Stavros Giannopoulos of The Atlas Moth, by Meg Loyal Photography

“Wow there’s a lot I kind of bring up on tour. I have about 800 of these stories I always bring up on tour!

I was talking about seeing Pantera the other day with White Zombie and Deftones. It was 1997. It was The 101 Proof (East West) tour for Pantera and Astro Creep 2000 for White Zombie. It was kind of Pantera, in my personal opinion, it was their prime! I always thought White Zombie sucked actually, but I loved them when I was young and dumb. They were always a really terrible as a live band, and Rob Zombie is like the Vince Neil of metal, he cannot sing. But Pantera for me were at the pinnacle and Deftones are still one of my favorite bands. And I remember in Chicago, Mancow came out and introduced Pantera with Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) and Kato Kalen, from the OJ shit (Editor’s note: The OJ Simpson Trial). (laughs) I remember thinking “What the fuck is this? This guy is a celebrity? What is he doing here?” And White Zombie had a big stage show with too many lights that sucked, but they had those really awesome skeletons that hung down from the top of the stage. I still have the hoodie from that tour, my Deftones hoodie, which is my favorite.”

The Atlas Moth just wrapped up a headline tour of the US. They are still supporting The Old Believer (Profound Lore) album, which released in June 2014. Although they canceled their planned European tour for this summer, they have another pending US tour for this fall, and an as yet unnamed new split EP with another band TBD.

AS TOLD TO KEITH CHACHKES