Ex-TYPE O NEGATIVE Drummer JOHNNY KELLY Finds 'Persistence' Pays Off

By David E. Gehlke

Tapped by TYPE O NEGATIVE in 1994 to replace the departing Sal Abruscato, drummer Johnny Kelly remained behind the throne until frontman Peter Steele's untimely death in 2010. The sheer impossibility of replacing Steele meant that Kelly could continue his other gig with DANZIG and find additional work, including stepping in for an ailing Frankie Banali in QUIET RIOT in 2019 and 2020, a position he holds to this day. (Banali passed away in 2020.) This is also not to forget Kelly's forthcoming EYE AM collaboration with current and former CROWBAR members Kirk Windstein and Todd Strange, as well as his TYPE O bandmate, Kenny Hickey. (Additional Kelly credits currently include KILL DEVIL HILL and SILVERTOMB.)

Kelly is a busy guy and has recently filled his dance card with PATRIARCHS IN BLACK, a doom-oriented studio project co-founded in 2021 by HADES / NON-FICTION guitarist Dan Lorenzo. The band is already on its third studio album, "Visioning," which boasts a rather impressive cast of guest vocalists, including Karl Agell (ex-CORROSION OF CONFORMITY),Jason McMaster (WATCHTOWER),Kyle Thomas (EXHORDER),among others. Backed by Lorenzo's formidable, true-to-form riffs and the aforementioned vocal talent, PATRIARCHS IN BLACK proves that a "fun" studio project can also kick out some of the best doom in 2024, which was the reason for BLABBERMOUTH.NET tracking Kelly down for a chat.

Blabbermouth: Between DANZIG, QUIET RIOT and other gigs, do you have any downtime?

Johnny: "[Laughs] Oddly enough, there is a lot of downtime. I guess that's what affords me the ability to juggle the projects. It's hard to put one of the bands on tour or put them on the road to work out logistics like that. There's plenty of time to work on music with other people. QUIET RIOT is like Thursday through Sunday. [Laughs] My days off start when I get home on Sunday morning from the weekend shows. For instance, I'm flying to California tomorrow. It's usually where I'm home Sunday through Thursday, then the shows are Friday or Saturday, or maybe Thursday through Saturday and once in a while is a Sunday show. My time at home is when I'm in my studio working on music. There is a lot of time."

Blabbermouth: Did you ever imagine you'd find yourself in this kind of situation where you are getting called upon so much?

Johnny: "I think it's my persistence. I refuse to leave. [Laughs] No, really, even when I started playing with Glenn [Danzig] in DANZIG, it started innocently enough when I saw Joey C. [Castillo] had left the band to join QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE and they had some European dates. This was in 2003 and the guys who used to work for TYPE O were working for DANZIG, like the crew guys. I saw that they lost their drummer and that they had dates lined up, so I was like, 'Let me reach out and see. It could be fun.' I was home. I wasn't doing anything. Then I wound up getting into Danzig's band. For years, it worked out that it was always the year that TYPE O wasn't working; DANZIG would be working. Then DANZIG would be on break, and TYPE O would go to work. It was a balancing act. It seems like, 'How do you work all this out?' The bands weren't working, say, 'full-time.' Throughout the years, while TYPE O was still active, like those seven years, there were maybe two instances where there were shows I couldn't do with DANZIG. TYPE O was my priority. After Peter passed away, it was the same thing: DANZIG was busy, then I had to find something else for work and stay active and keep busy. In between the DANZIG stuff, other things were coming. The pandemic killed everything. After that, even during the pandemic, QUIET RIOT was working. Playing with QUIET RIOT started out innocently enough. I had played for years with Alex [Grossi, guitar] in HOOKERS & BLOW, which was another part-time thing where we'd play bars and clubs when all of us weren't working. It was something to fill the time. [Laughs] Then, when Frankie got sick, they were playing in Dallas. I asked Alex, 'Hey, I know Frankie's sick. He's not a hundred percent. Do you want me to come and help him? Help him set up his kit? Or help at the airport? I could keep an eye on him so he could save his energy for the show.' And they were like, 'Yeah. You know what? That's a good idea.' Frankie was into it. I was like, 'Alright, great. I was going to be there anyway.' Then the conversation from there was like, 'If there ever comes a situation where Frankie can't make a gig and you need someone to fill in, I'll do it.' Sure enough, two days before the Dallas show, Alex calls me: 'Frankie is not going to do the gig. Can you do it?' I was trying to be nice. I never thought it would happen that I'd be covering for Frankie Banali in QUIET RIOT. To get the call two days before a show, I was like, 'I opened up my mouth. I guess I need to back it up.' [Laughs] I said, 'Send me the setlist.' Some of the stuff I was familiar with by growing up with QUIET RIOT and playing 'Bang Your Head (Metal Health)' in the first band I ever played in when I was a teenager. Alex sent me the set and I went crazy looking at YouTube videos to get an idea of how they played the stuff live so they didn't have to turn around and look at me too much. Somehow, some way, we got through the show. There weren't any major trainwrecks. Of course, there were mistakes. I had two days to learn an hour set. But there weren't any major trainwrecks and we got through everything. It started where it was like, 'Cool. I covered that show.' Then it was like, 'Are you available for this or this date?' Frankie's health was getting worse and it was a matter of, 'Are you available for the rest of the year?' It just went from there and now I'm in QUIET RIOT. Before Frankie passed away, he was getting his affairs in order. He wanted the band to keep going. He wanted me to do it. He wanted me to be his replacement. It was like one of your heroes. He was a big influence on me when I was younger, and for him to trust me with his legacy and history was a big honor."

