[Glorior Belli – Southern Hospitality] “I guess the typical fan, no matter how open-minded he can be, he has only so much stuff he likes. He wants to find the stuff he likes…he doesn’t care too much about grungy bands [laughs]. He wants everything to be extreme and simple. He wants bands to play fast and to not have short hair [laughs]. Everybody wants to give a definition to categorize bands to some [style]. In the end, when you really are a music enthusiast, you should be able to take it where it wants to go.” – Julien

[Brand New Sin - All Guns Blazing] “I’ll try to be careful not to insult anyone here…um, writing cliché hooks and idiot-choruses is not difficult. I understand what happened with the scatterbrain, quick-changing, off the wall music like System Of Down, Slipknot, Avenged Sevenfold or even Tool and a whole legion of creative bands that try to push the limits. Musicians get bored. Drummers are sick of the 2/4 backbeat and guitarists have already heard the rock and metal masters playing the same licks and tricks for the past 30 years.” – Kevin Dean

[The Atlas Moth – No Distance Too Far] “It's a very personal record for me. I like to write lyrics that someone can connect with on their own level as oppose to saying things out right. An Ache for the Distance came up very early on as the working title so the initial influence lyrically all spawned from that. I drew a lot of comparisons to what was going on in my life to the wanderlust we were feeling as a collective.” - Stavros Giannopolos

[Saxon – Until the Wheels Fall Off] “The thing with that is, we don’t write a lot when we’re touring. We concentrate on playing live. Some bands write continuously all the time, whereas we write when we’re on break we do it all in one session so we get the spontaneity and chemistry right away. We’ll just work on that, really. If it sounds great playing in the studio, we’ll make the decision that a song works, then we’ll move onto the next one. It’s quite a long process, but we like it. It’s intense. We’re trying to write songs that have great riffs and melodies. We know pretty early on if we have one or not.” – Biff Byford

[An Autumn For Crippled Children – Not Everything Counts] Recently spun upon a roadtrip yours truly took almost three weeks ago after the Browns decided to not show up against the Tennessee Titans, AAFFC’s second album Everything quickly resonated with its emotionally-jarring post-black metal landscape. Boasting a tidy blend of early Katatonia and Anathema, combined with the post-rock and black metal surge of Alcest and friends, Everything (in spite of its equally dreary production values) is as bleak and charming as anything released this year...

[Metal Multinational] Some time ago, I wrote a piece on the top five metal bands to watch in India with the help of Demonstealer Records, one of the most influential labels in the region. I wanted to do something similar today, but I had trouble settling on any single country. Or continent. So, enjoy this wildcard-scattershot, a general survey of some of the best up and coming metal, hard rock and punk from across the planet brought to you by myself and with help from www.mtviggy.com. They all play music with instruments...

[Katatonia – Seconds Are Worthless] “This is what our mission is about these days. In North America, we’ve basically had to start over. We have to go here way more than we did in the past to make up for lost time. We’ve done and conquered Europe, but we need to change that for North America. We need to come back over as much as possible. We’ll grab every opportunity we have for it. North America will definitely be seeing a lot more of Katatonia in the coming years.” - Anders Nyström

[Dream Theater – Learning To Live…Again] “If I was a fan of a band and one of the main people left, I’d be upset. You don’t want them to change and you don’t know what the future will hold. I understand. Our fans are very passionate and we’re not a passive listening experience [laughs]. I totally get it. Beyond that, my perspective is ‘Okay, time to roll up my sleeves. We have a lot of work to do.’ Ultimately, with all the drama aside and all the different opinions and posts, the bottom line is that you have to have great music that you believe in. That is what brings people together.” – John Petrucci

[Textures - Circle Takes the Square] “With this album, we focused more on the sound than ever. We have a lot of space in the sound to create a lot of different layers. The sound is more stretched out; this is the longest album we’ve ever done. We took extra time for the guitar parts, so there’s a lot of different amps and effects and a lot of different guitars. It took a lot of time and was a heavy process, but I think it was worth it. So far, it’s the biggest thing we’ve done right now, but it’s not even the most complex thing we’ve done.” - Bart Hennephof

[Saviours - Foot On the Accelerator] “The music industry is a mess these days but we manage to make it happen I guess. We definitely pick our battles more than we used to - jumping on every tour is not something you'll see us do. Too many bands, too many bad bands saturating the music world, make it all unappealing, killing good clubs, promoters, labels, shops. It's a shame.” - Scott Batiste

[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.