Kevin Winter, Getty Images Kirk Hammett , lead shredder for Metallica , is a busy man. From writing and releasing his first book that chronicles his massive collection of horror movie memorabilia to filming a 3D movie with his bandmates, Hammett doesn’t seem like he’s slowing down anytime soon. We recently caught up with the axeman in New York City, where he made a stop on his book tour for ‘Too Much Horror Business.’ In addition to discussing the book , we also took some time to chat about Metallica’s next studio album, the longevity of the band and whether or not fans should be planning for a 2013 edition of their festival, Orion Music + More . Just a few months ago, you said that you have around 400 riffs ready for the new album. That’s grown from there. I have even more riffs now. So, as you continue piling on the riffs, where are you guys in the process of starting the next Metallica album? We just filmed a 3D movie up in Vancouver. That’s been at the forefront of our attention right now. We’ve been dealing with the audio aspect of that and pretty soon we’re going to start seeing footage from the concert. Once that particular project kind of dies down and we complete what we need to do with that, then we’re going to start writing songs. We’re going to meet up and start throwing ideas together. That should be really, really interesting. I’m really looking forward to that. What’s not going to be so fun is going through all the musical ideas that we have. I’m not really good at editing myself because I think it’s all good. To be more thorough on that, though, I foresee us starting to get together fairly soon, like in the next couple of months. We’ll start hammering away on it. When do you think fans will get to see the 3D film? We’re shooting for a summer release of next year. I’m really excited about it and I can’t wait to see it myself. The Rolling Stones just released a brand new studio track that comes on the heels of celebrating their 50th anniversary this past summer. With Metallica celebrating 30 years last year, do you think you’ll still be making new music two decades from now? I hope so! I have every intention. The word “retirement” doesn’t really sit well with me. There comes a time when you reach a position in society or culture where people will not let you retire. You can say, “Alright, I’m going to hang up my guitar,” but people will still not let you retire. They’ll constantly remind you of who you are and what you’ve done, so you might as well keep on doing it. It’s not like Metallica ever really slow down. That’s probably most evident in the fact you created your own music festival! Should fans get ready for a second Orion Music + More festival next year? The intention is to definitely do another one. We’re kind of getting our thoughts together on how that might be, where it might be and what our approach to it will be. We’re very, very keen on having another one this year. It was just so much fun. But as for details on the fest, you know, it’s too early in the process right now. I can assure you of one thing, there is going to be another ‘Kirk’s Crypt.’ Bigger and better, two stories this time! [button href=”http://loudwire.com/metallica-kirk-hammett-new-book-too-much-horror-business-favorite-scary-movies-more/” title=”Next: Kirk Hammett Discusses ‘Too Much Horror Business'” align=”center”]
Facebook: Asking Alexandria Asking Alexandria continue to evolve with each record, and guitarist Ben Bruce tells Billboard that the UK metalcore band’s forthcoming release will be more of a balance between “radio friendly” rock and the “balls-to-the-wall” vibe of some of their earlier material. The guitarist explains, “[The new album is] a lot more mature. [We may have] a lot of radio singles — what we’re calling radio singles, songs we’re going to push towards radio and try to accelerate our career and get to the next level and hopefully bring our old fans across with us.” Though the band has a few more radio-friendly cuts, Bruce is quick to qualify, “[The rest of it will be] our usual balls-to-the-wall kind of stuff. We spent a long time honing in on our song structures and writing techniques and things like that, but there are still heavy songs on the record. We’re not just going to throw that away and kick our original fan base in the teeth by getting rid of all that. There will still be a lot of riffing and screaming. But we feel like we did find a happy medium between being heavy and then being light enough to be on radio, but still keeping the balls in the songs.” Bruce says the band is also staying true to their instruments, revealing that on their last record there were some “fake” noises from computer input. This time, however, the guitarist says things are more organic with a real orchestra backing them up and a church gospel choir singing on a few tracks. Earlier this year, singer Danny Worsnop said of the new music , “It’s literally the best album we can write at this point in time. We spent a lot more time on the music. We spent a lot of time working on these songs and making them be as good as they can possibly be … It’s much more positive than anything we’ve done before. There’s some positive uplifting messages.” While the group has yet to title their album, they have unleashed a new track called ‘Run Free’ that’s being used to promote their headlining stint on the Monster Energy Outbreak Tour . The trek launches Nov. 16 in Edmonton, Ontario. The new album is expected in the first half of 2013. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/killswitch-engage-asking-alexandria-as-i-lay-dying-black-veil-brides-more-to-rock-2012-california-metalfest/” title=”Next: Asking Alexandria Join California Metalfest” align=”center”]
Victory Records Swedish metal band Sister Sin are gearing up for the release of their new album ‘Now and Forever.’ The band is also set to invade the United States by supporting Doro on a string of dates next year. When we recently had the opportunity to chat with Sister Sin singer Liv Jagrell, she spoke candidly about the new album ‘Now and Forever’ ( available here ) and how the band has fought tooth and nail to make it in the music business for almost a decade. In addition, Jagrell dished on women in metal today, as well as why she thinks so much good music keeps coming out of Sweden. Check out our exclusive interview with Liv Jagrell of Sister Sin below: What does the album title ‘Now and Forever’ mean to you? The title ‘Now and Forever’ is kind of a statement for us as a band. As a band and as individuals we have been through quite a lot of things, a lot of troubles and things that might break up bands but we’re so dedicated to this band. So that’s the title – we are here now and hopefully forever. We won’t give up even if something goes wrong – it’s tough to be in the music business today. Sister Sin have been a strong unit for a decade, for you what keeps the band going, secret to your longevity? Yes it’s been almost a decade at least for me and Dave [Sunberg] the drummer because we started the band from the beginning and yeah it’s kind of a decade now – that’s a long time. It’s really hard today with the business, there’s so many bands, so much competition out there, no money whatsoever and all the things with downloads – I mean it could be could but also bad, depending on how you look at it. When I started to play music at 15, the music business and scene was totally different and you could actually make money from it. When I was 15, I just decided, “I’m going to play music my whole life and I’m going to be a rock star” — that kind of attitude. So I spent all 15 years to convince myself that that’s the only thing I will ever, ever do so that’s why I can’t give up because I programmed my brain to believe that I will do this forever. I think that’s why we don’t give up and why sometimes other bands do – they find other opportunities and other things they love too, they have something else you actually can do and you’ll probably do that because that will make you money and a better living. If you just prepare your whole life to be in the music business and tell yourself “This is what I’m going to do, I’m not going to do anything else” it’s kind of foolish and childish but in that way you just can’t give up. People of course give up and I’m not saying I’m not going to do it years from now but right now I still feel like I have to fight for that dream that I had as a teenager. Obviously we all have gained a lot and experienced so much but we’re still a little bit far away that whole kind of – living with the music or for the music thing – close but still far away. [Laughs] I think that’s what drives us. What have you learned being in a band for almost 10 years that you didn’t know at the start of the journey? I’ve learned very much. [Laughs] I’ve learned that I love to be on tour and I love to be onstage and I only feel that I am myself. I’m one hundred percent Liv when I’m onstage. I feel that’s the only time I’m just me. I’ve also learned that I thought it would be ten times easier and I thought it would be not as hard as it is. Of course I want people to fight and live for their dream but they have to understand that the dream comes with a lot of sacrifice and I don’t think people understand really how much being in a band, how much sacrifice comes with being in a band. If you can do the sacrifice then you should be in a band because when you’re onstage, when you tour, when you record your songs it’s the best thing in the world, absolutely the best feeling in the world. What is your opinion on the way women in heavy metal are viewed today? Today is very much better than when I started, I’m very happy that I can see the progress. There are more women, more girls feel that they can take a spot in the metal scene – I didn’t really feel that when I started. There was this all girl Swedish band called Strange Stockholm and when I saw them I was like “If they can do it, I can do it too.” Before that I had Courtney Love but that’s not metal but I thought Courtney Love was really cool – she played the guitar and she was just a very outstanding person. Strange Stockholm was metal and it was an awakening that I could do this if I really want to – so for me that was the big thing when I discovered them and after that I just tried to push my way into the metal scene. I think it’s easier today, I hope it’s easier today – in Stockholm today we have a lot of female-fronted bands or all girl bands. I hope the girls today feel like they have people to look up to and I hope I can be one of them. I discovered Doro later, maybe 22 so when I was 15 I didn’t know much girls in metal. You did a cover of a Motorhead tune, what is another band you would like to cover that you haven’t yet. There are so many, I so love Twisted Sister. I really wanted to cover a Twisted Sister song but not their most known songs maybe some of the least known but a Twisted Sister song that would be really fun to do. Sometimes it’s better to think outside a little bit and not choose the very normal suggestion, people tell us all the time “You should do a Motley Crue cover or you should do a Judas Priest” but that’s kind of too easy. Sometimes it’s fun to find those diamonds somewhere in a song that people don’t know so much with a band – maybe that’s not even metal but you can make it your own. Many talented bands have come out of your home country of Sweden like In Flames, Opeth, Arch Enemy just to name a few. What do you think it is about all of this music coming out of Sweden that has such a broad appeal to people internationally? I think it could be two things, the first is that Sweden has always been a very good country when it comes to music – from when we’re a child we have opportunites to get into music school for free or for a very small fee at least when I grew up, I know it’s kind of changing now because we have another political power right now. When I grew up they would try to get kids into artistic things like music or theater stuff like that, it was that or sports. So you either get good at sports or music or art and drama so that’s why I think many people are very good musicians from Sweden because we learn from a very early age to do all of these kinds of things. The other thing is that Sweden is very cold, you can’t just be on the beach the whole day and surf or do many things outside, other than a couple of months, in December you have to be inside because it’s too cold here. So again if you want to do something at home – you go and play music or you go and do sports so I think that could be a reason why a lot of people in Sweden are dedicated and they have this kind of music coming out. There’s nothing else to do here, people tend to be drawn to being together and playing music. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/sister-sin-unleash-video-for-end-of-the-line/” title=”Check Out Sister Sin’s Video for ‘End of the Line'” align=”center”]
