Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal

by Jon Wiederhorn

  MIKE D’ANTONIO: One of our last shows was at the Rathskeller in Kenmore Square [in Boston]. We get there and the floor is covered in kitty litter, which was really weird. When we started playing the pit got going and a big cloud of kitty litter dust arose. You couldn’t see the audience at all.

  BRIAN FAIR: All the bouncers were wearing surgical masks, which should have been a sign we should pack up and leave. We found out later that the night before, a sewage pipe had blown up, and, in classic Rat style, they didn’t clean it. They dumped all this kitty litter on the floor to absorb it all. My throat was torn apart with each breath.

  MATT BACHAND: I started my own label, Lifeless Records, just to put out our first [Shadows Fall] album, [1997’s] Somber Eyes to the Sky, and make it look professional. That record featured Phil [Labonte] on vocals and, at the time, Phil’s thing was death metal. He didn’t want to do any clean singing. Most of the clean singing on that album is me. His main focus was the growl and the aggressiveness. That’s the main reason we started looking for another singer.

  PHIL LABONTE: I got kicked out of Shadows Fall [in 1999] because Brian from Overcast became available. I actually drove [Shadows Fall bassist] Paul [Romanko], [guitarist] Matt [Bachand] and [guitarist] Jon [Donais] to Overcast’s last show at the Espresso Bar in Worcester, Massachusetts. I was like, “I’ll be designated driver.” I didn’t know they’d spend all night talking to Brian about how they were going to kick me out of Shadows Fall.

  BRIAN FAIR: Phil was into more brutal death metal and they were getting more melodic, so it was really a common parting of the ways. Matt, being the ambitious one, asked me to join the band literally as I was coming offstage from the last-ever Overcast set in Connecticut. I was like, “Dude, gimme a minute. I’m burying one of my best friends now.”

  MATT BACHAND: The crazy thing is we kicked out Phil because he didn’t want to sing, and now if you listen to what he’s doing in All That Remains, it’s exactly what we wanted him to do.

  PHIL LABONTE: I had already started writing stuff for All That Remains. I had written “Follow,” “Shading,” and “Ace,” which are off our first record. I wrote the music because I had planned on playing guitar again and not just singing. Everything worked out in the end.

  Since Unearth’s breakthrough album was 2004’s The Oncoming Storm, many casual metalcore fans consider them latecomers to the scene. In actuality, the band was there almost from the start.

  TREVOR PHIPPS (Unearth): In 1998, I ruptured my appendix and had to have it removed. I was trapped in my house for a week and I couldn’t really move. [Unearth guitarist] Ken [Susi] came over every day to try to convince me to leave my old band, Second Division, and join their project. Finally, I agreed to go to their practice space to hear their songs. I thought they were pretty fuckin’ killer, so I agreed to join.

  KEN SUSI (Unearth): Unearth is one of the first bands to play metalcore as it’s known today, and that started a huge trend. We’re very big fans of classic thrash, and we wanted that to be a major part of our music because no one was doing that at the time. And we’ve never tried to sell hits. A lot of metalcore bands go straight from a mosh riff to a bright, shiny chorus to make their music more commercial, and I just think if people keep watering down metal with clean vocals, it’s going to be nu metal all over again. So we went all-out in the other direction.

  As the Massachusetts metalcore scene was heating up, on the other side of the country, in insular Orange County, California, another batch of musicians—some of whom were influenced by Shadows Fall and Converge—were forming new groups. Like the Massachusetts bands, they often featured a revolving door of players from other bands. The most popular were Avenged Sevenfold and Atreyu, but the first to strike were straight-edge adherents Eighteen Visions, which was formed in 1996 by front man James Hart and guitarists Ken Floyd and Dave Peters. In the beginning, Eighteen Visions was primarily influenced by Thousand Oaks’ straight-edge metalcore band Strife, one of the early staples of Victory Records, and San Diego’s Unbroken. In contrast to many of the outfits they spawned, the first California metalcore bands were unapologetic teetotalers.

  DAVE PETERS (ex–Eighteen Visions, Throwdown): I started out as a metal kid. The only shows I had seen before I got into hardcore were when I was a teenager and I got $60 of allowance from my mom to go see Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, and Motörhead. Then I went to see Unbroken and I was standing two feet from the band. I was like, “Wow, I can get this close? I thought you had to sit an acre away to see a concert, like at Metallica.”

