Posts from the ‘Interviews’ Category
Temple of Perdition interview
The conquest of the unholy mountain: An interview with VENOMIN JAMES
Jeff Niesel, former CLE Scene editor, interviews Joe
Awhile back in October 2010, Jeff Niesel, former music editor of Cleveland Scene Magazine interviewed Joe for a piece in the magazine to promote the release party for “Crowe Valley Blues”. What was actually printed was a small excerpt of a larger piece. Here is the full interview, which was conducted via email.
Jeff: Tell me about the band’s origins. When did you first form and how did you all meet?
Joe: Tomasz (guitar), Erin(bass), and I met in 2003 while playing in a band with Matt Shack of Pale Creation. The genesis of Venomin James happened when Tomasz brought in some demo songs he wrote that were more in the vein of Black Sabbath, Karma To Burn, or Kyuss than what we were playing with Matt.
During this time, we were auditioning drummers and vocalists, until we finally found Jim Meador, who became the vocalist and lyric writer. We recorded demos of the songs we had, and started handing CDRs out & posting them online, to recruit a permanent drummer. We started playing shows in 2006 with Brandon on the drums, until Jared Koston answered one of our ads and became drummer. With Jared, we worked up all the songs we had, recorded them ourselves at Supernatural Sound (our studio), and released “Left Hand Man” ourselves in Sept. 2007.
A Sunday Conversation with Venomin James
Our good buddies over at The Ripple Effect have posted an interview we finished awhile back. Give ‘er a read, and make sure to stop in and say “Hey!” to Racer and The Pope. Thanks, dudes.
Originally posted here: http://ripplemusic.blogspot.com/2009/03/sunday-conversation-with-venomin-james.html
Now, onto the interview.
Brutally heavy, doom-filled, devastating heavy metal. That’s what Venomin James brings to the table. Fueled by a rage that could only be created by the war machine, Venomin James’ new album, Left Hand Man, left an indelible mark on the ears of all at the Ripple Office. You can only imagine we were all too eager to share our red leather interview couch with the boys and hear what they have to say.
Stonerrock.ru interviews Venomin James
We were contaced awhile ago by our Russian friend Cyrill, who asked us to give a few insights into what we do. In the time before this was published on stonerrock.ru, a few of our answers have gone out of date, particularly being signed to Auburn Records and holding back the release of the album until late spring or early summer.
The Russian version is posted here: http://stonerrock-ru.livejournal.com/82097.html#cutid1. Below is the english version we sent off to Cyrill. Hope you dig it!
Hello! First of all please introduce yourself and tell something about your personality.
Joe: Hello all – I’m Joe Fortunato, guitarist for Venomin James. I would describe myself as quiet and easy-going, with a love for music and big riffs.
Jim: Dynamic, impatient, confident, fiscally retarded, tactician, intuitive, curious, loyal and combustible. Also see: 1976 – “Year of the Fire Dragon” in the Chinese horoscope.
Tomasz: Tomasz, guitarist and horticulturalist.
Erin: I was raised by wolves.
Slowburn Webzine Interview
Gotta love Slowburn. Again, these guys are based out of Santiago, Chile and show a love for all things doom and stoner. Here’s an interview they sent us, not yet posted on their site. The link is here: http://www.slowburn.cl/www.slowburn.cl/Venomin_James.html
VENOMIN JAMES INTERVIEW
1. Hi guys! Thanks for sending me your awesome production “Left Hand Man”, I have to say that it was a great surprise, how much time did you take to record this CD?
Joe: I would say that it took a total of about 6 months, because we recorded the tracks in several different sessions. We recorded and mixed “Abu Ghraib”, “Feed the Flames”, “Bullet Juice”, and “Undertow” first, and we handed CD-Rs containing those songs to people at our live shows. This was in the summer of 2006. We started recording the next 5 songs in September of 2006, and had them finished and mixed by January 2007. We recorded a song called “Death’s Wings” that was originally supposed to be included on “Left Hand Man”, but we all felt that it did not fit well with the rest of the tracks, so we held it back. The song interrupted the natural flow. We rewrote parts of the song and are recording it to be included on the new album. In April of 2007, we remixed all 8 of the final songs so that there was flow and consistency between all of the tracks, and sent them to be mastered by Alan Douches (Mastodon, High On Fire, Clutch, Converge) at West West Side Music in May of 2007. By August of 2007, we had the art finished and had the CDs manufactured. We officially released “Left Hand Man” on September 18, 2007. So in the end, it took almost a year from start to finish, but there were stretches of time where we rewrote parts of songs and were playing a lot of live shows, so it added time to the completion of the album. We recorded and mixed the album ourselves using Pro Tools and some very high-end pre-amps. I mixed a little at first, but Tomasz takes credit for making the songs sound complete and very powerful, sonically. We have a small studio set up at his house in Kultland.
Tomasz: Having “Class A” outboard gear certainly helps! Ha ha. Read more…
![Venomin James "Make No Mistake" [Official Music Video]](http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/snCgTSPAZKI/0.jpg)
