Man, it took me a long time to transcribe this interview, but, thankfully, Bill Zebub didn’t mind at all. In fact, he’s so damn humble that, after I apologized for whatever connectivity issues we were having, he went as far as to say, “Dude, I’m not that cool!”
Well I’d say a man who published a popular and irreverent underground metal zine – The Grimoire of Exalted Deeds – in the 90s, along with making a gazillion movies and still doing an underground college metal radio show (Tuesday evenings from midnight to 3am) in the era of Spotify and other algorithm-based online streaming platforms constitutes "pretty damn cool"!
If nothing else, Bill Zebub represents a long gone era in underground metal. See, Rachel and I just came back from Maryland Deathfest, the largest of the underground metal festivals, and on the surface, well, it’s still the metal scene. We saw a who’s who spanning the last four decades of thrash, black, death, doom, and other various mix ‘n’ match metal subgenres; such well-known and not super well-known acts as MAYHEM, DISMEMBER, SODOM, ABBATH, AURA NOIR, ARCHGOAT, SACRIFICE, FORBIDDEN, AT WAR, PRIMORDIAL, MORTUARY DRAPE, 1349, ARCTURUS, FOSSILIZATION, ESOTERIC, OPPRESSOR, and even a totally not extreme hard rock side project from Primordial singer Alan Averill, called DREAD SOVEREIGN. And ostensibly, other than the bands being fatter, older, and balder, nothing’s changed to any great degree.
On the other hand, the once cryptic and mysterious Mayhem, who have a history shrouded in suicide, murder, and church arsons, performed a Vegas-style nostalgia review, complete with back screen projectors playing old interview footage and computer-generated animations utilizing the group’s album artwork, boasting that it’s their fortieth anniversary. And no amount of old, grainy, black-and-white photos of deceased Mayhem lead singer Per Yngve “Dead” Ohlin holding a bloody pig’s head could offset the fact that the stage Mayhem played on was set up outside in front of an IHOP.
Furthermore, all of the added kitsch and novelty in metal these days, such as death metal booty shorts and death metal fanny packs, along with the aggressive push for “inclusivity”, the ousting of any band even rumored to have said something outside of the accepted "politically correct" boundaries, and terminal social media engagement, has made metal just a little less authentic.
And so interviewing Bill Zebub was a whole heck of a lot of fun. We essentially talk about how cool and (don’t laugh) “romantic” the metal scene used to be, the trials and tribulations of a misunderstood zine publisher, clashes between the metal and hardcore subcultures, whether certain bands espousing racist views actually mean it or not, and a bit about Bill Zebub’s movies. Just read it. You’ll be entertained and informed, and you’ll see things getting called “gay.” Don’t you miss calling things “gay”?
Revenge of Riff Riff: So I’m interviewing Bill Zebub of the legendary… would you call it the legendary Grimoire of Exalted Deeds underground metal magazine?
Bill Zebub: I guess it’s a legend in that the stories about me are not true.
RoRR: Well, what is the saying, if you have a choice between printing the truth and printing the legend, print the legend.
BZ: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
RoRR: And, you’re also a movie maker.
BZ: Yes, and a radio host.
RoRR: Yeah, that’s right! You’re a radio host! Some would call that a triple threat. So, I guess, as I said before the interview, this is for more of a normal rock and metal crowd, the kind of people who don’t like death metal vocals and don’t like black metal vocals, but that could be convinced if the music is kind of like ARCH ENEMY, who I’m assuming you probably can’t stand.
BZ: It’s not that I can’t stand them. It’s just that it’s like Chinese food. A half hour after I hear it, I don’t remember it. It doesn’t resonate with me.
RoRR: Got it! So, in 2024, is there a place for physical print zines in this modern blog-dominated world?
BZ: I was actually thinking about that, because I’m making a movie called Fanzine Editor, and I think that when I started as a photocopied zine, and then it turned into newsprint, and then all glossy and carried at Tower Records, which is also the reason for my downfall, because they folded, and before they did, they ordered quadruple the amount of movies and magazines and didn’t pay – you know, all glossy magazine, full color costs a lot of money, so I think it was $8000 that I lost, and it was very hard to recover from – getting back to your question, as I was writing down notes for the development for my movie, I wondered how it would be possible today, because I just went to the replacement Barnes & Noble locally, and it was a big store, and they moved to a store a fraction of the size. They had no physical media, and the magazine section is also a fourth of the size. Well, I think Barnes & Noble is one of the reasons why magazines failed, because the store encouraged you to buy a cup of coffee, do your homework, not buy the books, and read the magazine and not buy the magazine, so it was almost like sitting at the doctor’s office, but with books and magazines you actually want to read, and the other part was people went to Barnes & Noble, saw what they wanted, and then they bought it used on Amazon. Or they bought it on Amazon for a lower price. I got friends who listen to audio books, and I try to explain to them the neuroscience difference between reading and listening, and also telling them that you might be proud of multi-tasking, that you can drive and listen, or do your job and listen, but you can’t. But that’s the way the world… I’m not trying to say let’s change it, let’s go back to the old way. It would be nice, but it’s not possible. It’s not going to happen. It’s just a new world.
And the people who also had a fanzine at the same time, the reason they failed is they didn’t do some vital things, like going to every show possible. The reason I transitioned from photocopy to newsprint is, I went to a show with a hundred of my photocopied fanzines and I just gave them out, and Famous Amos… when I was a kid I saw a story about him, that the reason he took off – I don’t know if it’s true, it could be a legend – we talked about legends – he handed out cookies… I would never eat one from even a friend – I’m kinda paranoid that way – but (laughs), you have to have something free. But then there’s also, like an average person, you give a person something for free, and the person doesn’t want to pay for it, and that kind of happened with the magazine, where, when it went all glossy, people asked me, “What happened to your magazine?”, and I’m like, it’s at Tower Records! “Oh..” And they never bought it! They just didn’t want it if they couldn’t read it for free; the way they had been reading it! They didn’t care that the quality was vastly improved, because newsprint is like newspaper quality. And so the great thing about these days is that anyone can have a magazine with no financial risk. Of course, the more money you put into marketing, like Facebook ads or whatever to get eyes on your magazine or ears on your podcast, or even eyes on your podcast, you could still do it, and it could take off with word of mouth, but I guess the point is, it’s easier for people to start, but as far as getting vastly successful, that’s up to whatever magic… people have to tell other people about your stuff more. I mean, that’s what happened with me… I’m speaking in fragmented sentences, but I think what happened with me was people HATED me. They thought I was anti-metal, ‘cause I was fucking around with people. I find it funny that I was DETESTED. Few people understood what I was doing, and most people hated it, but they HAD to read me being an asshole! And then it just turned into what it became. These days I don’t think I’d be able to repeat what happened during the days when print was relevant.
RoRR: And, I’ve read your memoir, and if you want to re-release it, I’ll edit it pro-bono or maybe for a few free CDs or something…
BZ: (laughs) How bad are the grammatical and spelling errors?
RoRR: They’re bad! Like, there were times when I didn’t quite understand what the point of the sentence was, because it ends in a fragment, where it sounds like you left a sentence and then came back to it after saving it. But I got the gist of it. And you said that bands actually asked you to do bad reviews of their stuff, because they got the joke, correct?
BZ: Well, let me clarify. I didn’t think that I should have the last word in my magazine. I didn’t want to be like that guy who always gets his ass kicked at a bar, but once the bouncers separate him from the attacker, he’s “tough.” So, I didn’t want to be that. That’s not metal. That’s cowardice. So, every bad review that I gave… these reviews were so ridiculous, I don’t know how anyone could take them seriously! But there are two types of people. Let me start with the first one. I mailed – as in snail mail – the reviews before I printed them; whether it was a demo of a band, or I sent them to the record label to give to the band, and they didn’t take me seriously, because I said I will not edit you. Whatever you write, I will print. So they sent me threats, and this became very big. You know, people were dying laughing, because I guess the people who sent me threats didn’t know that I would print the threats. Because I did say, whatever you send me, I will publish. And it became sort of like pro-wrestling. I mean, it just blew up. And bands wanted a bad review, so they could write a totally contrived rebuttal. I mean, rebuttals are supposed to be contrived, but you get what I mean. Their threats were fake.
RoRR: Yeah, so it wasn’t as fun, because they’re not really threatening you. They’re just joke threatening you.
BZ: You nailed it. It was only funny when it was real.
RoRR: Sure! Because, when someone says, I’m gonna come to your house and sacrifice you to Satan and run you over with my… yeah, it’s like….
BZ: Yeah, but when the threats were basic, like “I know what you look like. I’ll see you at the next show”… the other thing was you remember the bad reviews, like the scathing reviews, and like I said earlier, the reviews were so ridiculous, how could you take them seriously? You had to laugh. But bands started realizing that the bad reviews are actually good for them; especially if you’re mediocre. You must have heard a mediocre album, you forget about it. But, if someone bashes it in an ultra-brutal way, you’re gonna remember that band, you’re gonna remember that album. You might not buy it. But then the readers started realizing that the reviews are meaningless. Because I would trash great albums just because someone had short hair, or short hair and corpse paint, I should say…
RoRR: Does that mean you trashed IMPALED NAZARENE?
BZ: (laughs) No, I never trashed Impaled Nazarene. Mika was at one of the metal fests, and I didn’t know who he was, and I couldn’t really understand him, and it wasn’t because of his accent. He was trashed! And I have to tell you… let me ask; do you know how Scandinavians drink?
RoRR: I mean, I’m guessing they drink a fuck ton.
BZ: Yeah, it’s a drinking culture, as they explained to me. It would be funny if the only Scandinavians I met were actually alcoholics, but Mika was getting free vodka at the bar, not from the bartender, but from people just lining up shots for him. And, during my interview… I had a microcassette recorder in case any kind of interview happened, so once I realized who he was, I felt, let’s do an interview, especially since he has a sense of humor, because I think I DID trash Impaled Nazarene, and he didn’t mind it at all, but while he was talking, he vomited at the bar and then had another shot.
RoRR: Well, of course, he’s Scandinavian! Is Finland a Scandinavian country? Or is it adjacent? I’m kind of ignorant about that.
BZ: You know, I didn’t think it was, but they’re considered Scandinavian even though it’s a completely different language family. And then Mathias, the vocalist of FINNTROLL, said that, once upon a time, if you speak Swedish in Finland, you get punched in the face. I don’t know if that’s true or whatever, but I don’t want to visit Finland or the various Scandinavian countries over the various things that I’ve heard. The drinking behavior is not one of them. I’ve met people who have never been corrected while drunk. And I was fortunate, that when I was eighteen, I got drunk and kicked my friends bike, and he knocked me out. And he told me, when you’re drunk, you can’t get away with anything. But there are people today who are like, “oh, you know, I was drunk!” And they think it’s okay.
RoRR: I don’t mean to move this in a different direction, but…
BZ: It’s okay! I do talk a lot, so you have to control me.
RoRR: Well, I don’t want to be a dick either. So, I read the memoir, and in it, you start doing the radio show, and you start doing the zine. Was there a reason why… were you just an uber-fan, or did you just want to connect with the metal world? A lot of people would be hardcore fans and not feel that they need to do anything other than just be fans. Is there a reason why you wanted to dig deep in there and be the “messenger”, so to speak? (I could have just asked, “Why did you start your zine?”, but I was trying to be “creative” and just came off awkward.)
BZ: Well, my earliest memory… I was four years old, and there was a children’s record, a Peter Pan record. I don’t know if they still exist, but it was a hand-me-down record from another family member, and there was a song on it… it was the equivalent of a musical, in that there was a story being told, and then there was a song, “The Ugly Duckling.” And when I heard it, it was just magical to me, and I wanted everyone to hear it, so when my parents were gone, I would blast this song for the neighbors to hear. So I always wanted to turn people on to music that I liked, whether it was metal or “The Ugly Duckling”, and I didn’t realize that average people don’t LOVE music; they just like, or some songs they like more, but they’re not physically affected by music. I guess that’s the best way to put it. So, anyway, I had a college radio show, and the reason I had the college radio show is, when I was in high school, Tony Scaglione, who was the drummer of WHIPLASH, asked me, “Oh, you like metal?”, and I said, “Yes.”, and he asked me to name metal bands, so I said, you know, JUDAS PRIEST, BLACK SABBATH... he said, “Those aren’t metal.”
RoRR: Yeah, I remember reading that, and you’re like, “Well, what are they?”
BZ: Yeah, so essentially, he was an elitist or pretending to be one, because sometimes people are sarcastic, and I don’t know. It’s not that I’m autistic, but it takes me a while sometimes to understand if someone’s sarcastic, so maybe he was sarcastic, but, he told me to listen to this radio station, and that’s where I discovered MERCYFUL FATE, and my life changed. I didn’t really like thrash. So, I went from bands like Mercyful Fate to death metal, or the beginnings of death metal. I didn’t really like thrash too much, although I did like this band DEATHROW in all of their phases. The first few albums, it was almost like Arnold Schwarzenegger on vocals, and that’s something that I didn’t understand. Why would you “talk-sing” if you have an accent? Like, if you’re lyrics are in a certain language, get someone better in that language if you’re “talk-singing.” And, you know, I have also said that, I didn’t like the first SLAYER album because, it just seemed like a fast polka beat, and the vocals were just like someone at an auction. You know, it didn’t seem rhythmic or talented or anything like that. Later on, I learned the truth. I didn’t like POSSESSED. I didn’t like DEATH when I first heard the vocals. I was a later converted person to the band Death, but there was a certain very guttural growling that made me envision monsters and demons… when I listen to music, I don’t picture the actual bands performing. I have like a theater of the mind going on. But, anyway, I went to that college that had that college radio station, and it was for no other reason than to be on that radio station. And, when I was removed from that radio station for various crimes, I still wanted to be part of the metal world because it was intoxicating! Like, if you love music, and you suddenly become an insider, and I don’t mean that in a snobby way… you know, just like hanging out with bands backstage, it’s a hard thing to give up. That’s why I started the fanzine. I actually interned at Roadrunner Records, and I wanted to speak to radio people, because, part of that was, I wanted radio people to think, “Hey, this guy is cool! Let me give him a show!” That later happened when I interned at Metal Blade. As an intern there, I dealt with radio people, and I was on two radio shows, but that’s another story. But, with the magazine, it’s because, when I interned at Roadrunner, I dealt with fanzines. I didn’t even know what a fanzine was! That’s how elitist I was. I wasn’t really that underground. I was into metal because, you know, record labels sent albums to the radio station, but it was through the fanzine, that I really learned about the underground.