Blabbermouth: Moving over to PATRIARCHS IN BLACK, do you see this as a love letter to doom from you and Dan?

Johnny: "It's turned into a really cool project. At first, when Dan approached me, it was during the pandemic and we were starting to crawl out of it. He had approached me about working together. Actually, Bobby 'Blitz' [Ellsworth] from OVERKILL suggested me to him. He was like, 'Kelly would be the right guy for what you're doing.' I've met Dan over the years. We knew each other, but I wouldn't say we were buddies. We were casual friends. He approached me about doing PATRIARCHS, and I took it as an opportunity to track live drums during the pandemic. I thought it would be a good vehicle to learn how to do that. And, he started sending me riffs and songs and he was like, 'Who would you think about for a singer?' I was like, 'Look. I'm into making music. I can't commit to another band. I'm already in 50 bands. Scheduling is hard already as it is. I don't have the time to do something like that.' But I was like, 'If you want to make music, I'm all for it. I can do drum tracks and send them to you or whoever is producing or engineering it and we can go from there.' That said, I asked, 'Why do we have to settle on one person?' I got the idea from Dave Grohl doing PROBOT. Instead of Dave Grohl being the point man who was playing everything and having people contribute, it's Dan and I. Dan comes up with all these riffs, and between the two of us, I said, 'We have a lot of friends. We know a lot of people. We can work with people that we wouldn't really get the opportunity to work with normally and to have fun with it.' We're not making any money here. With that in mind, let's just have fun."

Blabbermouth: TYPE O had some roots in doom. Does this at all bring you back to those days?

Johnny: "It does. When I'm working on music, I always approach it in the way I learned about songwriting with Peter and Josh [Silver, keyboards]—like trying to use drums to create dynamics. And there were always times when the drums in TYPE O were the 'less is more approach,' trying to create atmosphere. You don't listen to a TYPE O record and go, 'That drum track was crazy on that song!' [Laughs] But as the song as a whole became very intense, I always used the drums as the foundation to support layers, like the other instruments, and let them sit on top of the drum track. So, I go into it with that approach and mentality, and then sometimes, it takes a turn. I try to use PATRIARCHS to push myself a little creatively drum-wise, like playing a little bit more. Playing in QUIET RIOT has had an influence on my playing when I'm creating music now. Frankie was doing a lot of drumming. It's busy. It's a lot of playing, which I don't really do. [Laughs] Now, with the new material that we're working with on 'Visioning', it got a little bit busier in a couple of spots, but the foundation is coming from the same headspace as when I worked with TYPE O and what I learned about songwriting. You can leave a lot of space when playing something like doom. Nine out of ten times, the less is more approach works."

Blabbermouth: What's the status of EYE AM?

Johnny: "We have an album's worth of material. The drum tracks were done in October. We all got together in New Orleans. That's a really cool thing—aside from getting to work with Kenny, Kirk and Todd. It's so much fun. To get together, we spend a week in New Orleans, which is fun in itself. After working all day, it's like, 'Where are we going to eat?' The way it worked was that we'd get to the studio in the morning and come up with a song, and by the end of the afternoon, we'd track the drums since we had an arrangement. From the first session, we did the first half of the album last spring, and then we got together in the fall and did another half. I think the first batch is done. I've heard some mixes from the first batch. The second batch, I haven't heard anything. [Laughs] Sometimes when they send me stuff, I'm like, 'When did we do this?'"

Blabbermouth: It has to be nice to be another band with Kenny. I'm sure you two have your own chemistry at this point.

Johnny: "We've been friends since we were teenagers. Musically, we're connected, aside from musically, personally, too. We raised our families together. Our kids, outside of TYPE O, music and stuff, for years, we've always lived five minutes away from each other until I moved to Texas. We've always worked together and worked well together. We have this, which was concerning when we first started playing with Todd and Kirk; I was nervous about them being put off by the way Kenny and I can communicate with each other when we're working. We're like an old married couple, just hurling insults at each other, like, 'What the fuck is that?' Kenny's like, 'What are you doing?' I'm like, 'I don't get it! Working on your guitar riffs is like reading hieroglyphics!'"