Warmachine founder/guitarist/singer/songwriter Joe Di Taranto spoke to Bill Murphy earlier this month, not long after the feces hit the rotors with the now-legendary row with Megadeth. Whilst other up-and-coming metal bands might have reacted to the situation with anger, bitterness, or a resolve to escalate the matter into an online tit-for-tat, Joe took the road less traveled. And, as Robert Frost put, that has made all the difference.
In this far-ranging conversation, Bill and Joe talk about Megadeth, the origins of Warmachine, Joe’s musical influences, the meaning behind the songs on the band’s stellar debut The Beginning of the End, and Warmachine’s upcoming appearance at the Nightmare Metal Fest in Florida in March.
This is Part One of a Two-Part Interview.
JD: Hello?
BM: Is this Joe?
JD: Speaking.
BM: Hey, this is Bill Murphy.
JD: How’s it going, Bill? How are you, Bill?
BM: Good. It’ll be a pleasure talking with you this evening. Thank you for your time.
JD: Same here, thank you.
BM: You know what I’d like, there’s a lot of things I’d like to ask and comment on, but I guess what everybody’s interested in most is—
JD: Megadeth. [laughs]
BM: The Megadeth thing.
JD: Yeah.
BM: There’s a lot of coverage. You can Google you, you can Google “Warmachine vs. Megadeth”, and the Internet’s full of it.
JD: Really?
BM: Yeah. [laughs]
JD: [laughs]
BM: A lot of people know what happened. You guys won the contest, it was an online poll, 21% of the votes, and you though you were good to go.
JD: Absolutely, yeah.
BM: And then, Mustaine pulled the rug out from under you.
JD: Basically, yeah. He picked the band that came in third place, which was Evil, which was a little mind-boggling, but we were like, “Ok, that’s cool.” It was his choice, at the end of the day. We knew that no matter who won, that he still had to pick who he wanted to. And they worded it as, “Your vote will help them choose who Megadeth goes on tour with.” Even though it did say, “Who will tour with Megadeth in Europe, you choose.” And then underneath it says, “Your vote will help.” So it was kind of a weird disclaimer, which a lot of people were confused about. We knew all along that at the end of the day, it was still all up to Mustaine. And we were kept in the dark for quite a while. Nobody contacted us after we won the contest to just let us know what was going on, and anything. Just to touch base with us, either. Throughout this whole thing, we still haven’t heard anything from Mustaine directly. Everything that’s been said or contacted has been between ourselves and either his webmaster or the other guy that he owns the live line with, which is John, a guy named John. So yeah, fans got really, really pissed off when they saw that a couple weeks into the new year, or something like that. That’s how we found out. We went and logged onto Megadeth.com and saw that Evil got the tour. So we’re like, “Ok, what can you do?” It’s disappointing, but we understood that that’s his choice, it’s his choice. But fans were really, really pissed off about it. So what happened from there was the next day I got a call from John from the live line, he was asking me to put out a statement to calm the fans down because he got thousands of emails and angry voice messages on Dave’s voice line. So they were really, really pissed off, the fans. And understandably so. So I put out a statement just letting them know, hey, reminding them again, it wasn’t a guaranteed thing, but they said they were going to take care of us, not to worry, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing. So then I see a couple days later, Dave Mustaine puts out a message saying Warmachine doesn’t have any means or any way to do the tour. So I was pretty taken aback by that, once I saw that, because it was like, “Well, that’s not true at all.” And how would he know that as a) he never contacted us, and b) we were ready to go, and c) I had contacted Sean Drover who’s a buddy of mine from Megadeth, and let him know after we won the contest, that we were ready to go, all our ducks were in a row. We had everything we needed and if that were ever a factor, I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew that there wasn’t anything to worry about. I actually spoke to the webmaster of Megadeth.com as well, and told him the same thing. So you know, the information was there for them, and he chose to just go out and say something that wasn’t true.
BM: Have you talked with your buddy Sean since this happened?
JD: I haven’t. No, I haven’t. Or Glen, I know both of them, and obviously Glen’s not in the band anymore, but yeah.
BM: Just out of conjecture’s sake, why would, why do you think Mustaine would issue a statement like that, knowing it could easily be proved wrong?
JD: I have no idea. I think he thought that you know, maybe we wouldn’t do anything about it, we wouldn’t stand up for ourselves, because what happened afterwards was pretty shocking. Basically what happened after that was, I put out my statement just to clear our name and let everybody know, “Hey, that’s not the case.” Because we didn’t want to be viewed as, “Hey, these guys wasted everybody’s time.” Which was obviously not true. We wouldn’t have entered into a contest knowing that we wouldn’t have ever been able to do the tour.
BM: [laughs] Yeah.
JD: We wouldn’t have wasted people’s time. We knew that we were going to be able to do it no matter what. And another thing is, because of that statement that he put out was detrimental to us, because if a promoter in Europe is looking for a band and considering Warmachine to do a tour over there, then we’re gonna be getting screwed over because they’re reading that statement thinking, “Ok, they don’t have the means to do any touring in Europe.” So we could miss out on a lot of opportunities. So that was the main reason I put out that statement, my statement, which just said that, you know, Dave’s statement was completely untrue, and nobody had contact with us, so they wouldn’t know that. You know, that we were ready to go. And that caused an even bigger stir.
BM: Yeah, tell me about it. I know what it was, I know what’s been going on if anybody does know. Tell me about the bigger stir that occurred after that.
