Crimson Glory first new album in 26 years “Chasing The Hydra” – PipemanRadio Interview

0:04 Hi, you love done to censure. For see Wow for you you listen to some. I'm a widlights off. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man Don four Cy Radio. And I am very excited about our next guest. Oh my god, we have a killer announcement here, first new album in twenty six years. That's amazing. So let's welcome to the show. Ben from Crimson Glory. Hey, everybody, So one thing I have to say right off the bat.

0:56 The minute I started to interview, I was looking over your right shoulder and seeing that in the background. I'm like, man, that is so cool. I don't even know if I can focus on the interview. It is kind of cool. I like, I want to get one for behind me when I. Do my interviews. Yeah, why not? Right? So I just want to say, right off the bat, what makes you after twenty six years wake up and everybody wake up and decide, hey, let's put a new album out. Well. I think we've really been missing it for a long time. Jeff and Dana and I the three original guys, and you know, we often think about the old times with Crimson Glory, and I think we've just been missing it.

1:43 Wanting to get back to it. Yeah, I don't blame you because I think about it, you know, even as somebody that's media. I go on tour and I do coverage. Of music festivals all over the US, UK and Europe, and I can't imagine not doing that, Like, you know, it's like people say to me, how do you do that? Or even my youngest story, I'll bring her to a festival with me one time and it'll be like halfway through the first day of a four day festival and she's like, Dad, I don't know how you do this. Every week I'm already done, and I'm like, I would be depressed if I wasn't. When I come home, I'm like, I don't even know what to do. I just like seclude.

2:28 Yeah, I agree with you. I love the lifestyle. I love being over there in Europe in the summer and playing the festivals and meeting all the people. I mean, it's such a you know, metal, such a lifestyle over there, such a brotherhood totally. And I just did mean to you a coverage at festival that not last week two weeks ago? Uh? Did I believe you played at last year Hell's Heroes? Yeah, that was a great one. We had a great time there in Houston. You know what. I had so much fun at that festival. It was old school to me, okay, like it was so funny because you know, I it. Has teenage years.

3:09 I was like on the Sunset Strip and Troubadour and country Club in LA and that whole scene, and and it reminded me of that like a posting. Nowadays, it's very kind of different. But even the fact that, Okay, so I was interviewing Tankard in the trailer and I ended up like missing a bunch of sets for the rest of the night because we did the interview and then after that, I was like, oh, we didn't even bring a roadies with us, or anybody, can you come take pictures up on stage with us? Oh yeah? And then after we're done or like, hey, come on back, we'll hang out.

3:53 And it was like that kind of cool vibe because that's what metal is. We're just one big family of cool people. And they are a bunch of German beer drinkers. So that was probably a blast hanging out with them. Oh yeah, Oh my god, Like I kept on handing them beers while we're on stage. The camera on one hand, beer in the other. They loved their beer as much as they love their metal. In Germany. Oh, I'm telling you that. I remember during the interview they were like complained because there wasn't enough beer in a fridge. Meanwhile, there was a fridge full of beard. They're like, we'll be done with that before we even go on stage. That's hilarious, y fun times, fun times. But I gotta tell you too, I've listened to your latest song coming off the h you know, brand new album.

4:47 I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna be blunt. Oh my fucking god, Like that brought me back to the eighties. Like I just felt like, oh my god, I haven't heard music like that in a long time. Yeah, I think people have been missing music like that. Right, you know. I find a lot of metal nowadays, the newer metal they use like this formula I called it algebraic equation to make metal. And it wasn't like that back in the beginning and back in the eighties, you know, seventies, eighties, it was like it was all experimental and all new. So even if you were within the same genre of another band, you didn't sound anything like them.

5:32 A lot of the times. Yeah. True, everybody had their own kind of style, their own identity. As far as the sound of the band. Yeah, totally. So what I want to know is I'm always in awe of artists like you that can come out all these years later and create new music. Like, like, I think to myself, how they keep coming up with have to talk about and like. There is a lot to talk about out there. But how about you, Like, what's the difference now of trying to write a song compared to when you were a teenager trying to write a song?

