April 2012 (phone)
I'd discovered the Kalling when they sent me their debut self-released album to review. I liked their moody stomp that was black metal without relying on the traditional thrashy guitars & distorted vocals common to the genre. When their second album showed up I was struck by how the debut takes a general look a psychological pain, while the follow-up was more social, like two sides of the same coin. Liking their unique energy I invited them to pre-record an interview for my podcast, which ended up being a very interesting conversation that went beyond normal band dynamics but discussed the state of the world, a bit of philosophy & playing music in a small town.
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AJ: I had the chance to review both your albums on my blog. Sometimes when I find a band & think they might be really interesting to talk to, when I review them for the blog I always get a little worried because I'm not giving the album as you may wish I could give it or in some weird way. So, I get a little worried about that. But, B-Ray when you sent me your album & I wrote something about it & then you wrote me to me that I had nailed it, that I had gotten it right on ... I have to tell you, at that moment I decided "I'm calling these guys up, because we're in the same head space." I'm always worried that I'm not going to get a band.
B-RAY: You know, everybody's got their own take on everything & we knew when we did this we kinda rushed it. We were testing the water at the same time. Me & G-Man, we've been the backbone for many acts, locally & around, & we always played the back part of the show. & we've played every cover tune you can imagine & different styles from blues to country to rock to classic rock to metal.
G-MAN: You name it.
B-RAY: So, a couple of years ago, we decided to get together & do this new stuff. It's us. It's not about being the backbone. We are the thing. & I had some writings that I'd started writing & he'd had some writings that he wanted to do, some different beats & stuff. & we started to experiment, then we came up with the first album. The reason I say you nailed it is because when we put these 2 albums out we should have waited a little longer, truthfully. Cut a few songs. But, we were testing the water. We'd never done this part before like we're doing now. It's kinda new to us. & it just took off & it went further & further & further. You know, it's kinda like a snowball effect.
AJ: Good, that's what you want.
B-RAY: Oh, yeah.
G-MAN: Heck yeah.
B-RAY: What got us writing is the way the world is. Not everybody's going to agree. They've got their own take on it. But, I see a lot of bad things happening right now in the world, everything from natural disasters to humans killing each other constantly, you know. & it inspired me to write a lot of this material. We just had somebody get shot the other day, you know, just like I'm saying.
AJ: Oh, yeah.
B-RAY: Went into a college, or a school, & shot somebody. It seems like almost every day we hear this. & that's what actually inspired me is a scenario like that that happened awhile back that inspired me to write "Evil Kalling You". I got to thinking what's in those people's heads? What are they thinking when they do that, you know? Are they hearing voices & it's telling them to do it? They can't control their thoughts? I got to thinking about it & I tried to put myself into what they might be thinking when I wrote the song. You listen to it & that's kinda what its about. But, you were right on. I could tell, me & G-Man could tell. & we still know that there are songs on there they're not really great in our eyes, but you never know what other people are going to think about. It's like we're just going to put it out there & see what happens with it. The one that we thought might not have been anything, or might not be anything, could have been something to somebody else or the world, you never know. Something like that. Back in the day when LED ZEPPELIN thought "Stairway To Heaven" was a B-side song, you know, & you can see where that took them! But, that's where we're at on that on that review. We didn't take it bad.
G-RAY: We didn't take it bad at all.
B-RAY: I think your review is constructive criticism.
AJ: That's what I try for.
B-RAY: & if you're gonna succeed in life you've got to learn to take constructive criticism.
AJ: I was constructive or trying to be constructive, at the same time being fair & showing you that I was actually paying attention to what you were putting out. I hope.
B-RAY: You were picking out things that we knew you had to listen to it to know.
AJ: Good. Well, I described your album, A World To Come, in my review, in one of my more literary moments, as: "coming out of Aleister Crowley's ghostly & lonely Lochness mansion or music to foretell the future by." Because, your album A World To Come is just this apocalyptic, I don't know what you want to say, mix of politics & terrorism & corruption, kinda what you were just talking about, you know, people getting killed & the world around you. It's dark & its a moody thing.
B-RAY: It's very dark, because the apocalypse is pretty dark anyway.
G-MAN: Yeah, yeah.
B-RAY: It's really one of those albums that we did ... to us, it's a warning, to say, 'Hey, this is where we think things are going if we don't get off of this path.' We have the power to change everything.
G-MAN: We have to do it.
B-RAY: But, people, it seems like, they don't want to go that route. It's too easy to do the other things, you know, & there's a lot of sorrow in the world right now. It's almost like we're living in that, in the beginnings of it, to me. So, a lot of that material ... it seemed like when 9/11 happened, man, it triggered something in the world to me. & I've seen it years ago. There's a lot of people now really talking strongly about things like what I was singing about. But, a lot of that album was wrote over 5-6 years ago, lyrically. The must we wrote it when we started working it on this vision.
G-MAN: He had the lyrics a long time ago.
B-RAY: Yeah, I had all the lyrics a long time ago. But, the newer album we wrote it this last year, was when we focused more on writing it. It's more like you said in your review about the inner turmoil of what's going on. It's no so much about the whole planet. It's more focused on the human factor, you know?
AJ: Yeah, I called it the other side of the coin.
B-RAY: It is, definitely. Which we try to ... we like to play different stuff all the time. I mean, we don't like to be stuck in the same rut either. We're trying to be in our own, different than everybody else, you know? We don't want to be just another metal band or another rock band. We kinda have our own different thing & that's where the Aleister Crowley comes from. You look at our inspirations ... we grew up with Ozzy ...
G-MAN: Heck, yeah.
B-RAY: & Alice Cooper & ALICE IN CHAINS. They were real good about being creepy, too, & it wasn't necessarily the vocals as far as I went with it. Do you know what I mean?
AJ: Yeah, yeah. Well, there's one song off your first album, "Death March", which I pinpointed as being this 8 minute long dirge, this stomp, that literally feels like you had a recording in a death march in like Nazi Germany or something. It's ghastly. It's haunting.
B-RAY: When we did that we started doing it & it was that way when we recorded the live track that we did it with. & we got ... it reminded us of can you imagine what the troops feel like with 3 or 4 tours of Iraq or Afghanistan, over in the Middle East.
G-MAN: Constantly battling.
B-RAY: Constantly up for days & the sand blowing. You almost get that droney feeling. You know what I'm saying? Almost like tunnel vision. & that's kinda what it reminded me of when we did it, it was like. So, I kinda had to do something for them guys. They're going through a lot of stuff over there.
G-MAN: We worked really hard on that song.
B-RAY: We made it that way on purpose.
G-MAN: Exactly.
B-RAY: Just like wear you out.
AJ: It almost makes you sick.
G-MAN: Exactly.
B-RAY: In the middle of it in the breakdown when all the bullets are flying & everything, right after that is when they're, to me, I feel like they would be in tunnel vision. They would be numb almost. I have an uncle whose been in a war before & he talked about & my grandfather was in WWII.
G-MAN: My dad was too.
B-RAY: G-Man's father was in WWII. So, we've had relatives & things that have talked about it & I swear it all kinda come when we did that song. It all kinda come together that way. It's our anthem to them guys for literally walking through Hell for us.
G-Man: Exactly. Defending our country, man.
AJ: When you were putting the songs together for the album A World To Come G-Man, did you ever look at this stuff &a go, 'Hey, don't you have a love song in here? Don't you have like a happy song?'
G-MAN: I thought about that, but I thought with me & B-Ray doing this we wanted to try to get a message out. We wanted to knock it right out of the park. We don't want to mess around, because we play with so many bands. From 1995 to like present, or like about 2 years ago, we kinda played their thing & I said when we got together "Let's just knock it out of the park, man, let's not worry about a ballad. Everybody does ballads & I want to kinda keep it fresh, keep it simple & keep it moving."
B-RAY: Plus, I can't sing. I'm not really a canary. I can't sing that way.
G-MAN: We just wanted to make the music move.
AJ: How did you guys meet?
B-RAY: Back in ...
G-MAN: 1995.
B-RAY: I had a band together. It was a blues, a southern rock blues band that we'd just lost a drummer. A friend of mine had told me about G-Man. He'd came over before & watched us play with the other drummer & just hung out. Nothing ever really came. But, the other drummer kinda schized out, one of those things, & decided he was going to bail. I called G-Man & he came over & he just like jumped in there & fit like a glove. We didn't ever have to look at each other. We knew what was going on. & we just ended up the backbone for a lot of bands after that. You know, we was the rhythm section.
G-MAN: We kinda stayed together & the other bands kinda went their own ways.
B-RAY: There's been times when he went & did his own thing.
