Interviews

Interview with Jayden Panesso of Sylar

Published

6 years ago

October 10, 2018

Ron

Sylar came into Silver Spring bringing their unique sound mixing rap, rock and metal into a chaotic yet beautiful arrangement. Empire Extreme got to sit down and have a good and thoughtful conversation with singer Jayden Panesso after the set.

EE: How you doing today?

JP: I’m doing great because not only is tonight our release night for our new album Seasons, but that set was crazy. People showed so much love, our boy Caleb from Beartooth came out and I didn’t even know. Maryland made us feel like home tonight.

EE: Are you good friends with those guys?

JP: For sure, Caleb was the first to be interested in us as a band, before that we were playing small gigs in basements and he saw something in us as a band. It felt special with us.

EE: What can the fans expect with the new album?

JP: Overall I feel like Seasons is its own little monster, which is what I’ve always wanted to do with Sylar. I listen to the record and it’s weird, I say damn, I expected to write this album four years ago. Even before I knew if the band was going to be signed. We are not a band that started from the top, we were In the bottom for so long. We use to pay to play show and having to sell tickets. We always wanted to play big venues, but we had to work as hard as we could.

EE: Yeah, I’ve always respected that more than the “factory” made bands because when the shit hits the fan and you’re not on top anymore and you’re down in the dirt, bands that have been in that situation for many years aren’t going to break at the first sign of heartache.

JP: That’s the beauty behind all this, I appreciate all the stuff that we’ve gone through. When you’re a small band like us and you’re on tour, you’re kinda homeless. We just stuck to us, and did our time.

EE: Are you guys psyched about doing the Rock Allegiance Show tomorrow?

JP: oh yeah, if you’re a huge Sylar fan and know what got me into the music was Limp Bizkit. I came from a family that didn’t care for rock, I all I knew was Hip Hop. I’ll never forget I was watching Wrestlemania 17, massive event, but the thing that got me was My Way was the theme song for that PPV, I never heard that before and heard Limp for the first time, and it was the first time hearing something that has a lot of roots in hip hop which I was familiar too but also something so different that I’ve never heard before. It blew my mind. Thanks to them I was able to backtrack to so many bands like that. Linkin Park, Deftones, POD, Ill Nino.

EE: And you guys are kinda like a resurgence of that era sorta.

JP: Yeah people always talk about that. To me all the kids that grew up listening to that music and now have their own bands, and yes Sylar is its own entity but you can’t deny we weren’t included by bands like that. That’s why that show is going to be so special to me.

EE: So you’re from Queens NY, which has such a range of great musicians like Run DMC, The Ramones, Sworn Enemy.

JP: Don’t forget Gene Simmons from Kiss. He graduated from the same high school I went to. Newtown High School one of the most urban, when I found out about going to that school after junior high, I cried, I was trying to get a computer science degree but because of the lottery I had to go to my local high school and it had such a bad rap. I was so bummed about it, but years later I look back at it now and I’m thankful I went to it, that hard knock life and that school taught me to be the man who I am today.

EE: If you could bring back one dead musician who would it be?

JP: For me it would be XXXTentacion, he got murdered. He had tons of bad history around him and that guy to me was a phenomenon, he clearly committed a lot of mistakes, but he got killed and didn’t get a chance and people were judging him for stuff he did when he was 15-16. He had a soul for music and a soul for empathy. He had a good heart but he was troubled, but who doesn’t. I would love to sit with him and ask a lot of questions about how he influenced a new generation. I’ll always remember when we was recording the new album in California, I was in the studio and our guitarist told us that he got shot, and people rioted about his death and coming out saying this dude touched my life and he was still considered underground.

Jayden also told me that he recently just had a baby girl. Congrats to him and Lexie.

About Author

Ron

Ron has keen eye for new talent, a love for the underground, and a tremendous passion for music of any genera. You’ll probably bump into him at a horror convention or some seedy club checking out the next need-to-know band.

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Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH MERCURY OF PRIEST

Published

2 weeks ago

April 23, 2024

Ron

Empire Extreme got to sit down and talk to Mercury of Priest when the band came into PA at LoveDrafts.

The show was amazing all the bands that we seen put on a great show for the fans. Vampires Everywhere killed it once again. Last time we seen Priest we only got to see them open for Powerman5000 and got like 6 songs, this time Priest was headlining and we got to see much more which I was excited to see.

Priest played a good mix of old and new and even a few songs off the album “Dark Pulse” which is out in May. We got to see 13 songs played and even Mercury come out into the crowd a few times and when they played “Obey” even blessed some of the crowd. It was great hearing songs like “BlackListed”, “Signal in the Noise”, “History in Black” and “Vaudeville”. It was such a great night of music and a great conversation with Mercury. If you get a chance to see this band play in ur town, it’s a must

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Ron

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Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH OF VIRTUE

Published

2 months ago

March 4, 2024

Ron

Where does the band name come from? Wanting to be the best version of yourself at all times. The name is a reminder to hold ourselves accountable.

