I’m sure there will be some intense emotion tonight (Sat., 5/23) at The Jinx here in Savannah. The metal trio Black Tusk is playing their first hometown gig since Athon’s death in 2014. Corey Barhorst has stepped in on bass for the winter European tour with Black Label Society — a tour that Athon was especially excited about. This is also the first Black Tusk show since Andrew Fidler’s son was born.
From Josh Peacock in this week’s Do Savannah:
From the English Channel to the Gulf of Finland, Fidler, May and Barhorst spread portions of Athon’s remains in more than a dozen rivers and lakes across Europe as well as the Atlantic Ocean, memorializing their friend with a deed befitting his own exuberant life.
“We knew he was being cremated,” Fidler said. “James and I were talking with Athon’s mom and tossing around ideas of what we were going to do with him. Athon spent the better part of his life traveling the world. Why not take his ashes and put them around the world?”
“It made sense for how he lived,” May added. “How any of us live!”
Here’s drummer James May talking about the upcoming record with Anna Chandler in Connect:
I know on this one, for a few albums we had said, ‘This song isn’t long enough,’ ‘This song is too long.’ On this album, whenever we felt like a song was done, it was done. Even if it was two minutes long. We hadn’t done that in a long time—just wrote some short, banger songs. And on this one, there’s those, which I like, because it gets a little old when you’re monitoring yourself: ‘This isn’t quite long enough, so we need to write another part.’ Even if you think the song’s fine. So we didn’t do that with this, and I think it came out better that way.
I’m sure Athon will be on hand somewhere enjoying the show:
