The MetalSucks Podcast

This week, Dream Theater frontman James LaBrie and songwriting partner Paul Logue join us! We celebrate James’ new solo album Beautiful Shades of Grey and discuss how they got James’s son Chance to work on drums for the album, and why they decided to cover Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On." We also talk about how the album was originally just acoustic guitars and vocals, life advice from our fathers that...

This week, Darkest Prince of All Rebellion from Philly’s Devil Master is our guest! We discuss him losing band members during the pandemic, regrouping to create the band’s new album Ecstasies of Never Ending Night, the difficult transition of balancing “adventure time” to “business time” on tour, landing stadium gigs opening for My Chemical Romance, and Gerard Way buying all their merch at an L.A....

Maylene and the Sons of the Disaster frontman Dallas Taylor is our guest this week! We discuss the long road to recovery following his life-changing accident, the mental state he was in prior to it, how getting off medication allowed him to truly focus on his return to music, and being haunted by the ‘what if’ that motivated his creative life. Dallas also talks about noticing that people are embra...

Destruction frontman Schmier is our guest this week! We discuss the 40th anniversary of the band, how writing music for their new album Diabolical was his personal savior, how influential GBH was during the the early days of Destruction, if the punks vs. metalheads feud of the ‘80s was a positive for thrash's image, and how Destruction got hate from their South American fanbase for canceling shows...

Lord Ahriman of satanic black metallers Dark Funeral is our guest this week! We discuss his thoughts on Shakespeare and memorable theatrical performances, why the rhythms on the band’s new album We Are The Apocalypse were a primary focus, and being unable to leave Cancun, Mexico, when the pandemic hit the world. We also talk about how someone stole Dark Funeral’s stage armor the last time they tou...

Our guest this week is Symphony X guitarist Michael Romeo! In celebration of his new solo album War of The Worlds Part II, he tells us about his first memories of the H.G. Wells classic that inspired the work, if the record is a part of a trilogy that he has planned,  changing  vocalists between Parts I and II, the CGI-inspired videos that he has released to promote the new album, and keeping the...

Sen Dog of the legendary Cypress Hill is our guest this week! We discuss the positive effects of the pandemic in regards to creating new music, how the legalization of marijuana turned out differently than the public thought it would, his crew’s upcoming tour with Slipknot, and how a heavy metal audience changes their setlist. He also talks about the upcoming Showtime documentary on Cypress Hill c...

This week, Periphery guitarist Mark Holcomb joins the show! We discuss the debut full-length album from his project Haunted Shores, how the band’s formation led to him join Periphery, the riff graveyard that he uses to create songs, and on treating music for Haunted Shores like a 9-to-5 job. We also talk about how to deal with writer’s block to meet deadlines, how ‘Mario Party’ was a big part of w...

Sabaton vocalist Joakim Brodén is our guest this week! On this episode, we discuss the stories behind three of the tracks on the band’s new album The War to End All Wars, the history and research behind those songs, and why he decided not to watch recent hit films on WWI. We also discuss almost coming to the states for the Judas Priest tour that was eventually postponed, developing the storytellin...

The mighty Kirk Windstein is back on the show! This week, we discuss Zero and Below, the new album by Kirk’s band Crowbar. We also talk about writing the record back in 2019 prior to the pandemic, the rehearsal process and livestream reunion he has planned with southern metal act Down, the 20-year anniversary of the second Down album, the making of the record as a follow-up to NOLA, and his curren...

Mike Hranica of The Devil Wears Prada is on the show this week! We discuss releasing the standout alone singles “Watchtower” and “Sacrifice, what they’re looking forward to on their upcoming tour with Silverstein and Beartooth, his being a passionate hockey lifelong hockey fan, and the mental health aspect of playing hockey as part of his routine. He also discusses doing a podcast with the band wh...

Olli-Pekka Laine of Amorphis is our guest this week! On this episode, we discuss the band's new album Halo and completing the trilogy they started with Under The Red Cloud. Also covered on this episode: using a separate lyricist to write all the lyrics for the band, the complex process of getting Finnish lyrics translated into English, their upcoming North American tour and the visa process post-p...

