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Hatriot (l-r): Kosta Varvatakis, Nick Souza, Miguel Esparza, Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza
and Cody Souza

Heroes Of Origin, meanwhile, takes its lyrical influences from subjects such as television shows, social issues, and legends. “I don’t know if you guys have this show in the UK, but there’s a show in the United States called Dexter,” the songwriter begins. “It’s about the serial killer, and that’s what ‘The Violent Times Of My Dark Passenger’ is about. He refers to the killer inside of him as his dark passenger, and then ‘Globicidal’ is about suicide bombers. ‘Weapons Of Class Destruction’ is about little kids who go to school, like we just had in Connecticut with all of those kids. That’s what that’s about, and then ‘Shadows Of The Buried’ is about a vampire. I love Dark Shadows and I always have, and not just the (2012) movie that Johnny Depp was in. That was derived from the 60s series about a vampire (Barnabas Collins). I have a tattoo of the original guy (Jonathan Frid) on my arm, and that’s kind of a homage to my love for horror movies and vampires.

“The album varies, from a lot of different things. There’s one on there called ‘And Your Children To Be Damned’ and that’s about Countess Elizabeth Báthory, but more the story of what she did. She bathed in the blood of virgins. Anything that’s intriguing, anything that’s dark; that’s basically what I write. Anything that’s violent, anything that’s dark, and anything that’s powerful I guess.”

The gun debate sweeping North America has drawn a varying array of opinions. “The Second Amendment is the right to bear arms, but that was made at a time when there was savage Indians living in the country,” Steve laughs. “Other than the savages that are still living here… I won’t mention anything because I won’t go there, but now I think it’s so that any Tom, Dick, or Harry can… It’s not like that in your country obviously (United Kingdom), but here you can get a gun and just use it. If they’re gonna have free guns like that, I would think that you have to put a police officer in every school. That’s my solution to it and the National Rifle Association (NRA) came up with the same solution, that you should put an armed police officer in every school. You don’t need to have assault rifles. What do you need an assault rifle for? I don’t understand that.

“In a lot of our country, they’re like ‘We have the right to bear arms, and if we ever get invaded we’ll need…’ We’ll never get invaded. We’re so far away from everybody, so who the hell’s gonna invade us? Mexico? Canada? For Christ’s sake, they’d wouldn’t even be able to get halfway over the Atlantic Ocean. We’d know they were coming, so nobody’s ever gonna invade us. I just think it’s bullshit. If you want to have a gun, be a responsible person like Ted Nugent who are good hunters and respect their weapons. I feel sorry for him, I really do. I feel bad for him, because he follows the rules; and he does his hunting on places in the right seasons, and he follows the laws. I think that’s great, and it’s too bad that not everybody does. I’m with you though. What the hell do you need an AK-47 for? You don’t.”

Rock artist and conservative thinker Ted Nugent is viewed in less of a positive light by some commentators. “I don’t agree with his logic on some things, but honestly, he’s a very responsible hunter,” the singer feels. “He has a television show in the United States called Spirit Of The Wild, and I watch it. He preaches gun safety, about having the correct tags, and hunting in the right areas, and getting the right sized game. For a guy like him, even though he says the wrong things all of the time… Because I’ve seen what he has said lately, and it’s just like ’Oh my God.’ You can’t compare it to Rosa Parks (gun ownership). It’s not even close.

Video shoot for ‘And Your Children To Be Damned’

“I know why he feels like that, because of all of the things that are happening between the congresswoman from Arizona (Gabrielle Giffords) who got shot in 2011 (January 8th) and then now this tragedy… Recently, some guy went into a school in California and shot one student, but they talked him down before he shot anybody else and that student was in a critical condition. It’s just one of those things.”

