PRONG

The Return of an Original
by Chuck Ferreira

It’s been a busy few years for Prong front man Tommy Victor. His involvement with the last two Ministry records (2006’s Rio Grande Blood and 2007’s The Last Sucker) and the subsequent tour for Rio Grande would seem enough. But when you add to that the re-formation of Prong in 2007 along with the release of a new CD and supporting tour, it seems that would be enough to crush a mere mortal. But then again, Mr. Victor has never been one to follow conventional thinking. A true innovator and survivor in the metal genre, Victor’s path has been anything but easy, but thankfully for us, he’s one determined pioneer.

If you’re reading this, chances are you know the band, to some degree.Ignored by the mainstream and praised in the underground, Prong has endured for over 20 years in an industry that chews up and spits out bands quicker than you can say flavor-of-the-month. Almost everyone who knows anything about metal can quickly remember Prong’s amazing commercial breakthrough, 1990’s Beg To Differ, with it’s distinctive razor sharp staccato start and stop riffs, but there’s so much more to these overlooked metal & thrash legends than a brief appearance on the “Headbanger’s Ball” scene. Prong have innovated in ways few metal bands have, and if it’s true that imitation is a form of flattery, then Tommy Victor and company should feel quite flattered.  

For the uninitiated, Prong took flight in the late 80s hardcore/metal crossover scene with its inception at famed NYC club, CBGB’s in 1986, and continued to plow forward, progressing their sound with each album. Suffering through numerous lineup changes, co-founders Victor and ex-Swans drummer (current Jesu drummer) Ted Parsons forged a sound that was always a few steps ahead of everyone else. With the release of 1991’s Prove You Wrong, Victor and company brought a new metal/industrial hybrid to market--far more guitar-based, raw, and stripped down than a lot of the computer generated product being released during the same time period. By 1994, with the addition of Killing Joke bassist extraordinaire Paul Raven (rest in peace, Paul), Prong had jumped light years ahead of the pack yet again with what is generally regarded as their finest release, Cleansing and it’s underrated follow up Rude Awakening in 1996.  

After some label problems, Victor shut Prong down for a time to recuperate while countless imitators took the distinctive Prong sound and capitalized on it. During this hiatus, Victor kept busy, of course, working with the likes of Danzig and White Zombie, but thankfully there were signs of life in 2001 with a Prong tour (featuring current bassist Monte Pittman) and a live CD release the following year. 2003 saw the release of the more experimental Scorpio Rising (again, featuring Pittman on bass and live drummer Dan Laudo).

Enter Power of the Damager, Prong’s late 2007 release…a crushingly heavy, brutal, raw, and personal record that firmly places Prong at the top of the thrash and metal hierarchy once again (see review). It’s impossible to keep Victor down, and Damager goes a long way to prove it. Featuring a perfect blend of the early brute-force fury of such releases as Force Fed and Beg to Differ, and the arrangement, sonic maturity, and concepts of later classics such as Cleansing, Power of the Damager doesn’t contain a single weak track within it. Victor has put together the most solid lineup since “Cleansing” with the addition of powerhouse drummer Aaron Rossi to go along with himself and Pittman, and they’re currently on tour in Europe to start off the new year. 

In late 2007 I had the chance to sit down with Tommy before their single New England performance, and I found him to be extremely gracious and forthcoming as we covered the past, the present, and the future…

GASPetc:  Great to be here with you Tommy, the title of the new record, Power of the Damager, where did it come from?

Tommy:  It was the last song written for the record, and I felt really strongly about the lyrical content and how it came together…the term Damager can be yourself, or negative forces, and the injection of that into your life and how we respond to it—and how it can be overwhelming or energizing…

GASPetc:  Over the years there have been a number of line-up changes, and the question that comes to mind is have the lineup changes been a result of you wanting to keep the sound different, or has it been out of necessity?

