Cage – Tradition Of American Power
US power metal giants Cage started out modestly enough, their debut album – Unveiled, was a pretty good melodic metal album that suffered from a bad sound and one of the worst covers in metal history. Yet the band kept on getting stronger, with its third – 2003's Darker Than Black, being an instant metal classic. The album was so good, it's metal so powerful, that it immediately pinpointed the band as the saviors of American Heavy metal, and easily one of the best metal releases in that year.
The pressure was on, and it's been 4 long years since, but Cage is finally back with a new monster – Hell Destroyer, an album that seems to outdo Darker Than Black in almost every way.
We spoke with band vocalist Sean Peck, one of Metal's strongest voices, about the band, its history, and it's mission to take over the world.
Hey Sean, first – congratulations on the release of Hell Destroyer, why has it taken the band so long to make this album?
We knew that topping Darker Than Black was going to be tough so we worked very hard on making sure the songs were just right. We have a lot left over so we will not take so long this time. Also the cd is massive and more like 2 cds so that is not so bad if you look at it like that.
I understand the album is a concept album, who or what is the Hell Destroyer, and how does that relate to the cover?
The HELL DESTROYER is basically God's most feared battle angel who was created to lay waste to Hell City once the demons are defeated above on Earth. Marc Sasso the artist and I came up with the killer image of him laying waste while the demons shoot their hellfire weapons at him. The story is basically Revelations from the Bible with some conspiracy and creative liberties thrown in.
Why did you choose to use a graphic novel form for your booklet, and how did you do it?
I wanted to do a concept cd that left little detail to the imagination. Too many concept albums are half assed and nebulous. I wanted the graphic novel approach to show pictures and text so that the listener was fully immersed in a story to end all stories. What better tale to tell than this one for a metal concept I thought. It has been touched before by many others but never so completely as this. It originally was going to be a comic book but time ran out on the artist and we went in this direction instead
A lengthy concept album in metal is something that can work great, or really bore the shit out of you, how did approach in so it turned out the former, and not the latter?
The most important thing is the song quality. As long as the songs rip it works. I wanted it to be like if Painkiller was a concept cd. Very few atmospheric passages mostly just rippingness. The intro pieces we have are mostly brief. That makes the cd flow and rock. We considered a ballad but said no! The cd most be relentless. Most people are really appreciating that. It could have been released as a double cd which we considered but then we decided to cram it on one. It doesn't feel long it goes by pretty fast when you listen to it.
I understand it was produced and recorded where Darker Than Black was, do you think it resembles that album's sound? Or is it better?
We recorded at Rick Carr's studio in San Diego. He produced Darker Than Black. This time the cd has a different sound I believe. This was done all on analog tape. All the tracks were dropped to tape and then into the pro tools. All the sounds are real drums, real unaltered vocals, no plug ins and all vintage outboard compressors were used. Does it sound better than Darker Than Black? That is a matter of opinion but Rick thinks it is his best work.
Darker Than Black was considered by many (me included) to be the best metal album in 2003, did you feel a pressure making this album, following such an illustrious release?
Yes there was a lot of pressure. Many times I had to veto songs I am sure other bands would have put on there record but I said no. The consensus now is that we have topped it. I believe that we have just as many classics on this as Darker Than Black. I know my vocal performance is far beyond what I could ever do on Darker Than Black. Now we have to find a way to top this record! Thanks for the kind words.
How did you guys recruit Roy Z and Joe Floyd to play on Darker Than Black?
Roy Z was working at Joe's studio on a project and we were tracking the cd with Rick. Z and I kind of hit it off and I helped him with some real estate stuff. He really liked the band and my singing and decided to help us with some mixing and through some leads up for us. Z is really cool and Joe I feel a bit different about. He was cool but ripped of Rick Carr who did the whole record. That was a real shitty thing to do so I have no respect for him. He asked me to sing on the last warrior record and I told him no.
You guys started out quite a long time ago, yet it took you some time to record your debut album, why is that?
We are now actually releasing some of the stuff that we never released that we recorded prior to UNVEILED on digital in the Fall. There was a lot of stuff done, an entire album we now call the LOST cd, and lots of demo stuff that will all be online. We decided not to release it as we had written some better songs etc. now a bunch of older and hidden material will be coming out on itunes this Fall. We are really excited about them.
The band has always combined classic American power metal influences with some classic heavy metal such as Iron Maiden's and Judas Priest's, in your opinion, listening to what bands made the band into what it is today?