How is the music scene in Michigan? The Michigan music scene has always been vibrant and in my opinion, important. Do we get the credit we deserve? Absolutely not. But for the state that brought you Motown, Eminem, Lizzo, The White Stripes, I Prevail and so many other incredible artists – it’s kind of hard to believe that Michigan remains a hidden gem.

How’s the reception from the fans of the latest album “Omen”? It’s been incredible. From seeing people singing along at shows to us seeing new supporters of all different ages, colors, and creeds joining the journey. Omen has been a pivotal album in our career and we’re proud of it!

If you could tour with 2 bands, which bands would you want to tour with? Spiritbox and Bad Omens. They’re both making waves, changing who the metal audience is, and surely they’d be fun to hang around with.

Where do you draw inspiration for the lyrics? Honestly, the lyrics are our stories. The stories of our struggles, our trials and our tribulations.

What’s been your favorite tour or show? We just got off of a tour with our labelmates, Any Given Day. They treated us to a handful of sold out shows over in Europe, which at this point we call our second home. Those were great shows, but any show we’ve done in Europe is typically one for the books!

If you could bring back a dead musician, who would it be? Prince for sure. An incredible musician I would love an opportunity to chat or make music with!

About Author

Ron

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Interviews

INTERVIEW WITH TWIN TEMPLE

Published

3 months ago

February 16, 2024

Ron

Being Married and being in a band together. Do you feel that makes it easier or harder?

We love to do the Devil’s work together so for us its a match made in hell.

What’s your favorite horror movie?

That’s hard to narrow down but the first few that come to mind are Rosemary’s Baby, The Devil Rides Out, Wickerman, The Devils Reign featuring Anton Lavey, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, anything starring Vincent Price. We also got to see an advance screen of “Late Night with the Devil” featuring a very evil performance from our friend Dave Dastmalchian. We’re also looking forward to Bryan Fuller’s “Dust Bunny” and are positive it will be a new favorite. The list goes on…..we are huge horror fans.

Favorite Non Horror Movie?

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (which is horror/noir adjacent) and The Burbs (also horror adjacent…haha.)

All of Quentin Tarantino’s films- our latest favorite is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, because 1960’s LA…

What misconception of Satanists would you like to educate people on?

We’re not here to proselytize, force our beliefs on people, or educate people on them Selves, Satanism or anything else. If people are interested in exploring Satanism, we encourage them to do their research and question everything.

If you could bring back any dead musician, who would you pick and why?

We would have loved to do a song with Ronnie Spector who recently passed. Also would have been amazing to collaborate with Jack Nitzsche who arranged so many amazing songs.

If you could tour with any 2 bands, who would you want to tour with?

The Ronnettes & The Shangri-Las.

What has been your Favorite Tour so far?

The God is Dead Tour that we’re currently on is definitely the most evil and blasphemous tour yet. We find it very pleasurable to be able to continue expanding the rituals and seeing our nightmares come true on stage.

You were on “Dragula” with the Boulet Brothers, how was that experience?

It was a fiendish delight to collaborate with some of our fav monsters.

What was it like Touring with Danzig?

Another nightmare come true! We’ve both been fans for a long time and we’re obviously inspired by the wicked world Glenn has conjured. So to get to spend time with him and watch him live every night and to now call him a friend is completely surreal. He’s a legend— but was also one of the coolest, kindest, most unholy people we’ve had the carnal pleasure of touring with.

How’s the reception of the last album “God is Dead”?

Personally, we love the record and are very proud of what we’ve accomplished. As far as other peoples’ reactions…. we don’t know and don’t care! We pleasured ourselves and that’s what matters most.

What got you interested in the style of music you play? And how would describe your music?

We’ve always loved classic American music from jazz to blues to country to rock and roll and so on. We also love the pageantry of heavy metal and theatre. So for us it was a very organic culmination of our obsessions. Rock and roll has always been the devils music.

Have you visited the Satanic Temple in Massachusetts?

No we have not but Lucien did attend one of our rituals so we had a chance to share where we get our babies blood and all things Satan.

Have you had any bad encounters at shows because of the misconception of satanism?

No! We purposefully foster a live show environment where all are welcome, all should come being the most important person in the world which is themselves, whatever that may be. Even Christians! We believe music is meant to bring joy, transcendence… We just want to share the things we love; pink, rhinestones, big hair, great rock ’n’ roll, Satanic ritual, you know… but we have had churches assemble outside our shows, screaming through distorted PA speakers that God is not dead & wishing us all a “terrible time”. Why would their God not want us to have fun? This kind of behavior is only makes us more proud to be who we are and do what we love.