Let’s simply start with the question, how does it feel, being in Europe one more time? Isn’t it a bit like coming home again? The reactions of the fans were to be as euphoric as they already were last year, when FORBIDDEN had their first comeback tour over here.
“Well, our sample size is at the moment only this one festival which was highly reveared and extremely muddy. There was a good reaction. But to be honestly, the crowd was tired all day, like anything I saw before. They’ve been fighting the mud all day and all their legs were like slugging through the place. People were not thrashing in that crowd really. But when it comes to their reactions on our music and to the band, yes, they were great responses… Yeah, I do feel like it’s coming home in a way. It’s been a long time since we had an extended tour over here. It still feels like we’re still building something. We now just get through this three-week tour and then return home and then finish the recordings of the new album, which will be out by May of next year.”
When I looked into singer Norman Skinner’s face during the Wacken broadcast and compare it to what I saw at Rock Hard Festival 2024 in Germany, there was a difference when Norman announced the new song… All of a sudden this wasn’t just a band playing all the old songs, it was this type of new…
“Energy! Yeah, you’re right. It’s because we know what we have been doing and we know how good those songs are. We’ve only played ‘Divided By Zero’ twice until then, both times it went over really well. I think it was the right first song for us to release, so I think everyone is kind of reacting to that reaction. In its ownership, like everyone in the band now feels like they are part of it, everyone has contributed something great. Norman has contributed not only vocal melodies, he also contributed the lyrics. For example: I had the song-title and I also had what I wanted it to be about, so I explained it to them what the deeper meaning of ‘Divided By Zero’ was, about people cancelling each other out. And he was like: “Okay, I’m alright with that. Just a few days later he came and told me: I think I got it. So I asked, what he got and he told me, he wrote the lyrics for that song. An I was like: what? He took it and wrote the lyrics, because he felt that it was his job to do. Anyway… He sent me the lyrics and I loved it and he showed me what he wanted to do and I said: Dude, that is perfect. It’s the perfect gateway for any old FORBIDDEN fan that wants the nostalgic feeling, the comfortable shoe of the tonality of Russ’ delivery – he was smart. Normans brain told him from the beginning, that is a great first song to give it to the people. And he was right with it. He doesn’t usually sing like that but he knew that was like a bridge over the gap. And people were like: Really? He can go for this and open up his voice? They’re gonna be fuckin’ blown away, I can tell you…”
It’s a great job of Norman to replace the old, for some: original singer, whom was grown up with the band. I missed your last comeback attempt with the “Omega Wave” album in 2010. But what went wrong back then and what should have been done differently back then?
“Probably the people I choose to play with, you know. But the big elephant in the room is that Russ was never into touring and he always struggled with alcoholism. It’s hard, you know, he would be into it in moments, but mostly not at all… But when we did the album itself, he was extremely focussed. He tried to work really hard, we wrote a lot of things together, he came to my house three, four days a week and we got to a point, where he was comfortable with what he is going to sing and to say on the album. It really was a good collaboration… But when we started touring the same sort of stuff happened again: new struggling and also our drummer had problems home and family issues. It’s really fuckin’ hard! Even today, with this band, it’s still hard with all the strife and stress of life to get out and do this shit, night after night. You have to be a certain kind of person, you have to have a certain amount of… You know these words ‘Intestimal Fortitude’? It means you have that inner strength and the drive you need to be able to do it. So I think with “Omega Wave” it was a combination of guys which just didn’t have that extra magic. If you have a couple of pieces moving in one direction, mentally… and it’s really mentally. If they move in one direction and some others don’t then you have exactly that what happened. And I don’t know how we could have avoided it. We didn’t even break up, we kind of just dissolved… That happened on a plane trip back from Chile after we played one of our biggest shows in front of 10.000 people and Russ sat next to me on the plane and said to me: I don’t want to do Wacken! I don’t want to travel for another weekend and then go back again. It’s not worth it! And I said: well, if you don’t want to do Wacken, I’m not going to force you. It took me a couple of months to realize that it’s probably not going to happen anymore. And I said back then: I’m never going to do it without Russ… and I meant it!”
