Head Charge in Charge

by Nick Panico
feedback@buzznews.net

As the new millennium turned, the nu-metal movement erupted. With this abrasive progress came such bands as System of a Down, Slipknot, Static-X, and Mudvayne, each forging their mark in their own aggressive style. But amidst this metal revolution came another, who can be argued as the best of their class - American Head Charge.

Since their 2001 major label debut, American Head Charge (AHC) has been a part of numerous tours (including the Pledge of Allegiance Tour and Ozzfest) and has cemented a name for themselves in the music world. But it hasn’t been an easy ride for this Minneapolis based band. AHC has gone through many hardships including numerous lineup changes and even the death of guitarist Bryan Ottoson. Working through the trauma they have endured, they’ve only become closer, strengthening their ties with each other during a process no band should ever have to experience.

Focused and dedicated to their cause, AHC recently released another album, a DVD/CD Can’t Stop the Machine, which includes a biography accompanied by live footage and rare songs. The band’s current lineup consists of Justin Fouler on keys and sampling, Benji Helberg and Karma Cheema on guitar, Dane Touders on drums, and the two founding members Cameron Heacock (a.k.a. Martin Cock) on vocals, and Chad Hanks (a.k.a. Mr. H.C. Banks III) on bass. I got a chance to sit down with them and discuss their genesis, their future, and everything in between.

Buzz - Tell me about the beginning... how the band started.

Justin Fouler - A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away, or something like that, two little scared, lonely boys had to go to drug treatment. Chad (Hanks) and Cameron (Heacock) met in treatment and just kinda formed the band there, kind of out of a necessity to be active and creative. They met up with some people and made American Head Charge kind of out of nothing. And, yeah, that's basically how it started.

Buzz - How did you come to be in the band?

Fouler - About a year and a half after they started the band, I saw them at a show at the Seventh Street Entry in Minneapolis. I had worked as a stagehand and stuff like that for a number of years, so I was like "Hey, you guys need help? I'll help you any which way I can." So I became the dude who organized cords and cables and totes and set up rigs and helped pack the trailer and, you know, just kinda “the dude”. And then I moved out to California after they just signed their first deal with American (Recordings) just to kinda... be “the dude”. I was learning how to set up guitars and that kinda stuff. Their drummer had some back problems and they needed a drummer. The keyboard player at the time (Chris Emery) played drums since he was a kid so he moved over there and they needed a keyboard player. I had just gotten a bartending job in LA, which, I don't know if you've ever been, but it's a magnificent feat that I landed that. So, three days after I knew that I was going to be working at this place, I get the "Hey, come here, we have to have a talk" conversation from Cameron. He sat me down and was like "Look, this is going on and I just wanted to ask you..." and before he even asked me, I was like "Yeah, I'll do it." And I had never worked with computers or synthesizers or drum machines or anything like that before.

Buzz - So your first experience doing that kind of stuff was for the band.

Fouler - Yeah. The stuff on The War of Art and all of that.

Buzz - I'm guessing you had a little piano background?

Fouler - No. Never had a piano lesson in my life. I play by ear.

Buzz - When listening to the album, it sounds like you really know what you're doing.

Fouler - Well it's not that I don't. Generally, I have a musical background. My whole family plays music. I've played music since I was little. I've played the guitar since I was like fifteen. It's just been a fun bit of work to integrate a new kind of way to do it, you know? I mean, here we sit and I've got my whole little rig stacked up in front of me right now.

Buzz - How'd you guys land the record label?

Fouler - I don’t really know because I wasn't really involved in the band in that way at the time. I know that they approached the band. It wasn't really a matter of campaigning. The band wasn't really - I mean they were actively seeking some type of relationship, but they had never gone to American and said anything. Actually, how it happened was this promoter who had really screwed the band before called them up and said "Hey, I got this show. I want you to play it. It's opening for a band called System of a Down." This is in like 1998. Nobody knew who that was really, but if you did, you were really cool. And they were like, "Yeah, it's gonna be a big gig. So come down and hopefully this can make up for me screwing you over." So Head Charge went down and did the show. We gave them the Trepanation CD and all. So several months later, maybe even a year and some change, I guess Rick Rubin was having dinner with System of a Down and was like "So, have you seen anything out there that would be worth paying attention to?" You know, mumble mumble -- "No, not really"—“blah blah blah” - dinner - silence - eat eat eat - Shavo says, "Hey, there was this one band that you might wanna check out." So that's what started the relationship between Head Charge and Rick Rubin and American Recordings.

