Check out some Alabama Thunderpussy merchendise by Clicking Here!
Rock My Monkey: Hello, you are listening to the Rock My Monkey netcast on RockMyMonkey.com. Today we are speaking with Bryan from the band Alabama Thunderpussy. How are you doing today, Bryan?
Bryan Cox: Doing great, man.
Rock My Monkey: How did you hook up with the mighty Kyle Thomas, and what happened to your last singer, Johnny Weils?
Bryan Cox: The mighty Kyle Thomas. I’ll tell him you said that. We hooked up with Kyle through, basically through a friend of a friend. An old friend of his from New Orleans had moved to Richland to actually hook up and live, marry, live with another friend of mine. She knew him from way back. And when she heard we were looking up, trying to find a singer, she said that we should give him a call because he was doing this new metal band, and I thought what he was doing in that band would fit what we were doing real well. So we checked out some of his stuff. It’s actually this band called Pitts Vs. Preps that I have subsequently been asked to join. So we hooked up with him, checked out some of that stuff, and really dug what he was doing. We knew about him from before and all that, before anyway, and I knew that he had a good set of pipes. Basically just gave him a ring on the phone and started talking about it. Yeah, I don’t know, man. I was real kind of informal. He wasn’t really that familiar with anything that we did. I kind of thought that that was cool, actually, because the only reason he wound up wanting to join the band was because he liked what we did, and that’s the most important thing anyway. Yeah. It was just, kind of like I said, kind of an informal type thing. You know, that’s pretty much how it went down. As far as Johnny Weils goes, basically just got involved in some lifestyle decisions. I don’t know, just let his, let his old bad habits and kind of own mental, not mental, but psychological issues get the best of him. Couldn’t find a way to be happy in the band, so he quit. It was kind of an anticlimactic thing. He just quit in an email and left town before anybody could talk to him about it. You know. I don’t want to spend too much time talking about that, because honestly it’s inconsequential either way. I think everything happens for a reason, and if he hadn’t quit then we wouldn’t have Kyle in the band. You know, Kyle rules, so, what can you say?
Rock My Monkey: Now do you think you definitely have the singer that will not only stay around, but bring the band to the next level?
Bryan Cox: Well, we certainly hope so, man. You know, whatever the next level is. It’s hard to tell these days where you’re headed and what you’re trying to accomplish. Everything’s kind of screwy. Bands pop out of nowhere and become huge overnight based on reasons that I can never pinpoint or figure out. And then bands that have worked hard for however many years can’t seem to get a break, and suddenly some of them do, some of them don’t. I mean, I can’t make heads or tails of it personally. Our goal has always been to deliver a quality product, and write and record stuff that makes us happy. You know, go out and play live and deliver it live, as well. I think we’re accomplishing all that, and certainly with Kyle in the band we’ve been able to do that a lot better than we have in the past. I’m hoping that Kyle will stick around for as long as he wants to. I think we definitely got the winning combination as far as how it makes us feel right now. We’re all really happy with the chemistry in the band and the way the songwriting’s been coming together. Yeah. I mean, definitely everything feels real good right now. I don’t know. We’re just going to keep on doing what we do and we’ll see what happens, you know?
Rock My Monkey: Was it strange touring with extreme metal bands like Full Blown Chaos and Obituary. And did their fans embrace you, or did you get flipped any shit?
Bryan Cox: Honestly man, we did really well. Those guys are all-the thing, especially about Obituary is that they are an extreme metal band, but they’re old school. That shit is all kind of groove-oriented, old school influenced metal. So it was, you know, I don’t think it was actually that far of a stretch for the crowd to be able to-a lot of the crowd to be able to get into what we do. And as far as Full Blown Chaos goes, that crowd that’s into them, I think, the newer crowd of metal heads, is definitely, I think just because of what’s out there and the accessibility to all kinds of different stuff, there’s a lot more kind of open minded about different kinds of stuff. So yeah, we’re definitely kind of the pubic hair in the Vaseline on that tour as far as the style of music goes. But nobody booed us. We didn’t have-I mean, maybe one or two people just yelled ‘Obituary!’ through the whole set. But other than that-which we anticipated-but other than that though I felt like we did really well. So no complaints from me, man.
Rock My Monkey: How can American fans get the White Snake cover for Still Of The Night other than streaming from the MySpace?