Crimson Glory's first 2 cds, WASP, Painkiller, some Savatage, some Lizzy Borden, King Diamond, Dokken, Ratt for the hooks, some Tony Martin era Black Sabbath, Helloween, Testament, stuff like that. I listen to all the new stuff now like Bodem, Immortal, Dimmu, everything I can to keep innovating and advancing our style heavy metal.
What vocalists influenced you the most, and at what stage did you recognize your ability to scream like a madman?
I started singing along to Screaming for Vengeance and Maiden and the Warning album. Just trying to act like a rock star in my room and singing in the shower and stuff. I had posters all on my walls of all the people now I have shared the stage with. It has taken some time to finaly develop my own style and sound and now to have the full wailing power I do now. I really came a long way and developed several new techniques while tracking HELL DESTROYER. All the voices you hear are unaltered and only have delay and reverb on them. I tried to use a different approach to each song to keep it interesting.
What's the story behind the whole Rock Hard contest, was that really done without you guys knowing of it?
You know a lot about us wow! Yes someone entered us from germany Jurgen from Heavy magazine who is now a good friend! We first got the call we were on a compilation and then later said we won a contest. The coolest part of it is that it was voted on by the fans. That is most important although the critics love this CAGE heavy metal too. It was destiny I guess. It was our lucky break in Europe. Every band needs one.
As your albums progressed sound-wise, so did the album covers, what were your goals in those two areas when you made each record?
Well UNVEILED my friend did it and that was at a time computer modeling was still realativly new. It looked like shit but as usual we were under the gun. It actually caused a lot of attention because it was so un metal that everyone asked about it. We will probably redo it one day. ASTROLOGY was very classy and was done by a guy who owns www.123stickers.com a real good friend who helped a lot in the early CAGE days. That whole package still looks nice to me. DARKER THAN BLACK we employed Marc Sasso who did some Dio covers and he was really cool and totally loved the cd. We quickly became friends and of course wanted him to do HELL DESTROYER. I knew just what I wanted on this cd cover and it came out even better than expected. He now does all Halford's stuff. He stole him from us! Ha!
You're very much known to be a strong live-show outfit, what do you think makes you such a band?
Part of it is we have all been together as a unit for so long with very little member line up changes. Also as a young band we played huge shows opening for every major metal act that came through Southern California. That allowed us to go up against the big boys and learn from them as well. There were no other metal bands for us to compete with so we got all the big shows. Other bands hated us for that but fuck them they are all gone now anyways.
Why did you choose to release this album through different labels than the last one?
We had to sue Massacre records because they ripped us off or tried to until we massacred them in German court. We then were looking for a new home and found someone who was very excited about the album and that was MTM. We have different labels for different territories and so far so good.
Being a traditional metal band, what do you think of the current metallic genres popular in the US, such as Metalcore, melodic death metal and such?
They have opened the door back up for bands like us and now our style in the US is very popular and cool. The kids are totally into this shit now. They are showing up in droves and we only play all ages shows now. I love playing with the death metal and metal core bands we kill them and make them look so one dimensional!
I've noticed there's a different version of the new album with a song called "King Diamond", what is it, and in what versions that that bonus track appear?
King Diamond is a tribute to the man himself and is a bonus track for the European version. It is a very strong track and we play it live all the time now as the fans love it. ABOMINATION was going to be the bonus track but it would have been too hard to pull it out of the story and there was art to it as well. So we made KING DIAMOND the bonus. There is another track we were saving for Japan called SKINNED ALIVE that is killer and sounds like Rammstein a bit. We may release that on an upcoming DVD we are working on. King Diamond was one of the first songs we wrote for the HELL DESTROYER album though.
What are your plans now that the album is out?
Well we are hard at work at promoting the cd. We have been playing a lot in Mexico and have some Europe plans working now. We just got a booking agent finally in Europe so that should help. We have also been contacted by a promoter in Israel and that could be sweet as I heard our cds are actually selling decent there. I am very much pro Israel and studied the various military conflicts since I was a war buff. I would love to play there. Our bass player Mikey G lived there for some years so there is a connection. We love to hear from our fans on our myspace page at www.myspace.com/cageheavymetal and at www.cageheavymetal.com Also we have some digital only releases coming out this Fall which include some killer older unreleased stuff as well as some live stuff and a DVD. So it is a big year for CAGE fans everywhere, lots of product and hopefully we will see everyone in Tel Aviv!
