And you know, then all of my between
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Steve Klysath joining the band and our mutual love for Voivode, we started injecting
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some more off time material. So yeah, you know who in well,
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not to say there wasn't anybody, but like I said, my influences way
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back in the mid nineties were Voivode, JFA, Bad Brains, Metallica,
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and Suicidal Tendencies, just a little different than I think what other people were
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ripping off at the time. I will say this, like we so Colin
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and I did a metalcore tournament where we had a bunch of different metalcore bands
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from like the two thousands and everything, and we did like a whole bracket
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style like March Madness, and eventually got to what our what our metalcore winner
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was. But before we started doing that bracket and that tournament, we were
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talking with our friend Dan about some of the history of metalcore and he brought
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up a Shihalut song. So we started listening to this shy Halut song and
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I think it was off of Hearts Once Nourished, and so this is nineteen
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ninety seven or yeah, nineteen ninety seven, and we were listening to it
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and we were like this, literally, even from a production side of things,
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sounds like what you would hear from maybe like Knocked Loose these days.
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And that's pretty impressive that like, here we are still, you know,
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like Knocked Loose being a huge band at this point, and twenty years before
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then, twenty five years before then, you guys were making a sound already
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like that's I think that's a testament of how influential you guys were, and
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furthermore, like compared to peers at the time. So some of the other
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songs that we played. It does sound. It did sound much more,
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much more progressive, much more modern than than what you would expect from the
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time period. Very very curious thing, especially when you line it up next
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to some of your peers. Yeah, and add into the mix the fact
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that we didn't know what the hell we were doing, at least I did.
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I may our drummer probably did. He's he's a musician, far more
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advanced than I. I barely call myself a musician. I just had a
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fumble around on a guitar a little bit. Yeah, I I we called
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ourselves metalcore in the early days. But like I said, looking back on
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it, you know, I hear some all influence, but mostly it sounds
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just like a hardcore band trying to be a little bit more than a hardcore
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band. So the best word that I could come up with, which I
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stole from Propagandhi anyway, is progressive. That's perfect. That's perfect, man.
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Okay. So I also want to talk about this for a second,
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just because we're in that kind of early history of the band. All Right,
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you guys name yourselves shy Halud, and obviously you must all have been
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nerds or at least you would had been a nerd to be a Dune a
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Dune fan, and then if you're in the middle honestly, I mean right,
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and here, like twenty five plus years later, you have the movie,
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the big Dune movie come out. I know, I think there was
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like a Dune movie prior that didn't really get super big, but you have
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the Dune movie last year that like was a blockbuster hit. How like do
20:53
you think, like, has there been like any sort of like people who
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are like looking for Shihlud or whatever because they watched this new movie and then
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all of a sudden they like stumble upon your on your band, Like,
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has there ever been any confusion around that? I find that really interested.
21:07
No. I don't know if there's been confusion, but there has been over
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the years. I don't know what number. I think more people got into
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us because of Newfound Glory more so than Dune. But I've definitely had a
21:21
few people that have contacted me saying I was looking up something Dune related and
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I came to your band shy Hlud, and I'm a big Dune fan,
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so I checked out your music and oh my god, I love it so
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We've definitely had some crossover that we've met from Dune. But again, you
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know, people when they found out that Chad sang for shy Hlud, that
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newfound glory connection really helped. I don't know how much it helped, but
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it helped. It had to have been quite a bit, it would be.
21:52
It's got to be similar to like when when Dave Girls started Foo Fighters
21:56
and ended up getting like the two guys from Sunny Day real Estate. Like
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in those any real Estate had already been like a fairly big sized emo band
22:03
at that point. I would imagine, like, you get Dave Grohl involved
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now with that whole world, and all of a sudden, you're gonna be
22:08
way bigger than what you were before. Sure, yeah, so, but
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yeah, we've definitely had some crossover with Dune fans. I mean, I've
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also seen not too many times, thankfully, but I've also seen Dune fans
22:26
and say this is the worst shit I ever heard. So well that's fair.
22:33
Well, then you can just say, well, this is this is
22:34
the sonic interpretation of right. Yeah. There actually are quite a few different
22:44
sonic interpretations of Dune in general, like jazz, like nineteen seventies jazz stuff.
