It was just a couple weeks ago that I wrote of the importance of the Metal Massacre series in our Top 10: Warlord Songs. Another band who first gained exposure via this iconic series was Attacker, who made their debut on Metal Massacre V with “(Call On) The Attacker)” back in 1984. 40 years later, these US power metal warriors are on the cusp of releasing their seventh studio album, The God Particle. We sat down with founding drummer Mike Sabatini to discuss the past, present, and future of one of America’s finest metal purveyors. We called on the Attacker and he came answering!
Greetings Mike and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Mike Sabatini: I’m doing good Joe! It’s a little bit of a rainy day here in Jersey the last few days, but it’s clearing up. Other than that, I’m in good spirits. I’m happy to be here.
It’s been the same here in Chicago. It’s been raining all week and yesterday we even got some snow, if you could believe it.
MS: Oh I believe it! We’ve had big storms here too in April.
Well as the storm passes and the clouds clear, we have a brand new Attacker album on the horizon. It’s been quite some time since we last got a new full length from Attacker. What’s been happening with the band these past few years and when did ideas start coming together for this latest album, The God Particle?
MS: Basically, the Sins of the World album had come out in 2016. Then we did the EP (2018’s Armor of the Gods). We started working on new songs here and there, but then when the whole COVID thing hit, that shut everything down. Nobody was rehearsing, doing anything. That really took a couple of years away from everybody. What’s funny is after that, it took us a while momentum-wise to get back up to speed. Truthfully, I think everybody in the freaking world got lazy during COVID.
A lot of people weren’t doing things. Some were working, some weren’t. Even with the band, we stopped rehearsing. We were like a machine. Then, all of a sudden, somebody throws a wrench in the machine. Now everybody’s used to not going to rehearsals, not working on stuff. It took a while to build it back up again, but we finally did.
Truthfully, it was probably last summer we really had to push it into gear because for two years we had the same three songs. We just couldn’t get another song written out. Finally, I guess everybody pulled it together. I said, “Look, if you wanna get this record out, we signed the deal with Cruz del Sur. We got deadlines to get it out.” We wanted to get it out in April for the Keep It True Festival over in Germany at the end of the month, so everybody buckled down. We pulled it together.
What did the band set out to achieve with The God Particle to set it apart from past Attacker releases?
MS: In all honesty, everybody just writes what they write. We never really set out to do anything different. This time on the album, our bass player Brian (Smith) wrote a song. Our guitar player Jon (Hasselbrink) wrote a song, whereas the last couple of albums it’s been predominantly (guitarist) Mike Benetatos doing all the writing musically. We really didn’t do anything different. Everybody just wrote what they wrote. We’ve never been formulaic like that where we have to do a certain thing.
It’s interesting too because I’ve seen some reviews for the record. It’s a little bit different then some of our last records, I guess in a certain sense musically. Some people were like, “I like a couple songs, but I don’t like this one. I don’t like that one.” The bottom line is this is what music is. You write what you write. How many bands that’ve had huge careers put out a new record and everybody hates it because it doesn’t sound like the ’80s records or something? It’s not easy to do this stuff and be doing a music that gave us what we had back in the ’80s to do the same kind of music today. It’s kind of impossible. People grow, you change.
Another thing with Attacker is we’ve had a good amount of turnover unfortunately with guys who wrote. From album to album, if writers change, stylistically it’s gonna change a little bit. We’ve always had my drumming which is a common thread, and we’ve always had the higher range singers. Those are the two things that are the same. The music from Battle at Helm’s Deep to this album, it’s a lot different musically, but when we play them as a band, it seems to work together in a live setting.
Are there any recurring musical and lyrical themes the listener should look out for when exploring this album?
MS: This one, it’s a little bit darker in a sense because our singer Bobby (Lucas), he basically…”The God Particle” itself, that song, that’s about that hadron collider in Switzerland where they’re splitting the atoms or whatever they do. Supposedly they found something called the God Particle, which is the spark of life. The reason the cover with that demon coming out of it reflects it is because they had some kind of ceremony when they turned that thing on. I’ve seen video of it on YouTube where all these people from around the world are there and there’s some guy wearing a ram’s head with the horns, kind of like a satanic thing. From what our singer Bobby said, they were trying to open up a portal where people wanted to call in evil. That’s what the song’s about.
