Garza Podcast - 244 - PEPPER KEENAN: Corrosion of Conformity, Down, Gibson Guitars & New Orleans Sound

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Garza sits down in-person with Pepper Keenan. Vocalist & guitar player of heavy metal band CORROSION OF CONFORMITY. Also best known as the guitar player in Down. New album “Good God / Baad Man�� out now! https://instagram.com/coccabalSupport the podcast here: https://patreon.com/garzapodcast 00:00 - Opening Jam02:16 - Good God / Baad Man06:23 - C.O.C. Early Days & Joining the Band10:44 - Mississippi to New Orleans12:18 - Stealing His First Guitar14:50 - Living in Paris, France17:11 - First Records17:46 - New Orleans Sound21:28 - Skip James & Mississippi Blues Players25:06 - Pepper’s Gibson SG31:20 - Playing Malcolm Young’s Amp Rig36:46 - Secret to AC/DC Tone40:38 - “Stone the Crow” Riff45:36 - “Jail” Riff49:50 - P90 Pickups51:30 - Recording “Albatross,” Guitars53:39 - Electric Lady Studios55:11 - “Clean My Wounds” Recording Technique1:00:19 - Writing Music, Inspiration1:01:51 - “The Handler”, Tracking New Album1:07:02 - Looking Backwards for Inspiration1:07:58 - Recording ‘Wiseblood’1:11:01 - Vocal Lessons, Warmups1:16:16 - Beavis and Butthead, Down Logo1:20:50 - Pepper’s Iconic Stare1:22:12 - Auditioning for Metallica1:33:40 - Remembering Reed Mullin1:37:16 - Pepper’s Music to Check Out1:41:43 - Garza Jams on the Gibson1:43:16 - Pepper Jams on the 7 String

So you can turn your to D as well? Yeah, I'm in D. I mean, this is standard E. Okay. Easy peasy. Okay. How you feeling? Good.

Good? Yeah, man. Hoping in. Hoping in. Just try to keep that thing like a fistful away. This guy. Yeah. Let's want to put the Gibson to your left.

Right. Left, right, right left. Okay. This. Right left. What the fuck? I turn it to my fucking phone off, dude. Okay.

Turn my freaking phone off. Yo. You gotta turn the damn thing off, dude. Finally. Cool. You were texting the whole way. Oh, man, I meant to bring you a fucking record. Oh, you'll be at the place tonight, right?

No. Oh, shit. I went yesterday. I meant to give you a damn album, stupid ass. Hucked up, dude. I had it sitting right there. You fucked up, man. Fucked up.

Holding that bitch up. How are we looking, Jay? Rolling? Rolling? So new record came out, Pepper Keenan, thank you for being here, man. Thank you for a time. I'm honored to actually sit down and chat with you.

I've been watching your stuff, dude. Oh, thank you, man. Yeah. Thank you. So new record came out in April. April. Nice. Good, God, Bad Man.

Yeah, we're stoked on that. It's a double album, and it was done like that by design. It's over an hour. Yeah, yeah. It's two albums, but it was mainly not because of the length of the songs or the amount of songs, but by the types of songs. Yeah. So one of them's a little more ferocious than the other one.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So that was... But it kind of seems itself together. Hmm. And by separating the things, it gave us, me and Woody, more mental freedom to not have to try and keep things in constraints. Totally. You know, so by doing that, it opened up a lot of...

doors and if we wanted to go this direction we really went that direction yeah and your band uh has always been that way yeah it's like let's just travel our own road and every record's not gonna be the same yeah we we we sometimes we find ourselves in awkward spots of trying to find people to play with you know other bands to jam with because we're kind of on our own thing yeah you know but we do we always get our we just we just did judas priest alice cooper tour which was insane how that go it was awesome yeah we didn't know what to expect i just knew we were massive fans of both bands but i knew there were big big gigs you know and uh went over great people i mean the seats were full by the time we got on you know it was great so we had a blast when was this uh it was summertime

last summer we had just finished the record okay we just finished the record and it was in the can and then the priest thing came up we're like fucking hey got to do it yeah so even even playing in your band and music and for so long you still get kind of nervous how does this is gonna it's just gonna work dude no not really

you know you just gotta you gotta be prepared you know because you never know what direction we quit trying to control the business you know it just goes all over the place it can't be controlled

uh-uh and you probably see some crazy ups and downs yeah this way that way dude you see yeah you try to plan it out it never it doesn't work that way you can't in the long scheme of things no you can't you can't you can't plan it man it doesn't no it's not good let roll with it I I've learned recently like the hard way just I

letting go with things and things started to connect yeah weird just letting go let it things happen but also working we were we were under a lot of constraints on this record because you know we had lost our drummer Reid Mullen it is for one of the first works we were gonna do without read And uh... 2020 right? Yeah. And then the COVID shit and all that stuff that everybody went through.

Anyway, we're in there starting to do this record. And then our bass player with the OG, Mike Dean, uh, we were tracking songs and he decided that he wanted to take a hiatus or a split or whatever and focus on what he does, which is now producing bands and studio stuff. Totally got that. You know, he put his time in, but the COC train was not going to stop. but we had those two things against us. And then our long-term,

long-term producer, John Custer, was diagnosed with fucking tinnitus. Oh, no. So he was out of the game. So then it was just me and Woody, you know, and we just said, fuck it, man, we started writing wrists like we were 15 years old, you know?

Woody's been a constant, you're talking. He's been OG since 82, man. Yeah, I mean, still. Shit, I'm COC playing in this part. of California back in the day, you know, 83, 84. Does, actually this, I don't ever heard anyone talk about this. Has, what do you told you any stories, like pre-year era? Oh, yeah.

We talk about it all the time. Like pre-89. Playing with Slayer at the Olympic ballroom and shit on show no mercy, stuff like that. Wow. Crazy shit. Fender's Ballroom, wherever the hell that was. Somebody around here knows that. Fender's Ballroom.

Yeah. Oh, we're going to find. That was an OG joint that, uh, yeah, the old COC, which, you know, I was a massive fan of animosity. That was, that was the game changer record for me. And you, and correct me if I'm wrong, Pepper, but you, so you knew, you knew a, a female, and then she put your name in, in a hat to read. Yes, I knew Reed, I knew Woody, you know, but, uh, yeah, this girl knew, she, she, She was from North Carolina, but she lived in New Orleans where I lived.

Got it. And so she was the connecting thread on this thing. Eva was her name. And, yeah, she said, you should try out. So I noticed band like Graveyard Rodeo, I mean, this guy's kind of sad. Yeah, yeah. But I was just a guitar player, you know, and they were looking for a singer. And Eva's like, you'd be perfect.

I said, but I'm not a singer, you know. So I bullshitted and went up there. And I did good. I got close. Yeah, close. Yeah, dude. Sometimes it's all you need. I can try it.

Yeah. Just try, dude. But then we were all, COC was talking, and I was such a fan of the band. And I knew those guys could play. And I knew they were evolving. You know, they weren't interested in doing the same thing, you know. A lot of bands in the scene back then were just doing what they did, you know. Yeah.

And in the COC world, that wasn't a very hardcore thing. You know, evolution seemed to be the thing. thing with corrosion, you know, just pushing it, pushing it, pushing it, pushing it. And so I knew those guys could do it. So then we started talking about, man, we should add another guitar player. And that was me. And then me and Woody and Reed, I mean, we just wrote 24 hours a day when we were doing that blind record, you know. And what they did, what we did with the blind record compared to where they were was a big shift, you know, in terms of playing wise and what was going on with the band.

Did you also bring in like that kind of work ethic? Hey, we're just going to jam all the time. This is right. I mean, that's, yeah, that's what you do. It wasn't a luxury. I mean, we all had shitty jobs and stuff, but when you weren't working, it was guitar playing. What was your job then during the Blind Era?

I worked at a skateboard shop called Endless Grind. Endless grind. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And, which was an awesome job. But, yeah, we were in it, you know, skateboarding and playing guitar

that was, you know, pretty much... That was your life. Yeah, that was it. You know, it wasn't about, you know, we drank beer and stuff, but we were really focused on playing. Is it, Pepper? There is, endless grind.

Whoa, dude. What's that street? God damn it. I want to say Dawson or some shit like that. P Street, West P Street. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's hilarious.

And so that guy became Reggie. He was Reggie Barnes. And then he started that little tiny shop that we worked in, he started a distribution company called Eastern Skateboard Supply. Okay. And now he's the biggest skateboard distributor on the other side of the Mississippi River. Really? He's the biggest.

Still doing it. Huge. So then I started working at Eastern Skateboard Supply. So we were boxing. up skateboard parts and mailing them out to other skateboard shops. He was a distributor. So everything from the great state of California would be sent to him in a warehouse and then they would go to the skateboard shops on the East Coast.

Crazy. Look at the size of the place. Oh yeah, it's a fucking full on warehouse. Yeah, with a fucking wooden bowl in it. Yeah. So that was all fun stuff. Look at that bowl in the fucking warehouse, bro. That's sick, dude.

Yeah. So you were born. born in Mississippi. Yeah. And then when did you move out? I think we ended up in New Orleans when I was young, like two or three or something like that. Okay, so it was pretty like immediate. Yeah, my, yeah, my dad was in Tennessee and my mom was in New Orleans.

And he was a musician as well. He was a guitar player. Yeah. And, yeah, he went to school at Olden's. Ole Miss. And so they, I was born there, but they were based out of New Orleans. Okay, I was like, man, I know, I know, I know, you know, you know, you know, you know, but he's born in Mississippi. I was curious when that, when that, when that. Yeah. And now I'm back in Mississippi. Yeah. I got a place there and New Orleans as well. Okay. Yeah. Just start, sound bound. Yeah. It's a good little, good little balance for me to get out of the city. What do you like about Mississippi? since you went back there. God, it's hard.

Land of your birth, you know, whatever. It just stuck? It's Mississippi. I was born here. You know, it's a pretty big secret, dude. You get down in it. You know, there's some guitar players down there that'll chop your head off, man.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. What are some good players down there? I mean, just in terms of the blues guys, you know, they don't even have to be fucking popular dudes. They're just killers, you know. They got the thing. So that's always a humbling place.

You know, for me. Totally. To be in Mississippi, yeah. You started playing guitar at, uh, at 13. Yeah, pretty much. And your, and your story is kind of messed up. Screwed up, yeah, that's a screwed up story. How did you get that guitar?

It was, it was a pat rat? Pat the rat. Yeah. Pat the rat. So he passed away in a motorcycle accident. Yes. Then how did the guitar end up in your hands? It was at his house.

And me and my buddy, his name starts with an A I won't give his name because I don't want to get him in trouble 40 years later Oh yeah 40 years later We snuck into his house And took it Snuck into his house

Yeah Yeah Because I mean nothing was ever going to happen With the guitar You know We felt like we'll keep it alive You know So I started playing the shit out of it

Oh my goodness dude Yeah You're like you know what I'm just gonna go in there and just take it Yeah I mean Yeah Do you still have it?

No, it got stolen Oh That is some Fuck That's some karma dude Yeah That was karma But it did get me

On the path Yeah And it was a fake Like a It would probably be cool To have right now It was a fake Japanese

Les Paul Okay You know Do you remember the brand At all? Yeah No But it had a bunch of switches

On it I remember that Yeah, one of those guitars you'll get at like Walmart or something. Yeah, but some of those Japanese copies back then were serious. They were really well made. I'm looking, yeah, that's a school. Yeah. Man, I wish we could find it.

So it got, it got stolen at what age? Dude, I spray painted it black. I probably looked terrible. Yeah, it was terrible. But, you know, it was playable. I wasn't that good. I was learning Ramon songs and stuff back then, you know. Yeah, it's like one of those lawsuit, Japan,

band guitars. But anyway, I don't think his mom minded that we had it, you know. I just don't think it was on her list. Yeah. How long were you playing that particular one? A while, yeah. And then I got another company with like St. Louis Music Company or something. Okay. You know, nobody could afford the real thing, you know. Yeah. It was just whatever. It's like, man, I'm in Louisiana. I'm working at a freaking skate shop, I'm broke. The skate shot was in North Carolina, because I had moved to North Carolina from New Orleans. Oh, yeah. So you moved again, and then how old?

I was 19, I think, when I did the COC thing. Yeah. And then at 15, you were in France, right? Yeah, yeah. How did you get out there? My mom was infatuated with France, and I came home from school one day and had a bad day. And she's like, you want to go to France? I was like, sure.

And we sold everything we owned at garage sales for like two months and made a bunch of, not a bunch of money, but enough money to go to France. And how long were we? And we moved there. I had a suitcase, she had a suitcase, and that was it. And I guess we were there for two years, no, maybe a year and a half, something like that. Blew it. Came back to New Orleans.

Wow. I was like, what was he doing in France? But I was going to school in Paris, and it was actually kind of cool. I saw ACDC on the, for those about the rock tour, which, you know, you'd seen ACDC in Mississippi, right? And you think that ACDC is your band, you know. Of course. You see them at a coliseum in Gulfport, Mississippi. And then I'm in France. and for those about the rock comes out,

and I see them at a stadium in Paris, and I'm like, it's not my fucking band. You know? These motherfuckers were global. They were even massive back then. Yeah. And you didn't have the internet and all that stuff.

You just bought a ticket and go, saw the show, and you had a record, you know. And that's when it hit me about playing music. You know, like, whew, you know. See an AC, D.C. in Paris on that tour, rattled my fucking brain because I'd just seen them on the back in black tour

in Mississippi, you know. So it was just totally... The world was getting bigger. I was 15 years old. I was seeing shit that I'd never seen, you know, motorhead stuff that you wouldn't ever see

in New Orleans or Mississippi, you know, record stores in Paris or in England that had the shit. Where was, I think he got your first few records. Was it Metronome records? Metronome records in New Orleans. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. I got a Ramones were the thing. Road to Ruins? Road to Ruins. That's right. You did your homework. Nice. Yeah. Road to ruin and Elton John. Goodbye Yellowbrick Road was one of them.

And then House of the Holy. You know. And it was a game changer as well. That's it. Yeah, that's all you need. Those three records. You got, you know, that's where I'm at. I've heard you, I've heard you to describe the Nola sound as slippery. And then, and then, and then, and then you brought up a, uh, a group called the meters. Right. I was like, I was jamming him on the way here.

I was like, oh, she, I was trying to like, all right, I was, I was, so I was going by your terminology. I was like, what do you mean by that? Well, I think you could say that down, you could. If you said that down was from Berlin, that we wouldn't sound like down. You know what I mean? Yeah. You can tell that the four or five guys and down are not from Berlin. Yeah.

It's just a different train of thought, you know. It's more on the bluesy, slippery is the only word I can use. It's not mechanical. Yeah, because I was curious, what are like the origins and how did like the Nolo sound like become a thing Like how did I even start and We were all, we were all in

Bands separately You know But we were from New Orleans And we dug shit like St. Vitis And things like that But we knew about bands like the meters And things like that And a lot of the blues things

And Jimmy was all Into that stuff as well But then the Melvins came around Stuff like that you know and a super early new Orleans sound thing but we just created this own thing and it was completely

on its own and just by design of just five meatheads from New Orleans that were not from Berlin trying to play heavy stuff you know I mean we recorded it in a record in a studio and you know it was a blues they were like blues dudes

hanging out in the studio and stuff. It was not a heavy metal studio by any stretch you imagine. Wow, that part just inspired, like the sound of beauty browns such great players. Yeah, yeah. I mean, big time, heavy hitting. I made that flower back in the day. Yeah. Did you draw that?

No, it was the image. What is that? It's a fucking demon throwing human bodies into the, what is it say, sewing discord in the haunts of man, if I remember right? And he's slinging bodies into the field. Oh, okay. Interesting. Because I've heard, like, the two main things you brought into COC was Graveyorodeo and the meters.

So I was kind of, like, putting tune to the other. Yeah. I mean, we were all, and not to mention, we were just, I mean, I liked, you know, I like Black Flag. And I liked Leonard Skinner, you know, and I liked Black Sabbath. And I liked discharge. You know, so it was just weird. just thing that wasn't really a and COC was the same way you know they're very open minds to music lots of different stuff especially read we just dropped some new merch we got a chug shirt a pizza

shirt even a hot heat shirt like the one currently on my body head over to garza podcast dot my shopify dot com that's garza podcast dot my shopify dot com or click the link below love you guys But it was being around the blues players, plus having, like, open mind and it's being where your guys are from. Yeah, I mean, yeah. It was your product of your environment, I guess, you know. Yeah, we were definitely down in it.

What other bands would you add to that list? Like, you said the Ramones, I know you're a big fan of ACDC. Yeah. What are some, like, other? I mean, really, it was, it was, you know, A lot of blue shit. Skip James, people like that. Freddy King?

Freddie King, yeah. But some of the Bentonium Mississippi guys that were D minor, open D minor tuning and all the creepy shit. Can we get some... Skip James right there. What did you say? Was it called? This guy was like a one-man Led Zeppelin, dude. Was he?

Oh, my God. Skip James? Yeah. Let me see some songs on there. I'll tell you a killer one. Do we're... Haunting. We're gonna find the track listing.

Let me see. Hard time killing floor blues. There you go. Play that one. I think I'll bring tears. Let's play like a few seconds, dude. Yeah. Come on, it's crank this shit, dude.

