Wanting to add more articles into the mix here at Metal Nation, I decided to ask some musician friends of mine to do some top five random lists. I have tried to tailor the lists to what I know about these people to make them more personalized. Thankfully, I have received many “Absolutely!” answers with this tall asking, and I am so appreciative. Kyle Shutt, The Sword guitarist, was the first one I asked, and he was so great at giving me exactly what I hoped for. Here are Kyle’s responses to his list.
Top Five Horror Movies
- In the Mouth of Madness: John Carpenter and H.P. Lovecraft AND Sam Neil? This movie has it all. Certainly the best Lovecraft film adaptation at the time, and might still be. I got to see John Carpenter play the theme in NYC as part of his concert series set to clips from the movie projected in the background, what an experience.
- Pet Sematary (OG): This might be King’s scariest book, and the movie just nails the story perfectly. The creepiest part isn’t even the Sematary, it’s the portrayal of Zelda, the sister with spinal meningitis. Still freaks me out to this day.
- Audition: This one is a real mind f*ck because the first time I saw it I was 19 and my roommate had just come home from the movie rental store and asked me if I wanted to watch a movie. We did some bong hits and put in this Japanese film that for the first 30 minutes is essentially a lighthearted rom com until it takes an insanely dark turn and then ends up being one of the gnarliest body horror movies ever made. I wish he would’ve given me a heads up haha.
- Se7en: Is this a horror movie? Is it messed up that it’s one of my comfort movies I can put on any time any day? My mom took me to see it when it came out and let’s just say it was a quiet car ride home. It was the first movie I ever saw that had the end credits scroll backwards and I thought that was so cool that I used that effect in the American Sharks “Overdrive” video that I produced, which was an homage to Repo Man, a movie that also used that end credits style choice.
- Eraserhead: Had to throw an artsy one in here, plus David Lynch just passed and he’s probably in the top 3 artists that have influenced my approach to art, next to Melvins and Stephen King. It gets written off sometimes as pretentious or whatever, but it’s a really great movie and as creepy and unsettling as any more traditional horror movie. But it’s also beautiful and very meaningful and the climax is heavenly, wink wink. Just don’t watch it right after you welcome a newborn into the world.
Top Five Prince Songs (I know he is a big fan, so I figured he would enjoy answering this one).
- Endorphinmachine: Look, its gonna be hard to pick just five favorite Prince songs, and technically I think he was just the symbol at this point, but this song’s massive opening riff is still my go-to soundcheck lick whenever our sound guy says “stage right guitar”.
- Train: This song was technically going to be on the fourth Prince and the Revolution record that never got finalized, “Dream Factory”. Instead he fired the band and went solo again and made probably his best album “Sign ‘O the Times”, but all the songs from Dream Factory got split up and ended up on other releases or got sold to other artists. Mavis Staples ended up recording “Train” before Prince’s original version resurfaced after his death, and it’s one of my favorite lost gems of his.
- She’s Always in My Hair: Prince was known for his B sides that were almost better than the singles, and the B side to Raspberry Beret is one of my favorites.
- Bambi: This is a silly song about trying to seduce a lesbian, but has one of his most devastating guitar riffs he ever recorded. It’s on his second album, which he produced, composed, wrote and performed every instrument on and is one of my favorite albums of his on its own. When The Sword went out to support High Country after Prince passed in 2016, we covered this song as a tribute and is one of the only songs we covered that we never recorded.
- Strange Relationship: This was one of the songs that was supposed to be on his female alter ego, Camille’s, album, which is another lost record that got dissected and split up into other releases. This isn’t his best song or anything, but for some reason it’s always been my favorite song on “Sign ‘O the Times”, and I was disappointed that it wasn’t on the accompanying concert film. I eventually found a bootleg of the concert film rehearsal shows and he opened one of the shows with a nine minute version of this song and it was pretty boring so I guess I see why he struck that one from the set, but it still remains a perfect little three minute pop song on the album.
