Hi everyone, and welcome to "Metalliwhat ?"
For this first episode of the year, we'll look into the supergroups !
Let's start with a definition : What exactly is a supergroup ?
"Ah, it's like... Megadeth ?"
No. Megadeth is a super cool band, it's not the same.
A supergroup, by definition, is a band formed with musicians that are already known for playing into famous bands.
In English, we can also call it an "All-Star band"
"Ah yeah, kinda like the Avengers ?"
Exactly like the Avengers.
For example : The Traveling Wilburys, formed in 1988
Bob Dylan, ex-Beatle George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lyne & Roy Orbison.
But you don't really care about Classic Rock, do you ?
All you want is bands that kick ass with distortion and double bass drum, right ?
Well, you are right !
We are in Metalliquoi, and we talk about Metal ! So here is some :
Ok, I admit we started a bit hard.
But it's good ! At least it shows that even in Death Metal we can have supergroups.
Bloodbath, formed in 1998 by Mikael Åkerfeldt (singer/guitarist for Opeth),
Anders Nyström and Jonas Renkse from Katatonia,
And Dan Swanö, who played in soi many bands that their listing would be useless and tedious.
But I allow myself to advise you to listen to Nightingale, personnally.
The project of these 4 friends was to mix Swedish Death and American Death (the two birthplaces of Death Metal) with a more recent sound.
And the result is more than convincing. It really is a quality Death Metal, even Claudia likes it !
Ok, bad example.
But I do like it very much !
Let's skip to a completely different genre that we didn't really talk about in the show : Groove Metal
"Hellyeah" is a supergroup formed in 2006 by 2 musicians of Mudvayne :
2 musicians from Nothingface :
(2 bands of Neo Metal), and the drummer who will bring with him the Groove Metal,
because he is no one else than Vinnie Paul, the drummer of Pantera :
Pantera was the spearhead of Groove Metal.
It was formed by Vinnie Paulo and his brother, the guitar prodige "Dimebag" Darrell
Unfortunately he died in 2004, shot during a concert of their other band DamagePlan.
So 2 years later VInnie created "Hellyeah" with Tom Maxwell, Chad Gray, Jerry Montano & Greg Tribbett.
And they chose Groove Metal as common passion.
But what is Groove Metal exactly ?
It's a genre that's hard to define because there hasn't been a wave of bands to define it,
unlike Death or Neo Metal, for example.
The definition that semm the most right to me was the one of a guy that said it had a "Post-Thrash" atmosphere,
where we still had a riff-based music, with riffs kinda similar to Thrash Metal,
But we kinda left out the speed that made Thrash what it is, we'll be more on mid-tempos.
So it's not really simple to categorize Groove Metal bands, we often see bands categorized as Thrash when they really are Groove.
Including Pantera, it happens.
And as we are on Pantera, we'll talk about its singer : Phil Anselmo.
Our Dear Phil has a very tight schedule, because he has a lot of musical projects.
It's even part of the reason why Dimebag & Vinnie put Pantera on pause and created DamagePlan.
So we'll look into one of his projects, maybe the biggest : Down
Down is a supergroup created by members of Crowbar,
EyeHateGod,
Corrosion of Conformity,
and Phil Anselmo of Pantera.
Regarding the genre, we could speak about Southern Metal.
It's the Metal version of Southern Rock.
Southern Rock, guys ! Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers, Molly Hatchet, all of that !
Well, here, it's the same with Metal.
It doesn't get anymore American than that. It's made by rednecks of the southern states,
for Down it is Louisiana.
Let's change the genre but stay in the very American, with Mr. Big :
In the category "kick-ass team", it's something huge ! On drums : Pat Torpey,
On bass : The monster Billy Sheehan,
On guitar : Paul Gilbert himself,
And on vocals, Eric Martin, known for his solo career before joining Mr. Big.
Even if there would be a lot to say on this hell of a crew, Paul Gilbert first,
We'll talk about Billy Sheehan, who could have had his place in the episode on bass guitar.
A virtuoso of his instrument with a gigantic sound,
And that played in a lot of bands like UFO, David Lee Roth, Steve Vai,
and also a lot of supergroups like Thrasher,
No, not this.