That is Skip James, 1902 in Mississippi, of course he had to go to Europe to get notified. Whoa! Born out of 2. I kind of hear some COC in that That's beautiful man That's it right there dog Mississippi dude

That's it Haunting Yeah normally Mississippi has this like musical kind of bouncing Back and forth with inspiration right He was a preacher Was he? And he

He went against the ways of the Lord Oh Yeah And started doing this yeah His story is I'd rather be the devil Was it something similar to the Robert Johnson theory? In a simplistic way

Yeah But this part of Mississippi Bentonia Oh it's a city Oh okay I was like I was like what did you say Yeah So yeah I got friends A real good friend of mine

Alvin Youngblood Hart He's nowadays guy He's a killer but his knowledge of that he's from that area as well yeah that's alvin he's a bad dog too that's a gibson that's a firebird you think

oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah dude dude you're just in it dude we're in it dude yeah if you freaking live there man but you know alvin's a trip too because he knows more about the scorpions than i do you know it should have freak you out really we all hell yeah we have a fucking ball getting on it He's a tone chaser too. So would this be considered blues as well?

Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah. He's pretty good at the rock. He's real good at the rock. That record was produced by Taj Mahal. That's a dangerous record right there. Alvin Youngblood Heart. Yeah.

Big Mama story. In case you're just listening, it's a really cool cover. That's a cool record. That's a real cool record. Well, I think you're the first guitar player to bring over a Gibson. Really? Yeah.

I think so. And this is an SG? This is an SG. This is a, this is from the Gibson folks and a friend of ours, a friend of mine, Jim DeCola. I think he's a head Luthier at Gibson. We became buddies. And we did this thing.

He hand-wound these pickups. Really? Yeah. And it's bad. Through a big tube stack, this thing is, it does the thing. you know, it's real. You know. So, yeah, and then we put it, I'll put another pick guard on it

because I use these real thick picks. Oh, that's crazy. What's the... Three millimeter. Oh, it's a P-K. Yeah, instead of D-K. P-K, come on. Sorry, Jello.

Well, actually, our bass player, Dan Kenney, does the same thing. D-K? Yeah, yeah. It's funny. That's a, what is that 2.0? It's three. Three? Yeah.

How do you play with that? I don't know. I don't know. But it chews up guitar is real good. So I asked Jim if we could put a pick guard on the top. Nice. And once we put it on there, we just looked at it and we're like, bro, that's bad. You know?

It actually looks kind of cool. It looks way cool. It looks like some like Italian 70s horror movie. That's what it reminds me of. What's that bridge? Maestro. Yeah. Mystrow Bridge.

Yep. It's just, yeah. It'll stay in tune. You know, you can't be Eddie Van Halen on it. You can get on the, you know. Can we hear it? Fucking crank. You got me on some heavy metal tone here.

Yeah. You already knocked it out. Yeah. Yeah, it's just for shit like that. Nice, dude. It's awesome. It's just for tiny little things like that. But I use it.

I use it in specific songs that are at the end of a change. You know what I mean? So if I'm doing a set of three, I'll use this. The Trimolo song will be the third one out of three. Yeah, because it's going to be out. Yeah. It makes it sound kind of heavier sometimes. Yeah, it's just cool.

The particular songs. So how long have you had this one? I got two of these from the Gibson guys. I did a Gibson thing called R. riff lords. Yeah. It ended up being two hours long of just... Riffs.

Playing riffs. Yeah. And I didn't realize how many I had between down and COC. There's a lot of riffs, dude. It was an eight-hour fucking day, dude. It's a lot of rifts, too. There was a lot of material, and I was kind of tripping me out to go down. I don't go backwards much, you know.

You're always, like, forward-thinking, forward-looking, right? But going backwards, I was like, good God. How many riffs do you think you've written in your career? It's crazy, huh? How many of you rode, dude? You know, I don't know. Hundreds? I guess, you know.

I still like doing them. And still coming up and still like inspired. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of it, a lot of the inspiration comes from the tone, you know. You got a good fucking tone. It's something you haven't done before. You're instantly, woof. Yeah, you're just like, what's that?

Yeah. Let's go. I'm going to take more. I'll deal with that later. Yeah. First Gibson, man. Sick. It's cool.

Yeah, it's a beautiful guitar. And I will tell you that I think Gipson's throughout the years, but I think where Gibson's at right now with the quality of the guitars they're making, you can't touch them, dude. You know, they really, you know, I went toward the factory in Nashville. Went through every station. there. Oh, it's a past, too.

It was fun. I drove Jim DeCola crazy, you know. I think we were there. I was there seven and a half hour. Yeah, dude. You know, I was just tripping on every, you know. Take me to the middle. Take me to where they're fucking...

Every inch of it. I was, you know, where they make the pit guards, the templates for the pit guards. The material for the pit guards. You know, and just all the people that worked there are so cool. I mean, one guy had a DRI shirt on. And I'm walking through the thing, and he's, like, you know, doing trim work on Les Paul's. Wow.

He's got DRI shirt. I was like, yeah, cool. You know, we started talking. Yeah. And he's like, shit, Pepper, you know. Oh, shit, dude. Oh, my God, dude. We were just hanging out.

And then they said the only person who ever stayed longer on the factory tour was Jimmy Page. Wow. Jimmy Page spent almost eight hours on the tour, just stunned, which I thought was cool. you know but yeah Gibson's there and you see it they're making

really really good instruments right now yeah there's like like a like a turbulent period maybe hopefully they just like kind of flipped yeah

yeah it got real corporate and it was you know and I'll bring this back to when I worked at Eastern Skateboard Supply you know

Eastern skateboard supply was so successful because it was a skater owned company every person who worked in there skated The owner skated. You know, so that same thing that gives, when you go in there, everybody plays.

Everybody's in it, you know. I think they turned it around. And Caesar, who was the CEO, was a big part of that, I think, too. Anyway, yeah, great, great, great guitars. And I mean, you've been playing Gibson since you were like, since I could afford one, yeah, when I was a kid. You know, SG's, just I owe me and Angus. Of course.

That's the thing. Dude, did you get the play out of Malcolm's rig? I did. My old guitar tech, Takumi. Some of you guys might know Takumi. He worked for a white zombie. And then he jumped to COC when COC had the Metallica tour for all those years. We needed a real guitar tech.

Yeah. So we had Takumi. Takumi was great. And then we were on tour at Metallica and doing the, big giant shows and uh, Takumi, me and Takumi were so tight.

We roomed together on tour. I room with my guitar tag. You know, so we were just super buddies and stuff. And, uh, there he was. One day,

came to me on the, on the freaking Metallica COC tour, he said, Pepper, I've been offered another gig. I was like, we're going to tour with Metallica. I'm like,

I'm like, it can't get any bigger than this. Who could it possibly be? he said Prince I was like Oh man I was like later dude you know

yeah I was like I thought I was thinking testament or something I was like what the fuck you're talking about And he said Prince And then he did He worked for Prince for years Really?

Yeah Wow There he is That's a crazy guitar That's a prince guitar right there Yeah a lot of like the A lot of like the crew in text I would come up in like the punk

metal world, they're really good, they tend to just like, I'm working with some massive pop artist. They're like, well, I can't, I can't compete with that. Well, he did that, and then he ended up working for ACDC. Wow. You know, and that's when he called me up and I went to a show. And then COC, I mean, Down actually played with ACDC in Transylvania. Some crazy shit. I can't remember.

But, yes, I got to play Malcolm's rig. I got to play the, he's got, he's got, he's got, he's got, what is it? It's Marshall's improperly biased that are microphonic, like hot, insane. And they're all on. It's scared of shit out of you. I don't get how it works. It's just volume, bro. No, no overdrive.

It's just volume pushing it. There's no pedals, you know. I heard they have an amp tech just for the amps out there. Dude, I saw it happen. You know, and he's got this big rack for guitars and shit, and there's two of them in it. There's a glitter one, and then there's The Beast. So the man Malcolm only uses two guitars on tour. He only uses one.

The Beast, and the other one just in case. That's what I want to hear. Yeah. Yeah, that one right there, the Beast. See it? Yeah. Furious. The action's like this high.

It's an animal, dude. So he has really high action? It just, yeah, yeah. It is a monster. So for a player like you, it probably plays like crap, like this is not my... No, I loved it. Really? Yeah, I got, I usually have pretty shitty action too.

Yeah. But yeah, it was a fun thing, and it's loud, you know. But that's kind of the stuff I gravitate towards, too. it like, so this volume, not really much high gain? Do you have to play clean? No. You have to play clean? What's like the... It's just concussive would be the right word.

Okay. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I never heard that word like described as for a tone. Yeah. Well, I use that word a lot, actually. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not, it's not spongy. You know what I mean? Really? It's like a rectifier. It's kind of spongy. Yeah. Angus is, I mean, Malcolm's tone is not.

It's more, it's almost closer, like a fender twin. It's concussive. Yeah. I've heard people talk about how they have like the best rock tone ever, if you actually hear it. It's like, how do they get that freaking tone? Where's my damn phone? I'll show you something, really.

Oh, please. It's how crazy this is. My buddy Phil Oliveri is a fellow tone chaser. He sent me this this morning. So he's trying to capture... He's not capturing. He's building amps. He's building limitors.

He's building pickups. He doesn't... He's not in a digital world. This is a real thing. Okay. You know... You know, he's just chasing. If you want blood, you got it.

ACDC. Okay, so that's his gear. That's his gear. That he's making. Yeah. People are weird. Yeah, dude. People are crazy.

And he's one of the crazy ones, but I love him. He owns a company called Solo Dallas. And they build a very interesting equipment for guitar rigs. That thing right there. See that one that's $1,400? What the heck is that? I've got one of those. I was going to ask you, on your rig, what is that little box?

That's it? That's it. Oh. I was going to ask. I'll ask you, what is that little box next to oranges? I never see anything like it. No, no. It's pretty much, the way I would describe it,

it's the guts of a wireless unit that ACDC used back in the day, and Eddie Van Halen's wireless unit was the same company, and they took the guts, not the wireless part, but the compression part that the wireless units used, and they put it into one of those things. So it's got this weird compression limiter thing you can put on it. And when you add it, it sounds like once you have it on there and you turn it off, you'll never turn it off again. It sounds like you're taking a wool blanket off your cabinet.

Yeah. It's hard to explain. But when you hear, you're like, oh. I'm listening to you and I'm looking at it. I have no idea of the concept at all. You'll see photographs of Angus's rig and all the amps stacked up, but you'll see that thing shoved in the corner. Because Angus had, yeah, that's some of their stuff right there.

Angus Young had, they were in a record, recorded an album one time, and I think Angus's tone, he wasn't happy with the tone, and they're like, what's missing? And the only thing missing in his signal chain was his wireless unit. so they went and got to a wireless unit plugged it in in the studio and bang there it was because a wireless unit will compress a signal to try and get it to throw that far

you know interesting yeah it's like I said that's it's super crazy tone chasing weirdo shit but I was talking to this guy about it in Italy at 9 this one yeah I see I see two of them there it bam I see it so all those amps are on they're not they're not yeah six so if you're just listening

And there's six martial heads. Yeah. They're all plugged in. Yeah. They're all fucking plugged in. And they're probably biased, very hot. So they don't, you know, they don't last long. They rip those things out of there and send them down a conveyor belt.

So what did those three on top, do you think? Backups? Who fucking knows. Yeah, they do switch them out. And then they, you know, they're changing the transformers on those things. They'll be burned up. And the guy downstairs does it and sends them back up a ramp. I want to do this like,

find them and buying all of that version or aerial of martial amps. I think they probably got the biggest collection in the world. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And they use them. You know. Yeah, ACDC is, and then you see them live, and it sounds like that. It sounds microfonic.

You can hear the pick hitting the string through a PA in a fucking stadium. you know that's that's power jack wow i was just looking like there's it's it's pretty it's been a while where i looked at a piece of gear at someone was using in real time i was like what the yeah what the heck is that dude well yeah i i had been i used to use a sony wireless and i guess the frequencies are irrelevant now and it's not not good anymore yeah but the thing sounded so killer so I was tinkering around trying to figure out how to take the guts out of it and then ran to somebody else who turned me on to that guy so now we were buddies and I was like I was thinking

the same fucking thing you know well with riffs man I was jamming uh I was like dude what is that riff for Stone the Crow I was like there's nothing like it the the main riff and I was going to ask uh if we could play it real quick and also uh It's tuned to C. It's in C sharp. It's in C sharp. C sharp, okay. Now I can play a regular guitar.

Oh, dude, please. Let me tune this thing up. I knocked it up with my... It's a wild, a wild whammy dude. And also with the quad, I mean, you could change tuning in a matter of a second. I did not know that trick. You got to show me that one. That was actually the most...

Can you do open tunings and shit? Probably not. No, probably not. No, it just kind of drops the whole thing. But that was actually one of the most inspiring things about the... the quad for for for for for for me because like if i if i have like a c guitar but i want to play like like like a b song of like i didn't i didn't know you could do that i have it have you met these guys before yes i met a max uh great great guys over there they're smart dude they

i mean this came out of nowhere and i was like what and the uh mini is actually a brand new that this came out a few months ago yeah same same guts same sounds uh just smaller user more user friendly totally is if you look at it it's a fucking giant iPhone so fucking yeah so it's a standard standard C sharp yeah I'm in I'm in

yeah dude yeah dude it's a little too dirty you want that's game yeah it's pretty dirty and the chorus and there goes uh it's a real simple song

yeah it's see I mean, I love a quad cortex, but it doesn't really translate to this. It's close. That you probably eat like a rock sound. That's the main riff. Listening to a lot of Skinner, you know. Yeah. I remember Hetfield hearing that for the first time.

He was like, that's a good one. Really? Yeah. That was fun. But yeah, it was just, yeah, just listening to a lot of that kind of stuff. You know. Yeah. Yeah, so you're just listening to Skinnerd

and then you're just jamming or... I'm always messing around with that. That kind of thing. The power cord and you're pulling off. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's slippery. Yeah, it's slippery, right?

You're right, it's the only way I could like describe. It's slippery. You're like purposely pulling back on it. Dragon sings a lot, yeah. I can't play that way. Like, you're the way... There's another one. Give me something kind of clean.

Like, clean clean? Yeah. Clean leads, try that. Got a verb on it. Oh, yeah. Now we're back. I'm sorry. Lots of I-O-My shit.

Wow. Lots of slippery, you know. And that was a song on the first down record. And that was just a bunch of stone kids just, you know, playing it to you. I had that riff in it.

It sounds like you just got dumped. Right. It's fucking doom. The song's called, the song's called Jail, for Christ's sake, you know. Or I'm in a bad relationship or I just broke up.

Yeah, it never goes major. Nothing happy ever comes out. No. Never turned. I'm sad. It's doom. in the truest Sabbath form. What's your writing...

I do you know that you have a lot of clean riffs. Yeah, I mean, whatever it takes. I don't really try to control stuff like that. Like I said earlier, it's not worth trying to do. It's fun, you know, when you find certain things and I usually say putting your dick on the chopping block. I forget to say that quite every time. Going somewhere that you have to be.

really gone before, you know, trying to do something. Instead of doing the same thing and getting in your comfort zone. So I find it fun to get out there. Sometimes you bust your ass and sometimes you don't. Where'd you get that from, actually? What's that? Like, just, I'm just going to put my dick in the chopping block. I'm just going to try something new and different. Yeah, it was, well, it was, a lot of the early COC days, we were, when we were working on, like, deliverance and stuff, you know, we did a when we were writing a song albatross and we were making it quite clear that we were you know leaving our scene that we were in so that was a big part of it and when we did albatross I was like either people are going to kill us really or they're going to love us you know because

some of the hardcore people were like you know a lot of people in germany when that came out They were like, Papa, why have you abandoned your hardcore roots? Oh, my goodness. I was like, I said, dude, I got two words for you, crow mags. They got to figure it out, bro. Yeah. You know? And things like that.

But we were playing, man. We were fucking, you know. And you recorded that song with a Gold Top Gibson Les Park. Yeah, yeah. I still got it. P90s on it. You know what? I have a dumb question.

It just hit me this week. Is what? What is a P90? Is it a sealant coil or is it a humbucker? What is it? It's a large, wound single coil pickup. Okay. You know, but I guess it would be the best way.

I was talking about it this week. There's no humbucking principles in it. There's nothing humbucking about it. It's just a fat single coil. Yeah, yeah. It's fat. Well, you know what I tend to tell people, I have a Les Paul that I use a lot. Another one I got from Gibson.

And it's got, it's got a it's got a home-canceling P-90 on it there's a little bit trickery involved to it but a P-90

to a layman like me would be it's just focused that's the only way I can describe it it's not fat sounding it's just real you know

very focused sounding downy thin Lizzie shit like that you know them dudes that kind of thing it just has

the yeah punch you mid-ranging. I like this guy. He's just coming up for the stuff as we're talking. Jay's on point.

That's fun. He, uh... If this was a school, if this was a teaching environment, yeah, the kids would be all over it. That's a good idea.

School sucks, dude. Yeah. I fucking fell asleep, dude. Yeah, right. Just like, oh, my God. I'm fucking 45 minutes and nothing. If it was like this, I'd be all,

I'd be super in the school. We were learning about P90s and stuff. Oh, that would be fun, dude. It's like, oh shit, this is actually interesting. I might actually do my homework. Yeah, getting up and brushing your teeth and shit and getting excited. Albatross, you bring it up. What was the first fairer?

I was like, oh, shit, we should kind of follow this. Like, we should kind of see what this takes us. On Albatross? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was just, I had the riff. It was, I was kind of messing around with like no quarter or something, some weird thing that had kind of the same. notes to it or something.

But yeah. Yeah, that's the guitar right there with the P90s. That's the one I'm actually used in the studio. It's a great guitar. That's beautiful, man. Yeah, it's an oldie, man. I couldn't imagine what if things were

now, but, you know, it was all checkered and worn out like that when I got it. Can't ever sell it. Don't know where it came from, don't know the backstory on or anything. It's really, Yeah, that thing.

Yeah, that thing has some life in it, man. Yeah, all I remember is the guitar case had a Playboy Bunny spray painted on it. Okay. It had to be somebody bad ass. Then there's some history there. Yeah, there's something going on it. Another kind of slippery. It was found in South Carolina and it had a Playboy Bunny on the guitar case.