RoRR: So, it’s safe to say that the fanzine was more of a portal into the underground, than the underground was the reason you started the fanzine? I mean, you review some pretty subterranean stuff; not just your top level MORBID ANGEL and OBITUARY, I mean, you get pretty deep down in there!
BZ: Once you learn the underground… well, it’s very different now. Anyone with no effort can be part of it. But, in the old days, and I have to preface this by saying that, I wanted to make a movie about the networking that went on in the underground. But these days, no one would find it romantic.
RoRR: I don’t know if I agree with that! If someone is going to finance something as stupid as "The Social Network," and that "Lords of Chaos" shit, someone is going to throw money at you to make a movie about underground networking, tape trading, zines, the metal scene, I’m positive someone will throw money at you for that!
BZ: Well you said something great; the tape trading. So that’s a part of the underground. I approached one of the people I serviced – not sexually – when I was an intern at the label, and I was told, “Hey, I’m gonna give you some flyers.” These were photocopies. Some were done on computer, most of them were done by hand, by copy and pasting, true copy and pasting, like writing it out on a typewriter, cutting it out, pasting it onto a flyer. But the rule was, when you contact anyone, whether it was a band, a fanzine, whatever, you include not just your own flyers, but a ton of other flyers. And so, that was our version of the internet. The internet was around, but, you know, metal people were very slow… this is before email! That’s what I’m talking about. And the reason I said that people can’t really understand what’s so great about that these days is that, when you email someone, you can get an instant reply. If you chat on Facebook or whatever, you can get an instant reply. But snail mail letters, especially to Scandinavia and European countries, it might be three weeks before you get a reply, and you hand-write whatever, or maybe you just sent tapes, like tape trading, you know you had to record the tapes in real time. You know, you record an album, you just set it to record and take a shower or jerk-off or whatever, come back, take the tape, put it on the other side. You had to handwrite what was on the tape. And this is a hassle to people these days. Like, I’ve talked to people, and they do not understand what was so special about it. You know, like every day, I went to the P.O. Box, and it was like Christmas! So, I do want to depict that… before I left New Jersey, the chief editor of HBO told me to join the editors guild, and I think that’s funny ‘cause one of the complaints about my movies is the editing is terrible.
RoRR: I mean, they’re pretty long! I thought Clown Nostra was pretty funny, but at two hours, I thought it could have been cut down to 80 minutes. No offense.
BZ: No, no, I surround myself with people who constantly ridicule me. I don’t have flatterers in my inner circle. But, I thought it was a joke, and the editor told me I wouldn’t be editing a film. I’d be starting with reality TV, just barking stuff like, “Actor A, smile.” That conversation went to me getting an agent and blah-blah-blah, and the memoir that you have, that might actually become season one or season two of a show, or that was my thinking. And then I realized the world hates metal! Average people look at metal as something bad. They revere rap with imbecilic lyrics, and they look down on MY DYING BRIDE or even THEATRE OF TRAGEDY, that has Shakespearean lyrics, but they hated the gruff vocals or the guitar is distorted, “These people probably bathe in motor oil.” Ya know, I don’t want the world to love metal, because I’ve never been a big fan of METALLICA.
RoRR: Not even those classic first three albums?
BZ: I didn’t hate them, but I didn’t understand why people went bananas over them, but I guess it’s safe to say that, those first few albums were musically superior to the commercial album. And I know that their fans became angry when their style became more mainstream. The band actually starved. They struggled at the beginning, and they deserve the wealth that they have now. They’ve given the world a few albums that actually have integrity, so why not let them live out the rest of their days in comfort. Jason Newsted said that they can now afford several cars instead of the tank that all of us old metal heads drove one; the five ton car that could tear up any lawn and you don’t care if you get into an accident with it, and the shittiest stereo system but with the loudest speakers. But, anyway, the point is, now a Guido will wear a Metallica shirt or listen to Metallica, and in the early days, Guidos were despised. I don’t even know why The Jersey Shore television show became a hit. When I go outside of New Jersey, people mention The Jersey Shore, and I say, you know, those are despised people. They’re not celebrities.
RoRR: Well, we have that in Michigan. We have Catholic Arabs who act like Jersey Shore. Every state has its sort of swarthy…
BZ: Are they called Coptic Christians?
RoRR: Well, they’re called Chaldeans. I think they’re okay on an individual level, but I think every state… because in California, they have Armenians in Glendale. I think every state, or nearly every state, has a group of swarthy minorities who act like they’re Scarface. So, I guess for you it’s Italians or Sicilians, and for us Christian Middle Easterners or Arabs called Chaldeans.
BZ: Well, I guess what I was trying to say is, I don’t really try to spread metal to convert people. I want to spread music to people who resonate with it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a metal head. Because my present radio show, I invite people outside of metal to listen to it. Once in a while, I’ll play a show where it’s mostly the underground as a treat, but I try to show people that there’s more to metal. Like MÖTLEY CRÜE is not metal. So I can understand why there is a hatred or why people look down on metal …
RoRR: I actually like Shout at the Devil! The other ones suck, but that one’s actually a good heavy rock record. You don’t like that?
BZ: No. They don’t really have sophisticated music or sophisticated lyrics. I’m sorry if I offended you, but…
RoRR: No, no, no, they’re a dumb band! They’re idiots! I just…
BZ: I’m just playing “angel’s advocate.” Get it? Instead of devil, get it?
RoRR: Yeah, yeah! That’s good!
BZ: And it’s easy to look down on that kind of stuff. Ya know, there’s nothing really cerebral. Ya know, and people might think, “death metal is cerebral?” And death metal might have its silly bands, but as I mentioned, My Dying Bride; that requires darkness and headphones. That’s not party music. And, of course, the lyrics…
RoRR: I was gonna say, you can even say Death. Death has intellectual lyrics about social concerns. I mean, listening to Death; there’s songs about the morality of abortion. I mean, you wouldn’t typically think a band called Death would sing something like that.
BZ: Yeah, I actually try to ignore that. When I listen to metal, it’s escapism. I don’t wanna hear a high school dropout… well, I don’t know the educational level of Chuck Schuldiner, but I ridiculed him A LOT.
RoRR: Okay!
BZ: (laughs) In person! Um, and that’s a whole other conversation, because we’re talking about people outside the death metal circle. I loved that album, Spiritual Healing. I loved it. I loved the sound of it. I loved their songs. But I hated the lyrics. Especially, like, I guess you were referencing “Living Monstrosity.”
RoRR: Yeah. I was just using that an example of something that’s not stupid like Mötley Crüe. That was the point.
BZ: Oh yeah, so they were talking about “baby.” I famously said that the only time the word “baby” should be in a song is if you’re talking about killing babies. I guess Schuldiner was talking about saving babies.
RoRR: Well, one thing that doesn’t comport well with people is “Silent Scream” by Slayer, I mean, to me that’s a pro-life song. Just saying, ya know…
BZ: Is that from a later Slayer album?
RoRR: No, that’s off of South of Heaven! Second track!
BZ: Oh, really?
RoRR: Yeah! Listen to it! There’s no way you can interpret it…, he’s saying, “Silent scream, kill the unwanted child”! Tom Araya’s Catholic! I’m not surprised that, between the death, gore, and Satan, he’d throw something in there like that, I dunno. But I was gonna ask a different question about metal and people outside of metal, because you’ve mentioned this before. I mean, I read this right out of an interview, you said, “hardcore punk and other gay, trendy scenes have infiltrated metal.”
BZ: (laughs hysterically as I try to spit out the rest of my question)
RoRR: Are you talking back to 1985 with bands like D.R.I., S.O.D., CARNIVORE, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, and NAPALM DEATH and that kinda stuff? I mean, because that’s been going on since the mid 80s…
BZ: Well, repeat that again, because I—(more hysterical laughter) – I mean, repeat my quote…
RoRR: You said, “hardcore punk and other gay, trendy scenes have infiltrated metal.” Are you talking about something more recently, or does this go back to the crossover days? I mean, do you just explicitly not like that stuff, like no punk rock, no hardcore, period, or is it just…
BZ: Well, I think it’s important… you were referencing an ethnic group and then one-on-one. That’s the way I’ve always lived; one-on-one. But, generally, the rules of the club; hardcore I despise, because it was uneducated people singing about political lyrics. These weren’t political science majors or anything like that. Ya know, they glorified things that I hated, but they were also dishonorable. I kept getting jumped by them.
RoRR: Oh shit!
BZ: And it was never one-on-one! And hardcore and skinheads were two different groups, but they both had the same policy of, “You’re not one of us, so you get beaten up – they called it getting “swarmed” – because you’re not human in their eyes. Ya know, the skinheads took it further; they said “unity is power.” But, yeah, the point is, you’re an outsider, so you don’t get the one-on-one rights or whatever. I don’t want to say that individually they can’t fight, because some of them were monsters, but I didn’t like the group thinking. I didn’t like their policies; the way they regard things. And, musically, it was just too simple, too stupid. Another reason I hated the hardcore scene was, promoters booked hardcore and metal at the same time, because they thought they’d get two different audiences and sell more tickets. They didn’t care about the violence and the clash of subcultures. And, I guess the skinheads were right; unity is power, because six skinheads could rule a club that has six hundred metalheads, because the metalheads don’t unify! You know, they’ll just look at someone getting his ass kicked by six skinheads and go, “Oh, wow, that sucks!” (laughs) But it was very funny, because there was a club called L’Amour… you mentioned Slayer, so this combines Slayer and hardcore. Slayer played L’Amour. It was a club in Brooklyn, a mid-sized venue, but not big enough for Slayer fans. So, Slayer played there under the name ANGEL OF DEATH, and I attended with some people from New Jersey, and I didn’t know what “tailgating” was. I guess it’s a sports term. But a couple blocks from the club, we found a place to drink beer that we bought in New Jersey, rather than paying the New York price beer… like, you could have a six pack, or you could buy a beer at a club… we primed ourselves with alcohol, and we watched these hardcore thugs approach… they were very polite to us, by the way. They asked did we have tickets, like they were salesmen, and we’re like, “no, no, we got them.” But any scalper that they came across, they surrounded, and they offered, “Give us your tickets freely, and you can walk away”, and if not, they beat the fuck out of you, and they’d take your tickets and your money! And then they sold them to, ya know, people like us, who were just like, “oh man, we didn’t get a ticket”!
RoRR: These were the hardcore kids that did that?
BZ: Hardcore and the local… I wouldn’t say that they were gangs, but they were locals, like Hispanic locals. But the point is the hardcore people and the locals just surrounded the scalpers. They had the same policies, beat the fuck out of the scalpers that didn’t surrender their tickets. And I thought that was cool, that… these people did take advantage… then again they did provide a service! Imagine going to a show and not getting any tickets, and you want to find a scalper in that case, but you don’t wanna pay like triple the price to get in, which is what the scalpers were doing. But the point… I just realized what the main point was.
RoRR: We allow for, um…
BZ: Stream of consciousness?
RoRR: I was just gonna say, detours and all of that, I mean, you know…
BZ: So, I’m bringing it all around. For the first time, that was the first time I saw this; metalheads in the club banded together, and they went down the street, and some of them had bats, and it wasn’t for show, and they mercilessly beat down the people who beat up the scalpers! And it was funny, because one guy – I don’t know if his skull was broken – but I felt proud that finally, and it wasn’t like a hateful unity like the skinheads had or the hardcore people hated people outside of it; it was a like a fight club. You know, they told me, like, (in goony voice) “You could tell which crew you’re with by the color of sneakers.” Stupid shit. Learn some social skills. Make some friends… but the point is, I saw metal people, when there was a real danger, they got together. And I think what happened… the straw that broke the camel’s back was, one of the scalpers, a bottle was broke over his face, and he was blinded in one eye. You know, he was just bleeding out of his eye, and he was just screaming, and it took that to say, enough was enough. And, ever since then, whenever I went to L’Amour, I didn’t see any of the hardcore thugs. Like, maybe they were there as individuals, but there was none of that nonsense. So metal took a stand and won.
RoRR: So, here’s a question I think you’ll enjoy. Are there any bands that looked totally gay, but when you heard them, they kicked your ass through your face?
