On Saturday the 11th of February at the Beachland Tavern in Collinwood, The Suede Brothers, Red Giant, Venomin James, Lotus Pedal and The Del Rio Bandits rocked the stage in support of college radio! Those who braved the cold and snow to make it to the show certainly got more than their money’s worth – with all proceeds from the show going to support 88.7 WJCU – a non-profit, non-commercial radio station that has served the Heights community for over 40 years.

The Del Rio Bandits keepin’ it classy.. (Photo: Gene Natale, Jr. / 88.7 WJCU)

Check out THE DEL RIO BANDITS gallery Here!

Saturday marked the official start of WJCU Radiothon 2012, and was the first of two metal benefit concerts. The show had the theme of surf/stoner/sludge-type rock, all elements of WJCU’s ‘Vindictive Alarm Clock’ show hosted by John “The Rocket” Roddy. The Rocket worked the door as he usually does for the WJCU metal benefit concerts, and he helped oversee all the donations to the station. All told, between door receipts and merch sales, a total of $765 was raised to support home-cooked, non-commercial community radio – a true testament to the great bands who donated their time to play that evening, and the great metal fans who made the trip out despite adverse weather conditions. As always, the show itself was masterminded by the host of WJCU’s METAL ON METAL program and Auburn Records president Bill Peters. Though Peters could not attend the show until late in the evening, his Auburn stage crew was on hand to ensure a well-run show as they always do.

When it comes to rock, Lotus Pedal is all business. (Photo: Gene Natale, Jr. / 88.7 WJCU)

Check out the LOTUS PEDAL gallery Here!

Kicking off the evening’s musical performances was The Del Rio Bandits, and their unique style of surf rock served as a great start to the evening’s festivities. Though not as heavy as the rest of the groups on the bill, they more than held their own, thrilling those in attendance at the start of the night. After their conclusion, Lotus Pedal took over, stepping things up a notch with a stoner-riffic set heavy on the riffs, pounding percussion and wah pedal guitar lead runs.

Tomasz of Venomin James layin’ down the riffs..(Photo: Gene Natale, Jr. / 88.7 WJCU)

Check out the VENOMIN JAMES gallery Here!

The evening really began to pick up in earnest as the next three bands took their turn rocking the stage. Venomin James was next – and once guitarists Joe Fortunado and Tomasz Scull had their amps cranked, the feedback humming from their respective speakers was a sure sign that the night was really about to get going. Venomin James is one of many bands that has been particularly supportive of WJCU over the years, as the show marked their fourth appearance at a WJCU benefit.

The band was amped up and eager to show off some brand-new tracks from the group’s forthcoming second full-length album, which is slated to be released later this year. As always, they put on a great show – doom riffs matched with well-formulated melodic vocals from Meador always proves to be a winning formula. Eric Matthews manned the drum-kit admirably in place of the late Jared Koston. Admirable, but it truly would be hard for any drummer to match the sheer force, aggression and passion that Koston displayed during his band’s performance at the 2010 WJCU Metal Benefit in Koston’s last-ever live performance. As a unit, however, the band along with Matthews are a tribute to their fallen brother-in-arms, and those in participation had to have been in agreement!

Red Giant at the Beachland Ballroom (Photo: Gene Natale, Jr. / 88.7 WJCU)

Check out the RED GIANT gallery Here!

Next up was Red Giant, another Cleveland metal band producing some great home-cooked metal for the masses. Their setup was made just a bit easier by virtue of the fact that they didn’t need to switch out the drums – skinsman Eric Matthews was all warmed up and ready to go after playing with Venomin, of course! The extra setup time certainly didn’t hurt when one got a glimpse of lead vocalist/guitarist Damian Perry’s rig, which consists of a two different amp heads hooked up to a trio of speaker cabinets – all blaring out a great low end heaviness. Red Giant played some new tracks mixed in with older favorites like “1960 Starchief” that were well-appreciated by the thrashers in the audience.

