One of the feel good documentaries I’ve seen in a quite a while comes from people you wouldn’t expect to deliver these types of emotions. I’m talking about the hard rocking metal band – SIREN.
The band was the subject of a new documentary by producer Chris Jericho entitled – I’m To Old For This Sh*t: A Heavy Metal Fairy Tale. Jericho wears many hats these days. Wrestler, Rock Star, Kiss aficionado and after this film, I wouldn’t be surprised if the producer title sticks around for a while.
The approximate hour and half journey takes you back to the bands formation and breakup. In the middle of all of that, they recorded a demo. 35 years later, that demo still fires up the bands rather large fan base in Germany.
As the band gets word about their popularity in Germany, an offer to play a huge rock festival becomes the light at the end of the tunnel for a band that was on the verge, all of those years ago.
It took everything I had to literally not scream out loud in excitement right before the guys took the stage. I probably haven’t rooted this hard for the focus of a film or documentary in a long time.
After the movie ended I had one part exhilaration, one part emotion and one part – wait.. so happens next?
After searching for the band on Google, like many probably did after watching it, I decided I needed to talk with drummer Ed Aborn about not only the film but what happened after the cameras stopped rolling.
Our interview turned into an hour long+ conversation about rock & roll, Siren’s incredible journey, pinball machines and this wild ride called life.
One thing I took away from our chat was that Ed embraces life and is extremely grateful for everything. From anyone wanting to talk about the band to enjoying life with his family and friends. Oh yes, dear readers, this is a situation where the good guys actually come out victorious.
So what did happen after the documentary? Album? Tour? Aborn tells me, “No tour. What we did was, we pretty much did the festival and that was such a highlight. Nathan Mowery the director did such a fantastic job of capturing the story and Chris Jericho helped shape the narrative of the story. Because there was hundreds of hours of footage that was captured in the months leading up to the festival and then being at the festival. And what you see if exactly what happened and you could feel what it meant to us.”
Aborn continues, “After the high of that, we came back and we decided, alright let’s go ahead and record this album. So, we did and spent most of 2019 pretty much recording but we did play a handful of shows. All local. We played a couple of charity shows that were put on by the guitarist of a band called Nasty Savage, David Austin. He puts on these “metal for iPad shows” and they benefit the Apple Foundation that provides tablets to kids in hospitals dealing with terminal or heavy conditions.”
I thought I couldn’t like Ed anymore than I did but this is amazing and shout out to David Austin. Good stuff, sir.
Aborn tells me more about the band’s post-festival show. “We did a couple of things like that and then we were actually supposed to go back to Germany in the summer of 2020 to play a festival called the “Headbanger’s Open Air” but.. Covid. We finished up the album and released it. We did everything ourselves and released it April of 2020. Thankfully had great partners to work with for actually putting out physical product, which was Underground Power Records who released the vinyls. FHM Records who released the CD’s and we just did the digital ourselves.”
Ed finishes by saying, “It was such a thrill after all this time to hold another album after 30 years. Thankfully it worked out, timing wise, because exactly like you did, we were assuming that this movie was going to see the light of day at some time and it will be able to tell a good story. So, in that time frame we knew that if this thing comes the first thing people are going to do is say.. Okay, Siren Band. Let me see what’s going on.”
That was exactly what happened to me.
Our interview went pretty deep and that was only about 5 minutes of our chat. Aborn’s story is a pretty interesting one. We talked about several members of the band and for those Gregg Culbertson fans out there.. he definitely comes up! In fact, Ed is quick to compliment everyone in the band and the terrific jobs each of them did throughout this entire process.
Ed Aborn is a grounded, extremely talented but humble and intelligent person. I look forward to keeping up with him and will be excited when the pandemic is over and these guys can get back to Germany and ROCK THE F… okay, okay.. and Rock Out!!
You can hear my entire conversation with Ed Aborn of the band Siren by clicking on the link to your favorite place to listen to podcasts:
-Tommy Marz
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