BZ: All the time! That’s why, when I review something, I try not to know anything. I don’t read any press release. I don’t wanna know, hey it’s got this famous member from this other band. And sometimes I’m shocked when I see the band picture! So, it’s true that you can’t judge a book by its cover. We watch movies that always give the message, “don’t judge people” and “it’s okay to be different.” But that’s not the way we really work. Even someone as open minded as I am falls to my human… I don’t know if they’re instincts, but our brains are designed to categorize and to make very, very fast judgments. It doesn’t mean that we’re shallow. It’s just that, if the brain attended to everything and thought about every little thing, it would expend too much energy. I mean, you could take a moment and put the magnifying glass on anything, but generally speaking, we make fast judgments. But, otherwise, I’ve been guilty. Sometimes I’ve even looked at pictures of bands and thought, “Ugh, I’m not gonna like this at all!” And there’s a band called MADDER MORTEM; I LOVE this band! It’s not death metal. I didn’t give them a chance at first because the female singer was overweight, and the band members kind of looked like they were… well, I don’t wanna say… they didn’t really look like they were the kind of metal people who make music that I’d like. But, yeah, Madder Mortem is not really metal. And the other reason I didn’t like it is because I was deeply into female operatic vocals, as in opera singers, who were either session players or session singers on albums, or in the case of THERION, they were opera singers who were also on every album and performed live with the band. But I heard Madder Mortem, and I didn’t know it was Madder Mortem, and I was floored! Now, I’m a big fan, and whenever I play them on the radio show, listeners call me or they message me, email me, whatever, and they’re always happy when I play Madder Mortem songs.
RoRR: On the contrary, though, how do you feel about these new bands, BURNING WITCHES, NERVOSA, where it looks like they plucked hot Playboy models, dressed them up in metal clothes, or the whole female-fronted band thing… do you think those bands are gimmicky or do you think there’s a lot of legitimate stuff, and that I need to not judge a book by its cover?
BZ: Well, whenever I’ve seen things like that, it’s always been a marketing gimmick. I forgot what the name of the band was, but it was Necropolis Records, and I guess they weren’t really death metal, they weren’t really black metal, but they were sort of a hybrid of black metal and maybe…
RoRR: Blackened thrash maybe?
BZ: Like, black, thrash, and goth, so it wasn’t corpse paint. It was like heavy eyeliner, but they were members of other bands, and Necropolis Records sent me a poster of the band, and it was a topless nun. I’m sorry, a naked nun, except for her nun costume. I don’t like breast implants, and I try never to have women with breast implants in my movies. And, if they have breast implants, I sort of ridicule them. I don’t know how girls feel about penile implants. I keep getting told all the time, “Bill, you have to get one.” But, uh, I don’t fault that marketing. I think it’s the record label making that decision, but, you know, bands tell me that they like how I had Grimoire girls in my magazine, and I didn’t really use it to sell because the first 80% of my magazine was free. So I wouldn’t be using it to sell. I wasn’t using it to attract more… I didn’t really do anything to attract anything. I was just having fun. Then other people copied me. There was a magazine in New Jersey. It wasn’t really a magazine. It was one of those things where, every week, every bar would have stacks of them.
RoRR: Yeah, those free weekly things…
BZ: Yeah, so they started copying me. They had the model of the week. But it was funny, because first it was outrage. People would tell me, oh you’re sexist, blah, blah, blah, and you have no idea the amount of girls who wrote me letters or emails to chastise me, and we became lifelong friends.
RoRR: So, back to the zine, though. And this may sound like a dumb question…
BZ: There are no dumb questions, only dumb people!
RoRR: Ha! Okay, so when you did interviews with Seth Putnam of ANAL CUNT and MALEVOLENT CREATION saying all those words, did you think in two decades, some modern, super politically correct, progressive would find that and be like, “Oh my God, check out this horrible thing I found…”
BZ: You do realize this happened, right?
RoRR: Well, were you surprised about it?
BZ: I just don’t care. I know who I am. Sometimes I was surprised, like with Seth Putnam…, but let me finish that up. I know who I am, so I’m not afraid of other people misperceiving me, because, even if, you or I are as clear as we can possibly be, there will be someone who misinterprets. So it’s pointless. Just be who you are, and let the cards fall where they may. Anyway… I think it’s MetalSucks… so, there might be a lawsuit against them.
RoRR: Really?
BZ: And I still have to talk to Phil [Fasciana of Malevolent Creation] about it, because I don’t mind anyone reprinting anything from my website or my magazine, but you have to give me credit, and you can’t take anything out of context. So what MetalSucks did is a violation and damaging to Malevolent Creation – it’s not damaging to me – when I asked joke questions to Phil Fasciana, MetalSucks reprinted only the replies to the questions that had racial slurs, and they did not indicate that this was totally a joke.
RoRR: Yeah, trust me! I read the piece, and it said it sounds like they’re at a KKK rally. It was really pearl clutching, like “Oh my God”, like that kind of stuff.
BZ: And you probably know this. There are people who say things privately who don’t repeat those things publicly. And, when I interview bands, the simple reason for a magazine or a talk show existing is the review or interview inflates the value of the CD or movie. And interviews are only to promote the current release. And I usually ask NOTHING about the album or anything like that, because I want to show the personality of the band, and I like creating socially awkward moments, because that’s when you found out who the person was. Like, if the person keeps back peddling, you can tell that maybe he’s hiding something. Or the opposite where the person is like a true blood racist!
RoRR: Do you think Seth Putnam was that, or that he was just an uber hardcore troll? Because I never really took him seriously. Did you actually think, like, this is what he believes, kind of deal?
BZ: Well, I’ll explain that. I was going to bring that up even if you didn’t ask about it. I thought that he was a shock rocker, and one of the reasons I believed that was because, Anal Cunt was on Earache Records, and Earache Records had bands like Napalm Death that were very anti-Nazi, very anti-hate, so I thought it was just shock rock. Because it’s comical with song titles like “I Sent Concentration Footage to America’s Funniest Home Videos”; that’s like slapstick! The title of every song is like slapstick. I don’t know if he was mentally ill, because when I talked to him, it seemed like it was all for show, and he tried to make it look like he was this maniac. But if you’re a maniac, you’re always that way. You always have the poor judgment. If you say that you revel in violence, you don’t care if you get your ass kicked. That is always the case. But there was one show where he acted up, and a very well known brawler… I can’t mention his name, because I only talk about him when he’s present, that’s how violent he is, that guy threatened Seth, and Seth behaved. He’s not a maniac. So all these cases, like I thought were for show. We did an interview in New York city face to face; we arm wrestled, and I beat him, and then he tried to punch me, and he ended up on the floor. It’s not that I’m Bruce Lee or anything like that. It’s just that we were both very drunk, and I’ve taken Jiu Jitsu for twelve years at that point. So, I didn’t punch him back, but I let him know, that if he tried to hit me again, you might end up in the hospital. Or I might, because I might slip and fall, because I’m drunk. But he stopped, so that showed me that his behavior might be public, he might not be authentic. However I have a guy in a wheelchair who wrote for me for a short period of time, and he thought it would be funny to perpetuate a joke that I started. When I interview people, I send out feeler questions so I know what they’re sensitive about, and I asked Seth, “Why do you have anti-Semitic lyrics if you’re Jewish?”
