PipemanRadio Interviews Gene Hoglan of Dark Angel

0:00 Hi, you have done to censure? See wow for you young Why become America. It's time for the Adventures of White Man. I'll you four c why dot Com west Poon Beach is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the white Man. This is only a test. The Bible is ticking with every second.

0:41 The disaster is coming closing close. It impressed him. Thanks, M's mostly armed born. My born read two one. This is the pipe main here on the Adventures pipe Man W four CY Radio. And I'm so excited about this next interview because it's one of my favorite bands and I was so shocked when I heard the new music and now we have to talk about it. So welcome to the show. Geene Hoagland from Dark Angel, how are you.

1:39 Greetings, Pipe Man. I'm doing great. I hope you are. I hope everybody out there is doing awesome. Absolutely, And I gotta tell you that, you know, like a lot of times when bands haven't had new music in a long time, and they're like your old school bands used to see when you're a teenager. Sometimes you're like, oh, I hope this is good right now. And then the minute I heard like I didn't even have to hear ten seconds of it, I was like, holy shit, this is definitely Dark Angel. Excellent. Well, thank you very much, pipe Man. That is definitely the uh, the approach we wanted. And one little extra element of that being, you know, Dark Angel, is the fact that our first single, the title track from the record Extinction Level Event, that was penned by the dearly departed Jim Dirkin, you know, the founder of Dark Angel.

2:35 So that is as dark Angel as one pure Dark Angel as it comes, you know, at least musically. So we're very fortunate in that regard, and it it just worked out really really really cool that that you know, we we lost Jim, but he left us with this song and it is prime Dark Angel sounding to me and way and so you know, it's just pretty pretty awesome that this gets to be our our kind of title track, our lead track, our you know, our lead off kind of track. So so that's pretty good and it's going to lead to you know, another pile of kick ass metal songs, I think. So, Devin, we're really excited about the future going.

3:21 To I love it. And you know that now you brought up the song he penned a like ten years ago, right, and how is it so appropriate today in twenty twenty five, like it's actually written for twenty and twenty five. Well at least musically. Yes, you know, it's like I remember he had a different title for it, and it was it was an instrumental track when he when he handed it over to me. But it was just like this is so so crushing, you know, this is like, this is so exciting, and it got me so excited for like the writing process. And I've mentioned this in other interviews with it, I just blurred it out of meat. At the next interview I did, we're working on new material.

4:02 We're gonna get a new album out really soon. And you know, and I hear that it's been like, you know, people are like, release it already, get it out there. You've been promising it for ten years. Shut up, and you know, kind of thing. Understandable totally. But this, this song really got me fired up to the point where, you know, when when Dark Angel kind of we went on our very very extended hiatus back in nineteen ninety two, we had an album's worth of material and then so you know, we had about twelve fifteen songs ready to go for the next album, and we were working on that at the time when when we just sort of dissolved, there wasn't any animosity or anything. But we had a whole number of songs and I still have a demo of those songs, and I remember playing it for Jim at one point and he was like, Oh my god, that's so crushing. This is our next album. We got our next album written, it's done. And that was about the same time that he had laid what became extinction level event on me. And I was like, but Jim, let me tell you your your writing and the way I you know, this is written pushing what thirty years ago.

5:14 I mean that it was cool for its time, but I'm in a different, like way more aggressive place, and you are as well. So how about okay, we we do have that material that that's in the back pocket sort of thing. But you know, you're writing crushing stuff. I know I can write crushing stuff. Let's do this together and let's see what we can do. Let's make it very modern you know for us, you know, like not modern, you know what I mean? Just like here's where we are both at here in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, twenty eighteen, twenty twenty twenty twenty five. So that's where that that it. It kicked off quite an exciting period of and very fruitful period. Oh I just turned sideways.

5:59 Yeah, yeah, happen. I don't know, buy don't you? Well, let me see because I'm I'm doing it this way. Let's see what I can do here to make anything sort of happen. How do you fix this sort of stuff? Let me let's see what happened if I do this. Yeah, because this is not on my end, never go, but you're. Black there, you got your back. Weird. We'll have my engineer edit that part out. Okay, well, and so there you go. It really it led us to a really cool element of writing and things like that. So there you go. And now we've got a new We've got the new record. Uh, getting ever closer to completion we are, you know, we're we're in the final the homiest of stretches with the entire completion of everything. So it's coming very soon, you know'll be out before the end of the year. Absolutely nice.

6:50 I love it. So I'm going to show you something because to prove how excited I was about this. So we'll see if you can see this. This is my battle vest from right originally nineteen eighty one. Okay, we gotta hold that job up there. Yeah, I'm gonna put the mic down for a second. You tell me what you see. I can hear you. Wow, looking there, it looks and it's your green screen is doing some crazy go you'll see it when you look back at it. That looks great, it says, all right there, yeah, excellent, Thank you Pike man. That's awesome. I see that. So there you go. That's pretty cool, right, awesome, man, that was very very cool. I just brought that.

7:34 You know, I have had that in my closet since the eighties, and you know, I brought it out. I was doing radio coverage at ship Rock this year. Oh I just I just got this idea. I'm like, you know what, let me do this now for interviews because I go and I do you know, coverage at festivals all over the US, UK and Europe. I've never brought this out, so I brought it to ship Rock and then people were like, wow, look it is like there's like bands on there that don't even exist anymore. Right, you know, because all of them. But that's really cool. So so yeah, so what about live shows.

8:15 Well, we have been doing a lot more live shows, especially over the last decade and and like, for instance about well, I guess last weekend, I guess it was what not summer a wee get week and a half ago or something, we played a show in South Paulo, Brazil, and yeah, it does. We've done a lot of South American work and that show in South Paulo was was very notable for the fact that our guitarist Eric Meyer, he he missed his first flight and they canceled every other flight after that, so we had as we had to play the show as a four piece, and our guitarist Laura Christine Boy, she stepped up. We found out in rehearsal, Yeah, because we were at rehearsal in South Paulo.

8:59 We had one day to rehearse because I was coming directly from Europe straight down there, and so we had one night of rehearsal. We're finding out at the time. You know, we got the text thread going and Eric's like, you're gonna make this flight. You know this this this one is not you know, he had already missed the flight the night before, and you know, the next flight is in the process of getting canceled. Like both Laura and I are pretty seasoned travelers, so she was the one to saying, hey, when they're delaying this flight. When they just pushed it back and then pushed it back again, She's like, hey, they're going to cancel that flight, get on it to Our manager tried our best to get Eric. They tried every single thing they could, and it just looked like it just turned out Eric was not gonna be able to make it. And so right right then and there, right right a rehearsal, she kind of put everything on her shoulders and said, look, okay, she just kind of figure out all Eric's parts on the fly.

9:48 That's bad ass. Songs where he he does the intro. Okay, well she's doing it now. She's just working it all out as we're going. So and the show was so crushing. It was so amazing. You can see the youtubes, you can see the the you know, just all the elements of the show. It was so tight, so killer, so crushing. We it was. It could have been. It was never gonna be a disaster. It could have been a little thin. Missing two guitars are our sound man Ak one of the best in the business, if not the best metal sound man in the business. He made a sound crushing. Lara did great, Ron did great, Gons did great. I did whatever it is I do and the show came out fantastic. Such a great challenge to Okay, we got to be a four piece. We've done that before thirty something years ago. But we'll try it again and we'll see how it works. And we got a different element of that fourth piece, so it all worked out great.

10:46 That was incredible. That was really exciting show. Check it out on youtubes. It turned out really good. That was Begers Open Air, right. Bangers open Air. Yeah, what a great festival. Man. That was really cool. It was great, great sight. You know, it was kind of in the heart of like a business sort of district, but there are tons of folks there and tons of tons of great bands. You know. I got to I got to sort of meet again mister bif Beeifer, you know, legend from Saxon, And yes, I'm a big fan of Saxon, dating back to the day and even the new Saxon, the later Saxon stuff that's come along. They are laying it down heavy still, you know, so that's pretty good. And you know, so at the beginning of June, we have some more Dark Angel shows coming up over in Europe. We're playing some festivals and we're doing some Darkness Descends materials.

11:39 He right there looking at the weird I think, I think one of the ones I'm covering your are you playing at hellfest. That is going to be with Death Clock. Oh, okay, that's right, that's right. And so we have we have some we have some Dark Angel than Death Clock than Dark Angel, like, so it's gonna be like kind of a we get to share the same bus. I do know that, Like Dark Angel has a tour bus and then death Clock comes in while Dark Angel takes off, Death Clock takes over the pros and then Angel comes back and we finish off the next couple of rounds. We got some shows in Germany, in in the Netherlands and we got four.

