Some may not give a shit. But I do ... really do. We're talking about the true roots of thrash. And when you are an impressionable kid growing up in southern Ontario, certain bands left a mark. And Canada had their own Big Four before there was a Big Four! Think about it … Anvil (1982's Metal On Metal and 1983's Forged In Fire), Exciter (1983's Heavy Metal Maniac and 1984's Violence & Force), Voivod (1984's War And Pain and 1986's Rrröööaaarrr) and Razor (1984's Armed & Dangerous and of course 1985's Executioner's Song and Evil Invaders). A huge influence worldwide if you were addicted to underground metal. Arguably, the fire burned out quick, but that makes the tale more riveting! Although there's been rare shows with singer Bob Reid, it's been 14 years since Razor released their last studio effort, Decibels (1997) and 26 years since original singer Stace "Sheepdog" McLaren fronted the band. I actually filmed a documentary with the Canuck thrashers a few years back, that has yet to materialize. So things have been scattered in the Razor world to put it politely. And this past April, extreme guitar legend Dave Carlo was last heard battling stage 2 oral cancer. To be honest, I've had very few quests in life. But one was to find Sheepdog. And it's taken forever to find this (unholy) grail. But a few months back I did. The executioner was found with axe in hand! And I stood by his torch and now we're ignited by hot metal! What I present to you is a fans interview. Not a fucking journalist, but a TRUE fan. To this day, "Hot Metal", "Take This Torch", Cut Throat", Instant Death" and "Cross Me Fool" echo loudly on my iPod. And I purposely left things a little raw and unedited - not due to laziness - but to add bit of realism to my find. Fuck me, I found Sheepdog. And here's his tail! Grab it and hang on!!!

But some background: Stacey McLaren is now based in Uxbridge, Ontario (75 kilometres from Toronto). His gig is a bit far from heavy metal; commercial construction to be exact. And he is required to carry a special ID and passport due to his martial arts training. And why did it take this bucket-list interview so long to come to fruition? Well, a number of reasons. But Sheepdog's admission that he's not much of a "computer guy" certainly added to the delay.

"You wouldn't even recognize me," he begins on the phone from his home. "I have a shaved head. I ended up with a bit of skin cancer and I had to shave it all and get the full treatment done. My better half likes it this way, but I had my hair down to my ass since I was 40. I thought I would've never cut my hair. I don't miss it either, it was a lot of work having that fucking hair. I was one of those that said ' if you're going to have long hair you better make it look nice.' I didn't want to look greasy and shit."

The burning question is, where is your head music-wise these days. Is there any possibility of you reuniting with Razor? Any contact with your old bandmates?

"I just heard from Mike Embro (original Razor drummer). I hadn't heard from him in a few months. I was out of touch with those guys for over 20 years. Laurent Ramadier from Snakepit Heavy Metal Magazine was trying to get us back together to do some original Razor gigs. Like one in Germany specifically."

Mike Campagnolo (original Razor bassist) had mentioned that you guys had been been jamming lately.

"No, not me. We were trying to get together to do some rehearsing to do this gig in Germany. I actually talked to Dave (Carlo) a long time ago about it first. Me and him weren't friends when we were in the band, if you know what I mean. Things weren't good there. We had different goals and different ideas on how to attain them. Back then he was what you would say, the leader of the band - he would put everything together. I came in long after they had written a bunch of material and already had interest in signing record contracts with three different companies at the time. And I was younger than they were - you know how that all goes. As time went along, it wasn't moving fast enough for me and he wasn't doing anything to make that any better. I think he always thought of it as a part-time gig, whereas me, I was at that age and wanted to be a rock star. I understood that that music had a very limited audience, very underground. I knew I was never going to be a millionaire walking out of it, but I thought that that movement was big enough that we could at least be international and consistently playing. And I wasn't happy with that, because we weren't really doing that. I didn't want to be like Dave and work in a camera store and play the odd gig once and a while. It wasn't enough for me. After putting out a few albums, it wasn't changing and he didn't want to get management, he didn't want to get an agent, he wanted control and do it all himself and relied on people getting through to us by the fan mail. For me, I just saw it going nowhere and the last time we went down to the States to do some gigs I had talked to him privately - this was back when the drummer and bass player had left and we had a couple of young guys (Dave Carlo's younger brother Adam on bass and drummer Rob Mills). I had had enough and I knew it wasn't going to go anywhere. I think I was 24 at the time and I needed to think of something else to do with my career to make money. So I called it to a halt and went home back to Kingston and got a job working for Showtek Productions (in Odessa, ON), who sold P.A systems and lighting systems for big schools and hotels and stuff like that. And it was kind of in my bag of knowledge and I went ahead with that. He (Dave) contacted me again about six or seven months later and wanted to record another album and I said I'd record the album, but I wasn't going out to promote the album. But I'll be honest with you I hated it … that last album (Violent Restitution), I couldn't stand it. The band was going more hardcore than it was metal. I went in and I did it, got paid and I left. I won't lie to you, I was kind of embarrassed by that album. Dave tells me that that album ended up doing pretty well as far as critics went, which surprised me."

