Another interview with Warrel on Blabbermouth

[Traxan]

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/sa...l-got-no-respect-during-90s-grunge-explosion/

I disagree, Mr. Sentient. Grunge only lasted about 4 years, really. In a short time, Cobain killed himself, Pearl Jam retreated into isolation, AiC fell apart due to Layne's addiction and Soundgarden transcended the genre. By 1995-96 it was all over.

The real problem was nu metal. That musical shit stain was promoted to all hell and gone. Just think back to 1999. A masterpiece like DNB is out, along with other brilliant albums like Testament's "The Gathering," and who gets the main stage at Woodstock 99? That fucking mouth breather Fred Durst, who turns it into a riot.

Grunge bands did acknowledge their metal roots, especially AiC and Dave Grohl. Nu metal? Please. A bunch of wiggers using the popularity of rap to sell their noise.

BTW, you said you survived grunge. I thought Sanctuary was broken up because the label wanted you guys to shift style to grunge and you guys said hell no, which lead to Nevermore?

 

[Talking Backwards]

What's funny is, the quote in the headline is essentially what I said a few years ago about metal in the 90s, and then someone (DW I think) informed me about how utterly wrong I was and that the 90s were fantastic for metal. Except for the fact that it was completely pushed underground and made so much more obscure and so many bands changed their sound entirely.

Traxan, are you in a metal band from the 90s, that lived in Seattle? Otherwise, how can you "disagree" with what Warrel is saying they went through? Even if you don't believe grunge was a big deal beyond 95, clearly it was in Seattle. And when he's talking about Nevermore "surviving", you realize that they formed in 92 right? They formed during the apex of grunge's popularity.

 

[Traxan]

No I wasn't there. I only want to move there. You are right, he specifically said Seattle and I was thinking metal across the country. I'm not sure who he meant when he said "We perservered and got through it," since Sanctuary dissolved and Nevermore was formed in 92.

But I've been through both eras and to me, nu metal was far worse for the scene. Don't forget, many metal bands welcomed the Seattle scene, like the Clash of the Titans tour (although Death Angel were supposed to be in AiC's slot). There was some initial connections between the two until the industry stepped in and built a wall between grunge and metal. But nu metal? Nothing at all. They toured with rappers.

I'm curious how you think the 90s were fantastic. Headbanger's Ball was cancelled, everyone got dropped from the majors, many broke up, Metallica turned to crap, Pantera broke up, and At the Gates spawned 2 decades of mallcore. By the time DNB came out, traditional metal was completely marginalized and that album should have been heralded as the biggest concept album since Operation: Mindcrime. But it wasn't.

 

[Dead Winter]

Well, metal in the 90's WAS fantastic, unless of course you're talking about making any sort of living playing it.

The 90's got rid of glam and forced metal to be serious and introspective and, well, not dumb and insipid.

Also, Pantera broke up in 2003...not the 90's. Headbanger's Ball in the US was fucking awful...the UK's was waaaay better and much more extreme. HB in the US just played the same videos over and over again, and it actually spawned Alternative Nation because at the time there were tons of bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains who were more metal than grunge in 1992, yet they got the grunge moniker. Who got dropped from major labels? Wait, let me rephrase that: which band that was worth a shit got dropped?

How old were you in the 90's? Everything you're complaining about either didn't happen or you're looking at it through shit-colored lenses. Yes, it was most definitely more difficult for metal bands to break into the mainstream, but did you REALLY expect to hear "Fucked with a Knife" by Cannibal Corpse on the radio? In fact, if these bands HAD made it to the mainstream in the 90's and started living the 80's butt rock, hookers-and-blow metalhead lifestyle, do you really think we'd have the great albums we had from them in the 90's? Now that metal is mainstream these days, what do we have? Out of aaaaaaaaaaall the metal bands who are on major labels and can really headline their own tour, who do we have? The only one that's "huge" and listenable is Mastodon. Everything else went the route of metalcore. If this were the 90's, you wouldn't hear Bullet For My Valentine on the radio, but I can guarantee you'd still hear Mastodon.

