Examining Richard Christy: part 2 of an exclusive interview

Press photo by Joel Plotkin

In part 1 of our interview with Richard Christy, the drummer discussed how he went from The Howard Stern Show (where he still enjoys his love of comedy) to getting back in to music with his new band, Charred Walls Of The Damned. After discussing the impetus behind the band's formation and how it all came about, we now move on to talking about the band's future plans and recording at Audiohammer Studios in Sanford, FL...

MM: I also saw recently that Charred Walls Of The Damned has announced its first show on July 10 opening for Dream Theater in Worcester, MA, which sounds like one hell of a show.

RC: Yeah, Mike Portnoy is one of my all-time favorite drummers. I've also been a huge Dream Theater fan since the early 90s and this is gonna be huge! I can't wait! I'm so psyched because we'll be announcing soon that this show will probably be the final night of our tour! It'll be a smaller tour - just a two-week run and that show will be a great way to cap it off. I can't wait to get out there and play this album for people. It's gonna be a lot of fun to get out there and play this for people and just be out on stage again.

MM: That was going to be my next question, if there were any plans to tour, but that answered that! [Laughs] That's some good news, too.

RC: It's gonna be a two-week run covering pretty much the Northeast and Canada and some of the Midwest. I'm hoping that, later this year, we'll be able to go to other parts of the US as well as Europe and other parts of the world, too. We're gonna have to work around our schedules because everybody in the band is pretty busy. That's one other thing that I had in mind when I picked the band members. I picked three other guys that are pretty much as busy as I am so none of us are waiting around for the other. Once we have the time cleared, we'll get together and do some shows and have a good time so it'll be a special occasion when it does happen.

MM: Excellent. Now the next goal is go get you back to Florida for a couple nights! [Laughs]

RC: Man, I would love to come back to Florida!

MM: Awesome. Now, how far would you like to see the band go and how far would you be willing to take it?

RC: I'm having a lot of fun with this band and I don't see any reason why it can't just keep going on and on. We've pretty much written a-whole-nother album

MM: Oh, cool!

RC: Yeah, we've just finished up writing our ninth song. We're real excited about that and I can't wait to get back in the studio, hopefully by the end of the year, to record our second album. So, yeah, the idea is to keep going. The reality is, with music, it's a hard thing to make a living off of. I don't know that I'd be able to do it as a full-time thing. I'm really hoping that Howard will re-sign for several more years with Sirius and keep it going. Right now, I have a day job that I love that also pays the bills and I also have some heavy metal on the side, which is a passion of mine. That's the reason I'm doing this band is because I love what I'm doing and I feel this in my soul. I need to write this music and I love it so much; I think it shows in the music that we're doing it for the love of it and not strictly to make money off of it. It's really hard to make money in the music business. We're just doing it because we love it. Luckily, we have other jobs and are able to pay the bills, but we can also get together and do this because we love playing metal.

MM: I was going to say, you're in a good position to make money somewhere else without having to depend on this for a living. You can go out and do this on the side for the enjoyment of it without it being a "make or break" type of situation. I think it really shows, on the album as well as the "making of" DVD that came with it, that you guys just had a blast getting together and recording this.

RC: Thanks! Yeah, I was excited to get back down to Florida and hang out at Audiohammer Studios. I've had so many fun times there and it's most laid-back place in the world. There was really zero stree throughout the making of this album. We just had a good time and wanted to have fun and chill and make a killer metal album. I can't wait to get back in the studio because I love being at Audiohammer Studios with Jason and Steve and Tim and Mark and all those guys. It brings back a lot of good memories, too, coming back to Florida. I had a lot of good times there and lived there for eight years. I even laid the flooring in the drum room at Audiohammer when it was being constructed. I have a lot of history with Audiohammer and it's always awesome to go back there. It's almost like a vacation - a vacation where you get to make metal! We work hard - it's not all fun, but we make it fun, you know? Fun, to me, is making music and writing music and playing drums. I love it. It's just a really creative place to be to go to Audiohammer. Even though I write all the music and have everything demoed before we go there, Jason and I did pre-production there for a couple days at the studio. Jason listened to them and rearranged some parts and took out some parts we didn't need and tightened everything up. He made everything sound amazing. It's very inspiring to go back down there and work with Jason; I think that made the album ten times better than what I had first written. Jason kinda added his magic touch and made it amazing. Tim just blows me away with hid performance on this album, too. They all do. They just came down and we had a limited time to record because of everyone's schedules - I had to go back to work, Steve had a job he had to go back to, and Tim had a few things scheduled that he had to get back to. Even still, we got it done in a pretty short amount of time. I think the bass took only three days, the vocals took five days, drums took two or three days, and guitars took about five days. We got it all done pretty quick and the rest of it was the mix. Everything went pretty smooth, and that's what's so great about working with Tim, Steve, and Jason - they're real laid-back guys that have been doing it for a long time and there's no stress. We just go in, have some fun and make some metal. We've all jammed together in different bands and projects so we know each others' style and playing and it gels very good.

Check out the video below to see Richard Christy do what he does best at the studio he calls home - Audiohammer Studios in Sanford, FL: