He listened, and realized that the guitar attack he’d woken up dreaming about in the middle of the night wasn’t his, it was from Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper.” And that riff he’d polished for hours was actually from Mastodon’s “Blood and Thunder” and that bass line he was so proud of was from Tool’s “Schism” and everything he’d written for the past three days was stolen from somebody else. He dragged every single one of the sound files into the garbage and emptied it with a terminal click.
He needed to keep going. It was only a matter of time. He just had to get these influences out of his brain, he just had to keep trying. A simple three-chord progression popped into his head and for a minute he got excited, and then he realized it was from Wolves in the Throne Room’s second album. He balled his hands into fists and pressed them to his forehead and he wanted to scream, but he couldn’t open his mouth that wide anymore.
In West Hollywood, Rob Anthony walked through Largo before an Aimee Mann surprise acoustic show and shook hands and bought rounds and worried that people’s smiles didn’t seem as wide as they used to, that their handshakes seemed shorter, their banter didn’t sound as sincere. He felt like people wanted to get away from him. He caught a whiff of something rank, like a wet, rotten wound and he was sure it wasn’t him, and then he reassured himself that even if it was him—which it definitely was not—no one else could smell it. Then, when the room got dark and the show began, he slipped out the door and drove home alone, keeping all his windows down.
In Valley Center, Kansas, Ethel Davis lay in bed, trying to fall asleep but mostly missing her son. She’d managed to doze off earlier, but now she’d woken up because someone was in the house. From downstairs in the dark basement, floating up the stairs, came the sound of drumming, some heavy metal ruckus, pouring out of the open basement door.
She smiled and settled back against her pillows. This happened at least once a week and she actually found it reassuring. JD wanted her to know he was okay. Her son didn’t want her to worry, and so he came back to let her know that he was someplace better, playing his music as loud as he wanted. He always was a thoughtful boy. She imagined him flailing away behind his drums in the basement, wearing his horned helmet, lost in his music, having a wonderful time. She couldn’t help it. She smiled. No parent should outlive her child, but who would she be without her Viking?
And in a basement in Los Angeles, California, down behind the laundry room, away from the neighbors, Melanie Gutiérrez sat hunched over her guitar, trying to play the beginning of the song that saved her life. Her wrists were bony and weak. The thin metal E, B, and G strings sliced her fingertips. The knock-off Chinese guitar she’d gotten on Amazon bruised her ribs where she leaned over it. Her left wrist throbbed.
She wrapped a claw around the guitar’s neck and pressed her first sore finger to A, her third finger on D, her fourth finger on G, raked her pick down the strings, and the magic happened: the same sound came out of her amp that had come out of Kris Pulaski’s amp. The same sound 440,000 people heard in Nevada that night was right here in the basement with her.
But this was too hard. Her hands hurt too much. She was too tired from working a double. Her wrists were too weak. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t hold all these notes in her head, she couldn’t make these songs sound right. Then she played that chord again and it smashed out of her amp, and she moved to the next chord, and the next one, and the one after that, and she fell forward from chord to chord, making her basement shake, “Beneath the Wheel” blotting out everything in her life, blotting out the world, blotting out Black Iron Mountain, and she knew…
She could do this.
How does a sparrow destroy a mountain?
One pebble at a time.
Troglodyte would not be possible if not for the hard work of all these subterranean creatures:
First and foremost, thanks to Rob Anthony whose vision and dedication have changed our lives forever. The future looks dangerous!
Thanks to producer and engineer, Jason Rekulak, for his studio magic and flawless musical judgment.
Those are Rick Chillot’s synths you hear on “One Life, One Bullet” and they don’t let anyone tell you that synths aren’t metal.
Word up to Nicole De Jackmo and Ivy Weir for their angelic backing vocals on “Down Where the Worms Squirm” and “Sailing the Seas of Blood.”
The look of Troggie and that bad-to-the-bone logo are the responsibility of one Mr. Doogie Horner.
For the killer mixes, Mary Ellen Wilson and Jane Morley are owed a debt of blood.
The whole team at Roundhouz Studios in LA made this album possible: Katherine McGuire, Moneka Hewlett, Brett Cohen, David Borgenicht, John McGurk, Mandy Dunn Sampson, Andie Reid, Blair Thornburgh, Megan DiPasquale, Elissa Flanigan, Rebecca Gyllenhaal, Kelsey Hoffman, Christina Schillaci, Kate Brown, and Molly Murphy.
No one does it better than the PRHPS Sales Team and we know you guys are going to make this album release completely shred.
For inspiration on the road and for lending us $20 in Denver when we needed it most, thanks to Thom Youngblood and Mary Schreck.
As always, this one is for the fans, Sarah Nivala, Evan Vellela, Michelle Souliere, Patrick Wray, Chris Ryall, Carson Evans, Jo-Jo Gervasi, Miles Foster, Mariah Cherem, Chris Dortch, Lisa Morton, Mitch Davis, Jonathan Lees, Eric Bresler, and all the rest of you Troglodytes. Keep on Trogging.
We’ll always remember your dedication to Dürt Würk and letting us crash at your place whenever we came through Toronto.
We’re sorry we forgot you were standing behind the van the last time we left.
Grady Hendrix is a novelist and screenwriter based in New York City. His novels include Horrorstör, named one of the best books of 2014 by National Public Radio, and My Best Friend’s Exorcism, for which the Wall Street Journal dubbed him “a national treasure.” The Bram Stoker Award winning Paperbacks from Hell, a survey of outrageous horror novels of the 1970s and ’80s, was called “pure, demented delight” by the New York Times Book Review. He’s contributed to Playboy, the Village Voice, and Variety.
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