Suede Brothers rock in progress. (Photo: Gene Natale, Jr. / 88.7 WJCU)

 Check out THE SUEDE BROTHERS gallery Here!

Closing out the night was The Suede Brothers, and if anyone thought that the bands that preceded them were loud, this group took things up a notch! In fact, guitarist / vocalist Dylan Francis is known to turn his amp so loud that it has to be turned backwards away from the crowd lest their faces be melted by the sheer magnitude of the rockage. (Of course, the amp is fully mic’ed up so everyone can hear it!) Of course, that little courtesy didn’t stop some of the people in attendance from finding the perfect spot to listen to their set – right in front of his amp! Jeff Niesel of the Cleveland Scene wrote a year ago that The Suede Brothers put on one of the area’s best live shows, and that fact was certainly true this evening.

Check out below for playlists, and don’t forget to support WJCU at the second Metal Benefit concert for WJCU Radiothon 2012 – The west side edition! That show is at the Foundry in Lakewood, OH on Friday, 2.17.12 featuring Shok Paris, The Approach and the Execution, Deadiron, JJ Grim, and The School of Rock’s Metal Command. Five bands, five dollars – now that’s a deal, and it’s all for charity, so it’s all good.

(L-R) WJCU Supporter Pauly Mickovic, Gene of THE ROCK on 88.7, and John from THE VINDICTIVE ALARM CLOCK on 88.7. We thank all of you for your support during Radiothon 2012!

Suede Brothers Setlist:
1. Call it Done
2. Unnamed new song
3. I’ll New You
4. Desert Song
5. Gin and Handguns
6. Other unnamed new song
7. Omega Man
8. Forest City
9. Coos Bay Boogie

Venomin James Setlist:
1. Make No Mistake
2. Unholy Mountain
3. Feed the Flames
4. Dire Days
5. Desert Rider
6. Infidel

Red Giant Setlist:
1. Time
2. 1960 Starchief
3. August / Snow
4. Drip
5. Pungent
6. Walk

Lotus Pedal Setlist:
1. Evil Plague
2. Show No Mercy
3. Crash the Party
4. Social Butterfly
5. Flying Dutchman
6. Ain’t Dead Yet
7. In This State
8. Karma Soldier
9. Rock Generation

The Del Rio Bandits Setlist:
1. Suck-A-Rama
2. Out of Limits
3. Penetration
4. Chick Habit
5. While We’re Young
6. The Embalmer
7. Strychnine
8. Miserlou
9. Mr. Moto
10. Commanche
11. Street Action

URL: http://therockgene.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/concert-review-setlists-wjcu-metal-benefit-concert-1-at-the-beachland-tavern-suede-brothers-venomin-james-red-giant/

JOE: Well, right now we are nearly finished with recording. After Jared passed in June 2010, we didn’t listen to his takes for quite awhile……it was just too difficult to deal with, and it didn’t feel right to get started on anything so soon after he died. After “Crowe Valley Blues” was released in September 2010, we started listening to all the demos and drum recordings, trying to figure out if anything was usable for a proposed new record. What we discovered was that the drum tracks sounded awesome, but we had a few incomplete takes and a few other small problem areas that would require editing before we could track the rest of the band. So, we selected the best takes to work from and started tracking everyone else.
I should mention here that we specifically decided to only use drum tracks that Jared recorded, as a sort of farewell to him. We didn’t want to have Eric (Matthews, our live drummer, previously in THE SPUDMONSTERS & PRO-PAIN, and currently drumming for RED GIANT as well) come in and retrack everything, especially after Jared working so hard while we were writing the songs. Obviously, that made things difficult in many ways, but you can hear the urgency of his playing in these tracks, almost like he knew the end was coming before we did. He made sure to let us know his thoughts about the way he liked his drums to sound, which we worked on during the mix of the “Death’s Wings EP” from “Crowe Valley Blues”. By that time, he was no longer able to play drums. That was in the spring of 2010, a few weeks before he died. So, “Unholy Mountain” is dedicated solely to our brother Jared, and is part of his last set of recorded music. There are a few other things left, some just fragments, that we might do something with, but feel like they don’t belong on this album.
So, here we are in January 2012, and we have been recording the final pieces on 8 new songs. We have been doing some rough mixing as we go along, so once the final pieces are recorded, mixing will only take a few additional weeks. As you may or may not know, we have Gary Kane, vocalist from FORGED IN FLAME guesting on 2 tracks, and Human Furnace (James Bulloch), vocalist from RINGWORM/ GLUTTONS adding vocals to another.
JIM: As Joe said, it was a very tough time for all of us. I feel extremely fortunate that we were able to use those drum tracks, I personally feel his essence when I listen to the songs. A part of him will live on through this record.

