Don’t call it a side project. Regardless of how many bands the members of Iron Reagan are already famous for (Municipal Waste, Cannabis Corpse, Darkest Hour, Suppression, Mammoth Grinder, etc), Iron Reagan is a full-time operation–and they’ve proved it with their prolific work rate. They’ve been together for less than two years, but they’re already about to release their second album, The Tyranny Of Will, in September on Relapse Records.
Don’t call it a side project. Regardless of how many bands the members of Iron Reagan are already famous for (Municipal Waste, Cannabis Corpse, Darkest Hour, Suppression, Mammoth Grinder, etc), Iron Reagan is a full-time operation–and they’ve proved it with their prolific work rate. They’ve been together for less than two years, but they’re already about to release their second album, The Tyranny Of Will, in September on Relapse Records. It’s hot on the heels of their recent EP, Spoiled Identity, a collection of super-short thrash songs that Decibel Magazine released as a one-sided flexi disc (look it up, kids) back in May. This 13-song, 9-minute EP was just a more severe version of this RVA supergroup’s stock in trade–short, fast, heavy tunes that split the difference between hardcore and metal in the classic fashion that’s been called “crossover” since DRI invented the form back in the 80s. Iron Reagan’s 21st century update on the sound is fresh and exciting, and has quickly gained them fans all over the world. During a brief moment of downtime before they took off on yet another tour, we tracked down singer Tony Foresta and drummer Ryan Parrish to get the scoop on touring exotic locales, finding time to be in multiple bands, and accidentally stealing ideas from GWAR.
So how was the first record received?
RP: I was amazed. We thought we’d just do a few shows. But it was so well received we started going full steam ahead.
TF: I think the positive push behind it from so many unlikely sources made us go, “Oh fuck, we’re onto something.”
RP: Tony and I had been wanting to do a band together for 20 years. We had the chance to do it, wrote that record, and now we feel fuckin’ great about it.
TF: We just put out an EP about a month ago.
RP: Yeah, 13 songs on one side of a 7 inch. It’s on our bandcamp page.
TF: It got over 50,000 plays and 20,000 downloads in a week.
Do you think being able to kick out a record like that comes from you guys knowing each other for so long?
TF: Me and Ryan have a chemistry for being best friends for so long. Me and [guitarist] Phil [Hall] have been in Municipal Waste together for over 10 years. Everything just collided super fast with this record.
RP: We didn’t force anything, we just wrote as many songs as we wanted to write. We had a shit-ton of songs. After we did the EP, we started recording the [new] record immediately, because we had the material. Pretty much from September [2012] until like April 30th [2014], we were writing and recording records. We had a demo tape come out, followed by the record Worse Than Dead, then we had a split 12 inch with Exhumed, then the Spoiled Identity EP. Then we did the new record. That’s a lot of output.
TF: We probably have a bigger discography than bands that have been around for five years.
RP: And it’s continually growing. When we decide to write songs, we fuckin’ write songs.
So how did you guys meet?
RP: In Dinwiddie, at Disinterment band practice. [Tony] came out to one of the practices.
TF: That was ten years before the Waste was even a thing. I would say 92, 93?
RP: Yeah, we were still kids. My whole middle school and high school career was in that band.
TF: I was in this band James River Scratch.
RP: Yeah, and we played shows together, so we probably met before that, but that was when I said, “Oh hello, I’m Ryan.”
What was your favorite stop on tour since you’ve been touring with Iron Reagan?
TF: Any show with GWAR was awesome. It was a special thing. That was Dave [Brockie]’s last US tour, and we ended up getting real tight with him. We already were, but we ended up spending a lot of time with those dudes.
So you went to Puerto Rico–how were the crowds there?
TF: We just did one show, and it was great. They were fuckin’ stoked, and it was fun. We pretty much paid out of pocket to get there, but it was totally worth it.
RP: We just sat on the beach for two days.
TF: The local bands in Puerto Rico are sick. They ended up taking us to the beach. We just sat around and drank and swam, it was like a little vacation. So yeah, Puerto Rico was really awesome. We did really good in Canada too. Except we might not be able to go back there. [Laughs] Let’s just say we had some…
TF & RP in unison: Border problems.
