All Episodes

January 9, 2025 115 mins

Mark Morton is lead guitarist of Lamb of God. Even if you have not heard of them or are not of a fan of their music, you're going to love Mark!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftstetch Podcast. My
guest today is Mark Warton, Lamb of God. He's got
a new memoir, Desolation. Mark. Why the memoir? Why? Now?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I wish I had a snappy answer for that. It
was really kind of, honestly, a dare from a friend
of mine who wound up being my co writer. He
didn't really write on the book. He more cleaned up
my stuff. But I guess that's the closest thing we
could name it as a co writer. But we were
friends before this, and we talked a fair amount, and

(00:48):
we were at the beach. He has a place down
in the Outer Banks, and my family and I go
down there quite a bit to that area, and we
were hanging out drinking coffee, and I was telling the
story and he was like, man, I think you really
got a book in you, and we just kind of
with a laugh, agreed to write a sample chapter. And

(01:09):
that sample chapter got us a book deal. So then
I reached this crossroads of like, okay, well you know
that was a fun chapter, right, and now I have
this deal offer, Am I really going to write a book? And?
I guess I don't guess the answer was, in fact, yes, Bob.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
So how long ago did you write that sample chapter?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
That's a good question. I don't know it was several
years ago, it because it took me about two years
to write the book, and I would say that was
probably six months before.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
So you say that you literally wrote the book, the
guy essentially just edit it. You sat down there at
either of you wrote it.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I wrote every single word.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
A lot of people find it difficult to write. How
did you find it?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
I found it. I found it all the things, So
it was it was difficult. Some of the stuff, I
will say was a little bit difficult to write about.
Some of the book was a joy to write about.
And I found myself chuckling out loud as I was
writing stuff because it just brings back, you know, it's
a memoir, so it's things that have happened in my life,
and it brings back this flood of a lot of

(02:14):
really really fond memories, a lot of funny stuff. There's
a lot of you know, there's tragedy, and there's a
lot of dark stuff in my story as well, and
I covered a lot of that pretty in depth. So
some of that was challenging to write. About There were
a few chapters, a couple chapters, but specifically when I
was writing them, I was in a bad mood for
those few days. One kind of funny and unexpected, although

(02:39):
only unexpected because I didn't think about it. Challenge is
that I don't type very well at all. I just simply,
on a very practical level, can't type. So that made
for a real challenging write because you have to type.
I'm the one writing everything, so it really would. My
wife would make fun of me. I would go up
to my studio and say, I'm just gonna write five

(03:00):
hundred thousand words to day, and I'd be up there
for a couple of hours. Or what is what are
you doing up there? Like hint, pecking away at this book?

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Well, by the time you were done, were you a
better typist?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I think I must have been. Yeah, I must have been.
I don't think I'm a very I'm still a very
conventional typist, but I can. I can bang out some words, okay.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
In the sample, a lot of the book has to
do with drug addiction. Was the sample heavy on the
drug addiction and Hashet, which is a very major publisher,
wanted to buy it because of that story or was
it more that they were good buy it because you
were and liamb of.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
God, Well, I never really asked them, Bob. I would
imagine from what I've learned in this process is that
in the modern day book world, much like I think
in the modern day music world, I think whoever is
making these decisions is quantifying someone's social media presence, quantifying

(04:02):
whatever their marketing value is in their given field. And
I'm sure they have algorithms or formulas that help them
predict how successful something is going to be commercially. I
can't imagine that they didn't plug in those types of
things for me, with music and social media and that
kind of thing, and come up with the fact that

(04:24):
they could probably market some books. No one told me that.
I'm just guessing that, And then hopefully they thought that
it was a good sample chapter and that it was intriguing.
The gentleman that that signed me to the book deal
was certainly very entertained by the chapter that the chapter

(04:44):
that I turned in as a sample was. If you've
read the book, it's a chapter about me being on
tour in Europe and being in this beautiful alpine setting
on a day off and instead of doing the things
that any noise normal person would do in that setting
and taking in the sites and enjoying the environment, I

(05:06):
was focused on some real hair brained idea on how
I was going to create a high for myself that day.
And it really it's parts of that story are kind
of funny, and then parts of it are really very
sad because it represents the way that addiction just completely
takes over your mindset and very much possesses you to

(05:27):
the point where you can't really see reality as it
is because you're just chasing this solution to a problem
that you keep creating for yourself.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
So, now that the book has been out, what has
been your.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Experience, Well, my experience with the book and the feedback
I've gotten has been a lot of people have come
to me and say that the book really touched them.
And I think, Bob, this story is not just about
alcoholism and drug addiction, and that's certainly a component of it.

(06:04):
There's a several stories going on in the book. And
I didn't have an intention for this when I sat
down to write it. I honestly didn't know exactly what
I was going to write. And I'm like that with
music as well. A lot of times I'll sit down
and I won't necessarily have a plan. I'll just kind
of start poking around and see if something starts taking
shape and coming into form. And I wrote each of

(06:25):
these chapters very much the same way, although of course
I had the guide of time of sequence of timelines
to help guide me. So, you know, a lot of
people talk to me about the alcoholism and the addiction
and the recovery component of the book, and that is
certainly one of the storylines in there. There's also the

(06:46):
storyline about navigating and grieving the loss of my infant daughter,
which was a part of the book that was real
difficult to get through for me to write. Although it's
my story and I live with them, I'm very familiar
with it, writing about it in detail was challenging, and
I think I was pretty authentic and honest through that.

(07:07):
And there are people that share that unfortunate experience that
have come to me and talk to me about what
that meant to them to read my telling of my
experience with that. And then there's the story of the
really very very unlikely success of a basement metal band

(07:30):
that should have, you know, on paper, probably never even
made it out of our hometown, but was able to
a lot of times, in spite of ourselves, create a
really exciting and really thriving career in heavy metal music worldwide.
And it's a real unlikely story and one that we

(07:53):
still collectively get a kick out of ourselves. And I
think it's a fun read that part of it.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Okay, one thing that's me in the book. Because you're
grown up in Williamsburg and you're gonna go to college,
you're a reluctant to go to college. You go to Richmond,
you feel sort of out of place, you make a friend, whatever,
But not only you finish college, you end up going
to graduate school in Chicago. Okay, you've been around. I've

(08:24):
been around. That is not the common route of a
heavy metal musician, of any successful musician.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, there's a few of us out there that were
sort of simultaneously pursuing education. I think when when you're
playing music, particularly any kind of underground punk rock or
heavy metal music, but probably just music in general. I
think when you're playing music, you're always met with this

(08:55):
voice or voices that are telling you you'll never make it.
It's one in a million. Think of how many people
would love to make it in music, be a rock
star however you want to, you know, can't characterize that
it's like hitting the lottery. And the truth is a
lot of that is true, you know, So the whole

(09:17):
time you're pursuing music, I think for me, and I
think for a lot of people, because I've heard this
from a lot of people too, that psychologically you're you're
constantly battling this notion that you were trying to achieve
the possible, or you're wasting your time, or you're deprioritizing
things that you should be prioritizing. You're supposed to go

(09:38):
get a career for yourself, so you're supposed to, you know,
find some stable job and do the thing that we're
all told and socialized that we need to do. And
that was true for me, So I think I was
always kind of spinning plates, pursuing this music thing that
I'd love so dearly and as it turns out, really

(10:00):
couldn't have ever not done, but also trying to cobble
together some version of a backup plan for myself so
that I could feel like I wasn't going to wind up,
you know, sleeping in a car somewhere for very long anyway,
and so there's a story in there as well, even
during college where I or after college after I think

(10:21):
it was after Yeah, after I dropped out of grad school,
I came back home and I'm doing music, and I'm
applying to the fire department because I'm just of this
notion that I'm getting too old to be running around
making all this noise with this band I'm doing, and
I need to get a real job, and so I'm
going to cut all my hair off and go get
a job as a firefighter. And you know, I got

(10:41):
sort of on the way to doing that and had
this self realization of just I'm just never going to
be a normal nine to five or kind of guy.
And if I am, it's I'm not. I'm going to
make sure it's not. Because I didn't pursue this all
the way to the even though I didn't know what
pursuing this meant, because for us, for Lamb of God,

(11:06):
every step of the way seems so unlikely and so
unrealistic because our music was just so extreme that it
never seemed like the kind of thing to any of
us that would land us on tour buses and arenas
and opening from Metallica and doing all these amazing things
that we've gotten to and continue to get to do.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Okay, you're growing to graduate school when you're looking to
sell out. Why a firefighter as opposed to any other career.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Well, I my brother was a firefighter. He was a
career firefighter, and so I was very familiar with fire service,
and I thought it was a very very and I
still think it is a very, very worthwhile noble cause.
And everyone likes who doesn't like a firefighter?

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Man?

Speaker 2 (11:51):
They're heroes, right, They run into burning buildings when everybody
else is running out of them. That's the kind of
guy a lot of us want to be. And I
wanted to be that kind of guy too. With grad school.
I was really good at school, particularly at college and
grad school. I was very good at being a student,
and I was pursuing political science and international relations. And

(12:16):
it's I think that for me, And this is not
a knock to people that do that. I'm sure that
there are people that do go on to do very
worthwhile things with that. A lot of lawyers start there
and that kind of thing, and not that teaching isn't worthwhile.
It's very worthwhile. But it's also one of those tracks
where it's sort of it creates, it's it's it's it's

(12:36):
self fulfilling. Right. You go through college, you go through
grad school, and then you just stay in academia and
you just become a professor and become a teacher. And
that was sort of my thinking as well, I'm pretty
good at school, so if I just keep doing school, well,
eventually I'll just become school, you know. And so that
was one of my backup plans. Wasn't a bad.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
One, Okay, not only with your degree in your post
graduate work and the book, but talking to you right now,
you're articulate, you're intelligent, you're educated. Generally speaking, it's a
dumb business. So what's it like with a smart guy

(13:17):
like you going on the road with all these people.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
I don't think it's a dumb business at all, Bob.
I think some of the practices within the business and
some of the business model is dumb. But I find
that and maybe I'm lucky. Well I'm certainly lucky. But
I think one of the reasons that Lamb of God

(13:43):
has had the success we've had is because we are
all very deliberate and very intentional, even at times when
we were you know, all the cliches of the drinking
and the drugging. And I won't speak for anyone but myself,
but I certainly, as you would know from the book,
have gone off the rails on all that stuff. But
even in the cloud of that stuff, there were always
when when there was decisions being made, when there were

(14:05):
business choices and pursuits that we were focused on. We
really have always been very thoughtful and intentful and in
large part engaged and intentional about how we are conducting
this group that we have. And I don't think that's

(14:27):
unique to us. I think at a certain level, you
got to believe that, you know, somebody behind making these
things successful is doing some thinking.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Well, usually the business guy is the drummer, although when
you're being you replace the drummer. Who's the business guy?
In Lamb of God?