G-MAN: Right.
B-RAY: & was with other bands & I was with other bands. Then we'd get back together in a band & play. But, we've been in lots of bands. We played in a band called ACCELERATE here in town that played around & we jammed with LIZZY BORDEN ...
G-MAN: SLAUGHTER.
B-RAY: SLAUGHTER & a few other. We actually did LIZZY BORDEN twice, man, when they played & came through town.
G-MAN: Yeah, exactly.
B-RAY: We played with SLAUGHTER. We was gonna be in a band that opened up for GREAT WHITE, but they picked another act, because that was more of a bluesier act & we were more hard metal still. We've just played in lots of groups together & we knew each other. As far as KALLING the band, this act KALLING, we never did this before. This is totally fresh to us, too. It's our turn to express ourselves the way we want to & put it out there.
AJ: So how long have you guys officially existed as THE KALLING?
B-RAY: 2 years. We started this ...
G-MAN: August the first.
B-RAY: August the first ... was it?
G-MAN: 2010.
B-RAY: 2010, yeah.
AJ: & it wasn't long before you put out your first album & it wasn't long after that you put out your second album. So, it's been a very busy 2 years, yeah?
B-RAY: Yeah, we backed to backed the albums. It took us about probably 6 months to write & get all the first one done & then almost a turnaround to do Evil Kalling You. It was like it just seemed to be in the last year it just went by so fast.
G-MAN: Real quick.
B-RAY: I mean, it's almost a blur it went by so fast. It still seems like we just started the other day. Which is crazy.
AJ: I gotta ask, where's the name come from? Or, does it have any special meaning?
B-RAY: Yeah. This was our calling. That's basically it.
G-MAN: We were talking about names & we were on the phone one night & I said "What are you going to name the band?" & he said, "Hey, this is our calling, so that kinda fits the bill for it." That's how it is.
B-RAY: It's really that corny.
G-MAN: It is.
B-RAY: THE KALLING, it's just our calling to do this, plus we're calling for people to listen at the same time.
G-MAN: Yeah, exactly.
B-RAY: I'm trying to blow the trumpets, if you want to say. That might be a way to put it.
G-MAN: That's a good way of putting it.
AJ: You guys have played in a lot of different bands. You've played with other bands of all sorts of styles. Did you intend for THE KALLING to be this sort of black metal band or did you ever consider, 'Oh, maybe we can do a blues thing or something else?'
B-RAY: Yeah, sort of. We thought about it ... but, I don't know, we just always sort of fall back into the metal thing. We can play blues. I really prefer not to play country, but again ...
G-MAN: We've done it.
B-RAY: We've done it. It's just natural. The metal is natural for us. The hard rock, dark, metal sound.
G-MAN: I've been listening to it for years.
B-RAY: It's just natural. It's the most natural that we like to play.
G-MAN: I think so, too.
AJ: B-Ray, you've repeated numerous times that this is something new for you guys, that this is something different. It's just the 2 of you - guitars, vocals, drums. What's the biggest challenge?
B-RAY: Right now, the biggest challenge that we're facing is actually trying to find a bass player in the area we're at.
AJ: That's always a challenge where ever you live.
G-MAN: Exactly.
B-RAY: I know. Here there's a lot of guys ... there's a lot of good/great musicians, man, but I don't know what it is about wanting to jump out there & do it. I think they would rather play in the local clubs & beer & BBQ & babes, you know. We just want to be a bigger thing than that, you know? I mean, it's just real hard to explain. We're just real limited here on bass players in our area. I've been a bass player, too, for years. We get fed up with the way bands treat bass players. I mean, sometimes it seems like all the jokes are about the bass player, but the truth is the bass player is the guy that holds the foundation up, you know?
AJ: I know, I happen to be a bass player.
B-RAY: Good deal.
AJ: I'm just in the wrong neighborhood for you.
B-RAY: I will respect you forever, brother. Me & G-Man we're not arrogant people. We're not the kind of guys that are stuck on ourselves. We're just normal guys that like to play & when we get on stage we rip it up. I mean, we don't stop. We're usually a back-to-back song-to-song kind of band. We've always been the kind of guys that like to take the stage, instead of getting on stage & playing. We do take it very serious in that aspect. A lot of guys they're drunk by the time they get on stage, you know.
G-MAN: We're not like that.
B-RAY: We're not really that way. Not that we don't partake & like to have some fun & beers & do it, but its after the show or maybe right before we go on I'll pop a beer. I've got my water sitting right there next to me. But, no, we're more professional than that & there's a lot of acts around here that are not as far as musicians go, you know. & the bass player ... there's not too many bass players in this town, not really really good ones, you know.
G-MAN: They're all taken.
B-RAY: They're all taken. They're all in other acts.
AJ: They're multitasking in numerous bands, like is always the way.
G-MAN: Exactly.
B-RAY: Exactly. So, you know, we're just doing our deal & hoping something comes along. We've got a couple of ideas, a couple of people are interested. We're gonna see how that goes. Man, we've been trying to get it together. Me & G-Man we rehearse every other night of the week.
AJ: Oh boy!
B-RAY: We play whether a bass player is here or not. We don't need him to rehearse & keep our chops up. & if it gets to one of them boring nights that we've done it all we'll right a new song. Come up with a new riff & we'll record the scratch track of it or something & we'll save it in the archives for later or whatever.
AJ: How much does the KALLING perform live? I mean, you've performed a little bit, right?
B-RAY: Yeah, yeah. We did a couple of shows here in town with a couple of stand-in bass players, but like I said, it didn't work out.
AJ: These days you're kinda just focused on the recordings & getting those out there & just creating more music, right?
B-RAY: That's the reason the albums came out back to back so quick, is if you don't have the other things you might as well do what you can do. & we do, we love to record. & I'm beginning to think with the way the economy is & the day & age that we're in, it's getting to where you probably don't even need to tour anymore. Just put a youtube video out & tell everybody to get a website & tell everybody where your music's at online & do it kinda that way. You still run into the financial part of it, though.
G-MAN: Exactly.
B-RAY: It's hard to come up with the cash to do everything you want to do.
AJ: That's the catch. & so many gigs when you do perform live don't pay anything. There's all sorts of ifs, &'s & brick walls.
B-RAY: Here in town, in Amarillo where we're at, we're lucky if we get a good rock concert here, you know. They all go to Luboc. They all go south.
G-MAN: Exactly.
B-RAY: The music scene here is really underground. It's a lot of underground stuff. But, I can't honestly say that this town really supports their local music, like a lot of towns like Austin & ...
G-MAN: Dallas.
B-RAY: & Dallas & areas like that. They just don't do it here. They've got this thing: 'Oh, I'll go see them next time. I'll go see them next...'
G-MAN: 'If I don't have the money, then I've got something else going on.'
B-RAY: & then when they don't go see them they don't come back around. Then they complain because they never get to see them.
AJ: Yeah, I know.
B-RAY: It's probably that way in a lot of places.
AJ: Yeah, it is. I've been in some small towns & its like sometimes pulling teeth to get a handful of people to support you, because they say they will but they don't do it.
G-MAN: No.
B-RAY: No, they don't don't.
AJ: That's just normal though. It's almost like you can't even take it personally.
B-RAY: Oh, we don't. We know. That's why we just keep doing what we're doing & we're not doing this ... we're doing this for the people that enjoy our music anyway. We're not doing it to impress the other musicians or anything like that, you know?
AJ: Yeah.
B-RAY: & make a few dollars & hope something happens.
AJ: & have some fun.
B-RAY: Yeah, have some fun. We're gonna ride it as long as we can & go as far as it will take us. It's just been a journey so far.
AJ: What's been the response?
B-RAY: We've got a pretty big response from people in like Germany, the Netherlands, Asia, Russia. I mean, it's kinda weird.
G-MAN: It's crazy.
B-RAY: It kinda goes with the old saying that you make it overseas before you make it here & vice versa. Bands over there make it over here before they get big.
G-MAN: It's weird.
B-RAY: I mean, you know how that goes.
AJ: I have some music out there that I distribute for some folks & its like this song, this trivial little song, is getting sold in Britain where I've never advertised. I'm like 'What? Wait a minute. How does someone in Britain know about this & why is it so popular & what can I do to cash in on that?'
B-RAY: We've noticed a lot of our website hits are coming from overseas more than anywhere. We have a local fan base & we have fans on facebook & reverb nation & things like that.
G-MAN: Out there.
B-RAY: But, a lot of our bigger fan base is actually overseas & that's kinda surprising to me, too. I'm like wow when I look at the stats on our website when I check it, where a lot of people are coming from & its coming from over there & actually more Russia than anybody. It's weird. I mean, maybe it's not weird.
AJ: Maybe they have an affinity for the lyrics or the things you're singing about or the mood of your albums.
G-MAN: That may be.
B-RAY: They may get the message of what we're saying. There's a lot of turmoil over there right now. Everywhere you look. Maybe something's happening. I don't know. I don't try to predict that too much.
AJ: Leave that for the lyrics.
B-RAY: I'll leave that up to what we're singing about. Exactly.
AJ: Let's talk about your second album Evil Kalling You. It's within the same mold, similar dark feel, but yet, as we said earlier & as I wrote on my blog, its the other side of the coin. For the most part you basically leave alone Armageddon of the physical world & you turn to more internal demons, more psychological things. Can you tell me a little bit about the writing of the new album?
B-RAY: You're right, it is more an internal. Like I was saying earlier, "Evil Kalling You" I wrote that about an incident that happened a couple years ago. It was a pretty big one. It inspired me to think about what ... I didn't take it literally & I didn't want to go out & kill anybody or go into that character, but it got me to thinking about what are these people thinking when they do that? If you listen to the lyrics of the song there's a guy he's fighting with his own inner demons & they're thinking 'Should I? Should I not?' But, the demons keep coming back & calling him. They're calling him. Evil is calling you. He looks down & he's gonna grab the gun & he's gonna go...'Okay, that's fine, I'll do it. It'll all be over soon.' That's kinda what the song was, it inspired me to write that son. It is pretty self-explanatory if you listen to the lyrics. Then we went in to write some other stuff. We actually wrote a song called "Deadly Storm" that's on it. I'll say this one, the Joplin, Missouri tornado inspired me when that happened. Of all things to write about, a tornado, where a storm, in a metal switch like we did, but I thought 'That's kinda outside the box.' & got to thinking about ... because we live in the panhandle area of Texas, near Oklahoma.
G-MAN: We have a lot of bad weather.
B-RAY: Our weather here. It's a pretty scary feeling to see the cloud coming. I've never been in a tornado myself, but I've seen a couple of them. It's a pretty scary thing though & that's what that come from. Then "Right Hand Of The Devil", that song, is about ... it's like ... we live in a world where it seems like everybody's going crazy. A lot of self-gratifying people. Some people on power trips always trying to be something they're not. I don't know. There's like a tug of war & that comes from evil in my eyes. With promises of gold & fire, you know? It don't take much to make a human evil in my eyes. You just give them a little money & a little power & what's a man with money want? He wants more money. A man with power wants more power. To me it feeds on itself & there's a lot of victims in the wake. That's kinda where this whole album is wrote about. Personally, my favorite on the album is "Destiny". It's the last song & it's really the one that...it's kinda like about everybody's destiny. We all wonder where we're really headed in life. What is our destiny? It's a big question that man has. & it's about how people can play games to change your own destiny, like kinda guiding you like through a maze by saying things & doing things ... false ... what am I looking for here? G-Man help me out.
G-MAN: False?
AJ: Hope?
B-RAY: Like looking at questions to make you think something's to be.
AJ: Okay.
B-RAY: So your action & equal reaction. Does that make sense of what I'm saying there?
AJ: Yeah, yeah. I got it.
B-RAY: That's where that song comes from. So, that whole album is about inner turmoil. It's about people pulling people in certain directions & evil is in the middle of all of it. It's like a big spinning sphere & we're on it.
AJ: You told me earlier that A World To Come those songs are a few years old, but Evil Kalling You is pretty recent. When you were writing the newer stuff did you have any focus of how you wanted the album to be? 'You know what? I wanna try to go for this mood or this thing.' Is it just coincidence that everything just has this internal demon sort of feeling?
B-RAY: It's really a coincidence. I mean, it seemed like things were inspiring me one right after the other to write a new song. Like I was talking about the other ones on the album & I was talking about "Blood Red". There was some things that I've seen. I've seen some video footage. There was some of the fighting overseas. I don't really want to mention any names, but - to protect the innocent - but, it inspired me. There's people just killing innocent people over there. Straight up, you know. Kids. It inspired me. I've seen a kid get shot & bleed out on the street & they couldn't get to him to help him. He wasn't probably wasn't any more than 9 or 10 years old. That inspired me to write the song "Blood Red". The song is about how they will shoot you down, they'll spill your life on the ground & they just call you a casualty of war. So, that song it means a lot to me in that sense. I have to put myself into the mood I was in when I wrote it to be able to sing it & it's really a pretty angry song. Most of this whole album is angry. It's like 'Don't you see?' Stand up & scream 'Don't you see what's going on?' You know? That's where this album is headed, just kinda went that way. There hasn't been any of this really predetermined with the exception of a few songs on A World To Come to kinda get us started. First off to kinda start the roll.