I don’t know much about the music making process but I can hear the progress you’ve achieved since your first release….How is the production of “Unholy Mountain” different than the first two albums?
JOE: First and foremost, we learned a lot recording the first two albums. We learned what works for us and what doesn’t. We made a bunch of mistakes on those first two albums. We’ve also added some new gear to the studio, which makes it easier to simply stay out of the way, and capture the sounds we are getting in our live show. Tomasz and I also went to an intensive audio recording school in 2009, where we learned a few new techniques that have shaped the sounds we’re getting now. When we recorded “Left Hand Man” in 2006/2007, we were both new to recording & mixing with Pro Tools, so we also had a learning curve to face – whereas we can now pretty much do whatever we can think of.

Have you made up your mind about the format of the album? Are you still planning it to be a vinyl only? Honestly, I don’t like this tendency, I’m still in the CDs era….
JOE: This is an active discussion right now within the band. I think we will end up issuing the album in three formats: CD, Digital, and Vinyl – with the CDs being replicated in smaller numbers this time around. CD sales are down for almost everyone, so imagine how hard it is to sell when you’re an unknown band. At first we were only going to do Vinyl with a download code for this album, but realized that CDs actually do sell enough to justify making a small run – especially outside of the U.S.A. It also depends on what Auburn wants to do, but the discussion is alive.

What happened with the “Left Hand Man” vinyl re-issue?
JOE: It’s still happening. We got sidetracked with preparations for the Wacken trip, and then jumped straight into recording the new album when we got back from Germany. We have several tracks remixed for the “Left Hand Man” vinyl already, and I see the remaining tracks being finished up soon. Maybe the tracks didn’t need to be remixed, but we wanted this vinyl release to be the definitive version of the album. I see it also becoming available digitally for a low price. That will come out on Ripple Music, who also have POOBAH, STONE AXE, MOS GENERATOR, and more awesome bands on their roster.

You self-released your first album and released the second through Auburn Records. What are the advantages and disadvantages of working with a label? Is Auburn Records standing behind you for the new record too?
JOE: With Auburn Records, we have as much freedom as we want, to do whatever we want. Bill Peters (President & Owner of Auburn Records) is behind us at every step, and has said that he wants this record to help us get to the next level, whatever that might be. We usually consult with him about things the band wants to do, though. Without going into too much detail about that, we have complete trust in him, and however the album sees release is going to be with his blessing. The immediate advantages we’ve seen are that he handles some of the financial aspects of releasing the albums, and he represents us in seeking out new opportunities – such as being invited to Wacken Open Air 2011, and in promoting the band to radio and print. At this stage, the only disadvantage we’ve seen is that Auburn is smaller than someone like Warner or Universal, which limits the channels the band can use to promote itself.
Seeing how the major labels are in serious jeopardy in recent years, and seeing how their focus seems to be on fast sales and singles vs. developing artist careers, I can’t see a huge advantage to being involved with one of them except for the money and influence they can throw around. The cost to the band of being involved with the majors in terms of freedom and creative control are sometimes not worth pursuing for a band like VENOMIN

JAMES. That being said, if someone wrote us a huge non-recoupable check to make records the way we do now, and put us on tour with bands we love, we’d take it!
JIM: Based on what I have been seeing going on with the record industry, I no longer see any huge advantage to dealing with a large label either. I think the best situation for a band like us would be a larger well established indie label.

