IN THE MAGAZINE

MIKE CONTE (EARLY MAN)

Photo by Molly Robinson

Early Man will have all of this thrash metal revivalist bullshit erased from the radar within two years, mark my words. Mike Conte writes the catchiest and grade-A-best heavy metal around, and if you readers could hear him do a “music executive” impersonation, well, you would be changing into fresh undies. Hilarious guy, great band. Maybe he’ll curate All Tomorrow’s Parties one day.

Vice: First of all, you should know you will be the sole metal voice among these interviews. Speaking of which, when Early Man played SXSW, what sort of response did you get? Did you play with other metal bands?

Mike: In 2004, we were flown down by a label that was in “We need to sign a metal band now!” mode, and their showcase was purposely a mixed bag. Every two or three years a label comes along that says, “We’re going to start a label that has a cross-section of great music! It’s going to be like our very own record collections when we were growing up!” and that never works. In 2005 we played with the Sword and a band that totally killed, OXES.

Playing at big festivals has been a tradition in the metal community for some time, whereas it’s more recent with other genres or demographics. Any ideas as to why?

This is just an opinion, but when you take someone who’s really into metal, they’re pretty tolerant of or into most forms of metal, and I think it has to do with the festivals, because if you take a kid that’s only into the new wave of metal bands, you can introduce that kid to where all of that came from at a festival. A 62-year-old can go to a metal festival and see all of the bands he’s into, and there’s more of an unspoken appreciation across age gaps, and also, metal fans are a lot less judgmental than, say, the crowd at Bonnaroo. Metal fans don’t stand in front of a band they don’t like, whining.

In a way, Ozzfest is the most honest festival. You don’t see it promoted as “Experience a sense of community with this eclectic array of artists!” Ozzfest knows exactly what it is.

Totally. And Ozzfest fans are honest about why they’re there. It’s been a springboard for a few good metal bands that now sell 100,000 records with each release.

Yeah, I remember thinking it was weird when Mastodon got on the bill in 2005. Then I looked at the second-stage lineup, and there were some decent bands.

I mean, I’m not exactly rolling around in my Black Label Society jacket right now, but Ozzfest seems like the organizers are saying, “Look, this is a metal festival. There’s going to be a lot of different types of metal bands here, you’re going to like some of them, you’re going to get introduced to some others, you’re going to see some legendary bands, you’re going to hate some bands.” It’s not trying to be anything more than a metal festival. I can’t think of any other festival in which someone would get to see Slayer opening for Judas Priest opening for Iron Maiden opening for Black Sabbath. It seems like the organizers thought, “OK, we want this to be a legendary, unforgettable festival experience for everyone.” All of those other festivals, at least for me, it’s not like that.

What about ATP?

I’m very grateful to the people who invited us. We played the one that Slint put together. It’s 2,000 people converging on what is basically a summer resort, but we were there in the winter. And it’s one of those forced partying situations where everybody’s like, “We’re going to go there and get so fucked up!” which gets boring for me after about ten minutes. If it were all metal bands, I’d probably tell you that it was the best thing ever. But, there were these “I gave my firstborn child to see Slint, and now it’s finally happening” people everywhere, and I thought, “Wow, this is weird.” I thought some bands were great, and some of them were… whatever, not my thing. Slint asked us to play, we were flown over and then got to play extra shows around London with the Melvins, and all of that was great. But I’m just a grumpy bastard. I’m probably the wrong person to ask, you’re not going to hear me say, “It changed my life, brother.”

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