Metal has remained a formidable genre for decades that continues to evolve and change without much concern for the mainstream music scene. The loyal fan base of aggressive music has generally stayed intact for most bands that produce quality music of a technical calibre that is usually far higher than the general populace perceives as being in existence. Of late, Australia has seen numerous tours of talented metal bands that are taking the genre to new heights of expertise as well as pushing existing categorisations of sub genres into interesting territory. As a snapshot, Australian Guitar’s Paul Southwell compiled several interviews from various styles to try to pinpoint where the modern metal monster currently resides on the vast musical landscape.
Consulted on various topics we have the following; Corey Bealieu of Trivium, Kai Hansen of Gamma Ray and Helloween, Ralph Santolla from Deicide and Iced Earth, Mike Amott of Arch Enemy, ‘Metal’ Mike Chlasciak from Halford and Sebastian Bach, Sigurd ‘Satyr’ Wongraven of Satyricon and Jeff Loomis of Nevermore.
Influences or roots of metal:
Corey of Trivium:
Growing up, the first time I heard Iron Maiden guitar harmonies and solos, I had never heard anyone play like that before. I was a Maiden freak and learnt every song on the guitar and was just really into learning all of the guitar harmonies. I always loved the way they had the bass line going with the guitar harmonies and the gallops. I also liked King Diamond’s Andy La Roque’s solos. The thing I got from his playing that I use a lot was those whammy bar flutter tricks.
Kai Hansen of Gamma Ray:
Ritchie Blackmore, Michael Schenker and Uli Jon Roth; those guys I grew up with as well as Eddie Van Halen; anything that was good. Jimi Hendrix was kind of before my time. I discovered him later. But, he’s still great. For the twin guitar thing, it was there way before Priest. Bands that influenced Judas Priest were people like Wishbone Ash. They already dealt with the twin harmony stuff but it became popular with the new wave of British heavy metal bands.
Ralph Santolla of Deicide:
As far as guitarists, it’s Schenker, Randy Rhoads, Gary Moore, Uli Jon Roth, Jeff Beck and Allan Holdsworth. As far as bands, it’s UFO, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Ozzy and old Ozzy, Sabbath and especially Sabbath’s albums with Ronnie James Dio on vocals. I worship those albums [eg: ‘Heaven and Hell’]. I like Wolf Hoffman from Accept quite a bit as a guitarist also. Still, Uli Jon Roth is my other big guitar guy.
Mike Amott of Arch Enemy:
I grew up being self taught listening to people such as Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer. For my lead guitar playing I love Frank Marino, Ritchie Blackmore and Michael Schenker. Frank has got to be one of the fastest pentatonic shredders ever. My search was always looking for something more intense, something faster. I loved Yngwie Malmsteen when he hit because that was just so over the top. I like a lot of really melodic stuff such as Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest and Accept. The stuff that is kind of more traditional guitar or hard rock. I like to mix that with a really aggressive voice. Arch Enemy try to get dynamics by interspersing the metal with soft sweet sounding things and then come back and [smacks fist into palm]. It just sounds that much more effective when you kick it back in again. Old heavy metal had dynamics to it and that has got lost alone the way with all the craziness of being heavy. [I’m not into shredding], I’d rather see someone just f**king rip it up in a great band like the guys from Judas Priest; KK Downing and Glenn Tipton. They may not be the best guitar players in the world but they’re f**king amazing. The songs they’ve written and the solos they play are the soundtrack to my life.
Satyr of Satyricon:
That almost static distortion sound that I don’t really like is something that came out of the Norwegian scene. Probably more of a band to do it was Thorns who inspired Mayhem and Darkthrone. It isn’t that different from that whole wave of bands like the White Stripes that want to have this very harsh sound to convey and communicate their music in a more trustworthy way with that sound. Darkthrone, with their guitar sound, just wanted something that sounded cold. I don’t think money is a limitation as far as getting the records to sound the way you want them to, it’s more of your skills, experience and eye for details in the people that you surround yourself with, that’s going to be the decisive factor. [As for shred] I do not enjoy listening to music that sounds like it is designed to be a musical experience. I never thought that music was going to be about necessarily exploring all the possibilities of notes. I like an experience to provoke some sort of reaction or emotion. I always thought that one of the best guitar players in the world was James Hetfield [Metallica] for his rhythm guitar playing qualities.
My biggest source of inspiration has never been a band or an artist; it has been within myself as a music fan. My experiences and my love for music, the bands I listened to when I was growing up, what they did to me and how they changed my life. Wanting to do something like that myself and expressing myself musically, that was it. I grew up listening to both King Diamond and Mercyful Fate. But a band like Bathory was an incentive or the bravery of Celtic Frost. I learnt that Celtic Frost highly admires Satyricon for the exact same qualities as I always thought that they had. Their courage and determination to do whatever they wanted, truly not caring about what anyone says; that was something that inspired me.
Metal Mike of Bach/Halford:
Judas Priest is really important, of course, in shaping heavy metal. To me they sound like a European band and yes, they’ve found a lot of success in the States but I guess all of these guys in European bands [eg: Cans from Hammerfall], from me playing with Rob Halford, kind of inspires the actual European bands to play with me. I really worked on my speed runs. I took Paul Gilbert and Frank Gambale styles and I would add my own thing. I used what they called economy picking. Let’s say if you have a scale with three notes then you’ll go down up down then down on the next string and from there alternate. I could certainly do alternate picking but when I do a long scale then it is economy picking. So I alternate between those two techniques. From there I started on, ‘how do I make things sound like myself?’ and just kind of evolved.
Choice of Guitars:
Trivium:
Matt plays Dean Razorbacks and I play the Razorback flying V which is a new handmade one piece neck-through guitar. Matt likes his Les Pauls but I never was a fan of Les Pauls so I always hated playing them ‘cos they were so big and they were hard to play on ‘cos they are so thick. Mine always come with the Seymour Duncan Dimebucker in the bridge and then the SD’59 in the neck.
Hansen:
I’m down to flying Vs and the Randy Rhoads models. When I play live I mainly use an ESP which is my famous pink Randy Rhoads guitar and ESP flying Vs.
Henjo [Richter – guitars] is more of a Stratocaster type of guy so he’s using ESP stuff as well and is mainly playing M2s.
Santolla:
I’ve been playing ESP DV8s [Mustaine model] for a few years now and they’re sending me one of the new Alexei Laiho models [Children of Bodom].It’s a slightly different shape to the previous release, they’ve extended the bottom V wing a little bit
I grew up playing a Jackson Soloist and I played that same guitar for almost twenty years. But, it’s not roadworthy anymore. I do prefer Fender scale guitars compared to Gibson scale guitars with a shorter neck scale and I prefer rosewood fingerboards [due to porous wood qualities]. Some of my guitars have the Seymour Duncan distortion or the Seymour Duncan Chessback or both with one in the front or back. Then a couple of the ESPs I have are fitted with the new Seymour Duncan active pickups. Active pickups tend to make each note have a similar envelope; attack, volume and decay whereas with passive pick-ups it is easier to shape the sound of each note with the way you play.
Jeff Loomis of Nevermore:
I use Schecter guitars and have a signature model that is going to be released at the NAMM show [national association of musical merchants] in January 2007. It’s kind of like the ‘Hellraiser’ guitar but I made some modifications. It’s got a maple neck on it with Celtic inlays, black binding and a neck through the body [construction]. It’s a blood red or crimson colour where you can see the wood grain in the back. It has EMG707s [pick-ups] and a Floyd rose [locking system bridge] and is a brilliant guitar.
I used to use Jackson guitars. I switched over to seven stringed guitars in 2000 just to get a heavier tone, more or less. For acoustics, I use Ovations. I’ve got a Viper 12 which is the guitar that Yngwie Malmsteen uses which is like a classical guitar with a hard-body but is electrically wired. I’ve got an Ovation hollow-body twelve string and I also use Schecter twelve strings as well.