As you mentioned before, Gary Kane from FORGED IN FLAME is a guest vocalist on two tracks (the results of combining his and Jim’s vocals on “Black Horizon” are excellent to say the least) and Human Furnace on another one. You decided to do it because the songs required this or because you wanted to try something different with them?
JOE: We are very proud to be from Cleveland, Ohio – and we wanted to have a sense of community with other bands from around here. We wanted to promote the fact that there are some amazing bands in the local scene, and that we support them and want to collaborate. Hip hop artists do it all the time – why not a band like ours? Guest artists expose our listeners to new bands. We could only hope that other bands feel the brotherhood and might do the same some day.
The original idea to have guest vocals was Jim’s. I think he felt that having some other vocal textures on the album would strengthen the songs, and I agree that they do. Getting Human Furnace to guest on “I Am Infidel” will really add a gritty dimension to that song. There is actually one other possible guest, but we haven’t worked out the arrangements yet.

JIM: The idea of collaborating a bit originally stemmed from writing “Black Horizon”. When I was listening to it, I just knew that another vocal style would add another dimension to an already great song. Gary Kane immediately came to mind. We are all buds with Gary and the FORGED IN FLAME guys, and needless to say, Gary has a very strong voice that is quite different than mine. It turned out great and I think the final mix will sound amazing. After seeing how well it contributed to that song the guys threw around some ideas and got in touch with James Bulloch of RINGWORM. Dude has a very vicious and heavy vocal style; it will lend VERY WELL to the song “Infidel”.

You are doing almost everything if not everything by yourselves – recording, artwork, videos. It is I suppose a good thing from a financial point of view but have you ever thought assigning some of the activities to other people in order to speed up the process of making a new record?
JOE: That’s a tough one. For getting things done faster, it would be smart to use other people, but again – at what cost to creative control? If we are held in check by budget, such as spending less time in the studio because we can only afford to book so much time, I don’t think the songs will be developed the way we want them to be. We record and listen, then adjust, sometimes reworking songs or trying new things over several rounds of mixing. Since we have the gear and the know-how, it seems only right that we go the DIY route, because we have absolute control over the results and in our timeframe. If the songs fail, we have only ourselves to blame. There is no loss of our ideas in the translation to another person who may not take our music as seriously as we do.

You say DIY and that leads me to the next question. I’ve said before how much I respect your DIY attitude, why wasn’t this attitude attractive for good labels before Auburn Records decided to take you on board?
JOE: My understanding is that the major labels like to assume large amounts of creative control, because they may have significant amounts of money tied up in promoting and developing a band. The label might pick the producer, the studio, the artwork, and sometimes pressures the band to write a certain type of song. VENOMIN JAMES is not really a commercial sounding band, and some labels may not see the sales potential in signing a band like us – which to me could lead to them changing the sound of the band to something more commercial. This we simply can’t do.
Auburn puts zero pressure on the band, other than to do what we already do. If we were good enough to work with to begin with – why change things unless it’s an organic change?

Do you have plans for touring? Would you like to come to Europe again any time soon? Maybe you could join forces with another band….
JIM: I would love to tour overseas and I think it would be a huge boost for our band. Our Wacken trip to Germany was a big eye opener. The crowds are definitely more involved there and Metal still reigns supreme. This is a situation that may require the support of some bigger label however, to do anything fairly substantial anyway. If we had some nice guarantees thrown our way through the tour, we may be able to pull it off as we sit at the moment. Who knows what lies in the future?

JOE: We are working on setting up mini-tours of the United States as we speak. We hope to announce some dates towards the middle of 2012.
When we think of Europe, we feel that the key to our longevity lies in touring there as much as possible. If we were able to tour in Europe, and even in Asia/Japan, I think we would be able to jump to a higher level. I don’t know if I have to explain the differences between U.S. audiences, and audiences around the world – it’s a known fact that U.S. audiences are somewhat jaded and uninvolved, and Europeans (and others around the world) seem more active and excited to see live music. I’m not saying I know all the reasons for this, but I’ve seen it myself at Wacken, and heard it from enough other bands that I now take it as fact. The first opportunity to tour overseas that comes along, we’ll jump on it.

Tell me something more about your appearance on Wacken Open Air earlier this year. Who made that possible and did you receive a good feedback from the audience for your performance? 

JOE: Bill Peters is directly responsible for the invitation. He has amazing working relationships with several large european promoters, and specifically in Germany with Wacken and Headbangers Open Air festivals. When Wacken asked if he had any bands that he wanted to bring over, Bill suggested VENOMIN JAMES. They listened to the music and evidently liked it enough to invite us to perform.
One strange thing that happened for us – and I say strange because we’re so unknown – is that the festival asked us to have a Meet & Greet on the day of our performance. So, we showed up and signed things for people and took pictures with them. It went surprisingly well. At first we were afraid that no one would show up, but our German friend Ingo got things moving by finding a scantily clad woman to pose for pictures with us in the tent. It seemed to break the ice with the onlookers in the crowd, because we had a steady stream of people coming over for the duration of the event after that. They wanted to see what was going on.
The performance and festival itself was surreal to me, because we were treated like a world class rock band. We had nice equipment to play through, and the stagehands and every one we worked with at the festival were extremely cool and helpful. I could imagine for that short time what it must be like for famous bands to tour, and have so many awesome people helping them out. The whole experience was amazing, and a once in a lifetime thing. Except, of course, when the airline lost my luggage and destroyed my real guitar on the flight home.
The feedback from the crowd was mixed. Some of them were clearly there to see GHOST (who played directly after us on the same stage) and had little or no interest in seeing us. I think some others were pleasantly surprised by us, and maybe we gained some new fans. A lot of that had to with the fact that the only other band remotely like us at the festival was KYUSS LIVES! We were a pleasant deviation from the sameness of some of the other bands. I walked through the crowd and handed out CDs and TShirts right after our performance, and saw a lot of smiling faces that had a good time and liked us. You can’t please everyone, but I think we did well, all things considered.

JIM: Wacken blew my mind. The crowds were enormous and full of mayhem but to my surprise I didn’t personally observe ANY problems, fights, brawls or major production problems. The efficiency of how well the grounds were designed and managed was extremely impressive, especially for a rowdy crowd that size. In general though, it seemed that there was definitely a sense of community among everyone, you could really feel it.

Funny thing about Cleveland, and maybe even Ohio, is that the bands that deserve to gain recognition and become famous (or somewhat famous), are not the bands that are getting attention. Don’t get me wrong here, either – I’m not just talking about VENOMIN JAMES being overlooked. The bands from Cleveland that are currently in the mainstream, for the most part, have no business being there. Without naming names, how can you have any pride in your band when you have backing tracks for vocals & guitars, and you’re playing small theaters and clubs? And you’re in a metal band? Some of these bigger bands have members that hate each other, and there is high member turnaround. How the fuck can you make decent songs when you can’t stand each other and there is zero chemistry? The answer is: you can’t – and they don’t. I’m not afraid to say that those bands are fooling their listeners and don’t deserve to have them. Given some of the same chances these bands have been given, VENOMIN JAMES would be huge, and I’m not guilty of sour grapes when I say that. We would deserve the respect because the music is good and not some formula or fucking gimmick.

http://www.venominjames.com/
https://www.facebook.com/venominjames
http://soundcloud.com/venominjames

*** interview conducted by VANIA***