Metal Church

OCTOBER '08

Harder Beat Magazine Online

By Dale Lammers

Metal Church

Ask any metalhead with knowledge of the music and its history, and they’ll say, “Metal Church has long had a reputation of brilliance.” The band’s self-titled debut from ’84, ‘87’s The Dark along with ‘89’s Blessing In Disguise are all widely hailed as classics.

Hitting their creative stride with ‘91’s earth-shattering The Human Factor, the band hasn’t missed a beat since. That trend continues today with This Present Wasteland, released via SPV Records on September 23. The CD shows the band in top form with tracks like “Monster,” “Deeds Of A Dead Soul,” “Meet Your Maker” and the best Metal Church song to come along in nearly two decades, “Crawling To Extinction.”

Lead singer Ronny Munroe, who recently called the Harder Beat to tell us about This Present Wasteland states, “’Crawling To Extinction’ is also one of my favorites. It sticks in your head all day long. I hope we get to play it on tour, because it’s got a swing that carries over so well in a live environment. You can either dance or mosh to it. I’m pretty proud of it.”

Those familiar with the last two Metal Church albums (A Light In The Dark and Weight Of The World) will notice a stark difference in Munroe’s vocal delivery. “My voice has gotten much stronger and lower from touring — not only with Metal Church, but with my solo band. I’ve been told there’s now a little bit of Bruce Dickinson and a little bit of Graham Bonnet’s grit to it. That wasn’t intentional, but man, that’s a huge compliment.”

This album has a more distinct, aggressive direction. Ronny notes, “Kurdt (Vanderhoof — band leader/founder) wrote the music for This Present Wasteland, just like he does for almost everything else. I asked him to push me vocally. Kurdt’s amazing. He’ll call me up one day and say he’s going to start writing for the next Metal Church album, A day later, I’ll have a bunch of MP3’s waiting in my email, so I have to start writing lyrics. When he gets on a roll, he just doesn’t stop. It’s great, but I wonder how he finds the time.”

Indeed, Vanderhoof’s schedule is jam-packed. In addition to Metal Church obligations, he also has a ‘70’s progressive rock band called Presto Ballet that released the brilliant Peace Among The Ruins in ’05 and is currently preparing to release an equally brilliant album, The Lost Art Of Time Travel. He also has a solo band simply named Vanderhoof, which released 2000’s Vanderhoof and ‘02’s A Blur In Time.

In addition to that, Vanderhoof owns and runs a recording studio and is presently preparing for the annual massive Trans-Siberian Orchestra holiday tour, where he’s a soundman for the West coast faction. TSO hits American Airlines Center for two shows on Jan. 3. Combined with the East coast faction, the shows will likely be attended by two million people collectively and will potentially gross well over $100 million in a two-month period.

“See what I mean?” Ronny asks. “He’s a busy dude. As much as I’d personally love to get Metal Church out on the road as soon as possible, it all depends on Kurdt. Understandably, TSO has to take top priority. In that light, I’d guess we’ll be able to get out on the road in February or March of ’09, but that’s only a guess. Don’t hold me to that,” he laughs. “I’d love to get back to Dallas / Fort Worth. We owe you guys a show.”
They actually do. They were scheduled to play Fort Worth’s Ridglea Theater in Feb. ’07 when, on the day of the show, the remainder of the tour had to be cancelled because of recurring back problems of drummer Jeff Plate’s (Savatage/TSO).

“Jeff had just finished the ’06 TSO tour, “ Ronny elaborates, “then jumped onto the Metal Church tour without much of a break, and it caught up to him. He’s always had issues with his back, as many drummers do. I think it was a bulging disc or something, but he couldn’t move very well at all, so we had no choice. We had to cancel the tour.

The timing of it sucked, because Metal Church has a ton of friends in DFW and a very close bond with the Harder Beat. “But then again, there’s really no good time to have back problems. You can’t ignore that stuff. You just can’t.”
This Present Wasteland is now available everywhere.

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