photo by Samantha Rapp

"To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die." -- Thomas Campbell

Friends, foes and everyone in between. I am reflective today, here in my favorite coffee shop, camped beneath a brooding Los Angeles sky, watching my kindred Angelinos run terrified from the anomalous condensation falling ever so gently from the smoky vaults of the stratosphere. Some seem to fear that the rain will remain and the sun shall never rise again. "What have we done to offend thee, O Mighty RA?!", they cry. It is a bizarre and savage sight.

Perhaps the strange, ancient gods of Los Angeles are weeping over the tragic death of actor Heath Ledger. My sincere condolences go out to his family and friends.

At the time I am writing this, it is not clear whether he committed suicide (which I doubt) or was just another casualty of the drug culture. Statistics show that the number of accidental overdoses on prescription medication is skyrocketing, especially among those who have become fearless users and abusers of these powerful drugs that we use as "medicine." And, truth be told, my Libertine spirit feels it would be fallacious of me to condemn recreational use of pharmaceuticals, but there is no denying the risk that is taken and the permanent damage that is done if the unthinkable happens. Personally, I have lost dear friends and family members to overdoses. It is not romantic, as the movies dictate. It is terrifying, it is desolate, it is irrevocable misery.

I had something else written up for this weeks edition of my Headbangers guest blog, but with the news of Ledger's passing, all the stresses and distractions that orbit and infect the industry of art, entertainment, and politics (all of which I am addicted and bound to via various artistic and competitive umbilicals) have instantly been erased, and I now find myself floating on the soft seas of introspection. Read more...

Here's another HBB Blog Exclusive for you. It's a "making of" clip for the Symphony X video for "Set the World on Fire":

In case that wasn't enough for you, here's some commentary from guitarist Mike Romeo:

What’s up, everybody. First off, I’d just like to say how excited me and the guys are about Headbangers playing our video. We’ve been plugging away with the band for a little over 10 years, and when cool things happen, it really feels like we are realizing our dreams. It's been a steady uphill battle. We started in the mid-'90s at a time when everyone said metal was dead and nobody was interested in really playing guitar anymore ( hell…or even tuning it, for that matter). So, we began slowly building a loyal fan base, releasing our CDs and touring -- first in Japan, then South America, then Europe. Being an American band, it kinda sucked not being able to make a lot of headway here in the States. But metal is what we grew up on and that's what were all about. And we stuck to our guns.

Over the past few years, seeing this resurgence of metal (and all the different styles of metal) at home has been a really great thing. And every genre has something different to offer -- speed metal, prog metal, death metal, black metal, metalcore, melodic metal -- they all have their own thing going on. But for the most part, everyone is influenced by the same bands (or bands that were influenced by the same bands) that we had growing up (Priest, Maiden, Sabbath, Slayer, etc...). Like I said, it's awesome to see all these different metal bands getting heard. For a long time there was so much crap music out there (unfortunately, there still is), but in the metal world, this is how we do it. Let's wake these motherf---ers up out there and show 'em what it’s all about.

On another note, the "Set the World on Fire" video was one of the first two videos we ever shot (along with "Serpent’s Kiss"). We flew over to Serbia for the video shoot. I gotta admit, it was a bit unusual walking in and playing the tunes in front of a bunch of green screens without knowing exactly what is was going to look like. But we were confident in the production team and we're totally cool with the way it came out. Being our first video ever, we couldn't ask for more.

Thanks Mike. Now, the full video for "Set the World On Fire":

Damn, we've been waiting a long time for this. On Thursday, the Headbangers Ball Blog will premiere the new video by The Dillinger Escape Plan for the song "Milk Lizard." The clip will debut on air on Saturday night on MTV2's Headbangers Ball.The video for "Milk Lizard" was directed by Ilan Sharone (Stolen Babies, Zebrahead) on September 29, the day after the the director's disaster-laden shoot for "Black Bubblegum."

"I will never forget filming the video for 'Milk Lizard,' Weinman tells HBB Blog. "Not only was it the first time all of the new lineup were actually performing together on camera, but I had broken my foot the day before. It was definitely a painful yet ultimately satisfying experience."

Sharone's original treatment for the "Milk Lizard" video described a bar fight and what happens to a chair during the fracas. "I wanted to leave the bar environment by shooting what the viewer thinks is a normal looking performance video,” Sharone told HBB Blog. “Once the fight breaks out, a chair is thrown at a guy and flies out of the bar, taking on a life of its own. We see the chair go through the streets and town until it finally comes to the aid of an elderly lady who desperately needs a chair to sit on.”

On Thursday, check out the video to see whether the director was able to realize his creative vision. In the meantime, watch Dillinger's video for "Panasonic Youth":

For our premiere installment of Mike Hrubovcac's Nightmare Visions, we present the debut of the still-unreleased cover art for Awaiting the Autopsy's self-titled new album. Now, here's Hrubovcac to tell you all about it.

This illustration was done for France's Crematorium Records. The band, Awaiting the Autopsy, however is from Germany. They wanted to go for something similar in style to the Gutteral Secrete album I had done, with the hot red landscape but with a field of impaled people or something.

