Possibly Asked Questions About Kevy Metal

If you clicked the “About” link, that probably means you would like to know more about Kevy Metal. While there aren’t any questions that have been asked enough to call them “frequently asked questions”, here are some possibly asked questions about Kevy Metal. And, more importantly, the answers to those questions.

Who or What Is Kevy Metal?

This site is run by a guy named Kevin who likes heavy metal. And bad puns. I will stop referring to myself in the third person now. Apart from a fan of heavy metal, I am a fan of a wide variety of other styles of music. There honestly is a little something for me in nearly every genre of music, though electronic music generally does not appeal to me. Quite quickly after discovering the music that I like, I developed an almost unhealthy interest in music, as well as the people creating it and the equipment they do it with.

Apart from a fan of music, I am also an experienced music journalist. I studied journalism at the prestigious School for Journalism in Utrecht, and through those studies, I eventually landed an internship at a couple of Dutch musicians’ magazines. That was in 2009, but I still write for guitar magazine Gitarist, drum magazine Slagwerkkrant and bass magazine De Bassist to this day. In the past, I have also contributed to studio engineering magazine Interface and general musicians’ magazine Musicmaker.

At the tail-end of 2011, Kevy Metal started out of a desire to better my review writing skills and write more about music that I like. It took a while before I dared to seriously present the site as a serious medium for interviews. But shortly after my Peruvian Metal Month project in January 2024, I decided to take the plunge by publishing interviews more frequently. Also, that was when I professionalized my blog’s layout a bit to make it look more like an actual website.

What Can I Expect from Kevy Metal?

Ever since starting Kevy Metal in 2011, I have published an Album of the Week review every single week. Since then, I only missed one week in 2014, and my intention is to keep that the only one. While a majority of the reviews is on rock and metal albums, I will not shy away from reviewing other music I like. My reviewing style, which tends to focus on the compositional traits of a release, isn’t a perfect fit for the more improvisation-based music I enjoy though, such jazz and fusion artists.

One of the main goals of my professionalization attempt of 2024 is to make the site a more attractive medium for interviews. The interviews I have published here before 2024 were often translations or alternate versions of interviews published in other media, or at least based on the conversations I had for those media. These days, there are exclusive Kevy Metal interviews. My goal with those will always be to give readers information that they may not be able to find anywhere else. Or at least not in any English-language sources.

At the time of writing, I am also considering publishing interviews from the vault during relative downtimes. If that happens, an article will be clearly marked as such. But I also want to make sure that the people I interviewed, and if involved their managements, are behind publishing the interview. So I can’t make any promises as to which interviews I will publish here and which ones I won’t, as asking permission won’t necessarily mean getting it.

I Am New Here, What Should I Read?

‘The Collector’ by John Fowles is a good read. As is ‘Fahrenheit 451’ by Ray Bradbury and almost the entire oeuvre by Ira Levin. On a more serious note though: what you would enjoy reading most largely depends on your own preferences. However, there are a few stand-out interviews that I would recommend to anyone who is curious about my work. Among those are:

• The aforementioned Peruvian Metal Month. My interview with Ingrid Castro holds a special place in my heart, because she had just left Hamadría at that point, and it was unclear whether she would answer my questions at all until a few days before publication. Also, my interview with Adrián Del Aguila made me realize this crazy project was one that was worth chasing.
• At the moment of writing, my interview with Kaiser Kuo is probably the article I am proudest of. It fits what I want to do with this website perfectly, as it gives an in-depth look in the social circumstances and challenges of the early Chinese metal scene, and Kaiser is really candid about his experiences with both Tang Dynasty and Chun Qiu. He shared a lot of information that I could not find in any other English-language sources.
• Another interview I’m really proud of is my interview with Warbringer singer John Kevill. Genuinely one of the best interviews I have ever done. We were able to delve into his excellent lyrics, Warbringer’s fairly unconventional songwriting process, his voice, and staying relevant as a thrash metal band two decades into its career. John was eager to talk, and his perfect balance between insight and humor just made it work.
• My interview with Unleash the Archers singer Brittney Hayes was the first interview with a reasonably prominent artist that I primarily requested for this website. Brittney was lots of fun to talk to, and she told me several things about the inner workings of Unleash the Archers that I had not read anywhere else.
• My interview with Jenner singer/guitarist Aleksandra Stamenković is another one that was an important step towards giving this site the identity it has now. Ever since its publication, Aleksandra has been very encouraging – perhaps unknowingly – and made me believe this site had potential.
• My interview with Kai Hansen holds some special significance to me, because I practically worshipped Hansen as a teenager, and his down-to-earth attitude made it a joy to talk to him.
• My interview with Hedvig Mollestad Thomassen is a long one, but genuinely one of my favorites. Hedvig’s music is an important part of why I wanted to create the Kevy Metal’s Gateway to Jazz series, so being able to have her included so early on, and dive so deep into her developments as a musician, has truly been a pleasure. She is loads of fun to talk to as well.
• Another one of my favorites is my interview with Oleg Smirnoff. Having been a big fan of his unorthodox approach to playing keyboards in melodic metal ever since first hearing him on ‘Stream of Consciousness’ by Vision Divine, I was somewhat surprised to never have seen any interviews with him in a language I can understand. Fortunately, he was happy to do one with me, and he was very generous with his time, as well as with his compliments on how it came out.
• Interviews with Myles Kennedy are always a pleasure to do. He is extremely friendly, down-to-earth, and always seems happy to go in-depth with the geeky details of creating music. It’s an attitude that works very well with what this site is trying to do.
• My interview with Agora is surprisingly in-depth for something that was more or less arranged off the cuff. I contacted them about buying their music, but it eventually became a long, highly enjoyable conversation. It was also the first interview their drummer Eduardo Carrillo ever did in English.
• One of the first big interviews I did for this site was my interview with Angra, conducted around the time their album ‘Ømni’ was released. Another very interesting, in-depth look into how the band works. I’m also quite proud of the photos included with the interview, which I took at their show in Leeuwarden in 2018.

Interestingly, these aren’t necessarily my best-viewed articles. That would be my interview with Saki from Mary’s Blood, Nemophila and Amahiru, with my interview with Narumi – another female guitarist from Japan – not far behind. However, the interviews listed above are the ones that best represent interviews on this site as I would like them to be.

How Do I Contact You About My Band?

While I’m writing this, the site has just gotten its new layout and navigational structure. I am planning on including a contact form eventually – which may or may not already have happened by the time you read this – but that is not at the top of my priority list. If there is no contact form available yet and you still want to contact me, please consider leaving a comment to bring the artist you want to promote to my attention. There is a precedent for this in the form of reviews, so I am open to such suggestions.

Please consider a few things, however. First of all: I’m not getting paid for this site. All publications on this site are pretty much a labor of love written in my off-hours from working full-time, plus freelancing for multiple magazines. If I don’t get back to you, that might mean I haven’t gotten around to listening to the music yet. Sometimes my work schedule gets so hectic that I forget to respond, especially during deadline weeks for Gitarist. Also, conflict-avoiding by nature as I am, I may have trouble phrasing why I don’t enjoy the music enough to write about it.

I can imagine the stylistic variety of the bands reviewed can make it difficult to assess whether or not the band’s style is a good fit for Kevy Metal. I would not encourage artists outside the rock and metal spectrum to aim for a publication, though with the right framing, a soul, funk or fusion artist might be a good fit. Extreme metal can be an option, though I’m generally not too fond of drone music and very blastbeat-heavy music. Also, I generally don’t enjoy black metal enough to judge whether a band is good enough or not.

Why Is (Insert Famous Artist Here) Not on Your Site?

