 Age
of EvilBy Dave Schwartz Photos Courtesy of the Age of Evil website Age of Evil is a new band from Scottsdale, Arizona. Their latest release, the six-track EP, "Get Dead," features vintage crushing thrash metal with sweeping Iron Maiden-esque guitar harmonies. The surprise comes when you meet the two sets of brothers that comprise AOE. The band is fronted by singer/rhythm guitarist Jeremy Goldberg (age 19), Jordan Ziff (18) handles lead guitar duties, while bassist Jacob Goldberg (18) and drummer Garrett Ziff (20) hold the rhythm section together. I was fortunate to have Goldberg call me on a particularly blustery Arizona day just a few days before Christmas to discuss Age of Evil, "Get Dead" and plans for 2010. DB: Hello, Jeremy? JG: What's going on man? DB: Just one of those things. Welcome to sunny Arizona! This weather has been sucking. JG: Yeah! DB: You know this is a little ridiculous. I didn't realize that you guys were from Arizona until after I signed up to do the interview. I'm in Gilbert (Like Scottsdale, a suburb of the greater Phoenix Metro). JG: Yeah, actually I was at lunch today and it was hailing where I was. DB: Oh Geez. Well, not fun, but it is that time of year where we actually get some weather. Let's start this interview with a congratulations on the new EP. JG: Well thank you. DB: You have an interesting sound given the makeup of the band. Tell me a little about the new record, "Get Dead."
DB: These were recorded off the soundboard? JG: Yeah, off the soundboard. So after we mixed and mastered those to sound like the rest of the album, we had five songs. The last song we decided to do was "Slave to the Grind" by Skid Row. We had one extra day in the studio and really didn't know what to do. Garrett, our drummer, suggested that we do another cover, "Slave to the Grind." None of us really knew how to play it, so I got out my phone because I had the song on it and we just learned it from that. We played it a couple of times and right after that we recorded it. Pretty much what you hear on that song is one or two takes of everything, the drums and guitars especially. I was actually reading the lyrics for the first time while I was singing them. I think it came out bad-ass, you can hear the aggression and the rawness of the song. It has everything in it and that's what we're about right there. The whole EP is like that. We didn't take a great deal of time to make it, everything is just straight to the point. We're not all about layering and all of that shit and I think you can definitely hear that in the EP. DB: You know it speaks volumes to be able to say, let's go do "Slave to the Grind" and then punch the song out with feel and emotion. Just about anyone can sit and play a song, but it takes a little something extra, something special to own the version of the song. I'm astonished to hear that you were actually reading the lyrics for the first time because you can certainly felt the emotion in the lyrics. JG: Yeah, I knew some of the lyrics from a long time ago, but I was refreshing my memory as we recorded it. DB: It's just a surprise to me to hear a cover of that tune at all. And that's not to suggest that it's a bad tune and undeserving of the cover, I really like it. It's just that I thought it was one of those songs that got lost over time. Where does Age of Evil get its style? I mean I read that you started as a cover band, progressed to a punk band and somehow ended up a metal band. How did that all come about? JG: You know that when we first started out we were very young. Jordan picked up the guitar when he was about seven years old and, as I recall, he did that because of the first time he heard Randy Rhoads play guitar-- to hear what someone like Randy could do with a guitar was unbelievable. So yeah, we started out playing classic rock covers and a little bit of metal. And like you said, we did transition into punk for a little while. I think that was because of the attitude in punk. So then we realized that a lot of metal bands have the same attitude as punk, but that the musicianship was much higher, and that's what we wanted. Seeing Iron Maiden live when we were 13-14 years old was a big part of it.
