Craig Locicero (Forbidden)

Craig Locicero is a musician best known for playing guitar with Bay Area thrash metal band Forbidden. He also played guitar with ManMade God, Dress the Dead, The Boneless Ones & Demonica. His band Forbidden has now had a rebirth with new singer Norman Skinner in the fold. They will be releasing some new music and playing some festivals. We discuss Forbidden, some of his other projects and his time working on one of Geoff Tate’s albums.

00:00 - Intro
00:39- Forbidden "Rebirth"
02:42 - Bay Area Interthrashional & Norman Skinner
09:30 - Band Comes Together & Other Plans
12:55 - Bay Area Thrash Music Scene
17:25 - Paul Bostaph & Slayer
18:50 - Forbidden Manager Turns Down Rick Rubin
22:30 - ManMade God
26:20 - Doing Things Differently
28:13 - Playing with Geoff Tate
32:00 - The Boneless Ones & Other Bands
34:05 - Future Plans with  Forbidden
36:25 - ALS Charity
38:20 - Outro

Forbidden website:
https://officialforbidden.com/

ALS website:
https://www.als.org/

Chuck Shute website:
https://chuckshute.com/

Transcript

Chuck Shute: 0:00

Craiglist Cicero the guitarist from Bay Area thrash band forbidden is here today. And if you missed forbidden now's a great time to discover them. They have now had a rebirth with new singer Norman Skinner, and we're going to talk all about that and the plans for the band. Also, we're going to talk about his time with the project man made God and working with Rick Rubin and his work on an album with Jeff Tate. So all this and more coming right up welcome, I think I can say it right now. I practiced this. Craig Lowe Cicero.

Craig Locicero: 0:45

You said it correctly. All right, we got it so forbidden is back. It's uh, this is like kind of like a rebirth is what you're calling it of the band. Yeah, yeah, it's not really a it's not a reformulation or we're even a rehash or, I mean, with the two new guys you know, in the experience they bring and savvy and you know, all that good stuff. It's, it's not the same as the RE formation that happened last time around. What do they call that though? There's a word for that and reboot called while there's reboot to though but the word that everyone likes us or anytime reunion. It's not. Me and Matt Camacho have been friends entirely seat, you know, the entire time since we were 15 and 16 years old, respectively. So it's not we're not reuniting. And same with Steve Smith. We talk to him often, you know, that it is a rebirth with Chris Kontos and Norman Skinner.

Chuck Shute: 1:46

Yeah, it's still gonna be forbidden. I mean, it's still three fifths of the band and the singers. He can sing all the old stuff. The same, right? Oh, yeah.

Craig Locicero: 1:55

Yeah. The same is a relative term. When he first started singing it at the first practice. We heard when we were not even this was not even a thing, dude. But he, there's a story behind that. But when he did start singing off the head the first time, it didn't sound like Roz. It sounded like a guy who owned it. Who had similar powers or us like similar powers. You know, he wasn't trying to like I'm not interested in karaoke. You know? Like, if Bruce Dickinson tried to sing Les Paul the piano. Like, that's not really good. You got it. You got to be yourself. And that's what he is. That's why he earned my respect, because it just sounded like Norman Skinner singing a forbidden song. And Skinner is already a great singer. Yeah. And you knew him because you guys were in this, like cover tribute band, the Bay Area thrash band, international.

Chuck Shute: 2:48

I love that's a great name.