Amott:
ESP make some very great high end guitars and also make more affordable models as well. Mine [signature version] doesn’t have a Floyd Rose bridge but the pickups are Seymour Duncans. The flying V is comfortable to play seated for practising. The neck is right here [puts left hand at right angles] whereas usually people rest the side on their thigh and they can’t play it which is kind of funny. Gibson Vs are not as well made as my ESP guitars. (laughs) I have Gibson Vs and I like the classic image. I have one that is really good but it depends, I reckon you can make any guitar good if you know what you’re doing. You can hot-rod stuff and modify stuff.
Satyr:
My main guitar is an Ibanez guitar that was custom built for me. There’s a model called the SZ-720F from Ibanez and the custom guitar they made for me is based on that shape wise but it has elements of some the necks that they sometimes use on the S series. The tone that I wanted from it was going to be somewhere in between SG and Les Paul so it took a year or more to get it and I didn’t want the strings to go through the body like they normally do with the SG because of the down tuning [B flat]. It just mounted on the body. I like EMG 81s like most metal guitarists. But also both Seymour Duncan customs and distortion are good. I actually tried a combination of EMGs and Duncan distortions and that was pretty cool. I do also play a Les Paul and an SG. I just have factory pick-ups on those and I also have a couple of ESPs lying around. But, the only ESP that I really enjoy is the signature version of Kirk Hammett’s first model, the KH-2, the expensive version. It sounds incredibly tight.
Metal Mike:
I started playing Jackson flying Vs when most of the bands in America where afraid of using flying Vs. Nobody was playing them, man; everyone was using Schecter 7 string guitars. Not saying anything bad about that, just that it was a standard uniform look. You wore a Schecter tuned down to a low B or low A. The first guitar I had was a BC Rich copy, like the Dave Mustaine BC Rich Bich copy and that guitar got stolen later. Then I bought myself a BC Rich Warlock guitar. I played some Ibanez guitars that were the regular Strat shape but the V just felt right. To me, the V just feels like a weapon, it feels massive and important. It’s got Seymour Duncans, as in SH-4s which is also known as JB for Jeff Beck, in the bridge and I think a Duncan Distortion in the neck. I use two models; one with a Floyd Rose and one with a standard bridge.
Amplifiers and Effects:
Trivium:
I’ve been playing through a Marshall JMP-1 for a year and a half. Matt was using some JCM-2000s and I think he just switched to using a JMP-1 on this last tour. So we’re not using the same stuff all the time. We’re always looking to evolve our sound and tone with certain things so we always keep an open mind on trying new gear. I just use a noise gate and then Matt uses the Maxon Overdrive pedal for a little boost. I’m using the MXR Zakk Wylde overdrive for a little bit of extra gain.
Hansen:
I’ve played with JMP-1 [rack mounted pre-amp] with a Marshall power amp for years now which is pretty reliable. I still play my old Engl straight which is a great amp and had it worked over by a good technician and it sounds killer. As a backup I have a small Sans-amp which is a modeling amp. I’ve cut a little space underneath the tubes in the Engl case that was the reverb area and put the other amp in there for a spare (laughs). Two blocks of Marshall cabinets behind your back is the minimum. For effects I still really like the SPX 2 [Alesis] for delays. But I’m using a pedal chorus and a pedal delay. The chorus is before the amp and the delay is in the loop, so that’s it.
Santolla:
I play so loud that I don’t have any guitars in my monitors at all, I don’t need it. I use Krank amps sometimes and I‘ve been using some Madison’s and I was using a Marshall JCM800 with a Boss super overdrive pedal [for nostalgia]. In Deicide, the rhythm sound has got to be really heavy and Krank amps have a lot of distortion. For lead I like to have a singing lead tone so it’s a constant struggle back and forth trying to find a happy medium. I just bought a Boss T-wah so it’s kind of like an automatic wah thing and set it so that it doesn’t really have a big envelope. It stays at this one notch mid range mode which is kind of like Schenker and it makes the guitar scream, I really like it.
