Hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area - the hotbed of American metal talent in the 1980s - epic metal quintet Hammers of Misfortune does a phenomenal job of recapturing that same power, personality and enthusiasm that characterized the speed metal scene of that now-bygone era, without resorting to any sort of cheap nostalgia. With their second album, The August Engine [on tUMUlt/Cruz Del Sur records], being lauded by a number of publications [including BLISTERING.COM] as one of the finest metal albums of 2003, or any year, is commercial success just around the corner? Guitarist/principle songwriter John Cobbett [also of Ludicra and The Lord Weird Slough Feg] voices little confidence in the chances of it happening in part one of this two-part interview.
Cobbett also discusses the changes that have taken place in the band since the recording of the new album, the growing role of women in metal and the effects label politics and fan relations have had on creativity in the genre.
BLISTERING.COM: First of all, you guys left like 20 minutes of The August Engine on the cutting room floor. What was the reason for that decision? JOHN COBBETT: Well, there are different reasons. There was one song that we just didn't think sounded that good and wasn't working, there was one song that... Basically, the whole thing just started collapsing under its own weight, really. It was over an hour long and... I mean, I wanted to make like a really huge conceptual, gigantic double LP sort of thing, but it just wound up collapsing under its own weight.
BLISTERING.COM: There were some parts that just didn't fit? JOHN COBBETT: Yeah... one song in particular just fit. Another song that we tried and tried to make it sound good and in the end it just wouldn't work and didn't come out well.
BLISTERING.COM: Are any of those songs ever going to see the light of day? JOHN COBBETT: Probably not. There was another song that we gave to a friend as a wedding present. There was one that was an eight-minute-long metal epic that never got mixed, just because we didn't think the arrangement was working.
BLISTERING.COM: Is that "The Church of Broken Glass"? JOHN COBBETT: That song, actually, we didn't put on because we're saving it for a future album. We really like that song a lot. And we have a piano player now, and that song was written for piano, so we decided that we are going to do a version of that song with the new lineup on a future record.
BLISTERING.COM: Excellent! Now you mentioned you have a couple of new members. This is since the recording of the album? JOHN COBBETT: Yes.
BLISTERING.COM: Explain to me why Janis [Tanaka] left. JOHN COBBETT: Well, she left because she was asked to join P!NK's backup band, and toured the world with her for a couple of years. And she was basically asked to join P!NK, basically on the eve of us going into the studio to record The August Engine, and she left. And then it was clear that we had to find somebody else, so we wound up jamming with Sigrid for a while, and then we got Jamie and that's the new lineup.
BLISTERING.COM: Is it true that the money from Janis' touring with P!NK helped fund the record? JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, P!NK indirectly made that record possible. I thanked P!NK on the album because if Janis hadn't come back... She came back from that tour for like a week to do all her bass tracks and her vocal tracks, and she put down like $3,000 to pay for the rest of the recording, and that's pretty much P!NK money.
BLISTERING.COM: [laughs] That's awesome! Did you ever meet P!NK? JOHN COBBETT: Naw, I've never met her. P!NK's too cool for us. She'd never hang out with us.
BLISTERING.COM: Yeah, it's funny because she has kind of this whole punk rock mystique about her, but... JOHN COBBETT: Oh god, yeah... But you know, that's all... media-generated... P!NK has no interest in anything except her own career, and getting really rich before her star plunges into oblivion.
BLISTERING.COM: Yeah, the same is true of most superstars like that. JOHN COBBETT: She's in it to get rich... Certainly not much of a musician. Janis told me that she's actually a pretty good singer, which I believe, but she's like Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, any of those kids. You know, they're all Mickey Mouse club, fuckin' talent show circuit kids. JonBenet Ramsey without the murder, basically.
BLISTERING.COM: [laughing] That's a pretty brutal way of putting it, but yeah I agree with you. Okay, so you have two female band members now, and three over your history... JOHN COBBETT: Actually, in addition to those, Erica Stoltz from Amber Asylum also did some vocal and bass tracks for us.
