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Another Rock Star's Death

How sad to hear that another rock star was found dead in his hotel room

for now the reasons behind his death are still unknown

the bassist for slipknot, Paul Gray, was found dead may 24, 2010
 Slipknot was one of the bands i admired from the so called new metal era

 there was something about the band i could not pin when i first heard them so i instantly liked them.
 
Back to Paul Gray, he wasreally what you'd call a superstar since he was hidden behind a mask, and the contribution he's made to slipknot is definitely something that can not be replaced

 He had a weird way of playing bass in a new metal band. Unlike the rest of the horde he did not rely on 1 note bass thumps, he also employed bass runs, slapping etcetera etcetera and he also used weird tunings like ADGE or BEAD instead of the usual EADG

I hope this does not derail Slipknot in a major way. I hope even without Paul they'll continue so that his contribution to the metal world won't be wasted

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ZAKK WYLDE

Zakk Wylde has been pretty quiet lately. Well, as quiet as he can be between swearing like a trooper and recording a new album for Ozzy that he promises will be full of violence and darkness. We went to him to ask, ‘What the fuck?’

The last couple of years have been unusually quiet for Zakk Wylde. After receiving favourable reviews on this side of the Atlantic for 2006’s Shot To Hell album, there has been no significant touring in Europe – a few shows with Ozzy and an explosive performance at the Metal Hammer and Classic Rock sponsored Hard Rock Hell last December excepted – and little sign that a follow-up album was on the way. Fortunately for Black Label Society devotees, Zakk is back and ready to turn up into one of those years that begins with the crisp pop of a beer can being opened and ends with the satisfying splash of a strenuous, small hour puke.

“Whatever you might think, it’s just been work, work, work,” he drawls, “I love it, though. When bands take off for years between records, I couldn’t do that. I don’t give a shit if I hit the lottery for 622 fuckin’ billion. I still have to be playing or doing something. It’s cool when you get a break but you can only go fishing for so fuckin’ long.”

It’s almost as if Zakk is worried that if he stops playing the guitar for any length of time, his fingers will seize up and he’ll be denied his greatest pleasure in life. It’s an unthinkable situation for a man that has come to represent the essence of great guitar playing for thousand of rock and metal fans in recent times. In the end it’s all about the dedication. And swearing.

“You’ve got true musicians and you’ve got guys who just got into it for some bullshit reason,” he says. “I was arguing with this guy and he was saying, ‘Let’s be real Zakk, the only reason anyone ever picks up a guitar is to get the chicks!’ I said, ‘Hold on, you mean I’ve got to sit around practising for 12 hours every cunting day, just to get a piece of ass? Dude if I want a piece if ass I’m gonna grab a Les Paul, bash a bitch on the back of the head and stick my dick inside her! That would be a lot easier than practising all fuckin’ day, motherfucker!’”

While it’s clear that Zakk has had plenty to occupy his time since the release of Shot To Hell, it’s slightly less clear why the promotional campaign for that album and the touring cycle that followed it never really seemed to catch fire and propel the band to greater heights. Despite being signed to Roadrunner at the time, Shot To Hell now seems like a major missed opportunity. So who dropped the ball?

“It’s all fuckin’ business, dude,” laughs Zakk. “It is what it is. You could be the guy that signs me, and you bleed Black Label and the whole nine yards. Then, the next thing I know is that you’re not there and there’s some other fuckin’ guy. He comes in and says, ‘What’s this Black Label Society shit?’ and suddenly it’s, ‘ I think we’re going to get rid of them’ and we just get shitcanned! Well fuckin’ thanks a lot! The thing is, if our team isn’t there, there’s fuck all I can do. But I couldn’t give a fuck. I still fuckin’ throw down, wherever I go.”

It’s Zakk Wylde’s ability to “throw down” that has kept him at the top of the guitarist heap for so long. Even when the rumours start to fly, as they do every few years, that Ozzy Osbourne is poised to hold auditions to find a new sidekick and song writing partner, it’s obvious that there’s only one man that’s properly equipped to do the job. It’s Zakk’s riffs that provide Ozzy with the perfect contemporary backdrop on which to hang his trademark haunting melodies, and Zakk is currently up to his neck in a whole new batch of riffs as The Double-0 prepares a follow-up to 2007’s Black Rain.

“You’ve got to hear the fuckin’ riffs I’m laying down man!” roars the guitarist. “That’s what I do. It’s riffs, riffs, riffs and more fuckin’ riffs. Ozzy said something like. ‘I want this album to be more full of hope!’ Hope? There ain’t no fuckin’ hope! Hope’s gone! It went to fuckin’ Tahiti for a holiday, bro. Ha ha ha ha! We want violence and darkness!!

Given that Ozzy isn’t much of a fan of today’s heavier, more brutal metal, isn’t it hard to get him to embrace “violence and darkness”?


“Nah, because when you look at Sabbath and what made them so great, you had Ozzy’s melancholy vocals over this dark, dark shit,” says Zakk. “He wasn’t screaming and grunting like some death metal thing. He was singing melodies over insane fuckin’ shit and Ozzy always comes up with brilliant melodies. It was a perfect combination and it still works.”

While it’s good news that there’s a new Ozzy album on the way, there will be a lot of fans that are much more eager to hear some new Black Label Society material instead. Unfortunately, Black Label fans will have to wait until the tail-end of the year for their next fix.

“We’re going to start doing the next album when I’m done with Ozzy’s record,” he explains. “Then I guess there’ll be some dates with Ozzy, so we have to fuckin’ figure that out too. We’re going to record the Black Label record at the studio we’re building here at my house, so we’ll knock that fuckin’ thing out and then its’ the Black Label campaign for the world domination after that! I’ll be in a fuckin’ wheelchair by the time the fuckin’ tour gets done. We’ll be working so much that we’ll be losing weight while we eat the worst fuckin’ food imaginable and drinking as much beer as we can. It’s the Black Label diet plan! Ha ha ha!”


These are busy times for Zakk Wylde, but then he needs to keep moving, keep working and keep his arse on the guitar-playing throne, because a new generation of kids will be soon snapping at his heels. The last few years have seen a huge boom in guitar sales, not least due to the massive success of console games like Guitar Hero. As avid gamers will know, Zakk features on one version of the game, so clearly he approves of the whole thing, but does he expect any new Dimebags or Eddie Van Halens to emerge from this phenomenon, or is it just a passing and superficial fad?


“I think it fuckin’ kicks ass,” he states. “Kids are finding out about all these rock bands they’ve never heard of. They’re finding out who Led Zeppelin is, who Mountain is, who Randy fuckin’ Rhoads is. If some kid really enjoys playing the game then eventually he’s gonna want to pick up the real thing, you know? When the next Jimi Hendrix or the next Eddie Van Halen comes out, it’s gonna be some kid that was playing this fuckin’ game and it’s gonna be hysterical dude.”


But not quite as hysterical as being outplayed by your own flesh and blood...


“The other day, my son Jesse was playing one of those games and it was fuckin’ unbelievable,” laughs Zakk “It was a Black Label song, and he looked me in the eye and said, ‘I kicked your ass, Dad.’ Fuck, I got shitcanned by my own son! People ask, ‘What’s it like being a rock star?’ and I say ‘Ask my kid, he just kicked me in the fuckin’ nuts!’ Ha ha ha!”


It was once written that the great thing about Zakk Wylde is that when you see him perform, all the women in the room want to fuck him and all the men in the room want to be him. Somehow, this relentlessly foul-mouthed master of the fret board connects with people on numerous levels, with his music, with his works ethic, with his devotion to having a good, beer-drenched time, all the time. It’s the Black Label effect, and it’s about as close to the ultimate embodiment of rock’n’roll’s life-affirming essence as we’re likely to get in these cynical times.


“I just think everyone wants to be part of something,” concludes Zakk. “When you’re wearing the colours, the bottom line is you’re part of something. It’s a club. It’s the don’t-be-an-asshole club. You can hangout, have a good time, drink beer and listen to the same fuckin’ music. Be thankful for what you have got, don’t be a prick and help people out. That’s it. It’s great to hook up, have a blast and a big blow-out fuckin’ party. It’s more than just a band, man. It’s more than just a music.”


THE THOUGHTS OF CHAIRMAN WYLDE:

Zakk Wylde is a man with lots to say. And it’s not always ‘Fuck’ and ‘Dick’

Gay Marriage;

“They’re making such a fuss about it over here, man. Who gives a fuck if someone’s gay? I don’t care about anyone says. You don’t wake up one day and think ‘Man, I’ve had some much pussy! I think I’m gonna try some cock today!’ Some people like pussy, some people like dick. Knock yourself out, dude.”

Downloading;

“I’ve never downloaded a single fuckin’ thing in my entire fuckin’ life, dude. I don’t understand that shit. It’s stealing. You don’t stop the technology these days, man, so there’s fuck-all anyone can do. But you can’t download games yet, so someone needs to use that technology to stop people from stealing music.”

Hot Sauces;

“Dude, it’s hysterical. My buddy made this sauce, man. It has a warming label on it. This sauce will burn a hole through your fuckin’ arm! If you’re making chilli for the guys, you add a fraction of a fuckin’ teaspoon of this thing, otherwise it’s fuckin’ lethal.”

Black Label Bars;

“You know, I wanted to have my own fuckin’ sports bars, a Hooters-type fuckin’ thing, and we’ve got that going on right now. We’ve got tons of shit going on, dude. We’ve got our own festival, the Black Label Bash. It’s bigger than a band now. It’s bigger than me. That’s what I always wanted it to be anyways.”

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Chimaira

Jim LaMarca, Rob Arnold, Mark Hunter, Matt DeVries, Chris Spicuzza, Andols Herrick.



“We’re not dead yet”

Chimaira were riding high on the new wave of America heavy metal just a few years ago until they nearly destroyed themselves. Written off as metalcore bores, they’re back with their best album yet.

At his home is Cleveland, Ohio, 31-year-old Chimaira frontman Mark Hunter is running through the kind of last-minute checklist that, for most of us, would mean that it’s laundry day: socks, check, t-shirts, check, pants, check...Though, where he’s going, the word ‘launderette’ often has little meaning. Starting tonight it’s two months on the bus, up and down the East Coast of America, playing arenas with Disturbed, Killswitch Engage, Lacuna Coil and a re-formed Spineshank. Mark seems like he’d be bouncing off the walls with excitement if he wasn’t still going through that mental checklist in case he’s forgotten anything. Gas off, post diverted, pets taken care of...

Two months to a functional touring band is like two months to a multiple felon – a walk in the park, especially on this tour. It’s not the major league, but it’s a step up there: nice buses, decent soundchecks, maybe even a hotel or two. Eight to 10 thousand people a night is nothing to sniff at either.

“It’s one of the biggest tours we’ve ever been a part of and this is our first arena tour,” enthuses Mark. “We’re not a band who’s gonna sell out and do something stupid for popularity, but we’re also not a band who wants to be in the basement and only have seven to eight fans. We want to expand, but we’re not going to compromise our music.”

He sounds fired up, ready for this. The album’s in the bag and it’s a cracker, up to and including the 14-minute instrumental that rounds it off in low-end noise; something they won’t be replicating live because it might cause their fans to “suffer from vertigo.” The track was going to be called Cleveland, a nod at their hometown’s desolate, industrial influence on the band. Instead they called it The Heart Of It All.

“Our town is very responsible for the way we sound. It was kind of a tribute to that,” says Mark, “a thank you for 10 years of inspiring us. It still winks at our home town because everyone knows that’s the heart of it all.”

I’m not going to slip up and become a trainwreck asshole again!”- Mark Hunter.

Right now the band is firing on all four cylinders (well, six technically). They played Dubai Desert Rock Festival, their first Middle Eastern gig, where they debuted Destroy And Dominate. They’ve got the set down and they’re all getting along.

“The big difference with this album was there was no back story that was fuelled with drama,” explains Mark. “We had a very successful previous album; we had two great record labels behind us that really believe in the band, and the same line-up with no inner quarrelling. It’s such a crazy way to explain it, but it’s like when you went back in time but you had the same skills that you’d acquired over the past 10 years. I felt like it was just as primitive and hungry as 10 years ago, but I also had no boundaries. I felt like I could write anything I wanted to write, but now I also had the skills and the knowledge that I’d acquired over 10 years. Everybody was writing the same way and we were hitting off each other.”

