Archive for the Exclusives Category

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Exclusive Song Premiere: Blood of the Wolf’s ‘Oath of Supremacy’

Posted in Exclusives with tags on 12/11/2025 by Kurt Orzeck


Chicago blackened death-metal demons Blood of the Wolf tore metal fans to shreds just over three years ago with their album IV: The Declaration of War. Come Dec. 19, they’ll return to survey the wreckage and make sure there aren’t any remaining survivors with V: Indomitable, coming courtesy of the same label that issued its predecessor: Horror Pain Gore Death.

The Bad Penny is delighted to exclusively unveil “Oath of Supremacy,” one of the eight tracks on the torture rack of a record:

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Exclusive: Pamplemousse Gifts Us With First-Ever Interview as ‘Porcelain’ Keeps Poppin’

Posted in Exclusives, Interviews with tags , on 12/06/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

In his first-ever interview with an English-speaking music journalist, Pamplemousse’s Nico Magi speaks transparently (with a capital T) about how his noise-rock band’s fresh sound is the result of his fear of not being able to play music “properly,” the enormous pressure he puts on himself and those with whom he collaborates, and his belief that whatever he creates is never good enough. Even more than providing insights into his French band’s recently released album, Porcelain, Magi provides us with a clear assessment of the life of a true artist who creates some of the most innovative, unconventional and compelling music put on record anywhere in the world.

Veil of Sound has the full interview.

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Exclusive Song Premiere: Ghoulhouse’s ‘Rotten Rancid Remains’

Posted in Exclusives, Interviews with tags , , , , on 11/17/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Ghoulhouse is a band for the people. The people of Philadelphia, specifically. The metalheads of Philadelphia, even more specific than that. Sealing together grindcore and extreme metal – or “old-school, rotten, crusty grindcore/death metal,: as the band’s label, Horror Pain Gore Death illustriously describes it – Ghoulhouse’s new album drops Dec. 5 on said label.

If you need even more convincing to check out the band, Ghoulhouse recommend them for fans of Repulsion, Autopsy, Coffins, Dismember and Exhumed, among others. While Realm of Ghouls doesn’t street for a few more weeks, Ghoulhouse graciously offered The Bad Penny the chance to premiere one of the cuts from the record, “Rotten Rancid Remains,” weeks in advance.

Read our interview with guitarist/vocalist Rogga Johansson (also of Paganizer and Revolting), then check out The Bad Penny‘s premiere of the Ghoulhouse’s brutal new song.

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Memento: Jawbox Letter Proves They Were the Truest ‘Sweethearts’ of ’90s Indie Rock

Posted in Essays, Exclusives, Features, Mementos with tags , , , on 10/27/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

For a band that titled arguably its best album For Your Own Special Sweetheart (1994), Jawbox may themselves be the sweetest post-hardcore band of the ’90s.

On the fateful Friday night of Nov. 22 in 1996, excitement for the weekend got into the heads of three students – including yours truly – and ousted any semblance of logic as punishment. When we learned that the J. Robbins-led Jawbox had plans to play a gig at Mabel’s in Champaign, a city located two hours south of Chicago.

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Exclusive: Dirty Three Drummer Jim White Reflects on Teaming With Cat Power, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Joan Jett, and More

Posted in Exclusives, Interviews with tags , , , , , , , on 10/25/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

What do Cat Power, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Stephen Malkmus, Marianne Faithfull, Phosphorescent, Warren Ellis, Mark Kozelek, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Courtney Barnett, Mick Turner, Kurt Vile, Joan as Police Woman, Smog, Nina Nastasia, Matt Sweeney, Martha Wainwright, Simon Joyner, Xylouris White, Joan Jett, New Buffalo, and Kurt Vile have in common? The answer is the gentleman pictured above: Jim White, arguably the most sought-after drummer in the history of underground music.

Best known for incepting Dirty Three some 33 years ago with fellow Aussies Ellis (violin) and Turner (guitar), White is no less in demand now – at the ripe age of 63 – than at practically any other point in his illustrious career. And now, at very long last (more than three decades), the kit master is finally issuing his own records along with producer Guy Picciotto of Fugazi.

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From the Vault Exclusive: Pelican Details Each Track on Guest-Filled ‘What We All Come to Need’

Posted in Exclusives, Interviews with tags , , , , , on 10/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

[This article was originally published in 2009 on IndiePit.]

Pelican’s friends are cooler than yours.

The instru-metalists have been in good company throughout their career. Out of the gate, they signed to Aaron Turner‘s Hydra Head label, which the Chicagoans called home till they recently hopped over to Greg Anderson’s similar-minded doom factory, Southern Lord.

Justin Broadrick (Jesu, Godflesh) has remixed some of their slabs, and also mixed the sound for their live CD/DVD set, After the Ceiling Cracked, a few years back.

Pelican have also been remixed by Prefuse 73; collaborated with Earth’s Dylan Carlson on their Ephemeral EP, which dropped on Southern Lord in June; joined forces with Mono, Scissorfight, These Arms Are Snakes, Young Widows, Playing Enemy and the Austerity Program for split EPs; and toured with too many bands to count: High on Fire, Russian Circles, Torche and beyond.

In other words, they get lonely all by themselves. So would you, if you spent most of your time speechlessly venturing into the far-reaches of epic riffage.

Maybe taking a tip from their Windy City neighbor Kanye – or, more likely, from classic-rock bands of yore – Pelican are now ready to let some of their amigos (beyond Carlson) play along with them, featured-guest style.

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Exclusive: Moonspell Vocalist Salutes Departed Tomas Lindberg of At the Gates, Says They Shared ‘Wild Nights’ Together

Posted in Exclusives, Interviews with tags , , , , , , on 10/23/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Many of us are still trying to cope with the sudden loss of Tomas “Tompa” Lindberg, arguably the best vocalist and lyricist in Scandinavian melodic death metal, last month. At the Gates, the band he led, helped pioneer one of metal’s best subgenres, also known as melodeth. Lindberg family, friends, bandmates, fans and anyone who reveres At the Gates are still processing and trying to make sense of his passing at age 52 due to a rare type of cancer called Adenoid cystic carcinoma.

Last week, Fredrik Andersson — who played drums for another legendary melodic death metal band, Amon Amarth, from 1997 to 2015 — expressed his admiration for Lindberg and shared an Irish wake laugh during an interview with The Bad Penny earlier this month.

On Thursday, we had the honor of finally interviewing Moonspell vocalist Fernando Ribeiro, one of the few melodeth vocalists that The Bad Penny had never interviewed before.

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Exclusive: Trashy Annie Comments on 2 Killer Songs Ahead of New LP Release

Posted in Exclusives, Interviews with tags on 10/23/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Tried-and-true rock musician Trashy Annie appears like a rock vet who has been through the grind for decades – she’s a true believer of the authentic rawk music she writes and performs. And yet she’s still fairly new to most devoted classic-rock fans, having only released her first full-length album, Sticks & Stones, through Cleopatra Records in May 2023.

While based in Austin, Trashy Annie’s happy place is in a bar where she can blast her punk-infused hard-rock laced with country soul – in essence, the core ingredients needed to cook up a surefire concoction of American rock ‘n’ roll. She’s got the image down pat too, as if she began studying how to be a character actor from the day she was born till now. Trashy Annie lives and breathes her sweaty, snide and yet also endearing style, 24-7. Imagine a female version of Lemmy, and you’ll get the drift.

Oh, and did we mention that she’s a contestant on the current season of Survivor? 

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Exclusive: Graham Parker, Other Big Stir Halloween Comp Contributors Tell Terrifying Tales

Posted in Exclusives, Interviews with tags , , , on 10/19/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Move over, “Monster Mash”: There’s a new, soon-to-be-classic Halloween soundtrack that’s about to dig your grave and toss you into it.

Astute readers of The Bad Penny may recall our special premiere of a new song by the cultiest of cult bands, Strawberry Alarm Clock, earlier this month. “Monsters” also appears on the just-released, 41-track Chilling, Thrilling Hooks and Haunted Harmonies, a Big Stir Records collection of spooky, silly and scintillating Halloween-theme songs.

A slew of the legendary contributing artists involved with the compilation recently shared — exclusively with The Bad Penny — a litany of ghastly anecdotes and jovialities in celebration of the record, which should be an essential spin at Halloween gatherings later this month and for many years to come. Kick back and get a kick out of what members of the participating bands told us in response to some of the questions we tossed their way.

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Exclusive: Ex-Amon Amarth Drummer Pays Tribute to At the Gates’ Tomas Lindberg With a Riotous Recollection

Posted in Exclusives, Interviews with tags , , , , on 10/17/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

“[At the Gates] are awesome human beings, and Tompa was the fucking unicorn.”

—

Many of us are still trying to cope with the sudden loss of Tomas “Tompa” Lindberg, arguably the best vocalist and lyricist in Scandinavian melodic death metal, last month. At the Gates, the band he led, helped pioneer one of metal’s best subgenres, also known as melodeth. Lindberg family, friends, bandmates, fans and anyone who reveres At the Gates are still processing and trying to make sense of his passing at age 52 due to a rare type of cancer called Adenoid cystic carcinoma.

But while people continue to shed tears over the loss of Lindberg, another iconic member of Scandinavian melodeth tried to help those still grieving by exclusively providing The Bad Penny with a downright hilarious story that could only happen in the world of heavy metal. Fredrik Andersson — who played drums for another legendary melodic death metal band, Amon Amarth, from 1997 to 2015 —simultaneously expressed his admiration for Lindberg and shared an Irish wake laugh during an interview this writer conducted earlier this month. 

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