JD: After that, the fans got even more pissed off with Dave. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
JD: And again, I got a call from John from the live line telling me, “Oh, you’ve got to apologize. Dave’s hurt, he doesn’t understand. He thought you were his little buddy from Toronto. He told me, ‘Joe’s my little buddy from Toronto, I don’t understand.’” I said, “Well, first off, we’re not mad. I just wanted to clear our name, basically, and let everybody know that wasn’t the case. I didn’t put out that statement in any malicious way. And it was an innocent thing, we just had to protect our own name.” You know, maybe Dave had his facts wrong, but I wanted to make sure everybody else knew what the truth was, regarding us. It had, really nothing to do with Dave, but he took it as something to stir the waters, I guess, which completely wasn’t the case. So they were telling me, “You gotta put out a statement, you gotta put out an apology by 12 noon the next day.”
BM: [laughs]
JD: You know what I mean? Trying to pressure me into it? And it was just like, “We’re going to give you a spot on the live line”, they’re telling us. “It’s such a huge favor that we’re giving you a spot on the live line for this.” And you know, I shot back with, “This whole thing’s left a bad taste in our mouths, and we just don’t want anything to do with it, especially with the live line.” So that night, I emailed John from the live line to say, “No hard feelings. We prefer to do things on our own, and take it from here. Thanks for everything.” And that’s basically it. And it got to be really stressful, because any move I made, I’d get two or three phone calls asking me to fix something, or you know, some fans here said this and some fans here said that, and it was my job to basically fix it.
BM: From the Megadeth people.
JD: Yeah. So it was really getting on my nerves at that point. ‘Cause frankly, for me, in my opinion, it wasn’t my battle to fight. Dave put his foot in his own mouth.
BM: Something I’ve heard he’s pretty good at.
JD: Apparently, yeah, if you Google him, you’ll see quite a few things. [laughs]
BM: [laughs] Yeah.
JD: So I also think they were just trying to intimidate me into, you know, putting something out. They’re like, “He’s willing to forgive and forget.” And I’m like, “Well, I didn’t do anything wrong to forgive.” So next day his webmaster, who’s also my webmaster, calls me and says, “Now you’ve got me involved, and Dave called. He’s pissed, and he’s ready to sue you. He’s ready to take you down. He’s got his lawyers watching you, they’re ready with their cease and desist papers, and they’re going to take you down. They’re gonna end your career if you don’t put an apology out. And I’m like, “What the hell? What did I do wrong?” And he’s like, “Oh, well you basically called him a liar.” And I said, “But I didn’t call him a liar. I said what he said was untrue, and that was it.” And he said, “Well, all these people are calling him a liar, and blah blah blah, he wants to sue you for slander.” So at the end of the day I said, “You know what, go ahead.” I turned off my phone and I directed all the phone calls to Lance King. Lance tried to get a hold of them, and they didn’t want to talk directly. You know, if Dave wanted to give me a call, if I’m his little buddy from Toronto, he could have called me up, and we could have straightened everything out in a matter of five minutes. But that wasn’t the case. They chose to try and scare us into putting out a statement. Which, we just didn’t want to do. It wasn’t our responsibility to do it. And we’re not going to look stupid, you know, that’s the thing. [laughs] So, they didn’t like that. Obviously, they didn’t sue us, because they didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. A couple of weeks later, Dave, who is the webmaster again, says he just got off the phone with Mustaine, and Mustaine says he’s done with you forever.
BM: What?
JD: Yeah. [laughs] So I’m like, “Alright.”
BM: You’re no longer his little buddy from Toronto? [laughs]
JD: Exactly. I’m no longer his little buddy from Toronto that he never calls. [laughs] Or speaks to. So it was just so funny. And then I was immediately banned from the Megadeth message boards, and you know, it’s pretty ridiculous. It’s pretty sad, at the end of the day.
BM: Had you ever spoken to Dave Mustaine, at any time in your life?
JD: I have, a couple of times in person, here and there in meet-and-greets backstage. But nothing real. Most of the time he didn’t remember who I was. So it was a little hard for me to believe where he was coming from.
BM: Was there a positive side to this? Were you amazed at how adamant and passionate your fans were?
JD: Absolutely. You know, it’s proved to us just how many fans we do have out there, and we definitely gained a lot of fans from it, and new people are discovering us, which is great. And it just shows how strong the fan base is and how much they believe and how much they care about Warmachine, which is great. It’s been a great pat on the back, and it’s very securing, I would say, a great secure feeling from that. So it’s great to know we have so many fans that have our backs, because they’re really pissed off.
BM: Yeah. I guess I would be too. I’d be pretty disappointed to think I was ready to pack my bags and go out on tour, and have it just, and how he phrased it, like, “The guys knew it was all good fun, and everybody had a good time.”
JD: Exactly.
BM: Sure, yeah.
JD: Which it wasn’t. That was the case. And they were spouting off about how much exposure you got from it and this and that, and it’s just like, well the bands are who brought that exposure. And it’s their website, their live line, it’s their whole new venture, Dave and John. And at the end of the day, he’s like, “Oh, 100,000 hits isn’t that much.” It’s like, ok, well.
BM: Well, I guess you’re in pretty good company with Mustaine, because I’ve heard, didn’t he kind of do that same thing with Dave Ellefson? I mean, doesn’t he cut people off?
JD: Basically, yeah. There was a whole lawsuit there, with David. I’m not exactly sure what went on, but yeah, he said that he’s made up with him, but you never know. He’s not the most forgiving person.
BM: [laughs]
JD: [laughs] And especially what he’s done with me, for just that.
BM: Wow. Well, is this kind of behind you now, aside from me asking you questions about this, have you guys just put it behind you?
