Metalusion

GLEN DROVER – Piece By Piece (One Fret At A Time)

By Carl Begai

As of October 2012, guitarist Glen Drover’s second official solo album was reportedly half finished. Six months later and the only real buzz out of Drover’s neck of the woods is his recent and brief association with vocalist Geoff Tate’s new incarnation of Queensrÿche. Contacted initially to discuss the ‘Ryche situation – some folks might call it a debacle; depends on who’s side you’re on – Drover revealed that his new solo album is still in the works. It would have been finished by now if not for his decision to go back and remix last three albums – Coma Nation (2001), Apostles Of Defiance (2003), The Parallel Otherworld (2006) – from his pre-Megadeth / pre-King Diamond band Eidolon.

“Without getting into all the details of why we’re doing it, the way technology is now we realized that we could really make the quality of the albums a lot better than it was,” says Drover. “It’s a major step up in overall production. There were things that we weren’t 100% happy with, but I guess most musicians go through that. Something just came along that made us decide it was a good idea to go back and remix the albums. Me and Pat (Mulock/vocals) and Shawn (Drover/drums) are really excited, and Jon (Howard/vocals) from Threat Signal is helping out on it, too.”

“It’s a really cool project. We’re taking our time, going through one song after the other. We started with Coma Nation and it’s half finished. It’s a remix and not a remaster, so we’re changing the face of the whole thing for the better. If there wasn’t a noticeable increase in production I would never waste my time with this. For what it is, those albums came out good at the time. We used what we could and we made the best of what we had, and it worked. Now things are a little bit different. We’re not changing the performance – that’s going to be the same – but we might tweak a couple of thing effect-wise. The albums are going to be the same, but with a far stronger production.”

Still, weeding through the archives, the temptation to go back into the studio and tweak the recordings with up-to-date performances… Continue reading GLEN DROVER – Piece By Piece (One Fret At A Time)

BW&BK Interview: GLEN DROVER – Shred Sells… But Who’s Buying? (Beyond The Realms Of ‘Deth – Part 2)

By Carl Begai

Back in January, former Megadeth guitarist Glen Drover offered a look inside his solo debut, Metalusion, which had just been completed. The record has since been released and received unexpectedly glowing reviews. Not that odds were in favour of Drover releasing something stale and sub- par, but smart money was on a large portion of his Megadeth-bred fans being disappointed that Metalusion isn’t the full-on rip-yer-face-off metal shred record they were expecting. All in spite of Drover’s warnings it wouldn’t be.

“A few people have made comments about that,” Drover agrees, “but it hasn’t been as common as you might expect. But, in my opinion… do we really, really need another album like that? There’s so much of that out there and it’s all great stuff, but for me to do a full blown instrumental metal record with solos every five seconds, it gets boring for me after five minutes, never mind 50 minutes of it. With all due respect to the guys that are doing that stuff, it’s cool, but it’s just too much for me. With that kind of thing I almost start asking where the vocals are.”

“I listen to instrumental stuff as much as I listen to music with vocals. Me and Shawn (Drover / Megadeth drummer) did the instrumental stuff way back in the early ‘90s when we were starting to get the Eidolon thing rolling. We just had a four track, a drum machine, some guitar gear, and we did the best we could, and it turned into a metal band with vocals. This time out, I just wanted to do an instrumental album properly.” Continue reading BW&BK Interview: GLEN DROVER – Shred Sells… But Who’s Buying? (Beyond The Realms Of ‘Deth – Part 2)

BW&BK Interview: GLEN DROVER – Progressive Behaviour (Beyond The Realms Of ‘Deth – Part 1)

I recently caught up with Toronto homeboy Glen Drover to discuss his forthcoming solo instrumental album, Metalusion. An excerpt appears below, featuring his ongoing battle with his Megadeth past… or rather the inability of some fans to let dead issues lie. Read on…

Former Megadeth guitarist Glen Drover is back, raising a new kind of hell. Not that he went very far after leaving the band, but some fans and media hacks have treated news of his return to the spotlight as a surprise. Thus, as he gears up for the spring 2011 release of his first solo album, Drover is prepared and somewhat resigned to the fact that people will start asking questions and poking around with regards to his decision to leave Megadeth back in January 2008. Unfortunately for the drama-loving horde, his reasons haven’t changed and there won’t be any attacks on his former bandmates in the upcoming weeks and months of press. In case you missed it, however, Drover offers one more go-round of the otherwise low-key parting of ways.

“There was personal stuff going on in the band that I wasn’t happy about,” says Drover. “I think the one really unfortunate thing about that whole situation – and I really don’t understand it – was that when I did the initial press release after I left the band, everybody seemed to think that I left because I just wanted to be with my family and didn’t want to play music anymore. I said I was unhappy with the situation, meaning the band, so people thought I was out of music for good. I wish I could have done things differently with regards to that press release.” Continue reading BW&BK Interview: GLEN DROVER – Progressive Behaviour (Beyond The Realms Of ‘Deth – Part 1)