When I was a kid, I saw 'Heavy Metal' the movie, and my mind was blown. I loved the idea that you could have all these different stories in different styles that are linked together.
The guitar influence that affected my songwriting came from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
There's everybody in the world who is always trying, time and time again, to proclaim the death of rock, or hard rock and heavy metal. Not if I have anything to do with it, not if we have anything to do with it.
I despise lackadaisical behavior when it comes to our music. I mean, this is heavy metal music. You must be involved. You're required to be involved.
Strapping Young Lad is a vehicle for me to be wild and extroverted and ridiculous. It gives me the chance to say, 'Look at me. I'm a heavy metal guy. I'm Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson or whoever.'
'Epicloud' is the first record that I felt confident enough to include all those things on one record, so it goes between melodic hard rock to schizophrenic heavy metal to country to really ambient stuff, and it's all in one place.
Guitar Player Magazine says Dick Dale is the father of Heavy Metal, blowing up 48 amplifiers, creating the first power amplifier.
I love heavy metal, Metallica. I'm into Jefferson Starship and acid rock.
One of the songs we recorded for 'The Long Run' was called 'You're Really High, Aren't You?' Which never really made it onto a record, but later on, it became 'Heavy Metal.' I took that track that wasn't used, and when I was invited to write a song for that movie, I took that track and recorded that song for that movie.
Years ago, I was performing, and people kept calling out for 'Puppy Love' and I just didn't want to. Then I thought I'd have some fun, so we did this insane heavy metal version of it. The applause was polite.