Bryan Cox: That’s a good question. It was actually released on the Japanese version of Open Fire. We didn’t actually know they were going to do that, so was a little bit of a bungle on all of our parts, I guess. Maybe we didn’t make it clear that we wanted to-we didn’t make it clear what we wanted to do with it when we sent it to Relapse. So they just kind of took it upon themselves to use it as they saw fit. And that’s fine. Eventually I would like to either make it available just for free download once, I guess, they’ve had a chance to sell as many of them as they think they’re going to sell in Japan. I’d like to make it available for people to download. Either that, or re-release it on some sort of other type of-I don’t know, some kind of weird release or something. I’m not really sure. The bottom line is I’m not really sure how we’re going to work that out. It’s definitely something that we all would like to do at some point. We’ve got two or three covers now that we’ve recorded with Kyle, so maybe eventually we’ll record five or six more of them and just release a covers album or something like that, Metallica style.
Rock My Monkey: That actually has started to become quite a trend actually to put out what they called the tribute covers album. Personally I think I would love to see a band steal this idea from me, and put out an album-because these are obviously very great for bands, and they’re good for bands-a lot of people have revived their careers. I think somebody should just be blunt and bold and actually call the album The Cashout Covers Release.
Bryan Cox: Shit. Totally. Totally.
Rock My Monkey: Just come out and say ‘Yep, we’re doing this because it’s going to be a good cashola, and it’s going to really do well for the band. And we’re totally doing this for those reasons.’ I think that would be beautiful.
Bryan Cox: No doubt. No doubt. Not only that, I think, we never really-we recorded, basically we record a cover when we have to. Whenever like a tribute cd comes up that somebody wants us to be a part of, we go ‘Oh shit, we got to learn something.’ And that’s how we’ve done it. And we’ve always talked about doing a covers record, and we’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that the only way we’re going to be able to do it and have everybody decide on what we want to cover is have everybody pick two songs. No matter what they are, everybody has to agree to cover them. So I don’t know. That’s our idea. And eventually I would imagine that we’ll probably get around to it. It’s just a matter of finding the time. I know Kyle wants to do like a Fixx song. I can’t remember what else he was talking about wanting to cover. But when we actually picked the Whitesnake song, that was really the first time we picked a song just for the hell of it, just to cover it, record it and say ‘fuck it, let’s put this thing out there and see what people think about it.’ I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. But yeah, that’s something that we’ve wanted to do for quite some time now.
Rock My Monkey: So it’s definitely not available as far as iTunes or the Amazon downloads or E-music?
Bryan Cox: Man, I don’t know. You know how that shit goes. You could probably, if you participate in Soul Seek or Limewire or any of those I guarantee you could probably find it on there by now. I certainly encourage people to do so.
Rock My Monkey: Wow.
Bryan Cox: I mean, fuck it. Something like a cover song that’s only on a Japanese release, if somebody’s got it up out there, I say go for it, man. I mean, realistically any sort of income that a band like us sees is going to be coming from either publishing or merchandising. So you know, it really ain’t no skin off my nose either way if somebody wants to go out there and try to scrounge it up on the web and download it.
Rock My Monkey: There is actually quite a few now bands that do kind of that Southern fried metal style that you guys do. What do you think that Alabama Thunder Pussy offers the Southern fried metal scene that no other band does today?
Bryan Cox: Well, I don’t know. I’m constantly hearing that whole Southern fried metal thing. I don’t really know if there’s a whole lot of that even on the new record, as far as I can tell goes. And it’s just me being honest and telling you what my impression of the thing we just did is. I suspect whether we like it or not that kind, that vibe will always be there to a certain degree, whether it be intentional or unintentional. People certainly love to use that catchphrase when they’re talking about us, which is fine. But we’ve been a band for almost twelve years now, and I think if you just go back through the catalog, starting at the beginning and kind of scan through everything and listen to it, I mean, it’s just, if we have like a strength, I would say it’s our-not ability, but our willingness to try different ideas out. We’re not really interested, and never have been, in trying to like, ‘Alright, here’s the type of band we are.’ Other than being a heavy band. We’ll always be that I would wager to bet. I’m not interested in suddenly becoming a folk act or an R & B group or anything like that. But within the realm of heavy music we’ve never really set any parameters for ourselves and said ‘Hey, we’re going to do this Southern fried rock angle.’ or we’re going to do this angle or that angle. It’s just been all what everybody’s feeling at the time, and what everybody’s been listening to, and what we feel like writing. We kind of do what we want to do, basically. I say if there’s something that we stand for or can stand behind, or relate to personally as a band, it’s that. It’s just that we try to originate rather then just clone out, stamped out, stamp out clones of the same thing over and over again. So I don’t know. I guess that’s what I would say would be our contribution to the little corner of the musical world that we kind of have fallen into.
Rock My Monkey: You’re about to head off to Europe until the end of November. What are your plans after that?