The first image that popped in my head was from when I was a kid and I was watching the movie "The Prophecy." There was a scene that showed a field of impaled angels. I love that movie, and that part always stuck in my mind. My perspective on this, though, was to ask the question, "What if there was some psycho guy in the middle of the desert doing this to people." In the middle of nowhere, no one would know, and he could leave the impaled corpses out in the sun to rot and be picked clean by the birds. This particular hot summer sunset takes place during a thunderstorm. How epic yet horrific a sight like that would be in real life. Like most of my work this was done digitally in Photoshop using mixed media / photo manipulation / airbrush with the wacom tablet.

If you enjoy sleepless nights, check out more at the official Visual Darkness Web site. And come back next week for more.

Scholarly Queensryche singer Geoff Tate
ponders the meaning of it all

Here's the latest batch of news nuggets from MTVnews.com's hallowed Metal File:
Queensrÿche frontman Geoff Tate and Blackmore's Night singer Candice Night will star in the upcoming horror movie "House of Eternity," which is slated for a fall theatrical release. The film, by New York independent production company Fires at Midnight, is about a newly married New York City couple who move to a country home in North Carolina, unaware of its sullied history and the evil that lurks there. Tate will make his acting debut as Alder Grayson, the story's villain, and Night will play his wife, an innocent woman whose fate is determined by the superstitious minds of the 1700s. " 'House Of Eternity' contains something for everyone," Night said in a statement. "[There are] memorable characters struggling against powers far greater than they; desperate, heart-pounding action [scenes]; innovative approaches to classic horror; even humor and a forlorn love. Plus there's a villain who will become timeless." Jonathan Williams and Jarrod Feliciano are directing "House of Eternity," and J. Andrew Colletti is the writer and executive producer.

Droid, Ill Niño, Soil and Bobaflex will launch the Guerilla Carnival Tour on January 31 in Cleveland, with dates running through February 24 in Sayreville, New Jersey. "We are really excited to get back out on the road, and the Ill Nino guys are good friends of ours, so it will be great to see them rip it up every night," Droid singer James "Buddy" Eason said in a statement. "I really like the fact that all the bands on this tour are a little different than each other musically. Get ready. Here comes the pain."

Papa Roach are in their rehearsal studio writing songs for the follow-up to 2006's The Paramour Sessions and will begin recording shortly. "I can't really comment on what it will be like because we still have so much time," guitarist Jerry Horton wrote on the band's MySpace page late last year. "Rest assured that it will have groove." Read more...

Either DevilDriver frontman Dez Fafara has been reading too much "Harry Potter," watching too much "Lord of the Rings" or smoking too much weed -- probably all three. Of course, if smoking pot made friendly stone statues come alive and talk to us, we'd be hanging out in the park hooking up dope deals instead of hammering away on the computer keyboard all day. You've already heard DevilDriver killer 2007 album The Last Kind Words, and you've seen the awesome video for "Not All Who Wander Are Lost" Here's Fafara trying his hand at first person fiction -- at least, that's what we think this is...

Last night whilst taking a quiet moment alone in my damp, cold California-by-the-beach backyard, among the greenery, statuary and half wine barrel fountains, there came upon me a sudden calm. Not the sort of "at ease calm" that comes from a warm hot cocoa by the fire, or a good inhale, but a calming sensation, as if my senses were at a heightened state, a warning, as if I was being watched.

The sky above me was clear and the moon full, so as to illuminate the whole of my backyard
from one end to the next. Suddenly, without warning, I caught several movements in my peripheral vision. Knowing full well that My three cats, Spooky Tooth, Bigboy and Spider were all inside the house at this hour, and that the nightly family of possums that comes to drink out of our fountains and eat the food my wife so generously provides them, don't come 'til at least 2 or 3 am., I was a little worried. After all, it was only 12:30 am. Read more...

We're all for surreal, disturbing horror movies. And we're big fans of splattery gore (as any of our Movies For Metalheads columns will attest). But we're wondering if the creators of the new flick "Teeth" (which opened in New York and Los Angeles January 18) might have gone too far. We haven't seen the movie or anything, so we can't judge how, err, tasteful it is, but the plot gives us the willies -- and gives our willie the heebie-jeebies.

Basically, the film is a horror/comedy about a girl who discovers she has teeth in her genitals (which plays off the whole Vagina Dentata myth about the female crotch as castration device). Apparently, after suffering through an episode of sexual abuse, she learns to use her hidden chompers to her benefit and seeks revenge against seedy men by emasculating them with her nether regions.

The movie, directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein, features five songs by unsigned Fort Collins, Colorado extreme metal band Immortal Dominion. "The stepbrother [in the movie] is always in his room blasting our music on his stereo, so we are in the movie, like, eight times," said the band on its MySpace.

Now, we're all for metal bands getting more play in Hollywood, but we'd love to be a fly on the wall a year from now, when one of the members' aunts asks, "Oh, what movie was your band in," and the dude has to say, "'Teeth,' you know, the one about the girl with the sharp teeth in her hoo-ha."