I was like, okay. So did you use that guitar for the whole record or just that particular song? song? Just Albatross on now. Really? Why? It's because... It had the tugboat sound that me and John Custer would call it. Okay. Front pickup, tone knob off. Okay.

That's the opening guitar riff on Albatross is that. And what other guitar do you use SG's? Yeah, we didn't I think we did that record with maybe three guitars. Okay. Which is a lot of guitar tones on it for three guitars.

And Woody had an SG and it was just like brown stained wood and we called it the furniture the furniture? Yeah, it just looked like a piece of furniture You know like an early 80s Gibson You know brown stained There is, that's Ted What were the apps you used?

On deliverance Yeah We did it at Electric Lady Studios in New York So we were legendary Super legendary We did We used Mesa Boogies a lot. I used a 50 caliber plus.

Remember the one of the graphic EQ, the Mesa Boogies, but the graphic. Classic. But when we were in Electric Lady, the Lady Mary, who ran the place, heard a couple of songs that we did. And it's a true story. I swear I got on that line, too.

We were doing a song called Seven Days, and she took a liking to the way The song was going and shit. At the end of it, there's a solo and it changes tempo and all this stuff. She brought down an amp, and it was an old marshal, and she told us it was the amp that Jimmy Hendrix used on Wing Cries Mary. Whoa. And she said she wanted us to use it.

I was like, you know, we're already tripping out being an electric lady, and then the sweet woman brings that thing out, and we're like watery eye going, bro. You know. That was pretty epic. So that's, I used that for like a lead. We made a solo to go at the end of the song just to fucking do it. We didn't give a shit. We're going to put something here.

Like, dude, something has to be used, dude, for this amp. Yeah. But all those kind of things, you know, the older I get, I look back at all that stuff. And it was super fun. And is this story true? Like, when you recorded Clean My Rooms, you recorded one string at a time. Why? Because we were wiggling the

dun, da-d-d-l-l-l-l-d-l-uh. So on that note, all three strings. I think Woody did it, actually. Because his vibrato was really good. He just did the wiggle on individual strings. We stacked it.

We were super into queen, you know, shit like that. Custer producer was super into queen. So we stacked a lot of guitars and did weird single-note things. Because it sounds like a power chord. I don't, it didn't, it sounds different now.

You know when you hear someone say something, oh wait, now it sounds different. You wouldn't know. I didn't know. The only reason that was ever brought up because somebody asked in a question, but we designed it to be a stack, but we wanted that first chord

to shake unanimously the same. Don't think, digg-l-l-d-g-d-l-w-d-l-w-------------------------. So that was just crazy custer shit, you know. And we would do that a lot. We'd stack a lot of guitars. Sometimes we'd stack rhythm tracks, and we'd stack one with the wah-wah pedal all the way down.

And we would call that the chopping lettuce tone. Chopping lettuce. You know, it did that. So you'd pull that in a little bit, and it sound like you were just knocking the shit out of it, like the picks just hitting the string when you just ride it in there a little bit, you know. Fun stuff, trickery.

So you're doing, like, the low E first, and then the high A, Next? Yeah, and I think we just did it in a regular, well, it wasn't drop tuned. But yeah, it was... I did him like that. Draws three strings. Yeah, you just whatever, yeah.

And then we did this one. And then when you blended them all together, it was made a massive unison wiggle thing that would technically be impossible to do. you know so yeah that was just interesting yeah it was just

when you if you're gonna try and do something so simple you better make it stick out a little bit you know yeah because you got the idea you could play at a power cord like that but it wouldn't have had to it wouldn't have the thing no

that like unexplainable there's like there's something to it yeah I don't know where it is but we're just gonna keep it yeah Joe Walsh was very good at that kind of stuff oh wow simple stuff of making the tone like

undeniable you know. And was that inspired by Sweet Home Alabama? How do I make a song with just one riff? It was a song with just three notes in it.

Yeah. There's no other notes in the song. So was the concept first and then you're riffing? I was curious. There was some thin Lizzy stuff I was tripping on. It was real cool like that.

But Sweet Home Alabama wants a you know, what an amazing song that was. And it's DJ. G and C. And the verse in the chorus

are the fucking same. You know? Clean my wounds. The verse in the chorus are the same. It never changes. You know? And once you start,

let's see if we can write a song like this. And we did. We just dicked around with the concept. What part came first? It was like, nah,

nah, was you like, it's the same. Do you hear it in your head or were you just like going up or down like the neck? What was,

yeah, see, Woody's shaking it right there. I don't know, man. It was just three notes. It was just a simple,

we had stripped down simplest thing you could possibly do. It just came from God. Here. I don't know. I knew, I knew once that, bong,

can tibol it. That's it. I was like, we're real close, bro. You know? And then the chorus goes,

dang, dang, dang, dang, ding, dang, ding, and never, there's no different notes. There is no different notes.

Did it ever feel too simple? I don't know if we could do this. Yeah, that's why, hence why Custer, we started stacking the guitars and stuff to try and make it more complex. And then the solo's got the weird, you know, all that stuff in it that way. And then you play it, you see in the video stuff.

But things don't have to be complicated, man. Why's it going to be so hard? I say that a lot of times, too. It's hard. It's way harder to lock in doing it. that shit than it is to play 80 notes. I can go ape shit all day long. Totally, dude.

Yeah. So those are things we were learning, and it was just fun to do, and it worked to our advantage at that time. I still enjoy writing simple stuff like that. Years later, still, like, inspired to write simple rips.

The new record, we had a blast doing that thing, you know, because we didn't have to, We didn't have to answer to anybody at that point. We had hit a wall so hard. Custer was gone. Reed was gone.

Mike Dean was gone. And then it was just me and Woody back to the, you know, the basic principles of why you do this in the first place. You know? It's just because we like this stupid thing. You know? It always goes back to the instrument. It always goes back to your love for music.

Everything else. Everything was gone. And it was just me and you, little buddy. You know, that's it. You're one constant in your life. Yeah, right. And so we started writing songs and we had a fucking ball. And we brought in a guy named Warren Riker, producer,

who had worked on Down Records with us, with me. And we recorded the record really unorthodoxly in fashion. I don't think we ever were in a true control room recording it. Yeah, there's Riker right there. But we had fun, and it was a big, big release, relief to not be stuck in the constraints of the usual making another record thing. Totally. We threw everything out the window. Yeah, you got to start over, dude.

We had a blast, yeah. It was like we were 17 again. After playing guitar so long, like, do you remember of like the first few rips, I started to pop up for, like, this new record, like, oh shit, I'm, like, inspired now. Let's, let's follow the seat. Do you remember, like, the first few? On this new recording, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which ones? A song called The Handler, just this vicious thing. Do you jam it? I need a wah-wah pedal. It's like 10 tracks of wah. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I think we could do it. Let's say, bullshit.

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Buckle up for the funniest comedy of the summer. Super Troopers 3, only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now. What I say if we got? It's just relentless the whole, fucking time. But what was making that thing work so good was the drum playing on it. I told Stanton just to

lose his fucking mind. Yeah. And it's just, if you, I wish we would play it on the air, whatever. It's brutal. And, yeah. Oh yeah, I hear, I hear the wall stacking. Yeah, yeah. That's the thing you stack the wall, dude.

So, oh, yeah. Yeah. So, so that, that riff pops up, you're like, I'm back. Yeah, we were... I'm back. Yeah. And we literally were using garage band demoing stuff on a...

Just to get the riffs down, you know? Me and Woody had a riff log that was getting pretty thick. And so we were putting them on garage band, and we were tracking these things in the crudest four tracks that we could with no drums on them. So that was fun. We were writing these things and getting pretty close on somebody's songs with no drums at all. Just singing.

getting all that stuff in. And then once we had it to where we liked it, we brought Stanton in, and we started jamming them live. And yeah. And I think we recorded the drums on some of these songs. We did it. I don't know if you know who Glenn Johns is.

No. He's an engineer from back in the day. G-Y-N. G-L-Y-N, something like that. Anyway, we use some of that. Yeah, we use some of his techniques, sort of, for tracking drums. I think some of the songs. Like what?

Like four microphones on the whole kit. Oh, like very minimalistic. Like, let's just try to get the sound. We had barely anything. The kick drum mic was like a foot away. And then we threw a 57 underneath the tombs and just let it sit on the carpet. And two really nice ribbon mics, Coles, ribbon mics run through really good compressions. and it did the thing.

That's the sound. Yeah. No, and it sounded enormous. And Stanton, with his pedigree of drumming, putting him on a big giant, fat drum kit with his playing style, it turned in a Bonham thing real quick with that type of micy. It's like these days it's such a crazy concept. You know, let's just not mic everything.

Let's just... Yeah. I mean, we were kind of... I was... I just... I knew the second we heard it. I was like, that's got style.

That's got attitude to it that nobody's heard in a long time. You know? It's not gated. Nothing's... It's fucking wide open. Damn, I got to revisit.

