Brad Hull Of Forced Entry Interview (2013)

This is an interview I did for Brad Hull of Froced Entry; one of the first "underground" 80s thrash bands I got into when I was 13 or so (I'm now 23); Forced Entry. Enjoy! And don't forget, I was about 19 or so, cut me some slack. I asked some idiotic questions and asked in odd manners. Just concentrate on the answers.... that's the cool part. Anyway, enjoy.

We all know of the impact that the bay area thrash movement made on the underground world, and is still renowned by all of the metal world today, but what about Washington? More specifically, Seattle. There were some hard ‘n’ heavy bands out of there, Metal Church, Sanctuary,  Bitter End, etc. But there was always one that seemed to be slightly overlooked, and I think that’s just wrong. That band is Forced Entry. They had blistering riffs, hard-hitting lyrics, and an overall aggressive controlled sound to them a lot of people have yet to hear. The guitarist, Brad Hull is still out and about thrashin it up, and I thought it would be most excellent to get a chance to talk to him about what he’s been doin’, and what he has done. He’ll also give you a good feel about what Forced Entry was about, and their musical style. Take it away, Brad!

Photo by Side Kick

So let's dive into this first off by finding out what you've been up to nowadays. You recently left your Metallica tribute band Blistered Earth, and I believe you went to Sanctuary from there? Am I missing anything, there? And what was the reason for leaving Blistered Earth?

BRAD:  “I’d rather not talk about the reasons why I left Blistered Earth.  Let’s just say they were trying to do something that I didn’t agree with.  But yes, I have been the touring guitar player for Sanctuary for the last two years.  I actually started playing with Sanctuary before I left Blistered Earth.  In fact, Blistered Earth’s current guitar player who replaced me, filled in for me when I went to Greece with Sanctuary.”

How'd you end up in Sanctuary? I know they were, and still are, in the Seattle metal scene, but have you known them since they started or did you guys start hangin a few years ago or something?

BRAD:  “I’ve known the guys in Sanctuary for 20+ years.  In fact, I used to go over to drummer Dave Budbill’s house and play board games, like Hotels or Life.  In 1992, they had a US tour lined up and their guitar player Sean Blosl quit the band and left them hanging.  I heard about it and asked if I could try out.  I went over to the other guitar player’s house (Lenny Rutledge) and learned the majority of their songs in about 3 hours.  Fortunately, I was already very familiar with their tunes.  So that helped a lot.  Then I did that ’92 tour with them.”

How've the gigs been for you? Any crazy times or yarns you'd like to spin to the readers?
BRAD:  “The gigs have been AWESOME.  Packed houses.  Lots of support from the fans.  Crazy times?  On our first trip to Greece, we were in Thessaloniki and our hotel was about 45 minutes from downtown.  We got to the city at about 2 pm their time.  Hung out and drank and actually ran into a few fans who were going to the show the following night.  Around 10 pm everyone else was tired and wanted to get back to the hotel.  We got on a city bus, but I didn’t want to go back at all.  I was having so much fun!  So the bus went about 2 blocks and I asked Lenny what time Lobby Call was.  He said 9:30 am.  The next time the bus stopped, I told him, “Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow!” and jumped off the bus.  I proceeded to walk around Greece drinking Heineken on the streets (You can buy a 16 oz Heineken for 80 cents Euro in these little kiosks on every street corner).  I wandered around a few hours catching the nightlife and stumbled into the club called 8-Ball, that had a metal band playing.  When the show was over, I was outside smoking a cigarette.  I asked this guy if he had any weed.  He said, “I’ve got some hash.”  So we went back to his and his girlfriend’s apartment with a bunch of other people and smoked hash and listened to her play classical piano for hours.  I got up at 7:15 am, wandered down to the bus stop, caught my bus back to the hotel, made lobby call by 9:20!”

Is Sanctuary planning on coming out with any new material?

BRAD:  “Yes!  They just recently signed to Century Media, have been writing a lot of new songs, and I think we’re slated to record in August/September.  Album titled “The Year the Sun Died.”

I noticed you were playing a '96 Carvin DC127 in a few pictures, is that a new addition, or an old reliable?

BRAD:  “Bought it in ’96, so you could say old reliable.”

What's your favorite guitar you've used and what makes it so nice?

