Dear Matt Pike of my favorite band High on Fire,
How in the name of Fuck do you rock so hard? I can’t even handle it. Your music fuels my days and nights. I am indebted to you for traveling to distant lands to study the filthy ways of the diabolical metal tomahawk assassins and bringing their fury back to my face and ear drum holes. I am but a little Nancy boy and would probably be eaten by a Death Falcon the moment I dared step off the edge of the Earth to follow you.
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Anyway, I read that you’re in rehab now. And really, why wouldn’t you be? You make Frodo look like a very seriously embarrassing pussy. You would have hit one chord on your blood covered Les Paul and Sauron would have pissed himself and flooded his subterranean weapon forges with sissy piss, halting all operations and allowing Gandalf the freedom to just fly around on the back of a dragon, drinking Wizard Fresca and banging fairies and shit, instead of having to help Hobbits all day like a chump.
What I’m saying is your job is hard and I respect that. After a show you want to kill a bottle of bourbon and feel that yum thrum in your bones as you try to extinguish or at least somewhat quell the flames that probably have your resting body temperature hovering at around 107 degrees. I know the drill.
But guess what? You gotta knock that shit off. It’ll kill you and we need you. Every superhero has their kryptonite; yours is booze. It’s cool; if you didn’t have a weakness, you’d be a God and then you’d be chillaxing on some cloud mountain playing chess with Liberace or some bullshit. And you’re not a God. You’re a filthy metal animal teaching scumbags like me about NOISE.
You have a sworn duty to rock the faces off the people of Planet Earth. (And for those people who’ve lost their faces to a bath salts huffer or chimpanzee, you have a duty to rock their asses off. Just because people don’t have faces doesn’t mean they don’t need your tuned-down sludge metal assault as a part of their daily lives.) So you want to drink booze? Tough shit. We need your sonic warfare more than you need a particular beverage. Pellegrino makes a new lemon flavored sparkling thing that’s nice; try that instead. It’s time to buck up and recommit to the service of Almighty Metal.
And I’m not blowing smoke up your ass, though I would if you wanted me to, and not in a sex-way, but just like if you needed me to for like a medical condition or something. I’m just saying I owe you for giving my life a blistering, ferocious soundtrack. I also, to some degree, know what I’m talking about. I had to quit drinking ten years ago because I was on death’s doorstep. And in the decade that’s followed I’ve only become more of a weirdo, so don’t fret (guitar pun!!!) about losing your edge. You’ll still be a fucking batshit animal, an embarrassment to your family, and a total liability in social situations. But you’ll be able to play faster, louder, and longer and show every other band out there that they should build a time machine, go back five years and quit music.
I hope you see this and know that I’m a fan first, and a sermonizing hot air bag second. I just listen to your music every day and if I thought there wasn’t more coming, I’d go take a shit on the hood of Bon Jovi’s private jet. I might do that anyway.
Also by Rob Delaney:
