It's been almost a month since Chuck Profus' passing. I didn't know him well but during the interview we did back in 2018 I met an easy going, humble and honest man. Chuck was definitely hell of a drummer who helped to create some of influential speed/thrash metal albums. So when I decided to cover the story of Agent Steel for my printed fanzine "Stay Heavy" I decided to get in touch not with Juan Garcia or John Cyriis but with Chuck (thanks to Karlos Medina of EvilDead and Agent Steel for making this possible!). Not that I didn't want to get Juan or John. I just wanted to interview the guy who was there from the very beginning of Agent Steel and had his own view on events and things that happened back then. And during two hours which we spent on Skype Chuck shared a lot of interesting facts and opinions. So here it is — a monument to Chuck Profusю Rest in peace, metal brother!
Let's begin with the obvious question. How did you get in touch with John?
Abuser in 1984
How I met John was, he played guitar. He still plays guitar, but he played guitar and wasn't singing back in the early 80s. And then we played together in bands and I hurt my arm and didn't play for a couple of years. And when I came back to play, John was now singing. He was singing for that band Scepter. And then, I believe, he sang for Abattoir after that. When he left Abiattoir, he went looking for me. And I was playing in a band called Abuser with George Robb, the bass player for Agent Steel.John asked me to join his creation. It wasn't exactly Agent Steel at that point,.The name, I think, was Sanctuary. And he was writing with that guy from Savage Grace named Mark Marshall. John showed me the material and I had never heard anything of that style. I was not playing in anything heavy at that point. I was still playing in bands that were doing music kind of like Rush and more of rock and roll stuff. So I didn't hear of all this music that was being created. Like Slayer and all those bands. It was just crazy to hear that style of music. But I was always very aggressive drummer. So I was really, really intrigued with this music because I could do things I had never done before. And we just really started making music that was so different quickly. I mean, absolutely quickly. We recorded all the demos and the music for Agent Steel in a matter of months. Really quick. And I think that was some of the most amazing part of it is that it came out so easily. And it wasn't forced. We weren't following anyone. We were completely creating at that point. I mean, our influence was Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, but we were playing it so fast. For back then it was really fun.
Well, how do you think, why was that? Why were you so fast recording and writing new music? Was it just because it was sounding absolutely fresh and new at the time? Or was it just a result of your collaboration with John and Mark?
It was a little of both, you know. I enjoyed the writing process more than the actual playing of music live. If I had to pick two of them, I would probably want to write music because you can share the music in so many venues now that it stays for history. But we were just feeding on each other. It was just so new and we could go do anything we want. Songs were being created one or two a day. And it was just, it just very natural, you know. Especially when Kurt came into the band, Kurt Colfelt. We really started doing interesting stuff with him. It was a shame that none of this stuff made it onto "Unstoppable Force" album, but his writings like "Come Back to Reign" and the stuff he did in Holy Terror was really amazing. I mean, he's really good.
Well, and who came up with the name Agent Steel and did you consider some other names?
The only name that was secondary to that was Sanctuary, but I believe someone else had it. And then John wanted to make the character Agent Steel as a person. And we never really did that, I don't know why, he never incorporated it into his writings. But John came up with the name Agent of Steel. And it's like an anthem to a person who would be the agent of steel, the master of metal.
And what can you say about the Los Angeles club scene back then?
LA was, you know, a melting pot of music in general. And so the glam was going on at the same time as speed metal. There were bands like Detente and Hirax and all the bands like Slayers from Anaheim. A lot of good bands came out of California, but there was just too much going on at one point. You know, bands like Guns N' Roses were coming out and there was a whole change of music was going on in LA. And yeah, you could say that the Bay Area was more heavy, but that's all it was. They didn't have any glam out there. It was two different scenes, but in the same state. So it was like almost a little bit of a competition between the bands like Exodus and Death Angel and all of them that came out of there. The list is endless, you know. But there's a lot of good bands that came out of LA. You know, just Holy Terror, Agent Steel, Abattoir, Evil Dead. We were all united, you know, and even nowadays, you know, the bands that are coming out of LA are still very good. So LA always gets beat up because it's LA and it always will get beat up because it's LA. But a lot of good music comes out of LA.
