RETTSOUNDS – PROG METAL

I’m sure when you hear the words “progressive metal” your mind conjures up thoughts of keytars, dateless dudes, and endless song suites about knights. God, you are such an asshole. Luckily, Jeff Wagner has written Mean Deviation – Four Decades of Progressive Metal to school you on a form of music you probably don’t know shit about. From Rush to Watchtower to Ulver and beyond, Jeff goes deep into this much maligned music form and presents it with such fervor that you can’t help but think “Maybe I haven’t given Dream Theatre enough of a chance…” I was so bowled over by the book I got in touch with Jeff to pick his prog-addled brain. Not only was he game to talk, but he even offered to do up a prog metal mix to accompany the interview. What a guy.

Vice: It’s pretty obvious from the get-go of the book that you are an uber fan of this stuff. What was your first love–prog rock or prog metal? Did Rush lead you to Fates Warning or visa versa?
Jeff Wagner: Rush’s Moving Pictures was huge for me as a 12-year-old just getting into rock and metal beyond Kiss–I’d been into Kiss for about five years already. But I didn’t know what prog rock was at the time. I was also into Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, and Styx, and getting into Rush didn’t turn on a light inside that made me go “I’m now totally into prog!” It was very much a case of always being a curious and adventurous listener. By 1984, I was pretty much listening only to metal, like Accept, Iron Maiden, Queensryche, Slayer, and Metallica. I was delving into all kinds of underground, independent label bands, where I eventually found Fates Warning and Voivod. Those two went through some fascinating evolutions throughout the 80s, so I suppose it was there that I started to lock into metal bands of a more progressive mindset. It was exciting not knowing where a band was going to take its music, rather than already knowing what an album was going to sound like before you had even heard it. It was much later, like the early 90s, when I started discovering all the great prog rock from the 70s.

Crimson Glory

Why did you decide to write the book? Was there a specific event that triggered something in you?
Not a specific event, but a chain of events. Ian Christe, head of Bazillion Points, had been a friend since the late 90s, when I was at Metal Maniacs in New York. After I left the magazine in 2001 and moved to Virgina, we stayed in touch and would visit each other. I remember one of our Metal Mental Meltdown matches–a metal version of the Trivial Pursuit board game–I won the game by a wide margin, as always (it wasn’t just him, I always beat everyone at that game. It’s my curse). Later in the evening he became adamant that I should put my ridiculous metal knowledge to use again, like I did at the magazine. I don’t know if he was thinking I should someday write a book on progressive metal, or if I brought it up, but the idea started coming up between the two of us around that time. I’d already intended to write a book after leaving Maniacs, and had some things going in 2001, but they all fell through, either because I killed the project or because something didn’t work out for some reason. So when Ian announced the formation of Bazillion Points in early 2008, I emailed him and said “If you want to publish the first-ever book on progressive metal, I know an author who would write it.” He got back to me immediately and said “I’ve got an ISBN # with your name on it.” At that point I hadn’t written a word of the book yet. I then did the formal thing of presenting a non-fiction book proposal and outline, and it went from there.

Voivod

I think it’s funny in your preface you give some sort of warning that not every single progressive metal band will get coverage in the book considering what an exhaustive and rather intimidating array of bands are mentioned throughout the book. Do you actually feel you didn’t delve deep enough for the book?
No, I delved plenty deep. There are lots of bands I could have included but didn’t. I wanted to make sure the book was readable, not just cramming bands in for the sake of it. I didn’t want it to become some dry encyclopedia thing. It’s probably been an intimidating read for some non-lifers, or casual metal fans, yet I’ve been told by a couple people who aren’t big metal fans that it reads like any well-written history and manages to stay engaging because of the story flow. Metal fans already into this whole realm of the genre are reacting very well to it so far. I think I achieved what I set out to do, which was to make the book digestible to the novice while giving something new to the diehard fan.

Do you get a lot of flack from friends and people for your enthusiasm for this particular genre of music?
I don’t classify myself as a “prog metalhead,” and don’t like the negative Beavis-and-Butthead connotation of the “metalhead” stereotype. I’m a fan of metal, absolutely, and very proud of that. I want to make it clear that one, I like other sorts of metal bands apart from prog metal. It’s a fascinating genre. I’ve never limited myself to one sub-genre within metal, although throughout its history there have been way more terrible bands than great ones (probably like that with any genre), and two, I listen to plenty of music outside the metal genre, things that might surprise anyone quick to label me a “metalhead.” Metalheads are supposed to be hostile to other kinds of music, aren’t they? I used to get some flack in high school and college for my musical tastes, but it never bothered me. Anyone who took the time to get to know me quickly came to understand how deeply I connect with what I listen to, and who can fault anyone for that, no matter what you listen to? There’s no such thing as a “guilty pleasure.” If it pleases you, who cares what others think?

Arcturus

In this day and age where every skinny jean wearing hipster wants to be down with black metal, where do you think prog metal fits in to the scope of metal and “popular culture” in general?
I don’t have any time for anyone who listens to any kind of music because it’s the hip thing to do. It’s like hipsters who drink Pabst Blue Ribbon because it’s the thing to do, not because it’s good beer. It’s not, it’s shit beer. So my hope is that people listen to whatever kind of music they listen to because they genuinely like it. Prog metal and how it fits into popular culture doesn’t even concern me all that much. It’s on the fringes for sure, because it’s a radical approach to an already radical form of music. I’ve always thought bands like Arcturus, or Pain of Salvation, or Maudlin of the Well, could appeal to anyone looking for adventurous, interesting music, but if people won’t give it a chance only because these bands are, at their core, metal bands, then there’s no hope of it emerging beyond the subculture it’s currently embedded in. To address the second part of this question: prog metal is, in my view, not a particular style, but a way of incorporating a wide variety of influences, innovative techniques and/or grand ideas into metal music. So, I can love Fates Warning and Opeth, but not have much attraction to Therion and Meshuggah, even though each of them are metal, and can be considered progressive. Dream Theater is definitely prog metal, but then bands like Celtic Frost and Mayhem have recorded wildly progressive albums at one point or another, and they sound NOTHING like Dream Theater. So, to wrap up this long-winded answer to your very interesting question–metal, in its most general sense, is an important and inextricable part of the greater musical stream. Where it fits in popular culture is for other people to decide. I’ve never liked reading books about that, and didn’t want to write one like that. For me, it’s all about what happens between the listener and the music playing on the stereo. Mean Deviation is very much focused on MUSIC, not on questions of sociological relevance or what somebody from Dream Theater did with 16 groupies, a fish, and a video camera backstage.

Watchtower in Germany, 2000

Is there anything about the book that you wish you could change now that it’s out there?
Yes, that time would have ceased the second I put down the final word, so that it’s not immediately dated. I swear, the day after the printer hit the “go” button on the printing press, Mike Portnoy left Dream Theater, which is huge. That development is not in the book. Psychotic Waltz and Coroner have since reformed–not in the book. But more realistically, there are only tiny things I’d change, maybe a couple sentence structures I don’t like, and there are a couple minor factual flubs we’re fixing for the second printing. Maybe I should have expanded on Amorphis a bit, maybe I shouldn’t have given more than a couple sentences to Atrocity, but otherwise I’m happy with it. It was an insane task to take on in the first place, organizing this vast variety of bands and approaches and everything that comes with my liberal definition of progressive metal, but I think it all came out OK in the end.

What bands out there today do you think define what you think of when you think prog metal?
Of the newer or more obscure bands, I can name Between The Buried And Me, Hammers Of Misfortune, Gonin-Ish, Canvas Solaris, Sculptured, Egoist. And there are some vets or reformed bands that are doing some great things right now, such as Opeth, Enslaved, Cynic, and Atheist. Looking forward to the new Watchtower album, Mathematics, although that has very much become the Chinese Democracy of the prog metal world.
And finally, who do you think is the coolest member of Crimson Glory?
Midnight. Incredible voice. Just wish his alcoholism wouldn’t have killed him, that part isn’t very cool.

TONY RETTMAN

http://www.bazillionpoints.com/progress/

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Viceland Prog Metal Mix

Queensrÿche – “Screaming in Digital” (from Rage for Order, 1986)
Fates Warning – “Part of the Machine” (from Perfect Symmetry, 1989)
Dream Theater – “Panic Attack” (from Octavarium, 2005)
Watchtower – “Mayday in Kiev” (from Control and Resistance, 1989)
Voivod – “Experiment” (from Dimension: Hatross, 1988)
Thought Industry – “Third Eye” (from Songs for Insects, 1992)
Death – “Cosmic Sea” (from Human, 1991)
Cynic – “How Could I” (from Focus, 1993)
Spiral Architect – “Spinning” (from A Sceptic’s Universe, 2000)
Ayreon – “Tower of Hope” (from Into the Electric Castle, 1998)
Pain of Salvation – “Handful of Nothing” (from One Hour by the Concrete Lake, 1998)
Devin Townsend – “Earth Day” (from Terria, 2001)
Pan-Thy-Monium – “Jag & Vem” (from Khaooohs, 1993)
Arcturus – “Alone” (from La Masquerade Infernale, 1997)
In the Woods – “I Am Your Flesh” (from Omnio, 1997)
Meshuggah – “Combustion” (from Obzen, 2008)
Opeth – “Hex Omega” (from Watershed, 2008)
Maudlin of the Well – “They Aren’t All Beautiful” (from Bath, 2001)
Between the Buried and Me – “Informal Gluttony” (from Colors, 2007)