Gene Hoglan is a walking metal encyclopedia. He can recount dates, names, and locations as if they happened yesterday. Because in reality, his life has never stopped moving since he dove into the Southern California metal scene as a teenager. He’s constantly touring, recording, writing, and absorbing the medium he loves. Even during our interview, he can’t seem to separate himself from music. “I’m right next to the stage here, so you’re probably hearing a bunch of drums going on,” he says, taking a moment to listen to what’s being played, before continuing.
He is in Seattle, sitting in an office next to a studio where his band is practicing for a show that night. His signature black sleeveless shirt breaks through the bright green walls of the room. Throughout our Zoom call, his hands move slightly, drumming along to what’s happening outside.
Similar to his chaotic and precise drumming, Hoglan’s train of thought is similarly frenetic. Shifting from the state of the music industry to the Dallas Cowboys, I can never predict what he’s going to say next. “I’m pretty knowledgeable on metal and its history. I can comment on that all day long, but I can’t go to Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, and go “Jerry! What are you doing?!” (…) I wish the Cowboys would get a good team and win the Super Bowl,” he says when asked about art.
Extinction Level Event is the first Dark Angel record in over 30 years, but rumors of a new record have permeated throughout the band’s absence. It wasn’t until Hoglan confirmed a new record over a decade ago where fans could finally get excited. In hindsight, he wishes he’d never made the call. “When I announced it a decade ago … I kind of jumped the gun. What I should have said was nothing and just got all the material together, got the record done, and then announced it.” After the metal community suffered a tremendous loss with the death of legendary guitarist and founding member Jim Durkin in 2023, it seemed as though Dark Angel had officially dissipated.
Between the silence however, Dark Angel were brewing something special in the studio. The band hadn’t completely disappeared into the ether; they were simply waiting for the right moment. Their first record in over 30 years, Extinction Level Event would jolt the band out of hibernation and into a newly evolved musical landscape. With contributions from Durkin, alongside a new, reinvigorated Dark Angel, Extinction Level Event is a bridge connecting the band’s past and future.
This conversation has been edited for clarity.
So let’s talk about your album with Dark Angel, Extinction Level Event. It’s the first Dark Angel record since 1991, and considering how long the band have existed and have been a part of your life, what does a new record mean for you and for the band as a whole?
Our last album, which came out in 1991, was Time Does Not Heal, and we did a number of tours for that. And then in ‘92, we kind of dissolved more than anything. Just kind of went our separate ways. There was no acrimony or anything like that.
I just moved on to a whole bunch of other things, and all the guys from the bands kind of did whatever they were doing for the next number of years. And in 2014, we got back together to just play some shows, you know, because I had been playing with bands such as Strapping Young Lad, Death Clock, Testament, and a number of other acts over the years.
There were a lot of European promoters who were always asking like, “Hey, man, if you ever want to get Dark Angel back together, I’d love to have you play our festival.”
And so it just pretty much started off again like that, where this was kind of just a fun thing to do for the guys to get back together. Play some shows, enjoy, have some fun.
And then it got to the point where it’s like, doing a new record could allow us to step away from the sort of ‘Legacy Act’ where you’re just performing songs from 30 plus years ago. So doing a new record just seemed like a natural step. You know, in order to keep Dark Angel as a viable band and not just being a legacy act. And that’s what led us to the release of Extinction Level Event.
I read that your late guitarist Jim Durkin named the title track.
He wrote it, but I named it.
We had a working title for it. He just happened to write it and when we got back together—We had already done a number of shows and things like that—Jim had said, “Hey, man, I’ve got this song that I wrote pretty recently and this is the most Dark Angel sounding song that I’ve written in quite some time. Here it is, check it out and if we ever get a chance to record anything, we can throw this on the table for a Dark Angel recording.”
And I loved the song. It was just in demo form. Drum machine. Tracked alone. I just thought it was an amazing song. And at that same time, I had shown Jim what was going to be the next Dark Angel, with material from 1991, ’92.
I showed that to Jim, and Jim really loved all that material. And he was like, “Dude! We have an entire album right here. This is our next album, all of this.”
This material I have is 20-plus years old. This is, like, 2014 when he showed me this, 2015 maybe. Right around there. And I’m like, “This new song of yours is killer! I know that you and I could get together and do a lot of really killer stuff that is us today. Where we’re at today.”
We both had pretty busy schedules. We would get together when I would be off the road. And we were just writing riffs, cataloguing riffs and things like that. We didn’t come up with many fully fledged songs, but we had the starts to a lot of them.
Yeah, the two of you with your own projects.