G-MAN: You had a few ideas awhile back.
B-RAY: I had ideas already.
G-MAN: Right.
B-RAY: But, this just started rolling this way & now where we're at now it just kinda ended up here. Very very much inspired by the planet we live on & mankind.
AJ: G-Man, have you contributed lyrically to this stuff?
G-MAN: Not very much. Just a lot of the drums & just coming over giving my ideas popping in my head. Because I told him a long time ago, sometimes we'll talk on the phone, & I'll go dun dun dun dun & he'll go 'Hey, that's a cool idea.' The next day we'll work it up. But, he's done a great job of doing the vocals & the lyrics, so I'll just kick it with the drums & we'll have a great time.
AJ: Well, how do you 2 write? Does one of you, like you just said, does one of you come up with something & you put lyrics to it or you write the whole song or what?
B-RAY: We do that together. We'll start a riff or a jam.
G-MAN: I'll come up with a beat & then he'll kinda ride around it. Sometimes he'll start it & I'll come in with something. Probably in a minute or 2 we've got something going on.
B-RAY: Then I'll come in with something, 'Damn it, the words I just wrote go with that.' Or, 'I've seen something the other day. I can write about that & put it with that.'
G-MAN: Often he'll write it down & then we'll get back with it.
B-RAY: I'll write it down real quick while I'm thinking about it & we'll get back to playing. We just build them that way. Very much probably instrumentally wrote first & add the lyrics later.
G-MAN: Right.
AJ: Has there been any ... let me rephrase this, as you've shared your music with folks, locally or nationally or whatever, in terms of feedback has there been any surprises?
B-RAY: Like?
AJ: Or anything you didn't expect?
B-RAY: Yeah, there's been quite a few things. There's been good feedback from people we didn't think would give good feedback & probably some bad feedback from people we thought would understand it.
G-MAN: A reverse concept.
B-RAY: It's been backwards it seems like a lot. A lot of people think ... we've got all the ... we're singing about evil calling you. We're a devil worshiping band.
AJ: Yeah, yeah.
B-RAY: The truth is we're opposite of that. We're anti-tyranny, we're anti-corruption, we're anti anybody that wants to be an oppressor to the common man. We're anti that. We're anti evil. We're more spiritual than we are religious, in a sense of ... I saw a cool saying one time: "Religion is for me that are afraid of going to hell & spirituality is for people who have already been through hell." We've lived pretty rough lives me & G-Man have. Lots of good & bad times. We're just a common guy, you know? I mean, I've had my bills cut off before. I've lived in my van. I mean, we've lived that life. I've seen people just eat people up like where I was. It's like they kick a man when he's down, but keep him down.
G-MAN: They don't help him back up.
B-RAY: I'm the guy that if I've seen a guy on the street that asks me for a quarter ... honestly, I would look at his shoes first to see what he was wearing & then I would probably give him the quarter or go get him a burger & bring it back to him, because I've seen that before.
AJ: I appreciate your candidness.
B-RAY: Well ... the truth is the truth. The truth has no agenda. If you're speaking from your heart then you're trying to speak your truth, then you're not going to lead anybody on.
G-MAN: Hell no.
B-RAY: We're just regular guys, man, that love metal music.
G-MAN: We love hanging.
B-RAY: We love music. We love to jam & we decided to write & I poured my heart into these lyrics with some of the things I ... I just felt like I wanted to point out things in the world that I felt was wrong.
AJ: You're just playing your tunes.
B-RAY: It helps us to understand it a little better, too.
AJ: Well, you've got 2 albums under your belt. 2 years now the KALLING has been a formal entity. Where are you guys going next? What are you doing now? Other than looking for a bass player.
B-RAY: We want to be playing right now is what we want to be doing. It's not like summertime on an outdoors stage ...
G-MAN: We don't want any of that.
