American
Head Charge: American beauties
In The War Of Art, American Head Charge have produced one of the finest metal records of the past year. As if their striking debut wasn’t enough, with rucks of image and personna, (seven band members in total), playing host to Slipknot on their Pledge Of Allegiance tour and stirring enough controversy to last a lifetime for most outfits, brutality has never being so beautiful. Andy Law chats with vocalist (and co-producer of their debut opus) Martin Cock at Stoke-On-Trent Sugarmill to dig a little deeper…
How was the tour with Slipknot?
It was sweet man – it was a kind of a gift for them to come and ask us to tour with them. Our label wasn’t sure if they wanted to take us internationally, but the tour went so well in America that it just developed from there.
Coming over here with Slipknot has opened the door exposure wise to so many people that would have never seen us, and now we get to do this headline tour, there’s being a good turnout at every show, bar one - the shows have being really good. There’s being great support from the UK press too, (e.g. front cover of Kerrang! magazine and massive interview!) so that’s being healthy too.
The War Of Art has being praised by several members of the Slipknot crew - did you get chance to meet up with the masked madmen?
Oh yes, I’m friend’s with almost all of them! We’ve being hanging out with them the whole time on tour. I’m really close with Shaun, Corey, Joey, Sid, Jim – pretty much all of them.
We’re like family – everybody takes care of each other, and we thank Joey so many times for the (complimentary) quote he said about us, that you see on all the bio’s and CD’s. It was great for him to stick his neck out and give his own positive opinion of the band – that weighs a lot with the fans.
MTV banned videos, covers featuring a baby about to be crushed by a tank and the obligatory explicit lyrics. - In similar tradition to the antiques of Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne and Marilyn Manson et al, are you firm believers that controversy and image sells records, something American Head Charge knows a thing or two about?
I’ve always like Ozzy and Mazza, but I don’t know if it sells records – in those cases it does. In our case the video being banned actually got us more publicity than what it would have received if it was played, so in that case it worked out in our favour although our label wasn’t very happy with us.
A lot of stuff we do is because its art to us, performance, theatre etc – we try and do things that most people aren’t going to do. At Ozzfest over the summer I was shooting off a shotgun, burning flags etc. We were playing at 11am each day, and it gave us something to wake up for – something to plan for rather than just going out and playing. We had to come out with a bang or people would remember us. I don’t know how many records we sold as a result of that but I’m sure it helps, anything that people are going to talk and spread the word about.
Motorhead’s Lemmy was quoted as saying Slipknot came from the circus. What would your message be to the more stuck in the mud metallers and old school groups out there who claim bands such as Slipknot and yourselves are only about image?
I don’t have any messages for the old school metallers except thanks for influencing all of us. All those bands have had there influence – I think its funny that Lemmy said they come from the circus. Slipknot would too – they’d probably take that as compliment.
Slipknot are definitely about image but they have really good music to. In this day and age, to set yourself apart from all the bands you see – such as four guys dressed normally – unless your music’s fucking genius its hard to separate yourself. As well as what their hearing, image give’s people something to look at, in the same way as Kiss did years ago – they started it.
When we play a show, we don’t want to play the songs exactly the way are on record - like Tool for instance, who when playing live sound exactly like the record but aren’t fun to watch at all. They just stand there and play perfectly. No disrespect to them, but we want to put a show into it, move around a lot and give people something to look at. Then there’s plenty of energy flowing around and people will get into the music more.
I think all the masks and makeup – like with Slipknot and Mudvayne aids the entire attraction to liking the bands. We where a little bit of make up, but that’s just live for the stage-show , its not part of our look and I’d rather not be associated with wearing make up).
Which have you preferred more – your headlining gigs at the smaller UK venues or you support gigs at the larger venues?
Both – for different reasons. When we open up for other bands, you’re pressured to step up a level to whatever band you’re playing with. We really had to come out, throw down and get into it. I liked it for that reason because it pushed us to go beyond ourselves in the way of performance.
These gigs are really fun because we’re not necessarily trying to win anybody over – everybody’s coming here to see us, know our lyrics etc. These gigs are easier because people are into the music, where as say when we were opening for Slayer, I knew at least a third of the crowd were going to be like ‘what the fuck?’.
What inspired the groups name and the album title, The War Of Art?