Top Five Books
- Wolves of the Calla: I recently bulldozed the entire Dark Tower series last year and was surprised to hear that this book is most people’s least favorite because it ended up being my favorite. It essentially serves as a sequel to Salem’s Lot and almost entirely mirrors the structure of Wizard and Glass, only with robots and vampires instead of western outlaws and witches. And because of this book I’ll never be able to hear Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” the same ever again. Loved this one.
- The Accidental Time Machine: I love a good sci-fi book, especially with time travel at the center of the narrative, and this one is all tough no fluff. I don’t want to give away anything because it’s such a great story with twist after twist and is short enough to devour in a weekend so check this out if you need a fun easy book in your life.
- Horror Movie: This one is kinda cheating because I’m buds with the author Paul Tremblay, but his latest book is the first one I’ve read that is written as a series of flashbacks and screenplays and is as creepy as it gets. His book “Cabin at the End of the World” was just adapted to film by M. Night Shyamalan so I’m hoping someone tries to tackle this one because it would be epic.
- Jitterbug Perfume: Tom Robbins can be a bit ham fisted in his storytelling, but the way this book’s split narratives catch up to each other is awesome to see unfold as you read it. Basically it has characters in a present day (the 80’s at least) time line and also characters a thousand years in the past who live long enough to all meet each other in an epic showdown. A really unique, sweet, fun, sexy, and weird-as-hell story.
- Woody Guthrie: A Life: I typically gravitate more toward autobiographies of my favorite musicians, but Joe Klein’s Woody Guthrie biography is absolutely incredible and paints him as one of the very first punk rockers who took no shit from anybody and wasn’t afraid to use his platform to call you on your bullshit. A true American hero. It was also the book that made me realize that “This Land is Your Land” is a protest song intended to rally against the “meek shall inherit the earth” religious right instead of the patriot anthem it so often gets misappropriated as.
Top Five Compliments You Have Received
- I recently took 5 months off of alcohol and lost 40 pounds and weigh less than I did when I was 19 and had just started playing in The Sword, and the amount of comments I have received about it has done a lot for my self confidence. I couldn’t go back on stage the bloated mess I had let myself become and it feels good to look good.
- When we were on tour with Kyuss Lives, Nick Oliveri would usually watch us every night and one time he came up to us and said “You guys sound like Lynyrd Skynyrd on speed.” I said “Lynyrd Skynyrd was on speed, Nick” and he got a real mindblown look on his face.
- We had toured quite a bit with Clutch and were friends with them, but the first day of our tour with them when “Earthrocker” had just come out, Tim Sult came running into our green room and said “Oh my god you guys, I think I accidentally ripped you off on one of our new songs ( ) and I am so sorry.” We just smiled and said “we’re pretty sure we’ve ripped you off a time or two, no worries.”
- When we were on tour in Australia supporting “Warp Riders”, we were on a festival with Monster Magnet. JD and I were sitting in our green room and had just roasted a bone and were talking about how we should go walking around backstage to try and meet them when there was a knock at our door and Dave Wyndorf walked in. He immediately said “Hey guys, sorry to bother you, I just wanted to say your new album is amazing, best thing I’ve heard in years and it’s an honor to do these festivals with you. Ok I’ll leave y’all alone now, thanks.” We were speechless and as he was walking away we could barely get out “Dopes to Ininfinity is our favorite album of all time!” We’ve since kept in touch and he’s one of the funniest and most honest dudes you’ll ever meet.
- Number one obviously has to be when Lars Ulrich called us his favorite band in Rolling Stone and then proved it by coming out to our shows, helping us load our van, and bringing us on 125 shows on the World Magnetic tour. We owe that band a lot, they were so generous to us when they had absolutely no obligation to be and that is a chapter of my life I’ll never forget.
Kyle is one of the most genuine and kind people out there. He has been there for this writer through some of her toughest times. I appreciate him more than he knows.
Also, big news! The Sword is back up and going! Make sure you show your support by making it to a show and/or buying some merch!