MIDNIGHT interview on songwriting, touring plans and the Midnight journey

if midnight has slipped under your radar for the last 15 years that is all about to change based in Cleveland they've been pumping out filthy black and speed since 2003 all while securing themselves at the top of the metal and punk underground with a new record entitled rebirth by blasphemy coming in 2020 I had the chance to sit down with the hooded menace muse of midnight himself a phenom thank you for doing this interview man I know that you're very selective about the places that you put yourself so thanks for coming out of your lair for us today yeah no problem man yeah helicopter ride over here was pretty nice yeah we like to treat you proper come on yeah I want to talk to you about a lot of [ __ ] today the band obviously has a very distinct sound because you record all the instruments it's a very in the pocket type groove that only you know a drummer who's also playing bass and alright playing guitar could only create shifting over to the live live perspective do you try and replicate that when you're picking players to go on the road with or do you let everyone kind of bring their own flavors well the yeah the guys that they've been playing with here for this past couple years they're pretty good and like you said kind of getting into that mode of dumbing their playing down to my level they realize that they're not trying to improve upon things and I think that you know they understand the where that we're where the song is coming from you know the when to be primitive when to add a little flavor to it you know speaking of dumbing down they're playing to your level it's it's actually been pretty cool to watch you're playing develop over the last dozen releases especially in the drumming I found there's like a huge difference in sound from your early output to now it's been like cool to follow along with the midnight journey yeah midnight journey we're going on tour together next summer but uh yeah I'm glad you're listening for that too because i'm those first midnight records that's kind of when i maybe first decided to play drums so it's not like i practice all the time but yeah i guess it has progressed in a way to where it's a little easier for me to keep time the way you release the music is also very interesting like splits and comps predominantly in the beginning it's always had a very like a punk-rock aesthetic to it as well I know there's like a new wave of British heavy metal connection there as well the singles why the decision to at some point to switch it appears very abruptly to two full lengths and now your full-length output is quite regular mm-hmm yeah you're right you know that those for those first records I always you know it was like a new wave of British heavy metal thing I was ever any time when those bands put out a record it usually just [ __ ] sucked there wasn't accidents you know it wasn't as good as the comp track for the seven angels yeah it was deliberate just to not put out an LP for that reason then got me actually thinking like you know why not let me see if I can make an album so that's when I made satanic royalty in that way it came really quick so from then on yeah like you're right it's been just kind of all right just make albums it was really hard to find midnight stuff in record stores I've found that when that came out it was like all [ __ ] every cool independent record store had that in there new arrivals yeah yeah it's easier it's easier to I guess just to get an album like you said rather than totally dig through you know bunch of shitty 7-inches yeah yeah I'm still the guy in the back of the used record stores going through the 7-inch as though it's totally me male 2 dude Metal Blade that's huge Congrats I was out at the bar with some buddies when Brian Slagel posted the modified midnight logo with the metal blade swords on top and there was no caption I was just showing all my friends in the bar were all losing our [ __ ] it was pretty crazy and surprising for me though you know whether it was my own misconception but I always envisioned midnight as a band that would live on smaller and independent labels like Hell's headbangers forever why the change so late into the game and and were you apprehensive like what's going on there yeah yeah well they they contacted me several years ago it had no interest you know like anything else I've had no interest and I just have no interest in it you know so it was just time for a change of any sort not that house headbangers was bad they're great I have nothing but good things to say but like you said after however many albums it was just due for a change of sorts maybe it'll be good for one album maybe it won't be maybe it'll be great but I've just kind of realized that people want to hear this mediocre [ __ ] that I make up so why not I'm still not concerned with the amount of money or whatever that and it's not about that it was about just a change and it is cool that like you said metal blade has it has a great history totally you know when I was a 13 year old kid would I ever think I'd start a band it has a record on metal blade no not at all so I mean just to be same label mates with trouble and yeah bands like that it's pretty cool speaking of more metal blade stuff a 7-inch dropped as soon as the record deal got announced and I thought it was really cool to see a larger label still actively putting out a 7-inch like that it's a little bit abnormal in this day and age is the full-length treated the same way as all the past midnight releases you're playing everything and handling production yeah and it was cool that they put out that 7-inch because you know like you said that doesn't really happen too much though dying art man yeah in and in and with the exclusive b-side the exclusive throwaway b-side and midnight loves her throwaway track so I know that buddy some of those throwaway numbers but yeah that was really cool and then the artwork was by Joe Elliott which again the same thing you know when I'm looking at a blood-free album or or pledge feast album or yeah nikrif a job as a kid you know it's cool to have that artist living out my childhood fantasies here at age 73 73 now 73 years old I am now not bad man