UtU: This is the question we ask to every band that plays true metal. Who are the undisputed Kings Of Metal?It must be Iron Maiden.
UtU: With the release of Dark Hallucinations, Steel Prophet has thrown their hat into the ring as a force to be reckoned with in the power metal genre. What separates Steel Prophet from the rest of the pack? Especially with respect to the leaders of the genre right now, such as Gamma Ray, Nevermore, Hammerfall, Blind Guardian, and Bruce Dickinson.
Well, we have great singing and playing like those groups, but we're more progressive than they are in the song arrangements, and we add the influences of Death, Neo-Classical, Doom, Thrash and Psychedelic into our music. For instance, you don't find any of those groups using a blast beat in their stuff, and we layer more guitar and vocal harmonies than most of those groups. Queen is a big production influence for me. We're traditional at first glance, but when you delve into our music deeply, you find stuff in it that other true metal bands don't do.
UtU: Describe the ideas, feel, and intentions of Dark Hallucinations as an album.
Starting out the disc is our adaptation of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" book. This book is in the tradition of a lot of great science fiction. It deals with our world in the future. Books are illegal to read or own because an authoritarian regime deems them 'dangerous', the public must be protected from them at all costs. It has been established books just give people fantasies and ideas a real society can never live up to. This in turn just makes the populace unhappy as a whole, so books are illegal. Anyone caught with books has them torched in public burnings (which usually results in their houses being reduced to cinders), and is imprisoned. TV and drugs (so what else is new?) keep the people peaceful and under control.
Three other songs deal with Rick's addiction to Methamphetamine and all the hell he went through with that stuff distorting his reality. He was hearing voices and seeing things that were better left buried in his subconscious.
The feel was to be artistic and capture feelings of what it's like to experience extreme power. I wanted this record to have little touches that would make it a slightly different power metal disc. It was like doing a painting of the Mona Lisa and then adding some fluorescent paint here and there, if you know what I mean.
UtU: What is your favorite song on the album?
Steve: That's a tough one, but I can give you my top three. "We Are Not Alone", "Strange Encounter", and "Montag" are probably my favorites. Really, I dislike "Scarred for Life" and "Spectres". Every other song is pretty good in my opinion!
UtU: You have played with Manowar in the past. Are you fans?
Steve: I'm not a fan at all. I didn't watch them because we needed to get our equipment back to the rehearsal studio. All I remember is watching their soundcheck and thinking it was funny that the singer wore glasses. I didn't think that went with their loincloths and broadswords!
UtU: What bands influenced you the most growing up?
Steve: Probably Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest influenced me from a songwriting point of view. As a guitarist I would say Leslie West, Randy Rhoads, Buck Dharma, Bill Nelson, Tony Iommi, Brian May, Paul Kossof and Ritchie Blackmore were big influences.
UtU: Give us your opinion on your earlier albums:
Inner Ascendance:
This one was speedy, with mostly upper range vocals and pretty complex song arrangements and riffs. The production was pretty good because Joe Floyd(Warrior) recorded it, and then Bill Metoyer mixed it for us. This was just a demo tape, but it was illegally bootlegged by a label called 'Reborn Classics' and made into a CD that was split with Jag Panzer's Shadow Thief demo.
UtU: The Goddess Principle:
This one started out as a pre-production demo for a Dutch label called Foundations 2000. We signed a deal with them in 1992 but we never did get a budget to record the official disc. As you can guess the production pretty much sucks as it was done on an eight track machine, but we really put a lot of hard work into it. We spent over a month getting all the vocals and guitar harmonies (almost) perfect. The music was our most complex, progressive and thrashy effort. Along with Dark Hallucinations it is my favorite CD.
UtU: Continuum (Ep):
I'm not a big fan of this one. We were in a big rush to do this. We were told we could make this to raise money for an upcoming tour which never happened. We re did a couple songs from our Inner Ascendance demo and threw in a couple new ones. The vocals and guitars are kind of sloppy, and there are quite a few flat and sharp notes. The production is better than The Goddess Principle. The style is much the same as TGP, but it should have been better.
UtU: Into The Void, Hallucinogenic Conception:
This one has the best production of all our Art of Music releases. The songs were not nearly as complex as the first two discs because I was sick of writing these difficult to play and learn songs. It used to take a lot of sitting around and teaching the stuff to Horacio and JT. I just decided to make the songs simpler and more direct to save on time and frustration. That's not a crack on those guys. The guys really weren't interested in the band by that time and in the end we had to find new players anyway, but I digress. This disc is very similar to an Iron Maiden CD in style and complexity. I must say there was a very heavy doom influence also
UtU: What is your opinion of the current metal scene? Is metal ready to take over America like it once did?
I think metal is gaining interest again, and the underground is growing much stronger, but I can see making a case that it will take over and I can see how some would think that's just wishful thinking. Rhythm metal (Korn, Pantera, Ozzfest stuff) seems to be getting popular, but the stuff with some melody, harmony and singers who can work in a few different octaves seems to be considered a thing of the past. I can appreciate a variety of styles, but glam, country western, and rhythm metal just aren't my cup.
UtU: How is your relationship with Nuclear Blast going?
Good, I'd say. I like what the German office has done, but I'm hoping the American office can do more. I know we're not the flavor of the month in the US, but I think we just have to be approached the same way Iced Earth promotion was approached.
UtU: Please give us your top 5 all-time favorite metal albums.
Can't do it, but here's my top ten!
1. 2112-Rush
2. Sad Wings of Destiny, Sin After Sin, Stained Class-Judas Priest
3. Rising-Rainbow
4. Physical Graffitti, Presence-Led Zeppelin
5. Sabotage, Technical Ecstasy, Vol.4, Never Say Die-Black Sabbath
6. Eternal Nightmare-Vio-Lence
7. Ride the Lightning-Metallica
8. Sheer Heart Attack, Queen II-Queen
9. Don't Break the Oath-Mercyful Fate
10. Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, Powerslave-Iron Maiden
How sweet it is to see people wielding guitars like weapons again...
UtU: Even though you have obvious roots in old school metal, you do not have the feel of a band that is "stuck in the 80's". You style I feel takes the "old school", and updates it. Is that the feel you were going for?
Yes, definitely. I wasn't sure if people would notice what we were going for, but more than a few have, and we'll try to keep expanding on the old school sound by adding different 'tinges'. There are a lot of ways to keep fresh without forsaking the power style we love so much.
UtU: Steel Prophet has gone through many lineup changes. That must make it hard to get a good chemistry going with the band. Is this a steady lineup right now?
Well, people leave for so many different reasons. The line up seems pretty solid right now, but people change over the years, so you can never tell the future!
UtU: Who would win in a fight: Supergirl or Wonder Woman?
Supergirl because she has Xray vision, impenetrable skin, and only one weakness; kryptonite.
UtU: Do you consider metal to be a form of music or a way of life?
I consider it a form of music, because I know lots of metal musicians who love metal, but live a lot of different lifestyles. Some guys are partiers, some live like bums, some are married with kids, a lot are assholes, some are cool, etc., etc. The one theme it should have is freedom and open mindedness, in my opinion.