Your Music Magazine

In 1986 if you attended a Metal show at the Keystone in Palo Alto California you would have seen Dammaj. Not only did they headline their own shows but opened for many metal bands like Y&T, Motorhead,Nazereth, Quite Riot, Ratt and to many others to mention. Also in 1986 they released "Mutiny" on Parr Records distributed by Roadrunner. The album received an 8 out of 10 rating in the "Collectors Guide to Heavey Metal" by Martin Popoff.A Quote from Martins review “Immediately notable for one of the most pulverizing and flawless mixes ever electronically availed. Mutiny is one concrete monolithic of loudness. In fact, the only thing placed above subwoofer boom on this seriously large release, are the fine operatic pipes of helmsmen Greg Hill."
This is a quote from Roadrunner's press release."It takes some close searching to find that extra touch of brilliance... here we have that rare breed of musicians; Dammaj," says John Strednansky, editor and chief of 'Metal Rendezvous magazine."
In July 2010 Mick, Rich, and Steve Gilbert decided to reunite the band with Greg Hill and Bob Newkirk. This is the original line up from the "Mutiny" album. They opened the show for headliner "Dokken". The show went so well they decided to stay together and work on new material for a new Dammaj cd. The work is still in progress.
On April 8th 2011 at the Avalon night club in Santa Clara, Dammaj will headline their own show. They will be headlining their first show in 25 years. They will also be releasing "Mutiny" on cd it was originally only available on vinyl.
To close out the show Dammaj will be hosting an all star band consisting of musicians from 80s Bay Area metal scene. 

Vlad Kost – Lead Guitar/Vocals, Mike Rude – Drums, Jeff Rose – Bass, Stephen Hawkins – Guitar/Vocals.

Tell us about your new bass player.
Our new bass player's name is Jeff Rose. We must say that he is the most dedicated and talented bass player we've ever had. Since day one Hell I feel has had problems with bass players.  We've gone through 7 different bass players up to this point. Out of all of them, Jeff has by far the most technical and songwriting skills and he's also a quick learner. Plus he is a cool guy to hang out with, which is one of the most important aspects of being in a band.  You have to be a family first and then a band. We clicked right away and felt like brothers at once.

What else has the band been up to since we last spoke?
We finally got all of our stuff together and started on our new album last fall. It took us a while to try different set ups, test a few recording techniques, play with some equipment, use different tools, etc. Actually we had to redo the album twice because when we recorded all the instruments they would sound great on their own but we were not happy with the full picture. So we pretty much had to rebuild the studio to make a perfect sounding record and started from the scratch. We are very happy with what we hear so far, everything is done except for vocals and a few solos. So hopefully by the end of this spring we will have everything mixed and mastered.

Tell us about the new CD.
Our upcoming album is called "Dialogue with Death." It includes 10 tracks and is a mix of our old songs and some of the new ones. You can actually hear one if them on our web site, hellifeel.com, from that first recording attempt we mentioned earlier.  It's called "To the One Who Holds the Key." We constantly work on new material, our sound evolves with every song. We already have 4 new songs that are going to be on the next album. You will hear us performing "Sorrow with Teeth" at Coaster's on March 11th, it's a great track and we are very happy how it turned out and can't wait to lay it down on our next recording session.

Watch this entire video interview by Mike Lyon unedited.

Your Music Magazine 2011 Band Olympicks!
3/11 Coasters
Rapid Fire (under age opener)
Hell I Feel
3upFront
Blood & Love

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