Wed 8/15 @ 10PM
Thu 8/16 @ 7-10PM
Cleveland’s internationally renowned influential industrial metal act Mushroomhead has emerged from its lair with the highly anticipated new DVD Volume III. The majority of new material is from the band’s 2014 effort The Righteous & the Butterfly, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hard Rock Chart.
While the new DVD featuring new music videos, backstage antics and exclusive never-seen-before content is due out Fri 8/17, the outfit has scheduled two special hometown affairs: A one-night-only premiere screening Wed 8/15 at the Cedar Lee Theatre, as well as meet-and-greet DVD signing Thu 8/16 at the Exchange in Parma Heights.
CoolCleveland talked to Mushroomhead founder, producer and drummer Steve “Skinny” Felton about the DVD, the band’s upcoming quarter-of-a-century milestone and why it’s a good thing the Cedar Lee Theatre sells booze.
CoolCleveland: Congrats on Volume III. How long has the band been working on the project?
Steve Felton: It was a little bit of a journey over the last three and a half years of touring. It was basically the entire album cycle of The Righteous & the Butterfly. It was a hell of a ride.
CC: From a production side, what stands out about the various videos is the amazing quality, which rivals anything Hollywood is doing these days.
SF: Everything is way more cinematic. I know it’s still a DIY camp here, but it’s a grander scale, from actual locations to sets to even the editing. It was just taking advantage of technology. The last DVD we put out was 10 years ago, so this time we were able to do really cool stuff that basically we’ve always wanted to do and never really had the opportunity. An example is the video for “Our Apologies.” We used a lot of drone footage to get those shots, whereas five years ago you would have needed a helicopter and had a huge budget.
CC: As far as content on Volume III, what can fans expect?
SF: It’s the whole last album, The Righteous & the Butterfly. Just about every song has a full-length video or there’s like remixed audio for it. Another cool thing about this DVD, we did all of it ourselves in our shop. So in between the actual theatrical videos, we did remixes from songs off the album. The first 38 minutes it plays more like a movie.
CC: Regarding The Righteous and the Butterfly, how did that project push Mushroomhead’s boundaries?
SF: That was album No. 7 and again, it’s just more of the same with us —just experiment and experiment. Nothing is ever really wrong. Ideas are never bad. We just put out the ones that really hit home. It debuted at No. 20 on the Billboard Top 200. We were all pleasantly surprised with that because, let’s face it, we’ve never really been number chasers. We’re way more on the artistic end of it. We just want to create cool shit. We’re currently in the studio right now working on our eighth album, which will come out early 2019.
CC: Looking at the calendar, 2018 is a special year for Mushroomhead.
SF: We’re coming up on Oct. 23, the 25thanniversary of our first show. It’s a great time to be alive for an artist. I’m really glad we’re still going strong. Mushroomhead is going through changes, the world is going through changes, and I think it’s what kept us alive. We’ve been changing along with the times. So it’s kind of cool. It’s one of those situations because we are such a DIY band and it’s a blue-collar type of thing. We get up and go to work. We do our thing, and we’re fortunate enough that some people really like it to where they keep coming back. We’re blessed with some of the most hardcore fans in the world.
CC: Finally, how cool is to screen the DVD with fans at the Cedar Lee Theatre?
SF: I’m really looking forward to seeing it on a big screen, especially the mistakes, because I did all of the editing. It’s a good thing Cedar Lee has a bar, man. I’m definitely going to have a couple of drinks before I sit down and watch. It’s like a whole new stage fright for me. I’ve never watched one of our DVDs up on screen, let alone with a couple hundred people, so it should be interesting.
[Written by John Benson]
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118