Fear, Emptiness, Decibel: Tom G. Warrior Dominates the May Issue

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

There’s a lot of Tom G. Warrior in the new Decibel: We inducted Cold Lake in the Hall of Fame and compiled our top 30 extremely extreme beanies. Just kidding! MEGALULZ! For real, the one-man Swiss army does show up in both the HOF (Celtic Frost’s long overdue To Mega Therion) and the cover story on our Top 30 Greatest Extreme Vocalists of All Time (we’re not giving away exactly where he places, but as you can tell from the fine print above, he’s in some pretty extraordinary company).

First, that Hall of Fame. We already did our part and inducted Morbid Tales way back in the DEFTONES issue (great cover story, guys!), but that was just an EP. A metal HOF without a long-form Celtic Frost album? Ahem. The big obstacle was tracking down TMT bassist Dominic Steiner, who has refrained from publicly discussing his stint in Celtic Frost over the last 30 years. After a little sleuthing, we got in touch with Oliver Amberg, who played on the notorious Cold Lake, and also performed in the band Junk Food with Steiner. I’s were dotted, t’s were crossed, and finally, you get the authoritative inside scoop on the stone-cold classic that wrought “The Usurper,” “Circle of the Tyrants” and “Dawn of Megiddo.” Our only wish is that H.R. Giger were still with us for a sidebar about that incredible album cover.

As for the cover story, we figured we’d banged out so many fucking lists over 11 years, it was kind of odd to not pay tribute to our favorite vo-kill-ists. We played a bit loose and fast with the criteria—classic frontmen like Ozzy, Halford and Bruce-Bruce were taken out at the start because this time we really mean it when we say extreme vocalists. As our editor-in-chief put it, “Everyone [in this list] is purging some kind of demon, whereas those dudes just sung about them.” So, the whole staff got together, threatened to visit great violence upon one another, and begrudgingly came up with this totally unimpeachable list of 30, not to mention the five most ridiculous extreme lyricists of all time and the five most visually extreme vocalists. Slither on over to the store  for all that, 2015 MLB and MDF previews, and a brand-spanking-new Choosing Death excerpt.