The MetalSucks Podcast

Dave Haley, drummer for Australian tech-death band Psycroptic, guests this week, Chuck and Godless grill him about the difficulties of being an Aussie band and touring the world, the benefits of retaining the rights to their music, their involvement with Tasmanian Devil extinction awareness and which member is the true hippie of the band. Chuck and Godless also discuss the divisions between metal fans and how those rifts reflect racial tendencies in the U.S. It can be difficult for any band to become "legitimate," but in the modern metal scene more and more bands get criticized based on their style rather than their ability to write and play songs. Is this the new normal? Why do some people just hate clean singing and only listen to death metal? Should Chuck start a new battle vest? We discuss, you decide. Songs:Psycroptic - "Cold"Veil of Maya - "Phoenix" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An action packed episode this week! Chuck and Godless take a bunch of your calls, talk about love and relationships for Valentine's Day, and debut the inaugural installment of "One Minute to Midnight," where unsigned bands get to have their music featured on the podcast and heard and critiqued by veteran producer, musician, teacher and resident badass Eyal Levi. Two bands get the full treatment this week; winners? losers? You be the judge! Doc Coyle takes us to school on Steel Panther in his ongoing "Rejecting the Sickness" segment, telling us why SP are totally legit and not as derogatory as you might think based on song titles, album titles, videos, pictures, telegraphs and smoke signals. Songs:Cognizance - "The Succession of Flesh"Byzantine - "A Curious Lot" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

70,000 Tons of Podcast! Chuck and Godless set sail for the Caribbean with 4,000 metalheads to experience 60+ bands and some amazing times: a bigger ship, 20 more bands and even more fans on board than ever before, all headed to Jamaica with one thing in common... metal! Corrosion of Conformity make their first appearance on the Podcast with their Blind-era lineup. They tell us all about how this group came back together of late, the big difference with the recent return to the three piece, Reed Mullin's experience with Dave Grohl and a new project called Teenage Time Killers that features some amazing guest stars. Later Chuck and Godless sit down with Max and Gloria Cavalera and talk about their storied history with the metal business: what it's like to have so much of their family involved, what it means to have that time together and how tragedy has shaped their destiny. Songs:Soulfly - "Eye For An Eye"Blind Guardian - "Ashes of Eternity" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Periphery guitarist Mark Holcomb guests this week on the eve of the release of their new album Juggernaut. We talk about the recording process, guitar nerds asking too many questions, and how producing the record themselves was a liberating experience. We take a listener call about Slayer entering into the Bonnaroo mix; what does that mean for the band and for metal in general? Does it signal metal's acceptance into the mainstream? Is the festival seeing the writing on the wall that metal fans will buy tickets? Will this expand Slayer’s fanbase, or is it just a nice, fat check? All this and a new Storytime With Stavros brings you Metallica in a continuation of his infamous New Orleans stories. Songs:Periphery – "Rainbow Gravity"Venom – "The Death or Rock and Roll" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jean Paul Gaster, drummer for the mighty Clutch, joins the podcast as the band heads into the studio to record their new album. He discusses how Clutch have been able to retain the same lineup for over two decades, keeping family and band separate, the band's experience with records labels (and launching their own) and the two things every band needs to know to be successful. Chuck and Godless also ponder why bands would make an entire record of cover songs, inspired by Prong's announcement of their own covers album. Do bands not have any new ideas? Is it to fulfill contractual obligations? Or something more simple like getting back the inspiration that may have been lost from years of touring and writing? Songs:Clutch - "The Face"Psycroptic - "The World Discarded" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Josh Middleton, guitarist and vocalist for British metal band Sylosis, guests this week on the podcast. Chuck and Godless chat with him about the local metal scene in England, their bad luck with touring and vehicle wrecks, and they grill him on why he hasn't asked his girlfriend to marry him yet. New album Dormant Heart comes out on the 13th of January, so we play a song from that as well. Chuck and Godless dissect a recent announcement that Nuclear Blast made with the label's 2015 release slate, and they use that a springboard to try to figure out where labels are going nowadays. Is it better for labels to stick with bands who are well-known and will sell lots of albums? Have the days of big labels taking chances on bands gone by the wayside? What does it take to make it on a label these days? They also get suckered in by an unsigned band's Tweet, and are pleasantly surprised by their music. Songs:Sylosis - "Mercy"Napalm Death - "Cesspits" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chuck and Godless enlist drummer Alex "Rudy" Rudinger (ex-The Faceless, ex-The Haarp Machine, Conquering Dystopia, Monuments) to ring in the New Year with the first MS Podcast of 2015. They chat about his work with Jeff Loomis and Alex Webster in Conquering Dystopia, his take on drum-programming software, and his reasons for leaving The Faceless. Rudy also announces another band he will be subbing for in February after getting off the road with Monuments back in December. Songs:Conquering Dystopia - "Ashes of Lesser Men"Call of the Void - "Cold Hands" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week Chuck and Godless bring in MS Senior Editor Anso DF to discuss 2014's biggest news stories. Some things you might remember, others you might not; who the newsmakers were and who they should have been; and remembering several of our fallen comrades. There might be a couple of predictions for the new year packed in there too. Doc Coyle stops in to "Reject The Sickness" and tell us why Christmas Metal is total bullshit and needs to stop before it even gets into your playlist. Songs:Babymetal - "Doki Doki ☆ Morning"Dio - "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They wrote them out for you, and now they spend this episode of The MetalSucks Podcast discussing the Best Metal Albums of 2014! Chuck and Godless received your Tweets and comments, and break down their picks versus yours as well as those of other MS staff members and critics. They also talk about what kind of year it's been for metal against what a stellar year it was in 2013, and they look at some of the releases they missed, plus jam a few extra tunes. Songs:Black Crown Initiate - "Great Mistake"Fallujah - "Carved From Stone"Wovenwar - "Matter of Time"The Hell - "Everybody Dies" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mike Muir, legendary vocalist for Suicidal Tendencies, is our guest this week. Instead of talking about their album and touring, we wind up hearing about his philosophy on life, how his passion for music pisses people off and how he relates to his kids differently than the way his father related to him; really, we just turned on the mics and let him roll. Godless and Chuck also talk about their experience at the recent Slayer show, whether or not people are too cool for Slayer now, and how most people are posers when it comes to liking obscure bands and hating the mainstream. Stop pretending you don't like anything that sold more that five records; you aren't fooling anyone! Songs:Suicidal Tendencies - "I Saw Your Mommy"Periphery - "The Scourge" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices