Phantom is a thrash/speed metal band from Mexico, and we had the opportunity to interview them when they played Wacken Open Air this year.
Benedetta
I’m here with J.C. from Phantom. How are you doing?
J.C. García
I’m a bit tired, but here we are, doing all right.
Benedetta
How did it feel to play Wacken in such a historical year, an anniversary year?
J.C. García
Yeah, it was something very special for us. First of all, being Mexican, it’s such a special moment for our band. There’s not a lot of Mexican bands that get directly invited to the festival. Most of the bands from our country that have played here are playing the metal battle. We were very fortunate to receive a direct invitation from the festival, so we’re very proud of that. We’re the third Mexican band to get directly invited, and also the first speed and thrash metal band to get invited from our country. So, we’re very proud of it. It was great. It was amazing.
Benedetta
Do you think that the life of an artist is a lonely life?
J.C. García
Sometimes it can be. People just see the rock star thing or just a part of it, like the show, and that’s it. But behind it, there’s a lot of work. There’s a lot of hours doing a lot of stuff, like either writing, rehearsing, traveling from one place to another. Touring isn’t a vacation. You miss your family, you miss your friends, you miss your house. It’s hard, and we all do our best to just arrive to every place after hours on the road, and either with a smile on our face, but yeah, it’s not an easy life, but it’s the life we choose, so we gotta do what we gotta do.
Benedetta
Do you think that we will ever reach equality between men and women in the metal world?
J.C. García
I think we’re actually getting there. There’s a lot of female fronted bands or bands with female members that are amazing and are out there, and they’re kicking ass even better than some men on stage, so it’s amazing to see that. Girls can rock, and they have been doing that since the 70s, the 80s, or even before. There needs to be more awareness of that, because our scene has had amazing women on stage since pioneering ages of this kind of music, heavy metal. Amazing bands, I don’t know, in the 80s you had bands like Acid, Doro, which, well, she’s playing Warlock. Nowadays you have amazing bands like Castle Rat, from Mexico we have The Warning, which is an all-female band. There’s a lot of talent out there, and women are a very important stronghold in the metal community.
Benedetta
On a scale from 1 to 10, how technological would you say that you are? Like in everyday life, making phone calls, emails, paying bills, using the computer?
J.C. García
I mean, I do my best, I’m young, but I feel like a caveman most of the time. I am also the manager of my band, I’m a multitasking guy, I do this, I do that, I write, I do everything basically. Sometimes it’s kind of a solo project, and the live thing is another thing. So yeah, I use a lot of technology, and I think social media are a very important way of communication nowadays. But yeah, I’m not like super, like an expert or anything like that.
Benedetta
Thank you so much for taking the time to do this with us. Is there anything else that you want to add to our readers?
J.C. García
Thank you very much for having us here and for this space. We appreciate it a lot. It was our first Wacken Open Air, hopefully not the last. We had a great time, and thank you for having us here again.
When vocalist Roye Albrighton died in 2016, Nektar’s future looked uncertain – then in 2020 a line-up featuring original members and aliumni released new album The Other Side. Co-founder Derek ‘Mo’ Moore told Prog about the record, and what really happened with the ‘other’ Nektar.
“We started putting it together about a year ago and the first rehearsal was fantastic,” says bass guitarist and vocalist Derek ‘Mo’ Moore of the new version of Nektar. “We just clicked again. It was like going back 40 years.”
The bass guitarist and vocalist’s enthusiasm for the reformed US-based band, who have just released a new album, The Other Side, is tangible. He was one of their founder members, playing with Nektar from 1969 in their progressive space rock heyday through to their dissolution in 1978. Since then, with shifting line-ups, Nektar have had various periods of activity and disbandment. Moore last played with them in 2002.
Things have recently become a bit more complicated following the death in 2016 of lead vocalist and guitarist Roye Albrighton, who had featured in the majority of the band’s line-ups from 1969 onwards. It seemed that they had reached the end of the line, but then in December 2018 a new version of Nektar announced the release Megalomania, with an online statement that read: “the baton has been passed [to keyboard player Klaus Henatsch] as musical lead, producer and head of the band.”
As there’s nothing about that album on the website now, we can all be forgiven for being a little confused. As it turned out, Megalomania was actually released under the name New Nektar. Moore’s Nektar, meanwhile, features drummer Ron Howden, the only constant in all line-ups since their inception. Moore explains the situation, and how the two variants came to be.
“When Roye died, Howden was left holding the bag. And Klaus Henatsch, who’s been a sideman for the band [since 2007], said to Ron, ‘Now I’m in charge and I’m going to call the shots on the production and what we do.’ And Ron said, ‘Well, I’m the original guy here and I’m not going to do that.’ So he left and when he came back to the States he said, ‘Will you help me get a band together?’ and I said, ‘Sure.’ We then reached out to [guitarist and vocalist] Ryche Chlanda, who played with us in 1978.”
The line-up also features Randy Dembo, who played bass with Nektar in the early 2000s – now also on bass pedals and 12-string – and keyboard player Kendall Scott from Chlanda’s band Flying Dreams. “We had him come down to the studio and I knew after a few notes that he was going to fit,” says Moore.
(Image credit: Cherry Red)
They also approached lyricist and lightshow man Mick Brockett, who first joined in January 1970. “Nektar was a music and light theatre. The music was enhanced by the lightshow – it told the story – so it was a concept rather than a band,” says Moore. “But that got lost over the last 30 years or so and I brought Mick back because I wanted to have that same feel that we had in the beginning.”
Much of The Other Side was recorded live in the studio and consequently it sounds fresh and full of energy. It feels like it’s informed by all stages of the band’s career, from acid prog to hard rock to more melodic near-pop, but it clearly nods back to their 70s sound. In fact, most of it dates back to unused material from 1978, but these works-in-progress have been extensively rewritten by the new line-up, including new musical sections, ideas from jams and new lyrics.
When asked if it was difficult working without Albrighton, Moore replies: “We feel that Roye was there with us.” Also, most of the music originated from a time when Albrighton had briefly left the group, but in an affectionate tribute, The Devil’s Door – which was played live but never recorded – begins with his guitar introduction from a reel-to-reel recording of a show from 1974.
Going back to their 1971 debut, Journey To The Centre Of The Eye – which follows the story of an astronaut abducted by aliens who then receives their knowledge – Nektar’s most defining work has had a conceptual basis. The Other Side was prompted by the death of Albrighton and their live soundman Vinny Schmid and deals with themes of loss, longing and the division between life and death. And typical of classic Nektar, the title track extends to 18 minutes.
“SkyWriter is a story about a guy whose significant other/wife/girlfriend, dies and he is up in the sky writing letters to her, hoping that she can read it, so every song has a connection to the other side,” says Moore.
“If you listen to the double album in the order that we have it you get a story. If you change the order around you get a different story. The idea is to use your imagination on the album. We’ve given you the themes. The other side is where Roye and Vinny now reside, and lots and lots of friends. It’s something that’s inevitable for all of us and we wanted to take you on that musical trip. To my mind this album would have been a great follow-up to Recycled [from 1975]. It’s got a great feel to it.”
Like many English musicians in the 60s, the group that were to become Nektar – then The Upsetters – had gone over to Germany to play the American military bases.
“Then the guitarist left and Roye had been jamming with Ron when they were in Hamburg, and we offered him to come with us and we clicked from day one,” Moore recalls. “The first gig we played, we’d never performed together before and we jammed the whole night. It was wonderful.”
(Image credit: Cherry Red)
Nektar made Germany their home and occupied a unique position as an English band in the thick of the emergent krautrock scene. Their lengthier excursions were not dissimilar to those of German groups such as Amon Düül II. Does Moore think that those bands influenced Nektar?
“I wouldn’t say ‘influenced’ but we know them all,” he responds. “Amon Düül have been friends of ours for years and a lot of other German bands, like Karthago and Guru Guru. We used to play festivals with them all of the time. Everybody had their own thing going. The beauty about Germany was they were just sucking up anything new, they weren’t interested in pop music, they were just interested in new music, so we were right in there.”
Although Nektar made quite a name for themselves in their adoptive country, from a UK perspective they were the odd band out. British hairies were aware of them, but it was difficult to get a handle on them as they didn’t play as extensively in the UK and didn’t get much coverage in the music press, which only added to the enigma.
“We headlined a festival in Düsseldorf in 1973 and everyone and their mother were on the bill -– Gentle Giant and all kinds of people – and they were all saying, ‘Who the hell is this band who are headlining?’” Moore recalls. “It was strange; we were an English band but we were living out in Germany.”
Given the era, the band’s spacey music, spectacular lightshow and the title of their 1972 album, A Tab In The Ocean – with its mind-bending cover art – were any psychedelic drugs involved in the writing of their music?
“I think all of them,” says Moore, laughing. “We were most definitely doing psychedelic stuff back then. It was an awesome scene, it really was, but we got through it okay!”
They’re playing in Germany, which is confusing the hell out of the fans. We’re spending money on lawyers right now. How the German patent office didn’t look into what they were registering I have no idea
But did all that actually help them creatively?