Mark “Barney” Greenway of Napalm Death is back on the show! This time around, we discuss getting visas post-pandemic on tour in the states, getting COVID aboard during their tour with GWAR and Eyehategod, how we need to focus on the venerable at this time before getting back to a new normal, and how he feels he's not influenced by marketing or misinformation in modern times. Petar, Brandon, and Sy...

Cannibal Corpse frontman George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher is back on the show! We discuss his new solo album, titled simply Corpsegrinder, why he finally decided the time was right for a solo album after all these years, working with Jamey Jasta on the effort, his work with Dee Snider on the Twisted Sister frontman's own solo album, and how his artwork requirements for his solo material differ from t...

This week our guest is Michel “Away” Langevin of the legendary Voivod! We discuss how the band wanted their new album Synchro Anarchy to be more thrash metal than their previous record The Wake, how the band barely rehearsed and wrote the album as they recorded, the band's recent live record Lost Machine, the upcoming Voivod documentary that was funded on Kickstarter, and the 40th anniversary Voiv...

Will Putney joins us again this week! We discuss Fit For an Autopsy's latest album, Oh What The Future Holds, producing the latest Every Time I Die record, Radical, the importance of having a message in his lyrical output, how he finds it difficult to support artists whose messages misalign with his own, why he is happy to be “a little dumber” so modern issues don’t consume him, his upcoming tour...

Shadow of Intent guitarist Chris Wiseman is our guest this week! We discuss their brand new album, Elegy, his lyrical approach to the record, and how he got Chuck Billy and Phil Bozeman as guests. We also talk about postponing their European tour due to rising Covid cases, what they learned on their recent U.S. tour with Born Of Osiris, the big spectrum of how headlining bands set rules for modern...

Venom Prison vocalist Larissa Stupar is our guest this week! We discuss the challenge of making their new album, Erebos, as the world continued to change around them, recording vocals at her home studio, why the artwork is such an important piece of Venom Prison's presentation, the healing effect of writing “Pain of Oizys” about past trauma, returning to the stage at the Bloodstock festival after...

On our final episode of the year, we continue our Best of 2021 recap (stream part 1 here), revealing our top 5 albums of the year and chatting with some of the artist that made our list, including Chevelle's Pete Loeffler, Zao's Scott Mellinger and members of Green Lung. Don’t miss out on celebrating the music that left the biggest impression on us and broke through all the noise of 2021. Until ne...

2021 is almost behind us, so this week on The MetalSucks Podcast we celebrate all the hope and despair that our favorite artists gave us in a year of comebacks and the new normal we collectively felt. We play one track from every record we loved and praise those artists for giving us music that has been unforgettable. Please join us in celebrating the first half of our top 15 albums of the year an...

Jami Morgan from Code Orange is back on the show! We discuss the recent standalone single "Out For Blood," his perspective on the growing importance of singles in rock and metal, the reality of having to create new music faster in the current landscape, how being a frontman is more exhausting than being a drummer, Max Portnoy becoming a full time member of the band, why he feels Code Orange are in...

Imperial Triumphant guitarist Zachary Ilya Ezrin is our guest this week. We discuss the band's latest album, Alphaville, his thoughts on NFTs in music, embracing all the changes that come into the industry, making the band's new live album available only on vinyl, the band's relationship with New York City, and completing their first headlining tour since the pandemic began. Petar and Brandon tack...

Death Angel riff master Rob Cavestany is our guest this week! We discuss the Grammy nomination of their last record, Humanicide, performing acoustic songs on the band's latest live album, The Bastard Tracks, and what it was like revisiting deep cuts for it, fan backlash for having to reschedule the Bay Strike Backs tour with Testament and Exodus again, the precautions he and Death Angel will take...

Converge frontman Jacob Bannon is our guest this week! We discussed the band's forthcoming 10th studio album, Bloodmoon: I, and the story of how he finally got to collaborate on it with Chelsea Wolfe, Cave In's Stephen Brodsky and multi-instrumentalist Ben Chisholm, how the songs evolved with everyone’s contributions throughout the process, how each participant pushed one another's creative bounda...

Khemmis co-guitarist and co-vocalist Phil Pendergast is our guest this week! We discuss the band's new album, Deceiver, the long and difficult process of writing lyrics for it, fighting through a lack of motivation and depression during the pandemic, how Deceiver connects to the band's breakthrough album, Hunted, the exit of bassist Dan Beiers during the record's creation, and why they are plannin...