Farthead of the Month: Shootin’ the Breeze with AJ!

image1
Farthead of the Month AJ!

Hey Fartheads! Dig this. Every month this year I will randomly choose a Farthead of the Month. I have some truly awesome, dedicated, and awesome readers and I consider you all friends. Anyways, every month I am going to randomly choose a Farthead of the Month and if chosen, you will do a 12 question Q&A that will be featured as a post on the blog! This is your way to get semi-famous or at least give you the ability to brag that you’re on a shitty metal blog!

Making the honor roll this month is a long time dedicated reader named, AJ!  AJ has been a big supporter of The Great Southern Brainfart for a few years now and he’s also the only motherfucker I know that ISN’T on Facebook.  According to AJ, “The sky is bluer without Facebook.”  Well, I don’t know what the fuck that is supposed to mean but what I do know is that AJ is an rad dude who is totally worthy of being a Farthead of the Month!  Congrats to you, AJ and welcome to the Honor Roll!

What’s your name and what the hell do you do with your life?

My name’s AJ, and I work part-time at a Mexican restaurant while I pick up general education credits at the local community college. Anything to keep the existential dread at bay!

============================================================

How did you discover the Great Southern Brainfart?

Honestly, I’ve been reading the blog for so long that I don’t remember. I think it might’ve been through Icarus Witch (remember them?); I used to follow them pretty closely, and I remember reading reviews and interviews linked to the blog from their Facebook page.

============================================================

What’s your favorite thing about the Great Southern Brainfart?

Don’s passion for the music is just always oozing out of his writing. I’ll read interviews and reviews for bands I don’t care about just for the Don Factor. Haha on top of that, I’ve discovered a couple of really cool bands over the years through the Brainfart, so that’s definitely a plus.

============================================================

How did you first get into heavy metal?

I grew up listening to my dad’s old rock music in the car (I very distinctly remember bumping to Welcome to the Jungle on the way to Chuck E. Cheese back in, like, kindergarten). I hung out with older kids when I was younger too, so they got me into stuff like Iron Maiden and Rush more or less from the jump. Once I discovered the internet, I got into all of the old NWOBHM stuff and increasingly more obscure 80’s metal. I was like the only 14-year-old kid in the 21st century with Lizzy Borden and Angel Witch CD’s.

============================================================

What are your Top 5 metal bands?

Well, Iron Maiden will always be the best, but Clutch are my favorite. I’m gonna harp on King’s X all day apparently, so I’ll give them the second slot. The rest of this list is legitimately hard to write, since Clutch are like 89% of all of the heavy metal I listen to anymore as of late. I guess I’d give Crobot third; I just always enjoy having them on. I’ll go Graveyard fourth for the same reason. And I’ll go Blue Oyster Cult fifth, because I always seem to find myself revisiting their stuff here and there, and it always holds up.

============================================================

What is currently your favorite metal album?

I think King’s X’s Dogman record has to hold that title forever. That album is just perfect, it’s crushingly heavy and it’s got so much soul. The playing is phenomenally inspired, the guitar tones are whacked (Doug Pinnick’s bass tone is legendary), the band’s chemistry is just one-of-a-kind, and Dogman is just such an angry album. I’ve always gotten a kick out of the fact that they followed this album up with Ear Candy, which was like a total departure from that gigantic heavy metal sound. Like Atlantic were like, yo, don’t ever do that again.

============================================================

What is the least metal thing about you?

Haha aside from my taste in music (the hype is real for RTJ III, and there’s at least one monster jam on the new Meghan Trainor album), maybe the fact that I don’t like to kill bugs if I find them around the house. I’ll catch them with a plastic bottle or something and set them in the yard.

============================================================

If you could have dinner with any metal musician alive or dead, who would it be, what would you talk about, and what would you have?

I don’t know about a full dinner conversation, but if I could, I’d just like to give Lemmy a big hug. You know, like a still-living Lemmy. We’d probably just pick at whatever was in his fridge if there was anything in there. He could bounce me on his knee like my grandfather and regale me with tales of taking speed and Jimi Hendrix.

============================================================

What is one metal album that everybody should own?

I mean, I’ll always be flying the flag for Dogman, but realistically, everybody who wants to listen to metal music needs Master of Puppets. Like, I don’t ever listen to Metallica anymore, but Master of Puppets is, like, gospel. It’s perfect. Everybody talks about how great the first four Metallica albums are, but they really peaked on Master. It’s head-and-shoulders above every other Metallica album and pretty much every other metal album. It sets the bar.

============================================================

What is your favorite metal t-shirt and why?

It’s gotta be the shirt from my first concert: Iron Maiden’s Somewhere Back in Time Tour 2008. It’s got robot Eddie from Somewhere in Time exploding out of the pyramid from Powerslave on it. It doesn’t fit me anymore (I think I was twelve when I saw that show), but that’s the one that means the most to me. Band shirts come and go in the way that all t-shirts do I guess, but that one’s hanging from the rafters.

============================================================

In your opinion, who is the worst metal band out there? 

I saw Hellyeah this year at Rock on the Range. Man, is that band just awful. We can do away with Hellyeah forever. Texas Hippie Coalition totally blow too, as much as I’d like to be a fan of a band called Texas Hippie Coalition.

============================================================

Finally, what does being selected as Farthead of the Month mean to you?

It’s pretty cool. I’ve never done an interview before.

 

Discover more from Southeast of Heaven

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading