METAL KNIGHTS
(RAZOR - Lead Vocals)
(Los Angeles)
www.metalknights.com
myspace.com/metalknightsmusic
Interview by Angel Devil (Italy)
MUEN: Hi Razor, welcome to MUEN Magazine. I'm very pleased to talk with you.
Well thank you, it is great to talk to you too!
MUEN: Congratulations on your last record called "The Crossing". Do you think there's a track on the CD that best represents Metal Knights?
I would have to say DEATH DEFIER, it has all of our influences in there, There is a driving Judas Priest sound, the dueling guitars the vocals are reminesent of Alice Cooper or Dave Mustaine and yet come across with this hard driving PRIEST feel, so all of our forefathers are in there I think, and the ending of the song was basically from the JUDAS PRIEST song playbook! {Laughs}
MUEN: Are you satisfied with the reaction to the album from your fans? How about the media?
The Fans have taken to it rather well! Actually surprising to some of us since it was just released. The media has been 100% behind the EP, with all the songs in heavy rotation around the world on both internet and terrestrial FM radio, so we cannot complain at all! There have been a few record companies who have come knocking, but for now we are concentrating on working with Craig on new material and his great record company contacts through DESTINY BRIDGE.
MUEN: Who produced and mixed the album, designed it, and so on?
Well, Craig Goldy of DIO produced the EP and did the mixing, he really is a master at the craft, after all he works side by side with the Godfather of Metal, Ronnie James Dio. The artwork I design, after spending 16 years in the Visual FX field I have a pretty good idea of what I want the bands theme to look like and I work INSANE hours fine tuning to get it just right. I realized that once we had come up with the idea to �RECLAIM THE HOLY GRAIL OF HEAVY METAL� and it worked so good with the KNIGHTS theme, that we needed a mascot. I mean, Iron Maiden has EDDIE, hell I�ve had an EDDIE tattoo since I was 19, that is the power of great marketing! DIO has MURRY and I just felt with the whole Medieval theme that we had going on that we too needed someone to represent the METAL KNIGHTS, so I came up with SIR GODFREY. And picking his name was very important to me, I wanted to make sure that it had a REAL MEDIEVAL reference to it, so after searching every data base and pouring through my own Medieval lit books, I came up the GODFREY for it�s meaning, which was �GOD LIKE IN WAR or BATTLE� which seemed to fit perfect for a killer figure that was going to represent the METAL KNIGHTS in such a way. I am very lucky that with my Visual FX company, I have some really talented employee�s and everyone is a total Metal Head as well as great artists, so they pretty much have fun working for me! SIR GODFREY was a collaborative effort between myself and one of my employees Jeff Clifton, and in the end, I think we came up with this figure that totally represents what METAL KNIGHTS is all about.SIR GODFREY is even getting asked to do Radio promos now! Imagine if you heard a radio promo with EDDIE talking about IRON MAIDEN! You would come un glued as a fan! I know I would!
MUEN: Tell us about your first contact with Craig Goldy?
Well, we had played a sold out show back in July of last year, and I invited Craig and Simon Wright from DIO, Tony Montana from Great White and Terry Ilious from XYZ to come jam with us at he end of the night.. They all showed up for this benefit concert that we were doing for Legendary Rock radio DJ, Tawn Mastrey. Craig came on stage and jammed with us and some of the all stars and then the next day he called me and asked me if we were ready to take it to the next level, because he saw something in us and wanted to help develop it.
MUEN: Labels and descriptions are, perhaps, a necessary evil for music journalism. As music artists, how would you describe Metal Knights� music?
That is a great question! I would have to say that we started this band with one purpose and that was to pay homage to our forefathers that came before us, like Priest, Maiden, Dio, Motorhead, Saxon. Over here in America, that was lacking for a LONG time! So we set out to try and create a resurgence in the BRITISH STYLE HEAVY METAL that we all loved! METAL KNIGHTS is a mix of the best the NWOBHM had to offer while understanding that we cannot just rehash old stuff and sound like our favorite bands, so we strive to add a new spin yet keep the ROOTS that we all grew up on.
MUEN: Future plans?
Well, I personally just bought a new recording studio, filled with all the gear we need to produce great material. We are merging my Video editing and Visual FX company under the new studio location, it is a perfect fit for everything. At the end of July we will be going back into the studio to record the new songs that we have written and Craig will again be mixing and Producing and we have a new High Def video that is in the works that we hope to shoot at the end of July or the first week of August for DEATH DEFIER
MUEN: Could you tell me a bit about the personalities of each band member?
Dave Krause-Drummer, One of the hardest beat steady drummers I have ever played with! Billy King and Paul Calder are our Lead Guitarists- Lets just say that they were MEANT to play together, Danik Thomas is a great 4 and 5 string bass player who gets things right off the bat, Adam Emmons is a child prodigy who has been playing keyboards since 18 months and won all sorts of scholarships to get him his music degree. And then there is me, and I am a total ham onstage, but that is because I have been in the entertainment field in one form or another my whole life, and getting on stage with this music I love so much is like a kid going to Disneyland for the first time!
MUEN: What does heavy metal lack to be on the top ten? Maybe a bigger worldwide distribution? Or will that genre remain as a kind of �music for a lot of people but not for all?�
Another great question! I spend a lot of time studying and analyzing the music business today vs. what it used to be. Heavy Metal, you just have to face it, has had this stigma attached to it since it�s inception some 30 years ago. And the ORIGINAL sound has spawned a whole sub genre after sub genre of METAL. In the 80�s it was peaking, with not only the great bands out of England and other parts of Europe, but the whole L.A. Glam scene. I think we are on the cusp of a 20 year cycle now, and some of the greats are coming out with incredible CD�s now that are just mind numbing good! Then there are the new bands that are also coming out with just this classic sound that fits perfect in today's world, SYMPHONY X is a great example. Their new CD PARADISE LOST just floored me when I heard it the first time! Those guys get it for sure! Dream Evil is another band that one of our fans in Germany turned me onto and when I heard them, I told myself, �OK, hold one because it is starting to happen again, and the ride is going to get interesting!� The new Judas Priest opus NOSTRADAMUS is probably, if not for sure, the biggest thing they have ever done, and it is getting radio play everywhere! The reunion of Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio under the name HEAVEN & HELL, phenomenal stuff. Even though METAL has gone through tough times, it is the one form of Rock that they just cannot kill off. I mean it speaks to so many people. Pure Heavy Metal in its true form is an infusion of Classical music with the hard, thundering riffing that when the melody comes out, it just speaks to so many people. I always like to say that if Beethoven and Mozart were alive today they would be at a concert like the METAL MASTERS TOUR banging their heads! How could they not get it? After all they were the rock stars of their time, always trying to get this big sound, and they did it without amplification. Imagine if they lived today!
MUEN: Can you tell me about your other projects like radio, TV, movies and all your recording projects?
Sure! When I left performing musically in 1985, I went into the next best thing, and that was Rock Radio because it kept me close to the music I loved so much and gave me a chance to stay in the business that I loved so much. When the grunge movement came in around 93-94, I found myself not playing the music that I loved anymore, so I moved on and decided to go into editing video. I figured that I could edit music videos, still again, staying close to the music that I loved. That led to me learning all about 3D animation and modeling and compositing. Before I knew it I was working for some of the biggest studios that specialized in Visual FX, like Foundation Imaging (Famous for Star Trek Voyager, Babylon 5 and Roughnecks: Starship Trooper Chronicles where I was a Technical Director). I have the great fortune of being partners with Rudy Sarzo of DIO in an animation production company that we formed. Rudy is also not just the worlds best bass player, he is also a great 3D guru who loves the same things I do, Music and the Visual aspects of it, so when he came to me with an idea for a new animated sitcom we started developing it, and it is now in the hands of one of the biggest studios in all of Hollywood. Hopefully soon it will get a green light and the world will see the other side of Rudy, the shear creative genius that also lies within that great soul of a person. Talk about a creative person? Rudy is the epitome of it, on all fronts, Musically, Author, 3D artist and probably the nicest guy you would ever want to meet. I mean when you see him onstage he is a total beast of a performer, but off stage, he is just a normal, down to earth great soul. I did just do a merger and acquisition of the Recording Studio that METAL KNIGHTS has been recording at for the past year. The owner and I became friends and he took on another job and just could not be there anymore, so he offered the place to me first at a really good price, and it gave me the chance to merge Ocean Visual FX into this new location that is a full blown state of the art recording studio. Now I am a business man, but it also made so much sense for METAL KNIGHTS to have their own home base with which to rehearse and record! It was a win/win on all fronts. The new studio is called STUDIO-949 and located in Irvine California. This is the same studio that Pamela Moore and I did our duet, �WILL YOU BE THERE� at and of course where Craig has been producing METAL KNIGHTS, and now it gives him too a home base studio to help even closer those bands that come through DESTINY BRIDGE.