I was jamming it this morning. I didn't even... Yeah, there's a couple of songs where it's just fucking the drum playing. It's just... We're like, whoa. Whoa.

Yeah. That's cool, man. install, like, sometimes the old school stuff just sticks. If you can write around that kind of stuff. I mean, believe me, you know, we did records like America's volume dealer. You know, that whole record's almost all digital, you know, even back then. That was like early Pro Tools, you know, that album right there. And it sounds great.

But we were pushing that as well. But on this one, we just, we felt the urge to get, back to the real, you know, real, real. Yeah, and the fans are digging it. It's fun, yeah. Everybody's like, man, what a fucking breath of fresh air of that? That thing sounds like a fucking monster, you know? You know, I actually heard you talk, I talk about this, like,

a lot of bands go back and, like, listen to, like, your first few records. Hey, what, like, what is, like, to, like, reinvent yourself? You actually got to go backwards sometimes. Sometimes, yeah. Me and Woody are not scared to go backwards, you know? at all. We just don't generally do it. But we're not trying to do the next cutting-edge thing. I think sometimes we were listening to record.

We were in our jam room at the Blackshack, we call it. And we were in there, and we were listening to records all the time. And we kept finding ourselves going, Volume 4 is a fucking masterpiece, you know, the way it fucking sounds. How are you going to fuck with that? Yeah. You know? If somebody was to come out with a record that sounded like,

like volume four right now, not trying to be Black Sabbath, but recorded it in that thing, I'd fucking lose my mind. Yeah. You know, if the songs were that good. And are we talking about Wiseblood? Wiseblood, that was another one. That one kind of got us in trouble. Yeah, because the label didn't like it, right?

They liked, they loved the songs. It was just recorded so aggressively. Yeah. You know, and they weren't ready for that. And then you had to go back and do another song, right? Yeah, they asked us to go back in the studio. They wanted us to write with the dude who wrote for Aerosmith or something. How was that?

And we're like, bro. How was that? I mean, we didn't do it. I was like, we ain't going to do that. Oh, okay. The label wanted us, they hired them for, I said, the songs are fucking great. They might just be too abrasive for this label, you know. But we were crazily into guitar shit.

So the guitars are just mammoth sounding on that record. And they sent us back in the studio because they're like, do it your way. But we need another song. And so we went and wrote a song called Drowning in a Daydream. And it got nominated for a Grammy. Yeah. So I was like, yeah. The label dude, he was right, you know.

So you guys felt like the dick after that, you know, because he, and then they dropped us. Oh, yeah. Told you, motherfucker. Frank. Damn. You know? So that was fucking...

We were like, man, this dude can't tell us what to do. So we did what he asked us to do, and they got nominated for a Grammy. That's a mind-fucking.

I was like, man. There's a reason the assholes got 8 million gold records in his fucking office. What do you think about the song now?

It's great. Yeah, that's a great song. Yeah, he was right. He was a great song. Donnie Einer was his name. He was cool. He was actually cool to us, but yeah. Dude, how did you guys get?

And then I think Orange County killed us. That's what happened, actually. What? Offspring and all that shit was coming out. Really? On Wise Blood, yeah. Oh yeah, offspring just took over. Yeah, yeah.

Americana came out and just... Yeah, we were fucked. I was like, dude, we had more in common with like Nirvana and SoundGuard and shit. The offspring shit, we had no chance. They're like, you're out of here. That's a band normally that talks about. They're a phenomenal band, dude. They played the other day.

We were at a festival. I don't know much of their music at all, but we were at a big festival, and I could hear them on the other stage. I was like, is this shit fucking being phoned in? Because his voice sounded perfect. Oh, wow. Yeah, his voice was phenomenal.

I was like, I couldn't tell. Dexter? Yeah. Yeah. I know the guy could sing, But, you know, 30 years later, it sounded, I mean, if it was him, fucking kudos on that, because it was, I could hear it, you know, in the dressing room area in the festival. Like, that dude's nailing the shit out of it.

Yeah. How are your vocal feeling now after the time? Good. Yeah, yeah. I spend a lot of, I do vocal warm-ups and cool downs before every show. I have to. Yeah. I think my voice is as good as it's.

ever been. How do you maintain that? Just... I sleep in the back of the bus. No air conditioning. AC's off in the back lounge. Wow. Yeah.

Lots of water. Yeah. You know, because some... My stupid ass, I have to sing Albatross at the end of the set. The highest fucking thing I got to sing is the last second to last song. Yeah.

After barking like a dog, Unvote with a bullet and shit like that. So I'm one of those guys that kind of has to be on both ends of it, not just barking or not just singing. Can I take up your voice, dude? It takes training, yeah, it's a thing. I do scales and stuff, and this weird stuff,

a lady named Katie Agresta gave me vocal lessons a long time ago. And when I was with Columbia, the deliverance, they were like, I'd never sang before. And the Columbia people are like, you got to take vocal lessons so you don't blow your throat out on tour. And they sent me to this lady named Katie Agresta. She did Brian Johnson.

She did the Beastie Boys. I'm sure that makes you feel really comfortable. Oh, you know, Brian Johnson? I'm in. There she is. Did you find Katie Agresta? Is she still alive? Yeah, Cindy Lopper.

She was like the vocal coach to the stars. I didn't even know it. I was just going to her place in Manhattan, taking vocal lessons. Yeah, look, Lenny Kravitz. So I still have, what you would do is you'd sit with her. and she played piano and do scales and you'd sing with her. She'd see what your voice could do and all that kind of stuff.

And she would fine-tune things to do with what you were trying to do. She'd hear the record go, okay, you've got to repeat this five nights a week. Here's what we've got to do. Whoa. And so we recorded them on cassette. So you take your cassette with you on tour and you plug it in and warm up to your cassette that you had made with this wonderful lady. And there's piano on it

And you're trying to match the notes Correct And you're doing it 15, 20 minutes And then there's weird When she would do that work beyond belief Where I take a towel and pull my tone And do the same thing Saying the same scales

And you can feel that thing stretching Really? And she's like, dude You'll have like a two-hour window You can go ape shit And then after that two hours You need to close it back down and cool down until you're not a horse anymore and then shut the fuck up.

And I do it to this day. I got it on my phone. I took all the cassettes and put them on my phone. Oh, wow. Yeah, she was cool, man. Yeah, wow. Does she have a Facebook page? Uh-huh. Yeah, but that was a big learning experience for me. And in terms of pitch, you know, all those kind of things.

It helps out a lot. So, yeah, that was my little trick. And sometimes, you know, back to the day, you'd feel real stupid because you were hanging around a bunch of metal heads and they'd have to disappear in the closet. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know. So let me get away from my friends real quick so they don't freaking hear me. Yeah. And then you'd be doing it with headphones on and nobody could hear what you were doing it to. You sound like a mad person.

And this was like the 90s, right? Yeah, yeah. And that was probably one of the best things that Columbia did for me. I mean, they had a bunch of cool things, but the label sent me to her. And it wasn't that I had pitch issues or anything. They just wanted me to be able to do it five days in a row. because they knew that we were going to be slamming us all over the fucking place

all over the world yeah so it was exciting and I carried those cassettes I would be paranoid I had rubber bands around three 90 minute cassettes I still got them

and I carried them everywhere and then finally technology caught up where I could you know I had to find some way to burn the cassette onto a hard drive which wasn't an easy thing to do you know

when we finally got it done yeah they're etched in stone they're in a hard drive I got like four copies of them if I lost them I'd be fucked you know I do it every

I've never not done it my entire life 15 20 minutes an hour before you play okay so and then it like the stretch sets in and you kind of keep your mouth

shut till you hit the stage whoa mm-hmm like sometimes if you got You know, you're the end of a tour. I won't do it the last night. You know, I won't cool down the last after it, you know. Let me just go hard on the last.

Yeah. Sounds sick. Dude, how did you, how did you guys get on Beavis and Butthead? Legendary, dude. Yeah, I don't know. That was, what was that girl's name? We worked at MTV. Dang.

I can't remember. It was so weird because back in the day, when COC was on Columbia, it was a lot of young people that were at MTV and Spin Magazine and all that kind of stuff. But they were all people we grew up with at punk rock underground shows that were now calling the shots at these big corporations because this underground stuff was kind of taken off. Nice. So we were all in cahoots with all these people who knew everybody.

from the Nirvana stuff you know Jackie Ferry was a real influential person and she was she ended up being Kurt Cobain's nanny Whoa you know and she was real heavy influential in the underground things getting things getting big

just people knew what cool was you know and they were exposing it to things like MTV you know so it was just time and a place the 90s were weird man you know You know, there was a whole new thing coming out that really wasn't there before. That video, Dance of the Dead, was recorded at H-gun Studios in New York, where we did the video.

