Kissing Judas

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Dave Sullivan: More in because when you hear the other stuff going on, you’ll understand how just bad ass this kid is.

Music News: Okay, the next song is “Rise”. Who wrote, “Rise”?

Morgan Sullivan: All songs were written by Kissing Judas.

Corey Sullivan: The lyrics were written by you.

Morgan Sullivan: The lyrics were mine.

Corey Sullivan: The majority of the music was written by me and my dad.

Morgan Sullivan: Yeah, I asked him for something, Corey, for something that sounded kind of like Kabuki type drums and he came up with this wonderful drumbeat, Kabuki type drumming and he took that over.

Corey Sullivan: I was like, I don’t know what that means. But I’ll do my best.

Morgan Sullivan: What he came up with was great, and that song is actually about my baby cousin. So that one actually is about the dangers of fame.

Music News: Your cousin had an encounter with fame or is going through...

Morgan Sullivan: I wouldn’t want to mention.

Music News: We don’t have to mention names but just the situation perhaps.

Morgan Sullivan: Kind of what, what can happen with fame, kind of fast life and those types of things. Bad people, bad places, bad choices, what happens. But I think everyone’s had an experience with a bad girl or a bad man or a bad choice. You know, it can be about anything.

Corey Sullivan: Really stop paying attention and get too far into it and by the time you realize ‘oh, no, what have I done?’

Morgan Sullivan: Exactly. Yeah.

Corey Sullivan: Too far deep.

Morgan Sullivan: Yeah, it’s kind of about avoiding that type of thing.

Music News: Okay, and “Save Me”.

Dave Sullivan: I have a friend who had a guitar and I was doing a remodel at his house and it was a seven string Ibanez. I used to do guitar clinics for Ibanez and I told him if you ever sell that thing, let me know because Ibanez sent me one and I gave it back after a couple of weeks. I literally could not figure out how to play a seven string without it screwing with my head too much.

Corey Sullivan: Come on, man. Even a drummer can play seven strings.

Dave Sullivan: Yes, you can. Thank you.

Corey Sullivan: He’s just not into the heavier side of things.

Dave Sullivan: Yeah, back then... Back then it was a little different back in 1990. But I told him I was up in Colorado working. He called me up said ‘hey, I’m getting this other guitar if you want it, it’s yours.’ I kind of let it slip to my wife that I was buying the guitar. She first was ‘you’re buying another guitar’, but then she actually said ‘how much’ and I wouldn’t tell her. I refused. So she calls Dell, or messages him on Facebook, something, and then pays him what I was going to pay for the guitar and said, ‘Well, I bought it for you.’ And I’m like, ‘okay, did I tell you about the Ferrari’. So I ended up coming back. I flew back, and was only here for the weekend. I literally have gotten on video… I handed the guitar to Cory. He set up the video camera, I start, he hands it back to me, I sit down, I start playing this riff just to get used to the seven string and see how it sounds. He gets on the drums and starts pounding it out. And within five minutes, we had the structure of this song. And I was like, ‘Man, this actually sounds really, really cool.’ It’s a lot different from the stuff we’d messed with. So I turned around, we had to I had to fly back out the next day on Sunday. When I came back again, we had a session booked at the studio to just lay down the tracks. We’ll do it on this day and then we all got COVID and we were sick for about... I was sick for about a month. It knocked my you-know-what in the dirt. So when I finally got well enough we went in the studio and laid down the tracks. I wrote these vocals out real quick just to get an idea down and did a scratch vocal track. And you know, of course, I’m singing like a cat crapping razor blade sideways. I’d been puking and coughing for about two weeks straight, but I just got the idea down. I brought it home, let my wife hear it and she’s like, ‘Oh my God, that sounds so 80s.’ I was like, ‘well, that’s kind of when I was growing up and playing, you know.’ And she’s like, ‘Yeah.’ she said it so many times that it started wearing on me. I went back up to Colorado again, you know, she said it again. So if you say it one more time, I swear to God, and she’s like, it just sounds so 80s. continued on page 12

Bret Gyrich: I was saying when I first heard it, I thought it sounded very reminiscent of Megadeth, which was fun to me. It’s very rappish more than it is singing when it comes to the vocal parts, which was again different.

Dave Sullivan: Yeah, it was basically based on... The layers I wrote were based on... let’s say your best friend is a narcissistic total jerk and you’re the one that’s always covering for them, making excuses lying for him to try to ease things over and then finally you say, ‘You know what, I’ve had enough, I’m done.’ And you call them out on it. And that, that was where I went with it. Well, she said it sounds 80s so many times, I made a phone call. I’d made friends with a good friend of mine, Joaquin Revuelta, who is the drummer for Bullitt Boys, but he also plays for Steven Pearcy quite a bit. And he’s one of Steven Pearcy’s Ratt bastards of his band. I called him up and I said, ‘Hey, you know, just on a whim, can you get this over to Steve and see what he thinks about it?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, send it to me.’ So I sent it like a day later, I get a phone call from Steven. ‘Oh, man, this is great.

August 3 - The Hightailers

August 10 - Paul Ramirez

August 17- Sparky Parker Band

August 24 - Mathias Lattin

August 4 Hardluck Revival

August 5 Nick Gaitan

August 11 Eric Korb

August 19 Blueonnet Basterds

Thursday Night Heights Blues Series

August 10 Paul Ramirez

August 3 The Hightailers

August 23 Mathias Lattin

August 17 Sparky Parker

August26 Kevin Anthony

August 31 Opie Hendrix