6:15 Not much difference, you know. I think we've gotten better at it over the years. We matured a little bit, you know, got a little smarter and wiser. So some of the topics, you know, they grow from from cooler, you know, aspects of things to talk to write about. And you know, thank god, you get a little better, because if you've been doing this for most of your life, if you didn't get better, that would be a problem, you know. Yeah, but I think we've progressed. I think that is the case. I think artists even sometimes look at it differently than the fans, like, especially if they're fans from the beginning okay, because the fans from the beginning, they want you to stay a garage band.

7:00 I was one of those people too. You know, there are bands I saw that are huge now that I saw their first show ever, I'm like, why aren't they like that? Now? Yeah? You know, but I could also see the other side that why would the artists want to be like that now? Like you mean, you didn't evolve, you didn't get better at your craft, Like you didn't even know what you're doing in the beginning, you know, So you know, why would we want? You know, So tell me. One story good or bad, crazy or not in this whole musical career that you've had that you'll never forget, that you would tell people to the day you're not here.

7:48 One story cood or bad. I remember one funny story when we played the Hammersmith Odeon in London and it was, you know, kind of a dream of ours to play there because we are remember seeing like you know, the Michael Shanker group live from there and just other stuff like that when I was a young teen, and when we got over there and got the chance to play there, and we're like, wow, we're playing the Hammersmith. So a little bit before we were going to go on stage. They said, okay, it's time to go, and we started walking from the dress room area through all these halls to find the stage, and we just got lost in the maze of halls back there, and we just could not find the stage. We kept going down this hallway and turning around going back, and then going this way and turn around. That's not the way we turned around to go back, and finally, after some crazy confusion, we found the stage.

8:38 Oh my god, that's funny. And probably people are out there like where are they? Yeah? And this was in eighty seven I think when we finally came out on stage. There was one point during the stage where Midnight came over and got underneath me. I suddenly realized. I looked down and saw his head between my legs. He was underneath me on his knees and he was trying to lift me up on his shoulders to carry me around the stage, kind of like bon Scott used to do with a hengus young and Midnight tried to lift me up and he didn't have very much luck, you know. He got me up a few inches and he just gave up and back back out and just took off running across the stage. It was like a brief attempt to lift me on his shoulders that he gave up really quickly on because midnight was midnight. Was kind of a small guy. He wasn't the guy that was going to be carrying anybody around on his shoulders.

9:26 That's what I'm saying. I'm a small dude, and I'm listening to that. I'm like, yeah, it looks like. Something came over him in the spur of the excitement he thought he would try to do it. Oh my god, just like I look at Ozzy when he used to pick up Randy Rhodes home. I'm thinking now, I think of later Ozzy. I'm like, Randy was so tiny back then, you know, I know, right. That's two funny things that happened to us on the same night. I love it. And so tell us a little bit about the new album from your perspective as the artists. Well, this is something going into it. We really wanted to try to touch back on the on the creative style of Transcendence because we know it's kind of the favorite album of most of the fans, and so we wanted to write songs that sort of reflected that the styling of it all. But again, like we talked about a minute ago, we've kind of matured, we've grown, we've we've progressed at what we do, so we're not exactly the same band. The album I think has more a lot more of a progressive nature to it than their early two albums, and a little bit more modern sounding, more more different time signatures and and more different twists in the songs. But it but it does really capture the overall essence of I think the first and second album more so Transcendence. So I hope the fans are

10:58 happy about that. You know, we just had a blast making this record. They're all brand new ideas we came up with in the last three years, and nothing's really left over from the old days, which maybe you were going to ask about that, but yeah, everything's pretty fresh and I love it, very fresh within three years. You know. Jeff Lordes wrote a lot of the songs, a lot of the music, and I co wrote a couple of the songs, came up with some riffs and parts for some of the songs, and Travis was a big writer on the record lyrics and melodies as well, so. That was the question. That was the question was Gass is, like, what do you think has changed for creating this new music by having Travis and Mark in the band?

