No sleep till Brooklyn! The borough that gave us the Beastie Boys, Adam Sandler, and the Dodgers (Don’t let L.A. fool you into believing otherwise!) keeps on giving. Sanhedrin have been the area’s premiere riff dealers for ten years running, with their potent supply going global courtesy of Metal Blade Records. Think of them as Walter “Heisenberg” White and Brian Slagel as Gus Fring, you dig? Drug comparisons aside, their unrelenting brand of classic metal is nothing short of intoxicating, with their latest album, Heat Lightning, being their strongest effort to date. We sat down with bassist and singer Erica Stoltz to discuss the band’s creative process, our favorite Metal Blade releases, and being threatened by a Delta blues player with a butter knife…yes, seriously.
Greetings Erica and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Erica Stoltz: I’m great, thank you!
I’m great too! Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. I must say, I remember a few years ago when Lights On came out, cranking it up and thinking, “Man, this band can’t get any better.” Boy, was I wrong, because this new album, Heat Lightning, is really kicking my ass.
ES: Thank you! Thank you very much. We’re really excited about it. We put a lot of work into it. We did a lot of remote writing and it kind of kept us honest in a way because we really did a level of minuta that we don’t normally do, or that I haven’t done in the past as far as exploring vocals and basslines, just playing around with different stuff. Of course, we recorded at a different studio with different folks. I think that really changed the sound of the record. It presents differently.
It’s funny because I think you just answered one of my questions, which was is there anything that the band did differently when it came to the writing and recording of this album as opposed to past albums?
ES: Yeah, that’s what we did differently *laughs*!
Right on! How soon after Lights On did ideas start coming together for Heat Lightning?
ES: Right away. Some of the material, like “Above the Law”, was one of the first songs we ever wrote together. That one’s been on the burner for years, like ten years *laughs*. There was work done right away. There was riffs that were floating around. (Guitarist) Jeremy (Sosville) is a very prolific writer, so immediately he was like, “Check this out.” “Let’s Spill Some Blood” and “High Threshold for Pain” were the two songs that we put together first.
Is it a regular occurrence for the band to have a song linger for an album cycle or two before revisiting it and seeing what happens?
ES: Absolutely, because sometimes things just aren’t ready. The album as a whole is something that we’re interested in, not just the songs. If it doesn’t fit on the album, then we’ll wait.
Was the songwriting on this one a group effort, handled individually, or a mix of both?
ES: For this one, Jeremy had riffs. He had a couple of full song ideas. He presented the kernels for all 9 songs. I think the ninth song, the very last song, we wrote before we recorded. That was “Franklin County Line”. That one he wrote in totality. I tend to write the vocal lines and the lyrics. Jeremy tends to produce the riffs and (drummer) Nate (Honor) is an arranger. That’s kind of how we approach.
In the case of that formula, do you continuously write lyrics or does it help to hear the riff first?
ES: A little from column A and a little from column B. There are things that I’ve had sitting around that I’ve used. I generally like to hear the riff first because that will inform the melody of the vocal line, but it doesn’t always work that way.
I want to dive a bit into these songs, starting with the song “Heat Lightning”, which has a very ominous vibe to it. How did that one come about, and did you know from the beginning it would be the title track?
ES: I don’t know that we knew it was going to be the title track until we assembled all the songs. We had it earlier than some. I think that one came after “Let’s Spill Some Blood” and “High Threshold”. Gosh, I don’t know. I’m a little lost in the sauce, but yeah. It was something that stood out to us as epic. We were like, “Hey, this is kind of thee epic song. Let’s focus the album there.”
Another song that grabs my attention is “The Fight of Your Life”, which in many ways seems autobiographical: An excellent tale of a rocker pursuing the rock n’ roll dream. When did you realize you wanted to pursue music for a living, and what is it that keeps Sanhedrin pushing today?
ES: Well, first of all, “The Fight of Your Life” was written…definitely autobiographical, but it was about an experience I had had at work. I do live sound mixing and I do a lot of monitors. I was doing monitors at this club, this sort of Reggies-esque club. There was a tour that was put together by Peter Buck of R.E.M., an Americana tour. One of the players on this tour was this dude CeDell Davis, who is dead now, but he was a delta blues guy. This was in the early 2000s, maybe. Peter Buck wheeled him up onstage and the guy was holding a butter knife. I asked him what he was gonna do with the knife and he said, “I’m gonna cut your throat.” Then, he preceded to shred on guitar.
