Yves is dating Alfonse who’s in love with Paulo who’s fucking Stefan who’s focused on his career but married to Sydney who knows he’s gay but feels safe because they’re best friends, which makes Cristof jealous because he’s pining for both of them; and Cristof’s brother Rosco is dating Nifath, mysterious Nifath, and they’ve been in an open relationship since July when Nifath got distant and Rosco suggested they experiment; but Nifath’s been fucking Conroy since May of last year and Conroy hasn’t been tested for decades (no self-reflection); he’s been drinking with Jason who can’t get his dick hard but has been thinking it’s because he has feelings for Seana, the trans girl, who dated Sarah all throughout undergrad; and Sarah, stubborn Sarah, feels cheated because Seana’s not Sean anymore, in fact she’s never been, just appeared that way, and Sarah’s straight and sure of it, but did have a few experiences with Massie, the Bohemian, who swears relationships are soul-suckers, monogamy equals weakness; though in high school Massie dated Scottie, who is a cheater with a big ol’ penis, and has never once been loyal, but is charming, and still supported by his mother, who’s having an affair with Aldo, her personal trainer who does this frequently; and Aldo’s brother Santo is in prison and having a hard time while doing hard time because his girlfriend Mary is pregnant and works at the ShopRite which Peter has managed for sixteen years; and Peter, peculiar Peter, has had physical contact with another human only once during his entire adult life, instead he looks at little kids on the dark web; and sometimes, around lunchtime, he’ll make a detour carrying his canned tuna and pass by the elementary school’s playground where Fanny, Ms. Fanny Appleton, is the teacher and always gazes warily around the perimeter, because she’s worried about just this kind of thing; she purses her lips, eyes vigilant, and waves at Peter but doesn’t suspect him, because at the ShopRite he’s always been a nice man, a little sweaty, true, but even makes Ms. Appleton’s nephew laugh; this kid’s name is Stephen, and when Fanny’s babysitting, they stop by the store for ice cream sandwiches, but she has never noticed Peter touch him inappropriately, which, on one occasion, Peter has; anyway Ms. Appleton is single, has not had a boyfriend since college, where she was manipulated by Michael into doing things that didn’t feel right; and then one night Michael snuck into her dorm room, wasted, and raped her; now Fanny trusts no one and lives a quiet life but has a crush on Lucien Carr (no relation to the murderer), who teaches English and seems in Fanny’s opinion sweet but sad too, and everyday she swears she’s going to ask him out for coffee, but just hasn’t committed yet; and Lucien doesn’t realize she’s even interested, because the truth is he has a drug problem, and every day after his class he goes home alone, draws the blinds, snorts cocaine and drinks alcohol until he’s completely deranged, then sleeps for two hours, wakes up the next day, and repeats the same thing; sometimes he picks up his phone to call Courtney, then changes his mind, because Courtney was his wife and his best friend but then got sober, they both went through the Program, and she changed, he couldn’t beat it, so she left him, and now he’s back on a bender; and Courtney, somber Courtney, sweet, sad Courtney goes to meetings every evening and spends her days working at T-Mobile, just trying to get by; on occasion she flirts with Teshawn, her co-worker, he makes her laugh, they take break at Chipotle; Teshawn’s twenty-one and goes to the community college with Rasheeda, who he’s in love with, and she likes him, but he’s so nice, she finds that off-putting; plus she likes to go out on the weekends, in the city, where she meets Sky Pepper; and Sky Pepper, so Sky Pepper, is a model and comes from money and once her and Rasheeda went home with Sven Odenfield, the photographer, and they had a threesome, which was fun but a little intense for Rasheeda, though Sky doesn’t remember it; Sven remembers it, in fact he catalogued each moment of the evening in his Moleskine, because that’s his thing, along with photography, he’s in love with pleasure, has fucked half the city, and meticulously records each conquest; but Sven, complex Odenfield, still Facebook stalks Nadia, his step-sister, who lives in Berlin and will not return his phone calls, plus things were never the same after what happened that one night, when they shared a hotel room next to their parents and both got drunk off the liquor in the mini-bar; and their parents are swingers, they go to the private parties that Thor hosts; and Thor is from the midwest but got outta there the day he turned eighteen, and lives glamorously, hosting orgies, with celebrities, but has a soft spot for his sister Irene, who moved to New York, but couldn’t make it and so moved back home and married Alan, her high school sweetheart, who’s perfectly content in Wisconsin, he’s an engineer, would never leave there, couldn’t imagine life outside of Waukesha; and now Irene’s pregnant, she’s only twenty-five, and Alan is overjoyed (also in debt) and Irene is happy, she has always wanted to be a mother, but she wanted a career too, that’s why she moved to New York, but now it seems that ship has sailed; so once a week Irene FaceTimes her best friend Meredith, who moved to LA, and isn’t sure exactly if she’s the only one but is pretty sure she’s now dating Smash Lowe, yes, that one, the movie star, and is having so much fun and, “No, no, Irene, I do not have a coke problem, I don’t do it during the week, okay? Anyway I’m young! And Oh Irene, oh my god, you’re so freakin’ preggers!!!” and Meredith is having a great time, really living life, posts often on Instagram, but she’s secretly jealous, because throughout childhood she was in love with Alan too; her, Irene and him were inseparable, sometimes they all slept in the same bed, and Meredith once even, just once, after they’d been drinking, tried to kiss Alan but he was honest, he was loyal, he said, “Gee, Mer…I….I’m with Irene!” and was truly baffled, simple Alan, he was embarrassed, felt his honor compromised, but Meredith sobered up, she said, “Of course, no, you’re right, I’m sorry, can we just forg”—and Alan interrupted her, stood up very straight and said, “Enough,” then went into another room of the party and spoke to Johnny who developed his alcoholism at a young age and now is dead after taking too many Lorazepam on a March night, after a long bout of drinking, a few years ago; and at Johnny’s funeral his mother Aubrey cried, and his father Alec held her, stoic, but his mouth twitched and he thought that later that night, he’d sit by the fire with Skaal, his brother, who just flew in from Norway; and Skaal used to be easygoing, believed in the essential good of things, was always smiling, didn’t watch indie movies, liked buddy comedies, but that was before the Norway massacre, which killed 77 people, one of which was Anita’s little brother (that’s Skaal’s girlfriend); I shall not say her brother’s name, respect for the family, understand, but after the murder Anita became focused, she became political; Skaal, in contrast, became quieter, more sensitive, had less conviction, the world made less sense to him, and so when Alec called about his son’s death, Skaal’s nephew, Skaal blinked twice, held the phone and felt utter numbness; that trance persisted the entire flight to Chicago and still at the airport; and walking through the long terminal, dazed, startled by ascending airplanes, Skaal accidently bumped right into Olivia; and Olivia, who was about to board her own flight, took this as a sign; she turned around, left the airport, and caught a taxi back into the city, and ran to Henry, he was just stepping out of his apartment, she embraced him, and Henry was shocked, he thought he would never see her again, and he held her, but was anxious, frankly part of him had been excited for his new life, and thus was not expecting this return; and one night a month later, Henry got a little drunk and struck up a conversation with a woman at the bar near his office, she was wearing a black slip, her name was Terry; and Terry knew his type, she did this often, she got him wasted and then she fucked him, then kicked him out of her apartment and smoked cigarettes, thinking men are idiots, they are malleable, they are so easy; and Terry was the hostess at a very upscale restaurant on the Northside; and one night the famous musician and notorious womanizer Augie Rainwell came to the restaurant and ignored Terry, he did not seem interested, she was astonished; the fact was, however, that for Augie it was nothing