Southern California’s very own pagan metal outfit Helsótt have been working their asses off in their endeavor towards developing a local fan-following through live performances opening up for nationally touring acts. In the process, they themselves have now taken the next big step in their career and become a nationally touring band, with Paganfest America, their first ever North American tour recently coming to a conclusion. Our man Avinash Mittur spoke to vocalist Eric Dow about the tour and all other things Helsótt. Check it out below.

First thing, I believe Helsott is looking for a new guitar player? What happened there?

[laughs] Cutting right to the chase huh? Awesome. Well in my opinion we’re better off without our former guitar player. He quit the band. You know, he screwed up a great opportunity. I am not crying for him, so I think this is a great opportunity to fill the position with someone who actually wants to be here.

Let’s talk about your illnesses that happened on the Paganfest tour. There was the first one in Denver, and then you fell sick again later on, correct?

Yeah, I fell sick in Denver. I played that show pretty well, I don’t think the illness hit me hard enough yet. By the time we played our second show in Tempe, my voice was shot. I think it took about six gigs to get over that first illness. By that time, everyone on the tour was sick. All the different bands have different viruses and were passing it around. After a couple days of feeling better, I got sick again with something completely different. Then, we ended up going to Canada where the climate totally changed due to us going west to east. It kept getting colder and colder and I never really recovered, especially because I was singing every night. It took probably until we were in Chicago for me to start feeling better again. Then a day or two later I fell sick with something else. I basically was healthy for four or five days out of the whole tour.

That really sucks, I’m sorry to hear that Eric.

Yeah, it sucks but we pulled through. I think we did alright. We could have done a lot better… I wasn’t the only one who was sick, but we went out there and gave it our all anyway. A lot of people were grateful for it and a lot of people didn’t even know we were sick.

This was Helsott’s first legit, sponsored nationwide tour. Was it everything that you were expecting? Were there any surprises besides the illnesses?

Oh no, and even the illnesses weren’t a surprise. I’ve been doing this a long time, I know what to expect from touring. I have good friends in bands that tour all over the place, they’re always telling me what to expect. I pretty much knew everything to expect, the only thing that kind of floored me was how great of a response we got. I’ve been to so many different shows where the first band that goes on is really good, but there just aren’t many people that are into them or they don’t show up early enough to see them. That’s kind of what I was expecting, to play to a few people who probably didn’t even really care. Night after night though, we were just floored by the support we got and how many people really enjoyed us. That was the greatest thing for me, and definitely a surprise.

I’d be happy to agree with you there, I remember seeing a packed house right from the get-go at the Hollywood show.

Right. It was very packed in Hollywood by the time we went on. That kind of didn’t surprise us too much since it was our home show. We had people posted that their heroes returned and all that stuff, and we were just shocked by it.

So how did you guys end up getting on the tour in first place?

Well, obviously we had to work really hard to even get to where we were. We put ourselves in the position to be able to afford to go on tour and to be tight as a band, but it really is all about who you know. I met Maurizio from Rock the Nation when we opened up for his band, Ex Deo. Then we just kind of stayed in touch, and then when his other band Kataklysm played the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise, I was able to hang out with him and better our friendship. That’s when he told me that he was the actual owner of the Paganfest tour. At that time, I had already gotten Helsott on the bill for the L.A. show as the local support. He stayed interested and kept a close eye on us and his partner Stephan actually saw us at that Paganfest and I think that’s when we solidified our spot on the Paganfest tour for the next year, which happened to be 2013. It wasn’t until a few months after that Paganfest show that we played that they asked us to do the tour.  We were honored and thought that it was really special.

Right on. One thing that was really interesting about this tour was that Helsott was the only American band on the bill.

Yeah absolutely, and we were honored to take that place. There’s a lot of quality pagan and folk metal in the United States and a lot of it goes unnoticed. We felt very proud to be right out there in the thick of it and in the face of all, supporting United States pagan metal.

Was there a language barrier that you had to overcome?

No, not at all. I think everyone spoke English on the tour. Dag from Trollfest was probably the hardest to understand but after drinking with him and hanging out with him for a week or so, we were perfectly able to understand each other. The lead singer of Trollfest speaks perfect English, all of the Heidevolk speak perfect English, the Tyr guys speak perfect English. With Ensiferum, there were a couple guys like Markus who don’t speak English too well so they were kind of shy and didn’t talk too much. Of course, they were also trying to save their voice for the show. They were very appreciative of us being on the tour though, and the feeling was absolutely mutual. We made friends with everyone.