JD: Pretty much. I mean, we’re not upset about it. We’re not angry still. I mean, we were, Megadeth for me personally, and Dave, was one of my idols. So growing up, you know, it was always my dream to actually work with Dave or open up for Megadeth at some point, you know, that would have been huge. And so, in December, when we had won the contest, I thought, “Wow, might actually just happen for once.” So it was, more than anything it was just disappointing, and the way it ended was just really sad I think. But I’m not sitting here sulking about it or anything like that.
BM: [laughs]
JD: You move on. That’s it.
BM: Well, tell me about your musical influences, then. This album of yours has a lot of different styles on it. You’ll probably laugh when I tell you what a couple of songs sound like to me.
JD: [laughs]
BM: Tell me, what kind of guitarist do you emulate? What kind of vocalist, songwriters, what are your favorites?
JD: For me, I think it was all about Queen growing up.
BM: Oh yeah, yeah.
JD: Yeah. Absolutely, Freddie Mercury, Queen. As far as vocal influence.
BM: Let me ask you something, how old are you?
JD: I’m 25. I’ll be 26 this year.
BM: Jeez, Queen. [laughs] Wasn’t Freddie dead by the time you were listening to Queen? [laughs]
JD: Pretty much, yeah, actually. [laughs] He was still around a little while when I got into them, I got into them around eight years old, so yeah. They’re the main reason I picked up the guitar. I never actually intended to be a singer when I started the band.
BM: Really?
JD: Yeah, I started the band around 14 years old, and you know, we looked around for a singer and couldn’t really find anybody. ‘Cause at that time, anybody who was our age was into Nirvana and all that stuff, and I was never into any of that. We just wanted to play thrash or heavy metal, basically. So I just started singing myself. Realized, “Hey, I can actually do this.”
BM: Wow.
JD: It was never any real influence, other than, like I said, Freddie Mercury just being someone that sang with a natural, emotional voice, that kind of thing. No screaming and no put-on voice, like the dude from Creed or anything like that, which I can’t stand. [laughs]
BM: [laughs] Yeah.
JD: So no fake accent or anything like that. It was just singing with your natural voice. So that’s pretty much where it came from, in terms of vocally. Songwriting, absolutely, Queen was the standard for me.
BM: You a big fan of Brian May’s guitar tone?
JD: Oh absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I’m actually going to be grabbing a guitar this year, finally.
BM: A Brian May signature?
JD: Yeah, Brian May guitar, so I’m really excited.
BM: Ooooh.
JD: Yeah, I’ve been waitin’ my whole life for one of those. [laughs]
BM: Oh man.
JD: They finally put out a really cool version of it, and they’re made directly by him.
BM: Oh man, I’ll betcha, what does that cost?
JD: Um, I actually found it for a really good price, only $799.
BM: Seven-hundred ninety-nine?
JD: $799, yeah.
BM: You’re kidding me. Wow.
JD: Yeah.
BM: I should check out that.
JD: Well yeah, because on the website, if you buy directly, I think it’s around 1300 pounds or something like that, so that’s quite a difference. And it’s the exact same guitar, brand-new, so I figured I’d better steal this opportunity.
BM: Have you ever seen Brian May play live?
JD: I have, finally, a couple years ago with Paul Rogers. Queen and Paul Rogers.
BM: Yeah, yeah.
JD: I went to go seen them, because I never got to see Queen, which was a big disappointment for me. But that was the closest thing I’ll get, that’s for sure. But it was amazing. Amazing show.
BM: Well, went to see them at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit.
JD: Right on.
BM: And we were actually in the front row, down that catwalk thing of theirs.
JD: Oh wow.
BM: And Brian May stood three feet in front of us to play that solo from Bohemian Rhapsody.
JD: Oh!
BM: I mean, it was dream. [laughs]
JD: That’s unbelievable.
BM: Unreal.
JD: [laughs] And actually, I love what they did with Bohemian Rhapsody, with actually having Freddie’s image there, and his sound playing.
BM: Yeah.
JD: Playing that. It was just amazing.
BM: Wasn’t that cool?
JD: That was so cool, and I totally didn’t expect that either. So I just loved the look of the stage, the sound was unbelievable, you can’t beat Brian May’s guitar tone, that’s for sure.
BM: No. Talk about a legend.
JD: Yeah, and that’s the thing. You know, he’s the humblest guy you could ever meet. I hope to one day meet him, that’s for sure. Him and Roger Taylor would be a dream come true.
BM: Yeah, I’ve heard he’s one of the nicest guys in rock.
JD: Yeah. Him and David Ellefson.
BM: David’s a pretty good guy?
JD: David’s a great guy. Very, very great guy. Just a really humble, soft-spoken guy that’s fun to be around, and very easy to work with.
BM: Wow.
JD: But yeah, in terms of style and songwriting, you know Brian May was one of the reasons I picked up the guitar as well. You know, I got into Queen before I got into heavy metal.
BM: Well, I was gonna say, Warmachine doesn’t have, it’s sometimes described as thrash, and you’ve even used that term. But you’ve actually got a lot more melody and a lot more solos, and you know, it’s not thrash to me. It doesn’t quite sound that way.
JD: Yeah, I mean, it’s more so musically, riff-wise. I was influenced by a lot of the early thrash in the ‘80s, I think that’s where it comes from, that whole thing. So it’s kind of like, I know Lance usually calls it power thrash, like a mix between power metal and thrash metal. Yeah, you know, it’s such a weird thing. I personally find it hard to pigeon-hole us into a specific category, because we definitely don’t sound like a lot of the power metal bands out in Europe do. We’re definitely not a full-on prog band, because we’re more simple in terms of music. And we’re definitely not full-on thrash either, because there’s a hell of a lot of melody in there.
