RAGINPIT MAGAZINE

I have had the unique pleasure of witnessing this band grow and mature over the last year. As with any good band, you go through growth and experience and the good times and the bad. The sign of a truly good band is when you stick with what you believe in and in the midst of living in such a complicated world with all its stressors, a truly dedicated band will hang in there. That band who I am describing is Diesel Finger.

These guys hail from Redwood City, CA and are on the fast track in sharing their unique sound with the world. I say unique because like many bands I have seen that sound the same, Diesel Finger offer up a plate of whoop ass hardcore Rock! They remind me of Motorhead, peppered with some Black Label Society, and then garnished with some Reverend Horton Heat. For the main course and major sound influence, the band Honky reigns supreme. A nice platter of sounds I must say. So go check these guys out and eat them up! I promise you, you will be fully content with what they will serve you. Don't forget to have a nice cocktail afterward.

The line up includes:

Steve Henderson - Bass player and fellow Raginpit colleague/staff writer

Chuck Johnson - Skin basher and beat keeper

Bryan Analla - Lead guitar and a major King Diamond fan

I sat down with Steve to find out what Diesel Finger is all about.

Your band was initially called Nevuary and you have recently gone through a name change. What prompted you to change your name and how did you come up with the new name?

Steve: Well, a couple of things contributed to the name change. The first reason was that people had a hard time pronouncing it and then we were constantly asked what the hell it meant, which is - a time that never was; so to me that name would have better suited us if we were a prog rock band which we were not.

We chose the name Nevuary after we found out that there was a band in Canada that had the rights to Skrote the name we were using at the time. We had a show coming up and needed to use something for the flyers, so Nevuary is what we came up with. Let that be a lesson to you guys that have bands out there that haven't bothered getting the rights to your name yet, otherwise you may find yourselves with a bunch of merchandise and shows under your belt with a name you cannot use.

Diesel Finger came from the demented mind of Brian Analla our guitar player/ lead vocals. We had discussed a time or two in the past about having a side project that was musically more in the direction of rockabilly and southern rock. We know quite a few bar owner's that wanted us to play for them, but our music was too hard core for them. We ended up writing a couple of songs with that in mind and ended up with simplistic songs that were a mis-mash of our influences in punk, metal, and country music. We would play these songs at Lennon Studio where we rehearse and people from other bands would come in and tell us that they really liked what they heard. One guy asked us what the name of our band was and out of the blue our drummer Chuck Johnson said, "Diesel Finger." That really stuck with me, so later I called the guys and told them that I liked that name and the musical detour from pure metal/hard rock songs we had been doing. They had been thinking along those lines as well, so four months ago we chucked most of our Nevuary set list and started to play shows that we had booked as Diesel Finger instead.

In conversations we have had, Steve, you have described your music as "Red Neck Metal." Now this is a new concept that most people have probably never heard of. So for all the people out there, fill them in on what that means.

Steve: Well, the music we are writing does not fall into a set musical category or designation. Our songs are for the most part very basic, like in punk. Our tempos in most of our songs are very fast like in punk/metal or psychobilly and a lot of our rhythms combined with Bryan's leads are country flavored. I felt that, when asked that question, just saying we are a rock band really didn't cover our sound or style where "Red Neck Metal" makes a statement. Plus, most importantly, we are kind of red necks ourselves. Two examples of bands I consider to be on either end of the spectrum of Red Neck Metal are Honky and Black Label Society. I like to think that our style falls some where in between those ass kicking bands.

Your style of music is very in your face, hard, fast, and to the point. Is that the style you will keep or are you guys going to experiment with some different sounds?

Steve: That's hard to say. We haven't been playing together all that long, so in five years from now who knows what we will be doing. What I am hoping is that we can refine what we are doing somewhat, as I feel we are just scratching the surface of what we can do together musically.

For my part, as I have been playing bass for a relatively short period, when I can afford to buy a stand-up bass, I also want to get some lessons on it. When I was at last year's Ozzfest I saw the bass player for Marilyn Manson throwing down some wicked sounding fills using a distortion pedal with a stand up. I think with a slap machine, we will have the depth of sound that I envision us to have. That - I so far can not manage to tweak out of my p-bass.

You guys seem to hold true, the style that is you and that is cool. You have a unique sound. Do you see that in the metal scene today, you know uniqueness, or do you see more cookie cutter bands? You're perspective?

Steve: We have a lot of friends in metal bands that we have played with a lot like Potential Threat, plus I go to a lot of metal shows. What I am seeing out there is an undercurrent of bands that are trying to set themselves apart stylistically with heavy influences in reggae, prog, and funk styles mixed into an aggressive or hard core sound and that's cool. Then there are those bands that for one reason or another gloom onto the current "in" sound and basically sound cookie cutter no matter how good they might be.

Interestingly, the best example of this is found in two wildly different styles of music, pop and death metal. In pop for instance, for a time the music industry was running out boy band after boy band using a tried and true formula hoping one of them will be able to sell millions of CDs to 14 year old girls. In death metal, the best example I can give is when we were Nevuary. We were asked to contribute a song to a compilation CD of unsigned bands in 2004 called a Treasury of Sorrows for Lifeless Records. It was a five CD set with 100 bands represented on it. Out of those 100 bands only 4 were not playing death metal and of those 96 death metal bands only a couple stood out from all the rest of them. It could have been all the same band if I didn't know better. They all sounded so much alike it was really sad.

What is Diesel Finger's future and what can your fans expect in the near future?

Steve: Well, a CD is in the works. We hope to be in the studio in October to record a couple of tracks, which I hope to use to find us someone to produce it. Someone who will understand what we are trying to accomplish stylistic wise. Next year we plan to do less all metal show line ups and are going to try to play in more eclectic shows line ups with rockers, punkers and whatever to see how well we go over with those crowds. We have all ways believed that we can play with anybody so we will see if that is true.

Well there you have it folks, a look inside a band that I'm sure you will hear more of in the future. Diesel Finger has an upcoming gig at the Pioneer Saloon in Woodside on Oct 8th. Be sure that you show up and represent. These guys will blow your hair back, so break out the gel!