For anyone following Hardcore and Metalcore in the past 10 years, it is literally impossible not to have heard any of Colin Young’s bands. Often accompanied by his brother Taylor, Colin has appeared on guitar and drums in countless bands, and most notably delivers his highly distinctive vocals for Twitching Tongues. Following TT’s last recording/touring cycle for 2018’s Gaining Purpose Through Passionate Hatred (available on Metal Blade Records), the Young brothers then turned their attention to the final Eyes Of The Lord LP, alongside Bruce Lepage, of 100 Demons fame, on vocals. Even if EOTL may be done, do yourself a favor and revisit the Misery Feels Like Home LP, which was a contender for hardest record of 2019, in our books.
All the while, the pair was plotting the highly awaited return of violence masters God’s Hate and boy, did they not disappoint! The sophomore, self-titled LP (available on Closed Casket Activities) brutalizes us in the best way possible and is sure to decimate crowds when shows are played again. Switching from guitar to drums on this record, Colin also performs vocals on a couple of songs, contributing even more depth to their perfected sound.
What have you been listening to the most lately?
I really like the new REGIONAL JUSTICE CENTER. They just put out a new LP that my brother recorded that I think is very good. I was listening to the Nioh 2 original score, which is a game I’ve been playing on PS5, and the score is absolutely insane. They didn’t have to go that hard for a Japanese RPG, but they did it and it’s so good. Another band called AGE OF APOCALYPSE. My brother just mixed an album for them that is coming out I think later this year. I’m looking forward for people to being able to hear that. They capture the kind of ONLY LIVING WITNESS sound in a way that I don’t think Twitching Tongues was ever able to or capable of. His voice and the music mesh together in such a way that is a super unique and I think their LP is going to be a big deal.
What would you say is the album that you’ve listened to the most in your life?
I would say MERAUDER Master Killer has to be up there, as far as quantity goes. That’s kind of my go to where if I don’t know what to listen to, I’m going to put this on.
What is your approach in deciding what you want to listen to? Are you trying to fit the mood that you’re in or looking to create a mood?
Definitely both of those things. If I wake up wanting to feel aggressive or wanting to feel sad or wanting to feel happy, that will definitely gage my musical choice. Sometimes, I just want to relax and I’m a big fan of film scores. I’m a HANS ZIMMER super fan. So my defaults are Master Killer and any Hans Zimmer score or live performance, which is his greatest hits essentially, played as a live setlist. This is the perfect thing for me. But yeah, if I’m working out, I usually like something that will stimulate my mind emotionally, so either some kind of hard music with a message or some kind of exciting super Pop music like LADY GAGA or something. Yeah, you have it correct where it’s like I either want to create how I’m feeling or have to just listen to how I’m feeling.
What you would consider to be five of the hardest riffs ever known to man?
Oh, I think about this a lot! I would say :
SUFFOCATION – Thrones Of Blood
CROWBAR – To Carry The Load
HATEBREED, there’s like 50 but I’ll go with Doomsayer
I like that it’s somewhat of a dark horse for Hatebreed, but then again, I don’t have any argument against it!
I’m going off scientifically, you know? I don’t know that anything makes me feel the way that Doomsayer does, when that comes up.
KICKBACK – No Surrender or Forever War
ALL OUT WAR Resist intro from the Truth In The Age Of Lies version.
Those are five riffs that we show it to somebody who is uninitiated or unfamiliar with those things and they’ll understand exactly what it’s about.
How big of a place does lyrics hold in your appreciation of a band or an artist?
What’s interesting is that lyrics kind of come second for me. The first thing I’m listening to is for the music to invoke some kind of emotion in me. Then I’m like, “Okay, what is this person saying?” As a lyricist, I’m sure that’s kind of a weird stance to take.
What are some of your favorite lyrics?
I would safely say TYPE O NEGATIVE is my favorite band of all time, and Anesthesia off of Life Is Killing Me is probably the single song where the lyrics absolutely fucked my whole world up the first time I heard them. There’s certain times where you can’t help but be shattered by words. Another one would be WARNING Footprints. The bridge to that song is the most devastatingly beautiful, powerful few minutes of distorted music of all time.
So if music comes first, I assume that you enjoy some artists where you think the lyrics are not as good as the music but still, you truly enjoyed them?
That does happen. It is rare, but like I said the musical will draw me in, but if the lyrics suck, I’m mostly gonna think there’s nothing for me here. It kinda have to be the total package, one brings me there, and one keeps me there.
Do you remember the first time ever heard that music had an impact on you?
I think it was the BIOHAZARD Punishment music video on MTV. As a very young lad, this really blew my mind. It was like, “I like music now”. I was probably 7 or 8, very young. That and the SICK OF IT ALL Potential For A Fall music video, which I don’t think is as prolific though. I haven’t heard that song in 10 years but Punishment, I’ve listened to in the past 30 days.
From there on, can you name five records that were milestones into discovering a whole new world of music for you?
There would be GRIMLOCK, Thirst For Immortality seven inch. The actual first Hardcore song I’ve never heard was Mountain Of Power. That’s a huge one. HATEBREED Satisfaction Is The Death Of Desire. As a kid from Connecticut, it was like, “Hey, this is the Beatles.” This is the hometown pride. This is the thing to listen to and it certainly ended up being that way. MERAUDER Master Killer, of course. That became the blueprint for me, like, “This is kind of what I want in everything.”
TYPE O NEGATIVE Slow, Deep, and Hard. That was the first album that I ever loved from them. I don’t think it was the first song I’ve ever heard but it was the one that made me understand what they were about. Type O is definitely acquired taste because you can hear it and be like, “What is this weird vampire goth bullshit?” Not understanding that it’s just this brilliant, genius, tongue in cheek work of art that ranges from like the (…) shit on the album to the Gothic Opera stuff on another record. Everything I look for in music is spread out across their discography. Then probably CRO-MAGS Age Of Quarrel. I would say I’ve listened to that every day from ninth to twelveth grade in high school.
Is that something that you typically do, to listen to something over and over again or you need to switch it up?
I’m a “fixated on an album for an entire year” type guy. if I start to like something, it becomes an obsession. I need to know every facet and detail about it.
Does it become overplayed at some point, and you have a hard time going back to it? Or it just stays with you?
No, it’s not that I have a hard time going back but I’ll give it a break. Then I’ll revisit it eventually and be like, “Holy shit!”, because I’m so familiar with that. I just need some time after that. Like, I haven’t listened to MADBALL Set If Off in probably three or four years, but I know that if I put that on right now, I would have the same feeling and experience I did as a 12 year old hearing it for the first time.
What are some of the most memorable shows that you’ve seen in your life?
A lot of them are shows that I played, as those are the ones that kind of stuck with me. I’ve been playing shows almost as long as I’ve been going to them. I would say Hellfest in France in 2015 was one that was just a all-time great experience that I was able to do that I’ll always be grateful for.
The last time I saw SLAYER was amazing. It was right after Jeff Hanneman died and they played just the first three records. The entire show was a tribute to Jeff Hanneman. It was the perfect setlist, it was unbelievable.
God’s Hate played this thing called Freedom Fest in Upstate New York a couple years ago and DYING BREED played like seven songs. That was a band I was convinced I would never be able to see so that was one of my favorite shows. It wasn’t super crazy, but it was just the people at the show, me and some of my closest friends, all of us going absolutely insane for 20 minutes.
Yeah, it’s funny these moments where you’re so into it, and so happy to see that band and yet, the crowd is not quite there. To me, it seems like that disconnect makes it even greater, you know?
Well, I think the audience at that show was skewed a little bit young, I don’t know if they were super familiar with Dying Breed, but everybody from the area was going crazy, too. But at the same time, it wasn’t as special for them, as they live there, and if they’re a little bit older, and like Dying Breed, they’ve seen them twenty times. But for me and my friends from the west coast, it was like, “Okay, this is literally the only chance we’ll ever get to do this.”
What was the band that you’ve toured with that impressed you the most? The one that you had to watch their set, night after night.
I mean, it all comes back to HATEBREED. They were one of the first bands in my life I remember going, “Yeah, this is for me. This is what I want.” As a kid from Connecticut, it was “I want to be Hatebreed. I want to tour with Hatebreed someday.” So getting to do that twice on their Satisfaction Anniversary Tour, you can’t top that for me. I watched that every single night and just getting to know them and befriend them was unbelievable. All this time that I’d been listening to those records and it was just unbelievable that I’ve got the see them played front to back for two tours within six months.
When you were living in Connecticut, did you get to see them a lot? I’m actually not sure what time that was?
That was around Perseverance when I was there, so I was super young. I think it was just about to come out, so it was a huge deal. It was maybe a year or two before Perseverance. They were already prepping for that and doing huge stuff. I saw them in this huge arena-type venue with KITTY, who was huge at the time. I remember it being absolutely insane.
Yeah, that two year period just before Perseverance came out, the band was soooo on point! It was unbelievable.