Tommy:  Initially the longest lineup was the first line-up consisting of myself, Ted Parsons, and Mike Kirkland (Primitive Origins, Force Fed, Peel Sessions, and Beg to Differ), but when we started to become more national with a major label deal it was difficult for Mike to adapt to the pressures of that whole thing, and his playing wasn’t necessarily progressing and we wanted to get better, because when we started out we were really raw and we wanted to keep moving more musically, writing better songs…which you can see in the progression of Primitive Origins up to Rude Awakening, the development and the songwriting showed a significant progression and Mike wasn’t able to do that. He was also a lot older than us at the time….so the toll of going out in the van didn’t appeal to him, so we got Troy Gregory and then Troy quit, and we were happy with him, but he wanted to do his own thing and he’s been in a lot of projects and gets quickly bored. So, then we had the Whose Fist is this Anyway? remix record that Paul Raven was involved with, and he asked to join the band and he was really into it and we had him for two records. But, then we got dropped from the label and I got disgusted with the whole thing. 

GASPetc:  How do you feel about the current line-up?

Tommy:  I had to find local guys out in L.A. because I was totally broke!  Getting the line-up we have now was a major accomplishment (laughs) because it’s been tough to keep guys that are really good, you know?  When you tour behind a record you need guys who will execute the parts correctly and I’m totally confident in these guys (Aaron Rossi on drums, Monte Pittman on Bass), and whatever they do is fine. Believe it or not, that was even difficult with Ted (Parsons)…a lot of the times Ted was fighting against what we were trying to do in a lot of ways. Like, when we did Cleansing, I was like “man, we’re going to strip the whole thing down and limit the number of fills and make it more basic”, which he was into, eventually, and he’s a highly capable drummer and able to play any style we decided to go into. But, when Ted moved to Norway it became impossible to fly him in to do records!  I’ve always handled the business and budgeting of the band…and if anyone realizes what that entails, you realize you can’t function that way.

GASPetc:  Before we delve into the new record in more detail, let’s get a bit into the records Paul Raven recorded on with you, Cleansing, and the progression into Rude Awakening…it seems that Paul Raven had a lot of input on them with that lava-like bass sound and the overall sound of the records.

Tommy:  His bass playing was amazing, and it was enough for him to get collaborative writing credits on some of the songs, but Cleansing was a very much a “me” Prong record and when Paul came in, the songs were written and arranged…I had done most of the work, but we didn’t want to track it without a true bass player, so he came in about 3 weeks before we went into the studio to record the thing. We needed him in there, and he was always a fun guy to have around too!  But then he brought in John Bechdel to do some of the samples that we had on that record too. Raven definitely had input, but as a singer songwriter and writing there’s a lot of isolated time when I have to figure things out on my own, and then present it to everyone else…and that continues. 

GASPetc:  …and what about Scorpio Rising, the last Prong release from 2003?

Tommy Victor:  Scorpio was actually more collaborative with Monte Pittman and I wanted that record to NOT be a Prong record…I was experimenting with different tunings and a lot of the songs were designed to be something other than Prong…

GASPetc:  Obviously, there’s no Prong without Tommy Victor, have you found it difficult to be the one who has to make decisions about members? 

Tommy Victor:  Sometimes…not everyone is going to progress or have the same mentality, and I’m always changing—there’s never been a formula for Prong…it’s always a different approach. But, designing this new record, I had stronger ideas, so the execution with the new guys was so important. 

GASPetc:  The current line-up with Aaron Rossi on drums, and retaining Monte Pittman on bass, sounds great, and what I’ve noticed immediately is that Power of the Damager has a more aggressive feel to it than the last few Prong records—a more brutal approach similar to Force Fed and Beg to Differ…

Tommy Victor:  Absolutely!  That was something I was interested in recapturing. It sort of goes with my lifestyle and how it’s gone through these peaks and valleys where the way I’m living…recapturing that period of my life. I mean, I’m on an indie label and living in a small apartment with a roommate in L.A. and I haven’t been able to progress like a lot of other guys who are running around buying paintings and visiting Home Depot every day (laughing)…I have a Ministry poster, a TV and a mattress…I live very barebones, and that’s how we used to live when we started out—all the money was going into the band and it’s back to that way, so it’s sort of a natural cycle.

GASPetc:  So, let’s talk about the indie label, since you mentioned it, 13th Planet Records, run by Al Jorgensen. Do you feel like getting on this label has injected Prong with a new energy or a new lease on life?

Tommy Victor:  I’m actually never sure about those things….they’re hard to decipher. My relationship with Al is good…he’s been pretty influential on a lot of things from an artistic standpoint and what it’s supposed to be. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what anybody thinks…if there’s something that’s trendy and solid in the business end or musically, he’ll somehow find a way to knock it down, and that’s inspiring because people are so quick to grasp at things that will give them instant gratification artistically…he’s a believer in getting back into doing what you want to do. I was initially afraid that when we were mixing at his studio he’d be peeking his head in the time and saying “oh no, do this…you gotta do this!”, but no, he was very much hands off and told us to just nail it, but there’s one song called “The Banishment” that was dying to play on, but I had to keep reeling him in because I didn’t want any excess on this record. You can wait for the new RevCo record then you can go nuts!  There was a lot of that interaction from someone who has so much experience…it was cool. The whole vibe of the entire thing is more like that…it’s not a label that just churns out faceless metal bands continuously, and it’s a label that has some older acts on it, which was important to Prong. The priorities in the industry right now are going to be all the young screamo bands and bands like that, so at least with this I have a couple of people behind me with Al and Angie Jorgensen that are very supportive. I mean, they’re not throwing tons of cash at me, and they’re struggling with the same things that a lot of other labels are dealing with, with the lack of record sales of course.

GASPetc:  Since we’re talking about Al Jorgensen, you’re on the last two Ministry records, and when I first read about you joining forces with Ministry, it made a lot of sense because it’s a natural fit. When you look back on when Ministry became more guitar-oriented they’ve continued that way so it really does seem like a great marriage.

Tommy Victor:  Oh, absolutely!  (pauses to listen to the radio playing in the background, laughs)  Sorry, I thought it was a Danzig song but it’s the Doors!  But, yeah, I had that same excitement when I started playing with Glenn Danzig because I grew up listening to the Misfits, so the idea of playing with him was great because we all came from the same place. The same thing with Al…I mean, Killing Joke is his all time favorite band and they were a huge influence on Prong…so playing with Ministry really made sense to me. I’ve sort of been lucky with the opportunities to play in these bands and play with these iconic guys, rather than playing with some flavor of the month kind of thing, which wouldn’t fit.

GASPetc:  How was it like working with Al on these past two Ministry records, because you’re on the last two of his infamous “trilogy” against the current presidential administration, and there’s a noticeable difference when you join the lineup. In a lot of ways, it was like “bam! There’s Tommy Victor”, because you have such a distinctive tone and style of playing. Was Al looking for your signature sound to have such an impact?

Tommy Victor:  I really don’t think so, because he doesn’t seem to work that way. It’s hard to formulize how he does things or what’s going on in his head…he’s more looking for great ideas and parts. In fact, now I remember, he didn’t want some of my signature sound stuff initially, but I think a lot of my guitar styles grew on him. I went in there with group of Prong riffs and a bunch of stuff that I thought would be good for Ministry too, and so when you go into do something like that you prepare yourself for a Ministry record. It’s actually comical because before Rio Grande Blood, I was running around doing all kinds of stuff before I was supposed to do the Ministry record, and I was like “I gotta come up with some riffs”, so I had a bunch of stuff on MP3 and went in initially to work on “Yellow Cake” and he thought it was amazing, and was asking what else I had, so he was like “yeah, that one…no, not that…oh yeah, develop that one…throw it on a click track, add another part on that…I have another idea”, and so I’d work on other parts and then he’d pick up a guitar and we’d patch it together. Remember, Al’s records are computer records, and everyone knows that, there’s no qualms about it…that’s how they’re made. That’s pretty much the gist of it. I mean, I’m not a very versatile guitar player, so my sound is just going to come out in that somehow.