personal, he was secretly dealing with an eruption of genital herpes, and that was affecting his confidence, he looked around the restaurant warily, helplessly, thinking everybody knew his deformity, everybody was doubting his masculinity, his sexual viability; he had no idea who had given him herpes, there were about seven women and two men that it could have been; and what was worse, the worst part of it, was that Augie was married to Jaclyn, and he had slept with her twice, without protection, since fucking strangers, without protection, and so now it was possible, perhaps likely (who knows how it really works), that Jaclyn also had genital herpes and would, once and for all, know that Augie was cheating on her; and Jaclyn, fed-up Jaclyn, would finally move out and go stay with her mother; and her mother, Avi, in the living room, would say, “I knew that boy was no good for you,” and Jaclyn would say, “Oh mother, please!” and turn away, look at their wall of photographs, where her grandmother Maya is featured prominently; and Maya was a Holocaust survivor whose husband Ira didn’t make it, but whose best friend David made it; and after the Holocaust, David wrote a book about the horror, but it was never published, and so he became a businessman, was quite successful, he married and lived a long life, ending up in a lovely home where he had a nice relationship with the nurse Genevieve, who is a redhead; and Genevieve loves to fuck, but has this feeling, this deep-rooted conviction, that abstinence is the only true path to happiness, but if that is the case she prefers unhappiness, and so has many lovers, and many secrets; and each one of these lovers say the same thing: “Genevieve was, by far, the best I ever had, but honestly, to this day, I know nothing about her;” and one of these lovers was Elliot, and Elliot has had a strange life; not only did both his parents die on 9/11 (one of those freak things, they were just visiting), he also happened to be in one square mile of two mass shootings in real life (one Isis-related, the other a white kid, with a micro-penis and a manifesto); but Elliot is committed to mathematics, he refuses to become superstitious, and right now is in grad school, getting his PHD; and Elliot, ponderous Elliot, the orphan prodigy, has never been in a relationship that lasted more than six months, they’re not practical, plus he cherishes his alone time, takes long walks, and thinks about probability, possibility, the infinite number of things that could happen to you, the infinite ways in which they could happen too, and the ways that lives intersect and influence each other, or maybe never cross paths at all, he thinks about all of this; and one day Elliot passed a family on one of his long walks; it was a mother, father, and their young boy; and that little boy was me, many years ago, my family lived around the corner, in that neighborhood, this was our park, it was small, now I see that, but back then it was the world to me; I held my mother’s hand and looked up at my dad’s body, obscured by sunlight, a vague shape, this awesome bulkiness, I tried to grab his leg, but he was too far ahead, didn’t even notice I wanted him; not at all; my father was focused on a sculpture, in the garden; this sculpture was a rabbit with big and ugly, rotting buck teeth, it wore a top hat and a sports coat, it held a watch in one paw and between two fingers on its other hand it balanced a scale, but unevenly; this rabbit smirked, taunting, mischievous, he knew everything, she was not impressed with it; they were sexless, gushing with sex though; I stared at my father and squeezed my mother, tighter, tighter, but then some smell, a floral fragrance, with the slightest rot in it, made me look away; I saw a man with long hair, very thin, very feminine, his shirt was see-through, rib showing, he was almost glowing; getting closer to us; he was not my parents, this excited me, my eyes opened, I tore from the woman who gave birth to me and ran, past the man who fucked her, I ran, and almost tumbled, but stayed on my feet, I ran forward and reached for
Kyle Kouri is an award winning actor, writer, filmmaker, and producer. He received his MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, where he served as the online arts editor for the Columbia Journal. He is the co-founder of Slashtag Cinema, a film production company. Slashtag’s first film, the multi-award winning KEEP COMING BACK, which Kouri directed, co-wrote, and stars in, premiered at Screamfest in October 2024. His writing has appeared in Cleaver Magazine, the Columbia Journal, Ghostwatch Zine, The Los Angeles Press, and Maudlin House. His first book, THE PROBLEM DRINKER, is forthcoming from CLASH Books in 2026. He lives in and around LA with his four rescue dogs and his girlfriend, the writer CJ Leede.
Each day he builds a castle. So many he’s lost count. The oldest of them is sand piled and shaped, no craftsmanship, no detail. The ones he first made when he washed ashore are only the idea of castles.
As the days go on and the line of castles spread each day’s work grows more elaborate. Parapets and crenellations begin to appear. Little carved windows. A drawbridge of sticks.
He finds the bottle while digging out a moat. Fogged glass buried long years in sand. He holds it up, he shakes it, thinking. Wondering.
He writes the note on the label. Bleached skin peeled from the bottle with delicate hand. He puts coordinates such as he knows them. HELP, he writes. SEND ME A SHIP RIGHT AWAY.
The cork he palms hard into place, tight. He gives it another pat just in case. He shakes the bottle again. The note rattles inside.
His best throw is so little, and the ocean so vast. Once it’s beyond him he sits on the beach for some hours watching it bob along before it vanishes from sight. Then he returns to his work. His castles.
Each day he builds a castle. The oldest of them has begun to crumble with age. Its detail fading like the lost wonder of a once great kingdom. The newest is formed through long hours with care. Stone walls are raised to protect the soft sand within. A sigil is shaped on the door of this fortification in an impossible realm. And each day when his task is done he sits and watches the sun fall away behind the world as he waits for another day to come, a chance to do it better again.
Each day he builds a castle. The oldest of them has sunk back into the sand, lumps of some forgotten wonder. The ones he first made when he washed ashore look like nothing at all. He’s carving twigs into flagpoles topped with leaves, he’s filling the moat with borrowed sea. Long hours go by in great care, staring and imagining and willing this citadel into being.
It is a glance that shows him the glint. He turns again and it’s still there, riding the seesawing lap of ocean’s reach. The bottle stirs at sand’s edge. He sits, he stares. He can hardly believe. Then he is running, and he is stumbling, he is falling where it lay in sputtered foam. He takes the bottle up and with a hand he wipes it clear. And there inside, where before there was rolled his note, now sits anchored a ship.
Craig Rodgers is the author of ten books, a handful of lies, and all manner of foolishness.
A hot woman followed me on Twitter, but it seemed suspect. I clicked her profile. She was a barista in LA who wrote screenplays. Attractive. Funny. Definitely not real.
My friend Jenn texted me to ask why I didn’t follow her bot back. Said she made it with some Mad Libs style template that would shuffle all the words and phrases she uploaded and the bot would fire off a nonsense movie idea every hour.
Does it respond if someone comments?
Yeah, like, she calls me master when I reply, but she calls everyone else babe.
Oh shit––I should make one to resurrect Jeremy.
Oh god, that’s so sad and creepy––Yeah, and I’ll make one for my mother that tweets the lyrics to ‘Hallelujah’ in a never ending loop and says she’s proud of me when I post about my b-hole.
For a few days I laughed at the concept, played it off, then found myself digging through the ammo box jammed full of letters Jeremy sent from prison. I called Bekah.
“Yo, if I gave you all those letters, would you do me a favor?”
“From him?”
“Yeah.”
“Whatcha thinkin?”
“I just want to make, like, a digital file.”
“All of em? Dude, there’s gotta be like two hundred letters.”
“Can you do it?”
“Why can’t you? No offense.”
“Can you help or not?”
I dropped off the ammo box full of letters from different addresses within the Florida State Corrections system. I told her how to fill the templates with all his -isms. Bekah was the only one capable. She knew the way he spoke and wouldn’t clean up any of the poor grammar or correct words like set to sit.
