In a new interview with CBS San Francisco, guitarist Phil Demmel (ex-Machine Head) talks about BMPD - the new juggernaut also featuring heavy metal icons Bobby Blitz (Overkill) on vocals, drummer Mike Portnoy (The Winery Dogs, Sons of Apollo), and bassist Mark Menghi (Metal Allegiance) - and the upcoming EP from Vio-Lence. An excerpt follows:

CBS SF: I did want to ask a little bit about Vio-Lence. You touched on it for a second already, but I know you guys had plans this year as well. If I’m not mistaken, there were at least a couple of festival dates this summer…

Phil Demmel: "Yeah, we were. We’re supposed to be doing Bloodstock and the Alcatraz Festival. We were playing every month and we had so many cool things lined up for this year. It’s hard because we had this momentum going and, you know, everybody did. We had a bunch of shows all over the world that we were doing, mostly one offs.

"We’re looking at recording here. We’ve got a record, a five-song EP that we’re going to do for Metal Blade Records. So we’ve got about three songs done for that and are super excited about having new material out after all this time. It’s been about 30 years since we’ve recorded new music. It’s an exciting time to be jamming with my dudes again."

Read more at CBS San Francisco.

Recently guesting on the Heavy Metal Mayhem radio show, Vio-Lence frontman Sean Killian discussed the band's forthcoming EP, which is currently  slated for a 2021 release.

Kilian: "If you listen to the '93 demo that I recorded with Phil (Demmel / guitars) and the guys,  those songs wound up on the Torque album (Demmel's post-Vio-Lence project) On that demo, I recorded 'Breed Like Rats', 'Again' and 'Shooter', and if you listen to that demo you can kind of get a sense where we're headed. When we did those three songs on that '93 demo, you can hear the you-can-piss-off attitude in those songs, like, 'I don't give a shit what anyone wants to hear. This is who we are and this is what's gonna come out.' So, it's kind of bridge between Eternal Nightmare ('88), Oppressing The Masses ('90) and the '93 demo, a combination of those three."

Demmel on Vio-Lence in 2020: "It's still important to a lot of people to hear these songs and to see us playing these songs. There's songs that I wrote in the mid-'80s in high school that are still being screamed for, and we're still playing (them), and (they're) still getting messed up by certain members of the band after 30, 35 years or whatever (laughs). I just think that it's still so important to some people that we're... with the day and age, with the internet, people are getting this widespread access to the band more than they did before. Nobody outside of the Bay Area really cared about us back in the '80s."

Metal Blade Records recently announced the addition of Vio-Lence to its worldwide roster.

Vio-Lence was born in 1985 in the womb of thrash metal's inception: San Francisco's East Bay Area. With a ferocious blend of blazing guitar riffs, relentless rhythm, and an ultra-aggressive vocal style, they have an intensity unmatched in metal. After disbanding in late 1993, their music and legacy still drew metal-heads from around the world. Their return to live performances began in mid-April 2019 and they haven't looked back.

Sean Killian (vocals) comments: "My first real exposure to thrash metal was brought to me by Metal Blade Records in the form of Slayer's Show No Mercy, which turned into my first live thrash metal show when I saw Slayer at The Keystone Berkley. Today, being able to announce that Vio-Lence has signed an agreement to bring new music to thrash metal fans and future thrash metal fans around the world with our partners Metal Blade Records is a very proud moment for me and Vio-Lence. Metal Blade has been involved in thrash metal since the beginning with their compilation Metal Massacre, and they have stood the test of time because of their love for heavy music. Thank you everyone at Metal Blade Records for believing in Vio-Lence and for being fans of the music I love."

Vio-Lence lineup:

Sean Killian - vocals
Phil Demmel - lead guitar
Deen Dell - bass
Perry Strickland - drums
Bobby Gustafson - live guitar

(Band photo - James Willard)