Metal Church’s "Congregation of Annihilation" Is Back In Session (Interview)

After the recent passing of iconic vocalist Mike Howe in 2021, most fans might have written off Metal Church for good. However, the band have survived death before, always returning stronger than ever, while keeping the Metal Church name alive.

Marc Lopes (Ross the Boss, Let Us Prey) took over as the new vocalist in the summer of 2022, during which time guitarist/founder Kurdt Vanderhoof gave some serious thought before reassembling the band. If he was going to rebrand the band, then he needed a vocalist who could fit the bill. The band also includes bassist Steve Unger, guitarist Rick van Zandt, and drummer Stet Howland.

Having just returned from a European tour with Ross the Boss, Lopes spoke with us about how he landed the Metal Church gig, the recording of the new album, his ambitions with the band and its enduring legacy.

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A lot of people are excited that you got the Metal Church gig. After the recent passing of Mike Howe, it seemed that the band would have to call it quits. How were you asked to join the band?

I have known Stet for 30-plus years because he’s a local guy here in Massachusetts. We’ve always stayed in touch and hung out. Steve, the bass player, I got to know him through Stet, and he would come out to Ross the Boss shows, and he was always a fan of my work. And we had always said we’re going to do something together. They had approached me once about possibly doing last minute fill-in stuff for some festivals because, for some reason, Mike was possibly not going to be able to do it. It never happened, but that’s where the ball started to roll with them having me in mind to do stuff.

Once the passing of Mike happened, I was just like everybody else, I thought they were done. They’re not going to go on any further. How much more tragedy can this band deal with? When I did get a phone call, it was exciting, shocking, and a really weird mixed feeling because I didn’t think they were going to continue. I knew that it was a huge responsibility to carry on such an esteemed legacy, and I think that was the thing I was worried about the most. That’s why it took so long to get things going. We wanted to make sure that if we were going to do anything, that I was going to be right.

What’s your overall feelings of stepping into a band of this caliber with such a reputation for having incredible vocalists in the past?

I was hesitant at first because it’s a huge responsibility. Being as I’m a fan, first and foremost, it’s always tough for fans to go through a transition for something new. But in this case, it was interesting because it’s not like when a band like Queensrÿche or Judas Priest replaced their singers—Their singers were still around. Some might think, I wish this person was back or that person was back. But with these people, they couldn’t come back. So in order for the band to go forward, it had to go into a different era.

There was a lot of conversation before anything was green lit. I knew that I was a bigger fan of the David Wayne era, and I was more stylistically geared towards that era. There’s a lot of great stuff in the Mike era, but that was different for me growing up. That was one topic of discussion for sure. And once we started writing, it didn’t start like that. But once we started to go, Kurt realized that we’re definitely better suited going in the old school direction with a little bit of a modern twist, which is what I added to it with my own element. I kept the feeling in the respect and the vibe of Metal Church, but I also wanted to bring it into a different, modern era and give it a little bit of just my own taste of it to leave my mark. But in the realm of what the band has done over the years.

Your vocals on Congregation Of Annihilation sound like you’re channeling a comfortable spot between David Wayne and Mike Howe. It sounds like you’re honoring, respecting, and paying homage to both of them. What were you trying to achieve on these tracks?

I dug really deep into the past material and learned the style, learned the nooks and crannies of all of what was going on. I did a really deep study. Kurdt and I would talk every day. It was very organic. I knew what I wanted to do; I knew what I was looking for; I could hear it. And Kurdt was amazing because he gave me the freedom to do what I wanted. Which, from what I heard, he’s never done that before. So, that was pretty wild. I was very fortunate that I fit, I understood it and I just did what I did. Writing wise, I was conscious of certain things. But at the same time, I still just did what I felt naturally to do.

What was the songwriting process like, and how involved were you? Was Kurdt sending files back and forth, or did you have the opportunity to all get together and properly jam?

No, I wish. We did everything remote. The circumstances didn’t allow for that, it was a very unique situation. I was involved heavily with everything. When we started writing, the batch of songs that I got were all songs that were written with the intention of Mike recording the record. There were no vocals written; there were no vocal melodies written at all. It was just skeletons of songs.

