Photo: Shane Eckart
Older, veteran artists continually strive to make sense of the chaotic, frantic music industry that changes daily underneath their feet. For power/thrash institution Flotsam and Jetsam, they just continue to unleash strong studio records that still contain the energy and explosiveness that first put them on the map back in the 80s. I Am the Weapon is the newest record, firing off a series of songs that go for the jugular in spots, while being very catchy in melodic ways in others – 100% committed to keeping their faithful followers satisfied. We reached out to drummer Ken Mary for a great conversation about the new record, what the band focuses on to keep every record strong, thoughts on Eric AK as an underrated vocalist, how touring is post-pandemic, what’s left on the bucket list to accomplish, and future plans.
Dead Rhetoric: I Am the Weapon is the latest Flotsam and Jetsam record. How did the songwriting and recording sessions go for this set of material? Where is the balance in your view between meeting the expectations of the followers/ fans of the band and satisfying your own creative process this deep into the career of the group?
Ken Mary: The cool thing about this band is the chemistry between all of the members. Everybody is a writer, and everybody is actually a really strong writer. I think we all know when something is right, when something is working, and when something isn’t working. That’s really made the process on the last three records fairly easy. This one might have been a little bit more stressful just because people talk about the last three albums being great – how can we top the last one? We put everything we had into Blood in the Water because we were worried about topping The End of Chaos. So, when it came to doing this one, we knew we had to keep the trajectory going up. We were very conscious of that, which added that little extra level of stress. Once we got in, we ignored all of that.
When it came to the writing and recording, it went pretty much like the last couple of records. Everybody has a heavy hand in the writing. It’s equally shared. I think the results are really strong. If somebody is having trouble with a part or a piece, someone else has the answer. In terms of the differences, it was similar to the other two (albums) before it, just an extra layer of stress. What we did to alleviate that is to write a lot of extra songs. We have extra material, enough material to have half of the next record from what we already have.
Dead Rhetoric: As seasoned musicians, do you enjoy the process now of doing extensive demo work within your own home studios, compared to being on the clock in bigger studios?
Mary: We absolutely do. I have an actual studio, it’s a major SSL facility, a world class studio. When I’m doing my writing, I have a system at home and a system here, and everybody else has systems at their houses. When it comes to the writing process, the technology makes it much, much easier to get your ideas across in a manner that other people can understand them. You can have an idea in your head of what something sounds like but trying to put it down into a form where other people will understand sometimes is a little bit difficult.
Dead Rhetoric: You’ve released four singles to date for the album – how do you feel about the response so far to these tracks, and how has the band handled this newer frequency release schedule before an album drops compared to the older methods of the past?
Mary: We are not really sure, the business as a business at this point, it’s almost laughable. If you are doing a new record, you are really doing it for the love of the art, and for the love of the fans, and for yourself to be able to express something that is inside of you. If you are doing it for the idea that you are going to make a lot of money on it or you are going to get rich – we don’t even think about that, it’s not a part of our thought process at all. Before we made this last album, we wanted to make some great art. It will hopefully stand the test of time, and the progression will be upward. The response has been much better than we had even dared to hope. People at the label have been telling us this is their favorite Flotsam album ever. And when you think about that, that’s a huge statement.
Let’s say you are a fan of the first two records. That takes you back to your youth, it takes you back to a different era. Whatever you are doing back then, your car, your girlfriend, your school – you are competing with nostalgia and somebody’s memories. So, when someone tells you this new record is their favorite record, I don’t even know how that is possible. Somebody asked me about Van Halen – when I was a kid, I was near Lake Sammamish Park, near Seattle, Washington which is where I grew up. The summer of 1979- there was a huge van with these speakers in the back blasting “Eruption”. I was playing frisbee with a friend of mine, I literally stopped and went what is that! What is going on, I had never heard anything like this in my life, and I was a drummer. It shook up my whole world. That first album to me is my favorite Van Halen album, I love every song on it. It’s from my childhood.
We are very appreciative of how people have responded to the new Flotsam album so far.
Dead Rhetoric: I was very happy when I heard “Primal” – you are getting a lot of airplay on Sirius XM Liquid Metal channel, which I think is a great avenue for the younger generation as well as the old guard who did grow up on the band to hear the new music of the band…
Mary: Thank you so much. We are doing our best – and we talk about this amongst ourselves. Sometimes we think about how long the album takes to get done, and one of the guys and I had a conversation about not every song has to be amazing. He said no, every song does have to be amazing. That’s what we’ve done on the last three albums, we’ve made sure every song is great and that there is not one bad track on the album. People are going to be looking for that. That’s when my attitude changed too – let’s make every song on this album as we look at this as a great song ourselves, and hopefully everyone agrees with us. There is not one song on this record that I don’t like. I think it is something when you can do that.
And also, when you work on a record as much as I have, when you are there for so much of it with the tracking, the editing, putting the files together, the tedious work that goes into it. By the time you are done with the album, you normally don’t want to hear it again. The wild thing about these Flotsam albums is with hours and hours spent in the production of these albums, I still enjoy listening to them, which is very unique. That normally doesn’t happen with me, once I’m done with a record, I never want to hear it again. I feel strongly that we have done something that will stand the test of time, and people will look back and say this is a great album.
Dead Rhetoric: Are you continually impressed with the vocal range and lyrical content Eric AK develops as an example album by album?
Mary: Absolutely. Not to throw anything in here, but I have a lot of input into the lyrics as well. I’m also a lyricist and singer too. In terms of the content, there are a lot of songs… for instance, “I Am the Weapon”, those are all my lyrics, “Primal”, that’s all AK. And then there are songs where it is both of us. Like “Running Through the Fire”, that was some of his melodies on the verses and the lyrics, and then my chorus melodies and lyrics. “A New Kind of Hero” was his verse melodies and lyrics, and my chorus melodies and lyrics. It’s really kind of a combination. Like Steve Conley, he will have great titles – like “Burn the Sky” on the last album, that was his song title. Sometimes lyrics and pieces of things come from different directions.
Being impressed with AK and his vocal range, I personally believe he is one of the greatest singers in metal, period. That’s one of the reasons why I joined the band seven years ago. I heard the self-titled album when they recorded the drums in my studio, with Jason Bittner. When the album was done, I got a copy of it, started listening to it in my car, listening for months and months. I was a big fan of Flotsam on those first couple of records from my youth, and the first time you heard them it was like ‘wow – what is this?’. I lost touch a little bit after that, and then when I heard this self-titled album, man his voice sounds way better than what it sounded like back in the day. For me, it was one of the main reasons why I got into the band because of AK’s progression. His tone is amazing, he’s an amazing vocalist. Underrated I might say too.
I was talking about this in an interview yesterday. People rating you as a singer, it’s really a popularity contest. If you are in a huge band like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden, people go automatically that Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson are the greatest singers in the world. Flotsam is not as big as those bands; I think it’s very easy for people to get overlooked. I think AK is largely an unheralded monster talent.
Dead Rhetoric: Now that this is your third album with the group, how do you feel about the band chemistry and your role amongst these veteran musicians? What do you think are some of the key qualities that have helped Flotsam and Jetsam remain relevant not just to the old school crowd, but also the younger generation?
Mary: It’s really tough. I don’t know if we’ll ever be relevant to the younger generation, but what we try to do is not worry about them too much. All we worry about – it’s called the music business for a reason, and it should be about the music. We feel like it is about the music. If we make great music, then we’ve done our job. You can get all diverted into looking at merchandise, what the cover looks like, what everybody is wearing in the band photo and all that junk, but at the end of the day, what music did you create? For us, that’s totally our focus. Let’s make some great music that we love, and then hopefully if we love it and we want to listen to it, it should appeal to our existing fans, hopefully appeal to new fans. We don’t sit there and think about trying to be relevant to young fans. We think about making some great music, and if we can do that, then we’ve done our job.
Dead Rhetoric: In the fall of last year, you unfortunately had to cancel an East Coast run of dates due to poor ticket sales and a key crew member not being able to go on the road with the band. Can you discuss the difficulties of touring currently coming out of this pandemic, and how the band determines best what will work touring domestically and internationally to be financially viable for the band in the long-term?
Mary: That’s a long question. It definitely was weird coming out of COVID. Everything became more expensive. That’s a big factor too. The costs of touring have literally doubled. The tour bus, the band wagon, a van, crew guys. Everybody was pent up for two years, nobody was touring, so all of a sudden once that time was over, everybody was touring. Trying to get ahold of a touring bus, a sound man or a drum tech, anything was going to cost you a lot of money, and still does. The price of all those things have doubled. You name it, the price is twice as much – and here’s the kicker. None of the promoters want to pay twice as much. They want to pay the same thing they were paying you five years ago, six years ago. It makes it very difficult for us. We are a band that’s not quite at the level of upper echelon bands – Megadeth, Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden. They are the high end of the echelon, and we are not – so financially, it’s a lot more difficult for us to make tours work.
We are okay with going out and breaking even, but we are not going to go out and lose money. The tour we cancelled, we were asked by a couple of promoters who were going to lose money, they said, hey, if you want to cancel this out, they would be happy about that. When we heard that, we were like, you know what – it wasn’t worth it for us, it wasn’t worth it for them. We want everybody to be happy, the promoters, the fans, the band. To make that happen, it has to be financially viable for sure.
Dead Rhetoric: Speaking of touring, how has the recent touring / festival experiences gone for the band over the year? What were some of the standout, highlight moments, and are there any tips of the trade that you keep in mind to remain focused and sharp amidst all of the responsibilities, travel, jet leg, and other activities that take place beyond the time you are on stage?