look good thank you thank you please good good Midnight's always been known to have pretty cool ways of releasing things I limited in colors and all sorts of different packaging especially with vinyl is that a direct relation to you being a collector and are you really into that culture of collecting all the variants of a record if you really dig it no not at all for me I would rather just have everything black vinyl one color vinyl you know if sabotage sirens you know you want that blue vinyl I guess that's just it's the the culture of now and today when you go to a grocery store and yours 84 different types of toothpastes to choose from it's a little little confusing for me and it goes with the same with the records and - when you have like tour Edition this edition bub audition you know it's too many editions I would personally would like it just to be a record with like one kind of hunter-gatherer collector version yeah it's because it creates this weird culture of like one copy of the record being 30 bucks and then one copy of the record you see like some nerds selling it secondhand 150 bucks yeah right very rare yeah yeah satanic royalty man I got it in blue and gold and black and white I'm right right yeah by that time yeah it's all it's so diluted so sometimes I think it takes away from the music aspect of it and in Gears art or more towards a product but as long as people are listening to the music you know that's cool last time I saw you play in Toronto you started the set by walking on stage smashing a guitar and then ripping into the first song this is not something that you see every day Midnight's always been known to have an over-the-top live show but also visually a very interesting band from the artwork to the look is the visual art behind your band something you spend as much time crafting as the music I wouldn't say as much time no but it is definitely thought about I just don't want it to be full-on generic you know flames and skulls metal so for me to come out and immediately smash your guitar that makes perfect sense to me kind of like opens the book and says this is this is what you're gonna have to deal with especially igon that tour was cool because we're opening for obituary and creator and there was a lot of people who didn't know what you know let him know why you're there first of all you know you're there to destroy stuff then you're there to play music at that show I had numerous buddies they're like not older dudes who might not be so in touch with the underground so they were going to see creator and obituary and I'm like you guys gotta come check out this band midnight it's the reason why everyone my age is going trust me yeah specifically one dude I remember we split up after your set I met up with him out front for a smoke and he had bought the whole vinyl I said discography and he's like that was the greatest that was better than seeing Motorhead in 86 at the concert hall he's like it was wild dude yeah that's a good compliment you've done a lot of [ __ ] you've seen a lot of crazy changes in both the industry and just the music in general were there any times where you thought it was hard to adapt to the way that things were going as time went on I would say now you know you say adapt I it's I just I just always have kind of done my own thing if people get it they get it if they don't that's fine but yeah I do have a hard time adapting it's the reason why I still don't have a smartphone it's you know there's a there's a it's a reason why I don't stream I guess or whatever hello I took peas you know so I stream that way but I I do want to get an mp3 player or an iPod or something at some point because they do amaze me that you can have your whole collection of whatever you like we're in a car it's and I think they're magic because I just you know like immediately shout I want to hear this song now and if you can do it yeah okay Burt how did you do that yours the finance single yeah I think it specifically pisses off record collectors because we spent so much time searching for things and curating a collection and [ __ ] separating by genres and alphabetizing and it's like you want to find a record and it takes you ten minutes and ya know it's like there you go yeah that's what you were looking for yeah yeah yeah in the past you've been pretty selective as you mentioned about the the tours that you took on I know that it's a band I've been following a long time and it hasn't always been easy to see you play live now with the new signing with metalblade rebirth by blasphemy coming are there any plans to increase midnight activity what can we expect for 2020 yeah I guess be a band that plays shows you know it because like you said I'm kind of like still kind of on the fence of wanting to do things my way but there's certain things like well [ __ ] man if you if you if you put out a record you know you've got to go out and play alive or if you go out and play live you know the there's stuff that you I wouldn't say you have to do but it just comes to the point of just like I was saying before just coming to the realization that just to being a musician and getting whatever it is that you had in you out and I'm so playing live does help a lot mentally physically it feels good to get that [ __ ] out and [ __ ] it out and play it live and then eat it out again yeah yeah so yeah I guess expect to expect some gigs III don't want it there's just that fine line of being like oh they're playing again oh no I'll see you next time you know because you don't really want to fall into or doing something just doing something unique doing something special half an hour man thank you so much for sitting down with me I know you've got a busy day of rhyming words with hell and and drinking beer so I appreciate you coming by the studio it was great to have you appreciate it thank you [Music] you

Channel: BANGERTV - All Metal

Views: 39,735

Keywords: BangerTV, Banger TV, Metal Evolution, Lock Horns, Metal documentaries, MIDNIGHT interview, Athenar, metal blade records, daniel DK, Metal band interview, Daniel DK interview, sam dunn, headbangers Journey, global metal, MIDNIGHT

Id: AVZXunNRycI

Length: 12min 28sec (748 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 10 2019