Rock N Roll Experience - Dope/Manntis

Saturday, June 24, 2006...to set the scene for the day..generally speaking, it was a standard, average Summer day....it was sunny, warm, & since it was the weekend, there was a chance of a storm! Actually, there was a flash flood warning for the state of Maryland, & from where I was coming from, It was insane! The majority of the main highways had spots that were flooded out & Route 40 East was in terrible shape...there must have been 4 inches+ of water in many flooded out spots, & the traffic was slow, & even on the 95 Beltway, there was spots that were flooded out, & it made travel time miserable when I was heading over to the Recher Theatre to check out the Dope/Manntis show.

I was scheduled to interview Manntis at 7 PM, but due to the bad weather I ended up doing my interview after the doors opened at like 8:15 PM, & luckily, the bands tour manager & the band were very easy going & it was not a problem! You can check out my interview with Jake & Adair at the bottom of this review...I wanted to offer up my review of the show first:

Manntis were direct support for Dope, & they took the stage with a passion & fury that was every bit old school metal with modern metal mixed in...Adair came out wailing away on his guitar, playing a crazy guitar solo, & the band stormed behind him & thus, the Manntis show was started! The band played close to an hour & they rocked out with more than 1/2 of their "Sleep In Your Grave" CD & they even played 2 new songs as well! I enjoyed the little guitar solo/break in the set where Adair & Jeremy got to let loose a little bit & play some straight up guitar's...it's really what has been missing at rock shows for a long time..few bands take guitar solo's & allow their guitarists to show what they can do!

Manntis's set was as intense as you could get for a metal band..they came, they saw & they kicked ass, & now it was time for Dope to end the show. Initially, I thought that Makeshift Romeo was going to do a set, then Dope would close, BUT, the way the show worked was, in the middle of Dope's set, Makeshift Romeo does 3 songs & then Dope finished the show. For the Makeshift Romeo set, Edsel plays drums, & it was interesting to see him play drums, because I never knew he was a good drummer!

Dope's set included several medleys & shortened version of songs, including "Debonair", "You Spin Me Round", & the closer "Bitch". Edsel was plated a Dimebag model Dimebolt which has a confederate flag on it, & the glue that really held Dope together was Virus..that guy is un-stoppable!

All in all, I would have to say that this was one of the best Dope concerts I have ever seen...during "F*ck the Police", members from all of the bands came out, including Adair, Jake & the Makeshift Romeo guys, & sang the chorus of "F*ck the Police" which was interesting to see. Edsel addressed something that I've always said about Dope's live show while he was onstage, & that is, everyone always says Dope do not play long enough, & because of this, Edsel & the boys made their set longer, & they actually played just about every song you'd really wanna hear....they covered every CD pretty well, & I wanna note that their intro music is the theme music to the Soprano's!

Okay....so I had the opportunity to interview Manntis, & here's what the guys had to say: Rock N Roll Experience: How is Wayne from Bleed the Sky doing?

Jake: Wayne is still in the hospital..he's not getting any worse

Adair: He just broke his fever though

Jake: Yeah..he just broke his fever..I talked to the guys earlier & he's doing okay...we're really good friends with them...we've known those guys for years, so it's really hard...we started off as an un-signed band with them in Southern California...hopefully when he gets better they will come back. Rock N Roll Experience: How was the Anthrax tour?

Adair: Fucking Phenominal dude...it was out of this world. We actually got hooked up with another show with them that we are gonna play when we get home, so they asked us to play & we are pretty stoked about that.

Jake: That's pretty cool to be hand picked by Anthrax to do another show

Rock N Roll Experience: Is that a cover of Megadeth's "Sweating Bullets" that you were playing in your live show?

Adair: Yeah, yeah..we do it every now & again...sometimes I fucking throw it in there dude just for shits & giggles & it worked pretty well on the Anthrax tour because there was lots of old school metal dudes there.

Jake: It's fun & it sounds good

Rock N Roll Experience: Are you playing any covers in your live set?

Adair: No, we are not actually.

Jake: There is a guitar solo that him (Adiar ) & D-Rock do that is kinda cool & it kinda gives us a break & they can shred for a little bit

Adair: Yeah..we are playing 2 new songs too.

Rock N Roll Experience: Really..what are the names of the 2 new songs?

Adair: "Pray for What You've Got" & "Heaven Hurting", so yeah..we just got those 2 aquared away before we left for the tour & it's fun to be able to play some different songs live & we've been playing these songs for days now, so..

Rock N Roll Experience: Have you recorded the new songs yet?

Adair: No, just like bullshit home recording, but like nothing in the studio or anything.

Jake: We'll get in the studio some time in November for a Spring release, but the album title is "Master of Ceremonies"

Rock N Roll Experience: Is there any reason why the new CD will be called Master of Ceremonies?

Jake: We just love to party man

Adair: Everything we do has to do with like..we are like pirates & shit like that...we call our RV the HMS Revenge & we just fucking plunder & pillage.

Rock N Roll Experience: What does the HMS Revenge mean?

Adair: Uh..I don't know dude, we are just a bucnh of fucking pirates

Jake: We are just idiots

Adair: Ha ha, we are fucking pirates..that's what it means!

Rock N Roll Experience: What does the title "Sleep in Your Grave" mean?

