Kevin Stewart-Panko: In a broad sense, I would say that anybody who takes the time to make this a part of their life, especially older dudes like me who have mortgages and families, I have to give respect for that.
Personally, my favorite writer is J. Bennett. That guy is hilarious. I can’t say enough about him. He’s awesome. I love Nathan T. Birk, even though he writes about bands that the chances of me listening to are really slim. I’m not a big black metal fan, but I like reading his stuff because it’s to the point. There’s no pussyfooting around and he knows his stuff inside and out. He knows more than black metal, too. He’s a big fan of post punk stuff and the old screamo. He brings a new perspective.
There’s a new guy who writes for Unrestrained! named Jay Gorania. He has a pretty entertaining approach. A lot of the Terrorizer guys I like. I love Scott Seward’s stuff in Decibel. I’m sure you’re noticing a trend here. Most of those guys have a sense of humor. That’s my thing as well. I like different stories and different angles and different approaches. That’s what print media has to do to survive because of the challenges posed by the internet and the visual world. You have to do something that is going to make you stand out. You can find the basic information on a band anywhere. There’s no point in writing a story that rehashes a bio anymore. People used to be able to do it and get away with it, but now bios are on the band’s page, the label page and their MySpace page. There’s no point in writing what amounts to a bio. You have to take another angle. That’s the kind of stuff I like, people who make the effort to try and find that different angle.
Do you have any interest or plans in writing a book about metal?
It’s funny you mention that. Last year I started on a book project. It’s still in the works, but I haven’t worked on it in a while. At the time it seemed like something really fun that I could get into doing, but it just never happened. Maybe one day it will, but the project is in limbo right now.
Do you ever get negative feedback from bands you’ve written about or their record labels, and if so, how do you deal with it?
There are a lot of bands who are happy that I take the time to write about them and they like the story. I interviewed Phil from the band Kylesa. He told me he was really nervous moving to a bigger metal label and not being able to maintain their DIY aspect because that’s who they are. He was kind of weirded out about being interviewed for Metal Maniacs. So we did the interview and it was fine. Because where I live in Canada usually I don’t get the magazines until a few weeks after they do in the U.S. So I’m sitting at home one day and the phone rings, and it’s Phil. He called to thank me for the interview and that it was the best story he had seen on the band so far. I’ve heard things like that from bands. A lot of the bands who are smaller or more DIY and starting to see their names in bigger magazines are appreciative of the fact that there are people like me who come from a DIY background and write for the glossy magazines.
On the negative side, I can’t tell how how many times I have been dropped from certain labels promo lists, so obviously there’s some heat taken there. I never get the full story from people. I write this thing called Rimshots in the back of Unrestrained! It’s this completely ridiculous thing that some people actually take seriously, which always amazes me. We’re just trying to have fun. But I’ve heard things from Adrian, the editor. People contact him and give him crap, which is fine, because I don’t have to deal with it. (laughs). He hears a lot of good and bad about it.
I don’t usually hear anything directly from a band I’ve said anything negative about, which I’m hoping has something to do with the fact that people are smart enough to realize not everyone likes them. Coming from a musician’s background myself, I took the good reviews with the bad. I thought the bad reviews were hilarious. I took more pleasure in reading those, especially when they were done creatively.
It does happen though. I recently wrote a review of a band for a regular magazine, not a metal magazine. They are from the next town over from where I live. I don’t know those guys at all, but I know of them. I knew some stuff that other people might not know about them if they weren’t from here, which I mentioned in the review. I gave it like a 3 out of 10. I was at home one day and the phone rang. It was their press person giving me crap about the review. She told me about how the record was amazing and she loves it and it’s awesome. I said, “that’s cool. You love it. Have fun listening to it. I didn’t like it.” They asked me to write the review. I don’t know what this person was thinking by calling me. What am I going to do, start saying I love this record now and write a retraction because she called me? I wasn’t going to change my opinion of the record.
I’m sure that happens quite a bit. My editors probably hear a lot of crap from labels, it just doesn’t usually get filtered down to me. And even if it did it wouldn’t matter. I don’t care, really. I don’t go out of my way to be mean, but I’m not going to sugarcoat stuff. I just call it like I hear it.
