Daron Malakian - ON METAL (Part 2)

Daron Malakian returns to continue his conversation in Part Two. Composer, guitarist, vocalist, and record producer Daron Malakian, a founding member of System of a Down, reflects on his lifelong relationship with heavy metal. Using music as a guide to discuss how different styles, sounds, and eras shaped his identity as an artist, he talks through what he listens for in metal, including riffs, mood, aggression, and atmosphere, and how those elements influenced his own songwriting and creative direction. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: LMNT Electrolytes https://DrinkLMNT.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Athletic Nicotine https://www. AthleticNicotine.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Squarespace https://Squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Rick Rubin?

  Tetra Grahamington.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  So when I was like 12 or 13, at that point, I had been playing the guitar for like a year. I was with these guys in my school that we would, in their dad's garage, we would play Metallica covers. It's pretty much all we'd play, a bunch of Metallica covers. And that's kind of a big part of how I learned how to play the guitar was playing either Sabbath, Metallica, Maiden, sometimes Slayer. My friends really didn't get Slayer, but they loved Metallica.

• 0:54Rick Rubin?

  Understood.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  But I loved Slayer and I would fight with them over it. But we would play these Metallica covers, so I knew all these Metallica covers. As you know, when I got older, I knew them. And so we were on tour with Metallica on the Summer Sanitarium Tour. I met Metallica onstage.

• 1:12Rick Rubin?

  Really?

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Playing with them. I never met them before.

• 1:15Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  We're the first band, nobody knows us, it's 1999 maybe at this point. Toxicity's not out yet, we're on our first album. And we are on the Summer Sanitarium Tour, it's us, band called Powerman 5000, Kid Rock was on there, I think Korn was on there, and Metal, there was like five bands on the bill. We were the first band that opened up.

• 1:39Rick Rubin?

  When people were walking in.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Nobody knows who System of a Down is at this point. And so we're on that tour, and James Hetfield, along the way, gets injured. I don't know, they told me he was going water skiing or something, and he got injured. So they didn't cancel the show, so all the opening bands played, and then Metallica still went onstage, and Jason Newsted was singing, and then they brought the guys from Korn on, and they kind of played like this Cheech and Chong cover song or something. It was like, they didn't know what to do.

• 2:14Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Because James wasn't there, and I turned to my tech, and I go, "Listen, man, I go, go tell their tech that I know a lot of their shit." Cause I learned it playing it in this garage with these other guys. I go, I know a lot of their shit. From you could say, Justice for All and back.

• 2:32Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Next thing you know, my tech goes and talks to their guitar tech and then my tech comes back to me. He's like, all right, come with me. Never met Metallica before.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  And I'm telling you, Metallica was the first concert I ever went to in my life. Like I was a huge Metallica fan.

• 2:48Rick Rubin?

  Were you seeing played for a show?

• 2:49Speaker 01

  At the Irvine Meadows.

• 2:50Rick Rubin?

  Amazing.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Faith No More opened up for them. Justice for All Tour.

• 2:55Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  So, next thing you know, I go on the other side of the stage. I get handed a Les Paul, I think it was one of Kirk Hammett's Les Pauls. And they're like, all right, go. 60,000 people.

• 3:13Rick Rubin?

  That's so wild.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, 60,000 people. I'm in my after show, I'm wearing a Lakers fucking sweats. I'm wearing like, I'm not even ready to like get on stage. I'm wearing a white tank top and a Lakers sweats and I'm, I'm just completely was there just watching Metallica, you know?

• 3:31Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Next thing you know, I get handed a guitar and they go, go. You gotta understand, our band's not big yet. I'm still a kid. I'm 22 years old. I can't even believe that we're even allowed to open up for Metallica.

• 3:44Rick Rubin?

  Of course.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  So, this is all new to me.

• 3:46Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  At this point of my life.

• 3:48Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  And they put me out there and I turned and I'm like, hey, it's Lars, it's Kurt, it's Jason Eustad was the bass player at the time. They're like, what do you know? I go, I don't know. Master of Puppets? Okay. Count it in. We're playing fucking Master of Puppets. I'm like, I'm up there with Metallica playing Master of Puppets in front of 60,000 people.

• 4:12Rick Rubin?

  Unbelievable.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  And I'm like, who's gonna sing? I said, fuck it, I'll go sing.

• 4:16Rick Rubin?

  And you sang it?

• 4:17Speaker 01

  And I sang.

• 4:18Rick Rubin?

  Amazing.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  And then there's this thing that happened where in the middle of Master of Public it has this slow part, instead of going into that slow part, they went into Sanitarium.

• 4:30Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  And I didn't know they were gonna do that. And we went in and we did the middle part of Sanitarium and then came out of it and went back into Master. I mean, you would think we rehearsed it, but we didn't rehearse it.

• 4:43Rick Rubin?

  And you didn't even know it was gonna happen?

• 4:44Speaker 01

  I didn't even know it was gonna happen. And it happened. And I'm up there and I'm playing Metallica with Metallica in front of an audience where I would have been in the fucking cheap seats just three years ago. You know, I would have been in the last fucking row.

• 5:01Rick Rubin?

  That's unbelievable.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  And then, I don't know, somewhere down the line, like, I got offstage.

• 5:06Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  And next thing you know, they're coming to me, they're like, "Hey dude, James isn't gonna be able to play for a few nights, they want you to come and play with them like fucking everything."

• 5:18Rick Rubin?

  That is wild.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  And next thing you know, Kirk Hammett's in front of me with a guitar and I go, "Hey, bro, I know all your old stuff, but I don't really know the load and the reload and all that stuff." So Kirk's trying to teach me stuff, upload. And then next thing you know, um, they're like, "Hey, get your shit from your bus, cuz you're flying on the private jet with us now."

• 5:40Rick Rubin?

  So you actually were in Metallica for this window?

• 5:43Speaker 01

  So, the first plan was to have me play a whole set with them.

• 5:48Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  And I was preparing for that and I was relearning all the old stuff and trying to learn all the load stuff. And then by the time we got, and so I flew with them

• 5:59Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  and everything, and then I, and then they decided, hey, it would be a cooler thing if we invited different band members from

• 6:07Rick Rubin?