BM: Oh yeah.
JD: For me, it’s just about writing a good song, and a good hook, and something I love to listen to over and over again, and it doesn’t get old quickly.
BM: Well, there’s a lot of good stuff on your album. If you could take me through track by track of The Beginning of the End.
JD: Sure.
BM: But first of all, for somebody who, let’s say is new to Warmachine, and they say, “Dude, is there a song that I could listen to that would sort of capture what you guys are?”
JD: I would say probably, I don’t know, “Beginning of the End”, maybe?
BM: Yeah, I think that’s my favorite song on the album. [laughs]
JD: Oh, there you go. Perfect. That was one of the first that I wrote for the album as well. The thing with that album is I wrote a lot of it in my early teens. So songs on there, like “Apocalypse” is the first song I ever wrote.
BM: That’s a cool song.
JD: Yeah, that’s the thing. Our producer, Murray, was joking, like, “I love that song.” “Yeah, well that was the first song I wrote.” And he said, “You should have stopped right there, man. It’s all downhill from there.” [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
JD: You know, when we showed him that song, we were thinking, “Oh, he’s not going to like this.” Because it’s so weird. We thought, because it’s got a couple of different time signatures in there and tempos and tempo changes, so we thought it was just a little weird. But yeah, that was the first song. So I’ll go through track by track.
BM: Oh good. Let me tell you first of all, “Beginning of the End,” that’s the track that you’re gonna laugh at me when I tell you. For some reason, it sounds to me like—you probably don’t even remember this guy—there was a band called The Greg Kihn Band.
JD: The Greg Kihn Band, no, I don’t.
BM: They played a song called, “They Just Don’t Write ‘Em Like That Anymore.”
JD: Really?
BM: And you got, it’s a really, bouncy, ‘80s sounding, or maybe even ‘70s sounding guitar thing going there. It’s really catchy, and for some reason it reminds me of the Greg Kihn Band, I don’t know why.
JD: Wow. That’s kinda cool.
BM: Not bad. Tell me about “Betrayed”, the first track. What’s that about? And by the way, what do you remember most about recording this album? What is your, the most vivid memory you have of putting this sucker together?
JD: We took our time with it, so I just remember for the most part, having tons of fun.
BM: Oh really?
JD: Yeah, it was such a blast. These guys that we work with, Murray Daigle and Sean Gregory, who engineered the album, and David Ellefson who co-produced the album as well with Murray, they’re just a fun bunch. And Murray and Sean, we’re such good friends with those guys because they’re in Toronto, we see them all the time, we go out all the time. Sean actually played drums for us for a little while, for a few shows. He came to the US, did a few shows with us there. And just a great bunch of guys, we have such a blast. The whole record was really him and I sitting there in the control room, Sean and I, just working on the album together and laughing our asses off.
BM: Oh, that’s great.
JD: So that was a cool thing. Mike, who’s another guy from the band Moraine, owns the studio there with Murray and Sean, was just walking by making fun of us all the time, calling us Bevis and Butthead, basically, because every time he’d pass by, it’d be the two of us laughing and laughing like idiots about nothing. So that was the coolest part, and I think, one of the most fun parts.
BM: Wow.
JD: And obviously, working with David was a dream come true, that’s for sure. My favorite bassist of all time.
BM: Well, tell me about the first track, “Betrayed.” What brought about that song? What is it about?
JD: It was more so about a former friend, who I would say, is someone who took advantage. You know, I tend to find a lot of people come into my life that get attached very quickly, and tend to spend a lot of time with me, and then start wanting more from it, and then kind of, I don’t know. It’s a weird situation where you kind of feel used at some point, you feel really drained. So it’s kind of about that, and more so the female kind of people, coming in and—
BM: The female kind. [laughs]
JD: Yeah, the female kind of people. [laughs] So this was one of the last tracks that I wrote for the album as well, right before we went in. And with a drop D tuning, which was kinda new for me at that point, and it was just a really cool riff that I thought, “Ok, there’s something here.” It was very, very easy to write. I wrote it in maybe within the span of five, 10 minutes.
BM: Oh really?
JD: Yeah. It was just one of those songs that flew right out, which is great, I love that. So yeah, that’s basically what it’s about. One of the heavier songs on the album, I would say, so it was a cool starter. David Ellefson played bass on that.
BM: Yeah, I’ve been listening to it a lot lately, and I like how the bass kinda comes in on its own. In fact, it comes in on the right channel.
JD: Absolutely, yeah.
BM: That’s cool.
JD: That’s really cool, I love that part. Actually, it’s been a while since I actually put in the album myself and listened to it.
BM: Really? [laughs]
JD: Yeah, so a lot of the stuff I’ve probably forgotten a little bit. I mean, I play the songs so often live, that you barely have to listen to the album anymore.
BM: Tell me about “Empty”, track two.
JD: “Empty.” Let’s see here. “Empty” was my take lyrically on—first off, I don’t drink or do any drugs. I’ve never even touched a drug in my life, and I don’t drink either.
BM: Good, you’ll probably last long, then. [laughs]
JD: That’s the thing, you know. I’ve just never understood killing your body like that. You know, you look at people like Dave Mustaine and Nikki Sixx, and what they’ve done to their bodies, and it’s just like, “Wow, you must hate yourself or something, [laughs], because you’re kicking the crap out of yourself.” [laughs] And I just never understood that mentality. It’s just never occurred to me to do anything like that. I’m a very, very happy guy, I love life, and it’s great sober, that’s the thing. So it was just kind of my take, what I try and do a lot of times is put myself in someone else’s shoes. So it was just kind of from that standpoint, lyrically, how you know, no matter how much you put in, whether it be drugs or alcohol, you’re still going to end up empty, if not more, feeling more empty. So it was that kind of thing. Musically, I think it was a little bit more [end part one]
In this far-ranging conversation, Bill and Joe talk about Megadeth, the origins of Warmachine, Joe’s musical influences, the meaning behind the songs on the band’s stellar debut The Beginning of the End, and Warmachine’s upcoming appearance at the Nightmare Metal Fest in Florida in March.
