Q/A: Decibel Magazine Editor Albert Mudrian on his Philadelphia Phillies and the Intersection of Extreme Music and Sports

Albert Mudrian is about to get on a plane and fly to California. He’s Editor in Chief of Philadelphia’s Decibel Magazine, which has been going strong since 2004, and just sent a new issue to print on Tuesday. He gets one day “off,” then travels to Los Angeles to see through the magazine’s west coast version of the annual “Metal and Beer Fest,” which debuted at The Fillmore here in Philly back in 2017.

Decibel is one of the few heavy metal and extreme music magazines available not just in the United States, but on the planet Earth. The mag, which is published locally by Red Flag Media (10th and Arch), also organizes an annual United States tour, and Mudrian has authored several books about extreme music while contributing regularly to the Decibel website.

Mudrian, however, doubles as a huge baseball fan, and has been a Phillies supporter for decades now, long before the team ever turned that corner in the mid-2000s. We connected with him for his thoughts on the current state of the Phils, and the intersection between mainstream sport and heavy metal music.

Crossing Broad: You’re a big baseball fan. Napalm Death has released three albums since the Phillies’ last playoff appearance. How does that make you feel?

Albert Mudrian: (laughing) I suffer, but why? That comes to mind. It’s been a decade since the last Phillies playoff appearance. That golden era, I actually like to think it began sometime around 2001, when they decided to go 86 and 76 pretty much every year but still somehow not make the playoffs. For me, I see that golden age as a full decade as it was happening. I really did my best to just appreciate it and not take any of it for granted, and not turn into the Yankee fan who was fucking bored with the regular season just waiting for the playoffs to begin. I savored all of those dominant years, especially towards the end of that run, when the 2010 and 2011 teams were exceptional and just beat the piss out of everyone in that incredibly lousy division, the NL East. Not that it isn’t lousy now, but I guess that’s another story. But honestly, it feels a million years away, while at the same time I’m okay with that because I really did get every ounce out of it at the time. I was barely more pragmatic about things than other Phillies fans coming out of it, too, because I wanted to blow up that team in 2012. I did not appreciate the ‘run it back’ approach and this wasn’t even hindsight, it was like, ‘shit, these guys are getting old.’ You could really see the decline. The roster was so expensive. All they had in the pipeline was Domonic Brown, who was at the time I think the number three prospect in MLB. There was some hope there but we just knew that there weren’t enough reinforcements. To answer your question, I should probably just listen to those three Napalm Death records, which I believe are Utilitarian, Apex Predator, and Throes…

CB: Throes of Joy in… in something –

Mudrian: …in the jaws of something. I never remember the title even though it was the 2020 Decibel Album of the Year. I just call it “Throes” in my head.

CB: Well it’s the music that counts, not the album title. Anyway, baseball’s in an interesting state right now. The owners just locked out the players. We’re talking constantly about the universal DH, the shift, seven-inning double headers, and all of these other rule changes. Is the game in a good spot right now, or no?

Mudrian: It’s not, but all of that talk is just complete bullshit, because it’s all about money. They basically announced that they were taking all that stuff out of the CBA negotiations, like they’re not even gonna bother talking about pace of play, universal DH. All they’re going to talk about is money, and structuring the finance side of things, which obviously is important. But at the same time, there are so many things that could be done, and they are spinning their wheels and they’re going to lose ground. Whether this lasts a month or two months or begins to even compromise spring training, or it goes into April and they lose games, that’s losing ground. It’s turning into a niche regional sport, which is fine. I don’t really give a shit because it’s become a niche regional world. It doesn’t really mean anything to me, but if I’m them, I can’t grow my product as efficiently as I could if I did have a national stage like the NFL or the NBA. Look what the NBA has done. How come Major League Baseball can’t look to that model for growth? It blows my mind. I don’t think the game is in a great place, but I think there are great players in the game right now. I think the way things are structured, there are too many teams trying to tank their way to a title, making the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ super clear and just making for bad baseball. You can’t necessarily tank your way to a title. It’s no guarantee. I’d like to see things like a salary cap. I’d like to see a salary floor. I don’t know how that gets done. But man, those are things that would definitely benefit the long term financial viability, and then being able to help you grow the game and have teams be competitive in every market.

Denver’s Khemmis are featured in the December issue of Decibel Magazine

CB: Jonathan Broxton used Black Sabbath for his entrance music, and Mariano Rivera famously had Enter Sandman, though there honestly isn’t a lot of crossover between baseball and extreme music. But you can go to a Flyers game and still hear Pantera and Megadeth over the PA system, and I think you’ll find a lot of Eagles fans who will at least enjoy Metallica or dabble in something heavier. Is that the extent of extreme music crossing into mainstream sport?

