Rockezine.com interview with Steel Prophet on Jul 30, 2002

with Vince Dennis on Jul 30, 2002


		First of all, congratulations with your new album, “Unseen”, very impressive! That’s cool. Thank you!
		The album will be released about two weeks from now; you guys must be satisfied with the outcome? Yeah, very! In the past we usually did most of the work in the studio but this time we just took more time for ourselves to write the songs. No one really told us to take more time, we just decided it ourselves.
		To my shame I have to admit that I had never heard a single Steel Prophet song before this album, even though you guys have been around for twenty years. Can you give me a brief history lesson in Steel Prophet? Steel Prophet started somewhere in ’83 or ’84 but I joined the band a bit later and after going through several singers, we found Rick (Mythiasin) around ’89 or so. Steve (Kachinsky) asked me to check out the band but I didn’t really like their music at first. Later, however, their bass player quit and they asked me to join. So I decided to give it a shot.
		In the beginning the band did several gigs together with bands like Fates Warning and Armoured Saint and we had quite a loyal fan base in the States. During our twenty years of existence we have had many different guitar players and singers. In fact, several days ago we told Rick to leave the band due to differences in musical opinion. He joined a band called New Eden, so right now we are on the look for a new singer. We have two candidates and I can tell you the new singer will be perfect!
		Any chance you will tell me who those two guys are or is it a secret? No, I am sorry, it is a secret! But like I said before they are both great!
		Power metal is really on the rise here in Europe and especially in Germany. It also has given Steel Prophet, and many other bands, the possibility for a fresh start.
We are one of those bands who will never stop playing..		How much do you think this rise has influenced your music and how has Steel Prophet managed to survive those long twenty years? Not much really. We are one of those bands who will never stop playing. We have always stayed with the music and that is how it always will be. Nowadays we write even more songs than before. I already have written three songs and Steven already four songs for our next album. The problem with bands these days is that they rehearse every day and are around each other way too much. Then some start being late for rehearsals and the problem starts.
		We only rehearse two times a week and a show once in awhile. Another big problem for nowadays bands here in the States is the ‘pay-to-play’ system clubs have here. Bands have to pay like 1200 bucks to get to play a gig and that is a lot of money. We quit doing that a long time ago and I can seriously advice everyone else to stop doing that shit too!
		When I listen to “Unseen” I basically hear only two really straightforward power metal songs; “Truth” and “Mirror, Mirror, Life After Life”, nevertheless everyone seems to call Steel Prophet power metal.
		How would you personally describe Steel Prophet’s music? No, we don’t play power metal, just pure heavy metal!
		What bands have influenced Steel Prophet the most, and what bands do you listen to yourself nowadays? Of course bands like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest but also more rock oriented bands that basically all started the heavy metal thing like Thin Lizzy, Boston and Kansas. My personal influences are also even death metal and punk rock! Steve on the other hand really likes jazz.
		I recently have started to listen to Cradle Of Filth, at first I found their vocals to be very difficult to get into, but now I have to admit I think it’s a great band. I also listen to rock, punk and even surf music. Basically everything. My favorite band right now is Hypocrisy! I was a guitar tech for them during their tour in the US. Tonight I have to go to a concert here and see Nile and Arch Enemy, two other great bands!
To get to hear real metal you have to go on the Internet..		It seems that metal isn’t so popular anymore in the US, while in Europe it seems to be at its peak, especially power metal and black metal. What is the reason behind this decline of metal in the US? Metal is still popular in the US but it is more underground than in Europe and I think that’s how it should be. Of course they play Metallica and stuff like that on the radio but that’s not really metal anymore. To get to hear real metal you have to go on the Internet.
		I wonder what made bands like Metallica and Megadeth change their music so drastically to rock. Somehow it feels it just can’t be that from one day to the other they all of a sudden don’t like metal anymore? Yeah, I don’t know the truth behind it either. It feels there must be something more behind it all but I don’t know. I will let you know if I manage to find out what is behind it all! (laughter) I can however assure you that this won’t ever happen to Steel Prophet! Like we sing in the chorus of the first song “Truth”, we will never surrender!
		How has your label, Nuclear Blast, been so far, and how did they discover Steel Prophet? Good! They have a lot of bands on their roster but somehow they seem to cater to all. Hopefully they will send us on tour this time. We didn’t get to tour after “Book Of The Dead”, our first album on Nuclear Blast. I would like to tour Europe and do lots of festivals like Wacken Open Air and also lots of club gigs. Then come back to the States after three or four months of touring. We signed for Nuclear Blast because of a friend of mine.
		We had been trading tapes for years and then I all of a sudden heard he had gotten a job at A&R in Nuclear Blast and that’s basically how we got the deal! Although Steel Prophet already had quite a loyal fan base over there in Europe, since we already had released three albums on a smaller German label! All in all I think they have been great so far although I am not totally agreeing with all of their decisions, like their recent signing of Anthrax. I think they should stay away from those bands, although the rumor goes the new Anthrax album is killer!
		I heard you guys have a different way of recording albums than usual; first you record the drums, then the guitars and totally last the bass. Is there a reason behind this? Yeah, it is a Roy Z concept. It is easier to tune the bass to the guitars than the other way around. When the drums and bass are already on the tape and the guitars get recorded on top, it is difficult to hear whether the guitars are in perfect tune. Besides for me, as a bass player, I like it that most of the leads are already even done. Then I get to decide whether I follow the guitars or just play my own bass riff.
		Recently I heard that Joey Vera (bass player of Armoured Saint and Fates Warning), who produced the latest Armoured Saint albums did the same and he liked it too. In fact he told me that he would keep on doing it from now on! It’s great to hear that someone like Joey Vera now does something we have been doing for quite a while now!
		How do you guys approach the writing of new songs? In the past Steve wrote all the songs and put the guitars on tapes and let us listen to them. After a while I got the concept of writing songs and I had become a lot better bass player in general. I started advising Steve on what parts to leave out of certain songs and wrote certain parts myself. I never took any credit for writing those songs though, that’s not important to me at all. If you ask Steve he’ll tell you though that I helped with many of his songs. The new album, “Unseen”, has been a collaborate effort; for the first time the whole band helped to write the album.

If I would write lyrics they would only be about death and destruction..		I have a promo version so unfortunately no lyrics, but they seem to be about quite personal topics. Who writes the lyrics and can you briefly tell me what they are about? Well, I don’t think the lyrics are even shipping with the normal CD. They are indeed quite personal. The lyrics are written by almost everyone in the band, even our drummer Karl (Roqvist) has written some. I am the only one who is not writing any lyrics. If I would write lyrics they would only be about death and destruction (laughter)!
		Has Nuclear Blast made any plans for your upcoming tour yet? No, not yet, but I know that they will plan something for us this time! The bands we tour with really don`t matter, I like to meet new bands and just have fun. Really any band would be fun; in the past we have toured with bands we didn’t even know at all and they turned out to be really cool guys.
		What are Steel Prophet’s plans and wishes for the future? Right now, a new singer! Furthermore we are planning on re-releasing the three albums we released before signing for Nuclear Blast. We are still trying to get the rights to those. Maybe remix them a bit and put them on a double CD. Also we are planning on releasing a DVD here in the US.
I just want to be different!		Now onto some more personal stuff! We all know that metal isn’t the most tolerant music scene, has the color of your skin ever led to racist remarks from the audience or other bands, and if so what do you do in those situations? No, only from other blacks asking me whether I wanted to be a white guy. I just want to be different! Although a couple of months ago I remember one incident. It was in Texas during the Hypocrisy and Soilwork tour; they met up with the Six Feet Under and Skinless tour for a one day sort of festival. I was working as a guitar tech for Peter Tägtgren and during the shows I usually had to be on stage in front of him to make certain that all the guys getting on the stage wouldn’t injure him.
