If you Crossed Dillinger Escape Plan with John Zorn's Naked City, you might begin to approximate the sound of Colorado sonic terrorists Cephalic Carnage. Since their music is so frickin' wild we decided to ask them some pretty bizarre questions and possibly get some insight into their warped corkscrews of noise. But in the end it was hard to tell who was the bigger smart-ass, us or singer Lenzig Van Strokingoff. We'd like to say it was a draw, but...

HeadbangersBlog: We had to look up the word "Cephalic" to find out in means, "the ratio of the maximum width of the head to its maximum length, multiplied by 100." How in hell does that pertain to your band?
Lenzig van Strokingoff: There a few meanings for thy word "cephalic." the one I used was from an old 1950's-1960's medical dictionary and it said "to pertain to the head or brain,"; in your definantion it could mean "thought provoking."

Did you have to look up words like “Heptarchy” and “Megacosm,” and if not, how did you cultivate such an amazing vocabulary.
Watching "CSI" and "Law & Order." I think those shows are like college for poor folk. Read more...

In 2004, Death Angel released their first new album in 14 years, The Art of Dying, but it's really their latest offering, Killing Season that stands as the band's comeback record. While the former was well-written and pretty heavy, it lacked a focus, sounding somewhat like a band trying to keep up with the times.

Killing Season is just the opposite. It doesn't even take over where Death Angel left off after 1990's Act III. Instead, it makes a return to the type of straightforward melodic thrash the band started out playing in the late '80s before Death Angel got sidetracked and started stressing technical proficiency over strong songwriting.

Days before heading off for a tour of Europe, singer Mark Osegueda took a few minutes to reply to a batch of our quirky questions, and, in the process, revealed what a jerk he was as a kid, what famous musician he used to mistaken for and how his band accidentally helped break Alice in Chains.

We keep accidentally calling your record Killing Time, which also would have worked as a title. When you're not with the band, what do you do to kill time?
Mark Osegueda: I have to play music!! Too much down time means bad health for the kid here -- meaning I love the bottle, and when I have too much down time, the bottle has been known to be my North Star. And it can guide you to some peculiar places. I also have another band called All time Highs. It's more a dirty rock 'n' roll thing. Other than that, I hang with my girl and the pups, exercise, try to eat well, and I recently started flossing.

What's the closest you've come to killing somebody, either by accident or on purpose?
Back in my heyday of debauchery, I used to try to make friends to keep up with the amounts of stimulants I ingested, and some of them suffered some pretty gnarly results such as smashed faces, poisoning, the end of relationships But I've grown since then. Read more...

photo by Kamakazewords, courtesy of flickr.com

Dillinger was a master criminal. You are not. But what’s the most dramatic escape plan you’ve ever had to hatch?
Ben Weinman: Okay, so we were in Colorado and next to the club we were playing there was a porn shop. We had about three hours to kill before we played, so we went in. There were these things called jack shacks where you can go in little like closet things that play pornos. We all took a room and proceeded to talk to each other through the walls laughing at what was on different channels. I had nobody to the left of me. At least I thought I didn't. Then all of a sudden, the channel got stuck on gay porn. I had never seen it before. It was insane to me. I have nothing against the gays. They are fine people. Great taste. In fact, I'm pretty metro myself. But I panicked. Then a little hatch opened up and I saw a guy's face. It was the little booth next to me. Someone was trying to do some gay shit with me. I tried to open the door but it was stuck. I Started screaming and ran through the door. I knocked it off the hinges and the guy at the counter looked at me like, "What the f--k!

Has anyone ever though there was a guy in the band named Dillinger?
No, but we have been called The Dillingers, collectively. And once a girl wrote about me in a book and called me Dylan to conceal my identity. Read more...