DEVIL'S ISLAND featuring Shrapnel.
Welcome to this weeks edition of Devil's Island! Every week we maroon a band or artist on the island and see what they get up to, how they cope with being all alone on a small island in the middle of the ocean. It's not your average desert island and we'll see just how each person copes with the extreme conditions.
This week when we arrived at Devil's Island we found thrashers Shrapnel sat on the beach. We thought they were on COVID-19 lockdown and preparing for the release of their new album. Turn's out they were actually stranded on our island.
How did they cope with life on Devil's Island? Find out now...
Welcome to The Razors'e Edge and our somewhat lovely, warm desert island. Don't worry about it's name I'm sure it's not as bad as that would suggest.
So you're marooned here on this island, but before you ended up shipwrecked you chose one album that you couldn't live without. Which album did you each chose and why?
Chris M: Doesn’t sound like a terrible place to be stranded. An isolated island named after a sweet-as-fuck Megadeth tune, with a collection of rippers. Where do I sign up? I’ve given this answer before and I’m pretty happy with myself that it hasn’t changed. Rust in Peace. The Onion ran a parody piece about humanity still bothering to create art as if Rust in Peace didn’t exist. I say parody, it’s just perfect. I will never, ever tire of it, and I will never tire of telling people how utterly perfect it is. No ifs, no buts, no coconuts.
Chris W: ...And Justice For All because it's the greatest album of all time. Enough said really.
Nath: I reckon it’d be Master Of Reality. No. Reign In Blood. Yeah. Wait! Rust In Peace? God. Ummmm No Control!? Possibly…. At this point, the ship has sunk and my blubbery body is washing up on the shore.
Aarra: Rush. Hemispheres. Easy. I reckon I could listen to Book of Voyages II forever, plus it would drown out the sound of Nath moaning that he’s “bored” or “there’s no beer.”
Just behind that palm tree is a shack for each of you to stay in, with enough space for you to put up a poster on the wall of one album cover. What album cover do you each chose?
Chris M: The original cover to Electric Lady Land by Hendrix… Maybe partly because of the music it stands for and partly for the lonely-stranded-on-an-island-with-only-dudes thing…
Chris W: Kill 'Em All by Metallica because when I get bored and start to lose my mind, there is always that idea to fall back on, right?
Nath: Probably English Oceans by Drive-By Truckers. Most of their covers are just perfect. That one is a couple having a bit of a midnight swim. Looks desert island-y and peaceful. It would make this hypothetical heavy metal nightmare a little more bearable. Wes Freed is a great illustrator. He makes a lot of their show flyers too, and they’re always brilliant. He’s awesome.
Aarran: Blessed Are The Sick by Morbid Angel. It’s one of the best pieces of album artwork, period. It’s an old painting by Jean Deville and it’s evil as fuck. It fits the album perfectly. Hail Satan while sunbathing and all that shit.
There's also a bar on this here island. But alas each of you only get to chose one drink for the entirety of your stay. What's your tipple of choice?
Chris W: Jack Daniels Honey with Coke. Yum.
Nath: I’ll have a decent red Rioja. I’m gonna be needing a lot of it too.
Your suitcases were lost when your ship sank, but you each managed to salvage one item of band merch. Whats the merch and for what band?
Chris M: We always have a giggle about the worst band shirts we have. For group morale I would definitely keep my ultra-budget Coroner shirt I got at Hellfest one year. It’s rubbish, but great. “Dead and getting deader” on the back... Amazing.
Chris W: by that logic it would have to be my Metallica Load shirt, all 4 of them on the front, Lars and Kirk wearing makeup. The guys love it…
Nath: I have the shittest Slayer shirt ever. It’s the best. My other half picked it up from the market in our hometown. It’s neon. It has a shitty looking skull being impaled by a bright blue crucifix-shaped guitar with a lightning-bolt headstock. And the logo is all fucky.
So possibly that. But I’d probably grab my Megadeth Supercollider tour shirt. I threaten to wear it at gigs and photoshoots to wind these guys up. They’d have to look at it everyday while I drink my Rioja and explain at length why the title track is, actually,
a properly decent banger. Actually, fuck these guys. It’s a quality shirt. It’s got a giant mechanical Vic Rattlehead pulling the Large Hadron Collider out of the ground, smashing the place up, and killing everyone. It’s quality.
Aarran: Nuclear Assault, Game Over. I have 2 of those already so if one gets dirty or used to bury one of the guys heads for some reason I’ve got a back up.
You're sat on the island thinking "I'm stuck here on this island with my bandmates for eternity"... who would you rather have been shipwrecked with?
Chris M: Assuming my wife has stopped reading by now. Jessica Nigri, if not I definitely meant my wife...
Chris W: Gillian Anderson.
Nath: Literally anyone.
Aarran: Literally anyone but Nath.
There's a walkman in your pocket, on the tape inside is the recording of the one live show that stands out for you. It could be any show, from any band, anywhere in the world. What show is on that walkman?
Chris M: Toughy. Delicate Sound of Thunder, Floyd.
Chris W: Metallica, Seattle '89 because its fucking raging!
Nath: Sepultura. A show from either Beneath The Remains or Arise era. Corrrrrrr. Absolutely turbo-powered.
Aarran: Destruction Live at Wacken 2007, I can imagine what the Mad Butcher would do to these weakeners.
You're getting desperate, you decide the only course of action is to put a message in a bottle and hope someone finds it. Your message could be to any member of any band, but should be the one musician most suitable for a rescue attempt. Who is it?
You've been stuck here for a while and food supplies are running low. There's only one thing for it... which fellow band member gets sacrificed to help the others survive?
Chris M: I wouldn’t eat Nath out of fear of catching something terminal. Chris, our drummer. He’s bigger and his hair would probably be useful for something. Maybe you could Ed Gein some extra posters from his tattoos too.
Chris W: I'd have to say that I would make a meal of all of them eventually, I would turn them into fine dining cuisine one at a time, saving Chris M for last as he is the leanest and so the meat would be best. Yes, I've watched Hannibal far too much!
Nath: I dunno. Chris W would be proper angry if you tried to poke a fork in him. Aarran would probably be alright. He’d probably already be belly up. Yum.
Aarran: Nath’s got a big head but I’m not sure how much meat would be on it. Guess we could feed on them Oxford brains. Chris M is too skinny and plus he’s the pretty one so I want to keep him around. Would probably be Chris W, the amount of times we’ve ripped into each other I feel like it would be the final insult to eat his lifeless corpse.
Finally, when the ship sank you each managed to save one person from the wreckage. That person is the one musician that has influenced your career the most, shaped your way of thinking and your outlook on life. Who did you save?
Thanks for your time. We hope you get back to dry land before you're next due out on tour!
Chris M: I’m good on the island with Nigri and Dave Mustaine, slamming black gold and spinning tunes but thanks anyway.
Chris W: Leave them here, I'll come with you guys now.
Nath: This lockdown is feeling a bit desert-islandy isn’t it? Can’t wait to tour again 🙁
Aarran: Can you not just give me one of those Viking burial things where they push you out to sea on a boat and shoot arrows at you and stuff? I want to be remembered for how I lived… On fire?
There was no room in our boat to save the boys ourselves, although most didn't seem to want saving... As we sailed away from the island we left the boys readying a boat for Aarons Viking burial at sea...
