BDR Interview – PART 2
Let’s talk bass. Frank, whats up?
FM: I am the bassist, Frank Mercurio. The baddest mother fucking bassist there is!
ALL: (Laughs)
FM: Guess who has the big dick in the band! I’ve been playing bass over 20 years. I’ve always wanted to play bass. It’s always been my lifelong dream to be a rock star. Some of my inspirations are: Robert Trujillo, Flea, and Victor Wooten. But I can’t touch their stuff! I try to practice to various songs of those composers, just to get my chops up. But I feel like I’m slackin’ if I can’t play certain songs of theirs. I want to keep my chops where they should be.
Do you play with fingers or pick?
Fingers. I learned how to play when I was 17.
Do you play 4 or 5 string?
I play 4 string, but in BDR I only play the bottom 2! I love locking in with the drums and it’s kinda’ the foundation of the music. It’s what makes your ass shake! I don’t know, all the girls seem to like to sit on my bass rig for some reason!
Bryce what have you been up to since the last interview?
BG: Just fucking gigging. Let’s see, that was another pizza night…
Pizza and stories about transvestite hookers?
All: (Laughs)
BG: Chicas con! I just got ambushed! No, I played a gig at Seven Grand the other night with an R&B band. I’d heard about it, but never played there. It’s really nice. We only had like one rehearsal in Encinitas one night before the gig. By the time I got home that I night, I didn’t one song from the other!
The live setting was great. A lot of people came out and were dancing. I like to play beats that make em’ bounce. So there you have it. The metal drummer playing R&B! It was great. A lot of fun.
Last time I checked, you counted that you owned ten drum sets. Have you gotten anymore since then?
BG: I forgot to mention one that day. It’s my all stainless steel Ludwig. It was towards the end of the Jon Bonham era. The only all metal kit. They’re just known for the thunder!
When is the first album going to be done?
AC: We’re gonna hold off for right now.
BG: We’re doing it differently.
AC: We’re only doing one or two songs at a time. Trying to build a… like a , “Who digs us?” Try create enough boom, then put out a physical album. I think you should always put out a physical album, as long as there are CD players in cars and homes.
Is CD a dead format?
AC: I don’t think so.
FM: Vinyl is coming back!
AC: I think everyone wants something you can sign. People like the artwork. It’s not a dead format.
Alan…. What’s up with kids these days?
AC: They have bad taste in music!
FM: Social media ruined them.
AC: When MTV stopped playing music videos.. everything is instant. When a guy has a million hits on Youtube, with an outta tune guitar, and a gangster sings, “I love you bitch”… They don’t even understand. Music is nothing to them. Music is wallpaper to them. You know how when you heard your first Pink Floyd album, and you laid on your bed and put your headphones on….
FM:… and smoked a J!
AC:… and you went to another place!
That first guitar solo note on Comfortably Numb still gives me chills. Still!
AC: The new generation. It’s all cut and paste. Filth flying’ filth.. Yada, yada, yada. It’s cheaper to higher one guy, throw him in a vocal booth and have him rap over a beat, then have a million dollar budget and create some art. Crap after crap after crap. It’s clogging up everything that trying to come out after it. But under all that shit there is a small nugget that’s trying to come out. You gotta’ reach through it, and it’s unpleasant, but you gotta do it and find that nugget.
Are there any bands out there right now that you think are decent? New groups?
AC: That are relevant? Royal Blood.
FM: I like Gojira. They’re keepin’ metal real.
AC: Foo Fighters. That’s relevant. That’s like the Rolling Stones.
BG: I dig Charlie Hunter. He’s sick.
Frank, let’s talk about metal. Is metal dead?
FM: METAL!! Metal is NOT dead. Metal will never die! Actually the kids now days are really progressive in the way they play.
Like Animals as Leaders?
FM: Animals As Leaders is BAD ASS! Love em.
AC: I drove them around the country.
Are they relevant, or is this too much ‘cut and paste’?
FM: These are more underground bands. The’re not on the radio or TV, but to me that’s relevancy.
Dream Theater was never on the radio, and they’ve been around for 30 years!
AC: Animals as Leaders have a great following.
Do you think they are trying too hard to do something different?
AC: Kinda’ like Big Dick Rock! (Laughs)
FM: Take rap metal for instance. You know, Run DMC and Aerosmith at first.. it was cool and different, but then it got so…. just blown out. Everyone was playing it.
BG: Fred Durst..
FM: And Kid Rock.
You guys are local to San Diego, so you were here when Body Count debuted, right? What was it like to be here when Body Count came out?
FM: Yeah! I saw Ice T do his rap set AND his Body Count set, in Mexico at Iguanas in ’89. Maybe 91? Half of the room was brothers in there for the rap and the other half was metal heads for the mosh pit!
So the crowd was interracial.
FM: Out of control. Yeah it was. Totally. I was a little nervous at first when I walked in. But at the end of the rap set all the brothers moved out of the way and the metal heads came down to the floor.
Was everyone cool?
FM: Very cool! It was wild. It was a very respectful separation of two different genres, and two very different genres coming together.
And Ice T was able to work both crowds?
FM: Yeah, he pulled both crowds. He took his break and said, “When I come back it’s Body Count.” It was cool.
Did they do KKK Bitch? Cop Killer?
FM: Yeah, they did everything!
Cop Killer, That was the first album with PMRC label.
AC: When people bought CD’s.
BG: My mom wouldn’t let me buy the RATT cd.
ALL: (LAUGHS)
Alan, what are your top 5 albums of all time?
AC: The Wall, Led Zepplin IV, Band of Gypsies, Live at the Fillmore…
Dude! You’re picking my top five!
AC:… I’d have to say the first Black Sabbath record…
FM: I can do better!
AC: Can I finish?! …and this won’t make any sense, but Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers.
Frank, what are your top 5 albums of all time?
FM: Led Zepplin, Song Remains The Same. Ozzy Osbourne, Speak Of the Devil. Any of the first Van Halen albums.
That doesn’t count. You gotta’ pick one.
FM: Damn. Women and Children First.
I would have gone with 1984.
FM: Tool, Onima, and a band called Snot from LA.
Bryce, same question. Top 5 albums or musicians. Go.
BG: Megadeth, Rust In Peace. Rush, Moving Pictures. Rippingtons: Live. Slayer, Decade of Aggression…
No! You can’t pick Greatest Hits records, that doesn’t count!
BG:… Lombardo is soooo bad. God! Uh, I would say Seasons In The Abyss. (Post interview text message: Pantera, Far Beyond Driven).
Copyright © 2015. C. Lougeay
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