Buzz - It must've been a pretty big deal to you guys to find out you were going to work with Rick Rubin.

Fouler - Well, I didn't know my ass from a whole in the ground. So, I was just like, "Woo hoo! I get to go to California." But it kinda set in as I realized what the dude's been doing and what the dude's done, kinda how he is pretty important to shaping what we listen to currently.

Buzz - About you guys parting ways with American and Rick Rubin, what happened there? What was the falling out?

Fouler - Well, there never really was a falling out. We just got impatient. He just wants to let stuff develop and he's really cryptic bout how he communicates. How it ended up coming off to us is we'd spend all this time kind of waiting. We'd send him a batch of like fifteen songs. Spent three or four months waiting. "Hey, did Rick listen to the songs? Rick listen to the songs? Blah blah blah”. Then all of a sudden we get the feedback and it would be like a faxed, one page thing with like one sentence for every song. And it could be like directly related to the song, or it could be some like left field concept, you know. He's not a guy that ever tells you what to do. He just says something about how he feels about it and doesn't even work on providing you with an avenue to fix it. Just let's you know that that's how it is.

Buzz - Doesn't really do his job as a producer?

Fouler – Well, I can't say that. It's just that it's a different way of working. And with more time, I'm sure it would've really worked well for us. It just seemed like we were running out of time. It was almost two years between records. It was getting to be a little long and we knew that and didn't want to be losing any momentum so we had to move forward. They were really cool about it and just kinda let us go on our way.

Buzz - You guys have gone through so many lineup changes. After the tragedy around Bryan Ottoson's death, was there a point where you guys had doubts about going on? Or were you steadfast and knew you wanted to go on regardless of all the things that had been happening?

Fouler - Personally, it goes back and forth a lot. And it's not like it was isolated to that time. It's still pretty recent as far as a personal timeline goes. That was just a couple of years ago and as far as a band goes, that's even less time. It's not much. It's a couple tours. We're still dealing with it all the time. The initial shock just let us push and keep going. But it also made it kinda difficult because you don't actually have any time to really deal with the fact that your friend is gone. That really significant part of your life just isn't there. I just went out and tried to keep going for no reason other than just to keep going.

Buzz - I wanted to ask about the whole Chris Emery situation. I've heard that he quit. I've heard he was fired...

Fouler - I think with the quit/fired thing it's a little from column A, a little from Column B. He kinda quit way before he was quitting and that kinda led to the whole situation of saying, "You're fired!" Yeah, it was another tragedy - another setback. But it is what it is. I don't really have too much more to say about it than that.

Buzz - I know Karma (Cheema) was with you guys for a while and then he left and now he's back. Is this a permanent thing or just temporary?

Fouler - Well, the idea is that it's permanent.

Buzz - I heard the stuff he did with Otep and I really liked it. When we saw Otep a few months ago I said, "That really sucks that he's not with Head Charge anymore. They could really make some awesome music together."

Fouler - Well, I know having Karma back around feels like home. One of the first days a bunch of us were hanging out was the anniversary of Bryan's death. We went to First Avenue in Minneapolis, our kinda home turf. First Avenue has all these stars painted on the side with the different artists who performed there. So, we have a star on the side there. It's all crusty from the garbage getting pulled past there daily. So, we repainted the star first day I had seen Karma. And it was just a bunch of us that had all toured before hanging out on the street kinda like we were on tour at a venue, waiting for it to open. It just felt really comfortable. I think we've really been able to work through whatever differences we had. That stuff kinda happened at a time where everyone was still in shock and not quite in their right mind and everything that was an issue, personally for us, became magnified. You take shit out in different ways. You have these feelings and they come out kinda weird and you don’t know it when you're in the middle of that situation. I think there was a little bit of that. That inappropriate allocation of emotional resources to various problems... if that makes any sense.

Buzz - Do you know offhand how Karma hooked up with Otep?

Fouler - Well, we toured with Otep just before the Mudvayne tour. So they had a relationship from there.

Buzz - Did he leave Head Charge to join Otep? Or did he leave and Otep just happened to have an opening?