The material was way more hard rock based, which put me in a panic mode because that’s not my thing. There were a couple of tunes that were a little bit heavier, and I made them heavier. That was part of my audition. It was either going to work or it wasn’t going to work, and they loved it. That’s the direction we headed into, and we ended up writing a bunch of new stuff. That’s why you’ve got a much heavier record. That was all intentional.

For the lyrical content, what were some of your inspirations?

The initial nine songs on the record—it’s not a concept record—but they’re conceptually together. Meaning, there was a feel that we wanted for the record, and they were the nine songs. The bonus tracks were just fun things that we had done because they were riffs from the other batch of songs that I thought were really cool. I wanted to experiment with that stuff, but I didn’t think it fit with the main theme of the Congregation Of Annihilation. We had this vibe we were going for. It’s a very ambiguous, metaphorical point of view of the world we live in today. The title pretty much is us being puppets to the masters of everything that’s going on around the world, and how people are very unaware of their surroundings. How blind and misleading things are, and it’s not for the betterment of all, it’s for the betterment of a few.

I think it has a lot to do with one’s own faith—and not just religious beliefs. But even the title and songs such as “Pick a God and Prey” and “Say a Prayer with 7 Bullets” tie in with the album cover. I know you’re a graphic designer; did you create this cover?

No, I created four different album covers, not knowing that that was already being done. I wasn’t part of that process. Kurdt and I had discussed a couple of things, and then they went off in their own direction. I didn’t know that, so I went and created my own versions of the album. Because they didn’t really know how amazing I am as an artist.

Well, I do, because I know you created the recent Ross the Boss album cover.

I actually really loved it. I loved the vibe, and the cover was perfect. I like to play on words, and I came up with the concept because obviously, Metal Church… I wanted to play off of that with the congregation and the annihilation really flowed. I’m a firm believer that my faith is the faith of common sense. And my belief is, just don’t be a piece of shit kind of person. Just be good. I don’t have any political point of view; I don’t have any kind of religious point of view.

My point of view of all of it is ambiguous because I think it’s open for interpretation to the listener. I like it better that way. Maybe a song like “Say a Prayer with 7 Bullets” is very sarcastic. It’s kind of like a snarly play on words. If you read the lyrics, it’s blatantly done like that. I just wanted to tie everything together, and it’s all symbolism. There’s some deep-seeded stuff in there. But again, it’s up to the person of how they interpret it.

For the production, of course Kurdt was handling the knobs once again. What’s his regimen behind the board? What were you wanting to achieve sonically for the overall sound and mix of the album?

I recorded the vocals myself because I do that stuff, too. We were going for more of a modern, heavy vibe but still keeping the Metal Church sound that he has been going for over the last couple of records. That was probably the only point of contention that we all had, was the sound of the record. I come from a totally different school. So, my perspective of that was definitely different than his, but I think we came to a happy compromise.

What’s your expectations for the band and the working/touring relationship? What do you hope to achieve or accomplish with Metal Church?

Part of our agreement that me and Kurdt made was that we were going to make Metal Church bigger and better than ever, all or nothing. I wouldn’t say rebranding, but we’re rebuilding the business. We’re rebuilding the brand because it’s a new era. We have so many years of great legacy material, but we want to go forward as best as we can and be relevant. It was very exciting when Liquid Metal started spinning the song three, four times a day alongside with all the more newer modern bands and also the contemporaries like Exodus, Testament, and Overkill, who are still putting out great material as well.

That’s what we want to be. I feel that that’s what we achieved, and I think the future is brighter because we can be still relevant but yet still have the legacy of all the great material just like all those bands. That was the idea. We’re not just going to make a record to have a new record like a lot of bands do out there. We want to make a record that’s going to mean something and also have the old catalog. Because there is no David Wayne, and there is no Mike Howe to go back to. So, you have to go forward. That was the concept from day one; if we’re going to do this, we have to go forward. And that’s the only reason why Kurdt agreed to do it, because that was the concept of going forward. We weren’t going to go backward. Because if it goes backward, what’s the point of doing it? We can’t live in the past. And as much as we all love it, and we will always honor, respect it, and carry on, you still have to go forward.

Congregation Of Annihilation was released on May 26 through Rat Pak Records. Get the album here.