Steve ‘Skinny’ Felton is reflecting on more than three decades of grand ambition, relentless toil and missed opportunities. “Back then I had big hopes and dreams that we’d be one day,” says the drummer, leader and sole remaining original member of masked metal mavericks Mushroomhead, half sighing and half chuckling at the thought. “But it didn’t really pan out that way.
I saw life doesn’t really work the way you think it does when you’re young. You think you know it all. At least I tried to do it all – whether I knew it all is a whole different story.
” Mushroomhead are one of the great cult metal bands of the last 30 years. The Cleveland, Ohio outfit were briefly swept up in the goldrush at the start of the new millennium, though they predated it by a good few years – as they did , the band they were regularly, and often unfavourably, compared to. But despite a striking, and familiar, masks-and-boiler suit image, success never materialised, and members came and went – upwards of 20 people have been in the band, including Skinny himself.
But through sheer bloody-mindedness, Mushroomhead have endured, releasing nine albums to date (the latest, , is out now). Mushroomhead’s story dates back to 1993, when members of a number of existing bands based in and around Cleveland came together to form an altogether different beast. There were eight of them, and they wore home-made horror masks and adopted pseudonyms to maintain anonymity.
They played chaotic l.