Fouler - That's another little from column A, a little from Column B. Depends on which story you've heard. Um, I won't go into it. I don't wanna dredge about it. Needless to say, he wasn't in the band anymore when he hooked up with Otep. It wasn't like he left the band to pursue that. He left the band because we asked him to leave the band.

Buzz - You guys have settled your differences now?

Fouler - Yeah. Like I say, that was a very intense time. Everyone was so confused by Bryan dying. A lot of those feelings come up sideways and you end up taking them out in weird ways. Like we had a guy who was my tech for a long time and he got fired. And he's my best friend. But it's just because that time was so intense and there were so many things going on with all of us that shit just came out weird. So we're in the process of trying to patch things up. But like I say, it's a short time in band time. Two years is not a long time. We'll get there. We're trying. Everyone's making an effort to make this band work out because we've already spent so much time. We've already had a thousand second chances. I mean, how many times can you realize this is what you wanna do? I mean the place we're sitting right now is not bad. You'd wanna sit here every day if you could. And just chill out with your stuff. I mean... private bar, you know?

Buzz - When Aaron (Zilch) left the band, was that a lot on you having to take on the role of two people?

Fouler - That's another one where it wasn't really my business to say, "We fired Aaron." So it's the same thing like, "He left." It was either that or he was gonna be fired so he was asked to resign. He just wasn't really contributing creatively at the time. He wasn't contributing really in any way other than playing the shows. It was just kind of an anomaly. He wasn't really around. He didn't really do anything creatively for the band. Especially when I stepped in and started being really active creatively he just really went the other way. So, I had to sit him down any tell him, "Hey, sorry but this is something we all talked about and it's just not gonna work." In a lot of ways I totally miss having him around because I could be much more of a screwball. I didn't have as many parts to fuck up. I could just put it down, walk away, spit my water everywhere, walk back, twitch on the floor for a minute and then get up and play the *honk honk* again and whatever. Now there's always something I'm doing - always, always, always. We still are regularly in contact though. I think everybody in the band still has a pretty good relationship with Aaron. He's gotten out of music and he's doing this sideshow freak thing. He's a clown and he does suspensions and puts needles through his face and shoves nails in his nose.

Buzz - Out of curiosity, what's your guys' relationship with Black Flood Diesel knowing you took half their band (Bryan Ottoson, Benji Helberg) from them.

Fouler - Tenuous! It's alright I suppose. They're kind of -- now I should choose my words very carefully, shouldn't I? They are my friends. They're like a little brother band. We grew up in Minneapolis together. It was Benji who actually started the band with Greg the singer. Benji was pretty much the impetus. He wrote most of their songs for most of their existence. Benji came from a band that Head Charge used to open for called Clockwise a long time ago in Minneapolis. After Clockwise kinda finished up, he started Black Flood Diesel. And actually, I'd known Bryan since like 1995. We were little ravers together. We just worked our way in there, both he and I independently. We had written songs together. He found his way into Apod, this industrial, awesome band from Minneapolis and then Black Flood, he got into that. After Black Flood had started picking up, Head Charge was just getting signed, and was doing Ozzfest. Black Flood was really hitting at that time too, kinda in the same vein. Currently, I've dropped out of the local scene in Minneapolis. One thing is that touring takes you away from it. But it's like, when I get home, the last thing I wanna do is hang out and rock with everybody. I pretty much isolate myself. But, you know. I mean, you may have just heard that in the background, Benji talking to someone about someone filling in for someone in Black Flood Diesel. So, it's still active. I can't speak of everybody's relationship with everybody. It's a lot of relationships to talk about. But I would say the relationship with American Head Charge and Black Flood Diesel is still pretty solid. Yeah, 'nuff said.

Buzz - I've heard a lot about F.O.R. I was wondering if you could tell me a little about it.

Chad Hanks - Ha ha. Like how American Head Charge is now F.O.R. with Justin?

Fouler - And how technically the only show F.O.R. ever played, I was in the show singing with Cameron.

Hanks - It didn't start as the same band. F.O.R. started as... Karma was our tech and Karma, Benji and Cameron had been writing music on off times. They had this idea for this band and whatever. Basically I was the very last component. They started writing stuff. We were on tour with Slipknot. Started talking to Paul about doing stuff... it's a little hazy, the memory.