A couple of the other songs like “World in Flames”, that’s about nuclear war. “Curse of Creation”, a couple of them tie into that, a darker thing. Another song like that is “River of Souls”. That’s our singer Bobby viewing the world as what’s going on now. There’s a lot of darkness, a lot of screwed up shit going on. We’re all living through it, watching what’s going on with wars and paying a lot for gas. All that crap *laughs*.
Here in Chicago it’s $4 a gallon. Don’t get me started!
MS: Here, around Jersey, you can get it anywhere from $3 up to $4 depending on where you’re at. We’re all struggling with that. Good thing we’re not in California *laughs*! It’s $8 a gallon!
No kidding! Coincidentally, I started this webzine in early 2020, right before the pandemic hit. As I’ve been interviewing artists in the years since, I’ve noticed how these world events have impacted their output, whether it be consciously or not. I’ve also noticed an increase in these darker lyrical themes across the board, and you’re right; it’s a reflection of what’s going on.
MS: We’re living it. We’re literally on the verge of world wars. You’ve got Russia saying, “We’ll use nukes if somebody does something with NATO or Ukraine.” We went from peaceful times to chaos, in this country and the world. I don’t want to get into too much political stuff. My beliefs don’t usually line up with most musicians who are on a different tip, but you know what I’m saying. I live in reality when it comes to politics. I don’t judge people on who they are. I judge them on what they do. In my opinion, this country’s changed a lot in the last 3 and a half years. If I took over a company that was running pretty good and all of a sudden it’s not, I know whose fault it is. I’ll just leave it at that *laughs*.
As the sole original member of Attacker, in what ways does recording and performing with the band now compare or contrast to the ’80s?
MS: Back in the ’80s, we had a million more places to play first of all. There’s so few clubs now compared to what there were. Honestly, for us, we’ve really never been a touring band going out on real tours because in the ’80s, we always had the same issue. We did the first album, we had problems with members. Gone. We did the second album. By the time we did the second album, thrash was kind of the rage, so we were behind the 8 ball now. We were power metal, speed metal, but not thrash. I always feel like we were always held back by not being able to keep a consistent lineup and do another record.
We had opportunities. I remember we were supposed to go do a tour with Omen and one of the other bands on Metal Blade back in the day. One of our members didn’t want to take his equipment on the road. “I don’t want to take my stuff on the road and beat it up.” I’m like, “Then what the hell are we doing here?” It’s real easy to try and blame everybody else because we’re all part of it, but we never had the consistency to keep going because a lot of our peer bands, the same style of music, they had three or four records out in the ’80s. We only had two.
A lot of them had been to Europe. We never got to Europe until 2004. For us, it’s one thing, but as far as shows, the smarted thing for us is to play festivals. We’re not a huge band in the sense that if we did a US tour, on a Tuesday night, we’re gonna be playing to probably 25 to 60 people if we’re lucky. That’s just the nature. We’ve never been at that level, that tier musically, so really, the smartest thing for us is to play festivals where we will be known, but we’ll also have a bigger crowd to play to. We get to travel to the festivals which is like a mini vacation in itself, but we’ve done stuff where we’ll travel.
We’ll go down to Washington D.C., Connecticut, Pennsylvania, stuff like that, stuff that’s reasonable to drive to. If anything’s further away, we’re not looking to make money, but we’re not looking to lose money. I understand the situation. If we’re going somewhere you have to fly to, as long as they’re taking care of expenses, generally we’ll be OK with that. We’re still getting to do what we love and we’re not shelling out a bunch of money out of our pockets. That’s pretty much where we’re at. We mainly do festivals here and there.
Everybody’s got jobs. People have families. You’ve got mortgages to pay and all that. You’re not gonna go on the road to lose money and eat bologna off your hands. I see a lot of the old school bands from our era that are still touring and they’re playing to nobody. They’re driving around in a van playing 30 shows in 30 days. They’re not making any money and they’re not playing to people. To me, that’s depressing. I’d rather play a festival in front of a big crowd, have a great time, go home, and that’s good for me. That fills my soul and I’m good until the next festival, simple as that.
That’s a good point about the ’80s bands. Sure, you’ve got your Metallicas and Slayers who will always be playing arenas. Then, you’ve got your mid tier acts. And then you’ve got your cult bands who can draw a huge crowd at a festival, but when it comes to touring, it’s luck of the draw. I’ve seen some of these bands pack Reggies here in Chicago, only to play Montana on a Tuesday night to 5 people.
MS: You know what it is? Certain areas of the country have a little bit of a scene where people do show up. There’s a lot of places in the US, it doesn’t matter unless you’re a big name and come in, you’re only gonna get a handful of people who turn out. I think Chicago, that’s one reason why they’ll have a festival there, because there will be people. Massachusetts, up there we played a festival. They didn’t have it this year. I forget the name of it, but it was a great crowd. Again, small, 200 people, but that’s still a win for the most part in America because we’re not like Europe where you can put a festival on every weekend and people come for all over. It’s a totally different thing.
That’s the thing. Literally, we’re probably third tier. You’ve got your big bands. Then you’ve got your Slayers and Testaments and bands like that. We’re down here. We’re below that. Again, we’re fine with that because I’m a realist. We do this because we love it. If we were doing it to try to make a living or be something, I would’ve quit a long time ago *laughs*. It’s about playing and continuing the tradition of what the band is.
For the past few albums, this one included, in addition to drumming, you’ve served as producer, mixer, and engineer. What’s it like working in this role and is there anything technically you’d do differently on those ’80s albums?
MS: Technically, probably not. One thing with Attacker, and this goes back to the ’80s, when it comes to recording itself, we’re always well prepared. The biggest thing I tell bands when I work with them to record with me is don’t come in not knowing what you’re gonna do. If you’re thinking about what you have to do, you’re not gonna give the best performance. When you’re 100% comfortable and you know your parts and what you’re gonna do, you’re gonna give a great performance. That’s the same. In that respect, nothing’s changed.
As far as recording, I had done The Unknown (2006), our fourth album. We had a different studio. I had a setup there and did that album. Then we had to get out of there, so I wound up getting rid of my recording gear and it wasn’t until the end of 2018 that I decided, “You know what? I think I want to mess around with recording again.” That’s what we did. I rebought all the gear, a whole bunch of new stuff, blew a bunch of money I probably shouldn’t have. That’s what happens in music. We bleed money, but we love it *laughs*.
Obviously, I’ve been doing bands in my studio. Once it was time to do the record, I was like, “Well, we’ll do it in our own studio.” I will tell you though, doing our own stuff, it’s harder to do because when I’m working with another band, I’m like the sixth member. I’m an outside ear. Whereas with my own band, I’m worrying too much. “Is this good? Is that loud enough? Is this too loud?” I get more critical, which actually drives me more nuts. It’s easier to do other bands than my own. Luckily, everybody’s happy with how it came out. That’s all good.
I love the engineering stuff as much as I love being a musician. It’s still creative. Another thing too, in my studio, most bands today, they use that drum replacement stuff. They’ll record, but they’ll put fake sounds. They’ll do the same thing with guitars. They’ll record guitars and they take what’s called a clean track, a direct track where you hear the guitar clean. Then, they run that back through an amp. They don’t use the sound that they got.
I’m all about the old school way of taking my time. Mic the drums correctly, tune them correctly, play them correctly, and you’ll have a great sound. Same thing with the guitars. You gotta move the mic around the coat of the speakers to find the spots where that amp sounds good. To me, that’s the whole artform of it that I enjoy. When you’re using all fake stuff, it’s kind of like calling yourself an artist who paints by numbers. You’re using premade sounds that are gonna sound good no matter what you do. I like the fact that I have to create it to make it sound good and use my ears to do that.
That’s the one thing a lot of people disagree with me on, but I like classic records. They sound better to me than…everything today, as far as I’m concerned, when you listen to bands, sometimes you can’t tell them apart because of the production. Think about Led Zeppelin. If John Bonham would’ve had a different drum sound and they made him play to a click track and be all this, there would’ve been no Led Zeppelin. Everything with him was feel, his sound. Alex Van Halen, you hear Alex Van Halen’s snare sound, he could just hit it and I would know that’s his sound.
You don’t have that today. You take away the identity of people when you use fake sounds that aren’t their sounds. Every musician…ten people could play my drum set and it will all sound different. Ten people can pick up the same guitar and amp. Everything is in your hands, whether you’re a guitar player or a drummer or whatever. It’s how you attack the drum that makes the sound, and if you hit too light or too hard. Everybody’s got an identity. That’s what I love about recording: Capture their sound and their identity. As Forrest Gump said, “That’s all I have to say about that.” *laughs*
I want to go back in time to that magical era of the ’80s, 40 years ago to be exact. It was in 1984 that Attacker first hit the scene with “(Call On) the Attacker” appearing on Metal Massacre V. What are your memories of those early days and what events took place that led to the appearance on that compilation?
MS: Again, those times, when I think back about it, that was the magic time of metal. All the big bands were still putting out albums. We couldn’t wait for the new Maiden or Priest album to come out in the early ’80s. I can’t even explain how exciting it was to be a musician. There was always, like I said, a million clubs back then. You could go see shows all the time, your heroes and a lot of great local bands. The way the whole thing transpired with Metal Massacre is our original bass player, Lou Ciarlo from Battle at Helm’s Deep, he was originally in Hades, the New Jersey band.
I had met him and gone to see them rehearse where they rehearsed at. We started playing shows together. We were probably mostly cover bands, but we’d throw in an original here and there, both bands. I remember Lou telling me, we were in college, and he goes, “Yeah, I’m gonna be leaving soon. We’re getting signed. We’re going on tour.” They were supposed to be on Metal Massacre V. So when he told me that, I went back to my guys and I go, “Guys, we gotta go do a demo.”
We immediately booked a studio. That was in January of ’84. We went and did the three song demo. We did it. We thought it sounded like complete crap, so we had to find another studio to remix it. Then, when we remixed it, we sent it out to all the fanzines. I remember Metal Forces magazine from England, they did a writeup on it and they basically loved the demo. They said, “Somebody better sign these guys up quick.” Now this is back in the days of obviously no internet or whatever. Obviously, on these things, you had your address to order a demo.
I got a contract from Metal Blade Records in the mail, totally out of the blue! There was no phone call, “Hey, I’m gonna send you…” No, we got that and it was like, “Oh my God! We’re gonna be on Metal Massacre V!” Then, what we wound up doing is, because we really didn’t like the demo, the same guy that remixed it for us, we went back to him and rerecorded “(Call On) the Attacker”. This way, it was basically a newer version of it. That’s the one we put on. Then, when we did Battle at Helm’s Deep, we used the same song because we did the whole album at the same studio. He just mixed it to sound a little more in line with the mix of the rest of the record.
That’s actually how we got on. I saaw my friend saying, “We’re getting signed! We’re going on tour!” I was like, “We gotta do that too!” And we did *laughs*! That’s exactly what we did. It’s funny because Hades wound up not being on Metal Massacre V. They wound up being on Metal Massacre VI, but right after that was when they changed members and they went from being a traditional metal band to a thrashier band, which is what they became on their albums. We kind of jumped ahead on them a little bit.
Speaking of Battle at Helm’s Deep, next year is the 40th anniversary of that classic debut album. Are there any plans to commemorate this milestone and at the time of its recording and release, was there ever the impression it was part of a larger movement? In other words, did the band feel any connection to the term “power metal”?