That is leading perfectly to my next question, Craig. When did you realize that you definitely wanted to continue with FORBIDDEN? Was there a specific reason? I mean, it could have been easy for you to join almost any band of your choice…
“Yes, I’ve had offers. I can say it now, I could have been in MACHINE HEAD any number of times. I’m a friend of Robb, I get along with him, as long I don’t play with them. And the same he will say about me. When he really needed somebody once, we made that clear… I told him: I need to do my own thing, I want to write my own music and Robb totally respected that. I did DRESS THE DEAD, which was actually a great fuckin’ band, but: no one cared, it didn’t matter. We had this incredible female singer (Kayla Dixon, former WITCH MOUNTAIN), with a mindblowing talent. Like the talent of Russ, quite frankly. She was on the same level with Russ’ vocal talent. And she is this fantastic, very pretty African – American girl with fuckin’ power. But for some reason, people didn’t want to connect with it, they couldn’t put it together. And I could see it over the time. We built up and we got asked to do Dynamo, we also played the Dynamo club and then Alcatraz festival. And again it felt like pushing something up the hill. And the same drummer that was in FORBIDDEN, Mark Hernandez, was in DRESS THE DEAD and he started having family problems so my feeling was: I don’t know if this is going to work out. I was at the end of my wisdom to get all these guys somehow on one page together. And then I got the e-mail from Alcatraz, asking if FORBIDDEN would take the place of ANTHRAX, at the two years ago Alcatraz festival. That was funny, because they also said: and maybe you want to get a different singer because Russ isn’t feeling well. Maybe you’d probably like also to talk with Chris Kontos about playing drums. That was one! The other thing was, Ted Aguilar from DEATH ANGEL was saying, we should get together again and do our DEATH ANGEL shows. I wasn’t much intrested in that, it doesn’t feel like a big ‘Yeaah!’ for that. But these two things together told me: the universe is telling me something! My band… It’s going to be a drag these guys to go… But that was the moment which was literally like: I saw this e-mail, thought about it and pushed my chair back and said: Fuck! The universe is telling me something! I had to make some phone-calls… I first talked to Matt and then to Steve Smyth and then I needed to talk to Norman, because I already knew he really could do it. He proved it in front of a lot of people while performing ‘Chalice Of Blood’ with WARBRINGER on a Bay Area Thrash festival in San Francisco. He had proved it, but he wasn’t already in yet. It was the moment, the offers and all the frustration coming together and knowing… In the world, the way I see the world, it’s a great time for FORBIDDEN, because all the dissention and fighting and arguing and categorizing in the world, it’s like: that’s what we do! That’s what FORBIDDEN always has written about. And I’ve been right, the reactions to the band is stronger than it was back then, because the timing is better. And the people in the band! So the last one was Chris Kontos, I talked to him and asked if he wants to play with us? Maybe it’s not a good idea because we’re good friends and we might argue. But the offer was there. Then I talked to some other drummers, that he even might know, they would love to do it, but they don’t live in the Bay Area. That wasn’t really good. So I finally circled back to Chris and told him, I got some other guys who like to do it… But I asked, if he would be pissed with me if I’m out here playing the festivals with someone else while he could be there. And writing new music also… That was the final point, I got him. And Chris and I are a formidable writing and production team, we really can work really well together.”
Let’s go even one step further back in time. Like many people back then, I didn’t understand the transistion from “Distortion” to the “Green” album in 1997.
“Well it happened quick!”
I wasn’t getting “Green” when it came out – it simply wasn’t in my programm of Heavy Metal music at this time…
“It took a few years for some, to get behind the “Green” album, yes!”
Exactly. Was this album simply ahead of its time?
“You know, looking back now: yeah, it was! Then it needs to be seen like: I think we were just extremely frustrated with all the industry and the lack of caring about Metal in general. There was very few bands… If you were in a Thrash Metal band, you’ve had a stigma. At that time it was just like… Well, something happened actually, it was a process that kind of went on while we were writing the “Distortion” album. I think, the whole thing began much earlier: when we finished “Twisted Into Form” and they wanted to throw us back into the studio immediately to write another record, we resisted and started to fight hard to get off of Combat Records. That for us opened a breathing area. There was space, we then had a major label ready to sign us and we started doing something more progressive then, like a sort of FORBIDDEN’s version of QUEENSRYCHE or so. And that was a weird time…! People loved the songs of these demos then. When I listen to them now, I’m like: what were we thinking then? There was no connection to Thrash Metal in that. We set up ourselves new a couple of times in that writing process. After the deal was right up, NIRVANA came out, Paul went to SLAYER. All this literally happened in one time. ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ comes out, Paul goes to SLAYER and the record company has gone away, because they just were looking for those dudes in flanell shirts from that time on. The whole world had changed quite over night, somehow! To “Green” it was still a big leap. It shows how all the frustration built up. On “Distortion” we decided to do what we wanna fuckin’ do, just don’t worry about anything… I remember, we had a meeting in a bath-tub, me and Tim Calvert and Steve Jacobs sitting there, drinking some beer and taking acid, I remember. It was like, we were pretty fucked up, and it’s like: Man! Chasing shit sucks! Trying to find a new spot between it and we decidet not to do any of that. So we did “Distortion” and it was a really good record. But after this entire tour to it we were just fuckin’ tired and pissed off totally!”
Before we talk more about “Green”, this is a good opportunity to interrupt and ask: why didn’t you play Songs of “Distortion” on the comeback tour?
“Because they do have a different tuning. Everything we’re doing on this whole set on this tour is in E, you could even play Chuck Berry in it. We’re playing everything on the first two albums and ‘Divided By Zero’ in this tuning. “Distortion” was tuned a half step down. And “Green” – to come back to it – was tuned in all different ways. It was experimental… It was angry, we were fuckin’ mad and truly upset.”
Much ahead of its time. Nowadays, after all of us have heared this Crossover stuff, Nu-Metal and sounds like SYSTEM OF A DOWN, we can deal much better with the songs on “Green” than back in the days, where we honestly have just asked ourselves: what the fuck are they doing here?
“Yeah! What was weird was, I remember talking to the label and they couldn’t categorize it at all. They were like: we don’t know what this is, it seems to be like a record for musicians. And I said: it’s the opposite! This is a record made with pure caveman anger. FORBIDDEN’s version of a Neanderthal something, you know? Punk style thing somehow and we loved it. It was me and Steve Jacobs writing it, Tim had kind of checked out at this point. And we had a blast, and I got all my anger out with that album! After that, it was done! But what followed, I don’t know if you heared from it. The record company wanted to put us out on tour with the album… Out on the road with MANOWAR! It was the point, where I said: I quit! I told them, if you don’t know where this band is going and you don’t understand where we’ve been… I don’t see any reason for continuing. Just in a minute. Because that’s it, we get miscategorized that badly. I couldn’t do that loaning cloth thing in that version of FORBIDDEN, or any version. Nowadays I wouldn’t say no, because it would be fun. Back then, we got it out of our systems. I wasn’t even angry, I was just finished with it. I cut it all out, man. I think all of us felt like that. I needed something new in my life!”
Somehow, FORBIDDEN always were some kind of bridge between those who listened to classic Heavy Metal and US Metal and us, the Thrash kids. Accordingly almost everyone was pleased when “Omega Wave” reunited these worlds. And everyone particularly appereciated the subtle NEVERMORE or SANCTUARY vibe it had.
“It’s funny because I never listened to those bands, but they listened to FORBIDDEN. Tim liked NEVERMORE and SANCTUARY, but he wasn’t in the band anymore then… In fact when FORBIDDEN was breaking up I was telling Tim, he should go and join the SANCTUARY guys. And first he got really offended about that and then, of course, he did it! Well, he joined NEVERMORE. I thought it would be a good thing for him, but it didn’t turn out to go that well. But they made a really great record. No, I never really… People said that from time to time… I think, there is more of that stuff nowadys in our sound, because Norman is into things like that. He’s really a big fan of things like that and has his little parts in that way. But Russ never was really.”