BLISTERING.COM: Now, a lot of metal bands these days seem to be cashing in on the whole female member thing, like Arch Enemy and Lacuna Coil. With Hammers it's different. You don't really parade them out there and use them to help market your albums... JOHN COBBETT: The reason is, you know I write for both male and female voices. Secondly, in the case of Sigrid, she got the job just because she was the most talented person around. Basically, that's the major reason these girls are in the band - that they're the best musicians around.
BLISTERING.COM: It's part of the band's dynamic, in other words? JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, I mean, it's just that we play with the best musicians we can find. If they happen to be female, that's great. I can see where a lot of bands would use it as a gimmick. I'm not really aware if that's often the case or not, but it's certainly not the case with us. These girls do their jobs and pull their own weight. It's an egalitarian situation.
BLISTERING.COM: And in one of your other bands, Ludicra, you have a couple of girls in there, too. JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, it's the same story with that. We just at random got together and formed a band, and it had nothing to do with me and the drummer setting out to put girls in the band... they were just the best people around for the job. In San Francisco, it's very, very common for women to be in bands. There are tons of female musicians around here - it's not uncommon at all. Apparently, in other places in the world it is uncommon, but in the Bay Area, women get involved in playing in bands all the time.
BLISTERING.COM: Didn't Weakling have a female bassist as well? JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, and a female keyboardist.
BLISTERING.COM: Have you guys had any progress on the label front since the album's gotten released? I've seen nothing but great reviews for it, and it was the same with The Bastard... JOHN COBBETT: I've seen a few bad ones.
BLISTERING.COM: Well, I mean most online sources... I only read a couple of print magazines, since most of them are just bullshit, but it just strikes me as weird that despite all this heavy fan support... Hammers fans, the few that I've encountered seem to be really, almost rabid, I guess. A guy like [Lamentations of the Flame Princess editor] Jim Raggi, for example... he wouldn't stop talking about the album after it came out... JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, that guy's been awesome, man. Just a really staunch supporter of ours...
BLISTERING.COM: On the label front... Have you gotten any help? I know you spoke with Century Media before this album came out, but they basically said, 'Release this on your own and then we'll talk.' JOHN COBBETT: That's pretty much what they said - basically, 'Get big on your own and then we'll make the money off you,' is what they meant. But a lot of labels are like that. Cruz Del Sur's actually been really cool. I'm not quite sure what you're asking...
BLISTERING.COM: I'm asking if you've drawn any interest from bigger labels. JOHN COBBETT: Not that I know of. They haven't gotten in touch with me. We're still signed to deliver another album for Cruz Del Sur, which we're working on right now. And then after that, we're officially done with that contract, and then... who knows? I think Nuclear Blast contacted me once, vaguely... I don't really remember what that was about, honestly... Someone over there probably liked us or something. Actually, I believe they contacted me right after we signed with Cruz Del Sur - that's what happened, and obviously after we'd signed, it was a moot point.
BLISTERING.COM: What about improving your American distribution. You can't really find your stuff on Amazon.com or anything like that... JOHN COBBETT: I think it's on Amazon by now.
BLISTERING.COM: I haven't seen it there. I've looked for both [The August Engine] and The Bastard, but I haven't seen it. JOHN COBBETT: Well, The Bastard's been out of print for a while, now...
BLISTERING.COM: I just looked for it right after you told me it was reissued. JOHN COBBETT: It got reissued on Saturday [04.10.04]. It actually came in on Saturday, but it hasn't gotten distributed at all yet. Actually, a box just arrived. But The August Engine is available through Century Media and The End and Blackmetal.com, or you can order it off our website if you want to. I don't know if it's going to wind up at Tower Records - I kind of doubt it.[As of press time, The August Engine was not listed on Amazon.com - ed]
BLISTERING.COM: Going back to the label issue. What would you say to the notion that with the advancement of file sharing, etc., larger, more traditionally run labels are eventually going to become obsolete? JOHN COBBETT: Well, let's hope so!
