Metal Church: Attendance Up, Donations Up! Page 2

Vanderhoof also wants to get back the rights to the first Hall Aflame album from I.R.S. and re-release that, and there's talk of putting out the second Hall Aflame album that never got made, perhaps as a double CD. Add to this the fact that his indie retrospective of his pre-Metal Church punk band The Lewd is doing brisk business around his homebase in the Pacific Northwest, and you've got one enthusiastic, versatile and loud artist.

For David Wayne, Metal Church will always be a vehicle for his very real and demonstrative activism. An interview with the man is always a lively, enthusiastic discussion about environmentalism, the media, even religion. "Of course the title Masterpiece, can mean peace with the Master, and I don't mean the horned, cloven-hoofed one. Everybody in the band has gotten cleaned up, dried out. We were young men who got a lucrative record deal and thought that the only thing one should spend one's money on is cocaine and fast women, and those days are over. We've learned our lesson, and I think a lot of people have to go through the school of hard knocks. I'm certainly one of those people. And perhaps a unifying thread in some of the lyrics is 'don't be a victim, quit whining, do something, get off your mother-freakin' hands, and roll up your sleeves'. If you are sick of the government, and you don't like the way politics are, change it. I mean, this is something I'm guilty of in the past, complaining and not doing. Nowadays I go down to my party headquarters and I freakin' rock and roll, man. I'll licks stamps, lick envelopes, I'll sweep the floor, I'll take out the trash for the party, you know? Because this is what I believe in and what I'm passionate about. But Kurdt's the same way too. We've all cleaned up our acts, and thank God for that."

"Keep in mind, I've been an environmentalist my whole life," continues Wayne. "I'm a lover of animals, I backpack up in the Cascades. But by the same token, I remember in the '70s, being a very young man, hearing the ice age is coming, the ice age is coming! That was in National Geographic, Popular Science. And now its global warming his coming, global warming is coming! It's like a little chicken running around saying the sky is falling. It's not clear-cut. What I'm saying is get some books, read some things, don't believe that television set, and take an active part in your community. Because if you don't, you're just going to stay home, sit around and drink beer, smoke dope, and believe whatever it is that comes down the next pike. Whatever the snake oil salesmen are hawking as alarmism, you're going to buy into it, because it's the current, hip fad. So I say be smart, read, and if you don't know how to read, for God's sake learn!"