		I was there for crowd control, doing my job, pushing people back when a girl and three skinheads started giving me the Nazi greeting, right in front of me. The guys from the band thought I would get angry and so I moved a bit backwards. But I decided I wouldn’t let some people spoil my gig, and besides I was doing my job, so I went back up there and ignored them. After the gig, I was walking around and spotted them near the T-shirt stand. I walked up to them and asked them “Are you Nazis?” They said that they were and I calmly replied: “Nice to meet you, my name is Vince Dennis from Steel Prophet!” Haha! The whole place was laughing at them!
		How did you get the Hypocrisy job and what is it you actually did for them? I met Peter Tägtgren two years ago. No, probably more like four years ago and we got to talk. He turned out to be a really great guy and I really love Hypocrisy’s music. About a year ago or so, my friend from A&R Nuclear Blast called me and asked if I knew a good guitar tech. So I said yeah, I know one! ME! He didn’t take it really serious at first and called Steve and asked him. Steve told him that I had been doing that kind of stuff already for a long time.
		I have done it for Fates Warning too and in fact I’m going on tour to Korea with Kreator and Destruction soon to do the same! Oh yeah and Halford soon too! My job is to setup the amps and tune the guitars. During the gig I hand them their guitars and afterwards I break down the equipment. I really like doing it and it gives me a chance to see how other bands do those things. Now when we have to select a road crew for Steel Prophet I know what to look for and what to do!
		A week or so ago I had an interview with a black metal band from the US, called Thornspawn. One of the topics was the increasing amount of racism and Nazism in the black metal scene; doesn’t this disturb you? I know it disturbs me! Not really, most of the new skinheads are posers, like the guys I just told you about. If they would have been real skinheads they would have pulled me right off the stage and kicked my ass. Now everyone was just making fun of them.
		I’m also very interested to hear how you got into metal and what got you playing bass? I was playing in a band on Casablanca Records and Kiss was in those days on the same label. I started hearing more and more about them, and I thought they must be good if they are on this label, so I decided to buy their album. At first I really didn’t like it but it somehow grew on me. That’s where it all started. Later I heard Iron Maiden and I was just amazed what their bass player managed to do with his instrument. In those days I still played saxophone and I tried to play along with my friends.
		Soon, however I noticed that it didn’t really work out, and my friends started teaching me the riffs of songs like “Smoke On The Water” on a guitar. Later a punk rock band asked me to play bass for them. I didn’t even own a bass guitar so I borrowed one from them; I have borrowed many bass guitars in my early years and not all had four strings!
		I read somewhere, that you got shot in your own house and barely survived it! What was the cause of the incident? It was a simple house invasion. Earlier that day I had gotten in an argument with Steve about mixing our album. It was during the recording of “Into The Void”. I was fed up with music for a while and I wanted to relax at home. It happened around three o’clock at night or so. I guess someone was knocking on our door and my wife went to look.
		The light in front of our door wasn’t working, so she couldn’t see anyone through the peephole and she just opened the door. I heard my wife screaming and yelling and I went to check it out. Then ‘BOOM’! I got shot straight into my chest with a 9mm. Fortunately, I recovered quite quickly from the incident, and I went on my first European tour with Tourniquet a bit after it.
		You played in Tourniquet? Yeah, in those days I was still playing in other bands, but I quit doing that a while ago. It was good to learn things from other bands but I think when you play in a band like Steel Prophet with so much experience you really don’t need to do those things anymore.
I really feel that nothing can destroy me anymore!		How big of an effect has that incident had on your life? Really big! I’m not taking anything for granted anymore and live life to the fullest. I admit the truth and treat everyone in a pleasant way! Now I really feel that nothing can destroy me anymore!
		Thank you for this interview! Anything left unsaid? A message to the fans perhaps? Go check out our new record, “Unseen” and look out for us on tour in the future! Check out our website: www.metalprovider.com/steelprophet and if you have any ideas for a new singer, drop us a line!
(Frank van de Voorde)