12:20 Dynamo, Right, are you playing Dynamo or I think. Our Netherlands show might be you know. Yeah, they all roll around and exactly. One thing I do know that is starting in June, Like I think it's like June eighth through like June eleventh or twelfth or something. We are playing our first shows in England and quite some time, and we've done a couple of festivals here and there, but we're doing our first headlining shows in England in so many years. It's been since ninety one one something like that. So everybody that wants to see a kick Gass night of Thrash, come on after the show. You don't want to miss it. We're doing Darkness to say ends there. What a classic record, you know all. You know, we got to we got to play so many killer shows in the UK back in the day. We're doing the UK, We're doing England, We're doing Ireland, we're doing I believe we're doing Scotland as well. So everybody come on out to those shows and you are going to be in for the night.

13:20 A brutal, dark angel metal heck yeah, man, that's what I'm talking about. I love it. I love it. I also I want my listeners to hear the story about wake Up to Blood, because that's crazy, that's fun, eld story. I was come up right here, you know, I'm sitting on well, not that drumk kit. That's my brand new drum kit from Pearl. Holy Moly. Take a look at this. I know I'm going off on a tangent. This is so crushing, it is so amazing. It is a reference one, their newest, hottest best set. This is the most kick ass sounding drum set I've ever played in my life. This is so amazing Pearl reference one. Do yourself a favorite.

14:03 Pick one of those up. This is the most aggressive, meanest, just most violent sounding drum set I've ever played in my life. I'm so excited about this. And look at that thing I just I think eats light. I call it the light eater. I love it. All the light. Man. It's it's Matt Black with with black nickel hardware, you know. And you got a little jack in the background there that looks pretty cool. But well, all it was was Eric Eric Meyer, a guitarist. He had showed up one day and he had like he all these like the brutal, like the scars on his arm, you know, from a couple of days ago. He's like, man, you know what, you know, the the dog jumped on the bed, you know last night or whatever it was the night before last, and you know I was in the middle of the night and then whatever, come on, don't get off the bed. Or whatever he was saying, and you know, I woke you know, woke up the next morning. I'm covered in blood, you know and all, and I was like, woke up the Blood. What a great songtitle, you know, a dog attack and then there you go, you woke up the Blood. I of course, into Dark Angel fashion. We turned it into some apocalytic into the world kind of story and stuff.

15:14 So I love it. So that's pretty cool. I'm really excited about that song. That's every song on the record. Look, I know, I'm very close to it, so I got to kind of maintain a little bit of distance, but I'm very close to every song on the album, and that one I'm super close to, you know, Like so many songs on this record were written with Jim Diurkins influence on my guitar playing because he's nice, huge influence on my Dark Angel style of writing. He was my first guitar hero. And having Lara Christine in the band, she drops her influences all over it, her style, her vibe. I've been working with Lara Christine for fifteen years and on like we have a project together too, and her writing on that is incredible. Like I'm just like dad is so good.

16:03 Like she she's written all the best riffs on the record, you know. And that's like, as a matter of fact, when I remember I've played Laura and I little demo that we made, I've played it for like under five people in the world, and Jim Durkin was one of those folks, and I remember playing it for him one time. He's like and he just slaps the table. He's like, my god, this is so amazing. Laura is my favorite guitarist ever, Like, oh my god, listen to these rifts. I'm like, I know right, she's you know, she she's got the riff writing mojo. Definitely. He's like, heck, yeah, she's my favorite guitarist. And it was kind of the playing of that demo that led Jim in his way to make the decision to make Laura Christine his his you know, his replacement for the live shows anyway, because we knew the ogibid said, look, there's gonna be times when I'm not gonna be able to make every every show, so you know, and he came to her after one of our shows, and that's where the whole process really got started of her ending up being in Dark Angel was.