You mentioned Mark Marshall from the early lineup. And what about Jon Gott and Bill Simmons and their input in the band on the early stages?
Bill didn't do too much. He kind of filled in for people who were having problems with their own situation inside Agent Steel. Jon Gott did a lot of the writing process on "Skeptics...". He just disappeared one day. There's nothing I can say about it. The man just vanished. And that happens in music all the time. People just don't show up ever again. Bill was just like a go-to guy for live shows if we had problems. Like when John disappeared, we had to have someone play a show, so we had Bill Simmons come in. I forgot what band Bill was in. But he wasn't too much part of the process.
When and how did you meet Kurt Colfelt and Juan Garcia, who I believe became crucial for the first album?
John Cyriis
I met Juan Garcia by trying out for Abattoir as a drummer. And I didn't make the cake on the drumming thing. And so when we put Agent Steel together, Juan and John played together in Abattoir. So we went to an Abattoir show and we asked Juan if he wanted to join Agent Steel. And he said yes. Kurt just came through one of those newspapers that you trade ads in for musicians. And he answered one of our ads. And once we saw him play, it was all over. He got the gig immediately. He was fantastic. He just had a great image, too. Real tall, giant, K.K. Downing type of a guy. And yeah, he was great.
And would you say that Kurt and John didn't get along well from the very beginning? Or was it just a growing process?
I think it just didn't seem right between John and Kurt. Kurt seemed like a more aggressive person. And John was more laid back. And Kurt was, you know, just kind of loud and in your face kind of a guy. And John was kind of quiet. But they didn't get along from the beginning. I just knew that there was going to be a problem with those two. There are two very smart individuals. And that's where a lot of the problem comes in creative writing is that they start clashing. I believe that Kurt is kind of, you know, this barbarian type of guy. While John is a more intelligent guy.And they are completely different worlds, two different galaxies. John liked the outer space and artificial intelligence. And Kurt was more barbarian and kind of like black metal, more sinister. But it worked because we needed that edge of being a little more sinister than being more like alien metal.
During 1984 the band did some recordings in various studios. And those recordings eventually became the first album.
Right. That wasn't supposed to be an album. That was just a bunch of demos, which the label decided to put out as an album. It kind of turned out that way. We were going to do like an EP at first. And then once they heard the EP, they liked the tracks and they signed us to do an album. So then we took the EP tracks from one studio and went to another studio, recorded more music. Like I said, we were cranking out music like crazy. We had just tons of music. And so then we just did it in various studios at different times and put it all together. And it kind of worked out. "Skeptics..." is a kind of a weird sounding album, but it also has a unique sound that we can't ever get again. It was done strangely. You know what was done like that as well was the very first Megadeth album. Because we were in the same studio as Megadeth when they were doing theirs. We shared some amps, we shared bass amps. It was all just crazy. Again, we were not knowing exactly what we were doing. We really weren't. We were just kind of just doing what we were doing. And the people were just letting us do what we were doing and recording us. Sometimes you didn't even know if the recorder button was on. And a couple of songs like "Guilty as Charged" I think I did in two takes instead of doing it a hundred times. Just did it, went for it.
Do you remember some details where some certain songs were recorded? I mean, what songs were recorded as a part of this EP and which songs you recorded later as additional stuff?
Wow, I don't recall. I know "144,000 Gone" was part of the demo recordings. And I believe "Children of the Sun", "Guilty as Charged", I think were it. And then we came out with "Bleed for the Gods", "Agents of Steel," and "Evil Eye, Evil Minds". The latest used to be called "Homicide". And then we changed it to "Evil Eye, Evil Minds". And then we re-recorded that Scepter song, "Taken by Force". And then we recorded Kurt's song, "Come Back to Reign". So we did them all in different shots. We did the same thing with "Mad Locust Rising". We did that in two different studios as well. We did half of it up at that Indigo Ranch where Megadeth did "Killing is My Business...". And then we did the rest in Clover City.
As you said, "Skeptics..." sounded very special. I think it's more like speed metal with some punk elements. Was punk music something that you listened to back then?
