Heavy Music Interviews
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Dorothy
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself and recently released a new single, “Scars,” with Upon Wings. This month’s piece features an interview with singer Dorothy. Dorothy (full name Dorothy Martin) has crafted the album she always wanted to create with Gifts from the Holy Ghost. The set highlights Dorothy’s powerful, emotive vocals, as she sings about breaking free from oppression, saying farewell to demons and maintaining power in an uncertain world. The name of the new album is inspired in part from a wild experience Dorothy had on a tour bus three years ago. Aft...
Heavy Culture: Oxymorrons on Queens Upbringing, Haitian Heritage, and Fighting Stereotypes
Heavy Culture is a monthly column from journalist Liz Ramanand, focusing on artists of different cultural backgrounds in heavy music, as they offer their perspectives on race, society, and more as it intersects with and affects their craft. The latest installment of this column features Deee and KI of the band Oxymorrons. Oxymorrons are keeping busy in 2022. After kicking off the year on the ShipRocked cruise, the band is currently wrapping up a tour with Grandson and Royal & The Serpent. Heavy Consequence recently caught up with brothers Deee and KI of Oxymorrons to discuss all things music and culture. The vocalists spoke candidly about their upbringing in Queens, New York, their Haitian roots, and how that shaped who they are and their music. They also discussed their 2021 release, ...
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Lena Scissorhands of Infected Rain
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself and will release a new single, “Scars,” on February 4th with Upon Wings. This month’s piece features an interview with Lena Scissorhands of Infected Rain. Moldovan metal band Infected Rain released their fifth studio album, Ecdysis, on January 7th. Created during lockdown, the new record covers the gamut of themes, from the strength and power of the female experience (“Fighter”) to tumultuous world events that took place during pandemic (“The Realm of Chaos”). Infected Rain also just announced that they’re returning to North A...
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Johanna Platow Andersson of Lucifer
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself, recently releasing the song “Eternal Way” with Upon Wings. This month’s piece features an interview with Johanna Platow Andersson of Lucifer. Lucifer craft a unique brand of music, combining the dark, sludgy sounds of ’70s hard rock with a dose of modern doom metal. The band was formed in 2014 by singer Johanna Platow Andersson and has since performed hundreds of shows around the world, from the Kiss Kruise to Psycho Las Vegas to Sweden Rock. The band released its latest album, Lucifer IV, in October via Century Media. For He...
Volbeat’s Michael Poulsen on Servant of the Mind, Tour with Ghost, and Metallica’s Black Album
Danish rockers Volbeat are back with their eighth studio album, Servant of the Mind, just released via Republic Records. Musically, the album hearkens back to the band’s earlier, heavier days, with relentless riffing and punching rhythms, while also representing how far they’ve come as a group. “You can definitely hear a band that sounds very young, but at the same time, a band that has a lot of experience with the style we started so many years ago,” frontman Michael Poulsen tells Heavy Consequence. In addition to releasing the new album, Volbeat are prepping for a highly anticipated co-headlining US arena tour with Swedish metal masters Ghost. The outing kicks off January 25th in Reno, Nevada, and runs through a March 3rd show in Anaheim, California. Tickets are available now via Ticketm...
Heavy Culture: Alien Weaponry on Māori Ideology, New Album Tangaroa, and Touring with Gojira
Heavy Culture is a monthly column from journalist Liz Ramanand, focusing on artists of different cultural backgrounds in heavy music, as they offer their perspectives on race, society, and more as it intersects with and affects their craft. The latest installment of this column features Lewis and Henry de Jong of Alien Weaponry. New Zealand metal act Alien Weaponry have recently released their latest album, Tangaroa, and they also wrapped up a tour supporting supporting Gojira and Knocked Loose. The band’s music is written and sung in both Māori and English, with themes that center around the ideologies and history of the culture. Heavy Consequence caught up with brothers Lewis de Jong (vocals, guitar) and Henry de Jong (drums) while they were on the road with Gojira. They spoke about tour...