17:09 It was Jim's decision. He made it right there. He's like, look, I've just played my last show with Dark Angel. I want you to be my replacement. And you know, she's looking at me like wait what, She's looking at him like have you guys talked about this? I'm like, no, this is this is news to me. First of all, I'm like crush that Jim is like announcing this is his last show. Fortunately it was not his last show at that time, but he's already putting it out there that like, look when it does become my last show, you know, we ended up doing some more stuff with Jim awesome, and you know, when it does come time to where I do got to, you know, hang up the pick and hang up the strap, then I want you to be here with me. So he went to all the guys and they took the vote. I had nothing to do with it. So that's that's where I like it. You know, it's like, good, you guys made the decision. We have a crush killer guitarist who writes great rips, so she's dropping in her style all over the record her and let alone the rifts that she ended up writing for it where I'm not gonna bide and she's like, hey, try this. It's like yes, So that's pretty cool. The little baby introduction to the writing partnership that is, you know, Christine and Hogland kind of thing.

18:20 And we've always had writing partnerships in Dark Angel. It's always been you know, Jim Dirkin and myself and bred Erickson and myself, and later Chris McCarthy and myself, and so moving forward, Lara, Christine and myself. So that's for the future. But right here, right now, extinction level event is coming and it's got a whole lot of really really a killer moments on it. For me, I think it's killer. I think I'm a pretty good This is just my opinion of myself. I think I'm a pretty good judge of what is kick ass metal and what is average and what is not so good. And if you look at my track record of our ones that I've been on and bands that I've worked with, not a lot. I cannot think of any duds in any of my catalogs. So I've been a part of some really kick ass metal from Dark Angel to Death the Strapping and Lad the Testament to it just goes on and on and on.

19:19 No, which blew my mind that you did, didn't you do? Blacking vocals for Evil has no boundaries. I did, as a matter of fact, absolutely, and and you know, and as a matter of fact, that was that was my idea. Yeah, yeah, because we were in the studio, I was. I was friends with Slayer and sort of working for them at the time. I was just doing lights for him. It was, you know, they were they were a local band, the recording Yeah album and that sort of stuff, so and we were just pals. You know. I was a big Slayer fan. And this was at the time when they had they had about a solid following up about thirty people in.

20:01 Los Angeles, one of them. I was the first show ever and then everyone after that. Absolutely. So you know them from like the Scorpions era phase when they kind of drifted into their Judas Priest, a lot of cover songs and all that. And I remember the first time I saw him, they as. The New Evil. Era of Slayer, with the with the full studs and the panagrams and the you know a little bit of a eye makeup that they were wearing. I remember they did a cover of Highway Star by Deep Purple, and I was shocked. I mean I was fourteen fifteen at the time, so but I knew the leads in that song really well. Everybody knew, you know, the album Machine had.

20:42 Everybody knew Highway Star, and Jeff and Carrie pulled off those leads to a t. You know. Carrie did the somebody did the the keyboard solo, and somebody else did the Richie Blackmore solo, and to my ears, they were spot on perfect. Maybe they weren't, but to me, I was like, these guys aren't the new There's KK Downing, there's Glenn Timpton. These guys are the new, right. It was the same kind of thing too that the battling of the axes absolutely. You know. So they were they were tracking their first record and it came time to you know, it was time for them to do the backing vocals for for Evil Has No Boundaries and live at the time, there was a mic set up in front of Jeff, a mic set up in front of Carry, and they would get up there, you know, and it would be like evil.

21:38 My words, do evil? You know. It just wasn't like really like menacing. So I was just like, hey, guys, you ever thought about, you know, there was there was Carrie and Tom sitting on the couch over at at track Record studio and there's Bill Metoyer in the background doing his thing, and it's it's time to do the vocals. I was like, hey, have you guys ever thought about maybe getting a big gang of dudes in there and getting a bunch of dude's going And they were like, they looked at each other, They're like, great idea, No time like the present. Everybody, you know, get the boat the booth and and Johnny Riah was one of the guys. That was Jeff Hanneman. There was myself, Johnny and my buddy Joel Pacillas and a number of you know a few other guys. And Johnny was remarking to me a couple of years back, he was like, remember they only had one set of headphones.

22:28 They didn't have like eight sets of headphones for everybody. So I had to sit there with the headphones in my you know, we opened up the ears and we just barely hear, like the AM radio and all that, and so I was like, I forgot about that. That's really fun. But I do remember leaving the booth and I've said this many times. I was like, I just turned you know, I just said, I sang Devo, and there's anemon standing a right next to me. He's like, I sang Weebles, and I swear to god, if you get the headphones on, listen you concentrate. Really, you could hear a guy going Devo. You can hear another guy going Weebels on it. So there you go, the silly story. But that's pro.

