With the gargantuan 21 track “Hell Destroyer” kicking major ass all over the world, Cage are fast establishing themselves as the next metal gods beyond mere Priest wannabees. I took the opportunity to chat to screaming vocalist Sean Peck, a man who successfully mixes his business with metal!

-Shan Siva

Hi Sean, thanks for taking the time out to do this interview. I can't believe “Hell Destroyer” - I mean, it’s got 21 songs! Doesn't that beat most double albums?! Why so many and will the follow up concept albums also be of this magnitude?
Well first I want to apologize to Battlehelm for taking so long to finish this interview, we really appreciate the attention and any opportunity to spread the Cage heavy metal gospel! The thing is so long it almost did not fit on the disc! As far as a follow up I have been churning around several ideas but it probably wont be a concept cd again although that is not to say that the HELL DESTROYER will not be battling the METAL DEVIL in the next disc..

Can you pls tell me more about the concept behind HD and how you arrived at it? Was it affected by any social or political events in the real world or any personal reasons?
Well I am a very pro American anti politically correct person and the lyrics in FIRE AND METAL lean that way. But the concept of the album was meant to show what would happen if Revelations of the Bible comes true. The story ties in conspiracy theory of the New World order, Prophecy of the Bible and a bit of fantasy with the demonic invasion of the earth led by satan in gleaming golden battle armor. The more I worked on the story and told the guys the more they loved it. So I kept pushing and I had my comic artist Forrest Butler story boarding the whole thing. We are launching www.helldestroyer.com next month which will have more details to the story as well as unreleased artwork.

Hey, I gotta say that when I first saw the band I thought you were the dude from Acheron (the Reverend Vincent Crowley) although I never remember his voice being as good as yours! Have you had any formal training or did you see Bob Halford and think "hey, I can do this too" - it reminds me of Mark Wahlberg in 'Rock Star' <lol> cos the JP influences are clear! Even more interesting I see you've played a USMC base - Camp Pendleton - so was it a 'Spinal Tap' moment or were there jarheads in the pit!?
That is kind of what I did was start emulating halford, tate ( back when they were good) Dickenson and Midnight from the first 2 Crimson Glory records. I was the class clown in school always making funny voices and then I got into metal and started playing rockstar in my room. I started thinking man I kind of sound like that shit and then got into a band when I was about 20 years old in college. Now I am wailing better than I ever have and am loving it!

For the main, you've had one album deals with small independent labels - is that intentional as part of the business strategy or did you not want the pressure of working with a major label?
Kind of I don’t know if has worked out but the music business can be frustrating especially when you release so many highly praised cds that you know dominates most other stuff in the genre. We will match our metal powers against anyone in the business as we are a deadly live unit and have a group of songs that were meant for arena metal performances. We are still climbing up the metal mountain and have a bunch of loyal fans so they keep us motivated. Any one who contacts us on either www.cageheavymetal.com or www.myspace.com/cageheavymetal we always answer them personally and those little messages we get always keeps the fire burning.

Did it surprise you to learn that you were more popular in Europe than you were in the US?
Well metal has really made a comeback in the US and now we are surging here with the kids really being into it now. But Europe has always been strong for us and metal in general it is no secret. Mexico is probably where we are the most popular right now as they have a ton of metal heads there and we recently just played 2 shows with Mago De Oz and UDO that had crowds in excess of 15,000 which were bigger than anything we have done to date in Europe.

Just going back to the early days of Cage, why did it take so long for your first CD to be released - three years seems like a long time.....almost time for the next release?
Well I am glad you mentioned that as it is an excellent way to shamelessly plug our new online only releases that concentrates mostly on the old days ha ha! Prior to our first release UNVEILED, we recorded an entire cd of material that was pretty ripping and everyone loved but was never released. It is now available at our website or on itunes and is called THE LOST CD. It has some killer artwork as does all of the online releases. Next we have the HIDDEN SESSIONS which is 14 tracks of preproduction versions of classic CAGE songs, unreleased tracks and some cover tunes. I love this release as it has some stuff that would never have seen the light of day and gives a real insight to how we put material together. There is some killer stuff on that. We also released the NOMAD TAPES and the CRUSHER TAPES which were Dave Garcia and mine's old bands. We took those recordings and mastered them so they would sound better and there is some classic screaming and riffing there for sure. You will have to go to the site and check out all the stuff we have it is killer!

Given that you?re the main driving force financially behind Cage, could you give me a ballpark figure of how much it costs to actually get a band off the ground (if you could break out the cost estimates roughly that would be great - just to clarify that rather than prying into the financial affairs of Cage, I'm trying to give an insight as to the reality - which many young musicians are clueless of - of starting up a professional band, which really is a business venture).
Well we have done it all pretty much ourselves, much differently than the standard deal. We have paid to produce every album we ever did ranging from 15-30k each. Not many metal heads have that kind of money to toss around so they get deals from labels who give them 10k and tell them to make the record. We have frequently paid for our own advertising and it adds up. We have just started commanding a decent fee when we play mostly due to demand so it is finally all paying off. The most important thing is that when I am dead and gone kids will still look to buy the CAGE albums because of the high quality and music quality as well. For example we mastered and mixed the first 2 CAGE records at Paramount recording and Capital records, 2 really expensive places.

I see you work in social real estate - so I gotta ask what's the best (and where) I could get for $400,000?
San Diego is the best place in the world to live. For $400k now you can get a pretty sweet place as it is a buyers market. I live in a mansion by the beach and for all those aspiring metal Gods out there, don't give up your day jobs! Making a good living playing and selling original music is the hardest thing in our society to achieve. That is why I run a real estate company as it was a way to live like a rock star while trying to be one. Ha!