Interviews

Interview with The Browning’s Johnny McBee

Published

6 years ago

October 1, 2018

What’s up folks? Klownz here again with another Empire Interview with Johnny McBee the lead singer and writer for the band The Browning. So peep your eyes on this and see what we chatted about.

EE: So Growing up in Kansas how was the music scene? And what were your influences?

JM: Originally my step dad got me into metal, like into Metallica and crap like that then my older brother got me into the more harder stuff like Hatebreed and Amon Amarth. But the scene in KC used to be so sick like a church would let us book shows and whenever we were like 14 and back then it was like, we would just say that there would be like five local bands playing and 250 people would show up. So twice a month we would put on these shows at this church and we got so many people coming to shows that the church decided to let us put on bigger shows and we were 15 or 16 and we built a scene around ourselves. Just doing these random shows in a church in Missouri. I remember specifically when me and my friends started playing metal we didn’t know what break downs were we never been to tour shows or anything like that. Because we were just trying to sound like as I lay dying basically. I remember our first show we went into our very first song we went into was a breakdown and we saw fist and arms flying and we were like what the fuck so we went and started just writing breakdowns.

EE: would you say that your parents were supportive off the bat then?

JM: Oh yeah, I come from not a very well off family so they don’t give a crap and they don’t have expectations, I’ve seen so many people that come from rich families and get ruined in the scene because they were expected to go to college and expected to get a job. My family doesn’t have jobs and never went to college so whatever I do is fine. The hardest part I decided when I was like 17 my whole life was Baseball and music. I played in like the super little league series.so when I was 17 I decided that I was going to a music school. And music school doesn’t have a baseball team so I was like its kind of a waste of time for me to play baseball, if I’m going to music college. When I quit baseball my mom was kind of freaking out because that was my whole life up until that point and she was expecting me to go to college playing baseball at that point.

EE:So the new single the new single Carnage just came out how are the fans reacting to it an what the feedback?

JM: overall everyone is loving it, this is sick and this is perfect. Obviously there is a few people that talk about the rap, and the funny thing is we have had a few people say that im an original fan and the rap just ruins everything and remember I started this in 2005 as a solo project, but from 2008 to 2010 it was all rap metal that’s all I wrote so if you are an original fan you should know that 10 years ago that what The Browning was.

EE: you heard it here folks!

EE: with Geist being released in less than 5 weeks are you nervous?

JM: its going to be interesting because, one of my favorite comments on carnage somebody said I wasn’t really digging the rap but at least you guys did go dad rock! My thought was wait till you hear the next single….. this album is our hardest and softest album we ever made. So just wait till you hear the album

EE: So what is your favorite track on the new record?

JM: Ummm it’s a toss up between a song called Skybreaker or a song called awaken the omega its because those songs are so vastly different from The Browning has ever done.

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Anthony Bernardi

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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

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 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!

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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.