BAPTISM OF FIRE
As Lamb Of God unleash punk-rock covers record Legion: XX under their old name, Burn The Priest, frontman Randy Blythe breaks down the songs that influenced the band
THE ACCÜSED INHERIT THE EARTH (MARTHA SPLATTERHEAD’S MADDEST STORIES EVER TOLD, 1988)
“I got turned onto The Accüsed from the skateboarding thing. Thrasher magazine had these compilations called Skate Rock and I still have Volume III on cassette. It’s the crossover sound – real punk rock attitude but lots of technicality. It was the era of COC, D.R.I. and Suicidal Tendencies. It was super-aggressive and their singer, Blaine [Cook], is a really big influence on me. He growls, but he gets really up there as well. This was a pick by Chris Adler; he said to me once, ‘I’ve found this punk rock band that plays metal!’ And I was like, ‘Dude, I’ve been listening to this band since I was a teenager.’ They are one of the few bands he and I see eye to eye on.”
MELVINS HONEY BUCKET (HOUDINI, 1993)
“This was a Mark Morton [guitarist] pick, from their major label run. I’ve been seeing the Melvins since about ’89 and I’d have picked something from Bullhead or some of the unlistenable weird stuff. But it’s a democratic process, and we had talked about covering it live for the GWAR barbeque and it came up again with this album, and I was like, ‘Right on! That’s a great song!’ They’re a band with a lot of musical reach, a phenomenally talented group of people.”
BIG BLACK KEROSENE (ATOMIZER, 1986)
“I definitely wanted to cover a Big Black song, so this is one of my picks. They were the first punk rock band I heard that had a lot of cerebral weight. I remember seeing them in Maximum Rocknroll magazine and seeing the cover of
Songs About Fucking, and I got more and more intrigued. This song struck a chord, as it would with anyone who lives in a small town, as I do, where nothing happens, as the song says over and over. I thought it might be a hard sell to the band – it’s only two riffs – but it’s more complex than it seems on the surface. I’ve got such a great amount of respect for [frontman] Steve Albini and his ethic, he’s a super switched-on guy.”
S.O.D. KILL YOURSELF (SPEAK ENGLISH OR DIE, 1985)
“This was a Chris Adler pick. It’s the most metal song on the record, I guess. It’s metal dudes doing hardcore. I don’t know if I’d call S.O.D. crossover, but they’re funny. We used to open our set with March Of
The S.O.D. and then go into one of our songs, because we didn’t have our own opener, so we just stole theirs! So, there is a history with us and them, and if you can’t have fun with S.O.D. then you’ve got real problems!”
BAD BRAINS I AGAINST I (I AGAINST I, 1986)
“My favourite band of all time! We’ve been talking about covering them for about 15 years. We were on a camping trip and we were off-roading, and we were playing the I Against I album, and I was singing along to this song, and Mark was like, ‘We should cover that, you can actually sing that!’ They’re the best punk rock band of all time; they own their own spot in the musical canon. This was a no-brainer for me; I wanted to show respect.”
SLIANG LAOS AXIS ROT (UNRELEASED)
“Sliang Laos were a Richmond, Virginia band that were a big influence on all of us, really super-ahead of their time with smart, caustic lyrics and really technical time signatures. They recorded one album and it’s never been released. Mark said, ‘I really think we should do this.’ And I was like, ‘I’d love to.’ It’s a nod to our hometown, and it’s my hope that it will bring enough attention to them that someone will put out this record that is lying dormant. Every time you went to one of their shows, you felt like you’d been smashed in the head with a ball hammer.”
MINISTRY JESUS BUILT MY HOTROD (PSALM 69, 1992)
“It was totally a spur-of-the-moment thing. I came into the studio and the guys said, ‘We’ve just covered Jesus Built My Hotrod by Ministry!’ And I said, ‘You’ve lost your fucking mind!’ It’s a really long, silly song. It’s Gibby Haynes from the Butthole Surfers coming up to the studio wasted and just gibbering into the mic for two hours… and it ended up being their biggest hit! So, I really wasn’t sure about it, but when we went to track it, it was so much fun. Once again it comes back to the concept of just having fun making music.”
AGNOSTIC FRONT ONE VOICE (ONE VOICE, 1992)
“Willie [Adler, guitarist] picked this one. A buddy of mine, Matt Henderson, was in Agnostic Front at the time of this album and I sent it to him and he was really stoked. I don’t know what else you can say about Agnostic Front at this point; they’re the quintessential New York hardcore band – they really started something. When we started out, getting to play the Lower East Side and CBGBs was really important to us. There’s so much punk rock and hardcore history out there. So, it was good for us to do, and it’s not an obvious pick, either.”
QUICKSAND DINE ALONE (Slip, 1993)
“This was not on my radar! John [Campbell, bass] picked this one. He sent this email and prefaced it by going, ‘I know you’re going to shout me down on this one…’ But I was like, ‘Absolutely! I love Slip!’ It is a really weird and outside-of-the-box pick when you look at the tracklisting of this album. Our producer listened to the original and then pitched it down and it sounded really similar. I have a very similar lower register to Walter [Schreifels, Quicksand frontman]. And I scream so much that if I get to do some singing then
I’m happy for the change.”
CRO-MAGS WE GOTTA KNOW (AGE OF QUARREL, 1986)
“Three different guys in the band suggested a Cro-Mags song. Mark suggested We Gotta Know because his high school used to cover that song at house parties. And now, here he is 30 years later, playing it again on a major label! I really liked that he got to do it twice. And even though I think Agnostic Front are the quintessential New York hardcore band, my favourite New York hardcore album is Age Of Quarrel, so it was really cool for me to lay vocals down to that. I’ve become friends with [Cro-Mags frontman]
John Joseph and he’s a really beautiful person.”
“THIS WAS A DEMOCRATIC PROCESS”
NO FISTICUFFS NEEDED TO SELECT THE TRACKS TO COVER, THEN
LEGION: XX IS OUT NOW VIA NUCLEAR BLAST