MetalUnderground.com recently had the opportunity to sit down with drummer Richard Christy (ex-DEATH, ICED EARTH) to discuss his new band CHARRED WALLS OF THE DAMNED, who will release their debut self-titled album on February 2nd via Metal Blade. An excerpt of the interview follows:

MetalUnderground.com: Tell me a bit about why you originally wanted to form Charred Walls of the Damned and how did all the members come together for the project?

Richard: "I’ve been out of the music scene for a little while now. I joined the Howard Stern show in 2004 and I’ve been itching to get back into the metal scene. Every time I go to a show and see my friends play I get a little bit jealous and I want to be up there on stage too. I’ve been writing riffs forever, since back in the ‘90s I’ve been playing guitar. I’ve always had these ideas for songs and I finally had enough songs about a year ago that I needed to put a band together. It was really also inspired by the Howard Stern show. He has his own channel called Howard TV and he did a drumming special that covered a lot of the bands I’d played in like DEATH and Iced Earth. He talked about my drumming career and I wrote an original instrumental song for the special. I played the guitar and bass and also drums, but it got a really great response. They started playing it on Liquid Metal, the heavy metal channel on satellite radio. I started thinking maybe I needed to take all these other songs I’ve written and do something with them if people like this one song that much.

I’ve been talking to Jason Suecof for years about putting a band together. I’ve known Jason since I lived in Florida in 1999. I even helped him build his studio. We started jamming together about ten years ago. We’ve always talked about doing something together but have never had the time. When I had written enough songs for an album I called Jason. I knew I wanted to record at his studio and I’ve recorded there before. He’s done a lot of albums now like ALL THAT REMAINS, DEVILDRIVER, and the BLACK DAHLIA MURDER. All these albums that come out of his studio sound amazing so he was the first person I contacted about doing a band. When I thought of a singer and a bass player the first people that came to mind were Tim (“Ripper” Owens) and Steve (Digiorgio). They are really fun guys to hang out with and work with. I knew once we all got in the studio together we’d make some killer metal and have a blast. It was real easy going, no pressure, and our schedules happened to work out. I’m very thankful that I got to put this band together for an album because its other guys I’m a huge fan of."

Head to this location to read the interview in its entirety.