Power metal is one thing but Shakespeare set to power metal? That is another ballgame. Put the two together and you have what may be Iron Maiden meeting an advanced English class. Lord Simms, the orator and one of the axe slingers of The Metal Shakespeare Company, is an interesting individual and has a tremendous amount to say and soon you will be a fan of Shakespearean metal.
Metal Exiles: Give Metal Exiles a history of the origins of the band.
Lord Simms: One night at a bar called the Jolly Inn in Portland, I sat with local artist Asa Kennedy and told him how I wanted to start a power metal band, but I didn't think I could do it with a straight face. I needed a gimmick--Portland loves bands like Stovokor - a Klingon death metal band, and BloodHag - a sci-fi thrash band. Without hesitating, he suggested Shakespeare metal. Since I had just written a paper on the play Coriolanus for a college Shakespeare course, I had some lines memorized. I picked an Iron Maiden song on the jukebox and sang along substituting words from the play. They fit perfectly!
But one man a band does not make, and alas, Asa had not rhythm within him. A few weeks later, I was walking through the campus of Lewis & Clark College when I heard someone shredding in a dorm building. I mean, just the most epic and ripping solos were coming out of a window high above me. I started to follow the sound of the music and found the door of the room where it was coming from. I knocked and inside was a tall kid in a Slayer hat. I asked him right then if he wanted to form a Shakespeare metal band with me and he said yes on the spot. We recruited a couple of our friends and played our first show at the Lewis & Clark College library in January of 2006. Since then, we have played with some fairly legendary metal groups like Thor and Doro as well as at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is one of the biggest in the country,
Metal Exiles: How did you get into the art of singing and playing guitar and what influenced you?
Lord Simms: When I was 15, I started a punk band in Albuquerque, New Mexico, called Question the Answers. We toured some and played with bands like Dead Kennedys and US Bombs. It wasn't until I was 18 and had moved to Portland that I made friends with a Bulgarian guy who went to Lewis & Clark named Boris. He introduced me to Iron Maiden, Helloween, Dio, Hammerfall and most of the bands that influence the MSC.
Metal Exiles: Why the name “The Shakespeare Metal Company”?
Lord Simms: Until April 2008, our name was Dagger of the Mind. We loved that name and so did our small group of fans. But it is the name of a band and the world is full of thousands of bands. There is only one metal Shakespeare company. We eventually decided that we should call ourselves exactly what we are so that we could really own our concept and have it be immediately clear to people what we do.
Metal Exiles: Power metal can be taken in many different directions but you chose the works of Shakespeare. Why Shakespeare and not another writer?
Lord Simms: Honestly, we never even considered another writer. The marriage of Shakespeare and metal just makes so much sense. When I see videos of Iron Maiden in the '80s, they are wearing tights, not unlike Shakespearean actors. We simply upped the ante by throwing on tunics as well. There is something that is totally glorious and yet a little foppish about both Shakespeare and power metal.
Metal Exiles: What do you think Shakespeare gave to the world that makes him so relevant even to this day?
Lord Simms: Even people who have never read Shakespeare use words Shakespeare invented all the time. He came up with 20,000 household words including "household word" itself! I think Shakespeare set the bar for what could be done with the English language and that his work will likely never be matched. For me, his prowess as a dramatist and poet is what all other literature is measured against, so he will forever be relevant.
Metal Exiles: You have an 8 track CD released through the CleanBox label. First off, how did you find a label to take a chance on such an “out there” release and band?
Lord Simms: Sequoia Slentz, who runs CleanBox Entertainment out of Laguna Beach, California, happened to see one of our shows in Portland. He immediately shared our vision--when he came up to me afterward and said that he could see the Metal Shakespeare Company becoming a Vegas show, I knew we were on the same page. He pretty much offered to put out our record on the spot because he sees a lot of potential for where the band could go. We want to become the Blue Man Group of metal.
Metal Exiles: With the release comes the explanation of what you included on the disc. Please break down each track with why you chose the particular works and how you were able to translate it musically.
1. To Bleed or Not to Bleed (Hamlet III.i) - Generally, we select the scenes from Shakespeare that seem the most metal to us, but this is our attempt to sell out. This is Shakespeare's #1 hit, the "to be or not to be" speech. Luckily, we did not take it all that seriously and completely changed the trademark line to be more metal. When people ask me what my band sounds like, I generally sing the first line from this song, "Alas poor Yorick..."
2. The Drunken Porter (Macbeth II.iii) - This is Shakespeare's tribute to alcohol. After the murders in Macbeth, the porter gives a long speech on his way to answer the door. He talks about how hungover everyone is. My favorite lines from this song are the ones about how alcohol causes impotence: "It makes him and it mars him / It sets him on and takes him off / Makes him stand to and not stand to”. With the woah-oh chorus and extended guitar harmony, this is probably our most metal song, which is ironic since it's just a silly speech from a minor character.
3. Julias Caesar, a Play in Minutes - We decided to pack all the important parts of Julias Caesar into one song. Iron Maiden actually borrowed the line, "the evil that men do lives on and on" from this play, so we were sure to include that one along with a brief instrumental shout-out to Maiden.
4. Aufidius' Plot (Coriolanus IV.vii) - Part of what we do in the MSC is Shakespeare evangelism. We like to bring people plays they might not otherwise know. Coriolanus is a tragedy about a struggle for the Roman throne. The play's villain, Aufidius, is a real weasel and one of my favorite Shakespearean villains. In this speech, he explains exactly how he will take down Coriolanus, the play's hero. This convention of a villain explaining his evil plot in advance is so common now, but this might have been where it started.
