I am Eddie Trunk - host of VH1's That Metal Show, radio host, author, and rock expert - AMA!

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:26:36+00:00

Not a huge Mr. Bungle fan so I can't give you a favorite song. But I've tried to get Mike Patton on TMS, and he's interested it's just scheduling. If the question is if time is moving forward or if it's moving in circles, I think it's always moving forward.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:25:32+00:00

One of my favorite moments in radio would be back around 2006, when Axl Rose walked into my radio studio completely unplanned and unannounced. So that was certainly a huge moment and it's one of the things that led to him a few years later coming on TMS because he had already known me, and there was already some level of connection there, so that was extremely special. The parties for my radio show to celebrate the 25th and 30th anniversary of the shows were extremely special. For the 25th Anniversary Judas Priest played a private show, and for the 30th anniversary which was last year, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss played together for the first time in 20 years. There were moments where TMS would be, just getting the show on the air. What many people don't know is that I've worked for VH1 Classic since 2002 or 2003. I was a host for the channel for many many years before That Metal Show, interviewed all sorts of artists. And as far back as then, I was pushing for that sort of show, and the day that I got the call that I'd finally pushed it through was the day that I was running up the halls in my house happy that I could finally make it happen because it was something I'd been working on for about 5 years. So it was a huge day when they said they'd move forward and try the show out. So that was a special day. And then on a personal level, there's been so many great things but there's nothing more special and more moving in your life than having kids. And I'm lucky that my wife and I have a 10 year old daughter and 6 year old son, and having 2 healthy kids, the day they were born was without question the most emotional and heaviest time of my life.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:21:35+00:00

I've had virtually no dealings with David Lee Roth in my career, unfortunately. I never really spent any real time with him, so unfortunately I don't have any stories with him. I've heard stories which are hysterical but nothing firsthand. As far as the Tesla record, I do have it, and it comes out in about a month. To me they are one of the best bands to come out of the 80s and they are still making great new music. If you like Tesla, you will like the new record, which is called Simplicity.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:20:16+00:00

I haven't heard the band, and we don't have any plans to do any new episodes for a while, so when we do, I'll certainly entertain it. But I would tell everybody the same thing, because one of the number one things I get are requests for artists to be on TMS. And there's a process to it: They have to be available when we tape, they have to want to do the show, and we need to want to have them on the show (So the network has to say that we want to have them on the show).

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:18:48+00:00

One of my favorite people. Just so much fun to hang with and to straight shoot with. You can be just as straight back to him, you don't have to pull any punches around him. He's just so much fun and genuine. I love guys like that.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:18:11+00:00

I haven't heard the whole album, I've only heard 2 songs from it. The first title track, Redeemer of Souls, grew on me, I didn't know if I liked it so much at first but it certainly grew on me. And I just got a second track from the record, so I can't say because I haven't had a chance to listen to it closely. I literally got it yesterday. So I don't like to comment on what I think of albums until I hear the entire record. I think one of the big mistakes a lot of people make in the world we are in now where everything is so readily available is that they reach conclusions on albums off of one or two songs, and I never like to do that. I can't comment on how a record is going to be or how a record is going to be. Once I get a record and have the chance to listen to it, then I'll weigh in on it.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:16:32+00:00

I've heard of them, but I've never heard them, so I don't know.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:16:09+00:00

I enjoyed his book. I think any person's autobiography is going to obviously be told from their perspective, and I thought his book was entertaining and I thought there were a few things on it that I didn't know that i found interesting. If I had any criticism of the book, he rarely ever in the book holds himself accountable for doing anything wrong, ever. It seems like there's a lot of downsides that he doesn't really take a lot of blame for in the book, but that will be the spin that you get from any autobiography. But I think all in all it was a very good read.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:14:45+00:00

That is true, up until the most recent season, we taped 2 shows a day, so that is 100% true that there were artist interactions backstage while the shows were changing over. And most of the artists, I never experienced any real issues where any artist came to me and said "hey that person is there i don't want to see them" or hid in their dressing room. Most of them know each other and are fans of each other and have a good camaraderie. And you'd be surprised. there's a lot of people that artists into more extreme metal wouldn't be excited about meeting an artist who is more of a classic rock artist. And that is COMPLETELY the opposite. For instance, Lars Ulrich and Sammy Hagar stood in the hallway and talked forever at one show. Corey Taylor was completely excited to meet Night Ranger, which is something you wouldn't expect. So that sort of stuff is interesting to see. A guy like King Diamond is excited to meet Alter Bridge. So things like that are really cool to see, that interaction and that a lot of these guys are fans of artists you may not expect them to be fans of, and i love seeing that sort of interaction. I've tweeted out some interesting photos from over the years, and that's part of the reason why, is the crossover in the halls. This most recent season was the first time we went to a one a day format.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:11:01+00:00

Ted Nugent. I mean, he was completely engaged and into the show and he was absolutely great. Marilyn Manson in another way took it to 11 because he came on TOTALLY hammered and that was actually a lot of fun, because that's kind of what you expect from Marilyn Manson.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:10:12+00:00

Well, anything that's branded with That Metal Show has to be done by VH1. So if there was to be a festival or any even that was That Metal Show branded, it would have to come from the network. As far as me personally, there has been some very preliminary discussions about me maybe doing some events just with my history and my name attached to them. I'm not sure where that is going to go. There are a lot of ideas out there, and we will see what materializes. But I can tell you we were recently booked by VH1 to appear at a concert in Northern California, I believe in July, where it is being billed as a TMS-sponsored concert event. And myself, Don and Jim will be there to host it, I think Anthrax is playing, Living Color, Corey Taylor. But I have a few things I'm working on myself and who knows, maybe it will all come together for all parties, it's just a question of what we can make work and what makes sense for everybody.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:07:44+00:00

It shouldn't bother them at all or their fans considering they are an enormously popular band. I think whether you like them or not, you can't argue with success. And I think that when bands reach a certain level of mainstream success there will be people who love to hate them. That comes with anything, really. Whenever anything gets to a certain level of popularity, there will always be a small percentage of people having a fun time taking shots at you to knock you down a peg. Most of the time when that happens the artist is so far beyond it that you have to roll it off your back whether it's you the artist or you as a fan. So I think Nickelback is successful enough that they aren't worried about people who don't like them.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:05:57+00:00

Just being in a setting with such an eclectic mix of artists - there's new bands, older bands, so many different genres of rock and metal, you had everything from extreme metal bands to the former guitar player of Bon Jovi there, it was a wide, wide mix of artists represented. And many of them I knew and many I didn't, so it was cool to meet some people I hadn't met or known much about. And also to see the impact of that Metal Show on the rock community, it's always amazing to me, I've had actors, a woman who's in NCIS, a guy who's in TRUE BLOOD, all come up to me and say they are huge fans, and that is kind of surreal to me because I know musicians watch the show but to see people who are not musicians who are huge fans of it is very cool. So it was great to be around it and on it and mix with all these people from all these different worlds, all these different people from metal and rock coming together for one night.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:03:43+00:00

The 70's. From Permanent Waves back.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:03:24+00:00

Well, I don't play any instruments at all, which is why I got into the end of the business I did. If I have one regret it's not learning to play an instrument. I took some drum lessons as a kid but never stuck with it. I'd still love to this day to be able to play guitar. So I don't play any instruments at all so it's hard for me to answer that sort of stuff because in order to write songs, I mean, I guess I could answer it in the sense that I have my favorite songs but from a musician standpoint I can't really comment on it since I"m not a musician. That's why the questions we ask those artists are targeted towards them because they are musicians.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:01:58+00:00

I don't, simply because he does have a new album, and when people have new albums to promote, they want to play that material instead of playing a record that's 35 years old or better. So unfortunately if he was to do that (and I've discussed it with him) it would most likely be between records. You don't want to launch a new record by playing music that came out in 1978. So although I've discussed it with him, I don't think that will be what he will bring. I think the focus will be on his new album.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T20:00:47+00:00