Loomis:
Krank amps – I’m using the Dimebag designed Krankenstein head and Dimebag cabinets [4×12]… I went to the factory and tried a couple of amps out. It was absolutely amazing. I used to use Marshalls a long time ago and I still like them – anything that has a really harsh, good tone and distortion sound. These amps are not necessarily affordable for the average guitar player. I fortunately got a really good deal with them. Many guitars that I have are not electric that are still sounding very good. I don’t use acoustic guitars live, I wish I could but unfortunately our production level is not up to par as far as being able to do that. So I replicate my acoustic sounds through my amps with the clean channel and a chorus effect. I’m endorsed by Digitech so I just slap on a chorus on there and it sounds fairly close to the record. I also have a Boss noise suppressor, a Boss tuner and sometimes use a wah. I keep it real simple. A lot of people think they need a lot of gear but I try to just use my fingers and my amplifiers.
Amott:
I was one of the first to sign [to Krank] and get an endorsement with them. It was me and Dimebag and a few more. I visited the factory and I liked the amp so they sent me away with one to bring on the road and I‘m still using it. Now I’ve got loads of them. Ha ha.
You’ve got to take them out of that environment [testing room] and also see if they can handle being on the road. A lot of these tube amps are also very sensitive. I used to play Peavey 5150s for a long time, twelve years straight, so it’s great to have a change. Still, I get a very high gain and very aggressive tone with these Krank amps. It’s got two channels, a clean and then two master volumes and the dirty channel can have two master volumes as well. They do have one good thing where on the level of the effects loops so that if you have digital delay or something you just hit that and it will boost your lead volume as well. I just have a few effects and some noise gates. So, only the delay is going through the effects loop on the head, the rest is going to the front of the amp. I use an MXR Phase 90 and a Dunlop Crybaby rack mounted wah. I’ve got two onstage. One on the centre stage and one to the side so I can do solos in the middle of the stage with a wah pedal. You can never have too many wah pedals but the only problem is the singers can tread on them all the time. All of sudden you’ve got that honky sound. I use it to accentuate bends and trills, stuff like that. I don’t go ‘whacka whacka’ with it, really. I use it kind of like Schenker does.
Satyr:
There’s always the Dual Rectifier. I have also used a Stiletto for the first time on this record. Never tried it before, just bought it when it came out. I like Boogie a lot. I think to me Marshall is an institution and Mesa Boogie make amplifiers, that’s what I’ve always felt like. The Stiletto, for me, is not my favourite amp but if I was going to do a Marshall like sound then that is what I would have wanted it to be. So, it’s funny when they got into Marshall territory they make something that, to my ears, sounds the way Marshalls are supposed to sound (laughs). But in any case, I also like Engl amplifiers [Germany]. Try that in combination with Boogie both live and in the studio when we did ‘Volcano’, I liked that. Even on the ‘Rebel Extravaganza’ album I had a combination of Dual Rectifiers and VHT Pitbull stacks. That record I also worked a lot with tube distortion pedals. But, still to this day, I haven’t found any distortion pedals [to which] I am faithful.
Metal Mike:
I used to like the Lee Jackson modified Ampegs that Paul Gilbert used for Mr Big. Then I just moved into Marshall stuff that I loved immediately. I’ve never heard another head that has sounded anything close to that. The amp just brings out how you play and I felt that Marshalls just completed that. Cabinets are 1960s style 30 watts. Sometimes I would use a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier cabinet and they’re all twelves. Touring I’ve learned enough to trust any Marshall and make it sound pretty decent.
Production of metal:
Trivum:
We just kind of put our brains together and worked everything out. In the studio we all kind of coached each other or gave each other ideas on what to do. We all know kind of what we’re going for so it’s not like we need another person around us all the time to tell us what to do with our own music. Colin Richardson just made us sound good by putting his mixing touch on it and kind of took all the tracks and made it like a cohesive sounding song. Right now, we have one guy that is co-producing and he helped with the other records. So we just stick to having an engineer ‘cos we can’t EQ and do all of that production stuff but we don’t need someone to say, ‘oh you should play this riff or this chord’, it’s like, ‘go tell Britney what to do instead of me’, ‘cos I’m more capable playing music (laughs).
