DOUG VAN PELT: Launches Kickstarter For Rock Stars On God Book

Heaven’s Metal Editor Doug Van Pelt has finally edited the third volume of his Rock Stars on God series. This volume includes 24 artists and 26 interviews (two each from Dream Theater and Brother Cane.

Also in this volume are interviews with: Black Sabbath/GZR, Foreigner, Styx, Anthrax, Kansas, Scorpions, Def Leppard, Cinderella, Savatage, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Queensryche, Slayer/Gryp Inc., Living Colour, Dangerous Toys, Yngwie Malmsteen, Great White, Sepultura, Prong, Korn, Machine Head, Fear Factory, and Creed/Alter Bridge.

Check out the campaign video here.

“I hadn’t read many of these interviews in decades,” said Van Pelt. “I’d forgotten how good some of them were. I did not remember pressing so hard with Def Leppard’s drummer, Rick Allen. Two of the best guitarists represented, Yngwie Malmsteen and Matthias Jabs both referred to Jesus as a hero.

“It’s hard to forget the contentiousness and tension in the Prong interview with Tommy Victor. The debate on evolution with Machine Head’s Robb Flynn wasn’t as long and drawn out as I remember it. There’s so many details and so many of these artists opened up about the personal nature of spirituality and their worldview.”

The kickstarter campaign ends around October 9 and then the book will get printed and ship out around the first of November.

If you recognize the artwork on the cover, you are familiar with the brilliant art and painting skills of Monty Colvin, who wrote Van Pelt into his Gas Fist comic strip back in the days of HM Magazine. The cartoon involved Van Pelt interviewing the Gas Fist manager character and pressing too hard on some uncomfortable questions, to which the manager responded by destroying the microphone in his fist and declaring, “THIS INTERVIEW IS OVER!“

Van Pelt pulls from this tension to describe his own work with these interviews over the years. “It’s like a tap dance sometimes,” Van Pelt said. “I’m very cognizant of the fact that things might get tense and personal, but I always treated it like a live television interview, where I had to keep the show going. Having it cut off or terminated was not an option in my mind. Sometimes I really had to fight and be creative to keep the conversation going. In Rock Stars on God, Volume One, it was Henry Rollins that supplied the most push-back to some of these questions. ‘We ain’t goin’ there, pal!’ In this volume, it’s Tommy Victor of Prong that wasn’t too comfortable with the direction the conversation and questions were going. He’s the one that replies to the Jesus question with, ‘I’ll take the fifth.'”

The interviews feel as fresh and relevant as they day there were originally done.

Please share the campaign link and help get this book into production: http://kck.st/3TmO8tE.

About Author