  Of course.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  from the different bands that were on the gig.

• 6:10Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  So, the next night, I was up on stage with Metallica again, and I know I was supposed to play one. And I got there and I, you know, was ready to play one and I turned to, I forgot, maybe Jason or Kirk or someone, and I'm like, "Who's gonna sing?" Because I had no idea.

• 6:29Rick Rubin?

  Of course.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  They turned to me and they're like, "Bob." And I'm like, "Who the fuck is Bob?" And I see, and then I see Kid Rock come up, and I didn't know Kid Rock's name was Bob.

• 6:42Rick Rubin?

  That's so funny.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  And so Kid Rock comes up and he sings the first line, and we did one, and it's really fucking cool because one has the whole

• 6:51Speaker 01

  And I'm like thinking, dude, you're playing this shit with fucking Metallica. You're turning around and it's like Lars.

• 6:58Rick Rubin?

  It'd be completely surreal.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  It was crazy. I'll never forget it. And even after that, like there, there are techs would come up to me like in different tours and be like, dude, don't think we forgot what you did. You brought it that day. I don't want to say like you saved the show, but they were kind of like, you, you fucking brought it. They were struggling and then you got up, you did Master of Puppets and

• 7:19Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, like that, that happened. That's, that's as a little kid growing up and, you know, I'm telling all these things, all these bands.

• 7:26Rick Rubin?

  And you're not in a popular band yet.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Nope. System of a Down ain't shit yet.

• 7:31Rick Rubin?

  That's wild.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:34Rick Rubin?

  What a cool experience.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I'll never forget it. Even though my band is where we're at right now.

• 7:42Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  It still brings like goosebumps to my, that I had a chance to experience that at that point of my career.

• 7:51Rick Rubin?

  And being such a fan of them.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Huge fan.

• 7:54Rick Rubin?

  It's so cool.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:56Rick Rubin?

  It's so cool. It's like living a dream.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was.

• 7:59Rick Rubin?

  Amazing.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  It was.

• 8:00Rick Rubin?

  Let's hear Master of Puppets.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  At this point, we're in 1986.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  I'm 11 years old.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  So this was my introduction to thrash.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Mind your passion play, rumbling away I'm your source of self-destruction Feeding pop with fear, sucking dark is clear Needing on your death construction Take me you will see, more is all you need Dedicated to, how I'm killing you

• 9:32Speaker 02

  You're falling faster Obey your master

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Your life burns faster

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Obey your master, master Master of puppets are pulling your strings Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams Staring by me you can't see a thing Just call my name 'cause I hear you scream Master, master Just call my name 'cause I hear you scream

• 10:09Speaker 01

  So during this time

• 10:12Speaker 01

  There was a whole thing happening in the Bay Area With Bay Area Throats They came from the Bay Area

• 10:45Rick Rubin?

  The difference between that song and the first Metallica song we listened to was in the early Metallica, you could hear more of like the Iron Maiden influence. Whereas this doesn't sound like any of the old metal. It's like they found their voice.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and a little bit more polished, you could say, as well. As it went on, the first album was a little bit more raw. You heard more of the Motorhead there. Now you're starting to hear more of the metal.

• 11:15Rick Rubin?

  But the first one we listened to, the vocals sounded more derivative. And on that one, they sounded more like what we know Metallica sounds like.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I said, a lot of these bands evolved themselves into other things.

• 11:30Rick Rubin?

  Absolutely.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Here's a band that I really fucking love from this era that kind of gets forgotten is a band called Overkill.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Not Bay Area, they're from the East Coast.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  But I remember them being a really big deal for me when I was in my teenage years.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  I'll steal your life and cut out your heart. Rip the core of your world apart. Then I'll take your face, leave you blind. Laughing hard if you lose your mind. That's it, you know, he got the brain. That's all I'm about, what's it mean? Under the danger, the welcome danger. You deny the cross. Under the danger, the welcome danger. You deny the cross, deny the cross.

• 13:24Rick Rubin?

  And the fast double kick drums.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. All that starting to happen.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Tight riffs.

• 13:37Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  With the hardcore energies, but with the tight riffs like Metallica.

• 13:42Rick Rubin?

  Do you call it more speed metal, maybe?

• 13:45Speaker 01

  I mean, you would either call it thrash or speed metal. That was the word that we used to use.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  There was Exodus, there was Testament.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Then you had

• 14:20Speaker 01

  German bands. That, Creator, Destruction, Sodom. Those are like the three German bands that were kinda around the same time as this was happening.

• 14:37Rick Rubin?

  Who's your favorite of those?

• 14:39Speaker 01

  I really used to love Creator.

• 14:41Rick Rubin?

  Could we hear them?

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Now you got the vocals doing some shit here that is a little ahead of his time as well.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  I remember I'd be sitting in the car with my parents and I would tell them, "Put this on, son."

• 15:46Speaker 01

  And I'd be in the backseat.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  But they would be listening to it too. Wow.

• 15:51Rick Rubin?

  You're a very understanding parent.

• 16:06Rick Rubin?

  You can see how for like adults, hearing something like this, or hearing rap music for the first time, was just like, it's not even music. It's just some other thing.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Extreme.

• 16:22Rick Rubin?

  So extreme.

• 16:24Rick Rubin?

  But that's what drew us to it.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  What drew me to it was it just, it's like heavier than the last thing. And then like, I like, I love Metallica, but this guy sings like this. I remember someone gave me a cassette of a bunch of bands with no names on it. And that's the first time I heard this, but I didn't know it was them. Until I went to the record store and accidentally bought...

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Creator, Endless Pain. That was the album name. And I ha- I still have the cassettes at home. I still have them on cassette.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  This is the first time I think I might have even heard vocals that were like this.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  It became kind of like a black metal vocal vibe as later on, you know? But this was happening in like 85.

• 17:29Rick Rubin?

  Wow.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  It's getting more extreme, even from Slayer. It's getting more extreme than Slayer. Because these bands heard Slayer and were like, well, how can we make that even fucking crazier? And in comes a band called Napalm Death.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Napalm Death is, you'd consider grindcore. But some people may say they were the first grindcore band that comes in. And here's.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  You hear all the elements of hardcore, heavy metal, punk rock. But then we're gonna take it even crazier and do blast beats.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  They're doing this in like 86.

