Fucking Metal Blog Interviews: Vince Neilstein Of MetalSucks (Like A Hoover) Part 2 On Metal, Himself, Death Threats And Ziltoid
- March 18th, 2010
- Posted in Fucking Metal Interviews . The State Of Metal
- By deseee
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Vince on his throne at the mansion.
Here at TNOTB we’re big fans of the people in our “People We Like” links section. The people that run metal websites are truly amazing in how they bring us news, find us tons of great music, and teach us things that we would never have known otherwise. Today I am proud to present Part 2 of an interveiw I conducted with MetalSucks.net co-founder Vince Neilstein. MS is one of the biggest baddest blogs on the net and for good reason. With a daily dose of humor and a dash of famous guest contributors MetalSucks is one of our favorite places to comment at on the internuts.
Today in part 2 I ask Vince, what music he’s listening to, what bands can do to best get his attention, The future of metal, and Ziltoid . We are also accepting questions from you the readers for our upcoming interview with Axl Rosenberg in the comments!
Who’s your favorite band of all time? Who are you listening to the most lately?
Favorite band of all-time is no fair. I know it’s a cop out but there are too many. Living colour would surely be near the top… I’ll give you that.
Currently getting a lot of spins: revocation, nachtmystium, shining, ihsahn, mutiny within, unleashed, ratt, white Wizzard.
What’s the worst part about being Vince Neilstein?
This is kind of a bratty thing to say but there is SO much new metal coming at us from all angles that it’s impossible to give everything proper attention and keep up. We get so much music from established bands and their labels and publicists and managers, and it’s hard to keep up even with that and make sure everything gets a proper listen. Add to that the countless unsigned bands who send stuff to us — so many of whom are very good and deserving of attention — that it just becomes too much. There’s a lot of pressure (perhaps some self-inflicted) to stay up with everything and it’s very tedious and time-consuming. I am 100% certain that I could spend 24 hours a day 7 days a week listening to nothing but music sent to us and still not be able to get through all of it even one time.
More of our interview with Vince after the jump…
What’s the best part about being Vince Neilstein?
Well… Getting tons of music sent to me! It’s pretty cool (and honestly somewhat ridiculous) that people care enough about what I think of their art to send it to me. But aside from the ego thing it really is cool to be exposed to so much great music all the time.
Besides MS what are some of your favorite websites metal or not?
MetalInjection.net obviously… those guys have the metal interview and live footage market on lockdown. NYtimes.com for news, Metsblog.com for ongoing Mets news/commentary and EmpFlix.com for… ya know.
Any fun stalker tales?
Ask Axl about that one sometime.
Scariest email/package you ever received from a fan?
Oh man. All sorts of crazy shit. People send us the craziest emails when we insult their favorite band. There have been death threats.
Best email/package you ever received from a fan?
The package that Wrought of Obsidian sent. Unbelievable press package!! I blogged about it and included photos. Amazing. The music was much less amazing than the package.
Have you had any one meeting or moment where you said to yourself “holy balls I can’t believe this happened to me”?
Interviewing Troy Sanders from Mastodon in person was definitely a “slap me, is this really happening?” moment. One time I blogged about how it’d be really awesome if someone hooked us up with AC/DC tickets… and lo and behold, we ended up front and center on the floor. Also, that time some dude bought me a $77 vintage Warrant t-shirt on eBay simply because I blogged about it.
If a band want’s to get your attention with their submission what should be in it?
A few lines about what they sound like and a MySpace link. That’s really it. No long bio, no fancy photo, no EPK or any other crap. Just keep it simple and include a link where I can easily hear some tunes.
Is rock & roll dead?
Hell’s no. You just need to look for it harder
Do you ever get burned out on metal or MS? If yes what do you do to refill the tanks?
Definitely. Living in NYC, every tour comes here. There are some seasons, like this past fall, where there are shows 3-4 times a week or more. It’s fun but intense and ultimately can be draining. Sometimes I do need a break, so I’ll resolve to stay in more often and not go to as many shows. Sometimes I’m successful at that and other times I’m not.
From your vantage point where do you see metal going in the future?
I see it continuing to become even more splintered in terms of micro-micro-genres within metal, all with their own little scene. The Internet enables this.
I’ll say a word you either bromance it, meh or kill it with fire.
Autotune
kill it with fire
Burzum
meh
Beast Blasts
what the fuck is a beast blast?
Ziltoid (ours not DT)
meh
Sub-sub genres
bromance
Obama
bromance
Just like a C-List Hollywood pitchman I hyped the hell out of a bunch of one word answers and comments made in passing to get you to read this interview and then bam… letdown! … Gosh I guess that means you’ll just have to keep reading TNOTB and MetalSucks to find out more…. I would again like to thank Vince for being such a great sport and letting me pester him with all this interview crap. If you have any burning unanswered questions leave them in the comments and we will have them answered by Axl in a future interview we are planning. Get those questions in ASAP!! In the meantime get ready for the next fucking metal blog interview when I sit down with none other than our broseph Scott from Hook In Mouth!