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Is the business guy? Usually the drummer that's funny, Almost
always really yeah, Well, you know, they say, you know,
what do you call that? A guy that hangs out
with three or four other musicians drummer? Who's the business guy?
I don't know. I'm one of them. I think we

(15:08):
do everything very collectively, but sometimes there's a point man,
and often on certain things I tend to be that
point man, not always.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Okay, you talk about growing up in Williamsburg. Many people
on the East Coast, including myself, have been there. I've
been to the Maze in Williamsburg.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Oh cool, that's cool.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
You know, the first famous musician I think of Williamsburg
is Bruce Warnsby. That is not the same kind of
music you play, but in nineteen eighty six you become
very successful, proving that it can be done. You're living
in Williamsburg. Is there any consciousness if this guy from
your area is successful?

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Absolutely? Absolutely. When Bruce hit, it was such a pop sensation,
and you know he hit from La but as a
very just getting started with music that was very much
on my radar. I was in seventh eighth grade. I
want to say when that stuff really started hitting for him?

(16:20):
And I don't know a lot about Bruce Hornsby's sort
of trajectory to get to the point where he had
a major label deal and had a hit, but I
know he had hit right off of that first record.
I got to see him play with the Dead. I'm
a big Dead fan, and I saw the Dead in
the nineties and Bruce was playing playing keyboards with him
at Hampton Coliseum. So that was a real thrill for me,
especially knowing too that Bruce was from He's from Williamsburg.

(16:43):
But yeah, that did register with me. I mean by
that when when Bruce was hitting, I was more of
like a punk rock kind of thrash metal, just get
just starting to figure out that, Wow, maybe I can
play music. But that was that definitely hit on my
radar for sure.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Okay, your father is overseas, he meets your mother who's
from Germany, They get married, they grow there's a point
in the book where you're talking about things are not
really that good between him home life is not that good,
and you're reading the book and go, oh, they're going
to get divorced. But they don't get divorced. They never did,

(17:22):
so you know, it's tough for anybody when they're one
of the parents born overseas. Can he tell us more
about the relationship between the two of them and what
it was like growing up with one parent who was
non American?

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Oh cool, what a fun question. Yeah. I love that
you point out that they never got divorced, because that's
just such a small little detail, but it's so important
to me, you know, because that's my mom and my dad,
and they went through really hard times and I don't
think that's that's certainly not unheard of. And you stay
married long enough, you're going to go through some stuff.

(17:57):
And my mom and dad suck it out. And when
my dad passed away, I think they'd been married for
fifty two years, and I'm glad they stuck it out,
you know, even maybe sometimes they weren't always glad, but
that's just that in that how it goes, right. What
was it like growing up with a mom from another country, Well,

(18:19):
it was great. So, you know, my dad worked in
a beer can factory most of his adult life. My
mom worked as a bank teller, and they both worked
really hard and we were very, you know, middle class family.
But what was really important to them as a couple
was that my mom be able to go back to

(18:40):
Germany periodically, pretty frequently to maintain visits and touch with
her family over there. She had a big family over there,
and when I came along, she would take me. So
some of my very earliest memories as a toddler are
in Germany, and I remember the sound being just a
little kid on the playground playing with kids who I
didn't speak the language, really, and it didn't matter. And

(19:05):
it's funny how kids that don't even speak the language
can manage to play together for hours. It just doesn't matter.
And I remember the sound of the you know, police
cars and ambulances and stuff. In Germany. There's a different
kind of siren over there, and I remember the sound
of that. I remember the sets, the smell of my
my grandfather's cigars and his car and that, and you know,

(19:26):
those are things that anyone remembers or their earliest memories,
but mine were in Germany. And other than that, I
think there wasn't probably that much difference. Really. We grew
up in a really kind of a small town in
Southeast Virginia, and the things that I experienced culturally were

(19:47):
very small town Southeast Virginia. But there always was this
component that I knew that we were also German, and
that I would hear German around the house my mom all.
You know, the few German ladies that were in this town,
and there were more than you would expect, they all
found each other and they would get together and socialize,
and so you would walk in on a Sunday afternoon

(20:11):
to our house and see some German ladies sitting around
smoking cigarettes, talking German.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
You know, well, as a little kid, you want to
fit in the fact that your mother was German and
probably had an accent. Did you think about that bringing
kids to the house or when she would go to
some function. Was that an issue?

Speaker 2 (20:33):
It was not an issue. But it's funny that you
mentioned that, because I didn't know my mother had an
accent until kids would point it out, or I would
even after I had heard it before. I would forget
and someone would say something about my mother's accent, because
to me, that's just what my mom sounded like. It
didn't sound like a German accent. To me, it sounded
like my mother.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Okay, you talk about your parents going through ups and downs.
My parents certainly screamed and went through up and downs,
but stayed together. Do you think it was just that
it was your appearance or did they really go through
tough times? Oh?

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Well, they went through tough times for sure, and I
don't want to air out any of their stuff, but
they certainly went through some tough times.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Well, I guess what I'm asking is we're the tough
times that they came from different countries.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Right, I never thought of it that way. I think
the tough times maybe had to do with they came
from different backgrounds, and I think they could have come
from those different backgrounds and been from the same country,
but they weren't. But they came from different backgrounds, and
they had different expectations about what family meant and what

(21:44):
their roles were in there, I think, and you know,
you can see where those would be some sort of
very foundational challenges, and I think and there was a
lot of change, and I talk about that in the book.
You know, there was my dad was getting promotions and
I think they fell and you know, you'll remember from
the eighties there was very much this less so I

(22:05):
think now then, you know, there was very much this
implied pressure to succeed and to get ahead, and very capitalists,
very like, you know, get make more money and move
into the nicer neighborhood and drive the nicer car. And
I think to a degree, I don't I wouldn't characterize
either of my parents have ever having been materialistic, but
I think to a degree that was the culture that

(22:27):
we were all living in at the time, and I
think that there was some pressure there and I think
some of those you know, I was just a little boy,
but from looking back on it and sort of surveying
the situation from memory, I would imagine that some of
that pressure and some of that drive to like push
forward and get ahead probably got in the way of
what might have otherwise been some more serene times.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
I don't want to hammer this, but your mother's from Germany,
your father's from America. Is that the difference you're talking
about a more socioacono one is of a higher status
than the other.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
No, I think they were both. They both came from
relatively poorer families. It was my mom was a refugee
in post World War two and my dad just grew
up in the woods to very, very poor, poor parents.
I think what they had in common, honestly, is that
they both were running as far away as they could,

(23:24):
as quick as fast as they could from the environments
that they were in. And I think that early in
is what they shared in common. But I think I
just think over time they probably had different expectations from
each other. But again, at the end of it all,
they found a way and had a very very long,

(23:44):
thriving marriage.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Okay, you go to college. Most of the people that
you grew up with stay and go to a local college.
What drove you? Was there parental pressure or were they
completely checked out? You were doing whatever you wanted.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
No.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
What drove me to go to Virginia Conwell University in Richmond,
which was an hour from where I grew up, was
that I knew that VCU in particular, and Richmond in general,
I had a very very fruitful, very very energized art
and music scene, and so by the time I was
getting out of high school, I had already been playing

(24:23):
in bands. In fact that I already been playing in
clubs with the bands that I had put together. So
what really drew me to Richmond was less. It wasn't
as much anything specific about the university. It was more
about where it was, and it was relatively close to home,

(24:43):
but far enough away where I could be pretty immersed
into what was going on in Richmond. It felt different,
and it felt very exciting, and I wanted to be
a part of that. And that would be a theme
because later when I went to Chicago to go to
grad school in ninety five inte ninety five, in Chicago.
Chicago had this really really cool underground scene Touch and

(25:05):
Go Records, and the Jesus Lizard was from there, and
Shellac and Tortoise was just getting big, and so it
was this really cool underground scene there that was happening,
and for me, I just wanted to be near it
because I thought being in the proximity of something that
was cool and happening would increase my chances of being
becoming a part of something that was cool and that
was happening. So I was trying to put myself close

(25:27):
to the epicenter of something that I thought might be
you know, that I might be able to get absorbed by.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
But your father said he wasn't going to pay if
you were studying music.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
I wanted to go to music school, and Vcus has
a good music school, and so for me, I want
to play music, I want to be enrich, and I
want to go to music school. And my dad's deal
was my dad had a deal for me, and he
dropped out of high school. In fact, as far as
I know, and I think I say this in book,
I'm pretty sure I'm the first person in either side
of my family to ever graduate college. And my dad's

(26:00):
deal for me was I will pay for your school.
You get a full ride from me for college because
you got your you got the grades to get in,
and I believe in giving you this opportunity. So I'm
going to pay for you. But there are there's one rule.
You will take no breaks. You will take no semesters off,
you will take no years off. There's no gap year.

(26:21):
I don't think people even use that. Turn back. Then
you will start and you will go until the end
and finish. If you stop, I stopped paying. I'm sorry.
That's the deal. That's the deal. I want to go
to VC music School and he's like, that's the other rule.
I'm not paying for music school. So I went for

(26:41):
mass communications. That's where I started. I started as a
mass communications major because again that was to me, the
closest thing to music. If you're studying mass colm, you
might be in radio, you might be in TV. It's
something to do with music. I was just my mind
was just trying to connect dots.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Okay, you talk about your father being more successful and
moving and you had to go to a different school.
There were opportunities there, but you'd also talk about it
being traumatic to what degree. Was that a big deal
for you?