• 18:58Rick Rubin?

  Where are they from?

• 18:59Speaker 01

  England.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  So we went from Venom, which was like, oh, this is really crazy. And then Slayer, wow, these guys took Venom to another level. Now you got this stuff coming out. There is an element of shock.

• 19:23Rick Rubin?

  For sure.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  In metal through the years, whether it's the lyrics.

• 19:26Rick Rubin?

  More extreme, more extreme, more extreme, faster.

• 19:31Rick Rubin?

  Crazier.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Trying to take it to a higher intensity.

• 19:35Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  So, you know, Napalm Death started like this, but then ended up more like death metal as time went on. But this was like the early Napalm Death. If I'm not mistaken, I think Napalm Death still exists, but I don't think anybody who was on that recording is still in the band.

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• 21:33Rick Rubin?

  Were there other grindcore bands?

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Carcass.

• 21:55Rick Rubin?

  So these bands feel more in the lineage of Discharge, but more technical?

• 22:02Speaker 01

  It's Discharge, it's the...

• 22:08Speaker 01

  The fastness of metal, there's just...

• 22:13Speaker 01

  There's a fusion of things that are happening that bring us here, like the blast beat.

• 22:21Rick Rubin?

  It's fast to the point where it doesn't necessarily even sound fast. It's like just a...

• 22:28Speaker 01

  White noise or something.

• 22:29Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, like just a sound.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  I used to fall asleep to bands like this. I did, I found it relaxing because it's constant.

• 22:42Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a vacuum cleaner.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Napalm Dead, Carcass, they get credited as being one of the few firsts of the grindcore scene.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Here's a band I love called Brutal Truth.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  That blast beat, like almost not human.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Who is the first Cookie Monster vocalist? It evolved into that.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  So the grindcore thing, you know, there's few bands, like here's another band from the US called Repulsion, that, once again, this was all, still very underground stuff, but these guys were kinda, you know, doing something that other people weren't really necessarily doing.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Vocals are not heavy metal vocals anymore either. When we start getting into extreme metal, it starts becoming... Closer to discharge. Closer to discharge and becomes more of, you're not singing anymore.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Sometimes punk phrasing.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, no melody, it's all monotone. Yeah.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  So yeah, that was repulsion. Then, you know, we can start getting into as the late 80s come around, death metal. A lot of the classic death metal bands came out of Tampa, Florida.

• 26:36Rick Rubin?

  Really?

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:38Rick Rubin?

  That's interesting. I wonder why that is?

• 26:41Speaker 01

  The band Death, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Morbid Angel, all these bands came from Tampa, Florida.

• 26:48Rick Rubin?

  Wow. I wonder what was happening in Tampa at that time?

• 26:52Speaker 01

  But there is a band, before we get to those bands, that some people say were death metal before death metal. And they even had a song called "Death Metal",

• 27:04Rick Rubin?

  Cool.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Which some people say named the genre. But their really great song is a song called "The Exorcist", the band called Possessed, which is from the Bay Area.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  These guys were doing this really early on, like, early 80s.

• 28:13Rick Rubin?

  Early 80s.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  They formed early, but this album probably came out around 85.

• 28:47Rick Rubin?

  And they were called, what again?

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Possessed.

• 28:49Rick Rubin?

  Possessed.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  The first album they call is called Seven Churches. And yeah, they're from the Bay Area, but you know, it's debatable. But some people will credit them as being one of the first death metal bands.

• 29:03Rick Rubin?

  And what's your favorite of the Tampa bands?

• 29:05Speaker 01

  I love them all. I love them all. They all do something a little bit different. But we gotta start with Death. Death is a really, really important band. Really important heavy metal band. Some people think that the genre was named after the Possessed song. And some people think death metal is named after the band Death. The main guy in Death is a guy named Chuck Shuldner. The band changes, but he's the same. He's the main guy. But the style of Death goes from your traditional Death influenced by thrash with Death vocals.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  But as Death goes on, they become very technical and a different version of the same band. But it becomes more proggy, you could say. But they start with, you know, just...

• 30:05Speaker 01

  This is a song called Evil Dead. And it's off the first Death album.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Trapped in thought, run to night, you're This is it, gonna tear you apart, you're Evil! Death! Evil! Death! Force be bound, all life and none Death, living, still you're fighting for your Soul! Evil! Death! Evil! So this is late 80s, and this is the beginning of, you could say, death metal.

• 31:43Rick Rubin?

  How would you describe it as different than Thrash?

• 31:48Speaker 01

  The vocals, yup. The growly vocals.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Morbid Angel, death metal.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  Called Immortal Rites.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Capitalistic upright, the country's murder lie. Call upon immortal, call upon the young to see the deed, we end up on your way. Let the rusty light, take us all with darkness. Oh, it's like nothing's your way.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  And the lyrics are all... Very satanic with Morbid Angel on these first few records.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  This gained a lot of popularity, I'd say, in the heavy metal community in the late 80s, early 90s. Like, once you started listening to this, you got used to the vocals and you were just like, "I just wanna hear this." This is, this took heavy to another level.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  From the grindcore stuff that now these guys are using, Blast Beats. Like, some of this is happening around the same time, but it's also evolving around the same time.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Another Tampa band, Deicide. Morbid Angel and Deicide, their lyrical themes were more like satanic. The singer of Deicide, I think, had like burned an upside-down cross on his forehead. Like, it's scarred there. Once again, we're going into satanic kayfabe. And, and you know, some of these dudes, you're like, "Oh, these lyrics are more intense." And they look more intense.

• 36:24Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  And, I mean, we really get into satanic kayfabe once we get into the black metal stuff.

• 36:29Rick Rubin?

  They're living the gimmick, as they say in wrestling.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Yes. The black metal really is taking it to another level, but here's a little taste of Deicide.

• 37:10Speaker 05

  This is Night, this is Night, we have no choice It is fear, on the fear, in your dark, this is the best Covenant, the afterment, open up my holyness Father, dear God, let me love, darling holyness Suicide, sacrifice, destruction of all we know Beyond the holy night, we are the sacrifice!