MS: As far as next year, we honestly haven’t even given it any thought because initially, I think it was back in 2008, I forget what anniversary it was, but we did the whole Battle at Helm’s Deep record at the Keep It True Festival in Germany. We kind of commemorated it then, but now that you bring that up, that makes sense to me now, maybe doing something with it next year. If I do it, it’s gonna be because you brought it up, so thank you *laughs*.
As far as the second part is concerned, we were just kind of doing what we did. We had no idea what kind of impact it would make or whatever. A good example of that is, back in the ’80s, we would go into Greenwich Village in New York and there were all these great record stores. We would go to the metal section and we would buy albums just because it looked cool or something. We would buy this and I’d be looking at a band that they’d say was a European band. I would think, “Oh my God! These guys must be huge!”
Ultimately, it turned out they were a small band like when we put our album out. They were never a big thing. I guess just like I looked at bands like that, people probably looked at us like that, but we never really had an inkling of what it did. I will tell you, the first time I ever understood what the first two albums we did in the ’80s meant was when we went to the first Keep It True in Europe, our first tour of Europe, in 2004. I talked to people and I said to them…it’s funny. When we went there, we were actually frightened that we would get onstage and there would be nobody watching us. I’m like, “We don’t know what’s up. Will they even remember us?”
There was a German band called Wizard on before us and the whole crowd is chanting for them. We’re backstage going, “Man, I hope there’s people out there, because we’re gonna shit our pants.” *laughs* It was funny. We got onstage and it was the exact opposite! Here’s the best part, also on that festival was Manilla Road, Blitzkrieg, Halloween. The promoter, Ollie, after the show when he paid us, he said, “You guys had the best crowd reaction of the day.” That’s the kind of shit that blows us away.
So when I talk to people and I say, “You know, I never really thought our music meant anything.” They’re like, “No, you don’t understand what your music means to us.” Again, a lot of Europeans…I met people that lived in Poland and East Germany before the Wall fell. They used to get albums and had to sneak them in. If they heard a band like us, it meant a lot to them. We never had any thought about that because we lived in a free country. It was easy for us to get stuff, but it was a real eye opener that people really appreciated the band and we meant something to them.
That kind of gave us a little boost as far as wanting to keep playing and doing stuff. I was like, “You know what? We have people that appreciate it. We love playing. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for those people in the first place.” If you don’t have fans, you don’t really have a band if nobody’s there to see you. Back then, we never had a thought people at this day and age would be looking at what we did with that kind of love and respect for it. It’s a beautiful thing.
Being that you’re from the east coast, I’d be remiss not to ask you about the legendary L’Amour. If I remember correctly, because I do own it, you appeared on that L’Amour Rocks compilation with “Emanon”. What are your favorite memories of that venue and what were the best shows Attacker played there?
MS: Yeah, that was “Emanon” that was on the second record. L’Amour itself, me and my friends were there every weekend regardless. One weekend it was Loudness, Accept, Queensrÿche, Mercyful Fate, you name it. It was all great bands. There was never not a good show there. As far as Attacker, we played with Motörhead, Saxon, Overkill, Savatage. We did some good shows there with good bands. Matter of fact, the Motörhead show was funny because Motörhead audiences are like Slayer audiences.
There were people in the crowd spitting at us while we were playing. It was us, Fates Warning, and Motörhead, and Motörhead fans only want Motörhead. They don’t care about whoever else is on. We had a good time, but it was a rough crowd *laughs*. Definitely Saxon was a better crowd for us, Savatage, even Overkill, but Motörhead? Man, that was a rough crowd.
It’s funny you mention that about Fates Warning because there’s a similar story here involving them. Pantera was playing the Vic Theatre and the same night, Fates Warning was playing this club down the block called the Cubby Bear. Somebody thought it wasn’t a good idea for two metal shows to clash on the same night, so they combined them. Fates Warning opened and lasted about 2 songs before they got booed offstage. The Pantera crowd was ruthless. They weren’t having any “Fata Morgana” that night!
