Roadrunner United - TheAll-Star Sessions

Tue 4th Oct, 2005 in International News

To mark the independent Dutch record label, Roadrunner Records’ 25th Anniversary – a label synonymous with releasing some of the greatest contemporary metal and hard-rock albums to date, Roadrunner decided to combine all the talents on their roster (past and present) into a kaleidoscope of metal and hard rock to form an album called Roadrunner United – The All-Star Sessions. FasterLouder recently sat down with Trivium’s Matt Heafy and Slipknot’s Joey Jordison in America.

The concept? Four team captains lead a musical team of their contemporaries to create original songs. For many of the artists involved, this was a side-project from their daily commitments of their bands. The end result is a collaboration of over fifty-six artists and forty-five bands working in unison to create this insurmountable album.

“Basically what happened was that the label decided they want to take four captains, from past and present Roadrunner line-ups and write any songs. There were no guidelines to what kind of songs, what genre. Just these four people will pick any musicians to write four to five songs.” Trivium’s Matt Heafy explains.

Heafy is one of four Roadrunner artists who were asked to head the musical project, along with other team captains, Joey Jordison (Slipknot), Dino Cazares (ex-Fear Factory/Brujeria), and Robert Flynn (Machine Head).

The ambitious All-Star Sessions project is the brainchild of renowned metal A&R legend, Monte Conner, who is also responsible for signing King Diamond, Sepultura, Type O Negative, Fear Factory and Slipknot into the Roadrunner family, as well as uniting his artists together to work on this album.

“Monte Conner had approached me about the project when I was on tour with Metallica.” recalls Slipknot’s Joey Jordison, “I thought it was a great idea because I respected so many people through the history of Roadrunner and I grew up like buying almost everything that donned their logo so, I was totally flattered when he asked me to do it.”

Some of the other artists involved in the All-Star Sessions project include, Acey Slade (Murderdolls), Paul Gray (Slipknot), Andreas Kisser (Sepultura), Rhys Fulber (Fear Factory), Howard Jones (Killswitch Engage), Max Cavalera (Soulfly), Keith Caputo (Life Of Agony), Glen Benton (Deicide) and Daryl Palumbo (Glassjaw).

“I picked who I thought would fit the style best”, says Heafy “I got Michale Graves from The Misfits for the punk song, Dani Filth from Cradle of Filth for the black metal song, Jesse (Jesse David Leach) from Killswitch Engage for the southern rock/stoner rock song -he’s in a blues rock band now, so I got him, and obviously King Diamond can handle anything metal!”

Jordison took a slightly different approach, “I wrote all the songs prior to bringing everyone in. With Slipknot we all sit there and it can take us sometimes, a couple of months for us to finish one song… but other times we finish one in like five minutes or so. With this project I handled all the writing myself, so I already envisioned how I wanted it to go, so, you go with it you know. The song I did with Peter Steele (Type O Negative) was a lot different. He really took it and edited it, and changed it up. Everybody definitely put their stamp on it. It wasn’t like, I did everything myself, cause I got to definitely work with some amazing people and they definitely delivered on the tracks and made them killer.”

The All-Star Sessions not only delivers an album that showcases the other side of artists that we haven’t had the opportunity to see before, but it also exemplifies the bond and respect that these artists have for each other which stems beyond the description of being a label-mate.

“It was great, you know. Man, everybody was down with it and totally respected what I’d done. Which, we all have a mutual respect for each other anyway and I just really liked working with a whole lot of different people, because I just get to learn a lot” says Jordison enthusiastically.

This album showcases the many various talents on Roadrunner’s roster and is a testament of how strong the bond between record label and bands can be. The All-Star Sessions encapsulates the sentiments of what it is to be on the Roadrunner label and exemplifies the way labels and artists can work together to build something unique, original and genre defining.