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Well, I don't think, you know, to say it was
traumatic U is probably uh, you know, it's hard to say. Oh,
the trauma of moving from the lower barely middle class
neighborhood to the upper class neighborhood with the tennis courts
in the swimming pool. Oh the trauma. You know, it
wasn't traumatic. It was you know, there was a component

(27:37):
of it to me, to us that felt a little
bit Beverly Hillbillies a little It felt a bit like
we were this family that moved from the edge of
the woods with our you know, our dirt bikes and
our old cars and stuff, and we moved into the
nicer neighborhood and there was a little bit like these
kids were like who are you? Like, what are you

(27:58):
doing here? Kind of thing that that was traumatic. I
think it was more of a learning curve for me.
But I think really more than that, I think I
was just kind of a shy and an awkward kid,
and that combined with being put into a new neighborhood.
These are sort of universal things. You take any shy,
awkward kid and you move them, you know, down the

(28:20):
road to a different school and a different neighborhood and
it's it's gonna be tough, just kind of life being
doing what life does. But I took those things real
hard because of just who I was and my inability
to really have tough skin at the time. And all
of that stuff wound up feeding into why music and

(28:45):
why playing guitar was so important to me so vital,
because it gave me something. Once that guitar got in
my hand, it gave me a way to make none
of that stuff matter. I happened to be really good
at guitar really quick, and I could recognize that, and
it also made me feel complete in a way that
nothing else had. I had tried skateboarding with the neighborhood kids,

(29:08):
I had tried, you know, joining the sports teams. I
wasn't good at any of that stuff. But as soon
as a guitar fell into my hand, like that made
sense to me, and I was really able to navigate
that and make sense of it very quickly, and it
made me feel a part of something, and I just
didn't want to let it go. So I think all
of that anxiety and all that social awkwardness set the

(29:31):
scene for me to really be relieved and be completed
if you will by music.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
It's in the book, But tell my audience how you
end up playing the guitar.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
I ended up playing guitar because my dad wouldn't let
me get a drum set. We had. I talked about
it in the book. So this is the early eighties,
the early into the mid eighties where MTVS had been
around for a minute, but it didn't make it to
us right away. So it made it to it made
it to you know, Southeast Virginia, and like every other
kid in America, I was glued to MTV. Latchkey, kid,

(30:05):
come home from school. You're not gonna see your parents
for three hours, and you're just sitting there watching MTV,
which was great. And so I'm watching all this music
in a way that I'd never seen it before. And
I wanted to play drums. And you know, my parents,
I described it in the book. They were always very,
very supportive of me and things I wanted to do.
I really had a great childhood, and I wanted to

(30:27):
play music and asked for a drum set, and my dad,
very wisely, I'm not getting a drum set was too loud.
He knew enough about music to know you can't turn
a drum set down. So my second choice was guitar,
so we got the back. Then they had this thing
called the Trading Post, which was a newspaper full of
you know, ads of people selling secondhand stuff, and we

(30:50):
found a guitar in there about a half hour away
for fifteen dollars and that was my very first guitar.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
I can tell us about your brother buying or you
a left pool.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Junior, my brother did. My brother was very supportive of
music as well. I think he's he such a music fan.
He was excited to see me getting involved. And again,
I was just pretty naturally good at guitar, so it
was pretty clear early on that I was making sense

(31:27):
of it pretty quickly, and I think that excited him
and he bought me my first less Paul. He used
to take me to music stores in a couple of
towns over where they had malls and they had shopping districts,
and there would be music stores and we would just
go on a Friday night just to hang out there,
and I would just walk the walls and stare at

(31:49):
these incredible guitars, which at the time looked to me
like otherworldly. Just to be in the presence of a
Gibson left Paul. Was such a thrill for me at
twelve and thirteen years old, just to be in the
room with one. I haven't even put it that way
until I'm talking to you, but it's really how it
was to be in the room with the Gibson less

(32:10):
Paul let alone get one in my hands. And after
we start going there for a while, we got to
know the guys that were running the shop, and they
heard me play and they realized that this kid can
kind of play, you know, so they started handing me
really cool stuff. So I got to play less Paul's
and I got to play real strats, and I got
to play Charvel's, which were like super cool modern guitars

(32:35):
of the day, and I could play them. So I
would be this little kid, and I looked even younger
than I was at the time, so I would just
eyes closed playing Randy Rhodes rifts, and I would, you know,
look over my shoulder, and there were three, four or
five people standing around watching me play because I was

(32:55):
pretty good, and I looked I was thirteen, looked eleven,
and they're like, wow, look at this could go, you know,
So my brother was really supportive about that, and I
think he enjoyed those trips and I really did. And
on the way to and from, you know, those hour
long drives, we would listen to music. And my brother
had really, really good taste in music, and he was
significantly older than me. So that was a real advantage

(33:16):
for me because I was hearing toys in the attic.
I'm twelve years old, thirteen years old. I wasn't the
only twelve thirteen year old hearing that, but I was.
I don't know that I would have otherwise, you know.
So I was hearing these cool like Leonard Scanner's CCR.
All this cool stuff that he was into was just

(33:37):
absorbing into my brain. And those were those were really
really great memories and really great trips, and I got
to play some really cool guitars at an early age.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Do you still have that Leshpool Junior?

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Oh? Yeah, so that's really how we got to this.
So a Christmas or two and after that, he, unbeknownst
to me, had put a deposit down on a les
Paul Junior. I absolutely still have that less Paul Junior.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
I do.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Yeah, that's not getting rid of that.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Are you a gear guy? Use somebody with one hundred
guitars twenty am so youse someone that's not your thing
as only as you have one.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
So I think I'm a little bit in the middle.
I have a pretty cool vintage guitar collection these days.
I have some cool old stuff, not a ton of it.
I have also, Bob, you know, we tour a lot.
Lad with God tours a lot, so I have a
touring gear. We play in three different tunings and need
a backup, so I pretty much need six guitars to

(34:33):
do a show without fear of, you know, a hiccup.
So there's the touring gear. So I probably have twenty
thirty guitars that we use between the europe rig and
the US rig and the fly rig, and those are
all very very nice guitars, and I love them all,
and I curate that collection of live guitars right. But

(34:53):
then I have the guitars I have here at home,
which are a couple that would make it into that pile.
But I have also a vintage collection of I don't
know six eight guitars that are old and very collectible
but super great examples of what they are, and those
are those I'm really fond of those, and they're very
inspirational when I play this. So I'm not a crazy

(35:14):
like need a need a separate, need to rent a
warehouse for all my gear kind of guy. But I
do have some cool stuff.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Okay, you're taking lessons to what degree? Can you read music?
Or could read music? Back then?

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Very little and maybe better than than I do now,
because then I was closer to having teachers. You know.
I took some lessons and they would try to teach
me some just basic site reading, and you know, for
a minute, I could do that stuff, but I really
found it for what I wanted to do on the
instrument to be all not all that important. It's funny.

(35:54):
I recently did a session with with Tim Leffay who
play Tadashi Trucks, and he played based on Bowie's Blackstar record.
He's all over that record and I did a session
with him and he comes in with these charts he
charted out the teens were doing and he handed me
a chart. I was like, I don't know what to
do with this. I was like, I just had to

(36:17):
listen to the tunes and know them, you know what
I mean. And we had a chuckle about that. But
so yeah, I don't read music very well at all.
In fact, I frankly don't read music at all. But
I have a really good year, and I think that
there's no unless you want to be just a higher

(36:40):
on session player, which is great. That's the world needs those,
and there's some amazing ones those guys need to read.
But I've been fortunate enough where most of the stuff
I do is just writing, or most of it's doing
my own stuff anyway. So a couple of times I've
had guys chart out stuff because they're doing sessions with me,
but I'll have to take word for that that's what

(37:00):
the chart is, because I can't call them out and
tell them it's wrong.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
One of the themes in the book is you're weep,
talk about sit in front of the TV eating junk food,
talk about ultimately losing the weight, but always thinking about
the weight.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Tell us about that, Yeah, you know, it's a chubby kid,
and just felt really self conscious about that always. And
I think, like most chubby kids, I got teased a
little bit for being chubby kid. And that's no fun
for any chubby kid. Other kids get teased for other things.
It's it's not this unthinkable, unimaginable trauma again. But for me,

(37:38):
it just stuck. For whatever reason, I just didn't want
to be the fat kid. And I've at some point
I think I just hit a little gross burt and
I just decided not to eat very much and I
got skinny, and you know, became the thin kid with
the Les Paul and the Rockberry rock and roll, and
that worked for a long time. But it's still all
my life. I just always still have what I call

(38:00):
that fat kid mentality. And you know, as I've gotten older,
you know, I still struggle to not have extra weight on.
But it's always, uh, it's always it always takes me
back to that mentality, that fat kid mentality, that feeling like,
you know, the the ashamed of oneself and one's and
having this sort of I guess over can I don't know,

(38:26):
it's over concerned, but just sort of being a self
obsessed with weight and with my body image and that
kind of thing. I think I think that's pretty normal stuff.
I don't think a lot of men talk about that,
but it was part of the story, you know.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Okay, you start off playing classic rock, how do you
end up getting into metal? And then the kind of
metal Limb of God plays well.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
I started out playing whatever I could play, and it
was a blend of classic rock and there was some
sex pistols and ramones kind of thing going on in there.
And you know, the beauty of punk rock is that
it has a great energy and it's often not very

(39:20):
difficult to play, not always, but often, so that's a
great place for a young guitar player to start. And
then the same thing can be said for ac DC.
I mean that is some of the most classic hard
rock that exists, and it stands the test of time.
But a lot of take the you know, the solos out,

(39:40):
a lot of like Malcolm's parts, you know Angus' stuff.
He's a shredder to a kind of a blues like
he's very very fluent blues player. But Malcolm's parts are
pretty simple to play. It's just great songwriting. So there's
there's all these examples of great bands and great kind
of timeless hard rock music that's really relatively simple to play.

(40:02):
The Cult is the same way. I think I think
I mentioned that in the book. The Cult Electric is
like one of the first records I could play, you know,
from song one all the way to the end and
just play along to it. So I just started playing
along to what I could play, and then as my
tastes evolved, I got more and my skill set evolved.

(40:23):
I got into meggot Eth and Metallica because I was
an eighth ninth tenth grade kid, and that's what eighth
nineteenth grade kids listened to, you know. And but for me,
my ability was growing and in a way that I
could start to match that playing as well. So it
was just all kind of fueling each other. As I

(40:45):
became able to be more fluent on the instrument and
was getting into music that was more technical, those two
things kind of it created the synergy which really carried
me to thrash metal, which it can be very technically proficient,
technically demanding music, but also has this cool kind of
dark and high energy, powerful thing that was really vital

(41:10):
for me as a teenage guitar player. Teenage kid.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Okay, you have a long story about a battle of
the bands, which is certainly more serious than the battles
of the band that I grew up with that you
had to basically qualify. Then there was a different school.
You won once, then you were with a different band.
You thought they were better and you didn't win, but
you still knew you were best. What was that experience like?

(41:34):
And what music were you playing? In the battles of
the band?

Speaker 2 (41:40):
That battle of the band, we asked what the experience
is like? It was the pinnacle for me and my
vision of where we existed in this small town world
of music. To play and to win Stockwood it was
called you didn't get much better in Williamsburg, Virginia if

(42:01):
you were a rock band. You know, that was that
was the heights. So it was a big deal. I
couldn't wait to do that every year, and we did
it for a number of years. What kind of music
we were playing? We were playing both. You know, you
talk about two different bands, and they weren't all that dissimilar.
One was but a little better than the other one.

