SW: So, you first left Metal Church in what? 1988-89, during The Dark tour?

David: Yeah. There were some drug problems, and I don't put it on Metal Church. I'm through candy-coatin' it. I used to think that 'I'm gonna be the nice guy and put all the blame on me,' and that's what I've done in the last two years of doing interviews, but I'm not gonna lie about it anymore. It's BS if the guys can't stand up for the problems they had. I do say that I had a problem, and I took steps to correct it. One of the things I had to do, but didn't want to do, is leave Metal Church. In my meetings, my sponsors were telling me I had to make a lifestyle change, I had to change friends, and it killed me that I had to walk away from Metal Church. The band told me not to do a press-release, so that I wouldn't have my version out there first. And, stupid me, I trusted them, because we were all very close, like a marriage. So, the next thing I know is that they put out this press release saying 'We kicked Dave Wayne out of Metal Church', and I, of course, was horrified. So, I went off and got to do my own thing, Reverend, which was quite pleasing and enjoyable. In fact, I recently got the Reverend guys back together, since Metal Church wants to be on hiatus for a while. I need to get out there and work. I say you strike while the iron is hot, and now everyone is doing their own projects...Kurdt is doing this and that. So, I just got my own Reverend band back together here in Seattle.

SW: Now, is this the same Reverend line-up with the old Heretic guys?

David: No, Heretic is back down in LA. This is the Seattle line-up.

SW: What I found ironic was the fact that when you originally left Metal Church and formed Reverend, you hired the Heretic musicians as your back up band and Metal Church hired Heretic vocalist Mike Howe! How did that come into play?

David: That's like a cosmic joke on all of us (laughs). Metal Church actually hired Mike Howe first. I was running around LA at the time, trying to find the hottest band that I can be a part of. At one time, Randy Piper had just been separated with Blackie Lawless from WASP. I met with him at his house and he had Gold records on his walls and I'm thinking, 'this is the guy I wanna hook up with,' even though his music was a lot more commercial than Metal Church and I didn't really like that aspect, but it was exciting writing and playing with him. But, the very reason I left Metal Church started happening with Piper's band, Animal. In the meantime, the Heretic guys kept calling me saying 'you gotta at least listen to our songs' and I would say 'No! Your singer is now in my band and you want me to join you...are you nuts!' But just by being persistent they got me to meet them at a Denny's Restaurant and they played me some songs on this old tape recorder. I listened to the tunes and it just knocked my socks off! And that's how we ended up working together. It's ironic, and it's funny, but those guys are good songwriters.

SW: So what have you done in between that time and the reformation of Metal Church? Any other projects apart from Reverend?

David: I left Los Angeles. I had been playing original music since 1983, and when I came back up to Seattle around '92-'93, right around the time Metal Church broke-up, I joined a bar band. I always liked the idea of doing cover songs...and of course, anyone who's in a bar band wants to go and do original material! So the guys that I'm jamming with are telling me, 'How can you do this? Let's write original songs and get a real band going'. And I'm like, 'I just want to drink beer every night, and chase the women. I wanna be in a bar band for a while'. And they just couldn't understand that. I wanted to sing some Rob Halford songs, do some Deep Purple, Metallica, Scorpions, ya know? So for a year or so I sang for this house bar band where we were the main act every Friday and Saturday night. (Laughs) The place was the Little Dutch Inn.

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