Weeks went by and I wanted to call and see if she’d made any progress, but I didn’t. It was a lot to wade through. We spoke a few times––their daughter had been enrolled in preschool and started saying goodnight to her daddy’s picture before bed––but I didn’t bring up the ammo box.
The week of Father’s Day, she texted me:
You still got those recordings?
She was talking about the songs we used to sing together. I had piles of recordings from over the years––hundreds of hours of Jeremy and I and whoever was with us at the time.
Yeah. Haven’t figured out how to rip them from the MiniDiscs yet.
I just need one song.
I’ll see what I can do. What song?
Didn’t you and him do Wish You Were Here at Matthew’s?
Yeah, I’ll look for it this weekend.
Think you can get it to me by Sunday morning?
You got it.
Bekah wanted him there for Father’s Day. It had been little more than a year since they kicked the door off the hinges and found his body.She wanted him there to sing a song to their daughter.
I looked at the handwritten notes on over thirty MiniDiscs. Studio 566. Jimmy Mac sessions. Sanford’s vacation. Brickette lounge...I eliminated a bunch because the dates didn’t line up. Which left me with eight. Eight MiniDiscs, three hours each.
I listened to the first few tracks, just to hear his voice. He never knew how to close a song. He just kept playing. It was annoying as hell. I’d look at him, try to cue him the song was over, but with all the bong rips and Busch pounders, his eyes were always shut. The song would only end if his makeshift matchbook pick finally disintegrated. Or if he was ready to steal another cigarette. Every track ends with him laughing at me for bickering at him for ruining an otherwise solid recording. I popped in the disk marked Half Spent / Stemmer’s Run and advanced a few tracks. A calloused finger drags along the E string. He inhales sharply through clenched teeth. Shakes a cramp from his hand. A click from a lighter and I smell bong water, stale Marlboros and the rotten brown couch. A car goes up Westdale so I know the windows are open. It’s summer. Hot. He’s got on his tattered beige cargo shorts but probably not a shirt.
We’d always bitch about never doing anything fun, but my fondest memories have nothing to do with Hershey Park or chartered fishing boats. I miss the moments where we’re bored and talking shit. Shit talking is where the love is. Ninety degrees with a box fan in the window, six-pack of pounders sweating on the coffee table. Working on a song. Telling my best friend he fucked up the end.
I’d forgotten Bekah was on this disc for two songs. “All in This Together”and “How Can I Try.”The three of us harmonizing caught me off guard. They’d known each other less than a week.
****
I met Bekah at an NA meeting and told her about my best friend who was locked up. I told her I was the only one who wrote him and as a kindness to me, she asked for the address. Pretty soon she was asking a lot of questions about him. I told her all the stories about us growing up and getting in trouble. The arrowheads we forged on the riverbank as children to fool his dad. Quitting our jobs because we figured out the bass at Longwood were hitting a white spinner bait. Coming to blows in the hotel room on Fisherman’s Wharf over a handful of missing oxys and a woman whose name neither of us could remember.
She asked if he was reckless. She had fallen in love with reckless before and it landed her in rehab. I laughed because he was in prison. But I saw what was happening––he was courting her and she was falling. I told her the only true thing I knew about my friend.
Jeremy’s like an old dog. He’s been kicked around and left in the backyard too long by his former owner, but he’s yours now. He’s gonna do dumb shit and cause you grief, but he’s fiercely loyal. Doesn’t matter how far you throw the ball, he’s gonna bring it back. Yeah, he’s reckless. And that’s why I love him.
Florida Corrections gave him fifty bucks on a Visa card and an open bus ticket to anywhere in the lower 48. Bekah came with me to pick him up at 13th and Filbert when the Greyhound came in. They had never met, never touched, but they were in love. I peeked in the rearview. They smiled and glanced at each other but this wasn’t a love letter. He’d always been so confident, but I could see he was afraid of a five foot three curly haired girl wearing a Last Waltz shirt. It was at a stoplight when I turned around in my seat. I asked him what he wanted to eat and I saw it. Did she reach for his hand, or was it he who reached for hers? Their fingers were sewn together and they were smiling. After three years in prison he told me to decide what we’d have for dinner.
****
On her mother’s porch Jeremy noodled on the Simon and Patrick guitar Bekah and I bought him. I’d mailed handwritten lyrics and tabs of new songs, and on the rare phone call we had together, I’d play a few bars so he could hear the melody. He practiced in the chapel every week before Sunday church service. Bekah wrote to him about the ones she liked, so he focused on those. I listened to the songs we sang on her mom’s porch and there’s a part at the end where the laughter dies down and it’s quiet for a few seconds. He was looking at a spiderweb between the yew bush and the brick of the house.
“Ain’t it funny how that web is home for one thing and certain death for another?”
“Wish You Were Here” was a few tracks after our songs from the porch. I had found the song she wanted and two more. I couldn’t figure out how to digitize the tracks in a way that would preserve the sound quality. So I hooked up an auxiliary cord from the MiniDisc player to a Bose speaker, then I set up the voice recorder on my phone and recorded in real-time. I labeled each one and sent them to her in a text message late Saturday night.
Along with my morning coffee, a text from Bekah:
Thanks
***
I’d forgotten about the ammo box letters until Bekah emailed me. I copy/pasted the file into the Twitter bot generator.
>@IrishHillblybot: What say me and you find a quiet spot and get as high as a giraffe’s asshole?
>@kaniuk22: @IrishHillblybot haha hell yeah
>@IrishHillblybot: @kaniuk22 what’s up, brother?
>@kaniuk22: @IrishHillblybot i really miss you
>@IrishHillblybot: @kaniuk22 what’s up, brother?
>@kaniuk22: IrishHilblybot i wish you would’ve called
>@IrishHillblybot: @kaniuk22 what’s up, brother?
Rob Kaniuk is a proud uncle and has the best wife in the world. His mm is pretty cool, too.
I went on a gameshow but didn’t win. Instead, spectacularly lost. They said I sucked. That I should never have been born. They’re probably right. I went home and found my wife having sex with the gameshow host. Somehow, she had beat me home. The gameshow host you’ll remember as the beautiful model of the late 90s, Brooke Teal. This makes sense, I thought. My wife said leave. Brooke Teal laughed. I closed the door behind me, carrying with me my old-fashioned lamp handed down from my Polish grandfather. It’s of a boozy-sad hobo who looks suspiciously like Charlie Chaplin. Above him, where the lamp’s bulb burns dim, it says, “GENIUS AT WORK.”
To Nobody
I was dead for five hundred years and came back at the wrong possible time. My postman came through the yard, with a letter which, when opened in private, told me I had missed everything. “Missed what?” I said out loud, to nobody. Everybody I had known had long since died. My beloved dog, Hamstring; my mother who knew every knot in the book; my grandfather—but he had been dead since before I was born. Then one day I was shaken from the seduction of an afternoon nap by a phone call. “Hello, but there’s been a big mistake,” said the voice on the other end. “Mistake? What mistake?” I said. But then I could hear the neighbors outside, doing their marches in the yard. They were practicing for a reckoning. I couldn’t relate it to anything. There was no precedent. The only thing I remember from my previous life is what Debussy said. He said to the singers in his opera, “First of all, ladies and gentlemen, you must forget that you are singers.”
Class Clown At Our Lady Of Perpetual Sorrow
I was unfairly punished many times as a student at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow.
It was usually because I was pranking someone. Usually because I was pranking Old Garf. Garf was the runt of his prestigious, sprawling family. Anchored by everything you could be anchored by at twelve years old. Horrible youth for Poor Old Garf.
