Former TROUBLE Singer ERIC WAGNER Discusses THE SKULL, BLACKFINGER In New Interview

Avinash Mittur of Metal Assault recently conducted an interview with former TROUBLE and current THE SKULL/BLACKFINGER singer Eric Wagner. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Assault: So the last show that THE SKULL played was the Doom In June festival in Las Vegas (see video below),right?

Wagner: Actually, the last thing that we did was a show in Chicago a couple weeks ago. It was awesome, man; everybody had a great time. We pulled out a couple songs that we've never played at that show. What were they now? "The Eye", "Thinking Of The Past" and I think we did "Come Together" for the encore.

Metal Assault: That's what I really like about THE SKULL, that you guys have been playing not just the old stuff, but the really obscure deep cuts too.

Wagner: Well, that was the whole point of THE SKULL to begin with! We wanted to separate ourselves from the other guys and do songs that we haven't played in a long time and just have fun with it. At first we were doing songs mostly off of the first two records and then we kind of added "The Last Judgement". It's one of my favorite songs in the set right now. We're kind of branching out a little bit, I know some people want to hear some newer stuff too. We're trying to pick songs that we haven't done in a long time and that we didn't really do in TROUBLE either. It's been a blast.

Metal Assault: Tell me about the band members that everyone may not know of: guitarists Lothar Kellar, Michael Carpenter.

Wagner: Ah, I love those guys, man. When we were first looking for guitar players we didn't really know what to do. At first we were trying to look for other guys like us, guys who had been in other bands and stuff, but it was a little difficult scheduling all that crap. So Lothar's name came up. He's been a friend of ours for a long time and he's been playing with Michael for twenty five years. It's perfect, sometimes my eyes are closed and I forget that it isn't Rick [Wartell, TROUBLE guitarist] and Bruce [Franklin, TROUBLE guitarist]. Obviously, it's not them, but Lothar and Michael do a really good job of playing the riffs and the solos.

Metal Assault: I think a common consensus with [TROUBLE's] "Simple Mind Condition" [album] is that it shows off the full range and scope of your vocal ability. There are a lot of styles of your singing on that album.

Wagner: Yeah! It's a little different, I'm older now. People always ask me how I get my tone and I show them my cigarette. There's no way I could hit those notes that I did on "Manic" anymore, so I had to change a little bit. The whole trick is do things that you know you can, and there's always different ways of doing things you can't do. That was the first record where I said, hey I can't do it like this anymore, let's try this, and it changed the dynamic of the songs a little bit. Like I said, I love that record.

Metal Assault: A year after, though, you left TROUBLE again citing burnout from touring.

Wagner: I think it was a little more than a year. Let's see, we did the reunion show like in '04, the record took three years and came out in '07 and then I left in 2008, something like that. Yeah, I'd just had enough again. It was just starting to be the same thing again, we're playing the same songs. I was having fun, people were digging seeing us again but I don't know… I just got burnt out on the touring thing again. I just wanted to do my own thing again, and I've been working on my BLACKFINGER record for the last four years.

Metal Assault: So I thought the BLACKFINGER album was almost done two years ago?

Wagner: Me too. It just hasn't been an easy record to do. There were a lot of things that detoured me from working on it, personal things and stuff. I don't know, I get sick of hearing it and I have to take a break from it. I've been working on it for four, five years. There was the original lineup which is different from today's lineup, I blew that one up because it wasn't working and I went back to writing and recording. I sat there every minute. In the past, we had a producer there, so all I had to do was concentrate on singing and writing lyrics, whereas with this one I had to do everything. I had an engineer that would give me tones and sounds, but as far as recording, writing and arranging it I had to be there. Sometimes I got a little sick of it, I had to walk away for a while.

Metal Assault: Right now then, where is the BLACKFINGER record at?

Wagner: The album is done. I'm sending it out to get mastered and it should be out soon. I'm going to put it up for digital download first, and probably just look for a deal to put out some vinyl. There are a couple of companies interested in doing that now. I'm getting ready to send out three songs to some of the labels interested in doing the vinyl. It'll probably be up for download first, maybe in a month at the most I'm hoping.

Metal Assault: So you've been writing songs for a SKULL album. Will it sound like the old TROUBLE material you've been playing?

Wagner: I don't know! I've just been kind of working with the guys. I like heavy music, and I'm sure playing these old TROUBLE songs has influenced the guitar players somewhat. I wrote some songs on my own, but the songs we've been writing together have been pretty heavy. I'm digging what's going on, I am pleased. Let's put it this way, it sounds really good to me and in the direction that I want to keep going in. I'm starting to get really excited about doing a SKULL record.

Read the entire interview at Metal Assault.