After experiencing those illnesses, are there any lessons that you’ve learned after going on this tour?

Oh yeah, we learned a lot of lessons. I think the main thing that I’m going to take back is to not be too critical on yourself. Sometimes you can play one show where there’s 500 people chanting your name, screaming, pitting and going crazy. The next night you might play to fifty people who have their arms crossed and are just staring at you. You kind of got to take away from that you’re maybe in a different region. It’s not so much that they don’t like you, it’s that they’re taking you in because they haven’t seen you or heard of you before. The illnesses were another reason to not be so critical of ourselves. I was never 100% on the tour, which really bummed me out. I have a lot of power in my voice, and I’m very proud of that power I have. It just wasn’t there at all during the tour, but nobody really noticed. I had nothing but positive feedback throughout the whole tour. Even on the worst days when I could barely even talk. I’m just going to take back that I shouldn’t be so critical of myself, because the fans are definitely not always going to be so critical. They’re going to look at you as a guy onstage doing maybe what they themselves want to do. If you’re making mistakes, they may not necessarily see it. If you’re sounding bad that night, they may not notice it.

Luckily for me, I did get to see you guys when your voice was at 100%. That was at the Key Club opening for Turisas about a couple months or so ago. That was the second to last metal show at the Key Club, what are your thoughts on the venue closing?

I’ll miss it, I mean when I was a kid dreaming of playing in a band it was called the Billboard 100 I think, and I always dreamed of playing there. All my idols have played there throughout the years. It bums me out, it was a real good venue but you know what, to be honest the people running it were fucking assholes. They were shitheads, they treated people wrong. I remembered going to the Septicflesh show there not too long ago, and one of the asshole managers lit sage and ran it back and forth across the crowd while we were standing outside waiting to get in, so that our evil spirits would be cleansed.

What.

Then he ran inside and ran the sage throughout the whole venue. When we finally got in there, everyone was choking on smoke and shit, because of this one self-righteous asshole. That guy had a lot say in what was going on at the Key Club, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a lot to do with why a lot of people didn’t want to go there anymore. You know, they usually treated the bands like shit. I know we were treated like shit there several times anyway. We swore we’d never go back, but we had the Paganfest opportunity that we couldn’t turn down. We just kind of bit the bullet, said screw it and played there again. I have mixed feelings because I loved the place as a kid and I know it’s a great venue with a lot of history, but those people running it were assholes and didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. They had no business running the place.

That actually bums me out quite a bit to hear that, I thought that the Key Club did a pretty good job of getting great local acts to open up tour packages.

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. Not very many of the bands came away with great experiences though. I’d definitely like to say that not every one of our experiences there were bad though. It was a great venue with great sound, I had some of my favorite shows ever there. I am sad to see it go.

As far as that Turisas show was concerned anyway, it seemed downright triumphant for you guys. People were chanting your name after the set and there were a ton of Helsott shirts in the crowd.

Yeah, that was great. Like I said, some of my greatest onstage memories are going to be from the Key Club. I’m never going to forget that night opening for Turisas, I’m never going to forget Paganfest, but at the same time I’m never going to forget when we played with Possessed there and we were treated like absolute dogshit. There was a give and take, and I’ll definitely remember the good times, the fans and friends, and the people chanting our name. That humbles me every time I think about it.

On a brighter note, Helsott had the Folkvangr EP come out about a year ago. Are there plans for a follow-up?

Man, we’ve got so many songs… We were really hoping to get some label support off of this tour and maybe borrow some money and get into a studio. We may not necessarily get signed right away. We should probably start thinking about releasing our first full-length on our own dime, and if we can’t get signed we can just hook up a distribution deal and release it ourselves. The material’s there, we’ve got to get it out.

After the tour ended, was there any label interest coming in for Helsott?

I’ve had a couple of conversations with a few ‘big people’, people I would be absolutely stoked to work with. Honestly though, nothing really solid has come from it. We’ve only been back for about a week, which I spent recuperating and getting better. I really haven’t touched base with anyone yet, and I think once I start reaching out to them I think we’ll get a little more notice.

I know you guys have been playing some unreleased material too, like the sequel to ‘Vandals Divide’ if I remember right?

Oh yeah. We have a lot of songs that are unreleased because we only had the money to put together the three songs on that one little EP. That’s three songs out of what, fifteen that we have? We love all of our songs. ‘Cessation: Vandals Divide Part II’ is actually one of the newer songs we’ve written, but we all fell in love with it so much that we decided to start playing it immediately.

When and if Helsott take care of the full length, will the songs from the EP be featured on it?

The songs on the EP will probably be entirely separate. We feel that the sound quality for the EP isn’t amazing, but we think it’s good enough. We can move on and just record new stuff for the full length. If we get label support before we go into the studio, then obviously the label will have a lot of say into whether we should re-record those songs or not. It also depends on how much money we can get together and the studio we end up going to. If we’re talking about putting together a kickass, badass sounding album with awesome artwork to where it looks like we’re already signed, then yeah, maybe we will put those three songs on it and up the ante. We can always do better, we feel that ‘Folkvangr’ should have been recorded faster. When you get such little time in the studio… We did that song in a day- preproduction, click track and all. We were all listening to the click for I don’t know how long, and half of us were saying it needs to be faster, and the other half were saying that the tempo was fine. After playing it for so long, we realized that it does need to be faster after all. That will probably be the first song we re-record.

Now that Helsott are officially a national touring act, what’s the next big goal for the band?

Well, I think a label and recording is definitely in our vision. We’ve always been a band that picks a goal and goes for it. I think recording is very important, but we’ve gotten probably three tour offers since we got back and probably ten gig offers, all of them headlining with money guaranteed. We definitely went from selling tickets and paying to play to now being paid to go to our own shows. Half of us want to keep that momentum going, but the other half really want to get our songs recorded. I think the next goal for us is a happy medium between playing shows and keeping our live momentum going, and getting that album recorded. All while I’m searching for a label!

Is there any advice that you have to offer to young acts in LA that are going through pay to play, and how to get on the national touring circuit?

Keep doing it. As much as you fucking hate it, keeping paying to play. Keep playing the big shows. It’s all in who you know. Helsott was together for two years before we got our break, and it was by knowing Maurizio Iacono. The two years was spent getting tighter as a band and getting our experience up to where when got the opportunity, we were prepared to take it. That’s most important- when you’re at the right place at the right time and you have the right guy who’s willing to help you out, you better be ready. My honest opinion is that you need to play as many pay to play shows as possible, once a month at least, if not two. Get everyone in the band onboard with working hard to sell tickets because if it isn’t all about who you know, you need to get yourself out there and meet people. Don’t just go and play the shows, call it done and sit back in the crowd and enjoy. Get in the crowd and start meeting people. You never know who’s at your show. The guy in the suit could be an industry guy, the guy with long dreadlocks wearing a Metallica shirt could be an industry guy. You just never know. You got to get out there and talk to everyone.

Links:
helsott.com
facebook.com/helsott
twitter.com/helsottmetal

Canadian hardcore punk exports Cancer Bats cross over excellently with metal audiences with their sludge and rock elements. They’ve audaciously toured aplenty with bands who did and didn’t exactly form a perfect fit with their musical style, but in the process Cancer Bats have gained a level of respect and reputation as mighty road dogs who always put on a fun show. Last night, Kvelertak’s North American tour made a stop at the Roxy Theatre in Hollywood CA, and along came Cancer Bats too. I had a chilled-out chat with vocalist Liam Cormier before the show. Listen to the conversation below.

Related: LA gig review 

Links:
cancerbats.com
facebook.com/cancerbats
twitter.com/cancerbats 

Raleigh NC-based sludgelords Corrosion Of Conformity have been riding high on the wave of creativity in recent times. They put out two new studio releases last year, the self-titled album and the Scion-sponsored ‘Megalodon’ EP. Now, even as they are hard at work on the next full-length, they decide to take a little break and do a short touring run as support act to Danzig. This tour made a stop at Pomona’s Fox Theater yesterday (April 27th 2013), and a couple of hours before the start of the show, I had the pleasure of sitting down with bassist/vocalist Mike Dean to talk about touring, the three-piece ‘Animosity’ lineup, the upcoming album, and more. Listen to this 12-minute conversation below.