What were your intensions when you were writing the music for “Omega Wave”?
“My intension was to write the most Metal record I possibly could. It literally just said it has to be the subject matter: it’s got to be heavy and have some sort of sense of humour pushed back to it. I felt like all the conspiracies were piling up and mixing everything, so I kind of saw this whole generation coming up and as a guy who is a conspiracy hobbyist, I saw that there’s great subject matter to pull from on that album at the time. So there were a lot of cool things to write about and we did it with a bit sense of humour. I don’t exactly know how many times, but we said ‘death’ and ‘dying’ on this album all the time and we were really cracking up about it. It is what it is… What you can get from it is sincere, everybody was invested in the writing process and like I said about Russ earlier, he was really focussed for that. And then after that he just fell back to too much drinking, not really having energy, living unhealthy and all that. It was really sad. But at the end of the day, today he is sober. I’m really happy for that!”
You were playing with DEATH during their “Individual Thought Patterns” tour in 1993. Do you remember how Chuck approached you and asked you to join them on this tour?
“Oh, I remember everything. I remember that FORBIDDEN was busy and we were just about to record the “Distortion” demos, because we just signed a new record deal. So, we just started doing that, I got a phone-call from Steve DiGeorgio. And I never talked to him seperate from shows so I was like: what do you want? And he said: Yeah, you know, Chuck wants you really to do this next tour with us, can you play guitar with us for a run through Europe. I told him, I don’t think I can. I have no time, we’re recording a demo, I can’t go to Florida like to rehearse anything… And he answered something like: I don’t think he’s going to like that! I don’t know what to say? I mean, Chuck is my friend, I’ve known him since long before, when he still used to hang out at shows in the Bay Area. A couple of days later I got another call from Steve and he told me: Chuck decided, he’s going to come to Oakland to rehearse to make it easy for you. I repeated: I don’t have time! He just asked: how easy do you want it to be? It’s just a tour. So I kind of regrettingly said yes, just I because I thought I was doing too much and I didn’t want to be overworked or intimidated by anything. It ends up that I recorded our demo and had no time to learn any DEATH songs between there and there. I thought they are going to be really hard for me to learn, but then Chuck showed up and showed me a riff and I was like: Oh, that is easy. And he said: yeah, just play that four times…! That was the whole process, I learned a riff and I had the songs in my head. It made me realize very quickly that their songs were a lot easier to play than ours and it’s genius to make them sound that complex, without being that complex. That takes a certain skill to make it sound like it’s crazier than it is. So I just learned each song over a course of four days and the next thing was on the road. For me there was no practising or acclimatisation, it was up on stage and… holy shit! I always had this philosophy which says: just let the Metal flow! He didn’t want me to like overthink the songs, I didn’t even have to learn the solos in the beginning. It was really fun for me, I had a great experience and the band got on really well. And as a result I became really good friends with them. I mean, Gene Hoglan is like the godfather, they are still family. It was an honour! And they did ask me in the end, Chuck specifically asked if I wanted to stick around and do more and maybe work on the next DEATH album. And I said: There’s no way! Because the guys in FORBIDDEN were already not happy with me leaving them.”
Chuck wasn’t without controversy at this time, he was said to be extremely difficult and had a bad reputation for repeatedly cancelling tours. So how did you come along with him?
“He was great, he was simply great. I think we got along so well, because he was not really a boss to me. I was more like a rental, so there wasn’t a sense of hierarchies, he knew that I had another band and was the leader of my own band – and he got that. So we all came along with each other really well. And we played fast as fuck. That was the fastest version of DEATH, both we pushed him and tried to make things become even more flurry. I think it was the first and only time DEATH even did kind of blastbeats. We did that…”
I remember that tour pretty good, because I had the chance to interview Schuldiner there and I was really kind of scared of him, because everybody especially in Germany was writing what kind of psychopath he’d be… And then was there this lovley guy sitting, smoking his pot and explaining his visions of music and Heavy Metal.