Jake: Party...partying again..it was a saying that Clint, our bass player, used to say when someone was passing out...he was like, they aint got time to sleep, sleep in your fucking grave, & that is what me lyrics are about..everyday shit & shit like that, so

Adair: It's pretty much been our motto dude...

Jake: It keeps us going

Rock N Roll Experience: Do you get annoyed being referred to as "that band from Battle for Ozzfest"?

Adair: Yeah ha ha, I mean it was cool, but we just wanna try to walk away from it, I mean we've done so much since then & we've done so many things that have nothing to do with it, you know what I mean? Like all the stuff that we've worked so hard on by ourselves, I mean it wasn't handed to us, so yeah, it did give us some really good exposure & we met some fucking rad people & other than that, we just try to stay away from it & mainly because the show didn't have anything to do with our fucking band....it got our faces out there a little bit & we met some cool people..that was pretty much it...thank you Sharon!

Rock N Roll Experience: What's next for Manntis after the Dope tour?

Adair: I don't know..we just..we submitted for a couple other tours, like Soulfly might be going out again...we just went out with thos guys on the West Coast & it was amazing...we are tryng to get back up on that, because we were only with them fr a couple of weeks, & after that we will probably take the rest of the year off & write a couple more songs & hit pre-production in the studio & go do the new album.

Rock N Roll Experience: How involved are you with your web site?

Jake: I try to get on there as much as I can, but I don't know anything about all of the codes & all of that kind of shit...I try to update the news as much as possible...we just finally got the photo's changed...it was hard, because Mike Miller from A Dozen Furies, the old drummer. is the one who actually built the website, so we was in the touring band as well...it was really hard to get him to, like call him, & say Hey Dude, can you change this & can you change that & we need this new bio, but yeah, I am on the forums as much as possible, I am on MySpace everyday, so yeah, I'm pretty involved...I basically check all of the mail & do all that part, while these guys write awesome guitar riffs.

Adair: Jake normally handles all of the internet stuff while we are either fucking with our guitars, changing strings, because we are our own guitar techs & YEAH HA HA HA HA

Jake: Ha ha ha

(Note: D-Rock walks in the room with nothing on but a sock on his penis)

Adair: D-Rock is naked by the way

Jake: Yeah..D-Rock just came in with a sock over his dick & is changing into his shitty assed cloths.

D-Rock: I had no idea you guys were doing an interview man.

Rock N Roll Experience: Red Hot Chili Peppers dude ha ha

Jake: Exactley ha ha

Adair: ha ha ha

Jake: (Speaking to D-Rock) Do you want a beer, a cigarette? Everything good?

Rock N Roll Experience: Do you have a producer in mind for the new record?

Jake: We don't...it's up in the air...we are gonnabe very picky about it just because this next album is gonna be really important..hopefully it'll be a life changer, something that we can tour off of for the next 2 years, get a couple of music videos out of it...it'll be kick ass & we will pick the right person when it's done.

Rock N Roll Experience: What is the last concert you went to see?

Adair: We saw Sammy Hagar with the Waborita's...it was fucking amazing...Michael Anthony from Van Halen plays bass for him now...well, what they did, like Sammy did his thing with the Waborita's for the first hour & then they close the curtain & they all come back out & then they play a bunch of Van Halen songs with Michael Anthony & it was fucking insane dude!

Jake: The last show we actually tried going to was when we were on the Soulfly tour & we were in Sacramento & we were trying to go see Avenged Sevenfold & we partied with those guys once before in Boston & we didn't have any contact with them, but we just knew they were playing &...

Adair: We are familiar with them, like everytime we see them we say, hey, what's up.

Jake: We were gonna roll in & surprise them & say, hey, what's up & get drunk with them & by the time we got there, we were completley smashed & they were already like 20 minutes in their set & we ended up getting in with out laminates through some security guards who had known us..we were playing the night after & as soon as we get in there, this guy (Adair) is fucking hammered, he's marching backstage & all of a sudden security dudes see him & start man handing him & he's like, Get the Fuck off me & Funny man is in there & he ends up getting a left hook to his eye...I'm setting outside having a cigarette the whole time & I'm seeing these walk to the other side & I'm like, what are you guys doing outside now dude? They are like, fuck that...Avenged Sevenfold has no idea this even happened..the whole time they are reading this, they are probably like, what the fuck man....those guys were there? Because they are cool dudes..they've offered us to come to plenty of shows so... Rock N Roll Experience: So was it Avenged Sevenfold's crew that man handled you guys?

Adair: Yeah....it was Avenged Sevenfolds..

Jake: It was probably their security

Adair: It was like, all of the venue people were cool, because we had our Soulfly passes & they were like, oh, you guys with the purple passes are cool & they let us walk through, so we were like, let's go backstage & like, they had already kicked us out of backstage once, so we were just like...there were like 10 of us, so it was hard to stop & all of a sudden we got backstage & they swarmed us, likebefore I knew it, my feet were off the ground & I was being thrown out the door & we were like screaming.

Jake: Yeah, so that goes to any band out there that knows we have a night off wherever we are playing...expect to see out faces coming with a bottle of whiskey

Adair: And tell your security guards not to kick our asses man

Jake: We'll bring alcohol! ha ha

I can't thank the Manntis guys & their tour manager enough..it was a great time & the band puts on an amazing rock show, as does Dope, so when this tour rolls through your area, make sure to check it out! RETURN TO MAIN PAGE.