Mary: Highlights- the festivals for me, I don’t know about the other guys personally. We did three weeks in the United States, all those shows were great. We did an amazing show in Mexico, a great festival in Brazil, we did Graspop which was unbelievable. We did Wacken which was amazing, we will do Dynamo and some other shows in Germany. The highlights, this last year has had a lot of highlights. I really love all the festivals. Sometimes you have a club show – I think it was Mannheim in Germany that we played before one of the festivals. There were 400 people there, they were off the hook, unchained and going crazy the entire show. Even though it’s not a huge show, it was a highlight for me. To get that kind of energy from a crowd, going nuts the entire time we are on stage, is amazing. We feed off that energy. Summer Breeze in Brazil was a highlight, Wacken and Graspop as well.
As far as tips. I can only go from what works for me. When I am touring, it’s a rule of three. No sugar, no alcohol, and no caffeine. I don’t do any of those while I am touring or travelling, when I am home, I may have some coffee, or wine with dinner once in a while. I stay mentally and physically in shape to be able to deal with the jet lag and all these different things, that’s really important for me. A lot of people don’t like cutting out caffeine or cutting out sugar or alcohol. For me, that’s what keeps me going.
Dead Rhetoric: Did the pandemic cause you to reevaluate any priorities when it comes to your health, well-being, or personal development?
Mary: I think everybody had to make and assess what is really important in their lives. The whole world stopped and was shut down for basically two years, more or less. It does make you assess what is important for you. Family, a lot of different things. It made me take stock of what I’m doing and where you are spending your time. What you are paying attention to, absolutely.
Dead Rhetoric: What do you think is left on the bucket list for Flotsam and Jetsam or yourself personally to accomplish – are there specific territories you’d like to play that haven’t happened as of yet?
Mary: Not really. I haven’t been to Australia, and it’s a 14-hour plane flight, so I am okay with that. I’ve been to Japan a number of times, we’ve been all over North America, maybe some more South American shows because the people there are awesome. European festivals, we’ve had a great time. If I stopped tomorrow, it’s not like I’m going to feel unfulfilled or feel like I didn’t do something that I wanted to do as far as touring and that kind of thing. It would be cool if Flotsam was able to tour with one of these bigger bands I previously mentioned – some major tour, that would really help the brand and move us up the ladder so to speak.
There is a little bit of a caste system in the music industry. Whatever you were in the 80s, it’s almost like to some degree stuck in whatever level you were. If we would have put out these three or four albums back in the 80s, maybe the band would be enormous. It’s a different time now, there is so much product coming out. You have 100,000 songs on Spotify coming out every day, a million videos going up on YouTube every day. It’s the sheer volume, an ocean of music coming out every second. How do you stand in that onslaught? We are doing the best we can just trying to make great music and music that we feel comfortable about.
On a bucket list if I’d could I build a time machine and take this band and bring these recordings back thirty years and be in place where they would very much be appreciated. Not that they are not appreciated now, I think they are appreciated – but the impact would be so much bigger. It would be nice for the band to move up the ladder and recognized for the impact the band had. You always hear about the big four – and I think Flotsam was right there. They toured with Metallica and Megadeth, right at the beginning of all of this. I feel like the band doesn’t really get the respect maybe that it deserves.
Dead Rhetoric: If you had the opportunity to teach a high school or college-level course about any subject matter outside of your expertise and experience as a musician, what type of course would you create – and why do you think it would be important for that age-group to learn and absorb?
Mary: I’m not really sure, to be 100% honest. Things have changed so dramatically with AI; you have AI artists on Spotify that don’t exist that have millions of streams. How can I prepare somebody for the future that is about to happen in music? I don’t think from a business perspective, if you look at the trajectory it’s been headed straight down for twenty-five years now. It peaked in 2001, it was roughly a $50 billion dollar business, now it’s a $5 billion dollar business, so one-tenth of the business. You have companies like Spotify now creating their own artists. That to me is a huge problem. I’ve talked with friends that have kids, and asked if they care if the song is created with AI, and they go no. They only care if they like the song.
AI can now make songs by plagiarizing more or less things that have already been created. It changes things just enough to not get sued. For me, I think it’s a bad joke. What is the future of music? I’m happy I’m not 20 years old trying to make it in this business. I may do something else, a stage show, something that goes in Vegas. I’m not sure I’m the guy to be teaching a course to young people about what the future is going to be.
Dead Rhetoric: What’s on the horizon for Flotsam and Jetsam, Fifth Angel, or any other endeavors behind the scenes over the next year or so?
Mary: We are playing Dynamo to finish out the festival season – five or six shows aside from that in Europe. We’ve got some time off, some things being tossed around for a late fall tour, or maybe early next year. We have the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise coming up in January 2025, we have played that before, a fantastic event. Everybody go get the record. Fifth Angel – we have a tour in Europe in September for a couple of weeks. Anything could change, you don’t know what’s going to come up, or come in.