Hey Mike, how’s it going? Thanks for doing this interview!
Absolutely! Thanks for having me.
For the readers that don’t know you, could you tell them a little bit about yourself and what bands you play in?
Hi everyone, I’m Mike and I’m a guitarist who plays in Bulldoze, Hold My Own, Homicidal, Train of thought and Zero Trust (and hopefully some more projects in the future). I first started playing guitar when I was around 9, although many years went by where I either didn’t play at all, or I only touched my guitar when I went to rehearsal.
What got you into music and wanting to play in a band? Any particular moment in your life that made you go “I want to do that!”
When I was very young, like 7 or 8, I came across the first Iron Maiden tape. At the time, I was into Rap/Hip-Hop artists like Run DMC and the Fat Boys, and I never had exposure to anything Metal/Punk related (the neighborhood where I lived didn’t have any metal heads or punks). I was mesmerized by the cover artwork of the tape, so I decided to pop it into the tape deck and see what it was all about - I had extremely low expectations. The tape just happened to be cued to “Transylvania” (which was an instrumental), which when I listened to it, I was completely blown away. I was sitting there for hours rewinding and replaying “Transylvania”. It was like nothing I ever heard before, and by the time I popped that tape out of the tape deck, I knew I wanted to play guitar and make music just like that. As for wanting to play in a band, that just seemed to follow naturally with wanting to play guitar and make that sort of music, I was asking around to find other like minded people and a band sort of just formed on its own.
Who are your top five influences and what drew you to their particular style?
I’m going to cheat a bit and mention more than five!
It was in three phases for me - I started my journey with less “heavy” Metal, then I got into Thrash Metal, then I started going harder and harder until I reached Death Metal, then there was nowhere to go from there, until I learned about Hardcore.
For the early metal side, it was absolutely Iron Maiden, Metallica (some songs), Ozzy, old Motley Crue.
For the Thrash Metal phase, it was Metallica (all songs at this point), Slayer, Anthrax, Testament
Death Metal side it was Cannibal Corpse, Obituary and Napalm Death
For Hardcore, I basically started playing in a Hardcore band as I was learning about it, but the major bands that really initially influenced me were Biohazard, Life of Agony, Leeway and Dog Eat Dog.
Could you tell us a bit about some of the bands you’ve played in and what the New York scene was like when coming up?
The Hardcore scene in the early/mid 90’s was really strong and had a lot of people in it (I’d say its comparable to how big Hardcore is now – although it feels bigger today thanks to the internet and the work of people like Hate5six who puts out amazing videos – it was mostly word of mouth and tape trading back then).
Train of Thought - After Bulldoze broke up. the rest of us wanted to play more with the contrasts between melodies and heavy music. People weren’t sure if we were a Hardcore band or something different – We definitely thought we were a hardcore band at the time (This was around 1995 and many years before nu-metal came around), I still consider Train of Thought to be a Hardcore band. A few years later the rest of my bandmates did a project called Agents of Man, while they were doing that and touring, I started a band called Homicidal, which was basically me getting back to my roots of writing heaver stuff and not focusing on melodies. During COVID and the lockdowns, I did a project called Zero Trust – its great music with great musicians, we all basically worked remotely on it. I have no idea how to label that project (we have some hardcore sounding songs and some songs pretty far from it), but it was a really fun project.
You’re a founding member of one of the hardest bands in hardcore music, how did forming bulldoze come together and what were the early years of the band like?
The first band I did was called Retribution, the bass player was also the singer, but he got tired of singing and just wanted to play bass – so Kev joined the band and we renamed the band to Bulldoze. We were all in high school (except for the singer Kev, he was a bit older than the rest of us). We wanted people to kill each other in the pit so we basically tried to write songs that we thought would accomplish that. That was basically our main focus and something the entire band agreed with, so it was pretty easy to all work together and accomplish that. The only problem was that we became victims of our own success - we would play, brawls would break out, and we would get banned from a venue. This kept happening over and over again until we were basically banned everywhere and couldn’t really play anymore, so that’s essentially how it came to an end.
What is your process when it comes to writing riffs because there’s a nice blend of brutality and groove in your riffs
I think that’s sort of a feel that one develops over time, but essentially I try to write riffs I want to hear, and hear again. If I record a riff and I don’t have much of a desire to hear it again a few times over, I think I don’t really have a keeper. It’s the riffs I want to listen to over and over again that really speak to me. I try to put myself into the shoes of a person hearing a riff for the first time and I want to make an impression (this aspect or writing is probably the most difficult, but it’s a mental goal I try to work towards).
What’s the craziest show you’ve played or been to?
There were so many, but I think a very memorable one was my first real NYC hardcore shows – 1991 or 1992 I think – Life of Agony, Biohazard, Type-O negative and Overkill headlined. I thought I was going to get killed in there!
Now for a fun question, what’s an album by a band you like that everyone else thinks sucks?
I honestly can’t think of an album that everyone thinks sucks! At worst its always 50/50 ish
Thanks for doing the interview Mike! I hope to see Bulldoze live soon and what can we
expect from you in the future?
Thanks! It’s been a pleasure! Y’all can expect to see me at hardcore shows for sure! Hopefully some new material as well!
Comentários