This is Part One of a Two-Part Interview.
JD: Hello?
BM: Is this Joe?
JD: Speaking.
BM: Hey, this is Bill Murphy.
JD: How’s it going, Bill? How are you, Bill?
BM: Good. It’ll be a pleasure talking with you this evening. Thank you for your time.
JD: Same here, thank you.
BM: You know what I’d like, there’s a lot of things I’d like to ask and comment on, but I guess what everybody’s interested in most is—
JD: Megadeth. [laughs]
BM: The Megadeth thing.
JD: Yeah.
BM: There’s a lot of coverage. You can Google you, you can Google “Warmachine vs. Megadeth”, and the Internet’s full of it.
JD: Really?
BM: Yeah. [laughs]
JD: [laughs]
BM: A lot of people know what happened. You guys won the contest, it was an online poll, 21% of the votes, and you though you were good to go.
JD: Absolutely, yeah.
BM: And then, Mustaine pulled the rug out from under you.
JD: Basically, yeah. He picked the band that came in third place, which was Evil, which was a little mind-boggling, but we were like, “Ok, that’s cool.” It was his choice, at the end of the day. We knew that no matter who won, that he still had to pick who he wanted to. And they worded it as, “Your vote will help them choose who Megadeth goes on tour with.” Even though it did say, “Who will tour with Megadeth in Europe, you choose.” And then underneath it says, “Your vote will help.” So it was kind of a weird disclaimer, which a lot of people were confused about. We knew all along that at the end of the day, it was still all up to Mustaine. And we were kept in the dark for quite a while. Nobody contacted us after we won the contest to just let us know what was going on, and anything. Just to touch base with us, either. Throughout this whole thing, we still haven’t heard anything from Mustaine directly. Everything that’s been said or contacted has been between ourselves and either his webmaster or the other guy that he owns the live line with, which is John, a guy named John. So yeah, fans got really, really pissed off when they saw that a couple weeks into the new year, or something like that. That’s how we found out. We went and logged onto Megadeth.com and saw that Evil got the tour. So we’re like, “Ok, what can you do?” It’s disappointing, but we understood that that’s his choice, it’s his choice. But fans were really, really pissed off about it. So what happened from there was the next day I got a call from John from the live line, he was asking me to put out a statement to calm the fans down because he got thousands of emails and angry voice messages on Dave’s voice line. So they were really, really pissed off, the fans. And understandably so. So I put out a statement just letting them know, hey, reminding them again, it wasn’t a guaranteed thing, but they said they were going to take care of us, not to worry, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing. So then I see a couple days later, Dave Mustaine puts out a message saying Warmachine doesn’t have any means or any way to do the tour. So I was pretty taken aback by that, once I saw that, because it was like, “Well, that’s not true at all.” And how would he know that as a) he never contacted us, and b) we were ready to go, and c) I had contacted Sean Drover who’s a buddy of mine from Megadeth, and let him know after we won the contest, that we were ready to go, all our ducks were in a row. We had everything we needed and if that were ever a factor, I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew that there wasn’t anything to worry about. I actually spoke to the webmaster of Megadeth.com as well, and told him the same thing. So you know, the information was there for them, and he chose to just go out and say something that wasn’t true.
BM: Have you talked with your buddy Sean since this happened?
JD: I haven’t. No, I haven’t. Or Glen, I know both of them, and obviously Glen’s not in the band anymore, but yeah.
BM: Just out of conjecture’s sake, why would, why do you think Mustaine would issue a statement like that, knowing it could easily be proved wrong?
JD: I have no idea. I think he thought that you know, maybe we wouldn’t do anything about it, we wouldn’t stand up for ourselves, because what happened afterwards was pretty shocking. Basically what happened after that was, I put out my statement just to clear our name and let everybody know, “Hey, that’s not the case.” Because we didn’t want to be viewed as, “Hey, these guys wasted everybody’s time.” Which was obviously not true. We wouldn’t have entered into a contest knowing that we wouldn’t have ever been able to do the tour.
BM: [laughs] Yeah.
JD: We wouldn’t have wasted people’s time. We knew that we were going to be able to do it no matter what. And another thing is, because of that statement that he put out was detrimental to us, because if a promoter in Europe is looking for a band and considering Warmachine to do a tour over there, then we’re gonna be getting screwed over because they’re reading that statement thinking, “Ok, they don’t have the means to do any touring in Europe.” So we could miss out on a lot of opportunities. So that was the main reason I put out that statement, my statement, which just said that, you know, Dave’s statement was completely untrue, and nobody had contact with us, so they wouldn’t know that. You know, that we were ready to go. And that caused an even bigger stir.
BM: Yeah, tell me about it. I know what it was, I know what’s been going on if anybody does know. Tell me about the bigger stir that occurred after that.
JD: After that, the fans got even more pissed off with Dave. [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
JD: And again, I got a call from John from the live line telling me, “Oh, you’ve got to apologize. Dave’s hurt, he doesn’t understand. He thought you were his little buddy from Toronto. He told me, ‘Joe’s my little buddy from Toronto, I don’t understand.’” I said, “Well, first off, we’re not mad. I just wanted to clear our name, basically, and let everybody know that wasn’t the case. I didn’t put out that statement in any malicious way. And it was an innocent thing, we just had to protect our own name.” You know, maybe Dave had his facts wrong, but I wanted to make sure everybody else knew what the truth was, regarding us. It had, really nothing to do with Dave, but he took it as something to stir the waters, I guess, which completely wasn’t the case. So they were telling me, “You gotta put out a statement, you gotta put out an apology by 12 noon the next day.”
