Prong: It Is What It Is

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“Either it was thrash or grunge and they’re was nothing in between except for hair bands and now that’s all gone away because bands had taken that leap and did what Prong did and took it to a whole other dimension,” boasts Tommy Victor about the current state of metal music. “We were doing song orientated metal with grooves and loops eight years ago when we started doing this and making everything real rhythmic basically because we didn’t like what metal was like back then with the lyrical content and everything.”

Victor, who was fed-up with of all of the metal stereotypes, helped pioneer the industrial sound when his band Prong hit the metal scene in 1986 and turned heads with their ‘out of the box’ approach towards the music. “We were trying to do something different,” he said, “and we suffered the consequences without any immediate success.”

Although Prong never hit the main stream they did earn kudos throughout their ten-year run they as leaders of the burgeoning industrial rock movement with a provocative mix of thrash, metal, techno and hardcore that ultimately paved the way for artists such as Static-X, Rob Zombie and Nine Inch Nails. Showcasing a sharper yet more accessible sound with such breakout hits as ‘Broken Peace’ and the infectious ‘Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck’, which the video became a staple of MTV's renowned Headbanger's Ball.

Now, eight-years since the band disbanded in 1996, Prong is back. “I really didn’t have a plan,” admits Victor who was reluctant, to say the least, of reforming Prong. “I didn’t want to do it anymore under the Prong moniker. So, I continued writing songs and demo-ing stuff and tried to get interest outside of Prong, but people wanted another Prong record.” So after battling with the idea for a while he turned to friend Pat Lachman (Damageplan) who dug Victor’s demo’s, advised him to re-start Prong and even had a hand in arranging some of the new tracks.

Victor followed Lachman’s advice and agreed to rekindle Prong once again. “It took a while for me to get a bunch of guys I could depend on and who were supportive and who were excellent musician that I could work with,” Victor said. “If I didn’t find the right guys and come up with decent material then I wouldn’t have continued with this at all.”

Luckily Victor found the right guys and recruited drummer Dan Laudo and guitarist Monte Pittman. “Pittman, he’s an unbelievable guitar player, it’s just rare to find a guy like that,” raved Victor. “As far as drummers go, Dan Laudo’s timing and his articulation is unbelievable. Every drum hit is exactly the same and I played with dozens of drummers in L.A. and they all pretty much sucked, they just weren’t the right chemistry, and Dan clicks.”

The trio headed into the studio to work on Prongs first studio album since 1996’s Rude Awakening. “With this new record we had to look out at what was going on and make sure that we weren’t just doing a carbon copy of what was out there. We didn’t want to go back and re-do ‘Cleansing’. We have elements of that in there, songs that tip their hat to ‘Cleansing’ and ‘Rude Awakening’ but we still wanted to do stuff that was a lot different as well.” Explains Victor of Scorpio Rising, which was released February 24 through Locomotive Music. “Everything that I do in music I try to do it a little bit different. If it sounds like something else I’ll instinctually won’t go ahead with it…With Rude Awakening, it was such a dark record and I felt that there weren’t any answers and there is a little bit of a glimmer of hope in the new record in certain parts.”

Tracks such as ‘Embrace The Depth’, for example, give off a positive vibe that encourages listeners to do the right thing. “It’s like if you hang with a certain crew that’s just bringing you down, then sometimes you gotta just cut them off and find some other people who are more positive and make some changes in your life,” he says. “You gotta jump to the next level spiritually and emotionally and that kind of vibe wasn’t really prevalent in any other Prong release, it was always more angry, more of an attack.”

Although there is still plenty of rage on Scorpio Rising, Victor has evolved and grown both as a man as well as an artist and through his experience has learned a thing or two about triumph and failure and that knowledge bleeds into his music. “Like my manager says, ‘it is what it is,’ and he’s right,” admits the front man. “There’s certain things that you can’t change and when you’re younger you feel like you have more control over your destiny and as you grow older you realize that things don’t always work out the way you thought it should have. Then you realize that you really don’t have that much control over what goes on.”

These days, however, Victor seems to be in full control. The new album is on shelves and Prong will head out for a few dates set with Body Count and Testament. “We have a really good relationship with both those bands so we’re really happy about that,” says Victor. “I just want to keep making records and keep doing it. Whether a record sells three hundred thousand or thirty, it doesn’t matter. I just want to keep going with all of this.”

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