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| To The Pain |
I've been pretty metal for about 30 years now. It seems hard to believe that one of the youngest genres of music is now so old.Metal is now old enough to have spawned children and maybe even grandchildren!
Well today we're looking at the grandchildren of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.
To The Pain's parents, Megadeath and Metallica, share joint custody.
It's possible that they let these young men watch too much TV growing up, hence their name...
But more seriously, it's interesting to see how metal has grown and changed since the days that Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast was the scariest thing you were going to see on Friday Night Videos...
To The Pain is just about to release their sophomore album, 7, and hopefully play a show in St. Louis and one of the guys, took the time to pontificate upon my inane queries.
Glacially Musical: Hey, thank you for taking some time for me and answering my ridiculous questions. First thing I want to know...To The Pain...you're referencing the Princess Bride here right?
To The Pain: Hey there! Thanks for taking the time to ask us outrageous questions.
This is Steve Shaver, Lead Guitars, and main motor mouth. LOL. Indeed our name is a reference to the Princess Bride.
Our original rhythm guitar player, Mark Trojanoski, suggested it. Surprisingly we Googled it, and didn't see 900 bands by that name. So we trademarked it, copywrote it, and put a letter in a bottle and its ours....all ours!
GM: You're one of the vanguards, an independent artist out there. How do you get the wherewithal and the financial backing, to make and tour an album?
TP: Well clearly we make millions off our album sales, and take that money, throw it into a Bernie Madoff fund, and that funds our tours!
Seriously though, we are all hard working fellows with decent jobs, and that is how we finance the band. We actually have a band fund that has money in it!
We take all the money from shows, merch, etc, and use that to keep the band going. Its been successful so far. Now if Megadeth would just take us on tour with them, we could sell more than 100 shirts!
GM: What made you decided...you know we're going to do this ourselves?
TP: Really I don't think we ever thought of getting a label involved.
I do all the recording at my studio, aka The Locker, and I did the engineering/producing/yelling and we just decided to put it out on our own.
Unable Records has helped with some distribution, but the album was funded by us, recorded by us, and is distributed by us for the most part. This way we get all the money! (All 35 cents from album sales these days)
GM: How much touring have you done and when does the 7 tour start?
TP: The 7 tour starts soon. We have only played one show, and what a grand show it was!
We are putting together dates for our 7 tour. If you have a place you want us to play, hit us up...if we can do it, we will!
GM: Speaking of 7, I have to be honest. I'm confused by this title. Why is your second album called seven and not...two?
TP: Well first off, let me say those fuckers in Lamb Of God called their new album VII: Durm and Strum, or Rattle and Hum or something...using VII or 7.
Already we got ripped off! (Just kidding Lamb guys, call us, lets tour!)
We were originally going to call the album Scarred and Burned, a lyric from our song Heavens Carnage...and we got a fantastic graphic artist named Bill Mangan (www.billmangancreative.com) to create the cover art...but about halfway through, we thought it was getting too complicated...and I think myself or Johnny our singer said, we have 7 songs on the album (the intro is a song dammit!
Its like 90 tracks of guitars!) so lets just call the album 7. So the single was Seven and the album is 7. Confused? Good! Me too!
GM: What kinds of things do you think about when you're writing an album?
TP: Well I know Johnny writes the generally angry lyrics.
He wrote the lyrics to Seven (not to be confused with 7, or VII), and they are just "I want to punch you in the face because I hate you and I hope I get to run you over with a farming combine with machine guns on it and a giant pick axe of death" type lyrics.
My lyrics are more of a story. I wrote Heavens Carnage about how religion is failing mankind.
KillZone was written to be an anthem for our troops.
Our bass player Jeremy Lustig is now in the army, and all those military folks just kick so much ass, so I wanted to write a song they could listen to while killing baddies.
Is It My Turn To Die came about when Robin Williams killed himself. I was so tired of all the coverage of him killing himself, I decided to write a song about it and get it out of my system.
Cry Out For Justice, Craig sent me the music one day, and I wrote the lyrics in one shot.
It was basically written when the US Govt (Fuck those guys with a nailgun) was shutting down because the Reps and Dems can't agree to do anything productive.
Finally, Don't Eat The Eyes has a funny story to it...but its long and drawn out, and you will have to wait for my book. Musically, I have three schools of thought when writing songs.
What would Iron Maiden Do? What would Megadeth do? And Does that solo sound Racer X enough?
GM: It seems to me that every musician has that ah-ha moment. Who made you think, I need to make music?
TP: Honestly, it all started with the song Burn With Me from our first album.
I sat down at my computer one day, and picked up my guitar, and that was what came out. I wouldn't say its one of our best songs, but it got the ball rolling. It made me want to write metal tunes again.
It had been a while. I was also inspired greatly by Megadeth's Endgame, and Bullet For My Valentines Fever albums. Our music doesn't necessarily sound like those guys...but those albums really pushed me back into metal and made me want to start writing.
GM: You tell me...what else do we all need to know about To The Pain?
TP: Well, To The Pain is more than me. Its Johnny Intagliata on vocals, Jimmy Klimatas on Drums, Craig Piano on Rhythm Guitar, and Jeremy Lustig on Bass.
I would say I am the Dave Mustaine of To The Pain...as I am all about the music, and write the bulk of the tunes and lyrics, and I might yell a bit.
Jimmy is the Lars of the band, not just because he plays drums, because he handles all the business of the band.
Johnny is the creative genius...be it writing lyrics, or cover art, or anything artistic.
Craig is the James Hetfield to my Mustaine. Or the Adrian Smith to my Dave Murray. He is easy to write with, and just gets the tunes and my style of writing right away.
Jeremy, well someone has to buy the beer! LOL.
As for the band as a whole, if you want an arena sized rock show in a club, come on down and check us out. We are NOT one of those bands who stand there with their feet nailed to the stage playing our songs.
We believe in putting on a show.
Please buy our album, and buy the albums of those bands you like. I know this is the internet age and everyone thinks albums should be free, but we put much time, and much effort and much money into our album.
We know we will never get that money back, but we would like to pay our bar tab one day! Thanks so much for taking the time to interview us!
Check us out on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tothepainn
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