Rustbelt Rock Review

By: Z.M. Delgado

Rustbeltrockreview.com

Volume #136: Artist Showcase: An Interview with Dylan Andras

April 27th, 2024

Speak of the Devil Cocktail Bar 201 W 5th St, Lorain, OH 44052

Hello my friends and welcome back to the Rustbelt Rock Review in all it’s glory. This week I decided to do something a little different and rather than check out my usual gig, I went out to chase down an interview. I wanted to catch up with one of the most pivotal figures in the Cleveland Underground. To do so I traveled far to western lands and well beyond the boundaries of my normal haunts. I ventured deep into Lorain, where I visited the Speak of the Devil Cocktail Bar in pursuit of my latest interview. The subject of the discussion was one Mr. Dylan Andras. If you consider yourself a member of the Cleveland Underground Scene then there is a strong possibility that you’ve seen him perform. Dylan is a Guitarist. It could be said from a Cleveland Metal Head’s perspective that he is THE Guitarist. He is the mastermind, six string wizard and Vocalist behind the “Kings of Cleveland Thrash” Assault. He is also plays in Metal veterans Olathia as well as the Death Metal monstrosity that is Mutilation Barbecue. He is an ever present and constant member of our community and in general, one hell of a guy. With that being said, Dylan obviously is someone that we want to hear from… and so here we are.

I arrived at Speak of the Devil at 6pm, just moments after Dylan. He checked in with the bar management and talked about his setup while I took a look around. Speak of the Devil is a cocktail bar. I would describe it as classy, without being stuck up. You could easily wear a suit to this place, but no one cast me a sideways glance as I arrived in my Battlevest. It had dim lights and a chill atmosphere, also a nice patio and a very accommodating staff. All in all I would highly recommend the place as a spot to have some drinks and listen to some mellow jams. Anyways… Once Dylan had finished up his check in, we made our way to the patio where we grabbed a spot at the bar and began what would end up being a long talk.

Dylan Andras is from Northeast Ohio. He first started playing the Guitar at the end of 7th grade, at around the age of 13 or 14. I asked him about his first ax. “It was a Fender Squire Strat, in a… the Strat Pack.” (A guitar that he still has to this day.) He added, “I did have, when I was a kid, a little acoustic guitar.” He told me at a young age he was turned off by music, largely because he didn’t like what his parents were playing. As a kid, that notion changed when he discovered LMFAO, which was the first music he remembers liking. Later a friend would turn him on to bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica and Avenged Sevenfold, which would leave a lasting impression on him. Eventually a junior high aged Dylan and friend decided to spend their summer vacation “starting a band.” This early effort became the first incarnation of Assault.

Fast forward to 2024 and Dylan has been on stage many many times in his numerous projects. I was curious about those experiences. I asked him what the biggest and best crowds he’s played for were and he took a few moments to think about it. I could tell I had put him on the spot with the question, but he quickly began to recall memorable nights. He listed Assault and Olathia at Shotgun Bowl ‘23, Mutilation Barbecue’s wild appearances in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Assault’s performance at the Rock N’ Roll H.o.F. High School Rock Off and Olathia at the Agora. I followed up by asking what his favorite performance memories were. He recalled some of Assault’s most memorable gigs. “Those Grog Shop shows were always a fucking blast. The first one after COVID especially was really sick.” He also listed opening for Steve Harris, performing at the Agora and the small shows that took place at the bands early eras. Dylan hasn’t just played here in Cleveland though. In fact his music has taken him all over the country, as far from home as Austin, Texas. Those tours were huge experiences for Dylan, traveling our nation, spreading Cleveland Metal to the masses. It wasn’t all fun and games though. He recounted a tale of Mutilation Barbecue and the debacle of Necrofest. The show was going down at St. Vitus Bar in Brooklyn, NY. Asked to fill in on short notice, MutiBBQ had a lot to do in a short amount of time. “The show was on Thursday, it was Tuesday when we got added. So we were like, Fuck it, Lets Roll.” Convening at 6am on Thursday morning, they loaded the entirety of the bands gear into a VW Jetta. “I’m talking like, Guitar head, Bass head, Guitar, Bass, the whole Drum set, everybody’s sleeping shit, merch...it was fucking packed.” Despite being crammed in like sardines, they then hit the highway. Alas, it wasn’t long before another issue arose. Three hours into an eight hour venture, “we hit something and popped a tire. We parked on the side of the road. We had to take all the shit out of the back to get to the spare in the trunk.” “So we go to a truck stop and waste an hour trying to put Fix-a-Flat into this tire and it ends up just bulging out of the side. So we were like What do we do?” Setting out on the cars doughnut tire, they had their velocity reduced from 80 to 50 MPH. They called ahead to their contacts at Necrofest and explained; getting their set pushed back. Following that “There were two different times when we got stuck in gridlock. One of them a tanker truck flipped over at the entrance to the turnpike. Everybody was blocked... we got on and there was no way out. Luckily we inched forward, I went up the side. I was able to go up the on ramp and go another way.” “After they pushed our set back four hours we got there 15 minutes before we played. We just put everything right up on stage, played our set and ripped...and it was a sick show. It was so fun.”

Next I wanted to get an update on each of Dylan’s projects individually. We started with Assault. The Thrash foursome just got back from their first tour. I just had to know how it went. “It was alright. All things considered. We only slept in the van twice. We ate Cracker Barrel everyday. It wasn’t too bad.” But what tour is complete without vehicle difficulties? “The van made it...barely. First it was leaking oil. We could only get like 3 or 4 hours before we needed to put more oil in it.” “But then it started pissing coolant. The engine started smoking at one point. We luckily landed at an O’Reilly’s and I just epoxied the living fuck out of it. And it made it! All the coolant was still there.” Keeping the van alive was a major feat of guerrilla automotive repair, which led to the boys finishing the tour as scheduled. It sounded like shows along the way were more hit than miss, with evenings of note coming in Columbus, Indianapolis, Iowa city and Chicago. “Honestly it was fun and that’s all that matters.” Moving forward from the tour I asked the burning question on everyone's mind: When will we get some new material? Dylan assured me new Assault music is coming, but when I asked him when he gave a dubious answer at best. The complicated world of scheduling three working Metal bands is a constant challenge for this busy musician. There are only so many hours in a day, after all. All that being said, there are three songs in the works approaching the demo stage. In the end I got him to commit...loosely to a potential timeline. “Hopefully as long as everything goes accordingly, we’ll have an EP by the end of the year.” Then he reiterated “If it goes accordingly. When does that ever happen?” We both knocked on the bar for a little luck on this subject. Next we discussed the bands debut album, “A Blind Eye.” This Thrasterpiece is approaching it’s second birthday and wanted to know how Dylan thought it had aged. “It’s like an image of what we were at that point in time. For what it is, it’s cool. I’m still proud of it. I’m still happy with it.”

Moving on we discussed the Cleveland super group, Olathia. This four piece has been stirring up the Cleveland underground with a new album and their stellar live shows. Dylan was honestly unsure when he joined the band, only knowing that it was during the back end of the pandemic. From the discography’s perspective he jumped into the lineup midway through the writing of the new “The Forest Witch” album. As it was his first opportunity to write for the band, I asked him how he thought “The Forest Witch” has been received. He answered “Pretty good. It seems to get good press.” “It’s cool. People seem to fuck with it.” He told me his favorite song off the record was “Who’s the Devil?” because “We actually wrote that song. That was like the first song that we all actually put together.” He also filled me in that his favorite Olathia song to perform was “Seven Deadly Sins.” The band will be headed to Chicago this week to play the sold out “Legions of Metal” festival.

Next we discussed the ongoing saga of the mighty Mutilation Barbecue. Dylan joined this band around September of 2021. This four man Death Metal bulldozer has been making significant noise lately with the release of their album “Amalgamations of Gore.” I asked him how that release has gone over and he replied, “Super good. It seems a lot of people fuck with it.” “Lots of good press on that. Lots of people seeming to enjoy it.” Dylan’s favorite cut from this album is “Probably ‘Spontaneous Human Combustion’” but he did also mention “Skin display.” which he described as “a sick fucking song.” Overall his favorite MutiBBQ song to play live is “Auto Anthropophagy” which has “stupid heavy riffs.” I asked him if he had a favorite MutiBBQ memory and he answered “the thing is with those guys is we get along so well. Just the dynamic of the personalities is fucking awesome. So like, I don’t know if I could pick one… but all the FTA’s (Full Terror Assault Festival), being stupid and screaming in the van. We made a rap project... and that’s all I’m gonna say about that. We wasted so much studio time rapping instead of recording Amalgamations.” MutiBBQ just finished up a short tour in March and have a 5 or 6 week run planned for this summer.

In addition to his three Metal bands, Dylan does some solo work around town as well. Playing his electric and acoustic guitar in bars and clubs he provides a lighter ambiance. “I do Beatles, I do a lot of Led Zeppelin, like America and shit.” “It’s all covers. I’ll maybe play like one or two songs that I wrote, but I’m not gonna tell you that they’re my songs.” I asked if he ever planned to release any of his solo material. He replied “I’ve got songs that are just kind of sitting around and things I have ideas for, but, you know, now I have three more records to I need to write.” “It’s there and it will happen when the time is right.” “I have a bunch of different songs from different genres that I eventually want to do in some capacity… but it just hasn’t come together yet.” On top of all the other aspects of Dylan’s work load he also teaches Guitar, Bass and Drums. He currently has around 20 students with whom he works, passing on his knowledge to the next generation of shredders.

We got into idols and influences next. In Dylan’s opinion the greatest Guitarist of all time was either Dimebag Darrell or Tony Iommi. He also sited Marty Friedman, Michael Schenker, Kirk Hammet. I also got him on tape reluctantly admitting Dave Mustaine is a better axman than Hammet. (Dylan and I will forever stare at each other from across the Metallica and Megadeth line.) He also said “I like listening to interesting, weird music that I don’t know anything about and I try to translate that shit into Metal.” Dylan’s favorite albums of all time are Led Zeppelin “Physical Graffiti,” Sly and the Family Stone “Fresh” and Pantera “Great Southern Trendkill.” Lately he has been listening to Shoegaze, 70’s Japanese Jazz fusion, Genesis and Metallica’s “Load” and “Reload.”

So why does Dylan do what he does? What drives this Guitar Wiz to push his craft ever forward? “I’m too deep in it. I don’t know how to do anything else. I have no other specialized skills.” I asked him why not college or a trade and he replied “Why the fuck would I? Fuck all of that. FUCK ALL OF THAT.” “Sometimes I wonder why too. It’s like dude, this shit sucks. I really like being in a van and not showering, eating fast food everyday. And I really like spending all of my money on strings and equipment I need. And I really like feeling like I can’t do anything else because I need to focus on the art and getting better and this and that. But, the pay off of being able to express, and being able to play shows and do all that shit, it’s kind of worth it.”

Finally I asked him some questions about the more emotional side of the music business. I asked him, knowing that your music is touching peoples lives and moving them, what does that mean to you? “It’s really cool because, I guess, if I had a mission with it, I mean, that’s what I wanted to do. I just wanted to make people move. At first just getting people to head bang. I want to be able to do for other people, what other people have done for me. The fact that that’s getting across… I can’t even wrap my head around it to be honest. It’s really cool, but it’s hard to fathom that.” “I’m not good at taking shit like that.” “It’s so overwhelming… cause music is such an emotional thing, you pour so much into it and then when somebody gives you the most heartfelt thank you” “It’s like thanks bro, I’m glad you like it. That shit sticks with you though and it keeps the wheels turning on the whole fucking thing.”

That’s where I ran out of questions for Mr Andras. We shot the shit for a few minutes more, reminiscing about the afternoon a few summers back when I first interviewed Assault. That chat had been a blast and we got way off topic, finding it hard to take the whole thing seriously. But that’s kind of the guy that Dylan is. Despite his enormous workload, insanely packed calendar and endless creative demands, he manages to take on the whole thing with a smile. “If your not having fun, then what’s the fucking point.” I told him and he agreed. In fact, Dylan told me those were his exact words on the phone with his Aunt, as he drove to the gig. “As that van thing went, if I wasn’t laughing at it, everything would have crumbled and we would have just gone home.” It’s a smart way to approach the problem of being a working musician. Take it all with a grain of salt and a devilish grin. “It was fun. It’s all a fucking joke anyways. So who cares?” Those are Dylan’s final words on my tape. A fitting end to a long and entertaining conversation.

Well there you have it, my friends. I long look into the world of Dylan Andras, one of Cleveland’s most notable and hardest working musicians. With his three band onslaught, utilizing three different genres, he has swept across the Cleveland Metal scene like a storm front. His riffs, his lyrics, and his voice are all becoming synonymous with the foundations of our underground. Slowly but surely, Dylan is building his legacy and bringing his dreams to life. With raw talent and sheer force of will he is rising from teenage dreamer to a veteran road dog. I hope you have enjoyed this article as much as I enjoyed the whole process of creating it. I encourage you to check out one of Dylan’s bands and assure you, you will not be disappointed. As always I thank you for reading. Bang your heads, wear your earplugs and support your scene.

Until next time, Rock on, Rustbelt,

-Z.M. Delgado

Rustbelt Rock Review

Rustbeltrockreview.com

4/28-4/29/2024

(Photos often stolen from facebook)

Links:

Olathia

https://olathia.bandcamp.com/music

https://www.facebook.com/olathiametal/

Assault

https://www.assaultcle.com/