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It's really weird. There's there's definitely a whole universe out there. I
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love that. I love when art inspires more art. It's just it's just
23:00
fantastic that way. Yeah, well, Dune was a pretty influential book for
23:03
sure. Let's keep kind of going through the history. Obviously, again,
23:07
nineteen ninety seven the first album, and you guys are fairly active and everything.
23:12
But then, like, what's interesting about Shihlud is like the at least
23:18
in terms of full length albums, the years between each is like way more
23:22
than maybe like an influential band would typically have, especially in those early years.
23:26
You know, a lot of those bands, especially around this time,
23:30
are putting out an album like every year, every other year, something like
23:33
that, and you guys are like waiting five years in between. You guys
23:37
are like, you guys were already ahead of the curve. Everybody else now
23:40
nowadays it's really see music every five years. You guys were already doing that
23:44
back in nineteen ninety seven. So yeah, I'm just curious, like kind
23:47
of obviously there's a lot of band member changes and everything. Uh yeah,
23:51
what like, what would you say is the reason for just having so like
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the albums just be so far apart from each other. Well, it's uh,
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it's always been profound hatred, not prolific hatred. So uh, we
24:07
never put out an album a year. The reasons why, I'm sure,
24:12
you know, I don't know that I could really pinpoint it, but you
24:17
know, I'm sure remember changes didn't help. You know. Sometimes I tend
24:21
to feel really daunted by writing new music and especially lyrics. Sometimes it seems
24:29
like an insurmountable mountain to write new material because again, the bar is so
24:33
high that I've set for myself and for this band, and it's just it's
24:38
it's difficult to accomplish. And you can throw in some general laziness as well.
24:45
Well I don't know if it's laziness or if it's just because the task
24:49
felt so daunting. But all these reasons combined, and I would also say
24:57
I just don't write weekly. I think it again, just at risk of
25:03
repeating myself, it comes down to the standard that we myself, even Steve
25:11
Kleisath in the early days, Matt Fletcher, who was with the band for
25:15
a long time. It goes to the level of that bar that we set
25:18
for ourselves and that means that it's a very fine filter and not any garbage
25:26
can just get in. You know. I know I know some bands,
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well not these days. I'm out of touch with a lot of bands these
25:33
days, but I knew of some bands that would write like a really simple,
25:37
basic riff and they'd say, great, that's the basis for a new
25:42
song. And I think that, myself, are the kidding that is going
25:47
to be the basis of a new song, like that's child's play. So
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for a riff to get into shihlud, it really has to exceed expectations.
25:56
And again those expectations are pretty high. So I mean you look back to
26:02
I mean even outside the metal world and hardcore world, you look to some
26:07
of the most influential bands. There are bands that released like one or two
26:11
albums and they're really far apart, and you know, like Slint. I
26:15
don't know if you ever listened to Slint, they're they're a band like that.
26:18
And American Football early on with the email world, and yeah, there
26:22
are a lot of bands like that that became extremely influential, you know,
26:27
in critical darlings, but they only released like a couple albums and in kind
26:33
of a hardcore, metalcore metal world. Vein like you kind of are in
26:37
that world of just releasing a few albums, and yet people really look back
26:42
to Shihloud as the reason why they started as a band, especially in the
26:47
metalcore world. I mean, we hear this pretty often from metalcore fans and
26:52
artists who are in metalcore bands. Is Shihlud is the reason why I'm a
26:56
band. And even though you guys might not have like gotten to the level
27:00
of some of the hardcore that got or the metalcore that got really big in
27:03
the two thousands, Yet those bands in those two thousands that did get big,
27:07
a lot of them indirectly or directly. We're bands because of you guys.
27:11
I mean that really is how important Shihalud has been to this scene.
27:17
Well, that's awesome. I'm glad to have been a part of it.
27:19
We had our brief fifteen minutes probably in the early two thousands, but I
27:29
think we're right where we're supposed to be. As much as I've always wanted
27:33
it to be a full time band, and we've flirted with being full time,
27:37
I don't think Shihlud was ever consistently full time enough to really make it
27:42
to another level. So we are where we are because of what we did.
27:48
And you know, always changing singers probably didn't help matters much either,
27:53
So I'm thankful that our music made an impact on whoever it did. That's
27:59
fantastic. One thing that I've said many interviews before was right around the time
28:06
that shy Aloud started, I was listening I believe it was to Master of
28:10
Puppets and I remember just sitting there listening to this album saying to myself,
28:15
I love Metallica, I really love this album. And then I thought to
28:22
myself, no one will ever feel about Shihlud the way that I feel about
28:29
Metallica, and I've been proven wrong a couple of times over the years.
