The New England Metal and Hardcore Fest kicks off its seventeenth year in just a few weeks, so Chuck and Godless had some questions about the prolific festival for founder Scott Lee. Scott talks about how he picks bands for the festival, the challenges of a changing audience over the past decade, finding the right combination of sponsors and lifestyle groups to make it financially viable without being a giant advertisement, what the landscape of regional festivals looks like, and how that competition shapes his festival and vice versa.

Chuck and Godless also recap their coverage of the story that broke last week about Otep and the alleged sexual assault against her while on tour. Our exclusive interview with her shed quite a bit of light on the controversy, but we reserved our commentary for this week's episode. 

Songs:
The Red Chord - "Blue Line Cretin"
Mantar - "Cult Witness"

Otep Shamaya found herself at the center of controversy this week when her band pulled out of the upcoming Civil Unrest Tour -- also set to feature Ill Nino, 36 Crazyfists and Terror Universal -- because the singer of Terror Universal allegedly "violently grabbed my crotch on our last tour."

Since then, accusations have been flying every which way. Ill Nino and the tour's organizers both issued statements on the matter, as did the wife of Terror Universal's singer (although, interestingly, no one in the band has yet commented publicly), and Otep herself shared additional details via Twitter.

In this special edition of the MetalSucks Podcast, host Chuck Loesch speaks with Otep directly to clear up all the details surrounding the incident: what happened, when it happened, and what the future holds. Otep shares all sorts of new details about the incident, including the revelation that Dave Chavarri, a longtime personal friend of Otep's and the drummer for Ill Nino, is also the drummer AND manager of Terror Universal, creating a stark conflict of interest. 

Drummer Hannes Grossmann of Alkaloid (Ex-Obscura, ex-Necrophagist) guests this week. We talk about the differences between being a session drummer and a band member, how to admit you wrote something that sucks, how playing fast is no excuse for bad songwriting, why he left Obscura and when the Necrophagist record will be coming out.

Chuck and Godless were consumed by SXSW this week but they still found the time to get some discussion topics together. Can Slipknot live forever? They discuss if bands should keep going without original members of the band or if the personnel are too critical to a band's identity. They also declare a winner for SXSW and it was not a headliner of any showcase, but rather something more special.

Songs:
Alkaloid - "Cthulhu"
Fallujah - "Allure"

Mlny Parsonz from Royal Thunder guests on the podcast with Chuck and Godless this week. We discover her surprising history with religion and spirituality, her theory on songwriting and life, her Jesus tattoos, how she's learned to look forward instead of linger on bad situations and what frightens her most about the world.

Doc Coyle joins for another segment of Rejecting the Sickness to talk about some of his latest musings in his new VH1 column. We hash out whether being a metal puritan is a real thing and if it's a liability to the genre as a whole.

Chuck can't seem to understand how neither Vince or Godless know that much about porn, or at least Mia Khalifa, one of the biggest female stars on PornHub right now. This of course after she popped up wearing a death metal t-shirt and gave us all a rise.

Chuck and Godless invite Editor-in-Chief of Decibel Magazine Albert Mudrian onto the podcast to talk about the new version of his book Choosing Death, with updated chapters on the past decade of death and grind. Albert also speculates on the future of metal; where are we headed? what might be the next hot trend? is there even any room for that nonsense anymore?

Eyal Levi drops in again for another installment of One Minute to Midnight, the segment designed to let you hear new and unsigned bands try and make an impression on one of the best producers/engineers in the industry.

Chuck and Godless will be hosting a panel at SXSW called "The Art of the Interview" in which they'll discuss the process of, the work that goes into and how to conduct a decent interview. You'll get a brief preview of the panel's subject matter here after That Metal Show apparently gave Ted Nugent a pass on the tough questions.

That Metal Show co-host Don Jamieson is our guest this week. We talk about season fourteen of the show, how and why VH1 decided to put some metal into their programming line-up, who the best and worst guests have been and why they don't seem to offer much in the way of newer metal on the program.

Chuck and Godless talk about the weekend controversy with Dimebag Darrell's grave site desecration, the band or band member responsible for the act and why his apology probably won't fly in Texas.

MetalSucks Co-Founder Vince Neilstein jumps in to talk about his recent post on the major label acquisition of Century Media. What does it mean to metal in general, for other labels and for the bands on CM's roster? Could it be a good thing to dissolve yet another metal major, or does it signal a decline in metal overall?

Songs:
Pantera - "5 Minutes Alone"
Melechesh - "Multiple Truths"