I’d call him up numerous times, pretending to be a doctor or police officer and having to inform him of his parents’ demise, usually in some ill-fated excursion or random chance encounter of morbid violence. I was excellent at making them up! My imagination was like a knife. Everything around me, the butter.
And poor Old Garf, every time, on the other end of the phone, sobbing like an alley cat with nobody to push away. Old Garf, always believing me.
So, you see what I mean? Unfairly punished. Unjustly! Garf believing the same story (or variation of the story). Imbecilic! Dunce! Old Garf… I can’t stay mad at him. After all these years… You’ve heard about him no doubt, very recently, in the news. Having achieved the highest status in some acronymed company that has great influence over public policy.
Shane Kowalski lives in Pennsylvania, where he teaches creative writing at Ursinus College. He’s the author of Small Moods (Future Tense Books).
On Friday night, I drove out to the Wickens family farm to listen to my wife’s hardcore band play a show inside the barn at the edge of the woods. The barn stood sheathed in a thick crust of shimmering obsidian paint. A common nighthawk wearing a tiny leather jacket perched on a post just outside the door. It was April. I had quit my job at Wal-Mart over a year ago. My wife said she was fine with this, but I wasn’t sure. She had never been very good at expressing her true emotions.
Inside, the barn was empty of animals and people and fences and hay. A carpet of soft dirt covered the cool floor. My wife slammed on her drum set in a rapturous thrall. The sound of her drumming was deafening. The concussive force of her kick drum rammed into my ribs like a right hook. Runnels of gleaming sweat forked down my wife’s luxurious neck. She wore nothing but the expensive purple lingerie I had purchased for her thirty-sixth birthday last month. Stepping into her line of sight, I held up my hand and waved to her in adoration. She stared at my shins for thirty-one seconds. She did not smile at me or acknowledge my presence. She played her 9/8 drum patterns and stared at the lead singer’s ass for the next hour. So I peeled off my clothes and lay on my back in the nude. I grabbed fistfuls of loose dirt and smeared brown streaks of mud across my thighs. I stared at the mossy cobwebs clinging to the corners of the gambrel roof. I pushed my pinkies into my ears until forks of sticky blood began to flow.
Steve Gergley is the author of four books. His most recent novel, Episode 3328: Ian Sharp, was published in January of 2025 by Translucent Eyes Press. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Wigleaf, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Maudlin House, Passages North, Always Crashing, and others. He tweets @GergleySteve. His fiction can be found at: https://stevegergleyauthor.wordpress.com/. In addition to his own writing, he is also the editor of scaffold literary magazine.
In the end there was nothing worth staying for. I left LA on bad terms. I’d burnt bridges, accrued social debts, and alienated myself from whoever tried to comfort me whilst grieving. I was a drunken arsonist, scorning those once dear to me when six feet deep in liquor. I had some girls for comfort. None of them knew about each other, until they did. I had some friends, until I told them to fuck off. All this accumulated into LA becoming one big hell after Laruen died.
I lived in a small apartment. It was in the old spanish style and decorated with movie posters from a lost Hollywood. I moved there after college to be a screenwriter. I did that. Or, I tried that. I wrote a screenplay about an all female death metal band struggling to make a decision about whether to sell out or not when offered a record deal that mandated them a makeover. Lauren was cast as the lead singer.
The movie did okay. It led to other conversations about other scripts that I’d promised to make. Scripts I tried to write and failed to finish. Meanwhile, Lauren auditioned for overdubbed car commercials and background gigs for b-rate reality shows. She was cast as ASIAN WOMAN ON CELL PHONE 1. Implying there was another Asian woman talking on a cell phone in the background as some spray-tanned wop monologues about his troubled dating life.
It was at an afterparty for the show where Lauren’s heart stopped. Bad blow. A Grand Mal seizure. There are videos readily accessible on behalf of the audience’s presumption she was faking it for attention. Apparently there were a handful of celebrities at the party. A-grades like Bradley Cooper who were featured briefly on the show making sardonic commentary upon the stars’ attempts to find love in an admittedly disembodied LA. I have only watched one once. That was more than enough. And so came the months of grief, and thus passed my life as I’d known it. No longer did I think about movies, writing, art.
I sold off most of my possessions. I booked a plane ticket to New York without plans of where to go upon arrival. I knew nothing of how I’d live. All I knew was I wanted out.
This brings me to now, the morning of my move. In LAX with a backpack filled with nearly meaningless memorabilia of my 20’s, and a suitcase filled with clothes, unseasonably light, considering my wintery destination.
In front of me there’s a family of four arguing about who’s gonna sit in the aisle seats, who’s gonna be in the middle, who’s gonna be the ‘pariah’ left to share a coupled row with a stranger. The kids argue with severity. The father looks indifferent, the mother too. The son and daughter force their way to agreement that they will both sit in the aisle seats. I feel vaguely relieved that at least some people get what they want in this world. Or at least know where they belong.
For a moment I have direction. The tall security guard rushes me forward in line and tells me to have my passport ready. I pull it from my pocket, hold it in my hand as I move up. My ticket is scanned and I file forward in a bureaucratic and soulless fashion.
On the plane I sit alone. Normally I would be happy about this, but today it fills me with a particular dread. The prospect of leg room does not particularly suffice for the comfort another soul could bring right now
I consider the superficiality of my being. I have nothing: no great work to show for my thirty odd years on earth. No deep connection with family. No friends. No depth. I have managed to live lightly. Skimming seconds until they turn to days. I watch LA grow distant below me. The morning sun is sepia. The interiority of my plane is gray.
I unlock my phone to put on music. The plane drops violently in altitude. A baby starts crying. I drop my phone on the ground and it slides to the row behind me. The drop feels like getting punched in the gut. I stare down at my shoes as our bird takes its thrashing. I’m wearing black monk straps. I suddenly realize how unfashionable, ugly, and untimely my choice in footwear is.The plane shakes. I feel a tap on my shoulder, the man in row behind me speaks in a calm, high voice, says “this yours?” and hands me my phone.
The plane begins to drop in steps as if drunkenly stumbling down a flight of stairs. I attempt prayer. I yearn for the grace of stable religiosity. My bladder threatens to scream and my stomach hums baritone. I yelp at the sound of a huge tin trash can getting kicked. A dip in elevation. A flicker in light. A lack of control. I feel the closing of an imminent future. My bladder folds. Passengers scream. The overhead compartments throw up Rimowa. Film photos of me on a seesaw. The feeling of saltwater in my eyes. The smell of spring rain. The innocent nausea of a merry-go-round. The first memory of a hand tucked in mine. The blackness of sleep.
Everything grew alright by seconds spent away from daylight. It was silent, not like sleep but rather the soft erosion of sense following shock. It was the feeling of being weightlessly held. A gentle suggestion of guided continuance. Something like hope.
“Are you alright?” the man says to me as I come to, opening my eyes and staring at his face. It’s pale. Bearded thickly. He has a long, thin nose, and rimless glasses. Two long curls spurting out of his temples.
“I think I might be dead,” I say to him. He is standing in the aisle, leaning in to eye level. He smells of a faint menthol.
“My boy, you only fainted, you are alive and well.” His w possesses a slight v. “vwell,” he says. I stare into the faint blue of his eyes, and ask as a child appeals to anything above him “will you sit next to me . . . I am scared . . . I am scared I am going to die . . .I am scared I am going to die and I have nothing.”
He laughs, I scooch over and he slides into the seat beside me. Takes my hand and looks me in the eye. “You are wrong, you have everything. You have me. You have your hands, you have your eyes, your ears, your nose and your hair. Tell me—do you believe in God?”