JG: I think we were going to discover it one day or another and the thing is were really not into the whole new trend that's going on. Basically to us good music is good music. Whether we were born in the '80s or born now, I think we would have found traditional metal and if we weren't playing it, we would at least be listening to it. Actually we have a huge variety of bands that we listen to, it's not just the Judas Priest, Pantera, Metallica stuff, but also other styles of music too. I'm sure you know that if all you do is listen to TOOL every day you'll end up sounding just like them. So as I said, each member of the band has diverse tastes in music. Our guitarist, Jordan, will sometimes listen to violin players and classical music, Garret likes hair metal; I like bands like Foreigner and Boston. All of that coming together is what helps create our style. We tend to write the music that we would like to hear ourselves. The latest EP is very metal, very thrashy. Some of our newer songs are blurring that line between heavy metal and rock 'n roll. So our newer songs aren't really that heavy, but they'll still be in the category of heavy metal and will sound like Age of Evil. DB: In my research I haven't found a statement that you are signed. In fact I've found the phrase, "self-produced," which often means that a band is not signed. If this is true, then it must be difficult to get the record out to your fans. you must be working MySpace and Facebook awfully hard. Can you clarify your situation for me? JG: Um, yeah. As you know, we toured in Europe last summer. That is because we have a label in Germany., it's a small label, but they are the ones that got us out there. They helped us record the new EP. We're doing everything here in the U.S. on our own. DB: So it's largely a distribution deal in Germany? JG: Yeah, pretty much. As far as getting this record out in the US, I have to give a large amount of the credit to Chip, you know, Chipster PR, for really ramping up this EP and making all of the connections and really getting it out there. I think that's been our big push. But we do do a lot of things ourselves. I'm the one who does all of the graphic and Web designs. I also do the social networks. Gary is a big networker, my brother works on booking shows and Jordan is deep in the music. We all have our own responsibilities. So we did a lot of the work on our own and then we got Chipster PR involved and now it's even more work!
JG: We just inked the record company deal about a year ago. The first time we went to Europe was in 2007, we paid for that one. Basically we've played a lot more in Europe than in America which is kind of odd. In March of 2007 we released our first album, it was called "Living a Sick Dream." We have a mentor who had been working with us on stage presence and things like that. He suggested to us that we mail our CD to a list of people in Europe, just to see what would happen. So we started mailing to everyone, just kind of threw it out there blindly. And what happened was we started getting a little bit of a buzz on the metal scene in Europe. So about two weeks prior to the "Bang Your Head Festival" in Germany we got a call or e-mail asking us if we were interested in coming over to play. We were trying to figure out how we could do this. They offered to pay for a lot of the expenses, so we thought that this could be our big opportunity. We had just become a band a couple months before. Basically we decided to go. We went over and played the warm-up show for the festival, which was a 500 - 1000 person show before the festival started to just kind of kick things off. What happened was we got such a good response that night that they wanted us to play before the first band on the main stage. We tried to get everyone there and kind of woke everyone up when we started playing. They were camping out and a lot of people came to see us. We got another great response from playing. The owner of the festival came out on stage after we finished our encore and announced that that we were the first band signed for the 2008 "Bang Your Head Festival." All this really opened the door for us. 2008 we were back in Europe, that show got us the label which led to the tour this past summer and the EP. DB: That's a remarkable story and I'm sure it wasn't as easy as it sounds. JG: Especially in Europe-- those audiences can be hard to win over sometimes! DB: So with all of that comes the next obvious question-- what are your tour plans for 2010?
I want to thank Jeremy Goldberg for taking the interview. We will be seeing more of this band in 2010 and, with a little luck, they'll have a chance to tour Europe AND America. Make sure you catch them when they come to your town. Until then you can catch them online at... Return to DaBelly
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JG:
The EP was recorded in between tour dates this past summer while
we were in Europe. When we started recording the EP, we really
didn't know that it was going to be an EP, we just kind of went
into the studio with the intent of recording the two new songs
and the Judas Priest cover and we really didn't know what else
we were going to do. We had some live tracks from the club
dates.
DB:
That must have been the 2003 or 2004 tour. I saw that tour in
Orange County, California. It was remarkable because they had
Rob Halford, Queensryche and Iron Maiden all one stage. Three
of the greatest metal vocalists ever! I want to stay with
your band's style for just a moment. You know that it's not too
common today to go down to your local music lesson and learn
anything about Randy Rhoads. It may have been common back in
the '80s, but not so much today. Your band has this old school
feel, but at the same time it's fresh. That's difficult to pull
off. How did you discover '80s metal? 
DB:
Well, you've already hinted at the answer to the next questions,
but I'll ask anyway. You've successfully managed to book what
appears to be some fairly high profile tours over in Europe.
That's a remarkable feat considering that you're arguably "just
a local band" here in the Phoenix area. How did that all come
together? 
JG:
We will be announcing something right after the new year. I'm
sure you'll be getting notice from Chipster and fans can watch
for the announcement online. Our plans are really
twofold, first of all, we will be touring and, secondly, a new
record. We hope to have a single released in the first quarter
of 2010 and the new album shortly after that. We're ready to
go. We have our ducks in a row and now we're just waiting on
the final details.