I’m real familiar with Jim’s writing style. It’s very natural for me as well because Jim was my first guitar writing partner. We were both teenagers sitting across from each other, working on material, writing the Darkness Descends record.
Jim’s replacement, Laura Christine and I have worked together for the last decade and a half at that time. So Laura’s style is all over this record, too, and I’ve absorbed some of that because we’ve done a lot of work together. So her writing style is a part of my style. I’ve got my style; I’ve got Jim’s style.
So that amalgamation of styles just led us to the material that we have on Extinction Level Event.
With all these different styles coming, I’m sure that kind of helped the creative process given how it’s been over 30 years since the last record. And I really did want to ask, with this new record coming out, was the aim to continue the legacy that the band left behind in the early ‘90s? Or was it more to give the band a new sense of life?
Well, a little from column A and a little from column B. To continue the legacy? Definitely. Reinvigorate the band? Yes. We got a lot of dedicated fans out there and those fans are real familiar with the evolutionary process of Dark Angel. Our first album We Have Arrived did not sound like the second album, Darkness Descends. And Darkness Descends didn’t sound like Leave Scars and so forth. So this album is not a repeat of anything we’ve ever done because Dark Angel has never repeated ourselves. I don’t want to repeat what I’ve done. It [Extinction Level Event] definitely sounds like Dark Angel, but that was the best way to move forward with the writing of it.
A lot of people were asking, “Is it going to sound like Darkness Descends? Is it going to sound like Time Does Not Heal? Leave Scars? What’s it going to sound like?”
And I’m like, “There will of course be Dark Angel elements from those albums, but nothing’s going to sound exactly like something else because that’s not what I do as a writer. That’s not what Dark Angel does as a band.”
So the best way to move forward with it was like, “Well, what if Dark Angel just kept writing material the whole time? Kept writing songs and albums the entire time and we never stopped?” That’s where it made it really easy to get those creative juices going with that in mind.
There was no pressure at all to do a Darkness Descends 2 to or a Time Does Not Heal 2 or anything. I didn’t want to do that.
So this album just came out perfect for me in terms of what I’m looking for from a Dark Angel album.
I really like how you’re talking about how there’s a personal musical growth and evolution that comes from all these years with your other side projects; your other bands that you’re working on. Did any of those outside influences—working with other people and contributing to the sound of other bands—kind of blend into this record?
To a large degree, I would imagine. In my other projects, you’ve got great musicians. Starting with Death, working with Steve Di Giorgio, my bass brother. Then going to Strapping Young Lad, working with Devin Townsend and Jed [Simon] and Bryon (Stroud)—all great musicians. They all have their own styles. In Testament, of course, killer musicianship there. Dethklok, Brenden Small, incredible guitarist. A lot of talented musicians, just across the board.
On most of those projects, I am primarily a drummer; I’m a consultant on some. I can pick up the guitar and show somebody like, “Hey man, I got this idea for you. Like, where you’re playing right here, what if we try doing it right down here?” Kind of thing.
And I’ve done that plenty of times over the years where I’m writing riffs for Strapping (Young Lad) or whoever it might be. Just kind of helping shepherd a project or a riff or a song. But this (Extinction Level Event) is one where it’s like, “OK, the onus of everything is piled on your shoulders here, Hoglan. So let’s step up and be the chief songwriter.”
I’ve evolved back in the game with Dark Angel, and it’s come full-circle in that regard. And this was a little different project just because of Jim’s relative absence at the time. I had a very creative area of time with which to work in, and having Laura Christine be able to come in from the other room and say, “Hey, man, I’m hearing what you’re doing. Why don’t you try this?”
And I’m like, “That’s one much better than what I have! Thank you!” You know? Having Laura as an influence on my writing, Jim as an influence on my writing, it made those creative juices really flow.
Yeah, traces of this record can really be found within the last decade and even as early as the early 90s. And I wanted to ask, how long has this record been in the works? More particularly, when did the conception for Extinction Level Event come to fruition?
That would have been, like, directly post-pandemic, and I took a four-month break and wrote everything within that four months. And Jim had his one song that he had put on the table a decade ago.
I had about four or five riffs over the course of a decade. But during the pandemic was when I thought, “OK, I need to start getting some stuff.” So next time I saw Jim, I got a bunch of stuff together for him. That’s when the riff writing started happening, towards the end of the pandemic.
I started writing this record on October 16 of 2022. And then by February of 2023, we were recording it. And then over the course of time, I had a crap-load of touring and other projects. Moving, an album to get working on, Bear McCreary material to be working on, as well and the Death To All Tour. Just all over the place.
This album was recorded over the course of about three or four studio sessions. Big chunks of time. Weeks long times.