“I don’t know.” I say grabbing his hand back. “I don’t ever think about it.”
He looks deeper. “Wvell, do you think about yourself?”
“Yes. Almost exclusively.”
“Well then you think about God.It’s banal. Everyone says it. But In Judaism, God is Ein Sof. Infinite. Meaning you, that that, is you too. Meaning God makes up all that surrounds us— given the belief that God is the origin of all existence. To really think about anything, to not only think about God, but to know him as well as man can, to be close to him.”
“I have no clue what that means. I’m not smart anymore. And I think I pissed my pants.”
“Tzimtzum. The contraction of God’s infinite light to allow the creation of the universe. It left space for God to be everywhere. The withdrawal of God leaves space for your mind. For all of us to be, and to be singular. Thus we take his place as the embodied gods of everything around us.”
“Everything around us?”
He smiles big “Everything. Everything like the clouds. Everything like grass. Everything like ants. God went far away to somewhere we can’t understand to allow everything to be its own divinity.”
“I have God too?”
“You couldn’t not have God if you tried.”
“I’ve tried.”
The Flight mellows. The stewardess serves drinks. We both take gin. I tell him my mother was Jewish. He says he could tell. I ask how and he says it’s something you just come to know. I take another Gin and fall asleep on Levi’s shoulder. In my dream I wear converse and a big felt hat. I’m dancing with men in long black coats singing in a language I don’t know. I have children. They aren’t there but I know I have them. A wife too. Her face is a feeling I have in my heart and not an image.
I awake upon dissension, carrying the dream like a lungful of breath. Heart pounding. Perspiring, right there beside Levi. Our declination is smooth, the bright city below draws close like clouds. Wind. Inside me Levi claims is everything: Lauren is alive. My friends are a part of it too, my family, my everything.
As the plane touches down, people begin to cheer. I feel second-hand embarrassment. I am them too. They are me. I follow Levi down the aisle. Out of the plane and into the airport. JFK is busy. I begin to lose him in the crowd. I follow the tail of his greatcoat through peripheral glances split between traveling bodies. I stay on him, into baggage claim, where he is received by a group of men dressed just like him. They take him warmly.
I think of yelling his name. And then I don’t. I watch him exit the building. He minimizes into a black fleck as he draws deeper into the mouthlike opening of the short term parking lot. I know he doesn’t look back because what he wanted has already happened. I want what he wants. To bring me close to something real. Something we will continue to share foreverlong. This empty space God once breathed life into, the freedom of blank paper. White walls, Fluorescent light. Freedom to be the same but entirely different.
A young woman comes up to me and asks “do you know which carousell has the bags from LAX?”
“I don’t.” And as I say that, they start to fall from the shoot onto the black conveyor belt.
“It’s alright.” she says, “I see it, it’s just starting to begin.”
And as I watch the bags circle around, I think to myself, it’s just starting to begin.
Maxfield Francis Goldman is a 22-year-old author from Upstate New York.
Bill Whitten is a husband and father of two wonderful boys in St Louis where he spends 15 minutes at a time recording entire albums all by himself. He also finds the time to write and send it to us to publish. Go find his music and buy it; from St Johnny to Grand Mal to William Carlos Whitten. He also makes youtube videos. An amazing talent. Black Mystic Speed by WIlliam Carlos Whitten
I first saw the name Max Hipp in 2019 when I read his story THE LEAST FUCKED UP PEOPLE in Smokelong Quarterly. I enjoyed it very much so I was pleased to cross paths with him in a Bud Smith writing workshop during the winter of 2020-21. This was right around the time the first COVID vaccines were rolling out to the most vulnerable and politicians. Every Wednesday night I’d go down to my wood-paneled basement, tap a link, and stare at a panel of eight tired faces that would keep me somewhat sane for three hours.
AT: Do you remember in Bud’s workshop, how we’d have to write those little letters at the end of each person’s piece to sum up our thoughts? I was one of three to be workshopped that first week. I’d sent everyone two or three chapters of a children’s detective novel. When I read through the letters afterward, most were complementary and mentioned how the story reminded them of stuff they read as kids. But when I got to your feedback, you hadn’t written anything. I was like, WTF? Does Max not understand the rules? Did he hate my shit so much he didn’t think it was worth a note? Was his opinion so brutal he didn’t have the heart to tell me? And what the hell kind of pseudonym is Max Hipp, anyway? Fine, whatever. I could take it. Besides, it was your turn to sub the following week. Maybe I wouldn’t feel the urge to write you a note either. I’m no clairvoyant, I can’t see the future. But that didn’t happen. When I received your offering and opened the doc I saw the title CLIFF BURTON RULES and thought, Oh shit. Growing up, Cliff era Metallica was my favorite. Not only did you use my favorite musician in a story, but the story itself spoke to my upbringing and the upbringing of many kids who got into thrash metal in the ‘80s. You made me a solid fan of your work with that story, and I’m really happy to see it in a published collection.
MH: First off, let me apologize for being such a thoughtless jerk about your chapters! You’re right that I literally didn’t understand the rules in that workshop, or knew there were rules. I’ve noticed that if someone gives me directions on how to do something, anything, I will immediately misunderstand those directions. Also those chapters were flawless and great and I didn’t have anything to add and was thinking I could praise your flawless chapters “in person” over Zoom with my face and ridiculous pseudonym and all.
With that story, I wanted to get the feel of what The Satanic Panic in the 1980s (and early ‘90s in Mississippi; southern lag time) felt like, and how dangerous and wild and fun Metallica seemed back before they became a corporation. In the story, it’s 1994 and Sammy, the main character who’s born too late, wants to start his own band and be like Metallica. He feels like those guys are his brothers, which was common back then, when all you knew about a thrash band came from magazines and liner notes. They were the most beloved metal band on Earth because their tapes were traded one dubbed cassette at a time, through snail mail and across the seas to every continent. They took over the world that way. Anybody who saw them live in the 1980s on any of those stadium tours knew they were special, even peers like Slayer and Anthrax. A lot of that specialness was Cliff Burton. I’m glad some of that was hitting for you. It’s one of my favorites in the collection.
How were you introduced to ‘80s thrash metal and what was the first band/album you remember getting into?
It was Metallica. I hadn’t heard anything by them until around 1989 when I got a dubbed copy of …And Justice for All from my cousin. I’d never heard anything like it. I was still stuck in the literal with lyrics, so when Hetfield sang “See our mother put to death,” I was envisioning my own mother, which scared me. I didn’t have cool older brothers to show me punk rock or anything edgy and I was pretty isolated other than whatever I gleaned from MTV and middle school. Metallica famously didn’t make videos until the “One” video, but I didn’t see it until we rented it from the video store. After that, the floodgates opened. I realized the people I knew who wore those black t-shirts already listened to this band religiously, and pretty soon all the Testament and Megadeth patches on all the denim jackets made sense.
I was similarly affected by the “See our mother put to death” lyric. Justice is a heavy album, even by comparison to the previous three. Of course, everyone mentions the lack of bass on that album, the first without Cliff. Do you have any particular feelings regarding the bass being nearly inaudible in the mix?
I used to have more feelings about the lack of bass. Clearly, the sound of the record didn’t hurt Metallica whatsoever. They just got bigger. As someone who actually listens for bass guitar, though, it makes the album not hold up as well for me, but the sound of that album, that freeze-dried tightness, changed the way thrash sounded for the next few years.
I’m okay with the low bass on Justice now. I think of its absence as a sort of tribute to Cliff. But if I was Newsted I’d be fucking pissed. Since Justice was your first Metallica album, what was your introduction to Cliff Burton?
