Going to Texas with John Perez ( Solitude Aeturnus, Brain Ticket records)

Could you tell us what made you choose heavy metal (at large) and not
pop, post punk/new wave, or even hardcore punk as a musician? Which were
your influences back then?

Hi and thanks for the interview sorry it took forever! As a music fan I grew up listening to many styles of mainly rock music. I've always liked melody and good songwriting no matter what the style. As I grew older I got into more heavier and extreme music styles including some
experimental, hardcore, post punk and pop/psychedelic music. I love it
all, but heavy metal music always seemed to be what I could relate to the
most. When I started a band I wanted to go in a specific direction rather
than try to mix all of the styles of rock music I'm into, so I just
decided to focus my playing and musician/writing skills into heavy metal
music. I've done other things as well outside of metal like Liquid Sound
Company, Puncture... My influences in metal at least, were all the great
70's hard and heavy bands, Sabbath, Priest, UFO, Heep etc.. and of course
the great wave of underground metal of the early 80's like Savatage,
Metallica, Metal Church, Vitus, Trouble, Malice, etc....


Tell us about the beginnings of Rotting Corpse, and Solitude
Aeturnus...

Pretty long stories actually but to make it fit here, Rotting Corpse was
the result of me looking for other like minded metal heads in our area
during a time when there was no underground metal scene. I got lucky and
found Walter Traschler and we hit it off with our love for extreme metal
and going against the grain. After a few years of this I decided to move
onto my first love and that was pure heavy metal. Same thing, I looked
around for like minded musicians and found them to create a 5 song demo
and off we went! I detail these early days in our new release called, In
Times of Solitude which reflects on the early demo days of the band and
with a full detailed story of how it came about.


What could be related about Texas punk rock/ hardcore scene(s) in the
80ies especially ( bands like MDC, Verbal Abuse, Really Red, Dicks, Big
Boys, D.R.I., Fearless Iranians From Hell...)? Did you share stages,
attend some gigs or just reach them from time to time?

Texas has had some great punk and hardcore bands and always a strong scene for this kind of music. The early 80's was when I was mostly into punk and hardcore, some of the bands you mentioned I never got to see, simply
because they rarely played up here like the Dicks and the Big Boys and
they were a little before my time. But we did manage to see early
Butthole Surfers, Offenders, MDC, DRI, the Holy (Count Lyle and Roberts
early punk band) and many more locals. I loved that early HC scene it was
some great times full of energy and rebellion.

(maybe a stupid question especially the last part so dismiss it if you
want :-) ) Could you describe Texas areas for foreign readers who only
know Bush family, "Dallas" soap or tv serials, or (even better) the famous
adult movie "Debbi Does Dallas" ( you could add Walker texas rangers but
I'm not a huge Chuck Norris fan)?

Texas is a HUGE state and not all of us are redneck conservatives and cowboys although there is a lot of that here! We're basically the same as anywhere else, shopping malls, too many cars, everyone trying to make a
living. The Texas image gets "played up" sometimes for tourists I think.
It is hotter than hell over here and sometimes I think that makes us
Texans a little more crazy at times! Chuck Norris is a bad ass though!
Walker Texas Ranger is a great comedy!

How and why did you build Brainticket records?

I just wanted to release music that people weren't getting a chance to hear. Quality heavy and psychedelic music. I'm a huge fan of music and I really wanted to release stuff that was suited to my personal tastes and
share it with as many people that would listen. I've released about 30 CD's so far and still doing it as long as CD's last! I think we'll go into vinyl only manufacturing in the near future.

For me, Texas music also means Rap A Lot records, Geto Boys, 5th Ward
Boyz (G.B. were Dirty south rap forerunners). It's said that Scarface (
from the Geto Boys) is a heavy metal addict, so are there links, according
to you, between the rap scenes especially horrorcore movement, and heavy
metal, in Texas?

I"m not a big rap fan, although I was interested in it in the very early days. However, the Ghetto Boys, in particular the second album is a genius release! I listened to this album so many times I can't count it! I
think the hardcore take no shit attitude in rap is similar to the attitudes in more extreme forms of metal so I see how they would relate.


Why, according to you, did Pantera reach success and mainstream
audiences, and not Devastation, Watchtower or Militia, or even Solitude
Aeturnus?

Pantera worked their asses off in the early days and simply got to be the most professional and best at their game. Daryl was also a rare one of kind player, he truly was one of the best metal guitarist to ever surface, an original style and he could play anything! I wasn't really a huge fan
of the early Pantera, although the material is not bad, just a little
commercial for my tastes but Daryl always blew me away with his abilities.
Of course they went on to write some really groundbreaking material,
whether anyone likes it or not, they changed the playing field. Band like
ourselves and Watchtower, Militia, Devastation we're just not set up for
mainstream tastes. It's always been like this and seems like it always
will. Our styles require more attention and more thinking rather than
simply moshing around or getting insane aggressive.

What can you tell me about Texas Metal Underground? Do you work
together, especially for the TMA compilation?

I don't work with TMU although I know Scott fairly well, great guy dedicated to the classic Texas scene. The TMA comp was actually something completely seperate from his sight. It's a project I had in mind for the
last 10 years and it took me forever to get it out!

What could be said about US doom metal scene? What's happening with
Saint Vitus, Pentagram, Trouble, who were forrunners, with S.A.? Who are
the followers? The next wave?

We have our heavy bands over here for certain. The old guard is still around with Vitus doing some great new stuff now, Pentagram back on track, Trouble also recording new material, Iron Man, Revelation and still quite
a few more still operating from the old days. Some newer bands as well but a lot of heavy bands in general go for the growling or deadly vocal styles and I'm more into the classic metal style of singing which is still kind of rare in the doom scene over here.

Plans for the future, for Brainticket records, Solitude Aeturnus...
thanx!

Just to keep going and do what we do! HEAVY music all the way! BT will continue to release music as we're able to and SA will do another album hopefully by the start of the year!