RoRR: I remember that! And he got PISSED!
BZ: And I thought he was joke pissed, but he was furious! And the guy who wrote for me went by the name Rob Noxious, and every band he interviewed he said, “Oh, did you know that Seth Putnam is Jewish?” And Anal Cunt played in New Jersey, and I had a friend who didn’t like Anal Cunt, and it was his birthday, so I hung out with him. And a fan of mine brought a stack of Grimoire magazines to the show, and Seth Putnam threw a bar stool at him. So, when I found about this… there was an employee at Earache who had a camcorder, and he showed that, between every song, Seth Putnam called me “gay”, and “where is he?”, you know, “coward”, blah, blah, blah… And the week before, I had shown up… we were talking about hardcore earlier, there was a band that threatened [me], if I show up, I’m going to get swarmed by twenty people. I showed up. I did not get swarmed by twenty people. Maybe I even thought it was a trap, I don’t know, but Seth knew the guy who organized the show, and he told Seth, if I’m going to fight twenty people, why would I be afraid of you, especially since you can’t beat me. You know it’s been demonstrated. So stop, you know? What’s the problem? He said, “Well, you keep telling everyone that I’m Jewish.” I said, “No, I told you to your face, if you’re Jewish, why do you keep making anti-Semitic jokes.” He quoted Rob Noxious, and I said that’s not me. He goes, “Yeah, it’s you under a fake name.” I told him, Bill Zebub is a fake name.” That’s not a real name! But, on top of that, I’m not afraid to say things. If I say something, I face the person. Well, I don’t anymore, because a girl could take me; that’s how physically broken I am. But, it was funny because, I had that talk with him, and I said, “What’s wrong with you? That was a cripple, and you sent out a song to him.” He did a cover of ELTON JOHN's “I’m Still Standing.” But, after he realized that, that wasn’t me, he said, “Oh, in that case, everything’s cool.” And I decided, “No, it’s not cool, you fuck!” And then I found he genuinely is – or, he was, he died, good riddance – he was very hateful, and it was funny. That was not a joke. And then I found out from Earache that, although they have Napalm Death, he said that it’s not their business to promote this, that, or the other. They’re just selling CDs; they don’t care what the bands stand for.
RoRR: I think it’s an open secret that Seth Putnam was unapologetically involved with some white power bands like the RAUNCHOUS BROTHERS and MUDOVEN.
BZ: I’ve never heard of them.
RoRR: Oh, you haven’t? Okay! That’s what makes the Seth Putnam thing so intriguing to me, because he would hang out with Katon of HIRAX, a black singer, and then go and sing VAGINAL JESUS songs. Do you know Vaginal Jesus, the racist grindcore band?
BZ: I’d only heard of that. You know, Seth told me, you gotta hear that; it’s like Anal Cunt on steroids or whatever. I don’t like Anal Cunt! I only like some of it because they’re very novelty sounding; like, “I Just Saw the Gayest Guy on Earth.” That’s ridiculous! The song is funny!
RoRR: Right, you get the CD to laugh at the funny titles, but musically it’s hit and miss. I mean, some of it’s all right. They had the guy from AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED, so that gives them some level of legitimacy, I guess.
BZ: You know, it’s not my place to really judge, but on a personal level, I just thought it was garbage and, ya know, maybe it’s not made up as you go along, to me it’s just silly! Who could tell if you played the wrong note if they played live?
RoRR: Every answer you give opens like two doors. I guess I’ll go with the more provocative question, and then after, ask the less provocative question. Given all that, what you just said, would you cover or give press or even listen to a band like THOR’S HAMMER (racist black metal, not to be confused with the doom metal band THORR’S HAMMER) or ABSURD or Rob Darken [of GRAVELAND] kinda stuff or GRAND BELIAL’S KEY or ARGHOSLENT? Is it all just music, and you couldn’t care less what they stand for, or is there a line, where you’re like, I’m not touching that, I’m gonna leave that alone, because that does cross that line into hateful territory?
BZ: Well, I just had an argument with someone who used to be a member of the National Alliance. One thing that is very strange about the people that I’ve met who’ve been part of white power organizations is they always have a Jewish girlfriend. It’s not surprising that they like hot women; what’s surprising is, why would a Jewish woman date someone who’s very open about hating Jews? So, that kind of denial might warrant some sort of documentary. White supremacists are sort of like Christians in that they know the rules of their group, but they don’t follow them personally. So, publicly they’ll go to church, and they’ll “seig heil” or whatever, but privately, they’re like, “Oh my God, she’s hot!”
RoRR: So, the question remains, would you actually still do reviews – and maybe you have, and I missed it – of stuff like that? Like, there’s that band Thor’s Hammer, and they have that album, The Fate Worse than Death, and it’s got a mixed race couple kissing and a nuclear bomb going off behind them. Would you review that or interview that band, or would you be like, I’m not touching that?
BZ: Well, I would never say, “I’m not touching that”, but I would interview them my own way. You know, I would either ridicule them, or ask them to... maybe have them… you know, find silliness in their beliefs. The only Thorr’s Hammer I’ve ever heard was a four song EP with a female singer. People liked it, because there was this hot Scandinavian chick; they’d obviously never heard of HOLY MOSES from Germany with Sabrina or Sabina… Sabina. If you’ve never heard Holy Moses, try to find something on Youtube from the album, Finished with the Dogs; it’s a thrash band, and in the thrash days, people were astounded, “Wow, a girl can sing like that? Wow, that’s brutal!” But it was probably gimmicky, but I enjoy it. I still have the EP. And then I made the mistake of buying Thorr’s Hammer, thinking that, wow, they have a full length, and it was just garbage, unlistenable. So, I would interview them, but I would call them out.
(For the record, I think we actually confused the black metal band Thor’s Hammer with the doom/death metal band Thorr’s Hammer, which has the chick singer.)
BZ: But, yeah, I would interview them, but I would call them out. Like with Phil from Malevolent Creation; he just reminded me a lot of like mostly white city dwellers, who may or may not be making money, but they don’t really like non-white people. They lived a segregated life, and maybe they’ve had experiences… you know, I used to tell people that, you can’t really say you’re not racist if you’ve only encountered, like, Bill Cosby black people, but I can’t say that anymore, because Bill Cosby raped the hell out of a lot of women!
BZ: But, yeah, I would interview them, but I would call them out. Like with Phil from Malevolent Creation; he just reminded me a lot of like mostly white city dwellers, who may or may not be making money, but they don’t really like non-white people. They lived a segregated life, and maybe they’ve had experiences… you know, I used to tell people that, you can’t really say you’re not racist if you’ve only encountered, like, Bill Cosby black people, but I can’t say that anymore, because Bill Cosby raped the hell out of a lot of women!
RoRR: Ah, but he was found not guilty!