Links:
coc.com
facebook.com/corrosionofconformity
twitter.com/coccabal

Related: Pomona gig review

Legendary German heavy metal singer Udo Dirkschneider brought his band U.D.O.’s short North American tour to a close at the Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood last night (April 23rd 2013). A few hours before the show, the band did their soundcheck. Having never seen Udo perform on stage before, I was quite blown away by the quality of his voice, even at the age of 61. I knew the show was going to be great, but what I was immediately looking forward to at that point was my interview with Udo. After the soundcheck, I sat down with him for a brief chat. Check out the audio of our conversation along with a slideshow of images in the YouTube clipbelow, read my review of the show here and a full gallery of live photos here. Make sure to check out U.D.O.’s new album Steelhammer when it comes out next month!

Links:
udo-online.com
facebook.com/udoonline
twitter.com/udoonline

 [Dressing room shot of Udo and me taken by Ronnie Lyon]

After his well-documented departure from Metallica in 2001, Jason Newsted explored his musicianship with various bands and projects like Voivod, Papa Wheelie, Echobrain, Gov’t Mule and WhoCares, but his true return to metal came about with his new band Newsted’s debut EP in January of this year, aptly titled ‘Metal’. The four-track EP gives a us taste of what to expect from Jason Newsted the frontman, and a full-length album is on the way too. Of course, Jason is still very much respected and admired by Metallica fans, and it’s no surprise that the new band and EP have been embraced gleefully by those people. Right now, the Newsted band is getting ready for a US tour. Earlier today, I had a chat with Jason to talk about the band, the recording sessions, future plans, and other things including Flotsam. Check it out below!

You’re going on tour soon with the Newsted band, starting this coming Friday actually. How’s everything going in terms of the preparation and the rehearsals?

I’m feeling very good about it! We’re in our third and final day of pre-production over in Oakland. We’re in the same building where a lot of Bay Area bands do their thing. Testament’s in there right now. Faith No More is in there. It’s going very well. We’ve had this four-piece band together for about seven weeks now, with Mike Mushok as the fourth member and we’ve already finished our LP. We’ve finished all the recording and we’re delivering 13 songs to the record company. So the momentum is fantastic, everybody’s pretty psyched and feeling strong. A couple of minutes yesterday there were killer moments in the rehearsal that were pretty fucking epic. So I’m excited!

That’s great to hear. What was the reason for going with a four-piece lineup? The EP that you released was done by the three-piece band, right?

Yeah, the EP and its four songs that everybody’s heard so far was just a power trio of Jessie Farnsworth on guitar, Jesus Mendez on drums and myself. I played guitar and bass on the EP, almost all the rhythm guitars, and Jessie did all the lead guitar stuff. Now having Mike in the band is a big addition, and he’s made the heavy sound heavier. He has really brought a new dimension to it. So we’re firing on all cylinders now.

So, on this tour what can people expect? Obviously you’ll play songs from the EP, but will you be playing songs from the upcoming full-length as well?

Yes, we have about 21 original songs to choose from in total. So people will of course be seeing all of the EP being played, because that’s what they’re familiar with so far. But we’ll have a lot of other stuff at the show for them from the new record, and then I’m going to dive back into some history stuff. We’ll do little pieces of old Metallica songs and may be a couple of other little treats for people. We’ll try to pull out some Motörhead and stuff like that, just to keep everything entertaining. The Metallica songs that I feel I have a right to play, that I have songwriting credits on, ‘Blackened’, ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ and ‘My Friend Of Misery’, there will be pieces of those. I don’t plan on playing any of the entire songs of that newer stuff, but just pieces of it as a reminder to people, just to pepper up the set and also to dig back into the old things that people know me for. There have been two singers in Metallica in 32 years, and that’s James and myself. So the songs that I sing in Metallica, I’ll probably sing in this band as well. We’ll play pieces that people know me for, like ‘Die Motherfuckin’ Die’ and all that stuff. We’ll share that stuff with everybody.

That sounds great! Talking of the vocals, the Metallica fan base has always loved you for your contribution in that department. But what’s it been like for you to do lead vocals on this new music of yours?

It’s a very different thing. In my other band Papa Wheelie where I play punk and stony metal and all that, I play guitar and sing. It’s much different to play guitar and sing as compared to playing bass and singing, because you’ve got to hold down the bass while trying to sing at the same time. It’s quite difficult actually. So it’s a challenge that I like. I’m assuming a few different roles in this band that I’ve never had before, being the frontman and the bassist at the same time. I’m also playing guitar live. I’ll switch back and forth between bass and guitar during the performance. Singing other than just the cookie monster vocals, actually trying to sing sing, for me it has been developing for eight or ten years, trying to get my real voice. I can still do all the crazy, heavy stuff but I’m really trying to sing a little bit more now. So all that stuff for me is really exciting and every song is a challenge.

Coming back to the full-length album, when can we expect it to be released?

Right, we have 13 songs for the LP, like I said, and the record company is so far very happy about what they’ve heard. So I think they’re making quite a big plan for the rollout of it. We’ll probably put it out in something like September, because we have about 70 shows in front of us right now starting on this Friday, taking us around the world. We’re playing 13 countries in June, and come back for a big tour in July that you’ll be hearing about very soon. So we have a lot of shows and a lot of things to be done. There’s a lot of work that we want to do to bring the LP to the people. We’re trying to work out a new video, kind of like ‘Soldierhead’, very simple and to-the-point, to let people know what’s going on. We’ll use the social media to let everybody know, and we’ll launch it by putting singles out first. So I would say early fall, late summer for the first Newsted LP.

Were you happy with how the EP came out in terms of the taste it gave to the people of this band?

Well, for what it is and how it was created, I’m very proud of it because we made the entire thing in 6 days. What we’re used to is, we’ll go in and jam it, then we’ll record it and share it with the people. There’s not too many overdubs, not much bullshit and not too much messing around the studio. We just kind of play it. So, the initial intention at the every beginning of what became the ‘Metal’ EP was, I had 11 songs that I was going to go in with Jessie and Jesus Mendez to record for fun. But I had actually written an acoustic ballad for my wife as a wedding present that I had talked those guys into recording with me. So that was our initial intent going into the studio. I hired a cello player, I played 12-string guitar and all different stuff on there to make a real nice pretty song for her. It’s more like a ‘Fade To Black’ type song, kind of quiet in the beginning, then it becomes hugely epic at the end and super fucking heavy. But in the meantime, once we got that song done, I had this bunch of songs in my pocket and those happened to be ‘Soldierhead’, ‘Godsnake’, ‘King Of The Underdogs’ and ‘Skyscraper’. We recorded all those as well, and they were just meant to be initially for ourselves, to have a CD to blast in our truck and drive around with it, just be happy about jamming in Chophouse and everything like that. It was fun, but then one person played it for another person, then the next person, and ‘Soldierhead’ got around real quick to labels and radio. Within about two weeks from when the first guy played Soldierhead for somebody, we had three different labels asking us to sign. So it was a very quick thing that wasn’t really intended to be this, but it just transpired. It was out there, so we decided to make some copies and sell it from the Chophouse, sell it from my garage, put it on iTunes and see what people thought. I had been reading about bands like Clutch and Down putting out EPs on the internet to see what was going on with fans, to kind of test the water and the response of fans. That’s what I wanted to do. I’d been out of the ‘big business’ since 2003. That was the last time I was out on a big tour going around the world, with Ozzy Osbourne. So I haven’t really been in the business seriously as long as I was in the underground with Voivod, Echobrain and different bands. So, with a lot of new avenues for me to discover with the internet and everything, once I put the music out there and started seeing the response of all the long time fans and the new fans, I realized we really had something. So now here we are about 6 months later, and we have a world tour at our feet. We have Sony, Universal and Geffen distributing the record throughout the world. We’re getting some great tours and some great offers. It was really just meant to be, I guess! The fans asked me to come back to this. Their desire and their response to the music made me want to come out and do this again, and that’s exactly what happened.

Now here’s one question which quite a few people actually wanted me to ask you. What’s your overall aim with the band? Are you going full-on long-term with this, or are you going to just see how it goes?

I’ll see how it goes. I’d of course want it to be long-term. I think the EP is an instant classic, and it will kind of be forever. The LP will be that as well. It’s about the demand of the people and going back to my last answer, I haven’t been out on the road for a long, long time. I’m not really sure what’s out there. So right now I’m spending a lot of my own money to make sure this band happens. I want to give it a real good effort. My name is on this thing. It’s my voice, my songs from top to bottom, my compositions and my words, all of that. So it’s very important for me to see it succeed. How far it will go, I don’t really know. I’m willing to chase it as far as I can, for as long as the people keep demanding it. There’s a lot of unknown right now that we’re preparing for. We definitely are able to take the music to the people in a fierce way, and that’s what I want to do. As long as my body holds up and I’m mentally able to do it, I’ll keep doing it!

One final question I have for you is, I interviewed Eric ‘A.K.’, the singer of Flotsam and Jetsam a few days ago and he had a lot of good things to say about your new music. He mentioned that you worked on a couple of songs for their new album. What was it like to catch up and work with those guys again?

Fantastic! I love Eric, and they’re a great band. We’ve been brothers for 30 years now, man. It’s crazy to even think that 31 years ago Kelly and I started Flotsam and Jetsam. So that’s a long, long time to be friends. I respect them greatly and I think their new record is good. I did help them with their new music. Michael Gilbert asked me at about the same time that I was starting to write music for my band. He asked if I could help with some music for the new record that he was working on. So he sent me some tracks and I started putting some of my poetry on it. He came up to the Chophouse and we actually had a jam. Michael Gilbert, myself and Jesus Mendez, we had a power trio jam. He stayed for a weekend, we put some hours down on tape and kind of helped him with his songs. The title of the album is the one I gave them. ‘Ugly noise and beautiful life’ is from my lyric, so they took the album title from that, and the lyrics are all mine in that song. I wrote lyrics for three of the songs on their new album and that’s what it ended up coming down to. In the January and February of 2012, I went to Phoenix and got together. The original band of Flotsam and Jetsam actually played together two different weekends the entirety of ‘Doomsday For The Deceiver’. It was the first time since 1986 that we had played together, the original band. It was pretty fucking cool (laughs). As a fan that’s really exciting so I made sure to record everything on video and audio. It was a wonderful time, trying to remember all those old songs. I was like, ‘Who wrote this shit?’ (Laughs) And then I got the reply, ‘Oh you did when you were 19!’ It was hard to remember all those parts. Those are quite difficult and challenging songs, impressive for a 19 or 20-year old to write. So that was a really good feeling. We were thinking about rekindling the band but it wasn’t going to work as far as bringing the whole thing back. So I just had a good time then, helped them with the lyrics, and now they have a great new album and we have a great new band going. We’re actually going to play a show together. On May 4th there’s a big festival in Phoenix where Flotsam plays a couple of bands before us. We’re headlining the stage that they’re playing on. It’s the first time that’s ever happened that we have bands playing on the same stage together after all these years. It should be wonderful!

Jason, it was a pleasure talking to you, man! Thanks for your time, all the best with everything, and take care. Anything else you’d like to mention before we wrap this up?

Thanks a lot! I just wanted to add that people should check out the official site  newstedheavymetal.com for the information for all the tour dates. We’re adding new dates about every 3 or 4 days now, and there’s information about new swag. Old tour stuff from Voivod tours is also available on the archival recordings if anybody wants to check that out.

Other Links:
facebook.com/jasonnewstedofficial
twitter.com/jasoncnewsted

Newsted US Tour Dates:
Apr. 19 – Red House – Walnut Creek, CA
Apr. 20 – Red House – Walnut Creek, CA
Apr. 23 – San Jose Rock Shop – San Jose, CA
Apr. 24 – The Starline – Fresno, CA
Apr. 26 – The Alley – Sparks, NV
Apr. 27 – Ace of Spades – Sacramento, CA
May 01 – The Roxy – Los Angeles, CA
May 03 – Vinyl – Las Vegas, NV
May 04 – KUPD Ufiesta – Mesa, AZ
May 15 – Planet Rock – Battle Creek, MI
May 17 – The Crofoot – Pontiac, MI
May 18 – Bottom Lounge – Chicago, IL
May 21 – Highline Ballroom – New York, NY
May 22 – The Middle East Downstairs – Cambridge, MA
May 23 – The Stone Pony – Asbury Park, NJ