BRAD:  “My white ’92 Gibson Explorer.  It just plays really well, stays in tune better than any guitar I’ve ever known, and the tone is incredible.  When we played Barge to Hell last December, I was told by three different sound guys (from other bands on the ship) that I had the best guitar of any band that tour.”

Any guitar you've yet to snag and shred that you've been wanting for a long time?
BRAD:  “Nope.”

What are your thoughts on the modern metal scene? Are there any bands you really like that are newer?

BRAD:  “I don’t listen to a ton of new music, so I’m not really that familiar with all the new killer bands that are coming out.  I’m kinda old skool I guess.  Gimme ‘Reign In Blood’ or ‘Ride the Lightening’, Led Zepplin or AC/DC, and I’m happy.”

-Alright, now for some Forced Entry talk!-

How did you, Tony Benjamins, And Colin Mattson meet and were you guys all into the same kind of music?

BRAD:  “I used to play soccer with Tony when we were 7 years old.  Then when I was about 16, and had been playing guitar for a very short time, someone told me Tony could play “Another Thing Coming” solo note for note.  So I walked over there with my buddy, knocked on his door, and said, “I hear you can play “Another Thing Coming” solo note for note!”  We went down into his room and he played it for me.  It was okay.  Not really note for note.  But we jammed a little bit and things clicked.  So we decided to form a band.  We went through a few drummers and then met Colin at a keg party.  He came over to jam and we all hit it off good.”
“…Because we get letters every single day from people who say they saw the video, or their friend bought the album but they can’t seem to find it in any record store!!”

Before Forced Entry was named that, you guys were Critical Condition, was that your first band?

BRAD:  “Yes.  In Critical Condition we were a five piece.  Tony played guitar at that time.  We had a different bass player and singer.  In fact, we had several different bass players and singers.  As we progressed as a band, the bass players and singers just couldn’t keep up.  So Tony switched to bass and then we went through a couple more singers.  Finally, we just said Fuck It.  Booted the last singer to the curb and decided to sing ourselves.”

Where’d the name “Forced Entry” come from? Or why did it suit the band?

BRAD:  “When Quiet Riot came out with their second album, Condition Critical, we felt it was too close a name to Critical Condition and didn’t want to be associated with them in any way.  Tony came to us with a list of names he thought up and we picked Forced Entry because we were determined to force our way into the music scene.”

Was Combat Records a good label to be on in those days? Did they treat you guys well and all?

BRAD:  “Combat was an okay label to be on, but we were happy just to be on any type metal label.  They treated us okay in the beginning, but we had really poor distribution.  We couldn’t even get distributed in Europe.  As time went on, they got worse.  We switched to Relativity for our second album (Combat was a subsidiary of Relativity).  They got our videos played on Headbanger’s Ball and I remember the Vice President calling to say, “Your video for Never a Know, But the No has been played on MTV more than any other Combat band.  Aren’t you guys happy?”  Tony told him, “NO!  Because we get letters every single day from people who say they saw the video, or their friend bought the album but they can’t seem to find it in any record store!!  What good is it being played on MTV if your fans can’t even buy your record?”  We also had a tour lined up with Cannibal Corpse and Carcass and our label would not give us one penny of tour support to do the tour.  Thanks, guys.” (quick intrusion from me (Olivia): Holy hell that tour would have been awesome!! Heads would have exploded. Re-reading this now, and completely forgot he said that.... I don't remember a lot of these interviews. Haven't looked at them in a while.... back to the interview.)

Who was the one who wrote most of the material for FE, or was it usually a collaboration thing? I know you and Tony liked to switch back and forth with lead vocals, which is a notable touch added to the music.

BRAD:  “It was a collaboration.  I’d say musically, probably 50/50, me and Tony.  As Tony was a guitar player initially, the stuff he wrote was on guitar.  He wrote a bunch of the guitar parts as well.  Tony also wrote a majority of the lyrics.  On occasion, one or the other of us would come to the band with an entire song written, but that was fairly rare.  We liked to collaborate.”

In the video “Macrocosm, Microcosm” you were goin’ to work on a solo walking down the sidewalk. Was that your idea? And how many people gave you crazy looks?

BRAD:  “Yes, it was my idea.  ALL of them gave me crazy looks.  I also played that solo with no music.  I just played that solo walking down the street, not even my guitar plugged in.”

Who’d you get to do album art on the albums?

BRAD:  “I can’t recall.  I wanna say David Betts was the art guy at Combat/Relativity, but he commissioned artists to do the album covers.  You could probably find the artists names if you looked at the albums.”

Did you guys ever hang out with Metal Church?

BRAD:  “Not really.  Run into them at clubs here and there, occasionally, but they were from South Seattle and we were North End.”

I’m guessing one of your favorite bands is Metallica, since you were in a Metallica cover band, do you remember when Cliff Burton passed away and how you felt about it?

BRAD:  “Yes, I remember when Cliff died.  I basically thought, “Fuck.  There goes that band!”  Fortunately, I got to see them on the Ride the Lightening tour in 1985 at the Moore Theater.”

Are you still proud of your work in Forced Entry, and do you still pick up a guitar and jam out to some FE stuff every now and then?

BRAD:  “Yes, I’m still very proud of the stuff I did in Forced Entry.  I like to think that it stands strong today against the music coming out.  On occasion, I do go back and play some of the stuff on the album.  We had talked about doing a reunion, so I really started trying to get it down.  That shit’s hard to fucking play!”

The band split up after the EP “The Shore” was done with in ’95, if I got my info right, there, was it hard trying to pump out an album, and what became of Tony and Colin?

BRAD:  “The Shore came out in ’93.  What was hard was trying to find a label to pick us up after we asked to be released from Relativity.  It seemed like every label out there was trying to find another Nirvana.  We stopped playing in ’95 as a band because we didn’t just want to keep playing the same songs over and over and be a band like Foghat that used to play huge arenas and are still slogging on the road playing shitty bars.  We wanted to die with a little dignity.”


Over the years, do you feel like your guitar style has changed or that you’ve progressed a lot? Anything you’ve done that’s changed your style or anything?

BRAD:  “My style has changed slightly.  I don’t think I’m as aggressive as I was in my youth.  If anything, I’d say I got shittier because I wasn’t forcing myself to play at my top level constantly.”

Was the scene cool in Seattle? There was Bitter End that was a pretty fast-pace technical thrash band as well from there; did you guys hang out a lot? I’ve seen flyers from shows where both bands played together.

BRAD:  “The scene was awesome in Seattle!  We were good friends with the majority of the bands in town.  For the most part, we all played and partied together on a consistent basis.  There was a lot of love and support for the other bands, while there was still competition.  There was also a lot of respect.”

Do you have any strange or crazy memories from touring around with Forced Entry?

BRAD:  “Before we signed to Combat, CBS was courting us in Los Angeles.  After we went to our business meeting with them, and scarfed down triple cheeseburgers and $8 milkshakes, they decided they’d rather not sign a band like Forced Entry.  Later that night, we were walking back to our hotel from The Whisky and the A&R Rep threw an empty beer bottle into a bus stop.  It smashed all over the place.  This bum came out and started screaming at us, so we kinda roughed him up a little bit and went on our merry way.  About three blocks later, he popped out of this alley way, cradling like five 16-ounce Coke bottles in his arms (when they were still made out of glass).  He started throwing them at us and was missing by a long shot. He was kind of running away from me, and I was gonna git em, when he fished his own pint bottle of Night Train out of his inside pocket.  He smashed it over my head, then pulled the old Hockey Maneuver on me, pulling my shirt up over my head, and proceeded to rake the broken bottle up and down my back.  I was cut up pretty bad.  We walked a block and a half to the hotel.  My head was gushing blood.  So I got undressed and into the bathtub.  Tony had recently taken a first aid class in college and started applying pressure on the deepest cut in my back.  They called 911.  When the paramedics got there, they pulled me out of the tub and put me on a gurney.  There was blood five feet high around the bathtub area.  I remember one of the paramedics saying, “We gotta get this guy some blood!” and the other one says, “We don’t even know what type his is!” and then the first one said, “I don’t care!”  They stretched both my arms out and put these huge needles in each of my arms, and took my ass to the hospital.  I got 106 stitches, and they wrapped me up.  Got back to the hotel about 4 am, and about 8 am we had these two chicks take us to Disney Land.  Cuz we got some free passes from CBS as some sort of “consolation prize” for not signing us.  It was awesome freaking all the little kids out with the stitches in my head, and my hair matted in blood!”

“Fuck you, we’re gonna drink ALL your beer!”

There any other instruments you play, or anything you have a passion

BRAD:  “I also play the bass in a classic rock cover band called The Hitmen.  It’s a good excuse to go out and party and get paid, plus we have a really good singer and guitar player.  I like playing the old Journey and Van Halen and shit like that, with three-part harmonies.  Outside the world of music, I love my dogs.  I have a pit bull named Cujo.  Best dog ever, totally sweet. And I’ve got an awesome girlfriend that lets me do what I want to do musically, and supports me totally in my music career.
Did someone grow up on a farm from Forced Entry, or did I just hear an odd rumor?
BRAD:  “We used to practice on five acres in a suburb of Seattle called Mountlake Terrace.  We had horses, pheasants, peacocks.  In fact, our band room was a converted chicken coop.  It was also cool because it was zoned differently from the city, so we’d throw these huge parties and the Mountlake Terrace cops couldn’t do shit!  They had to bring the sheriffs out, which rarely ever happened.”

Any back story for the song “We’re Dicks”?

BRAD:  “We played this show with a couple punk bands in Tacoma.  We ran out of beer, so we started drinking one of the other punk band’s beer.  They came in and started getting all pissy with us.  So we said, “Fuck You, we’re gonna drink ALL your beer!”  Then sat there and drank it in front of them.  Then one of the guys said, “Fuck you, you guys are just a bunch of dicks.”  About three months later, we were booked at that same venue and found out that punk band was on the bill again.  So the night before the show we were at practice and Tony said, “We should write a song about those guys.”  So we wrote them a lovely tune to remind them how much of pissy little bitches they were.  Fuck em!”

Another song I wonder about is “Never a Know, But the No”. Those are some pretty heavy lyrics, was that about a specific happening with someone? You sang the vocals on that song, so I’d imagine you wrote the lyrics for it.

BRAD:  “I did write the lyrics, but Tony wrote the title.  It was nothing about anything specific that happened in my life.  I just wanted to touch on the topic of verbal abuse.”

What’s your favorite band? And are there bands that would seem odd for you to like to other people who know what kind of music you play?


BRAD:  “Really?  Favorite band?  Can I give you a few?  Led Zepplin.  AC/DC, Van Halen, Metallica, Slayer, Black Sabbath. KISS.  I know I’m forgetting about 50 of em, but that should do ya.  I like all kinds of music, but I don’t really listen to music that much.  If it’s a good band, with some merit, I probably like it.  Except U2.  I fuckin hate U2.”

I admire that you kept the long hair, and are still doing what you love. A lot of dudes who’ve been around the metal scene for a while kind of give it up because the lack of money, and not a stable life and blah blah blah, but you’ve kept the metal flowing without yielding it seems. What kept your spirits up all these years? Do you still feel as passionate as you did in the 80s about making music?

Photo by Foto Jagla

BRAD:  “I actually cut my hair, all the way, super short in about ’96.  Kept it that way for about 10 years.  But I wasn’t really playing.  In fact, I quit playing for about 10 years to raise my son.  When I got an offer to join a band in ’06, I got up on stage with my short hair and thought, “This is some fuckin bullshit.”  So I started growing it back out again.  What kept my spirits up?  I just like to play fuckin music and bang my head!  I’m not as passionate about writing music now as I was then, because I haven’t had as much opportunity.  So far, I haven’t done any writing with Sanctuary.  Hopefully that will change in the future as I continue to play with them.  I’ve got a few ideas and a couple complete songs written.”

Let’s wrap this up with a bit of a quintessential well… wrapper upper: What are your plans and hopes for the future? And what are your thoughts on your life as a musician so far?

BRAD:  “I’d like to continue doing what I’m doing.  Hopefully be in a position to write some more killer music for the world to hear.  Of course, get up on stage and bang my fuckin head!  Cuz that’s what I really love!  I wish I’d made a lot more money doing what I love, but I can’t complain.  I’m still able to play and tour the world and do things that millions of other musicians might never have the chance to do.  Can’t complain at all, but I still like to sometimes….LOL….”

Thanks for your time, Brad!
BRAD:  “Thank you so much, Olivia, for seeking me out and giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts with your fans. Horns up, BITCHES!!”

Photo drawn by Mortuus Art
I know the names will contradict the material, but I like this picture a lot and wanted to include it.