METAL CHURCH's KURDT VANDERHOOF Says Streaming Makes Music More Disposable

METAL CHURCH guitarist Kurdt Vanderhoof has lamented the fact that most music fans today listen to their favorite artists on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. "This generation of people that live on streaming — yeah, it's convenient, and yeah, it's fine, but if you're an actual real music fan, you're missing half of the art form," he told Australia's Metal Mal in a new interview (hear audio below). "To me, it's the music, yes, but the other half is the art that goes along with it and the lyrics and the packaging and all those kinds of things. 'Cause I only listen to, pretty much other than my iPod when I'm working out or traveling, but at home, I only listen to vinyl. And I've been rebuilding my vinyl collection. And I'm thrilled that most records are coming out on vinyl now. Because you can see the artwork and pictures, and us old guys can read the text [laughs], and all that kind of stuff. I mean, CDs are fine, but they don't sound as good. Vinyl sounds better — if it's a properly made record, vinyl sounds better. You get all the artwork. It's about the whole art form, which is the album, not just one single. It's about the whole album, the sequence of it and listening to the record and staring at the artwork and reading every word on the cover. It's all that whole experience that, growing up, made me wanna do this. And the streaming thing and all that, they're missing out on it. And it makes it so disposable."

METAL CHURCH is continuing to tour in support of its 12th full-length studio album, "Damned If You Do", which came out last December via Rat Pak Records. The latest release is the follow-up to 2016's "XI", which saw the return of singer Mike Howe.

Howe originally joined METAL CHURCH in the late '80s and released three albums with the band: "The Human Factor", "Blessing In Disguise" and "Hanging in the Balance". Mike was also the face of group's popular music videos "Date With Poverty" and "Badlands" that aired during MTV's heyday.

"Damned If You Do" features Stet Howland (ex-W.A.S.P., LITA FORD),who joined METAL CHURCH as the replacement for longtime drummer Jeff Plate. Soon after hooking up with the group, Stet was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Miraculously, his treatments for the aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma worked and he was able to begin recording the new album.