Nu metal was fucking awful (although I actually do like Korn's Life is Peachy) in the 90's, but the 2000's mainstream spawned WAY more turrible bands because everyone was on that American post-grunge, every-singer-sings-in-a-low-register-and-ends-all-vowels-with-the-letter-R-because-I-love-Layne-Staley, drop-C guitars with no solos, every song sounds the same kick, a la Creed (late 90's...anything after 1996 sucked in the mainstream), Nickelback, Three Days' Grace, Shinedown, Seether, etc. Think about it: since the year 2000, how many rock/metal songs do you like that were played on the radio? I can count them on one hand.

As for the 90's, well see for yourself:

Pantera
Morbid Angel
Megadeth
Slayer
Anthrax
Tool
In Flames
Dark Tranquility
At the Gates
Carcass
Cannibal Corpse
Death
Down
Emperor
Type O Negative
My Dying Bride
Anathema
White Zombie
Opeth
Cradle of Filth when they were still interesting
Godflesh
Ministry
Dimmu Borgir when they were still interesting
Borknagar
Crowbar
Danzig
Fear Factory
Therion
Amorphis

Their best albums? All 90's albums.

 

[~Lynn~]

No I wasn't there. I only want to move there. You are right, he specifically said Seattle and I was thinking metal across the country. I'm not sure who he meant when he said "We perservered and got through it," since Sanctuary dissolved and Nevermore was formed in 92.

But I've been through both eras and to me, nu metal was far worse for the scene. Don't forget, many metal bands welcomed the Seattle scene, like the Clash of the Titans tour (although Death Angel were supposed to be in AiC's slot). There was some initial connections between the two until the industry stepped in and built a wall between grunge and metal. But nu metal? Nothing at all. They toured with rappers.

I'm curious how you think the 90s were fantastic. Headbanger's Ball was cancelled, everyone got dropped from the majors, many broke up, Metallica turned to crap, Pantera broke up, and At the Gates spawned 2 decades of mallcore. By the time DNB came out, traditional metal was completely marginalized and that album should have been heralded as the biggest concept album since Operation: Mindcrime. But it wasn't.

^

 

[Traxan]

There were two things that did in glam before grunge even got going.

1) Guns n Roses. yeah Axl had his hair teased up, but GnR were the new Rolling Stones. It was raw, raunchy rock that put the Sunset Strip bands to shame.

2) Decline of the Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. I live in LA and knew a lot of people connected to the scene, especially at KNAC. They said that movie killed glam dead because the bands, especially Odin, came off so embarrassingly pitiful. The Chris Holmes pool scene got everyone's attention (and I call bullshit. I don't care how drunk you are, pouring vodka into your eyes will make you scream like a little girl) but the other bands made such fools of themselves, no one would touch them. Lemmy, Ozzy and Megadeth came off as the only smart ones. Glam bands stopped getting signed after that movie.

I drifted away from metal in the 90s because it flamed out, and literally did not return until 1999/2000, when I discovered In Flames. And as I've said many times, that was how I was exposed to Nevermore for the first time, seeing IF in concert.

And don't diss Shinedown. In their early days they were a good southern rock style band. They've morphed a lot but still do some killer stuff and Brent does not copy the Vedder/Stapp extended lower jaw style of singing.

The reason you don't hear these bands on the radio is because there is no active rock radio. Here in LA we have no active rock radio for a new band to get exposure, and haven't since KNAC died. At least Seattle has The Brew, and there is a good one in Spokane, 94.5 FM. Most active rock stations were independent and they all got bought up by Clear Channel. Besides, who listens to radio any more? Sirius Satellite is the way to go, with Octane and Liquid Metal.

 

[Talking Backwards]

I'm curious how you think the 90s were fantastic. Headbanger's Ball was cancelled, everyone got dropped from the majors, many broke up, Metallica turned to crap, Pantera broke up, and At the Gates spawned 2 decades of mallcore. By the time DNB came out, traditional metal was completely marginalized and that album should have been heralded as the biggest concept album since Operation: Mindcrime. But it wasn't.

What? I never said the 90s were fantastic. I've argued the complete opposite. In fact, the only bands I religiously listened to in the 90s aside from Soundgarden, Tool (*around 96) and Alice In Chains were bands from the early to mid 80s. I listened to Cowboys from Hell and Vulgar Display of Power quite a bit too, but after that I just gave up. Phil had to push his "WE'RE HARDCORRRRREEEE!!!" shit and the songs suffered for it. He actually sounded awesome on those two albums though. Did you edit your first post in response to something DW said?

Well, metal in the 90's WAS fantastic, unless of course you're talking about making any sort of living playing it.

The 90's got rid of glam and forced metal to be serious and introspective and, well, not dumb and insipid.

Too much of it became all about death metal, which is cool if that's your thing, but it wasn't mine and that's about the only non grunge metal genre that got any real attention for a very long time. Also, I do like a lot of the bands you listed but I had no desire to listen to much of their earliest work. It also took Opeth to get me to give many of the melodeth (not the same I know) bands a real listen. Maybe my perspective was just skewed, because I was looking forward to playing metal in a band.

Also, my main argument wasn't even necessarily that there wasn't any good metal out there in the 90s. You actually are not wrong about that. The problem as I said before is that it was all pushed so far underground as to become obscure. The only way to hear a lot of these bands was to take a risk on an unknown (or have read about them in a magazine and still take a somewhat unknown risk), or be lucky enough to have friends that have done that for you. I actually found out about Solitude Aeturnus this way right as Into the Depths of Sorrow had been released via friend. We did not have that problem when MTV actually played music videos (not even counting Headbanger's Ball) and many metal genres besides death and nu were filling up arenas. You know, when it was still MTV and not YoMTV and then later what we now have.

I wouldn't have even known about Opeth had I not randomly purchased an Iron Maiden tribute album that had them on it. This was in '99 too when you could actually find some decent reviews online. I actually didn't know though, based off of what was on that tribute album that they were in fact a type of death band; and none of the reviews actually mentioned that at all. So I ended up ordering their first three albums, excepting something entirely different, and was like "What the fuck?" as soon as the growling kicked in. After those discs were sitting on my shelf for about two weeks though collecting dust, I just thought "Fuck it, I paid a lot of money for these, so I may as well try to enjoy them". I ended up doing housework all day with the discs playing in the background and suddenly they just clicked. Around that time too was when I started listening to Iced Earth, a band I knew absolutely nothing about, but I kept seeing random advertisements in magazines for them so I gave them a shot due to The Dark Saga cover and me being a comic book nerd.

You know what though? I would almost certainly not have heard of Nevermore until many years after I did had I not heard them on a Judas Priest tribute album, doing their cover of "Love Bites". When I heard that, I thought "HOLY SHIT!". And personally, I think they blew the original away big time. Ended up buying Politics and was left speechless, and I knew right then that I had a brand new favorite band. Ironically, when I asked my best friend what he thought about it, he said "the songs all sound too similar", but then for some unknown reason decided to randomly buy DNB when it was released. He became completely enamored with the band then and couldn't stop gushing over that album.

 

[Traxan]

What? I never said the 90s were fantastic. I've argued the complete opposite. In fact, the only bands I religiously listened to in the 90s aside from Soundgarden, Tool (*around 96) and Alice In Chains were bands from the early to mid 80s. I listened to Cowboys from Hell and Vulgar Display of Power quite a bit too, but after that I just gave up. Phil had to push his "WE'RE HARDCORRRRREEEE!!!" shit and the songs suffered for it. He actually sounded awesome on those two albums though. Did you edit your first post in response to something DW said?

