5 Min Origin Stories with AK of Special Ops

Once again we are talking to the Montreal Metal Horde of Darkness but still a bit light, Special Ops.

You should be jumping all over their latest SINGLE HERE.

While you're streaming that glorious gold, let's find out more about how they got started.

1. Is there an event you can point to you that made you say, wow, that's the instrument I want to play? Not like guitar or drums, but the reason why you play the model you do?

Yes there definitely is, and I have to thank Ebay for it, yes you can laugh. I was the only guitar player in the band at the time, and we needed to heavy things up, but dropping to lower keys meant losing the higher spectrum of things, so I decided to try a 7 string. 

Being the broke musician that I was at the time, not to mention unsure about this whole 7 string business, I went for used, and at the time the main platform was Ebay. 

15 minutes later, what do you know I came across a 7 string Dean ML. I said to myself, never played a dean before, but if its good enough for Pantera then..... 

So I dropped a whopping 150$  and got it. 1 week later this giant box arrives at my door, it was the biggest guitar case I had ever seen, this thing was long, I changed the strings, and quickly realized that I had forgotten to buy a 7 string set. 

So my bass player says he just changed his and I could have one of those, it should fit since I used a 13 gauge. slapped it on, tuned it up, plugged it in, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up!

The growl on that thing, the sustain (later I found out is due to the body shape and length) was just amazing. That was the beginning of my love affair with the Dean ML 7s.

I found a second one exactly the same as the first, and I almost got the 3rd but the seller was a crack head and I got red flags and backed out.  But I still look for the once in a while. 

2. How do you write a song?

They usually just come while I'm messing around, lyrics and all. if not then I drop the idea on tape and get back to it for the lyrics at another time when I'm all alone. 

Nothing worse than other people's jibber jabber while you're trying to get into the headspace of emotion for a song.

3. How many concept records do you own? Could you ever write one?

About 4 maybe 5 if you consider a side A of Manowar's Triumph of Steel. 

Actually, if this Covid 19 social distancing thing keeps going I just might write a concept. its been a dream of mine for a while now. But if you're gonna do it, you have to do it right. 

You have some pretty major concept albums out there that you have to compare to.

4. Who's influence is most evident in your music? The least?

Most influential is a band called Therapy? (with the question mark) out of the UK no clue why but I fell in love with that band from the first time I heard them. 

To this day they are one of my favorites. 

Could be the I don't give a fuck attitude, the real one not the fake LA record label marketing type. Then there is Anthrax, Metallica, Nina Simone, and Satriani. 

Least influential - Pestilence, Morbid Angel and anything with the word "core" in the genre.

5. Which one of your songs is the one your the most proud of?

You mean who is my favorite kid? I love all my kids equally. ;p

But I must say Anger is Creeping from Phase 2. that song is the one that got things moving for us back then. It got on the radio by itself and still gets airplay, SOCAN doesn't lie. lol 

It's weird, its pure emotion, I was running late for rehearsal one day because I was having a major fight with my girlfriend at the time. I usually calm down after 10 minutes but it was about an hour before I got there, and I was still livid, I remember it so clearly. I walked in mumbling to myself, everyone was plugged in and waiting, I picked up my guitar, looked at the boys and said "just fucking play" and as confused as they were they did, and from the first take, we had 90% of what you hear on the record. 

6. Sum up your latest record for us. 

Blood and Tears is really the culmination of all those years that we have been a band. 

Since 2002 this band has gone through everything, literally, from accidents on the road, nearly freezing to death when we ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere on an abandoned farm road, driving the band RV and trailer into a ditch, Cancer twice, drummers quitting and jumping out of moving vans, shitty record deals, you name it we have been through it. 

Now, who is going to make the documentary? ;p