Heavy Metal & Wine: A Thunderous Harmony [Episode 308]

Stacy Buchanan breaks down the unexpected connection between heavy metal and wine. Get ready to rock out with a glass in hand!

Purchase a copy of Blood of Gods: Metal. Mayhem. Wine.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming up on this episode of Booked on Rock, Drinking
from the Blood of Gods, It's Metal, Mayhem and Wine
with author Stacy Buchanan.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Next, We're totally booked.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading
little Hands this, It's time to rock and roll, roll out,
I totally booked.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Welcome back to book don Rock, the podcast for those
about to read and rock. This episode's guest is Stacy Buchanan.
He's the author of Blood of Gods, Metal Mayhem Wine. Stacy,
Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hey, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
The promo calls this book a thunderous tribute to the
unlikely harmony between two seemingly distant worlds, heavy metal and wine.
Tell us about the journey that led to this book.
You grew up on hard rock, You worked in the
business for a while, but burnout led you back home,
and then came an interesting moment that changed everything for you.
Tell us about that.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, I I originally am from a really small town
called Walla Walla, Washington. And it's funny because a lot
of people know Walla Walla just because it's this funny,
like an I'm on a pea which just sounds like
a goofy thing you'd hear from Looney Tunes or something.
But you know, I really just kind of, like a
lot of folks, you know, started to get interested in

(01:19):
music from friends and family at an early age. And
I had a couple of uncles that were proud soldiers
in the Kiss Army, and they were like younger uncles,
a little more cool because they were younger, you know,
more rebellious party animals. You'd see them pretty much straight
ripped out of the movie dazed and confused. That's like
their bread and butter were just wild. So kind of

(01:40):
coming from that where it's like hard rock and kiss
all the time, that kind of set me on my
way a little bit, or at least gave me a
you know, predisposition to that kind of lifestyle on those
kinds of bands. I started freelance writing in high school
just because I had kind of a little bit of
a knack for writing. And it wasn't too similar actually

(02:02):
from I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with it because
it's like one of those those classics but almost famous
Cameron Crow where you know he was he was quite
a bit younger than me, though, I think he was
like fifteen or sixteen when he was doing stuff with
Rolling Stone, but I was, Yeah, I would say probably
around nineteen when me and a really good friend we had,

(02:24):
you know, kind of developed some relationships through our connections
and music and writing, and we said, hey, you know,
we're we just graduated high school. We got a swing
for the fences and do something crazy and go wild,
and we wound up joining oz Fest that year. That
was two thousand and that was when Pantera was still Pantera,

(02:44):
you know, the members are still alive. There was Queens
of the Stone Age, Ozzy Osbourne, and it was just
like a wild time. We didn't even think, you know,
it would happen. We thought they would pat us on
the head and say, oh, good, good, good effort. N
nice tribe, but no thanks, and they wound up saying, hey,
let's is great. So we wound up kind of being
sponsor representatives for like New Line Cinema, f Ye Hot Topic,

(03:06):
and I think there might have been another one, and
that really kind of set us on on that fast track.
I did it the following year for Alternative Press Magazine,
which is a publication I wrote for as long as
as well as thrasher, you know, coming from skateboarding and
di y, hardcore, punk, metal, all of it that was

(03:28):
in my wheelhouse for sure. From there I was offered
a job. I went down to la worked for Century
Media Records. You know, they did a lot of metal bands,
but they were also starting to expand a little bit.
Worked there for a few years, and then when I
asked for promotion, I was actually presented this crazy idea
and I took it, which was to move over to Germany.

(03:50):
So I worked out of their German office for a
couple of years. And then, you know, as you probably are,
awhere wildly different as far as the culture and as
far as music and concerts and all those things are
kind of like embraced and just like just how it's
sort of greeded, I guess you could say. But the
road crossroads for me. That kind of ties into your

(04:11):
question was, you know, after you know, working as a
freelance writer and you feel like you're really promoting promoting bands,
you're waving the flag high, You're like you got to
check this out, or you're just feeling like you're you're
actually being you know, a positive, helpful force for some
of these musicians to then working on the other side
of the coin, which is like you're in the business
side now, and that's really like, yeah, we're having fun

(04:33):
and it's wild, but also we need to sell records
and I need bands at tour all the time, and
I need you know, And it was just like really
tough when you are in the style of music just
to hear these saddle sob stories of starving artists and
you know, people aren't really making you know, it's not
all glamorous and money raining from the sky. So I
was like, you know what, like I kind of miss

(04:53):
it when it was more of a fan thing, more
of a I don't know, more of a creative pursuit
for me. And so I decided to come back to
my home blahla blahah. And when I returned, it had
definitely transformed in my absence. I was gone from like
ninety nine and I turned just about eight years later