He had had polio, so his hands were mangled. He fretted with the butter knife and sort of claw picked with his fucked up right hand. CeDell Davis, he put out some stuff on Fat Possum Records out of Mississippi. The second verse is about Ross the Boss because we got to tour with him and he was just such a lifer. For me, I have been into this shit since I was a kid. I think to answer your question about music for a living, I would say that I decided that I wanted to do live sound because I realized that honestly being in a band is really not a living. I wanted to be adjacent and still have a freelance lifestyle so that I could continue to play music and make my own stuff.
That image is going to be stuck in my head now every time I hear the first verse.
ES: Can you imagine how shocked I was?! He said, “I’m gonna cut your throat.” And I was like, “Woah!” *laughs* OK! That’s gonna hurt *laughs*!
For as effortlessly as Sanhedrin can crank out upbeat rockers like “Above the Law” and “Franklin County Line”, the band can also craft a lengthy epic like the closing “When the Will Becomes the Chain”. How important is it for you, and by extension the band, to not have Sanhedrin adhere to any one given musical formula, or being able to balance between those short bangers and long suites?
ES: I think it’s just kind of who we are as musicians, and what we enjoy. We enjoy both. I think in an album listening experience, both is cool. I think we all agree, between us, that that’s what we want to present.
As a listener, I’d agree as well. A theme I harken back to, we can go back to the ’70s with this, but even the ’80s bands, you couldn’t be one-note. For example, take a Mercyful Fate record. Every song is radically different, yet still distinctly Mercyful Fate.
ES: And that era is really probably the most interesting era for me of metal, because of that.
This is the band’s second album on the iconic Metal Blade Records. What are some of your favorite Metal Blade releases?
ES: Wow, well, you know, when we signed to Metal Blade, I was in the middle of moving. I got to move my record collection and look through my records. I realized that I had a bunch of stuff on Death Records from when I was a kid. It was that early sort of aggressive shit that they put out that I really honed in on. I have a Dr. Know album that came out on Death Records. I’m not saying those are my favorite records, because honestly, it’s probably gotta be Mercyful Fate as far as favorite albums.
Death Records: The “hardcore” faction of Metal Blade!
ES: Yeah, and growing up in New York…I grew up in the ’80s in New York, so I was really influenced by hardcore. Early on, I was collecting Crumbsuckers and Sheer Terror, that kind of stuff. That’s probably why the Death Records stuff came in. I was interested in what was going on in the other side of the country.
It’s funny, because that leads to a whole other tangent on this rift we hear about between the punks and the metalheads. And yet as the ’80s progressed, a lot of those hardcore bands were getting thrashier.
ES: Bands like Destruction changed the game for New York hardcore, absolutely. They fused something really cool that’s also one of the more interesting things I like about extreme music. For me, something like (Cro-Mags’) Age of Quarrel is just a sick crossover album.
One of my favorites too! No doubt about it, Sanhedrin are one of the great power trios going at it today, with an emphasis on the word “power”. What qualities or edge would you say a power trio has over other groups?
ES: Very early on, we were like, “Let’s just keep it three people because logistics.” Lives are complicated. In order to schedule practice, it’s easier to schedule three people than five, that kind of thing. Plus, there’s something really…you have to be really tight. You have to…yeah. It’s important to be tight *laughs*. And that’s fun! It’s a challenge.
This year marks Sanhedrin’s 10th anniversary. In the decade the band has been touring and recording, what is the greatest lesson you’ve taken away?
ES: Take nothing for granted. You don’t know what tomorrow promises. Take nothing for granted. It has all been gravy, just a cool ride!
In closing, what does the rest of 2025 have in store for Sanhedrin?
ES: Well, we’re going to Hell’s Heroes next week. By the way, we’re opening the show, so get there early if you want to see us. I think we go on at 12:30 outside? Then, we’re playing the Bangover Brunch in Tulsa after 2 Minutes to Tulsa, and we’re playing Lady Beast’s record release in Pittsburgh on April 19th, I believe. Then, we’re going to Europe with Savage Master!
We love Stacey and the gang!
ES: Me too. It’s gonna be fun!
The new Sanhedrin album, Heat Lightning, is available now on Metal Blade Records. For more information on Sanhedrin, visit www.sanhedrin.nyc.
Leave a Reply