Tag Archives: This Is Turin
Interview: Ben Whitfield (Colonel Blast, Condate Records)
An interview with Colonel Blast on Dose of Metal? What the hell is going on? Confused much? Not sure what I’m talking about? Well, let me give you a little background information before we get started.
In May of 2011, I was contacted by Condate Records’ PR agency. They sent me the Split Roast album, which included songs by Colonel Blast, Cancerous Womb, Diascorium, Magpyes and Dyscaphia. I reviewed said album a couple of days later.
I was very impressed with Colonel Blast’s contributions to the split, so I tried to get their debut album next to review it aswell. I was promised to get the album soon afterwards, but in the end nobody gave it to me, even though I was in contact with people from the PR agency, Condate Records and even the band. I decided to just buy the album instead and then write about it, which I did in July.
People from within the band apologized, for not giving me the album, a bit later on Facebook. Shit happens. I offered them an interview, and even contacted two seperate bandmembers about it. I never received an answer. That annoyed me a bit, so I moved on and tried not to talk about them on our site anymore.
Fast forward to Thursday of last week. I found out about This Is Turin, Darryl Jones’ (Colonel Blast vocalist) original band. I liked their songs, but wasn’t sure if I should or shouldn’t post about them. The incidents surrounding Colonel Blast and Condate Records (to which This Is Turin are also signed) were still in the back of my mind. I decided to write about them anyhow, with a detailed backstory as to why I was reluctant to write about them.
I was pretty open in that article, and Ben Whitfield took notice of said post. Ben is the mainman behind Condate Records and Colonel Blast, of which he is also the guitarist. He contacted me and we discussed the incidents of last year and patched things up. We agreed to do an interview and talk about it all openly.
This is where we stand today and, if you go on reading after the jump, everything will be explained. I’m ready to move on and close this chapter, and so is Ben. We discussed these past happenings and then moved on to talk a bit about Condate Records, their roster and finally Colonel Blast. Now click ‘continue reading,’ to… continue reading.
Thursday Dose: This Is Turin
Writing for Dose of Metal gave me the opportunity to check out bands, I probably wouldn’t have heard of otherwise. Of all the great bands I got to check out, one stood out.
In May of last year, I reviewed Condate Records’ Split Roast sampler. The review didn’t go over well with some of the bands included on the sampler, but it never really bothered me what people thought about my writing. You just have to take it with a grain of salt, when a band, that you wrote negatively about, criticizes your work.
One band included on the Split Roast sampler was Colonel Blast. They got the best rating from me, with a 4-and-a-half skull rating for their two songs included. I really wanted to get their debut album next to review. I wrote to Condate Records, I wrote to their PR agency and I wrote to the band, to no success. It may be speculation on my part, but I felt like they didn’t want to cooperate with us, because of my negative reviews of some of their fellow bands.
Here is the catch, I’m a stubborn motherfucker. If you don’t give me your album for review purposes, I’ll just buy it and then review it. Obviously, as a reviewer for a metal blog, you can’t buy each and every album you want to review. You’d be broke within weeks. I bought Colonel Blast’s For The Greater Good anyhow and gave it a 5 skull review.
Following that review, the band apologized to me for not sending me their album and thanked me for the review. Maybe I was wrong, and the band simply overlooked my inquiry by mistake. To leave it all behind, I offered them an interview. I wanted to do a joint interview with their previous singer Matt Bolton and their current singer Darryl Jones. I never got an answer and was finally fed up with their unprofessionalism.
It’s pretty simple. I don’t have to write about your band. If I like your band, I’m writing about it to make other people, who read our site, check out your band. To me that’s a very positive thing. If I like your band, write positively about it and you simply don’t want to cooperate with me… well… fuck you. There’s not a better way to put it. If you don’t want the promotion, I won’t force it upon you.
More than half a year later, I find out about This Is Turin. This Is Turin is Darryl Jones’ original band, and guess what. I like them. So, even after the two dumps Colonel Blast took on us, I’m again swallowing my pride and going out of my way to write about their singer’s work. This time I’m not doing it because I think they deserve the promotion. I’m doing it because this is what Dose of Metal is designed to do; write about good music.
This Is Turin certainly do play great music and I’d like our readers to listen to them. After all, this should be about the appreciation of music, and not personal feelings towards their creators. I just want you, the readers, to understand that it wasn’t an easy decision for me to write about This Is Turin. But I want you to check them out either way. You can do that on Soundcloud or simply click the play button below. While you do that, I will keep on questioning my decision to write about them.