(42:24):
But we were playing a blend of sort of older
heavy metal Black Sabbath and we played the first band.
We played Hand of Doune by Black Sabbath, and we
played Crazy Train and I think we did some like
the Motley Crue version of smoking in the Boys Room
and that kind of stuff. I think we did an
our main song. And then the second band, which was

(42:46):
sort of a spin off of the first one was
doing similar stuff but a little more, a little more
thrashboid and I think Megadeth and Metallica and that kind
of thing.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Okay, you know you're in your first band, guys, graduate,
they moved way before we go to college. There's another
incarnation of one of these bands, and ultimately you're left out. Okay,
the band is formed. You know that could be heartbreaking.
You sort of pass over it there. Well, there really
wasn't a place for me. What was he experienced like

(43:17):
when it actually happened.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, I was devastated. You're you're talking about this now
I'm in college and in the book, I sort of,
as you're doing, I string together this this story of
these different bands that I was, you know, bouncing from
one and forming another and doing this, and one of
them turned into this very kind of noise. By now
we're in the nineties and the metal thing, the head

(43:42):
bangers ball era kind of metal thing is falling out
of favor, and now it's all about underground and grunge
and punk, and so there was this and I followed
right along through all that stuff, and it was really
interesting for me to look back on because I knew
I did I didn't know, but I sort of intuitively

(44:02):
unlearned a lot of what I had learned. You know,
you and I were just talking about the technical aspect
of metal and that's where I came from. But by
the time I got to Richmond and the culture around
rock music was changing, and you know, with grunge and
Nirvana and the success of bands like Fugazi and Sonic

(44:22):
Youth and that kind of stuff that was it was
very noisy and not frankly as technical or often as musical,
but it had this passion and this energy that was
just really attractive about it. So for me as a player,
I almost unlearned a lot of what I had learned
how to do in that metal stuff. So here we

(44:43):
find ourselves now in the early nineties, and me and
my friends are putting this band together and it's this
very feedback e noise, scapy, sonic youth y kind of thing.
And despite my efforts to unlearn my uh you know,
technical goal approach to as a player, I'm not the
most technical player, but in that room, I was the

(45:04):
most technical player, and it, uh, you know, it just
didn't work out. I think I was making it sound
a little too clean, So I was left out. And
they went on to do some and these are every
one of those guys are still a really good friend
of mine. But they went on to do some really
cool stuff in that time and did some touring and
did some made a lot of noise literally and figuratively

(45:24):
in that scene, and I was left out. And that
was That was tough for me to take because even
outside of music, I had to learn a life lesson,
which was you have to root for your friends, even
when they're doing what you wish you were doing.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Okay, there's a lot of ignorance in the North about
the South, not as much as there used to be. People,
you know, think of the South. They think in Nashville.
Richmond the way you painted in the book, it was
like an epicenter of punk music. Tell us about Richmond
at that time. In Richmond today, I'm.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Happy to I have so much love for this city.
I'm still here a little ways outside, I'm back in
the woods, but I'm still I'm still a stones throat
from Richmond, and I intend to stay that way. I
love I love our city, I love our music scene.
As I told you, earlier there because VCU has such

(46:36):
a strong art school, it attracts people from the region
creative minds, and you know, it attracts artists, it attracts musicians, sculptors,
theater people all sort of flock to Richmond because of VCU,

(46:57):
And you know, I was a part of that during
that time. So Richmond had this interesting thing in the
nineties where you know, and in the nineties it wasn't
unique just to Richmond, but in the nineties, different cities
had different sounds. So and back then, and you'll remember
this Bob. Back then, you could say a band sounded
like they were from Minneapolis, or they sounded like they

(47:20):
were from Austin, or they sounded like they were from
New York, or they sounded like they were from Chicago.
And you would almost ask, as a music fan, or
as someone that was into particularly underground music, you would hey,
have you heard so and so? No, where are they from?
And that I still do that. I'll be like, where
are they from? And it sort of matters less now,
but it's just kind of intuitive question because where they're

(47:42):
from could give you an idea what they might be doing.
You know, So Richmond's personality in that sense was pretty
unique in that there was a real angular kind of
off time approached, a lot of just odd time signatures,

(48:02):
a lot of instrumental bands, a lot of like influence
from bands like Wire, you know, the UK band, this
real sort of brittle, abrasive kind of thing that wasn't
quite punk rock, but it was real raw and real
stripped down. And Richmond would blend that with sort of
this sort of pseudo psychedelic component and it was just

(48:26):
a real artsy and real abrasive version of underground punk
and hard rock, and that in time sort of evolved
and blended with some metal bands, so it created bands
like Breadwinner, who is a sort of underground legendary instrumental
band from Richmond, put out a record on Merge Records,

(48:49):
and that was just absolutely, like so important to me.
Everything on that record there wouldn't have There was barely
a vocal on the record in it. I would just
listen to it like like like someone who listened to
their favor pop song that would just listen to it
over and over, and the grooves the way there were grooves,
but that weren't straight grooves. It would sound like you know,
it sort of to me sonically, like if you rolled

(49:11):
an egg down a hill, it had just like this
this like very it was had this very loping quality,
but it was consistent, consistently stretched out and consistently off.
Or if you did the same thing and just and
like pushed a box, it would like it rolls and
then it stops, and then it rolls and it stops,
and it's very you know, predictable. But at the same time,

(49:33):
off time, there's another band called slang Lous that did
the same thing but then blended that approach with this
sort of dark, kind of theatrical vocal element that wasn't
really metal, but it was really dark and really kind

(49:56):
of obscure but strangely intellectual lyrics, sort of poetry dark
poetry lyrics. And these were just local bands, and these
were the bands that me and my friends wanted to be.
Like we loved the Melvins, we loved Slayer, but we
really wanted to be like slang Laws, who were just

(50:18):
down the street and probably playing a party on Friday
night or at the small bar on Saturday night. And
you know, so it became this very It was insular
in the sense is that all the bands influenced each
other more than outside bands influenced us. And Lamb of
God started as a band called burn the Priest and

(50:40):
we were an instrumental band when we were Burned the Priest,
and then we added a singer and then eventually changed
the name the Lamb of God. But what Burned the
Priest started out as was trying to be a little
more extreme version of Breadwinner or slang laws.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
What was the dream you know in the area you're
talking about before they run DGC and Nirvana was independent
You mentioned Merge, etc. In the nineties, even though on
MTV goes more hip hop, there's a whole burgeoning independent
rock scene. So did everybody say we're just doing what

(51:16):
we're doing, or they say, I want to go to LA,
I want to get a major label deal, I want
to conquer the world. What was the mindset well for us.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
Burn the Preeze and not only.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
You, but the other rack you talk about, Red Winter.
There's a whole scene in Richmond. Was everybody happy where
they were or did people have a desire to be nationwide?

Speaker 2 (51:40):
I think in that time from what I could tell
in the circles that I was in in the circles
I was playing in. The dream was to get in
a van and to go play shows to thirty forty
people in a basement or maybe in a bar, and
then do that for a month, and if you came
home with a couple hundred bucks, that was you were

(52:02):
a rock star. You know. I think the dream in
a lot of those scenes was just it was this beautiful,
mindful approach to creating music that was just to do
it because it felt urgent, and it felt authentic, and
it felt natural to do that. There's I'm sure still

(52:28):
people that that. I mean, that's what art is, right.
I really think any form of art is really that
at its core, if it's really art, And and so
I think that still happens all the time, you know.
And I don't know that we're going to get into
this structured position of what the music world is like

(52:48):
now versus what it was like in the mid nineties,
but that that was the dream for us for sure.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
So how hard was it to leave Richmond in your
music advance there and go to.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Chicago, Well, it was it was difficult. That the timeframes
in terms of what you and I are talking about
are darting around a little bit. When I left Richmond
to go to Chicago, Burn the Priest had started, but
we weren't really doing a whole lot, and I could
tell it was really cool, but I just had bigger

(53:22):
sights on wanting to get into a bigger city and
have a bigger kind of pool of people to pick
from to play with. When I went up there. For
a couple of years, I've never really got much going
on up there, and Burn the Priest was still kind
of bubbling here and starting to drop people and starting
to go up to Philly and play shows, and I

(53:43):
really wanted to be a part of it, so I
came back. But leaving Richmond it was a weird thing
because it was it was a lesson for me in
terms of, like, you don't really know what you got
until it's gone. Because I while I can sit here
and talk about how essential and awesome Richmond was and
it was all these things, I knew it was great
to me. If I went somewhere bigger and somewhere more

(54:07):
I don't know, big city, more more happening, then it
was gonna be even better. And what I learned was
bigger isn't necessarily better, And maybe what we had going
on here was cooler.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
I think it was, Okay, when you leave Chicago to
go back to Richmond, how much of it is you've
burned out on Chicago, burned out on graduate school, and
how much of it is I gotta go back and
play with burn the Priests.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
It was one hundred percent of one and one hundred
percent of other of the other. I think I would
have gone back to Richmond if Burned the Priests weren't
even there. I was just ready to come back to
Richmond and go home. But I was also just dying
to get back with those guys, because I just I
the whole time I was in Chicago, I was kind

(54:55):
of mourning leaving that because it felt so fulfilling, the
only be with a group of guys that I just
could felt like I could do no wrong with. And
just as soon as that came together, I had already
had plans to split, and so I was just following
through with what I had been planning on doing. Anyway,
So I think I think there was no angle that

(55:18):
had me staying in Chicago.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
Okay, you say you go back to Richmond, the band
welcomes you with open arms. My experience in life is
usually not that way you leave, they continue without you,
if they lay you back at all, there are a
number of hurdles, So tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Yeah, I mean, I think it speaks to just how
natural it was and how correct my part of that
equation fit. There was a new guitar player that had
come in, and so that was a little bit of
a hurdle because he's like, wait, who's this guy that
I don't really even know coming back to reach this

(56:00):
band that I've never been in a band with him with?
But we hung out for a day or two and
it had a completely had a great understanding, and he's
he's still a friend. I've talked to him recently, and
they had had They had had Randy, our singer, join
and Randy and I knew of each other. We weren't
really friends, but Randy, Randy and I talk about this.