11:46 Now? Like, I'm I always think that when you have that kind of transformation that there's gonna be some new things added to the artillery. You know, yeah, absolutely, I mean Travis is a really good writer, and uh that's a plus. You know, because Jeff writes's lyrics, Dana writ's lyrics, I write some, but I mean having a singer that can really write and come up with some great melodies and lyrics, that's that's a big plus. And Travis can do that. He's great at it. And you know Midnight was great at that and you know, obviously there's only one Midnight, there will only ever be one. But Travis came into this with a kind of a fresh approach and you know, did some really cool, interesting original things as well as you know, tipping the hat to Midnight a little bit here and there with some stylistic nuances. And then you know, talking about Mark, I mean, he's just a great fit for the band as well. You know, he's a great player in his own right. John Drenning was fantastic, But Mark comes in with something different, you know, a little unique to himself, and he created and wrote all his own solos for the record. He's very creative guy.

12:59 Well, and I guys say too, like, okay, what you said about Travis. I think it's important when a singer writes the lyrics because there's a different emotion that comes from it. You know, you're not singing somebody else's feelings, you're singing your own. Yeah, I agree, And I. Do have to say too, like that was the eart thing I was gonna ask, is, man, how I can't even conceive of how after you know Midnight, how you could possibly find such an awesome vocalist like Travis, Because I'll tell you what that listening to him singing, I was like, oh my god, I can't I don't even know anybody that can sing like that anymore.

13:48 Yeah, well, we certainly got lucky in finding Travis. He's a very unique and talented individual. So it's sure a blessing to have him with us. Is there any thing you want the listeners to know? Like, what would you want me to ask you? What would your answer be like that you want the listeners to know. Well, I don't know. I never really think about the questions what they should be towards me. But no, I just want the listeners to know that that we really did strive to make a new Crimson Glory album that would that would make the fans happy. Because we've always had such a long time connection with our fans and they're so passionate about the band's music that the last thing we wanted to do was put out anything that would disappoint them. So we really, you know, strive to make this record something that the fans would really get into.

14:44 Of course, with an artist, any artists, you really have to please yourself before anybody else. So we write to please ourselves. Yeah, but if we can do that, if we know we've written something that that we think is is good, then we pretty we're pretty sure everyone else is gonna love it too. I love what you just said because I'm a huge believer in that, you know, and that that shows your true musician, that that right there, because true musicians right for themselves, and then yeah, they attract their tribe, ye, not the. Other way around exactly. We want our fans to be really in love with the music. But but we don't sit down and say, well, let's write a song. What do you think they would like? I mean, no, we have to we have to write what we think is great, what we like, you.

15:32 Know, totally. And you guys got a bunch of tour dates starting in May, and oh my god, Like, how honored are you after all these years to be playing Voadkin you know, like, I mean, yeah. That's a call you always want to get. Yeah, honestly, I'm very honored. Yeah, it's been a dream of mine to play that festival. We've played a lot of cool festivals over the year, but it's always been a dream to play Vakans. So the fact that we got invited this year is it's just totally awesome for all of us. We can't wait to be there. And all your other dates they're all and like some of my favorite places and some great vessels and like Alcatraz.

16:17 That's a that's a festival that you guys fit right into perfect. Yeah, we played we played that one back in twenty twelve with Todd Laty. It's very cool festival. Nice well, well, Jim, Yeah, I love that you have new music. It's badass. Uh, it's so killer that you're still around and I thank you for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man right on. Thank you for having me. Great talking with you today. My pleasure. Hi. This has Ben Jackson of Crimson Glory and you're listening to the Pipe Man on w four. C Y radio.

17:00 Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Patement on wur CUI radio.