Ted Nugent’s conservative viewpoints are arguably as controversal as Dave Mustaine’s, the mainman of Californian thrash act Megadeth. “I guess you have the right to freedom of speech,” Steve muses. “I’m a musician; I play heavy metal music. It doesn’t give me the forum or the platform to voice my opinion on everything, or anything. It just doesn’t. I’m not smarter than you; I don’t know any better than anyone else, and I’m not trying to. It doesn’t give me that. I think sometimes these guys get caught up in themselves. They get full of themselves, and then they end up with a bigger than God attitude, and everything they say has to be paid attention to.

“Sometimes it’s just ‘Urrgghh… You said the wrong thing. Why did you say that?’ That’s why I’ve actually spoken to all of the boys. Now that they have a record out, they have to stay off of Facebook. They have to watch what they say, and beware of who’s around them, who they talk to, how they say things, and not to come off like an idiot. I don’t want any of my guys coming off like a fucking dumbass; they need to come off like they’re intelligent.”

In Aurora, Colorado on July 20th, 2012, a gunman (James Holmes) killed 12 people and injured 58 others during a midnight cinema screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises, the third instalment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman series of movies. Dave suggested that President Barack Obama had staged the Aurora shooting, a comment which arguably would’ve inflicted greater harm on Megadeth had Megadeth experienced success like fellow Californian thrash outfit and Big Four member Metallica, a band that Dave once played guitar for. “I agree,” the Hatriot co-founder responds. “That has maybe hindered his success and his platform, because he has such opinions like that. I don’t know what to say (laughs). That’s pretty far fetched, it really is. His opinion was pretty far out there. I haven’t seen him in awhile, but I knew Dave back in the day. Over the 30 years I’ve been doing this, nothing surprises me.”

Guns are readily available for purchase in North America. “You can get anything if you want it – I could get anything I wanted,” Steve confirms. “There are dealers out there. People that will get you anything you want in the United States. If you want anything, you can get it.”

Heroes Of Origin was laid down at Trident Studios in Martinez, California. “As soon as the record deal was signed, I think we were in the studio the very next week,” the vocalist shares. “We signed the deal in July (2012), and we were in the studio rehearsing and recording in August. We started recording the album August 1st, and I think it was done by September 15th. The album was finished; recorded, mixed, mastered, and everything. They had it in their hands September 15th. Everybody was very, very well rehearsed. We went into the studio for like a month before we actually went into the studio to record the record. I made them play the set three times a day, every day until we went in there, the set meaning the album. They started with ‘Suicide Run’ all the way to ‘Heroes Of Origin’ from top to bottom with no stop and no mistakes, so everybody knew their part when they went in.

“I train my band like an American football team – that’s how we are. We come and watch films at my house of other bands that I think are good onstage, and carry themselves good. I point things out. I want my band to be the best it can be, so I’m very much involved in every aspect of it. I’m like a coach, and I only want to be the best. When we play a show, to me the shows are the Super Bowls. You have to win the Super Bowl every time. When I’m going onstage, I’m like ‘Guys, I need your game faces on. We need to kick ass. Go out there, and slay, slay, slay.’ I very much carry myself and my music like that, so everybody’s very well rehearsed. I’m gonna shoot to never have a bad show.”

Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza

Juan Urteaga handled production duties, having previously worked with Exodus, Testament, and Machine Head. “He did some really good stuff, and we’re friends with Juan,” Steve compliments. “We see him at all of the shows in the Bay Area, and because there’s a very tight knit, friendly atmosphere between all of the bands it’s like ‘Hey man, I want you to work on my album.’ ‘No problem Zet… Hell yeah… I’m looking forward to working on your album.’ We don’t even sit there to negotiate who’s gonna do it. We pretty much know. We knew that Juan was gonna do our first record, and Juan did an amazing job. The record sounds great; I’m very proud of this album. I went to England and recorded Force Of Habit (August 1992), and we spent about $300,000 hanging out there and doing that record. Hatriot didn’t spend close to that. I listen to both records, and this record kicks ass. We’re much smarter now, and much more resourceful. Juan is in our area, so nobody had to fly anywhere or rent hotel rooms to go record the record. He’s a 40-minute drive from Kosta, he’s a 25-minute drive from me, and he’s a 30-minute drive from Cody and Nick, so it’s easy to get to his studio.”