Fouler - Are you sure?

Hanks - What the fuck happened? It all kinda happened real quick. We were gonna go in and do three songs I think it was. We were just gonna do a demo. Paul had this producer that wanted stuff and this producer wanted stuff. We were just gonna demo some stuff and give it to him. So it was Cameron, Benji, Karma, Dane (Touders), who was in a band in Minneapolis called Stajia, Paul, and Myself. And I was like the last one. I was like, "If I can just play guitar, just play guitar, I'll do it. I don't wanna play bass." They're like, "Yeah, sure!" So it was actually three guitarists: me, Benji and Karma. The idea was just like this guitar army, and very rock. The very opposite of The War of Art, which was more industrial. It was just gonna be real heavy rock stuff. So, we went in there and after like four or five days... we blew right past the three days we were gonna be in there and just started slammin' out. Stuff started to sound really good. Paul puts his credit card down and is like, "I got it. Let's do this. Let's stay here and do a bunch of songs. Let's do a record." Benji knew the owner of the studio really well, still does. That's probably where we're gonna do the EP after we do this tour. So, we got a great deal on it. We ended up staying in the studio... I mean literally I left the building three times in three weeks. One time was just to go out and piss in the alley. Another time was to get a burrito or something. There was a club right around the corner and Benji knows like everybody and Benji knew the owner. We didn't have to go anywhere. It was like, "Here's a softball-sized thing of coke." That kept us indoors for like two weeks. We didn't have to go to the bar 'cuz the guy that owned the bar would bring like gallons of Stoli over. So, after being awake for like eight days, nobody else could track. So, the guy that just wanted to play some guitar became the go-to guy for everything. Like, when no one else could spell their name and I was awake for four days holding a gallon of vodka at 9 A.M., the engineer would come in and be like, "Um, we need to track this." I'm like, "Ugh, *snorrrt*. Alright, let's go!" You know? One of those.

Benji Helberg - Talking about F.O.R. huh?

Hanks - Yeah. Ha ha. But yeah, Paul ended up playing on like part of two songs. I ended up playing like all the bass. Paul couldn't even see half the time, he was so pilled out.

Helberg - He couldn't even play bass. I had to show him where the E-string was.

Hanks - There was a point in time where I was like, "I know he plays in Slipknot, but what the fuck is he... Like, wow!" It was like a Cro-Magnon man picking up a cell phone.

Helberg - "Wow, this is a shiny rock!"

Hanks - Ha, you know. So anyway, it happened. We came out of there with like 10 songs. The vocals weren't done. Cameron was just... Cameron took over the mini-studio. There was Studio A and Studio B and Cameron took over Studio B and just locked everyone out and stayed awake for like two weeks. I don’t know what he was doing in there. He came out and had vocals done for like four or five of them. The vocals still aren't finished. The record's like 80% done just sitting in the can. I dunno what the fuck's gonna happen to it. We're playing a couple songs here and there off that record.

Buzz - You plan on playing any tonight?

Hanks - We're gonna play one of them tonight. It's called "What's It to You?" But I dunno. It was just a weird fuckin' idea that turned into like an Aerosmith 1976 recording session. When I can get six guys to agree to a P.J. Harvey cover, you know everyone's fucked up. Ha ha ha. "Sounds great! Let's do it!"

Helberg - "Beach Boys? Hell yeah!"

Hanks - I mean, it's a great song and it totally works on the record, but, I mean, usually you come against some resistance when you're like, "Let's do some sideways cover idea." One or two guys are like, "I dunno... Okay!"

Buzz - Can you give a word on your experiences with American and leaving for Nitrus?

