Features / One Question Interviews

Brendon Small (Metalocalypse/Dethklok)

SPB: Who has the best “metal voice” of all time?

Small (Nathan Explosion): He's not a metal singer but he happens to have a very brutal voice: Harvey Fierestein. It's between him and Louis Armstrong. Easy. 

Matt (Animal Style Records)

SPB: What was the first punk show you attended?

Matt: Does this count? Mayfest in ‘98 at the University of Redlands: Blink 182, The Aquabats, Home Grown, Assorted Jelly Beans

Chris (PureGrainAudio.com)

SPB: Who is a band that’s taking seemingly forever to release their next album?

Chris: This is a cheeky response, but I’d have to go with Rage Against The Machine. If there’s any one band who, while technically not currently together, has taken forever to release new music, it has to be RATM. A group whose …

Dying Sea

SPB: How did your adviser enjoy the 7” you created for your internship?

Dying Sea: Haha, hilarious. She was horrified, yet gave me an A. Possibly out of intimidation.

Michael Yonkers

SPB: How does it feel to revisit music from so long ago? Are you the type of musician that enjoys playing and listening to a full back catalog or are you the type who tends to release an album and move on to the next project?

Yonkers: It is a very odd feeling, to say the least. I …

Andy Lefton (War//Plague)

SPB: Minneapolis seems very engrained in your sound. How much of that is conscious? Is it purposeful, or does is just sort of happen through osmosis? Do you find the TC scene to be fairly supportive and/or conducive? Are their limitations or frustrations that come with being labeled a Minneapolis band?

Lefton: It's completely organic. We don't …

Big Dick

SPB: What do your parents think of your band name?

Johnny: My parents believe I haven't left my basement since 1997. I really have them going.
Dave: I tell my parents the band is called Big Richard…they have a very uncertain and vague idea of my hobbies anyway.

Itai (Sweatshop Boys)

SPB: If you had your choice, which band would you love to tour with? 

Itai: Touring with another band is a complex matter, which makes this question a bit difficult to answer. Should we choose a band that we really love or people that we know that we'll surely get along with? Our problem is we're pretty …

Steven Rathbone (Lair of the Minotaur)

SPB: Since your lyrical themes are also rooted in Greek mythology, what was it that attracted you on the subject? 

Rathbone: I have always been into mythology, also horror and science fiction. The Greek myths were once passed on through storytelling around the campfire. Now the campfire has been replaced with the television. And even though there …

Chris Brokaw (solo, Wreckmeister Harmonies, The New Year, The Empty House Collective, ex-Codeine)

SPB: Rank these listening formats: cd, vinyl, cassette, digital, (other?)

Brokaw: 1) Vinyl. For so many reasons. But I guess the best is that I recently concluded that this is the best piece of art that exists. I consider music to be the most complex, thought-provoking, odd-emotion-inspiring, …

Dan (True Widow)

SPB: Are genre labels important to assign to music? 

Dan: I don't think genre labels are important. I do think they are helpful. When I get asked what kind of music we play I always say rock music. Not very helpful. Then I start saying things like 'it's heavy and slow. But not aggressive heavy. I sing …

Karl Hartwig (Hope Drone)

SPB: What is the feeling of the current Australian black metal climate? It seems that Brisbane is shaping up to be a kind of epicentre for the genre, and it would be interesting to hear thoughts from a band of that area. 

Hartwig: I can’t really comment on the Australian black metal climate, as I don’t …

Ali (Vapour Night)

SPB: What’s the last “grower” record you heard that didn’t impress on first listen but has, since, grown on you?

Ali: Burials by AFI. I love AFI but I found this album to be such a horrible disappointment on first listen. I've listened to the album lots of times since and I really like the first half …

Bill Clower (Radon, drums)

SPB: How did your set at Fest 12 come about? Any surprises in store for #13?

Clower: That's 2 questions.

Tate, the owner of The Lunch Box restaurant, asked us to play.

[For Fest 13,] if we told you, it wouldn't be a surprise (you're really going to have to start thinking this whole thing through …

Anthony Manella (Where My Bones Rest Easy)

SPB: What’s your favorite book?

Manella: I'd have to say the book that has stuck with me and held a lot of weight in helping me process things in life as a young teen/adult would have to be Albert Camus' The Stranger. I first read it when I was 15 or 16. …

J. Wang (Dan Padilla, Shallow Cuts)

SPB: Have you ever forgotten lyrics mid-song? If so, how did you recover?

Wang: Of course I’ve forgotten lyrics. Haven’t you seen how drunk we are when we play? I've not only forgotten lyrics, but forgotten entire songs while the rest of the band just stares at me like I’m an idiot. Not much …

Franz Nicolay

SPB: What instrument is the hardest to tunefully amplify in a larger venue?

Nicolay: It doesn't come up very often, but the musical - or "singing" - saw is next to impossible to successfully mic. The sound is soft and high-pitched and has no obvious point of creation, so you just have to point a mic at it …

Frank Rosaly

SPB: What's the worst (or strangest) stereotype you encounter from people when they find out you're a musician?

Rosaly: “It must be so fantastic to be following your dream!”

This response is probably the strangest of them all. I mean, it really bums me out. I understand that some people don’t have a calling to a particular career …

Derek (Sneeze)

SPB: What do you parents think of your music?

Derek: Honestly, both of my parents love Sneeze much much more than my older bands, haha. They're finally happy I'm in a band that doesn't just "scream bloody murder." Sometimes they're a little iffy on the lyrics ‘cause now they know I do drugs, drink excessively, smoke, and isolate …

Isaac Thotz (The Arrivals, Treasure Fleet)

SPB: Have you ever hooked your dangling earrings on anything?

Thotz: I've hooked them on countless things all over the universe that I'm unaware of; I've misplaced at least thirty or forty. I was down to one earring for about six months there a little while back. It was my favorite, so I was …