(05:14):
by the beginning of two thousand and seven, and it
went from thirteen wineries in this small sleepy town literally
like tumble weed going across main street, to one hundred
and thirteen wineries. So all of a sudden, it turned
into this really cool little hub, but it was the
best kept secret because it's so remotely geographically isolated that
it enrich the town culturally personality. You know, along with wine,

(05:36):
there's great food and art and restaurants and things, and
so I was really kind of taken aback at first,
but then I was like, oh, this is actually neat
to see. It's sort of transformed and enriched. But the
impetus for Blood of Gods was I started to hear
some of these funny comparisons, like in the wine industry here,
some of these winemakers referred to as like a rock

(05:57):
star winemaker, and I'm like, what that doesn't mean you're
not a rock star. I know rock stars and you're
like an old, rich white dude with a monocle. Like
that's not rock star. Like that's not cool at all.
Kind of ruffle my feathers. And then you start to
hear other things that were like kind of funny or
things that were startlingly accurate, where you'd hear some complaints
about trends in one and trends in the other, reviews, critics, publications,

(06:23):
or even working with distributors, all these kinds of things.
There was almost like this one to one correlation, and
at first, you know it might've just been oh, that's
a neat coincidence, but it kept coming wave after a
wave of these like instances and anecdotes of like, that's
just like it is in the music industry. That's kind
of funny, or that behavior is something I've seen also
when I was working for a record label and on

(06:44):
and on. So Blood of Gods started as me just
taking the pits out of it and just kind of
being funny and poking holes through it and saying, you know,
trying to have a sense of humor. I didn't want
to be like a curmudgeon. I was just like, oh,
this is funny because on the surface, I mean, and
you know this, like not everyone that's in the metal
is like a knuckle dragging denim leather, bullet belts and spikes,

(07:06):
and you know the other side of that's true too,
like not all wine wine drinkers or people that are
into wine, or like old rich white dudes wearing a
monocle or something. And I think once you get past
that artifice, just that aesthetic thing, they're both really complete obsessives,
like they're they're super fans. They have encyclopedic tendencies. They're collectors.

(07:28):
They really like to nerd out about where was this
produced or who produced this? Or oh remember that one,
you know album or the sophomore album. It's just like
vintages of wine. So it kind of has a lot
of interchangeable components, which I thought was really neat because
it kind of helped you understand the other when you're
using some of the language of the counterpart where you're like, oh,

(07:49):
I didn't think of it that way, And it just
kind of seemed to grow from there where people were like, oh,
this kind of took the you know, it kind of
took the tension out of the room a little bit,
or that that elitism like you're not you're not cool enough,
or like if it's someone's day one, they'd have an
old head kind of browbeating them to see, you know,
if they're worthy of whatever, you know, of admission. And

(08:11):
so that was, you know, troubled me because you know,
I'm a huge metal head, and you know, you have
people that are so territorial about it and so competitive
about it, or they just like to show off their knowledge,
and you know that's not you know, if you love
metal so much, you gotta really give back to it.
You can't keep it exclusive. You're gonna like you're gonna

(08:31):
suffocate it. You know, it needs oxygen. These new blood
and so like give it some air to breathe. And
I kind of feel like that's sort of the direction
blood of Gods of Wisconsense and is kind of advocating like, hey,
don't forget this should be fun. You know, we should
celebrate this. It's supposed to be enjoyable. It's not just
like a measuring contest, like hey, check out my vocabulary,
look at my collection, or you know that's that's that's

(08:52):
that's not it here, You're missing the point.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
The book features original essays, interviews, full color artwork, amazing artwork,
and wine right commendations from a lineup of iconoclass vintner's
and metal heads. Tell us who you spoke to for
this book? I know Maynard James Keenan is the big one.
He's from Tool Perfect Circle puts a fer, He's in
the book. Who else is in the book?

Speaker 3 (09:13):
I'm thinking off the top of my head. The ones
that sort of jumped out to me that are in
the musical realm is Greg Anderson. He he plays in
this band called Son, but he's also maybe as well
known for Uh. He's the head of Southern Lord Records.
They do more like sludgy, Southern doomy stuff, avant garde
kind of stuff. In the past has also been like

(09:35):
Cradle Filth, you know, have an interview with Danny he
was the vocalist for Cradle Filth in there. And in
the past. There's been others too, such as like Paul
Mazerkowitz from Cannibal Corpse, he's their drummer. Trying to think
of some of the more recent ones. Brian Slagel, he
founded Metal Blade and he was a super cool guy,

(09:56):
super nice. I feel like everyone's just been really magnanimous
and generous. They're because I think they know and this
again not to be a dead horse, but it's like
they understand when you're a fan, you know that it
means a lot to have someone help you out or
give you a leg up, or to just extend the
olive branch, you know, when it comes to pursuing that