28:33
So that's a very flattering thing and no regrets whatsoever. Very happy. Yeah,
28:42
absolutely well. One of the things that I find very interesting about you
28:47
and Shiahlud, especially with Jay these days and Cullen and I saw you guys
28:51
play at the pre show at Furnace Fest this last year. Yeah, we
28:55
were We were right up front, right there, hanging out and that was
28:57
a great show. That was really fun. One of the things that I
29:00
just find so interesting is the fact that you have someone like Jay, who
29:06
is probably tattooed on every inch of his body. I don't think there's an
29:10
inch part of an inch of his body that isn't tattooed. And then you've
29:12
got someone that looks like you, who just like is not like is literally
29:18
the opposite of that, and I love that. I think that's amazing.
29:22
And yet you both in his way. You know, he's jumping into the
29:26
crowd and you're just jamming out and headbanging to your rifts and everything. It
29:30
is so interesting to watch like two very different looking people at the same time
29:36
in the same band, but they're both loving it. It's so it's so
29:40
interesting to watch that. Because you get a lot of bands, they all
29:41
kind of look the same. You know, they're all wearing maybe skinny jeans,
29:45
they're all tatted or whatever. Maybe in some of the hardcore bands they're
29:47
all big, bulky, yoked dudes. But then you guys have someone like
29:52
Jay who is just tatted head to toe, and then someone like yourself who
29:56
looks like you're probably reading Dune and playing dungeons and drag or something. I
30:00
don't know. Hey, I just bought some action figures from the Dungeons and
30:06
Dragons cartoon that just came out. See I'm sorry to say, but you
30:10
just kind of fit the stereotype, like you just kind of look like somebody
30:12
who would be really into that kind of stuff. Well, I'm my relationship
30:19
with Dungeons and Dragons is really just as deep as the cartoon. It's my
30:25
favorite eighties cartoon. I played a little bit as like a young metal head
30:29
kid, but I have some friends who are adults that play that have asked
30:34
me to get into some games, and I would like to. Even at
30:37
almost fifty years old, it's still intriguing to me, but I haven't done
30:41
so yet. So you look the part, though I will say that I'm
30:48
nerdy. I get it, I get it, I love it, and
30:52
I have I have no tattoos, none at all. You probably are one
30:57
of the only metal slash hardcore guitarists in the entire world that doesn't have one
31:03
tattoo. There's probably a very far in few between. Yeah. Sure.
31:10
Coincidentally, I believe Lars Ulric has zero tattoos as well. Does he really?
31:15
Does he really not have any? Well? I don't know the guy
31:17
personally, but from what I've read, yes, really, I that shocks
31:22
me. He looks like somebody that would have a tattoo. At least it's
31:26
one. I think he said it on a Howard Stern interview that he had.
31:30
Yeah. When asked why he doesn't have tattoos himself, despite being involved
31:34
in the heavy music scene that tends to favorite body art, al Rick kept
31:37
it simple. I never really thought about why I haven't there you go interesting.
31:44
I would have never guessed that. Yeah, it just never really appealed
31:47
to me. You know. I never dyed my hair like a funny color,
31:52
never had a piercing, never had a tattoo. Just despite the fact
31:56
I never smoked, I never drank, I never did any drugs, all
32:00
the things, all the trimmings that come with that whole world. Yeah,
32:04
I just like the music. Look at you. You really are a nerod
32:08
through and through, which is great. Let's talk about kind of what is
32:14
in the life of shihlu these days again, Culin and I saw you at
32:16
Furnace Fast unbelievable show. So clearly you guys are kind of in the mix
32:21
to at least play some shows here and there. Sure is there anything else
32:23
that we could maybe expect from Shihlud in the future, maybe some shows,
32:27
maybe some even new music, but at some point shows definitely. It's a
32:31
little tricky because Jay recently moved to California. We had to fly him out
32:37
from California to Alabama to play that show, you know, so that gets
32:43
expensive. But we still will play shows despite the fact that Jay lives in
32:50
out West now, and also he plays in another band that's pretty popular.
32:53
They're called End and they, yeah, they do a lot of stuff as
32:59
well, so we have to balance our schedules and you know, fly him
33:05
out from California anytime we want to do shows. So it'll be tricky,
33:09
but it will happen. As far as new music, yeah, very slowly.