Probably listening to Ride the Lightning on the school bus with friends. And then watching Cliff ‘Em All on the VCR.
I don’t know if you’re aware your book came out forty-one years to the day of Dave Mustaine’s final gig with Metallica on April 9, 1983. Ultimately, I think the personnel change was positive because we got Megadeth as a result, and an entertaining decades-long rivalry. As a guitar player yourself, do you have a preference between Dave and his replacement, Kirk Hammet? And how do you feel about wah pedals?
Ha! I had no idea when Mustaine’s last gig with them was, but I’m glad it was the book’s pub date. I like both of those guitar players. To me, choosing one would be like preferring a Phillips-head screwdriver to a flathead–depends on what you need it for. I like wah pedals for weird noise and tone purposes. It’s hard to make that effect sound new, or make it serve the song, so I have a lot of respect for folks who don’t just wacka-wacka with it. Sometimes you just have to put the wah away, step away from the wah.
You mentioned The Satanic Panic of the ‘80s. For me, growing up in the northeast, listening to metal and adopting the image drew some stares and occasional comments about devil worship. What was it like in Mississippi during that time? In my mind, your area is a lot more conservative, religious, and generally up in everyone else’s business. You’re not far from Arkansas where, in 1994 (the same year CLIFF BURTON RULES takes place) the West Memphis Three were convicted of murdering three little kids in a satanic ritual, the only evidence against them being the heavy metal they listened to.
Yes, the West Memphis Three stuff happened about an hour-and-a-half from me. My friends and I could’ve been those three metal kids who were wrongly convicted, the victims of satanic panic mixed with shoddy police work. Down here, wearing the metal shirts and growing out your hair made people scared of you, a kind of protection against bullying. It also made you a target for police, though, since they assumed you had drugs.
Did you have drugs?
Me? No sir, officer.
Have you watched season 4 of Stranger Things? The Satanic Panic played a big part in the plot (I read that the character of Eddie Munson was based on Damien Echols of the WM3), not only with metal but Dungeons & Dragons, which has also made its way into your stories. Did you play a lot of D&D as a kid?
Yes, I’ve seen all the Stranger Things episodes. I didn’t know anyone that played D&D until I was fifteen or so. When I was young, I thought I was too cool for it, like D&D players were nerds and I wasn’t, but I got into it during the 2020-21 leg of the COVID pandemic, playing on Zoom with old friends. We played every week, sometimes twice a week, for over a year.
Have you ever played a record backwards?
As much as I’ve always wanted to, no. Is there still time? Any particular ones I should try first?
It’s never too late to get possessed by the devil.
What was the first guitar and amp you owned? What do you use now?
The guitar and amp were both Peaveys, made in Mississippi. Now I’ve got a Fender Vibrolux as a main amp, and too many guitars. But I use them all, so it’s not an addiction, right?
Do you remember the first metal riff you learned?
It was probably “Seek and Destroy.”
Do you recall the name of your first band?
High Voltage. We liked AC/DC but couldn’t figure out a way to sound like them. We would write songs and record them live on a jambox, with whoever was singing standing close to the built-in mic so we could hear the lyrics.
Did you have a favorite band t-shirt growing up?
I always loved those Pushead Metallica shirts but sadly never owned one. My mom and stepdad wouldn’t have let me wear something like that and would’ve freaked out, exactly why I wanted one.
So your mom and stepdad weren’t supportive of your evil musical tastes. Did they forbid you from going to concerts or buying certain albums? Did they send you to a de-metaling program like in The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years? Have you seen that doc?
I definitely rented that movie from the video store back in the day. No one put me through a de-metaling program, but those scams were widely available where I lived. And talking about childhood, let me put it this way: it was clear that things would go more smoothly if I listened to the heavier cassette tapes only on my Walkman.
Seeing as you avoided t-shirts, would I be correct to assume you didn’t hang posters of metal bands in your room? What did teenage Max’s room look like?
Correct. Posters and thumbtacks weren’t allowed. My room looked like the waiting room for a doctor’s office.
What was your first concert?
Metallica – June 16, 1992 at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson, MS. We were all fifteen. We had brainwashed ourselves for years leading up to that moment, with Cliff ‘Em All and the first four albums, so there was no way for the show to disappoint us. But I didn’t love the Black Album. They opened with “Enter Sandman,” their huge hit, and got it out of the way, which seemed like a middle finger to the new fans, the bandwagoners, and a nod to us real fans. It said to them, “Okay, you lames can leave now.” I’m pretty sure they play that one later in the set these days.
I saw them on that tour as well. I think they opened with “Creeping Death” that night, but I’m not 100% sure. I’ve spent thirty-plus years trying to ignore “Sandman.” It really is a most awful song, by any standard. They’ve certainly managed to top its horribleness with each new release, but nothing else has become so virulent. “Sandman” has become a “Smoke on the Water” type song. It’s decent fodder only if you’re just starting to learn guitar.
Not including the first four, what was the last Metallica album you listened to, or tried to? If any. And if so, were there any tracks you thought were okay enough?
I listened to the one that had “Hardwired” on it. That song was decent because it was three minutes long. By my count, that album had four decent songs on it, but I remember most of them were too long. Their ’80s songs were long too but never felt like it, you know?
Being a Cliff fan, what are your thoughts on Robert Trujillo occupying his spot for the last twenty years? Is he a good fit? Does it even matter at this point?
It all matters! I always think of him replacing Newsted not Cliff, but I can see how people might not accept him playing Cliff’s songs the same way they probably didn’t accept Newsted. Trujillo was on those thrashy Suicidal Tendencies albums and I discovered them when I saw the “You Can’t Bring Me Down” video on Headbanger’s Ball. I watched him play live with Ozzy’s band at an Ozzfest in 1998 (with Mike Bordin from Faith No More on drums!) and loved it. In Some Kind of Monster, when they’re auditioning bass players, he’s the best one by far. I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic to know that, yes, I accept him.
I met Trujillo a long time ago. One of my bands was recording at a studio in California and on the second or third day the engineer goes, “You guys know Rob Trujillo?” Of course I’m like, Fuck yeah, I know who he is, and the engineer all nonchalantly tells me he’s recording some solo stuff in the next room. So I kept sticking my head out into the hall and eventually got to talk with him a bit and hear what he was doing. I want to say it was Mass Mental stuff but I’m not sure. I think he was also still playing for Ozzy at that point. About a year later he joined Metallica. I’m not leading into a question with this. Actually, yes, I am. While on the subject of Rob, are you aware he and Mike Bordin (Faith No More) re-recorded bass and drum tracks on the first two Ozzy albums? I think it was because Sharon Osbourne no longer wanted to pay royalties to Bob Daisley, who I believe wrote many of those songs with Randy Rhodes and Lee Kerslake. Rob and Mike have stated they were not aware of what the session was for until they arrived, and that since they were employed by Sharon and Ozzy they did what they were told. How do you feel about musicians doing that sort of thing?
That’s a cool Trujillo story–I’ve never met any metal guys. I’m aware of the shenanigans with the Randy Rhodes records. I’ve got no moral objection to it, I guess, though I’d rather hear the originals. I hope they’ve come to their senses and restored them back to the first version by now.
How old were you when you heard about Ozzy biting the head off of a bat during a concert in 1982? What was your take on it at the time?
My sister probably told me about that when he was touring in the 1980s. To me, this made him clearly evil, somebody who struck fear and awe and was outside of the norm. I think it’s hard to express how news of that event (dove or bat) spread throughout popular culture, via word of mouth, for years. Even if it wasn’t true, everybody spread the legend because it was a good story.
