Erik Mendez Interview

Haven't had a chance to listen to all of this, but so far it's pretty cool. *There are some cuss words in it.

http://www.asthestorygrows.com/episodes/41907-erik-mendez-of-tourniquet-part-one
http://www.asthestorygrows.com/episodes/41910-erik-mendez-of-tourniquet-part-two

Kinda braindead, kinda boring, I guess I'm not much of a T fan to care.

d@v!d wrote:Kinda braindead, kinda boring, I guess I'm not much of a T fan to care.

Yeah, it is a rambling kind of interview. I'm listening to it as I work.

I'm only 7 minutes in and LOVING this interview. Some great Christian metal history here.

Didn't listen to it all - seemed like a lot of airing of dirty laundry.  There is crass language used by both parties as a forewarning.

I watched the entire 2.5 hours and loved it. Yep, lots of dirty laundry. Very good information about the behind the scenes of the Christian metal scene in the early days. I learned lots about Tourniquet I didn't know.

Erik admits his struggles but I can tell he is still a man of faith. He is not ashamed of Jesus Christ and I appreciated his honesty and openness.

There was lots of talk about Ted but I love that Erik capped the conversation at the beginning, middle and end with "I love Ted and want to be friends again." He has tried to reach out to Ted but has been met with a brick wall for some time now.

Erik even wants a Tourniquet reunion and says that most, if not all, of the original members want it too. They just need Ted on board.

New Creation wrote:I watched the entire 2.5 hours and loved it. Yep, lots of dirty laundry. Very good information about the behind the scenes of the Christian metal scene in the early days. I learned lots about Tourniquet I didn't know.

Erik admits his struggles but I can tell he is still a man of faith. He is not ashamed of Jesus Christ and I appreciated his honesty and openness.

There was lots of talk about Ted but I love that Erik capped the conversation at the beginning, middle and end with "I love Ted and want to be friends again." He has tried to reach out to Ted but has been met with a brick wall for some time now.

Erik even wants a Tourniquet reunion and says that most, if not all, of the original members want it too. They just need Ted on board.

Is not reconciliation of the essence of Christianity?

Reconciliation with who, God or others? If reconciliation to God, absolutely. With others, it is desired but not required

Any time Ted comes around here, it seems things get heated.  He's just a polarizing dude I guess.  Nonetheless, whenever I hear someone publicly say, "I love them and want to be friends with them again but they won't talk to me..." my internal cynic immediately questions their intentions in saying something like that publicly and assumes at the least that there's much more to the story...  I guess all I'm saying is that I'd recommend taking stuff like that with a grain of salt.

Kerrick wrote:Any time Ted comes around here, it seems things get heated.  He's just a polarizing dude I guess.  Nonetheless, whenever I hear someone publicly say, "I love them and want to be friends with them again but they won't talk to me..." my internal cynic immediately questions their intentions in saying something like that publicly and assumes at the least that there's much more to the story...  I guess all I'm saying is that I'd recommend taking stuff like that with a grain of salt.

I agree. Like the old saying, "There are three sides to every story: yours, theirs and the truth." I also find it interesting that he kind of paints Ted as a legalist who won't let you smoke or drink, but when Erik quits the band, he drops acid.

Overall I enjoyed some of the interview, but it could have been condensed down to an hour. Too much rambling, to much dead space, etc. Some times I got bored. Thank God I had it playing in the background as I did work.

I watched about 30 minutes and I definitely LOVE it.

I mean: This is Eric Mendez, one of the greatest
lead guitar players in metal history and member of the original Psycho and Pathogenic lineup.
To me two of the greatest albums in metal history ever.

I want the reunion of that lineup so much.
But as some of you have said before there is definitely
much more of the story - we don´t know...

Well, people in the Billy Smiley thread wanted transparency from Christian musicians. This is transparency. I'm not condoning his sin at all, but am glad he was open about his life.

I will have to carve out time to listen to this. 

One thing I have learned over the years is that while I was a teenager trying to be the Christianiest Christian that ever Christianed, a lot of my Christian rock and metal heroes were off doing things that would have scandalized me back then. Though I always love hearing "warts and all" stories about that time period. I've actually thought about trying to do an Oral History of Christian Metal book in the vein of the Nickelodeon "Slimed" book. Maybe someone with more time and less children can jump on that! LOL 

There was already a thread made for this:
https://thecmr.forumotion.com/t9487-great-podcast-for-psycho-surgery-pathogenic-tourniquet-fans

But I guess the title should've been different to gain attention from people. I wondered why no one commented on that thread as the interview, in my opinion, is perhaps the biggest thing that has happened lately what comes to old school Christian Metal. I thought maybe stuff like this doesn't interest people anymore. I'm glad to be wrong!

Airola wrote:There was already a thread made for this:
https://thecmr.forumotion.com/t9487-great-podcast-for-psycho-surgery-pathogenic-tourniquet-fans

I don't see every thread posted here.

New Creation wrote:Reconciliation with who, God or others? If reconciliation to God, absolutely. With others, it is desired but not required

If we are truly reconciled to God, shouldn't it be easy to be so among each other? Like Easter bunny chocolate, is so much Christianity. What's the point of making 'Christian' art if your life doesn't reflect said art?

Kerrick wrote:Any time Ted comes around here, it seems things get heated.  He's just a polarizing dude I guess.  Nonetheless, whenever I hear someone publicly say, "I love them and want to be friends with them again but they won't talk to me..." my internal cynic immediately questions their intentions in saying something like that publicly and assumes at the least that there's much more to the story...  I guess all I'm saying is that I'd recommend taking stuff like that with a grain of salt.

You are astute in suspecting there's more to the story.

Something to wonder about when you are midlife and still Spicoli...

d@v!d wrote:

New Creation wrote:Reconciliation with who, God or others? If reconciliation to God, absolutely. With others, it is desired but not required

If we are truly reconciled to God, shouldn't it be easy to be so among each other? Like Easter bunny chocolate, is so much Christianity. What's the point of making 'Christian' art if your life doesn't reflect said art?

Erik said in the video that he wants to reconcile with Ted and that to not reconcile is not Christlike.

Regarding my personal views, yes, it should be easy, but it is not. Some Christians are just plain terrible at having relationships and it won't be until we get to Heaven that we do it properly.

Paul the Apostle and others had trouble with relationships:
2 Timothy 4:14 "Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:"
1 Corinthians 16:12 "Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to come to you with the brethren, but he was quite unwilling to come at this time; however, he will come when he has a convenient time."
Acts 15:37-40 "Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark. But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work. Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus; but Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God."

I enjoyed the two part interview. He did reveal a lot of the struggles that he had being in Tourniquet in the 90's; the pressure that he felt like he was under like going to Germany and not being able to go out for a beer with the fans. It seems like he had/has a history with substances though and I'm sure if Ted did an interview he could drop a lot of dirt on him. In any case the guy from As the Story Grows said he can't get in contact with any of the other old Tourniquet members; they don't respond to his emails.

The story about Vinnie Paul destroying the bar is actually worth hearing.  I guess Ted is so good that it drives other drummers crazy and they go postal on alcoholic beverages.  Erik also pointed out that VP was not too crazy about T-quet being a Christian metal band either.

It was an interesting listen that's for sure! The actual commentary on the music was worth the listen.

That said, I didn't find a fair amount of his back in the day stories and his guesses as to various reasons for fallings out and broken relationships very believable. His whole view on reality seemed off. The Pantera related comments and stories threw me off the most. The Vinnie Paul bar story, it didn't make the least bit of sense. He didn't even own anything back when Erik was in the band. He owns fully nude strip clubs anyway. Even if he was at "a bar" back then and they watched the band, did he really have such an ego about his abilities in the early 90's? Vinnie's a pretty ordinary guy. He wouldn't have even been famous back then to have the ego. To go with it, he mentioned before his Vinnie story the copying of Pantera thing with Dysfunctional Domicile. Cowboys from Hell was relatively new and the band not very influential at that point. Could Tourniquet really have been that severely influenced by Pantera already that they were stealing ideas by accident? They would have been writing Psycho Surgery shortly after Cowboys was released. It'd be two years before Pantera would really gain traction and more major influence with Vulgar. I just didn't buy the whole section. 

I found the incredible oddness in general to be a cause for questioning what already seemed like strange responses.

Again, interesting but, I agree with the grain of salt comment above.

I enjoyed the interview but yeah I found that Vinnie Paul bar story to be strange and nonsensical too.  "He's so good I'm going to trash my bar and then leave!"  Nobody does that.  Overall I thought Erik was just a goofy guy with some strange communication issues.  Favorite part was at the end when he gave his song-by-song commentary on all the tracks on Psycho Surgery and Pathogenic.

Erik here .. Glad everyone had some mixed reaction to the interview. I would too if I had to listen to me. The only comment that bothered me was that it was boring. The Vinnie Paul thing was real. It really happened or maybe I was on acid and it was just a hallucination. Maybe he wasn't crazy about Ted's drum solo. Honestly I heard that same drum solo everytime we played and I felt like I was being tortured while on stage. The only drum solo I like is Moby Dick by John Henry Bonham. I love the guitar riff before and after. Deep Purple had a cool one too! Do people still do solos? The best guitar solos in my opinion is Van Ha lens Eruption and Paul Gilbert's Frenzy. Hendrix Star Spangled Banner is amazing. I think it would be interesting if lead singers did a 3 minute vocal solo. Can you imagine Guy doing  vocal solo.. 
Anyways about that interview. Its really my first interview ever. I mean who really gave a crap about what I had to say back then? I remember when Guitar World Magazine did an interview on Tourniquet back then. I was so freaking excited only to be bummed out because Ted took over the damn interview. I may have said a couple of words I think.  Never too late.  If any of you have any questions about the interview. Fire away and ill try my best. I promise not to say any bad words.

Thanks for getting on here Erik!!

Indeed, welcome Erik!

Hey hey hey!