A few weeks ago, Metal Blade records launched Metal Blade TV, a Web site dedicated to not only artists on the label, but pretty much anything heavy. While there are plenty of quality metal blogs and sites already out there (*cough*), the new site aims to go behind the scenes of Metal Blade, with Chairman/CEO Brian Slagel doing many of the interviews. Right now, there are features with Armored Saint cooking, Charred Walls of the Damned being interviewed, and videos from the likes of Unearth and Lizzy Borden. We caught up with Slagel to speak about the concept behind Metal Blade TV and future plans for the site.
What’s the thinking behind launching Metal Blade TV?
We wanted to really show as much content to our fans as we could. Since all this great new technology exists we really wanted to use it as best we felt we could.
You’ve already hired one person to shoot video for the site. How many more people do you think will wind up working for the site?
We are working with a lot of different people as well as our artists to get as much new and fresh content as we can. Now that Metal Blade TV exists we are working on making it as good as we can.
Metal Blade TV is an online entity at this point in time. Do you envision it eventually becoming a TV show?
That would be great if it can happen. It is a possibility for sure in the future. Right now we just want to make it a cool place for metal heads to see stuff online.
Why has the metal music video essentially disappeared from television?
I think these things are somewhat cyclical. We have had 2 great runs of shows like Headbangers Ball which is great and it still is there. With the advent of better quality and on-demand options on the internet, it makes a lot of sense that people can see things there instead of just TV. Plus it is hard to get TV viewers to spend 4 or 5 minutes with a music video. That said, there are still a lot of options on regular TV for people to see music videos.
If you don’t envision Metal Blade TV being just about Metal Blade artists, what do you see it becoming?
All of us here are really big Metal fans first and foremost. So we really want to have stuff other than just Metal Blade artists on here. I don’t want it to just be a record company promoting our stuff. I want it to be much more than that and just a really cool site people can come check out all sorts of metal oriented content.
What does this mean for other TV outlets or Web sites that want to interview Metal Blade artists? Will Metal Blade TV always get the exclusive?
No not at all, in fact since we are creating so much content we will be able to get that out to other metal sites too. Plus we want everyone to link to the content we have. We all want to work closely with all the other outlets to really promote the genre of metal as best we all can.
These videos are all on YouTube embedded players. Why should someone go to Metal Blade TV to see the content as opposed to YouTube?
Of course they can just go to YouTube. We just wanted a landing page to help people to navigate all the stuff we have.
What about the rare live clips the press release teased? Are these from your own archives, or professionally shot?
Both really. I have a ton of old stuff and want to start to get that out there for people to see. Plus we will link to other stuff that already exists that people may not know about.