The mixing took a couple of weeks. It took time to get a lot of stuff done and put together. But we got it all out finally.
I kind of want to pivot to your tour that you’re going on right now. It’s Dark Angels’ first North American tour since the early ’90s, and given how you, alongside other bands like Slayer, basically created the SoCal thrash metal scene, how does it feel to play the shows you’re playing now when compared to the small scene you had when you first joined?
Over the past few decades, I’ve always thought it was really funny when you’ll meet some guys from a band and they’re like, “Yeah we come from a town that doesn’t have much of a scene. So we got to play like two towns over. They got a good scene over there. That’s where we tend to play.” And I always kind of giggle because I’m like, I remember those days when there was no scene. Like, there were 30 hardcore bands, and there wasn’t even thrashing back then. There weren’t any pits. There was no term such as moshing, which I always thought was kind of a dumb term myself.
Raging is what we called it out here on the West Coast. So when Dark Angel was playing—when Slayer was playing—there were only about 30 people that you’d catch at all the shows. Metal was very underground, especially the metal that we all liked and enjoyed. There was nobody playing, you know, “Destruction” on the radio back in ’85. College radio was a big thing for all of us. There were a lot of underground metal DJs on those college radio stations. But yeah, there was no scene.
One thing that has happened is whatever scene was created back then, it looks the exact same now. You got the young dudes in the battle jackets. You got the older dudes in the battle jackets. Whatever it is, it looks the same. It’s just that the hair has gotten grayer. The lines on the faces has gotten more prominent. But there’s also the same young folk that are in the front row of every show. A lot of these young guys are coming and telling us, “We know and we love the classic Dark Angel. And with this new album, Extinction Level Event, this is our generation’s Dark Angel album. This is our Dark Angel record that we can claim as our own.” That’s pretty exciting, you know?
A lot of the younger folks have embraced it and said, “This is metal the way it’s supposed to be, just heavy, catchy, aggressive. Thank you Dark Angel.”
That’s what I get to hear face-to-face from a lot of the folks I’m talking to. So that’s pretty cool.
And with your new tour coming up, I’m pretty sure you’re going to see a lot more of those younger people in the crowds being excited. And it’s very interesting to have this new perspective where the younger generation, who weren’t even alive when Dark Angel was a thing, are experiencing it for the first time. I kind of wanted to gauge your perspective with that in mind. Where does the band go from here knowing that you’ve reintroduced yourself to a newer generation?
Well, we all understand this is a rebranding sort of moment in time for us, you know? Because we haven’t been around in 30-plus years.
So the folks that are coming out, especially in today’s challenging economy, have to really choose their bands. And we are noticing that for a lot of these dates that we’re playing, you also have Judas Priest in town on the same night. So, you know, people have to make their choices. You do have that choice that you have to make, and we appreciate those that choose to see Dark Angel for the first time.
We are very appreciative of that, and that’s why Dark Angel gives it every night. I think that’s one thing that is definitely being generated from this tour—this kind of rebranding tour—is that people are saying, “Dark Angel is bringing it every night. They’re not phoning anything in.” And it’s pretty exciting to have that recognized.
Maybe they’ll tell a few folks themselves. Like, “Hey, man, last time Dark Angel came to town, they blew the doors off—Man, you can’t miss that show!” We hope that that’s happening, so when we do return to a lot of these places, the audience will grow. That’s all you can hope for for any band, you know?
Yeah, of course! You said this was a rebrand for Dark Angel, and I feel like it would be impossible to talk about the record without talking about its distribution. In particular, Dark Angel made the unique choice to not have it available on streaming. Can you explain how the band came to that decision?
Well, that was coming from management directly because they were taking a look at the Spotify controversies that have been happening for years. And currently, it comes down to two kinds of separate but very intertwined situations. Right now, all the streaming services’ terms of use are really under question when it comes to how they are going to treat your music. It says in their terms of use, “We can use your music however we want.”
Sony, who owns the old Dark Angel catalog, did their own thing without even telling us. Without even integrating our thoughts or perspectives on it, they just went and sold our stuff to Spotify.
So this is only talking about Extinction Level Event. We are just following some of the general precautions of putting your stuff on streaming. And so it’s like, we might not get as many people listening to it, but you can buy our album directly from us for $7.99.
If there’s a Dark Angel fan that can’t afford that but can’t afford a cup of coffee or go to Subway and buy a $12 sandwich, I understand. But, you can get an eternity’s worth of music the way we intended to sound.
