By Jim Barber
Chris Poland’s guitar artistry is the focus of an ambitious, and super cool new metal music project called Nuclear Messiah, and the former Megadeth axe-slinger who has become a revered musical visionary for his fusion of styles and genres – couldn’t be happier and more chuffed at the result.
Bringing together three dozen luminaries from the hard rock and metal world – as well as one iconic starship captain – Nuclear Messiah is a collaborative enterprise that sees a raft of brilliant vocalists and musicians cover songs by classic bands and artists of the rock and hard rock genre, and also compose some incendiary new originals (each musician on the track contributed to the writing of that track). The brainchild of Cleopatra Records founder Brian Ferara and longtime music industry executive John Lappen, Nuclear Messiah’s debut album, Black Flame, was released on April 24 on CD, vinyl and streaming, preceded by a selection of singles and videos that highlighted the majestic interpretations of the music, centered on Poland’s expressive, virtuosic playing.
The most recent single ‘For Mad Men Only,’ is a cover of a song by the somewhat obscure but critically acclaimed early 1970s band May Blitz. The Nuclear Messiah version is highlighted by an expectedly soulfully intense vocal performance by former Deep Purple and Rainbow frontman John Lynn Turner, with Poland’s guitar work interspersed with that of legendary Canadian blues rocker Pat Travers.
“It’s great to be on board with the guys from Nuclear Messiah but I never thought after 56 years that I’d be doing a metal cover version of a May Blitz song. Recording ‘For Mad Men Only’ was a time warp experience. I remember back in 1970 when the band was releasing new material in a Prog/Psychedelic/ Punk style. The power Pop attitude and cryptic lyrics of non-conformity still ring true to form. It was an absolute pleasure to make a contribution to this amazing new project! Cheers to all,” Turner said in a press release, announcing the single.
Previously, Cleopatra had released the Nuclear Messiah version of Uriah Heep’s ‘Look At Yourself,’ which featured another Canadian prominently, former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach on vocals, as well as a performance by Uriah Heep founder Mick Box, alongside legendary former Ozzy Osbourne bassist Bob Daisley, prog-rock keyboard wizard Derek Sherinian and drum legend Carmine Appice (Blue Murder, Ozzy, Cactus, Vanilla Fudge, King Cobra, Rod Stewart.)
Other luminaries to appear on Black Flame include other former Megadeth players such as the band’s co-founder Dave Ellefson, Marty Friedman and Chris Adler (also of Lamb of God) as well as former AC/DC and Dio drummer Simon Wright, current Deep Purple and former Ozzy and Rainbow keyboardist Don Airey, ex Guns ‘N Roses guitarist Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal, Vinnie Moore, Journey’s keyboardist Jonathan Cain, Arthur Brown from The Crazy World of Arthur Brown [‘Fire!’] and Carmine’s brother, Vinny Appice [Dio, Black Sabbath] among many others.
“When I finally did the math and I figured out that I’m going to be featured on a record with all these people, it started freaking me out. I mean, for a lot of these guys, I was listening to their records when I was a kid. I mean, Rick Wakeman [of Yes fame, who appears on the original track, ‘Dice and Thunder’]! Really? So it was my honour to be asked to do it. It’s a real classic rock, classic metal record and everybody involved brought their 100 per cent. You can tell everybody involved gave their best. Whatever they had that day in the studio was the best they had. You really can tell, especially in the vocals. All the vocals are really good, and that’s important on a record. When I heard Sebastian Bach’s vocals I was like, holy shit. And the [83-year-old] Arthur Brown’s take, the way he sang that, when I first heard it, it f***ing broke my heart man. He has given so much of himself on that performance. You can really feel it. Chris Adler’s drumming on one of the songs we already released called ‘Electric Burn’ [one of the original compositions] is incredible. It’s so good. And Marty Friedman’s guitar solos on that track is one of the best he’s done. Everybody just gave everything; just really good performances all around,” he said, adding there was extra gravitas knowing he was going to be replicating some of Mick Box’s guitar parts on ‘Look At Yourself,’ and that Box himself was also appearing on the track.
“You know, I love the way that worked out because there’s this moment where everything gets really quiet, and I didn’t know what to do there. I knew there was a big solo about to come up and I thought, you know what, I am going to set this up for Mick. I mean, I may have done a solo after that, but I’m glad they didn’t use my solo because Mick Box’s solos on that song are killer.”
The excitement over some of the collaborations is legitimate on the part of Poland who, even though he is as acclaimed and very well respected for his abilities, is still a fan at heart and appreciates the influential players and songwriters who came before him, those who helped mould his own style over the decades.
“I mean, listening to the first four Led Zeppelin albums as a kid, and also The Best of Mountain record was the start. I didn’t have a lot of money myself, so I listened to whatever my older sister had, although I did buy The Best of Mountain myself, and also the Jimi Hendrix Smash Hits album, which had the studio version of ‘Red House.’ I tried to learn that every day of my childhood. Jethro Tull’s Aqualung was also a big record for me. And then a bit later it was Jeff Beck’s Truth and his album with the orange on the cover [the final self-titled record for The Jeff Beck Group before Beck became billed as a solo artist] . Those were my go-to records as a freshman in high school, but then when I heard his [1975 instrumental] album Blow by Blow, that was it. I remember that I also had this record called The Guitars that Destroyed the World, and I bought it because I liked the album cover, and all these band were on it that I knew. I thought it was a pretty good deal at the time, because I had the best songs by these bands. And the last song on the second side was the Mahavishnu Orchestra doing ‘The Dance of Maya’ and that was my first exposure to John McLaughlin. When I heard it, I hated it with every cell in my body. I was actually upset. I thought it was garbage. I thought, ‘how did they ever get a song on this record.’ But I would go back and listen to it again and again, the same way you would if you wanted to see a car wreck again. I listened to it so many times that one day I had my ‘aha’ moment and realized it was genius. After that it was Blow by Blow and Jeff Beck’s Wired and all the Mahavishnu records.
“Later I went down this rabbit hole of Weather Report and [jazz fusion pioneers] the Tony Williams Lifetime and Miles Davis. I remember one time I picked up Mysterious Travelers by Weather Report at a record store before a gig when I was on tour with Megadeth. After the next night’s gig, I was sitting up at the front of the bus around 2 a.m. and I asked the driver what happened to my Weather Report CD and he said, ‘Dave [Mustaine, Megadeth’s founder and leader] threw it out the window.”
Which bears the question, how does someone who idolizes John McLaughlin, Tony Williams and Miles Davis end up in a thrash metal band?
“We shared the same manager, which was Jay Jones, and Jay was looking for a drummer for the band. So my friend Gar [Samuelson] auditioned and then he told me about it, after he got the gig. And he said, ‘you’ve got to come see us play.’ And I did, and I could tell they needed another guitar player. I really liked the music. It was more than just banging out four chords, there was a lot going on. The previous band that me and Gar were in was a fusion band with a horn section and so, you know, there was a high difficulty factor. So when I heard Megadeth I liked it, and it was a lot more complex and interesting than a lot of other music of that style. And also, I wanted to go where Gar went because I’d played with Gar my whole life,” Poland said.
His tenure in the band was rather mercurial. He left before Megadeth went on tour in 1984, but returned in the fall of 1985, lasting until he and Samuelson were both dismissed in 1987. But if it was short, the tenure was certainly impactful, as Poland was an integral part of developing the characteristic Megadeth sound, entrenched in the band’s still critically acclaimed first two albums, Killing is My Business … and Business is Good released in 1985, and Peace Sells … But Who’s Buying? (1986). Poland actually briefly worked with Mustaine again during the demo process for the 1990 album Rust In Peace, and also collaborated with him on the 2004 album, The System Has Failed, although he did not officially rejoin the band, although a lawsuit over unpaid royalties for his 1990 demos on a reissue of Rust in Peace ended any chance Poland would work with Megadeth again.
