Hey Bobby, how is everything with you and the rest of the guys?

Awesome, we’ve been all over the place from Athens, finishing in Helsinki, Finland.  

The big news for you guys is the release of “Last Rites”. For those who haven’t yet picked up their copies how would you describe the record?

You heard it?

Absolutely, I’m a huge Pentagram fan so it was always going to be awesome.

Awesome! Well thank you man, I really appreciate that. The record was done in a very short space of time. We fired our drummer the night before we started recording the album and that on top of only having five rehearsals, from scratch. We went down to the studio and from the first note to the last it took us only three weeks.

Oh man I’m very pleased with the record. At first I was worried it was going to sound like a Place Of Skulls album because everyone except me had played in Place Of Skulls, but I think it sounds 100% Pentagram. It is just more expensive sounding; it sounds much bigger which reflects the bigger budget than we have had before. Budget wise it is akin to “Be Forwarded”, the difference there is that “Be Forwarded” is too wet sounding which was the style back in the late 80’s / early 90’s. I wrote eight of the eleven songs between 1969 and 74 and there are three new ones in there, so it follows the formula of Pentagram albums, older material which has been revitalized with some new arrangements.

The big kicker with “Last Rites” is of course Victor being back in the Pentagram ranks! So how did the reunion come about?

I had a really disastrous tour in March 2010 where my guitar player quit six hours before we got on the tour bus and I had to call in a substitute at the eleventh hour. We only were able to do five Pentagram songs and the rest of the time we had to jam on ZZ Top songs for the remaining twenty five minutes. I was totally hanging my head in shame, I was like “I’m going to get clobbered for this, it is over”! Every night I’d call Victor every night and he would tell me “Bobby, you know if you cancel this tour the first and last thing the public is going to say about you? Yeah he’s back on the drugs and fell on his arse”. He was totally right, he was kind of my mentor throughout that tour and he carried me through that, along with the fact that I had taken my wife on the tour. They kept pushing me on through the tour which was getting like 60/40 reviews. When I got back I spoke with Victor and he said he would come back for one tour so long as we took all the satanic shit off the show that he would rejoin the band. Along with Victor he brought Greg along to play bass, and I love that guy. I mean he used to come to the Death Row shows when he was like seven years old so he is totally cool. I mean Victor and I are like kindred spirits; we’re both Sagittarians, very strong minded and very driven. We’re lucky as we work so well together, those nights when one of us isn’t firing 100% in a show the other one just steps in and takes over, it’s almost like we’re connected.

Looking at the line up now with Greg, Albert (on drums), Victor and yourself, how do you feel this line up compares to previous incarnations of the band?

I think it is probably the best line up we’ve ever had. The Death Row era was great of course, but I’m more a fan of Greg’s bass playing as it’s straighter than anyone I can remember. Like early Sabbath the bass has to be simple, it doesn’t leave a lot of room as the guitar is so fucking loud as their using six heads and six cabinets. I mean we’re playing like 130 decibels, I mean that is fucking loud, I mean fucking Sabbath loud! If you want to get your rocks off on stage you need to have your artillery behind you man. I mean we don’t have all the over dub you have in the studio so you just have to knock them out with straight ass volume. This is like a new start for us as that Satanic shit gives me the creeps now, I was into the Satanic Church and all that self indulgent shit, which I found out after a while all Satanism is treating people like shit to get what you want no matter how you get there. That is not the right way to treat anyone, it is not what you supposed to do and I didn’t realise it as I was so into my drug addictions that I couldn’t see it. Whereas this album still has many of the warnings about that side of my life but is far more up spirited while still having that knock them down sound.

You really seem to be far more band focused than ever now. So how do the logistics work for you guys as you’re all living all over the country, where and how do you get time to rehearse

Well yeah we are kind of all over the place. I’m twenty miles south of Philadelphia, the bass player and drummer is down in Virginia and Victor is in Tennessee. This is how it is going to work, like Roadburn we had one one hour rehearsal that was it. Then we went out and played a set of fourteen songs. When we did the Death Row reunion show way back when, the four of us had not played together in twenty one years at all. We had zero rehearsal time and got up there and played one hour and forty five minutes of material and didn’t make that many mistakes. It is like tying your shoes, I started playing music in 1964 three shows a week. I’m not green at doing this so I can pick it up quickly.

You guys have signed a three album deal with Metalblade and they look to be pumping some serious promotion into the new record. What was it about Metalblade that made them the choice for Pentagram for the foreseeable future?

Wow….well Metalblade are a major label but the only independent label to survive over the past two decades. I mean Meagforce has gone things like that and Metalblade was the only one to keep going and now they have Sony as a distributer so they are a big deal. We got offers years years ago when we did “Under My Thumb” from RCA, Warner Bros., Epic but we turned them all down because I wanted a million dollars because I thought my shit didn’t stink! I was a total prima donna and have learnt the hard way that I piss out of my dick like every other guy. I was all pumped up on drugs and had a real complex and thought I was invincible, but now I wake up and my bones ache and my kidneys hurt, my hair has turned grey and I realise I’m a regular guy and want to make the most of the opportunities.

It’s not what I would have ideally wanted but for a first DVD it’s more than OK. You have to look at it as, we’re playing out doors at a Deathfest so all the bands have a cookie monster singer and rolling bass drums like they’re on 78 but it’s still extremely flattering to be asked and we did a good show. The strange thing is the audience we attract, we have a mix of kids of sixteen to guys as grey as me in their sixties. Old fans are bringing their kids to see us and they are like twenty years old, which is a total trip and it is this that I hope comes across in the DVD.

It’s odd you should mention the wide range of ages that are attending your shows, as it seems to me that Pentagram are more appreciated now in 2011 than you have been in the last ten, twenty years. Why is that do you think?

I think it’s because I’m revering the fans more than I ever did. I didn’t ever used to care about the fans, in fact we would scare most people so bad that our shows would start with 400 people and end with 6. We were all so into the dark side of stuff and we were serious about it, it really scared people. Now it’s like a Cinderella story as everyone loves the underdog to win, and everyone likes to see the looser make a come back. I didn’t make the big time and I’m no babe in the woods it’s like I’m now getting my shot at the 15 minutes and I appreciate the fans for that.

Well we’ve done quite a bit of Europe; we played nine countries in twelve days. We’re just about to hit the Western half of the USA (July) and the North and East in August. On the tour we’re going to try and kill off all the bootleggers as we’re going to try and release all the old shit with better packaging and additional songs. I mean to me the rehearsal tapes can sound shit but the kids love that raw sounding stuff, I have to look beyond the fact that they are crap recordings because it’s real and not artificial in any way. We’ll be back in the UK sometime in December which is going to be killer.

Oh man life couldn’t be any better. It’s taken me to reach 57 years old to get it but better late than never. I have my wife; I have a child, who would have thought it? I’m off the junk and have never felt better. My mind is clear and I’m totally focused on the band. There’s not bailing on shows or getting all flaky, this is Pentagram as it was always supposed to be. We just need the fans to believe in us, they have stuck with us through thick and thin so now it’s time for them to really see us firing on all cylinders.