Conversation with the Legends: Messiah & Manheim

In the last episode of "In Conversation with ESP Season 2", we had Manheim and Messiah 50% of Black Metal Band Order. Their first full length album Lex Amentiae released in 2017 has 8 unique tracks, when the sound is undeniably True Norwegian Black Metal. I personally enjoyed each of the 8 tracks tremendously. 

For folks who don't know who Order is, they are a sonic-nuclear assault team of Norway's metal veterans, made up of 2 Members of The True Mayhem (Manheim and Messiah) and 2 members from Cadaver, another veteran black metal band from Norway. 

In this episode, Manheim and Messiah shared the their journey of how they met, how they were in the  beginnings with Euronymous and Necrobutcher, how they parted ways. and finally how they reconvened to form Order. Manheim in particularly was especially passionate about their up coming 2nd full length album "Gospel". 

It's truly an honor to have the both of them as guests for "In Conversation with ESP Season 2". For full episode, please click on following link or listen as podcast in all major streaming platform in the very hear future. 

Post show trivial: We only managed to locate Manheim 15minute before we went live. Messiah gave me a brief of what Manheim is like as a person in less than 5 minutes. I barely scrapped it through by asking him half-way intelligent questions, and I was a little concern in the beginning. 

Manheim shared an encouragement "There is no stupid questions, only stupid answers." I am grateful to the both of them for being such forgiving guests, but I think I offered enough justice and have certainly done my very best. 

I can't wait to have them back on the show again. Thank you Messiah. Thank you Manheim. 

Here's Order's the first album Lex Amentiae on YouTube:

Kohld Haveneson of Laang featured in Guitar Battle Solo in ESP’s Fall of the Giant.

Kohld is a new found friend in 2020, and he is definitely one of the highlights in the memorable year of 2020. 

We have never met in person, but he transcends kindness through 2 different continents (he lived in both Liverpool and Knoxville in the same year), by being a big part of ESP, through various collaborations in several songs. 

He is hardworking and creative musician with a lot of grit and, on top of that, his chemistry with ESP is close to impeccable. Kohld is also a regular guest in my talk show “In Conversation with ESP”. He is very eloquent and an excellent conversationalist; it’s always a joy to have him on. 

Rex and I have a lot of respect and admiration for Kohld, and we look forward to having him on board in future ESP projects. 

I will write about Kohld ever so often because I love him like “a brother from a different mother”. Stay tuned! 

Meanwhile, here’s Kohld wearing an official ESP Black and White Raglan, ripping some sweet solos of the song “Fall of the Giant”. 3 different angle, 16 bars of sweet guitar tone and amazing techniques, one song, featuring the one and only Kohld Haveneson. 

Review for Zombiepura by Metal Noise September 2020

2020 had been a very kind year to me personally despite of the Pandemic. 

Rex and I manage to produce 12 new songs, 2 compilation albums, various international collaborations with amazing & talented artistes, and above all, all the people that I love and care about are all healthy and well.

It’s also the year where ESP had a chance to collaborate with Witch Taint’s Lance the King of Black Metal in “Zombiepura” and the song is being reviewed by Metal Noise. 

We don’t know Metal Noise personally yet, but they sure have some kind words for the song. What I enjoyed about the review is that the reviewer DJ Vapour got all the nooks and crannies of the punts (of the song). DJ Vapour even reviewed the Hip-Hop-Drum-&-Bass demo. Thank you Metal Noise, I appreciate your review and I hope we get to connect in person sooner than later. 

For the full review, please click on link below: 

https://metalnoise.net/2020/09/review-zombiepura-by-evil-singing-pandas 

Zombiepura, available for streaming and download at Bandcamp.

Witch Taint’s first single “Sons of Satan”. Lance the King of Black Metal and Matthias Backwards got me at BMX-Corpse Paint combo. 

Footage of ESP Live in Bangkok, 8th of December 1998.

A footage of ESP live in the Beast of Beer Festival in Bangkok on the 8th of December 2018, Thailand. The band was doing the song “I cooked the Omelette (Spanish Style)”.

I did not warm up properly and I was literally down by -66% by time the band reached this song. Not sure if you can tell, but I am absolutely running out of breath. Our session drummer, Jil Kaosis, has a habit of going faster and faster like a rollercoaster during live sets. I literally almost died by the end of the set. 

Almost dying was a worth it I guess, something for the archive. Something to show my children that Daddy was a Rolling Stone. 

ESP and our very first Pop-Punk release “海边“

 

Our first release this year in 2021 is a song called “海边” or “Seaside” translated in English.

With the help of our friend, Kohld Havenson of one-man-black-metal-band Laang,  (https://laang.bandcamp.com/),giving him free play for arrangement, “海边” 2021 is born. The arrangement by Kohld is in the vibes of Modern Pop-Punk and it’s agreeable to most listeners. Find out what Kohld has to say about “海边” in the YouTube link below. 

This song was originally composed in 2002/1 as a bossanova-ish mandarin pop love ballad. Kohld did a fantastic job be reinventing the song into something modern, heart pumping, punkisg and catchy an easy on the ears all the same time. The guitar solo outro is simple but very melodic and memorable. To pay tribute to Mandarin Pop Diva A-Mei, I sneaked in a part of the chorus of the hit song “听海” right at the beginning. It’s a cheeky thrill for me because we pulled this one off.

