Following is an excerpt from an interview with Farmingdale, New York's STRYCTNYE, dubbed "The Greatest Heavy Metal Band You Probably Never Heard About" by writer Rick Pizzo.

Samson James: "I'm the co-founder of Stryctnyne along with my partner here, Mr. Grandma Cyco. Stryctnyne goes all the way back to the early '80s. We had a number of people when the band started out in the basement and graduated to the garage. We did all the local gigs, keg parties, high school gymnasiums. Stryctnyne was a Farmingdale, Long Island (New York) band name for a while and we grew at a nice pace.

I found Grandma here where we used to hang out at this creek part of the neighborhood. I met him through a friend and we just started talking about music. My stepbrother gave me his old bass guitar because I was interested in playing bass guitar and I loved KISS. Old School KISS! I was just getting into BLACK SABBATH at the time and here I meet Grandma and I found out he plays guitar. I go to his house and I see this guy playing his guitar almost identically to what was being played on the phonograph at the time and I was in awe! I was like 'Wow man!' I'm like 13, 14 years old seeing this guy picking up the guitar matching everything he plays to what's being played on the phonograph and I was blown away."

Basically I told him I just got my bass guitar and I'm a beginner and I'm willing to learn and take lessons… whatever have you and I'd like to start a band. I guess he was into it at the time and we got a couple of local kids from school. A drummer named Nick Copolus and a rhythm guitarist named Dion Lonegro and we learned a couple of songs. One of the first songs we learned and played as Stryctnyne was 'Back In The USSR' by THE BEATLES, and then we did the 'Purple Haze' Jimi Hendrix thing… 'Taking Care Of Business', a couple of Hot Tuna songs..."

Click here for the complete interview. Go to this location for band information and audio samples