(56:21):
I talk about this in the book too. Randy had this.
He was a punk rocker. He didn't have anything to
do with the metal at all. He was a punk
rocker in a metal band, and he had this understanding
of all right, well, if you're in our band now,
then you're in our band, and it's right or die,
And that was just the way he worked. I think

(56:43):
he might have been like that with anybody. It certainly
given him that chance, but it was just he was
of the mindset of like, okay, well then then then
we're part of the same tribe. Let's go, let's I'm
all in okay for years.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
You go back to Richmond, he dropped out of graduate school.
But you're working as a roofer, your work in construction,
while you're playing music, and you're getting older. Is there
any part of you that says, shit, you know, I
should have a career, I should have something more serious
than this.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
Yes, there is, And you know you and I were
touching on this earlier. There's all the while this component.
Now I'm in my mid twenties, approaching the later twenties,
people I know are starting to have kids and get married,
and I'm riding around in a vand playing just kind
of screamy heavy metal, punk rock hybrid, playing warehouses in Philly.

(57:42):
So there is this voice in the back of my
head saying, you know, you need to get serious about something.
You need to you need to get your ack together,
you need to grow up. And again, you know I
talked about the firefighter situation, that's there's a cut all
my hair off and when applied with the fire department.
But pretty quickly into that process, just came to this conclusion,

(58:07):
this this self knowledge of It's just I'm never gonna
be happy unless I'm just playing guitar. So I guess
I'm just gonna be the broke guitar player guy forever.
And I found acceptance around that.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Okay, So the band is offered a deal from these
guys who work for Middle Blade with a new label.
You know, conventionally people say, oh I'm signed, We're on
the way, We're on the road. What was going through
your head? And the band said when that came.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Together, oh well yeah. So the deal with Prosthetic Records
was such a small deal. It wasn't like the movie
deal where you know, we got it, we finally made it,
we got a big record deal. It wasn't that at all.
These These were guys that were gonna give us a
couple thousand bucks made to go put together a recording.

(59:02):
And then they then they had the resources and the
connections and the inroads with which to release that recording
and hire a publicist for it. And so they were
completely honest and realistic about their presentation with that, which is,
you know, no one's quitting a job. We're just going
to get this record in reviewed in magazines and it's

(59:24):
going to get in some stores, and it's going to
get it's you know, we're going to help you get noticed.
And that's what they did and it was a great relationship,
and then we went on to do a second record
with them as the Palaces burned, and based on the
reaction that the first record got, we had a little
bit more money to work with, and we had, you know,
more resources available to us, and we made some videos

(59:46):
that were a couple of them. Want in particular was
really cool, and it just all lined up with the
way MTV was promoting heavy metal at the time and
the platform they had re established with Headbanger. All of
these things sort of syncd up for us time wise,
and we made the right video for the right song

(01:00:07):
at the right time, and got it on the right
platform and had the right people behind it. That really
got us noticed, and that ultimately is what sort of
blew the band up to the point where we started
getting looked at by major labels.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Okay, you talk about going to Massachusetts to cut this
record first record. In the second record too, there's a
lot of talk about the travel, the bands, etc. I
read that and I say, it's so fucking dangerous. People
aren't wearing seatbelts, things aren't maintained, You got ball tires.

(01:00:43):
Were you thinking about that at all? And were there
any bad experiences?

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Oh? Man, I don't think we were thinking about that
much at all. I think we knew that if, you know,
somebody fell asleep driving and this thing flipped over, that
was gonna be the end of it, you know. But
I just don't think we worried about that kind of thing.

(01:01:08):
I think there was a real, just a real kind
of caution to the wind kind of thing. And what
was the second party? Oh? Were there any instance? Yeah,
there was little stuff. One time the steering went out
while we were going off an exit ramp fortunately there
because we were slowing down and the van didn't turn

(01:01:31):
and went straight. We had to get that fixed. And
one time we were leaving for a trip up north somewhere,
and for whatever reason, there were only two or three
lug nuts on the rear wheel of our van, and
I remember noticing that and tightening up and they were loose,
and I remember thinking a three is probably just as

(01:01:52):
good as five. And on that trip on the way home,
the wheel came off the van that was that was
a scary one, you know, but fortunately it didn't flip
over or anything like that. So yeah, there was little stuff.
I think we just got really lucky and honestly, a
lot of the time, I mean, there was a lot
of drinking going on, and we didn't exactly pay much
attention to designated drivers. I don't say that proudly. I

(01:02:15):
think it's just how it was.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
Okay. In the book, you're surprised if the acceptance of
the music once you make recordings. Why do you think
people embraced it?

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Well, I think there's a number of reasons why the
music reacted like it did. I think so much of
all of this story is timing. I think maybe if
someone had made similar records to the records we made
five years earlier or five years later, they may not

(01:02:58):
have mattered the same way that those records mattered to
our experience. I think there was just a moment where
this thing that we were a part of accidentally was
connecting with different scenes and different groups of of hardcore

(01:03:20):
kids and metal kids and punk rock kids. It was
all sort of connecting at that point in time. And
as I said earlier, I think there were platforms popping
up that were supporting that. There's a thing called Much
Music at the time that was like a video platform,
and there was MTV Two was MTV's rebrand where they
were instead of where MTV was playing all this reality

(01:03:43):
show stuff on their big corporate channel they had, they
had a second channel that was more music oriented, and
they were really giving a lot of attension to underground bands.
And so there was this whole just connection going on
between the independent scenes and the bands that were starting

(01:04:05):
to pop up, and the platforms that were made available
to us, and it all synced up. And I think
it's the kind of thing like if we were out
in the water on our board when the wave came,
if we had been on the beach complaining that there
aren't any waves, we wouldn't have caught the wave, if
you know what I mean. If we came the next

(01:04:26):
day with our board and there were no waves, we wouldn't.
It was just the right time and it was there
and we were doing the right thing, and we that
was the luck part and it's still luck. In my mind,
it's still good fortune. But the thing about us is
we have always been very, very genuine. We weren't doing

(01:04:50):
something trying to catch a trend. We were just being ourselves.
And there is something about this group of guys that
is some often to a fault, just so genuine, warts
and all, and we were just being We were there.
This band has always been very real, and we were

(01:05:10):
very real back then, and I think that was pretty
undeniable that anyone that might happen to pay attention, And
I think that was intriguing jumping all the way forward.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
There is no MTV of any note at this point
in time. There are a million different outlets. To what
degree is your career's lamb of God hurt by the
fact that we live in this modern world where there
are a million options and hard to flow to the
top of the pile. In areas where people were unaware

(01:05:40):
of you might become aware of you today.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
You mean, yeah, yeah, I don't think it's hurt at all.
I think I think it would be really really challenging
from my mind to navigate today's landscape escape as a
new young, emerging artist, a new ambitious band trying to
figure out how to get hurd or how to get seen,

(01:06:04):
or how to make the right noise in a world
full of all these options. I wouldn't know how to
do that today. But I think because Lamb of God
came from the time that we came from and we are,
we built this into what we are now. The band's
bigger now than it's ever been, and so I don't
know that any of it hurts us. I mean, we

(01:06:25):
play huge shows, we get these great festival opportunities, and
we play you know, small sheds on our own and
arenas and that, and so I don't know. Again, it's
sort of that theme. I can never imagine it getting
any bigger than it is, and I felt that way
the whole time through so you know, here at you know,

(01:06:46):
and I turned fifty two yesterday and the band, thank you,
and the band's still going strong. So I don't I
can't really say we're hurt by anything. I'm just ecstatic
and thrilled and grateful that people still care to listen
because we sure we still have a great time making
this music. For sure.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
Okay, you make a couple of independent records, Epic comes
calling a did you have any trepidation signing with Epic,
or you say we're in the big League's b you
say in the book, you're just doing your usual thing,
and Epic is pushing and pushing for a record, and
your normal process is to collect riffs and other ideas

(01:07:25):
over a year and then this time you have to
do it in shorter. I thought you were setting it
up for like, well, it wouldn't be successful. It's a
classic second album syndrome, But in this case it was
so tell me about signing with the major label men
making that record.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
So yeah, it's coming off the experience of that second
record called As the Palace Has Burned that we did
with the Prosthetic Records. We made the right video for
the right song, We got the right attention, and it
caught people's eyes at the next level, at the major
label level, and they signed us. And they told us
when they signed us, Kaz, the legendary A and R

(01:08:06):
guy Caz came down and with Scott Greer, who is
you know, working in conjunction with him at the time,
and they came down and said, listen, we don't want
to change anything about who you guys are. That's why
we're signing you think you guys are the best example
of this scene that's blowing up right now, that we
just want to be part of it and we want
you to be our engagement with that world. And they

(01:08:29):
have proven true to that word because we're still on
Epic records, and that was twenty years ago, more than
twenty years ago. So but for me at the time,
and I think for us collectively, we felt like a
major label us, Okay, sure, let's do it. Let's make

(01:08:50):
sure we do the right one, because there were several
that came or that were sniffing around, and as I recall,
Epic wasn't the they didn't have the biggest offer financially.
As I recall, I remember there being another option that
was for more money. But they didn't have that conversation
that I just told you about. They didn't they didn't
say we don't want to change anything. We think you

(01:09:10):
guys are great, We just want to we just want
to be a part of it. And that resonated with us,
and again talking about sort of intention and deliberate things,
and some of it's luck, but we believe that, and
I think us paying attention and kind of tuning into
that part of their presentation wind up being really a

(01:09:32):
good move because we're still here, We're still on Epic Records.
So but for us at the time, we were like, Okay, cool,
we'll sign with your label, and that means we probably
don't have to have a job for at least a
year and a half two years until we get dropped.
And that was the way we thought about it. We
were just sure we were going to make a record
for him and get dropped. But for me, meant I

(01:09:53):
probably wouldn't have to be on a roof for at
least a year, and that sounded like a great deal
to me.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
Okay, couldn't Eventionally, BAM's complained the label is telling us
what to do, and there's pressure. What's your experience bit.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
I don't remember ever hearing pressure to change anything about
anything musically at all. I just remember, and I don't
tell this story in the book, and I won't say
the gentleman's name, but there was a record executive that
came down early in and we were going to play
him some new material and he was all jazzed up about,

(01:10:33):
you know, we're gonna do this, and we've got this
number for a budget for your first video, and we
played him a couple songs and then on his way out,
that sounds great, guys, we're gonna get right going. Don't
forget we've got this number for your next video. And
it was half that he had cut the budget between
the time he'd walked in the room at the time
he walked out. But I understood, you know, this is

(01:10:56):
a hard sell. You know, this was really really extreme
music for the time, especially We're we're you know, we're
not so extreme anymore because things just continue to get
heavier and heavier and more abrasive. But at the time
for a major label band, we were we were really
really heavy, really you know, verging on you know, to

(01:11:17):
conventional ears unlistenable, right, So I understood that. I thought
it was really funny. But to that point, no one
ever ever said, hey, you guys, think maybe you want
to sing a little more on this thing, or maybe
we can we can shine this up a little bit.
They really didn't. They really didn't. They let us be
us and they and they still do. And I think
that I hear all the horror stories and the complaints

(01:11:39):
about major labels, and I don't discount any of them
It's just not been my experience with Epic. We've just
had such a great relationship with that label and had
such a good run with them that fortunately for us,
we've always always been really happy with our situation.

