Psychedelicasi

An interview with Paris Ortiz, then guitarist for the now-defunct Milwaukee band, Psychedelicasi

Read More...

Papa Roach

An interview with the newly recharged singer of Papa Roach Jacoby Maddix about the Paramour Sessions and more!

Read More...

Puddle Of Mudd

It all started with a fake backstage pass that got Wes Scantlin backstage at a concert he really didn’t even want to go to. There he was, wandering around Family Values, and he starts talking to one of Fred Durst ‘s security guards. He recalls that Fred Durst just started a record label, and decides to pass his only remaining copy of his demos on to the security guard, hoping they may reach the Limp Bizkit frontman. Scantlin couldn’t write music that sounded any less like rap-rock, but he knows Durst’s a businessman above all, and decides that if there’s an off-chance the phenom would hear his tape, he’d take it… A few weeks later, the phone rings, and it’s Durst. He not only got the tape, but he was impressed by it, and not only agrees to help the guitar-slinging singer/songwriter find a band, but offers to sign the soon-to-be quartet on his Flawless Records, as well.

The results are the brilliant debut Come Clean, an infectious blast of rock ‘n’ roll that swirls high-strung melodies around a punk rock raciness, serving up an inspired sound that stands head and shoulders above today’s murky musical depths. Album opener and lead single “Control” squirms in it’s own sexual energy, an anthem for anyone that’s been in a relationship for far too long. With the catch phrase lyric, “I love the way you smack my ass,” the track offers the perfect introduction to Puddle of Mudd, diving to bogged-down lyrical depths, kicking around the bottom, then exploding back up to break the surface, the whole experience defining why Puddle of Mudd aren’t your typical turn-of-the-millennium band.

Read More...

Patchwork

Jeremiah Nelson named his dog after Bob Dylan. Influences aren’t nearly as direct when it comes to Nelson’s band, Patchwork - which released its new full length, “Take Me Down the Interstate” on Aug. 15 at the Frequency in Madison, WI.

“You draw from enough sources that it becomes unrecognizable,” he says over a bagel and cream cheese while Zim, the black lab, explores the sunny porch of Nelson’s Williamson-area house. “A lot of the time it’s my friends,” he says. We talk about Oskosh fav Attack Octopus - who seemingly couldn’t be more dissimilar with its busy, sparkling, crackling, tangy arrangements, odd time signatures and overall challenging sound. In this context, Patchwork is definitely roaming Dylan-esque territory.

Read More...

Pale Young Gentlemen

Adventuresome, theatrical, and a pouring out deeply human emotion in their music, Madison’s PALE YOUNG GENTLEMEN come to give audiences June 14 at the Marquette Waterfront Festival a detour from the usual rock and pop songs.

“I hope people can find some emotional truth in our songs which are trying to be as honest as possible,” says lead singer Mike Reisenauer. “These songs are for people who like being alive, and want to think about things and try to understand their emotions.”

To do this, the band throws convention out the window as far as the blueprint for a typical rock or pop band. Combining the guitar, bass, drum format (which they initially started off with) with instruments such as cellos and violas, the band members have created an original sound that’s their own.

Read More...

Steve Palmer Band

Singer/songwriter/ guitarist Steve Palmer worked for his Blackbird session with Bryan Ewald on lead guitar, Anthony Setola with bass(who is now replaced by Mario Sangermano), Tony Morra provides drums, Larry Hall offers up keyboards and Hammond B3 organ, and Vicki Hampton can be heard on background vocals. The band can be found touring with Blues Traveler and has opened for Sister Hazel and Bob Schneider. With Palmer also playing solo shows. He can be found where he now resides in Nashville, TN where his latest album Apparition was recorded.

Maximum Ink: Since there isn’t much out there on you yet, can you tell our readers a little about where you are from? How has your background influenced your musical stylings? How have you changed most since your early days?
Steve Palmer: The early days are real easy for me to describe. I started playing in Connecticut – I’d pick up a guitar and a pick, open my song book of the sixties and seventies (compiled by the New York Times) – and I played and sang. I sang a lot of different stuff from John Denver, Peter Frampton, Harry Chapin, Rolling Stones to James Taylor. And I listened to Jazz, Oscar Peterson, Joe Sample, Weather Report and John Coltrane. I think that’s where everything starts-the theory and feel of music and minor and major keys.  Jazz is a huge influence for me but so are the greats including Bruce Springsteen, Doobie Brothers, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens who I played till the book wore out. Classical also opened up my musical mind.

Then after a year of that, I started performing in sixth grade and whenever anyone wanted to hear a tune. I played at talent shows, did some musicals, played at a few bars and restaurants but nothing with a band. My first song went something like, “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue and . . .”  Now you know that’s probably a fifties jazz number.  Later, I spent a year in England my senior year in High School and started recording. First, it was with a good friend, Paul Hussell, on piano, guitar or even cello and then I came back and went into full-fledged recording sessions with first call New York City musicians at age eighteen. I played with some awesome guys but I never could find anyone who wanted to help me make a contact or sign me. So I just kept writing and writing even in college where I did two more recording projects. 

In 2004-5, I recorded four records with a producer in Virginia but things got finally rolling with my current group when I went down to Nashville and I went on the road. I had a lot of problems with studios and engineers and quality but I am happy with “Apparition” now. It just was very difficult to get to this point. I had to take “do it yourself” to the extreme. So that is how “Apparition” came into being. Out of Virginia and Nashville with some great studio musicians.

Read More...

Brandon Perry

French Canadian, Brandon Perry is best known for his work as a Chef in the culinary arts. Not one to be limited to just one profession,he is also an author(his latest book is due out soon featuring Eerie Von from Danzig, Calabrese, and Tom Sullivan from Evil dead series fame),and is(to my knowledge) the world’s first chef to also be part of not one but four bands. Brandon is for the most part a solo artist as he provides most of the music in those..himself. Jazzvanguard, is a jazz band with Perry, technical metal drummer playing Jazz. The Resurrected is a technical death metal band he plays in as well(providing bass,drums, and keyboards, while his vocalist lays down the lyrics). He can also be found in the gore metal band Desgustipation and the newly formed(with a girl in Japan), black metal band, Screams of the Dead. Since it isn’t every day you find a celebrity chef that can as he himself puts it, “can still get down and dirty with my death metal”, who loves doing music because others said he couldn’t. I had to take a moment to pick his brain so to speak.

Maximum Ink: Do you find it challenging to have three, possibly four bands going at the same time as your career as a chef?
Brandon Perry: No, not really, we aren’t a super big touring band where that’s how we make our living and have no other careers, I mean I think we all see that if lost our real jobs we would be all fucked up and shit, and starve to death, metal bands that make money are corporate metal bands they are sellouts and that’s that, we don’t sell out, never will, and never have to.

Read More...