Man, Metalacolypse fucking rules, and Axl Rose is crazy. I love Fight Club, and freaky sex. So when I talked to Mike Tiner, bassist of All Shall Perish, I had some things on my mind! After several attempts to get my recording equipment set up, and his car sucking, and a call later, we finally got the interview underway. What a rad dude. Also, the entire time, his car was beeping and he couldn’t get it to start. Very funny, very metal!
Racket Aaron: Your Mike, from All Shall Perish?
All Shall Perish Mike: Mhm.
RA: So I was reading up on the band a little bit. I read that you played a show at Chain Reaction. At the show, four people left with broken noses and one of those kids that had a broken nose also left with a fractured skull.
ASPM: Um yeah, that was very, very, very recently.
RA: When that type of thing happens, where people get injured at your shows do you kind of celebrate that?
ASPM: Oh, we never celebrate that, when somebody gets hurt. In a weird way, its kind of an honor that somebody would go through that kind of pain just because they like our band so much, and to be able to elicit that kind of mentality at our shows. We bring two groups of people together, and when they get together, they fight a lot. We get the metal crowd and we get the hardcore crowd, and when they get together someone gets hurt. At that particular show that one guy got hurt really bad. I felt really awful for that guy, because a fractured skull really isn’t something to laugh at.
RA: That’s pretty gnarly, really…I mean, one time I chipped a tooth, and I was unhappy about that.
ASPM: *laughs* Yeah, I can imagine you’d be really unhappy about a chipped-tooth I can’t imagine how this dude could deal with a fractured skull.
RA: So with that atmosphere, when metal musicians, and hardcore musicians, and when bands combine the two, like Death By Stereo does, back in 2003 they had some one die at one of their shows.
ASPM: Ouch
RA: Yeah, due to that move called the "Wall of Death."
ASPM: Oh Yes.
RA: Do you ever have that in the back of your mind when kids are going around and going crazy, that some one could get severally injured, or even die?
ASPM: I do have it in the back of my mind all the time, I’m always thinking "Oh God, how bad is this really gonna get?" I could see how somebody could just totally get destroyed doing involved in any kind of you know, even some just small kind of "bro-mosh". I don’t understand it myself. I’ve done it but only when really, really drunk (laughs)
RA: So have you found that there’s one place in particular where the shows are more wild, and energetic?
ASPM: As far as actual cities? Uh, yeah I’ve noticed that for some reason a lot of people like to go ape-shit nutty in Long Island, New York. I don’t really know why, it happens more there. For some reason, there’s a lot of crazy shit that happens there. For whatever reason these crews show up, with these metal kids, and "punch your face" groups, they meet up, and beat the shit out of each other but then like to smile and joke about it later on. That’s just weird.
RA: That’s something I never understood, it’s almost like a "Fight Club" mentality.
ASPM: Yeah, yeah! There’s a fight club here in Oakland. Its called the "East Bay Rats." Those guys are pretty crazy. They were actually on TV.
RA: Oh, Really?
ASPM: Yeah. You know those weird channels they have in the hundreds? Near Discovery Channel, they had a feature on there called "Only In America" where they had a whole thing that was based in Oakland, on the East Bay Rats.
RA: What’s the most odd place you’ve ever played?
ASPM: Odd Place? Hmm…That’s a good question. Probably in somebody’s garage as a last minute show. It was originally supposed to be at one place in the city, and then it got moved to another place. But then the owner of that place saw the names of the bands, freaked out and cancelled the show. Right at the last second this kid said "Uh…You could play at my parents house." It was really good. We decided, "Fuck it, lets do this guys" and we packed about 200 people into a two-car garage. As far how that happened, and our roadie got, our two hundred pound roadie got away with punching kids, and starting a mosh pit. It was certainly a sight.
RA: So where do you see this band taking you. Because, you know it seems like the shelf life for the type of music you play isn’t necessarily all that long.
ASPM: The only way that a band like this can stay around for any amount of time is to continue putting out good material. It takes us a long time to get where we’re a signed band, and that’s when the real hard work starts for any band. We’ve been around for about five years now, and we’re hoping we can stay around.
The bands that stay around are the really, really huge bands like Slayer, and
Pantera. But we’re not even close to that, but they consistently put out good albums. That’s how they stay around. Bands put out an album that either sounds exactly like the last one, or you know, regression or it just sounds really bad, and people get over you right away.
RA: How do you stay innovative, because even though Slayer has been consistently good, I don’t know if you heard their last few CDs, or the last one in particular "Christ Illusion" but it was just abysmal. It sounds like that bands out of ideas because they’re trying to re-hash out what made them famous in the first place. How do you stay innovative, how do you stay fresh?
ASPM: Oh, we have a particular writing process that’s not like not like anybody else. Every other band, like you mentioned Slayer, mainly they have one guy writing the songs. Its mainly Jeff Hannemen, or its Kerry King, and that’s one guy writing the songs, and if anybody doesn’t like them, then fuck ’em, they don’t care. But for us, we will never put out a song, it will never see the light of day if all five members of the band do not see eye-to-eye, and say that "That song is amazing" and we don’t love it, no way that song is ever coming out with the name All Shall Perish on it. We went through a lot of stuff on this album to get to where we’re at. We must’ve gone through fifty different songs, just to get to this. And we all listen to drastically different styles of music and vehemently disagree on the shit that we like. The worst is listening to music in the van when we’re on tour, because we cannot agree.