Related posts:
- Fucking Metal Blog Interviews: Vince Neilstein Of MetalSucks (Our Balls) Part 1 On Blogs, Business and Life
- Fucking Metal Blog Interviews: Axl Rosenberg Of MetalSucks (Worse Than The Knicks) On Love, Ziltoid, The Scariest Shit Ever, And Your Questions
- Fucking Metal Blog Interviews: Steff Of Steffmetal.com On Picking Up Chicks That Dig Metal
- Fucking Metal Blog Interviews: Hook In Mouth On Family, Blogging Jobs, Podcasts And Angry Rabid Fans Of Awful Bands
- We Blog This Come Death… Another Worthwhile Metal Blog You Should Start Reading
Can’t stand him. Sounds like an asshole.
Question: if MS is getting all of this great metal sent to them, why do they only sponsor shitastic mallcore tours?
Hi Vince… *creepy stalker smile and giggle*
i live vince but i’m a bigger Axl fan even if he does like iwrestledabearonce
Can’t say I’m fond of the generally softball questions, and I get a very douchey vibe from Vince for the span of the entire interview.
Questions to Axl:
White or Brown Bread?
@Ziltoid
Is there a question anywhere in there or are you just over MS as a whole?
I am now aware that Vince Neilstein thinks he is a pretty rad dude.
I think you guys need to get some more interesting blog material than interviewing a dude who runs another blog.
However, I just read the whole stupid thing, so what do I know.
@deseee
No question in there at all, and I’m quickly losing interest in MS as a whole. It’s pretty much worthless to even post there, since none of the responses to me are fun anymore, and the blog posts are just dull.
@Ziltoid
What did you even do to get all the hate that you receive?
@SPna15
Look up any “21 Best Albums of the 21st Century” on MS. Zilty commented on it like crazy and ended up being the biggest asshole on the site for about a month. His trve, kvlt, undrgrnd tastes can be pretty mind-blowing. In a bad way.
@SPna15
I pretty much shat on the fantasies of children listening to crappy faux-metal.
But yes, I commented quite often on that series of posts on MS. One big post turned into 21 days or so of arguing. T’was quite a lot of wasted time, but I got to lay down the hammer of true metal upon the wretched falses of MS. And I got some lulz out of it.
@Ziltoid
I saw that. Only you and a couple others actually seemed to realize what a piece of shit that list was.
That had to be the worst list in the history of lists.
You’ve been saying our site sucks for months now… Yet you keep coming back. If you don’t like our site just stop visiting!
@Vince
Oh, if only it were so easy…. I’m assuming it’s kinda like any relationship… You can’t just break up w/ Zilty after the first fight… you both have to stay around each other and be miserable for a while until you have that one giant pissing match to end all pissing matches… Then you’ll have make-up sex and be ok for another 3-4 weeks until your miserable again and you have an even bigger fight then before… which is when you finally break up…. until you see them at the bar 6 months later….
MetalSucks is and will remain (at least, for the immediately foreseeable future) my favorite metal blog. (Sorry, Grovs!) I appreciate Vince’s candor and his insight into the work that goes on behind the scenes in keeping MetalSucks up and running.
Questions for Axl:
(1) Vince was asked for stalker fan stories and he deferred the question to you. So… ?
(2) Which act/artist would you say has been over-exposed by the metal media and, given your druthers, will MetalSucks never cover again? Which act/artist do you wish you had more opportunities to write about?
(3) Vince talked at length about how MetalSucks is constantly innundated with “new” material to review. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the volume of new submissions? Have you ever reached the point of saturation? How challenging is it to remain engaged, and to give a fair listen to new submissions?
(4) According to what I call the MetalSucks “anti”-festo, you and Vince started MetalSucks with the goal of providing a medium for intelligent metal community. Without invoking the comparison of Blabbermouth, how well do you think MetalSucks has achieved that end (so far)? (Please qualify any answer given that is dependent on your mood this particular day. For all I know, by the time you’re asked this, you’ll have posted something else about Pantera and another street war will have broken out over whether or not Dimebag deserved to die because of what he supposedly did to “ruin metal” – in which event, you and I both will be back to unabated misanthropy. No wait, that’s you every day. Nevermind.)
If the interview wasn’t done yet with Axl, I have just one question you should ask him:
With the latest trend of Hasidic dudes going to metal shows and moshing, and with metalheads starting to embrace the Hasidic way of life (e.g. The epic beard, wearing black, shaking violently to and fro etc.), is Hasidic Metal going to be the next big thing?
@Ziltoid
Honestly it’s fun seeing how many people you piss off, even when you’re bashing a band I like. I still find it funny that people are annoyed by the opinions of one dude on the Internet, like that guy who called me a retart because I didn’t like Hatebreed. To be frank, your opinions do not affect my enjoyment of music, nor should they, because I’m not insecure.
Also, Axl: what’s the most disturbing shit you’ve ever been sent (w/link)? Nightmare inducing stuff only, please.
To Axl: How do avoid the generic? Surely listening to tons of new bands daily help build a tolerance and it makes it harder for a new band to stand out. What aspect of the music tends to blow you away, and make you want to spread it to the suckalo brotherhood?
Oh and there is WAY too much advertising. It forever to do anything on your site man.
@SPna15
the list sucked but it was a popularity contest in the end. i dont think enough people realized that
@Ziltoid
i still enjoy the site, but the comments have been lacking for a loong time now. Mind you, im not the most fun commentor myself, but they used to be funny. Now, not so much