MUEN: Art or music is synonym of freedom; in your opinion nowadays is this still true?
More today that ever! There was a time when if you wanted to really take music and visualize it you did the regular music video that everyone basically did, you saw the band play and it had some story to it that, most of the time it left you with this feeling of, �What the hell was that all about?� Now, music and the visual medium are joining together in a way that has never happened before, with the proliferation of 3D, High end 3D like Star Wars or Star Trek visuals into mainstream music videos is becoming widespread. For a good example of something that just went way out for a music video, check out 10,000 Strong from ICED EARTH with Ripper Owens singing, they did what is called a CELL SHADING trick to that footage and it turned out great! When you watch that video, the lyrics, the sound, and the visuals all come together. The bands and the record labels and the directors are becoming more adept at real storytelling! Finally you can watch a video and say, �Oh, I totally get it!� Check out SYMPOHNY X�s video for �Set the world on Fire�, great example. When I watch that video, and I remember the first time I saw it, I was like, �Finally someone knows what they are doing and spending their money wisely on music videos!�
MUEN: Ok Razor� it was nice to talk with you. Wanna leave a message to all the fans?
Oh my God yes! Thank you for the chance! METAL KNIGHTS has started to gain ground around the world quite fast, and I know as well as the band members, it is due to the real one on one contact with Craig Goldy. But the fans from all over the world who write everyday and who beg us to come to Italy or Spain or Germany or the UK, it is very humbling and we thank you, each of you with all our hearts. We do what we do because we ourselves are huge fans of METAL, and if it was not for you the fans, none of this would mean anything. I think those fans that get the whole package of us as CRUSADERS out on a Holy mission for Heavy Metal is great! That is what we set out to do, and from the response the fans get it! We are in talks with different labels now, and when the right deal comes along, hopefully soon, we can have the kind of support where we can come and play live for you all, which I know the fans want! Just remember, without YOU, the fans, there is no METAL KNIGHTS and well, there is no Heavy Metal period. We always try to take a hands on approach to dealing with the fans, instead of having our management or our PR firm do it! I know when I was growing up and I was a fan of say KISS, well there was no WAY IN HELL I could just send Paul Stanley and email and chat with him, but in today's world, we embrace this interaction, we feel it is a vital part of what makes this all work. I try to answer every email, every myspace message, it is just something that I as a fan of music know that I would want. And the way the net works now it is much easier to meet the fans, even if it is just through a few emails, I mean it isn�t like I have to get on a plane and fly across the Atlantic to tell a fan in Italy, �Thanks for your support!� That takes all of a few seconds now, and to us as a band unit, it is important that we keep as close a relationship with the fans as possible. To prove that, anyone that is into METAL KNIGHTS just needs to visit the new website WWW.THEMETALKNIGHTS.COM and shoot us an arrow for contact and you will get a response, and not some automated thing either, but one from which ever one of the METAL KNIGHTS that you want to talk AND, most important, YOU ALL ROCK! |
