RIP Sept 1991

Thrust dead center in the midst of Kory Clarke's lower Manhattan, open-plan flat is one of those big-screen TV's that seems to be constantly on, constantly jacked into the guts of the spectacle. CNN beams out the latest spew of events on the hour, a kinetic pulse of information, misinformation, bullshit and social propaganda. Even with the sound all but extinguished, it's the core of Clarke's world, a steady supply of fuel that drives the Last Decade Post Metal groove of Warrior Soul. Then again, to make music as insightful and virulently exploratory as Clarke's, you need that constant input. Shit like:

--Footage from a freshly preindustrialized Kuwait. Rejoicing in a ruined country. The beaches are sticky, black slicks, and fires from burning oil fields will light up the night skies for months. Thousands of years to build it, a couple of weeks to flatten it. And there'll be an Arby's on the block before you can say Schwarzkopf.
--Motorist Rodney King pulled over and beaten to a pulp in a dimly lit L.A. suburb. A bystander captures the LAPD in the clubbing, kicking act. By morning it's all over the news. Police Chief Gates disavows encouragement of that sort of behavior. Sorta like saying you don't eat turkey on Thanksgiving.
--Congress approving a bill to step up the military industrial complex and arms sales to third-world countries. Ironic, considering that the U.S. is constantly absolving those same government-sanctioned death squads of their debts and saddling taxpayers with the burden. Ever wonder where those tax dollars really go?

Pop imperialism, tabloid news, TV about TV., the data stream, the dream team, Kory Clarke is a rabid, self-professed media junkie who knows the dif between message and medium, the polyrhythms of news and how to read between the cathode lines.

Warrior Soul takes all that and make it rock. "I'd love to be on American Interests, The McLaughlin Group, or any of those Sunday-morning political talk shows!" Kory insists. "I think Dave Brinkley should call me up."
What would you talk about?
"The PMRC, how we feel about censorship in this country, Issues that are relevant to those of us who grew up watching the riots, those of us who grew up during the Nixon years. I tell ya, man, I'd make a great guest."
Warrior Soul's second album, Drugs, God and the New Republic, is the all too rare and satisfying juncture where rock 'n roll doesn't rely on guava paste for brains and intellectualism doesn't translate into the heavy handed or just plain dull. It's metal with smarts, balls and grungy underside that stinks of vocalist Clarke's Detroit origins. Tracks like "Children of the Winter" seethe like a supremely unhappy MC5, and "Rocket 88" and "The Wasteland" are like Iggy Stooge slapping down his copy of US News & World Report and arching for a fight. It's a potent blast of future-shock power rock channeled though bassist Pete McClanahan and drummer Mark Evan's angry thunder, underscored by the searing, psychedelic guitar riffs of Mr. John Ricco, and given a contorted face by a frontman who attacks his music like he was on a mission to scream and shout, to rant and roar, to grab the rock generation by the shirt collar and shake it to the core.

"Your entertainment doesn't necessarily have to be fun," Clarke declares. "We've all spent time listening to records that really aren't that much of a good time: Black Sabbath, Joy Division. But then again, there's times when you want that ZZ Top record blasting. I guess that's the balance that Warrior Soul tries to make. I want to do great artistic things, but I want to do great artistic things that sell. There's no reason why we can't do it, either.

"There's sex appeal; catchy, groovy songs; the hard, heavy -hitting stuff," he continues. "Seeing the success of someone like Queensryche, there's no reason that someone with a slightly angrier approach and similar management ['Ryche/Metallica management team Q-Prime also handles Warrior Soul] and a similar vibe can't break though as well."

A year on from Warrior Soul's bitter, uncompromising debut album, Last Decade Dead Century, Clarke seems somehow kinder and altogether gentler. He's not quite the sharp master of eloquent hate he once was. The downtown performance artist turned political analyst with a Marshall stack has been hailed as the new messiah of thinking man's rock, toured Europe with Metallica, and seen his vision of a smarter New Rock Nation come to pass. Kory Clarke couldn't be happier.

"We're getting tired of polished plastic pop shit," he opines. "The Poisons and Bon Jovis have run their course, and it's time for a change. Why do you think a band like Jane's Addiction has come so far this year? Why do you think a band like Poison is making a very serious attempt with "Something to Believe In" to not sing about chicks? I don't think it's motivated by sales, either. I'm happy to see that, because it almost justifies what I've done. Maybe I've had a hand in changing things this industry in some way."

Outspoken and irascible, Kory no longer speaks with the same utter contempt about the Axls and Sebastians of the world. His earliest interviews brimmed with a surfeit of disdain for rock's wildest, and garnered Kory more than his share of punch-out threats.

"Big deal," Clarke maintains. "Those people have improved their attitudes, plain and simple - not because of anything I've had to say. but just because of what's happening all around them. I'm not so full of total hatred as I used to be, either. I've grown up, gotten my piece, claimed my bit of turf. The axes are ground, thank you. I've read interview with them now where they're actually saying something. I met Axl; he was cool. I've heard that Sebastian has a publicist that writes out a lot of things for him. That was one of my ideas last year.... the Dan Quayle approach! Now you can read him, and he sounds intelligent, it's great!"

"No. I've got what's really important to me: critical acclaim. Believe it not, I feel bad for a guy like Bon Jovi. I think he's tried to attain that with things like his solo album, and it hasn't worked. I feel bad for him. It's funny; I'd dig to be rich, but I'd rather be well-regarded. I feel much more fulfilled in knowing that critics, writers and people like me are into what I've got to talk about. Then again, how bad can you feel for a guy that makes $75,000,000 a year?"

A copy of Time bearing the headline "Police Under Fire" catches the intense frontman's gaze. He pages though the issue and smiles. "I'm only too happy to see this," he beams. "LAPD's got an awful smell," you hear in one of my lines in "The Wasteland.." It's a very corrupt, massive police organization. They dress like Gestapo's, and are really into their trip. It's funny, the father West you go of the Mississippi, the more Gestapo it gets out there. It backfired on 'em in the '60's, when Reagan was governor. Tons of riots. Watts. Same thing in Detroit. I was so glad to see those fuckers get busted for their sadistic bullshit."

It's that way very tumble of pissed-off awareness that gives Warrior Soul it's bitter, burning edge. How many other bands could take a little as broad and all-encompassing as Drugs, God and the New Republic, and twist it into a full blown anthem?

"The New Republic is the way we're starting to look at ourselves in the '90's, with drugs and God as the new symbols of good and evil," Clarke explains. "It seems that the right and left have really separated, and the middle ground doesn't seem to be screaming with the same anger. The concept is a little scary, a little ominous, a little Third Reich-ish. We're coming up on a brand-new age, and age when two sides of the American consciousness have come to battle on a flat field.

"It's almost time for a new political party. What's next, the Sony party? Betcha they've already got it."

He pauses for a moment, carefully pondering the issue. "Then again, America has to battle itself. That's what we're about; debate. At times we unify, but the rest of the time we should be arguing, trying to make things better. It's only get bad when ideas are suddenly imposed on people who don't want any part of them. The battle, the debate, the constant struggle to reexamine ourselves is precisely what this country should be about.

On what side of the fence did Warrior Soul fall during the war? Do terms like "New World Order" give Kory a twinge of skepticism? Do they seem too much of a nod to Big Brother?

"You know what scares me? The fact that George Bush has a 97% approval rating," Clarke declares. "This is very scary, considering how dirty his hands really are. I've never seen a guy seem so innocent while he's talking to people when he's had his hands in everything; the creation of Saddam Hussein, Noriega. Nobody seems to remember that kind of shit. terms like "New World Order" have their uses. They unite the country and inspire the simple people to fight these wars.

"Then again, the war had it's good side," the vocalist points out. "It's guaranteed market-price oil into the next century. It brought the Palestinian issue to the table, showed a softening in Iran - and those guys getting more chilled out doesn't bother me in the least. Most importantly, it brought people out of their complacent little worlds to scream, shout and debate."

A little revolution does a world of good. Drugs God and the New Republic is a bit of future shock you might want to subject yourself to.