(10:16):
passionate thing that you're into. Yeah, it's been it's been
just so humbling in so many ways.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Astrology is also part of this book. This is really cool.
We learn which wine is best for us based on
our sign thanks to Emily Dunaway Henrix, so tell us
about Emily. Also, we should give a shout out to
the artist Colin Strada who he puts together a chalice
for each sign in the book.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, so what we did, and this is where it
gets like fun, because it gets kind of geeky for me,
is like, you know, if you're into wine, this is
probably nothing new. But for you, if you're just kind
of the Laperson like wine as a whole rainbow of
different types of wine, different styles of wine, different types
of grapes. And there's some biodynamic producers, meaning they work

(11:05):
under the teachings of Steiner, who kind of really believed
in having this closed loop with nature where you're not
killing nature, you're collaborating with nature. You're not stealing in
the nature, you're using nature's forces to kind of help you.
And this could be anything growing grapes or could be
growing vegetables in your garden and biodynamics. One of the

(11:27):
things that's kind of fun with it is it actually
does work with the celestial calendar, so when there's like
full moons versus when there's other events, and this is
where tapers off for me into winemaker territory. So astrology
does play a role in wine making if you go
to that degree of it where you're really dialed into

(11:48):
that specificity of working with nature. So Emily she really
is kind of a unicorn for me because she's super
into wine. She's really into head crazy tunes, and she's
actually come to I do an annual event every year
called the Marymaking. It's here in wah Walla. She's been
a couple times now. She's a total trooper coming over

(12:10):
from North Carolina. But the cherry on top is Yeah,
she's way into astrology, so she's able to really know
what these different signs are and it's almost like a
Synesesia thing where she knows like this wine is you know,
a color, or this wine has a frequency or vibration.
It kind of feels like this is the astrology sign
that it aligns the most with. Then she would say why.

(12:32):
So it's kind of fun. It's also one of those
pseudoscience things where it's like if you have a sense
of humor and you have an open mind, you'll have
fun with it. If you're dogmatic and you're trying to
be the fun Police, then you might as well just
keep flipping pages.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Booked on Rock Podcast will be back after.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
This short pause.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Hold your breast.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
For the dynamic duo.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
There's also an interesting piece in the book written by
Will Farley. It's titled Metal Moments in Wine, Myth, History
and Practice. The first entry is on the birth of Dionysus,
God of Wine and ritual madness. This is really cool.
Talk about this chapter.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Well, those a writer and he works in food and
beverage and hospitality in New York and he's contributed a
couple times. And what I've really appreciated about him is
he is that bridge between facts in history, and he
presents it in a way that just sounds almost hyperbolic,
but it's all true. I mean, you don't have to
exaggerate some of these things, so truth being stranger than fiction.

(13:36):
He's really just saying, here's some of these myths and
legends that I persisted in time. Some of them are
truly just myths, but then there are real ones where
you talk about thousands of years ago, how people would,
you know, make wine and sometimes they would use bones
and different things in the process, and it became a

(13:58):
bit more occult or a bit more rich realistic. So
it's fun because he gives you essentially, I think it's
like four or five of these, uh, you know, deep
dives into history about when in wine's past has it
really shown you how metal it can be and how
how brutal or crazy or just esoteric. So yeah, he's

(14:18):
he's awesome. Dionysis. You know, the god of the God
of Wine is always kind of one of the mower
referenced folks. But I love that there's just a lot
of like natural pagan things that are baked into it,
where it's just like the seasons and it's just like ritual.
It's just like in anything where you talk about harvest
and things that happen in a cyclical nature in the year,

(14:39):
and you just kind of really give a little special
credence or reverence to those times when hey, the the
field is follow or hey we're going to harvest, and
making that a moment to say cheers, let's like celebrate
what nature's given us.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Maybe my favorite part of this book is the chapter
titled Spell, Spirits and SIPs. A Magical Guide to Wizards,
Witches and Wine, And they have all the famous wizards
in this like Gandalf and Merlin, Moleficent.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
That's kind of a good example of like in this book,
you know, like I said at the beginning, it's kind
of the greatest hits of like the publication to date.
But also we wanted to give something to people that
had followed it for a while, so there's new and
unreleased material in there. And that's one of them, which
is we had five I think it was four or
five Master Saumier's contribute to these different wizards, which is

(15:36):
warlocks like what wine are they drinking? And why? And
what's fun if you're not aware is master Psalms. It's
the highest level of attainment in wine where I think
they just awarded a handful of others this distinction. But
there's like approximately let's say two hundred and fifty in
the world that have been able to do this, and

(15:57):
that's in the last fifty years. So in the last
fife's only two hundred twe people have been able to
like do this thing. It's it's just so advanced, it's
so off the charts. It's basically like having like an
astronaut or some nuclear physicist or nuclear submarine captain, like
weigh in on my little fun Rinking Dan book or
my zine. So I'm just like over the moon that
they're like into it. But I think they also understand

