RONNY MUNROE: 'We Want METAL CHURCH To Be Around For Years To Come'

Avinash Mittur of Metal Assault recently conducted an interview with METAL CHURCH singer with Ronny Munroe. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Assault: When you guys broke up in 2009, the main reason cited for the dissolution was "industry frustrations" — that's what I could find anyway. Could you go into a bit of detail about the breakup? What about the industry made METAL CHURCH want to break up?

Ronny: Well, in a nutshell, without going into a huge and long story here, it was certain aspects of things that had continued to happen to the band throughout its career. Not having the proper management and the proper people in place that were handling us. You know, we ended up taking some shows we shouldn't have taken and that just led to where Kurdt [Vanderhoof, guitarist] was really getting fed up and then we all kind of got that way. Basically, we figured before we end up disbanding because of other reasons such as maybe starting to fight with one another or whatnot, we decided to go ahead and end it then. We all ended up friends and we wanted to keep it that way. So I won't go into specifics, but we all know what the music industry is like now compared to what it was like back then. We just didn't have the right people in our camp.

Metal Assault: Well, I think we would both agree that in 2013 the industry is in perhaps a worse state than when METAL CHURCH broke up. What are you guys going to do differently this time around?

Ronny: [laughs] Yeah, well this time around we're going to release this next record on Kurdt's label. Basically, Kurdt and the band and whatnot are taking a lot more control of the situation. Yes, maybe the downloading thing is even worse than 2009, but also on the other hand, if you know what you're doing and you use the Internet correctly, you can actually have success. Kurdt's been doing that with his prog band PRESTO BALLET and whatnot. In this day and age, the time is right to go and try something on your own. If it doesn't work, you can always end up going out and searching for a label or something. We're going to take a shot at it and see what happens and I think we're probably going to have some decent success.

Metal Assault: Kurdt Vanderhoof is known as the main songwriter for METAL CHURCH, but on the three METAL CHURCH albums you've sung on, you have a co-writing credit on nearly every one of those songs.

Ronny: That's because of Kurdt. Kurdt is a great lyricist as well as great musician as we all know. He could have written all of the stuff, but he basically had confidence in my abilities and let me go with a lot of stuff. It was an honor for me. This time around on the new record, I must say that Kurdt is a lot more involved in the melody lines and with lyric writing and whatnot. On the last two records he only wrote the lyrics to one song, but this time around he's going to be doing more than that. We've been working hard together on the melody lines and the lyrical content.

Metal Assault: About this upcoming record, from what I know Kurdt's been writing more old-school METAL CHURCH riffs reminiscent of "The Dark" and the first record. Is that still true since the last time any of you guys have talked with the press?

Ronny: Yeah! There's some stuff that's very reminiscent of the old days with some stuff that's very "now." There's a bit of… I'm not going to say "prog" because it's not, but there's a couple of elements in there that are a little bit progressive. For the most part, out of this batch of songs, they really sound more reminiscent of the early days than anything we've done before with this lineup. This excites me very much, and I think the fans are really going to dig it.

Metal Assault: One thing I noticed immediately when the reunion was announced, there was a huge amount of hype behind METAL CHURCH that I certainly did not expect one bit. Is that something you noticed as well?

Ronny: Actually, yes, I have. As I said at the start of this interview, playing [the 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise] was a big tool for us. I mean, there's more of a buzz about the band now than when I first joined and when the world found out that we were reuniting in 2004! I think that has to do with our ex-record company and doing the proper promotion, but yes, I have noticed that. We're just going to do the best that we can, write the best record we can and try to use that to our advantage to stay around. The bottom line is that regardless of our having to do other projects and this and that, we want METAL CHURCH to be around for years to come. As long as we handle it the right way, it will be.

Read the entire interview from Metal Assault.