I have always admired artistes and musicians that evolved with times and choose to be more relevant as they mature and progress. After taking the path of evolving, some would have received harsh criticisms and backlashes, which I personally feel it’s unfair to them.  Metallica effort in the 3 albums “Load”, “Unload”, and “St. Anger” is a classroom example of how their fans were disappointed with them after they tried something new. 

Unbeknownst to some of my friends and fans,  the genre of music that I enjoy is not restricted only to metal, but also they other extreme ends of folk, pop, unplugged, jazz, blues, children’s music and more. So by releasing “海边” was one of the gambles for ESP, because it’s not a not a metal song. 

We certainly hope you enjoy “海边” as much as I have enjoyed the process of producing the song with Kohld (on all instruments*, arrangements and engineering” and Rex (*on bass) for this song. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks. 

Rejections for ESP by Record Labels and Criticism for “Assassination of the Emperor Tuna”.

I have been requesting record labels to consider having ESP in their roster. I personally think that ESP has worked very hard, and it is time we fight for some recognition.

Alas, I did not have much luck so far. The typical reply for rejection would be “Our roster is full until 2022, and we will not be signing new bands. Good luck and all the best!”  Situations will be very different if ESP is a famous band like Slayer! Record companies would stand in line for us to pick and choose. Even if their roster is full, there’s always room for one more band like Slayer. Wouldn’t that be nice?

One person said “...both of you (Rex and Remy) don’t have long hair and don’t look the part for Metal Artistes.” Nani-Dafuq (Nani = “What” in Japanese, Dafuq = the F**k. Hiroaki Sato San would appreciate this). 

Oh no, James Hetfield, Rob Halford, Isahn, Matt Heafy, you have all just lost your licenses to be in the circuit. Now get out, and we never want to see you again. 

Just today, I have received a criticism for the song “Assassination of the Emperor Tuna” (I cut and paste without editing, please bear with the grammatical error); I listened to your song, but the sound and the riffs are too modern to my taste. I like such old Thrash bands like Slayer, Demolition Hammer, Sacrifice, Vio-lence and Hirax. Your song remind me to those bands which i never liked, such bands like amon amarth, in flames or avenged sevenfold. I like the front cover, that is funny and not a typical one. Good luck and all the best!

At least he liked my drawing. 

It’s a pity that he judged ESP based on just one song! I could probably further recommend songs with the “old school” elements he was looking for like “TYHP”, “No Sleep Till The Devil Knows When”, “I Cook The Omelette (Spanish Style)”, but I don’t this he has the bandwidth, or the growth mindset, for ESP anymore. Needless to say, they are not interested in us. 

Instead of being upset, I invited him to my talk show. I wonder if he will take up my invitation. One more friend means I have one less enemy, right?

Meanwhile, what do you think of “Assassination of the Emperor Tuna”? I like it. Rex likes it. Hiroaki Sato San loves it. Joey feels hungry when he listens to it. What about you?

Hiroaki Sato (Tokyo, Japan)

I met Hiroaki San for the first time in 2017 when he was in Singapore on tour with Defiled. He was on bass and the ripped the stage with his White Mockingbird, basically.

The members of the band were open to mingling with the fans with autographs and chats after their set. I took a photo with Hiroaki San and exchanged Facebook contacts. I reached out to him online as soon as I could and gave him honest compliments for show. He generously responded and kept in touch, on and off, over the years.

In 2021, Hiroaki San have been noticing my painting and drawing by pressing “like” and by leaving notes of encouragement. I can’t help it but to ask him if he would like to have one of my drawings and what would he like (me to draw). He replied “Stratocaster”. 

I draw better SGs as I have always been fascinated by the look for the devil’s horn, and I have been drawing SGs since I was a teen. Drawing a decent Devil’s Horn Gibson Classic would be a “Walk in the park”. Stratocaster? Goodness, for the life of me. 

Since, Hiroaki San was so supportive and I did not want to disappoint him. It was not my finest guitar drawing, but I did my best by adding other elements like Disco Ball, Amplifiers and Microphone with lots of Crayon Paste colour. I took a photo and showed Hiroaki San and ask if I should re-do it? He replied: This is just fine. Hiroaki San asked he could do anything in return? I proposed a guest appearance on vocals for our song “Assassination of the Emperor Tuna”. He said “Yes”. I barter traded a piece of child-like crayon art for a guest vocal in a record? 

The song was about Tuna Sashimi, one of Japan’s most loved cuisine. To have a Japanese artiste appear in a Japanese-Food-related Thrash Metal Song, written by song writers from Singapore and Thailand was a great honor indeed. 

Just when I thought the honor cannot be higher,  Hiroaki San took the trouble to research and found a 900 year old Japanese Haiku (Traditional 3 liner poem that tells a full story, talk about the art of summarising) as his lyric for the guest appearance. I am beyond stoked. 

I made a comment to a new found metal-head friend saying that “We have new song launch, and I am passionately promoting it. No one cares about the releases for small-time band like ESP, but I do it anyway before music is a big part of my life. Especially music from my band.”

Her reply was encouraging. She said “People don’t know what they are missing, small bands make the best songs.” So, here you go, “Assassination of the Emperor Tuna”, available on all streaming platform and for sale in Bandcamp. We have come a long way for this. Thank you for reading.