Hanks - We had been talking to other labels, but American was the first one to have a viable contract. The thing is, working with American, the money structure with major labels, which sucks in the first place and we knew that. You know, I was twenty-nine. I had played guitar since I was six, nonstop. I went to three music schools. It was either this or, "Do you want fries with that?" So fuck yeah, I'm gonna take the major label ride once. I'll get in line and stand there. And I knew there were trappings. So, when shit kinda would get sour, I knew it was inherent. I knew if I stepped in shit, it's gonna smell. So, the thing with American was, besides the money structure and the way labels are done and how you get fucking nothing and they get everything, it was a really good label to be on. I mean, they push the record correctly - they marketed the record correctly. They utilize all the tools a label should utilize in order to get as many people as possible without like trying to sell your stuff to people who listen to country or whatever. The problem was Rick didn't see it take off like he thought. That's my assumption. But he also had his finger in eighteen different pies at the same time, producing everyone from Trent Reznor to Sheryl Crow. So we're like this little baby band hanging on the bottom of the ladder like, "Help?! Some direction here?!" It became harder and harder to get a hold of him. So after a year and a half of demoing and waiting and waiting, I was like, "This is fucking bullshit! We sent like forty-five songs." I wanted to make a record and I told everybody, "You guys wanna just jump ship? We've got this other offer. I don't really care how shitty it is because at this point I'm so frustrated, I just wanna make a record." And we did. We got a chance to put another record out. We got a chance to go on tour again. We got a chance to go to Europe and the U.K. and take the groundwork from the first two years and put it back out there. And I had a feeling in the back of my head that it was only gonna last one record, and it did. We're fucking done with Nitrus. I'm done with the ineptitude of people. And if you don’t produce results quickly... I'm putting my boots on and kicking you out! Just tired of it. But the future's looking great. We have our heads screwed on straight. We're playing better than we've ever played before live.

Buzz - And you hopefully have a pretty solid lineup now.

Hanks - Yeah. I think it's finally started to re-solidify. You know, it solidified and then when Bryan died it just kinda went *pffft*. And then me and Cameron just kinda let go of the steering wheel. But it's kinda cool because everything kinda stayed there. I was afraid. You know, we just got out of rehab like four months ago. Within like two weeks of me being in there, I was on the phone with metal edge doing an interview. I was like, "Wow, I'm really fucking grateful that everything didn't fall off the backside of a mountain."



Buzz - What's in the future when it comes to American Head Charge and a new release?

Hanks - We're doing an EP. Right when we get done with this tour we're gonna start working on it. We're gonna try to have that out by like October at the latest. Well, we have to have it out by October because if we don't, it's gonna sit until January. And that's gonna be out while we're working on the new record. We're gonna kinda fill the gap. We're gonna record it ideally real quick, get it out, not put it on any label, keep all the money. You know, the smart thing to do. Hire a publicist, for all you record companies that might me reading this... fucking idiots. But the EP will come out no matter what.

Buzz - It'll be available to the masses?

Hanks - Oh yeah. Guaranteed. It's also gonna serve a purpose. It's not just gonna be another record. We're hard fast driving a real sonic wedge in between our past and being linked to bands like Disturbed and Primer 55 and about 98% of the other bands we toured with that I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire. And to be honest it's not like I hate - well, I kinda hate them. It's not like I hate metal or anything like that, but I haven't heard anything that's even slightly surprised me. You know, I always here these people that work with local bands that are like, "Yeah dude, you should listen to this band. They're fucking awesome." And I'm like, "Well, it's kinda well done but fucking boring." Like, that was good the first time when it was called Hatebreed. It almost makes me angry because smart people come to me and are like, "This is the best thing that the local scene can come up with apparently." You can't really fault anyone for that, it just fuckin' happens. I hate it. And what I listen to has not been a major force of this band. What I listen to is not really - it's been reflected in the music we've made, but not to the extent that it's going to. All the things we listen to, I think other people should listen to because people need to clean the shit out of their ears. I mean you should probably go take your CD collection and throw like 90% of it away.

Helberg - Get Slaughter and Jackyl mostly.

Hanks - Mostly, mostly. Ratt, definately Ratt. But yeah, it’s gonna be like a five or six song EP. It's gonna be a really, really difficult listening. It's gonna be like - I hate trying to compare shit to things but... There won't be any singing on the record. I'd be surprised if there's actual phonetic words. Okay, it's like when you had Pretty Hate Machine. You're like, "Head like a hole!" And then you put in Broken and it's like a speaker's blown.

Buzz - Yeah, it's a totally different ballpark.

Hanks - That's what we're doing. That's the idea. Stuff like Throbbing Gristle. You know, the first industrial band ever. It's just the idea of listening to things that make you uncomfortable. Sounds that are annoying. But if you listen to the sound long enough, you start to hear the idiosyncrasies of it.

Buzz - You're taking a Mike Patton stance.

Hanks - Pretty much. I understand why he's such an asshole. I think I finally get it. There's a reason. I mean, Wolfmother does kinda suck.

Helberg - I like them.

Hanks - They're not bad, but if you think about it, you could probably do something better with your time. I mean that one song is catchy as all hell. I will always admit when a song is catchy and serves a purpose, but I think I'm just getting to the point where humans energy can be used for something a little more - just push the walls out a little bit, you know? So you don't fall back on the comfortable things just because they're there. Because dude, my favorite band is KISS. What am I gonna say? I don't have a fuckin' leg to stand on. You know? It's like the dumbest rock band in history. But, God I love 'em. And I'm gonna get my Ace Frehley tattoo. Whatcha gonna do?

Fouler - That's gonna be the quote: "Hanks-- 'KISS... the dumbest rock band in history!” His favorite band ever." That's how it'll go.

Hanks - "I was misquoted!" I get to interview Gene Simmons in like a month for this magazine called Cryptic Magazine. I was thinking about pissing him off and asking him all questions about Ace Frehley. "Alright, let's stop talking about Ace. Let's talk about you. What do you think about Ace Frehley?"

Buzz - That's gotta be a pretty cool experience for you.

Hanks - Oh God, yeah. Burned into my head is the right quadrant of the back of Alive 2. Listening to that record and staring at the album cover. You know, his makeup's all run, and it's during "God of Thunder" after he spits the blood. It looks like somebody punched him in the face and the black is all bluish and fading out and getting sweaty. His hair's plastered to his head. And I'm like seven thinking he wakes up like that. Like the EP, there's not gonna be lyrics on there. Not putting liner notes. We're not fucking thanking like eight million people. We're just kinda putting some really, really good artwork together, which we've already started, strangely enough first instead of the music. Which is cool, because when you see it, it makes sense with what I'm describing. It's gonna be cool. Like I said, it's gonna be a wedge.

Buzz - I have to admit, I am a little disappointed that you say there's gonna be no singing. One of my favorite parts about the band is that Cameron actually sings, as opposed to about 95% of the other bands out there. And not only that he sings, but that he sings well.

Hanks - Well, let me kinda tie things all up with a fact. One we've tried to separate ourselves from that audience to an extent and have opened ourselves up to a different area of people... you know, maybe not everyone shops at Hot Topic. It's almost like a reset button. Now we can do an amalgamation of things. We can use the ideas off of the EP and the ideas off of the two records before that. It's like reset and then open everything back up. So the record that comes out after the EP isn't going to be some kind of industrial opus or anything like that. No one test tone for four minutes. But it'll have elements of everything. The niceness and the beauty of Cameron's voice will obviously be. I mean, that's a part of what we do. I'm just fucking sick of idiots, basically. And I was one of 'em for a long time, and I know idiocy, lemme tell you.

Buzz - Is there anything else you wanna add? Anything you wanna tell the people?

Hanks - Don't buy anything from Nitrus Records. Always get a lawyer if you're in a band. Never trust anyone from a record company. They will never, ever tell you the 100% truth. They will never, ever do anything selflessly. They will always have a vested interest in themselves in some aspect of any dealings you have with them.

Buzz - That's not the first time I've heard that, unfortunately.

Hanks - You know what? I heard it a bunch of times too and I was like, "Yeah." And I'm as hardheaded as hell. I gotta bang my head against the wall and go, "Ow, that hurts." And I think the more people say it, the more people will pick up on it. I think what happens is they get you in the honeymoon period. You go in, you got the new girlfriend, you go guns-a-blazin'. You just know every trick in the book. So all of a sudden you got her... then you start watching TV. You know, she stops wearing the nice underwear. All of a sudden she's farting. You're like, "What the f... Where's that little vixen that was giving me blowjobs in the car?!" She's telling you, "Want something to drink?" "Yeah." "While you're up, go get me something." Yeah, they basically get you during that honeymoon period. The smoke finger come out and does like in the Bugs Bunny cartoon. Next thing you know, you've got a contract you can't get out of, you have no money, and you're wondering why you're not on tour. So, yeah, maybe if more people hear it.

Current Release: Can’t Stop the Machine DVD/CD on Nitrus Records


For more info on the band, visit: www.headcharge.com or www.myspace.com/americanheadcharge