Sometimes, just sometimes an interview can get out of control. In a good way of course. And when you are floating around on something so surreal like a cruise ship blasting heavy metal 24/7, things can get a bit out of hand. Take BraveWords relationship with Melechesh Ashmedi. Melechesh means "King of Fire" in Hebrew and its leader is one part cartoon, one part comedian and one part musical genius. You stir that all up in a pot and you don’t know who you’ll meet! 

One side note: This interview was conducted a few months before the current conflict in the Middle East; Ashmedi has ties with Jerusalem where his mother resides. 

The cocktails had kicked in on 70000 Tons Of Metal 2023 and it was time for a loose, free-form chat about a number of whacky topics, some obviously stolen from late night genius Stephen Colbert. But we call it the BraveWords Rapid Fire Q&A. Let’s go…

BraveWords: Ok. Let’s just do some fun questions.

Ashmedi: "Ask me whatever you want, man."

BraveWords: Yeah, you think you’re ready? I was planning to do this Stephen Colbert-type set of questions.

Ashmedi: "Oh the Stephen Colbert questions!"

BraveWords: Yeah, like what’s your favourite sandwich?

Ashmedi: "I mean, does it have to have a name or can I tell you how to make it? Because I do have a favourite sandwich."

BraveWords: Tell us.

Ashmedi: "Well, I like mustard, but I like American mustard not the European kind. And I like some form of either aged cheddar from Ireland or some Gruyere, then I like on top of it some French ham and a slice of tomato, very thin. A little bit of onion, believe it or not, and a lot of pickles. Sometimes olives, I like green ones, but pitted. Do you know what the secret to a really good sandwich is, though? A little drizzle of vinegar.  It brings it alive. I didn’t know that until I saw the secret."

BraveWords: HM is heavy metal, and HM is also high maintenance.

Ashmedi: "No, heavy metal is Heavenly Moaning. Yaaaaaa!!!"

BraveWords: But you just guided us through the sandwich. You must be high maintenance.

Ashmedi: "No that’s a basic sandwich. Just cheese and ham, but you asked what’s my favourite that I do. And I do it for other people, I cook for other people. I’m not high maintenance. I’m high maintenance for other people."

BraveWords: I could make you a grilled cheese that you would die for.

Ashmedi: "I love grilled cheese sandwiches. I forgot to say that. And tuna melts are good. My mom and I always do them at home. And what I like, in Greece, they actually really love club sandwiches, everywhere. Some places in Europe, you can’t find a good one, but everywhere in Greece has one, club sandwiches and Caesar salad, the proper one. I don’t know why they like it in Greece."

BraveWords: Pork fat rules as Emeril Lagassé would say. 

Ashmedi: "Bacon, I love bacon, but North American bacon is better than European bacon. They over-dry it and it stops the flavour. However, bacon you have to treat it with respect, to the point where sometimes I just want a bacon sandwich. Why I don’t get a lot of burgers with bacon? Why? Because the bacon overtakes the flavour of the meat and the spices, and when I eat a burger I want an honest to god patty, the flavour of the patty. Ketchup, pickles, that’s it. Not too fancy. Those fancy burgers are for an adventure, but I’m like fucking Rick Swanson when it comes to a burger."

BraveWords: I’ve seen burgers where they want to put onion rings on the burger. Not beside it. I don’t want an onion ring on my burger.

Ashmedi: "They tell me onion rings, and I tell them rings of onion. And I want them fresh."

BraveWords: And on the side, I don’t want them on my burger.

Ashmedi: "Exactly, exactly. Sometimes there are things that overtake the flavour even with pizzas. I'm sure that pizza matches flavours with a lot of things. I like grilled vegetables on my pizza."

BraveWords: Pineapple?

Ashmedi: "No, but I like it. It tastes good because it’s made in Canada. You know that Hawaiian pizza was invented in Canada?"

BraveWords: Yes, apparently at the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham-Kent, Ontario. I can’t eat a pizza without pineapple.

Ashmedi: "Listen, the combination of pineapple and ham is heavenly. It works. if it didn’t work, it wouldn’t be sold all over the planet, so whoever don’t like it can eat dick."

BraveWords: Top three albums.

Ashmedi: "Of which bands?"

BraveWords: Whatever.

Ashmedi: "Never answer that. I don’t think in a binary way. It’s not apples and bananas. I like fruit."

BraveWords: What’s the desert island one record then?

Ashmedi: "Never, I’ll take a compilation."

BraveWords: Which one? Abba?

Ashmedi: "Yes, I would like something like Abba on my compilation. I would take my nano, something tera-sized with all the bands I like because it’s music, it’s like oxygen, it’s like food. I don’t have a favourite anything. I have preferences and I don’t think in binary terms. I always teach that to people, no apple or banana, why don’t you say orange or cherry? Why do you get trapped in that? The universe is open, but you’re stuck in a labyrinth. That’s getting cathartic."

BraveWords: Name a riff that you wish you wrote?

Ashmedi: "That’s easy."

BraveWords: Oh, now you wanna answer that?

Ashmedi: "No, no, a riff I wish I wrote. you know…"

BraveWords: Don’t say Smoke On The Water, please!