They were on top of the world! Crazy.
My favorite from that era was their Hellfest 2000, in Syracuse. It was the most insane set that I’ve seen them play and the crowd was nuts! That circle pit during Driven By Suffering probably remains the biggest I’ve seen.
Yeah, legendary.
Is there a band that you’ve always wanted to see live but never got a chance to catch them?
TYPE O NEGATIVE. That would have to be it. Whenever they were here, it was on a school night, and I was just too young. And it was always at some shitty venue in Hollywood, House of Blues or the Roxy or some bullshit. So I couldn’t go there on a Wednesday night in high school.
Is there a song that you’ve always wanted to see live, but whenever you see that band, they never seem to play it?
I guess. Um. It’s kind of deep cut one but I’ve seen MAXIMUM PENALTY a couple of times, and I’ve never seen them play Could You Love Me. That song is a classic to me. I’ll actually listen to it any time, any day. it just makes me feel good.
Is there any classic or universally acclaimed artists that you missed out on when they first came out and discovered way later? Or perhaps something that you even hated at first, but grew to love and become one of your favorites?
I don’t think so. I think I’m a pretty good judge of what I’m gonna like, right off the bat. Sometimes, I know it when I don’t even know. I’ll dislike something for 20 minutes, and I’ll be like, “I’m gonna try that again.” Because I think I’ll actually do like it. It’s never a long process, not like, “what was I thinking years ago?” I haven’t had that experience. I know a lot of people have that experience with Twitching Tongues so I’m kind of on the other side of that, where I’m the one in the band that they figure out they like years later. If I don’t like something, I kind of go out of my way to either convince myself that I don’t like it. “Am I sure that I don’t like this?” Just in case I am missing something. I’m pretty quick with what I like and dislike.
Is there something that you discovered late and were just wondering, “How the hell did I not know about these guys? Where were you all my life?”
There gotta be some of those for me. I would say OASIS was probably one of those big ones for me. Every song on the first four records, I think is perfection, and I definitely didn’t find that until later.
Do you have any unpopular music opinion that you’d like to defend? Something that you truly love, but can hardly find anyone to agree with you?
I like Sammy Hagar’s VAN HALEN, but he’s kind of a fucking turd now so I’m not going to go around people and convince them that it’s good. But it is good. Dio’s SABBATH is great. People are coming around on that too.
I guess I’ll just say ALKALINE TRIO and (???) makes no sense to me. You know, to each their own, the more the merrier, but I’ll never get it. Those are the big two that I just don’t like. They’re very successful so clearly there’s something there for other people.
What band or artists do you believe has achieved the most flawless discography?
In terms of a long discography, no band has been more consistent than BOLT THROWER. They found their stride by their second record and it was just, “Okay, let’s make a better record. Let’s make a better record.” until they made their best record, and now they’re done. It’s just so incredible. They never lost it, they just kept finding it.
Then ALL OUT WAR is another band that never stopped writing great music. Also, I gotta say something that is insane to me. In five years, KING DIAMOND put out in a row, Fatal Portrait in ’86, Abigail in ’87, “Them” in ’88, Conspiracy ’89, The Eye 1990. While touring, while doing all this crazy shit, he managed to write and put out five albums in five years, and they’re all classics. I don’t know that anybody has ever had a better run than that.
We did the same interview with your brother a couple years ago and he said the exact same things. I assume that it’s a conversation that you guys have been having for years, right?
Yeah, we’ve talked about it for years. It’s just so insane. Can you imagine? I mean, things are different now, you didn’t need to record an album a year before it came out. But ’86 to ’90, all in a row, is unprecedented. Non-stop, while touring, while playing shows, that has never been done to that degree of quality.
To the complete opposite side of the spectrum, can you think of a band that put out one fantastic release, then disbanded, who you really wish they would have kept going?
I guess DYING BREED. They were together for a while, but really just did that one LP and that was it.
Although they did have the split with BLOODWAR, but the songs overlap.
There’s the split, and then the We The People comp song. After the LP, there was no other album, and that’s a shame.
Is there any up and coming artists that you’d like to recommend?
I really like AGE OF APOCALYPSE. As I mentioned earlier, their LP is going to be a big deal. Not for everybody but the people that understand that are going to live hard for it, as I am currently doing. I really can’t stress enough how much I’ve been listening to their LP. I can’t wait for it to be out so I can talk about it with people. I’m obsessed with it, I literally can’t physically listen to anything else. I couldn’t sleep the other night ’cause I just wanted to listen to it.
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