BM: [laughs]
JD: You know what I mean? Trying to pressure me into it? And it was just like, “We’re going to give you a spot on the live line”, they’re telling us. “It’s such a huge favor that we’re giving you a spot on the live line for this.” And you know, I shot back with, “This whole thing’s left a bad taste in our mouths, and we just don’t want anything to do with it, especially with the live line.” So that night, I emailed John from the live line to say, “No hard feelings. We prefer to do things on our own, and take it from here. Thanks for everything.” And that’s basically it. And it got to be really stressful, because any move I made, I’d get two or three phone calls asking me to fix something, or you know, some fans here said this and some fans here said that, and it was my job to basically fix it.
BM: From the Megadeth people.
JD: Yeah. So it was really getting on my nerves at that point. ‘Cause frankly, for me, in my opinion, it wasn’t my battle to fight. Dave put his foot in his own mouth.
BM: Something I’ve heard he’s pretty good at.
JD: Apparently, yeah, if you Google him, you’ll see quite a few things. [laughs]
BM: [laughs] Yeah.
JD: So I also think they were just trying to intimidate me into, you know, putting something out. They’re like, “He’s willing to forgive and forget.” And I’m like, “Well, I didn’t do anything wrong to forgive.” So next day his webmaster, who’s also my webmaster, calls me and says, “Now you’ve got me involved, and Dave called. He’s pissed, and he’s ready to sue you. He’s ready to take you down. He’s got his lawyers watching you, they’re ready with their cease and desist papers, and they’re going to take you down. They’re gonna end your career if you don’t put an apology out. And I’m like, “What the hell? What did I do wrong?” And he’s like, “Oh, well you basically called him a liar.” And I said, “But I didn’t call him a liar. I said what he said was untrue, and that was it.” And he said, “Well, all these people are calling him a liar, and blah blah blah, he wants to sue you for slander.” So at the end of the day I said, “You know what, go ahead.” I turned off my phone and I directed all the phone calls to Lance King. Lance tried to get a hold of them, and they didn’t want to talk directly. You know, if Dave wanted to give me a call, if I’m his little buddy from Toronto, he could have called me up, and we could have straightened everything out in a matter of five minutes. But that wasn’t the case. They chose to try and scare us into putting out a statement. Which, we just didn’t want to do. It wasn’t our responsibility to do it. And we’re not going to look stupid, you know, that’s the thing. [laughs] So, they didn’t like that. Obviously, they didn’t sue us, because they didn’t have a legal leg to stand on. A couple of weeks later, Dave, who is the webmaster again, says he just got off the phone with Mustaine, and Mustaine says he’s done with you forever.
BM: What?
JD: Yeah. [laughs] So I’m like, “Alright.”
BM: You’re no longer his little buddy from Toronto? [laughs]
JD: Exactly. I’m no longer his little buddy from Toronto that he never calls. [laughs] Or speaks to. So it was just so funny. And then I was immediately banned from the Megadeth message boards, and you know, it’s pretty ridiculous. It’s pretty sad, at the end of the day.
BM: Had you ever spoken to Dave Mustaine, at any time in your life?
JD: I have, a couple of times in person, here and there in meet-and-greets backstage. But nothing real. Most of the time he didn’t remember who I was. So it was a little hard for me to believe where he was coming from.
BM: Was there a positive side to this? Were you amazed at how adamant and passionate your fans were?
JD: Absolutely. You know, it’s proved to us just how many fans we do have out there, and we definitely gained a lot of fans from it, and new people are discovering us, which is great. And it just shows how strong the fan base is and how much they believe and how much they care about Warmachine, which is great. It’s been a great pat on the back, and it’s very securing, I would say, a great secure feeling from that. So it’s great to know we have so many fans that have our backs, because they’re really pissed off.
BM: Yeah. I guess I would be too. I’d be pretty disappointed to think I was ready to pack my bags and go out on tour, and have it just, and how he phrased it, like, “The guys knew it was all good fun, and everybody had a good time.”
JD: Exactly.
BM: Sure, yeah.
JD: Which it wasn’t. That was the case. And they were spouting off about how much exposure you got from it and this and that, and it’s just like, well the bands are who brought that exposure. And it’s their website, their live line, it’s their whole new venture, Dave and John. And at the end of the day, he’s like, “Oh, 100,000 hits isn’t that much.” It’s like, ok, well.
BM: Well, I guess you’re in pretty good company with Mustaine, because I’ve heard, didn’t he kind of do that same thing with Dave Ellefson? I mean, doesn’t he cut people off?
JD: Basically, yeah. There was a whole lawsuit there, with David. I’m not exactly sure what went on, but yeah, he said that he’s made up with him, but you never know. He’s not the most forgiving person.
BM: [laughs]
JD: [laughs] And especially what he’s done with me, for just that.
BM: Wow. Well, is this kind of behind you now, aside from me asking you questions about this, have you guys just put it behind you?
JD: Pretty much. I mean, we’re not upset about it. We’re not angry still. I mean, we were, Megadeth for me personally, and Dave, was one of my idols. So growing up, you know, it was always my dream to actually work with Dave or open up for Megadeth at some point, you know, that would have been huge. And so, in December, when we had won the contest, I thought, “Wow, might actually just happen for once.” So it was, more than anything it was just disappointing, and the way it ended was just really sad I think. But I’m not sitting here sulking about it or anything like that.
