{"id":10455,"date":"2012-11-07T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=10455"},"modified":"2012-11-01T09:12:14","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T13:12:14","slug":"blowin-wind-with-sam-dunn-of-banger-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=10455","title":{"rendered":"Blowin\u2019 Wind w\/ Sam Dunn of Banger Films: \u201cOur intention was to paint a different picture about metal than what had been painted before.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In 2005, Sam Dunn brought the world of heavy metal to the big screen with his documentary Metal: A Headbanger\u2019s Journey finally sharing the history of heavy metal in way that had never been done before. Sam and his company Banger Films have since gone on to release some award winning documentaries such as Iron Maiden\u2019s Flight 666 and the Rush documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage. Banger Films also released an 11 episode series called Metal Evolution which took A Headbanger\u2019s Journey a step further as it dissected various subgenres of metal and explored its history.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sam recently took time out of his extremely busy schedule to talk with me about what it was like working with Iron Maiden, his past projects, and his future projects in the works such as an extreme metal episode of Metal Evolution, a documentary on Alice Cooper, and a documentary exploring Satan and Satanism in popular culture. I hope you\u2019ll enjoy getting to know a little bit more about Sam Dunn.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi Sam. This is Don from the Great Southern Brainfart. How are you today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m doing very good. How are you doing today?<\/p>\n

================================================<\/p>\n

I\u2019m doing great. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me today.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No worries. Forgive me for not knowing but is this an audio interview or radio or what?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

================================================<\/p>\n

Actually, I\u2019m old school man. I transcribe everything verbatim and edit for posting on my blog.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh ok. That\u2019s cool. If you\u2019re transcribing it I\u2019ll try not to talk too fast. I tend to talk a lot so just tell me to slow down if you need me to [laughs].<\/p>\n

================================================<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sam, I absolutely love your work. You\u2019re pretty much doing the things that guys like me wish we could be out doing. The first time I saw your work was on Metal: A Headbanger\u2019s Journey<\/em>. How long in the making was that project? That was a really extensive piece of work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott McFayden and I both run Banger Films and we direct and produce together. We met back in 90\u2019s in the music scene. Back in 1999 or 2000 I originally wanted to write a book about the history of heavy metal because I didn\u2019t feel that there was a really good comprehensive history of the genre. Scott was working as a music supervisor in film and television and said, \u201cWhat about a documentary? Has there ever been a really good documentary done on heavy metal music?\u201d We discovered basically that there wasn\u2019t and we were surprised. It was literally five years in total to do everything from raising the financing to filming, editing, and releasing the film. It was a really long journey and we got laughed out of a lot of board rooms when we walked and saying that we wanted to do a serious film about metal music [laughs]. Eventually we got there and it turned out that a lot of other people really wanted it to happen as well.<\/p>\n

================================================<\/p>\n

I always felt that metal fans were painted as being meatheads and burnouts when for the most part we are an open minded and really intelligent group of people. Was your intention to paint a more positive image of metal fans and the bands in general?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, our intention was to paint a different picture about metal than what had been painted before. Prior to Metal: A Headbanger\u2019s Journey<\/em>, the only films that were about metal was Spinal Tap, Wayne\u2019s World, and Decline of the Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years<\/em>. Even a documentary like Decline<\/em>, although groundbreaking in a sense, only got a small snapshot of what metal was about. When I saw all these glam metal guys hanging with tons of chicks on Sunset Strip, I said, \u201cThis isn\u2019t the metal that I know. This isn\u2019t like my experience as a metalhead.\u201d I think inevitably it was going to be a positive picture because we knew that metal always got the short end of the stick. There was never a good film to kind of understand why people are attracted to this music and why people are so passionate about making it.<\/p>\n

================================================<\/p>\n

I remember seeing the Decline<\/em> movie back in like 1988 and I can remember thinking, \u201cMost of these guys are pretty dumb. Is this who I\u2019m going to be compared to?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] One of the things that we really wanted to point out is that most of the guys that I hung out with in high school that listened to metal were not burnouts. They were really into music, art, and even sports. It\u2019s just that metal was the kind of music that they loved. That was the metal community that I grew up in and we just wanted to make a film that reflected that.<\/p>\n