(16:20):
that this is for fun, this is for pure, pure fandom.
You know, we want to enjoy this stuff. We want
to like we basically got the tiger by the tail,
you got the Creme de la creme. Like these people
that operate the highest level of wine to have fun,
let their hair down, actually tell you, hey, what is
what's sorrowman? Drink? What's in his cup? You know, we're like,
what about I forget? Who else? Gandalf? Of course he's

(16:43):
in there. I think there's also Maleficent, Double Door, the
Baba Yaga. What are those guys and gals drinking? And
but also more importantly like why is it them? And
it kind of so kind of fits with their personality.
Let's just say so if you read the book, you'd
be like, oh, well, this is why I think they met.
What a couple of made funny references unbeknownst to each
other that like Gandolf was definitely down with smoking weed and.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Oh yes, I pulled that quote that was actually from
Andrew Myers. He says Gandalf is a straight up stoner,
so I trust he's looking to get torn up and
crash like a well fed hobbit. But he's also a
classy bitch.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
And that's just like the reward for me in itself.
It's like, oh man, it's like I don't know, I'm
trying to think of like a good analogy, like maybe
in sports or something where it's like, you know, you
got this like MVP quarterback and he's going to give
you the time to day and just sort of like
chew the fat with you about oh yeah, let's have
fun and you know, be goofy and creative. And I
think a lot of people that read it it just

(17:44):
feels more real or feel they can see that it's fun.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
And there's a chapter what's so punk about Wine? Tell
us about this chapter and what kind of responses you've got?

Speaker 3 (17:54):
I think what's the punk about wine? The thing I
like about it, you could make the case for is
some metal too. But I think the thing about punk
is that it was the do it yourself mentality, like
anyone can do it if you know where there's a will,
there's a way, you know, if you really like this thing.
There's sort of that spirit of like for me, punk

(18:16):
is like questioning the status quo. It's challenging authority or
challenging conventions. Punk Rock to me is also like anyone
can do this, not just like older people, not just
white people, not just any it's anyone can do this.
And so I love that, like some of the newer
wine wineries, I should say, have that punkiness to them

(18:38):
where they're like, we're gonna say who dares wins, and
we're gonna try this thing out, and we're gonna like
kind of shirk convention a little bit because we've always
wanted to try wines that were made in this style
or made in this way or using certain techniques. And
so I loved when I was hearing more and more
people and that's, you know why I had that section
in the book there, how they've been doing things a

(19:02):
little bit that have been edgy or frowned upon, and
come to find out they were maybe on the bleeding
edge of the next trend because they were the ones
that stuck their neck out. And to me, that's like
being punk is when you're not looking for permission, you're
kind of like seeking seeking your own truth, in your
own way forward. So that was like awesome just to

(19:23):
sort of see like I wasn't forcing a narrative, because
sometimes in this book there's points where I'm like, is
this too heavy handed? Does it sound like I'm leading people?
And that absolutely was not the case. There where people
were over the moon to talk about what they took
from punk and applied in the wine world in their
experience is awesome.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Stacy Buchanan is the author of Blood of God's Metal
Mayhem Wine. You spoke with Brian Slagel. We mentioned this earlier.
The founder of the legendary label Metal Blade, His taste
and talent for finding crucial heavy tunes also crosses over
into an appreciation for He talks about how he became
a lover of wine thanks to a meeting with the

(20:04):
band Loudness.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
They ordered a few bottles worth over five hundred dollars
ask him to try. So, yeah, that sounds like that
was one of those cool things where I feel like
if people just suspend disbelief and they're like, all right,
here's someone just try it, Like I actually didn't make
this wine. You're not gonna hurt my feelings, you know,
Like and the price next to it. Also that he

(20:28):
mentions that same thing that can almost be a complete
power of suggestion moment. You know, where he was talking like, oh,
here's a five hundred dollars bottle wine, then you're probably
predisposed and thinking like, oh, this is good and I
should like this and this is really tasty, come to
find out as he mentions elsewhere in there, and this
is like important for anyone that's hearing this is like
rust your palette, like because I've had bottles of wine

(20:49):
they're like twenty bucks, twenty five dollars, thirty dollars that
are just like amazing, and I'm totally over the moon
and totally happy, completely satisfied and not left one scene
at all. So it's de you know, just like any
art where you know, what is the value? This is
all subjective anyway, you know, we're talking about a painting
or we're talking about it an album, and so I