Yeah that was meant for Dead Winter.

Too much of it became all about death metal, which is cool if that's your thing, but it wasn't mine and that's about the only non grunge metal genre that got any real attention for a very long time.

It still is all about death metal or that style and I'm sick of it. I grew up on metal SINGERS. These dumbass kids today literally hate it. Did you ever think you'd see a site like this: http://www.nocleansinging.com/ ?

Also, my main argument wasn't even necessarily that there wasn't any good metal out there in the 90s. You actually are not wrong about that. The problem as I said before is that it was all pushed so far underground as to become obscure. The only way to hear a lot of these bands was to take a risk on an unknown (or have read about them in a magazine and still take a somewhat unknown risk), or be lucky enough to have friends that have done that for you.

Actually, not so. Cable channels have something called Music Choice. It's in the 5000 channel range on U-verse. They do nothing but pump out music. No DJ, no commercials, no stopping. There is an active rock and metal channel. Look for it on your cable. I know Time Warner and Comcast have it.

Also, back around 2000 MTV had a GREAT channel called MTVX. It was nothing but rock and metal, no commercials, no DJs. I loved that channel and had it on constantly. Then in April 2002 they flipped it to a rap channel, as if there wasn't enough fucking rap on MTV. I was furious. But there is still Music Choice.

The problem is MC can be picky. I've never heard Nevermore, not once. But I can't really listen to the metal channel because it's nothing but extreme shit and I can't take screamo-cookie monster vocals unless it's part of a real good melo-death band like old IF, old Soilwork, Shadow, etc. I've never heard Nightwish, either. At first I thought MC wasn't playing anything from Century Media, but they do play Lacuna Coil.

 

[Talking Backwards]

Actually, not so. Cable channels have something called Music Choice. It's in the 5000 channel range on U-verse. They do nothing but pump out music. No DJ, no commercials, no stopping. There is an active rock and metal channel. Look for it on your cable. I know Time Warner and Comcast have it.

Notice the topic was the 90s right, not current times?
No such channels existed on cable around here in the 90s and neither did Sirius (which Nevermore is played on). You're right about vocalists though, and the lack thereof. That's my biggest issue with what happened with metal from the 90s on. Finding a new band with an actual vocalist that sung was like winning the lottery. That's probably why Hell seemed like such a big deal to me when they released Human Remains. Their latest album is even better.

From 2000 onward "metal" in general seemed to becoming popular again, even if it wasn't from bands I cared about at all. That exposure allowed other bands to be noticed, even if none of this was mainstream. It just seemed that grunge and gangsta rap was no longer the trendy thing to listen to. I doubt death and screamo will be going anywhere anytime soon though. These genres endure simply because they might have good music, but no one wants to hear purely instrumental bands. Can't sing? Okay, growl and shout, because at least that's something right? Oh, and actually singing makes you a pansy too, and no super macho biker can listen to that, so there's that I guess.

 

[Traxan]

I only responded with MC because you were talking about how hard it is to find music. I found Music Choice around 2000 or so and have listened ever since. Found a lot of new bands that way.

And we're on the same page about modern metal. I'm sick of these screamers. I remember checking out Suicide Silence because so many people were raving about them. Ten seconds in and I'm like, what is this fucking noise?

 

[rebirth]

Can you please write in bullet form...
Short sentences
Few paragraphs
Thx

 

[rebirth]

Noise is throbbing gristle the band ��

 

[El Stormo]

Can you please write in bullet form...

Short sentences

Few paragraphs

Thx

Man, Dead Winter posted in this thread. Any hope of short posts went out the window when he posted

In fact, if these bands HAD made it to the mainstream in the 90's and started living the 80's butt rock, hookers-and-blow metalhead lifestyle, do you really think we'd have the great albums we had from them in the 90's?

This, this is certainly worth keeping in mind. We've all seen what happens to bands when they make it big (St. Anger, Risk, Point of Entry, The Burning Red and so forth), and they almost always gravitate towards shitty catchy cash-grab junk (and then often return to their first style when they get shot down). It's certainly naive to think those great bands in the 90s were immune to that phenomenon. So while the 90s were in many ways great for metal, they were partly great because the genre itself was unpopular.

I do agree that nu-"metal" is a far bigger shitstain for metal than grunge ever was, but ona global level. I can certainly understand why WD hates grunge more, seeing as he was at the center of the whole thing.

 

[rebirth]

DNB cd is not operational mind what ever bees knees over the top prog prototype

Let's get one thing straight: over the other bands they didn't sell out for
The corporate dollar only went on to do excellent work making
Excellent timeless CDs listen to - die for my sins - how many bands were
Even thinking of or rehearsing songs like that???

 

[Talking Backwards]

I absolutely have no idea what you are trying to say half of the time. Are you using Google Translate or something and having it translate whatever it is you're actually saying with your native language?

 

[rebirth]

It's gibbish

Like your graffiti writings

 

[El Stormo]

Ludicrous gibbish!

 

[Dead Winter]

I personally am glad that metal got pushed into the underground and into relative obscurity in the 90's because it created a really strong, tightly-knit community of like-minded individuals and also forced bands to be really innovative because all the cards were stacked against them.

I remember getting super excited whenever I met people who listened to the same stuff as I did mainly because it was relatively difficult to find due to it being underground. You had to really investigate music and be invested in it. This is partly why I've drifted away from most metal these days and mainly listen to stoner/sludge/doom metal and rock...it's the only thing left that has anywhere to go. Death metal is done, as is black metal. That doesn't mean there are bands out there who aren't great bands and doing interesting things, but the genres have played themselves out.

I was never really into death metal until the late 90s when I discovered Nile. I listened to a bit of Cannibal Corpse in high school but it was more of a mood thing, I never really took it seriously, I just sorta wandered into death metal, I guess, and this is why I've always been really picky about the death metal bands I've listened to, as well as black metal. I've always been drawn more to doom metal anyway. I was always listening to Anathema, My Dying Bride, and Paradise Lost in the late 90's. Still, I'd rather listen to death metal than some shitty power metal band like Hammerfall or Primal Fear, even though they have "singers". The 90's blew the doors off of convention and what was once thought of as impossible. I mean, Chris Cornell is my favorite singer of all time, so it's not like I don't like clean singers, it's just that I scoff at the idea that to be a good singer you have to be classically trained and able to hit a high G. We've already got Dickinson, Tate, and Halford, do we really need more? A great singer doesn't necessarily equal a good voice, speaking classically; a great singer uses the abilities he or she has, however limited, to get the greatest impact and serve the song as a whole. I love Operation: Mindcrime and Powerslave, I don't need an endless sea of copycats aping those albums only to put out something that's just a pale imitation. This is what the 90's did well by giving the finger to all the leather pants-wearing, show-us-your-tits-and-then-let's-do-some-blow-backstage-off-your-tits antics that heavy metal was before the 90's. Without the 90's, metal wouldn't be a serious genre because, let's face it, it most definitely wasn't serious in the 80's except for maybe a few bands I can count on one hand.

 

[nckissfan]

every decade has its good and its bad.

the 80's had hair metal, although there were a few bands that got lumped in that genre that were pretty good. There was some really good metal in the 80's. Thrash metal was the highlight for me. There were a bunch of great thrash bands. I wouldn't say metal in the 80's was bad because of the hair crap, though.

I think there was some really good metal in the 90's. I couldn't get into the grunge stuff that much. I do like AiC, I love their harmonies, and sound.

one of my favorites from the 90's was Grave. Nile was killer, too.

while I enjoy death metal, I have a hard time getting into the damn screamo shit. vocals with no depth, or variety. Some of them bands have some cool music, but the vocals blow.

 

[Dead Winter]

Yeah screamo is just annoying.