Ashmedi: "No I don’t know. Megadeth’s ‘Polaris,’ at the end of the album."

BraveWords: Rust In Peace.

Ashmedi: "Also, when he’s singing in ‘Holy Wars’, that’s one of them, it’s a genius riff, the length of the phrase." (mimics the long phrase).

BraveWords: I’m hearing Mustaine right now.

Ashmedi: "It’s such a long phrase!"

BraveWords: My favourite Megadeth song is ‘Into The Lungs Of Hell’.

Ashmedi: "Yeah."

BraveWords: That instrumental.

Ashmedi: "I love it. I love it, too. I like Megadeth music but I’m saying those riffs are like, you know, like I had Bose speakers in my car, and it would just put on really loud that Polaris, and I tell people that’s why I like thrash. It’s like a warm blanket, but also empowerment and adrenaline, and safety like when I was a kid. When I hear that, it makes me happy and cozy."

BraveWords: What musician have you met that you are totally in awe of? Where you just melted?

Ashmedi: "I generally don’t like to meet musicians. There was like, and I won’t say who, the most famous ones in the world right next to me in a room, we were dining, and I said nothing. At the same table, and I said nothing."

BraveWords: Iommi?

Ashmedi: "Iommi I’d love to meet, but you know, unless we meet and sit at a bar and have a chat, I don’t want that quick interaction. It’s nothing. It’s just, it would just be, what’s the word?"

BraveWords: Fake?

Ashmedi: "No, no, no, it would just be like, just nicety. Like, when people just say hello in passing, it means nothing."

BraveWords: I would like to sit at a bar with Bon Scott, or Billy Idol.

Ashmedi: "Billy Idol, because Bon Scott is not here."

BraveWords: True.

Ashmedi: "Unless you can summon a ghost?"

BraveWords: Then you can sit there and sing ‘Eyes Without A Face’.

Ashmedi: "But you know, the problem with Billy Idol is, he played in a festival at the same time I was playing, and I wanted to quit my band to go watch him. And my brother is a fan of his, and he asked me, 'Are you going to go watch them?'"

BraveWords: Dude, you wanted to quit the band so you could go watch them?

Ashmedi: "Well, yeah! I didn’t wanna go on stage. It happened twice. Once it was they weren’t headlining. It was Hell Fest or something like that. They and us had different audiences so they could play at the same time. The same happened in Hell Fest when there was Blue Öyster Cult. I was like, 'Come on! Give me a break here! It’s good for the band, I mean having different audiences, but I want to watch! I have the right to, but god!"

BraveWords: Ever ask for an autograph?

Ashmedi: "No."

BraveWords: Why not?

Ashmedi: "I don’t know. I don’t have idols. I don’t. I have people I look up to and respect deeply, and it’s not how successful they are, it’s who they are. I look up to children sometimes. Well technically down to, but up to." 

BraveWords: But hold on, if these guys were alive right now, if Johnny Cash or Elvis were still alive, if one of them were walking down the hallway, you wouldn’t say something? 

Ashmedi: "Of course I’d be like, 'Hey man, what’s up?' Like this (waves). I’ve done it before. I’ve done it before, like Jennifer Lopez, she was passing by and smiling. I was the only guy and I said, 'What’s up?'. I mean, what am I gonna do? If she wanted to talk to me and go have coffee with me that’s fine, because I’m an interesting fellow, but it’s her loss. I’m actually very humble, but I’m a fun guy that’s a fact."

BraveWords: If you are a criminal and you were on death row, what is the last song you want to hear before you get killed? Before you die? Before you’re in the electric chair?

Ashmedi: "I don’t want to be on the electric chair. This is interesting. I never thought about that. Because I don’t believe in the death penalty. What song? Wow. Oh! ‘I Did It My Way’, by Frank Sinatra."

BraveWords: Not the Sex Pistols version?

Ashmedi: "No, no, no, I actually have tears, because it’s like when I was a kid, I was like, 'What a cheesy song', but then I’m like, 'Dude, that’s exactly what I’m thinking in my mind!', because when I’m old, I want to have those memories, and make my life as a movie. I want my life as a movie. I want to watch that movie, if you can make it. Two fully successful CEOs pushed me for that. One was the CEO of Universal Benelux and Germany, and the other guy was something very very big and he was like, 'Keep doing it'. Yeah, money, money, look at us - we have all the money and everything, but we have almost the same memory in the office. And with me, I watch TV and I’m like, 'Ha ha ha, I peed there!',you know what I mean? Life is like, I’m in a comic book man. My nieces, when they talk about me in school, sometimes the teacher is like [sarcastically] “Very nice”, so I told them don’t talk about me in school. Because they say, 'My uncle is in a band! My uncle is in a band!', you know? Like that. They’re my biggest fans. We have a band together. I told them to call it Pink Pony. They said, 'No we’re going to call it Skeleton'."

BraveWords: What was the response when you told your folks that you wanted to be a professional musician?