BM: [laughs]
JD: You move on. That’s it.
BM: Well, tell me about your musical influences, then. This album of yours has a lot of different styles on it. You’ll probably laugh when I tell you what a couple of songs sound like to me.
JD: [laughs]
BM: Tell me, what kind of guitarist do you emulate? What kind of vocalist, songwriters, what are your favorites?
JD: For me, I think it was all about Queen growing up.
BM: Oh yeah, yeah.
JD: Yeah. Absolutely, Freddie Mercury, Queen. As far as vocal influence.
BM: Let me ask you something, how old are you?
JD: I’m 25. I’ll be 26 this year.
BM: Jeez, Queen. [laughs] Wasn’t Freddie dead by the time you were listening to Queen? [laughs]
JD: Pretty much, yeah, actually. [laughs] He was still around a little while when I got into them, I got into them around eight years old, so yeah. They’re the main reason I picked up the guitar. I never actually intended to be a singer when I started the band.
BM: Really?
JD: Yeah, I started the band around 14 years old, and you know, we looked around for a singer and couldn’t really find anybody. ‘Cause at that time, anybody who was our age was into Nirvana and all that stuff, and I was never into any of that. We just wanted to play thrash or heavy metal, basically. So I just started singing myself. Realized, “Hey, I can actually do this.”
BM: Wow.
JD: It was never any real influence, other than, like I said, Freddie Mercury just being someone that sang with a natural, emotional voice, that kind of thing. No screaming and no put-on voice, like the dude from Creed or anything like that, which I can’t stand. [laughs]
BM: [laughs] Yeah.
JD: So no fake accent or anything like that. It was just singing with your natural voice. So that’s pretty much where it came from, in terms of vocally. Songwriting, absolutely, Queen was the standard for me.
BM: You a big fan of Brian May’s guitar tone?
JD: Oh absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I’m actually going to be grabbing a guitar this year, finally.
BM: A Brian May signature?
JD: Yeah, Brian May guitar, so I’m really excited.
BM: Ooooh.
JD: Yeah, I’ve been waitin’ my whole life for one of those. [laughs]
BM: Oh man.
JD: They finally put out a really cool version of it, and they’re made directly by him.
BM: Oh man, I’ll betcha, what does that cost?
JD: Um, I actually found it for a really good price, only $799.
BM: Seven-hundred ninety-nine?
JD: $799, yeah.
BM: You’re kidding me. Wow.
JD: Yeah.
BM: I should check out that.
JD: Well yeah, because on the website, if you buy directly, I think it’s around 1300 pounds or something like that, so that’s quite a difference. And it’s the exact same guitar, brand-new, so I figured I’d better steal this opportunity.
BM: Have you ever seen Brian May play live?
JD: I have, finally, a couple years ago with Paul Rogers. Queen and Paul Rogers.
BM: Yeah, yeah.
JD: I went to go seen them, because I never got to see Queen, which was a big disappointment for me. But that was the closest thing I’ll get, that’s for sure. But it was amazing. Amazing show.
BM: Well, went to see them at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit.
JD: Right on.
BM: And we were actually in the front row, down that catwalk thing of theirs.
JD: Oh wow.
BM: And Brian May stood three feet in front of us to play that solo from Bohemian Rhapsody.
JD: Oh!
BM: I mean, it was dream. [laughs]
JD: That’s unbelievable.
BM: Unreal.
JD: [laughs] And actually, I love what they did with Bohemian Rhapsody, with actually having Freddie’s image there, and his sound playing.
BM: Yeah.
JD: Playing that. It was just amazing.
BM: Wasn’t that cool?
JD: That was so cool, and I totally didn’t expect that either. So I just loved the look of the stage, the sound was unbelievable, you can’t beat Brian May’s guitar tone, that’s for sure.
BM: No. Talk about a legend.
JD: Yeah, and that’s the thing. You know, he’s the humblest guy you could ever meet. I hope to one day meet him, that’s for sure. Him and Roger Taylor would be a dream come true.
BM: Yeah, I’ve heard he’s one of the nicest guys in rock.
JD: Yeah. Him and David Ellefson.
BM: David’s a pretty good guy?
JD: David’s a great guy. Very, very great guy. Just a really humble, soft-spoken guy that’s fun to be around, and very easy to work with.
BM: Wow.
JD: But yeah, in terms of style and songwriting, you know Brian May was one of the reasons I picked up the guitar as well. You know, I got into Queen before I got into heavy metal.
BM: Well, I was gonna say, Warmachine doesn’t have, it’s sometimes described as thrash, and you’ve even used that term. But you’ve actually got a lot more melody and a lot more solos, and you know, it’s not thrash to me. It doesn’t quite sound that way.
JD: Yeah, I mean, it’s more so musically, riff-wise. I was influenced by a lot of the early thrash in the ‘80s, I think that’s where it comes from, that whole thing. So it’s kind of like, I know Lance usually calls it power thrash, like a mix between power metal and thrash metal. Yeah, you know, it’s such a weird thing. I personally find it hard to pigeon-hole us into a specific category, because we definitely don’t sound like a lot of the power metal bands out in Europe do. We’re definitely not a full-on prog band, because we’re more simple in terms of music. And we’re definitely not full-on thrash either, because there’s a hell of a lot of melody in there.
BM: Oh yeah.
JD: For me, it’s just about writing a good song, and a good hook, and something I love to listen to over and over again, and it doesn’t get old quickly.
BM: Well, there’s a lot of good stuff on your album. If you could take me through track by track of The Beginning of the End.