33:15
But you know, I would say surely as well. You know,
33:19
I simply don't play my guitar as these days as much as I used to,
33:24
so the writing is even more slow going than it was, and the
33:30
fawcet is down to a drip because I haven't played. So when I play
33:36
guitar, like, I really have to warm up not my hands but my
33:42
brain intellectually to get to a point where I could write a riff that would
33:47
be remotely passable for Shihilu, but our most recent bass player who I've been
33:55
in bandswidth for the past fifteen years. He also sang for Shihulud at one
34:00
point. He's now the bass player. He writes music too, and we're
34:06
also both in Zombie Apocalypse together if you know what zombie apocalypse is. Yeah,
34:09
so he writes a lot too, and he sends me some great riffs
34:13
that actually inspire me to get back in business and start making things happen.
34:21
So as far as when, I couldn't tell you when there would be new
34:24
music, but it's definitely being planned and something will happen at some point.
34:31
If we're all lucky, well, I don't know how lucky we would be.
34:36
If the band is lucky, it'll something would come out next year.
34:39
I don't know how lucky will be for everybody else. Wow, that's that's
34:44
sooner than I would have even anticipated. Well, like I said, that's
34:47
if we're lucky, that's well, that's true. But at least like you
34:52
guys are writing, and it sounds like at least you want to make new
34:55
music that I think that's probably the biggest motivation, is you want to put
35:00
new stuff out there. Yeah, Like when I like to think that I'm
35:05
somewhat of a creative person, and the way that I expressed myself best,
35:12
I think is musically. So it'll always be a part of my life.
35:16
At some point, maybe twenty years from now, there'll be a new shy
35:20
Lude album. Who knows, well, we're we're looking forward to it,
35:23
regardless if it's next year or twenty years from now. We're super stoked.
35:27
So it would be really fun if you were like in your seventies and still
35:30
doing shihlud, that would be awesome. Hey, Mick Jagger still doing it?
35:37
That's right, that's right, Richards. If you can believe that Keith
35:40
Richards is still doing it, that's true. Well, I know you haven't
35:45
done drugs to this point, but you might have to be starting doing some
35:47
trucks at that point. It's working for him, why shouldn't it work for
35:52
me. Let's let's talk about those influential albums you mentioned before we start recording,
35:59
Like that's how you think about music is like the music that has shaped
36:01
you as a as a human. You've already talked a little bit about some
36:05
of the bands and some of the albums that you listen to early on and
36:07
culin and I are super curious about kind of you know what that looks like
36:12
for you kind of throughout your your whole life. So let's do the top
36:15
five most influential albums. So you can go whatever order you want. You
36:17
can kind of rank them if you want. You can go chronological however you
36:21
want to do it. But I'm super stoked. I have to just give
36:25
it a little bit of a thing. But number one is a no brainer,
36:30
which you already know is Master of Puppets of course, by Metallica.
36:36
No album has ever influenced me, has even come close to the influence that
36:44
Master of Puppets had on me. It's far and away number one. How
36:50
old were you when that came out? I was thirteen thirteen. Do you
36:53
remember the moment you started listening to that album? Yeah? I do.
36:58
Like I said, it was in the neighborhood clubhouse. This guy named Bobby,
37:02
who smoked a lot, asked me if I heard Metallica before. I'd
37:06
never heard of him, and he put on the first song on side two
37:10
Disposable Heroes, and I was blown away, unbelievable. Ye, And here
37:16
you are years later and you're still like that is that is my album.
37:20
It's so interesting how music catches us like that. Who would have thought when
37:23
you were thirteen years old? If you were thirteen, like you, you
37:25
go back and you think about yourself at that time, you probably wouldn't have
37:30
thought like, oh, I really liked this album. But that album,
37:32
when I'm almost fifty is still going to be one of my favorite albums ever.
37:36
It's hard to believe when you're thirteen year encountery music like that. But
37:39
hey, I'm the same way. I'm twenty eight and there's still music from
37:43
when I was thirteen that I'm like, that is the most amazing thing I've
37:45
ever heard. And here I am, like fifteen years later, and I'm
37:51
still like, that's still the most amazing music I've ever heard. Yeah.