“And it doesn’t bother me that most people know me for my time in Megadeth. I played on two of their best albums, albums that really helped set the tone and the sound for the band, and that’s a really, really big deal. I feel like there’s a reason why those two records are magic and it’s because we had these two guys that were steeped in metal in a big, big way – whatever Dave Ellefson didn’t know about metal, Mustaine did, because Mustaine schooled him in that. So by the time me and Gar met them, the two of us are steeped in this wannabe fusion thing, so putting all of us together, those two records happened, and I don’t think it could have happened with any other combination. I mean, how does something like that happen? It was kind of a happy accident I guess.”
Getting back to Black Flame, what is interesting, and actually kind of cool about the concept underlying Nuclear Messiah, as besides it being a vehicle for Poland’s musical excellence and a chance to basically develop an all-star collaborative enterprise, is that the cover songs chosen by Perera and Lappen are not the run-of-the-mill or expected choices. But they meld so well with the original tunes in a manner that mimics, in a way, the genre defying, varied career of Poland himself. Perera and Lappen also chose the various assemblages of musicians to track each song, and thanks to the technical wizardry of producers Jürgen Engler (Die Krupps) and Derek Hughes, even though none of the tracking saw the musicians in the same room, every song sounds cohesive, and the entirety of the album has a flow as if it were a live show, going from strength to strength.
“It’s kind of miraculous to do a project like this and have it flow. It’s really hard to achieve, and I think that had a lot to do with Derek and Jurgen. Because that’s not easy. It’s hard enough to mix a record with the whole band playing together for every song, but when you have different drummers and guitar players and vocals and bass – everybody doing their own thing, on their own, it’s just a hard mix. And honestly, the only time I actually got to be in the same room with any of these guys during the making of the record was when I had lunch with Pat Travers,” Poland said.
“I knew most of the people before, although I haven’t met all of them. I had heard them play, some more than others. I had lunch with Pat before I knew he was even going to be on the record. So I’m sitting next to him and I said, ‘Pat, you should play on the Nuclear Messiah record.’ And he goes, ‘I already did.’”
As stated earlier, there’s a boatload of Canadian talent represented on this project. Besides the aforementioned Travers and Bach, both Drover brothers, Shawn and Glen (also former members of Megadeth) make noteworthy appearances, as does Jon Mikl Thor, the musclebound metal artist from the late 1970s and 1980s billed simply as Thor. Capping off the Can-Con portion of the album though, or more accurately, kicking it off, is a special vocal introductory track to the Black Flame album called ‘The Prophet of Fallout’ performed by Captain James Tiberius Kirk himself – William Shatner, who is also in the process of recording his own collaborative heavy metal album.
“Actually, I just recorded something for his metal record a few days ago. It was a cover of ‘Living After Midnight’ by Judas Priest. It came out really good. I tell you, it’s crazy because he does not seem like he is 90 something years old [he’s 95!]. When I went to his house where he did the spoken word part for the Nuclear Messiah record, we were sitting in chairs out on his patio, these really heavy metal chairs, and when he sat down, his chair backed up and fell four inches into his flowerbed. And not only did he catch himself and stop from falling, but he caught the chair. If it were me, I would have fallen. I would have fell right on my ass. So when he caught the chair, I was like, ‘how does he do that?’
Nuclear Messiah was definitely a fun project for Poland, and one that is certainly garnering acclaim from both music fans and the music chattering classes. But OHM is definitely the primary focus of his creative heart.
Founded in 1998 by Poland and bassist Robertino Pagliari, OHM is considered to be on the forefront of the fusion of jazz, rock and metal genres, and has released four studio albums of instrumental music. The group has allowed Poland the kind of freedom to express himself, challenge himself and find great satisfaction in making music that fulfills both his technical and creative sides.
The last OHM record, Tsunami Jams, came out in 2012, so new music is long overdue. Fortunately for the band’s fans, it won’t be long in coming.
