I have known John Murren for years and we both share our love for the NY Rangers and hated for the Philadelphia Flyers. (too bad Jenn Matthews) John not too long ago ended up in a band and it only seemed natural to interview this great about his bad and more. Below is a great interview with a great guy so read it and buy his bands damn cd.

MC: I know you live in NY. Have you lived there all your life and what was it like growing up in NY?

JM: Born and bred New Yorker.  As for what it's like growing up here?  Sometimes it's hard to answer a question like that without having something to compare it to, but in many ways, growing up in the city is like growing up anywhere.  Your neighborhood is your immediate playground, and the experiences you have might not even differ that much from a small town in Middle America.  That said, New York City is still a completely different entity.  As big as it is, NYC is also small in that compared to the rest of the country, and the world, the vibe here is unlike anywhere else.  People talk about melting pots and utopian societies, and you can't help but wonder if New York City is the closest realization of such sentiments.  It's fascinating how so many people are lumped together here, and how different each person is, and their respective "groups" are.  Additionally, when you're in New York City, I think your senses are constantly attacked, thus fine-tuned in the process.  The smells, sounds, sights, etc. are excessive.  There's always something going on, there's always street music being played, whether it be a car alarm in the middle of the night, or the next door neighbors arguing.  Everything is so condensed, and you just hear and see so much more than in other places.  And to wrap up the idea that NYC is unlike anywhere else? Places that people are so used to from mall culture?  We don't get that here.  I thought Target was a fictitious store for that movie Opportunity Knocks, I didn't know what a Chuck-E Cheese was till recently, and I'm still recovering from my first Wal-Mart experience in Middletown, NY 8 years ago.  I sometimes wonder if my fellow New Yorkers realize how weird we are to the rest of the country?

MC: What is the craziest thing you ever saw?

 JM: Who knows?  I mean, that question can lead to any kind of answer.  Craziest thing I ever saw was Diamanda Galas at Carnegie Hall and the Rangers actually winning a Stanley Cup in my lifetime. (yeah Jen when will the flyers win...never-Chris) More seriously though, everyone has probably seen the kind of things that your question might be seeking for in regards to an answer.  In New York, you may or may not see more of it (acts of violence, deprivation, parades, etc.).  Still, the craziest thing I ever saw was the events of 9.11 unfolding.  While I was not in the mix, so to speak, or directly affected, it's still the craziest thing I've ever seen.  Witnessing large buildings crumbling with my own eyes from 35 blocks away to the presence of military personnel and barricades on formerly open streets.  It was truly crazy.  It didn't make sense.  Never before have I ever seen the city so devastated by something, and the vibe of the city so different from its usual state.  When things were unfolding, there seemed to be chaos, and it was the closest experience I had in terms of getting a feel of what it might be like in a war zone.  After things settled, the city was never so quiet.  I mean, it wasn't like a snowstorm quiet, it was a dreadful quiet.

MC: How did you end up discovering underground music? What were some early bands that you got into? Are you still into any of them today?

 JM: Well, I'm not sure when it first truly happened, but my introduction to heavy music seems to be on par with my introduction to thrash and hardcore in the mid-80s.  At this time, more "underground" style of metal was rather big though.  Chris, you remember these times, when just about any Bay-area thrash band could have headlined a huge venue 3,000 miles away on the East Coast like the New Ritz or something.  So back then, there were a lot of mainstream metal magazines that served such areas of music.  We had Thrash Metal, Power Metal, and Metal Forces.  About 14 years ago, I was flipping through a copy of Metal Forces and chanced upon ordering this fanzine from New Jersey called Metalcore.  I believe you're familiar with it?  So for those reading this, it can be said that Chris Forbes was my first introduction to the "underground." I had been getting into more underground forms of heavy music, but ordering issue #8 of Metalcore (and getting some back issues as early as #6) really opened everything up.  That first package, with a fanzine in it, also came with a ton of ads for millions of bands and mags I never heard of.  It was enlightening.  Almost immediately, I absorbed myself into this subculture, on all angles.  From the very ads and reviews in that first Metalcore, I got demos from bands, and got other fanzines.  And in no time, I was all over the place in what I liked.  It seemed that I was tiring of the standard metal that was available to me anyway.  Some of the early bands that I was into? Christian death metal band from Indianapolis, Drop Dead.  Despite their overt Christian angle, that band was just amazing, and I'm still hoping to find a rumored CD of theirs that has their 2nd and 3rd demos on it.  There were a lot of cool Jersey bands like Talisman, that I liked a lot.  Talisman was a crossover style band.  Ghost Story from Georgia was also great, a melodic thrash band from Georgia.  How can I not mention Deceased?  That band epitomizes the underground, and their demos were killer.  Starkweather is by far the best heavy band I'll ever hear, and without tape trading and the underground, I may still be clueless to their existence.  They're still going, as are Deceased, and some others.  But in the end, most of the bands you got into 12 or more years ago probably don't exist anymore.  I mean, I'd love to see a reunion show of The Log.  Remember them Chris?  Haha.  But it's still cool that so many are still going.  Like Internal Bleeding.  Though I'm not really into them much, they have been going strong for a long time and have always been underground from what I gather.  Deceased still delivers.  Charnel House is back on the scene.  Candiria progressed through the underground.  I remember seeing them play almost 10 years ago and I still have their "Inverted Kingdom" demo, and remember them as being one of those Wild Rag tape deal bands.  Members of Ripping Corpse are now working with Dim Mak and stuff like that.  So while many of the bands I originally got into in the underground no longer exist, the players in those bands have kept going.