“It might have done, but if you don’t have the creativity to start with it’s not going to do anything,” Moore says. “You can enhance what you have and it might give you other ideas, but you can’t enhance what you don’t have. We would jam for 10 hours straight and then pick out pieces – that piece would go nicely over here. We wrote a lot of music. Now we’re just doing drugs for blood pressure and cholesterol.”
When Nektar moved from Germany it was over to the USA, where Moore still resides, and for a brief period they had significant success there, with their 1973 album Remember The Future hitting number 19 in the Billboard charts, Down To Earth (1974) reaching number 32 and Recycled (1975) reaching number 89.
Down To Earth was a concept album about the circus with the group augmented by a brass section, PP Arnold on backing vocals and Robert Calvert playing the role of the ringmaster. The songs were shorter now and more accessible, but it was still pretty weird and not what one might associate with the taste of your stereotypical American punter. Can Moore enlighten us as to why they achieved this success?
“Remember The Future was huge over here. I think a lot of it was that FM radio played the hell out of it,” he explains. “In St Louis they were playing it on rotation and when we went to play there the first time we sold out three shows at the Ambassador Theater – 3,000 people a night.”
While the venues aren’t as big this time around, Nektar are currently touring in the US and have sold out shows in St Louis again. But things are set to be less straightforward in Europe where New Nektar are now also calling themselves Nektar. The situation is a close reflection of the case of Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, who made a successful complaint to the Intellectual Property Office after former promoter Bob Carruthers’ company had registered their name.
“We are going to come to Europe,” Moore asserts. “We’ve got a little problem with the other band who registered the damned name and are trying to stop us from going to Germany, which is not fun, but we’re trying to deal with that now.
“They’re playing in Germany, which is confusing the hell out of the fans. They were playing as New Nektar and put the album [Megalomania] out as New Nektar, then their manager went and registered the name. We’re spending money on lawyers right now. How the German patent office didn’t look into what they were registering I have no idea.”
But Moore is feeling positive about Nektar. The bass guitarist hadn’t played at all since Nektar reunited to play at the 2002 NEARfest and he’d been running a construction company, from which he has retired. And now he’s rejoined a career trajectory he couldn’t have imagined back at the group’s birth in 1969.
“It’s a trip,” he says. “I didn’t expect to be doing it again but when I did, I had a vision of the band and when we started playing it just grew. And the album turned out so well, we had to go on tour with it. We had no option.”
Necrosonic Festival returns to Mansfield Tavern on Saturday, August 22 2026, and the full lineup has been revealed to the masses! With dual headliners Rivers of Nihil (USA) and our very own Psycroptic, alongside exclusive reunions, one-off performances and long-awaited resurrections ~ this year’s ritual is the most formidable yet. With a massive deference to […]
J-Tull Dot Com becomes another in the series of Jethro Tull albums to get the big box/book set treatment. Originally released in 1999, this edition is sub-titled as Another Cast of the Net. It includes four discs – the original album, a 2026 remix, a disc of bonus stuff including some previously unreleased studio tracks […]
Mallory Knox have well and truly cemented their return with the unveiling of a new track, their first with vocalist Mikey Chapman in nine years.
The band first returned in 2024 at Slam Dunk Festival, before heading out on tour for a 10th anniversary celebration of their album ‘Assymetry’, but now it’s clear their sights are set on the future.
And ‘Afterglow’ serves as a rousing return to what makes them such a compelling asset to the British rock scene. Crystalline melodies mashed with wave after wave of atmospheric guitars, it rolls the years back as much as it sets new wheels in motion. As spine-tingling as it is soaring, it is very nice indeed to have them back doing what they do best.
The band are set to play a pair of very intimate shows this week to mark this new chapter in the perfect manner. Here is where you can catch them:
AUGUST
21 – LONDON The Lower Third 22 – MANCHESTER The Deaf Institute
Welsh rockers Scarlet Rebels are set to play their biggest headline show to date on August 21st , 2026 at Chepstow Castle, with an impressive line-up featuring Kris Barras’ Hollow Souls, The Virginmarys, Marisa and The Moths and Juliet’s Not Dead. Ahead of the landmark show, the band have released ‘Don’t Look Down’, the latest single taken […]
Queens Of The Stone Age have confirmed their new album title via the medium of five-finger fillet. It is believed to be the first time that the dangerous game – in which participants rapidly stab a knife back and forth between their spread-eagled fingers – has been used in such a manner.
In the announcement video, frontman Josh Homme and guitarist-keyboardist Dean Fertita play the game, and while Fertita is clearly a well-practised expert, the novice Homme plunges the knife deep into his hand on his first attempt.