GASPetc:  So, Ministry is riding off into the sunset…are you sad to see it end?  It seems that there have been a lot of great things happening with these last couple records, being compared with the great Ministry projects of the past, like Psalm 69.

Tommy Victor:  I’ve been blessed to be a part of this, and yeah, I’ve expressed my dissatisfaction with the project ending, but that’s Al’s decision. I just wish he’d try to drive it down a younger audience’s throats a bit more and keep it going…sort of like what Sabbath did…just keep it going, and drive it to the ground!  He didn’t’ want to do that, though. I’ll be honest, it does bug me a lot because I think there’s a lot more to do, but his explanation is just that “I’m old and grumpy” and that’s how he feels about it. I can understand that, I’m old and grumpy too, so I know where he’s coming from on the emotional side.

GASPetc:  Well, at least Ministry is going out in a blaze of glory…

Tommy Victor:  Oh, yes…and there’s this new cover record coming out called Cover Up, and this thing is going to be explosive…from the songs I’ve heard, this thing could be hugely popular…

GASPetc:  So, it’s sort of an after the fact kind of Ministry record?

Tommy Victor:  Exactly….it’s going to be great.

GASPetc:  A few minutes ago you mentioned Black Sabbath , and that’s a good segue way because I’d like to get back to the new record, Power of the Damager, because I think most Prong fans, like myself, are excited about the record. The last track on the record, “Changing Ending Troubling Times”, seems to go all over the place from classic crossover metal/hardcore and then it goes into section where you seem to pay homage to Tony Iommi…

Tommy Victor:  Oh Absoutely…

GASPetc:  ...but this is a bit of a departure for you because that kind of Sabbath “boogie” riff has never been on a Prong record…how did that come about?

Tommy Victor:  Well, a lot of my riffs come about from a jam thing…completely off the cuff and it just developed…it could have almost been a Danzig riff too, and that whole lyrical part could have fit with anything. The last three years, or so, I’ve played a LOT of guitar and right now I’m in the mode of playing songs I already know in order to play live, but I was in a very creative mode for a while and it just came out…like, this is good enough…

GASPetc:  Well, it’s a great song…it seems to contain all your styles mixed in one song…

Tommy Victor:  oh yeah…and lyrically too…I mean all the problems and neurosis you can encounter daily are packed into that one song. It’s like what are the possibilities?  A relationship goes sour, money problems, the world is going to end, a traffic jam, whatever, right?  I’ve had that…it’s like the phone rings and you feel “what the fuck is this now?” Or email…I get fearful of going online because of what kind of bad news you’re going to get. What types of curveballs are going to get thrown?

GASPetc:  “The Banishment”…is that technically the single off the record?  It seems to stick out that way.

Tommy Victor:  It’s probably too long to be the single, so “Power of the Damager” is the single—we just shot the video for it, but “The Banishment” SHOULD be the single…to me it’s the strongest song on the record. The last three that were written…I was running back and forth working on The Last Sucker (Ministry record), and then I was like “ok Tommy go home work on the Prong record”, but after doing this for a while I felt killer…I went in and drank some whiskey and churned out those last three…and developed them…and gave Monte and Aaron the demos and they loved the songs. “The Banishment”, we rehearsed it for a while but we finished up things in the studio, but it ended up being a one-take thing just from jamming out live in the studio. That was the one song on this record that worked that way. Sometimes it’s good to have one song that is just free from overdoing it and letting it…”let’s do this…let’s do that”, with producers and A&R guys coming in and having to go back and back….I think Rude Awakening suffered from that a bit.