You wouldn’t have ever known from watching them live, but this has been far from the case in the past and this present harmony is the result of a lot of inner-searching. Back in 2005 Chimaira were a dominant presence on the Sounds Of The Underground tour with Lamb Of God and Clutch, but still they were losing ground to bands like Killswitch Engage, ironically, Lamb Of God and even Trivium, who Mark thought his then-record label, Roadrunner, were playing favourites to. Slagging the label off in the press probably, as he acknowledges today, wasn’t the best idea.

“We’re talking about a very dark period for the band,” says Mark. “Looking back, I know we were very immature about a lot of things. If a band’s more successful or successful quicker than you, you want to blame everyone but yourself. To worry about other bands nowadays seems so trivial to me, but it was a learning experience and one that I didn’t like. Also in that time period, when we recorded our self-titled album, we were doing Sounds Of The Underground with a new drummer {Kevin Talley} who I dislike working with and that was another thorn in my side, like, ‘ I hate the label and now I hate a bandmate’!

“On a personal level,” says Mark, “I went about as low as I’ve ever gone, with depression and anxiety...I kind slipped away from myself a lot more than I ever had before and I felt I was infected with a lot of negativity.”

Mark admits that Chimaira was nearly over. Guitarist Rob Arnold would stand up for the line-up that felt it was falling apart. Miserable and not wanting to do it anymore, Mark and Chris Spicuzza (Keyboards) talked about starting a side-project, hoping it’d be “a lot bigger and better than what we were doing.”

“I used to be trying to keep up with the Joneses,” admits Mark, “always chasing what seemed to be an impossible dream and never paying attention to what we had. That was unfortunate. I can’t speak for all the guys, but I’m not the only one. Instead of appreciating it we were like, ‘Well, we didn’t sell as much as this band.’ Nowadays I feel thankful for what we’ve accomplished and proud that we have such a loyal fanbase and growing fanbase. I wound up finding myself again and doing things like martial arts, training harder and rebuilding myself emotionally and physically, and I came out stronger as a person from looking at negative things in a positive way.”

By a strange twist of fate, it was Mark’s former label Roadrunner who indirectly enabled his recovery. When the label put on a gig to celebrate their 25th anniversary, former Chimaira drummer Andols Herrick was part of the performance. Asked by a video-grapher if he regretted leaving Chimaira he apparently started singing Cher’s If I could Turn Back Time. You probably had to be there.

“We heard that,” says Mark, “so I called him and said, ‘Hey I heard you wanna come back. We’re not getting along with our drummer and the band’s almost over if you don’t join the band.’ He was like, ‘I’ll be there right away.’

“I had a great time writing and recording these songs and we’re gonna have a great time touring,” beams Mark, finally packed and ready to go. “It’s a reminder not to slip up and become a trainwreck asshole again!”

Everyone does sometimes.

“Exactly. The message I’m trying to convey is that you can be at your absolute worst and come out of it stronger than ever. I’m proof of that and our band is proof of that. I don’t wanna jinx anything but the past year has been excellent. It seems like the sky’s the limit.”

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Killing Joke

Apocalypse Row.

Killing jokes are more than just a band. They were a huge inspiration to the likes of Metallica, Soundgarden and Fear Factory, and now Jaz Coleman wants to lead the human race into its next phase.

The end is nigh! Again. But this time it really is night! December 21, 2012 to be precise, according to Mayan prophecies and some 937,000 search results on Google. Not that this should come as a vast surprise to Killing Joke fans. Ever since their inception in 1979 these madly brilliant prophets of doom, arguably one of the most important and influential bands since the birth of the rock music, have been warning of the fall of Western civilisation. Indeed, as long ago as 1982, wild-eyed frontman Jaz Coleman fled to Iceland fearing an imminent apocalypse, and while he’s not the first soothsayer to wake up the morning after doomsday to find that the four horsemen didn’t show up to the party, there is, nonetheless, something about the man – with a reputed IQ of 190 – that tells you he’ll have the last laugh.