Craig Locicero: 2:50

So I'm good at coming. I'm good at coming up with slogans. I should have made some money off things like that. But no, yeah. It wasn't really. We didn't look at as a cover band. Would you like me explain how that came about? And I guess Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, it starts with the folks at dynamo, the newer Dynamo Dynamo Metal Fest, not the old Dynamo open air. But there was the guys that used to go to Dynamo open air, who, who got the name and started redoing it. And they wrote me an email. And because they've shared with the T teacher check, wrote me and asked me if I would be interested in heading any kind of Bay Area thrash tribute, because he knows that I work with Rob Lin tightly on the ruffling and print stuff and I was kind of like the, the musical organizer, you know, until Rob gets his hands in it, and then he does what he does, but so he knew that I was kind of good at organizing things. But I said that sounds kind of boring, fly me out there and we take a look at all so this is 2019 and I went and checked it out and I love the new setup because this was the very old setup of Is it a big skating ring 10,000 capacity and it everyone has to watch the music it's like in the round so you know I mean there's a stage on one end but I was watching armored saint and and that's when it hit me. No one plays their own song. Nobody will do their own song anybody's in a thrash band that's they're playing the songs will have to stand and watch as their song gets played. That's interesting to me. So with that being said, Here comes COVID 2000 22,000 22,021 is cancelled cancelled than 2022 comes around. Then I've got Katyn from hyrax tab for vocals. I've got Leah Randy from Lamb of God, I've got Marcus Adwaita are the main three. And I had no one to sing at home for rehearsals. I was like, oh shit. So that's when Chris Kontos suggested Norman Skinner, as Oh, yeah, Norman's great. He played the last forbidden show with his band Skinner. I've seen him play in Imagica He's a great singer that I bet he will do it. So I called him and asked him you Yeah, do anything you want. That's great. What an honor. You know. So he came down and blew out a bunch of songs that Metallica Exodus, Death Angel, you know, all that. And then it came to the forbidden song. I said, Well, we were all here. We might as well run in it. And it was in the room at the time. It was, myself, Matt Camacho, Steve Smith and Mark Hernandez who played drums on omega wave. So we had the poor guys were there for omega wave. And we started playing and Matt goes into the bass part, and then it hurts me and like we're not playing this fucking song. Why are we doing it? Like, I'm like, I'm not playing the song. These guys aren't. Normal is not even going with us. But then the vocals came in. It was like, holy, I can say shit, right? Yeah, shit. Fuck. Plus, he caught me. Everyone say, you won't get me say those words the last few times because they don't really come up in my normal dialogue. They're just saying, holy, holy shit. That was a rolls right back to I say he sounded like Norman singing our songs, convincingly. And I was like, that's really cool. And then the door opens is Chris Kontos is on the other side of the door who's not in the band, because we are not turning looking to reform. He's on the other side of door. He opens it up. And then Harold those behind him. They close the door. And you know, I mean, it sounds great. But I wasn't in any position or hurry or thinking about it from me. And I'm like, I just thought, well, at least he could sing the song. That was cool. And then fast forward, we get back from Europe. We got to start rehearsing almost immediately for the next bay area version of the show. And we're doing like 30 Something songs. So I called Norman. I'm like, Norman, you want to sing a few songs this time? You did so great. Last time. I think everybody should get to know you. You know, like, he's got a pretty big following in the Bay Area. You know, 1000s and 1000s of people. Nobody Norman is here. But not necessarily everywhere else. There's the PROG scene. They know, a little bit over the power metal scene, but he's not known for like the Thrash stuff. But I said, I would like you to St. Charles blood with the guys in Warbringer. You're playing the music. And we'll just watch you know. So that never happened in any practice. They don't. Except for the night before the show when the guys are Warbringer showed up. We were at SR in San Francisco. And when they went to the song, it's funny when they're starting to see Norman kind of like hopping around a little bit like getting ready. Like, okay, he wouldn't do that for anything else. And then they start the song and they sound great as a band. You know, I worked with the guitar player a little bit and went over, like how to play stuff because he was like, Dude, I can't make it all out. Nobody can finish. It's hard. So they, they were nailing that down. And then he comes into the scrim. And everyone's like, you know, like, okay, and then I just felt all the eyes. Look at me, man. I was like, Oh, shit, you know, it's becoming more obvious that this guy could pull it off. Fast forward to the show the very next night. It just you could multiply that times, you know, 700 people that were in the room, you know, like, everybody's like, Oh my God, it went over as the best if not one of the two or three best songs of the entire night of 30 songs, songs, you know, Metallica songs, actually the songs that they know songs, violent songs, we did stuff we did sat, he did sabotage, he did. Sirens, we did sirens. And he's saying that, you know, it's like, just every time he sings, it's just convincing. So even then, I wasn't 100% And I just knew that it could be done. And it wasn't till months later, six weeks ago about now that I got an email from Alcatraz asking if we would be interested in doing taking an interactive spot, because they had to cancel their tour doing the 35th anniversary or forbidden evil. And would you and they I'm paraphrasing would you be interested in bringing another singer Long's is Russell's retired and possibly Chris Kontos on drums because it makes a great story for the people out here because they love or my eyes they love you know that that machine had record is like Ashton in European folklore. So, but even then, that okay, then I just sit back and I go, okay, okay. I've got to take this seriously. I'm gonna call my manager and see, but it didn't have the drummer said I wasn't necessarily okay with playing with Chris at first because I already played them in the boneless ones. I didn't want it to test the boundaries of everything we do. So I called my manager I said do the universe is opening up and he's telling me I got to do this. I'm gonna fucking do it was you know, he's like, we're gonna have saying I'm gonna Skinner he's a perfect. So I made the calls. Everybody said yes, yes, yes. And then I had to figure out a drummer. And I reached out to Chris first and said, Dude, I'm going to do this. And I don't know if I should do this with you or without you. And he's like, Well, what about this guy? What about that guy? So he's giving me all these suggestions because he was thinking the same as I was talking to a bunch of guys are all great famous, but none of them live here. I was about to pull the trigger. And I called back and said Look, dude, I've got all these guys that want to do it, but none of them live here. Yo, you're right brand we already put Together we have great chemistry. What are we thinking? Why are we then he's like, let's do it. And that's how it all kind of came about.