Possibly with the push from Steamhammer/SPV?





"Actually we released that independently on our own through Fist Fight Records. I didn't know SPV picked it up. But I never saw a dime from that album, which is another surprise for me. All in all, I have to say, Dave and I have talked since and it seems good now, but back then I didn't trust him anymore. I think that at the time and at that age, I was starting to lose faith with everything that he was doing. It doesn't surprise me to hear that it did very well, and I didn't see a dime, if you know what I mean!"

So walk us through these early beginnings with Razor, you hailing from Kingston and the band living in Guelph.

"I was from Kingston and somebody that I knew wanted me to go and audition. Back then I was a guitar player, not a singer. There's a funny story on how all this got started. I was a guitar player and I was helping out guys I used to go to high school with, who didn't have a singer, but wanted somebody to sing for them while they were jamming to keep them rolling along and knowing where they were. I told them that I'd do it just for fun, but this guy I ran into wanted to sing with this band. He had gone up to audition for Razor and told me he'd take me up there if I could hook him up with the guys I was jamming with. So I went up to see what it was all about and I met the guys. I was a long-hair with a leather jacket; I was a rock n' roll musician. So I got up there and met Dave Carlo and his hair was a little bit long, but not like I pictured this thrash metal band to be. I used to listen to Motörhead and I had barely even heard of Metallica. So I went up there and they didn't even care about the guitar thing, they just wanted a singer, a frontmnan. I had never heard of Slayer and they were playing it for me and I was like like 'holy shit, who the hell is this drummer!?' They played me Kill 'Em All and it's still one of my favourite albums - I can't get 'Whiplash' out of my head after all this time. So most of that stuff I really hadn't heard too much of. As I said, I did like Motörhead, and they asked me if I could sing one of their songs and I said I could try. So we did 'Love Me A Reptile'. And then they handed me a bunch of lyrics to the songs that were on that first EP that we did. But I really liked that song 'Take This Torch'. I think that was the song that drove me to work something out with these guys. That was a really fast, fast ripping song and I liked the lyrics and I loved screaming to it and it started me on a whole new vein of what I could do. There was a lot of stuff on the EP that I didn't like, like 'Ball & Chain', which seemed too simple, compared to some of the other stuff that they were playing. Saying that, I thought that this was a way into the business. When I first met Dave, he was all business. He was a thickened Italian that was all talk and all business. He was a pure fucking salesman. I then I met Mike (Campagnolo). I think he was a janitor at the hospital at the time. His hair wasn't really long like mine either and he was a little overweight. One night we picked him up and he came bumbling out of the house towards the van and I was thinking to myself, 'what have I got myself into? These don't look like typical guys that I had hung out with in Kingston who were musicians.' So anyway, they take me to Mike Embro's place; his Dad owned a fruit market right downtown in old Guelph. The downstairs basement was all natural rock foundation, and there were pipes all over the ceiling and he sort of had it rigged up for a jam room. He had blanketed off and area which was his bedroom. But he had black lights, posters and shit all over the place, so it was kind of cool. So we walked downstairs and he had his feet upon the drum-kit and I thought this was a guy I know, so we ends up getting along really well and that's how that audition started."

When did these reunion conversations first begin?

"I was living in Pigeon Lake north of Peterborough, and I received this thing in the mail. This was years after I had left Razor and honest to god brother, I hadn't talked to any of those guys since the moment we recorded Violent Restitution. And they wanted me to come back and do some gigs at Montreal's Palladium and Toronto's Masonic Temple (Concert Hall). I told them I wasn't promoting that album. I think that annoyed Dave and he never called me again. And I'm talking over 20 years. And honestly, I wasn't abashed by it, it didn't bother me a bit. I don't think any of us at that point were good friends anymore. It was more of a business and it wasn't fun anymore. We went out and did our thing, we rehearsed and we recorded and did a couple of gigs and then went back to or own lives. When I was living in Guelph, I was hanging with my own guys and that's not the way it should be. When I was upon the country in Pigeon Lake, far away from people, I was honestly secluded. Unlisted number, all that shit. I wanted to get away from the women sending you letters with panties. As small as we were, we did still get that and it was something I was trying to get the hell away from. At that time I was living with a gorgeous broad and I didn't want any kind of trouble. So I get this letter from Laurent saying that I've found seven Stacey McLaren's in the world, if this is the guy that used to sing in Razor please contact me right away. So I emailed him and said 'you found me, but I'd like to know how you did that.' So he wanted to do this interview, so I sent him all these answers and the dude puts my email address in the story! I'm not kidding you, I got so many fucking emails from people that I had to cancel my email. I'm in business now and I don't want 500 emails a week from thrashing Razor fans! Arrgggghhh this and aarrrggghhh that! I'm a busy guy now and 'm not really a computer guy at all. I rarely go on my computer unless, unless I'm selling one of my cars or one of my bikes."

"Anyway, so he sends me a copy of the magazine and I had said a few unpleasant things and Dave's side of the story was nasty too, but it was a lot of bullshit and a lot of lies. Laurent was doing this thing on retro thrash metal and we were the cover story. He didn't explain any of that to me. I only found out when I saw the magazine! I'm like 'holy shit, my whole body is on the front cover!' I got a big kick out of it. I was showing all my buddies. You can tell stories and shit, but I don't think my circle of friends know ht it really was. 'Cause it's not like when they come over I play Razor albums! I was actually really pissed off. I told the truth about how I felt and what happened, and what was holding us back and his story was completely different and I was actually really insulted. Now I didn't blame Laurent for that. I did express my concern to him that a lot of that shit he said wasn't true and I don't know if Dave was trying to save face. You gotta remember this has to be ten, 15 years ago now. Razor was still going and recording with that guy from London (Bob Reid). I think he was trying to keep things good with the band and everything. And I understand, but I was kind of insulted. I think in all truth, it was Dave that was holding us back because of is business decisions and I was really thrown by that. But Laurent did ask me if I was interested in going to Germany and do a gig at some out door metalfest (note: Stace was clear on which one it was but mentioned the band had played there before which means it was Wacken 1999). Anyway, so Laurent asked me if I was interested and I said 'ya, have Dave call me' and he never did of course. So Laurent got back a hold of me and asked if the guys had been in touch and I said nobody had contacted me. So I said, give me Dave's information and he did and I emailed him and I got a really quick email back. About a month after that my computer crashed and I lost all my information and his contact details and Laurent's for that matter and I never from anybody ever again for a long time. I just forgot all about it to be honest with you. If there's not that much interest it's not a big deal. It's a couple guys having fantasy."

Let's get back to a bit of the history. You mentioned a lot of this music was written before you came in.

"The first EP (Armed & Dangerous) was. I didn't have anything to do with that writing. They handed me lyrics, they handed me a tape with music and I had four days at home to figure out what I was going to do with it. Then I went into the studio and in ten hours we had it recorded and finished. They had already done all the bed tracks, then I went in and did all the singing and Dave went in and followed me with all the solos. It was all really quick. I'm not kidding you brother, everything was happening really fast. So I didn't have anything to do with the writing on that EP."





By the way, Unidisc in Quebec reissued Executioner's Song, Evil Invaders and Malicious Intent a few years back.

"Dude, I haven't had a royalty cheque or publishing cheque in 15 years. But it doesn't surprise me about the publishing rights. Like how many thrash metal radio stations are playing your music and enough for somebody to send you a cheque? But what Dave makes it sounds like, for the amount of records being sold and how popular we are in Europe right now … I'm thinking, where's the money. That shit was paid off a long time ago. Like why am I not seeing any money? But like I say, I'm fine financially, it's not like I need it. But this is one of the things that eats at the back of your head. Like one of those things where I don't think I trust him knowing that he was in charge of the Fist Fight Records shit. But I love Executioner's Song. I love the artwork, I love the name of the album."