TF: They didn’t like what we had in our bags.
RP: They didn’t like who was driving. [laughs] [Guitarist Mark] Bronzino looked sketchy, so they took advantage of him.
TF: Don’t be drunk when you go through a border patrol. I was wasted, and we ended up being there for like…
RP: Two and a half, three hours? They went through everything we owned. We were clean.
Were they disappointed?
RP: I think they were. They really wanted to bust us. They were certain we were lying.
TF: We got to the Vancouver show three hours late. We walked in while GWAR was soundchecking, and the whole place just slow-clapped. [Laughs] The whole band was just looking at us like, “Good to see you could make it, guys.”
Between Darkest Hour and Municipal Waste, you’ve been to a lot of places. Is there any place you haven’t toured that you’d like to go?
RP: Thailand. I’ve been to the Philippines, but I’ve never played Thailand. I would love to do that.
TF: I’ve been offered there, but it just never works out.
RP: I’m surprised the Waste hasn’t gone there.
TF: We [Municipal Waste] were supposed to do a festival there but it got cancelled. It’s crazy out there. With places like that or South America, you never know what’s gonna happen. I was in Greece one time not too long ago, and there were soldiers on every corner with tanks and shit. I’m like, “What is going on?” They were like, “The government’s about to collapse. We’re gonna get you the fuck out of here as soon as your show’s over.”
Where would you like to see Iron Reagan in a couple years? Would you like to continue it as a side project?
TF: I think my life’s just gonna be a busy thing for the next couple of years. This band is snowballing. The Waste is at a point in our careers now where we just do what we want, and it’s fun. It’s just gonna be a big juggling thing. It’s really all about planning your shit ahead of time. Everyone wants to say “side band” and all this, but you’re able to do two full-time bands as long as you just plan properly. Everybody in Iron Reagan has other bands. Queens Of The Stone Age is the same way, all those dudes are in like 10 bands.
RP: I think, musically, no matter what happens, as long as Iron Reagan wants to exist, it will. When it starts to feel like we have to do it, that’s when it just isn’t worth it anymore. It’s definitely a different experience being in Iron Reagan for me, because everything’s so on point and everybody’s got each other’s backs. As long as everyone feels the same way, I don’t see us stopping for any reason.
Towards the end of your time in Darkest Hour, did it feel like a job?
RP: It definitely felt like no one’s heart was in it anymore. I was still in it because… sometimes, when you’re been in something for a long time, you feel like you have nowhere else to go. So when it all ended, it was a little frightening. [But] since we started Iron Reagan, I haven’t looked back. It feels great. And I don’t dislike anyone in [Darkest Hour], I just don’t think we were connecting on any level anymore. It was a good time for us to part ways.
With the name Iron Reagan, is there a more socially conscious spin, or political bent to the music?
TF: Yeah, more than any band I’ve ever been in. [But] I have to write songs that either have a little bit of humor or sarcasm in them.
RP: We go back and forth. It’s a blend. You’ve gotta have a sense of humor, but you can be socially aware and still have that sense of humor. It’s possible. It’s like Bill Maher–he’s a genius, but he’s an idiot. It’s the same thing.
You don’t wanna beat people over the head with stuff all the time.
TF: Yeah, it’s a bummer. Which is cool, you know–I think that’s fine, bands like His Hero Is Gone, who are really heavy and dark. But our music isn’t super dark. It’s more upbeat, but it definitely has a message to it.
RP: And the political stuff that is involved is not telling you how to feel, it’s just saying how we feel. It’s just explaining–”This is how I see this point of view from my eyes.”
I definitely got that kind of vibe from the last video [for “Mini Lights”].
TF: I really love that video… I wish he’d shaved his head. Every time I watch that, I’m like, “He should’ve committed, man.” [laughs] But they were really cool dudes to put that together for us. We did that on the GWAR tour. We did a lot of stuff on that tour. [laughs] We were mixing the record in the van. Phil was editing tracks on ProTools on a laptop, in the van while driving to shows on that tour.