And that's where it's going to blow your fucking mind. That's where Soundgarden did the Jesus Christ Pose video in the same building that we did the dance of the dead video this beavers and butthead thing uh it was in the same room and that crown of thorns that they had in the video the jesus christ pose video i was standing in there and i put the crown of thorns on my head and i was smoking a cigarette and the girl said don't move and she took a picture and that became the down logo oh shit really she sent me the picture and then years later i went in xeroxed it 50 times and that became the down thing

smoking Jesus is me puffing on a cigarette with the crown of thorns on my head joking around oh shit this is it yeah but that that just reminded me

that that dance of dead video was in the same room and that and they had just done Jesus Christ pose and that crown of thorns in there was something I used I just put it on my head

is this known no I mean, kind of know. Some people kind of know it. I got the original photograph at my house still. Yeah, so it's Xerox multiple times. Yeah. And how it got that look.

Yeah. I just did it, just kept doing it and doing it, until it turned into that. Yeah, most people don't know it's you. Yeah. I wonder how, I wonder what the karma is, karma is with that point out of crown. Crown of Thorns.

I'll find, I'll find out, I guess. Oh no. Yeah. No, I haven't heard anyone say that's you. Yeah. Well, you could say that your face is on the cover. Yeah. And got us on a lot of people's arms, too.

Wow. No one knows, dude. That's crazy. Yeah. Some people know. What was it like hearing Beavis and Butthead talk shit about your band? Oh. I mean, it's honor.

I can't even remember it so long ago. Yeah. But I knew it was a thing. I was like, we're on Beavis and Butch. Crowbar was on there too. Yeah. And Pantera. You know?

What an honor, dude. And we all grew up within like 10 blocks of each other. And we were all in different bands and we're all on Beavis and Budhead. And what the fuck's going on with that? We knew we're on to something right. Whoa, dude. That is crazy. Yeah, once you take off, I'm going to, I'm going to rewatch it and hear what they said.

You guys should Like clip that somehow And like fucking post about it Or I mean like that I mean that's what we're I'm surprised Yeah do it too I mean dude it's been a while

Fucking 90s dude Yeah I mean 30 years ago I can't Gotta remind people dude I forget Yeah they should bring it back

How did the How did this photo Pepper happen of you Where it's just like Your eye just like It like became a thing What thing Like people take photos of you

And and your eyes are just like fucking like bulging out of your fucking some people think I have a thyroid problem like how did that it became like it became like a thing

I just started dicking with people yeah that in the hand is another thing yeah so you're just like you're just screwing around yeah oh yeah

always never never serious it became a thing it's like that's how I live I'm looking at my chick's ass, to be honest. I'm like, whoa, dude. It's an ass, dude.

It just became a thing. Yeah, there's so many pictures nowadays. Jesus Christ, every day you wake up, there's 50 more photographs of you from, yeah. Whatever. It's true, and you're only on Facebook, huh? I'm on Instagram as well. I think.

Yeah, Instagram. Wiseblood, PJ. but are you on Facebook more more like I don't really particularly either one of them the band does I just post weird shit on my own page yeah I think I know I know if you touched on it

but what was it like getting that phone call to audition to play a bass for Metallica did you was it like a phone call what would how did that thing start I've just being good friends with James and the other guy as well, you know, I think everybody threw their names in who they wanted to try out,

and I was one of them. It happened a long time ago, too, when Hetfield got burned. Remember when they were on the Guns and Roads this tour? Yeah. I got the phone call on that one, too. Really? Mm-hmm. And we were on tour with the Rollins band, COC was. Oh, sick. Yeah, and we at the hotel, and the power of Q Prime scared me at that point. What's that? Q Prime was Metallica's management. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Got it. And they, my phone rang in my hotel at three in the morning, and it was fucking Q Prime. I was like, how did you even know I was here? What hotel was, you know? Whoa. That's crazy. Yeah. And I understood why after the fact, because Hetfield had gotten severely burned on that Guns and Roses tour.

and they were putting the feelers out to try and find guitar players who could come in and play guitar. I was like, bro, for one thing, it's a fucking stadium tour. Metallica's never been tighter in their entire fucking lives and you want some Yahoo's to come jump in and try and be Hetfield. Is this what you're saying? They're like, yeah.

I was like, they sent me the, fucking music uh how how do you how do you get you they faxed it to the fucking hotel room I had to go tell Henry Rollins I was like

I don't know how to explain this Mr. Rollins but and my band we were fucking kicking ass on the Rollins tour they wanted and I flew to Denver Colorado the next day and I get there and there's

you know my suggestion And it was that we split it in half with, like, one of the Sepulah boys or something. You know, split the set in half. This was crazy talking. I mean, we're like, they're losing a million bucks a fucking day. Each day they ain't playing. This was like real shit. And I'm a fucking 20-year-old fucking dude going, what, though?

I'm sitting in a fucking place in, Denver, Colorado, top secret bunker, and they got the gear in there and shit. because Hetfield was there because of the best Burns Center in the United States. Whoa. I'm like, this, you know, this is as big as it gets. You know. So, yeah, it was very intense.

And, you know, learning that amount of songs that quickly and that good, I said, man, this ain't going to happen, dude. And I said, split in half would make more sense, you know, at least get it going. And I think they ended up getting his tech to do it. He was a badass anyway. I think he was in metal church or some shit like that.

And there probably were guys that could have come out and do it, but they didn't get the phone call. Heffield called, was it, Andreas, Max from Sepaltura? Probably Andreas, he sold. Yeah, it was Andreas and me. And it was a couple other guys, I think. but this was just was this was this was thinking off the top of his head find that dude so yeah and we became friends ever after that you know oh my gosh that there was a lot of very intense moment and

i could feel the the tension and what they were going through it was a heavy thing he was he was fucked up dude he showed me the guitar you could see what chord he was playing yeah could he killed him oh absolutely And that would have, that would have, yeah, I don't know what. We probably wouldn't be talking here right now, you know. Yeah. Someone got fired, the pyro guy. Yeah, yeah.

Because you got to look. I was like, I guess he's got, only he's right there. Maybe I shouldn't fucking press his button or something. I think, I think it's triggered once it starts, it goes. Oh, go. Yeah. And he just watched. I think what I heard had happened, I'm not, don't quote me on this.

and I don't want to get anybody in trouble, but I think the Guns and Rose's back line was pushed forward like a foot or two, so everything was off. Oh. Yeah. One little thing that's different. Yeah. That was 1992.

Yeah. So they were in Montreal, and I remember hearing about it that night. It spread like wildfire. Whoa. Everybody heard about it, dude. And then my phone rang at the fucking hotel at three and four in the morning. And they sent me the tablature of the song. Oh, God.

I was like, bro. Blackened. No. Shit like that. Like that, you got to be out of your fucking gourd. You know? And it was worth a shot. And then they did it.

And what was the text name? I forgot. We could probably find out. He did a good job. And then I saw him later on the tour. Yeah. And we hung out again. And, you know.

So you actually, physically actually went there and did you realize, hey, this isn't going to happen? I mean, I could, learning an entire headlining set within hours of, you know, not at my skill level. John Marshall. Yeah, correct. Sick. Yep. I mean, you're talking about. But he was there.

He was there every day. We had the same thing happened with COC one time when Reed Mullen, the drummer for COC, blew his leg out. And we were supposed to play a headline, not a pretty big high up on a festival in England. And our guitar tech, this quiet, unassuming British kid, Reed didn't show up. And we were on in like an hour. And drum tech looked at me, he goes, I got it, mate. I was like, what the fuck you mean? You got it.

He goes, I got it. I was like, I just seen him tapping on drums and shit. you know, setting up Reed's kit. I got it, mate. And we had no choice. And he got on the drum kit,

and I never turned around one fucking time. He knocked the fucking dog shit out of it. And that blew my fucking mind. I gave him the biggest hug after that. He ended up staying with us. John Green was his name. He played... Oh, John Green? Yeah. Oh, that motherfucker.

He was a tech. He never... Sizzler Rippin' drummer Kept his mouth shut Never said a fucking word I thought it, mate So that was some crazy ass shit That's crazy, dude

So I'm guessing John Marshall was probably like that He'd been teching for Heafield forever He's like... He knew he knew the inside of it I think You know, maybe James just wanted to get somebody I don't know But that was the thing

So fast forward You get another phone call So who called you? I mean, I was, we had finished that load tour, I think, if I remember correctly. Am I wrong on this? No, it was before that. I can't remember. No, it was after that.

It was after that. I mean, because Newstead was still in the band, right. So after we did the load tour for three fucking years, 96, 97, and 98, you know, that was the whole other issue too. We got the tour book for that. And it was like this fucking thick. Three years point out? It said 96. I was like, what?

So yeah, we're on for 96, 97. I got the tour jacket. It says 96, 97. Poor touring me. 96, 97, 98, I think. Yeah. Or into 98. But yeah, it was a very, another intense situation.

You know, but it was, it was another one of those things. And it was all, I was pretty, I was making my way up the ranks on this thing till old fucking Trujillo came in there. I was like, oh, damn. Best of best. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, well, he can't sing.