(21:10):
kind of love that, you know, to pad it's all
over the boat. The punk thing of it is too.
It is, you know, challenging the status quo, and that's
and that's kind of like I think one of the
things that people think, oh it's got to be expensive,
to be good, No, not really so yeah, Brian kind
of proves that point.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Booked on Rock podcast will be back after this.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Hey, I won't be long.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
Hey guys, thanks so much for checking out the book
don Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
If you've been listening, thank you so much for your support,
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(21:59):
tune in in on YouTube music. You can check out
the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
to the show you mentioned Maynerd James Keenan. Let's go
back to him again because that was a big get
for you. Talk about getting an interview with him for

(22:20):
this book.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
He was probably I would say like my, you know,
my white whale, because he's he kind of is that
perfect Vent diagram where it's like, all right, he's got
one foot firmly in each camp where wine and metal
or you know, whatever you want to describe or you know,
I don't want to be the genre police, but you know,
wine in heavy music, that's kind of his thing. And
so interviewing him was a little intimidating, just because I

(22:45):
knew that from talking to people that knew him or
had interviewed him, because I think he's so and I'm
just kind of saying this out loud, unfiltered, but I
think it's just really under a microscope so often because
he has so many diehard fans and so many obsessive
fandom that they really are probably like punishing in a

(23:08):
number of ways with their with their admiration. You know,
it's like geeking out about tool, from the art to
the music, to its time signatures, to all these little
like details. I feel like it's probably uh, it's probably uh,
which I say expected that, you know, he is a
little bit more reserved because he is so under that
microscope for me interviewing him, though. The one advice I

(23:31):
was told is like, actually, just like keep it to wine,
you know, like don't don't you don't even need to
talk about music that much because he's been doing that
for like decades and decades at that point, and so
we just talked about music and kind of geeked out.
And one of the commonalities is, you know, he's in Arizona,
which is very uh uncommon in the wine world, but

(23:52):
I love that that's kind of on the bleeding edge
of the wine world where I'm from, and wah Walla
has got a lot of similarities. It's like a hot,
ara dry climate, so we can kind of speak a
little bit of the same language because we're kind of
in that same climactic region as far as the ground,
the minerals, the tear war, and that's kind of what

(24:12):
he's dealing with. So we just talked about wine and
him and his wife, well say especially his wife, because
that's kind of how it came together. I think she
just admired the spirit of the of the publication, like, oh,
this is like fun it's irreverent, it's got heart, it's
also you know, it's funny, but it also has like
a little bit of you know, I don't want it

(24:33):
to be too academic or educational, but I do want
it to have something that dicks and I feel like
if I was just a one trick pony, and I
was just like the onion or something, you know, I
love the onion. It's like the satire is like hilarious,
but then it's just becomes a one dimensional thing, a
one trick pony. I'm like, oh, I want to have
something that has some stained power where people are like, oh,
I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
There was an interesting question that you asked him about
regarding the parallels between wine making and metal music in
terms of the region, the climate, the conditions, and his
response was interesting, it's an intersection between art and nature
with not just wine making but also making music.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
Oh yeah, I think that's like. That's so it's just
good advice for any discipline or any craft, which is
sort of like have a plan, but be flexible because
at the end of the day, nature's got the last word.
You know, you could have everything planned without it within
an inch of its life and just like dialed in
and perfect and precise. Yes, what a wildfire is coming through?

(25:33):
Oh shoot, there goes that. Or hey, there's you know,
a hurricane, or there's a you know, anything that you know.
That's that's kind of I think where I don't know.
I love that he talks about it because it's also
the magic of it. To me, it's like there is
this like thing that's out of your control. You're just
kind of like this shepherd that's sort of like pulling

(25:54):
these ideas together and you have an idea and it's
more of a direction. It's not like a place that
you arrive at. And I think that's kind of at
the heart of what he's you know he's talking about
is like you're kind of co creating, you know, with
mother Nature. You know, she's like, here's the colors you're
gonna have for this vintage. He's like, Okay, this is
the color's palate I'm going to work with. And I

(26:14):
like that because I think it gives you a perspective
of being in a state of allowing and you're not
attached to the outcome or the expectations as much. It's
just like the the active creating is really kind of
a cool thing. I think ego could get kind of
conflated in that, so I think that's like he takes
his ego out of it.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
This book does break down the stereotypes, and one of
them is that wine is just for white guys, right,
and there's that chapter in the book that talks about
some of the quote unquote badass women and wine that
you spoke with talk about this chapter.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
Yeah, I mean I think, yeah, I mean, men and
women they have the same agency over their senses, you know,
like you know, taste, smell, hearing, all that stuff. It's
not like one gender is predisposed to, oh they smell,
Aroma's in frequence is better than the other. Oh oh, they
actually have a better palete than the other. Like not

(27:11):
at all. And if we're being completely honest with you,
I would say women probably have better palets then, And
that's just me, and maybe that's like a spicy, quick
hot take for you. But I feel like what I
want to shows that we're really just having these grapes
from nature processed or you know, I don't even know

(27:31):
if you want to say like manipulated, because they're not manipulated,
but it's essentially saying you're sort of like shepherding these
through a natural process, which is where they break down.
There is a cellular deterioration. You know that it gives
off alcohol because yeasts are consuming the sugars and YadA YadA.