The groups name came out of our bass player Chad – it turns out that there’s actually an African Head Charge, who are an dub reggae band! It really doesn’t mean anything – a lot of people look for the meaning behind the name, but there is no meaning – that’s just us.
The meaning behind it is the seven of us playing. We wanted a strong name and we thought that three word names together have always being very strong. American Head Charge has certain strength to it and sounds powerful – I think that lends itself to the music. The title of the record was initially just a play on words – the art of war turned around to the war of art.
Although its taken on another meaning, because being a musician and trying to express yourself the way you want to express yourselves is a battle with all the people that give us all the money.
We’re constantly going back and forth to get what we want to represent us – what we want to do on the record, what kind of artwork we want (with the tank and the baby etc) – its turned into the war of art.
(Martin) The album offers an eclectic range of vocal styles, from the straight thrash and traditional singing larynx’s to dark whispers and croons. What vocalists inspire you most?
One of my biggest heroes vocally is Mike Pattern (Faith No More frontman). Others include Terry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction) Al Jurginson (Ministry) and Learnard from Tool and Geoff Buckley.
I try and sing in as many different ways as I can. I never want to have a song where I just sing and scream, or exclusively scream in one song etc. To convey a certain type of mood depending on the lyrics, I suite the tone of my voice to express this.
(Martin) Similarly, your voice brings to mind Slayers Tom Aryria during the scream-ier moments – do American Head Charge on the whole have any more old school metal influences? Who are ‘the Charges chief influences of all sorts?
Definitely Slayer – Slayer are like the originators of thrash really. Me and Chad write all the music and I don’t listen to Slayer that much but I know he did. He was also very influenced by Kiss, while one of my favourite bands are Faith No More. Public Enemy are influences to – not because of the rapping of the beats, but the way that they lay all the sounds into together.
Even though our stuff if really heavy, we draw from a lot of different sources, not just heavy metal. That’s why our music changes so much within songs (e.g. different textures, time changes, tempos etc).
While our video had Michael Rooker in (from Henry, Portrait Of A Serial Killer), our music’s more influenced by media by film – magazines, newspapers, TV etc, anything that’s being fed to us. But I can’t think of any specifics.
What do you make of Mercury’s American Head Charge bio stating ‘Some tracks (on The War Of Art) make Black Sabbath sound like Britney Spears by comparison?’
Black Sabbath are one of the definite influences of metal on American Head Charge as well as countless other bands, but that’s hard to say – how do you agree with somebody saying that you’re idol is a cup cake compared to you?
Its cool, it’s flattering, although I don’t think it’s necessarily true because it’s fucking Black Sabbath – but I appreciate the compliment. We’re definitely a little heavier at times because I can scream and Ozzy never chooses to, but it doesn’t make him or Sabbath look like Britney Spears by any stretch of the imagination – he’s the father of all this shit!
(To Chad): What do you think the knob twiddling of Rick Rubin (producer) added to The War Of Art to make it that little extra bit special?
That’s hard to put into specifics but we knew how much we wanted to sound and how we wanted the music to come across. I was there every day with Richard (mixer), mixing the majority of the record without the majors. The way that we write the songs complimented the way the record came out. Rick definitely had his hand in it – he changed a couple of things that we wanted and in the end I think it came out good.
The extremely heavy and brutal nature of the album is complimented by more cultured, shaded passages creeping into songs such as Breath In, Bleed Out, Just So You Know, All Wrapped Up and Effigy.
Just So You Know is to be released as the new single following on from All Wrapped Up – do you consider it a good singles philosophy to release a heavy song with softer touches in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience?
Yes, definitely. We kind of did All Wrapped Up just to fuck with everybody. A lot of people that just know of us by hearing of all the ‘shocking stuff’ we’ve done live and they’ve only heard All Wrapped Up and that the video was banned, thinking we’re just this really fast and heavy band.
So we’re gonna lay Just So You Know on them, which has a really beautiful chorus, is a big epic and has a lot of singing. People don’t know that’s us – our managers being playing that for the people at the radio’s and they’re asking who it is – they have no idea who it is.
I think its going to take a left hook at people who thought they knew what we were about and show them we’re not just this or not just that, and leave them trying to figure out what we’re going to do next.
What was the inspiration behind the singles?
It’s about a relationship I was in that ended – I was conveying that it was a good thing and I learnt a lot from it. When I write lyrics I draw from a lot of different things, not just one thing exclusively.
All Wrapped Up? I don’t know – I could tell you what it means to me but I’m not going to do that because it’s personal. Although some girl on our website was said something like it’s the most beautiful, moving song about pain that I’ve ever heard. In essence, that sums it up. Its about pain.
The War Of Art contains 16 tracks, a hefty amount of songs for one album. Roughly speaking, were the bulk of your tunes pre-written and just waiting to be recorded?
All of them were except for Just So You Know and Self, which were written while we were in the studio. I hate when I get a record where it’s only ten songs – I want to give people a little more opportunity to listen to us. We try to keep the record ‘all killer, no filler’ (in the words of those mod-pop punk heroes Sum 41, Ed!).
Are we likely to hear the entire contents of the record over the course of the tour? Any certain exclusions from the set?
There’s a couple we won’t play, but we’ll playing around 13 songs each night. We can do all the tracks live, it’s just a matter of making the set to flow in a certain way. I’m sure we could make it work and play the whole record… (Light technician walks in, cue a blast of a support act warming up and Martin: "Jerk!")
but we don’t want to put any weird songs in there, we want to keep it exciting and interesting.
Then next time when the fans come back and hear one or two songs they haven’t heard on the next tour, or this one. We try to play a different set-list each night. For the Slipknot stuff we had a certain set, and we’ve changed it around to find out which set sounds best.
We’ve finally found the set that we’re most happy with two shows ago and we’ll probably stick with that set for the last three shows.
In his credits Chad thanks, quote, "almost all mind altering chemicals." Do these same chemicals play an inspiring role when penning songs?
A little bit, yeah. I write on or off drugs, wherever I am – it just depends on when I’m feeling inspired.
There was such a creative vibe being in that house doing the record – we were writing a lot and partying quite a lot too. I don’t think the drugs make us write any better – they probably make us write worse because we’re more spacy.
Given the number of band member’s onstage (7 group members in total) and the attacking nature of your music, how do you go about avoiding regular accidents?
We don’t – we bump into each other all the time (and guitarist David Rogers) ends up with a nosebleed at this show!) Me and Dave got into a little scuffle at the Bristol show.
In the middle of Never Get Caught, just before the whispering part Justin pushed Dave into me, and I thought it was Dave pushing me, then Mike hit me in my mouth.
It was right at the break so I pushed him across the stage, he didn’t fall down so he came back, hit me and pushed me (and this is during the song), then I nailed him and he fell over – everyone in the crowd was wondering what was going on.
We were just going with the flow… there’s a lot of wrestling and shit going on, but I mainly have to stay away so I can sing my parts.
Have you had any major accidents at gigs, collisions etc?
Not really, but we did a show with Mudvayne in America on a previous tour, and we got all the way through the set, then on the last song the PA blew up!
I though, fuck it, I wanted to end our show memorably etc so I ran from the back off the stage and over the huge pit, jumped… and my shin landed in the barricade while half of me was in the crowd – Ouch! Although I suppose worse things could happen.
Besides the Pledge Of Allegiance tour with Slipknot and the Ozzfest, you’ve supported the likes of System Of A Down and Type O Negative. What tour has being the live highlight?
They’ve all being up there, but I’d say right now that this headlining tour has being the highlight because its just being weird to realise that we can actually do a headline tour now. Its nice to know we’re getting to that point that we’re not always just an opening band and can draw people to the band by our own merits.
Have you any new tracks in the pipeline that will be worth listening out for upon commercial release or when heard live?
There’s a new song (that we played on the BBC Radio 1 rock show alongside three tracks from The War Of Art) called Real Life. Then there’s another song called Smiles And Pretences on the next record, but that is so far off that by the time of the next record (around Christmas time), things could change.
Andy Law
Many thanks to Martin for a top class interview and to Lee @ Mercury – respect!
