Ever sit and watch the Grammies, AMA’s etc etc and wonder why YOUR genre of music does not have their won show. How much of a joke it has been for metal on some of these shows? Well, Epiphone and Revolver have teamed up to give you the American version of The Golden Gods to finally and properly award as well as recognize the bands and music of the Metal scene. Tom Beaujour, the ever creative Editor In Chief of Revolver, took the time to talk about the coming of the award show and give his thoughts in general on the metal scene.
A Metal Exiles interview with Tom Beaujour of Revolver
By Jeffrey Easton
Metal Exiles: With everything that is going on in the world, what was the spark that ignited this awards ceremony?
Tom Beaujour: It is the craziest time do something like this. We cannot pretend that this is not an insane time an awards show. We are owned by the same company that owns Metal Hammer in the UK and we have been talking about bringing it here for years. It finally got to the point that we realized that now was the time to move ahead. We actually decided on this around August or September before the world decided to implode, pre end times.
Metal Exiles: Before the last days.
Tom: Exactly and before the shit hit the fan we were locked and loaded so we decided to keep going.
Metal Exiles: Even though the economy is in the tank, people are still going to shows. I just covered Slipknot and it was over ¾ capacity on a Tuesday night.
Tom: People are still going to shows and metal still thrives in times of adversity. In terms of having a metal event, there could be no better time. In terms of putting together an event where you have sponsors amongst other things it is an insane time to do it. We have managed to pull it off and people are into it. It is odd that it has not existed before but now that we have worked on this I can give reasons why not.
Metal Exiles: So why is it that every genre of music it seems has its awards show, no matter how put on it may seem, and not Metal until now?
Tom: Metal has a strange relationship with mainstream media. Given how big metal is and how big a band like Slipknot is, the fact that they are not on a cover of a Mainstream media magazine is odd but metal is “other”. That is why we got into in the first place. At some point we were outcasts or wanted to define ourselves as “other” , people who weren’t something else. It is not a kind of music, because it is so aggressive and loud, that people tend to cover. It is not a sexy thing so people at networks say “lets do a metal awards”. It is not quite as big as hip hop where ultimately the economics were so huge you could not avoid it. Metal is an off the radar thing no matter how big it is. People know who Ozzy is because he is on TV and people know who Metallica is but when you start going a little further down it is not something that exists in the mainstream conscious.
Metal Exiles: When I was a kid I would see KISS on most every major magazine, no matter how scary they were and back then they were scary to a lot of people. When do you think mainstream media stopped covering this stuff?
Tom: When we were growing up, I was into a lot of thrash as well as some hair metal, if you look at the Rolling Stones of that era and the Spin magazines, it is as if metal did not exist. It was just not covered in mainstream media and it was very commercial music which is why ultimately got over on some level. KISS were scary looking but the music was very catchy, very bubblegum. I love KISS but they are not metal, it is commercial. They sound more like Cheap Trick than Black Sabbath. I think that Nu Metal was covered a bit in mainstream media, like Limp Bizkit but metal did it to themselves by becoming very extreme.
Metal Exiles: That is true, metal has become very hard in the last ten years.
Tom: Once the singers started screaming it became something that the casual civilian cannot enjoy. It is a music that separated itself from the mainstream on purpose but with that it has become incomprehensible on some levels with casual listeners. This is a money thing but Metal has never been sexy to sponsors or advertisers. Perception of the metal fan has been like a Dylan Klebold (guy who was part of the Columbine massacre, for those who forgot - editor) character, dressed in black who doesn’t go to stores or care about what they wear. It is not like the emo crowd where the guy at Abercrombie and Fitch wants to market to those kids.
Metal Exiles: Well, they have to go buy their eyeliner.
Tom: Exactly. The metal audience is a bizarre audience to market to and when you are talking about TV shows, networks and people throwing money around it is a different story. I think they are wrong, it is a fiercely loyal crowd and I think they have been missing the boat.
Metal Exiles: They have because those kids have money.
Tom: This is one of the things that we want to prove on the business side. This is a viable audience as worthy as being marketed to, god help those kids, as anybody else.
Metal Exiles: I know they have the money to spend because they buy the tickets which aren’t cheap and they buy the t shirts which aren’t cheap (anymore). They also go out and buy the albums and I know they do because Lamb Of God and Slipknot both debuted in the top 5 in the last year.
Tom: Metal kids still go out and buy metal CDs which I think is a good thing.
Metal Exiles: Brian Posehn is hosting. Most people know him as the creepy mail guy from Just Shoot Me but he is a real metal head, I see him at all the metal shows I cover. How did you nail him?