What was the last metal concert you went to? Not including one you played.
Last metal concert was Mr. Bungle at the Tabernacle in Atlanta in May 2024. This is wildly appropriate for our interview because Dave Lombardo (Slayer) was playing drums and Scott Ian (Anthrax) was playing second guitar for them.
I did catch wind of that lineup on social media. Lombardo was in Dead Cross with Mike Patton, so I wasn’t as surprised to see him as I was Ian. Good show? Did they throw in any Slayer or Anthrax covers?
They played the intro to “Hell Awaits” and reworked an S.O.D. song into “Speak Spanish or Die.” They also covered some pop hits like “I’m Not in Love,” “True,” and “Hopelessly Devoted to You” to break up the fast and heavy onslaught. Mike Patton can sing anything.
Do you like Faith No More? They’re a band Metallica introduced me to, simply because Hetfield wore one of their t-shirts in some pics. It wasn’t until later that I learned Jim Martin and Cliff Burton had been in EZ-Street together.
Never heard EZ-Street, but I think I remember that either Kirk Hammet or Les Claypool, or both, went to high school with Jim Martin (I refuse to google this). I definitely like the Jim Martin Faith No More albums. Nobody sounds like that guy, the way he layers the guitar parts until it sounds enormous. That’s a heavy picking hand downstroking the crap out of everything, and he really shines on The Real Thing. “Woodpecker from Mars” and “Zombie Eaters” and “Surprise! You’re Dead!” I mean, c’mon.
I know Kirk asked Les to audition for Metallica when Cliff died. It’s hard to imagine that lineup now, but he might have been a good fit considering his work with Blind Illusion. I believe Hetfield thought he was too weird.
It’s hard to imagine him taking a backseat in another band. He strikes me as a guy with a lot of musical ideas and opinions that would probably go unheard in twenty-first century Metallica.
Care to give us a Top 10 list of metal bands? Or metal albums, since a lot of those bands have sucked for decades?
This list is somewhat arbitrary and will probably change tomorrow, but if I were to pick ten favorite metal albums today:
Metallica – Ride the Lightning, Motörhead – Overkill, Judas Priest – Sad Wings of Destiny, Deep Purple – In Rock, Iron Maiden – Killers, Melvins – Bullhead, Slayer – Reign in Blood, dead horse – Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers, Saint Vitus – Saint Vitus, Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath.
The newest album on this list is from 1991. Wow. But I think that has more to do with the way metal albums are recorded today, everything too upfront in the mix.
I wouldn’t have expected to see Bullhead on a list of favorite metal albums, but it makes sense. I think my brain automatically places Melvins in the “alternative” category, which is unfortunate, in a way. This makes me think of something Sammy says in CLIFF BURTON RULES, about Nirvana, or, more specifically, Cobain–that he’s lame. Is that purely for the story, or does Sammy’s opinion reflect your personal feelings?
Melvins are weird and punk rock but also metal, I’d say. They have so many albums (they’ve been going for forty years now) that my brain only vaguely associates them with Cobain or “grunge” or “alternative” anymore. I actually like Nirvana. Sammy is a zealot who craves metal purity. You might say he’s a metal supremacist.
But I thought Nirvana was great when they came out. They exploded in the media about the same time Metallica did and suddenly you had all these aggressive guitar sounds on MTV and the radio. Because Cobain name-dropped a bunch of punk and noise bands in his interviews, I was able to find a bunch of bands I still love. He did a lot of good for the musicians who shaped him.
Are there any bands from that “alternative” era you didn’t like, and have since found an appreciation for?
Melvins, Mudhoney, and Screaming Trees sound even better to me now than they did back then. They’re much more interesting than some of the more popular bands of the era.
You mention Maiden’s Killers in your Top 10. Does that mean you prefer Paul Di’Anno’s vocals to Bruce Dickenson’s?
Even though Di’Anno died just before I could answer this question, I prefer Bruce. I think I like the weird, jerky arrangements on the early Iron Maiden records.
Have you heard the song “Bruce, Eddie and Paul” by NOFX?
I’ve never heard the song. I’m not generally a fan of NOFX, but I’m glad they like Iron Maiden.
Do you care to rank the “Big 4”: Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth? Is there a band you would personally swap out for another?
1. Slayer, 2. Metallica, 3. Anthrax, 4. Megadeth. No, I’ll keep the Big Four like they are. Slayer is the only one that’s made a listenable album in the last ten years, which is why I rank them first even though they’re officially retired now.
I think Slayer is back. I saw something on social media about it. That the reunion was a big secret. Kerry King even kept it from his new band. Which Slayer album are you referring to?
Repentless is the Slayer album I’m talking about, the only one they’ve put out since Jeff Henneman died. It has some of his last riffs on it, so they say. Gary Holt is on that album too, so that’s very cool.
Speaking of Kerry King, his new album is fast and aggressive in a different way than Slayer. Some of the songs feel closer to punk/hardcore. I’ve only listened once, but I liked it.
When we talk about Metallica’s best albums we refer to them as the “first four” but I just remembered how much I love The $5.98 E.P. – Garage Days Re-Revisited. I love those covers. That album introduced me to some classic bands I was unaware of until then. Idk if there’s a question here. I guess I’m wondering how that album ranks with you.
It ranks pretty high with me too. Metallica is the reason I knew anything about those bands and I loved those songs as much as I loved the ’80s Metallica songs. They made those songs their own, didn’t just try to make a faithful version, that’s why it’s so great. I bet that E.P. helped Killing Joke, Diamond Head, The Misfits, Holocaust, and Budgie stay afloat. They’re another band who helped out the artists they drew from.
How did you feel about softer metal bands like Poison, Mötley Crüe, and Ratt? I recall something someone from Slayer said, maybe Kerry King (or maybe someone from Exodus), about how, back in the day, they’d make fun of anyone they saw wearing a Ratt shirt but secretly geeked out over Warren DiMartini’s guitar skills.
I’m not going to pretend I was cool in any way about music. Nobody’s older brother lent me his cool record collection and my only way to find out about these things in the ’80s was the radio and MTV, and they seemed completely taken over by hair metal. When I was a kid, I loved those bands. Mötley Crüe’s “Looks That Kill” video on MTV really sucked me in. Mick Mars’ guitar tone got me, and how they looked like extras from Road Warrior, a movie I loved. And of course the flaming pentagram.
Crüe is just one of a few metal bands I have seen criticized for using pre-recorded tracks during concerts in recent years. Do you have feelings on that practice in metal?
It’s pretty lame, but I’m not too worked up about it.
What metal bands could you never get into?
I could never get into Ghost or Slipknot. Other metal people seem to love them.
I’m with you on Ghost and Slipknot. Mastodon is the only “new” metal band that comes to mind that I’ve enjoyed in my old age. But I can only take so much.
Yes! It feels like I’ve reached capacity for heavy bands I can care about. Or maybe to put it another way, I’ll never love the new bands like I loved the ones I was listening to when I was fifteen, meaning I won’t sit with a new band’s lyric sheet and listen on headphones and memorize things. I don’t know if giving bands that kind of attention is a universal experience, or what.
Are you aware of all the different products ‘80s thrash bands have been putting their names on these days? Hot sauce, beer, and coffee seem to be favorites. Charlie Benante and Dave Ellefson had their own brand of coffee. Chuck Billy sells weed or weed paraphernalia. Even Metallica lent their name to BLACKENED whiskey, which seemed a little odd considering Hetfield’s well-documented alcoholism.
I missed all that. The merch table must look like a CVS.