During the recording process, Juan provided musical feedback. “With the music, definitely, especially given that it was the boys’ first time around,” the frontman reminds. “For me though, I know what I’m doing when I go in there. I know what I want, and I know what I hear in my head. I’m very much comfortable with how my voice sounds, and how to make the sounds out of my voice. It’s not that I let people produce my vocals; I just pretty much know what I’m doing there. What you hear is what I’m coming up with, and I like it. Juan is very good at editing parts, and just anything that an engineer / producer does to help the project sound that much better. The toning of the drums, the toning of the guitars, and just everything. The tightness of it. Juan is really smart when it comes to that type of stuff, so he makes it really good. He’s very easy to work with.”

Chuck Billy – frontman of Californian thrash assemblage Testament and Dublin Death Patrol bandmate – lent his voice to ‘And Your Children To Be Damned’. “The vocal part in there was really low, so I wanted to have Chuck’s voice in there,” Steve analyses. “We’re all friends; they’re the guys that we hang out with, the guys we know. I wrote three songs on the new Testament album (Dark Roots Of Earth), so we help each other.”

The wordsmith penned lyrics for July 2012 Testament outing Dark Roots Of Earth, to be precise. “I’ve always helped them,” he reflects. “I wrote ‘More Than Meets The Eye’ and ‘Dangers Of The Faithless’ off of The Formation Of Damnation (April 2008). Chuck and I do Dublin Death Patrol and I talk to Eric (Peterson, guitars) and Alex (Skolnick, guitars) all the time, so they were just like ‘Hey Zet. Why don’t you write some lyrics for songs on the new album?’ I wrote ‘Throne Of Thorns’, I wrote ‘A Day In The Death’, and I wrote ‘True American Hate’. ‘Throne Of Thorns’ was pretty much about somebody who takes charge like a king, and then in the end he gets what’s coming to him. ‘True American Hate’, he came up with the title and all of the concept for that. I kind of followed him on that, and then with ‘A Day In The Death’ Alex wrote half of the song and I wrote half of the song. Instead of being a day in the life it was a day in the death, so I kind of followed their lead on that. Chuck will come over one afternoon, and he’ll bring the music on his laptop and play it. We’ll sit there by the kitchen table and write the lyrics, or he’ll send the music to me in advance. I’ve had Testament music before there was any music to it; I’ll write lyrics to it, and see what he thinks.”

Steve occupied the microphone for Legacy during the mid-80s, the vocalist departing to join Exodus. Legacy was rechristened Testament shortly thereafter, and featured Chuck in the position of frontman. “I’m considered a piece of the family still, so I’m actually very good friends with Eric and Alex, and obviously Greg (Christian, bass), and whoever’s playing drums at the time,” he imparts. “I keep in touch with those guys. There were no hard feelings. It wasn’t like I quit or left on a bad note, or I quit to join Exodus. I actually introduced them to Chuck.”

Testament subsequently enjoyed respectable success following their rechristening, as did the Hatriot mainman as a member of Exodus. “I’ve been very, very fortunate to stay relevant over the last 30 years, even with the little projects I’ve done,” he accepts. “It wasn’t like Hatriot came out of nowhere. I did Tenet in 2009 (Sovereign, July), I did Dublin Death Patrol in 2007 (DDP 4 Life, April), I also put out a Dublin Death Patrol record in 2012 (Death Sentence, August), and I went to Europe with them in 2011, so I keep myself relevant. I sang on the Forbidden record Omega Wave (October 2010) so I keep myself busy, but for now it’s time for me to take full charge and go out and be with a new band and a new attitude. It’s time for me to be on tour, and do the things that all regular bands do – be on tour and play. After touring ends we’ll record a new record and go back out on tour, just like I did back when I was in Exodus. That’s how I want it to be again.”

Axeman Phil Dimmel – additionally a member of a Californian thrash band in the form of Machine Head – supplied back-up vocals on Heroes Of Origin, meanwhile. “He didn’t play guitar on anything,” Steve mentions. “When you hear a back-up, you’ll hear Phil’s voice on there.”

The composer reckons the album’s title number is “pretty much a blazer, a rager, kind of a thrash anthem, of ‘We are taking charge and you better just watch out, because we’re coming to your cities and we’re gonna take you apart.’ The title comes from when I was a kid. I used to collect a lot of comics, horror comics and superhero comics. I read this comic from 1942, and on the cover of it was the original Aquaman, the original Wonder Woman, Superman in his first inception, and Batman and Robin. There were four different panels of scenes on the cover of this comic book and the comic book was titled Heroes Of Origin, so that’s where I got the title from.”

Heroes Of Origin’s front cover artwork includes two of the outfit’s personnel wielding shields in the vein of comic book superhero Captain America. “The shields are pentagrams but they’re in the same vein of that, yes,” Steve proclaims. “They’re shields like Captain America has, exactly, but they have pentagrams on them. If anything, I won’t lose the shields. The shields will be around forever, so that’s gonna be my identity. I’d like to use shields in the future, so that you know it’s Hatriot when you see that. Like I said, I probably won’t have the flag around after this record necessarily, but I’m definitely going to have the shields around.”

If maintained for future use, the Hatriot flag could potentially become an emblem, much in the same way the Confederate flag has for Southern rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd. “That’s the thing,” the singer cautions. “The Confederate flag is the Confederate flag, and I’m not trying to make a statement like that. It just happened to be the first inception of our logo, and I liked it when I saw it. Like I said, I’m not looking for that. I’m just using it on this record, and then like I said, it’ll probably change.”

Mark Devito was responsible for the platter’s front cover artwork. “Mark is his own mind, and just took the name of the band,” Steve credits. “What he came up with was great. He nailed it; as far as I’m concerned, he nailed it.”

No leftovers were cut during recording sessions. “We wanted to, but we wanted to get the record out,” the co-founder expounds. “If it looks like that’s gonna happen, we may go into the studio and just do some stuff that we like, some cover stuff. There was nothing else really to do though. The budget didn’t allow it necessarily. I wanna do ‘King Of Rock ’N’ Roll’ by Dio (from August 1985’s Sacred Heart). I love (Ronnie James) Dio, so I wanna show Dio respect because he was a good friend of mine and I’m very sad. I loved the guy, and so I’d love to do that. I’d love to do ‘Steal Away (The Night)’ by Ozzy Osbourne (from September 1980’s Blizzard Of Ozz). I’d like to play ‘Holy Wars (The Punishment Is Due)’ by Megadeth (from October 1990’s Rust In Peace), because that would be fun. I’d like to just have some fun playing some covers. We do ‘Reign Of Terror’ by Legacy (from 1985’s Demo: 1) and ‘The Last Act Of Defiance’ by Exodus (from Fabulous Disaster) if the crowd is good and they’re nice.”

Steve has warm memories of the late Ronnie James Dio, known for his vocal exploits with Dio, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Heaven & Hell, and Elf. “Oh my God, he was the best,” he praises. “I was fortunate enough to tour with Black Sabbath in ’92 when they put Dehumanizer (June 1992) out. Exodus played in the United States, and Ronnie was a fans’ guy. He would stay after the shows for every last person, and take every last picture, and sign every last item that the fans’ wanted, and answer any question if you wanted to know. I admired that about him. I remember the rest of the guys in Sabbath would be on the tour bus waiting for him, because he would be outside with the fans. He would say ‘The fans are the greatest, and the reason why you’re here and able to do this is because of the fans. You must show them,’ and I loved that about him. After every show he may even have had to wait up to an hour and a half, but he didn’t walk out of that door and straight to his bus. He walked over to the fans that were there. Even if there was a 100 of them, he would stand there for an hour and a half and sign every last thing, and have every last picture taken with everybody. I admired that about him, and in every city he did that. I loved that about him.”