Since I actually practice music journalism professionally, some people have expressed surprise about interviews I have done with big-name artists not being available on this website. While I would love to publish an article based on every interview I do – a big name is generally good for traffic, after all – there are several factors preventing me from doing so. One of which is a simple matter of time. As I said, I have a full-time job and I freelance for multiple magazines, and I do need to sleep sometimes. But there are also some more business-related factors at play.

First of all, writing for the magazines is a paid job, so even though I’m technically a freelancer, it would be bad service making the exact same information available for free elsewhere. Especially while the magazines are still in stores. The publisher and editor-in-chief I work with most frequently isn’t exactly the most difficult person in the world when it comes to giving me permission to publish interviews from the magazine here, but especially for the bigger names in the industry, an interview that is available elsewhere simply isn’t going to sell as well.

In addition, interviews are sometimes offered to the magazines on an exclusivity basis – especially for the biggest names in the music industry. The most extreme example of this I have experienced is when Gitarist was only one of two publications in the Netherlands granted an interview slot with the artist. I’m sure you understand I can’t defend publishing it on my relatively small site in such a case. Also, some PR agents simply don’t want their artists to be on a site like this. I don’t understand it either, because it’s free publicity without any extra work, but after asking nicely once, I’m not going to argue.

Can I Donate to Kevy Metal?

Okay, I would be surprised if anyone would actually ask this question, but I had to address it one way or another. First off, I would never pressure anyone to donate to Kevy Metal. My aim is to keep all my content free and – just as importantly – ad-free for as long as possible. I specifically gave up the free WordPress plan because ads started appearing that clashed with my own worldview, and because I thought they were getting inasive from a lay-out standpoint.

However, for the first few years, I have paid for my WordPress plan and my domain name from my own pocket. That’s not necessarily an issue, but what I would really like to do is secure both for many years in advance, to ensure the site stays up even if something unexpected happens. There are options to pay for them ten years in advance, but with my salary, that just isn’t feasible.

So if you would like to contribute to a long-term ad-free experience, please consider donating whatever you can spare via the Kevy Metal Ko-fi page. As far as I can tell, Ko-fi only keeps 5 percent of what you donate. Everything else will primarily be going to keeping Kevy Metal in the air and easily accessible. In case more gets donated, I will primarily look to invest that into opportunities to improve the site. My aim is to inform supporters via Ko-fi itself about how exactly the money has been invested.

I Am Looking for New Music, What Should I Listen To?

If you are looking for new music, there are plenty of reviews to discover on these pages. However, with over twelve years – and counting – of weekly reviews, reading all of them is quite the ordeal. Maybe this list of my favorite albums of all time, in alphabetical order, will help; those reviewed on the website are clickable:

24-7 Spyz – Strength in Numbers
Aerosmith – Aerosmith
Alice In Chains – Dirt
Amorphis – Elegy
Bad Company – Bad Company
Black Sabbath – Heaven and Hell
Jerry Cantrell – Degradation Trip Volumes 1 & 2
Sam Cooke – Night Beat
Deep Purple – Burn
Deep Purple – Come Taste the Band
Fields Of The Nephilim – Elizium
Friday Night In San Francisco (by Paco de Lucía, John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola)
Gillman – Escalofrío
Herbie Hancock – Man-Child
Jimi Hendrix – Band Of Gypsys
Iron Maiden – Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Judas Priest – Painkiller
Jupiter – Classical Element
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV
Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti
Living Colour – Vivid
Mother’s Finest – Mother’s Finest
Nevermore – Dead Heart in a Dead World
Ted Nugent – Ted Nugent
Ocean Machine – Biomech
Onmyo-za – Kishibojin
Orphaned Land – The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR
OverKill – Wrecking Your Neck
Pearl Jam – Ten
Saber Tiger – Decisive
Sly & The Family Stone – Fresh
Thin Lizzy – Live And Dangerous
War – The World is a Ghetto
Whitesnake – 1987
Stevie Wonder – Innervisions