By Carl Begai

Guitarist Jeff Young is known in metal circles as one of the many talented guitarists to have put in time with MEGADETH over the course of the band’s 25+ year career. His tenure was short lived, lasting only one album (So Far, So Good… So What! in 1988) before getting the boot from frontman / founder Dave Mustaine. Since then he has made a successful career focusing on world music and classical guitar, taking on several different projects, with a solo album entitled Equilibrium released in 2009 being his latest achievement. Young remained more or less under metaldom’s radar for all but the diehard fans up until December 2009, when he called out Mustaine via MySpace for “talking smack” about him (details to follow). News a few weeks later that he’d officially joined Kentucky-based rockers Hydrogyn raised some eyebrows, with fans on both sides seemingly taking a wait-and-see attitude. Word came down soon after that ex-Megadeth bassist James Lomenzo had also joined the Hydrogyn fold, however, and reserved curiosity became a full-on buzz. Once applauded as a decent-to-kick-ass outfit, for the fence-sitters Hydrogyn has suddenly become a band to watch for more than easy-on-the-eyes vocalist Julie Westlake.

Guitarist / founder Jeff Westlake discusses his thinking behind getting two former Megadeth members on board for the band’s new album, Judgement, which was in the process of being written at press time.

Westlake: “To be honest with you I think the seed was planted in the fall of 2005. We’d been working with (producer) Michael Wagener, and Jeff had been working with him on and off for a couple years for his solo album, Equilibrium. Michael had played Jeff some of our stuff and Jeff really liked it, and it seemed like every time Hydrogyn was in the studio Jeff was right behind us. It was just a weird coincedence, so we were always being kept up-to-date on each other without even meeting. This last time Jeff was mixing Equilibrium with Michael – it was actually the day Michael Jackson died – and they called me over Skype asking if I wanted to hear Jeff’s version of Aerosmith ‘Seasons Of Wither’, which is one of my favourite Aerosmith songs. One thing led to another, we were sending emails back and forth, and Jeff ended up being a guest on my radio show Westlake And The Pig. From there went from ‘Hey, you should do a track on the next album with us…’ to ‘maybe you should do two songs with us…’ to ‘Fuck it, you should join the band.’ That’s literally the way it happened.”

Young: “Once we got to talking, Jeff told me that if I knew any musician on par with ourselves that he’d trust me on it, and I immediately thought of Joe Migz from kHz. I discovered them through MySpace and they instantly became my new favourite kick ass band. We became friends over MySpace and it turned out that kHz were big Megadeth fans. Joe happened to mention he was a big fan of Megadeth and my playing and he said flat out that if I ever put anything together, if I was going to get back into metal or rock, to give him a call first. That’s what I did and he immediately said yes. As far as the bass player slot, as soon as we heard that Lomenzo was out of Megadeth we called Michael Wagener and asked if he had any way of getting hold of him. He hadn’t had any contact to Lomenzo since White Lion, so I hit him up on Facebook with a letter. We talked on the phone after that, and what an amazing person he is. I can’t say enough about his professionalism. He was instantly down as well.”

With two former Megadeth members in the fold the expectation is that Hydrogyn is going to sound considerably heavier on the new album…

Westlake: “I don’t want to say that Hydrogyn is going to sound slightly this way or that way. Let’s just say it’s going to be different. You made the comment that you heard the difference between (first album) Bombshell and Deadly Passions. The difference between Deadly Passions and this new album, Judgement, is going to leave you with the same feeling; that the two are very different from each other.”

Young: “Our thing is that we don’t want to have one dud song on the album. We’re spending a lot of time crafting each piece and I think they have all the best elements of what Hydrogyn has had to this point, plus the vibe that I bring and that the other musicians bring. Two of us have played in Megadeth so there’s going to be that level of chops. Jeff and Julie wanted to make sure that this new Hydrogyn is totally modern.”

As mentioned, songwriting for the new album is well underway, with Young and Lomenzo fully committed to Hydrogyn. No one is more surprised than Westlake at how quickly things have taken off on a creative level.

Westlake: “We’ve already sent five songs to Lomenzo in Los Angeles… he opened the first one on a Saturday, sent it back to us on a Monday, and our jaws are still on the floor (laughs). We had certain expectations since it was James Lomenzo doing the track, and what we got back with the first track was what we expected times 10.”

Young: “It’s some of the best playing I’ve heard out of the cat. I have to be honest and say that I haven’t heard any Megadeth since Rust In Peace, but I know the stuff he’s done with Black Label Society and he couldn’t have played a more perfect bass line to this song. Without instructions. It’s a very complex song, there’s a lot of chromatic stuff and weird off-time things, and I don’t know how he copped it so quickly. I did write out the intro chromatic lick so he’d know exactly what notes they were, but aside from that we said ‘Have at it’ and what we got back was a finished bass track. It makes the song sound like it’s already been mixed. We only sent him the drum machine, scratch guitars and Julie’s scratch vocals.”

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