Tom: We wanted a comedian to keep it going during the show and he pops everywhere, he gets it. We wanted a good host, we did not want a host that is an outsider to the scene and Brian knows the music. He is in with the metal guys and I am sure his monologue will contain metal humor.
Metal Exiles: How did you nail the artists to do this and what was the process in choosing what artists would perform?
Tom: In the UK there is the Download festival and every band plays that over the space of three days. They are all in one place and it is only a one hour drive to London when they have the Golden Gods there during that festival. Here we do not have that. There is no real thing here where you have that critical mass of bands so we just locked in the date and started looking at tour schedules. We will have bands playing that will have new records coming out so it makes it more attractive for them to go through what they will to get there to do it. It is not easy on anyone and I feel that the bands have stepped up to the plate to do this. There were bands who were on tour or in the recording studio and they just could not do it. There was a lot of give and take until we could lock down who would be available. To be delicate you cannot have all bands from one label or all bands from another label. It is one of those things where you are trying to keep everybody happy or as little unhappy as you can.
Metal Exiles: You do have a good cross section of bands. Killswitch appeals to the younger crowd and Megadeth represents the old guard but still draws in a younger crowd as well.
Tom: Exactly and I think it turned out to be a perfect bill. There are times where you have 9 maybes and you feel that it is never going to get done. All of the bands have been cool about taking time out of there schedule to do this and it will on MTV2 and not a 3 in the morning. We are not making these bands sell out but if they do this awards show they will get to be on TV at a time that they normally would not be. I think it is great to get a band like Killswitch Engage associated with a sponsor like Honda. I think overtime it will benefit all of us.
Metal Exiles: It also helps get Revolvers’ name out to people who may not go out and buy magazines anymore.
Tom: It gets Revolvers name out there, it is good for everyone.
Metal Exiles: Most award shows have celebrity lined audiences but this is in fact open to the public. Why did you decide to go this route?
Tom: I felt that how could you have metal bands play without a metal audience? I think it would be so odd to play without the energy of the audience being there freaking out. I just wanted it to come across on TV with the energy and the passion of the fans, there is no other way to do it. We are selling tickets and we want this to be a packed and crazy show. It seems like a fun way to spend an evening if you are a metal fan. We will have the performances, some comedy stuff and the presenters as well.
Metal Exiles: You have a list of presenters coming out, will they be doing awards or just making appearances?
Tom: Yes they will be giving out awards. Kerry King will be giving awards, Maynard from Tool will, Chuck Billy, Scott Ian, Alice In Chains will be as well and to people have not been mentioned yet. If a bomb blows up in that building that night there will not be a whole lot of metal left.
Metal Exiles: You do have some new bands in there like Bleeding Through and Atreyu then you have Chuck Billy who is a metal legend.
Tom: It will be a great mix and that is the cool thing about metal. There are always new bands and new things happening but this is the genre where people respect their elders and find value in the past. There are genres where they throw away the past but in metal you can have Testament go out on tour with Bodom and it works. The old, the new and the semi new can co exist and we had to capture this in the show.
Metal Exiles: You stated that “Revolver is fortunate enough to be in a position where we can make it happen," how is revolver escaping the downturn in people who read print?
Tom: Because people trust Revolver. We have covered a lot of bands and when we asked bands to do this it was not some shady deal, Its Revolver. We have earned the right to ask the metal community to do this for us. It would be more difficult for some shady thing to come out of leftfield and do this.
Metal Exiles: What is, in your opinion, the state of metal right now and could it support future metal award shows?
Tom: I think that metal is in a healthy state on one level because there are a lot of new bands, there is a lot of energy in the scene. I think what scares me is that I do not see one band becoming this huge thing. There are a lot of great bands that are medium size and keeping metal at the state of filling arenas is not an easy thing.
Metal Exiles: Yeah, it is not 1990 anymore.
Tom: You have Slipknot and a few other bands like that and then you have a lot of smaller bands. I just hope some of the other younger bands to come grab the ring and create a huge metal entity in the scene. Who is going to be the next Lamb Of God?
Metal Exiles: Back in 1991 you had the Clash Of The Titans tour which was Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer. All of the bands on that bill were touring on Gold and Platinum albums and they were all extreme metal for the time. Do you think we will see that again?
Tom: I do not know if any music is going to be that huge again. It was a different time and the music was new and those bands still had singing. Some kid will come along with some music that is very heavy and universally listenable and it could happen again, you never know. That band could be around right now, you never know what their next record will sound like.
If you live in the L.A. area or feel like flying out, this is a sick bill and worthy of you being there.
http://www.goldengodsawards.com/
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