37:53
Well, to be honest, I don't listen to Master of Puppets as regularly
37:59
as you might. I think based on what I'm saying about it, because
38:02
I hate to say, well, I shouldn't say that it's played out,
38:08
but I've heard it just an innumerable amount of times that if I want to
38:15
hear it, all I have to do is think about it. You know,
38:17
it's it's in my DNA at this point. I'm the same way about
38:22
my favorite My favorite band ever is called The Chariot, and I actually don't
38:25
listen to them very often because I don't want to, even though I know
38:30
like I wouldn't it wouldn't get played too much for me, and like that
38:35
I would get sick of it. I know that that wouldn't be the case,
38:37
but there's still something about like how sacred it is to me that I
38:40
don't want to do it too much. Overdo it with listening to the Chariot
38:45
because of how much they really mean to me. Well, I probably overdid
38:49
it for Metallica by nineteen eighty seven, but nonetheless, it doesn't matter if
39:00
if Metallica collectively did some heinous thing, you know, and I decided I
39:05
couldn't have their album hanging on my wall, I had to take down my
39:08
banners from the other wall. I still couldn't deny the fact that Master Puppets
39:16
is the biggest influence in my life musically. Hopefully they never do anything heinous
39:22
because I don't want to have to take all my Metallica drapings down. Well,
39:25
so far, the only thing that seems to be bad about them is
39:28
the whole Napster thing twenty plus years ago. Sure, Sure, and I
39:32
don't even know. I don't even know that I disagreed with them. I
39:36
mean, Lars wasn't wrong essentially right, all right? So that's number one.
39:42
Let's hear some others. Another. I'll go with one that was already
39:46
mentioned it Sometimes it's called the Attitude Sessions. I knew it is the raw
39:52
cassette, the yellow cassette with the Capitol Building being struck by lightning, if
40:00
you know what I'm talking about. By the Bad Brains, that is probably
40:06
the second album that influenced me. Well, it's like I said before,
40:12
it's the album that influenced me to play guitar. So I'll put that as
40:16
number two. The next three, that's tough. I'd probably have to put
40:22
Suicidal Tendencies, Okay. When I first heard that record, I was also
40:28
blown away, not like I was with Metallica or Bad Brains, but that
40:32
that album had a pretty huge impact on me. And which album from them
40:37
is that? Is it? A? Well? The first one I heard
40:40
was the first, the self titled, self titled Okay, and then I
40:45
think I got into each subsequent record as they came out, joined the Army
40:50
and then how will I laugh tomorrow? And I go up to Light's camera.
40:55
Revolution. Well, I also love the EP or it's I don't know
41:00
if it's an album or an EP, but it's called feel Like Shit Deja
41:04
Vuk told by Hatred. I don't know if you know that one. No,
41:07
I only like know of their like full length. I don't know if
41:10
I know anything else. Okay, it's kind of a full length, but
41:14
it's made up of re recorded songs. Okay, so, but it's it's
41:19
great. So yeah, I would say the first Suicidal Tendency's album would be
41:23
in the top five. Another one which would probably come in at number five,
41:30
it's It's framed Hanging on My Wall right now. That would be what's
41:35
known as the untitled album by the band JFA Jodi Foster's Army. I don't
41:42
think I've ever heard of them before. If you type it in you'll find
41:45
them JF Hey. They were a big skate punk band back in the early
41:50
eighties. They played punk but with like, uh, kind of like a
41:57
surf rock sensibility. Interesting. Yeah, it's not like they mix. Well,
42:02
they did mix the two, but they would play hard and fast and
42:07
then they would go into these really beautiful melodic parts with the singer who would
42:13
scream just like he was screaming over a fast, heavy part. And even
42:20
though I would live I had listened to Metallica for years before I heard JFA,
42:27
you know, and Metallica was pretty melodic. But for whatever reason,
42:30
it's when I heard JFA that I really that it really clicked, and I
42:36
really understood that you can be you could scream over melodic, pretty music and
42:43
it gives you an entirely different feeling. Yeah, so JFA, I mean,
42:47
I love all their records, but specifically the record that's just called Untitled.
42:53
It was a huge, huge influence and I probably don't give it enough
42:58
credit as I but that I'll put that in my top five. And that
43:04
was like, that was the whole playbook for like two thousands metalcore was screaming
43:07
over these really beautiful melodic pieces. And again, I think Shihlud is largely
43:14
due to that. You know, whether again a band knows that or not.
