Cutter's RockCast Cutter

You may know Keith as the guitar player and backing singer for Breaking Benjamin. Keith is also a prolific solo artist having just released his new solo album called Infinity Now. Keith Wallen sits down for a conversation about songwriting, swinging both bands and to complain about TikTok and Spotify. Ok, we both kind of become crotchety old men with that conversation. Honestly though, we're music heads in our 40s so what would you expect? 

The Ghost Inside is a SoCal hardcore band who amassed a following doing what any great band does, tour your asses off. In 2015 that was put on hold when the band was involved in a bus accident that caused serious injuries for some in the band and killed their bus driver. Then in 2020, they were back after years of healing only to be stuck because of the Pandemic. Now in 2024 they just put out what might be their best album Searching For Solace featuring their first true radio hit "Wash it Away." I'm stoked to welcome lead singer Jonathan Vigil to the Rockcast. 

This conversation with the Nashville songwriter turned hard rocker Tim Montana took place backstage at the Epic Event Center on May 8th before Tim opened up for the band Saint Asonia on a one-off show to get ready for some big festivals he's been playing. Tim's story is one big middle finger to the man and about that country-rock thing? Yeah, he's been a hard rocker the whole time. 

P.O.D. jumped into the rap-metal/hardcore scene at about the same time Rage Against the Machine did, but adding their own influences of hip-hop, reggae, and Latin beats to their brand of hardcore immediately set them apart from the pack in the '90s. During the nu-metal explosion, they had number-one songs and platinum-selling albums. Now, it's been over 30 years and P.O.D. may have just put out one of their heaviest and well-put-together albums yet in Veritas. They are still out there grinding and joining us from the road is lead singer Sonny Sandoval. 

The band Nothing More ten years ago exploded on the modern rock world with their self-titled album. Since then they have put out some of their best work and it looks like that journey will continue with their new album Carnal due out on June 28th. Joining from their current tour with Wage War we get into the details of the songs and the raw emotion that has inspired this new album. 

You know Kerry King as the legendary guitarist of what some would say are the ultimate heavy metal band, Slayer. Well a few years ago Slayer announced their retirement, they were hanging up the riffs for good. So Kerry being Kerry King took some songs he had already been working on and decided to put out a solo record. He's got a great lineup of musicians with him including Paul Bostaph of Slayer, Phil Demmel formerly of Machine Head, Kyle Sanders from Hellyeah and singing is Mark Osegueda of Death Angel. That reads like a supergroup of metal lineup, but here they are playing with Kerry King. The finished product is the album From Hell I Rise due out on May 17th. Kerry sits down with me to fill us in on how this project came out of the ashes of Slayer.

I should also mention that Slayer did reunite and are playing some select festivals later this year, but how that happened will have to be saved for another conversation down the line.