What is your full name?
Joseph Izayea
What bands are you actively involved with?
Seeking Sirens, Sour Times, From Under Concrete Kings, and the very soon to be announced Bleed Like Mylee
Tell me about the genesis of your solo release Harder Truths.
Harder Truths was borne out of a tremendous and volatile falling out with my best friend of many years, and former bandmate, both the identity of whom as well as the band shall remain nameless. To make a long story short, I was deceived and betrayed worse than I had ever been in my life by someone I truly loved and looked upon as a member of my family. Harder Truths was the emotional processing and direct response to such arch betrayal. Its genesis dawned in the most hateful of ways, but I feel it important to note that to truly hate someone, you have to have truly loved them first.
How long did it take you to write and record Harder Truths?
Harder Truths took the better part of two years to put together, as ensuring my commitments to my other projects were met before spending my time and resources on this was of paramount importance. I wanted to accomplish this herculean endeavor the right way. This meant bringing in as many of my friends in the industry and bandmates from my other projects onto this record as I could while making absolutely sure that I didn’t hold back the endeavors of those I couldn’t.
The buck stops with you. You make the decisions. You don’t have to worry about having a partner not pull their side of the load which happens all too often and in nearly every project I’ve been involved with save for a precious few.
What, if any, are some of the cons to doing a solo record?
The buck stops with you. If you make the wrong decisions you have to account for them. If problems arise, they are yours and yours alone to solve. The monetary load along with the logistical workload rests squarely on your shoulders. Though, if you’ve got some good friends like I have been fortunate enough to have, you can always call in a favor or two.
When you are recording an album are there instances where a track or tracks make it onto an album, but said track is not necessarily a favorite of one or more band members?
For this type of record, that was a non issue. All of the guests were amazing in their part with their compositions. Either they nailed the instrumental on the head in their first shot, at most requiring only adding a few measures of this part or that or perhaps adding another section in here or there, or they would go right back to the drawing board, thus ensuring there wasn’t a single track on this record that I wasn’t completely satisfied with. For other projects, a track wasn’t typically allowed to undergo legitimate recording unless everyone involved liked what we were hearing.
If you were to start your own music festival what would be the name of that festival and who would be the three headlining bands?
Heck, man…. I dunno… Never gave something like that any thought before. Thinking on it for a few, I’d call my festival something quirky or stupid, like Gowron-fest or something. Do a split metal festival / star trek convention focused on Klingons. Most metal dudes kinda look like klingons anyway hahaha.
We would have a strange well drink sold dirt cheap and red colored we would naturally call bloodwine. The standard hail for a good song or set played would obviously be “Q’plah!” and there’d be extra headbutting in the mosh pit. Whoever MC’ing the bands would often wave the bands off that played a good set with the phrase “Glory to you… And your HOUSE.”
Dudes acting shitty or crowd killing “non-combatants” would be expelled from the festivities, branded a coward and a traitor without honor. Food tents would serve Huge mugs of beer, huge turkey legs and many many meats, but there’d be some rad tents serving vegetarian and vegan stuff so we can be inclusive. Folks would be allowed to camp overnight for the first and second day of the festival, and many songs would be sung and tales of glory said. The three bands would each headline their own day, with a few more bigger bands on their respective nights, and the remainder of the bill for each day would include a set but small number of local bands worthy to play. Music starting at 3PM and carrying onto midnight or before. During the day before bands play there’d be cool convention stuff, artists and the like doing their thing. No bands in particular come to mind for the headliners, but maybe have a quirky requirement that at least one member of each headlining band have long hair or like Star Trek or something. I don't know. I’m running out of creativity.
What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?
I was once, many moons ago, an exotic dancer out in Las Vegas. I made lots of money and was well liked as well as respected in the community. My stage name was “Big Beautiful” and I had some amazing skills both on the stage and off. When I moved back home from Las Vegas, returning to my native Rhode Island & Southeastern Massachusetts, I went from “Big Beautiful” to “Stretch Marx'' and swiftly ended my lucrative career never to dance exotic or swing from the pole again. I also have a penchant for telling ridiculous stories and keeping a straight face while telling them.
I’ve been fortunate to have been featured on FoD before, and really do love the show. I consider it one of my favorites, but the list of music podcasts I listen to is smaller than 10, as I don’t listen to alot of podcasts in general unless I’m driving long distance alone. Seriously dig you guys all the same though.
Hatebreed or The Dillinger Escape Plan (if you had to choose)?
Hatebreed, because dammit, Jamey Jasta has forgotten more work he’s done to further heavy music than I could ever hope to do.
Who is more heavy metal Big Bird or Snuffleupagus?
I will say that Big Bird is the more GANGSTA of the two, and to me, that’s basically the same thing.
Mucho thanks to Joseph for braving another round of my questions. I appreciate it greatly. Harder Truths kicks a mega-fuckton of ass, so you should listen to it immediately if not sooner.
~El Pedo Caliente (aka Uncle Jameson from the Fistful of DOOM show)
https://open.spotify.com/album/7obzokxJaaVtOtbbSrq21f?si=NvRwn0HiR2OV84euapcCIw
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