Vince Guests on the Latest Episode of Doc Coyle’s The Ex-Man Podcast!
The history of this website is inextricably linked with that of Doc Coyle, former guitarist of God Forbid, current guitarist of Bad Wolves and proprietor of The Ex-Man Podcast. Doc granted us one of our first interviews back in early 2008; I’ll never forget the nervous anticipation of meeting up with him, a member of one of the bands that inspired us to create MetalSucks, in the lobby of Irving Plaza. He was friendly, humble and gave us the time of day, even though we were no one at that point.
A couple of weeks later, my phone rang while I was at my then-day job. “Hey, this is Dallas from God Forbid,” said the man on the other end of the line, Doc’s brother, as I tried to keep my cool and contain my excitement. Dallas would pitch me what would go on to become his regular MetalSucks column The Hard R. It would run nearly weekly for over two years, giving us instant validation and a whole lot of attention for the controversy it stirred.
Before God Forbid released Earthsblood in 2009, Dallas came over to my apartment in Bed-Stuy and blasted it for me late into a cold winter night. After God Forbid broke up Doc became a fixture in the NYC metal scene, hanging out at shows, slinging drinks at Duff’s and generally being the all-around swell fella that he is. Doc would become a prolific MetalSucks author, too, first penning an editorial-based column and then a weekly NBA commentary called Hoop Logic. Later he’d go on to write for VH1 and other outlets, launch The Ex-Man Podcast (which is in the same network, Jabberjaw Media, as The MetalSucks Podcast) and join Bad Wolves. You know the rest. Come to think of it, there really hasn’t ever been a time in the existence of MetalSucks where Doc has not been in some way a part of it.
All that is a very long-winded way of saying I’m extremely grateful for everything Doc has done for me and this site, so it was a true honor to be the featured guest on this week’s episode of The Ex-Man. We spoke about my pre-MetalSucks career at Atlantic Records and other music industry gigs, how the idea for MetalSucks first came to be, where the confrontational and unapologetic tone of the site comes from, the divisiveness and negativity in the metal scene, the site’s evolution to become more outspoken politically and how it’s affected the audience, and a bit of a healthy debate about politics. Check it out here or stream below!