“The apocalypse was the cover story,” he insists today, from behind a cloud of weed smoke in their dressing room at the House Of Blues in Los Angeles. “I was doing the process of conversation with my holy guardian angel, which {psychologist Carl} Jung calls individuation, and I didn’t know how to tell the rest of the guys that’s what I was doing.”

Which, when you have finished looking up ‘individuation’, seems, to the layman at least, like a fancy way of saying he was getting his shit together. Then again, a splash of snake oil aside, it was in Iceland that Jaz decided he was going to become an orchestra composer, eventually going on to become the in-house composer for the Prague Symphony Orchestra as well as conducting the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He has also gone Platinum 20 times making, of all things, Eastern European folk music. And it was in Iceland that the band’s ideas about The Gathering were formulated.

“The Gathering,” explains Jaz, “is a network of likeminded individuals and our ideas of creating villages or arcs in under populated regions of the world.

“This is not just a band,” he expounds. “It’s our further education; Killing Joke is a university and a mirror. People see us arseholes onstage and think, ‘I can do that’. It has this knock-on effect, the mirror effect, and they end up going on to look at their God’s gift. We’ve inspired so many different people to do so many different things. I think that’s huge. The philosophical side of Killing Joke is a huge part, it’s the transition from the idea that a fan club sells t-shirts and the idea of a fan club is an insulting idea. Instead we can buy parts of the rainforest and these places can be run by people who believe in the lifestyle choice of sustainable resources, permaculture and everything we believe as free-thinking individuals. The effect of Killing Joke is not a normal rock’n’roll thing. Within The Gathering we’ve got high-clearance NATO people, doctors, nurses, and people of every walk of life who have been inspired by the lifestyle and the ideas of Killing Joke. We’re free-thinking people and we take our liberty seriously. The idea that a fan club can be a network of alternative villages with sustainable resources all around the globe is now a reality. It’s no longer just a dream and we have a destiny that’s emerging as we’re coming up to our 30^th anniversary.”

Like the man said, Killing Joke is no ordinary band; their musical influence alone has been phenomenal. Metallica covered them, Mad Capsule Markets covered them, Fear Factory covered them, Foo Fighters covered them, Amen, Helmet...you get the idea. They were Soundgarden’s favourite band. Oh, and a little band called Nirvana nearly got sued for copyright infringement when the riff to Come As You Are bore a striking similarity to Killing Joke’s Eighties. Jaz apparently decided not to continue legal action because he had the unfair advantage over Kurt Cobain of still being alive, though a Karmic debt was repaid when Dave Grohl actually played drums on Killing Joke’s brilliant self-titled album released in 2003.

Ironically it was the tragic death of Killing Joke bassist Paul Raven from a heart attack on October 20, 2007 – something that Jaz says was more difficult to bear than the passing of his own father – that was the catalyst for bringing the original line-up: Jaz on vocals, Geodie Walker on guitar, Martin ‘Youth’ Glover on bass and Big Paul Ferguson on drums back together.

“The original line-up was something that I think always haunted Raven because he was never part of the genesis of Killing Joke,” ponders Jaz. “We always knew it was something that could happen. I think the trigger for that was meeting up with Big Paul at Raven’s passing. I truly think Raven wanted this.”

And while Jaz jokes that now they only have one bassist he’ll have to get on with him instead of swapping when they fall out, it’s interesting to note that Youth insists there was never any rivalry between them.

“We were very close,” he says. “He did 12 years in Killing Joke and I only did four. He defined the band far more than I did. When they did Love Like Blood I was like, ‘Fuck! I shouldn’t have left that band!’ But if I’d stayed I would have been dead.”