5. A Touch of Henry in the Night (Henry V IV.iii) - This is one of Shakespeare's most inspirational speeches, so we made it sort of a drinking song with a chorus of shouted vocals. In this scene, Henry visits his troops the night before a great battle to tell them how glorious it will be if they win and how much more glorious it will be if they all die.
6. The Caliban Stomp (The Tempest) - Caliban, the beast-man who lives on the island in the Tempest is unquestionably the most metal character in all of Shakespeare. This song is a collection of lines from people describing Caliban throughout the play. It is one of our only songs with growls in it, meant to symbolize Caliban's wild nature.
7. The Ballad of Isabella (Measure for Measure II.ii) - This is the album's requisite power ballad and the only scene from a comedy we perform. In this play, Isabella's brother has been condemned to die for impregnating his girlfriend. She pleads with the duke for her brother's life saying that in the same set of circumstances, he too would have had sex. Near the end of the song, we include some lines from the duke, and his arrival is signaled by the regal trumpet sound on the keyboard.
8. We Are the Dagger of the Mind (Macbeth II.i) - The first song we ever wrote and formerly our title song, this is the speech Macbeth gives after he commits murder and begins to lose his mind. It is a fan favorite because I think a lot of metalheads can identify with spontaneously hallucinating weaponry before them.
Metal Exiles: Was it easy to pick out what you wanted to do and do you feel as though you did Shakespeare justice? What goes into picking out which works you want to do?
Lord Simms: This first album was easy because we basically treated it like a sampler. We just grabbed whatever scenes from Shakespeare struck us as metal, funny, or epic and then bent those scenes to fit to the power metal format. Our newest songs (like "The March of Birnam, Macbeth V.v" which is a 7" coming out on July 17) are more theatrical with multiple speakers, and I would love to take on an entire play at some point. We do the text of Shakespeare no justice at all, since so much of his wit is subtle and does not translate to blaring loud rock. But I think we do a really good job of reflecting the attitude of Shakespeare. We try to be completely over-the-top and intense while still funny. Even Shakespeare's tragedies have some really hilarious moments and so do the best metal albums.
Metal Exiles: By calling yourself The Metal Shakespeare Company do you think you have painted yourself into a corner for the future or is there enough stuff out there for you to have a lucrative band experience?
Lord Simms: Between Shakespeare's 32 plays and 152 sonnets, we could never run out of material. We just made a 5-minute song out of one sonnet. The idea of growing to the point where the MSC has a residency in a theater and produces metal versions of entire plays on a seasonal basis really appeals to me. It is a dream very few other bands can have.
Metal Exiles: You go all out in performances. Give our readers an idea of what you wear to fit into the time period and do you really feel as though you are a part of that period?
Lord Simms: We wear tights and tunics and velvet robes along with '80s accessories like hi-tops and headbands. A reviewer once said about one of our shows, "You can't ignore the Metal Shakespeare Company--they won't let you”. We go out of our way to include everyone in the show, whether they want to be or not. I have done guitar solos while standing on a table where people are eating and I commonly kiss both male and female members of the audience on the lips and sing to people directly if they're not paying attention. I think this approach comes from my background of playing in a punk band. But really, it is very Shakespearean. Any sensationalism in Shakespeare is there because he had to compete with bear baiting for audiences. I don't want kids to skip an MSC show to go to a WWE smackdown or something. I'll wrestle them myself if I have to!
Metal Exiles: Do you sometimes feel that you have lost your calling being born into the 20th Century?
Lord Simms: Not at all. We need electric guitars. A duel lead in a power metal song is pretty much my most favorite thing to hear ever.
Metal Exiles: You have a big tour planned for this summer. What can audiences expect and what is the normal new fan reaction?
Lord Simms: Audiences can expect to laugh. All of our stage banter is done in Elizabethan English and because it will be so hot in the Southwest, I will not be wearing pants on this tour--just tights. We find that people who are new to the band often have an easy time cutting loose and headbanging. I think that since we are so ridiculous on stage, people don't worry so much about looking ridiculous themselves.
Metal Exiles: What does the future hold for The Metal Shakespeare Company?
Lord Simms: If only I had a soothsayer to tell me! There is so much we can do. I feel like we have a lot more freedom than other bands to pursue projects that involve a theater setting, television, internet videos, and all sorts of other media. I think the Metal Shakespeare Company could become a comic book or a cartoon. I love twittering in iambic pentameter. I cannot wait to tour internationally. We could tour elementary schools since our brand of metal is so palatable and a good way to introduce young people to Shakespeare. On the flipside, we once did a special adult show for a sex club in Seattle, and I think our act has potential among the kinky set. The possibilities are pretty endless, but I will tell you this. I just learned that Tiny Kiss--one of the world's two lip syncing midget Kiss tributes--did a residency at a Beacher's Madhouse in Las Vegas and was paid $1.5 million a year and they do not even have the greatest writer in the English language to backing them!
Are you convinced? Are you a fan now? This is the real word behind metal and the future of Power.
On Tour Now!
07.24.09 Kimo’s in San Francisco, CA
07.25.09 924 Gilman in Berkeley, CA
07.26.09 Spaceland in LA, CA
07.27.09 Sandpiper in Laguna Beach, CA
07.28.09 Hotel Congress in Tucson, AZ
07.29.09 Badlands Billiards in El Paso, TX
07.30.09 Bacon House in Las Cruces, NM
07.31.09 Atomic Cantina in Albuquerque, NM
08.01.09 Warehouse21 in Santa Fe, NM
08.02.09 Black Sheep in Colorado Springs, CO
08.04.09 Old Curtis Street Bar in Denver, CO
08.05.09 Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder, CO
08.06.09 Surfside 7 in Fort Collins, CO
08.07.09 1719 N Ada in Boise, ID
08.08.09 Yakima Sports Center in Yakima, WA
10.03.09 Stillwater in Ashland, OR