GASPetc:  Well, actually, on the production side of things, you yourself produced the new record and it’s probably the best sounding Prong record…

Tommy Victor:  Really!?  Well, you can tell these guys! (band members)

GASPetc:  The mix is great, in terms of each instrument being in your face at the same time…

Tommy Victor:  That was very important to me…that was the concept, so I appreciate that…there’s a tendency to do things in the studio that come out distasteful and questionable. Anyway, yeah, with the abundance on Rude Awakening, and dealing with an engineer that wasn’t qualified on Scorpio Rising made me cautious of a lot of things…sometimes you can’t take TOO many chances. Playing Prong music is taking enough of a chance because not too many people know what the fuck is going on! (laughs)

GASPetc:  Speaking of “The Banishment” again, Aaron lays down a big, bad-ass heavy metal disco beat…

Tommy Victor:  Right!

GASPetc:  …so the question I have is how much input do you have on things like that, because when I heard it, it definitely came across as a “classic” Prong element?

Tommy Victor:  Well, he’s been on two tours playing the old stuff, so he’s sort of mastered the repertoire of the old Prong songs, and he knows what is exactly needed on it…it’s unbelievable.

GASPetc:  Let’s talk about “3rd Option” (ironically, the 3rd track on the CD), after the intro and the main riffing kicks in and you get rolling with the down stroking, it’s pretty impressive and that’s been a specialty of yours. But that particular song has some of the fastest I’ve heard from you. Do you feel you are still progressing as a guitar player from a technical perspective?

Tommy Victor:  I think working with Al has helped with that, actually. There’s a song on The Last Sucker, and it’s a cover of the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues”, and Al was like “This is gong to be 250 bpm”, and I was like “c’mon!” and Al was like “you can do it”, and you have to triple and quadruple the parts on it. Al’s records ARE computer records, but the guitar performances are real…he doesn’t cut and paste those things that much. And so you have to nail your performance. There still needs to be a natural element to it. So, you have to play this whole fucking song from start to finish, and then double it…and triple it, and you have to get it as fast as possible…so all day long you’re trying to get it best as possible. I remember Terry Date (past producer) was like that too, trying to lay copy like how Dimebag used to do, and how great the rhythms were. That’s helped me in a lot of ways and I’ve even gotten better. I went through a period where I wasn’t playing that much working on my own computer music and trying to cheat!  But there really aren’t any shortcuts, so there you go.

GASPetc:  One of the most interesting tracks off the new record, “Can’t Stop the Bleeding”, features a more melodic and softer vocal part to go along with the aggressive instrumentation. It’s a bit of a departure, so how did it come about?

Tommy Victor:  I think we started with things like that back to “Face Value” and “Rude Awakening”, and I’ve tried to utilize that a little bit more without it coming across as a sell-out. It just comes with the part…there’s a melody in there, so I might as well utilize it.

GASPetc:  With the last few years being very Ministry oriented for you, how did the seeds of creativity develop for the new record? It would seem difficult to come up with this during this period.

Tommy Victor:  (laughs) I had been so lazy over a lot of years too where I really didn’t dial myself in, and got involved with bad relationships that have gotten me nowhere, personally and in the business, and then you get the point when you just want to start watching after yourself, and what I do, and that can be a struggle sometimes because you’re running around and trying to people please and that’s been sort of a big hump for me in life, period. The song “3rd Option” is about that, when people give you ultimatums and people say “this is how it is”. And it’s like hey wait a minute, I need to look after myself. That’s how I was able to get into a rehearsal room by myself without the other guys, and just torture myself and make sure to get that right lyric down, no matter if it took a week or whatever, and if I had to drink a bottle of Jim Beam, or whatever, to do it, just to get into that inner self and experiment with “automatic” writing. Like if I felt blocked, you just start writing…like three pages, just non-stop writing and writing…and I was like, holy shit, this is the inner me…this is what I’m really feeling, and this is what I have to focus on in order to create. Then you go to the next step and start manipulating all that chaos, and then when you get in that mode it gets easier to pick up the guitar and just feel good about what you’re playing. I was battling with trying to fight against the more accomplished guitar players for years, and feeling inhibited and scared…embarrassed and I’ve grown over that, too, and with Al it’s just like “do what you fucking do” and get rid of the fears and self-consciousness of a lot of things. But the record does reflect a lot of the self fears and insecurities, and you have to be able to fight that go out and play and do crappy club tours…you have to be insane, because it’s stupid to do this! 