MS: That’s the thing! It’s a mismatch. That doesn’t surprise me at all, but again. You know what? It’s still fun to be able to say, “I opened for Motörhead.” We met Lemmy, said hello. He was a nice guy. Hey, he was cool. We got to be backstage and see that, so it was all good. I was further back behind the drums, so I didn’t get hit with no spit *laughs*. The poor guys in front of me did!
The perks of being a drummer! I want to talk a little bit about The Second Coming. By ’88, metal was changing and it really shows in this album. To me, it’s always had a bit of a thrash feel to it. Was this a conscious effort or rather just the direction the songwriting happened to be headed at the time?
MS: See, that was the thing about the different writers. The first album was mostly (guitarist) Jim Mooney. Me and (guitarist) Pat (Marinelli) wrote a couple of little things here and there. Jim Mooney had left the band. Our bass player Lou Ciarlo, he wrote every song on that except for one riff in one song and he wrote all the lyrics, so really, that’s what I was talking about. Attacker, if you listen from album to album, there are changes where, musically, it’s not like Iron Maiden where you listen to the first couple records and they’re all kind of very similar because it was all Steve Harris. This is a different animal.
One set of writers to another completely different guy. The third album became one or two songs from Lou, the other guy Mike wrote some, Pat wrote some, I even wrote two songs on that, so every album changed in that respect. One of the things about the thrash element you’re talking about is I think I just played everything too fast *laughs*. That’s really what it was! When we did that album, we did that up at Pyramid Sound in Ithaca, New York with Alex Perialas. Now if you’re familiar with the name, he’s the guy who did Anthrax, Overkill, Testament, all of those bands in the ’80s.
His assistant engineer at the time was the original Raven drummer, Rob “Wacko” Hunter. I remember having to play in front of him, there was something in my head that was like, “I better be good!” I think I played some of the songs faster than I should’ve played them. In hindsight, like when we play them now, I’m like, “If I knew I had to do this shit 40 years later, I would’ve been Phil Rudd from AC/DC. Nice, grooving, and simple!” I wouldn’t have done all this double bass and crazy fills. At my age now, it ain’t easy *laughs*! That’s the reality of that album. That’s what we wrote and that’s how I played it and that’s how it came out.
In closing, what does the rest of 2024 have in store for Attacker? I know you mentioned Keep It True. Any other plans?
MS: Right now, we’re gonna be doing a hometown show, a record release in June. We’re gonna be doing that with, I’m sure you’re familiar with the band Blood Feast, the thrash band.
Of course! Kill for Pleasure!
MS: Yeah, they’re gonna be with us. They have a new album coming out in May, so we combined the shows. We’re doing a duel record release show with them in our area. Other than that, we actually don’t have any other stuff booked because the one thing about festivals is they usually book a year in advance. Now that we have the record coming out, we may get some things to do some stuff next year. I believe we might be going to that Hell’s Heroes festival that they’re having now down in Houston. That’s a big one. We’re supposedly gonna go to that. We might be doing the Milwaukee Metal Fest which got reconstituted again, so we’ll see.
Because of lives and things like that, we don’t do a lot, but if something pops up worthwhile, we go do it. I think for us at this point, I think the more we do, it would be more detrimental to the band because then we’d get on each others nerves. Like I said, when you go away somewhere and you’ve got a wife and kid at home, somebody wants to get home to that. You don’t wanna be dicking around. You just want to play your show and get home. In a sense, it’s almost like we would rather just do the bigger shows and not drive six hours to play wherever, then wake up early in the morning and drive back home again because somebody wants to get home.
For us, we’re happy doing a couple festivals a year, whatever other shows here or there, but that’s it. Nothing major. People say, “Oh, don’t you wanna tour?” No! I’m gonna be 61 in a couple weeks. I don’t wanna be driving around the country in a van, breaking my ass carrying my own shit. You wanna put me on a tour bus with a road crew? I’ll do it. Other than that, no *laughs*.
The new Attacker album, The God Particle, is available now on Cruz del Sur Music. For more information on Attacker, visit www.facebook.com/AttackerBand.