43:16
Shy Lude was doing that kind of work, you know, your guitar
43:21
work, doing some of the you know, melodic pieces that were really really
43:23
beautiful, and then there's this great hardcore screaming over it. A lot of
43:28
bands ended up doing that same thing in the two thousands and it became super
43:31
successful. So a lot of credit to you guys for doing that really really
43:35
well as well. Well. I thank JFA and Voivode Voivode. Would they
43:40
be in my top five most inspircial albums. It's so hard to really conclusively
43:50
pick, but I'm gonna go ahead and say in the number four spot is
43:55
the album Nothing Faced by Voivod. Love it full on off time signatures that
44:02
really opened my mind as a writer. You know that not everything had to
44:07
be in four four, right, you know, and you know it takes
44:13
a it takes something for I'm sure some people are lucky enough to be born
44:16
like that, but it took that album to really make that understandable to me
44:22
that I could write riffs that end in five beats or seven beats, or
44:27
I can extend them, you know, or whatever tricks I do to make
44:30
the songs a little less predictable. I would say a lot of that came
44:36
from Voivod, particularly that album Nothing Face. I just did a podcast yesterday
44:44
and I was talking about Nothing Face, and I'll tell you a story that
44:46
I just told them. There's this beautiful, beautiful chorus in the song nothing
44:53
Face. The song is the same title as the album, and the cores
44:59
of that song is just like really really slow and such beautiful chords, the
45:06
nice melody. And I remember being about fourteen or fifteen in my friend's car
45:10
listening to it with him, and I looked over at him and I said,
45:15
I would mash so hard to this part. And what I think is
45:21
funny about it, and what's kind of telling about it is that it's not
45:25
remotely a mosh part. It's it's slow and pretty, but that it affected
45:30
me so much that that's part of how I started writing music. Like I
45:36
said, with thanks to them and JFA and probably Metallic and then make Somewhere
45:39
too. But yeah, the fact that I, you know, I didn't
45:45
want to just sit and appreciate it that pretty slow part. I wanted to
45:49
mosh too. It's pretty telling as to how my writing career would go.
45:54
That totally makes sense. We actually interviewed a couple of years ago Dennis from
45:59
Voife, which was really really fun. So we we actually have had Void
46:04
voivode on the podcast, so that's that's pretty cool. That's incredible. I'm
46:08
a huge fan. They're they're really obviously just super influential in that world,
46:15
you know, before we get into plugs. I am really interested in hearing
46:19
from you about this. So Culin just went to a Norma Jean show yesterday.
46:22
We're big fans of Norma Jeine. I saw Norma Jeane the day before.
46:27
I'm interested from you, like when when I look at the people who
46:30
are mohing these days too, Even bands like Normajeine and Norma Jeane came well
46:36
after, well not that far after you guys did, but Norma Jean came
46:39
after you guys. And I would say most of those people who are mohing
46:43
are in their thirties or forties. I still find it fascinating that people that
46:47
age are still willing to get their bodies just totally you know, bruised up
46:53
and all, you know, all the you know, hard things that happened
46:57
to your body when you're in a mosh pit. Have you noticed that trend
47:00
when you play Shihulu shows Again, you were there at the very beginning in
47:04
nineteen ninety five playing shows, you know. I would imagine in those early
47:08
days it was a lot of teenagers and college kids just throwing their bodies around.
47:13
But when you go to a place like Furnace Fest in twenty twenty two,
47:16
is it mostly like forty year olds who were still like throwing their body
47:20
here around. What's that like for you guys. Well, I hear upon
47:24
occasion somebody say, I'm coming out of moss retirement for you guys today,
47:30
So there's definitely you know, I've got some friends that like the band,
47:35
and you know, they tell me I'm stage diving for you today. It's
47:37
the first time I staged dove in fifteen years. So yeah, you get
47:43
some old, older guys and girls coming out to dance thankfully. I don't
47:49
know if it's because they know and like the band, or they're just hearing
47:52
something that moves them. But you know, if I watched the furnace Fest
47:55
videos or something, I see some younger people in there. Yeah, which
47:59
is you know, refreshing. Hopefully they're hearing like I was saying, that
48:06
they're really hearing something that moves them rather than just representing. But yeah,
48:12
for as long as I can remember, I've never been the biggest fan of
48:15
Mashing. I love pylons and singalongs, but I remember being like again around
48:22
thirteen fourteen and one of my old my old band Unwilful Demise, a thrash
48:29
metal band where I played drums. I think I wrote on a flyer mosh
48:34
safely because I never wanted I never wanted anyone to get hurt, you know.