RP: We’d get together and go sit in the van and improve certain mixes… it was crazy.
TF: In the time off we had, between all those insane tours, we were recording 24 songs for an album.
RP: I recorded 40 tracks in two days. And we wrote Spoiled Identity on top of that. We wrote 20 songs for that [EP] and only used 13.
TF: We cut a lot of shit. We want it to sound a certain way. We’re all very obsessive as far as songwriting goes. I’ll go home and spend a couple hours a day trying to write lyrics.
Do you think the metal and punk scenes are as good as ever? Where are things at?
TF: My buddy Ron, who plays in Final Conflict, went on this rant when we were riding around in Austin the other day. He’s like, “It seems like the metal bands are punker than the punk bands nowadays.” As far as bigger bands that are doing stuff, he said, “Every time I deal with punk bands, they’re all whiny, and everybody wants stuff.” The crossover bands back in the day were more demanding and wanted more money [than punk bands]. He says like the crossover and metal bands now are coming from these punk backgrounds. It’s weird how it really is crossing over now. Punks are playing metal and actually writing better metal songs now.
RP: And they’re just cooler, being cool dudes to everybody. Metal’s all about putting people on pedestals. I was in a metal band for a long time, and I saw it all the time. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I think people are realizing they can just play aggressive awesome music and not be looked upon as a god, just as a normal person. And metal fans are kind of accepting that.
Do you consider yourselves a metal band?
TF: Yeah, I’d say a crossover band. I don’t think there are enough crossover bands. It’s punk, it’s metal, it’s got punk vocals… the new record definitely has more of a metal edge to it.
RP: But it’s still got moments that are pretty punk.
I think you guys need a giant Iron Reagan, like Spinal Tap had a miniature Stonehenge.
TF: We played New Years’ Eve, and GWAR was gonna come out with the Reaganator.
RP: It was an old character they had for live [shows]. A machine that had torpedo arms, or something like that.
TF: But then, Ghoul kinda did that too. We played with them in Oakland in April and they came out on stage with this huge fourteen foot tall Ronald Reagan. We were all playing, going, “Holy shit, this is amazing!” It was funny, because Mark Bronzino was headbanging so hard he never saw it. After the show, we were like, “Did you fucking see that giant Ronald Reagan come on stage with us?” And he was like, “What are you talking about?” [laughs] You know how the South Park guys had that joke about, “The Simpsons already did it”? I run into that a lot, but with GWAR. Even ideas you just said, like “Get a giant Ronald Reagan!” It’s like, “No, GWAR did that.”
RP: We had an intro on the last tour, of the presidential song [hums “Hail To The Chief”]. And as we were doing that, Dave goes, “Hey, GWAR did that already, you realize that?” [laughs] We were like, “Fuck! Our intro is fucking GWAR-ed! God damn it!”
You kind of all grew up under the shadow of Reagan. Does Iron Reagan actually have anything to do with your thoughts about Reagan and growing up in that era?
TF: A little bit. In my brain I always thought Reagan was kind of a menacing character.
RP: He was a deceptive person. Ollie North, just look that up. Read all about it, and you can see exactly how fucked up Ronald Reagan was. [laughs]
TF: [With] the vision of that, the imagery, and the style of music we play, Iron Reagan just seemed like the perfect band name for the kind of shit we were doing.
And you had that band name for years before you had the band going?
TF: Yeah.
RP: But it has a sense of humor to it too. That’s why it works so well for the band. Because it’s kind of serious, but Iron Reagan sounds like Iron Maiden-—it’s funny. I love the name. And at first, Tony was like, “I don’t know if I want to use it,” so we tried so hard to be called something else.
TF: We were gonna be called Cursed Cross, but everybody said it sounds too much like Kriss Kross [laughs].
RP: It looks cool written down, but when we say, “Hi, we’re Cursed Cross,” everybody would go, “Jump! Jump!” That’s a joke we would never live down.
This article is taken from the Summer 2014 print edition of RVA Magazine, out now! Look for copies available for free at your favorite local Richmond businesses. To read a digital version of the full issue, click here.
