MIKEY DOLING - SNOT, CHANNEL ZERO AND WOYOTE
James Kennedy interviews Mikey Doling about writing new material for Woyote and playing with Channel Zero. They swap stories about chaotic European tours, drinking, and the timeless legacy of his band Snot. Doling compares the European and American metal scenes and reflects on the modern music industry. The chat ends with news on upcoming festival shows and Doling's search for a new Snot singer.
James Kennedy Mr. Mikey fucking Doling. How are you doing, sir? It's been a while. You're rocking the classic Mikey Doling look there, man. Looking cool. What are you up to right now, man?
Mikey Doling I'm on my way to a rehearsal, actually, right now.
James Kennedy Fucking hell, bro. You don't stop, man. Man, you're putting us all to shame. So which band—you've got a few things going on, which we're going to get into—so which band are you rehearsing with today, man?
Mikey Doling What's happening? Okay, well, right now I am writing the newest Woyote album. It would be the second Woyote album. The first one, Mother of the Universe, we were really happy with. It seemed like people liked it a lot. The reviews were good. It's been about three years now. So we're ready to go with the second record now. I'm working right now with Chris Collier. He's the producer for the band Korn. Actually, he's doing his second record with them as we speak right now. So I'm working in between when he's not busy with Korn. I'm driving to Las Vegas from Orange County, California, and I'll spend like three or four days at his house, and we'll be recording and writing the new Woyote stuff.
James Kennedy That's fucking awesome.
Mikey Doling Yeah, it's really cool.
James Kennedy The band kicks ass, brother. Honestly, you've got a timeless sound about you, man, which I'm going to get into talking about your back catalog and everything. But I mean, Woyote, they're based in Europe, right? Have I got that right?
Mikey Doling Well, Woyote are friends of mine. The majority of Woyote are friends of mine from Belgium. Just wonderful guys. Charles Doug, he's the drum tech for Channel Zero. He's the drummer for Woyote. My buddy Yari DeRuver plays guitar. He's kind of the guy who I started the band with, actually. And my buddy Quentin Cornett, fantastic guitar player, I've known him since he was a kid. There's three guitar players in the band. And then my dear, dear, dear friend Aaron Nordstrom from the band Gemini Syndrome, which I produced—their first album, which got them a record deal over at Warner Brothers. He's the singer for Woyote. So it's pretty cool, man. And we got a new bass player. I'm not going to give his name up yet, because we haven't played even a rehearsal with him yet. But it looks like he's going to do just fine. So yeah, Woyote is kind of all over the world, if you will.
James Kennedy I love the sound. The sound is right up my fucking street. And of course, you know, we got to talk about Channel Zero, because I mean, you're in like the biggest fucking band in Belgium, and much of Europe. How the fuck does a guy who lives in Orange County manage to be in a very busy band in Belgium? You spend a lot of time on an airplane?
Mikey Doling Well, how I got into the band is a really cool story. Channel Zero has been around for more than 30 years. They're huge. About 15 years ago—I can't believe I've been in the band 15 years—they were doing a reunion because they had broken up a few years before that. So I guess about 10 or 12 years into their career, they broke up for a few years. And then there was this manager guy named Marlon Wagermans, who's still our manager now. He approached Frankie, the singer of Channel Zero, and said, "Hey, why don't we do one reunion show at a venue called the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels?" I don't know if you know this venue, but it's one of the greatest venues in Europe. It's amazing. It's about a 2,000-seater, three levels high. It's just beautiful, man. It's all wood, so it just sounds really good. So they put one day of tickets on sale and it sold out in 20 minutes. Wow. Well, let's put another day on. 20 minutes again. Now two days. They kept going and ended up being seven nights sold out, 2,000-seater, 14,000 tickets. They did this like in one day, so they stopped. They're like, "Whoa, this is catching fire."
I wasn't in the band yet and they were promoting it, and then their original guitar player quit the band just randomly. Quit the band after they'd already committed to these seven nights, so they were in a little bit of a panic. They were putting their feelers out for guitar players. They even tried or were communicating with Danny Spitz from Anthrax and a bunch of other guitar players. I think they tried out like 15 dudes. My buddy Lawrence Custers manages Sick of It All and I believe Social Distortion. He's pretty huge, a Belgian icon in the music industry. We're just friends—we'd never worked together or anything. We actually tried to start a little mini label, but that didn't work out. But anyway, he told them that he had a guy, and that was me. Frankie, the singer for Channel Zero, just so happened to recently discover the Snot album. So when he talked to him, he was like, "Yeah, can you get ahold of him? We'd love to check him out."