BZ: Regardless… no, I think what he did was he confessed under the condition that he wouldn’t be prosecuted. I might make a Bill Cosby movie with me playing Bill Cosby.
RoRR: In black face, of course.
BZ: Yeah, in black face, of course. But, with Malevolent Creation, I just know, because I look stupid, people say things in front of me that they wouldn’t say in front of a clean-cut person, ya know, and plus because I act so stupidly, and maybe people don’t understand my racial humor, but I don’t think anything of it. I just hang out with better examples of black people, because they just might have encountered lazy or stupid or criminal parts of that population… um, I don’ t know. I really don’t care enough, because my own beliefs might not be good or smart, you know, but everyone has to go through life making decisions, and I can’t tell people, “You have to decide this.” But, getting back to what I said about talking to a white supremacist, he thought that he was doing well by telling kids, don’t listen to rap, stop listening to these knuckle-scraping, blah, blah, blah, and he gets them to go out and go hunting, and I ask him, why does that benefit mankind? You’re not doing anything to better us as a species. And I tried to make him understand that a one-hundred IQ doesn’t become higher if you listen to metal or if you stop listening to rap. Like, you’re always going to be stupid. Like, he’s converting stupid people, thinking they’re somehow going to be productive and smart, but he himself isn’t productive; he’s a recluse. And, so I tried to make him understand this by asking questions, blah, blah, blah, and he just didn’t get it and got more and more upset, and he said that I was “blackpilled.” I don’t know if this is a white supremacist concept or whatever…
RoRR: No, it’s just a political concept that can apply to the economy or any other issues. It just means the world is going to hell, and you can’t do anything about it.
BZ: And it’s bad because it’s black. (laughs)
RoRR: Right, that too. So, going to a non-controversial question, you mentioned something being “unlistenable garbage.” How would you tell a hard rock fan/normal metal fan, someone who doesn’t like extreme metal, how to get past harsh vocals? For instance, when I heard CANNIBAL CORPSE, I thought that was all death metal, and I thought it was horrible, and then I heard other examples, and it wasn’t all the same. So, how do you get someone who’s into, like, OZZY, Priest, or MAIDEN into more extreme music?
BZ: I can only say what happened to me. I think I mentioned, that when I first heard Death, I thought it was garbage. I thought it was like the villain from Inspector Gadget trying to sing. And Cannibal Corpse, I thought it was Cookie Monster or whatever. And, later on, I heard guttural vocals that seemed like monsters or demons, and so it stimulated the theater of the mind in me, ‘cause, when I listen to music, I like to listen to music with eyes closed and on headphones, and I just imagine other things. And that’s one of the reasons why I don’t like political lyrics. I like fantastic lyrics, or in death metal, if I can’t understand the vocals, I understand the feeling. I love opera! Like the darker opera. I don’t understand Italian or German, but the vocal delivery does something to me! Like, I won’t be able to drive if you play the Commendatore scene from the finale of Don Giovanni! It’s like giving me a roofie. I really love to have sex… no, just kidding. But, I can’t tell another person, because, as I’ve grown older and also in my psychology background, I discovered that, there are many different kinds of personalities, and that sometimes people have to listen to something in the right frame of mind that they’ve dismissed. We’re all like that, I believe. Because, I’ve been like that, where I’ve thought, man, this song’s terrible, and then I heard it in another mood and went, “Oh my God!” On my radio show, I played a song called “Heavy Dreamer” by the VANISHING KIDS, and when I heard it, I didn’t hate it, but there was something about it that told me to revisit it, and every time I hear that song, there’s a new dimension to it.
It’s magical to me; completely magical. And I played the hell out of it when it first came out, as in every show, and eventually, other people became captive of the song as well. This one girl, she hates clean vocals. She likes harsh black metal vocals that sound like Edith Bunker from "All in the Family." So, she was one of the people who converted completely! She loves all of the Heavy Dreamer album, but that song specifically over repeated listens somehow hypnotized certain people. You know, you’ve gotta have the personality for it. There are some people who only like bright music; like, when I interviewed the female singer of EPICA, who actually was trained in opera – she has more of a pop style on later albums – I asked her if she would ever sing darker opera, and she said, “Why would you want to be unhappy?” Where, I guess, the most melancholy of the doom songs, they cry for you. They cry on your behalf. Like, if you’re handling or maybe you have something unresolved, it’s a good thing to attach to. You know, ride the song. There are a lot of males who will not allow themselves to be depressed, so maybe they don’t like doom. So, I try to convert people who are death metal people into doom. It really depends on the person, and just certain personalities, and for the first few years of hearing guttural vocals, I despised them.
It’s magical to me; completely magical. And I played the hell out of it when it first came out, as in every show, and eventually, other people became captive of the song as well. This one girl, she hates clean vocals. She likes harsh black metal vocals that sound like Edith Bunker from "All in the Family." So, she was one of the people who converted completely! She loves all of the Heavy Dreamer album, but that song specifically over repeated listens somehow hypnotized certain people. You know, you’ve gotta have the personality for it. There are some people who only like bright music; like, when I interviewed the female singer of EPICA, who actually was trained in opera – she has more of a pop style on later albums – I asked her if she would ever sing darker opera, and she said, “Why would you want to be unhappy?” Where, I guess, the most melancholy of the doom songs, they cry for you. They cry on your behalf. Like, if you’re handling or maybe you have something unresolved, it’s a good thing to attach to. You know, ride the song. There are a lot of males who will not allow themselves to be depressed, so maybe they don’t like doom. So, I try to convert people who are death metal people into doom. It really depends on the person, and just certain personalities, and for the first few years of hearing guttural vocals, I despised them.
RoRR: See, I wasn’t aware of that! I just thought you went from Judas Priest to Possessed…
BZ: No, I still hate Possessed!
RoRR: Oh, you hate them?
BZ: Yeah, they’re terrible!
RoRR: Oh, I thought you liked them!
BZ: No!
RoRR: Why don’t you like Possessed?
BZ: There’s nothing in it for me. It’s thin production. I don’t like the vocals. And the music’s tinny and thrashy. I don’t like it at all.
RoRR: Oh, you don’t like the generic, do-tat-do-tat thrash beat…
BZ: It’s okay, but not the whole song.
RoRR: I swear in one of your videos, I saw you wearing a Possessed t-shirt.
BZ: Yeah, because my ex-girlfriend made me wear it. You know, I like converting people… we talked about the days of my radio, and I thought I was underground, but I was still only hearing things that were sent to the radio station.
RoRR: And you broke DOKKEN records.
BZ: (laughs)
RoRR: Which, to each his own. You may think I’m a pussy, but I actually like ‘em!
BZ: Alan from Primordial loves Dokken! I hope I never come across as someone who says, I know what’s right, and that you better know that I know what’s right. I’m right. You’re wrong. Get right. I don’t wanna be that person.
