(Puget Sound Metal Bulletin is a print zine created by Old Man Winter, guitarist in the Seattle-based melodic death metal band Veriteras. Last week the fifth issue was published and distributed, and it includes Winter’s interview of our own Islander, presenting a discussion that focuses on NCS and Northwest Terror Fest, preceded by a bit of background about Islander’s involvement with metal. And of course we’re re-publishing that interview here today! For more info about Puget Sound Metal Bulletin and how to get it, see the links below after the interview’s conclusion.)
NO CLEAN SINGING doesn’t literally mean no clean singing. Well, it used to. As Islander, creator of the long-running metal webpage, puts it on the No Clean Singing about page: “When the site began, the name of it was serious. But as time has passed, my own tastes have broadened and other writers have joined us, and they’re even more open-minded than I am. Now, the name just confuses people, because sometimes we write about metal that includes actual singing instead of (or in addition to) growling, howling, and shrieking. But it’s kind of like if you named your kid Rufus. When she grows up, it confuses other people, but she is what she is and it might confuse people even more if you legally changed it.”
Personally, I assumed the name meant that they only reviewed metal songs that consisted entirely of swear words. But regardless of the reasons for the name, No Clean Singing has been one of the biggest online metal sites for the global metal scene for nearly two decades, providing interviews, album reviews, premiers, and a Pacific Northwest show calendar (which happens to be a primary source for the metal bulletin’s list of shows on page 7).
Not only does Islander run No Clean Singing, he’s also one of the creators of Northwest Terror Fest, one of the region’s top metal festivals, drawing fans from across the US, Canada, and beyond.
Read on to hear how these two pillars of the metal scene came to be… Continue reading »