So Lawrence contacted me, and I was not with any band at that time. It was like 2008 that he contacted me. I had just left Soulfly and all that. And I was like, "Yeah, sure, I'd love to check it out." So I grabbed my Flying V and my backpack, flew to Belgium, we got in a room, and we jammed out as if we'd been in a band together for 20 years. It was effortlessly seamless. We had a connection; we felt like we'd been friends all our lives. I mean, it was crazy. We literally played as if we played an entire set on my tryout. We were all sweating, and they looked at me, looked at each other, and literally said, "You want the gig?" And I was like, "Yeah!" It was cool.
So I was only committed to the band to do those seven nights at the AB in Brussels. Well, actually, when we started rehearsing for those shows, I started kind of playing guitar in the background. Me and Frankie, the singer, were rooming together in preparation for this show, and he kept looking over at me and hearing these riffs I was playing. He's like, "What's that?" We weren't planning on me even joining the band, let alone doing another album. I was just feeling it, and I was like, "Ah, it's just something I'm fucking with." And he was like, "That's amazing! Can I record it?" I'm like, "Sure." So he had this little handheld recorder, and I think we did that like 20 times, you know? And he was like, "Fuck, Mikey, I was not planning on recording a record, but now you're really getting me interested." I'm like, "Cool."
So we played those seven shows, they went great, they were all sold out, it was like total friendship chemistry. So they asked me if I'd like to actually join the band full-time during those shows. It all made sense. I was like, "Yeah, I'd love to." And then boom, I was in the band. Sorry, long story, but I think it's so interesting. I like sharing it.
So then now I've written four records with them, and one of them is gold and the other ones are real close to gold. These days records just don't go gold anymore, you know, but the first one actually went gold with sales. Since then it's all streams now, so it's hard to tell what's what. But we still to this day—I've been in the band almost 15 years; I think September will be 15 years—we still play all the big festivals, we still sell out almost every show we play out there. It's killer. I just love the guys in the band like brothers, 15 years now, we're real close. I love being in Channel Zero, man, it's cool.
James Kennedy Oh, I bet, man. Yeah, another band that fucking rocks, man. I saw you guys last in a festival in Kortrijk in Belgium, actually. I saw you twice because I was hanging out with your tour manager, Jürgen, for the weekend, and I saw you guys at a massive festival there as well. I can't remember what it was called, but a lot of beers were consumed in the time that I was there, man. We were actually hanging out several times during that weekend. I don't know if you can remember, because I certainly cannot. You're going to have to remind me the next day that we were hanging out doing shots and drinking brewskis. I can't even fucking remember being in the bar. Well, I'll tell you what—
Mikey Doling If Belgium is anything, it's the beer capital of the world, and the beers fucking kick your face in, and I'm sure we drank a lot.
James Kennedy Oh, hell yeah. And the fact that you can't remember either makes me feel like less of a prick. But nah, man, that weekend was a fucking blast, and Channel Zero just absolutely fucking slayed every single night. But I wanted to ask you, now as someone who's been in a fucking massive, classic, game-changing, influential American band with a classic album, and also a fucking ginormous band in Europe, what do you think about the rock and metal scenes in America versus the rock and metal scenes in Europe? How is it different?
Mikey Doling I mean, the American scene's cool and all, but it's kind of like this WWF thing. It seems like Europe is a little deeper in the art of it, and Americans seem to be a little more into the image or the full-on, you know? They love a Five Finger Death Punch because of that reason. But in Europe, with other bands, it just seems like Europe's a little deeper in the artistic side of it as opposed to the meathead side of it. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to offend America—it's my country, I love it—but Europe is just more supportive.
You show up to a venue in Europe and they got good food, the venues are pristine, the sound system kicks ass, the stages are well-built. You show up in America, they ain't feeding you shit. It just seems like the European promoters, the fans, everything all around really respects and loves the bands and takes care of them. Like I said, you show up, the venues are clean, the people show up, you're eating good, the showers work. In America, you show up and you never know what you're gonna get. So yeah, that's the difference of Europe vs. the U.S. for me.
James Kennedy What do you think about the UK then? Because everything you've just said about America, I feel is the same in the UK. They treat you like dog shit.