BLISTERING.COM: I've heard so much about how the bigger labels have really thick hierarchical structures and give preferential treatment to certain bands while leaving ones that are, let's say, less established, to fend for themselves and make a fan-base for themselves. Can you elaborate on that? JOHN COBBETT: A label generally has what's referred to as an 'A-List,' a 'B-List' and a 'C-List.' The bands on the A-List are the ones that are going to get all the promotion, all the backing and tour support. The B-List is going to get a lot less. And the C-List is, as you said, left to fend for themsleves. Those are the tax writeoff bands.
BLISTERING.COM: And with a label like Cruz Del Sur, it's different though, right? You don't have some middleman A&R guy, but rather you refer directly to the head of the label. JOHN COBBETT: No, Enrico basically runs that label with his wife, man. It's a very small operation. The other thing is that they only have like 3 or 4 bands on that label, so they pay a lot more attention to each of them than a bigger label would.
BLISTERING.COM: How do you think label structure and politics have affected the way bands have been writing their material? JOHN COBBETT: I think it's really kind of a mess. A lot of bands you have basically putting out stuff that they think will get them signed, and then the labels sign stuff that's just really safe. And the result is that you get a lot of generic shit that all sounds the same because everyone's playing it safe. You know... how many more bands do we need that sound like fuckin' Helloween? And Helloween sounded like fuckin' Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden sounded like Thin Lizzy... So, this whole retro thing just seems really safe and really stupid. You put a picture of a dragon on the cover and sing about knights and bullshit like that. I think black metal is pretty much the same. It's bands playing by the rules. And I think it's the bands' and the labels' fault, and they feed each-other. The bands do what they think the labels want, and the labels in turn encourage that. You know what I'm saying?
BLISTERING.COM: Totally. JOHN COBBETT: I really don't think it's all the labels' fault. I think the fans are to blame, too. They come to expect, you know, twelve versions of the same song, twelve examples of power metal on a record. If they don't get it, they get pissed off because that's the way things are done now. You buy an album that's 12 goddamn versions of the same song from a band that sounds like 200 other bands. And I actually haven't bought a metal album in a long time. I don't really see a whole lot out there that's interesting or challenging in any way.Like, if you go back and listen to old Thin Lizzy records, or Queen records, or Bowie records, or even Black Sabbath... you get a lot of different looks. There'll be fast songs, slow songs, quiet songs, mid-tempo rockers, anthems, ballads, acoustic jams. I like that, but people just don't seem to do that anymore. It's like, 'we only play one kind of music, period.' And that's what you're gonna get over the whole CD, and that's probably why you can't make it past track 4, because it's like, 'okay, heard it!'
BLISTERING.COM: Are there any newer bands that you do find exciting at all? JOHN COBBETT: Well, I like Mutiilation and Eikenskaden and Nargaroth and things like that because it's so fucked up and fun to listen to.
BLISTERING.COM: What about stuff that's more ambitious? JOHN COBBETT: Well, the new Khanate record is pretty cool.
BLISTERING.COM: Hmmm... I'd have to disagree with you there... JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, I like that it's totally fucked up... it's just, you know, noise. As far as like ... shit, man... I mean...I usually download everything for free - I pirate music a lot, and if I really like it, I'll buy it. But I listen to this stuff and all I can think is, 'Yeah, same old shit.' I mean, I can tell you what it sounds like before I even listen to it and I'm usually right, you know. It's so predictable.
BLISTERING.COM: So what else have you discovered lately? JOHN COBBETT: Well, I've really gotten into Roxy Music recently. [laughing] I know I'm disappointing a lot of metalheads right now...
BLISTERING.COM: Eh... they can deal with it. [laughs] JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, for me it's been Roxy Music... Brian Eno's early albums... his early solo stuff before he went ambient. This British band called The Sweet, which was more of a hard rock type band. And then there are others that my friends rave about constantly, but I haven't gotten around to checking out yet, though I will eventually. Velvet Underground is one... Voivod, also, though I do have War and Pain and I do like it, but I kind of lost track of them after that.
BLISTERING.COM: That's a shame, because to me the stuff Voivod released in the late 80s was just amazing. JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, I mean, like I said, I want to get more into that stuff, but just haven't had the chance to do so yet.
BLISTERING.COM: Back to the issue of copycatting in metal. Is this a problem that's emerged in the last 10 years or 5 years, or has this always been the case? JOHN COBBETT: I think it's occurred in the last 10 years. I think it's really gotten a lot worse.
BLISTERING.COM: I ask because I've found some bands from the mid 80s, like for example, Manilla Road or Ulysses Siren [a band from your area]. JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, [Ulysses Siren] were great, man!
BLISTERING.COM: I'd never heard of this band in all these years and then all of a sudden a few months ago Jim sends me this still-shrinkwrapped promo of the demos collection that they just released, and it turns out to be some of the best thrash that I'd ever heard. And it just strikes me as amazing that this band didn't get any publicity where as stuff like Death Angel or something like that ended up getting pretty big. JOHN COBBETT: Well, those guys were around back in the 80s, man. In fact, John Torres played in that band and then also played bass for Slough Feg for a while. But I think the problem with Ulysses Siren was that they emerged kind of on the tail end of the whole Bay Area thrash thing, and by then it was dying out.
BLISTERING.COM: I thought they were more towards the beginning? I know their first demo was recorded in '85... JOHN COBBETT: I'm not exactly sure how that came about... I don't know their history, but I think they came in pretty late in the game, though. You know, by that time Metallica had already made it big at that point, so everybody was trying to be like Metallica, and that ruined everything.
BLISTERING.COM: Speaking of Metallica... who do you think will be the next trendsetter in metal? Like... who do you see as the band[s] that everyone wants to be like now? JOHN COBBETT: I really can't tell you. The last exciting thing to happen in metal was basically when black metal came around. Like, when Darkthrone and Mayhem and all those bands first broke out, that was really cool. Before that, all the really great Swedish death metal and Florida death metal happened and before that it was Bathory and Kreator and all that stuff was great. But since the whole black metal explosion... that's just turned into a bunch of fuckin' copycat bullshit. You've had a resurgence of power metal which happened like 4 or 5 years ago and that's still going, for some reason [laughs]. Right now it just seems that everything's kind of over. So I really don't know. I think that unless someone invents, like, 'maroon metal' or something along those lines...
BLISTERING.COM: [laughing] I think they have that, actually. Sole... Solefald, or whatever they're called... call themselves 'red metal'. JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, but aside from that you've basically got a bunch of crap that just keeps getting recycled and the wheel keeps turning. You've got black metal revivals, thrash metal revivals, power metal revivals. Everything's just one big fuckin' revival at this point.
BLISTERING.COM: What do you have to say about bands like Destruction, Dark Angel, Death Angel, Angel Witch... bands like that getting back together? You think they're in it for the money now, or nostalgia, or do they genuinely believe that they can add something to the scene now? JOHN COBBETT: I think they're doing it because there's a demand. And also probably because it's... fun, you know? I'm sure they're enjoying themselves... but they might also be making a bit of money.