  MICK MORRIS (Eighteen Visions, xCLEARx): I grew up in Salt Lake City, and I was really into Slayer and Pantera, but once I discovered the early Victory [Records] bands, it all made sense to me because it had that heavy vibe that was metal but it was a whole new scene. One of the first shows I saw in 1995 was Integrity, Earth Crisis, and Bloodlet, which was a life changer. I could relate to the crowd, I could relate to the straight-edge lyrics, and I could relate to the intensity of the music. I started xCLEARx, and our two biggest influences were Overcast and Converge. We were on a label called Life Sentence that had some popular bands in the metalcore scene in the late nineties, including Eighteen Visions, which I later joined.

  BRANDAN SCHIEPPATI: We’re all straight-edge. We’re not militant about it. If people want to drink or whatever, cool. But it’s really maintained my focus on what I want to do. If I was doing something where I didn’t have control over myself, I don’t know if I could accomplish anything.

  KEITH BARNEY (Eighteen Visions, ex-Throwdown): I never did drugs, drank, or smoked. When I got out of high school, someone on my baseball team showed me some hardcore bands and gave me a few tapes, and I got into it from there. The straight-edge attitude came along with that, so it was a natural fit.

  DAVE PETERS: Orange County is a weird place. There’s definitely this element of materialism. There’s a lot of money in the area and in high school, the norm on the weekend for rich kids was to get drunk out of their parents’ liquor cabinets and have these parties at Edward’s Hill, which was the expensive area. More than anything, our music and our brand of straight-edge was a reaction to that.

  Bassist Mick Morris joined Eighteen Visions in 1999. Unlike the other members, he grew up in Salt Lake City, where straight-edge had an entirely different vibe. Musicians and fans were more militant about their beliefs, and their conviction sometimes erupted in chaos. Cigarette smokers were beaten up, meat eaters were threatened, and drug users faced severe bodily harm. After several violent outbreaks and dangerous protests, local law enforcement started to crack down on the scene.

  MICK MORRIS: We were looked at as a gang, like the Bloods and the Crips. Actually, we were looked at as terrorists since some straight-edge groups have burned down McDonalds and released animals from labs. There were lots of stabbings at shows, and in high school if you wore a shirt that said “Drug Free” you would get sent home because it was considered gang-related. We’d go to shows and there’d be forty eighteen-year-old vegan straight-edge kids there who all weighed 110 pounds, and the majority of them were there to fight. There were two Slayer shows that had to be stopped because there were stabbings in the pit and the riot police came. Three or four people got stabbed at a Hatebreed show because of a beef within the scene, and TV shows like 20/20 and America’s Most Wanted did specials on the movement.

  [In 1997], a group of kids [who called themselves the Animal Liberation Front] went out and bombed the biggest fur plant right outside of Salt Lake, the Fur Breeders Co-Op]. They released the minks, which ended up running onto the highway and dying anyway. But the bombing cost millions of dollars in damage. After that, you couldn’t really have normal straight-edge shows in Salt Lake.

  DAVE PETERS: We drove twelve hours to play our first show in Salt Lake City. We watched xCLEARx play, then out of nowhere we see a cop come in wearing full riot gear and then another and another. There were fifty to seventy-five cops with shields, masks, and tear gas guns standing shoulde
r to shoulder inside the perimeter of the building, and they shut the show down. We ended up playing in xCLEARx’s practice space.

  Eighteen Visions was the Aftershock/Overcast of the Orange County metalcore scene, the tree trunk from which other bands would sprout. Since 1997, the group has featured vocalist James Hart (who later formed Burn Halo), guitarists Brandan Schieppati (who played guitar in Throwdown and launched Bleeding Through), Dave Peters (who now fronts Throwdown), bassist Javier Van Huss (who has played in Bleeding Through, Throwdown, and the Mistake), and drummer Ken Floyd (who has toured in Throwdown).