 MC: I imagine it was quite easy to find music in NY. Are there still any cool stores up there that stock metal?

JM: It was easy to get into underground music when I did because New York City had some good stores.  I got a lot of great vinyl at It's Only Rock 'N Roll on 8th street.  But some of the other stores were more about hardcore. Some Records and Venus Records would be places that I picked up the latest Token Entry release and stuff like that.  So there was definitely a good mix of stores, and at the time, a place like Tower Records was actually pretty good when you needed to find Cryptic Slaughter albums and whatnot.   These days, I can't say there is one store that is really good at stocking metal.  That Lethal Wear store or whatever kept moving around, to the point where I have no idea if they exist or not anymore.  Besides, they just had black metal imports for $30.  Generation Records might be the closest we have to a Vintage Vinyl that you have in Jersey.  But for a metalhead, I think that NYC doesn't present great options, compared to 10 or more years ago when you could go to It's Only Rock 'N Roll in the city, or Mad Platters and later Rockin' Rex, just outside the city.

MC: What are some of your favorite shows that you have seen over the many years?

 JM: I'm going to do a list kind of thing:

Destruction/Cro Mags @ The New Ritz in '88.  This show was just amazing, and was my first full introduction to the live aspect of metal and hardcore.  Seems fitting that it was a crossover bill, because while I was a metalhead, I always had a feel for hardcore and crossover bands too.  There were long-hairs vs. skin fights at this one, which was kind of normal for the era, but the show itself was insane.  Destruction was one of my favorites, and they were just awesome.  The Cro Mags, despite Harley on vocals (instead of the original vocalist, John Bloodclot) for the "Best Wishes" tour, were amazing.  When they played "We Gotta Know," over 1,000 people danced and flipped the fuck out, taking over the entire floor just about.  If you didn't want to be in the pit, you didn't have much room to hide.  This show will always be one of the favorites because it was one of the first.

Testament @ The New Ritz, the "Practice What You Preach" tour.  This makes the list because I had missed them on "The New Order" tour when they got to replace Megadeth on a European Monsters of Rock kind of tour the year before. For the first three Testament albums, they were one of my favorite bands.

Kreator @ The New Ritz in '89:  Suicidal Tendencies headlined this show, but it almost didn't matter after Kreator's set.  One of the most intense things ever witnessed.

 (yes, The New Ritz was a place I saw many of my early shows)

Starkweather @ The Crazy Country Club in '93 or something.  This was the first time I saw Starkweather, at some spot in Brooklyn.  Four songs, and they showed me a form of intensity on stage I didn't know existed.  The overall atmosphere with the music was so tense that it provided a soundtrack for a kid to lose his mind in the pit and just start attacking some guy with a chair. 

Token Entry reunion show @ Wetlands.  One of my all time favorite NYHC bands that I finally got to witness live.  A truly amazing show that recaptured a vibe that has long been dead.

Whiplash @ Metalfest in 2000.  Whiplash may be my all time favorite thrash band after Voi Vod, and to finally see them live was the shit.  The only reason I ever went to any of those metalfests.

There are so many others to choose from that I could go on forever.  And not all the shows that I've seen were metal or hardcore.  This past summer, seeing Sade live, or seeing Bjork was just as cool as seeing Judas Priest in '90 with Megadeth and Testament.  Or how can I forget hearing Alice Cooper on Halloween this past year?  That was truly awesome.  However, I did so many Jager shots that I couldn't really watch the show because I saw everything in threes.  So many amazing shows, and more in the future I'm sure.