No, I was absolutely not listening to anything. I did not listen to speed metal even while I was in Agents of Steel. I continued to listen to Rush and Led Zeppelin. And that type of music like The Police. I think that gave me a little bit of an edge on my style of drumming. That was very different than a lot of the speed metal drummers. Where I was trying to take Led Zeppelin drum beats and play them as fast as I could. And do it differently like that. I tried to do "2112" stuff from Rush. And tried to hear a little more melodic progressive drumming than the punk drumming. I think what made me be a punk drummer is that I could do fast music. But I wasn't really playing punk beats. Like I said, I was trying to do Led Zeppelin beats really fast. That was for me the way I dealt with the punk scene. 1987 is when I started to really listen to punk more. I started to listen to DRI, Corrosion and Conformity. And then I started building my abilities to play more punk style. But when we did "Unstoppable Force", we really did more of an open album than a speed album, I thought. "Unstoppable Force" was completely different. It was like the Black Album for Metallica. It was a big change for us.
Yeah, I believe that it was a more professional recording. But I think that this album misses this feeling of youth. That's why I like both albums.
My favorite album that I recorded and played was "Omega Conspiracy". I'm a big fan of it. I really enjoyed Bruce Hall's vocals. He could go a little lower than Cyriis. Cyriis went higher, but Bruce could get that growl. And I think that Agent Steel sounded good to have a little low in it.
Sure! But let's get back to “Skeptic Apocalypse". Can you tell me the story behind the title of the album?
It's very simple. It's basically telling those who didn't believe that this was possible, that it's possible, it happened, and fuck you. Back when we were trying to be who we were, and it wasn't a long time until we got liked. But just in the beginning, everyone thought we were really weird sounding. And so John came up with the skeptics will have their apocalypse. And so that worked out really well. We all really liked that name because it was a kind of big fuck you.
Well, this is funny because all these years, I've been thinking that this title relates to philosophy. And this is completely different meaning, which you told me.
It's both of them. It goes also to the skeptics who don't believe in UFOs and in the other paths that are out there. So it goes as well to that group of people, you know, for all the people who believe in the Triangle and aliens and life beyond Earth. But it was also a statement to the people who didn't think that we could do what we were doing.
Soon after the release of this album, Kurt left the band and there was a huge fight that evening when he left the band. So do you remember this concert and what happened back then?
Yeah, I actually still to this day don't know what really set it off. Like I said, the two of them were like their own two superstars, should we say. I mean, they both had well-developed egos. Everyone has those situations in bands. But it started clashing with John and Kurt. And then one show, Kurt just really got really drunk and was just really, really aggressive towards John. And then John just split. And Kurt was just mad and like smashing things at the venue and just made a big scene. And that was the last of those two ever being together was this concert in San Pedro at the Waters Club. And I still don't know. As the drummer, I kind of stood back and I didn't understand what was going on that they were so hostile towards each other. I didn't know that it was as deep as it was. You know, you pretend not to see some things when you're in a band. You just don't want it to go on. So you try to be on both sides of each person's opinion. And that can only work for so long until one of them asks you, well, you got to pick, you know. And so I knew John longer than I knew Kurt. So I had to stay behind John at that point. Plus, I thought that, you know, John really was an excellent singer for back then. I mean, he was doing really well in the polls and fans liked him. So I thought that me and him, since we started, we should stay together and not break apart. And I stayed with John to the very end. Even though he was difficult to work with. I mean, I know that question is going to come up, but yeah, he's something else.
So Kurt was replaced by Bernie Versailles. What did he bring to the band as a person and as a musician?
Bernie Versailles
Bernie brought back two things. He brought back youth because he was really, really young. He was like, I think, 17 years old when he joined us. And that was really good because, you know, not that we were old or anything, but just having that youth and the knowledge of the youth, the starvingness of him was really great. But he also had this, like Yngwie Malmsteen kind of style to him that you hear like in "The Traveler", for instance. And when we heard him play that really melodic style fast, we knew that we had our Kirk Hammeth. He didn't try to push his music onto us at that point. He was just letting us write. And he would just do melodic breaks and add a lot of melodies to our music. I mean, he did a lot of melodic writing inside of "Unstoppable Force", inside the studio. He worked good with John in the beginning. They could do harmonies with their voice and guitar real well.
