HELLFEST Interview with Billy Milano & Mike DeLeon by Matt
July 18, 2014
Originally on: www.hellfest.fr/974-interview-hellfest-m-o-d

We've talked in interview before about how you place a special emphasis on honoring your mother and father. How does this idea of honoring your parents affect your music?

Billy: That's an odd question but a very smart one. It has only one true answer. When you honor your mother and father, in my personal understanding of it, it governs the decisions you make. You'll always make conscious, good, moral decisions, whether it's business or personal. That carries on to other people. It opens doors for people. Hence Michael DeLeon my guitarist who has been playing music for 20 years will be playing for forty-fifty thousand people at Hellfest.

Mike: Fucking can't wait. Biggest show of my life right here man!

Billy: And yesterday was the biggest day of your life too!

Mike: Yeah, at Lorelei, that was a great time.

How does that feel? You guys are obviously more into smaller clubs, and now you're doing forty thousand people. How do you process that?

Mike: Right now it's pretty overwhelming. As far as the band has come. We've been jamming small stages and small shows so going from that to this is pretty surreal. Especially to be playing festivals like this.

Billy: M.O.D has never played festivals because it never felt right for the band. But in the same breath, I never felt comfortable enough with the band to do something like this. I did a record called Rhythm Of Fear in 1993 and I got a phone call from our record label saying Pantera wants to bring MOD out on the road in Europe and I was like, “That's awesome but we're a hardcore band” and they wanted to bring in a metal guitarist and make the guitarist the bass player. I was like “Nah” so we turned it down. I've never been comfortable enough in my own shoes to begin with, let alone the pressure and the onus of having to do this. This is overwhelming. I can appreciate and understand what it is and I'm going to do the best that I can do every day. It's odd for me to be here. It feels like it's wrong. It feels like they asked the wrong band, like they asked us by accident. But we're going to go up there and kick them in the balls.

Will this be your biggest show Billy?

Billy: No. There will be what forty-fifty thousand people? I played to eighty five thousand with S.O.D co-headlining with Rammstein in Germany. That was a totally different situation though. I was just the singer for the band and there was a whole team of people working for us and the logistics of that team covered every aspect of it. I just showed up, did my interviews, performed and left. In all honesty that was simple, this is totally different. I had no emotional attachment to S.O.D, I liked the music, but I didn't like the people in the band and I was appalled by the business. Here we're doing street level and I'm more in tune to that. It's a better understanding for me. I've always been a street guy and the street is where I belong.

So do you have an increased level of comfort with your work in M.O.D?

Billy: Sure. I would never have done these tours if I didn't think this band could do them.

Does this mean MOD will become a full time touring entity?

Billy: No, never. My life at 50 years old is different.

Mike: We'll definitely go out to shows and have some fun. But we wouldn't do 8 or 9 months out of the whole year.

Billy: I'm just not going to do it, even if it was there I wouldn't do it. At this point I don't see me not coming out on tour once or twice a year. Flying out for a one off though I won't do. I didn't do it in Japan, I didn't in Finland or South America or Europe. I won't even fly to fucking Chicago, I wouldn't even drive from Austin to Dallas for a one off. Everything is an act of convenience for my life. There's stuff we talk about doing and I'm just like “No”. Because at the end of the day it just doesn't make sense to me. I don't know what level M.O.D is going to attain. I know we're going to do a good show and I know we could go out and tour anytime on our own. I would like to do a record over touring any day of the week. I have no plans. We just got invited to play the Peter Pan Speedrock festival which is pretty fucking honoring and even as a one off I can't do it. But can I build something around it? Possibly. M.O.D as an entity is going to take it nice and slow and pace ourselves. I need to get myself prepared for this.

So are the rumors true that you are setting up a US tour?

Mike: Possibly.

Billy: We had talked about going out with Murphy's Law and the Goddamn Gallows and I think that could be amazing, especially for an underground hardcore show. There's a lot of logistics. They just hit me up today they want to do one in September. I won't go out on the road in September that's when everyone in my family dies, it's the family curse. I'm sure at some point we'll tour America. I'm sure we'll sit down as a group of people and tackle the record that I've written. Coming out to these festivals has shown me a more concise direction for what I've been writing. I have the record written, now I want to hone it.

You were telling me a while back you had something like 600 riffs written?

Billy: I have 600 minutes of riffs and 218 riffs. Segway riffs too. It's just overwhelming. As far as writing the record goes, Mike wants to play everything. I'll have a ton of songs on the record.

Last time I asked you this question you told me about fucking your friend’s mom as a kid. Now I'm going to ask the same question in hopes for a new story. Finish this sentence for me “I've never told this story before and probably shouldn't but...”

Billy: (hesitates) I've got so many of those stories I'm trying to find one that's not as X-rated. All of my stories about music are about groupies and they looked like girls not dudes. They didn't wear jeans and sideways baseball caps. They didn't have tattoos. They had high heels, big hair and wore spandex. Your dick stood up and it was like “I'm fucking that one”. I watched my friends wife bust a nut on my couch. I was like “What do you want me to do” and she said “Nothing I'm leaving”. I had a girl cover her pussy and asshole in peanut butter and then had a dog lick it off. As far as groupies. I was on tour there were two girls, twins, who came on the bus, they were probably 19 years old. I invited them to the back of the bus, and we're in the alleyway of the bus before the door into the back lounge. And we're fooling around, making out. About 20 minutes later I'm completely naked, straddling the bunks on the bus. I got a chick eating my ass and the other sucking my dick and playing with my balls and I yell “I think I'm going to come” and then the curtains open up and it's the singer from Pro Pain and he yells “Hurry up, I'm sleeping!” And I laughed so hard I fell on the girl and crushed her with my ass. That was fucking funny.

Any last words of wisdom?

Billy: Don't laugh when you're getting your asshole eaten by a girl, you'll crush her.

Mike: I would say, go to www.milanomosh.com we have a brand new song for free. It's a great song, Hellfest put it up on their website so thank you guys so much.

Interview: Matt.

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