Baroness – Official Site Here in Part 2 of our exclusive interview with Baroness frontman John Baizley , the musician discusses the gravity of his physical injuries, as well as his daily rehabilitation routine. Baizley shares the incredible difficulties he now faces when attempting to perform simple tasks such as folding laundry or opening a bottle of water. The Baroness frontman also gives additional details about the terrifying moments knowing that the bus was about to plummet down a 30 foot drop, the moment of impact, the unthinkable amount of pain he endured and the current condition of the other passengers on the bus. When it comes to your physical rehab, can you tell us about your normal daily routine? Yeah, I mean, I’ve got a severely broken left leg and a crushed beyond belief right arm, but they’ve both been mended in such a way that at first I was in a cast, then I was in a brace, and now neither my arm or my leg has anything holding it in place externally. I’ve got some metal on the inside, but on the outside, because I injured two joints, in order to become functional again I have to move them. So in other words, like I was saying, if it hadn’t been an elbow and a knee, I’d be in a cast right now and I would able to do much less, but these were very serious traumatic injuries to my joints and if I don’t move them they will lock up forever. So against what seems to be logical to me, it would seem that you’d let the bones heal completely and then start working on things. I’ve broken plenty of bones before and that’s always been the case in the past, but with these two injuries, I have to move them. I can’t walk. By the end of it, it’ll be three or four months that I’ll have had to spend in a wheelchair, but I spend the whole day sitting there bending my leg over and over and over again and twirling my foot around like an idiot just to keep the blood flowing and to keep everything on the mend and with my arm, at this point, it’s all about stretching and starting to do small functions. Like as I said before, folding the laundry feels like running a marathon. I feel like I’ve been to the gym if I open a bottle of water or something like that. It’s humbling to see, relatively speaking, how strong I was and how we all were before the accident. The human body does all of these things and of course we take that for granted until it’s taken away from us and I spend each day seeing how much further I’ve come from the day before. So last week, I was unable to touch my face, and this week the big improvement that I made is that I am able to bend my arm enough that I can touch my face, and it does sound silly because what are you going to do when you touch your face? Last week, I learned how to put the phone down and scratch my nose with the good hand; it’s all degrees. The good thing for me is that I have a very supportive family and my 3-year-old daughter doesn’t understand how serious this injury is, so she still wants to play with me and what I do is that I do the best I can to be a normal guy and that helps me because I don’t sit there and wallow and get stuck in that rut of inactivity. I don’t have time to wait, I just don’t have time for anything anymore. I am ready to get through this and get moving again, and that was one of the big things that changed with that accident. I’ve come to a realization that we do have a relatively limited amount of time to do the things we want to do, and it can very easily be taken away randomly without any logic or sensibility to it. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have survived through the accident and to come through with injuries that can be fixed within reason. Yeah, my arm isn’t going to work the same again and neither is my leg, but I didn’t take a head injury, I still have a pulse, I still have all of my limbs attached and that didn’t necessarily need to be the case. I was told that if the injury to my arm had been any worse we would have been discussing amputation, so that’s a reality check in some ways. Be thankful for what you have because it’s much easier than you assume to lose this type of stuff. I’m not a spring chicken anymore and I’m not one of those people that thinks or has thought that I’m invincible, but now I’m sure of it. Now I’m sure of what we’re made of and it really is a thin network of meat and bones. You’ve got to respect that. It’s phenomenal that nobody passed away. I remember in your story, you were saying that moments before the crash, you were yelling at everyone and trying to wake them up to preparing for the impact. What struck me as interesting is that while you were trying to get everyone ready, you stayed at the front of the bus. Did that seem like the safest place to remain at the time when you were going over that hill? No, and maybe I can clarify; it felt like ages. There wasn’t enough time to do anything definitively and it was just enough time for instincts, to act on instinct. If I had knew that there were going to be an accident. If I was prepared to know we would have had a finite amount of time to deal with it, maybe something could have been done differently. But the fact is simple fact is, and I could put it very bluntly; we were screaming out of control down a very steep hill, in the rain, in a bus. There’s no seat belts on our bus. I don’t know if you ever seen European tour buses, but there are a lot of bands that in order not to loose money on tour, will rent older model buses. The bus was an older model but it was a German model, German driver, he owned and operated his own vehicle. There are very stringent vehicle laws in Germany so it really was up to code, it wasn’t like we were on the Beverly Hillbillies truck and we could just jump out of the back of it. I mean, how are you going to get out of a vehicle that’s flying down the hill? It would take a lot of rationale and I wouldn’t have done it anyway because my friends, my best friends in the world, are all on that bus and instincts told me that I needed to wake them and everybody who was awake needed to know what was going on in order to brace for impact, because the other thing about those type of tour buses, if there is something is considerably wrong happening up in the front, it doesn’t mean you know it in the back. Sound doesn’t travel well through those buses so screaming at the top of my lungs, I’m barely getting everybody’s attention. I think everybody woke up in time to have some brief moment of understanding of what was going to happen, and I’m not even sure about that. There may have been one or two people who just woke up in the hospital, but the simple fact of the matter was we were moving incredibly fast and we were going down a hill and the driver and I we were looking for something to do, we were looking for a way to stop it. We were looking for a road where we could have turned on, or a ramp we could have gone up or something that could have cushioned the blow a little bit easier and we never found it. There was one road we could have turned on, but it was almost like we would have to turn backwards, it was a very hard left and it was clear that the bus would have flipped. You flip in a bus, that’s it, good night. The only other option is that the bus runs into another vehicle. The only vehicle we saw was occupied, moving towards us and it had another family in it — that’s not an option, you don’t kill somebody to save yourself. So, by that time the crash was entirely inevitable and we had run out of choices. We saw the guardrail at the bottom and there was really nothing we could have done. We were moving so fast that nobody could have done anything. We tried everything, we tried using the momentum of the bus and turning to slow it down; that worked to a certain degree. We ran to the emergency brake, and the transmission was basically gone because we were going so fast you couldn’t downshift, and of course, there were no brakes, so we were mechanically … f—ed. [Laughs] Yeah, that’s the right time to use that world. Then we hit the guardrail and then there was a couple of seconds I spent in the air preparing myself for what seemed like an inevitable fate. Honestly, I’ve been living on the road for over ten years. I’ve come to terms with that on several occasions and none of them were even close or as serious as this. I was ready for it and I made my peace, I accepted it and I was ready for the end. That was the only option that was given to me. You know, at the point when our bus was fully airborne, there was nothing you could do but try to make peace with it, and I did. How surprised was I when I’m still alive? How f—ing overenthusiastically happy was I when that happened? Like I said, whatever physical pain there was, whatever mental trauma I’ve yet to suffer through, whatever nicks and bumps and scrapes and bruises we’ve taken from this, I’ll tell you what, it’s better than the other alternative we could have taken from that wreck. I guess that’s just that. You deal with the hand that is dealt. That’s what I gotta do. It’s better to do it and find something constructive and something positive. That’s what I think everybody’s doing and we’re really quite happy because I wasn’t exactly in a pleasant mood for a few days following that and I was trying to make sense of it, and thanks very much to the rest of the guys in the band and crew, thank you very much to our fans who offered support and our friends and family who were there or were keeping in contact with us and absolute f—ing praise and worship goes to the emergency team who responded, and you know the surgeons, and the whole medical team that dealt with us because they kept us alive, kept us in one piece and kept everybody positive. It felt like there was this huge extensive family who just tried to keep me and everybody okay physically, mentally, and in every way. I’m so grateful for that because a month after our wreck there was another bus that crashed 60 miles away from us that was carrying people from another music festival and that crash killed three people. That just got me thinking about how fortunate we are that we have fans that care about us, we have families and friends and everything and all of these people that care enough to be part of the story and to offer help with this. I’m just thinking of some of the people in the other crash, they might not have had that, they might have not had anybody interested in hearing what happened and they lost more. So, in perspective, it could have been worse. It could’ve been a lot better. [Laughs] It could have been a lot better, but it could have been worse. Can you give us an update on your fellow bandmates, friends and how the bus driver is doing? Yeah, I mean, everybody is going to be fine at the end of it. We all suffered different types of injuries and it’s pretty surprising the variety of injuries that were sustained. Just out of respect for the rest of the guys, they’ve all got their individual stories, so I’m not really naming any names, but there was some pieces of back, one guy was in a brace, somebody from our crew was bruised to the point where they had to be under constant medical supervision for fear of clots, and one of our crew looked like he’d been in the biggest street fight of all time. The driver sustained a number of broken bones, some people had minor scratches and scrapes and others as hefty as broken bones and backs. But the simple fact is, we will all be fine, absolutely fine in the end. It’s important, especially for me to hold onto that. We will be fine in the end. If we’re not fine already, we’ll be fine in the end. In the crash story you mentioned that you did suffer some burns along with your broken arm and broken leg. How long exactly were you laying in the bus before you were rescued? It was really quite alarming how fast that there was a crew on the scene. What happened to me specifically was I flew forward about ten or twelve feet and I went halfway through the windshield. The windshield flew out in one piece and it went flying and I hit it and bounced back in. I landed on the window frame where the glass had been. There was shards all around me and the burn marks were abrasion burns. It was a burn that went all the way around my arm and pretty deep into from who knows what. There was a ton of them, just big huge patches of skin rubbed off or burned off. I didn’t pass out, so I can’t say, “When I came too…” but once the bus settled, I was sitting and I was able to survey the area and able to take stock. If I was on the ground I wouldn’t have been able to do a number of things that I did, but I was sitting. That’s when, instinctually, and I believe we were all conscious while doing this, but we were looking around to make sure everybody was alive. I had this sense inside that nobody had died, and fortunately I was right there. I actually was relatively calm given the circumstance and I was just calling everybody’s names out and I think we were all trying to see where everybody was, and after about a minute, it couldn’t have been more than a minute-and-a-half, there were three people at the front of the bus. I had just pulled my arm almost 360 degrees in a circle, so I knew what was wrong with me. I was just sitting in the window of the bus like, “Get me out! Get everybody else out!” There was a window, I guess in the back of the bus that was broken as well. So everybody was either coming out the front or out the back and I believe they had to cut the driver out. Check back on Monday, Oct. 22, for Part 3 of our exclusive John Biazley interview, in which he talks about how he plans to move on from the accident + more. In the meantime, if you missed it, check out Part 1 by clicking below. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/baroness-john-baizley-bus-crash-isnt-going-to-stop-us/” title=”Part 1: A Bus Crash Isn’t the Sort of Thing That’s Going to Stop Us” align=”center”]
Hedi Slimane Over the weekend, we reported that a man was arrested for breaking into Frances Bean Cobain ’s home in Los Angeles. Now, not only has that man has been formally charged, some strange details have emerged surrounding the case. According to TMZ , the intruder who broke into Cobain’s home on Oct. 13 was 22-year-old Mark James Franco. Police report that Franco is a homeless man who was found brazenly doing his laundry when he was discovered at the home. The daughter of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love wasn’t home at the time of the crime. The uninvited guest was discovered by a relative taking care of Cobain’s dog while she was out of town. The intruder claimed to have known the home owner, but when Frances Bean was contacted, she told authorities she had no idea who he was. Franco was charged with first degree burglary, a crime that could land him a six year prison stay if convicted. He pleaded not guilty to the charges. The famously quiet Cobain has not yet publicly commented on the situation. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/courtney-love-loses-kurt-cobain-image-rights-to-daughter-frances-bean/” title=”Courtney Love Loses Kurt Cobain Image Rights to Daughter Frances Bean” align=”center”]
Photo by Jimmy Hubbard It’s been nearly three months since progressive rock leaders Baroness were involved in a catastrophic and gruesome bus accident. After the breaks on the group’s bus failed to work, the band plummeted 30 feet into a wooded area at a speed of around 50mph. Although serious injuries were sustained, all of the bus’s passengers survived and are nursing themselves back to health. In a great honor here at Loudwire, Baroness frontman John Baizley offered us his very first interview since the crash, discussing in great detail how the incident changed his life. In this three-part interview, where we spoke to Baizley for nearly an hour, the musician opens up about the crash itself, his current physical condition, when the band will tour once again + much, much more. Read Part 1 of our John Baizley interview below: We’ve all heard that the bus crash left you with very debilitating injuries. You’ve just started picking up a guitar again and you wrote that incredible recollection of what happened. Since you weren’t able to pick up a guitar for a little while, I’d think that it’s left a little bit of a creative gap in you. So writing the recollection of that crash, was that somewhat of a creative catharsis for you? Yeah, in a way. It’s a far cry from writing full songs and really jumping back into art, but when I was first put in the hospital and had to go through surgery, I was just on my back and it was hard for me to sit up. The one thing that I did have the ability to do was use my right hand and I started very early on, very quickly after the crash, just typing really or texting, whatever I was able to do with those fingers to keep in touch with my friends and the people that I needed or wanted to have access with. Shortly thereafter I discovered that being able to articulate the experience, either verbally or on paper, was quite nice for my mental state. I won’t say cathartic because that would seem to denote that at the end of it, I feel better or that I purged with it. I guess over time it’s a slow purging. But yeah, I discovered some sort of therapy through putting my thoughts down on paper in a different way than I’m accustomed to. The tools in my trade are typically songs and images, so now I’m trying to keep them a verbal thing. It’s a new thing for me but it’s actually been quite good for me. It was strangely beautiful, that memoir . I think it connected with a lot of people and you mentioned that you only recently have been able to pick up a guitar again and you still struggle with some pain when playing. Could you elaborate on what that pain is actually like? I’ve been probably living with it now for close to seven weeks. It’s a physical pain, it’s a corporeal pain that won’t go away and of course when it initially happened, I was in real need of heavy medication. Since then, the trick has been to sort of get away from it, so I’m still not quite so far away from the injury that I’m without pain. There’s a 16, 17-inch scar going down my arm that hasn’t healed yet. There’s a small army of metal pieces inside which are not only helping keeping me together but also beginning to react with the organic parts of my body, and at the same time, it’s important for me to get to know the nature of my injuries so that I am as mobile as I possibly can be. I’m trying to move what doesn’t want to be moved and all the while I’m trying to heal. There’s that pain from the injury and along with that severely extensive nerve damage, basically from all the way up from my shoulder down to my fingertips. Playing music is like a different thing, you know? Now there’s a rehabilitative quality to what I’m doing because I essentially had all of the musculature and all of the nervous system removed from my arm for eight hours during the surgery and once it was replaced, you’re dealing with scar tissue and you’re dealing with some parts which aren’t going to work again. There’s a swash of skin down the middle of my arm; basically the top half of my arm doesn’t have physical feeling to it anymore. When I first came out of surgery, there was very, very extreme and incredibly painful pins and needles in my hand, which scared me at first. I said to myself, ‘Oh god what if this lasts forever? What if everything I touch hurts?’ Fortunately, the nerves in my hand are going to work again correctly but the interesting thing is I have to teach the nerve endings how to feel certain things. Textures are quite alien to me at this point. It took me a week to tell the difference between wood and cloth and to pick up my guitar and being able to do that. To my utmost surprise, my fingers were able to play and there was still a ton of muscle memory that was really left in them. They were articulate despite the absence of muscle in my arm, which is almost total. My fingers which require very little musculature; my fingers could do what they’ve always done with a guitar. It was remarkable, it was super surprising. I put it like this; I was stuck in the UK for like six-and-a-half weeks, and when I got home I went back to my studio and there was a guitar hanging on the wall and I was just sitting there looking at it for a full day trying to build up the will and energy and confidence to pick it up and touch it. To me, even at that time, it represented something more than just a guitar. The moment that I picked it up I was going to assess exactly where I was and exactly how much work I had ahead of me to get back to being normal, or whatever the new normal is. Like I said, to my surprise I put it on my lap and was instantly able to play. At first, it was country music; just simple chords, and then within three or four days my fingers were able to stretch out. After five days I was able to play all of our songs and at the end of the week, I had written three songs. So it was very quick and I think it’s an incredible tool for me given the very specific nature of my injuries. Having this tool is not only good physically for my arm, but also a positive thing for me mentally and a constructive thing for me spiritually. It’s like, here’s a tool to help me get back anything I could do with my hands. I’ve begun making art again and I started writing a lot more songs, so all of these things are sort of, multifaceted tools to express myself and to heal myself and to get right with myself by engaging. But, as you said initially, it doesn’t come without pain. I think that one of the big lessons through this process for me is that I’ve been broken down to the basic physical functions of a two-year-old and since the accident I’ve been trying to reclaim myself from all directions and it doesn’t happen without pain. I’m still waiting, it’s still just so fresh for me, I’m just waiting for the first moment of my life where just sitting here doesn’t hurt. It’s actually not that bad because if you’re sore all the time or if you’re in pain all the time, then adding a little bit doesn’t freak you out at all. So what I’m doing is I’m being very aggressive with my rehabilitation. My therapists keep asking me ‘Does it hurt when I do that?’ and my answer is, ‘Yes, but it hurt before you started doing it, so just lets get back together.’ [Laughs] I’m not the sort of person that likes sitting around. I don’t see the benefits in having the time-off aspect of this. I see this as another challenge for me this year and one in which I’m fully equipped to deal with even though it’s certainly been intense. It’s really been traumatic and it’s certainly become something that will define this year, if not this section of my life, but because of that, I think it’s very important not to let it be all negative. Yeah, I was in a crash and that’s bad. I got banged up, broken — that’s bad. There’s nothing good about that, but you can learn something through it, like anything. Like any mistake that’s made or any injury to a person, you could take something from it and use it to make yourself better. With this thing in particular, because it’s touched me on so many different levels, it’s allowing me to regain perspective and regain motivation and reaffirm my ideas and my passions and become, if nothing else, more confident, more resolute in the choices that I’ve made in my life in the fact that I’ve dedicated myself to music, and as I said in the press statement, this wasn’t the fault of my career path, this wasn’t the fault of my lifestyle. This could have easily happened … it’s that cliche, it could have happened walking out of the house in the morning or could have happened downtown while I was going to see a show or eat dinner. It’s just that what we do in Baroness puts us on the road and on roads very frequently, so it’s certainly part of the risk but it wasn’t something inevitable. It was a fluke, and like all of these things that happen as a fluke or by happenstance, we have to use it. We can use it very easily and in a negative way and become more fearful of leaving the house or fearful of going out on tour or, you know, less secure and sort of paranoid and sad about it, but that has nothing to do with us getting back out. It’s just that something has happened to us and it’s going to take a minute for us to get ready again, but f— it, put me back on the road; that’s what I do. This isn’t the sort of thing that is going to stop that. Please visit Loudwire on Friday, Oct. 19, for Part 2 of the interview, in which Baizley tells us that if his arm injury was any worse, there would have been discussion of amputation, among other revelations. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/tags/baroness/” title=”More Baroness Coverage Here” align=”center”]
Simone Joyner, Getty Images It’s always interesting to see how things will work when members from various bands decide to take on a project together, and one of the better collaborations this year is the new metal outfit, AxeWound . The band features Cancer Bats singer Liam Cormier, Bullet for My Valentine ‘s Matt Tuck (on guitar), Pitchshifter drummer Jason Bowld, Glamour of the Kill guitarist Mike Kingswood, and Rise to Remain bassist Joe Copcutt, and they just released their debut disc, ‘ Vultures .’ Loudwire caught up with Cormier, who told us about the band’s speedy recording period, how quickly the group has bonded, and his thoughts on bringing their music to North American audiences this fall. This record was recorded in a little under two weeks and you were the last addition to the lineup. What was it like being thrown into the fire with this record? I was at home just having some downtime from finishing the Cancer Bats record and I got a phone call from Matt Tuck basically telling me that he had written a record, a metal record, and he was asking if I wanted to sing on it. I was like, “Yeah man, that’d be rad. I’ve got some time off and I think we could do something.” He was like, “OK then, I’ll send you something, the eight songs that I have mixed down and we’ve got another three that are finished. Let me know what you think.” I had no idea that he’d even have that many songs finished or what was even up with the project and I got all these crazy metal tracks and I was like, “Whoa, this is awesome!” I called him back and I was like, “Hey man, I’m totally in. When are you thinking?,” and he [asked], “How soon can you get on a plane and fly to Wales? I need to do this before I write the Bullet [for My Valentine] record.” I was like, “Ooh, I guess I can jump on a plane next week,” and he [said], “OK, perfect.” So before I had a chance to even think it out, I was getting on a plane flying to England. I was basically trying to write out as much as I could while waiting to meet this new band. We went to Wales and recorded the vocals in five days and that was it. We were like a real band. That’s great, and listening to this you hear the immediacy. You did it so quick, there’s not much time to think about it. You just knock it out and move on. That was the real fun side of it. It was just all of our gut instincts, and we didn’t have time to overanalyze things, so when we were laying down vocals or in the same spirit when they were doing the tracking of the album – the drums and guitar – it was just like whatever was your gut feeling, what felt right, that’s what went. It was cool having that spirit throughout the whole thing. It was like, “Hey man, that sounds great. Let’s move on.” I’m like, “Oh, do you want an extra track?” “Nope, we don’t have time and that sounds perfect.” It was really positive for me being in the studio under those circumstances, cause it was Ginge who was recording and Matt who was producing just being really pumped on everything we were doing. I’d show them lyrics and me and Matt would work on it, change a few words up or take some things out and for the most part it was just hammering it out. It was fun. Matt had talked about in a previous interview how interesting it was for him not having to be the lead singer and letting someone else go crazy onstage. Given his experience fronting a successful band and your experience with Cancer Bats, how has it worked co-existing onstage together? Well that’s what he told me when he came into – “I just want to play guitar and drink beer and have fun. I don’t want to have to worry about my voice or anything.” Originally it was supposed to be Matt singing on two tracks — ‘ Cold ‘ and ‘Collide’ — he had some ideas. But as we went on, just because he had some ideas, we were getting pumped and had some ideas, and I think it’s funny that I still roped him into being a singer [laughs]. It was like, “You’ve got a great voice. It’d be stupid of us not to take advantage of that.” And he’s got a really crazy screaming voice which I think is awesome. I think it doesn’t get presented as much as it could and Bullet, and the same with me and Cancer Bats, there’s some things I can’t do cause it wouldn’t fit the band. So this whole project was just trying different stuff. Like ‘Blood, Money & Lies,’ where Matt’s vocals are just brutal. It was awesome. I didn’t know he could scream like that. So it’s cool for both of us trying out different styles. With balancing Cancer Bats and AxeWound this past summer, does that just make you more energized when you return to one project after doing the other? It was fun this summer doing double sets, going from Cancer Bats to AxeWound or vice versa. It made me appreciate how different both projects were. I think when I’m screaming in the studio, it’s obviously Liam from Cancer Bats screaming on a metal record, but then playing those two different shows, it’s like, “No, I’m Liam from AxeWound, fronting this band.” I do see how different both projects are, especially when I’m doing them back to back. [laughs] Gotta say ‘Cold,’ such a great song to lead off with. Can you talk about how ‘Cold’ came together? ‘Cold’ was rad for me because that was the one song that Matt – it was the first song that Matt wrote for AxeWound. It was him thinking he had some stuff that was completely different from anything he was doing with Bullet. So for me, in the studio, that was actually the best because we were cramming, writing lyrics and working inside the can, and when it came to ‘Cold,’ Matt was like, “Oh I have the lyrics. We can just sing that.” It was like, “Whew! OK! Cool.” So we just banged that one out super quick. I think it’s rad because that song is such a 50/50 of Matt and I, between the verses and chorus, and to me that is the epitome of what the band is, having those different dynamics and how it comes together. I really like that song. It’s super fun. ‘Collide’ seems like the curveball on the album. It’s definitely heavy, but it’s got that soft piano opening and the strings, and after the brutality of the rest of the record, it kind of changes things up. We even position it in the set the same style, about halfway through as the sort of weird breather. But the song itself is super heavy when it all kicks in and it’s super fun to play live as well. But for those guys, they were telling me that when they were writing everything, they kind of got to a point where they didn’t want to rewrite the same style. We actually had that conversation of what other types of metal do we all really like. And having that theatrical style of things and Matt has a friend who plays all the piano on it, so we had this idea that we could make this heavy song, but have it be … Well, I like how all the songs don’t sound the same, and with this you’ve got something completely different. It’s a total curve ball. But once we put the vocals down, it didn’t seem out of place. I think on the album what’s cool is we can do something different, but it still stands up next to like ‘Destroy’ or ‘Victim of the System.’ It’s just as rad of a song because it has the theatrical and more dynamics to it. Obviously, we know you and Matt as the singers for your other respective groups, but man, Jason Bowld from Pitchshifter on drums kicks ass on this record. He’s like the secret weapon. Yeah, he’s an animal. It’s amazing playing with him live. He just locks in the click and just all of the songs he hammers home. It’s like you said – he is our secret weapon. Having this dude that’s like a machine gun behind you just let’s us go out and do our thing. You just always know that there’s this super solid dude backing you up. It’s the best. What’s crazy though for Matt is that with Jason, there’s some songs that, like ‘Victim of the System,’ Jason just laid down those drums and Matt wrote the guitars around it. So he wrote that song around the drum tracks. For a lot of guitar players and anyone in a band, it’s such a different way of thinking of things – doing drums first and then everything else according to that. But I think that Matt finds it really exciting. Just having this completely different way of doing things is refreshing. You’re also getting some love for ‘ Exorchrist ,’ and what a freaky video you’ve got for it. What can you tell us about the song and the clip? [Laughs] That’s one of my favorite songs. I just really liked it. When we were talking about what could be the next single, that one was up there for me. I love the chorus for the song. The lyrics and the idea was something that I had written. Actually, when we were throwing around ideas for a band name, I was thinking we could call the band Exochrist, like the opposite of an exorcism – getting all the good out and letting the evil in. I thought that was pretty metal. So I kind of kept that idea around and wrote a whole song about it. The cool part for me was that I had the structure of that chorus set out a lot different, just more traditionally hardcore singing on the beat. But with Matt producing, he was like, “Let’s bring out that last line and make more of a statement,” and all of a sudden that opened up that song to me in more of a Judas Priest-huge rock chorus context. That sold me on that song so hard. It was so cool and was a badass way of ending the chorus, just bringing on the ‘Exorchrist’ with the ripping guitar. And when the idea for the video came, it was like no videos get played on TV for metal bands anymore. Just very few daytime TV slots at all, so we thought why not make the gnarliest metal video we can. We just wanted some of those fun metal things, so we had some gore and naked demons. It was kind of cool and that’s where the idea went. I showed up to the set, and there were these girls just covered in gore, and I thought, “Oh, yeah, I guess it’s pretty full on.” [laughs] But I like how the video turned out in the end. It’s definitely pretty cool and something completely different than anything I’ve done with Cancer Bats or any other band I’ve ever been in. You’re right that Exorchrist would be an awesome band name, but it worked out perfectly with AxeWound, which is also pretty cool, and you still got a solid song out of the other moniker. AxeWound was always the band name, and then we kind of had a bit of a talk about whether it should be the band name. We threw around some of the songs and song titles that provided potential band names, like ‘Church of Nothing,’ ‘Exorchrist’ – I still like the idea of them, so it was just like, “Oh, well I’ll just write a song called ‘Church of Nothing.’ I’ll write a song called ‘Exorchrist.’ Perfect.” ‘Church of Nothing,’ yes we’re expecting metal, but that song swings. I really like how gallop-y and almost how power metal it gets in the bridge, but it’s also one of the fastest songs too. It’s so thrashy. I like it cause it confuses kids too. Like when we’re playing it on the tour live, you’d see kids when we start up the verse start the circle pit, but before they’ve even made a full circle, it crashes back into the gallop-y chorus. It’s like, “Oh, I need to pump my fists.” You see these kids wanting to get involved, but then having to figure out what to do. [laughs] Speaking of the circle pit, ‘Burn Alive’ has to work for that, as well. Yeah, ‘Burn Alive,’ that’s our circle pit jam. I’ll call it out pretty huge before that one and it’s rad because it’s an easy one right off the bat. ‘Destroy’ is actually going over really well where kids are singing along with the huge chorus and the big fist pumps in that bridge. ‘Post Apocalyptic Party,’ ‘Exorchrist,’ and ‘Cold’ have all been killing it too, just cause kids have known those songs that longest. But it’s great to see the whole record getting well received live. You can tell kids have put in the time and are learning the words and getting really into the whole thing. Most of your dates so far have been overseas. How pumped are you to bring it back to North America later this year? I’m pumped to see what the reaction will be like over here. I know I have a ton of friends in Toronto and Montreal where we’re playing that are really excited to see it. But I think in general, just Cancer Bats and Bullet fans and Pitchshifter fans, everybody is kind of finding out about this project is really getting excited. I think these shows are gonna be good. If this does go on beyond this first album , how excited are you to be there from the inception the next time around? All of us have been getting along super well and this tour has gone off, so for all of us, we want to keep working on the project. For us, especially Matt and I, it’s just a matter of finding time. But we’ve all talked about getting together at some point – maybe at the end of the Bullet tour cycle for this next record and maybe writing the next AxeWound record together – the five of us. Just thinking of how quick we were able to put things together with the quick sessions and it would be interesting to see what we could do – the five of us – maybe if we’re locked in a room for a month, which is the next step for the band. But at the same time, I don’t want to lose that urgency that we have with everything. Everyone’s on the same page that way, so I don’t think we’ll give ourselves too much time. But sometimes when you have a good deadline and your back is against the wall, that’s when you come up with your best stuff, so I think to not lose site of that with this band would be awesome. It seems like the song ‘Post Apocalyptic Party’ would make for a good video… If we could do a video for that song, Matt and I had this idea of us riding dirt bikes. We both ride motorcycles, so we thought it would be cool to do a Mad Max style video where we’re riding around on dirt bikes in a wasteland, kind of ripping around. Maybe if we become the biggest band in the world, we can make our high budget AxeWound video. Watch AxeWound’s ‘Exorchrist’ Video