Archive for the Interviews Category

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On Tyranny: Moonspell Vocalist Says Colonialism Caused Gaza Crisis but That Democracy Can Be Restored After Fascist Rule

Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny, Videos with tags , , , , , , , , on 10/25/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

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Join The Bad Penny and Fernando Ribeiro, frontman for the best metal band to ever hail from Portugal – the indomitable Moonspell – for this very special edition of our ongoing On Tyranny series. The gracious and extremely well-informed vocalist teaches us about the political groups that rallied back and forth for control of the country, with democracy ultimately casting 50 years of fascist rule to the winds and embracing democracy in the 1970s.

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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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Favorite Films: Heavy Heavy Low Low Vocalist Lists His Favorite Flicks as Halloween Creeps Closer

Posted in Favorite Films, Interviews, Lists, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , on 10/25/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

It’s not uncommon for an actor to form or join a band – after all, it takes a certain gene to drive a person to be at the center of attention as much as they possibly can. But this past summer, when we caught up with vocalist Robbie Smith of sasscore squad Heavy Heavy Low Low, we learned that the inverse isn’t necessarily as common.

Sure, he enjoys fronting the band from San Jose, California, and writing and recording their songs – which are so unhinged and berserk that even Guantanamo Bay couldn’t restrain or temper them. Nonetheless, Smith also enjoys stepping away from the physical intensity of the band’s concerts to focus on an artistic endeavor he may value even more than crafting music: filmmaking.

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From the Vault: Brutally Honest Sean Z., Vocalist for Brutal Band Dååth, Professes Love for Three 6 Mafia and Drugs

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

[This interview was originally published on IndiePit in 2009. Go here for our far more recent conversation with vocalist Sean Z. in 2023 right here.]

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It’s the phone call that every musician with loft aspirations dreams of getting.

“We leave in two days, and we can practice for one day. Can you go on a U.S. tour with us?”

It was late 2007, and Sean Z. (for “Zatorsky”) didn’t need more than a minute to mull over his decision. Dropping everything, he lunged at the chance to join Dååth as their new lead vocalist – even though he had been told it was only to be a temporary gig.

“I quit my job, I quit my life, I quit my band and went on the road, man.”

And that’s where he’s been, more or less, ever since.

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Minami Deutsch Nearly Went Broke Touring the States With Earthless – But the Japanese Krautrockers Lived to Tell About It

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

Tokyo krautrock treasures Minami Deutsch, which translates to “South Germany” (try wrapping your head around that one) conclude their recent tour of the U.S. tomorrow night. Having occupied a supporting slot for Earthless, a heavy psych-rock band from San Diego that doesn’t seem to ever stop touring, Earthless and Minami Deutsch are clearly well-suited for each other, having played a stretch of 14 gigs in spring 2024 that culminated with their performances at Austin Psych Fest. 

The two heady projects recently reunited for another stretch of dates that ran from Oct. 8 in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and lasts until they play Belly Up in Solana Beach, California, tomorrow night. Needless to say, Earthless have taken the much younger band — which formed in 2014, compared with the birth year of their partners-in-psych, 2001 — under their wing in a big way. Earthless consistently raved online about Minami Deutsch on their social media accounts, as if they were brethren.

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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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From the Vault: Dr. Know (Bad Brains) and Brandon Cruz’s Guide To DIY Touring

Posted in Interviews, Lists, Sound Off with tags , , , on 10/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

[This article was originally published on IndiePit in 2010.]

Punks don’t make the likeliest businessmen, for obvious reasons. Capitalism and punk aren’t exactly synonymous – in fact, by definition, they’re more or less contradictory.

But funny things happen in a time of crisis.

These days, more bands are taking more matters into their own hands, whether it be issuing their own material (like Clutch), producing their own records and/or shooting their own videos. But while this trend has mostly arisen out of necessity – the mother of invention, as the saying goes – self-empowerment has historically been a brass ring of sorts for bands adamant about maintaining control over their artistic output. Now they’re managing to find an opportunity in crisis: complete creative control.

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On Tyranny: Two-Time Pulitzer Prize Finalist Ted Hearne Says ‘We Need to Identify With the Farm Worker’ for America to Survive

Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny, Videos with tags , , , , , , , on 10/24/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

[Subscribe to The Bad Penny by clicking the “New Subscription” box in the upper-righthand corner of this page.]

In the latest installment of The Bad Penny‘s On Tyranny series, we catch up with esteemed composer, singer and conductor Ted Hearne about Authoritarian America and his new album, Farming (Deathbomb Arc). The engrossing, story-based album – which dropped a week ago – ingeniously compares the philosophies of Pennsylvania founder William Penn and Amazon mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos as a way of getting to better understand what lies at the heart of America and its values. Hearne examines labor rights, capitalism and the U.S.’s rapidly changing economy – and how they contributed to the strife currently raging across the nation.

“Culture-war rhetoric very often serves to paper over another reality, and what I think is the underlying tension we should be focusing on, which is the ever-widening wealth gap,” Hearne says. “Most wealthy people in this country … the work to sustain their wealth are investing choices. And then wealth begets itself and grows. This is not the wealth of manufacturing ingenuity most of the time. People know that, and people who labor to make things know that. And there’s a deep anger about that. I’m angry about it too.”

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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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Too Much Joy’s Bassist Cracks the Code to Chat Pile’s Success

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

[Subscribe to The Bad Penny by clicking the “New Subscription” box in the upper-righthand corner of this page.]

When we had the pleasure of interviewing indie legend Too Much Joy this week, we talked a hell of a lot about their upcoming plans, a special reissue they have on the way, their take on Authoritarian America and much more.

We’ll be bringing you a couple of articles stemming from the 60-minutes-plus conversation with two of the Too Much Joy dudes, but as a way of whetting your palette, we present you today with an informative chunk of conversation with bassist/vocalist Sandy Smallens and vocalist Tim Quirk that wouldn’t have fit into the other stories.

Our exchange revolves around not just Too Much Joy but also Chat Pile. Specifically, Smallens addresses why he thinks other young bands should follow Chat Pile’s lead – not duplicating their sound, but learning how the best noise-rock band of the past five years interacts with their fanbase.

In the words of Ariel from The Little Mermaid, “It’s a whole new world,” and Smallens all but implores bands that want to build a strong fanbase to take note of how Oklahoma City giants Chat Pile have done so.

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