- Fresh off the heels of the Sepultura Chaos AD release, I got an offer for Nailbomb to play at the Dynamo Festival, in Holland. We didn't have time for a full tour because Sepultura and Fudge Tunnel were touring heavily and promoting their new releases. Chaos AD was turning some serious corners and Sepultura was growing quickly. Fudge Tunnel's Grey was opening the path for Fudge Tunnel. We were all romping the world in different directions.
I accepted the Dynamo offer, and Max and Alex began to concentrate on the members they would need to play the record live. Of course, Iggor would play the tracks he recorded. We also asked Peligro, from the Dead Kennedys, to slam a few tunes. The tracks that were recorded with drum machine required a special type of drummer. We chose Barry Schneider from the band Tribe After Tribe. He had come strongly reccommended as being able to play like a click track. Dave Edwardson of Neurosis was added on bass and Rhys Fulber of Front Line Assembly was on the keyboard. We all got together at the Phoenix jampad and in no time, Nailbomb breathed fire!!
Fudge Tunnel
There was only one problem for me. When it was time to fly, I was only 3 weeks away from giving birth, and the airline wouldn't allow anyone on the plane in the last month of pregnancy. Yes, I was ready to explode, with my little Igor snuggled up inside, determined to go to the Dynamo! With a little fibbing, I made it to Holland with my Nailbombers.
We were so excited, our emotions were scurrying all over the place. We had to get into our HATE MODE! We were having so much fun though! We had brought all the kids with us. No one was missing this gig!The night before the festival, Nailbomb did a surprise gig in a tiny club in Eindhoven. It was dark and tiny. The Nailbomb Day of Hate mood filled the club like creeping fog, infecting each corner. Actually, the club was so small that even with it sold out, more people were outside than allowed inside; each straining to hear a note from the stage.When the band started, Christina and I were so proud of our baby. Our little joke was soaring to the sky with no limit! I looked in the crowd and saw Dana videoing, jamming, moshing. His eyes were filled with fever; there were no words for the experience we all shared that night. When Alex hunched over and belted out Sum of Your Achievements, I could barely breathe!
The next day, the big show. It was one of the biggest audiences ever for a Dynamo Festival! There were over 120,000 people slamming in the pit that day. - The Dynamo Festival was Richie's first live performance, as he shredded his famous feedback at the beginning of Cockroaches. He was 9 years old.
The flight home was brutal for me, until a sympathetic stewardess slipped me into a first class seat.3 weeks later, Igor made his debut! After his birth, we went to a hotel in Scottsdale to lay low. Max took the band photo for the Nailbomb Live release in the hotel room. He played Korn's first line of Blind over and over, and Richie, Jason and Zyon raged to it. Just the one line a zillion times...there was so much energy! Alex and Max decided to use one of the poloroides as the band photo. They were all just keeping it real...
Class dismissed....
Friday, February 22, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
How To Wrap A Bomb...
The recording was wrapping up. Max and Alex and Dana-ever their shadow-were finishing all the lose ends on our punk rock rip off project. On the final day in the studio, Max phoned me and said, "some redneck, cowboy dude named Glen Campbell just arrived at the studio. He is recording after us." I was shocked and asked if he was sure it was Glen Campbell. Max said yes, it was an old cowboy dude. I laughed my butt off! Alex and Max had never heard of him before. The thought of the Rhinestone Cowboy walking in as Nailbomb was walking out, was hilarious.
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| Glen Campbell |
Next up was the thrill of loading all the gear into the U Haul Truck and dropping it off at the jam pad. It was a rush to actually have the album recorded. What had started as a joke in our nanny's bedroom, had turned into an actual fire breathing dragon!
We thought it would be cool to do some crazy photo shoots, and decided to hit up some gun shops. Alex and Max had chosen a shocking photo for the abum cover, so we decided to run with brutality as our theme. We cruised to south Phoenix, which, at the time, was a bit rougher than it is now. We found a cool shop and got out and did some shots.
Driving home, someone came up with the idea to spray paint 1000% HATE on our back yard fence. The photos turned out killer. We were only shooting black and white, and Dana and me took turns shooting. We had a riot with our Hate Vibe going strong!
We had moved into a bigger home, only a few blocks from the old one. We thought it was cool to have 1000% HATE on our fence when we had birthday parties for the kids. We weren't really caring what the neighbors thought about it.
Roadrunner began its campaign to promote the release, in the months after the recording. They flew a real photographer out from LA, Kevin Estrada. He did some killer photos around Phoenix. The most famous was taken in a club that had suffered from arson. He had the guys wear blindfolds and get on their knees. It was slaying. It felt good to be a punk loser.
Class Dismissed...
Friday, February 8, 2013
How to record a bomb...
We were all having a blast. Zyon was
perfectly perfect. He was so chill we could take him anywhere. He
was tiny when Nailbomb went in the studio, and I was staying home and going to
the studio everyday to check in. I was working on the Chaos recording
arrangements. No cell phones, or email in 1993, so we spent a lot of time
on landlines.
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| Max and Zyon |
Once the Roadrunner Records deal was done on paper,
we were ready to rock the planet, and put the finishing touches on the record.
The only studio I knew in Phoenix was Chaton
Recording. Chaton was the studio that donated the time to Bootleggers for
the Battle of the Bands. The prize gave birth to Flotsam and Jetsam’s
Metal Shock demo, which snagged them a deal with Metal Blade Records.
I knew the owner of Chaton, Ed Ravenscroft. I
rang him up and he was happy to host the recording. His engineer at the
time, Rusty (Otto D’Agnolo), was a valuable person. He was full of
patience, humor, and had a good ear. He also could work at a fast pace.
I will never forget the day we rented the Uhaul
Truck to get the gear to the studio. It was super hot out and Max and
Alex had to haul the gear because we had no crew. It was comical, I must
admit. As soon as the gear was loaded, we drove about 6 blocks and the
truck broke. We all had to sit and wait for a replacement. This one
came with a redneck driver. Alex and Max cracked some rude jokes all the
way to the studio. I think the driver growled a couple times.
Dana was videoing the conversation. The driver kept quiet but his expression
said it all.
We invited a couple guests to play on the record…..Dino Cazares, Iggor Cavalera, and Andreas Kisser. Our friends, Mike “Fatty” McArdle was also hanging in the studio. He was the president of the Sepultura fan club, at that time and throughout the Max-era.
 |
| Danny Marianino |
One afternoon, Alex and Dana called me on separate
occasions and complained that Max was too drunk to work. They said he
drove up to the studio, drinking a fifth of rum, wasted. I asked them to
put Max on the phone so I could try and talk some sense it to him, but it was
useless. I had to go there. While Max was sitting in the studio, he
blurted out “Feels good to be a punk loser,” and luckily the tape was
rolling. Haha, art was just spouting all over the place…..
Class dismissed.
Friday, February 1, 2013
HOW TO MAKE A BOMB...
Before I start Class, I will say I do not tolerate bullies in the classroom...they will be expelled!
HOW TO MAKE A BOMB....
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| Christina and Alex |
 |
| Our Nanny Teresa |
1993--We were all living in a house on Corrine Street in north Phoenix. 1992 had ended on a high note, with the Ministry tour, then Christmas and now, in early January, we were sitting around the house waiting for Zyon to finish baking. Alex Newport and Christina also lived in the house. Stufffed into the mix was Dana, Roxanne, Richie, Jason, and in a room down the hall was Teresa, our teeny nanny who couldn't speak a word of English. It was all cool though; we were just living the dream! To top it all off, Christina and Teresa were also pregnant!
 |
| Max and Alex |
Max and Alex found refuge in the only spot in the house no one was in-Teresa's room. A bed, chair and picture of Jesus were the only things in her clean, little sanctuary. Soon, a stereo found it's way in a corner and next, an old recorder started thumping. The beats flowed through the house and soon, they started to make sense.
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| Dana and Max |
A week or so into Max and Alex's sanity sessions, I began to realize I could make a record deal out of their music. It sounded brutal and exciting and NEW!! It gave me energy as I worked. I could tell it was not just a jam; this needed to be recorded! I walked into Teresa's room and told the guys my plan. To get them excited, I said it would be ouir punk rock rip-off. It would be made in the nanny's room, spend a couple days in a studio tidying up and presto! Sell a shitload! Dana would be hired to video everything and one day when the video would come out, he would be paid $1000 for his masterpiece. The guys all looked at me wide-eyed, like I was joking, but realized I was serious. All our smiles got bigger at the same time! The music could be as shocking, and against every protocol of music there was or is. The band name had to be brutal, savage, an explosion of your senses. We didn't know it then but they were about to make a record that would stand the test of time.
This was the birth of Nailbomb!!
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| Alex |
The noises and beats started coming together. The sound infected each room, hour after hour. Sometimes we would all collapse in the living room on the couch, with the same beat pulsing in the house for 8 hours or more. Even Max would take a nap, wake up, and Alex would still be at it. Head tilted, ears with tunnel vision. He is a frikken genius! It was a mad combination, Max and Alex.
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| Max and Myself |
Monte got his hands on a demo from us and there it was...the deal was in the bag. We got a small advance and got a real sampler for Alex to dive into. One day they would be pounding on the washing machine and recording or driving down the street screeching the brakes while recording. It was seriously one of the most fun records I ever took part in making!
Dana had the job that put him in the line of fire. It wasn't easy being underfoot in the Hate Project of the Century. A couple times he threw the towel in, but I cheerlead him back into the ring!
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| Richie, Dana, and Max |
As our Nailbomb began to take shape, we welcomed a new member of our tribe...Zyon. His eyes and ears would be full of the heaviest music on the planet from Day One!
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| Max, Myself, and baby Zyon |
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| Zyon w/Max |
Class dismissed....
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