Former ICED EARTH/DEATH Drummer Talks About Upcoming Solo Album

Metal Insider recently conducted an interview with acclaimed metal drummer Richard Christy (ICED EARTH, DEATH, LEASH LAW, CONTROL DENIED, BURNING INSIDE) — who currently works for "The Howard Stern Show" — about his new project, CHARRED WALLS OF THE DAMNED. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Metal Insider: With DEATH and ICED EARTH, you're known as a power metal/thrash drummer, but COHEED AND CAMBRIA is one of your favorite bands. What do you expect the [CHARRED WALLS OF THE DAMNED] album to sound like?

Richard: I'm into all kinds of different music, I can be listening to AMON AMARTH, then put on a WRATHCHILD AMERICA album, then a COHEED AND CAMBRIA album, then a classic John Carpenter film score so I'm influenced by a lot of different types of music. Probably the best way to describe what the album I'm doing will sound like would be two words — heavy and melodic. I'm a huge fan of guitar harmonies so there will be a lot of that on the album and the drums will definitely be crazy. I'm so psyched to have Jason Suecof on guitar. He's an amazing guitar player and also a killer songwriter so I'll get together with him in the studio at first and he'll take my riffs and really spice them up, and add some blazing solos to all of the songs too. Steve DiGiorgio [SADUS, DEATH, TESTAMENT] is a genius when it comes to the bass and I can't wait to hear what he does with the songs too, I've been a HUGE fan of Steve's ever since SADUS and when I heard his playing on DEATH's "Individual Thought Patterns", I was just totally blown away! And, of course, Tim "Ripper" Owens [JUDAS PRIEST, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, ICED EARTH] is a monster of a singer; the guy sounded perfect every night when I toured with him in ICED EARTH and I'm just totally psyched that he's singing with this band! We've been working together on demo songs for the album and his voice just fits the music perfectly. The music will definitely speak for itself when people hear it.

Metal Insider: You have a full-time job and live in New York City. How much time do you actually get to rehearse and write?

Richard: It is definitely hard to try to fit everything in but I love to be busy. I usually rehearse drums in the late afternoon after work for about an hour and a half, then I play guitar in the evening for about an hour or so. On the weekends I try to fit a little more rehearsal time in. I wrote all the songs for the album in my apartment on my Mac computer with Pro Tools, a guitar POD and EZ Drummer drum loop software. It took about a year to get everything right and finish the album and now I'm psyched to hear it come together in the studio!

Metal Insider: You went from having one of the most awesome jobs ever (professional drummer in established metal bands) to having an even better job working for Howard Stern. Do you have any regrets about leaving the full time drumming world behind?

Richard: It was such a hard decision to leave ICED EARTH because I loved the band, I was a huge fan before I played with them, and I loved touring with them. The reason I left is because I kept telling myself that if I didn't at least try out for "The Howard Stern Show" then I would regret it for the rest of my life. It was just something I felt I had to do and now I have the greatest job in the world. I get paid to have fun and work with the funniest people in the world. I wouldn't change a thing. Plus I LOVE living in New York City. It is such an incredible place to live, plus I don't own a car anymore which I love because I hate driving; it's so stressful!

Read the entire interview from Metal Insider.