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
Any pressure to be the deadline.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
Oh none. That I recall only that first record, only
that first record, because and that was pressure just by
nature of the situation. We had very recently released the
as the Palaces Burn record, and then Epic signed us
kind of right off the heels of that because it
was it was popping. So when Epic signs you, when

(01:12:18):
a major label signs you from from an independent label,
they don't really care about you cycling out that record
you just put put out and you going on tour
for a year and a half to promote a record
that is not theirs. You know, to hell with that record.
We want our record. Now you're with us, Now, let's
let's hear some music, you know. So in that sense,

(01:12:39):
I felt a lot of pressure just to kind of
catch up with the situation that we had just entered
into the relationship we had just entered into creatively, I
had to catch up and be ready to give the music.
And I had really just kind of squeezed myself out musically,
me and the guys I'm write with, we felt kind
of purged, and then all of a sudden, You've got

(01:12:59):
to make the most important record of your life at
the time, and frankly, probably still was the most important
record in my life, although I don't think of it
that way until now, but you know, it was a
very very pivotal record in your career. And certainly at
the time it wasn't lost on me that I was like, well,
I gotta make a hell of a record. This is
my first major label record, and I don't have anything.

(01:13:20):
I don't have anything, So in that sense that there
was pressure, but it wasn't someone saying, hey, guys, you're late.
It wasn't that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Okay. Throughout the book there's a theme of addiction. Hey
you're a middle class guy, be your intelligence. See you're educated.
D It's a cliche. Wasn't there part of you saying,
wait a second, what am I doing here?

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
The thing about addiction and alcoholism, Bob, if it was
a matter of intelligence, or if it was a matter
of morality, it would be it would be eradicated. Some
of the most intelligent thoughtful, kindest, most creative, most exceptional

(01:14:17):
people I know have been drug addicts and alcoholics, and
I think it can sometimes be mischaracterized as a lapse
in judgment, or elapse in planning, or ellapse in consideration.
And in my personal experience and the vast experience I've

(01:14:39):
had with other addicts and alcoholics, none of those things
are factors.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
Well, looking back at your not brief period with drugs
and alcohol, what flip the switch? Let me just give
a couple of concepts. I mean, for me, if you
you're in a band, and you're a successful band, you
go and you play the thousands, they go home, you're

(01:15:06):
on the bus, It's impossible to calm down, it's impossible
to sleep. You got to get up and do again.
What were the driving forces of your addiction?

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
I believe that I would have been an addict alcoholic
if I had been a roofer, if I had been
a political science professor, or if I had been a
rock star, if you will, I believe that drugs and
alcohol react with my chemistry and my emotional and psychological

(01:15:42):
makeup in a way that has a very very soothing
and calming effect, in a way that is different than
how it might react with you physiologically, which in my opinion,
hijacks my reward system or my sense of wellness. And

(01:16:09):
I'm not a doctor. I'm not an addictionologist, if that's
actually a thing, or I'm not a therapist. I'm not
any of those things. But I am an addict in recovery,
and so I have lived a life before drugs and alcohol.
I have lived a life extensively ruled by drugs and alcohol,
and I have a life now that doesn't include them.

(01:16:31):
And based on that experience, it's my understanding and my
belief that the relief and the sense of security that
the addict feels when they're exposed to their drug of
choice is something that is so compelling and so necessary

(01:16:56):
for their kind of mental state that uh, it can't
be out intellectualized.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
Okay, let's to the degree you can. Can you separate
your addiction from alcohol to your addiction primarily to opiates.
Were they two separate things? Was essentially the same thing?
Did one lead to another? What can you.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
Tell us as it's as far as I believe, the
only difference between an addiction to alcohol and an addiction
to opiates is it's the same as you like Thai
food and I like Indian food. It's addiction is addiction
and alcohol is a drug. There is a difference in

(01:17:51):
the sense that one is legal and the other is not,
except under specific circumstances. But I don't think the legal
status of a particular substance and really governs many people's
attraction to one versus the other. I don't think that
is a very guiding premise when it comes to one's

(01:18:14):
engagement with alcohol or drugs. For me personally, as you asked,
I think I drank alcoholically for a very long time,
and I think I was what we sort of colloquially
refer to as a high functioning alcoholic. I drank every day,

(01:18:34):
and I drank heavily, but it did not impact my
daily routines and my relationships to the degree that my
opiate use eventually did. It certainly impacted those things, but
not to the degree and not with the same dire
and consequences with the same expedients that my opiate.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
Eustd Okay, you a couple of times in the book
you say you talk about the drugs and addiction being equal,
but you really do not enjoy cocaine.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
For a guy that hates it, I sure did enough
of it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:19):
Well, that didn't come across of the book, and the
book it sounded like you did it rarely. So what
was your problem with cocaine?

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
I just don't really like the buzz man. It turns
it's instant asshole powder. I've never met anyone that was
more fun to be around when they're doing cocaine, unless
I was doing it and they had some.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
Okay, when you're taking opiates, you're kind of checking out
and you're kind of removed alcohol. You know, it can
make you more of a party person, make you more verbal,
make you more of a fighter. But did you find
the the effects of opiates? What was it like being
the person taking the opiates?

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
For me, it would early in. I mean, there's there
is a so there's a curve to this stuff. You know,
at first it works, and then for a while it works,
and then it stops working, and you wonder why it's
not working the same anymore. So you do more, or
you do different versions of it, or you administer it
in different ways, trying to find a reason why it's

(01:20:32):
not doing what it used to do. As it turns out,
that's just how addiction works. But when you're in it,
you don't realize that, so you're chasing it. The question
is how did opiates make me feel? And I think
what you're getting at is why in particular was I
drawn to that type of drug. For me, it created

(01:20:53):
early on a sense of well being and it's a
cure for anxiety that I tend to carry with me
through my day to day life. And you know I've
said before and this is by new means trying to
promote or glamorize anything, but to me, for me, at
least not to me, but for me, ope, it's were

(01:21:14):
the best anxiety medicine I'd ever come across, far better
than alcohol or anything else. So when I became exposed
to that in a recreational sense, I realized that, without
really getting too detailed in my analysis of it, I
just knew that that made me feel very, very okay,

(01:21:38):
and I liked that feeling. I wasn't worried about much
of anything.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
Okay, anxiety, I would assume. You know, if you're clean now,
anxiety is popping up all the time. When do you
encounter anxiety? How do you cope with it without drugs?

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
Well? I still certainly experience anxiety. I think I don't
really know how to answer that, Bob, except to say, you.

Speaker 1 (01:22:12):
Know, let me ask a different way.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
Okay, do you take Xanax.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
Or out of van or any other anti anxiety medications?

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
No? I don't take any mood or mine altering drugs. Oh, okay, don't.
I don't take niqlo when I have the flu.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
Okay. So let's just assume I say, hey, Mark, tomorrow,
we're gonna go to the airport, not private, we're flying commercial,
and then we got to be here by this time.
Is your anxiety starting to rise?

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
Yeah? It is? It is it? Actually it is. But
don't you think these are life on life's terms kind
of things? I mean that this is, you know, I
think I have been able, through a process of recovery
to put myself in a state of kind of mindfulness
and acceptance of the terms of my life on any

(01:23:04):
given day, which is a very good life, by the way.
And more than anything, I have learned that at whatever
anxiety I might be feeling or confronted with at any
given time, or whatever self doubt or self loathing, or
all of these things that were for a time treated
successfully by drugs and alcohol and then later treated entirely

(01:23:26):
unsuccessfully by them. What I have learned is that whatever
I'm experiencing is temporary and is never worth going back
to the way I was living, because I live under
the assumption that if I use drugs or alcohol at
all of any kind, then I will in short time

(01:23:47):
be where I was at the end of my run,
and that is a place I never care to be again.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
So your philosophy is it self created or is that
a result of therapy? You're a twelve step program.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
I certainly work a recovery program, and I've also have
a good therapist, and I've also done a lot of
thinking about this myself and have a lot of experience
in it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
Okay, a lot of times, you know, you're talking about things,
especially guys, they don't talk about it. But a lot
of people with anxiety issues deal with this via avoidance. Okay,
But in your case, you can say, hey, it's gonna
upset me, it's gonna make me buzz, but I can
go forward.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
Yeah, I think so. I think knowing the depth that
I have dug to in my life trying to hide
and escape and make myself disappear, you know, you just
wind up in a room by yourself, angry, doing drugs alone.

(01:25:03):
I don't want to live like that anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
Okay, you detail that you have a girlfriend in New
York working in the music business. Ultimately you marry someone
in Richmond. You have the unfortunate experience of the first
child not continuing to live, but you have the second child,
and then the woman you're married to moves out. There's

(01:25:28):
not a lot of discussion about that. Later in the book,
you say, well, she wasn't the right one. Was she
not the right one and you didn't marry the right one?
Or was it drugs? What was going on in that
first relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
I don't really think it's fair too tell other people's
part of this story that aren't necessarily involved in the storytelling.
So there's some components of along the way that I
left out or that I glossed over, and that was deliberate.

Speaker 1 (01:26:07):
Okay, you ultimately meet another woman. She's a bartender and
she's a big drinker. This isn't a red flag.

Speaker 3 (01:26:18):
Well, you know, you're asking a guy that's throwing red
flags everywhere he walks to have a red flag.

Speaker 2 (01:26:28):
Right at that point in time, I was a red flag.
I was a blinking red neon sign.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
Yeah. But the way the book is written, which of
course written words and emotions are two different things. You know,
you kind of say that this person was testing the limits,
and okay, you're overseas and she starts to recover. To
what degree was her decision to recover impactful on you?
Would you have recovered at that point in time if

(01:26:57):
you were not involved with her and she had not
start did recovery?