“He was a lovley guy, absolutely. But also just a close look on this that he really had a missed non-diagnosed condition. That effected his brain, that I think, made some of his decisions to appear rather difficult to others.”
So you think this might be a reason for what was later leading to his brain-tumour, which in the end most probably leading to his death?
“I’m not a doctor. So I couldn’t directly tie the two things together. But it makes sense why he had this short circeling thoughts in him. And he really had a lot of grudges with other people, I was never one of those he had a grudge on, I feel fortuned. So I can only speak for myself.”
I’m trying to imagine how “Symbolic” would have sounded with you as DEATH guitarist.
“I can’t even imagine, I was too busy. I try not to entertain this kind of thoughts too much… I like more melodic vocalists. And Chuck did too, he also liked more melodic vocalists and he wanted exactly that, that’s why he started CONTROL DENIED then, because he wanted something which is more melodic and more Metal.”
Now, long after the tragic death of Chuck, there are many bands paying tribute to him and his work and do bring back the DEATH songs on stage like LEFT TO DIE or DEATH TO ALL do, or even write complete new songs in the style of DEATH like GRUESOME do. As you have been a tiny part of the history of DEATH, how do you think about that?
“Oh, I think it’s fun. All those guys have a stake in the band and some were part of the history. One band is honouring the older version of DEATH and the other band is honouring the whole catalogue. I played with DEATH TO ALL a couple of times, they were writing me to come out and play and I did that.”
Let’s go to something completely different. How much of this little angry Thrash kid you were in the beginning, back in 1985, is still in you today?
“Well, we kind of touched on that already earlier, I think that the time, the things that inspired me back then. Let’s say it like that: I’m not that angry little Thrash kid anymore, I’m now more a measured version of it – not like stupidly running around and going like: Uaargh! But I think, there’s plenty of things to be pissed off about, this world offers us plenty of material for that. FORBIDDEN always have been a philosophical band until now. For the coming songs we’re also reaching over the subject matters now and you will hear it in the other songs. It’s even getting further into science and stuff and there definitely will be some really intresting subject matter on the record. If you dig into the lyrics, if you’re that kind of person – as not everyone is – you definitely will enjoy it. Writing lyrics together with Norman and Chris is really fun. Chris is now helping, too. Norman now does the most of the words and I give him titles and ideas what the songs should be about and then he works around it and Chris then helps finishing them. It’s pretty awesome…”
I asked the ‘Thrash kid’ question, because we here keep hearing that you constantly raise your voice against Trump and his administration and encourage people to think critically and simply don’t keep quiet…
“I don’t do it constantly, but yeah, you’re right there, I really do encourage people to be critical. Ironically I have to keep more quiet in this situation now, we’re going from country to country, so I can not present a problem to the band. We all feel the same, all of us. And Chewy (Daniel Mongrain) made a comment to me, if I didn’t feel how I feel, he wouldn’t have done this. One stain on society shouldn’t erase that the society has individuals in it, that don’t agree with the mouth-piece and the one figurehead. And when you have a person like Trump, who is quite frankly a level of narcicism that’s never existed among leaders before, only maybe Mussolini, and he had no social media, you know… It’s all just a different world. Yeah, it kind of always freaks me out. But I learned how to take a step back – for all of us. And I think this is a smart move. Because I think, lyrically I can cover it, not by being direct, but by asking questions and posing more thoughts in a provocative way.”
How is the situation in the United States right now, also for artists? Is it dangerous having this backbone attitude to be openly against the administration?
“It could be. I think the only thing anyone has going for in that situation is, Donald Trump has simply alienated himself, unboxed himself into a situation where everyone knows he’s a fool. It is harder and harder for people to stand behind him and defend him… That’s the benefit of letting him just go, right: Blablablabla. He just keeps going and he’s kind of unbox himself… But there is still people who are going to be sycophants and he surrounds himself with those folks. But, we’re not. I think, the majority of the country is not under him now like a year ago. I don’t think the majority has ever been, but also a part of our country is lazy and doesn’t do or learn anything. So I really think he had never more than really 40 or maybe 42% of real true Trumpers. And I think it’s less now.”