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Anette Olzon
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself, recently releasing the song “Eternal Way” with Upon Wings. This month’s piece features an interview with Anette Olzon, formerly of Nightwish. Anette Olzon previously fronted one of the biggest symphonic metal bands in the world, Nightwish, but has since embarked on a solo career. This year, she returned with her sophomore solo album, Strong. The new set is nothing like her debut solo release, Shine. While the latter was a much more stripped-down, intimate collection of songs, Strong takes the listener in a much heavier and da...
Judas Priest’s Rob Halford on 50 Years of Metal, Handcuffing Andy Warhol, and Touring with Ozzy Osbourne
Fifty years of doing anything in the arts is impressive — even more so in popular music, and especially in heavy metal. It’s a rigorous and demanding genre, and certainly of a niche for faithful. But it’s proved resilient, welcoming to new directions and trends while continuing to revere its traditions and its long-haulers. Judas Priest have become the latest to join the golden anniversary club, and in its case a band that’s spent the past half-century rocking uninterrupted, weathering lineup changes and changing audience tastes. But anyone who’s seen the quintet as recently as this year’s “50 Heavy Metal Years Tour” — which came to an abrupt and unexpected stop on September 26th after guitarist Richie Faulkner suffered a ruptured aorta onstage and more than 10 hours of open heart surgery ...
Alice Cooper on His New Audio Memoir, the Legacy of “School’s Out,” and Who Should Play Him in a Movie
When Audible announced its ongoing “Words + Music” audio program — in which some of rock’s biggest names combine storytelling with music — it made perfect sense that legendary shock rocker Alice Cooper participate in the series. As evidenced by his newly-released entry, Who I Really Am: The Diary of a Hollywood Vampire, Alice tells great story after great story. Throughout the audio memoir, he is comparable to a “rock ‘n’ roll Forrest Gump” — recounting experiences in which he crossed paths with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Syd Barrett, Frank Zappa, John Lennon, and Keith Moon, among others. Additionally, you’ll hear new acoustic versions of “School’s Out,” “Is It My Body” (a tune from which a line was plucked from for the title of his Audible release), “Poison,” and other classics. Advertis...
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself, recently releasing the song “Eternal Way” with Upon Wings. This month’s piece features an interview with Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara. Los Angeles rockers Dead Sara spent much of the lockdown period working on their Warner Records debut (and third album overall), the just-released Ain’t It Tragic. With recording sessions set to take place smack dab in the middle of the pandemic, the new album brought some challenges for the band, but it was nothing they couldn’t face head-on, as demonstrated in their triumphant new single, “H...
Cage the Elephant on Covering Metallica’s “The Unforgiven”: “It’s Almost Like Their ‘Stairway to Heaven’”
Cage the Elephant were among the 53 artists to participate in the just-released covers compilation The Metallica Blacklist. Each act covered a track from “The Black Album,” with all proceeds from the release benefitting a charity of the artist’s choice and Metallica’s All Within My Hands Foundation. For their contribution to The Metallica Blacklist, Cage the Elephant took on the epic ballad “The Unforgiven.” Proof of the song’s universally captivating arrangement, Cage make it sound like their own song while preserving the grandeur and dynamics of the original. In an exclusive Q&A with Heavy Consequence, Cage the Elephant guitarist Nick Bockrath discussed the experience of covering “The Unforgiven,” the impact of “The Black Album,” and the legacy of Metallica. Advertisement Related Vid...
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Willow Smith on Embracing Rock, Her Mother’s Influence, and Opening for Billie Eilish
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself, recently releasing the song “Eternal Way” with Upon Wings. This month’s piece features an interview with Willow Smith. Many music acts take an entire career to churn out four studio albums, but Willow Smith has already achieved that feat at the age of 20. If you count her collaborative LP (The Anxiety) with Tyler Cole, then it’s five albums, plus a handful of EPs. Willow recently released a rock-inspired new album Lately I Feel Everything, featuring a raw, alternative vibe with heavy guitars, punky rhythms and powerful vocals...