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
Okay, that's a great question, all of that question. I
think when I met that person, the fact that she
didn't do hard drugs was you know, you characterize her
heavy drinking as a red flag. To me, the fact
that she didn't do hard drugs, which is contrary to
my philosophy that I that I pointed out to you earlier,

(01:27:21):
which is true. What I truly believe that alcohol is
a drug like any other. But at the time I
was engaging in this sort of cultural you know, mischaracterization
as alcohol as being the lesser of evils, right, So
I was I was subscribing to that notion, and to me,

(01:27:43):
the fact that she didn't do hard drugs was a win.
So I certainly liked her quite a bit and had
a lot of feelings for anyway, But I was able
to convince myself that she is this is great because
all she does is drink, and that's going to help me.
Is because I'm gonna be with her, you know, obviously
we spend a lot of time together. That's gonna help

(01:28:04):
me stay away from hard drugs. Turned out not to
be true. And I used to tell her all the time,
I'm postponing the inevitable. I really really need to get clean.
I just you know, I just haven't seen it. And
you know, I had already been to treatment and that
didn't work, and so I was, you know, I was
starting at by this point in the book, and by
this point, my story is starting to bounce back and
forth between these attempts to at the time what I

(01:28:28):
thought would be able to control my addiction, and it
turns out that I can't control it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:37):
Okay, getting off opiates, just like Pete Townsend said, getting
off heroin was nothing compared to getting off out of
man getting off opiates. Even if you know, I just know,
if I have an operation, whatever I'm taking opiates, there's
gonna be one night where I just cannot fall asleep
at when I'm stopping them. Okay, so you talk about

(01:29:01):
going cold Turkey a number of times just because drugs
aren't even available. Never at that time do you say
that was such a painful process. I'm going to think
twice before I start again.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
You are again applying this notion that logic and intellect
plays a factor. And I understand why one might feel
compelled to do that, but for me, it was never.
You know, I think you know, I considered myself all

(01:29:36):
along to be a relatively intelligent guy. It wasn't a
matter of don't touch the stove because last time you
touched it, it burned you. You know, the addict's brain
tells you, h, well, it's not going to burn you
this time, and you really should touch it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):
And what did your parents say about your addiction?

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
Well, they were well. My father passed away while I
was in treatment. The first time I ever went to treatment,
which I talk about in the book, was really a
godsend because the hospital he was in dying in was
just down the street from the treatment center I was in,
so I was able to go see him, and I
was able to go see him during a forty five

(01:30:21):
day window that I was not strung out on drugs.
So my dad and I were very, very very close,
and he knew I had a problem, and for the
most part, I managed to still engage with my dad
in a way that didn't directly confront him with my addiction.
But for those last couple weeks I was clean. And
then he passed away, and that was such a gift

(01:30:43):
for me. Gosh, it's such a gift for me to
know that I had that clarity and that pure time
with my father while he was dying. Such a gift.
Of course, didn't keep me clean, but I did have
that window, and that's so valuable to me. It's priceless.
And your mother, my mother was you know, she was

(01:31:07):
probably the only effort. There were times when she was
probably the only person in the world that believed it,
that was left that believed in me. She as she
tells me to this day, my mom's still here and
she's an incredible woman, and she tells me this today.
She said, I always knew you were going to make it.
It was tearing me apart to see what you were
going through, but I always knew you were going to
make it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
Okay, stopping the way in the book, it seems like
it's a personal decision in twelve step program. Is that accurate.

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
Well, I don't want to talk too much about program,
because you know the program.

Speaker 1 (01:31:40):
Well, I'm just trying to say I don't need to
know the specifics. What I'm trying to say is some
people go to rehab, some people have medical intervention. The
way the book read, it seemed like the program, along
with a desire, was all it took to quit permanently.
Is that true?

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
Well, I never say permanently. Good point, I never say permanently.
I do it a day at a time, and it's
been five years and eleven months a day to time.
So I think for me it took this well, as
we call it, this gift of desperation. I was so

(01:32:19):
just dead inside. I was so there was nothing was working.
I couldn't the relief I was chasing through drugs and
alcohol was no longer available from drugs and alcohol. And
after beating my head against that wall so many times
and not getting in, I finally began to concede that
this just wasn't working anymore. And it just seemed to
consistently be not working. So if it wasn't working then,

(01:32:42):
I don't know what to do. So what I did
was I started putting myself around people that had been
through that as well and just started taking their advice
and hanging out with them and doing the things that
they did. And over time, very sort of I was
angry about it. I was resentful about it. It felt
like breaking up with a girlfriend that was madly in

(01:33:04):
love with. But over time I started collecting a little
bit of sobriety time and my life started to get better.
And coincidentally, the woman that I was in a relationship
with was doing that across the Atlantic at the same
time as me, and we, you know, we're she's down
the hall. We're married today, we have we have a

(01:33:26):
child together, and we you know, reflect on that time
and say, you know, we didn't get sober together. We
got sober at the same time.

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
Okay, you talk about Randy the lead singer, being clean
when you're addicted. The members of the band listen to
most bands drink, you know, they party whatever were you
were addicted. Was there anybody else in the band who
was addicted?

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
I don't I wouldn't answer that if there was, or
if there wasn't. You know, that's not the kind of
thing you say.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
That I don't need to know names. I'm asking a
different question. Are you the lone outsider or is this
the nature of the act?

Speaker 2 (01:34:10):
Well, I mean, I think everyone in our band at
some point has had their own relationship with alcohol and
or drugs. You know, Randy is vocally and publicly sober,
and I am as well.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
Okay, what is the state of metal music today?

Speaker 2 (01:34:41):
Well, that's a great question. The state of metal music today.
It's exciting, it's really exciting. There's a lot of young
bands that I see popping up that are referencing bands
that I remember when we were coming up, and so
it's it's I'm old enough where I can see things
to come back around and see like a lot of

(01:35:02):
the Scandinavian influence and a lot of like the symphonic
Norwegian influence of metal is kind of popping and sort
of being reformulated and popping up into very hip young
bands now and seeing that stuff react. A lot of
the hardcore stuff, the more traditional kind of Northeast hardcore
sound is getting repurposed and coming up in these young,

(01:35:23):
exciting bands, and it's really a thrill to see I
don't personally spend a lot of time in young heavy
metal scenes. I'm fifty two years old, I have a family,
I have, and I also and this is out of
no disrespect or no disconnection from the music. But I

(01:35:45):
will say that, like I always use this example, if
you make your living running a pizza shop, when you
have Sunday off, you probably don't order pizza, you know
what I mean. So I am so connected to metal
via the band and the music that we make that
I don't rely pursue a lot of stuff. But I
do listen from a distance, and I see a lot
of exciting a lot of exciting metal bands happening.

Speaker 1 (01:36:07):
Let me put it a different way. I remember when
led Zeppelin was considered heavy metal and Black Sabbath was
too far out. Today, if you listen to the format
active rock, most of the bands I'm generalizing here derivative
of Metallica, And although Metallica had its moment with the

(01:36:27):
Black Album nineteen ninety one with Enter Sandman, et cetera,
where it matched the mainstream, generally speaking, most of what
the bands in the bands in that framework, thrash metal,
et cetera has a wide but does not reach everybody.

(01:36:48):
It's sort of its own ghetto. Do you perceive it
that way?

Speaker 2 (01:36:55):
Do I perceive thrash metal as being a heavy mate.

Speaker 1 (01:36:58):
I don't want to make a valet metal different things.
What I mean, the way I put it is, to
listen today's medical music, you need a handbook. You have
to go through the history to get all where it is.
And if you haven't followed the scene or you're not
natural the scene, people aren't going to hear a song,
Oh I like that metal song, It's like they're playing
it in another universe.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
Well, Bob, I think for guys like me and you
to to really sort of try and unpack today's metal.
I don't think we're the target audience, right.

Speaker 1 (01:37:33):
I don't want to make it that. What I really
want to say is how large is the metal market
in general? Old bands, new bands, they go on the road.
Is it growing? Is it decreasing? What's your perception?

Speaker 2 (01:37:51):
I think it's really healthy, you know. Would I say,
has heavy metal ever been bigger? Probably so? But I think,
you know, I just finished the tour Lamb of God
finished a tour with Macedon. We had very very well
attended shows at the LA Forum at Red Rocks in Colorado.
I within the last year year and a half, I

(01:38:13):
played Madison Square Garden, Pantera, and Lamb of God. These
are huge historic venues, you know, and the fans are
still coming out. Slip Knot is doing huge numbers and
they're as heavy as it gets. Really still, metallica is otherworldly.
I mean, there's you know, as big as you two.

(01:38:34):
So yeah, I think it's super healthy, man. I think
I think it is. I think it's probably easy to
miss because I don't think that you hear the same
about these events that you might hear about I don't
know Morgan Walland, for example, the biggest country star in
the world right now, or you know any you know,

(01:38:57):
any of these sort of crossover pop acts or whatever,
or they get maybe they get more visible attention. But
I think there's huge things going on in metal, and
I think that that the fans are there and they're
they're showing up.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
Well, can you tell us about the fans of metal?

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
The fans of metal are lifers. Is it's a lifestyle music.
It's it's something that a real metal head was a
metal head when they were fifteen, and they're a metal
head when they're fifty. We do a thing called Headbanger's Boat.
We do it every year. It's a it's a cruise
ship and we pack it full of like twenty bands

(01:39:36):
and Lamb of God's the headliner. It sells out every year.
We were on our what are we You're I think
Herefore we just announced and it's almost sold out, and uh,
you know it's it's families. It's I see people in
their fifties bringing their teenage kids and making it a vacation,
and it's just you realize, I'm reminded in I'm bringing

(01:40:00):
this up because we just did it recently, and I'm
just reminded at what a lifestyle this is, and the
same way that you know, I told you earlier I'm
a dead head, grateful dead is the lifestyle, right, it's not.
It is the music, but it's also there's kind of
a culture around it, and heavy metal is that way.
It's that way the fans recognize each other and there's

(01:40:21):
a familial kind of relationship between metal heads and metal fans,
and and you know it's not specific to that. Punk
Rocket is very much the same way, but it's just
one of those music, one of those genres of music,
where certainly there are lots of subgenres, but metal fans
feel a kinship to one another.

Speaker 1 (01:40:43):
Okay, without mentioning names. Although I know these people historically
over decades, they have been Republicans, they have been right wingers.
They may not have been advertised. Again, okay, do you
find the metal audience more right than left?

Speaker 2 (01:41:06):
I don't find it to be well, it probably. I
think it depends where you go. Honestly, I think it
depends what part of the world you're in, what part
of the country you're in. I think more than anything, Bob,
I think again, based on our last point, I think

(01:41:26):
metal transcends that. I think for an hour and a
half at a Lamb of God show, nobody in that
audience that's got their hands in the air gives a
hoot about who the guy next to them voted for.
I think they're hoping that the band plays their favorite song.