Mudrian: I don’t know, because I like a niche sport. But I think it crosses more into things like mixed martial arts and wrestling. I hear about that secondhand from people that are like, ‘oh, there’s this wrestler and his walkout music is this band Amenra,’ who are this European, eight piece crushing doom metal band that are going to sell a few thousand copies in North America. And this guy is a legit wrestler. I looked at his Twitter feed, and he’s approaching a million followers (note: it’s AEW’s Malakai Black). It’s an extreme example of things. I think it’s kind of always been the way that goes, like when you have such a massive audience and following as something like one of the “four major sports,” and I’ll go to five for soccer, just for you, Kevin –

CB: I appreciate that.

Mudrian: …the way the numbers bear out, you just can’t really go that extreme. Or even go beyond something that already has a mass audience, like Metallica or Pantera. Pantera is heavy, sure, but they still sold millions and millions of records. Maybe you can like slip in Lamb of God or something, but the crossover I think is limited. That’s not to say that the athletes themselves aren’t interested. The first person I always like to use as an example is Sean Doolittle, the baseball reliever, who I think ended last year with the Mariners and started with the Reds. Most probably know from his his heyday with the A’s and then with the Nationals, but he’s a legit extreme metal fan. In (Oakland), when he was a closer, he would come out to Ride the Lightning-era Metallica. It was definitely a different vibe with somebody like him. There are those people, but they’re generally the exception. Just look at the Phillies’ walk up music. There’s a couple of good non-metal songs, but there’s some bad shit, like J.T. Realmuto. It’s not a good scene. It’s a far cry from the Pat Burrell days of Holy Diver.

CB: Chase Utley ain’t walking out to Zeppelin anymore.

Mudrian: There’s no more Kashmir in that lineup.

Veteran MLB reliever Sean Doolittle is a noted heavy metal fan (Stephen Brashear-USA TODAY Sports)

CB: There are some notable sports fans in our world of music. Erik Rutan (Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal) loves the Eagles and did a death metal cover of “Fly Eagles Fly.” The Slayer guys were frequently photographed wearing Raiders gear. Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris might be a bigger soccer fan than I am. That’s probably where more of the crossover comes from.

Mudrian: I think so. They’re just like regular people. There was a time that punk and metal musicians felt isolated by “jock culture.” That kind of lets up a bit as you get older, and you can appreciate it for what it is. Maybe it’s like the captain of the football team isn’t throwing you into a locker anymore, and you might be able to watch a football game as an adult. I think that there is an element of that as as you get older, that you see more and more of that. That’s not say there aren’t people who have been there from the start who like both heavy metal and sports, but you usually see it metastasize a bit more with age.

CB: This one stereotype bothers me. It’s the token meathead football player who listens to metal to get himself pumped up, then bashes himself in the head with his own helmet, and now he’s ready to run through a brick wall. Our music is aggressive and does get the juices flowing for athletes, but we’re not all Neanderthals.

Mudrian: I never understood that. For me, it’s always been about wanting to listen to that stuff so I don’t run through a brick wall, so I don’t want to slam my head into something (laughs). This is a way to avoid that kind of behavior in people, if you have those kinds of tendencies, or that pent-up aggression and frustration. (Extreme music) is a release. The overwhelming majority of people that I meet that are fans are super-chill people. Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of fucking troglodytes. I heard from one this morning, who was very upset that we posted a code of conduct for Metal and Beer Fest on social media. They took a second to email us to tell us that metal was about “hate and violence” and that we don’t understand things. I don’t know how you have it in you to write that email.

CB: I’ve always seen heavy metal as being the polar opposite of that. To me, it’s like we’re in the parking lot before the Judas Priest show. Everybody is just drinking some beers and talking and laughing and having a good time.

Mudrian: Definitely the roots of it are there. Of course there’s aggression and alienation. But it’s always been very communal. Having been involved with this scene for as long as I have, it’s something that’s clearer to me as the years go by. I’m not saying it is perfect, but you can take any subset of people or any group and there’s going to be assholes in that group. It just happens. It’s easier to stereotype metal fans because of their general appearance.

CB: Back in 2010, Exhumed’s Matt Harvey challenged you to a bet. He said if the Giants beat the Phillies in the NLCS, you’d have to write an essay about why the Giants are great, and then grow a Brian Wilson beard, dye it black, and post a picture with said beard. Did you ever accept this wager and fulfill your end of the bargain?

Mudrian: Man I forgot. You know, I feel like there was a gentlemen’s agreement, that the results of the series would be punishment enough for whoever lost this battle. At the time, it certainly felt like that, that I had received my significant comeuppance. I mean, visions of Cody Ross are still strong. I wish I could remember; I don’t have information on what ‘Harv’ was supposed to do if the Phillies actually pulled through in that series there because I think it was something that was equally implausible.