low culture

R.I.P. L-G PETROV

introduction to Decibel came from taking a shit at Blake Judd’s house, probably sometime in 2008 or 9. Blake—and every other musician out there, no matter how much they fucking lie about it—littered his place with magazines he’d been in, and it was either Decibel or reading the toothpaste tube. Considering how I treated myself those days, I knew I was going to be in there for a bit. My initial impression was that I would never do anything to warrant being in a fancy magazine. This was around the time nobody would piss on me if I was on fire (or cosplaying as a urinal cake), and my time for getting into such things had seemingly passed. A few dark years followed.

In 2009, I was somehow able to convince Candlelight Records to sign me, a mutually disadvantageous relationship that has become a cautionary tale for everyone unfortunate enough to ask me band advice and actually receive a response. Sick set, man. The next year, I released a record and had the misguided optimism that it would be a celebrated comeback that would land my name everywhere it needed to go. I was also on a lot of drugs, which I cannot stress enough. I’d been able to sneak into part of a Twilight interview somewhere along the way, but never anything on my own merit. 2010 would not be that year, either. It was, however, a countdown to living in my car.

I eventually cleaned up a bit and got a job managing an indie record store, where I started to build up a decent metal customer base. For the first time, I stopped picking up Decibel to see if I was mentioned somewhere and I actually started reading the fucking thing, especially to get a grasp on what I should be looking into stocking. As I started to grow up and pull myself out of the hole I’d crawled into, Decibel became a first aid kit and a valuable resource. I started to enjoy music again.

By 2013, I had dried out and became creatively active again. As a result, I began to explore finding my written voice after decades of (if anyone fucking saw them) embarrassing fits and starts. I used my Facebook as a place to discuss the freaks and dunces that came in search of the riches that Pawn Stars promised would ejaculate out of record stores purchasing the moldy shit they had laying around. Thanks to this, I was asked by Justin Norton to do a piece for the Decibel site on the state of indie record stores, my first legitimate piece of writing. The experience marked a shift in my life, a shift to where I felt that I could be honest with the use of my writing and didn’t need to slide into some kind of facade.

As I remind you every January, in 2015 Albert was kind enough to call me up from the farm team and give the printed page a try. He and several others helped guide me to clean up some of the crust left in my writing, and cemented the tone of how I would express myself while encouraging me to leap out of my role into others, like actual journalism.

Since 2013, between the print and online versions, I’ve done close to a hundred pieces for Decibel. I’ve branched out and written for a half dozen other spots, but always kept the voice that was nurtured by Albert and my colleagues in Decibel. Thanks to social media’s incessant need to remind me about the stupid shit I said 10 years ago (sort of like music in general), I can track a gradual shift towards better mental health and a better, more fulfilling life alongside the change in my relationship with Decibel.

I’m not saying Decibel saved my life. But it helped.

Here’s to 200 more.

TRAPPIST FRONTMAN

crafts a monthly journey through MORBID ALES

BY CHRIS DODGE

Q&A With Adem Tepedelen

AS a fan of the craft beer and metal crossover (I know you are—you’re reading this!), you owe a hearty “Cheers!” to Decibel scribe Adem Tepedelen. His now legendary Brewtal Truth columns and follow-up book were the first of the genre, paving the way for countless imitators and emulators to come. When I met Tepedelen for the first time in 2012 at Great American Beer Fest (see issue No. 101, “East/West Beer Test”), he proved to be the nicest dude ever, as well as a true scholar of extreme beer and music. Much of this scene would not exist today were it not for Tepedelen’s tireless tenure as both spokesman and cheerleader, so it seemed only fitting to check in with the man himself.

How did the idea for the Brewtal Truth

column first come up?

I first approached Decibel in late 2008 about doing something beer-related. My timing was good, because the magazine needed a new column at the time. It was an unprecedented move for a beer column to appear in a music magazine. My first column ran in May 2009. I wrote it for nearly 10 years.