• 37:39Speaker 05

  We all resist, several of them did, others survived They die, suicide, sacrifice, hope is never night, they love the reality They die, angels like a bed, they know the hell, it's a blast of fire

• 37:56Speaker 01

  They die, sacrifice through fire, riches won't lie, a beast of the beast

• 38:02Speaker 05

  Save the death to hell, end my life, wrath of God! Save the sin my soul, blessed with fire, long of stone Save the, I must die, it's my way, death is dead Save the suicide, end my life, I must die, save the!

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, you got that?

• 38:33Rick Rubin?

  They sound more influenced a little bit by Metallica than the others.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Really?

• 38:37Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. The one before you sounded more Slayer and things.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Well, this just, these guys just took all that stuff and it was like, made it more intense, and even the satanic part of Slayer, they took that and made it more intense. They, the lyrics were even more extreme Satan.

• 39:04Rick Rubin?

  Uh huh.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. With, with these two bands at least, but then you have a band like Obituary, all, once again, from Tampa, Florida. Wow.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  This is Obituary, chopped in half.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Jumping out! Feel the blood spill from your mouth! The rotting waves come destiny! Feel the soul shaking on its breath!

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Jumping out! Feel the blood spill from your mouth! The rotting waves come destiny! Feel the soul shaking on its breath!

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Obituary didn't use too many blast beats. They were more, I don't know how to explain it, but not necessarily focused on going fast, but a little kinda sludgy.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  And then you have Cannibal Corpse with their hit song called "I Come Blood."

• 40:59Speaker 01

  You see how these bands all sound different from each other?

• 41:03Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, they really do.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  I had never heard vocals like this before I heard Cannibal Corpse. There's a good reason for that.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Sepultura started a certain way and as they went along, they changed too. They always kind of pushed the Sepultura sound.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Is this early? This is early Sepultura.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Not the earliest, but like two or three albums in.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  ...

• 43:27Speaker 01

  They definitely sound different than the others. Sepultura is somewhere between thrash. At this era of Sepultura, even the fans were like, "Is this death metal? Is it thrash?"

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Because the vocals are kinda, have the growly death thing, but the music kinda has the thrash vibe to it. And like I said, as they went along, their sound kinda changed into a more groovy thing. That's interesting.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Here's another band out of Brazil that was kind of, you could say, more influential in the black metal scene, was a band called Sarkofago. This is I-N-R-I.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  So you hear the grindcore kinda thing, but there's more metal here than in grindcore.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  And these guys, coming out of Brazil. You know, Sepultura and them? So, to be discovered out of Brazil...

• 45:32Rick Rubin?

  Have you seen any of these bands live?

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Sepultura, I have.

• 45:36Rick Rubin?

  How are they?

• 45:38Speaker 01

  They're great.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  I saw them open up for, uh... Ozzy, way back in the day in Costa Mesa.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  You know, this is late 80's.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Worth playing a song from later Death, the band Death, so people can see...

• 46:28Rick Rubin?

  What they evolved into.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  What they evolved into.

• 46:30Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  This is a song called "Nothing is Everything."

• 47:34Speaker 01

  Technical drumming.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  The musicianship is at like a really high level.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Lot of changes.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  That's fast frog rock. Yup. Well, it becomes very froggy.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  I mean, listen to what the drums are doing.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  King V. You could say that in some way, yeah.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Death is his own, it's his own thing, man. Like, what? He passed away, this singer.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  But their albums are really considered classic, classic albums. To the point where, uh, there is members of the band that tour till this day.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  They play these songs, obviously the singer's not there.

• 49:48Rick Rubin?

  Yeah. At the beginning of the song was the first time I heard a connection between the death metal vocal style, which sounded so original in everything we've been listening to, going back to Lemmy. Because it sounds a little bit like it could be Motorhead at the beginning.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Well, that Lemmy vocal style, you know how you asked, well, how do we get to Cookie Monster?

• 50:09Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  That was kind of, you could say, the beginning of just that growly kind of throat kind of vocal comes from Lemmy to some degree.

• 50:20Rick Rubin?

  But I feel like Lemmy just naturally sings like that and mostly does a guy sound like they're putting on a voice to sound like that.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying.

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• 52:07Speaker 01

  So, we've covered death metal and now my favorite

• 52:15Speaker 01

  of all the genres.

• 52:17Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Black metal.

• 52:20Rick Rubin?

  Black metal.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  From Norway.

• 52:22Rick Rubin?

  And when is this compared to the others, time on the timeline?

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Early 90s.

• 52:27Rick Rubin?

  Early 90s.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  But we're gonna have to bring up a couple of bands that sparked this. There's the first wave of black metal, which we talked about Venom.

• 52:39Rick Rubin?

  Yep.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  And they had an album called Black Metal. Then we gotta talk about a couple bands. One of them is called Hellhammer, which, have you ever heard of a band called Celtic Frost?

• 52:52Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  So Hellhammer was Celtic Frost before they were called Celtic Frost. So this is Hellhammer, the third of the Storms. And this, you could say, is very, very influential to black metal.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  Early 80s.

• 53:15Rick Rubin?

  So it's like a precursor.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  You could even say the death metal bands were influenced by this.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  So the aggression that they're throwing down and the vocal style that they're doing and the darkness of the rhythm.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Really, really wasn't being done at this time.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  And we got, I'll play you some Celtic Frost.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  This song called, uh, "Nocturnal Beer."

• 55:16Rick Rubin?

  How much later is this than what we just heard?

• 55:19Speaker 01

  About a year, year or two.

• 55:21Rick Rubin?

  So, close?

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, very close.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  But this is also, you could say, a precursor, like, to the vocal style of death metal and the throat vocal.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  This is, I'd say, around 1984, 85.

• 56:29Rick Rubin?

  This is closer to rock, here.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Well, remember, this is closer in time to Motorhead and Venom than it is to later on Death Metal and all that stuff. So you still hear, you still hear the Motorhead and the Venom in this.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  That's Celtic Frost, Hellhammer Celtic Frost.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  First wave of black metal, these bands are considered that. And another band that is part of the first wave of black metal is a band called Batteries.

• 58:06Rick Rubin?

  Where are they from?