RoRR: So I want to ask one question dealing with your movies. So, for our fans, rock and metal fans, and fans of horror and comedy, and you make a ton of movies – one thing people should know is you make a fuckton of movies – pick five that you would suggest a newbie who doesn’t know anything about your stuff should watch to get into you.
BZ: Well, there are people who don’t like anything absurd, and there are people who, for some strange reason, get revolted when they see a breast. I don’t understand. But, just prefacing, my movies are not for everybody, and I’m glad that I took that route because I’ve got diehard fans. If I just had mediocre fans or surface level fans, I’d be dead as far as a movie maker today. But "Dickshark," which you can get at Walmart.com (laughs)…
RoRR: You can get "Dickshark" at Walmart.com? Aww, that’s brilliant!
BZ: It showcases my visual style. It’s got lots of boobs. It’s got Misty Mundae, in case people know who that is. And it’s got a metal soundtrack. And, what I liken from testimonials, people who say they didn’t like metal – not just metal people who don’t like death metal – just people who didn’t like metal, they heard music on there that they were into, and they bought the albums and stuff like that. At the end of my movies, I don’t just show the credits for the music. I also show the information about the band, and I have an excerpt of the song playing, so you know exactly what you want to get. So, that’s like a launch pad, and it shows my absurdist style, what I like to do. Also, "Jesus Was an Asshole," "Holocaust Cannibal," "Stabbed in the Ass," and there’s a black metal documentary that I believe I’m going to send you five copies to give away to people, and it’s six hours. Some of the questions are sober, but there’s a lot of the socially awkward moments that I like to create, and you see who’s who. You see what a person is really like. So, just as a return to an earlier question, Trey from Morbid Angel, when he appeared in interviews, the interview was corrected for his stupidity.
RoRR: He’s stupid?
BZ: Yes, in my opinion. Let me just explain the difference. In the magazines, of course, the record label pays for an ad, and the magazine does a courtesy interview, or because Morbid Angel was very popular at the time in the death metal world, there was a reverence, and you could sell more copies by having the band. The interview style was always the journalist would write, “Oh, in Morbid Angel (hard to understand what he said, but he probably said “writes creepy lyrics”)… I asked Trey, “How many hot dogs can you put in your mouth?” Oh, and Trey very eloquently answered… so, he would make it look like he was a competent speaker, and when I interviewed him, it was dialogue form. Actually almost all interviews were dialogue form, so you actually saw the “um”, “uh”, and other things. But you saw exactly how the person answered me back, and when you hear the audio versions of the interviews, or the video versions of the interviews, you see that I was exact. You know exactly the personality of the band by the way the people answer me. But I also want to say that, the way a person talks doesn’t indicate that a person is stupid, or let me correct myself and say that he sounded stupid; and that, when I met the tour manager on one of their tours, he said that Trey’s like a kid, and he didn’t understand why I did what I did. You know, he just couldn’t understand it. But, yeah, you know earlier I said that I don’t detect sarcasm. What I really should have said – you know, I went on a tangent, and I couldn’t come back, where am I in this conversation? – but I don’t understand sarcasm if the person doesn’t have charisma. And a couple people who always get mad, like the guy who does Wild Eye Releasing; he’s like a middle man. He’s not really a distributor. He uses a distributor – everyone thinks that he’s a distributor, but he’s just a middle man – by the way. I called him “Wild eye for the straight guy”, and he didn’t like that, and he would play dumb sarcastically, and I would believe he’s that stupid. Not to punish him or make fun of him, but he’d always get mad when he plays dumb, and I believe that he’s that dumb. I said, “Dude, you do not have the charisma to be sarcastic! I can’t tell!” “What, do you think I’m that stupid?” “Yeah, I do!” So, I believed, based on the way Trey talked, that he was stupid, but it could just be that he’s not a great speaker. And additionally, he doesn’t think in abstract ways, or a better word is “absurd.” Some people just don’t like absurdity. They just think it’s stupid. They don’t see any wisdom in it. They don’t see anything other than “Why can’t you just be normal, Bill?”
RoRR: Well, it could be the case where – and I’m not trying to play devil’s advocate – maybe they’re just coming off the tour bus… you know, you asked [Morbid Angel bassist/vocalist] David Vincent, “Has anyone ever said, ‘Davey, Davey, stick your head in gravy?’” And I don’t know if he’s just coming off the tour bus and just wants to go to the venue and set up and not…
BZ: These were all interviews where it’s at their leisure. If you ever interview bands, if it’s the first day of the tour, and it’s an overseas band, they’re jetlagged, and, even if they’re not jetlagged, the first day of the tour is chaotic; you know, so, they’ll grant you the interview, but they have a thousand things going on in their heads, and they may not be focused on you. And, if it’s an all-day interview that’s set up by the record label, and the person is just hanging out on the couch at home, you know, after the tenth interview when you’re asked “what are your influences?”, they get kind of tired of that. There are some bands that on paper, it looked like they were furious, but they actually thanked me and said, “That was the best interview I did all day, because I was tired of answering the same five questions.” But I do want to mention, even though you’re not asking me; you asked me about Impaled Nazarene. Mika from Impaled Nazarene memorized a review. I realized that after we talked, and he quoted his review to me. And Finntroll did the same thing. I was on the tour bus. I only interviewed them as a courtesy to a friend. I had him ask the questions. There were no Bill Zebub questions, and I remember the band quoted a different line from the review, like “I spray painted my buttocks in the colors of the rainbow.” So that’s my review style, when I’m totally an asshole. But they got a big kick out of it, and you know, death metal bands too; you know, I shredded them, and they got a big kick out of it. I mentioned the brawler, who I can’t name. I was very happy that I never trashed him, because I would have got my ass kicked. That is an example where that would have been a big mistake for me, but I’m just glad something told me, don’t make fun of him. It wasn’t that I knew about him ahead of time, but I love that in metal there are people who understand the spirit of metal, and when I see the behavior of some new metal people, I think that – and I don’t want to sound like a grandpa, but – they’re not metal! Like, being politically correct or this other stuff, “inclusive”; you gotta be who you are. I guess you can have a preference on the kind of people you want to hang out with, but it doesn’t mean you have to completely shun… you can sing about your preferences. If our government completely outlawed putting hazelnuts in chocolate bars… you can praise putting hazelnuts in chocolate bars even if people think you’re uncouth for liking that. Declare that you like it! Or declare that you hate caraway seed in your rye bread. Let the cards fall where they may!
RoRR: Are you still big into Dungeons & Dragons?
BZ: Yes!
Edwin Oslan
Revenge of Riff Raff
4th of July, 2024
To win one of five DVDs of Bill Zebub's 6-hour documentary of Black Metal tell us your favourite black metal band name and album art in the comments with your email address.
To win one of five DVDs of Bill Zebub's 6-hour documentary of Black Metal tell us your favourite black metal band name and album art in the comments with your email address.
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