I mean, Spotify sounds horrible. It always has, you know? Anytime I’ve ever tried to listen to it, it’s like, well, I know this song. I know there’s a clap thing on this Queens of the Stone Age song that I love. You don’t hear that at all on the MP3 versions because they’re so squashed. And so, all we’re trying to do is just give Dark Angel fans the best quality that we can.
Are we going to sacrifice some listeners? Of course, we are. And at some point when the machine works a little better for everybody involved, we’ll side onto the machine, I guess. But as of this time, just at this moment, all their (Spotify’s) contracts are just a little bit questionable.
For the last couple of years, I was expecting (that) we were gonna put our stuff on streaming services just like everybody else. And we’re gonna we’re gonna take that loss, just like everybody else. But then they went and moved the goalposts yet again.
So it’s just like, let’s just take a moment until it all works out in our favor. Because right now, Spotify doesn’t work in anybody’s favor other than Spotify.
When the finish line changes, I can make those moves along with it, and that’s all that we are currently doing right now with the lack of Spotify presence for Extinction Level Event.
We just need to help create the best version of this industry, for ourselves.
I did also want to clarify about some confusion regarding the album artwork. The band made an Instagram post regarding the artwork, about it being created using artificial intelligence. I know the band did state that four artists were consulted in the creation of the album art. And I was trying to find some verification on this and—
Yeah. There’s AI that was used but there’s also a ton of other computer graphics on this. Back in 2022, I gave our artist, who’s worked with us for years, Cane Gillis, concepts of, you know … I wanted to do each song as an artwork. “Come up with it however you want. I don’t care.”
I don’t care about AI. I don’t care about whatever kind of controversy there is. I love our artwork.
And so Cain was telling me after he was completed it that he took well over 2000 hours to get this artwork together because of the CGI involved, the photography involved. He used all elements. I just said, “Just do it, do whatever you want.”
And so if anybody thinks that it was, you type in a sentence, and then all of a sudden it barfs out this amazing and completed artwork. That is absolutely not the case. So if people want to weigh in with their opinions on things, you know, we’ve always been a polarizing band. I’ve always been a polarizing artist. But if you are not going to listen to the music? The music is the important part to me. Artwork is a necessary evil. And, did I think it was going to be a lot easier than it was to take an AI concept? Of course, but that was not easy. It was not simple. It’s not anything that was made simple or quick like, “Here’s a sentence. Bam! Look at that great artwork!” Nothing like that.
If you don’t like our art, that’s fine. I mean, don’t like it, you know?
I did want to, you know, address that and clarify it because you said in a Blabbermouth interview that was released on the September 23 that quote “No AI was put to the vocals.” And so it—
Oh, if you’re talking vocals, no.
No, no, no. I just wanted to clarify since there was this hard stance that the music itself wasn’t actually touched by AI, but some of the artwork was. I wanted to gauge what your opinion on that should be regarding AI in the actual art versus AI in music.
Oh, gosh. Well, yeah, AI art, I don’t care about. Like I say, it’s just artwork. It’s just a necessary evil, and if people want to get up in arms over some artwork, then OK. I wouldn’t apply AI towards music because music is created from my heart. The music is the number-one important part of all of this. The artwork, that’s a secondary. Like I say, necessary evil.
So I went with that route, you know, chose that route back in 2022. And it was explained to me that you might have some backlash on this, and like, I don’t care. I don’t care.
This is the most organically recorded record that I’ve been involved in. This was all recorded in the studio, all mixed in the studio. It’s live, you know?
I mean, is every note perfect on the record? Of course not, but we didn’t auto-tune anything. We left in the trash, you know? So that’s why this album, I don’t believe, sounds like anybody else’s record at the moment. Even when it comes to the mixing of this album, we have Mike Frazier, the legend, mixing this album. He’s an old-school mixer. It’s not like we could just send an email to Mike saying, “Hey, can we get the kick drums up on this? Or can we get this one vocal line just up a little bit? You know, put a little juice on that one?”
It involved going back into the studio. So that was very important to our producer, Rob Shallcross, to make sure that it is done as organically as possible because it’s been 34 years since the last Dark Angel album. That’s where we tried to take care of our fans’ interests and have this be as least a polished record in terms of today’s possibilities.
So now that Dark Angel are officially back, how do you see the future, and what should fans be expecting from now on?
Well, at least from a live standpoint, we are a brutally intense band. We are a whirlwind of activity on stage that rivals any band live. Go check us out, and make up your own mind on what Dark Angel is for you, you know? If that’s a part of your future. Whoever is listening or watching or whatever it might be, you know, check us out. See what you take. And you know, we hope to be on the road as much as we can.
Extinction Level Event is out now via Reversed Records.
Photo courtesy of Reverse Records