• 58:08Speaker 01

  I think Batteries from Sweden.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  And this is Batteries. Once again, early 80s.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Called Inconspiracy with Satan.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Listen to the vocals though, this is once again ahead of its time.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  So you hear how the production is and everything?

• 59:42Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  So, when we get to the second wave of black metal, we're talking early 90s.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  We've gone through thrash, we've gone through grindcore, we've gone through death metal. So, these bands from Norway kind of found that the death metal, even though you know it's intense music and all that, but as time is going, it's getting too polished. It's getting too...

• 1:00:19Rick Rubin?

  For who?

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  For people who are into extreme music, I guess. And then, they start kind of rebelling against what metal has become and start thinking what metal should be is what bands like Venom put down.

• 1:00:37Rick Rubin?

  I see.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  And what this band we just heard, Bathory, or Celtic Frost, like this is what metal should be. It shouldn't be singing about helping the environment and it should be about...

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Darkness, it should be about Satanism, it should be ugly. So there was this guy named Euronomus from a band called Mayhem. And he had this record store. And that's where people used to gather and that's kind of where the early black metal. Scene in Norway kind of started was, you know, people gathering at this record store. Where, you know, he was this very extreme metal kind of guy. And Mayhem had this singer. His name was Dead. So they had recorded, I guess, some early stuff with this guy. This guy, you know, is a troubled kind of person, so he ends up.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Shooting himself, kills himself. This guy Euronomus comes in and finds. That his singer has killed himself. Takes pictures of it. Like with the blood scattered all over the walls. Skull. Fragments on the floor. And uses it as like a cover for the album.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  So these kinds of crazy fucking stories start coming out of Norway. So this guy Euronomus. Is also himself eventually murdered. By a guy from a band called Bersam. Was name is Bar Vickers. So you have these. Stories coming out of Norway about this scene.

• 1:02:29Rick Rubin?

  Where the bands are killing each other.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  And burning churches. They're taking the satanic cafe to a whole.

• 1:02:35Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, they're really living the.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  They're really living this shit, just taking the shock and the extreme.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Of it to another level and also their recordings were purposely like done lo-fi like, well, here's a song from a band called Dark Throne. Now, not all these bands were burning churches. They were in the scene and there was people in the scene that were doing that. Yeah. I mean, I have a friend from one of these bands. He wasn't burning churches, but the scene that they were around, this kind of stuff was going on. So there's a few really respected bands that were from the early part of this scene that, you know, they carry weight in the metal world. And this is early 90s. In Norway. Yeah.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, early 90s Norway. There's a song called "Transylvanian Hunger" by Dark Throne.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  One thing you'll notice is that the music is kind of beautiful. Yeah.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  It sounds like industrial music, but it's melodic.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  It's atmospheric.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  It puts you in a trance, in a dark trance.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  It sounds like we're listening to it through a wall. You know, like it's leaking through the sound coming from somewhere else. There's probably one mic in the room.

• 1:05:28Rick Rubin?

  The lo-fi aspect is really interesting.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  It makes you really have to listen to it.

• 1:05:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  To figure it out, to see what's going on.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  There's this "I don't give a shit what you think about it" kind of vibe about it.

• 1:06:17Rick Rubin?

  Vocals sound more like storytelling.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  And the music is always dark.

• 1:06:34Rick Rubin?

  Does it always not change? Like this has like no rhythm changes there?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  Well, just like the Tampa death metal.

• 1:06:43Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  You hear each band does it their own way.

• 1:06:46Rick Rubin?

  I see.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  And it doesn't mean every Darkstone song sounds just like this, because Darkstone has different vibes to them too, but this is one of their more really classic black metal songs.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  And then you have "Mayhem",

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  This album is called "De Mysteris Dom Satanas."

• 1:07:18Rick Rubin?

  And this is the guy who ran the record store.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  Who ran the record store.

• 1:07:25Rick Rubin?

  Took the pictures of the singer who died.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Used it as an album cover.

• 1:07:30Rick Rubin?

  And gets murdered.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  And then he gets murdered by the guy in a band called Burzum. But on this track, the guy on Burzum is playing bass. This album doesn't come out until after this murder has happened. So this is a song called "Funeral Fog."

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  You hear the mood of it.

• 1:08:08Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Like you, from the first song to this song, there is a mood that black metal sets. Kind of a dark, atmospheric, melodic.

• 1:08:25Rick Rubin?

  To me, it feels like the speed is incidental. Yes, they're playing fast.

• 1:08:32Rick Rubin?

  But it's not really about the speed. It's like, it creates this...

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Atmosphere.

• 1:08:38Rick Rubin?

  Atmosphere.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  So this album came out after the guitar player was murdered. And the guy who murdered him is in jail now.

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  But the scene is moving forward.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  Without them, there's other bands that are forming, there's other bands that are, you know, people are talking about.

• 1:10:03Speaker 04

  How much would you say you listen to this music?

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  A lot.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  Especially when I first discovered it.

• 1:10:10Speaker 04

  Yeah. And would you listen like an album over and over again?

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Yes. Or bands over and over. It's all I listened to when I first discovered it.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  There's something really beautiful about it.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  The melodies of the guitars.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  Brings pictures in your mind, and it also matches where they come from.

• 1:11:05Speaker 04

  None of the parts are important, it's the whole.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:11:33Rick Rubin?

  How old were you when you were listening to this a lot?

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Uh, in my twenties.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  Here, I'll play you a song from Burzum, the guy who murdered the guitar player from this band, who's actually playing the bass on this track.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  You see how they're different?

• 1:12:20Rick Rubin?

  Right away.

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  Song called "Lost Wisdom."

• 1:12:51Rick Rubin?

  It's not as lo-fi and it has more dynamics.

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  How do you feel about those vocals?

• 1:13:15Rick Rubin?

  He memes it more than King Diamond.

• 1:14:11Rick Rubin?

  What's wild about this music is that after hearing Mayhem, this kinda sounds like pop music. In comparison.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  Once again, this is one track from Burzum.

• 1:14:25Rick Rubin?

  When you start listening to it,

• 1:14:32Rick Rubin?

  the subtleties of it become really important.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:36Rick Rubin?

  The subtle differences.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  They belong together, but they're different.

• 1:14:44Rick Rubin?

  Yes.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  They're related.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  And then, there is a band, again out of Norway, called Immortal. It's a song called "The Sun No Longer Rises."

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  I mean, listen to the melodickness, though, of it.

• 1:15:34Rick Rubin?

  I hear it.

• 1:15:37Rick Rubin?

  It's more orchestral.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  It's really beautiful.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  It's really cool. The devil's moving fucking fast, the demon's rise. The rock of the black is falling, moving forth. And the ice is off once. Tell the eternal woods, they'll wait for me. Battle makes clear.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  So fucking intense.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Like, they come from cold countries, and you feel the coldness.

• 1:19:20Rick Rubin?

  It's truly original new music, and I probably feel like you felt maybe when you first heard Slayer, where I can't say I like it, but I can see I'm gonna wanna come back and listen to it more because...

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  Try it again.

• 1:19:35Rick Rubin?

  Not even try it again. I feel like it holds secrets. I can get glimpses of it, but it's not available on the face.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:45Rick Rubin?

  It sounds like the music is hidden inside that.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, because of the production.

• 1:19:51Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:19:53Rick Rubin?

  Very cool.

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• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  One more band from this genre is a band called Satyricon. This song's called "Mother North."

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  Like, people always will ask me, "Well, what's the difference between death metal and black metal?" Do you hear it?

• 1:23:38Rick Rubin?

  Completely different.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Completely different.

• 1:23:40Rick Rubin?

  Completely different.

• 1:23:45Rick Rubin?

  This sounds like church music to me. Avant-garde church music.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  To some extent, it is kind of religious music, but the religion that Satan isn't.

• 1:23:54Rick Rubin?

  I don't know if that's true, though. Like, I understand that's the K-Fan, but I don't hear that. I hear, like, classical, devotional church music in there.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  It's very serious.

• 1:24:18Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  It stays very serious. It doesn't leave.

• 1:24:24Rick Rubin?

  You know, it's like Ali was the prince of darkness.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:28Rick Rubin?

  And Black Sabbath was the original satanic band. And then before the show, he would get on his knees and pray to Jesus.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:36Rick Rubin?

  So it's like, it's almost like to accept the conceit of Satan, you have to be a believer to start, you know?

• 1:24:56Rick Rubin?

  It sounds very orchestral. It's amazing. Is it only guitars or are there keyboards?

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  There is keyboards in the back of it.

• 1:25:06Rick Rubin?

  It sounds uplifting.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  The singer of this band is a very, very close friend of mine.

• 1:25:11Rick Rubin?

  It's amazing. It's amazing.

• 1:25:14Speaker 01

  And let me tell you, these guys, they're really smart guys. Guys who play death metal, black metal, when you meet them.

• 1:25:22Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  They're really smart.

• 1:25:25Rick Rubin?

  It's intellectual. You can hear it.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Yes. It's very intellectual and they are very intellectual people.

• 1:25:31Rick Rubin?

  They are not messing around.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  So, yeah, that's the black metal.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  When I listen to metal these days, it's usually black metal. I still, I really love the genre.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  And then the theatrics, like the way these bands look.

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  They have like face paint, they have like, it's very kind of inspired by Kiss, you could say, but the demon.

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  It's just different versions of, they call it corpse paint.

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  It comes from Kiss, it comes from King Diamond, early Celtic Frost used to do it.

• 1:27:00Rick Rubin?

  The face paint?

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, like they would have like black under their eyes, but their face would be white.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  As a guy growing up with the heavy metal, with the thrash music, with the death metal music. By the time we get into the 90s, yes, there is that black metal coming out of Norway. But then there is also bands that are mixing groove with metal.

• 1:27:40Rick Rubin?

  What do you call the genre?

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  I mean, some people would call it groove metal at first, but groove metal evolved into, you could say, you know, goes into industrial metal, goes into new metal.

• 1:27:53Rick Rubin?

  I see.

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  You wouldn't call Pantera a new metal band, but Pantera was doing a groovy version of heavy metal in the early 90s, like a song like this called "A New Level."

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  The different sounds about it.

• 1:28:56Rick Rubin?

  Closer to system.

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Well, I was very inspired by bands like this.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  Bands have already done the fat stuff, bands have already done the thrash stuff, the extreme death metal, the growling.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  When I get to the point where I'm doing what I'm doing,

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  what can I do that's new? You know, I don't wanna, I love all these bands.

• 1:29:45Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, but you don't wanna repeat it.

• 1:29:46Speaker 01

  But I don't wanna copy it.

• 1:29:47Rick Rubin?

  Of course.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  So you start, you know, in a band like Pantera, you start hearing funky kind of groovy, bouncy type of beat.

• 1:30:02Rick Rubin?

  And these riffs sound like they could also be on a Soundgarden record, you know?

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, they were coming out around the same time.

• 1:30:11Rick Rubin?

  Drumming's more metal here. Soundgarden is different, it's more rock. But the guitar is not so radically different.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  So you have this, which Pantera is Pantera. I don't know, what genre do you put? They're metal, they're groove metal, but you know, at the end of the day, they're Pantera. They do what Pantera does. A lot of bands are inspired by what they do, but some bands, you kinda can't put them exactly in that one genre.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  And then you got, you know, you start going into industrial.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  Industrial started as, you could say, industrial, but then bands like Ministry started putting guitars to drum machine.

• 1:31:58Rick Rubin?

  It's in the conversation for sure.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  But the way it moves is groovy.

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  So they're one of the first bands to bring in that industrial vibe, but give the heavy metal or punk rock flavor to it, you know?

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  The aggression.

• 1:33:06Speaker 01

  Sounds of samples of drills and...

• 1:33:18Rick Rubin?

  It's like heavy metal for people who grew up on electronic and dance music.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:37Speaker 07

  We're gonna rip this motherfucker off. We're gonna tear this motherfucker down.

• 1:33:47Speaker 07

  Very interesting.

• 1:34:09Speaker 01

  These are bands now experimenting, bringing different things into heavy metal and bringing heavy metal into different things.

• 1:34:28Speaker 01

  Mixing genres, mixing influences, fusion of different things.