JD: Sure.
BM: But first of all, for somebody who, let’s say is new to Warmachine, and they say, “Dude, is there a song that I could listen to that would sort of capture what you guys are?”
JD: I would say probably, I don’t know, “Beginning of the End”, maybe?
BM: Yeah, I think that’s my favorite song on the album. [laughs]
JD: Oh, there you go. Perfect. That was one of the first that I wrote for the album as well. The thing with that album is I wrote a lot of it in my early teens. So songs on there, like “Apocalypse” is the first song I ever wrote.
BM: That’s a cool song.
JD: Yeah, that’s the thing. Our producer, Murray, was joking, like, “I love that song.” “Yeah, well that was the first song I wrote.” And he said, “You should have stopped right there, man. It’s all downhill from there.” [laughs]
BM: [laughs]
JD: You know, when we showed him that song, we were thinking, “Oh, he’s not going to like this.” Because it’s so weird. We thought, because it’s got a couple of different time signatures in there and tempos and tempo changes, so we thought it was just a little weird. But yeah, that was the first song. So I’ll go through track by track.
BM: Oh good. Let me tell you first of all, “Beginning of the End,” that’s the track that you’re gonna laugh at me when I tell you. For some reason, it sounds to me like—you probably don’t even remember this guy—there was a band called The Greg Kihn Band.
JD: The Greg Kihn Band, no, I don’t.
BM: They played a song called, “They Just Don’t Write ‘Em Like That Anymore.”
JD: Really?
BM: And you got, it’s a really, bouncy, ‘80s sounding, or maybe even ‘70s sounding guitar thing going there. It’s really catchy, and for some reason it reminds me of the Greg Kihn Band, I don’t know why.
JD: Wow. That’s kinda cool.
BM: Not bad. Tell me about “Betrayed”, the first track. What’s that about? And by the way, what do you remember most about recording this album? What is your, the most vivid memory you have of putting this sucker together?
JD: We took our time with it, so I just remember for the most part, having tons of fun.
BM: Oh really?
JD: Yeah, it was such a blast. These guys that we work with, Murray Daigle and Sean Gregory, who engineered the album, and David Ellefson who co-produced the album as well with Murray, they’re just a fun bunch. And Murray and Sean, we’re such good friends with those guys because they’re in Toronto, we see them all the time, we go out all the time. Sean actually played drums for us for a little while, for a few shows. He came to the US, did a few shows with us there. And just a great bunch of guys, we have such a blast. The whole record was really him and I sitting there in the control room, Sean and I, just working on the album together and laughing our asses off.
BM: Oh, that’s great.
JD: So that was a cool thing. Mike, who’s another guy from the band Moraine, owns the studio there with Murray and Sean, was just walking by making fun of us all the time, calling us Bevis and Butthead, basically, because every time he’d pass by, it’d be the two of us laughing and laughing like idiots about nothing. So that was the coolest part, and I think, one of the most fun parts.
BM: Wow.
JD: And obviously, working with David was a dream come true, that’s for sure. My favorite bassist of all time.
BM: Well, tell me about the first track, “Betrayed.” What brought about that song? What is it about?
JD: It was more so about a former friend, who I would say, is someone who took advantage. You know, I tend to find a lot of people come into my life that get attached very quickly, and tend to spend a lot of time with me, and then start wanting more from it, and then kind of, I don’t know. It’s a weird situation where you kind of feel used at some point, you feel really drained. So it’s kind of about that, and more so the female kind of people, coming in and—
BM: The female kind. [laughs]
JD: Yeah, the female kind of people. [laughs] So this was one of the last tracks that I wrote for the album as well, right before we went in. And with a drop D tuning, which was kinda new for me at that point, and it was just a really cool riff that I thought, “Ok, there’s something here.” It was very, very easy to write. I wrote it in maybe within the span of five, 10 minutes.
BM: Oh really?
JD: Yeah. It was just one of those songs that flew right out, which is great, I love that. So yeah, that’s basically what it’s about. One of the heavier songs on the album, I would say, so it was a cool starter. David Ellefson played bass on that.
BM: Yeah, I’ve been listening to it a lot lately, and I like how the bass kinda comes in on its own. In fact, it comes in on the right channel.
JD: Absolutely, yeah.
BM: That’s cool.
JD: That’s really cool, I love that part. Actually, it’s been a while since I actually put in the album myself and listened to it.
BM: Really? [laughs]
JD: Yeah, so a lot of the stuff I’ve probably forgotten a little bit. I mean, I play the songs so often live, that you barely have to listen to the album anymore.
BM: Tell me about “Empty”, track two.
JD: “Empty.” Let’s see here. “Empty” was my take lyrically on—first off, I don’t drink or do any drugs. I’ve never even touched a drug in my life, and I don’t drink either.
BM: Good, you’ll probably last long, then. [laughs]
JD: That’s the thing, you know. I’ve just never understood killing your body like that. You know, you look at people like Dave Mustaine and Nikki Sixx, and what they’ve done to their bodies, and it’s just like, “Wow, you must hate yourself or something, [laughs], because you’re kicking the crap out of yourself.” [laughs] And I just never understood that mentality. It’s just never occurred to me to do anything like that. I’m a very, very happy guy, I love life, and it’s great sober, that’s the thing. So it was just kind of my take, what I try and do a lot of times is put myself in someone else’s shoes. So it was just kind of from that standpoint, lyrically, how you know, no matter how much you put in, whether it be drugs or alcohol, you’re still going to end up empty, if not more, feeling more empty. So it was that kind of thing. Musically, I think it was a little bit more [end part one]