BLISTERING.COM: So what would be your remedy for the level of redundancy in metal? Do you just think if people in bands just listened to more different styles, or is it more of a mindset? JOHN COBBETT: I don't know. I personally think the remedy for anything is just really hard work. With Hammers, we work on our songs for months before they feel finished. I mean, we'll try a song... When I write a song for Hammers, it's usually just on a piano with a vocal melody and lyrics, or on an acoustic guitar. And if a song works that way, it'll work in any way. So, for example sometimes we rehearse around the piano, where Sigrid will be playing piano, I'll be playing acoustic guitar and Mike and Jamie will be singing, and we'll do the song that way in my living room. And if the song works like that, we're in business. At that point we'll go into the rehearsal space with all the electric instruments - the drums and everything - and well... it kind of already works. We can play it fast, we can play it slow, we can mix up the tempos, we can play it 6/8, we can play it 3/4, we can do the entire thing acoustic. We can do the entire thing with a lot of real high speed picking on the guitars, or we could have the organization carrying it, with the guitars doing something more sparse. Once you've got a good song, you can treat it any way you want. And that's what takes all this time, because once you have a good song that sounds great with just vocals and piano, and then you're going to adapt it for a metal ensemble there are a lot of decisions to be made. We'll try a song doom style first, and if we like parts of it that way, we'll keep those parts.
We tape every single practice and Chewy has an archive of tapes. We'll go back to the tapes and we have us playing a particular song one way on this tape, and you know... That worked, that didn't; let's use that part, let's do this part this way; let's try this part quiet, with no drums.
BLISTERING.COM: You're telling me this and I'm thinking... if you ever get the chance to release these tapes to the public, you could probably make a tidy sum that way... JOHN COBBETT: Uh... [laughing] I don't think we'd make much that way...
BLISTERING.COM: Well, I mean, I understand that you basically have just a cult following right now, and for the future, I hope you guys will at some point break into the mainstream... JOHN COBBETT: I don't know if that's ever going to happen...
BLISTERING.COM: Well, if it happens, I think you could do that. Relapse, for example, they put out a lot of releases where they just take old demos from bands and remaster them and put them out to the public on cd... JOHN COBBETT: Well, I'm sure that Relapse makes a lot of money. But as far as the people whose records they're putting out, I doubt they're making much off those. The musician always gets paid last, that's the rule of this business.
BLISTERING.COM: That goes back to the issue of label structuring... JOHN COBBETT: Yeah, you've got labels, publishing companies, fuckin' lawyers... I mean, a lot of record labels, you're buying the guy who owns the label sushi and pizza before you get your royalties, you know. They tell you you're going to get the royalties after they recoup. But what exactly do they mean by that word, 'recoup'? Does that include like free lunches and first-class plane tickets? Probably...
BLISTERING.COM: My thought on this issue is that a band would be much better off just hiring some independent third party who's got an MBA or something to handle all that business for them, so they could bypass the label thing. Someone like that would end up taking a much smaller cut of what the band makes than would go to all those middlemen that are involved in the standard label hierarchy. JOHN COBBETT: That'd work, but as for us... We all have jobs. I mean, who has time to sit around all day and do what a label does? And the other thing is, as far as distribution is concerned: a lot of distributors won't pick anything up unless it's on a label that's got X amount of releases out. So if you're gonna try to do everything on your own, it's really, really hard to get good distribution unless you're a sizeable label.
And again, if you're in a band as a musician, you don't want to be dealing with that crap. It's a pain in the ass. You wind up dealing with the business end of things and not playing music. You know, like going to the post office and mailing off CDs and shit all day, and talking to booking agents and everything. And you're neglecting the music at that point. You wind up being a manager for your own band and, you know, talk about burning out. And then it stops being enjoyable and turns into nothing but bullshit when the music element is lost among the business. And I certainly wouldn't want to have to do that.
Hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area - the hotbed of American metal talent in the 1980s - epic metal quintet Hammers of Misfortune does a phenomenal job of recapturing that same power, personality and enthusiasm that characterized the speed metal scene of that now-bygone era, without resorting to any sort of cheap nostalgia. With their second album, The August Engine [on tUMUlt/Cruz Del Sur records], being lauded by a number of publications [including BLISTERING.COM] as one of the finest metal albums of 2003, or any year, is commercial success just around the corner? Guitarist/principle songwriter John Cobbett [also of Ludicra and The Lord Weird Slough Feg] voices little confidence in the chances of it happening in part one of this two-part interview. 
