EDDIE TRUNK DISCUSSES SEASON 13 OF “THAT METAL SHOW”
Joe Daly of The Weeklings spoke with our very own Eddie Trunk. Portions of the interview appear below.
The Weeklings: This season is number lucky thirteen for That Metal Show– what have you got in store?
Eddie We’ve had three episodes already and this weekend we’ve got Ted Nugent on for the full hour. The biggest difference is that for the first time ever, we’re doing the episodes on a weekly basis. We used to fly out to L.A. and do two shows a day, which VH1 would then roll them out over the course of a couple of months. Now we’re taping every Tuesday night and people are seeing them that Saturday, so they’re very fresh to air. The other big difference is that we’re doing it in New York City, where we started.
The Weeklings: The last time that we spoke, you had begun pushing the show’s boundaries past pure metal, into other areas like rock and alternative. What’s the plan for this season?
Eddie: The big thing is that we’re now really all over the map. At its core, the show is still a classic rock, hard rock and metal show but there’s a lot of variation going on now. We have this segment that we call Metal Modem where we have the artists in via Skype and we talk to them for a few minutes. In those segments we’ve had Amon Amarth, Halestorm and Ben from Dillinger Escape Plan–artists who we wouldn’t necessarily have sitting on the set with us the whole time because they might be a little bit newer or outside of the world that the channel focuses on, but we’re able to give these artists a platform and that’s been a good thing.
The Weeklings: What sort of non-metal guests might we expect this season?
Eddie: We’ve got this one thing that just came together where we do a full-on classic rock episode where we’re going to have Leslie West (Mountain) and we’re going to have Mick Jones from Foreigner. In this week’s show, we have Alter Bridge, and we also have a guy by the name of Matt Nathanson, who is not a metal artist at all—he’s a singer/songwriter whose connection is that he’s a huge metal fan and we found out about him because he performed on Jay Leno wearing a That Metal Show t-shirt. So he got on our radar and VH1 Classic approached us and asked if we’d have this guy on because even though he doesn’t play metal, he’s such a fan of it and of the show that it would be fun to do, so we’re spreading out for sure and taking some chances. We’re even having some non-musicians on, like Morgan Spurlock and some comedians who are fans of the music.
The Weeklings: I know that this is always a popular question for you, but with each season you seem to scratch a few names off, so who’s left on your hit list of guests you’d love to have on That Metal Show but who haven’t appeared yet? Who’s your top five?
Eddie: Wow. So many. Well, Eddie Van Halen would be one. I only interviewed him once, around the time of Van Halen III, and it was on the radio, and I’d love to really get into an in-depth discussion with him. Of course, we ask every season and they pass every season because he doesn’t want to do press. Another guy that’s heavily-requested is James Hetfield. He’s come up to me personally and said that he loves the show and he watches it and he feels that it’s important, but he’s not personally that comfortable about doing a TV interview. We’ve had Lars (Ulrich) on twice and we’ve had Kirk Hammett on, and he kind of leaves it to those guys to do that sort of stuff for the band. We’d love to have Ozzy, but Sharon (Osbourne, his wife and manager), won’t let him do it. We’d love to have Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley from KISS, but they won’t do it because they don’t like me or us or things that we say, so instead of coming on and debating and discussing it with us, they just choose not to come on. Those are the top guys.
The Weeklings: Of all the up-and-coming acts, what’s the best album you’ve heard in recent memory?
Eddie: Well, the band that comes right off the top of my head is a band from Texas called Scorpion Child. I recommended them a couple weeks ago on the show. Very big riff-based hard rock and great vocals, and those are the things I really like.
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