================================================<\/p>\n

I loved that in Metal: A Headbangers Journey<\/em> that there was some attention to the detail of the fans themselves. It wasn\u2019t just about the bands and I was curious to hear from your perspective, how much metal fans have changed over the years if at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was really important for us to talk about the fans because we were shocked at how many music documentaries you see and there\u2019s not really anything about the fans. The fans are just kind of treated as pawns who worship their musical heroes with no real opinions or ideas of their own. As you know, metal fans are highly opinionated and generally very knowledgeable about the music they listen to so that was a real important part of our movie. In terms of fans changing, I think the main thing that has happened is that metal has become a bigger part of the musical fabric. It\u2019s still underground but a lot more people know about it now. It\u2019s just the nature of media and how much access people have to music. You find kids who listen to a little bit of metal, some hip hop, some DJ music or whatever. When I was a teenager it was tribe against tribe. You were either a metalhead, or a pop fan, or a skater, or a jock. You really couldn\u2019t be all at once [laughs]. I think now it\u2019s changed. You\u2019ll see some kids at a Lamb of God show and they may not listen to metal 24\/7 but they still go to the shows and listen to certain metal bands.<\/p>\n

================================================<\/p>\n

Sam, you did so many interviews throughout the course of your journey from Metal: A Headbanger\u2019s Journey<\/em> to now.\u00a0 Are there any particular ones that you look back on and are disappointed that they turned out the way they did?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, there\u2019s a few. When you do 300 interviews, they\u2019re not all going to be great [laughs]. That\u2019s just the law of averages. I was a disappointed when we interviewed Andy Johns who is a well known producer. He worked on some of the early Led Zeppelin records and because we couldn\u2019t\u2019 get any of the guys in Led Zeppelin, this was about as close as we could get. It was just unfortunate because I don\u2019t think he really understood who we were or what we were doing and frankly, he didn\u2019t seem to care. I remember walking out that one thinking, \u201cWow, that might have been a complete waste of time.\u201d [laughs]<\/p>\n

================================================<\/p>\n

How about the flip side of that question? Were there any interviews that maybe you didn\u2019t expect too much out of and they ended up exceeding your expectations?<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the best, most surprising interviews we did was with Arthur Brown, the British rock performance artist from the 60\u2019s. He\u2019s a musician that I don\u2019t think a lot of people in North American know much about but he was really doing some spectacular things in his live performances long before Alice Cooper or Kiss was. We went to London to meet with him and we talked about what he did and I was just blown away by how progressive he was. He had this helmet that he would light on fire and he just didn\u2019t seem to care about what else was going on around him. Musically, he did his own thing. He was super articulate and super friendly so I definitely learned a lot. I really learned a lot while making this series, especially about older bands that I may have over looked when I was just a thrash obsessed teenager in the 80\u2019s [laughs]. There\u2019s some great old stuff out there.<\/p>\n

================================================\"\"<\/a><\/strong>
\n Sam, you\u2019ve got a new project in the works these days. What can you tell me about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, our latest project was the 11 episode show Metal Evolution<\/em> on the history of metal which did really well. We got a lot of response from the fans who felt that one of the genres that was missing was extreme metal and we agreed. I\u2019m a fan of that heavier end of the spectrum and the networks just found it too heavy for viewership. We\u2019ve launched an Indie Go Go<\/strong><\/a> campaign to raise money to create the extreme metal episode because the fans want it and we want it too. The heavy metal family tree was the spine of the Metal Evolution series broken down into 26 sub genres and we did 11 of them.<\/p>\n

================================================<\/p>\n

While I\u2019m not a fan of extreme metal myself, I can respect and appreciate its importance to the genre. Why was it that VH1 Classics couldn\u2019t see that enough to back you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We originally proposed an extreme metal episode when we approached them about making the series but they felt that their viewership is generally a little older. Their sweet spot is like KISS, Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, and even Metallica so thrash was about as heavy as they wanted to go. We felt that for young metal fans, extreme metal is heavy metal to them and what they are most excited about. Also, the series is about the evolution of heavy metal and the influences that connect one band to the next and one scene to the next. It just seemed ludicrous to us that there wasn\u2019t an episode on extreme metal because extreme metal is really the sub genre that is pushing metal forward and testing the limits of metal music. The story of metal evolution just feels incomplete without it.<\/p>\n

================================================<\/p>\n

So why take this to the fans to get their support in making this episode?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I guess it just seems to make sense because extreme metal is the most underground sub genre of metal. If there is one sub genre that needs to come from the grassroots, it\u2019s extreme metal. We put it out there and said to metal fans, \u201cIf you all really want to see this, then we\u2019re all going to have to chip in to make it happen.\u201d If we had the money to just pull out of our pockets and make this episode we would but the fact of the matter is that we can\u2019t do that. We literally move from one project to the next.<\/p>\n