Twenty years ago, Metal Church independently released their first album, simply entitled Metal Church, on their own independent label, Ground Zero. 72,000 sales later, the band was picked up by Elektra Records. A great many things have changed since then, both in the band and in the music world, but one thing remains constant: Metal Church are dedicated to metal no matter who else bails out. Their new album, The Weight Of The World comes out on July 26th.

Kurdt: Well, the differences are the obvious ones; the new members. The similarities would be that we wanted to keep it very traditional Metal Church. We didn't want to try to update the sound, we didn't want to be Nu Metal, or anything we weren't known for, try to be anything that we weren't, so that would be the similarities; we wanted to keep it very old school, melodic metal.

Kurdt: Well, basically, with Masterpiece, which I like to call Disasterpiece, it was supposed to be a reunion of the original lineup and it just didn't work. It was just one of those things where it just didn't happen, but we were contractually obligated, the record was coming out, so we had to try to follow through touring and we got on the road in Europe and it was just a nightmare. When we got back, I spent time doing the next Vanderhoof record and it came time to do another Metal Church record and I didn't know if I was going to do it or not. I was going to work with Kirk on this. After David Wayne put out the Wayne album and called it Metal Church, took the logo, used the guitar… I saw that and didn't know anything about it until after it came out.

Kurdt: Exactly. So management calls and says "have you seen David Wayne's new album?" I'm like, "no." "Check this out," I'm like, "oh fuck." So that was the end of him. It's like, "fuck off, dude; what the fuck are you doing?" Then, Kirk and I still wanted to see if we could still keep it going, try to do another record. Duke and Mike Howe, John Marshall and all those guys, they're very supportive, but they're married with kids and stuff, so we thought we'd give it a shot with all new members and see how it worked and it started working really good. When we found Ronnie (vocals), it was like, "okay, we can at least do it justice, I don't know if it'll work, but we can at least do the old stuff justice." We started writing the new album and we had a great chemistry together, and we thought, "you know, if nothing else, we're going to have fun doing this and we like doing this," so we'll keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Kurdt: I don't even know what that is.

Kurdt: Oh really? I'd never heard of it. I mean, he was around, so I'm sure he could probably tell you some stuff. Just as long as it's not a lie. (laughter)

Kurdt: That's one of the reasons why I left.

Kurdt: Yeah, I just never partook in that scene, so I was just kind of like, "okay guys, I'll work in the studio."

Kurdt: Fuck, it was amazing. We had just gotten back from Germany where it was really, really going to be testing ground for us with our new lineup and we kicked ass, we got really fucking lucky, we did a great show and everybody loved it. So we were like, "okay, good; this is a good sign, this'll work." Then we did the same thing in Cleveland, where we just worked like crazy. We were blown away.

Kurdt: No, actually, because it was at the time.

Kurdt: Oh yeah. We did a couple warm up shows before we left for Europe under the name Mental Search, just kind of get out there, but not make a big to do about it until we got our legs underneath us. Yeah, because, for the most part it was, until this tour.

Kurdt: Well, basically, that had to do with contractual stuff. We were a little bit green and we had a lawyer that was a little bit green about the industry and we had the option to do it ourselves with Ground Zero, so we opted for that, which in the long run, worked for out to our benefit.

Kurdt: Yeah. So then Elektra picked it up and we were free to go from there.

Kurdt: As much as I hate to say it, I don't think it will reach the height it did in the 80's because of the climate of the industry, but I do think that the industry will take notice of the fact that people still want it. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the industry is so different now. The industry is run out of accounting offices, it's not run out of A&R departments anymore; there isn't the one MTV channel, there's eight; there's five million radio stations; there's so many different versions of everything, I just don't think it's set up that way anymore. But I think that metal will at least become a viable force again and it's really starting to look like it is. I mean, you go through Safeway or any grocery store and you look at the magazines on the rack; it's all metal. You just don't see it in the "hip" magazines or on MTV. So, it's actually kind of cool; we're underground again.

Kurdt: That was huge. I mean, that was my old guitar. (laughing) To be in a situation where somebody puts it in a museum, that's like, "huh?" What do you say to that? That's like the ultimate flattery.

Kurdt: Yup.

Kurdt: Oh yeah.

Kurdt: Oh, did you?

Kurdt: Oh, cool. At the Skychurch?

Kurdt: Yeah, it's great in there. Especially the backdrop's really cool, too.

Kurdt: I don't know, we don't have the rights to those; those are on Elektra and Black Heart. They're available in Europe. In America, I don't know, I really don't know. That's unfortunately one of those things that's out of our hands. (laughs) If we start making a big noise, they probably will be reissued. They'll go, "we'll get some extra money out of that," and they'll put it out.

Kurdt: Everybody's been asking us about that, but I don't know if we have that much material that we could use. But I think due to the climate of things now, I think it's something that we're going to have to take a look at and get something out there. We'll have to dig through our old video tapes and try to see if we can put something together, definitely.

Kurdt: Oh, I'm sure we will and we've already been offered that. As long as we're here, absolutely. Again, metal's still really big in Europe and it really never left over there, so that's where we're going to be spending some time. But we really want to concentrate on getting things rolling in America again. Kind of like us and Exodus and Testament and all those guys; we're all of the attitude that "America still wants to rock, so the media here isn't covering it; that's okay: we'll do it ourselves."

Kurdt: Well, no not really. What really felt odd about that was going back to work. (laughter) That was a real slap in the face about how the industry works. For me personally, when we got off that tour, I ended up having to come home and get a job, because they paid for everything; tour support, fronting us all this money, so we got back and we were massively in debt. So it was like, "oh, I get it, I see how this works; it's not your money." So that was a little interesting slice of how the industry works, but after coming back and doing that, that's kind of when I left and started getting into the studio thing. So it was quite interesting. "This isn't what it said in Circus magazine." (laughter) But now I understand how it works, so now we're doing it smarter.

Kurdt: Well, what we're doing right now is just touring the West Coast and playing everywhere we can right now before the new album comes out, just to let everybody know that we're around, then the album comes out at the end of this month and then we're going to probably head to Europe in the Fall and just stay on the road, stay out playing and build the thing back up again. We play in Seattle on Tuesday and then we leave from there and start playing Southern California, we've got a show at the House Of Blues coming up and then we're going to be doing Phoenix and Vegas and then coming back home 'til the end of the month. Then we're going to let the album come out and then we're going to see what happens after that, get back on the road.

Kurdt: Hey, my pleasure, man. Thanks a lot.