[Destroying the Hush: A Look at the Lyrical Themes of Agent Steel] “It’s a shame people don't feel as though they have no superiors. No one ‘needs’ a leader. Leaders ‘need’ people to lead or they are just people, too. Why grant them their narcissism? The world is absolutely devoted to the crimes committed by various governments and religions around the world and they base their lives on supporting whatever shit they're being fed to justify their cruelty, intolerance, and ignorance." - Bruce Hall

[Extreme] "There were no fights when Extreme disbanded. We’ve always been brothers, and mutual fans of each others projects that we’ve done throughout the years. So we always knew that Extreme would always get back together. It was never a question of if. It was always a question of when. It’s just been that in the past couple of years, we seemed to be colliding more." - Gary Cherone

[Blistering Editorial: When the Headliners Go, Who Will Take Their Place?] When the old guard of metal/hard rock finally fades away, who is going to step up to elite status? And if no one is able to make that jump, how are we as a metal community going to develop that next wave of bands to preserve our genre of music?

[Apartment 213] "I have been doing noise as I have been since the early 90's. Noise is my first love. It’s the only music that I really get into. Of course, I dig out power violence, the real power violence. Anything produced in 2000 and on isn't power violence, it’s bad metal." - Steve Makita

[Neuraxis] "We didn’t intentionally set out to do anything, but one thing we were interested in testing out is that in our past albums, there was riff after riff and double-bass all the time, so Tommy (McKinnon, drums) wanted to try a more minimal approach and it brought out the guitar heaviness and the vocals. I’m not putting anyone down, but with these newer bands, the drums are the main thing and the drum beats are everywhere and you can’t decipher everything and it’s chaotic. We wanted to use a traditional approach, playing a little less with the drums and bring out the guitars. " - Rob Milley

[Austrian Death Machine] "Austrian Death Machine is a combination of me really loving all of Schwarzenegger’s movies as I was growing up, and me being able to laugh at the funny Schwarzenegger moments. When you think of leading actors in some of the biggest action films, Schwarzenegger is the perfect action film actor. But then sometimes, he’s outright funny without actually meaning to be." - Tim Lambesis

[Airbourne] "I've always wanted to go as far as we possibly can. For the amount of work we’ve put in since we were 11 years of age and our first gig was when I was 13, so, Joel was able to drive when I was 14. As soon as he got his license we were touring, when he was 18. Not as hectic a schedule as we have now. It’s a great feeling and it’s good because we love it, we love it. We love playing and it’s good to see people coming to the shows." - Ryan O'Keeffe

[Firewind] "To be honest with you, this kind of music I've been doing since the debut album. I haven't changed and it was way before Guitar Hero was around, I guess, and I just did what I did, but maybe in 2002 guitar solos weren't cool enough. These days they are again, you know? But it is true that a lot of kids at the shows, you know, they get into the band because mainly the guitar thing, and then they discover the band and the songs. This is cool, because we have a different angle as well, which is the whole guitar thing." - Gus G.

[Cryptopsy] "I’m not really sure as I don’t know how to label things anymore. I think the unfortunate thing for the scene right now is that there are too many bands and too many bands that don’t have an identity. Back when in day you had bands like Death, Obituary and Carcass, but they all had their niche. Now it seems like everyone is content to just jump on a bandwagon instead of create stuff, because when you create stuff it’s gotta be original. That’s what’s really sad about the scene these days." - Flo Mournier

[Bellusira] "With all the promotion in the last six months, I guess what we’ve done is set ourselves and people out there up for this big anticipation for our debut EP. We know that people are wondering if we’re a one great song band or whether or not we can deliver the goods. There’s a lot of pressure on us about this upcoming EP. But the great thing is that we can deliver." - Crystal Backman

[E-mail Us] Do you have anything relevant to say about music, business, politics, or life? Our readers want the story - hit us with your angle.