Hopefully.
“No, there is. But our education system is really bad. People aren’t tought things in civics and social studies like it used to be. Now their point of references is like: Look. See. React. Forget about it. Walk away! It’s not the same. They surely taught history all over you. What happened here, they can’t forget… But they forget, every society has such moments. It was really getting dangerous in America, it still could become… But I feel there is more and more people pulling out of it.”
What I would secretly wish for, especially also while looking at this scary growing right wing movement here in Europe…
“I can’t fuckin’ believe it, I really can’t fuckin’ believe…”
I mean we had Hitler here in Germany, we’re still able to see what this time made us become. Why do we need to reinvent this shit nowadays?
“Short memories?”
I just wonder, maybe it’s just a desperate wish, where are the new RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE kids? Where is the next Michael Moore shooting new films in the US, and where are the Thrash and Punk freaks who will write the next “Reign In Blood”?
“Yes! I think they are already out there. And you’re going to see that as a certain and you also going to see that we are older and wiser nowadays and there’s a way to do it now. People are so fuckin’ fed up, they’re so equally tired. There’s a fatique that has overrun society, they hear things and it’s just like… There’s a word for it, but I can’t think of it right now. They throw so much shit at you that you become numb to it. That’s exactly part of what is happening to the American society right now. It’s been beat down to… It says: two-hundred lies a day, why do you care just about that one? It’s just talking, it’s just the president…”
A bit of the same feeling people get here when they realize that, no matter what they vote for, it seems to stay the same. Same talking, same feeding of the friends of those who have power…
“That’s always going to be the case. When the Trump movement started they were promising he is going to dismantle the way things are and he’s going to get rid of this whole deep state thing… It’s endless bullshit, because ultimately there always will be families and corporations, you know: old money. And that will always be the thing until that’s broken. And it’s not going to be broken by having another guy, who just wants to make a few more billion dollars. It just goes in circles and all the shit is going to start over again. A natural desaster will likely take care of all this… Maybe some kind of super volcano. All the super volcanos erupting all over the world erupting at the same time. It won’t be the worst way for this planet to go!”
The new song ‘Divided By Zero’ sounds very aggressive, yet retains a modern edge. It will be exciting to hear what the whole album will sound like then. I don’t want to ask you about details or song-titles or anything, but rather: where would you place the upcoming album stilistically into the discoraphy of FORBIDDEN? “I have the perfect place for it! Quite a few people who heared ‘Divided By Zero’ told me that it reminds them of something between “Twisted Into Form” and “Omega Wave” and that sounds about right. There is even a little “Distortion” in there but most people don’t know the album. Our point of reference is the first two and the last. Out here you have a lot of people who like “Distortion”. It did well in Germany and going on over a period of time. In the United States it didn’t do as well. Stilistically it’s going to be right between there. The first songs I wrote were in E, we tuned our guitars to E, which a big difference in your ears: it shocks you, but it’s the way it used to sound. And we also decided to make things pretty much in the old school way. We use just a guitar on each side, we’re not putting triggers over anything, we’re not sampling sounds on the drums and also not using clicktrack. We might use it when we start a song, but then that’s it. We don’t overtrack the guitars and we’re not going to edit shit. We don’t use all these things to keep this record real. We decidet to not do what most bands do today. There’s four songs that are done and the ones who heard them was reacting extremely excited. I want to do an old school production with really great tones. We can record with modern tones and sound and not do let the modern things fix it all, because that sucks all life out of it!”
Speaking of organic sound, did you hear the new SODOM album yet? They recorded the drums completely analog, using tape machines, everything sounds nice and warm, just like in 1989.
“Yes, I heared it. That we could imagine also, but it’s very expensive. I do like their album and I love the guys, we have been hanging out with them a few times in the last years. It’s a great band, great guys. It’s good to see, that they put an album out which is so vital. The guys of DESTRUCTION also, we were hanging out with them last night, they also have a great album out. So it’s good times for German Metal.”
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Interview & live pics: Wedekind Gisbertson