MC: You are in a band now. How did you end up joining the band?

JM: I joined the band rather easily, because I didn't join it.  It just kind of happened.  Vic 20 was originally a side project idea of Scott and myself, and he had this tape of songs he wrote.  They were definitely on a different vibe.  But I didn't really think of joining a band, and people who have known me for a while laugh at how I used to always say I would never do a band, and here I am.  Hellbound broke up, and Scott and I slowly considered moving forward with Vic 20, and that's what happened.  He got Mike into the fold on drums, and for over a year, it was just us three.  Didn't play out, wrote about a half dozen songs we don't even remember.  It was just about playing and feeling each other out.  Then we started really catching a writing vibe and we started to feel that we were onto something, and we got Bamph on bass. We started playing out soon after.  I'm still sometimes unaware of the fact that I'm "in a band."

 MC: Do you guys all get along really well?

JM: I almost wish that I could answer "no," just to come off different or something.  Haha.  But the thing with the members of this band is that there are links that go back further than that of the band.  Scott and I been good friends since we were like 13 years old.  Scott and Mike played in cover bands (that played charity events in the Bronx for the most part) for years.  I got to know Mike a bit from him coming to Hellbound shows.  Scott has known Bamph since they were kids, playing guitar back in the day.  I heard of Bamph as far back as 11 years ago, when my friend Jorge used to tell me about this crazy homeless guy he knew, who turns out to be Bamph.  So in essence, we're four friends who are in a band, and not band mates who are also friends.  The different personalities of the members might dictate who hangs out more and stuff like that, but we all got mad love for each other, and as cheesy or as cliché as it might sound, the band is like a family in many ways.

MC: What releases do you have out so far? Are you happy with all of them? Do you think that you will be getting a record deal soon?

JM: So far, we have a debut EP titled "Release Candidate" that is available.  It's five songs, with a lot of conceptual sounds in between that Scott came up with.  We have a lot of new material that we're hoping to start doing some recording on by this summer if possible.  We are happy with "Release Candidate," but the recording is now over two years old, and we'd love to get something new out there so people can see what we're about now, and how much better we've become.  I'm happy with the CD, though whenever I listen to it, I see how much I have improved since that recording.  Also, I don't think it captures our attacking ability somehow.  But for the budget, the timing, and for me, the lack of experience, I can't complain at all.  Bamph wasn't in the band that long before recording, and what he's added to those songs on bass has really changed things up, and we still mess with those songs.  Nothing is ever finished with us.  Moving on though, the CD has been good at introducing people to our weirdness.  I'm happy that it's still been able to convey the message that we're not here to cover something someone else has done.  And that leads to the question about whether or not I think we'll get a record deal soon.  Honestly, I haven't a clue.  It's not something I really think about, and people are just too confused by our sound right now to really expect such a thing to happen right away.

MC: How did you come up with your name and describe the band sound to me in your own words.

JM: Scotty Mac came up with the name.  We were just waiting in the car to pick someone up, and we were kicking around band names.  I can't remember any other name we kicked around in those five minutes, but he just came out and said, "Vic 20," and I said, "that's it."  Best thing, I didn't even know what a Vic 20 was!  Scott is a total "vidiot," loves video games and stuff.  The Vic 20 is an old computer system that the makers of the eventual Commodore 64 put out.  But when he mentioned that, it just sounded right.  To me, it just sounded crazy, and it made no sense.  Deep down, I knew this band would be something that defied basic labeling systems, so a name that didn't make you think pledged allegiance to a particular sound was awesome.  And that brings me to describing our sound in my own words.  That can be difficult, even for me. I have spent many years reviewing releases for zines and stuff, and when it comes to my own band, I'm not sure if I'd know how to review us.  Our sound is the Vic 20 sound.  I once said that our songs are like the "consistency of inconsistency," and we wound up putting that on our t-shirts. Our minds are all over the place.  But we try to keep things coherent, and I think we're doing that.  We refuse to put guidelines or barriers in place that will block us from doing whatever we want to a song.  So whatever you call it, it's crooked, twisted, and hopefully, Vic 20.  Imagine the raging thrash riffs of I.N.C. hanging out with a Leeway groove while Pink Floyd monitors the playground which includes John Carpenter and Pete Towsend playing tag with Kreator and Token Entry, while Voi Vod casts spells from the sandbox full of toys found In The Nursery.

MC: Tell me what the other band members are like.

JM: The other members of the band are just as mentally unbalanced as I am.  Here's the breakdown?