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Greetings and welcome to
Canadian Assault. Describe the surroundings you have settled down in to do
the interview? Listening to any music? How is the weather outside?
- I’m settled down in a nice internet café, sipping on a pumpkin spice
latte, I think the y’ve got some Jeff Buckley playing, his music is really
true.
So you guys put out a demo
tape. Do you realize how old school that is you fucking dinosaurs?! Is there
not something extra special for a new band with a demo tape, it just seems
like CDR’s just do not have the same feeling. I am probably just old. Did
anyone ask you for a CDR of the tape because they do not own a cassette
player?
- OH yea, all the time, I don’t think anyone who bought a demo tape from us
at shows has a cassette player. But when people saw our set, then realized
we only had tapes available they got our deal real fast.
Jon you were in a black
metal band Geimhre. Please tell us about the history to you’re involvement
and why you left (all the gory details)? What Geimhre releases did you
appear on? Would you have interest in the future being involved in playing
metal black again in the future? Do you enjoy blasphemic expression in
general?
-
Yea, that was in my evil high school days. Not really any interesting
details, I wanted to play in a black metal band and I kind of got in over my
head, but you live and learn. Just got to take the experience and move on.
And really no interest in playing anymore black metal, I’ve had more than my
fill.
So I understand members
have had roots in black metal and punk. So what led you to classic thrash
metal?
- I was like, “hey Chris you want to start a band?” And he was like, “I want
to play in a thrash band.” And I was like, “okay, let’s do it”. That’s
about it.
Are you guys proud to be
from Ontario and a
thrash metal band? I mean with the rich tradition and one could say
Canadians easily helped pioneer the style right from the early days. What
old Canadian bands would you say have had an influence on Maniac?
- Oh yea, definitely. Razor are fucking badass, they’re definitely an
influence, Piledriver and Anvil, I can watch those guys over and over and
it’s always a good show. Slaughter’s attitude is ace.
It is kind of amazing none
of the even semi-well known thrash band in 80s or death metal bands in the
90s never took the name Maniac (well besides Wargasm but they changed it
soon afterwards)? How did you choose the name, was it from the fucked up old
horror movie from 1980 by the same name? 
- I know, I was pretty amazed myself. It wasn’t because of the movie, a lot
of people ask that, but I’ve never even seen it. I hadn’t even heard about
it until someone asked that. I was just listening to whiplash actually, and
when he’s like, “acting like a maniac” I was like, “true”.
So Paul E. Pervertis has
now left the band? What led to this, especially so soon after releasing a
new album? Did the band or Paul know he was going to leave at the time of
the recording session for the new album?
- Possibly, he started getting a more serious job around then. Good guy
though, hopefully you’ll be able to check him out in Demontage sometime.
Tell us about Paul’s
replacement, was it hard to find him? I believe he is also in 2 other bands?
What are those bands like and is there any fear of Slaughter getting spread
too thin?
- Jackie’s the MAN in Skull Fist, a wicked band, they rip real heavy metal
all night until the neighbors call the cops, then they take a brake to poo
in their neighbors backyard and go rite back at it. Don’t worry about
Slaughter, he IS heavy metal.
Speaking of more than 1
band, Jonny has another band Autumn Myst. Has Autumn Myst made a solemn pact
to only put out releases on label’s that have “Northern” in the title & have
you approached Northern Heritage about a future collaboration?
- Man you really did some researchin’. I have no other band though, I
haven’t written anything for Autumn Myst since I was 17, and even then I
only had like 5 songs I played for friends and never got a band together.
Northern Heritage, like those Heritage moments on tv? Like Jon played in
Autumn Myst and was considered a pioneer of lame music by people all across
Canada, I’m Walter Cronkite and this has been a Heritage Moment?
 Tell us about the live
album “Hell on Hogtown”? It sounded so good you wanted to release it? So
since you used this term to describe Toronto, without looking it up do you know where the nick name “Hogtown” came
from?
- I thought it sounded really shitty, but this hombre Sebastian thought it
sounded good, so he released it. I have no idea where the nickname came
from, I just know that’s what people used to call it. And it sounded like a
good name for an album.
Who are some bands we
should watch out for in the Canadian scene? Do you feel the scene there in
Eastern Canada
has changed much in the last 10 or 15 years (I am not sure if you have been
around it that long?), do you find it better or worse now? Is it easy to put
on or get on to shows around the area?