48:39
And then when I got into hardcore, I saw how much more,
48:44
how much more potential there was to get hurt than there wasn't at metal shows,
48:49
you know. Until I got in the hardcore, I had never seen
48:52
literal punching. Yeah, people are dood doo, Yeah it is. It's
48:57
dangerous in there. I've never been a person, but I do love a
49:00
good stage dive. I will absolutely stage dive if I can. Sure.
49:04
If I had the courage I would, I would like it too. I
49:07
staged dove once in my life. It was your guitar. No no,
49:14
I I think someone like threw me in the crowd with my guitar once and
49:19
I was like just all discombobulated, nervous, trying to get back on the
49:23
stage. I don't belong in the crowd. But there was this band that
49:29
I love from South Florida. They were a punk band called Quit and that
49:34
I love this band so still to this day. If anyone's listening and they
49:38
want to hear a great, great unsung band, go look up. The
49:43
band quit qu I T and their album was called Earlier Thoughts. People who
49:50
are listening from South Florida know exactly what I'm talking about. But anyway,
49:53
this band I love so much. And they played my favorite song at a
49:57
show and and I staged dove at like the just the right point rhythmically,
50:04
and I was like feeling it. I'm thinking, oh fuck yeah. And
50:07
then I look and the people that I was about to dive on, where
50:13
it was just a group of three girls, They all looked at each other,
50:15
screamed and ran away. The parting of the Red Sea and I hit
50:24
the floor and I got up and started dancing like you know, I meant
50:29
to do that, which I didn't at all. So that was my only
50:34
experience with stage diving, and I only moshed once I got into a pit.
50:39
Around the age of fifteen sixteen, I got into the pit for a
50:45
band called Testament. Oh I'm sure you're familiar with Yeah, yeah. So
50:50
I went into a Testament pit. I would say about less than five seconds
50:58
in the pit, I got knocked down and the next thing I know is
51:00
somebody was standing on my head. I thought to myself, this is how
51:06
I'm going to die. Somebody's gonna crush my head. And then finally I
51:10
got up and as I'm walking out of the pit, somebody just said,
51:14
hey, you got your head stepped on. Yeah, I did. That
51:17
was me. That was me. I don't know about like some of the
51:22
stuff from like the nineties, the really underground hardcore stuff, but at least
51:24
the world that I'm in there is like this. There is this value around
51:30
is somebody falls down, the everything stops to pick them up immediately, Like
51:36
it's it's almost like you're anticipating somebody to just stop, because it is.
51:40
It's pretty react like it's just so reactive around. If somebody falls boom immediately,
51:46
a bunch of people are running around to make sure that that person gets
51:50
up immediately. It's pretty pretty incredible. And maybe maybe that scene was different
51:54
back in the like you know, more underground type days and stuff, but
51:58
at least the hardcore stuff that I listened to, that is certainly what people
52:01
are all about, is we make sure that everybody's getting here, getting out
52:06
of here. Safely. Yeah, well, I think there's a lot of
52:09
that, and I'm sure that was the case back then. The show that
52:13
I went to was in a really where I staged. Ove was in a
52:16
really big place, and like I said, I chose to jump on what
52:23
I thought were a group of people, but it was just these three girls
52:28
that ran away. So I understand that the Testament thing I have no explanation
52:32
for. I was knocked down and somebody was definitely stepping on my head.
52:37
Yeah, hardcore shows are there. There, there's something else but the energy,
52:40
even when people are in their forties still moshing around. I love it.
52:44
It's it's just so much fun to watch people just haven't a time of
52:47
their life and here they are probably doing that for twenty five plus years.
52:52
You know, when they were fifteen, they were probably doing that same thing,
52:53
and here they are in their forties and they're still doing it. It's
52:57
really cool to see people just love something so much they do it for that
53:00
long. God bless him, God, God bless him. Well, yea,
53:04
at least you make great music that people can mosh too and have fun.