• 1:34:36Rick Rubin?

  It's not like black metal, but it's as new as black metal.

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:34:41Rick Rubin?

  Just in a different direction.

• 1:34:42Speaker 01

  At the time, yes.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  "The Skinny Puppy" you wouldn't consider a metal band, but a song like this...

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  ...called "Fascist Jockage".

• 1:35:20Speaker 02

  These are the best!

• 1:35:24Speaker 02

  This is the end of us! War's on! Night on! Run away! To compose!

• 1:35:33Speaker 02

  Free is what? Beast of us? Fear! Aryan yahoo!

• 1:35:41Speaker 02

  Newshads liver! Nurse's sweet farmers! Present! Well! Killing us! Fast! Present!

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  Both of these bands in their earlier years didn't really have guitars, but these are kinda later records that they started bringing in guitars and bringing in the heavy metal punk hardcore energy mixed with the industrial.

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  You can't mention these bands without mentioning Killing Joke. You know Killing Joke?

• 1:36:56Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, English band.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, English band.

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  You could say that what Black Metal Venom Motorhead is to that genre, Killing Joke would probably be to this genre of metal, even though Killing Joke was not a metal band. But a song like this...

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  "The Weight", Metallica covered this.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  But this was in the early 80s.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  It's not metal.

• 1:38:04Rick Rubin?

  No, they were considered like a post-punk.

• 1:38:07Speaker 01

  Post-punk, but...

• 1:38:09Rick Rubin?

  Hard new wave.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  But you hear the guitars mixed with the very... Electronic kind of drum.

• 1:38:17Rick Rubin?

  Very close to industrial music.

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  And then, you know, you gotta mention, uh... Nine Inch Nails in this conversation with industrial. Song called "Wish".

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  So all this shit came out before what I guess people would call new metal.

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  Pretty aggressive.

• 1:39:33Speaker 01

  This song started seeing commercial success.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  Once grunge came around, and a lot of those speed metal, thrash bands, were not putting out their best stuff in the early 90s, mid 90s. We'd already heard it, it'd already been done, and they were not, kinda, putting out their best records, in my opinion. And even the death metal bands after a while were, kinda, like, by the mid 90s, it was, kinda, like... It's just, okay, what else? And then you see bands like this, that were coming out.

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  I think there was bands like us, but the first time... This is where I'm gonna start getting into nu metal. Okay. The first time I heard Korn,

• 1:40:36Speaker 01

  I was like, "This is something that's heavy, but it's heavy in a way that's not done the way that I've listened to heavy all these years."

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  You felt a heaviness from the groove more than you did from the speed, or the, you know? Because we'd already been through all the speed and all the fucking fastness, and all the blast beats and all that. So, for a generation that, kinda, lived through that, grew up with that, then you hear...

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  Just bringing it with a fucking, heavy, heavy bounce.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  And this was pretty much where, I guess you could say, nu metal started.

• 1:41:55Speaker 01

  There was something fresh about it.

• 1:42:02Rick Rubin?

  It's unlike anything that came before.

• 1:42:05Speaker 01

  No, it was only own thing, downtuned guitars.

• 1:42:11Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  It's not going fast, but it's...

• 1:42:19Speaker 01

  It hits you in the chest, you know, it's just got a groove to it.

• 1:42:29Rick Rubin?

  And it's related to industrial too.

• 1:42:31Speaker 01

  Well, that's why I played industrial first.

• 1:42:36Rick Rubin?

  It's post-industrial.

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  It's a fusion of a lot of different things. There's hip-hop involved.

• 1:42:45Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:09Rick Rubin?

  This is kinda raging.

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  Well, rage kinda had an influence on those new metal bands. Because of the hip-hop or build-ups like this.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  So, it was all kinda happening at the same time. The way you can kinda compare how the Black Sabbath sound was happening from the late psychedelic stuff from the late 60s.

• 1:43:36Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  It was something that was kinda happening that kinda trickled into, one thing trickled into the other, into the other, and like, you know?

• 1:43:46Rick Rubin?

  In each case, it's like someone has an idea of a new variation on something that's kind of around.

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and builds on it.

• 1:43:57Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, I felt that when, because I know Trent was really influenced by ministry.

• 1:44:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:05Rick Rubin?

  Trent had a different thing about him. Like, I didn't like industrial music, but his songwriting was so good that it transcended industrial.

• 1:44:14Rick Rubin?

  And then I grew to like the music.

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  There was more songwriting, I think, involved with Nine Inch Nails. And you would say it's more commercial than ministry.

• 1:44:27Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  Especially stuff that came later on. Deftones is another band from the new metal scene. One's called Seven Words.

• 1:45:51Speaker 01

  We had metal, and in the 80s, metal was actually, you know, played on MTV and was, kinda had commercial success, especially with the hair metal bands and the glam bands and all that.

• 1:46:05Speaker 01

  Aside from Metallica and, I mean Slayer never became a huge commercial success.

• 1:46:26Speaker 01

  So, heavy metal had its thing in the 80s and then in the 90s grunge came and wiped out all of that.

• 1:46:34Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  And yeah, you had death metal, you had black metal, but these were not commercial kind of genres. New metal came out, which we never called it new metal, but these bands came out and Korn, Deftones, us, Slipknot started getting popular. We were playing the Ozfest to the point where we headlined the Ozfest at one point. I feel like, you know, new metal gets a bad rap because it became a cookie cutter thing where every label wanted their new metal band at some point and it.

• 1:47:13Rick Rubin?

  It's just because it got so popular.

• 1:47:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it got really popular, but the bands that I'm playing right now and I'll, I guess, include our own band in that thing. We were all doing something original and mixing things with metal that weren't being done before. So, when people, you know, talk shit about new metal and oh, you know, it got all really popular and all this stuff, it's, it got popular, one, because it was good at first. At first it was and then it became, every band wanted to try to sound like Korn, every band wanted to try to sound like the Deftones.

• 1:47:52Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:53Speaker 01

  Or Slipknot.

• 1:47:54Rick Rubin?

  I felt like System came up in the wave of new metal, but it sounded nothing like any of the other new metal bands from the beginning.