B-RAY: But, if we can't find the musicians to go with us we'll just go back & start writing some more & just keep writing. I mean, we're not going to quit, that's for sure.
G-MAN: We're gonna keep moving forward.
B-RAY: We've already got ... thought a little bit about new albums, new songs. Maybe a little different than the ones we just did. We won't change a lot. I think it will always have that darkness to it. We'll probably just go back into the studio.
AJ: You've done an album of Armageddon of the physical world & one of the internal world...I gotta ask, what's the next world? Maybe you don't know yet?
B-RAY: How about the universal world?
AJ: Okay!
G-MAN: Yeah, that's it.
B-RAY: That's as far as you can go. Speaking about a ballad earlier, I have thought about maybe my stuff is a little too angry. I have thought about trying to pick out some of the good things in life. But, the problem with that in this deal is...like I said, I'm not a singer, a canary singer. I can't sing like that.
G-MAN: It just seems to come out angry all the time.
B-RAY: It's hard to make a good hard metal song that has a happy thought.
G-MAN: Yeah, that's hard to do.
B-RAY: We thought about that. Like I said, rainbows & lollipops, but that don't go too well.
G-MAN: Right.
AJ: Well, only if its said in the song with contrast. Rainbows & lollipops & burning bridges & corrupted government.
G-MAN: Exactly.
B-RAY: You add the dark to it & its the same.
G-MAN: Exactly.
B-RAY: We thought about writing some heavier stuff, but I don't know. I don't really see that happening too much. I really don't.
AJ: Alright. Well, listen guys, I really appreciate you spending a little bit of time with me & I'm glad to be able to share your music in another medium of mine in addition to my blog. Is there anything else you want to share that you haven't talked about or anything on your mind?
B-RAY: I think we pretty much covered it. We hope people will enjoy our music & get the message that we're sending. You don't have to live by it. It's not like set in stone, but I hope they get something out of it. Maybe something they can think about. An angle they didn't catch or a different way of looking, I guess, might understand it a little bit. I really hope a lot of it what I do sing about doesn't come true. I hope we can walk out of this or get on another path or something. I'm hoping we can all pull together as a global unity.
G-MAN: One day.
B-RAY: Make peace, you know. That's what we're looking for. We're really looking for peace more than anything. It's kinda like fighting fire with fire. If you can't be nice to them & they get your message, when you're screaming in their face maybe they'll listen. That's probably the message we're trying to say right there. & please buy our stuff. You can friend us on facebook.
AJ: Excellent.
B-RAY: KALLING with a K.
AJ: Any thoughts from the drumkit?
G-MAN: Maybe another kit driving down the road.
AJ: Well, that's an easy goal.
G-MAN: I like the double pedal, but a long time ago when we first got together I had a double bass & he keeps getting mad, 'You gotta get those drums & bring them over.' But, I'm enjoying what I'm playing now. I like the double pedal. I've been using it for about 13 years. But, he still has his moments with me about that double bass.
AJ: Well, I think we can achieve that better than we can do world peace.
B-RAY: Definitely.
AJ: Alright, excellent. Guys, like I said, I really appreciate you taking time with me tonight. I wish you the best of luck on your future music & where you're going & I'll make the assumption you'll keep me in the loop when you put out more music.
B-RAY: Oh, yes sir, definitely. We appreciate you for supporting music. We enjoy sending you our music for review. It helps us pick out what we might not have thought of.
AJ: That's my job. That's how I can be helpful.
B-RAY: Good. That's exactly what we're looking for.
G-MAN: Thank you.
B-RAY: Thank you.
AJ: How's the weather down there? I heard there was some rough weather?
G-MAN: There sure was.
B-RAY: Tornadoes just ripped up Dallas.
G-MAN: Exactly.
AJ: Okay.
B-RAY: We were here rehearsing.
G-MAN: Raining.
B-RAY: It actually became a hell storm while we were in the middle of rehearsing & we didn't even know it.
AJ: Oh shit.
B-RAY: We were jamming so hard.
G-MAN: Yeah, that's fun.
B-RAY: They just said major tornadoes in Dallas & they tore up a lot of it. We're talking semi's, a lot full of semi's thrown around like cardboard boxes.
AJ: A friend of mine was going, "I hope they call in. I hope the power didn't go down." I'm like, "Well, we'll find out."
B-RAY: If I had had to I would have went up to the radio station & said, 'Hey man, I need to use your booth & stuff.'
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