GENE HOGLAN
Strapping Young Lad

Dark Angel. Slayer. Death. Testament. Stapping Young Lad. Old Man's Child.Daemon. There aren’t too many people who can claim to have played in so many bands as the mighty Gene “Caffeine Machine” Hoglan, who talks as fast as he drums!

-Shan Siva

Gene: Man, we just got off the road in the US with Nile, Napalm Death, The Berzerker, Dark Tranquility and it was amaaaaazing, totally crazy shows. Especially The Berzerker who had this crazy kick drum sampler and this fuckin little shredder of a guitarist - man, I don’t think I’d care to repeat what those guys are playing ha ha - they’re totally into what they’re doing! It was great to see a buncha people who’d come out to see us as “SYL” is the first thing we’ve released since 1997. I guess it just wasn’t time for a Strapping album, Devan was into doing other things but right now, if the world is gonna end then here I am, surrounded by all my bros so why not make a Strapping Young Lad album ha ha!

Hmm, what is actually going on in Devan’s head? I’m thinking of a washing machine right now...
Gene: Ha ha, now there’s a question! Well, there’s a big pile of stuff going on in there at all times so its kinda like your washing machine, so yeah you’re right ha ha. On ‘SYL' though Devan enlisted the whole band as we didn’t want to repeat “City…”, which is an album that I worship, and so “SYL” pretty much encapsulates the whole band’s thoughts.

And what are those thoughts?
Gene: Heavy duty metal! People constantly try to lump us into a category which I’m glad your review didn’t. We’re just a band that wanted to make a decent metal record, that’s all. I think it’s a very intense album, and a very live album because there isn’t too much computer fuffling. We all rehearsed really hard and I practiced for a month before laying down my tracks, I wanted it to be me on that record and me live. Same with Devan, he wrote vocal lines that he could repeat easily live.

Are you just a buncha luddites, saying a big fuck you to all the technology and proving that people can be better than machines?
Gene: Sure, exactly. That’s a good point man, that’s really the way I felt - we’ll be the drum machine! I’ve always equated how we play to running a marathon and screaming!!

Just how do you manage to play with such intensity for so long?
Gene: Y’know, I get a check up once a year or so and my doctors are amazed that my heart is in such good shape given how I look. They’re like ‘dude, you have the blood pressure of a 25 year old, healthy kid!!’ and I’m this 35 year old sloth ha ha! And they’re like ‘but you should have had a heart attack by now, what do you do for a living?’ and I tell em its the drums and that’s why I play such aerobic stuff - it keeps me alive. If I was playing some other kinda shit I would be dead now because my body is falling apart on the inside man, too much booze and those oki dogs you’re so fond of ha ha! I’m glad that I rehearse 3 times a day with 3 different aggro metal bands. Otherwise I’d be sitting on some couch ballooning up to 400lbs. Right now I’m 350lbs but I can go down to 300. I think the lowest I’ve ever been was 267lb in 1994 and that was when I was in Death and I was working out with Fat Free - man, people thought I had AIDS or something!

Were you trained formally?
Gene: I’m self taught but I’d love to take lessons - I almost wish I did at times ha ha! I’m pretty well rounded and can play different styles but I only ever get enlisted for super douper metal. I’ve always believed that playing drums at any speed for anyone is 90% mental and 10% physical - if you tell yourself you can do it you will. Look at me, I don’t run 20 miles a day or lift weights. I come up with most drum beats in my head and then my feet and hands just follow. Thats how I learned drums, by working out the beats to Rush songs and then playing on an air drum kit until I got a real kit in 1980. My style requires a very limited range of motion: I only use my wrists and ankles. Thats why I look so relaxed despite the dugggaaaduggaa beats that I put out ha ha! I guess the real secret is that I hit like a motherfucker, so what some guy hits using his whole arm I can do with my wrist! It was bands like Exciter, Anvil and Raven that inspired me to play faster. The double bass came from especially Accept and Rainbow, with those Cozy Powells beats. And then it just went on from there with the European bands like Killer, Acid etc

So what made you become a musician?
Gene: When I was going up I was always into music and especially rock n roll. From the age of 9 or so I knew that I wanted to be a drummer. I read an interview with Peter Criss (Kiss) where he told his family that he was gonna be a rock star and play Madison Square Garden and right after that I walked out to my parents and told them exactly the same thing. I owe a lot to my sister Lisa because I would listen to all her records and when she went for a concert our mom would make her take me as well. My first concert was Queen and Thin Lizzy in 1977. As we started to go to rock clubs we got to know the whole LA rock scene, people that would become the Ratts, Great Whites and Dokkens of the 80s. Hell, Jack Russell had just got out of prison for murder! At the time it was all underground of course so all these bands including WASP were heavy. Metallica, at the time were really bad - fast but stinky cos they couldn’t really play ha ha! I also began seeing this band called Dark Angel and this was a few drummers before Jack (Schwartz), whose drumkit I actually auditioned on to replace him in band and then I told him I was gonna replace him and six months later I did! That’s one thing people outside LA forget, that LA did have a thrash scene - about 30 diehard heavy dudes - in complete contrast to all that gay shit that going on. In fact, it was the hairspray scene that gave the thrash scene impetus to play heavier and faster because we’d all be going “fuck you!!!” to bands like Winger!!. The Bay Area also started off at the same time but they didn’t have hairspray and their underground was about 200 people. So people - actually it was about 10 of us who were super hard core including Katon from Hirax who like me was a big tape trader - would travel up to the Bay Area to see bands like Exodus, Possessed and Megadeth, when Kerry was with them wearing his “Paid Assassin” t-shirt ha ha! Those were the magic days of Ruthies where we saw Slayer at their second show headlining over Possessed. When I was 15 I was doing lights for Slayer, Dark Angel, Savage Grace....ha ha, you remember them huh? Well, I’m the executioner on the cover of their 3rd album “After The Fall From Grace” ha ha!

But LA isn’t remembered for its thrash scene today...
Gene: I think a problem with a lotta the LA bands was that they didn’t do much. Abbatoir, Holy Terror, they all released good albums but they didn’t do much and were more popular outside of LA.

You’re probably one of the top drummers in metal, so where do you see your career heading?
Gene: As far as a career goes I’d love to be known as a session drummer - “you need a drummer? Go to Gene” ha ha. I love these session guys like Tommy Aldridge, Cozy Powell and Dean Castronovo (Wild Dogs) who’s a super session guy who’s played with Bad English, Ozzy, and Steve Vai. He was like the Shrapnel house guy and I worship him.

Ok, so take us thru your career with some of the bands you’ve played with.
Gene: well, you already know that I used to roadie for Slayer and physically hold Dave (Lombardo’s) double bass drums in place while he was drumming! But Testament was extra cash. I wasn’t even familiar with their music and to me it was corporate thrash. Legacy was underground but Testament was five good-looking dudes playing safe metal and that’s not what I’m into. I like bands like Possessed who for a while were the deadliest band on the planet.

Daemon reminded me of that ferociousness that Possessed used to be about!
Gene: yeah, doesn’t it!? I got a call from Anders - this was while I was doing the Testament thing - saying “hey man, I’ve been writing this crazy record and I’ve got your drums in mind - would you be interested?” and I asked him to send me a disc. When it arrived I was like “hell yeah, I’ll play all over this!!” ha ha! So I went out to Denmark, laid out my tracks in 2-3 days and Anders was a pretty cool guy. At the time he had this huge bulldog called Enzo so it was fun to hang out in Copenhagen ha ha.

How was your stint in Death?
Gene: I have to say that my last 10 days in Death were really rough. Me and Chuck were at each others throats but then we saw each other a few years later and it was all water under the bridge. We both played at the Dynamo the year you were there, saw each other for about 2 minutes, and that was the last time I saw him until I heard he was ill. We put together a benefit gig in Vancouver thinking all the time that he would pull through. It was tragic. He was loved so much by his mom Jane and I truly feel for her, she’s a great lady.