Yeah. So I thought I had him on that, you know. What were you actually feeling when you were playing the songs in, in the room, did you feel comfortable? Were you like, oh, shit, this is crazy. I felt comfortable, but I did realize some crazy things that, like, I think Hetfield's the snare drum of Metallica. You know, his right hand is the thing, you know. I found, looking at Kirk, looking at Lars, looking at Heffield's right hand, I'm like, oh, shit.

You know. So, yeah, between him and Lars, the mechanics of that band are between those, his right hand and in Lars's. foot. Whoa. That's the way I was perceiving it, playing with them. Yeah. It was intense. What does it sound like in such like a small room?

We were just like... It was killer. It wasn't a small room. It's their headquarters. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was big, yeah. It was crazy shit. Yeah, I should probably write a book one of these days.

You should. You should. He should. He should. Why not, man? Yeah. Yeah, you're bringing up all these weird things I haven't thought about in forever

But yeah, that was crazy stuff So once like, when did you know that, like Rob was in the name In the hat? I mean, I was staying at James's house You know? I was, I was offering up ideas too. I wasn't like I was just trying, you know I wanted, I wanted the best from my buddies, you know?

So yeah It was just a big thing where we were all, yeah, they had to figure it out. You know, I knew somebody was out there. That could be the dude. Yeah. You know. What a trip.

You're also around them in such a raw time. Yeah, it was very raw, yeah. And we were buddies, man. You know, we still are. But, yeah, Trujillo came into the picture, and I was like, I think that's going to be your dude. But I had to lean into it. I was like, he can't sing.

Yeah. Let me just tell you real quick. I got these back. He was like a motherfucker. I got the singing voice, dude. Yeah. When you were doing, I got two more questions, and I got to get you out of here.

Okay. Did you know that, that last record with Reed, did you guys know that was going to be your last record together? No, no, no. Well, he was, his health was, was not well. And we tried everything.

I want to say it was, 2018? Say again? Once they the record was 2018? Yeah, yeah, I think we started, put it, yeah, 17, 18, something like that. Didn't know. Yeah, no, no, no cross is no, no crime is what we're talking about. Yeah, yeah. And then he just, he just couldn't get it, he couldn't get it together, man, you know.

And we tried everything and Dave Grohl offered help, you know, Dave Grohl had helped him with rehab, paid for it out of his own pocket, which is very kind. Whoa. Never forget that. And yeah, I didn't know. And now me and Woody look back at things,

and we have nothing but wonderful stories about Reed, you know. Because when he was at the top of his game, he was a fucking animal on the drums. You couldn't touch him. In terms of creativity and movies, that type of music forward. You know, he's one of the OGs

of the crossover shit back in the day. So he truly had helped invent something. Yeah. It's just weird shit. Like I said, the way we started this conversation, you can't plan anything. You can't map it out. You'd be crazy to even try.

You know, you never fucking know what's going to happen. It's impossible to know. Yeah. Yeah. You all was curious when I saw the dates my tears two years away I wonder

I wonder if Reed knew how bad his health was or I don't know yeah it's hard it's a hard thing

to put your to grip to get a grip on things like that if you're not in it you know it's hard to say yeah

because you I guess sucks because you don't know when so she'll you're just writing songs again and

making a record and you don't know how this is going to be my last record with this person. I think I do think if he had gotten through all this stuff and could have cleaned everything up and you know sometimes it takes that and then if he was here right now I think the band would be tearing shit up you know I think he would come full circle and we

would have been one of the people not scared to go backwards either you know yeah get back into it yeah but who knows you know you can't you can't mess where you can't go there at least you guys have had that record because you had a little stint of time where like you you were Not. Yeah. I was doing down stuff and they were doing the three-piece thing, but we did get back one more time. So I do take, I'm thankful for that, you know, for sure. Yeah, rest in peace, read man.

Yeah, legend. Yeah, legend. 82. Yeah. 82 is well. He passed away at 53. It's sad, man. Crazy.

53, bro. That's a kid. That's a kid. How old are you? 59. Yeah, I'll be 60 next year. Yeah. Dude, still riffing, still inspired, man.

Yeah, I feel, I feel younger now. I play this fucking thing more than I ever have in my life. Wow. So weird. Yeah. Selfishly, I'm like, I'm seeing my future. No matter what, you're still ripping, dude, can't walk away from it. Sometimes, you'll, you know, we get in arguments and have.

But we always make up, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Pepper, we, we, we, we, we, close off each conversation the same. So there's no rules. It could be any genre era. Like, what are three records for people to check out? Three records to check out. God. I hate these kind of questions. I know. All right. ZZ Top mescalero. Okay. There's one of them. That's a fucking acid trip of a record. Let's see. What's another that comes in my brain? Yeah, that's a good one.

I think they lost Billy Jimman's lost his mind making this album. Oh yeah? It's fucking amazing. Amazing. The label was not happy with that record. No? Fuck.

The first song's in Spanish and it's got a xylophone solo. Why? That's fucking the Reverend. It's fucking genius. I see another good record. That somebody should listen to? Three records are what?

Listen to you, check out. Well, I'd say the fucking COC record for one thing. Yeah, I do. While I'm on this big platform. Yeah, dude. Good God, bad man. I can't believe I didn't bring a copy for you, dude. That's my fault.

That is super fucked up. I had it sitting right there. Yeah. I'll get one to you. Mescaleros. Let's see, let's get a... Oh, you know what? The Volume 4 Black Sabbath box set.

Okay Get it It is insane The volume 4 box set It's like five vinals Right And yeah It's got pictures

Not to mention all that cool stuff Look at the photographs in it Beautiful But Two of the albums Have them working on the songs In the studio

They're not there yet It's just I amy going Bapalababon Bha da lao And changing the riff and not completing it. And you're going, come on, dude. Get the roof.

And they just keep going until, you know, take 17 rolling. And then they bang, they get it. And Bill Ward's doing some different pattern. And you know the record's so good. It's making you crazy. But it's in turn, if you play guitar, you write music, listen to that fucking thing. It is an, as the fact that.

They exposed themselves just hard and showed all the terrible mistakes. All the past. Working on the record and you can hear Ozzy in the background going, Bullocks, you know. It's brilliant. Look, look at all the alternative takes false starts. Whoa. That is sick.

Bro, look at wheels of confusion. Alternative take number two. And if you're a metalhead or you play guitar and you listen to that, you'll be like, that shit didn't just fall off a tree, dude. They beat that shit in the fucking ground until it was right. You know, you listen to Sabbath, and you just think that, you know, they worked their fucking ass off.

Wow. It's brilliant. They're just handing on a riff. It's just working. And you see, you can hear the guy who, the guy who produced it, I think, is the guitar player from Porcupine Tree. Okay.

And they got him to put, They gave him everything and he put it all together. Yeah. It's fucking great, man. It's one of my favorite cool recordings of all time, actually. Wow. But yeah, it's definitely a lesson. I love them.

My bands put out like these, like, shitty demos, and you hear, like the riff, like being born essentially. Yeah, yeah. Never get told. That's this. I've never heard Sabbath expose themselves like this, you know. It is cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Number three? So yeah, I'm giving you, I'm giving you mescalero, the Sabbath volume four box set, and corrosion conformity, good God, bad man. And between all three of those records,

you'll have a ball, I'll promise. I'll promise. You'll have a long weekend. Dude, I tell, I tell a band's all the time, dude, say your new record. It's okay to put it in the top three.

I keep telling them, but... I cannot believe I didn't bring you on. It's fine. I had it sitting right there. Can I, to a cloak closes off real quick, Can I play her Gibson Real quick? I want to do...

It's real dirty on this fucking quad. That's my... Oh, actually, just because I'm in the realm... I'm gonna use your pick. Three? This is crazy. Tug it. Dig it.

Get it, lean into it. Give me a couple of pings on it. What? the fuck you think the action's too low on it it's actually very similar to mine it's it's kind of low for me but it was set up from the Gibson factories I left it oh dude I'm honored it's cool thank you for that man yeah let me see that 8 string thing you got it is that what that is seven I'm trying to count the fucking please jam it dude please what is it tune to drop a drop a give me a break let me see this

Oh yeah. Is this... So this... Where is it? Where is it? Yeah. So that's... It's basically standard E.

And then drop A. You got it. Is it not drop, though, is it? It is. It's not dropped. It? Yeah. It's almost too low.

It's too bad. Can you ping on this thing, too? Oh, of course. I can't get there. Yeah, you got it. It's dope. Sounds good. Huh.

Oh, that's the front pickup? It's right there. What is the Fender? Look the size of the neck. It's a Fender, dude. Look the size of the headstock. It's a fucking baseball bat, dude. What is this called?

It says Fender Customs shop. Yes, it's great. See it from Corona. Cool, man. Wow. It's dope. One, two, three, four, five. Seven strings.

Seven strings, dude. A seven string custom fender strat, dude. Get on it. Thank you, man. That's dope. I like the next setup on that. That's crazy. I love it, man.

Anything we missed? No, bro. We're good. Fun conversation. Pepper, thank you, man. Appreciate it. Yeah, bro. That was cool.

All right, one. That's it. Later. See you. Woo. like you