Instead Youth went on to be a hugely successful producer; working with everyone from Paul McCartney to The Verve (he won Producer Of The Year in 1998 for his work on their Urban Hymns album) and even had a stab at producing Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy album, though he won’t be drawn on whether he thinks it’s any good. He hasn’t changed much over the years; with a t-shirt bearing the oh-so-tasteful moniker Selfish Cunt, he’s probably the easiest band member to get along with: ever –friendly, talkative and music- obsessed. Geordie, meanwhile, can sometimes appear aloof and disinterested, but he’ll turn on the charm occasionally, dishing out red wine to the ladies and quoting Oscar Wilde. It’s difficult to say if Big Paul has changed; once a quietly spoken, amiable yob, he doesn’t really hang out much today until after their magnificent sell-out show, when after-party drummer-talk with Dave Grohl is rather more appealing than doing interviews. And Jaz? Hell, he’s like a bad ass Doctor Who with dash of Jedi thrown in 9dark side, naturally), an ordained minister, a nomad with multiple passports...

“Yeah, like Raven, I have many different lives in many different parts of the world,” he smiles. “Some places I’m known for my work in classical music, some I’m known for my work in mysticism and the occult and some places I’m known for Killing Joke; it’s a long way from opera houses to Killing Joke...The jester can hit the king. He walks between worlds!”

Perhaps not surprisingly, given his spiritual and occult beliefs, he has no doubt that he’ll be seeing Raven again.

“Absolutely,” nods Jaz. “I was shocked that my brother, who’s a physicist, not only believes in life after death, but that energy never stops being energy. It’s a bit like a star; most of the stars you see in the night sky are gone, the actual planets are burnt out and gone, but we still see them. And when you think that we’re learning through these theories that whatever we do and whatever we are is for eternity. This idea of eternity that links quantum physics and esoteric is something I want to do lots of lectures about. I want Killing Joke to be many things as we approach 2012. I want to talk about zero point energy and I want to demonstrate inanimate objects floating in mid-air. I want people to see it.”

Presumably this means he’s actually seen real, tangible magic, not just David Blaine sitting in a box for a month?

“I’ve seen inanimate objects rise,” beams Jaz. “I’ve seen levitation successfully performed; I’ve seen magic actually work in a very physical form. And yes, it does work! I’ve seen the Indian rope trick on a magical site...forever about it if you want.”

And what of the end of the world? These Mayan predictions that we can all kiss our arses goodbye in 2012?

“Well, it doesn’t say it’s all over, it says that time as we know it will no longer exist,” shrugs Jaz. “It’s the end of a big cycle. Centralised government is going to fall down because it can’t sustain itself, so each area has to be self-reliant. This is the only way forward. We must think ahead of banking for example, by looking at advanced systems of barter that already exist like in Argentina and Brighton. There’s even a pub in Norwich where you can sing or perform for your supper. Barter is a brilliant idea because it means that we can supersede banks. The world will change beyond our imagination, that’s for sure.”

Like we said, the end is nigh. But Killing Joke will provide one hell of a soundtrack.

Carnival Bizarre

Five events in the weird and wonderful world of Killing Joke.

In 1993 Killing Joke recorded the track Exorcism in the King’s Chamber Pyramid in Cairo, having paid $5, 000 to use the place for ‘meditation purposes’. “When we went into the pyramid and there’s a ritual to open it,” says Jaz, “and Youth didn’t realise that they dress up like Isis in all this Egyptian gear. He looks over and sees these women dressed as Isis and he goes, “Ere Jaz, who are those three weird birds at the back?”

Once known as a human drug-bin, Youth was recruited into Killing Joke after Geordie met him in a brothel. Youth was later sent to a mental hospital having been found walking naked down London’s King’s Road burning money.

Killing Joke has a ‘difficult’ relationship with the press. One hapless journalist was allegedly gaffa-taped for asking stupid questions and while Jaz says he doesn’t recall conducting an entire interview in a made-up language, he did once deliver a bucket of maggots to the offices of the now defunct Melody Maker. Let’s hope he likes this feature.

In 2002 Jaz played the role of the Devil in the award-winning Czech movie The Year Of The Devil. He was also up for the part of Don Logan in Sexy Beast, but lost out to Ben Kingsley.

In a move that he insists was more a “practical joke” than a political act, Jaz Coleman was instrumental in getting a verse in the native Maori language added to the national anthem of New Zealand. It was sung at the 1999 Rugby World Cup by a Maori activist and later added to the anthem officially.

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