Shout at the Devil

Manson is describing the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival tour (which condemns our souls Sunday, July 12, at the San Manuel Amphitheater July), a decidedly non-mainstream event the “Antichrist Superstar” is co-headlining with thrash metal icons Slayer. While similar rock-based events often pepper the lineups with Christ-core or radio friendlies, Mayhem keeps it extreme with acts like Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse, All That Remains, Whitechapel, God Forbid and Killswitch Engage. We’re talking corpse paint, lightspeed shredding and flesh-eating ghouls, kiddies.

And considering all those other national heavy metal fest franchises—Ozzfest, Gigantour and Sounds of the Underground—have either met their Maker or were cancelled for this year, Mayhem will be the only all-day dose of heavy music capable of sending your puny souls south of Heaven. 

“The bands are all pretty extreme, especially considering how high profile this tour is,” notes Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster. “It’s arguably the heaviest major festival tour in American history.”

True metal heads only

This year’s Mayhem—The Black Dahlia Murder, Bullet For My Valentine, Mushroomhead and Trivium all sold their souls to get on this year’s lineup—is the second installment of the annual metal and hard rock event. Co-created by Vans Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman, Rockstar is arguably a spin-off from the successful Rockstar Taste of Chaos tour (another Lyman co-creation) which debuted in ’05 and was geared more toward the screamo/emo/post-hardcore likes of My Chemical Romance, Chiodos and Thursday.

But Mayhem is all about crushing heaviness, devil rock and mucho metal madness—for converts or the not-quite-yet-initiated.

“For me, it’s an opportunity to play in front of people that may not be familiar or may not want to be familiar with what I do, and that provides a challenge for me,” Manson says. “I want to prove [my music is] worth liking by doing this type of tour.”

In many respects Mayhem is a—dare we say godsend?—to the longhair community since its metal tour brethren have either petered out or took the year off this summer. Ozzfest has been scaled back to a one-off show in Texas (and was cancelled this year); Gigantour, the brainchild of Megadeth straightedge madman Dave Mustaine, won’t raise its ugly head again until 2010; and the Sounds of the Underground, which flared up in ’05, bit the dust after its 2007 tour.

Mayhem is the only game in town for the most evil headbangers, and the promoters didn’t compromise one bit.

“Even if there were [other fests], this would still be a formidable metal tour by any measure,” remarks Webster, “but with it being the only major metal tour in America for 2009, it’s basically a must-attend event for any true metal head.” 

“I think it makes the metal community value Mayhem a lot more,” notes Whitechapel guitarist Alex Wade, while Slayer guitarist Kerry King adds, “Hopefully people are digging the bill because they don’t have as much to choose from this year.”

“Causing more pain”

King says Slayer’s 13-song set won’t feature any major theatrics like raining blood (as shown on the Still Reigning DVD released in 2004), but Manson plans to go all out with his evil aesthetics.

“I’m basing it around themes that are natural for me,” he notes, adding that his bedroom walls are decorated with the plastic used to wrap dead bodies.

“The stage show will resemble a horror movie set, but it will have that internal [Federico] Fellini irony where you see all the exposed elements but it’s still scary. You can see all the lights and the guy with the clapper that starts the scenes, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful. I wanted to use that irony.”

Manson, after noting that this tour marks Twiggy’s return on guitar, adds, “It’s an hour show, but it’s an hour of total, complete dedication to causing more pain to others than we cause to ourselves.”

The guys in Slayer, as the elder statesmen of the festival (dude, Reign in Blood first hit store shelves in ’86!), are in the unique situation where the other bands are often big fans equal to the concertgoers. King says he won’t get much time to socialize thanks to an endless string of promotional responsibilities, but he appreciates the respect. 

“Some [bands] are cool, some are idiots, the same as any tour,” he laughs, “[but] it’s kind of like how I was with Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, with [Glenn] Tipton, K. K. [Downing] and Tony [Iommi]. Tony was the last one for me. I got over the Priest guys from playing with them from time to time, getting them drunk and sending them home. It was funny. But it’s all a respect kind of thing like I had for those guys.”

This type of respect can be seen from Whitechapel’s six-stringer, who notes, “We get to play with bands that are huge influences on us such as Slayer, Behemoth and Cannibal Corpse and bands that we’re great friends with, like [The] Black Dahlia [Murder] and Job For A Cowboy. It’s an incredible mix of bands.”

Scary son of a bitch

Set to become a yearly event, Mayhem was put together by Lyman and his Taste of Chaos partner John Reese.

Slayer actually has its own U.S./U.K. metal fest, the Unholy Alliance Tour, which took the year off. Interestingly, the band also took 2007 off and did a tour with, of all people, Marilyn Manson, making Mayhem their second pairing in two years. King and Manson hit it off on that tour, which makes them the perfect people to answer the ultimate Mayhem question: Who is more evil, Manson or Slayer?

“Me!” says King without hesitation. “Or, if you’re asking about the whole band, I still have to go our way. At least that’s the case right now. When he did Antichrist Superstar, he was a scary son of a bitch. Now his image has changed, but I saw him on that tour and he raised my eyebrows.”

Manson also waxes a bit ambivalently.

“It depends on what barometer you’re using to judge evil,” he reflects, “but Slayer ultimately came first and thus influenced Marilyn Manson, so whatever evil I have in me musically can’t go without being credited in some way to Slayer. Have I achieved greater evilness . . . Yes, I have.”

There he goes making Uncle Charlie proud again. 

Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival featuring Marilyn Manson, Slayer, Whitechapel, Cannibal Corpse and more at the San Manuel Amphitheater, 2575 Glen Helen Parkway, San Bernardino, (909) 880-6500, www.livenation.com, www.mayhemfest.com; Sunday, July 12, doors open 2:15PM; $12.50 to $99.25.