Speaker 1 (01:41:45):
Traditionally, heavy metal has been the sound of the alienated.
Do you find that, oh?

Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
I think that there are I think so. I think
it's a bit counter in the sense that it's never
been fully popular music. Maybe some versions of it were
in the eighties. I think there's an underground spirit to

(01:42:17):
heavy metal, and I think the imagery and the fashion
associated with it, I think it all feels a little
there's a thread to it that people feel a little counter,
a little outside of the mainstream, and that's probably well,
that's probably earned.

Speaker 1 (01:42:36):
Is inherently there a mode between metal and other formats
or if we lived in the days of MTV too,
never mind regular MTV when they played videos. Do you
believe there are certain metal materials, certain metal songs, that
if people just heard them, they would embrace them?

Speaker 2 (01:42:54):
Oh? Man, that's a great question. Do I believe that
a certain metal songs that if people just heard then
they would embrace me at all? Uh? Yeah, yeah, man,
I mean Inner Sandman. Have you seen that footage of
the Virginia Tech football team coming out to Inner Sandman?

Speaker 1 (01:43:15):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm trying to say that happens
in a different era in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 2 (01:43:20):
The song did, but the phenomenon around the song is
modern contemporary.

Speaker 1 (01:43:25):
I guess. Let me be very clear, bands that started
post mass exposure this century, are there songs equal to
innersian Man that if they got the same exposure as
Inner sand Man, they would have the same adoption.

Speaker 2 (01:43:44):
Well, inner Sandman is a high as a high benchmark.

Speaker 1 (01:43:47):
That that's a very high bar. Doesn't have to that's a.

Speaker 2 (01:43:49):
Very high bar, man. I think that might be up
you talk about I mean, I'm getting off off the
monoail here, but we talk about inner sam Man. You're
talking about you're talking about paranoid, you're talking about breaking
the law, You're talking about you know what I'm saying.
That is one of the you're talking about. Smoke on

(01:44:10):
the Water your Dad is like one a classic, classic,
legendary zeitgeist capturing song. I wonder, man, I would love
to know if those guys felt that lightning the first
time they heard back a mix of that or the
basic tracks of that come up, because it's just it's

(01:44:30):
not even my favorite Metallica song, frankly, but you cannot
deny and if this is what you're talking about, you
can't deny that the universal connection and power to that song, right,
I don't know. Is there another song? Are you asking me?
Is there a song like that? Sense?

Speaker 1 (01:44:48):
Is there a song out there played by metal acts
today that if they were exposed they would have the
same level of acceptance or is the music so self rent,
rential and different than really that's not going to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:45:03):
Oh, it'll happen again. It'll happen again.

Speaker 1 (01:45:07):
Okay, moving on to what degree? To what degree are
you on social media and to what degree do you
interact and know your fans.

Speaker 2 (01:45:19):
I am on well, I used to be on Twitter
some years ago. I was on there quite a bit,
and I just, man, it just really was. It was
a strange addiction because I would catch myself on there
arguing with people. So I'm not on that platform it's
called X Now, I'm not on that platform here as much.

(01:45:40):
I'm not on Facebook hardly at all. I do post
pretty regularly on Instagram, and most of my Instagram has
to do with vintage guitars and gear. I'm kind of
a gear nerd, and we also do a little bit
of homesteading and kind of farm chicken kind of stuff
around here. So my Instagram is largely just scenes from

(01:46:03):
my home and and then kind of gear nerding. But
I'm on it quite a bit. My platform is it's
I'd say it's reason reasonably known. It's I think my
Instagram accounts about a hundred thousand people.

Speaker 1 (01:46:17):
So you know, bands have arcs, they tend not to
have the same level of success consistently. To what degree
are you concerned with maintaining audience and what is the
status of Lamb of God today.

Speaker 2 (01:46:35):
I'm not concerned with maintaining audience. I'm grateful that we do.
I think we have flirted at times over the course
of our career, flirted with just dipped our toe in
the water of like starting to make decisions based on
what we think our fans might want to hear, or

(01:46:57):
what they might or maybe sometimes even doing something that
we think they expect. One thing, so let's do this
and and and that starts feeling really unnatural, and we
really try to avoid that, so I don't we don't
make choices in the band with the fans in mind.
That sounds off putting, but it's I think it's really

(01:47:19):
in an effort to stay pure and stay generine, stay genuine.
But I do. Uh. I'm astounded again. I talked about
this story we just did. I see I see parents
bringing their children, and I see fourteen year old kids
with Lamba gotchers On singing songs that we recorded, you know,
when they were two years old, and I'm just nothing.

(01:47:41):
It's just the greatest, you know, besides like my children
and my family. It's the greatest joy in my life
to see fathers making connections with their kids on the
front barricade of a LAMB show and just the joy
in their eyes when the lights come up, and seeing
them scream the songs together. And I'm just astounded at that.
I get to be a part of that small little system,

(01:48:03):
that circle that happens there, and so I know that
we're creating new fans, or that new fans are being created,
and I know that it's so much bigger than me
or even the five of us, or even that song
or whatever. It's just such a it's such as really
I'm kind of hippy man, but it really is just
sort of the supernatural, kind of spiritual phenomenon that music

(01:48:24):
has that connection between people. And so I get to
see that, I get to witness it, I get to
be a part of it, and I'm just thrilled by it.

Speaker 1 (01:48:32):
Okay, in the book, you talk about yourself and another
band member not going on certain tours for certain reasons,
usually good reasons. Frequently that ends a band. How does
everybody feel when you say, well, you know, I'm gonna
sit this one out, or we gotta sit that person down,
or they're gonna come back.

Speaker 2 (01:48:54):
I just don't know why it should end a band,
or it should end someone's participation in a band. But
maybe I take it for granted that the level of
support and the level of brotherhood that we feel amongst
ourselves is that sometimes your life is more important than
your life as a member of Lamb of God, and
sometimes you have something going on that you need to
be available for that prohibits you from taking your seat

(01:49:20):
in whatever this thing we have is going on, and
we find ways around that, We find ways to love
and support each other.

Speaker 1 (01:49:27):
At this point in time, have you been financially successful
enough with the Lamb of God that if you wanted
to call it a day today, that you have enough
money to get to the end.

Speaker 2 (01:49:40):
I think so. I think I would probably have to
adjust some things about my lifestyle, but I could probably
figure that out if I had to.

Speaker 1 (01:49:54):
Okay, a lot of bands, as time goes on, they
work less. In the book you're talking about when the
band is really starting to break, as Lamb of God
as supposed to burn the priest. You're work in morning, noon,
and night, what's the philosophy today in terms of how
much you work hiatus, solo albums, solo tours.

Speaker 2 (01:50:15):
So with with Lamb of God, it's a collective and
it's it's you know, everyone has a voice, and we
talk about as tour opportunities get presented to us, we
talk about how long we've been on a cycle or
how many times we've played in that you know, that
continent or that territory, and is it do we want

(01:50:35):
to go back again? And do we want to take
a break, how we're feeling creatively, do we feel like
we have material piling up? Is it time for us
to start thinking about compiling new material and getting a
record together. So those are all things we could just consider.
And tours are usually these days, you know, discussed and
starting to get planning a year out. So I always
know almost at any given time with LAMB what my

(01:50:57):
next eighteen months is going to look like. And that's
a conversation we have internally. We have great management, we
have a great booking agent, great team around all that stuff.
So those are things conversations that are always happening about
you know, you know, I have discussions today about what
we might be doing or may or may not be
doing in twenty twenty six, right, So we kind of

(01:51:19):
are always ahead of ourselves and that look forward thinking
that way, and the decisions are made collectively as time
goes on. Yeah, I am interested in you know, there
were in those early days. I wanted to be on
the road when we first got one, and I wanted
to be on the road all the time, just because
my mindset was different. And that was twenty years ago
and I was a much younger man, and my responsibilities

(01:51:41):
and my whole lifestyle was completely different. And these days
it's it's you know, it's different. I have children, I
have a young daughter, I have a teenage daughter, I
have a wife, I have a home, I have all
these relationships and all these things that are that are
high priority to me. The band is as well, So
it's about fine. I think, you know, home life, homework

(01:52:01):
balance is something that everyone probably struggles with most people,
and that's no different for us with solo stuff. As
you brought up. That is something that I just went
on this complete tear, and I think some of it
has to do with sobriety. I wrote the book and
I've worked on a bunch of solo music recently, and
it's just kind of like just purging all this creative

(01:52:24):
energy out and it's been super productive and super fun,
and I'm ready to let all that stuff get out
into the world and happen, and you know, just enjoy
the fact that I was able to be a part
and be in some of those rooms.

Speaker 1 (01:52:41):
In a man that's on the road so much. What's
the key to maintaining your relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:52:49):
Well, to be available and to stay engaged. And for me,
the key to all of it is to have an
identity and maintain an identity and maintain a life that
exists outside of the band, both you know, in real
terms and practical terms and also mentally. I love my

(01:53:16):
role in Lamb of God. I love Lamb of God.
I love everything that we get to do, and I
exist wholly and completely outside of it as well. And
for me, with my kids and my wife and my
home life, Lamb of God doesn't necessarily come up all
the time, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:53:37):
So you've had incredible success. You've gone on the record
that you didn't anticipate that this music would have as
wide of acceptance as it does. To the degree you
look forward, what's the dream going forward.

Speaker 2 (01:53:56):
Well, I appreciate that question, and I think for me
the dream is to just continue creating music that I
enjoy making and to be able to help maybe help
other people write songs. I've had the chance to work

(01:54:17):
with other artists and putting their thing together, younger artists
and people kind of up and coming trying to create
their own career, and I really really love being a
part of that stuff. And I love being, you know,
the elder experienced guy in the room. That's a lot

(01:54:38):
of fun. And I love creating, writing and producing with artists.
When it's not my thing that I'm going to perform,
that's really exciting to me. And when I get a
chance to do that stuff, I always find it very
fulfilling and it's something I would love to continue doing.

Speaker 1 (01:54:57):
Okay, Mark, I think we've covered it for now. For
those of you who want more detailed, much more detail,
you can get Mark's book, Desolation really holds no punches.
I want to thank you for taking this time with
my audience.

Speaker 2 (01:55:13):
I appreciate you, Bob, thanks for the opportunity. I really
invite before.

Speaker 1 (01:55:17):
Until next time. This is Bob left Stets
Advertise With Us

Host

Bob Lefsetz

Bob Lefsetz

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

The Breakfast Club

The Breakfast Club

The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.