Chuck Shute: 10:08

All right, awesome. So they're doing you're doing that show and then you're gonna do some other festivals and some other shows that you can't announce yet. Is that right?

Craig Locicero: 10:17

I can either confirm or deny anything other than an albatross festival.

Chuck Shute: 10:21

Okay. And then also, I heard you say the you guys are going to record some cover songs or you may have already recorded them with a, like Operation IV Black Sabbath Iron Maiden the sounds exciting.

Craig Locicero: 10:31

Yeah, we did them already. Those will be the last things we probably will release unreleased stuff with Ross. It was that line up with Ross and Mark Hernandez on it. And we did it probably in 2011. After we played frog power. We because we had a couple of lives already put on there too, with Jean Hoagland on drums on those, because Mark couldn't make the make that and that was the kind of that's my marks not here because he had a lot of family things that were happening. And he had to cancel on a lot of things and pull back from a lot of things. And it's not it's still the same for him. He can't just get up and go when it's time to go. So it wasn't really an option for Mark, but he'll be on those cover songs. We did. Yeah, we did. Children are the sea by Sabbath. Remember, remember tomorrow by maiden? And all he knows that? I don't know. Nothing. You know, the operation IV song? Yeah. They're all great. I mean, we put basically played a live in ROSS just laid his vocals on top and fucking killer, killer, killer killer.

Chuck Shute: 11:32

Okay, and then we'll though is there going to be new music with Norman Skinner?

Craig Locicero: 11:38

Yes, that I can tell you I have in the future. I want to I really want to get back into lyrical content. Again, I want to write lyrics because I wrote the majority of forbidden lyrics in the past from twisting the formula onward. And that's something I like to do you know, the deep psychological Ying Yang, you know, Battle of the mind battle the brain. Like that's, that's something I've always loved to do. But I haven't done in years because I've had singers that write their own stuff. And I want you know, Norman knows how it works. And he's like, show me show me, you know, he wants to work with me. He's actually so hungry to learn, like, you know, and have a thrash metal attack to what he's doing was forbidden, by the way, forbidden was the first thrash metal band he ever saw live.

Chuck Shute: 12:25

I heard you say he was a fan, obviously. Very much. So. Yeah. Tell me about

Craig Locicero: 12:30

those old days that tell you. I gotta tell you, Russ used to literally point out and call a little restaurant crowd.

Chuck Shute: 12:38

Wow, how much younger? Is he?

Craig Locicero: 12:42

Probably not quite 10 years younger than the rest of us. Okay, because we're all in our early 50s. You know, I mean, I was 18 when we recorded for being able to. That's,

Chuck Shute: 12:55

that's crazy. So yeah, tell me about those days, though, because I'm always fascinated with music scenes. I love the Sunset Strip scene. I grew up in Seattle in the 90s. So there's the 90 Seattle scene but the Bay Area thrash scene. I mean, that's legendary, too. You got Metallica, and Exodus and testament and was the other ones like Death Angel and

Craig Locicero: 13:15

Angel. Death, Angel violence, forbidden heat, even blind illusion, defiance. And then it goes on sacrilege bc I mean, there's so many great bands that were out here. And it's one of a kind. It's the only scene where you could pull off something like we do with Bay Area. And it's rational, where everybody comes there to support each other. Whoever's in town is available. And we get together and we play each other stuff, you know? Yeah, I don't think I don't think there's any scene anywhere in the world. Maybe Seattle might do it. But it's just really hard for people to get up there and do stuff like that. And then there's also the thing of like, like I said, Nobody plays their own song and taking the time to do that I think are seen as a little more respectful and cognizant of each other where they would actually try to learn and put the time in to do it.

Chuck Shute: 14:09

Mm hmm. And you toured with you did some shows with Exodus. Did you ever do shows with Metallica? Or did you ever even see them? Because they were I guess you guys started at five they were they were pretty big. By then. Were they still in the Bay Area?

Craig Locicero: 14:21

They were hanging out I'd see them from time to time and I've seen them plenty of times and I was lucky enough to buy I bought kill them all the day it came out. I was 14 years old. I came and I went to San Francisco by myself on BART and bought that album. And I did the same thing when ride lightning came out. I bought that out in San Francisco too. So I'm a ground level Metallica guy. Yeah, but then never I never played with them directly. We've done shows where remembers that I've jammed with Robert Trujillo with Rob Leonard friends thing. I actually squatted lower than him. He was amazed I can get lower than he went. Yeah, the funny little thing is some fun but ya know there They're, they're Metallica man, this is like, you know, it's iconic. But it's so funny because just recently, there's a video that came out where they're talking about. I don't know if you saw it, but it just came out like a week ago. And they were talking about they're doing their live jam before rehearsing before their tour. Or they sit in the room together. Yeah, we're talking about everybody playing Smoke on the Water like hundreds of people and then are Saba true Saba true. And then hundreds of people played spoke on the water. And then then largest the biggest. Yeah, next thing to do songs like for being there was a lot like other night it was a joke, like a were obscure, be the shits hard to play. And that's what he was really saved. Like, you couldn't get a bucket. You know, 100 500 people to play for business on fucking sound like ass money.

Chuck Shute: 15:50

But that's what I mean. Like they were clearly because Lars is such a music nerd too. Like he's clearly aware of you guys and a fan of you guys.

Craig Locicero: 15:57

Well, yeah, go Sure. I mean, yeah, yeah. I don't know what they listen to day to day, but Lars is well versed in the Bay Area. He always kind of he's brought us up a few times, you know, like Ben's crazy stuff obscure, you know, because I mean, we were a cult band. We weren't like, forbidden never. We were on our way to commercial success in in bytes at 1991 We're toying with death angel. Both our albums were just exploding, you know, we they're doing actory we're twisting the form and both albums are doing great. And everything was marked towards that direction. But everything changed. It wasn't you know, early 90 or late 91, early 92 You know, the Seattle industry completely flipped the thrash metal industry over and death metal you know, and stuff like that was the only real survivors Panthera Slayer kind of survived. I mean, they came back later but it took them a while like, you know Metallica has an establishment but the rest of us testament Exodus that angel forbidden all of them we all just got discarded every one of us we were not the only ones Yeah, could those guys came back or broke up for a while and came back death angel broke up testament almost changed your name to dogface gods to try to fit in you know, like everything was Exodus broke up. Like everybody kind of just we kept going longer than the rest of them as a matter of fact Oh, except for Testament they have gone but as a matter of fact out of the bay area we were the last ones to disband and 97

Chuck Shute: 17:23

Yeah, well and then I heard this tell me the story is true that your drummer Paul bo staff who obviously would later join Slayer, like you are the one that showed him Slayer like you were playing the rain and blood album at a party and he walked in and he goes and he was like, holy shit our band is fucked because like Slayer was so the album was so good boom away.

Craig Locicero: 17:45

I don't know about the our band is fuck part because that album came out in random blog came out in 8686. And he had just joined forbidden. Yeah, so he was getting introduced to thrash metal. He wasn't really too hip to it. You know, like, Paul was like, cozy Powell or, you know, like one of those kinds of drummers, but he had he was willing to learn how to play double bass. So that's how he kind of won the gig. He stole it from his fucking cousin. Jim Pittman was his cousin. And then the Jim Pitman's other cousin, Pete one of the gig too, so there was a battle of the family where they're all mad at each other. Which was interesting, interesting time, but Paul is not very hip to thrash metal so Slayer definitely, like a woken something in him where he realized he can go unbridled crazy, and that's where he kind of turned it on and forbidden evil. And when we started writing songs from that point forward, he definitely use more Lombardo influence, you know, but in a positive way different drummer than David Bartow completely.

Chuck Shute: 18:45

Hmm, yeah, Lombardo is insane to those both amazing drummers tell explain to me, though, like, this is a crazy story. I heard you. I think I've heard you mentioned this a couple times, where how your manager, you guys were being shopped to different labels and your manager turned down a bigger label? Is that Is that what happened? Because they weren't ready or something, but doesn't make any sense to me?