“Does it hurt?” asks Fertida.
“Yes, it fucking hurts, dude,” Homme responds
“Pull it out.”
“I can’t do it.”
Homme eventually retrieves the knife from its fleshy target, and, after a moment of calm, a fountain of blood erupts from the wound, drenching both musicians.
Perfecth, Queens Of The Stone Age’s ninth studio album and the follow-up to 2023’s In Times New Roman…, will be released later in the year. A single, Easy Street, was released last month. The band are currently on the road in the US with Foo Fighters, and have shows in Australia and New Zealand lined up in the buildup to Christmas. Full dates below.
Queens Of The Stone Age 2026 tour dates
Aug 17: Washington Nationals Park, DC* Aug 15: Regina Mosaic Stadium, SK* Sep. 17: Edmonton Commonwealth Stadium, AB* Sep. 20: Vancouver BC Place, BC* Sep. 26: Las Vegas Allegiant Stadium, NV Oct 04: Sacramento Aftershock Festival, CA
Oct 24: Reykjavík Laugardalshöll, Iceland
Dec 08: Adelaide The Drive, Australia^ Dec 11: Hobart MyState Bank Arena, Australia^ Dec 13: Melbourne Rod Laver Arena, Australia^ Dec 15: Sydney Afterpay Arena, Australia^ Dec 16: Newcastle Entertainment Centre, Australia^ Dec 18: Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Australia^ Dec 20: Auckland Spark Arena, New Zealand^
* supporting Foo Fighters ^ With Primus and Tropical Fuck Storm
My name is Alex Okami. This is my new single, “Permanent Disease.” It’s a song about life-long ailments taking a hold of your mental and physical health to the point that it feels like your world is permanently over. As a sufferer of negative health conditions I needed an outlet to express how I was feeling about my situation.
ALEX OKAMI
PHOENIX, ARIZONA BASED POST-PUNK
FFO Twin Tribes, Depeche Mode, French Police, She Past Away, Joy Division
RELEASES
Night Terrors (2026) Latest single released
Strange As Angels Debut album (2025)
In The Dark (Corbeau Hangs Remix) (2025)
Drawing inspiration from musical legends like The Cure, Depeche Mode, AFI, Joy Division and VNV Nation post-punk/darkwave artist, Alex Okami made his mark with the release of his debut album, “Strange As Angels,” in March 2025. Featuring the the singles, “In the Dark,” “Vampiros,” and “Haunted By You.” His songs are infused with melancholic melodies and haunting undertones.
Alex Okami has toured and played live shows in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Hollywood, Portland, Seattle, Long Beach, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and multiple cities in Texas throughout 2025 and 2026 ~ Opening up with his project for bands like Forever Grey, Aurelio Voltaire, Ultra Sunn, Corbeau Hangs, Haunt Me, Johnny Dynamite, Die Sexual, Kontravoid, Urban Heat, and The Discussion.
The track is produced, Mixed, and mastered by Manuel Perez of Corbeau Hangs and Archivo Sei.
“Permanent Disease” lyrics:
I’m in search for the truth
All throughout the obscene
I’ve been wandering halls
That keep leading to dreams
Staring up at the sky
Wondering when I will fall
Wiped the blood off my lips
Now I’m nothing at all
Now I’m nothing at all
Persist, persist through me
I am the one who can not speak
Persist, persist through me
I am the permanent disease
Felt the coldest embrace
From life’s withering arms
Took a leap off the ledge
And I swallowed the stars
Tour Dates:
September 12 | Los Angeles, CA | The Paramount
September 13| Tempe, AZ | Lighthouse Kava Bar
September 18 | Trinidad, CO | Trinidad Lounge
September 19 | Santa Fe, NM | Hotel Glorieta
September 20 | El Paso, TX | Rosewood Bar
September 22 | Phoenix, AZ | Central Records
September 26 | Las Vegas, NV | The Griffin
Review: CoreLeoni – Generection Reigning Phoenix Music – September 11th, 2026 Reviewer – Jason Hopper CoreLeoni, the side project founded by Gotthard guitarist Leo Leoni, are back with their fourth studio album, ‘Generection‘. A brief historical summary. CoreLeoni’s first two albums featured the fantastic vocals of singer Ronnie Romero and were re-recordings of mostly classic […]
Necrosonic Festival returns to Mansfield Tavern on Saturday, August 22 2026, and the full lineup has been revealed to the masses! With dual headliners Rivers of Nihil (USA) and our very own Psycroptic, alongside exclusive reunions, one-off performances and long-awaited resurrections ~ this year’s ritual is the most formidable yet. With a massive deference to […]