GASPetc:  But it’s a labor of love, right?

Tommy Victor:  (laughs) I don’t know WHAT it is…someone was saying it’s like built in gypsy, pirate blood in this whole deal…where, like with Al, you give him something solid to grab onto and he’ll just look at it in disgust and say “fuck that”.

GASPetc:  So what’s next for Prong?  You seem to have a renewed spirit, you’re on this tour now, but what’s on the horizon?

Tommy Victor:  I DO have a renewed spirit, but it’s a situation where I’m wearing a major fucking hockey mask on this whole thing, and I do break…sometimes the helmet comes off and you break. I mean, look at Raven (recently deceased bass player for Prong, Killing Joke, Ministry, and many other projects), he had so many great things going for him this year, like his own band together with his own material (Mob Research), and he had a lot to do with The Last Sucker, and he just finally had all his shit together, but he sort of took it away from himself in a sense….(pauses)….it’s like, you know, God’s temple which is your body. You can’t abuse that and stay happy with it. You have to stay in between…age makes you like an old oak tree and you have to be disciplined to keep yourself healthy and conquer the pitfalls that come at you. I’m actually a very undisciplined person and I’m trying to discipline myself!  So I can’t project. I mean, Angie Jorgensen has a lot to do with my career right now, and she’s a great planner and she’s got this whole thing going on, and I’m like “Angie, what if this or that happens”, and she’s very much like “you can’t think that way, you have to plow ahead and keep going”. So you try to make plans to avoid the catastrophes.

GASPetc:  And there is going to be a Ministry tour for Last Sucker, right?

Tommy Victor:  Oh yeah, absolutely…and extensive too. But everything got complicated with Raven’s death, but there’s going to be a tour for sure. I have a European Prong tour, and I wish it was going to be longer, but I’m going to finish the Ministry thing out. It does interfere with the Prong thing a little bit, but I’ll figure out how to make it all work. Ministry tours are a fucking haul!  It’s a tremendous, demanding crazed gig…

GASPetc:  Like a travelling circus?

Tommy Victor:  Exactly, it’s like a circus, and if one thing goes wrong, things get messed up, so it’s tough.

GASPetc:  On the last Ministry tour, it was great seeing you and Raven on stage again because that was my personal favorite Prong lineup…

Tommy Victor: oh, absolutely…it was the best line-up…

GASPetc:  so naturally it fueled speculation in my own imagination of you and Raven working in Prong again…

Tommy Victor:  oh, we were talking about it for sure, but financially it was difficult, and there was a weird feeling going around and a lot of us were worried about Paul taking care of himself…a lot of us were worried about him, you know?  He had gained a lot of weight and was unhealthy…it sent shockwaves with me, you know?  I’ve been trying to take care of myself recently, but we’re old guys doing something that’s built for 20 year olds, and still living a lifestyle that retro. I’m not Mick Jagger with a personal assistant and trainer, and someone to make him nutritional food. We’re out here eating Taco Bell (laughs)…

GASPetc;  Ok, I know you gotta go, any parting words for our readers?

Tommy Victor:  Well, pretty much the standard stuff, huge thanks, and check out our myspace page www.myspace.com/prong. And check out www.prongmusic.com . Thanks so much for the support.