Talk about the video for "Evil Invaders", as a kid - due to Canada's CanCon laws (requiring a certain amount of domestic talent to be aired on the radio and television) - we would see that video regularly alongside clips from Anvil, The Killer Dwarfs, Sacrifice, Annihilator etc…

"You know, that video was so cheesily done too. Attic Records wouldn't spend a dime. It was like pulling milk from cheese those guys. We should've went with Roadrunner or Metal Blade, those were the two other offers we had. Metal Blade's experience would've helped us out a little bit more. We were an experiment to Attic Records, but we were released on the Viper Records division. They didn't want to stamp it on their label right. It's true. We went in there and made us feel like a million bucks. They had this huge room and all these TVs and fridges full of beer and wine and comfortable couches. Everything was colourful and they had gold records on the wall. And we looked at each other and said, 'wow, this is really cool.' But in reality, I felt belittled by them. Al Mair (the President) we didn't really talk to too much. It was Lindsay Gillespie who I hear had his own record company in Toronto when he and Attic split. But Lindsay Gillespie was a really smug, Porsche-driving yuppie who knew nothing about what we were doing. I remember when they were putting out Evil Invaders, they had unveiled a couple of ideas for album covers and the one that had of me with the metal face on the bike. It sounds funny, but I didn't even want the song 'Evil Invaders' on the album. We recorded 16 songs and that song did nothing for me."

"Campagnolo wrote the lyrics to that song and to this day I don't even know what that song is fucking about (laughs out loud). But they thought it had hook and they wanted to call the album that and do a video for that. But I wanted to do 'Cross Me Fool' and to this day, that is probably my favourite Razor song. I love the attitude about what it was about, I love the crunching guitar. I know it wasn't super-fast like a lot of our other stuff, but to me it was just a really cool song. It was kind of the epitome of what I wanted us to be about. Like how many songs did we have that had the name death in it? To me that's not what I wanted. I didn't want to be all negative and dark. I didn't want to be Satanic or any of that shit. I wanted to be a fun metal band. I didn't care how fast they wanted to play. I wanted to make it fun. But they were all on this evil kick, which was frustrating to me. I wanted it to be something different. You've got to remember something, when my generation grew up, we didn't have that kind of music to influence us. Being a guitar player, I was a huge Eddie Van Halen fan, a massive Led Zeppelin fan. Robert Plant influenced my own song-writing, not my metal song-writing. I've written a lot of music on my 12-string and acoustic guitar. Lyrically he was my hero. I loved David Lee Roth as a frontman. And I was into Southern rock too big time like Molly Hatchet. So I went from that vein to jumping into this. Listing to Motörhead was just fun-time. I wasn't into the heavy, heavy stuff. That wasn't me. So getting into this was brand new and I did take a liking to it and a hunger for it, but I was very picky what I was listening too. These guys in Razor had so many albums from these bands I'd never heard of and it was all this underground stuff. There were certain songs that I just loved and other stuff that I couldn't listen too. One of the bands that I took a bad taste too was Raven. I couldn't stand All For One. But there was other bands that I took to right away like Celtic Frost and I loved Slayer's first album. Metallica's first two albums, after that I couldn't stand it. They broke every rule they said they never were going to break after that. For as famous and rich that they got, to me they were a big disappointment."

As a longtime fan, one thing that sticks out is your patented scream. You attacked the mic like no other in the '80s.

"Wow. I was so into doing it and they just let me go. There was no direction for me. They would hand me lyrics and music and I would hand them lyrics and they would write music to it. In the studio I would just go crazy."

So you are telling me that it was a Robert Plant/David Lee Roth scream on those albums!

"(Laughs) Probably not! It just comes out of you. All of a sudden you just let it go. I don't really even know how it got started. I think the one that sticks out is 'Speed Merchants' where at the end of the song it keeps getting higher and I could've gone forever and I thought I was going to pass out in the studio when I stopped. It was one of those things were I felt it was the right thing to do at the time and I jut kept going. I came out of the closed room where I was singing and into the playback room and these guys are looking at me going 'where the fuck did that come from?!' 'Man I don't know, but it was cool.' And then I listened to it and I didn't realize it carried that long."

Custom Killing was a major change in direction for Razor. Although the album has poor production and all, I'd love to find it on CD or a digital version at least!

"We wanted to do something a little bit different because everybody was throwing ten or 12 songs on an album that were three/four minutes long. S.O.D. was kind of killing it for me .. don't get me wrong, I loved it, it was funny, but it was taking metal and mixing it with punk, which I thought Violent Restitution was and what I exactly wanted to stay away from. Like those lyrics that Dave had written - 'you've got no fucking brains, you're not too fucking smart' - and all that kind of shit. I was reading this stuff when I was in the studio and I'm going 'can I rewrite this stuff?' 'No, we are in a hurry and we gotta get this done.' But I wasn't even around them when they had written it all. Most of the time when Mike and I would write lyrics, we would just hand them to Dave saying 'here is an idea for a song.' Then he would write to it. And that's something I never agreed with either. Being a songwriter since I was 14, I always had the music written, then put the melody and lyrics to the music. To me that's more free-singing. Every time I wrote lyrics and handed them to Dave, he'd come back with a song that was kind of robotic and I'd have to fight my way out of the robotism of it. There were so many songs that I couldn't do that with like 'March Of Death'. I liked the idea of the song, but singing it wasn't fun, it was robotic. I knew that Custom Killing wasn't going to do well. I didn't like the production of the album, I thought it was very weak. I don't think there was enough guitar in the mix. But again, I didn't have nothing to do with that. Keep in mind my age at the time, my naivety of the situation. Letting Dave take more and more control instead of fighting back. I was a stoner that fucking went in and did my job and hung out and got laid and waited for money and gigs. And I let him take charge, and I think everyone kinda did 'cause back then he was such a boisterous fuck. Now I’m a completely different guy, and I’ve had words with him about that. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have multiple black belts in martial arts, a Second Degree Dan in Aikido. My self-confidence is way over-the-top now, and if I was in that situation again, it would be completely different and I would say ‘this is how it’s going to be.’ More democratic. When we did Custom Killing, I loved some of the album. A 'Stand Before Kings' was one of the songs that he wrote and let me write lyrics to the music. There’s a part in that song that I actually sing for about 30 seconds, not just howl and scream and shit. And that’s the thing that we wanted to do just a little bit different. Maybe a lot of people didn’t like it, but for us - especially Mike Campagnolo, because there was a lot of openness for him to play his bass, rather than just single string it all the time. Dave with was the one writing these long songs and for me I never wanted to do them live ‘cause I was a bit of a party guy and they were hard to remember. Try to do “Last Rites” in front of a live audience after you’ve had six or seven Jack Daniels and a couple of doobies, and you’re like, ‘wow, we shouldn’t have done that!’ To me it was more fun of an album. I liked “Snake Eyes” and I still listen to that song every once in a while, only because it was a fun lyric song and fun to song. It wasn’t 900 miles an hour through the whole song. Admittedly it was probably a mistake to do it, but for me creatively I felt more open and I appreciated it more. I knew when we finished it that the fans wouldn’t like it, but at the same time you were thinking that maybe it would draw us some new people. I don’t think it worked out like that, because everybody was wanting to hear the old Razor."

"As for Malicious Intent, you are going to have to remind me what was on that album! I remember “Tear Me To Pieces” loved that song about knife fighting. That was another example of what I wanted the band to be about. That was my second favourite song that we ever did. That’s a song that sticks in my head to this day. This is what I said to Laurent the first time he asked us if we would gig; I said I would have certain stipulations. He said, ‘what are they?’ And I said ‘this is how much money that I would want because I’d have to take time off of work; obviously we would have to rehearse just to see if I could do it again because it had been so long. I would also want to make sure that it was my choice of music. I would want to pick the song list because I wouldn’t want to go all the way there to not have fun.' To me it wasn’t about the money anymore, it would’ve been to regroup with these guys that I haven’t seen in forever, maybe punch the shit out of Dave a little bit (laughs) … just kidding. I just wanted to do it and have a blast, go and party and meet a bunch of people over there that are fans. We never been over there. We were supposed to go over there once, but Lee Aaron went ahead of us. The road manager that they sent with her walked away as soon as he got off the plane with 50 grand. He took off and never showed his face again. So they lost a bunch of money and cancelled the tour and we kinda got fucked out of our turn. That was a big disappointment for us. Is where I think the Attic Records deal was a mistake, because I think we would’ve done better in Europe than what we would’ve ever done in Canada or the States.”





Did you do much music after Razor?