And Finally… American Head Charge are:
Chad Hanks (Bass, Guitars, Programming)
Aaron Zilch (Keys, audio terrorism)
Martin Cock (Vocals)
J Fouler (Keyboards, Samplers)
Wayne Kile (Guitar)
David Rogers (Guitar)
Christopher Emery (Drums)
In The War Of Art, American Head Charge have produced one of the finest metal records of the past year. As if their striking debut wasn’t enough, with rucks of image and personna, (seven band members in total), playing host to Slipknot on their Pledge Of Allegiance tour and stirring enough controversy to last a lifetime for most outfits, brutality has never being so beautiful. Andy Law chats with vocalist (and co-producer of their debut opus) Martin Cock at Stoke-On-Trent Sugarmill to dig a little deeper…
How was the tour with Slipknot?
It was sweet man – it was a kind of a gift for them to come and ask us to tour with them. Our label wasn’t sure if they wanted to take us internationally, but the tour went so well in America that it just developed from there.
Coming over here with Slipknot has opened the door exposure wise to so many people that would have never seen us, and now we get to do this headline tour, there’s being a good turnout at every show, bar one - the shows have being really good. There’s being great support from the UK press too, (e.g. front cover of Kerrang! magazine and massive interview!) so that’s being healthy too.
The War Of Art has being praised by several members of the Slipknot crew - did you get chance to meet up with the masked madmen?
Oh yes, I’m friend’s with almost all of them! We’ve being hanging out with them the whole time on tour. I’m really close with Shaun, Corey, Joey, Sid, Jim – pretty much all of them.
We’re like family – everybody takes care of each other, and we thank Joey so many times for the (complimentary) quote he said about us, that you see on all the bio’s and CD’s. It was great for him to stick his neck out and give his own positive opinion of the band – that weighs a lot with the fans.
MTV banned videos, covers featuring a baby about to be crushed by a tank and the obligatory explicit lyrics. - In similar tradition to the antiques of Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne and Marilyn Manson et al, are you firm believers that controversy and image sells records, something American Head Charge knows a thing or two about?
I’ve always like Ozzy and Mazza, but I don’t know if it sells records – in those cases it does. In our case the video being banned actually got us more publicity than what it would have received if it was played, so in that case it worked out in our favour although our label wasn’t very happy with us.
A lot of stuff we do is because its art to us, performance, theatre etc – we try and do things that most people aren’t going to do. At Ozzfest over the summer I was shooting off a shotgun, burning flags etc. We were playing at 11am each day, and it gave us something to wake up for – something to plan for rather than just going out and playing. We had to come out with a bang or people would remember us. I don’t know how many records we sold as a result of that but I’m sure it helps, anything that people are going to talk and spread the word about.
Motorhead’s Lemmy was quoted as saying Slipknot came from the circus. What would your message be to the more stuck in the mud metallers and old school groups out there who claim bands such as Slipknot and yourselves are only about image?
I don’t have any messages for the old school metallers except thanks for influencing all of us. All those bands have had there influence – I think its funny that Lemmy said they come from the circus. Slipknot would too – they’d probably take that as compliment.
Slipknot are definitely about image but they have really good music to. In this day and age, to set yourself apart from all the bands you see – such as four guys dressed normally – unless your music’s fucking genius its hard to separate yourself. As well as what their hearing, image give’s people something to look at, in the same way as Kiss did years ago – they started it.
When we play a show, we don’t want to play the songs exactly the way are on record - like Tool for instance, who when playing live sound exactly like the record but aren’t fun to watch at all. They just stand there and play perfectly. No disrespect to them, but we want to put a show into it, move around a lot and give people something to look at. Then there’s plenty of energy flowing around and people will get into the music more.
I think all the masks and makeup – like with Slipknot and Mudvayne aids the entire attraction to liking the bands. We where a little bit of make up, but that’s just live for the stage-show , its not part of our look and I’d rather not be associated with wearing make up).
Which have you preferred more – your headlining gigs at the smaller UK venues or you support gigs at the larger venues?
Both – for different reasons. When we open up for other bands, you’re pressured to step up a level to whatever band you’re playing with. We really had to come out, throw down and get into it. I liked it for that reason because it pushed us to go beyond ourselves in the way of performance.
These gigs are really fun because we’re not necessarily trying to win anybody over – everybody’s coming here to see us, know our lyrics etc. These gigs are easier because people are into the music, where as say when we were opening for Slayer, I knew at least a third of the crowd were going to be like ‘what the fuck?’.
What inspired the groups name and the album title, The War Of Art?