Ashmedi: "Well, first of all I didn’t have folks. My dad died when I was five months old, so just a mom. No support. I never said I wanted to be a professional musician because 'I’m a loser, I’m not good at anything', you know? I just went on instinct. You know when you've got two animals, like two turtles going on top of each other and they start mating? It’s like that. I couldn’t stop. It was just instinct, you know? And that’s why I went to university. I never thought I’d be professional. I mean, who the fuck am I? I am nobody. Everybody put me down, and only when I started believing in myself, life is good. And I still self-sabotage because I was programmed not to. And I think character assassination should be like murder because they leave you alive to deal with it. For no reason. The brain is programmed differently and that’s why most people with sad situations, they have substance abuse, and they get in trouble, because they were basically abused, mentally. So no, I never thought I’d be a professional musician. And I never, I don’t know. I’m a monk for the entity Melechesh. Because it’s a cultural phenomenon."

BraveWords: So you mentioned peameal, what are your favourite Canadian bands?

Ashmedi: "The Tea Party." 

BraveWords: That’s your favourite band?

Ashmedi: "That’s my favourite band in the world, and I’m in touch with them, and that’s why we did an adaptation of the song ‘Gyroscope’, with their blessing, in the album. Then I gave them Djinn because I was working at EMI in Europe. No one wanted to go there, but I did with my colleague, the product manager. They were like, 'Thank you for coming', and I was thinking, 'Thank you for coming? I’m happy!'. Then we hung out, and they gave the CD to other people. I think there was one riff on their album after that was based on that riff. And we’re still in touch. I talk to the drummer, Jeff Burrows, and hopefully one day we’re going to jam together. Like when I go to Canada, I’ll take a 12 string. I told him we gotta do it. He’s one of the best drummers on earth. I always listen in the house, to The Tea Party, and I always tell people about it. (Sings a few lines from Temptation). Yeah, I love it. I love everything. I also love what Jeff Martin does. I love Armada. I love Jeff Martin. I love the blues stuff they do, and you know the bass player, Stuart, he did soundtracks for the Prince Of Persia game. You can download them. You can get the music and listen to it. It’s also a bit Tea Party-ish. And Jeff Martin has perfect pitch. Like, he’ll tune the guitar without a tuner. I can tune a guitar, but I have to first go this way, and then that way, but his will all be correct. Their productions. Their drum sound. When I saw them live it was one of the heaviest sounds. I was just shaking, like this. I was an ecstasy at that show and he was like this with the bass (mimics bass playing). The Tea Party is the best thing to come from Canada, for me. And Rush, obviously. And Blasphemy.

BraveWords: I haven’t heard that band name in so long.

Ashmedi: "They are still playing in Europe.I met them on a tour. I like that kind of Canadian, vulgar, war-metal kind of thing. We need to make a project one day."

BraveWords: You need to connect with Away.

Ashmedi: "Oh man, Voivod! I love Voivod. When I was a kid I thought they were American, you know, I’m a kid there’s no Internet. So of course, they're Canadian! So add Voivod. Voivod are the geniuses of thrash metal. They are the pioneers of self independent, non-herd mentality thinking. I like that."

BraveWords: Tom G. Warrior told me that Exciter's Heavy Metal Maniac was life-changing for him.

Ashmedi: "Oh, Exciter! Well now we’re gonna talk about Canadian bands. It’s full of amazing bands. You know, like Sacrific, Razor - I mean, that intro. Aaaaah! It’s so long."
And you know what? None Shall Defy by Infernäl Mäjesty. They have a certain groove to them. That album, every song is good. They have, like, song structures. They know dynamics. I saw them live, also, once they were in Holland, I had fun man."

BraveWords: They were only around for a couple of years.

Ashmedi: “Actually we played once in Canada, in Calgary. We headlined a thing and they were opening for us. They didn’t have the nice hotel like us, and they weren’t invited backstage, or to the after party, because the lady who did the festival, she didn’t know them. I was like, 'My god, get them backstage! Get them this, get them that', so we gave them a lot of stuff because they deserve it. I think they just came to play and have some fun. But they’re a good band. There are a lot of good bands in Canada. Danko Jones is awesome. And Celine Dion. No, I'm kidding."

BraveWords: And Shania Twain has a brand new album.

Ashmedi: "Oh Shania is Canadian? I like her, she’s cool. I also like Dragons Den Canada because they’re less mean than in England."

BraveWords: We are actually good friends with Michael Wekerle.

Ashmedi: "You know I’m an entrepreneur. I invent products in my head all the time, I just don’t feel like doing them. And then I see people invent them 20 years later."

BraveWords: Yeah, and you missed out on all the royalties.

Ashmedi: "Yeah, there’s one guy in the business, he keeps on sending me articles, like, years later. He’ll say, 'You thought of that!', and I’m like, "I know!". Seriously."

BraveWords: I invented the iPod before Steve Jobs.

Ashmedi: "See what I mean? I can’t even tell you what I invented. But it always say, if you steal my invention, cool - but give me royalties. If you don’t give me royalties, I’ll come to your bed at night and be like, 'Remember me?', and give you lots of marshmallows."

BraveWords: Done. Let’s go drink.

Ashmedi: "Yay, but I can’t drink. I’ll drink cola because I play tonight. I can’t go on stage and play guitar after a drink. Never ever."