In 1985, I believe, you played some special shows, like a show in Canada with Slayer, Metal Church, and Exodus. That was the peak of Paul Baloff's career. Could you share some stories about him?
I only met Paul twice. And that was at that show in Montreal. And he was great. I mean, he was just a party animal. All you can say, he was always high or drunk, always. But he was real nice. You know, he was real calm in his own way. But when he got his drink on, he liked the whole forks and knives. They were serious about that. They would stab each other with those things. And it was quite funny. We played a show in New York with them. And I'll tell you, it was one of the best shows f Exodus I've ever seen because Paul Baloff was so hungover. He did not go on stage. It was sold out. And the band went out there and played the song instrumentally, and the crowd sang the entire show. And that's Paul Baloff, you know. He was just a party animal. I mean, the guys in Excess were great. They were always fun. But Paul was just always over the top.
You also played shows with bands like King Diamond, and I believe that was a kind of a one-off show. And you toured with Helloween, who played a little bit different music.
We never played with Helloween.
Never?
Never.
So I used wrong information.
I always wanted to play with Helloween. But I never did. As for King Diamond, the only memory I have of that show is that King Diamond was seriously into this black magic. And everything he would wear was black. Everything he would drink was Jägermeister only. He did everything black. Black, black, black, black. It was the first show that Mickey Dee did drums for them. It was in Belgium, I believe. And we played with Laaz Rockit as well. They were really nice guys. But King Diamond was fantastic. I really enjoyed seeing him playing for the first time as King Diamond instead of Merciful Fate. And it was a great show.
Now let's talk about the EP "Mad Locust Rising". What was the reason to record the EP and not another LP?
It was the thing to do then, is to put out little EPs between two albums and try to get some extra touring in. The EP was, again, written really fast, recorded in a decent amount of time in a couple of different studios. Like I said, one of them being the Indigo Ranch in Malibu, where Megadeth did a lot of their "Killing is My Business..." album. It has a really nice board. I guess the board is special because wherever we had to go, we had to find the right board to mix on. So, back in the day, it's all about those certain boards. You had to go to where the equipment was. The EP was done by a producer named Dan McConomy. And it was really fun. It was quick to do. "Let It Be Done" was made up right there on the spot, almost. And it created the beginning to the instrumental "The Day at Guyana". It tied those two songs together. Doing it at the Ranch was a very comfortable setting. And knowing that the Megadeth guys were up there, we knew we'd have a good sound. And we had a pretty good sound out there for back then. We did the cover of "The Ripper" from Judas Priest. And I liked that version. And that was Bernie's first time on the guitar, really. And his leads were really what made us... We couldn't wait to write "Unstoppable Force" after hearing Bernie's playing on the EP. Plus, the EP did pretty good. It got good results. People liked it.
But after that EP the band fired George Robb and cut him off the credits and put the picture of Mike Zaputil on the back cover. So don't you think it was unfair to George because he did record every bass track on that EP?
Yeah, I highly disagreed on that move. That was a John Cyriis move. Those guys had some sort of falling out that I still don't understand. I felt bad for years about that. And I made good with George Robb when we did Obscene Gesture together. But I don't know what happened with George and John. But George got him so mad that he took him off the credits. I guess George took that pretty hard. And I would too after doing all the work. George did all the hard work at the beginning of the band. And to be let go like that was unfair because I think Mike Zaputil was John's friend. So he just brought in a friend. I mean, he's a good bass player.
Do you think that your collaboration with Mike was better than your working with George as a rhythm section?
I have to say I enjoyed playing with George better. The only problem with Mike when you would play live I'd almost have to follow him because he was so pumped up and he would play so fast that I had to almost follow him. And he should have been following me. And that's the only problem I had with Mike. Mike was over-aggressive as a bass player. He played really well. There's no doubt about it. But if you're asking the question, he was too aggressive for me. It's like we were racing on stage. Now in the studio we locked up really well. But on stage it seemed like it was a bit of a race.
Could you tell me about the Speed Metal Attack tour you did with Anthrax and Overkill? I heard there was a lot of animosity between you and these New Yorkers and they tried to hurt maybe not the band but your stage presence and your stage performance.
There's a lot of things I could say if I wanted to but I'm not going to go that route. What was going on was we were at the height of Speed Metal being blossomed and you have three outstanding bands on tour with each other. Different parts of the country for us. The Los Angeles and New York thing goes all the way through sports, it goes through everything. The rivalry between those bands. Because how that tour went on is that no one was the headliner. Some days Anthrax would be last on, some days Agents Steel would be last on. It didn't matter. We rotated the spots. It seemed like sometimes people were saying things when they were on stage about who was coming up and we said things about them. People were doing things to each other's lines and playing with amps. There was a little bit of trickery from everybody. I think everyone was playing with each other's mind games to see who could take the most bullshit on stage. But it was a very, very good, successful tour. Very great. The fans were just fantastic. There was nothing bad to say about that tour.
I remember someone from Anthrax said in interviews that John Cyriis really believed that he was a child of an alien or something like this.
God, I haven't heard that one. That's a new one for me. Okay, John was straight up into the aliens 100%. Did he believe he was from another planet or spawned from them? I don't know. He believed that the possibilities of extraterrestrial beings was very plausible and that he was going to write about it and it could be biblical and it could be not biblical. It could be science fiction. It could be anything. He explored marrying heavy metal and science fiction better than anyone could ever have done. He threw in a little feelings and anger and all that stuff. He played the card that he was strange and odd. That's what gave him some of his persona, to be an odd person. A lot of people do that. But did he believe it? Nah, he was just like me and you. Probably another joke from Anthrax. These guys just laughed at him and he's interested in everything. We toured with Nuclear Assault, remember? Dan Lilker was from Anthrax so he had words for us. We didn't get along from the minute we had our first soundcheck with the Nuclear Assault guys. They were out to try to pick on John right from the beginning. Once you're always being picked on you just act the part, you know what I mean? We had a strange singer, yes we did. So there you go.
So he just played the role of a strange guy.
Yeah, he did. He was strange, too. But he also lived it up. If you're a little strange then you can act a lot strange. Everyone has their bizarre side but John was definitely an intense individual. I guess the good word is he was very intense. He was really serious about what he was doing because no one else was. He got caught up in that stuff and he played into it a little bit. Then people made fun of it and he got mad. It's like, dude, you play into it so don't start.
Ok, got it. Now let's speak for a while about the second album, "Unstoppable Force". How did you pick up this Morris Sound studio in Tampa and did you like this experience of working with Dan Johnson and Tom Morris and hanging out with guys from Nasty Savage and being in Florida?
Agent Steel
in Morrisound Studios
It was probably one of the greatest experiences of my life. Everything about it. Hanging out with the locals, Nasty Savage and the other guys. I forgot who they are. Jeez, what is that band? They're from Florida. Anyways, working with Scott Burns who turned out to be the producer for other bands when he was starting out down there. Just working with Dan Johnson and doing things what I consider right. We sat there, we had pre-production and we did everything your producer wanted to do. We did what Tom Morris and his brother wanted.
The project came out beautiful. It took a little long, I have to say, for my liking. The record company got mad about how long it took and how much money it cost. I know it overtook "Master of Puppets" for a couple of weeks in England. I know that we did our numbers. It's a great album. It's completely different than anything Agent Steele had done before. Like you said, the sound was tremendous. Dan Johnson did a really good job, I think. It was fun. It was long. It took me close to a month to do the drums. It was a good learning experience. The people down there were just great.
Would you say that this album was your finest hour as a drummer? Or do you still prefer "Omega Conspiracy"?
