excitement, at least we won’t be spit on either in disgust either. As you may know, the fans of Power/Thrash Metal are, without
a question, the most loyal fans of any music genre, period, so I had a feeling that those fans would, if nothing else; be happy
for me. I think I was more worried about perhaps being seen in general as irrelevant or contrived, or as someone whose time
had come and gone, but didn’t realize it himself. But, ultimately, you can only write songs for yourself, songs that you would
want to hear if someone else had written them. I think that the second you try to second guess, to write what you think people
want to hear, you’ve already lost, not only your integrity, but also the reason for doing this in the first place.
ION: You have said that this is somewhat of your “last chance” for making new music…can you expand on that?
Falck: As I think everyone who has followed me since the inception of I13 and prior to that knows, I was diagnosed with heart
problems in December 2012. I’ve had a couple of heart surgeries already, several procedures, with more to come. Without
going into details, I could drop tomorrow, next month, in a year or in 5 years from stuff going haywire again without warning.
So because of that, where my answer was always “maybe someday, we’ll see” to the inevitable questions of “are you going to
play again?” All of a sudden it became clear that “someday” wasn’t to be taken for granted anymore, and I had to very seriously
re-evaluate things, including the option of me playing again.
ION: You obviously played on some very classic OVERKILL albums. What were those years like for you, and did you have any
particularly good memories of the period?
Falck: Those were great years! I consider them my formative years (laughs). Seriously, obviously not every day was a
honeymoon. We are talking about not only a group of people in a form of relationship, but a group of people who were highly
creative, so naturally, there were times of conflicts and arguments. But as a whole, that is a part of my life I wouldn’t trade for
anything. Contrary to many popular rumors out there in “fan land” we are still friends, we still talk and text each other, keep
up with each other. I have nothing but the utmost respect for Bobby “Blitz” and D.D., as well as for Dave, Derek and Ron. When
every peer of OVERKILL felt that it was necessary to go on hiatus, when the touring and album market contracted some, hence
no big paychecks, OVERKILL never stopped. Instead, they kept on recording quality albums, going on tour to play for every fan
of theirs who wanted to see them, showing exactly what it means to be loyal to your fans and your brand. That deserves nothing
short of admiration for their character, both as a band and certainly as people.
ION: How do you feel about the state of Metal these days? Do you think the music is as exciting as it was when you started?
Falck: I feel that Metal these days has become, safe, predictable and in many cases, unimaginative. I think “Metal” has
become too self-absorbed in a way. It is like the early 90’s all over again, this time mostly because of lack of originality and
“songsmanship,” not to be confused with musicianship. Now it seems, that while the level of musicianship is way up there,
“kids” doing things so technically advanced from what we could do “back in the day”, not a single band sound like they know
how to play together as a cohesive unit playing to let the song make its statement--it’s like a free for all. It’s everyone playing
on 10 to outshine and outplay everyone else who is playing with them, especially drummers. I would never want to sound
conceited, but do any of them know how to hold a 4/4 beat? To play only what the song calls for? To play for the song? I’ll be
honest, it drives me fucking crazy.
ION: I’m curious what it’s like now with musicians and social media as compared to 25 years ago--where it was strictly
magazines and MTV to get the word out. What are your thoughts on technology and music getting heard and promoted these
days?
Falck: I think in the infancy of the whole social media experience, it was an incredibly powerful and useful tool. But I think now,
it has also become almost the death sentence for new bands. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can become
a “superstar” merely by uploading to Facebook. I think it is at the point, where amazing musicians/bands go undiscovered
simply because of the sheer volume of “garbage” flooding the social media sites, that people have no possible way of
discovering them. Twenty-five years ago, bad music/bands were filtered out through record companies. If you sucked, no one
but your immediate family would ever get to hear about you. Back then, you had to first learn to play, then learn to play as a
band, then learn to write songs, then hope someone would let you play live, in other words, you had to pay your dues. If you
were lucky, you might get heard or come to the attention of an A&R person, and then you might get a shot at recording your