The year 2008 in interviews!

Well, we all know the radio Tangra DJs like to talk. Of course most of the times it means shouting orders at bartenders in some of the meanest bars in town. But sometimes, believe it or not these DJs talk on the radio as well.
And here are some of the most interesting moments that we dug out from our exclusive interviews 2008. You can feel the smell of the past year on the different levels of the thing – new albums, live shows, human relations etc.
It’s a bit long, though we choose only the cream of the crop. Of course as the title says, it’s a good toilet read and we recommend you to print it, so the notebook doesn’t kill your knees.

10.01.2008 – Rob Halford
I think it's unfortunate that Van Halen don't have the original bass player, Michael Anthony. Of course it's exciting to see David Lee Roth back on stage again... I remember many, many years ago Judas Priest opened up for Van Halen in Los Angeles - that's a vivid memory for me. Van Halen had a very important voice in rock'n'roll, so it's exciting to see them back together.. It's a great show to watch!
14.01.2008 - Peavy Wagner, RAGE
You might have heard about my hobby - I'm a fossil and bone collector, and at the moment there's not much time for it. Usually in the summer when it's the right time for it, there are always some festivals to play!
17.01.2008 - Arjen Lucassen, AYREON
‘I was very close to get Ian Gillan from Deep Purple on the album ‘01011001’, but unfortunately in the end he couldn't make it. There've also been other singers who said no - I asked Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree, but it turned out that my music is a little bit too progressive for him. He really liked it, but said, ‘No, sorry man, it's not my style of music.’

28.01.2008 – Mark Osegueda, DEATH ANGEL
‘We recorded our new album ‘Killing Season’ in Dave Grohl’s studio. He's a huge metal fan and his studio is beautiful - Studio 606. It was just a magical experience!’
03.02.2008 – Burton C. Bell, ASCENSION OF THE WATCHERS
‘At the moment Fear Factory does not have a record contract with a label, so there's no contractual obligation. I'm not worried about it and I'm focusing all my attention on Ascension of the Watchers!’
22.02. 2008 – Val Kiossovski, KULTUR SHOCK
‘We know where we are heading for and we don’t limit ourselves in terms of style, sound, whatever… We play whatever comes to our mind. The quality of the musicians in this band allows us to play everything from American country music to, let’s say, heavy metal…’
06.03.2008 - Jacob Molbjerg, MERCENARY
‘I have always thought that Metallica were very cool, because they’ve always played a lot of old songs, not like Iron Maiden who went out playing the entire new album on that tour. I mean, I can understand why a band would do that, but I think it’s a bit selfish to do that. On the other hand being in a band like this means you’re doing this for your own sake. So, you have to stay true to your fans, but also to yourself, and you know, sometimes you let some fans down, but you know, you can’t please them all…’
18.03.2008 – Doug Aldrich, WHITESNAKE
‘I love all those guys who played guitar in Whitesnake. I love the bluesy mood of Bernie Marsden and I love the slide playing of Micky Moody, the aggression and metal that John Sykes added to the band and of course I even love the Deep Purple guitar player, Ritchie Blackmore.’
25.03.2008 – Tito Fuentes, MOLOTOV
‘What is the first think that comes to my mind when I hear ‘Bulgaria’? I know it’s pretty close to Romania. After high school I was in Bucharest to see the Dracula monastery.’
26.03.2008 – Max Cavalera, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY
‘One of the reasons we got back together is that Igor became more family-oriented. He's got a new son who's only a year old - his name is Antonio, which is my middle name and my grandfather's name - so I credit some of the reasons for the reunion to the birth of his son, because he wanted me to see his son.
He felt that he couldn't bring a new son to the world and not have him know me, because I'm the uncle. He loves sharks, so I nicknamed him Tubarão, which means "shark" in Portuguese, he-he!’
03.04.2008 – Jon Oliva, JON OLIVA’S PAIN (ex Savatage)
‘With this album ‘Global Warning’ I wanted people to say ‘Whoa! What’s going to come up next?’ You know, you have a song like “Look At The World”, which is a song that my brother Chris and I wrote back in 1979 after we went to see Queen in concert. That was our first attempt writing a song and we considered it styled after Queen.’
25.04.2008 – Blackie Lawless, W.A.S.P.
‘I’ll give you a little bit of the flavor and the atmosphere of what it's like when you do a big festival and there are a lot of really big bands on the same bill. In these cases there's a pretty good chance that everybody knows everyone else. When we do these festivals, it's kind of like having a school reunion - everybody is usually really excited when you're there, and that's the part of it that the fans never see, as it happens backstage. It's a fantastic atmosphere!’
23.05.2008 – Nick Holmes, PARADISE LOST
‘How many times I have read Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’? Eh, Zero! Yeah, I mean, I own the book, but I haven’t yet read it. It’s a kind of book to me that I can pick up and flip a few pages, I may read certain lines and paragraphs, but I would never read the whole book. It’s not my kind of thing.’, но не и цялата. Просто не е мой тип.
02.06.2008 – Alice Cooper
‘If you have noticed, Kiss and Alice never tour at the same time, because we have the same drummer – Eric Singer.’
05.06.2008 – Toma Zdravkov, BG MUSIC IDOL
‘The most stupid Bulgarian band of all time? I don’t know…hm there was a band recently called Gravity Co…Miau..miauuuu…The singer was rubbish and the style of music…a bit too flat..Sorry, I don’t want to offend anybody…’
06.06.2008 - Mikael Г…kerfeldt, OPETH
‘We have a lot of musical export from Sweden and a lot of metal, but you can't really compare it to Ikea, Volvo or Saab, you know, but certainly when it comes to culture I think the biggest export from Sweden is probably metal music.’

