FORBIDDEN Guitarist: 'We're Not Going To Be Any Bigger Than A Cult Band'

Brian Fischer-Giffin of Australia's Loud web site recently conducted an interview with guitarist Craig Locicero of reactivated San Francisco Bay Area metallers FORBIDDEN. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

On FORBIDDEN's comeback album, "Omega Wave":

"Everything that we'd done in retrospect, the clarity of not having done metal for a long time for me, really came into play in dividends. I just don't think we had any preconceptions except for it to be a metal record and a thrash metal record, and be the best one we could do. That's all we have."

On how the current metal scene has influenced or not influenced FORBIDDEN's musical direction:

"I listen to metal, you know, and I always have. But less and less of it was really appealing to me. Not so much because of me and my tastes, just because metal in general started to really blow. Not all of it was that great. And it could be argued that nowadays not a lot of it is still that great. A few things here and there stand out in my opinion, but most of it is really luckluster."

"Metal has been about representing angst and anger toward society and representing things that need to be said and feelings of rebellion and stuff, and at its worst, the subject matter has drifted into my-car-going-down-the-freeway type of stuff. In the early '90s, metal just started to suck really, really badly. You look back at that era, and only a couple of bands did really well out of that era. One being PANTERA, who started as a rock and roll band, and two being SLAYER, who just stayed themselves the whole time. [There were] very few things that stayed metal. METALLICA, it could be argued, stayed metal, but they started listening to GARBAGE and bands like that and really got deluded. It's not all bad when that happens, because it clears the way for everything else."

On trying to claim the glory that came so tantalizingly close with 1990's "Twisted Into Form":

"That idea was given up a long time ago. That idea was basically given up when we folded it up in '96... '97. That was the end of it. There was nothing really more to do. There was nothing really more to do to help the band. I thought it was over forever and I was quite happy to move on and experiment and find my way through other genres of music. Coming back was never about being big. It was about writing a great record, and being as metal as possible. That was something that we really didn't know how to do at the end of FORBIDDEN. There was some cool songs in there, but I think we were kind of lost and looking for our spot."

On being able to accept and appreciate FORBIDDEN's place in the world of metal:

"This time we know we're a cult band, we're not going to be any bigger than a cult band, I don't expect to be a household word unless we get really lucky and some other bigger band would have to come along and pick us up and take us on the road. That's really all there is to it. You can't expect too much out of this business, especially when people aren't actually buying records, they're stealing them. You're not going to make much money from that end. You can't even prove your worth as a band, because you don't know how many people have your music."

On how illegal music downloading has affected the record industry:

"We're not going to say that we're angry about the way it is. That's just the way it is. Technology has got to this point. There has to be another way to exist and to make your way through this business. And being on a label like Nuclear Blast, they've always managed to find a way to tie it all together. They're ahead of the curve, and they have a couple more ideas on how to be ahead of the curve that haven't even been implemented. There's different ways to do this now and you just have to go with it. Being a live band is the main thing."

Read the entire interview from the Loud web site.

Video footage of FORBIDDEN performing at this year's edition of the Tuska open-air metal festival on July 22, 2011 at Suvilahti in Helsinki, Finland can be seen below