  DAVE PETERS: Ken and I grew up together. We were sixteen in 1996, when we started Eighteen Visions with James [Hart]. James went to Huntington High and was sitting in my English class one day when I got to the room. He was wearing braces and a Baltimore Orioles baseball hat and had this ugly-ass backpack. He had written “Earth Crisis” and “Chokehold” and all these hardcore bands from that era on it in Wite-Out with, like, three hundred X’s. What was funny was that he wasn’t actually in the class; he’d just go there to hang out with us. After five days, the teacher said, “Are you even in this class?” James said, “No,” and they kicked him out. He was always great for comic relief and he was always extreme. You could say, “Hey man, go throw this full 2-liter bottle of Pepsi at that group of fifteen people over there?” And he’d do it. One day me and Ken were jamming and just joking around about getting James to sing. We were like, “I don’t know if he can sing, but he’s crazy.” So we asked him and he was super stoked.

  BRANDAN SCHIEPPATI: The Eighteen Visions guys lived in Huntington; I lived in Newport Beach, so I went to a different high school. But one of my older high school friends, Javier Van Huss, met James and Dave and joined the band as their bassist. They needed another guitar player so Javier suggested me. I had literally been playing guitar for six months and could just play well enough to fake it. I told them I had been playing for a few years and tried out for them, and I did well enough to get the spot. I was fifteen, and basically the first songs I ever learned on guitar were Eighteen Visions songs.

  DAVE PETERS: We wanted to sound like the Florida band Bloodlet when we started. Everything I wrote sounded like a rip-off of them or Sepultura, which isn’t a far cry from what I’m doing today in Throwdown. Our first show as 18V was in 1996 at a skating rink and we were pretty awful. Back then James would always completely blow his voice out every practice after two or three songs because he didn’t realize you have to learn to breathe correctly when you sing. He had no voice for at least three days out of every week because we’d practice over the weekend. James was kind of a loose cannon. At one show, he smashed his head with the microphone over and over again until he was bleeding everywhere. That was his attempt to be metal and scary. We actually played a show with Bloodlet and James did that and was bleeding all over. We figured, “Well, these Bloodlet guys are weirdos. They’re gonna think this is cool.” But after the show the drummer looked at him like he was a total asshole.

  BRANDAN SCHIEPPATI: Dave and James were both very alpha male and they butted heads all the time. It seemed to me that they both wanted to be the focal point of the band. Dave would say he wanted to quit all the time because he didn’t like the way things were going. We’d say, “No, don’t quit.” Then James would get mad. They were both fishing for compliments or reinforcements that they were the band. They meshed really well from a writing standpoint. The five of us together were writing some really incredible music. But egos got in the way.

  DAVE PETERS: A lot of people didn’t like James. I always got along with pretty much everyone. Before I even joined Throwdown, the guys who formed the band, [vocalist] Keith Barney and [bassist] Dom [Macaluso] made it clear that they did not like James and they wouldn’t be caught dead at an Eighteen Visions show.

  JAMES HART (Eighteen Visions): Dave wanted to feel like he was a necessity to the success and growth of our band, and I got tired of that. One day he said, “I don’t want to do it anymore, I quit.” I think that he expected us to say, “No, no, no. Wait, wait, wait.” But we sat down and said, “You know what, let’s move forward. Let’s just see how it goes and how we can do on our own.” It was definitely unexpected and a weird and ballsy move considering that he was the talent in the band as far as guitar playing went. But we stuck it out as a four-piece until we got Keith [Barney, in 1999].

  DAVE PETERS: I was trying to show Ken this riff I came up with. James listened to it and then did this ridiculous dance. It drove me insane. I was like, “You motherfucker!” He was just kidding around, but I got so offended and that ended the practice session. The last few months of the band, the dudes would fall all over the drums and end up on the floor in a mess like the San Diego hardcore bands. Even at the tender age of seventeen, that looked weird to me. So when we played this show at Ken’s house, they ended up writhing around the floor. I thought, “This is not cool, this is silly.” So I blew a snot rocket at Ken and it hit his drums. That’s when everything fell apart and I quit.

  Even with its revolving-door lineup, Eighteen Visions played a major role in changing the look of California metalcore. During their peak years in the early 2000s they dressed sharply, wore makeup, and styled their hair like glam musicians. The band was musically innovative as well, changing styles over the course of their career from bruising hardcore metal to melodic alternative rock, predating similar moves by Atreyu and Avenged Sevenfold.

  BRANDAN SCHIEPPATI: Since Javier was in hair school, his whole thing was wanting to cut everybody’s hair. So we all had freaky haircuts. We modeled ourselves a little bit after Unbroken, who were very sharply dressed because they were the heaviest band around and they didn’t look it, which we thought was fuckin’ cool.

  RYAN DOWNEY: If anyone is responsible for what became fashioncore, it’s Javier. He went to cosmetology school; he was a hair stylist. James Hart was also a hair stylist at a salon in Orange County. Brandan Schieppati was going to cosmetology school, which he eventually dropped out of. But Javier really led the charge with crazy hairstyles and pink and blond and blue chunks in their hair. A lot of the guys were fit and really into working out, and they had this sexual energy onstage, which was very much taboo in the hardcore scene.

  JAMES HART: When we were doing Yesterday Is Time Killed in 1999, we were working at the mall in some boutiques, where we were introduced to different clothing. We started getting into that stuff and we took on this attitude that we’re not just getting up there playing our songs to a crowd. We gotta put on a show and look different and stand out from the people we’re playing to. And if it meant putting on a dress shirt and a tie, that’s what we did. So, by the time we put out Until the Ink Runs Out in 2000 we started dressing a little slicker and combing our hair and putting on more of a show.

  MICK MORRIS: I hadn’t seen those dudes in a year, and then my band xCLEARx toured with them. The first show of that tour was in Chicago and they looked completely different. When they went on I was like, “This might be the fuckin’ coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” After touring with them for a couple weeks, I said, “Hey, if you guys ever need a guitar or bass player I’ll move to California.” I was kind of joking, but I kind of meant it.

  JAMES HART: Things weren’t panning out with Javier. He was showing up really late to practice or leaving really early, or both. His lack of interest or lack of commitment to the band was holding us back. We had written an entire record and were ready to record it, and he was like, “I don’t like that part, I don’t like that song.” We were like, “Dude, that’s too bad. You weren’t here at all for the writing process.” He played on part of Until the Ink Runs Out. Then on some of it, Keith [Barney] had to play bass because Javier didn’t know the songs well enough because he wasn’t showing to practice or couldn’t play them.

  MICK MORRIS: The summer of 2000, xCLEARx broke up and me and some friends flew up to Hellfest in Syracuse, which was a giant hardcore festival. Brandan took me aside and said, “Hey dude, wann
a join the band? We’re kicking out our bass player.” I thought about it for a day and then accepted. A few weeks later I learned all the songs in my bedroom, packed up my car, broke up with my girlfriend, quit my job, left my roommate, and drove to California.

  BRANDAN SCHIEPPATI: At one point, Eighteen Visions had so many collectively strong personalities—even myself. It got to the point where I was a tenured person in the band responsible for a lot of the material. I carried a lot of the weight. I decided I wanted to make decisions and take the band heavier. I really wanted my opinion to be heard, and by that time, nobody wanted to hear it. They had the whole Guns N’ Roses and Stone Temple Pilots crush going, and I was listening to At the Gates and Dissection.

  Schieppati wasn’t the only one unhappy with the band’s new look and sound. After the image makeover, they were targeted by local rednecks and even some former fans. But they had the courage and attitude—and fighting skills—to stick to their guns. And eventually their image paid off—especially for female fans.

  RYAN DOWNEY: A lot of other guys were still wearing backwards baseball caps and basketball jerseys and camo shorts. Just looking like James and Brandan did was a bold move, and invited trouble.

  MICK MORRIS: We never started crap, but we would get a lot of grief within the hardcore scene from kids who went, “Who are these faggots?” And we’d get the occasional asshole that would punch us or spit at us. If it wasn’t from people in the crowd, it was outside. We would go to Del Taco and get in fights with big bro dudes who would give us a hard time for having styled hair, wearing eyeliner, or having tattoos. I’ve heard many, many times that we ruined the hardcore scene, and it’s funny because a lot of bands today have the look that we introduced.

  RYAN DOWNEY: Most of those guys’ vice was women. Pre-MySpace, there was a website called makeoutclub.com which enabled bands to go on tour and physically encounter the girls they met online. 18V very much put across this rock star image and these girls responded.