Mikey Doling England and the UK is just like America. Never use a UK tour bus company—they'll show up and nothing works, it's always a piece of shit. You get something from Germany, you know it's gonna work great. UK and the U.S., they kind of have a "we don't give a fuck" attitude.
James Kennedy 100%, yeah. I totally agree with all of that, man. And speaking of tour buses, we've got to talk about the tour that we did with you guys, because that was very bittersweet for us, man. We're on a tour with the fucking iconic, legendary Snot around Europe, the sun is shining, fucking life is good. But I think we were cursed, man, all of us. Because you had a fucking jumbo-sized double-decker tour bus that nothing fucking worked on and kept breaking down—I think it must have been from fucking England—and the AC didn't work. We had to change to two splitters halfway through the tour. We were fucking sleeping in a transit van, our drummer's dad had a stroke so he had to fly back after the first gig in Spain, all sorts of carnage. And then our manager fucked both of us over for the tour support money that we were supposed to contribute unbeknownst to ourselves, so we were like, "Why does this band fucking hate us?" We had no idea what was going on.
It was a tough one, but that tour always stands out to me as one of my favorites or most memorable tours, I think because of the sheer intensity of all the carnage that we were carrying throughout. But also the fact that we got to watch you guys every single night absolutely fucking boss it on stage. It was an education, a real fucking honor and a privilege to be a part of and to be able to watch that up close every night, and to see the inner workings of the Snot machinery. It was a real honor, man, despite the horror show that was going on behind the scenes.
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Mikey Doling Right on, man. Yeah, it's always fun in Snot. I mean, we've rarely done anything since Lynn Strait passed away, our dear brother who we still miss. It's been 25 years or some shit. But we had Tommy Vext for a minute, we did some stuff with him, he kicked ass. And then we got Carl Bensley and he kicked ass for us. But we don't do that much, you know? So when we do go out, it seems pretty special, for sure.
I am definitely getting that itch again, so I'm actually kind of on the search for a singer that could actually pull it off, because I would probably put Snot back together to do some festivals maybe next summer. 2025 would be cool.
James Kennedy Oh man, fuck, that would be so cool!
Mikey Doling Yeah, so if any singers think they can pull it off, hit me up. I'm on Facebook and Instagram.
James Kennedy Bro, I'm gonna throw it out there, mate—that is not a fucking easy gig to fill. I mean, Carl did a fucking insane job, but I don't know how the fuck anyone can sing like Lynn Strait, because who sings like that? I'm gonna be honest with you, I love that album. I got that album in the car; that is my fucking screaming-my-head-off-in-the-car album. I get to about the second chorus and I'm fucking blown, you know what I mean?
Mikey Doling Yeah! You know, it's funny, man—at the time, I used to tell Lynn, "Man, you gotta do that shit live, you're gonna be able to pull it off." And he did, yeah, but he gave himself two hernias singing that shit live. He had surgery and everything.
James Kennedy Oh, wow. Yeah, that was pretty hardcore stuff. Wow, that's interesting, I didn't know that. Well, Carl Bensley, who we went out with when we were with you guys, was fucking amazing and did a great fucking job, man.
Mikey Doling Fuck yeah, Carl kicked ass. Carl's had a baby, he's married to a maiden, he's got full-time work, he can't really do it anymore. So I'm looking for someone new that can. I think if Snot put the word out there, some of these festivals we could get on. Especially now, it seems like the nu-metal thing—which we were part of, I would say that proudly—I think that nowadays, even more than when we toured with you guys, there's even more interest now.
James Kennedy Oh, 100%, man, and so many people would love to see that. I mean, what does it feel like to have a classic album? Because exactly like you just said, that album doesn't sound like—although it's from the era that people would lump in with nu-metal—it doesn't sound dated in any way like a lot of those records do now. You can put on Get Some and it sounds like it could have been released fucking yesterday, you know what I mean? It's one of those timeless records. How does that feel to have that?
Mikey Doling I mean, it feels fucking great, I gotta say that. One of the things is that I do cringe at times because of some of the topics that we were singing, you know what I mean? We were young at the time, in our 20s. "My balls, your chin," all that shit. "We're Snot, we're coming to your town clocking all the girls." That's young men lyrics. Now I'm older, dude, pushing 50, it's hard to listen to sometimes. But yeah, it's badass. I get it, it's a good album. It feels good.
James Kennedy That's great fun, man. Yeah, I mean, to have that up your sleeve, bro, fucking hell, what an achievement, you know what I mean? And the fact that people are still loving it just as much today, that's insane.