I prefer "Omega..." as my go-to drumming. I find that I do anthem songs that start with drums. It was one of the better ones that started with drums. I like the key track on there for me. It's "Know Your Master". Talking about "Unstoppable Force", it brought in a different dynamic to my drumming. The drumming that I told you I prefer was more of a Rush-style drumming. We weren't really progressive on that album, but we were not as aggressive, should we say. We found a real happy medium in there. Songs like "The Rager" were very anthem-like. "Unstoppable Force" is a great album. The opening track is Mike Zappia's writing credits. It's a really good song. It really is.
Around this time, John decided to relocate the band from LA to Florida. You followed him, but the others refused to do so. Do you think it was the right decision to move the band from LA to Florida?
Absolutely. When we talked about how Metallica moved to the South Bay, we were feeling that there was too much saturated that new metal that was going on, poser metal and all that stuff. So Instead of people moving to LA to make it in the music business, we decided to move away. Since we liked Tampa, Florida, and there was a little bit of a metal scene there, we said, we'll go to Tampa, Florida. And we did, and it was great. We didn't play much out there, but we went on tour from there. It was the right decision. I think that the guys who stayed back weren't thinking correctly. They weren't thinking as a band. They were thinking as three individual people. They just wanted to stay with their family and friends and girlfriends and so forth. At that point, you have everything in the world to do something different, and your management company is behind you. They're like, "Okay, we'll move to Florida. We'll pay for that. Okay, it's a good idea. We're behind you". And then three out of five players don't want to do it. I was just disappointed in them, because it was a good move to do. I mean, you can see they didn't do anything. They had three out of five, and we had two out of five, me and John. They couldn't do anything. They all did different things. They could not do Agent Steell. It was whoever was going to do it first. But knowing that John was such a driving force lyrically and by his persona, his whatever, I'm staying with that.
Can you say something about the managers of the band?
I'm going to have to say it was fair. They only put in when they had to, and like I said, they were behind the relocation, so the management was okay. They got us decent deals, but all in all, the band broke up, and the band did not get signed to a major label. So did they do a good job? No. They should have kept this band together. They should have made money out of us. We were the next big thing. I mean, everyone knew it, and from the rumor mill that we heard, that they were asking too much money for us. No, the management was sufficient. They didn't destroy us, and they didn't help us enough.
When you relocated to Florida, you played with different musicians, like Brian East and Silvio Golfetti, and you also recorded the video with James Murphy and Richard Bateman, who was from Nasty Savage. So can you say a couple of words about these guys, these different lineups? Why couldn't you keep the lineups stable when the three of the five guys left the band?
Richard Bateman, James Murphy, John Cyriis,
Chuck Profus, and John Reichenbach
The situation was that John was now turning into a problem, and he was always finding something wrong with somebody, and he was always unhappy with somebody, and no one was good enough. Just turning into kind of a crybaby is the only way I can say. And when we had James Murphy and Richard Bateman, that was a pretty good lineup, and we played pretty good with those guys, but John was awfully hard on them, because they were like newbies and babies to the world. John just treated them very, very rough, and they couldn't really take it. I could see why they just didn't want to deal with the rock star attitude, but John was a little bit out of control back then. He got worse every month. He just progressively got worse to the point where we all broke up.
And what can you say about the video "Mad Locust Rising", which was filmed in Hammersmith Odeon? Was it an official video, or was it just a kind of bootleg?
You know, I wish I could tell you the truth on that one. I mean, they filmed it, and they made it seem like it was going to be very official, and then it became unofficial, and it went underground. It didn't get released through Music for Nations, or it seemed like it was on the bootleg version everywhere. The first time I saw it, I saw it at some record store. I didn't even know the thing was out. I never got paid for it. Not that I'm crying about it, but I didn't even know the thing was out. So I saw it in a used section at the record store. But it was done real well. I remember we had an extra day at the Hammersmith Odeon to practice, so it was a two-day shoot, and it was a really good show. We had a couple of technical mistakes, but the show was pretty, pretty good. I mean, that was a really nice show. Yeah, I enjoyed doing that video. Well, from what I saw, it was high energy. There was a lot of high energy in that lineup, and it was a great, great lineup, I believe. Richard Bateman was a really good bass player, and so James Murphy turned out to be one hell of a guitar player as well, with Obituary, Testament, and everything he's done.
Yeah. We just couldn't get together anymore, and it was just too much of a pain in the butt. Our management was sinking and not producing us well, and we weren't being treated well. And I was just tired of John at this point. I mean, you can't keep a lineup and I can't defend you when you're acting a fool. So I don't want to do it any more. I said I'm over it.
But later you carried on with John and his projects like Pontius Prophet and Black Reign.
All I did was the Pontius Prophet. I didn't do Black Reign, that was in New York, I believe. I did the Pontius Prophet demo with John and a guy named Mike Hill. And that was done on some electronic drums, so I was barely playing and it was really strange, but we were trying to do a black metal thing, and it was weird. Did you hear it?
I have an mp3 of this demo, but I haven't heard it in years. Anyway, you are the only member of Agent Steel who went through all ups and downs with John...
I Don't know if I'm so much friends with him as much as I'm loyal and I'm not stupid. To me, what Agent Steel was really about and it wasn't really about so much our writing material... Don't get me wrong. It was very well written and stuff, but it was the voice and his lyrics that on top of what we were doing was fantastic and I was a realist and knew that that John was the driving force of this band. But his demeanor and his working ethic... When you start acting that rock star fool, there's no turning back. So I had to just say enough myself. Would I get back together? I Don't know. I think I physically can still do it, I don't even play the drums that much anymore, but I know I can play. It was just a matter if things would work out. I mean if the money, logistics would make it happen I would do it. I mean, I'm not a money whore, but I can't do it for nothing.
Well, I have more questions if you don't mind, if you if you're not tired of me.
Not yet.
So, let's make it fast. Can you tell me about this reunion of the band in the late 90s? Who was the first one to say let's do it?
Me.
Okay.
I've been always talking about reuniting for years with these guys, with or without John, I kept saying. And they kept worrying about the name. I said we can call the band anything we want, you know, but we just have to be able to be, we can call it Agents of Steel, Agents Steel, Masters of Metal, like that's where they got the ideas. And I just said if the fans want it and forget about John. Oh, John this, John that. I said, "Screw John. You guys are so worried about John. Let's just write a song or do a song and see if someone wants it". So we wrote, we covered "Sweet Leaf" and we sent that to Candlelight Records and they gave us a deal. We did "Omega...." in 1999, I believe. And we wrote that album probably two months, me, Bernie and Juan. And it was fantastic. It went together smooth. The lyrics and the singing were great by Bruce. I really enjoyed doing that album. It was fantastic.
Is it correct that the band has known Bruce Hall since the 80s, when he was a fan, he was your buddy, and that you asked him to join because he was no stranger to Agent Steel?
He and Bernie knew each other from when Agent Steel, I guess, stopped and we went to Florida. I think Bernie and Bruce played in a couple of bands together, at least one band together. And that's where Bernie said, "Man, I got this singer, we got to try him out". He could sing high and he could sing low. And he was the only tryout for the reunion and he got the gig. We didn't even try anyone else out. He came in and just nailed it. And we actually had Mike Zaputil playing bass. But once we got serious, he said he couldn't do it due to a commitment with his family. And so we brought in Karlos Medina from Evil Dead. Me and Karlos really hit it off well as musicians. I could really play. He's probably the best bass player I've ever played with. He doesn't rush and he's right on the money, plus he writes really well.
Well, and I remember when "Omega..." came out, fans met it with different opinions. Were you disappointed with the response the album got back then?.
Agent Steel in Europe (2000)
Yeah, I didn't understand the not liking of it. I mean, I can understand it wasn't the same, but how do you not like it? It was absolutely 80's Agent Steel at its best. The only thing I didn't like, I'll tell you, was the name of the album. I thought it was stupid. I wanted it to be called "Destroy the Hush." But I don't know what the conspiracy is or if there is a conspiracy, but that was the title that everyone else wanted. But it was supposed to be "Destroy the Hush".
So, once you were the one who wanted to reunite, why did you left the band after the only one album?
I was in the middle of writing the second album of the reunion and two things were going on. I was having issues with arm at times. It kind of goes numb and I was having that problem. Plus, I was just really disappointed on how everything was going with 80's Steel. I couldn't believe that the band wasn't being accepted and like you said, that people weren't accepting the album as much as we thought they would be. I was really just disappointed. It wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. I think we were again being undercut by lesser bands and our record label wasn't helping us at all at any point right then and I was really getting frustrated. So, when I had another accident with my arm, I had commitments to play two shows. So, we had Rigo Anezcua to do the two shows and he's a really good drummer. He covers my style pretty well. We had him do the two shows and he fit in so well and I felt good not playing. I said, "I felt good not being around the band". So, I just resigned. I just absolutely just resigned. They had a good cover, I mean a good guy to take control of the drums and I had half the album written for them so they could just have an album written within a couple of weeks, which they did. And I just kind of retired. I regret it a little bit, but you know, you don't make the best choices sometimes, do you?
One of our fans named Guy Green, who played guitar and sang on the album, was an Agent Steel fan from the 80s. And he kept bugging me and trying to get me to play in some band that he said he had put together. I said, "Let me hear it. If it's any good, I'll do it". And I heard it and it was fantastic. So, I naturally just gravitated towards it and we recorded a demo, a five song demo. And then we got our money together to record our own album and I got George Robb to play bass on it. And it got really good reviews, but it also came at a time where no one was doing anything. It was all stuck on MySpace and just the music business took a shit there for like four or five years, you know. Nothing happened. We released that CD and all we got was just tons of great reviews and no one bought it. But did you hear this music? I think you'll like it. Do you like crossover?
Not much, but I can listen to it. It's not my favorite style of music if we're speaking about bands like D.R.I. or something like this. Sometimes it sounds to me like, you know, a joke.
Yeah, it is a little bit of a joke, like S.O.D. That's what we sounded like. The Obscene gesture was like S.O.D.
Well, I can try to find it and listen, but as I see it in the web, the album you recorded with this band has 21 tracks and this is insane.
I think it's done real well, personally. And I'm not saying just because I play on it. My friend Rob produced it, who did some Cypress Hill stuff, so the production on it is fantastic. And it's got all those fast, quick songs, you know what I mean? So it's fun. It's fun in its own realm. It's nothing serious.
So this basically was my last question and maybe can you say a few words about your life outside the music? Do you still stay friends with someone from Aging Steel? I
The person I talk to the most is Juan. We see each other maybe once a year and talk to each other maybe six times a year. My new thing for music is just listening to whatever is new coming out, just absolutely new bands and this new metal is really interesting to me. I'm not sure if I really like it all, but it's really interesting. I don't even know the names of the bands. There's so many bands out there now, it's incredible. But I listen to like Spotify or Pandora or whatever and I just put on like, you know, some of this new music, you know, like for instance, Soilwork I listen to or what is this other one? Bullet For My Valentine. I'm just all over the place. I love it. And I think that the older metal is coming back because they're running out of stuff to write because it's all like tuned down and 10 string guitars and you know, yeah. The new drummers are just so fast, it's just ridiculous, I think. I don't know what you think of the new metal, but it's kind of ridiculous. Well, I think that there's when I hear a lot of such stuff from, you know, old school drummers and I believe that you have to understand that these days drummers are programmed, basically. So there's no real people and they use samples and something like this. So the drums always sound like the same from album to album, from bands to bands. So this is no, how to say, no human playing anymore in new metal. It's all like that Lamb of God drumming, you know what I mean? That just all sounds like that. I mean, even Gene Hoglan in Testament now just sounds, you know, it sounds like Strapping Young Lads. I mean, it's just over the top. Well, and I also see this return of classic heavy metal because since the late 80s or early 90s the music went into heavier, heavier, lower tunes, growling vocals and something like this. And this is, you know, just you can't play faster and you can't tune your guitar slower every, you know, every year. So there is a limit of the speed you can play. So people return to 70s music or 80s music just to find another way and develop it in their style, I think. That's why there is a lot of young bands who sound like the bands from the 70s or the 80s. They try to go back and find another way to develop the music.
You're right. So that's basically it and if you want to say something to your fans you are welcome.
Stay hard, drink hard, play hard and just keep to the metal.
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