Lords Of The Trident

Can you define heavy metal? Does metal mean screaming vocals and deadly distortion? Or is metal wailing guitar solos and an iron lunged singer?

To Fang VonKillenstein of Lords Of The Trident, heavy metal is “that distorted sound that makes you roll down your windows in the summer and makes you put your fist in the air, out the window. It just gives you that feeling in the pit of your stomach that just drives that ‘yeah.’” One can only assume that “yeah” would make King Diamond proud.

Mr. Killenstein, also known as Ty, defines their sound as “80’s metal mixed with modern influences.”

“Our structure is more towards classics 80’s, but we down tune and are fans of modern death and black metal. Those tonalities show up a lot as well.”

Using their local flavor, they have turned bits and pieces of the UW Campus and Madison into epic metal. Fang explains:

“The Madison music scene is really a lot of indie rock, around campus especially. When you say metal, the average Joe thinks of death and turns the other cheek to our music. Half the people come to our shows for cool music, but the other half just come to see what the hell we are up to. “

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Luna Mortis

Halloween is coming, metal is in the air and Madison will make another mark on the heavy metal map.

Last December you may remember Maximum Ink ran a band called The Ottomon Empire, a Madison metal band featuring the operatic and sometimes brutallic vocals of Mary Zimmer, guitarists Brian Keonig and Cory Scheider, drummer Erik Madsen and bassist Jake Bare, on the front cover.

I had to go back to the Max Ink website to check out the story one more time, seeing how so much had changed in less than a year… but oddly, it was the same.

In July, it was announced that band had signed to Century Media records and that explained to me why they had changed their name to Luna Mortis.

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Eli Mattson

Eli Mattson is probably best known as runner up on TV’s America’s Got Talent, on NBC, where he lost to Neal E. Boyd by only 0.5%. He has made several appearances in Vegas with AGT winner Terry Fator. Eli started playing the piano at 5 and has been performing as a vocalist/pianist since the age of fourteen.

MAXIMUM INK: You claim Door County, WI as your home. What it is like to get chances to play your home town?
ELI MATTSON: “Well I lived in Door County as a kid, went to Southern Door, and worked at the Pizza Hut in town. After that I moved around a lot but what Door County really gave me was a start with music. My first regular gig was at Java on Jefferson when it was there.  Now when I play there it’s great to see the people who supported me first.”

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Eli Mattson

Eli Mattson is best known as the runner-up on season three of America’s Got Talent (AGT). The following interview was done around September 2009 (before the interview that ran on here … for a magazine that never went to press). Seeing as it is so very hard to find an artist that does deserve to be praised for their talent as much as this one, I thought the readers of Maximum Ink might like to see this interview (a prequel of sorts). Eli is a Wisconsin native who has been performing as a pianist and vocalist since the age of fourteen. He has made several guest appearances in Las Vegas with AGT winner Terry Fator. He has four albums to date and talent to spare. He recently performed along with several other musicians in the Tim Janis Christmas Carol at Carnegie Hall.

Maximum Ink: Where are you from and when did you first take an interest in music and why? When did you take up the piano?
Eli Mattson:  I was originally born in Duluth, MN, but my family moved around a lot. We came to Wisconsin when I was about ten, and I was in Door County off and on most of the time. I can’t really say why I took an interest in music. It just always made sense to me. I started playing the piano when I was five, and I fell in love with it. I can’t imagine it not being a part of me.

MI: Who are some of your biggest musical influences and why?
EM: Well, Elton John and Billy Joel of course, but I really love all music. I think it’s important to listen and learn everything you can from any artist out there, especially when you’re trying to be one. Some other names would be, Jimmy Newquist, Alice in Chains, Harry Chapin, just to name a few. Good music is good music!

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M.A.X.-mas Volume II

We’ve all heard the lousy Christmas songs that get beaten into our head over and over every single year since our conception. The one’s that make you go just a tad bit crazy and one more step closer to that breaking point. If you’re from the U.S., you know all about the corporate sponsored shopping spree we as Americans partake in, despite whether or not we have money. Now, I’m no Scrooge. But if I’m going to have to suffer through another year of thousands of meaningless dollars spent and seeing family half of us don’t like as it is, I want some kick ass music to dull the pain.

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The Mifflin Street Block Party

The University of Wisconsin has traditionally held two giant student parties every year. One is Halloween (where out of town revelers caused so many problems, it evolved into Freak Fest, still a good party but one that turns State Street into a demilitarized zone each year) and the other is the Mifflin Street Block Party. Started in 1969 as a reaction to the Vietnam War (the event that seems to loom over every student activity or university story from that decade), the party has been an annual tradition some times at odds with the city and some times with the city’s blessing. After a long time of relative peace, in 1996, drunken and foolish partygoers decided to attack a fire truck that came to put out a bonfire started in the middle of the street. Next thing you know, there’s riot gear, people are screaming bloody murder, and lots and lots of arrests are made. Needless to say, the 1997 party was kind of a drag. But the fest has continued in the ensuing years, and now local music promoters DCNY PRO, Madison natives and longtime Mifflin Street attendees, David Coleman and Ny Bass, have taken the bull by the horns. They spearheaded the party in 2009 to one of its most successful years. On the fortieth anniversary of the festival and even with over fifteen-thousand people in attendance, arrests were down from the year before and in 2010, they’re bringing more changes to make it a friendlier and safer place.

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Lyden Moon

When it comes to his new CD, “It’s What’s Inside That Rocks”, guitarist LYDEN MOON, explains his process when it comes to creating music. “I’m always trying to write a better song,” he says, “a lot of instrumental guitar players go strictly for the technical showcase kind of record. And that’s not what I want to do.” The Wisconsin-based guitarist is letting me know that he doesn’t want to be perceived as what other musicians often unaffectionately call guitar soloists, a “wanker”. You don’t have to use much of an imagination to realize what that term refers to, or to imagine the big-haired guitar slingers with the magic fingers that it describes. “ I think it’s harder to play a slow meaningful passage,” he continues, “to milk a note correctly, as opposed to just tearing it up. Once you develop the speed, you’ve got it, but in terms of delivering the song, it’s a never-ending accomplishment because I always feel that I can play it better and express myself better. And technique is not just speed, it’s how to play the note correctly, it’s how to attack the note correctly. When I go into the studio I try to play as clean I can and just really make sure that the point is coming across.”

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