What are you listening to these days? What’s currently in your Spotify mix, CD player or whatever you use? And how do you prefer listening to music? Do you miss the days of physical copies and album artwork?
Oh man, my listening habits are scattershot. Most of the new things I’ve been listening to I’ve bought from bands I’ve seen live recently, like Bark, Chat Pile, Hartle Road, The Drip Edges, Future Fix, The Guiding Light, MSSV. Then there’s the old stuff that never gets old for me. I’ve got too many LPs, CDs, and cassettes. I create playlists on Spotify and then don’t listen to them, like the act of creating playlists soothes me somehow.
I think you talked about this in another interview, but do you care to tell what you’re doing musically now? I know you’ve got several projects going. I love the E-Meters, by the way.
Thanks for digging E-meters. We’re recording a second album right now, slowly, and we’ve got basic drum tracks and are adding things. Tyler Keith & The Apostles released an album two years ago that I’m still proud of. I play guitar with friends pretty regularly. At this point, playing music feels like a spiritual practice. There’s no end goal for it–just making the thing. If you don’t make things, nothing new happens.
Did you recently tour with Tyler, or have a string of shows? How did you end up playing with him?
Not super recent. We did a string of midwestern dates in summer of ’23, and we regularly play Memphis. My band opened for his band back in 2010. I said, “I want to sit in on a song with you guys.” He said, “Why don’t you just sit in on the whole set?” and I’ve been sitting in on the whole set ever since. He’s a great friend and also a fine writer who has a novel out on the same “book label” as my story collection. He’s written more great rock and roll songs than anyone I know.
Who are your major influences when it comes to playing guitar? Are there any current players you’re into?
I wish I could say the influences were really obscure and cool, but they’re the most basic ones. Jimi Hendrix, Tony Iommi, Angus Young. They’re the foundation and they still sound great to me. Then, of course, Hetfield. Some other layers I’ve added would include Link Wray, Neil Young, Lou Reed, Greg Ginn, Bob Mould, Greg Sage, Robert Quine, Fast Eddie Clarke, Wayne Kramer, and Ron Asheton. This may sound weird, but I don’t really care about guitar players apart from how they serve the songs. If the songs are crappy, not even the best guitar player can save them.
If you could catch a golden era show of any metal band, who would it be?
This may come as a shock to anyone who has read this entire interview, but it would be Metallica on the Master of Puppets tour, early 1986.
If you could punch one musician, living or dead, in the face, who would it be?
Hmm…maybe Kid Rock? P. Diddy? There are probably others who need punching more than they do. I’ll keep thinking about it, though I’d probably be the last guy to punch musicians.
Which Anthrax singer do you prefer?
Joey Belladonna, no contest. The guy on the first album ain’t bad either.
John Bush doesn’t do it for you? What about his main band, Armored Saint? Did you know Bush was asked to sing for Metallica before Hetfield officially took on lead vocals?
I’d heard that about Bush and Metallica. Armored Saint never did much for me and I notice that Anthrax doesn’t play anything from his era live now, which I think is a good call.
Do you have a favorite Anthrax album?
My answer is probably the same as everyone else’s: Among the Living. It’s got so many great ones, it’s undeniable. I dare you to come up with one you like better.
I cannot. Among the Living is the correct answer. 1986 was a great year for thrash.
During the course of this interview, original Anthrax bassist, Dan Lilker (Nuclear Assault, S.O.D., Brutal Truth, Venomous Concept) began filling in for Frank Bello on the band’s South American tour. I read an interview where Lilker stated, “When we parted ways back in 1984, they told me to stick around because they might need me in 40 years.”
Hahaha! That guy is great.
Does Overkill rank for you? I’m from Jersey so they were a big deal for me. Anthrax too, as they were just across the river. And of course Dan Spitz was in both bands.
I missed out on Overkill when I was a kid because none of my friends were listening to them. Maybe it’s because they weren’t on a big label at first and didn’t have as wide of a distribution as Elektra, Capital, etc.? I still haven’t listened to them much. Is it too late? Where should I start?
It’s probably too late. But I think Years of Decay is their Master of Puppets, so to speak. There are arguably better songs on other albums, but I think the lineup and production on that one puts it up there for me. D.D. Verni has a good bass sound and Bobby Gustafson’s riffs and solos seem underrated to me. I don’t think Gustafson stuck around much longer after that album.
Well, through the magic of the internet, I’ve just checked that one out and have to agree with you on all counts. They are swinging for the fences, trying to push the genre forward the same way Justice and South of Heaven did just ahead of this album. They’ve got peaks and valleys and they’ve got speed but also a few Sabbathian jams, like “Playing with Spiders/Skullkrusher.” I’m a sucker for any song called Skullkrusher.
Did you get to see Overkill live a bunch? I can imagine some intense mosh pits. Seems like Prong should’ve opened for them.
I did see Overkill. They played this small club in Newark called Studio One in the ‘90’s a couple times. Studio One was a great place to have. It was about thirty minutes from where I lived and a lot metal bands played there: Mercyful Fate, Nuclear Assault, Brutal Truth, Testament, Machine Head, Obituary, Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse, Sepultura, Voivod, Type O Negative, GWAR, Newsted’s pre-Metallica band, Flotsam and Jetsam, and yes, Prong too, though I can’t recall if they were on the Overkill shows. Overkill was a great live band. I know they’re still kicking around but I haven’t listened to anything new in about a decade. I understand the lineup has gone through a lot of changes.
Favorite Megadeth album?
It’s hard to decide between Peace Sells and Rust in Peace. For the purposes of this interview, I’ll say Rust in Peace because the video for “Holy Wars” hooked me. That’s the first album I heard by them. There’s something about the first album you hear by a band when you’re thirteen–somehow it sticks with you.
What is the most metal animal?
A crow. Or a sloth.
Would you tell us about your cat?
My black cat is named Brutus and she’s almost eighteen. When I got her, she was the meanest cat I’d ever met and would attack people even though she weighed six pounds. I’ve seen her punch babies and small children when cornered. She makes so much eye contact it’s uncomfortable. She pukes more than she used to, so that’s pretty metal.
So, you have a book out. It seems like the response to WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU OPENS YOUR HEART has been good. I’ve seen it pop up in my social media quite a bit, always with complimentary words. Are you working on anything now? Anything we can expect in the near future?
I have a long W.I.P. document of short stories that needs attention, and I’ve started sending stuff out again. Also, there’s a short, mean novel that I’ll use to antagonize agents very soon. And I’ve started a second novel.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me for Farewell Transmission. Is there anything you’d like to add before ending this?
I appreciate it! Nothing much to add besides long live all the great readers and listeners out there. Shout out to the good people everywhere. Drop me a line: @maxissippi on IG and bluesky
Max Hipp is a teacher, writer, and musician from Mississippi. His work has appeared in, among others, Southern Humanities Review, Cheap Pop, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Black Warrior Review. He teaches literature and creative writing. He’s currently doing some book touring with help from the Mississippi Arts Commission.
From Cool Dog Sound: The characters in Max Hipp’s debut story collection howl with loneliness. They’ve reached the ends of their coping mechanisms and bank accounts and are making terrible life choices and trying to recover in the wake of them. We’ve got folks who can’t let go of the past, folks obsessed with sex and music, lovers stuck in dismal relationships, and clueless romantics who probably need their asses whipped. Heartbreak piles up like car crashes in the fog, and everybody just has to carry on like everything’s fine. These stories keep hitting the funny/sad notes, and with his scalpel-tip sentences, Hipp marches readers through the wringer, with great compassion for the lost and searching.