RA: Who listens to the weirdest shit in your band? Cause you know, there’s always that one guy that’s like "You know, Celine Dion is the voice of a generation, and my heart will definitely go on."
ASPM: We all have our own little weird things that we like. Um, amazingly, we can’t agree on any one band. There’s always gonna be that one fucking nay-sayer who’s like "Oh, I hate that shit!" The bands we do agree on are very, very strange. Like we all for some reason right now, have the biggest boner for Weird Al. I don’t know how we all agree on it, how we all like it–
RA: Keeping it "White and Nerdy"!
ASPM: Oh! Oh, my God! We listened to that, and played that out the first three days it was a video, as well as the rest of the songs on the album. Every single on of us has every single album of his on our Ipods. Everybody in the band likes that, except for our roadie.
RA: But he’s not in the band, so fuck him!
ASPM: He sort of is the honorary member in our band, like you go to our MySpace page, and hes listed as a member. Hes listed as playing the merch. (laughs)
RA: Okay, slightly different topic here. Would you ever bang a wookie?
ASPM: Would I ever bang a wookie? Probably not, I don’t like hair.
RA: Don’t like hair? Kind of like the whole scorched earth thing?
ASPM: I have to have…I don’t mind if its a runway, or a Dorito, or anything. But its got to be trimmed up.
RA: So who gets the most groupies, who pulls the most trim?
ASPM: One of us is married, so he doesn’t do shit. Most of the other guys don’t do anything, and I know the members that do pull in the most amounts probably don’t want me to say who they are. So, cause I know if they ever knew I said this, they’d be so fucking mad at me. So, unfortunately I can’t really comment on that.
RA: What’s your favorite beer?
ASPM: My favorite beer? The ultimate "bro" beer, Corona.
RA: Corona? I’m all about the High Life man, or Guinness. Pints of it make you strong, you know.
ASPM: Oh God, I hate dark beer, and Guinness is the worst.
RA: What?! That’s Un-American.
ASPM: Everybody can’t take it. They’re like "Oh, you like that light-piss beer?" I don’t mind any American beers because they’re light and shitty. Corona might as well be an American beer because its so light, and pissy. I can’t take that dark shit dude.
RA: Bad experiences?
ASPM: No, just tastes awful. Tastes like a dog’s balls.
RA: Dogs balls bring me to my next question: What’s your view on George W. Bush’s American foreign policy?
ASPM: Oh boy, I’m about to ruin my reputation right here. I don’t think that’s he’s doing it right, at all. If you ask any other band member, they have a different opinion on George Bush then I do. I think he’s not doing it right. I think he should be going completely balls out on that place, and destroying the shit out of it.
RA: Haha, and what, just turn it into a glass factory?
ASPM: Not necessarily glass factory, but at least, you know, a real big violator of the "shit-or-get-off-the-pot" policy. It makes sense to get more people over there, do it properly, get it done, or just cut and run. And he’s not doing either. So he is kind of shitty.
RA: Would you say you’re pro-Bush?
ASPM: At this point: No. I used to be.
RA: Did you vote for him in the last election?
ASPM: I voted for him twice, yes.
RA: That’s a hard stance to take, especially with muscians.
ASPM: Print it up, hit the press with it, everybody hates me (laughs). Me, and the singer from Avenged Sevenfold, right?
RA: Ah, man that guy is such a douche bag.
ASPM: That guy is kind of retarded–ooh! I didn’t say that. How can you consider yourself a Republican with some of the stuff that he does. I don’t know, I’ve never met the guy. He could be the nicest guy in the world, the smartest guy in the world.
RA: Don’t worry though, he’s not. So do you have any questions you would like to ask me?
ASPM: You? Hm, that’s a real, real interesting question. Why would you decide to be a metal journalist?
RA: We don’t actually just cover metal. We’re all kind of over the spectrum, and this is the first metal interview I’ve done actually. I know Matt Corbett’s made enemies eternal with Hawthorne Heights and also got stoned with Good Charlotte, and Jonathan Yost has interviewed about a million bands. I write about music because I want to document it in a different light outside of music videos, new shirts, the latest single, or where a band sits on the charts, you know?
ASPM: Oh Yeah?
RA: Yeah, and I mean especially with metal, I can’t think of one GREAT metal album that’s been released in the past decade, and the same goes for punk rock as well.
ASPM: There’s not a whole lot of originality, I mean who hear bands who change the trend for a second and then change it right back.
RA: Or they become the trend.
ASPM: Either that or the trends already out and they get in, get out, and they’re done.
RA: That whole cash and dash.
ASPM: Yeah, definitely. I hope we don’t fit in that category. We’re not the most wildly original, the only thing we do that’s drastically different is we kind of go all over the board.
RA: What’s something you incorporate into your music that a lot of people would be surprised about?
ASPM: There’s not a whole lot I incorporate into my playing, I listen to a lot of rap and hip-hop. When I’m playing, and writing at home, I try not to regurgitate that. I listen to a lot of Underoath, a lot Unearth, and I try not to regurgitate that exact same shit over, and over again. I listen to a lot of, like I said, rap and hip-hop. I listen to the new Fiona Apple album, for whatever the hell reason I like that. Justin Timberlake, whatever.
RA: JT?!
ASPM: Not just fuckin’ metal, or else I’d get burnt out, and then I’ll hate it.
RA: Does anyone just look at things you like, and just say, "That’s not metal."
ASPM: They look at me! (laughs all around) They look at me, and they’re just like "What the fuck? That makes no sense whatsoever. Just some random dude that doesn’t belong to any category.." Heres something that’s not metal: When I’m not doing All Shall Perish, my job, I work at a tutoring place. I teach math. All math, through beyond calculus.
RA: You could always claim that you’re like Dillinger Escape Plan.
ASPM: Yeah. I could always do that, but we don’t sound like Calculating Infinity. I wish we did, sometimes. Most people don’t like that shit. There’s other things about me that people walk away confused from. Like, I hate tattoos. Unbelievable, isn’t it?
RA: Do you hate God, too, like all metal people?
ASPM: I don’t hate God. I don’t care if he exists or not actually. If he exists, cool. If you need to believe in something that’s potentially a giant lie to keep you under control, cool. Its not for everybody, its certainly not for me. I don’t go to church.
RA: There’s just something about metal that makes me want to invert crosses.
ASPM: Something about it makes me want to destroy things, and ride a horse while shooting flaming arrows into a village.
RA: That brings up a good topic! What’s your favorite Metalocalpyse character! (laughs all around)
ASPM: Actually, that’s exactly what I thought about when I was saying that. I do like Nathan Explosion quite a bit. I do like Murderface.
RA: Murderface is badass!
ASPM: Murderface is great, just because he reminds me a lot of our guitar player, Chris.
RA: Do you all have identities with everyone in the band?
ASPM: Absolutely. Its not that anyone member is like one person, just certain aspect mashed up, and combined equal every one in that show.
RA: When did Axl Rose go ape-shit crazy?
ASPM: When? Probably whenever he thought that "Lose You Illusion" was a great album.
RA: You know he’s finally releasing Chinese Democracy?
ASPM: I hope he would. He uh, (long pause) he sucks. (laughs all around.) I don’t know how else to put that.
RA: He blows!
ASPM: I have all kinds of crazy opinions on musicians, and stuff, and I know I shouldn’t be saying that–
RA: No, by all means. Use this as a platform to start a feud with a band. Any band, or single musician, biggest chance to start a feud.
ASPM: (laughs) I’m not doing it! Nope.
RA: C’mon, I suggest Hawthorne Heights, or Taking Back Sunday! It’s a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark. No one cares.
ASPM: It’s not a victimless crime! I’ve said bad things about other bands all over the place. I said it to a fucking tree! I swear to God two seconds later, there’s a bulletin about it, and I’m getting e-mailed left and right asking "Hey, why you hate this guy". Its like, "What the fuck?" I’m not even mad. Fuck that guy, I don’t care. Everybody always wants to know about that stupid shit. All the time, when I say anything, ANYTHING! Fuckin take it the wrong way (laughs.) I’ve been trying to start my piece of shit car the entire time we’ve been talking to you.
RA: I can hear it. (laughs) what kind of car do you have?
ASPM: FUCKING CAMERO, Bro!
RA: It’s not "Bitchin" right now though.
ASPM: It’s bitchING. It bitched out on me. COME ON, YOU FUCK!
RA: So what’s one question you’ve always wanted to be asked?
ASPM: Why am I not in porn?
RA: Would you do porn?
ASPM: Would I? No. No no no. I couldn’t do it, not because I don’t like having sex, I love that shit. But like, me and my girlfriend should definitely do it. If you get the chance, look at me, and my girl and you’ll see why. Here’s why we should: she’s a freak, I’m a freak. It’s very Oscar-winning what we do.
RA: What kind of shit do you do?
ASPM: Dude, you don’t even want to know. It’s pretty bad.
RA: Yes I do, it can’t be that bad.
ASPM: It…it CAN be actually. It, its fairly awful. Lets just say she likes it really, really, really rough.
RA: Ever have to go to the hospital?
ASPM: Considered it.
RA: (laughs)
ASPM: No. Seriously. That’s no bullshit. There’s a few times we considered it, where after we were like "Are you alright?"
RA: "Honey, you’re bleeding."
ASPM: She passed out once. "You alright?" "Yeah, I just couldn’t breathe for a minute."
RA: The fuck? Did you pull a Michael Hutchence?
ASPM: (laughs) Nah, nah, she didn’t have a belt around her neck.
RA: That’s not Metal.
ASPM: It was a spiked chain.
RA: Oh……kay…..
ASPM: See? See?!
RA: Alright…anything else you would like to say?
ASPM: Fuckin’ Oakland, bitch!
-Aaron Hale