And This Year’s Award for Most Vapid Interview of 2025 Goes to …

Posted in Interviews with tags , , on 11/18/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

For all the talk about the upheaval in the music industry – a topic of discussion that started 25 years ago and hasn’t abated since – the monopolistic industry is still riddled with some of the same unsavory practices and behaviors that have persisted in it for decades. That includes major label incursions, which fertilize egocentrism in young, wanna-be musicians who, for the most part, are lucky if their careers last more than a few years.

The Bad Penny was reminded once again this year that, while indie labels are struggling to stay afloat and quality musicians are working as hard as they can and trying to develop fresh ways to establish themselves, the industry still encompasses shiftless, entitled, 401k-backed major label signees as well. Those execs are the people who not only don’t know how good they’ve got it, they seem to believe they can always deny responsibility when something goes wrong and the blame lies squarely in their lap.

[Case in point: Read heretofore unpublished interviews with New York industrial-metal Black Satellite and try to locate any valuable insights, cleverness or deep thoughts.]

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From the Vault: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club As ‘The Wild Ones’ on Cover of Amplifier Magazine

Posted in Interviews with tags on 11/18/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Just this morning, [PIAS] announced the Jan. 30 release of a deluxe box version of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s first album, released 20 years ago. It’ll come with a heaping helping of unreleased tracks, records, BRMC’s original Howl studio album and many more accoutrements.

To commemorate the affair, here’s a cover story I wrote on the band for Amplifier‘s May/June 2002 issue.

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Exclusive: Courtney Love Freaked Out Over Supposed Child Abductions at US Airports, Ex Reveals

Posted in News with tags , , , , , on 11/18/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Much like news headlines about the goon in the White House, stories that appear in the press about Courtney Love often reveal she has managed to sink even lower, causing more collateral damage to other people and continuing to shock a benumbed nation into deeper states of catatonia, exasperation and hopelessness.

The latest Love update comes courtesy of Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum, who briefly dated her in the ’80s and just released his first memoir earlier this month. Titled The Royal We and revolving heavily around Bottum’s decision to come out of the closet way back in 1993, the 275-page read contains many anecdotes and vignettes of the front woman of her on-again, off-again band Hole.

Back in the good ol’ days, Love and husband Kurt Cobain used to rail against prejudice, misogyny, corporate greed, overconsumption and America’s addiction to consumerism. But after the couple’s halcyon days were cut far too short due to the couple’s heroin use (which Love has denied), it didn’t take long for them both to plummet back down to earth in shambles.

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On Tyranny: Palm Ghosts Say ‘7 Million People on the Street Doesn’t Even Make a Dent’

Posted in Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags , , , , , , on 11/18/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

Palm Ghosts’ Joseph Lekkas was all smiles when The Bad Penny caught up with him a little under a year ago. We connected with the bassist/singer in his residence via video conference call, and he was surrounded by his trio of devastatingly adorable dachshunds. Additionally, his long-running Nashville band, Palm Ghosts, were giddily on the verge of releasing new songs.

Fast-forward to roughly a month ago, when we checked in again with Lekkas and Palm Ghosts bandmate Benjamin Douglas (vocals, guitar, keyboards). We immediately noticed that they were burned out emotionally – and likely spiritually and physically as well – thanks to the terror that the Evil Empire Trump Administration is inflicting on the American public.

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From the Vault: Live Blogging FYF Fest’s Save Our State Parks Festival 2009

Posted in Concert Reviews, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , on 11/17/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

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It’s a bright Saturday in L.A., and while throngs left town to get their holiday on elsewhere, the hipper masses stuck around to suck in the Save Our State Parks festival. A three-stage charity throwdown designed to offset the ever-looming California budget cuts, it’s taking place at the Los Angeles State Historic Park and featuring just about every “now” band you can name.

We’re talking Wavves, No Age and other frequenters of the Smell. We’re talking Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge, Torche and other smart metal bands that don’t have long hair. We’re talking Black Lips, the Thermals, Lightning Bolt and acts every other indie-rock blog out there is also yapping about. And to top it all off, Tim and Eric – they of Adult Swim fame – are conspiring to do something weird for 40 minutes.

We’re about to head off to the fest, and we’re going to try to pull off this while live-blogging thing, for the first time, at a show. We don’t know how the cell phone reception will be up there, we probably won’t be able to upload imagery till later on – hell, we’re not even sure if this is going to work. But if you wish you were going where we’re going, maybe you’ll want to pop over to the IndiePit Blog throughout the day, ’cause if we can actually pull off this experiment, it could be cool.

All right, enough dilly-dallying, Sally Salami. Time to get to the show, or we’ll be late.

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Poll: Which Intergalactic Brutes Are the Best, Gwar or Kiss?

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

Following last month’s death of Ace Frehley, a founding member and the lead guitarist for Kiss, it seemed like a reasonable time to present a poll pitting Gwar and Kiss – bands that are pretty much equally loathed and loved – against each other.

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Chief Broom to Bust Out New Songs at Diles Que No Me Maten Show Tonight in Boise

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

The Shrine in Boise is on fire this week, having hosted tastemaker-appetizing performances by the likes of Greet Death, Brian Jonestown Massacre and Bass Drum of Death in the last three nights alone. The venue aims to continue its hot streak with another must-see gig this evening, featuring Mexico City-based post-punk quintet Diles Que No Me Maten with local band Chief Broom of Boise’s own Mishap Records handling opening duties.

Chief Broom frontman Shadrach Tuck (also of Trauma Kit and owner of Mishap) and drummer Max Voulelis (also of Porcelain Tongue) imparted their excitement for the gig to The Bad Penny on Sunday night.

Diles Que No Me Maten “came through [Boise] last fall, and the whole band couldn’t make it, so I ended up doing an acoustic, stripped-down version of the set,” Tuck recalled. “It was just guitar, vocals, cello and pedal steel. It was fun. We kind of became friends after that show.”

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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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Exclusive: Mystic Circle Just Dropped New LP – and Have Demos Done, Producer Set for Next One

Posted in Interviews with tags , , on 11/16/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

It’s always unsettling, surreal, perplexing – pick your adjective – to see a black-metal musician filled with delight. But Mystic Circle’s Beelzebub had every reason to be when The Bad Penny recently caught up with the vocalist/guitarist/bassist/keyboardist who comprises one-half of the legendary German band for a video interview a couple of months ago. He and his partner A. Blackwar (drums, guitars, keyboards) had recently polished off the third and by far strongest studio album Mystic Circle have conjured since getting back together in 2021.

The harrowing Hexenbrand 1486 is a punishing audio experience through and through, and features grisly subject matter well-suited for the blood-curdling occasion. On the record, Mystic Circle explore the legends of Jack the Ripper and the Boogeyman, along with the Catholic Church’s nauseatingly cruel treatment of supposed witches and other nightmare-inducing topics. Marking something of a departure from the band’s blistering black-metal sound are allusions to horror filml soundtracks by Dario Argento and like-minded B-movie directors.

What follows is a surprisingly candid and extensive discussion with Beelzebub about the record, Mystic Circle’s career and other subjects that he graciously chose to discuss with us.

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On Tyranny: Australian Punk Project Schkeuditzer Kreuz Says Authoritarian America Would Ban Band From Playing New Song Live

Posted in Interviews with tags , , , , , on 11/16/2025 by Kurt Orzeck

“People forget that yes you’re allotted certain freedoms as a citizen of a country. It just seems like the notion of responsibility has gone completely out the window.”
-Kieren Hills of Schkeuditzer Kreuz

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The land of the freedom to commit crimes, the home of the craven. That’s what America is increasingly being perceived as by artists living elsewhere in the world, according to Australian punk project Schkeuditzer Kreuz (and anyone else with a pulse, frankly).

With the Trump Administration canceling visas for foreigners who have published a single social media post criticizing the US government, deporting authorized workers to gulags in countries where they’ve never previously set foot and directing masked thugs to shoot ministers in the head with PepperBalls® (did you know those projectiles are trademarked? Isn’t that rad?!), is anyone reading this article still arguing with a straight face that Authoritarian America hasn’t arrived?

But back to Schkeuditzer Kreuz, a project comprised by independent electronic music producer Kieren Hills. We caught up with him in late September, shortly after the release of his band’s new album, Swan Grinder, which he’s now supporting in Australia and New Zealand (dates below). Schkeuditzer Kreuz refers to a major junction in Schkeuditz, Germany – specifically the interchange that connects the A9 and A14 autobahns. The band’s motto is “one human and some machines, making noise, in the face of it all.”

With that badass info in mind, it’s our pleasure to welcome the first Australian musician to participate in On Tyranny, The Bad Penny‘s ongoing series about how authoritarianism directly damages artists.

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