I’m featured in this month’s DECIBEL Magazine! I’ve been a reader a very long time. In fact, it’s the only magazine I still subscribe to. You can read the unedited, even wittier version of the interview below the image!

You spent a large portion of the pandemic living in Hawaii. What was that experience like?

It was absolute bliss. I can’t imagine a better place to be when the world effectively stops than Hawaii. The state closed its door to tourists for quite a while during the height of the pandemic. Without that influx of visitors crowding Oahu, my wife Tracy and I got to enjoy the island so much more. For us, the main attraction of Hawaii is its natural beauty. During the pandemic, the beaches never closed. The forests never closed. The ocean stayed open for business.

In 2019, my main concern with moving to Honolulu was the lack of metal shows. The deal with my wife was that I could travel to the mainland for festivals. It was a good compromise, but at the time I was a little sad that I wouldn’t be able to see bands regularly. But soon after we moved, Covid-19 shut down concerts everywhere, so I ended up not missing much live metal. Our 2 1/2 year stay in Hawaii was really a perfect window in time to experience paradise. It’s something that probably won’t ever happen again.

You are the third or fourth member of the Metalheads Podcast ensemble to appear in this column. Those podcasts are often seven-hour, beer-fueled marathons, and we have on reliable authority that you hit the wall pretty hard when recording an episode with a Decibel staff member. Was that because, like Decibel, you are unable to make it through an entire episode of the show?

Ha! I love how you just admitted that Decibel doesn’t have the stamina for trve metal discussions. That figures. And clearly, your “reliable” minion did not accurately recount my legendary exploits on that episode.

Twas our Top 25 Metal Albums 2020 Midyear countdown show and the revelry was intense. Four hours in I had already put down 2 meads and 7 beers with ABVs of 9% or higher. I was feeling it. I saw a rainbow and knocked over a mic on accident, so I decided to leave and go take a nap. It’s a thing I do sometimes at parties, like a rattlesnake brumating in Winter. When I suddenly dropped out of sight, the Metalheads were baffled and concerned, but after a few minutes they just decided I passed out. I can’t blame them. Anyone else on the cast would have been incapacitated by half the amount of alcohol I drank that night.

But then, suddenly, I made my triumphant return 15 minutes later and completed the episode, more lucid and wittier than before. The boys were shocked. They marveled at my recuperative abilities. So, “hit the wall?” Nah. I just curled up against it for a bit, then stood up and kicked its brick teeth in. It’s the greatest comeback in the history of podcasting.

You have attended Metal & Beer Fest in the past and are an outspoken fan of our flagship meadery Brimming Horn. So, let’s put you on the spot: Is mead actually more metal than beer?

Are you serious with this? I feel like your questions keep exposing Decibel as way less metal than it should be. Thank Crom I’m here to raise the bar. Pun intended.

There is no beverage more metal than mead. Mead is the oldest known alcohol. It’s a lot stronger than beer, if made properly. It was dubbed the nectar of the gods by the ancient Greeks. It’s the drink Vikings are greeted with after they die in glorious battle and ascend to Valhalla. Mead fueled the epic hero, Beowulf. Beer has been around a long time, but it just doesn’t have that same kind of celestial status. You wouldn’t even have beer in the world without mead makers blazing the path.

Look, I love a good beer and we have a lot of excellent metal brewers out there, but when you really think about it, beer’s overall reputation among the masses is the opposite of extreme metal – it’s a commercialized and over-produced product mostly known for frat boy parties and shitty Superbowl ads. Mead is just ludicrously more metal. It laughs at beer. If you believe otherwise, tell it to Jon and JR at Brimming Horn. Just be sure you put your affairs in order first.

You’re co-creator and writer of the comics By the Horns and Voracious. Here’s your advertising space: Why should metalheads go check these out as soon as they finish this month’s Stone Cold Lazy?

VORACIOUS is about a chef who travels through time, kills dinosaurs and serves them at a restaurant in the present. My current series, BY THE HORNS is an epic sci-fi/fantasy adventure about a heartbroken warrior and her telepathic wolf companion who want to murder all the unicorns in the world for destroying their lives. The main character, Elodie, can rip off unicorn horns and merge them together to form magic weapons. Do comics get more original or metal than that?

Plus, bringing this interview full circle, Brimming Horn made a mead for my comic book series, BY THE HORNS, while I was in Hawaii. It’s the only one they’ve ever crafted for a comic. All their other collaborations have been with metal bands. If that doesn’t get metalheads to pick up my books, I don’t know what will.

You can check out Markisan’s comics and other endeavors at markisan.com. Listen to the Metalheads Podcast on your favorite podcast app or at metalheadspodcast.com.