(27:52):
Not to get to sciencey, but how can one gender
be better just guiding that process along than the other,
And it's in retal question. I mean, of course, neither
is better than the others. So I want to make
sure that there's gender equity because if I'm really being
honest and I am wanting this to be inclusive and equitable,

(28:13):
then I do need to make sure that women have
a place at the table too. I mean, we live
in this really, you know, not to get too political,
but we live in a dystopian healscape right now, and unfortunately,
women are treated like second class citizens. And that's garbage,
you know, coming from punk and DIY. I was always
that anyone's allowed here, the misfits, the black sheep, the outsiders,

(28:36):
the marginalized, Like those are my people. That's who I
hang out with, That's what I want to hang out with.
And you know, right now in the world, women are, unfortunately,
like I said, second class citizens. So it makes me
a little bit feel like I need to, you know,
not be a crusader, but I just need to be
a little bit of a reminder that, you know, we
need to think about the team, and the team's everyone,

(28:57):
you know, when it comes to enjoying this stuff. And
if you do like this, you need to wave the
flag high and say, hey, we need new blood in here.
We need fresh faces or it's going to die out.
You know, we need people from all all kinds of
walks of life. And so yeah, they the people, the
badass women and wine that are there are essentially trailblazers.

(29:17):
The ones that were I mean, I'm talking about back
in the day, which is probably even harder than it
was now in such a male dominated industry to go
out of their comfort zone. And maybe it's not even
a comfort zone thing. It's like they just ad the
bravery to push the dial or to to say, hey,
I want a spot at the table too. That whole

(29:38):
article was penned by Emily Wines. I just have to
pause because that's literally her last name. It sounds like,
you know, her fate was spelled out for her from whatever.
But she she's a master som.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
So Again that that group of you know, two hundred
and fifties people in the world, she was actually their
chair for I don't know how long, how many years,
but she he gets it and she's and I mean
the title of it is not a novelty because women
shouldn't just be like a novelty or like a token.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
Like oh we got we got a woman here, give
us a gold star. It's like that should be normal.
And so no one should be getting a gold star
for doing something at the bare minimum or something that's
just should be that should be the norm. So yeah,
that that definitely had to give some recognition and that's
and that's awesome just to kind of like make sure

(30:28):
that you know, people know this. It's heavy metal, but
it's weird. If you look at like on my social media,
it's like almost way more equitable than I would have thought,
Like I think it's like sixty percent men, forty percent women,
and I was like, oh, it probably was only like
ten or twenty percent. You know of women would be like,
oh this is cool. It's like guess what it's like
actually double that. And you know, I just had my

(30:49):
annual marry making event and that was wild because there's
so many men and women of all social strategy. You
can imagine at the tasting of Ben itself, but after
party concert even in you know, the pit moving around
and you're like, wow, this is really cool just to
see this many people that's so diverse. It's really cool.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
The interview with Rune wind Zonner James Callahan another really
interesting one. Run Winds is an off grid winery and
tasting room in Arizona, and he likens discovering wine to
a sci fi story.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yeah, he kind of like, if you're not familiar, Rune
Wins is awesome there in that same stomping ground as
mayn Ord James Keenan we were just talking about. So
they're in Arizona, a very unlikely place, and he kind
of has this really cool concept with his wine labels
where each label is sort of like one panel of
a comic book. So the story takes a really long

(31:41):
time because we're talking multiple wines, multiple vintages, and you
see kind of the story push along down on the timeline.
So his his whole thing was, and I'm gonna butcher it,
but just for you know, Brevity's sake, It was about
sort of how a celestial event where venice vinipra, which
is the science word for grapevines with essentially like pollinated

(32:05):
on this planet and throughout the cosmos for all we know,
and h and so it's grown here on planet Earth.
And it kind of follows that whole storyline of like
wizards and this plant that came here from who knows
where in the cosmos and has now been essentially like
worked itself into every facet of humanity from cultures all over,

(32:29):
from like you know, Eastern Europe, like Georgia to Australia
and everywhere in between. So it's pretty cool to take
take a niche and go even deeper in geek year
with it.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Booked on Rock podcast. We'll be back after this.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
The future is now.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Find the bookdown Rock website at bookedown rock dot com.
There you can find all the back episodes of the
show late this episode in video and audio links to
all of the platform where you can listen to the podcast,
plus all the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
and x. Also check out the booked on Rock blog.
Find your local independent bookstore, find out all the latest

(33:13):
hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
the booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked
on Rock merch. It's all at booked on rock dot com.
We also have the name generators in this book. This
is cool. We have the death metal winery name Generator.
The wine horror name generator too. How'd you come up
with this?

Speaker 3 (33:32):
That was actually from issue one, so it's kind of
fun to see that it had sort of like the
staining power. I guess you could say the very first
one was the death metal winery name Generator. And I'm
gonna bring it up on mine because I'm going to
do yours for you. So what's your first initial and
what's your last initial? I'm gonna I'm gonna like do
this for you.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
So first initial is E, last initial is S.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Okay, so your death metal winery name is and I'm
gonna say the last wine you drank was a grenache
because that was the last one I have, just so
we can kind of like just so we could like
churn this thing out. And so your death metal winery
name is going to be Beastly Funeral Blood. So that
sounds pretty brual.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Beastly Funeral Blood. That is the name of your death
metal winery. So it's just meant to be like silly.
That's even like we did something elsewhere it was like
daring or I think it was right when the pandemic
got done and it was like your weekend plan Generator
so it's like, here's the last person you texted, and
what was the last live concert you saw, Because at

(34:35):
the time pandemic when we couldn't socialize, you're like, oh
my gosh, I haven't been to a concert and I
don't know how long. Those kinds of things just to
kind of like, you know, you have to laugh sometimes
because this world is so chaotic.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
There's also a wicked wine term or brutal band name.
I love this one. The font also is the Iron
Maiden font.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
Well, that's just kind of like to illustrate that, Hey,
you know some of this stuff, you know sounds brutal
and it's actually like a wine term. So there's things like,
I mean, some of these because of you know, the
nature of your show, people are gonna be on it.
But some wine people might not get a band name,
and some music people might not get a wine name.
So when you hear things that are like maceration, you

(35:15):
know that sounds like a brutal death metal band, or
if you are doing let's see, what was another one here,
like well, acid bath acid bath is you know you
could that could sound like a wine making term. But
even like noble rot, you know that's an actual wine
term philoxra, you know, and these things that's actually like
a pest that can kill vines, crusher, distemmer, carbonized, oxidized,

(35:42):
you know, one of those is actually banned. One of
those is actually a wine term, soil work, you know,
I think that maybe is one people have heard of.
It's a Swedish band. But then you got like volatile acidity,
which is like, that's actually just a wine term, so
it's meant to be fun. There's like seventeen of these
where the idea, which sort of implied but not really
explicitly said, is like, oh, doesn't wine sound kind of

(36:04):
brutal because some of these some of these terms in it.
And then the upcoming issue not to like dispose prize.
But there's actually this term called necro mass, which is
the term essentially for the trillions and uncomprehension incomprehensible amount
of the dead cells that are like microbial, they're like invisible,

(36:26):
but you put trillions in chillism. That essentially is what
soil is and what you know, dirt is, is like
this necro mass, which essentially helps retain moisture for the plants.
It kind of helps insulate them in a number of ways.
So we have a soil scientist that's he goes really
like fun and he is essentially describing how these vines

(36:50):
are sort of like this evil sorceress and she's able
to command these legions of cells and microbial entity. She
will absorb them. And this is one of those truth
the strangers the fiction things, because it's all true, it's
all science, but still absorb microbes through her roots, actually
pull them through her vascular system. They give her nutrients,

(37:10):
she'll spit them out and actually give them like a
little biochemical armor, and then they go do her bidding
again and then come back to her. And it's just
this crazy thing that scientists are finding when they're getting
down to that really small microbial level. How roots talk
to microbes, talk to fungus, talk to algae, and they're

(37:30):
all that system that you know, isn't I wouldn't say
it's the last frontier because I think a lot of
people know about it, but we just don't know a
lot about it and how how those networks talk to
each other and communicate and help each other.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
All right, So let's finish with because sadly we lost
Ozzie Osbourne this week, so let's talk about that because
he is in the book. Here, we've got a really
cool illustration. There's a chapter called called Metal Icons Pairing,
and this is where you'll see a really cool drawing
of Ozzie there also with Lemmy. This is by Justin Moore.
Illustrations by Ryan Caskey.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
Yeah, I so Justin Moore. He is the contributor that
penned it, and he's one of the master songs. I
think there's probably like about a dozen or so that
I've worked with over the last five years. So the
icons are Lemmy from Motorhead, You've got George Fisher, George
Corpse Grinder Fisher from Countable Corpse, Ozzy of course, and

(38:25):
then Danny Filth from Cradle of Filth, and he kind
of based on their personality, based on their music, based
on all that stuff. It's like, this is what I
think they're drinking, and this is why I think this
is what fits for Ozzy though, I mean, yeah, just
hit me so hard, you know, when he passed away recently.
But Justin, you know, he's kind of like your your