“It was really sad. I talked to Chuck about two weeks before he died. Revolver had those (Golden Gods) awards down in Los Angeles (on April 8th, 2010), and he said he saw him there and that he talked to him. He said he was doing good and that he would be okay, and then two weeks later he died (on May 16th, 2010). I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think he was gonna die; I thought he was gonna make it out of it. I loved the man to death; I cried tears the day he died. I was sad. I listen to Dio songs now, and it totally chokes me up because I just don’t get to talk to him anymore. What a great guy he was. He was a great guy, and just a great musician. One of the best heavy metal singers, in the top two, top three. Ozzy (Osbourne, of Black Sabbath), Halford (Rob Halford, of Judas Priest), and Dio – you could talk like that.”

As stated earlier during this in-depth feature, three compositions have been authored in anticipation of a sophomore Hatriot full-length. “They’re very similar, but the musicianship is getting tighter,” the vocalist critiques. “The songs are getting a little bit more complex and probably a little bit more aggressive, if we can even do that. I have a title I came up with called ’Superkillafragsadisticactsaresoatrocious’, so that’s gonna be the name of one of the songs on the next record. It’s a twist on the Mary Poppins song (1964). I have an album title, but I don’t wanna say it yet because if I say it and then I change it, I’ll look like a dumbass. I have one I like, and I’ve told it to everybody in the band, and they like it too. Unless something else killer comes along, that’s what it’s gonna be.”

Hatriot performing live in 2012

Touring plans are in the works. “We’d like to go out with somebody to support the record,” Steve relates. “I’d hate to just have to headline. I don’t think we would do it as much justice than if we went out with somebody, so right now we’re speaking to booking agents. We’ll see what happens, because obviously the record will speak volumes. With all the interviews that I’ve done, all the people who’ve heard the record love it and they’ve given it five out of five or four-and-a-half out of five. The ratings have been very high, so I think with that we’ll be able to secure a good tour. A good band will want to take us out because there’s a good buzz on us, so we’re definitely hoping for that. I want to get to the UK, and all over Europe. I want to do what I have to do to make it on the scale of Exodus, and on the scale of all of the bands that I’ve played in the past. I have to do it that way, and that’s why I’m very much geared towards doing it in that light for sure.”

Hatriot lending tour support to Testament is an appealing prospect. “That’s up to their management and up to their booking agent, and all that stuff,” the Hatriot frontman highlights. “It would be great, obviously. For a band like us that would be awesome, but it’s up to those guys. I’m sure if it’s the right timing, that’s gonna be possible. I’ve gotta sit around and be very patient, but it’s hard to be patient. It’s very hard (laughs). We just want to go out right now and do everything we can do, but we just have to sit back.”

Hatriot lending tour support to Exodus is an even more appealing prospect, however. “I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” Steve replies. “Why not? That would be great. C’mon. Would you think that Paul Di’Anno’s Killers would ever open up for Iron Maiden? That would be great, and do you think at the end of the night you wouldn’t see me onstage playing one or two songs? Sure I would. I’m a fan like anyone first of all, so to be able to do something like that would be great. It’s not something I would want to do first of all, but I would love to do it down the road.”

Should the lyricist rejoin his former group onstage to perform a handful of tunes, this would fuel speculation regarding a potential return. “But that’s with anything now, and that’s what you have the internet for,” he points out. “People read into everything, and that’s the problem with it. I don’t read the good, and I don’t read the bad. I just go about with what I have to do.”

Heroes Of Origin was released in Europe on January 25th and subsequently in North America on February 12th, all via Massacre Records.

Interview published in February 2013

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