You may not have heard of Mutoid Man, but it seems like just about everyone else has. Not only does this Brooklyn-based outfit’s sensational new album, War...
You may not have heard of Mutoid Man, but it seems like just about everyone else has. Not only does this Brooklyn-based outfit’s sensational new album, War Moans, feature special guest guitar icon Marty Friedman, but they’ve already earned the ultimate stamp of rock and roll legitimacy—their own signature guitars.
So, who are these mutants, anyway?
Part punishing metalcore, part mathrock and a little manic hardcore punk thrown in for good measure, the band—featuring Cave In guitarist Stephen Brodsky, Converge drummer Benjamin Koller and bassist Nick Cageao—has been making waves in the metal underground since 2012, headlining clubs and playing direct support for bands like Dillinger Escape Plan and Baroness.
As Brodsky explains, “Mutoid Man is a metal band with a punk attitude.”
It’s a formula that has caught the attention of both metal geeks and metal gods like Friedman. “We played a place in St. Louis, and we saw that Marty was playing a couple nights after us,” says Cageao. “Both Steve and I were huge fans of his playing on Megadeth’s Rust in Peace, so we asked the production manager to give him one of our CDs. We knew full well it might just get chucked in the trash, but a couple weeks later we got an email from his label telling us he thought we were really refreshing.”
During the recording of War Moans, Brodsky and Caeago reached out to Friedman again and asked the legendary shredder to play a solo on the title track. Without hesitation he agreed, and a couple days later the deed was done.
“I mean how wild is that?” says Brodsky. “But the truth is, what did we have to lose?”
The band’s chutzpah also served them well in procuring their distinctively