"Actually, when I first left Razor, Big Rae Moss called and he had these guys called Infernal Majesty and he wanted me to come and sing for them. It was very Satanic shit and it turned out that two of the guys that were in the band were from Kingston. And they were the two guys that I used to sing with! And these were guys that I went to school with too. They weren’t metalheads either, back then they were into all that glam shit. So I listen to it, I didn’t mind the music so much but there were just harmony solos, no rippers or thrashing solos. But what pissed me off about this situation, was that they didn’t even tell the guy that was singing with them that I was coming up there. I thought they got rid of their singer and they didn’t so I’m sitting there jamming with them one day and this guy shows up. And he was pissed off, so kind of put me off, kind of childish. It was the same thing Dave was trying to pull with the original guys getting back together. He admitted to me that Rob (Carlo) had no idea what was going on and he would appreciate if we kept all this to ourselves. I said ‘you may want to talk to all the people that are trying to put this thing together.’"







So right now, what is the status of a full-blown Razor reunion?

"Laurent got in touch with me again - keep in mind, he’s a huge fan and was in Toronto when we were playing Larry’s Hideaway, filming the video (“Evil Invaders”) when things were really starting to grow with us. He was there, but I never knew him. He got back to me again about this reunion and put me in touch with Mike Campagnolo instead of Dave this time. So me and Mike were texting back n’ forth, rehashing old times and it was kind of fun. I was going to go to Guelph and jam with these guys, but it’s never taken place. Everyone is so god-damn busy. I work a lot of hours. I’m hardly home. So Laurent got this all started again and I ended up talking to Dave for a long time on the phone. He seemed that he kind of mellowed. I don’t if it was because of his cancer. He’s losing his eyesight too. So I don’t know if this has humbled him, but he was actually very cordial on the phone and very polite. Very unlike any time I ever remember him before. I just assumed that they guy had grown up. They were rehearsing one day when I was texting one of them and they hooked me up with Embro, and we keep in touch quite a bit. We were the partiers of the band back then and now that we talk together, we kind of miss one another a little bit. It just seemed that when I was available to go up there, one of them wasn’t available. We tried three of four times and just wasn’t happening. I think it was Dave that said, ‘for this year, let’s just forget about it.’ It wasn’t for lack of effort or interest, it was just timing. There’s no way I would do a gig without going up there five or six times. I’d wanna put on a good show. I listen to a few Razor songs on my phone or something, but as far as doing a full 90 minutes or even 45, it would take a lot of work for me. And honestly, I don’t know if I could even do it. The song-writing I do now has absolutely nothing to do with heavy metal. It’s a lot mellower, a bit more intricate. I play a lot of flamenco guitar. I have done some recording, personal stuff. I’m not trying to sell it, it’s just for me. I have some people in Peterborough that have a system at their place, good equipment. But I haven't heard from Dave. He never answers his fucking phone. I’ve tried to call him and ask what’s been going on, if there is anything I should know, and he’s never gotten back to me. Now Mike Campagnolo texts me quite a bit during the day when he’s at work, but that’s when I’m busy and can’t be dicking around too much. The last time I was talking to Dave, he wanted to make sure Embro had the stamina to do it. Embro back in the real punching Razor days cheated a lot on the drums, like single high-hat snares instead of double. Rob Mills was a much better drummer. So Dave was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to pull it off for a full show. My response to Dave was ‘are you sure you can?!’ (Laughs) Fuck, I’m like 48 now and I think of screaming my ass off for 90 minutes - that’s probably not going to do well on the vocal chords. So I said before you judge him, you might want to judge me! And Dave didn’t pay attention to my request that I wanted a song list that I could enjoy. He did send me a song that was 40 songs too many and and there’s no way I’m going to relearn every single Razor song. I don’t have time for that. And there was a lot of songs on that list that I can’t stand. And you know that the effort that I would put into them wouldn’t be like ‘Tear Me To Pieces’ and ‘Cross Me Fool’ if you know what I mean. There are things we need to all about before we even think about it. So we may be looking at 2015 and if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. It’s not like it’s my first goal in life to do this. I’ve got a life now and I’ve got kids … well, they aren’t my kids. The guys had rented a place, but I just couldn’t get up there. And when I could, somebody else couldn’t. So it was just one of those things. And Mike Embro seems to be all better now from he tells me. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s something we all want to do. But trying to get four guys our age together who live in different cities is not going to be easy. When I was talking to everyone at separate times, I was excited. I thought this could be a lot of fun. And I’ve read a lot of stuff from people wondering where I went. The write-ups are either really good or really bad. It really blows you away what people really think. Stuff like ‘Sheepdog is the greatest metal singer ever!’ And I’m thinking, why weren’t people writing that when it was happening! That would’ve been great for us!"