This :
The Winery Dogs, and Sons of Apollo, two bands where we also find someone we talked about in "Metalliwhat" :
Mike Portnoy !
As I said in the episode on drums, since he's no longer in Dream Theater he's been cumulating projects,
and half of them are supergroups !
And I'd like to show you one that ok, he's not a part of anymore, but that he created,
and that still has it's awesome singer : Russell Allen
Russell, that you know friom 2 bands I showed you in "Metalliwhat : Symphony X and Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Yeah, TSO is not really strictly speaking a band, but still.
By the way, in the category "band that doesn't really count",
you probably know "We are the world", this humanitarian song that gathered artist like Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, etc...
Oh, sorry ! I took the wrong clip !
Well, in Metal, we also had our humanitarian song with a super line-up !
The band is called "Hear 'n Aid", and the song is called "Stars"
It's a project initiated by Ronnie James Dio to gather money against famine,
and that brought together some of the greatest musicians and singers of the 80s.
The song starts with a sang part, like verse-chorus,
where we hear singers of bands like Dokken, Rought Cutt, Quiet Riot, Judas Priest...
and it goes into 2 min & 45 seconds of guitar solo !
with the ball of virtuoso guitarists of that time.
Twisted Sister, Journey, Iron Maiden, Blue öyster Cult...
even Yngwie Malmsteen !
I demand that you go listen to that gem as soon as you finished this video.
It widely deserves 7 minutes of your life.
It breathes the 80s as ever, and the song,
besides being impressive by its line-up and touching by its humanitarian goal, is really beautiful.
Where was I ?
Oh, yeah ! Supergroups !
So, we just saw Hear 'n Aid that ok, gathers a ton of musicians and singers,
but that only released one song, so it's not exactly a supergroup.
Here is one that matches the status :
Here, we have a supergroup that released a full album, and that's still active atfer that.
It counts amongst its ranks David Ellefson of Megadeth,
Alex Skolnick of Testament,
and ooooh ! Mike Portnoy, what a surprise !
In fact, we have these 3 musicians that make the heart of the band,
and on the album we have a list of guests long like a day without listening to Heavy Metal.
On the downsinde, regarding the music videos it's not that...
If we can even talk about music videos :
I agree that it is complicated to organise the shooting of a music video when you gather so many people from so many bands.
But for God's sake,
a lame edit of smartphone-filmed videos in rooms of the house or on the roof of a building, seriously ?
Well, at least it shows an interesting problem of supergroups :
in the case where it's not just the new project of the musicians that create it because their previous ones stopped,
it's complicated to work together.
Because everyone has imperatives with their respective bands, be it tours, studio, etc.
so to be able to do tours, studio, etc. with the supergroup, it's not always easy !
Well, except Maynard James Keenan who, given the time that takes Tool to release an album,
has more than enough time to focus on his other bands, like A Perfect Circle :
To give you a good example, I'll show you a supergroup that was formed in 2007,
that released their first album in 2012,
and whose first and only tour to this day took place in 2017.
If I tell you that the band is composed of the drummer of Mean Streak,
the guitarist and the singer of Soilwork,
and the bass player of Arch Enemy :
Do you feel the kind of music they will do together ?
You lose ! It's classic Rock :
Yeah, I know, I said we would talk about Metal.
But I had to talk about them.
First because it's still a supergroup with Metal musicians,
and mostly because it's god damn awesome !
The guys are nostalgics of Classic Rock
We can even say Hard Rock, because they have some ballsy songs as well :
so they managed to create a perfect compendium of this 70s/80s music with,
to quote them : unnecessary catchy choruses and solos.
I really advise you to listen to this band, their 3 albums are excellent and really pleasing to hear.
And I leave you on this good words, I'l see you soon on the "Metalliwhat" channel !
It was "Metalliwhat ?"
A show on Metal presented by Hubert
Thanks to :
The list of songs played during the show is available in the description below
Thanks for watching and see you later !
And the supergroups, they exist for the youtubers ?
Well, they do, actually !
We created a youtube channel with a show that's called "Metal : The Gathering",
and that brings together Metal youtubers and related. You should take a look !
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