• 1:48:04Speaker 01

  I was trying to mix things with metal that even all these, like, it wasn't like, why does it just gotta be like industrial, why can't I mix the Beach Boys and the Beatles and all this stuff?

• 1:48:14Rick Rubin?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:48:14Speaker 01

  And the Armenian music and Arabic music and all, everything I know, why can't I mix anything with rock or metal? If it feels right and it feels like they belong together and in my head, like, it's all the stuff that was natural to me to love and it came out of me.

• 1:48:35Speaker 01

  In a natural way to where I wrote song like a song like Atwa. That has very like Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, then it comes in with this heavy fucking thing and then goes back into Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel. And then another thing that we did that I don't think you heard from any of these bands that I just played for you today. Were vocal harmonies.

• 1:48:59Rick Rubin?

  Nobody had vocal harmonies.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  Not very many that I could think of.

• 1:49:03Rick Rubin?

  No, only System.

• 1:49:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, in in heavy metal music.

• 1:49:06Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  So us bands that were coming out out of the Sunset Strip. In the mid 90s, late 90s. I think we were doing something unique. I always saw System as a very avant garde, abstract kind of band. It's interesting that people caught on to it. It's hooky. I write hooky stuff.

• 1:49:28Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, but it wasn't obvious from the beginning that it was gonna catch on, certainly not in the way that it has. Most people didn't get it.

• 1:49:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:49:38Rick Rubin?

  I remember, you know, going to K-Rock and playing it for Kevin Weatherly and him saying, we will never play this band on our station. No matter what happens, we will never play this band.

• 1:49:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, and a year later, he was playing it every fucking hour on the hour.

• 1:49:54Rick Rubin?

  Number one on the station one year later. But that was the level of resistance because it was so different.

• 1:50:01Speaker 01

  You know, the new metal thing is it's cool that it happened because it helped us be part of something that was kind of moving momentum wise and we were kind of going along with the wave. You can call us alternative metal.

• 1:50:19Rick Rubin?

  I think that's fair.

• 1:50:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'm fine with that more than I am with new metal, but you know, people want to put us in a genre and that's what it is, but I think there is things that we do that only we do.

• 1:50:31Rick Rubin?

  For sure. Oh, absolutely. Good and bad.

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  And we're getting out of the new metal thing.

• 1:50:43Speaker 01

  First Slipknot album.

• 1:51:07Speaker 01

  Groovy, but heavy as fuck. With samples in the back, I mean, just meshing it all together.

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  Death metal vibes.

• 1:51:44Speaker 01

  Just mixing the death metal, the groove. They're doing a lot of different stuff too, man.

• 1:51:49Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, and they also had the theatrical stage show.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  They came out after us. We were already moved to the Ausfest main stage at that point. But then they came out and they were on the second stage and you can't ignore them.

• 1:52:07Rick Rubin?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:07Speaker 01

  And they just skyrocketed. Like, once they got a chance to be seen on that Ausfest, I mean, it became what everyone just started talking about, was Slipknot.

• 1:52:21Rick Rubin?

  Cause no one had ever seen anything like it before.

• 1:52:27Speaker 01

  It was good, though. The music was like, heavy. It wasn't just their look, it wasn't just the masks. Like, there was something really heavy about this shit.

• 1:52:56Speaker 01

  They were definitely part of the evolution of metal. And now you see so many fucking bands wearing masks. Like, that's one thing I don't really understand. Like, right now, lately, like, metal, like, there's so many bands that wear fucking masks. And I'm like, it's kinda like what hair metal used to be, in a way, where it's like, everyone's doing it now, you know? So, two more bands, wait. One of these bands, I remember I was sitting with Joey from Slipknot, God rest his soul. And we were sitting in a hotel and he was like, "Dude, have you ever heard of the Dillinger Escape Plan?" And I was like, "No." He's like, "You gotta listen to this band."

• 1:53:39Speaker 01

  So we went through all these genres and now the last two bands I'm gonna play are, kind of bring a very technical musicianship, prog, math metal is what people start calling it. So here's Dillinger Escape Plan with Sugar Coated Sour.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  Chaos. But the musicianship.

• 1:54:45Speaker 01

  Jazz.

• 1:55:28Speaker 01

  Look where we started.

• 1:55:31Speaker 01

  And now we're like to this. Wild.

• 1:55:40Speaker 01

  This wouldn't have existed if all the other stuff didn't happen.

• 1:55:46Rick Rubin?

  And also, things like "yes" didn't exist, you know? This is definitely a descendant of "yes."

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's all, all kinds of shit going on here.

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  So these are all late 90s.

• 1:56:27Speaker 01

  So from late 60s psychedelic, new wave, British heavy metal, thrash metal, death metal, black metal, industrial metal, new metal, we get into the late 90s. To me, this is one of the heaviest bands ever out of Sweden. It's hard to out-heavy Meshuggah.

• 1:56:58Speaker 01

  This is new millennium Cyanide Christ.

• 1:57:51Speaker 01

  Every riff is on a different one.

• 1:58:17Rick Rubin?

  It's so groovy that you don't lose it.

• 1:58:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:58:21Rick Rubin?

  It's not hard to listen to math.

• 1:58:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:58:24Rick Rubin?

  It feels straightforward even though it's complicated.

• 1:58:28Speaker 01

  That symbol keeps it straightforward. But there's all this shit happening in between that symbol.

• 1:58:40Speaker 01

  Very groovy.

• 1:58:41Rick Rubin?

  Yeah, headbanger.

• 1:58:42Speaker 01

  You can bob your head to it.

• 1:58:43Rick Rubin?

  Easy.

• 1:58:44Speaker 01

  But it's that symbol that you're bobbing your head to.

• 1:58:51Rick Rubin?

  Also, the rhythm of the vocal in between the guitars is really interesting too.

• 1:59:44Speaker 01

  I once asked them, I was like, "What does your new album sound like?" And they said, "Seasickness."

• 2:00:14Speaker 02

  Disciples! Come your with me! To save a few humanity! Follow the god of Zionite! Until the new eternity behold! Sacrifice your rage! In classy worship in a place! The new man let me your fight! Until you give up your life!

• 2:03:09Speaker 06

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• 2:03:24Speaker 06

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• 2:04:11Speaker 06

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