53:07
And obviously you got someone like Jay who was just getting in the middle
53:09
of it all the time too. Sure, sure, he's yeah, he
53:14
definitely likes to get involved, which that dude is something else? Well,
53:16
well, well, Matt, anything you want to plug? Obviously, it
53:20
sounds like there might be some new shows eventually coming out. Obviously there even
53:23
might be at some point some new Shihlu music. But anything else you want
53:28
to plug? Well, I have another band in which I play guitar for,
53:32
and the current bass player of shi Hallud also sings for. And that
53:39
band is called Zombie Apocalypse. And we just started recording our next record,
53:46
So I can't say when new music is gonna surface, but we just finished
53:52
the drums. We're gonna start guitar tracking in a couple of weeks. Nice,
53:58
So stay tuned either Shylude social media's pages or Zombie Apocalypses. You could
54:07
find Shylude at Shilude Underscore Unincorporated at on Instagram. We're also on Facebook and
54:20
where under Shihalud on Twitter. Zombie Apocalypse is also available on Instagram, Twitter,
54:28
and Facebook. Just searching zombie Apocalypse and you're you're sure to find us
54:32
perfect, wonderful. Anything else you'd like the plug? Well, it's not
54:37
a plug really, Okay, It's just like a little known fact. I
54:45
was in the movie Muppets Take Manhattan. There's there's a scene that takes place
54:52
that was filmed at Vassar College and I was living in Poughkeepsie at the time,
54:58
and I was, I mean the crowd in that graduation scene in Muppet
55:02
State Manhattan. Yeah what year? What year would have that been? Is
55:07
that like early nineties? No, early eighties, eighty four? Maybe?
55:15
Wow? That is incredible. How did how did you get involved in that?
55:21
Were they just like, hey, we need people to show up,
55:23
like there are going to be a crowd and we're gonna film. Like what
55:25
was that whole process? Like? I was pretty young, but yeah something
55:30
like that. Damn. Did you at least get like a free beer out
55:32
of it or something? I was probably eleven years old or something. Oh
55:37
you're oh so you're really young? Wow? Yeah cow yeah, jeez,
55:43
my goodness. Well, at least like give you a free like pizza Hut
55:45
discount or something that would have been great. Maybe I got it. I
55:49
don't, I don't recall, but yeah, so I've got a I've got
55:52
a little extra cameo scene in Muppet Steak Manhattan and you must be like a
55:58
big Muppet Muppets fan. I feel like somebody who isn't like a big Muppets
56:00
fan isn't just gonna show up to a random filming of Muppets, so you
56:05
must be a huge fan. I am, indeed a big Muppets fan,
56:07
mostly of the movies. I grew up watching the TV show, but I
56:12
think I really fell in love with the Muppets when the first Muppet movie came
56:15
out, and then I followed the movies ever since. I just love how
56:21
how much more feral they are than like Sesame Street. They just like they
56:27
always felt like, kind of the the edgier version they're they're the hardcore to
56:30
the metalcore of Sesame Street. Yes they are, absolutely there's something else.
56:37
Are you a big fan of The Christmas Carol? Then? Do you watch
56:38
that every Christmas season? No, there's not actually one movie that I watch
56:44
every Christmas season. I used to watch It's a Wonderful Life every year,
56:49
but I haven't done that. I have not not the Muppets Christmas Carol.
56:52
One. I love it. I saw it in the theater when it came
56:54
out. That was the first. I was really skeptical though, because that
56:59
was the first movie that Kermit appeared in after Jim Henson died. I think
57:05
it was in nineteen ninety one, maybe, Okay, huh oh, No,
57:08
I don't watch I don't watch it every year, but I love it
57:12
for sure. Well, I you know what I hoped for when when Shihilud
57:16
does make some new music, I hope the animal can at least make an
57:20
appearance. Well, you know, given my history in their movies, maybe
57:23
I can make a call. You got a connection, you already got a
57:28
connection. I got a connection. I hope this ends up on the Wikipedia
57:31
page the animals one of the former band members of Shihalud. Yeah. That
57:37
and the fact that I was in a Muppet movie, which you know,
57:43
that's right. Yeah, Matt Fox, formerly or currently of Shihlud, Zombie
57:49
Apocalypse and also guest appearance and The Bump and The Muppets, The Muppets,
57:52
Smit take Manhattan. Love it well, Matt, thanks so much for chatting.
57:58
And again, I think Shihlud is one of those bands that really has
58:00
shaped a lot of music, a lot of metalcore, and that's the world
58:05
at Cullen and I grew up in, and the music that we grew up
58:08
in with the two thousands is so indebted to Shihalud. So thanks so much
58:13
for chatty Moore about the history of Shihlud, what you guys are up to
58:16
these days, uh, and just being a great hing. So thank you
58:19
so much, thank you for having me. I really appreciate all the kind
58:22
words. Lay Ja