Kai Hansen: Hansen studios in Hamburg
We have made everything on our own on the latest album [Majestic]. We had Tommy Newton on ‘Sigh No More’. We’ve had Charlie Bauerfeind working with us on ‘Land of the Free’. But to an extent we’ve done everything on our own. Now I think it’s time to work with somebody else again – it’s time to be only musicians in the production again and maybe more or less leave the rest up to somebody else. Otherwise sometimes you’re stuck as a producer and as a musician yourself you know there’s so many ways of doing things and sometimes you can’t really decide what is best. We had a good thing going with being our own producers. So when I play guitars Daniel [Zimmermann – drums] was sitting there telling me, ‘this is good, this is not good’, and stuff like that and it works. But on the other hand maybe it’s better for all of us to take somebody external and just let it go. I‘m always the first or the fastest to come up with new stuff or maybe I‘m the one that then sets the direction in a way.
Santolla:
I made up all of the leads on the latest [Stench of Redemption], either improvised or made up on the spot in the studio. I produce my own guitar solos and guitar parts on the album. The album was produced by Jim Morris [legendary death metal Florida studio producer] and he’s been recording me since I was eleven years old. So we don’t really even talk that way, it’s just that both of us have an understanding of when I do something of whether I’m going to want to do it again or not. I was produced by him and by Steven [Asheim – drummer] and Steve loves the way I play anyway so there wasn’t any, ‘do this, don‘t do that, try this’ stuff. The album has pretty much got my guitar vision on there. There’s mistakes on the album but I would rather have stuff that has fire than have stuff that’s technically perfect but doesn’t have any feeling.
Loomis:
When we did the last record [‘This Godless Endeavour’], we used Krank amps in the left channel that were completely distorted and Mesa Boogies in the right channel that were not quite as distorted so that you could get kind of a cleaner sound to make the sound cut through a little bit more. So, we had two channels with two different amps going.
Amott:
Andy Sneap has produced and mixed most of our records. He’s kind of like the Bob Rock of the underground metal scene. He’s a very good friend of mine as well and we’re like ten days apart age-wise. So, we have very similar musical references. It’s very useful and we have a very good working relationship. Frederik Nordstrom is a bit more chaotic but he gets there in the end. He’ll pop his head through the door and say, you know, ‘that was good, or that sucked’, whereas Andy is more hands-on all of the time. There’s just two different ways of working. Frederik and Andy are very similar in many ways. They have their own studios, they engineer, mix and produce; they’re sort of the whole package. I’m also very hands-on. I can’t keep away so I’m involved in everything through to the artwork; the lyrics, music, arrangement, production. I know what I want but I like to have another person’s perspective as well. When you go in to the studio you almost want to just go into the role of, ‘I’m just a guitar player’; I really need to perform great.
Satyr:
It’s something that I’ve done for a long time. The ‘Volcano’ record was a record that production wise was name dropped by many top name producers and engineers, like Rick Rubin. No one ever noticed that I produced my own records then. But the new record
[Now, Diabolical] is so much stripped down. I wanted the physicality and the sound of being in the room with the band. I pick good engineers and find that a lot of the production side of things is not necessarily coaching someone’s performance. It to me is a lot about choosing the right equipment. For me, I’m into this for sound, what people don’t realize is I’m probably better at dialing a good guitar sound and knowing more about the characteristics of most metal guitarists then most metal guitarists do themselves. But, not since I was a kid, have I been into the playing part of it. For me, it’s a tool where I create songs, albums and sounds.
On his contemporaries: Emperor are really good players and Ishain is someone that truly knows what he is doing. I’m probably being judgmental but I’m assuming that he thinks that something like AC/DC is too simple for him whereas I think that people like him should be humble enough to enjoy the power of sheer simplicity and all the fire that lies within that. That’s pretty much the path of where Satyricon is at today, we’ve done all this progressive stuff and we loved doing it for all it was worth but now we want to do something that is extremely dark, energetic and aggressive. Horns we enjoy as a very masculine element but there are no flutes coming up now. (laughs)
We wanted horns because this was somehow already in the music and just dying to come out. So we enhanced something that was already there through using brass.