- There are a few great bands out here to watch out for. Metalian from
Montreal is pretty much the best band in the universe, and Blood Ceremony
from here is in a close race with them for that title, both of them are the
best bands I’ve ever seen. Spewgore are some wicked thrashers from here,
then there’s Skull Fist and Cauldron bringing the metal. Rammer has a new
record coming out too, I caught their last show here, it was the most mental
thing. Getting shows together over here is not that hard right now, you’ve
just got to space them out, especially if you’re like us and never have any
new tunes.
How did the band hook-up
with Terry Brown (producer of albums by Rush, Fates Warning, Voivod etc…)
for the recording of your album? Why did you feel you needed a producer?
Considering the bulk of his work is a lot lighter and commercial oriented
was he excited to work on something this crazy or did he just sort of
tolerate you?
- MAN Terry was awesome! He was so excited about our tunes, he was so
excited to be working with something heavy again, and he knew exactly what
needed to be done, it was so cool to see him really into it, very flattering
considering this is a guy who fucking cut tape for the Jimmy Hendrix
Experience among other things. How we got together was really just luck.
He’s friends with my friend Chris Hall, who was recording our album, and
they were hanging out and Chris played him some of our tracks. Chris Hall
has just been there for us since the beginning and helped us anyway he could
so he hooked it up.
Did the recording session
for “Fast & Deadly” go well? Tell us about the overall experience and what a
typical day consisted of? Did it cost a fortune and are you pleased with the
end result? The best part and worst part of recording is ?
- The recording sessions went pretty well, we did it really fast. It was
the mixing that took forever. We recorded the drum tracks live in
somebody’s loft, me and Paul were just playing into a computer with and
Chris was hearing us through headphones. Then I went over to Chris Hall’s
studio and recorded my guitar over the drums with my real gear, and Paul did
the same later. I don’t remember exactly how much it cost, it wasn’t cheap,
but also Chris was giving us such amazing rates it wasn’t that bad. I like
the end result a lot, it really sounds like us. The best part for me was
the guitar, the worst was the mixing, so tedious.
So tell us about the Maniac
live show? Do you play any covers live (or rehearsal for that matter) and
what song do you save for the show closer? You have played with Destructor
and Piledriver, how good was that experience? Also tell us about the
Bloodbucket Metalfest you recently played?
- Maniac shows are usually pretty wild, we don’t do many covers , we’ve
done Whiplash by Metallica, Rock Brigade by Def Leppard, The Blood And The
Sweat by Sick of it All, Last Rite Fight by Bukkake Katholik. I think
that’s it, so all over the place, you never know what’s coming next. We
don’t have a song we save for the show closer, we’re too lazy to even make
setlists, we just mix it up. Playing with Destructor and Piledriver have
both been amazing, we played with Piledriver again about a month ago, and it
was pretty great, those guys are so fun to watch. The bloodbucket metalfest
was a huge bust. I was worried about being the only non deathmetal band on
the bill, but that ended up being the least of our worries. Jackie didn’t
show up until we were already on stage, none of our amps worked, and we were
wearing Conan the Barbarian costumes since it was Halloween, so we played 2
seconds of a song then left the stage being heckled by some boner death
metal kids. Jackie was going commando though and everyone could see up his
loin cloth since the stage was pretty high, so at least that was funny. 
Tell us something about
each member, a few fave bands, movies and are there any hobbies outside of
you’re band(s)?
- Chris loves Charles Bronson, and once he brought a picture of Chuck
Norris to the place he gets his hair cut that he printed on his computer, I
thought that was pretty wicked. He likes lots of bands, I couldn’t even
tell you some of his favorites, he likes everything from the Dixie Chix to
Sacrifice. Jackie loves heavy metal and his hobbys include collecting heavy
metal vinyl, listening to heavy metal, playing heavy metal, and writing
heavy metal. I’m pretty sure his favorite band is Manowar, but Accept and
Judas Priest are up there. I like bikes a lot, riding them and working on
them, watching cycling movies. I don’t really have favorite bands, but I
think I listen to Judas Priest and Johnny Winter more than anything else.
And I think Conan the Barbarian is the favorite movie for all of us.
What do you think about the
album “Black Metal” by Venom?
- Never heard of it. (I do hope you are joking?
J
- Dale)
Do the members of Maniac
collect vinyl much? I imagine the answer is yes but please list a few prized
vinyls or just ones you have been abusing your turntable with lately?
- Jackie’s definitely a collector, his entire house is covered in
records, Chris and I don’t really go out of our way to find stuff on vinyl,
we both buy a lot of tapes though so we have good jambox tunes in the
summer.
Many thanks for doing this
interview my metal brothers! Please let us in on future plans and feel free
to send greetings to some UG comrades?
- Thanks a lot man, sorry I took so long. Metal up your vagina.
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