Craig Locicero: 19:08

Well, it's Debbie abodo. So first of all, she's like a mom, you know, she was like, she loved us. And she didn't think okay, what you gotta understand about Debbie is she didn't think any of these bands were gonna have any staying power. She thought everything was just a trend. It was gonna be over in a minute. You know, she's not like, totally hip to the music, but she always judged by and by the reaction that other people gave them. Right? So her whole thing was forbidden is like, while everyone else loves them, they must be really good, because she only mentioned possessed before that. So she went from possess who her daughter was dating Larry lawan and said, I'm not going to do that anymore. To me calling cold call on the phone. Hey, I'm Craig. I played forbidden evil and you'll love us that she's like, I don't know. So she did. Learn to love us as people and knew the music was obviously going over well with people and then Fast forward, we're on the forbidden evil tour. And we didn't know anything about this, actually, so we didn't know anything about it. But while we were on that tour, Rick Rubin had approached her and asked if he could take the band off of combat, he's willing to buy us out of combat and bring us over to Def Jam. Because he loved for renewal. And we unbeknownst to us, we never found this out until we were on tour with death. In one eye, she was mad at us. He's Oh, yeah, that's why I never told Rick Rubin. Because you guys aren't ready for it. And we're like, What are you talking about? And it just, it made everybody really shocked. But I remember pissed off Paul the most. You know, he was so upset. And we loved me, dude, we loved her up to that point. But that's kind of why we were like, after that the relationship as a manager kind of went downhill because we had a hard time like, we could have been doing this. But I but I look at it like this. I don't I don't think there's any regret in that now. Because twisted in the form when that happened. Rick would have wanted us to continue doing what we did not forbidden evil, which is cool. But it was, you know, he saw he liked the bombastic kind of like, childish playfulness to the whole thing. And then the amount of growing we did, we got Tim Calvert abandoned him and I working together really lifted us to the level that, you know, our reputations kind of hinges on how mature the music turned into from that point moving forward, you know, and a lot of growing. I mean, I went from being 2019 and Megan, are 18, to make it forbidden evil, to be a 20 to make it twisted. And for me that seemed like like years ago, and had Rick been involved. That would have been cool for the band brand. But I don't think we would have he would have wanted us to do the same kind of thing would have been compromised, and more than likely. So that's why I look at it. And I know that I have this verified for very good authority, regrouping himself. Because I signed to recruitments label with man, may God and him and him and I had later after I played for him, and he was, you know, he's blown away by the band. I'm walking outside. I'm like, Hey, Rick, I don't know if you know who I am. But I'm Craig. I played that bid for bid. And he's like, Oh, I wanted to sign you guys isn't your managers just stonewalled me? He just flat out said no. Why was that I'm like, we kind of had a conversation. And yeah, from that point on, he kind of realized that I was more than just a rock guy for sure.

Chuck Shute: 22:30

Yeah, well, no, it's interesting, because I heard you talking about manmade God. And you were saying, Oh, this is one of those bands. That would have been huge. And I kind of roll my eyes and go, Yeah, I hear that in interviews all the time. So I but I'm like, I'm curious. I'll check it out. I listened. I was like, holy shit. This is really good stuff. So explain the story with that and explain how was this the one that Doug Goldstein was possibly going to be involved with whose Guns and Roses manager they tried to get he was,

Craig Locicero: 22:57

he was dug, dug. There's so many levels of this story. It's a very interesting time in my life. Because

Chuck Shute: 23:04

the plan is really good. I mean, people should check it out.

Craig Locicero: 23:07

Yeah, well, it's the only band that I played in, where people literally get teary eyed talking about it. You know, like it moves them emotionally. There's things just, there's triggers that everyone's got deep in their subconscious in their soul. And we hit on a lot of those triggers. We hit a lot of emotional ebbs and flows. And so people end up not just listening to the album, but falling in love with it, you know, including the people that worked on it, like Sean Bevin mixed in to this day. It's like one of his favorite records he ever did. You know, he did all the Nine Inch Nails stuff, and Marilyn Manson stuff and countless, you know, countless things. But just the other day, he sent me a video of him playing the record with his wife and watching their cat play. And he's like, Dude, it's still just moved me. But uh, yeah, I mean, it was a time of my life. It was very exciting time in life, because forbidden ended in 97. So 9899, I was doing a very experimental version of me God. And we had a singer that was out of his mind. Very talented, taught me how to be an artist. You know, he taught me to not worry as much about what I remember. I had a rip. I love these. Oh, yeah, that was cool. I'm like, Yeah, but it's great. He's like, it's alright, he's on. But you got a million more behind that. So that's stuck with me. His name was Mike Sullivan. I know that. That's how I roll into things now. So somebody doesn't love something. It'll be alright. Again, another one, you know, so that he taught me that but then, you know, he also had a serious drug problem. So we ended up letting him go and finding this guy pan through an ad. And as soon as we had him all that weird, kind of all over the place music we were writing immediately became cohesive and became like, rock staples. And it wasn't people are like yeah, you kind of like sell garlic. No, it was way more like foreigner or bad company. But like a heavy heavy version sapling you know, like It was just you know, it should just took off as soon as soon as pan got the band, and we made a demo, we were getting constantly bombarded with by record labels, because it was the heyday of labels were still prevalent and, you know, putting money into things and trying to make bands huge, there was still an industry. So we were at the tail end of all that, and Fast forward to about a year after he got the band, and every label is trying to sign us. That's when we got the call from Rick's people. So that's how that all came about. And then Rick, Rick said his main guy, you know, Brady's down to see us and are up to see us actually from LA. And within a few minutes, he's like making plans on his BlackBerry to fly us and all of our gear down to LA to play for Rick Rubin two days later. And these are things you just don't hear about anymore. They don't they don't happen. So yeah, I mean, yeah, I can't imagine rolling your eyes hearing that story. Like, but

Chuck Shute: 26:01

no, but it was really good band.

Craig Locicero: 26:06

Thank you. I don't embellish much. I really don't I the thing is I my career has been full of like, almost just about Mr. Buy that much. And I'm still not bitter. I don't know, man. I've been lucky enough to do things with very talented people.

Chuck Shute: 26:22

But what do you think you could if you've looked back? Is there things that you would have done differently that you because I look at the man man, God, I listened to forbidden? I mean, even like, I mean, all your stuff is really good. What's the other one with the girl singer dressed the dead? Like, you've done so many cool things? Like what do you think you're missing that would take it to that next level, like,

Craig Locicero: 26:47

you know, I mean, I hate to probably the decision that I have to lay out my footstep. More than the other one is sometimes relying too much on people that deep down inside, I know, might not be able to do the long haul. You know, like I love them for one reason or another musically, super. But you got to you know, when it comes down to bed, you gotta be down for the cause you got to be like, really down and be able to get up and go and do things when it needs to happen. It's a different industry. Now. You don't have to do everything you should you should say no to more than you say yes, do now. Because there's not a lot of, you know, fiscal sets in playing music anymore. You know, so you just got to pick and choose what you in forbidden. I can do that. I can pick the right things and really concentrate on the music. But yeah, I think the biggest thing is relying on other folks that probably weren't there they were maybe had been reliable as friends and reliable as people but just couldn't be reliable in the music industry. And that's definitely what happened with man, they got our singer pretty much imploded, because he thought we should be huge, like overnight and didn't understand how much work is involved winning people over night after night. That wasn't what he wasn't really up for that. So I kind of pulled up I pulled the plug on it, because I just felt like it was just gonna go on forever. You would never quit understand.

Chuck Shute: 28:11

Let's see that. One thing I don't think I've ever heard you talk about was you played on Jeff Tate's album, The Jeff Tate's queens, right, I think it was called before now I think he just goes by Jeff Tate, but you played rhythm guitar on that album 10 tracks, but you're listed as an additional position.

Craig Locicero: 28:27

I played all the guitars on that album. And I could have done the solos too. But Jeff had this brilliant idea to get guests, everybody Oh my god. But uh, no, that was weird. Jason Slater that passed away is a great friend of mine. And he approached me because Jeff wanted to write a heavier record wanted to write a kind of a fuck you record. And I was like, okay, you know, that sounds weird. And the whole thing up for the onset, I told him, I'll do it under the premise that we can work on him every day and talk him into dropping the Queen's right name because it's not going to be a queen's record. So we did. Every day. We set it to him like one way or another We'd sneak it in. How are we going to put it the conversation today? We had this little conspiracy, but he was he was fighting with Queensland get the time to win the name. So he's a no, it's got to be this. I already signed a record deal and I've already got paid for Queensland combined. Okay, you know, it's your, your business decision. But it was interesting. And he was really nice. You know, he's, he's really nice. And to me, to this day, I will say that Jeff Tate rolls out of bed with great melodies in his head. You know, that's, that's what he does best. Like his. His melodies are cool on that record, but the record was rushed. It was like basically a collection of demos that I re recorded. And or wrote something on that spot. I wrote 90% of that music, rewrote it on the spot. figured out something cool to play there. I'll record it. Oh, my God, dude, again, double it, then. Can I harmonize it maybe, you know, I was like, I didn't even have time to like, do all I add I also wanted to bring Tim Calvin aboard because he was the huge Queens right fan. But Tim was flying and he didn't have time and they weren't willing to pay him. They were like, no, nobody else we got it. It was a weird thing, man. But, uh, at the end of it when I listened to it now, I'm like, those are really cool demos. You know, they don't sound like an album to me.

Chuck Shute: 30:22

And you didn't get to tour whether you didn't get to play live or anything.

Craig Locicero: 30:26

Didn't get to or chose not to. Okay, fair enough. I didn't want to be I didn't want to be associated with that stuff. I really did. I'm proud that I got to work with Jeff and that's a cool thing to have on a resume. Yeah, that's cool. You know, whatever. It's not it doesn't sit. It sits like the lower third you know, but, but I mean, I got you know, I'm not real happy with how he treated Jason Slater's who's since passed away. I have a real problem with the the way that he kind of threw Jason under the bus it was his fault. When that record is all Jeff Tate and his wife forcing the issue making us work on it, making sure that it had to come out in a certain amount of time when it would I'll tell you right now if I would have had another three months to actually work on songs and then bring them in and then have a real band to play with and another guitar player to play off of it would have been way better you know, but I didn't get any of those opportunities you know they paid me was all right. I mean nothing that I can listen to it now and I there's some songs I really like but they're not none of them sound complete

Chuck Shute: 31:35

any blame Jason Slater for the failure of it?

Craig Locicero: 31:39

Yeah, because Jason's not around to defend himself Jason's exact words would be you can suck up fucking Deke Deke in there.

Chuck Shute: 31:49

Are you did swear all right, I like it. Yeah, well, this

Craig Locicero: 31:53

is a great friend of mine. Yeah. Great brand. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 31:56

And gosh, he says so many good bands. The other one I haven't really listened to the boneless ones. That's a pumpkin thrash crossover. Do you are you gonna continue with some of these side projects is forbidden going to be your main focus right now?

Craig Locicero: 32:11

Well, I mean, I don't have like a side project I have things that I concentrate on. You know, like everything goes to the side when I'm concentrating on that including the front end bonus ones for bins on the side are dressed dead and you know what other people would view it as because there's the hierarchy of forbidden with the that's all side projects but forbidden. But to me I've been into everything I've done. And the bonus ones it's funny the last interview I did the guys have popped in and he's like, loves the bonus ones records. It did really, really well get great reviews. There are legacy skate rock act out here in the Bay Area. Their song skate for the devil was voted number one skate rock song of all time by Thrasher Magazine. And I didn't know that till after I joined the band, but I've seen them when I was a kid. I saw with Chris contests playing it was like their last show at the UC Berkeley campus and they blew my mind was a guitar player was a shredder and I thought that leads will lead to good for punk rock because what my exact thoughts at the time come years later they reforming Chris gets a hold of me because I need to get guitar player because the other guy didn't have the chops to play all the Thrash stuff. Like you know, he was good guitar player but like kind of a blues guys. Like it's just not working bro. So I went and met the guys. I love them. I remembered how much I love them. And then we started writing record and it turned out great. So that's what that is, you know, and we're gonna we're playing Dynamo this year. After forbidden please Alcatraz a week later. We already had the Dynamo book for boneless ones way before this forbidden thing ever came about. So it's like, Hey, we got two less flights to pay for it's pretty cool. Oh, we're gonna be there. We're gonna be there, man. It's it's perfect timing. And then everyone's looking at the Bose one is like, hey, there's those two guys that are in for bidding up there with a skate rock band. You know, but it's heavy. It's fine. It's it's a really energetic album. Okay, cool. Lots of shredding. I get I get to play a lot of solos on that record where I don't usually lean into them as much.

Chuck Shute: 34:03

Okay, and then we can look forward to some possible would you possibly tour with forbidden or you can't you still can't say anything. But possibly maybe.

Craig Locicero: 34:13

I think a lot. I think touring is going to be tactical touring. Like I was saying, I don't think going out for a month and a half and hitting everywhere in the United States is never going to be something that's worth doing.