18.06.2008 – Dragomir Draganov, EPIZOD
‘The extreme nationalists call us Jews!’
20.06.2008 – Richard Patrick, FILTER
‘The NIN album was available for free for one day and then you had to buy it. You know, Trent understands the power of the dollar. I think the really wealthy bands can give their music away for free, which is naturally nice, but the smaller bands really need every dime they can make. Not everyone is U2. Not everyone is the Foo Fighters.
A lot of bands really need you to buy their records. Of course, it depends on whether you wanna get American Idol all the time or you wanna find bands and support them so they can survive..’
02.07.2008 – Jimmy Bower, DOWN
‘I've been involved in a lot of things in the New Orleans metal scene over the past 20 years and tried to be a good a influence and a good participant in the scene, you know. I played in a lot of bands (Eyehategod, Crowbar, SJR) and stuff like that, you know? I feel weird about that, the whole godfather thing...’
04.07.2008 – Joe Elliot, DEF LEPPARD
‘The mom and dad of my best friend in Sheffield used to go to Bulgaria in the 70's and 80's every third year. They used to come here and rave about it, and I didn't get it, because I didn't know it had beaches. It wasn't Spain or Portugal, and I was like, "Why would you go to Bulgaria for a holiday? Isn't it just mountains and rain??’
25.07.2008 – Robert Trujillio, METALLICA
‘Lars has a style that's unique to him. Mike Bordin is really a hard hitter, I mean, he's a boxer to me. He’s not like this kind of supertechnical guy. He's more like a caveman on drums and he's very tribal and his style is unique to him.
So the quality of drummers I played with, whether it's Lombardo or Brooks Wackerman, or, you know, Stephen Perkins from Jane's Addiction. So, they are all great, you know? I think Lars is definitely the best businessman…’
06.08.2008 – Dani Filth, CRADLE OF FILTH
‘Our old keyboarder was actually in prison in Tibet for a year... Or it was in Katmandu, which is actually the same thing... I don't know, I might be wrong. And I care very little about the Olympics.’
25.08.2008 – RICK WAKEMAN
‘The thing that I like about radio is that it's different from an mp3 player where you can play only what you like, but you'll never get to hear something that is different. You know, I listen to the radio and I probably know 90% of the music that's been played, but suddenly there's something I don't know and I say,’Hey, that's fantastic, I'd like to get that!’
28.08.2008 – KEITH EMERSON
‘He doesn't live like exactly next door to me, but probably five minutes away... It was quite amazing when I was once at a charity event and John happened to be there. There were a lot of people mingling, having cocktails and stuff, and somebody pointed out and said, ‘Hey, Johnny Rotten's over there!’, and I was like, ‘Really? I'd like to meet him!’
You've got to understand that all I've ever known about John was the fact that he'd always put down Emerson, Lake & Palmer by sticking fingers down his throat and intending to vomit and throw up, ha-ha! I don't mind... So I was introduced to him, and John went, ‘Oh, man, fuckin' great to see ya!’, and I said, ‘I quite actually enjoyed your first album, ‘Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.’
08.09.2008 – Silenoz, DIMMU BORGIR
‘I actually already have an album written and recorded for a band called Insidious Disease. We're just looking to find a suitable record label to release it. We should probably have it out by the beginning of 2009.’
19.09.2008 – TARJA TURUNEN
‘I'm still a young songwriter, so I'm in the beginning of these first steps and I'm very happy to be able to write songs on my own. The next album is planned to be released in September 2009.’
14.10.2008 – Billy Graziadei, BIOHAZARD
‘To me Biohazard is and will always be me, Bobby, Danny and Evan. And when we are back playing those classic songs again everyone is like "wow, they're playing that... it's amazing..." You know, in a lot of ways, we were forerunners in a lot of styles and a lot of things in hardcore and metal!’
15.10.2008 – Christina Scabbia, LACUNA COIL
‘My all-time favourite DVD is "Vulgar Display of Power" by Pantera. It's perfectly describing all the backstage of the shows and what's going on behind - of course Pantera-style.’
17.11.2008 - BRIAN "HEAD" WELCH (ex KORN)
‘Any feedback from the KORN guys about my album? I haven't heard nothing from them, but I'm sure they'll like it, because we all wrote the same type of music together. We're all fans of each other.’
09.12.2008 – Mille Petrozza, KREATOR
In my opinion it is very important for a band to come up with something new every 2-3-4 years... I think it's important to come up with something relevant. If people start to talk like, ‘I like the old stuff, but the new stuff sucks!’, that would be the end of Kreator.’
Thank you for reading all this. For more, incl. great stuff from previous years, just click on interviews on this site. Happy New Year!