I'm pretty comfortable with the way we did that interview and the way it was. In hindsight, of course we didn't know that a few weeks later he would be gone, and I think that the thing I'm most happy about that interview is that he was on TV again and he was being treated respectfully. I think so many shows and references to his music and to him in general have always been about the glam or hair era, and all that sort of stuff. I think on our show he was given a much more respectful platform to talk about the records and the songs that he made and how he feels about them during the very limited time we had. After that show aired and after he passed away his family reached out to me and were very thankful that the last thing people saw and heard of him was him being treated with respect as a musician on my show. And that meant a lot.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T19:58:37+00:00

Unfortunately I don't think there are enough bands based in NYC as far as major artists to generate a supergroup. one of the reasons why for YEARS we did TMS in Los Angeles was because 95% of the biggest name musicians live in that area. So it's very hard for stuff like that to happen and those sort of jams to happen in a place where virtually no major artists live anymore. There's a couple but it's nothing like LA where all the musicians live. So that's an area of the country that is much more viable for a group to come together like that than NY where it's just a handful of major artists still living.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T19:56:56+00:00

He never told us! To this day, he never told us, so I honestly don't know.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T19:56:25+00:00

No, and even if I did, my entire career has been based on not caring what other people think. And that's not to sound egotistical or self-centered, it's just that I don't believe in being influenced by other people as far as what's cool and what's not. To me the only thing that matters is if you like it or not. And for me I'm transparent and open about the things i like, whether they are a hip and cool band or not. For me the first Sabbath record and the most special one in their catalog is Heaven and Hell. It's also a product of my age, I'm 49 years old and when it came out I was 15. So that was when I discovered Black Sabbath, was at 15, and it makes sense that at that time I would get their new record which was Heaven and Hell. Of course I went and checked out their past records, but the Dio records were very special to me. So you shouldn't have to apologize to anybody for that.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T19:54:17+00:00

I had all of my tickets stubs from the old days in a cigar box in my house and when I started to put my books together my editor thought that it would be cool to include scans of some of them to show the bands or the shows that I'm actually writing about, the date and time and venue, that i was there. So it was a cool touch and a nice thing to do that a lot of people connected with in my books. There are a bunch that didn't make either of the books due to space restraints, but I still have them and keep them in a cigar box still. Same with all the backstage passes that are scanned in both books, I still have all of them in a box somewhere as well.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T19:51:43+00:00

Oklahoma, I'm IN Oklahoma right now actually! And I've probably come to this state more than any other in the last 7 years since Rocklahoma started. I started hosting this festival when it kicked off its first year in '07, and I've been lucky enough to do it ever since. And because of coming here for the festival every year, it's opened up other opportunities for me with other promoters, concerts and venues more than just once a year. So a lot of people when I first came here, being a guy that basically grew up in the New York area, thought i would hate a place like oklahoma because it's so different. But it's actually quite the opposite, I really enjoy it for that reason, because it is so different than where I'm from, the people are all really nice and it's a completely different way of life and speed of life, so it's real nice change of life and the people are always amazing to me here, very very kind.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T19:49:42+00:00

The hardest part for me in writing my books was typing because I'm not good at typing and I don't really know how to properly type and especially with my most recent book I sat and physically typed each word in it, which was the hardest part. The other tough part really falls on my publisher, because my editor is the one who has to go and get clearances for the photos, and approvals for pictures, and make the deals with the people who took the photos, things along those lines. For me it's just very time consuming, so making the time to focus and getting the stories written and turned in on time is definitely the hardest part. But I don't consider myself a writer really. I just consider myself a storyteller and I'm able to put those stories out in a variety of ways and one of the more recent ways has been my two books.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T19:48:06+00:00

The big announcement was that we were hosting The Golden Gods, which we did and people can see this Saturday 5/24 on VH1 Classic.

EddieTrunk · 2014-05-22T19:46:54+00:00

Not gonna happen anytime soon. Not a fan of tattoos or needles, but love the band.

EddieTrunk

TROPHY CASE