Well, it beats being in "Scary Movie XXVI"... maybe.

As some of you easily, guessed, the logo of the week is Xasthur, whose reputation proceeds his inscrutable scribblage.

Astral projection, darkness, despair, suicide, hate, and death are Xasthur's preferred subject matter and the band's sole songwriter, Malefic (who used to play with Twilight), is as antisocial as they come. The dude refuses to play live and doesn't have a MySpace, claiming on his own Web site, "I have never chosen to promote this band and there isn't any need to, especially in ways such as this. I am not your friend and the truth is, I prefer not to interact with people, even if that’s so f---ing hard to believe in this day and age... that is not my roll or purpose."

For someone who chooses to be alone, Malefic sure has a healthy portfolio. Since 1999, Xasthur have released six full-length albums, three EPs and nine split records. The band's new double CD (out January 29) features reissues of its 2001 demo, A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors, and its 2001 EP, A Darkened Winter.

The time is nigh. Metal monstrosity, Dethklok, has opened its hallowed iron gates to us and allowed us a peek at their inner sanctum. Here, he are treated to blood soup, raw lamb's bladder and a desert of chocolate chip cookies that are crispy on the outside, but soft inside, with gooey bittersweet chips that accept the flavor just so. Then, singer Nathan Explosion, guitarist Swisgaar Skwigelf and drummer Pickles seat themselves carefully on a black leather couch with eight-inch spikes protruding from the arms and between the cushions. The zillionaire musicians are flanked on either side by beefy security guards armed with Uzis and broadswords should something go awry, and as we place our recorder on a table scattered with rattlesnakes, we're starting to feel uneasy.

Many who have gotten this close to the world's most dangerous and popular band have not survived long enough to brag about the experience, and the way Explosion and Pickles are eying us, suggests they're deciding whether or not to feed us to the zombies in their videogame room when we're done. But we've gotten this far and we must persevere.

While the discussion becomes unsettlingly tense at time, as the interview progresses we're feeling a kinship with these guys and hope that at the end of our allotted 30 minutes (they have an important meeting with Apple Chief executive Steve Jobs after us), we'll be allowed to exit to our taxi and shuttle back to the airport to return home.

In the end, we're not sure why they decide to let us to leave unharmed (maybe they need some good press after all the recent bloodshed), but the lamb's bladder has given us a nasty case of acid reflux and the soup's blood caused an ugly rash. The cookies were damn good, though.

In any case, after leaving the Dethklok compound we write up our story for Revolver, which runs as a Q&A in their November 2007 issue. Now with the permission of the magazine (good thing we kept those photos of their editor in an, ummm, uncompromising position), we're able to bring a full audio podcast to you.

In the following podcast interview with Dethklok, Explosion, Skwigelf and Pickles discuss why so many people around them die, why they sued each other, how bassist Murderface doesn't play his instrument in the studio and what's so exciting about helium balloons. So, while the band's heralded reality show "Metalocalypse" is on hiatus, enjoy this rare conversation with the supreme masters of metal. And, prepare to meet your maker.

To stream the Dethklok podcast, click the play button below:

Click here for a direct MP3 download of the Headbangers Ball Blog Podcast interview with Dethklok.
Click here to subscribe to the Headbangers Ball Blog Podcast Series (iTunes).
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If you're a deep-thinker or you've had a few good bong hits, you might really get into this guest blog by The Ocean members singer and sampler Robin Staps and visual artist Nils Lindenhayn. In their essay, the deep sea divers of The Ocean address the drawbacks of labeling music and the need to categorize art, deconstruct the post-metal category and try to figure out just what the heck to call themselves. Breathe deep and read on.

Are we "Teutonic metalcore," "nihilistic post-prog" or "ambient math-metal?" Sometimes it's not easy to avoid an identity crisis as a musician when you're confronted with the vast abundance of silly terms that people use to tag you. I have kind of an ambiguous relationship to the labels we‘re given, or to being labeled at all.

Being called or named something is a strange thing, not just for a band, but for everyone at the individual level, too. See, we all get named (sometimes even before birth) long before we‘re capable of understanding or even using language. Someone else has chosen the name for us; sometimes we‘re named after dead people; we don‘t have a say in that process, which is often ritualized (even outside the Christian world) and, in modern society, has its materiality in an officially signed and stamped birth certificate with our name on it.

Funnily (but maybe not surprisingly), our name, if nothing else, is also the only part of us that remains after we die – often cast in stone, but at least on a death certificate, which, of course, gets archived by some official institution, and of course it lives on through other people carrying a name we once had, too.

Long story short: Our names are never custom-made for us; they stay with us for all our lives (changing them is virtually impossible); and they outlive us by generations, maybe into all eternity. I don‘t want to go into too much linguistic or psychoanalytical detail here, but the reason I think this can shed some light onto the old topic (which you can find in pretty much every music-related interview) is that being given a label, say "symphonic post-grind," kind of repeats that very paradigm. Read more...