Chuck Shute: 34:24

Maybe like weekend stuff like casino shows or something like that.

Craig Locicero: 34:28

No casinos, festivals. Were already being offered festivals for all next year. Okay, I'm just telling you that right now, like almost every festival worth its salt has already got a hold of us or is waiting to see what we're going to do next. And so with a lot of European festivals of us festivals, I think it concentrating on me writing rich renew record is the most prevalent thing. I want to write new music and so after we finish out the trails, I'm gonna come home and really delve into that for a few months. And I think that's More important than anything else more and more important than living off the glory of the past is building on something for the future. No,

Chuck Shute: 35:07

no, absolutely. And I that's what I kind of love about music now is like, you don't need to have the big major label record, you can just put out your own stuff and bands are putting out some of the greatest material of their careers, I think, because they're maturing and they don't, they don't need, they don't have to listen to the record labels. They do it this way, do it that way they do it how they want, it sounds great.

Craig Locicero: 35:26

Well, record labels don't carry much sway with it when it comes to that anyway. You know, we're still technically on a nuclear blast anyway. So already on record label.

Chuck Shute: 35:35

Yeah. And that's like with I mean, they're like, chill, they're not like, trying to chase it. Right.

Craig Locicero: 35:40

A forbidden record. Yeah. And I know how to write it forbidden record, because I've been writing them since I was, you know, a young teen. Yeah, no, that's not It's not hard for me.

Chuck Shute: 35:51

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we look forward to that. And then I'll let you get to as you have another interview or

Craig Locicero: 35:57

No, but I've got my guitar right back here that I'm going to pick up and start working on. Today's my first day of really digging in and dusting off a lot of the old songs I knew I had three months it's May 1, I got three months and 11 or 10 days and so I begin my it's in my DNA it's not like it's hard to play forbidden shit, but it is like catching up your arm speed and your it's just a lot going on. So timesavers David dig in.

Chuck Shute: 36:24

Okay, cool. Well let you get back to it. I always end promoting as a charity or nonprofit that you want to promote here at the end. I always end with that.

Craig Locicero: 36:32

Anything for the ALS Foundation in any state that you're in? City, you know, the United State donate to ALS I have. We lost him Calvert, to ALS, my old guitar player for forbidden and my best friend is suffering from a right now my friend Bill shields who was in St. Louis. I know a lot of people you know lost friends to it. So it's the probably the most inexplicable and applicable horrible debilitating disease there is it eventually shuts all your your motor function and your organs down one by one. Oh, yeah. My brain. Your brains elastic go.

Chuck Shute: 37:09

Yeah, my uncle had I think he had I think his was different. It was MLS it's like very similar, though. Yeah, just shuts down your whole body. It's really sad to see. And so if we get a cure for that,

Craig Locicero: 37:19

that will give them a less is more pain more painful, even. But yeah, it's a little different. That starts I think your muscles contract with MLS or Ms. Ms. You're thinking multiple multiple sclerosis. Yes,

Chuck Shute: 37:32

no, I forget. But yeah, it was similar to that kind of thing. It's just hard to see. And, yeah, if we could get I'll put that in the link in the show notes along with of course, the forbidden links, and people can follow you guys on social media and all that stuff. So

Craig Locicero: 37:46

it's all their Facebook, official forbidden.com If you want to buy our official merch, you know, Instagram, we just created Instagram. We just created our Instagram page, just to pre preface the announcement that we're back. So it's like it's been for about two and a half, almost three weeks into that. And so that's grown rather quickly.

Chuck Shute: 38:06

Okay, cool. Well, thanks, Craig. I appreciate it. And if you get hit a Phoenix, I'll come see you guys if I'm around.

Craig Locicero: 38:13

Awesome, man. I appreciate the time and yeah, good question.

Chuck Shute: 38:17

All right. Thank you. I'll see you later. Peace. Bye bye. My thanks again to Craig make sure to follow him and forbidden on social media. Check out some of the other bands he's played with. Manmade God was definitely very cool. If you liked that 90s rock sound. I enjoyed it. Make sure to support him with buying merch or ticket to a live show. Or at the very least commenting liking stuff on social media YouTube helps out and that goes for us to sharing the episodes. These podcasts helps out a lot. And of course, make sure you're subscribed wherever you watch or listen, I appreciate all your support. And so do the guests. Have a great rest of your day and shoot for the moon?