“We did the Nuclear Messiah project sort of in a piecework manner over six months. Right now my main focus is on the latest OHM record. We recorded that at the Steakhouse Recording Studio, which used to be Steve Lukather’s [Toto] studio. The cool thing about that place is the recording console was made for EMI Records in London in 1970 by Rupert Neve himself. And it’s pre-1073, pre-1272 preamps. It’s like, really old. But man, when you hear the new OHM record, that’s why it sounds so good. It just sounds like everything that Rupert Neve ever was, ever created, all his skill and passion was in that board. I can’t wait for people to hear it. When it was still in London, for the first four or five years anybody who came in to record there would have used that board. The album is about a third of the way mixed now. I can see it being done within a month. The artwork is also being done right now too, so it will probably be out in September.”
Besides his recording projects, and the occasional foray onstage as part of David Ellefson’s Kings of Thrash project, which spotlights the Megadeth catalogue, Poland has a pretty cool ‘day job’ in that he manages what amounts to a recording/rehearsal complex in Los Angeles called 7th Street Rehearsal, which, as the name says, is a series of recording and jam studios for the L.A. music scene. Poland said it operates on month-to-month leases with some of the rooms having full recording/tracking capabilities. Past and current clients have included the likes of The Strokes, Fear Factory, Warpaint, the Melvins and lots and lots of up and coming bands representing a vast swathe of genres and styles.
“We have over 200 studios, and I kept this gig because they gave me a control room and a tracking room. So I work here eight hours a day, seven days a week, but if I get an idea or if I come in early, I’ll go in and work on stuff and I’ll record it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way because that’s how these new songs came to be. You know, I have a wife and a daughter and a mortgage, a cat and a dog. I have a lot in my life and I don’t trust music to pay for it, but my job is still involved in music, so I think I made the right choice for me,” he said.
“I do all kinds of stuff here. I mean, if somebody blows an outlet, I’ll go replace it. If something breaks, I’ll replace it. But mostly I do accounting and chasing down money, and that’s the hard part. But I love it, man. I love being here. I love knowing that I can walk straight across from the room I’m in here talking to you and here’s my studio [he actually takes his phone and shows me the room]. This is my tracking room, and then this is my control room. The Tannoys are basically our big monitors. We use a lot of API stuff. And then for the kick and snare and for guitars, which I do overdubs, I used this 1272 Neve. So I have pretty much everything I need here. Plus I get to see and hear all this great new music and talk to some of the people using the spaces here.”
All of these activities, all of the experiences and opportunities, from touring the world with Megadeth, to crafting his own musical niche through bands like OHM, to another labour of love project called Damn the Machine, to his tenure with Lamb of God in the early 2000s, through dozens of guest appearances and session slots, has been as fulfilling to Poland as a career perhaps playing solidly for one or two bands would have been – even more so.
“I’m right where I’m supposed to be. And I know I’m blessed because I’m alive. And I feel even more blessed because after making this OHM record, I have this Nuclear Messiah project released. I think this Black Flame record is amazing and the fact that I made an OHM record right after that is just amazing. It’s kind of freaking me out, in a good way. It’s like I am really on a lucky streak now,” he said.
Returning to the subject of Dave Mustaine, Poland talked briefly about his former Megadeth bandmate’s announced retirement following the conclusion of a farewell tour in support of what is purported to be the band’s final, self titled album.
“If you calculate the miles and the lack of sleep and just everything that goes into touring for as long as he’s done it, of course he’s hanging it up, man. I mean, come on. I think he’s done with Megadeth, although I doubt he’s done with music. I think if Mustaine were to come back, he’ll probably just have a project called Mustaine and invite a bunch of really heavy dudes to play on it just to make it interesting for him. That’s what I would do if I were him,” he said.
With new music coming from OHM, upcoming shows with Kings of Thrash, and possibly even some shows under the Nuclear Messiah banner, not to mention his super cool musical day job, it appears unlikely that Poland will be following Mr. Mustaine into retirement any time soon.
For more information visit https://www.nuclearmessiah.com, or http://www.officialohm.com/chris-poland.html.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