Bryan Cox: Probably come home and everybody try to find a job and make some money so we can afford to go back out in the spring. That’s the sad reality of the situation, you know, is that unfortunately we’re all in the situation where we have to work other jobs. So yeah, the middle of the winter is kind of a dead zone as far as touring goes. Nobody really wants to tour in the winter, and people don’t really want to go out to shows as much. So unless some kind of killer tour pops up, I would imagine that we’ll probably wouldn’t head out again until spring. We’ll just be home, jamming. We’ve actually got about eight or nine songs written for the next record, so we’ll probably get back on those and start hammering those into shape, and working on more stuff for that. And yeah, just moving on, looking down the road. Hopefully by early next year, I’m hoping that by early next year we’ll be formulating some sort of game plan for recording a new album.
Rock My Monkey: The video for Words Of The Dying has actually got a pretty good reception. Seeing as you guys are not on Metal Blade Records, how did you get Brian Slagel and Balsac the Jaws of Death to do cameos in the video?
Bryan Cox: Brian Slagel There’s no Brian Slagel in there, I can guarantee you that.
Rock My Monkey: Really? I thought for sure I saw him.
Bryan Cox: (laughs) That’s pretty funny. I was like, ‘What the hell is he talking about? Where’s he going with this Metal Blade angle?’ No, it’s probably just somebody that looks like him that we’re friends with from town. As far as Balsac, we did a tour with Gwar back in ’04-or ’05-no, I guess it was ’04. And we’ve been friends with those dudes for years. I mean, they’re from Richmond. Richmond’s a pretty small town, man, so if you play in a heavy band, you’re eventually going to kind of-
Rock My Monkey: Run into each other.
Bryan Cox: Run into each other, and wind up playing shows together, and various bands. Yeah, those dudes are all, they’re not any kind of, they’re not like big fucking rock stars around town or anything. They don’t act like it. They’re a bunch of cool mother fuckers that are in a metal band and hang out. Just good friends. And actually a lot of people in that video, a lot of the people are in bands in that video. We got a bunch of people from Municipal Waste in there, and a bunch of locals, band folks in there. RPG. You know, it was kind of just, we wanted to just get all our friends together and have a big party. We had some scripted events that occur, but a lot of it was just people hanging out and getting drunk and acting like retards.
Rock My Monkey: Like I said, the video does seem to get a really good reception, and you guys have gotten a lot of traction from it. Is there any plans for a second video for this cd, Open Fire?
Bryan Cox: I don’t know, man. That’s a good question. It always kinds of depends on, I guess, if we have the time and money to make one happen. Relapse initially talked about doing another video. It seems like it has been getting a fair amount of airplay. I know it’s on “On Deman”d right now, too. I don’t know. I think I would definitely like to do another. I don’t know what it would be at this point. We haven’t really talked about a concept or anything for a second video. But it was initially discussed, so I would say it’s not outside the realms of possibilities, although we don’t have any immediate plans to do one.
Rock My Monkey: There was a little bit of controversy behind the artwork for Open Fire that Ken Kelly did. Was there, at what point did you guys know that was even going to be discussed by people? And do you feel that you guys got unfairly burned?
Bryan Cox: Well, I don’t know that we really got burned, honestly, unless you’re talking about a bunch of losers sitting around their apartments in their underwear typing shit on the internet. I mean, that’s really the only burn that we got, because we bought the artwork from Ken Kelly, licensed it from him directly. And then out of nowhere-and we actually had two or three different people do artwork for Open Fire by Alabama Thunderpussy. We had the concept and the name months and months before the artwork was decided on. And had two different people almost complete paintings for the art, and just didn’t feel like either one of them was the right thing. So Relapse suggested that we use that Ken Kelly piece. So we licensed it from them, and you know, it comes out and here we are four or five months later and all this shit starts to pop up about some unreleased record from Poland in the mid-80s. And believe me, I’d be the first one to admit that it’s the most insane coincidence that I’ve ever had a part of perpetuating, or what have you. It was definitely, it blew my mind. What are the chances that there’s a band called Open Fire that would use this same artwork? And it’s unreleased. Nobody-like I said, it really is mind boggling. But the fact of the matter was they stole the artwork off a website, or off of somewhere, off of something, wherever they got it. Their record was unreleased. Alabama Thunderpussy has built our career on honesty and on integrity and on not screwing anybody over. We had no prior knowledge of that artwork, or that band for that matter. That’s what a lot of people accuse us of. It was like, you know, perfectly understandable where you could get that idea, but the fact of the matter is that that’s just not the case. We got Ken Kelly to release a statement saying that he had no prior knowledge of anybody using that artwork, Relapse had no knowledge of anybody using that artwork, and we did it fair and square. We bought it from him, we paid for it, and we made a record cover out of it. I mean, whatever, you know? It’s fantasy artwork. Do you know how many metal bands have probably swiped that shit over the years? I mean, I can only imagine. Especially bands that use something for an unreleased record that never came out. I mean, it’s just one of those things that sucks, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I don’t feel bad about it, because we didn’t do anything wrong. That’s the bottom line. The only people that could get actually burned by that are that other band, if they’re still around, because they stole artwork from some dude that worked his ass off his whole life to paint, and swiped his shit to use for their own purposes. Which is probably the most despicable thing that you could ever do. You’ll never catch us swiping some artwork from somebody, and trying to say ‘Here’s our record. We didn’t ask this artist if we could use his shit, but here it is.’ That’s whacked.
Rock My Monkey: We have one question from a board member. When I get ready to do an interview, I let all the people at Rock My Monkey know and then the readers actually will submit some questions of their own. So Rivethead, who also wants to be credited as a ‘sludge-aholic’ he wants to know if you know why the tour with WASP was cancelled?
Bryan Cox: Yeah, I do actually. According to Blackie Lawless they, WASP, their new record came out and according to him they lost their distribution. So there was some kind of thing according to the booking agent, who’s also their booking agent, that they wanted to give away an album at every show as part of the tour. Because of the loss of this distributor, or the distribution-it was all kind of a conundrum and kind of confusing to me. In my opinion, people are going to see WASP play, because they want to see WASP play. I know their new record has gotten some good reviews, but realistically why are most people at a WASP show? I don’t know. I thought it was kind of a copout personally. And especially since it’s the second time that they’ve done this exact same thing to us within five years. I don’t know if you remember, but a few years ago we did a press release saying that ‘hey, we’re going to be touring with WASP’. And before it even got booked they cancelled on it. And according to some people that I talked to about that, that was basically they had started getting numbers back from promoters and Blackie looked at them and decided he could make more money by taking an advance from his label to do a new record than he could by going on tour. Either way, whatever. It’s your prerogative. You can do what you want to do with your life. But I personally think the dude’s a piece of shit for screwing us over twice. And both of those reasons are bullshit reasons. Especially when you-if you’re doing a tour by yourself, you want to cancel it, that’s fine. Although this time around tickets were already on sale at a lot of those shows, so they’ll be lucky to go out and tour again and deal with any of those promoters, because they all lost money on them. It’s a big pain in the ass when you spend advertising budget, to advertise for a show, sell tickets, and have to refund all that shit, it sucks. But especially when you’ve asked other bands to go on tour with you, and they’re counting on that tour for exposure and for income and to go out and work and do what they’re trying to do, and then you pull the rug out from underneath their feet. I mean, it sucks, and they’ve done that to us twice. And so, there’s your answer, and there’s how I feel about the dude. And you can take that to the bank.
Rock My Monkey: Thank you very much for your frank honesty. I think that’s wonderful.
Bryan Cox: Well, you know.
Rock My Monkey: I do have one final question. Every year we do choose one final question that we ask every single band from classic rock legends to the most extreme death metal bands. Partially to stump people, but also to see who wimps out and won’t answer. This year I’m asking people to look into their crystal ball and predict what political figure, world leader, musician, celebrity, anybody well known, anybody world wide famous, who do you think might die before the end of the year?
Bryan Cox: Might die before the end of the year? Holy crap, that’s a heavy question.
Rock My Monkey: A question meant to separate the men from the boys.
Bryan Cox: I guess so, man. Holy crap, you know. (both laugh) I guess one way of answering that question would be to pick who do you wish death on, and the other one would be who do you think is ill enough to die this year?
Rock My Monkey: I’ve actually have had a few people perceive the question, use the question as an opportunity to call out to a friend of theirs that they thought was partying too hard, and hope that that was a wake up call for them to clean up.
Bryan Cox: Right, right.
Rock My Monkey: So you can use the question in any way you want.
Bryan Cox: Right, right. Tricky. Let’s see here. Well, I’m not sure, man. Right off the top of my head, too. I mean, I guess your safe bet would be Keith Richards, although that guy should have died years ago. So I figure it’s only a matter of time. I certainly hope he doesn’t, but I’m going to go with Keith Richards.
Rock My Monkey: Alright. Cool.
Bryan Cox: That guy’s been, like I said, he’s been on death’s door for as long as I can remember.
Rock My Monkey: They say in a nuclear explosion the only thing left will be cockroaches and Keith Richards.
Bryan Cox: Cockroaches and Keith. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we’ll go with him. I’ll play it safe and go with him. Or maybe not safe. Depends on how you look at it, I guess.
Rock My Monkey: I thank you very much for doing the interview, and anybody that’s listening to the audio version can go to RockMyMonkey.com for the full featured version with clickable links, readable text, and many more wonderful features. I’m asking people to click on the album cover both above and below this interview to purchase Open Fire by Alabama Thunderpussy. And I do hope to see you guys up on tour in the Northwest sometime soon. Thank you very much for your time.