23:08 I love it. That's that's that's fucking like. That is og metal right right there, right and Dark Angel is too. And I love this new music and it is as brutal as ever. Tell everybody how they can get the new music, how they can connect to you guys on the web, socials everything. Well, we do have all the social media that you can you can think of, you know, we've got all the facebooks and Instagrams and Twitters and all that. And I admit I'm not the most social media savvy person. But any sort of Dark Angel information you might want to hear or see or know of the YouTube channels, all that sort of stuff, we have all of that. If you either go to my neo gene Hoagland, whatever is out there, or else, Reversed Records, dot Com, their Instagram there, that's that's our that's our label and management.

23:59 Just check those out, you know, like you can. You can keep yourselves up to date on all things Dark Angel through those media's there. And we do have before this, before this June run for a Dark Angel, we're hoping to have the second single out and that's gonna be that's gonna be a crusher. It's like if you if you dub the first stuff, you're gonna be like, yeah, now I'm so locked in, you know, like that's that's the way I feel about this record. I think it is. There are so many strong tracks on just strong, strong, strong, strong, strong, so you could jumble them up in any way you want, and it's all gonna be a kick ass record my opinion.

24:42 Only if other people agree with me, great. If you don't, hey man, you're you're gonna make yourselves heard somehow, you know, not by me, but you know you'll you'll make you you'll make your voices heard. So so there you go. So it's just it's a very exciting time for Dark Angel. We're having a blast where where for the new record. We know that twenty twenty five and twenty twenty six and all coming together is going to be a pretty hearty, busy year for us all. So you know, we'd love for everybody else to be a part of it. Man, if you dig the record, come out to the shows, you know, pick up the merch, whatever you want to do, support the band. We sure do appreciate all your support all the time. Thank you guys very much. And if you come out for a nut, you are going to get an intense, pummeling good night of intense like relentless thrash ball like I love it. We are very very relentless live. And if you're not sweating or breathless or about to die at the end of the show, you haven't done your job at the show. That's all that.

25:44 That's for sure. My most memorable show of any show ever I've been to thousands was at the Sun Valley Sportsman's launch. You remember that show. That was with Slayer, Possessed Suicide all Savage Grace. Savage Grace. That was and descendence first crossover show ever where you had punk and metal ads in the same room. Right Sun, I was thinking Peko Rivera. Yeah, Sun Valley was Savage Grace, Dark Angel, Possessed their first show in La I Believe, and Corrosion of Conformity. Yeah, pretty peper. January twenty fifth, nineteen eighty five. Don't ask me how I know this.

26:27 That was pretty fucking good because that that is right on the money, and I wouldn't have remembered that. So that's that's pretty freaking good. And it was, Oh my god, that's my most memorable show that I've ever been to ever. It was insane killers way in the best way. What a great show that was, you know, getting to I had already kind of met the Possessed guys, but getting to know them, you know, like them coming down. We played the very next day Possessed and Dark Angel. We also played at Radio City in Orange County with Slayer. Yeah, that's true, the. Sweatiest show I'd ever been to. Man, damn near past. I remember I used to play in blue jeans. Now we're okay whatever, And that was my third show ever I had done. Yeah, that was no let me see there was New Year's Eve different. Yeah, that show there was my third show I had ever played in my life.

27:20 The next night with Slayer was my fourth show and I was. I was a dumb dumb playing in blue jeans and I had yet to play a show that was so packed and so sweaty that blue jeans. Are not a smart move, buddy, you know. But I remember having to take my jeans off in the middle of the show and all that sort of stuff. Oh man, it was crazy. But yeah, I remember that song Dolly Show very well. Man. I met my bro to read mullin from Corrosion to Conformity and all that, and we all stayed friends for, you know, pushing forty years. Now, you know, I know right, I can't believe that. Oh absolutely you raq. Dark Angel was badass, and thanks for bringing us great music once again, and thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man.

28:07 Thank you, pipe Man. I sure do appreciate your your assistance here. That nice chatting with you, and hope to see you at the show. Hope you see you on the road at some point and come up and help us. We'll be there. Hey, everybody, this is Gene Hopeland from Dark Angel and you are listening to pipe Man on W four c Y Radio. Crag it up. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of pipe Man. I'm w for c u I radio,