The groups name came out of our bass player Chad – it turns out that there’s actually an African Head Charge, who are an dub reggae band! It really doesn’t mean anything – a lot of people look for the meaning behind the name, but there is no meaning – that’s just us.
The meaning behind it is the seven of us playing. We wanted a strong name and we thought that three word names together have always being very strong. American Head Charge has certain strength to it and sounds powerful – I think that lends itself to the music. The title of the record was initially just a play on words – the art of war turned around to the war of art.
Although its taken on another meaning, because being a musician and trying to express yourself the way you want to express yourselves is a battle with all the people that give us all the money.
We’re constantly going back and forth to get what we want to represent us – what we want to do on the record, what kind of artwork we want (with the tank and the baby etc) – its turned into the war of art.
(Martin) The album offers an eclectic range of vocal styles, from the straight thrash and traditional singing larynx’s to dark whispers and croons. What vocalists inspire you most?
One of my biggest heroes vocally is Mike Pattern (Faith No More frontman). Others include Terry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction) Al Jurginson (Ministry) and Learnard from Tool and Geoff Buckley.
I try and sing in as many different ways as I can. I never want to have a song where I just sing and scream, or exclusively scream in one song etc. To convey a certain type of mood depending on the lyrics, I suite the tone of my voice to express this.
(Martin) Similarly, your voice brings to mind Slayers Tom Aryria during the scream-ier moments – do American Head Charge on the whole have any more old school metal influences? Who are ‘the Charges chief influences of all sorts?
Definitely Slayer – Slayer are like the originators of thrash really. Me and Chad write all the music and I don’t listen to Slayer that much but I know he did. He was also very influenced by Kiss, while one of my favourite bands are Faith No More. Public Enemy are influences to – not because of the rapping of the beats, but the way that they lay all the sounds into together.
Even though our stuff if really heavy, we draw from a lot of different sources, not just heavy metal. That’s why our music changes so much within songs (e.g. different textures, time changes, tempos etc).
While our video had Michael Rooker in (from Henry, Portrait Of A Serial Killer), our music’s more influenced by media by film – magazines, newspapers, TV etc, anything that’s being fed to us. But I can’t think of any specifics.
What do you make of Mercury’s American Head Charge bio stating ‘Some tracks (on The War Of Art) make Black Sabbath sound like Britney Spears by comparison?’
Black Sabbath are one of the definite influences of metal on American Head Charge as well as countless other bands, but that’s hard to say – how do you agree with somebody saying that you’re idol is a cup cake compared to you?
Its cool, it’s flattering, although I don’t think it’s necessarily true because it’s fucking Black Sabbath – but I appreciate the compliment. We’re definitely a little heavier at times because I can scream and Ozzy never chooses to, but it doesn’t make him or Sabbath look like Britney Spears by any stretch of the imagination – he’s the father of all this shit!
(To Chad): What do you think the knob twiddling of Rick Rubin (producer) added to The War Of Art to make it that little extra bit special?
That’s hard to put into specifics but we knew how much we wanted to sound and how we wanted the music to come across. I was there every day with Richard (mixer), mixing the majority of the record without the majors. The way that we write the songs complimented the way the record came out. Rick definitely had his hand in it – he changed a couple of things that we wanted and in the end I think it came out good.
The extremely heavy and brutal nature of the album is complimented by more cultured, shaded passages creeping into songs such as Breath In, Bleed Out, Just So You Know, All Wrapped Up and Effigy.
Just So You Know is to be released as the new single following on from All Wrapped Up – do you consider it a good singles philosophy to release a heavy song with softer touches in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience?
Yes, definitely. We kind of did All Wrapped Up just to fuck with everybody. A lot of people that just know of us by hearing of all the ‘shocking stuff’ we’ve done live and they’ve only heard All Wrapped Up and that the video was banned, thinking we’re just this really fast and heavy band.
So we’re gonna lay Just So You Know on them, which has a really beautiful chorus, is a big epic and has a lot of singing. People don’t know that’s us – our managers being playing that for the people at the radio’s and they’re asking who it is – they have no idea who it is.
I think its going to take a left hook at people who thought they knew what we were about and show them we’re not just this or not just that, and leave them trying to figure out what we’re going to do next.
What was the inspiration behind the singles?