(38:45):
guide along the way, so he kind of decodes things,
you know, all this stuff sometimes can feel a little
bit jargony, and so he kind of helps translate these ciphers.
But yeah, so he's as though you may find the
Godfather's likeness on a bargain bottle blended California One. I
doubt the Prince of Darkness pops that quark. When dealing

(39:05):
with years of overindulgence, one finds that less is more
and quality is preferred to quantity. And he kind of
goes on to talk about, you know, Grand Crew Burgundy,
which is like going to be Pino and No War.
In his instance, he lists a certain area in particular
that it's like kind of like the Krem to the krim,
like the the cream of the crop when it comes

(39:26):
to Pino and No War. But yeah, sometimes you can
find a bottle, like he mentions, like I think it
was like for one hundred bucks. But then sometimes you
can find one if it's been aged for years or
decades that could be in the thousands of dollars. Yeah,
And I think I mentioned this before, you know, we
really started the interview, but in the preamble with you know,

(39:46):
Ozzie is kind of like larger than life, and even
though it was young, kind of starstruck at the time,
it was almost more out of like respect, you know,
you don't want to meet your heroes, kind of feels
like it would like break the spell a little bit
or something. At that time, I was twenty and Jack
and Kelly were about four or five years younger than me,
which when you're twenty someone that's like fifteen or sixteen,

(40:08):
that's like it feels like a really big gap when
you're older, four or five years is like nothing. But
since they were the closest to us in age, me
and the team I was with at the time would
pal around like all the time, like kids would summer camp,
you know, go to the mall. You'd just kind of
be geeky, nerdy kids and hang out. And you know,
I probably only actually interacted with Sharon maybe like a

(40:29):
dozen or so times, But I really love that she
had that sweetness like a mother bear, you know, or
like a MoMA hen where like she would protect you
and look out for her team and her crew, and
like had that fierceness but was always like so kind
like all the time. I just like really cherish those memories.
You know, I've seen her.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
This was back in two thousand, you what was your
assignment for that.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
Two thousand and two thousand and one. So for that
for the two thousand tour, I was a sponsor representative
for essentially like a giant artists signing area. So when
like Ozzie or you know, a band like Incubus or
Queens of the Stone Age would do autograph signing sessions,
it'd be in this large area that was a conglomerate

(41:15):
of New Line Cinema hot topic, Fye and I think
one or two other entities that I kind of shared
this space, and it was like promoting like their new
products or New Line Cinema, their new movies and different
things like that, and it played host to when bands
would do autograph signing sessions there. The next year, I
did it for Alternative Press because at that point I'd

(41:36):
been writing for them a while and they just signed
on to do the official program guides for each stop.
And each stop. I mean, you probably know this and
your audience does too, but the concerts range from like
the smallest one was like eighteen thousand people to sixty
thousand people, so they're like big shows, So you had
to have like thousands of programs at each stop. And

(41:57):
I think it was maybe like thirty two thirty three
shows each on each tour, So that was that was
definitely like, you know, one of the most crazy stuff
i'll I've ever seen, and I was like, you know,
it's hard to talk, but in two thousand and one,
I think it was definitely like feeling the eye of
the storm, because that was even a quantum leap above

(42:17):
that I think in terms of reputation, where slip Knot
was on it, Marilyn Manson was on it, you know,
hate Breed. It was just that that tour was insane.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
That's cool though. You have a great memory of meeting
the Osbourne So you got to meet Ozzie.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Yeah, just like once or twice and again it was like,
if anything, I would probably do mirror or just be like, hey,
nice meet too. We're just trying to vanish out of
there as quickly as possible because you know, he's you know,
there's not too many people that I mean now, I
feel like there's not a bad caliber people that have
you know, like their own security and have you know,
like they're just at that level. It's it's pretty wild.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, he'll be missed, man, But I like how this
page has the picture of Lem and Ozzy next to
each other, and I like to think that maybe they're
hanging out right now, jam and somewhere.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Oh God.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
Yeah, absolutely, that's the thing that makes it go down
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
Smootherer Stacy, if you can and the author of Blood
of God's Metal Mayhem line, it's out now, find out
wherever books are sold? And Stacy, where can people find
you online? Where can people find out more about the magazine?
Anything you want to put out there?

Speaker 3 (43:21):
I would say the best, the easiest place to go
to kind of the funnel to find everything you'll need
is seek it out on Instagram. It's Blood of God's zine.
From there, you can find where the book is, you
can find how to subscribe, you can find merch all
that stuff. So just go on Instagram look for Blood
of God Zine and I'm on there, and you know,
happy to answer questions, happy to collaborate with people, always

(43:45):
looking for like ideas for contributions and editorials and all
of it.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Awesome, Stacy, thank you so much for being on the show.
Congrats on the book.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Thank you much appreciated. That's it. It's in the books.