Articles

Biff Byford: The Hellbound Interview

Early last week NWOBHM legends Saxon made their first stop in Toronto for a show in over twenty-five years. As astonishing as it seems, the last time the venerable British metal unit made it to Canada’s most populated city was way back in 1986. It was a long time coming, but the band played one hell of a show.

Sean Palmerston in conversation with Saxon founding member and lead singer Biff Byford,

Richard Christy: The Hellbound Interview

“If someone had told me fifteen years ago that I would have an indoor shower I would think they were crazy (laughs). I couldn’t imagine I’d be working on the Howard Stern show. When I lived in a storage unit in Florida I showered with a garden hose outside. But I was young and it was for metal and we all need to make sacrifices to do what we love. I kept working on things and plugging away and played drums every day.”

Justin M. Norton in conversation with Charred Walls of The Damned drummer and Howard Stern show comedian Richard Christy.

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM: The Hellbound Interview

“It’s really not our place to tell anyone how to do anything, or to make any sort of suggestion about how people should live. That’s something that we’ve never wanted to do and we never will do. That’s something that happens in a lot of music. A lot of punk music in particular has a political agenda of trying to convince someone of something. We’ve always been against that, and we’ve never wanted to appear that we’re sitting on a high horse trying to lead people. As you mentioned, living like we do is not an option for most people. It’s appropriate for us, but it’s just for us.”

Jonathan Smith in conversation with Aaron Weaver of Wolves In The Throne Room

Matt Finney: The Hellbound Interview

“As evidenced by my previous review of their infectious Ain’t No Night album, Heinali and Matt Finney’s music really crept up on me this year. A taut, vivid marriage of shoegaze, post-metal and doomy spoken-word, the duo craft something very special, unlike anything I’d heard before. That they do it from separate continents, despite having never met in person, just ups the impressiveness factor for me.

I recently caught up with Matt Finney to discuss what duo have been working on recently, and what they’ve got planned for the near future.”

Kyle Harcott in conversation with Matt Finney.

No Dick, No Metal? No Effin’ Way!

Disparaging women is a real problem in our society. Ignoring someone who has been given a platform to write that the images and videos of young women, scantily clad with self-tailored metal gear is an irrefutable sign that women in metal do not, and will never be legitimized as true fans, is wrong. As a metal journalist, author and concert photographer, and more importantly a female metal fan for almost 30 years, if we want to generalize even more, that post essentially told me that regardless of the fact that writing about metal and shooting concerts serves as a portion of how I make my living, my work is not relevant because I do not have a penis.

KEVI METAL’S RIMSHOTS – THE ALL-VINYL VERSION

Hi friends. It’s been a while. I know it. Sean certainly knows it. You, on the other hand, probably didn’t even notice I was gone. That’s okay. In my absence, I heard a rumour that some people have reaffirmed a love affair with vinyl. Some of these people even own turntables! Fucking crazy!! So, in salutary notion to those of you keeping it real and the labels who graciously send us their latest releases on varying colours of wax, I present the all-vinyl edition of Rimshots.

Katatonia @ The Montage Music Hall, Rochester NY, September 24, 2011

Katatonia, the Swedish kings of melodic gloom, are enjoying a couple of anniversaries in 2011. To celebrate, the band is playing a little more than a handful of headlining shows on the nights when current tour mates (and fellow Swedes) Opeth have decided to take some time off. Hellbounders Adam Wills and Laura Wiebe caught the fourth of seven such gigs scheduled in North America, crossing the border into New York State to see how our southerly neighbours would welcome one of our favourite bands.

ProgPower USA 2011 @ Center Stage, Atlanta, GA September 15th to 17th, 2011

Although he almost missed it – please see inside for all the details – Hellbound’s Rob Kachluba finally made it back to Atlanta GA earlier this month for this year’s edition of the ProgPower USA Festival. Here is Rob’s recap of the three days that he was in attendance at the fest, which included performances by Evergrey, Sanctuary, Ihsahn, Haken, While Heaven Wept, Forbidden, Therion and many more.