It’s about a relationship I was in that ended – I was conveying that it was a good thing and I learnt a lot from it. When I write lyrics I draw from a lot of different things, not just one thing exclusively.
All Wrapped Up? I don’t know – I could tell you what it means to me but I’m not going to do that because it’s personal. Although some girl on our website was said something like it’s the most beautiful, moving song about pain that I’ve ever heard. In essence, that sums it up. Its about pain.
The War Of Art contains 16 tracks, a hefty amount of songs for one album. Roughly speaking, were the bulk of your tunes pre-written and just waiting to be recorded?
All of them were except for Just So You Know and Self, which were written while we were in the studio. I hate when I get a record where it’s only ten songs – I want to give people a little more opportunity to listen to us. We try to keep the record ‘all killer, no filler’ (in the words of those mod-pop punk heroes Sum 41, Ed!).
Are we likely to hear the entire contents of the record over the course of the tour? Any certain exclusions from the set?
There’s a couple we won’t play, but we’ll playing around 13 songs each night. We can do all the tracks live, it’s just a matter of making the set to flow in a certain way. I’m sure we could make it work and play the whole record… (Light technician walks in, cue a blast of a support act warming up and Martin: "Jerk!")
but we don’t want to put any weird songs in there, we want to keep it exciting and interesting.
Then next time when the fans come back and hear one or two songs they haven’t heard on the next tour, or this one. We try to play a different set-list each night. For the Slipknot stuff we had a certain set, and we’ve changed it around to find out which set sounds best.
We’ve finally found the set that we’re most happy with two shows ago and we’ll probably stick with that set for the last three shows.
In his credits Chad thanks, quote, "almost all mind altering chemicals." Do these same chemicals play an inspiring role when penning songs?
A little bit, yeah. I write on or off drugs, wherever I am – it just depends on when I’m feeling inspired.
There was such a creative vibe being in that house doing the record – we were writing a lot and partying quite a lot too. I don’t think the drugs make us write any better – they probably make us write worse because we’re more spacy.
Given the number of band member’s onstage (7 group members in total) and the attacking nature of your music, how do you go about avoiding regular accidents?
We don’t – we bump into each other all the time (and guitarist David Rogers) ends up with a nosebleed at this show!) Me and Dave got into a little scuffle at the Bristol show.
In the middle of Never Get Caught, just before the whispering part Justin pushed Dave into me, and I thought it was Dave pushing me, then Mike hit me in my mouth.
It was right at the break so I pushed him across the stage, he didn’t fall down so he came back, hit me and pushed me (and this is during the song), then I nailed him and he fell over – everyone in the crowd was wondering what was going on.
We were just going with the flow… there’s a lot of wrestling and shit going on, but I mainly have to stay away so I can sing my parts.
Have you had any major accidents at gigs, collisions etc?
Not really, but we did a show with Mudvayne in America on a previous tour, and we got all the way through the set, then on the last song the PA blew up!
I though, fuck it, I wanted to end our show memorably etc so I ran from the back off the stage and over the huge pit, jumped… and my shin landed in the barricade while half of me was in the crowd – Ouch! Although I suppose worse things could happen.
Besides the Pledge Of Allegiance tour with Slipknot and the Ozzfest, you’ve supported the likes of System Of A Down and Type O Negative. What tour has being the live highlight?
They’ve all being up there, but I’d say right now that this headlining tour has being the highlight because its just being weird to realise that we can actually do a headline tour now. Its nice to know we’re getting to that point that we’re not always just an opening band and can draw people to the band by our own merits.
Have you any new tracks in the pipeline that will be worth listening out for upon commercial release or when heard live?
There’s a new song (that we played on the BBC Radio 1 rock show alongside three tracks from The War Of Art) called Real Life. Then there’s another song called Smiles And Pretences on the next record, but that is so far off that by the time of the next record (around Christmas time), things could change.
Andy Law
Many thanks to Martin for a top class interview and to Lee @ Mercury – respect!
And Finally… American Head Charge are:
Chad Hanks (Bass, Guitars, Programming)
Aaron Zilch (Keys, audio terrorism)
Martin Cock (Vocals)
J Fouler (Keyboards, Samplers)
Wayne Kile (Guitar)
David Rogers (Guitar)
Christopher Emery (Drums)