I never sadly got to interview Chuck so what was he like?
Gene: I’ve been on both sides of Chuck. He was a pretty eccentric guy but playing with him was actually easy. He’d just say “ok, just go nuts” and he was an excellent cook and made me lose weight.

So did you know him in the early days?
Gene: yeah, he was part of the whole tape trading scene that I mentioned and we’d write and send tapes to each other. Through Dark Angel and Death we became pals, simply because we were so into metal as kids and would talk about it. We also squabbled but then I ended up joining Death, which surprised a lotta people as they thought we hated each other. I did 3 years with Death which were great and those last 10 days were strange and really depressing. Two weeks before the band had broken up with Chuck saying he was fed up of labels and the industry. I felt really bad for the guy because this was the dream he built up and now it was falling apart.

What happened to the Dark Angel reunion?
Gene: It happened around summertime 2002 when I got a call from Jim (Durkin - DA guitarist #1) who asked me if I had a coupla weeks in Dec to do 5 shows on the West Coast. I agreed and then started working on the “SYL” album but it was already falling apart and from there became a silly political war between Eric (Meyer - DA guitarist #2) and Jim. I remember saying to Jim “lets make sure its fun, so lets make sure that you and Eric have all your squabbling outta the way cos if its not gonna be fun, lets not do it“. After that I just said “dude, get your shit together and let me know” because these things take a lotta work and that’s something that we never realised when we were in Dark Angel. We were spoiled muthafuckers man. We had managers, labels and all these people taking care of us but when I joined Devan I realised that to make things work at grass roots level you gotta have a work.ethic. I haven’t had a job in 15 years and when we started at the bottom it was hard dude. I have a very spartan lifestyle and I don’t spend money on anything, just the rent and gas in my car.

Dark Angel seemed to end abruptly on the brink of making it big.
Gene: on Sept 5th 1992 Ron (Rheinhart - DA vocalist) came to rehearsal - and it had taken us 10 months to get out of our deal with Combat / Relativity - while we were jamming, set down a bag full of tapes and lyric sheets that I’d given him and walked off. I remember thinking “that’s kinda odd” so I called him and he said he couldn’t take the industry anymore. He loved the band and he loved us but he couldn’t take it anymore so he quit. Well, a coupla months ago I found out the real reason he quit which was at the time he was into some heavy duty shit and we pretty much got a death threat levelled at the band like “we’re gonna come to any one of your shows and take all you guys out“. They were after anything and anyone that Ron knew and that was why Ron disappeared for a while. I just found this out ha ha!!! At the time of course I thought it was lame because none of us could take the industry but we carried on and I remember asking him to hang on because I was certain we would get a deal in a coupla months. So when he quit I just couldn’t face getting another vocalist so I quit too. And that pretty much crumbled Dark Angel. Ron you know is now a Christian and plays in a Christian band called Oil but still takes shit from Christians about his Dark Angel days. Eric and Jim have their own bands. Mike simply disappeared off of the planet. I heard that he is now a drug addict but honestly I don’t know. He left that quickly. It started after a show in Frankfurt when things got pretty wild with members of Dark Angel, Nuclear Assault and Acid Reign jumping up and down on cars. However, Mike was not involved. Someone called the cops and they grabbed Mike. People were saying “it wasn’t him, it was me； but they were like “fuck you, we got our guy“. We had to bail him out for $30,000!! Anyway, we sold our merchandising rights got about $24,000 but the remaining $6,000 was borrowed from one of Ron’s prison buddies. This guy then ended up doing 3 years and when he got out he came for his money but Mike hadn’t raised it so he skipped town - forever.

I’ll always remember the “biblical” style lyrics that you wrote. And the wall of noise the shows always seemed to end in.
Gene: The lyrics were deliberately provoking to the macho metal crowd as they dealt with child abuse and violence towards women but the problem was that it was difficult for Ron to sing live. As for the famous “muddy” live sound, well, we simply couldn’t afford to get a sound man

Any last words?
Gene: yeah, Gene hires himself as a drum whore, so if you got the cash gimme a call man ha ha!