Mikey Doling It's crazy. It's one record we did, one album, 27 years later or something, and it seems like it's going stronger than ever. We see the numbers and streams when we get our publishing checks, and they're getting bigger, and we're like, "What is going on? How are more people streaming this than ever?" But it is, it's one album we put out and it's strong. I'm so thankful, you know?
James Kennedy It's one of those records where every now and then you can tell when everybody is just on. You listen to Dark Side of the Moon or something like that, every now and then a record comes along where all the stars seem to have aligned. The production is on, the band is on, the energy is on, and it just feels like everything is just fucking in the right place.
Mikey Doling You know, when we did that album, we really had a vision of exactly how we wanted that album to sound and roll. If you listen, the album is one piece—it's not a song and then a song, it's a fucking piece of work from start to finish. We purposely made it that way with the ups and downs, the highs and lows. I'm proud that we accomplished that.
James Kennedy Yeah, you should be. What a piece of rock history, man. So thank you for doing it, bro, because it's still one of my favorite records, and I really hope that you can find someone fucking good enough and insane enough to be able to pull off Lynn duties.
Mikey Doling I gotta say, there's times I'm like, "Yeah, I'm never doing Snot again, ever." But I'm out there watching all these tours pop up and these festivals pop up. When we were young, Sick New World in Vegas—it's all the bands that we fucking toured with and played with 25 years ago doing all these things. I'm like, Snot fucking belongs on those.
James Kennedy Oh, hell yeah!
Mikey Doling Yeah, and if we did, I think a lot of people in the crowd would be like, "What, Snot's fucking playing?" I think we'd kick ass on those.
James Kennedy 100%, man, there'd be a lot of fucking love for that. Let me know if we can make it happen, man; I gotta go fucking hunting for a singer for you.
Well, speaking of bands popping up and stuff that you've toured with, have you been keeping up with what's been happening with your brothers in Skindred? They used to double-play with you guys back in the day and are crushing it right now, man.
Mikey Doling Bro, first I'll say those guys were literally brothers to Snot back in the day. We toured all over America with them. I mean, I just love them all—Arya, Dan, Mikey, and Benji, of course, their fucking genius singer. They're brothers to us. And now Benji goes and does it again even bigger with Skindred, and that fucking band, those records are incredible. God man, I listen to that stuff and I'm just blown away. I'm also blown away at the drive with Benji Webbe. First of all, he's a star, and he fucking works his ass off.
James Kennedy Oh, and they're blowing up, I believe, bro. They're bigger than ever. They just did their own headline show at Wembley Arena, they were number two in the midweek album charts, they're in Australia at the moment doing festivals and shit, and they're bigger than ever, man. They've been on mainstream TV, on the biggest fucking TV music shows and stuff. They're like a household name now. It's beautiful to see.
Mikey Doling That's fantastic. Benji and the Skindred guys, I've met a few times; these guys are sweethearts, man. I'm happy for them. I actually went and hung out with him in Japan once. I was living over there and they came through, and I took Benji out and got him shit-faced, stuffed with food, and had a great time at their show in Tokyo.
James Kennedy Well, Benji is a one-in-a-million, man. He really is a fucking dude. I'm very honored and privileged to be able to call him a friend, and he's just got a great attitude, man. You're right, he works his fucking ass off, and the guy's got talent by the fucking truckload as well. So big love to Benji and the boys in Skindred as they continue to blitzkrieg their way across the world into the hearts and minds and souls of the undeserving.
But before we get back to what you've got going on, man—because you've always got something awesome in the works—I wanted to ask you what you think about the state of the music industry today. You're a guy that's got several decades in the business now; you were around in the old industry, the old model, and you're still fucking kicking ass in the new model. I always ask people who've seen both sides of the transition: what are your thoughts on the industry today? Is it better, is it worse, or is it just different? What do you think, man?
Mikey Doling It's hard to say, but back in the day, we signed a close to half-a-million-dollar record deal with Geffen Records. Which is crazy—nowadays you could never do that. They would treat us like kings: they bought us instruments, bought us clothing, put us on fucking tours, went out and worked radio for us. It was incredible in those days.
Nowadays, what's cool is the internet—you can actually put your own music out. It's tricky; I still don't even really understand how to capitalize on it with social media and all that, but it seems like they're just two different animals. They're both cool in their own way. There's still bands out there completely exploding and doing it themselves. What's funny is I'll see little record labels and I'm like, "Well, what are you selling? What are you doing for the band?" They don't do shit. They don't have anything they can do that you can't do yourself.
So I don't know. I think it's cool these days that you can actually do your own thing, which I am doing myself right now with Woyote. It's hard to say. I mean, I do miss the heyday back in the old days when there were record companies that would spoil you, I bet. It's just different.
James Kennedy Different problems, I guess. Back in the day, if you couldn't get a deal, you were fucked. But at least now, you know you can make your own record, put it out, and at least do your thing. But I think the problem we've got now is that every motherfucker is doing their thing, so how the hell do you get heard above the noise?
Mikey Doling It's true, man. I think the way young bands need to make it is to tour, get out on the road, and play. That's the way you do it: you get out there and do it. I know it sounds easier said than done; it's a young man's game, getting on the road and promoting yourself. But that's really how you do it. You go to every fucking city in the world and play. You figure it out, sleep in your van, show up, and play.
James Kennedy Whatever you do, don't do it on tour with Snot, because they'll kick your fucking ass every night and make you feel about this big.
Mikey Doling We've done that a few times in the past! We've heard that all the way from 1995. I remember the Deftones kicked us off tour once because we were fucking blowing their doors in for no reason. Three shows in, we were tiring the crowd out before they went on beyond belief. Sold-out shows, small clubs, people—there was literally steam coming out of the fucking venues before they even came on. We wore the crowd out and they kicked us off.
James Kennedy I don't doubt it for a second, man! Well, Mikey, I know you got a rehearsal to get to, bro, so there's loads of things we could get into, but before I let you go, what do you want to tell the people? What have you got coming up? Where do you want them to go?
Mikey Doling Well, what I'm doing is I'm going over to Europe in July all the way through the end of August. I'm doing a few dates with Woyote, and then I think we're doing like 11 shows with Channel Zero, plus some other promotion stuff with Woyote for the new album that I'm putting together now.
If you and the listeners here could please go to Spotify or Apple Music and check out Woyote Mother of the Universe, please spread the word. I worked really hard on that album. I wrote all the songs along with Aaron Nordstrom from Gemini Syndrome, and him and I put that record together with producer Chris Collier. It's a fucking good album—check it out, please get on there, like, subscribe, whatever it is you do, and spread the word. I really appreciate it. And then I'm putting together the second album for next year.
James Kennedy Amen, brother, amen. Well, I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well so people can click and go straight to it and listen from there. Also, for Woyote, you can follow them at @Woyote_official on Facebook, and it's @channelzero on Facebook. And if you don't mind me chucking your Instagram out there as well, Mikey, it's @mikeydoling on Instagram so they can keep up with what you're doing there.
Mikey Doling Yeah, follow me there.
James Kennedy Yeah, and then there's gonna be loads of shit coming up. You can keep up with what Mikey's up to there with all of his wonderful stuff. Hopefully we can all keep our fingers crossed for maybe another Snot show at some point if someone's brave enough to take the fucking mic. But Mikey, thank you so much for this, brother. It's been a lot of fun. I wish you nothing but the best, and hopefully we'll cross paths again in Europe and sink some more beers and forget all about it like we did last time.
Mikey Doling 100%! If you can find your way over to Belgium in August, come check out Alcatraz Festival. We're playing there with Amon Amarth and Saxon, a whole bunch of stuff. And I'm gonna even go over to Holland and check out Dynamo. I'm interested in that, so maybe you can come hang out and we'll go do all that together.
James Kennedy It's a fucking deal, bro. Let's do it, man. It'd be great to see you again with Jürgen.
Mikey Doling Oh, fucking all right. This is gonna get messy.
James Kennedy Yes! I'm in, count me in.
Key Points:
Guest Mikey Doling discusses his current work writing the second Woyote album with producer Chris Collier, who also works with Korn.
Doling explains how he joined Belgium's Channel Zero 15 years ago after a chance connection and a seamless audition, and he has since recorded four albums with them.
Doling contrasts the European and American rock scenes, praising Europe for better venue conditions, artist respect, and deeper artistic appreciation.
Kennedy and Doling recall their chaotic European tour with Snot, marked by bus breakdowns, personal crises, and financial mismanagement, yet still memorable.
Doling reflects on Snot's classic album "Get Some," its timeless quality, and his openness to reforming the band for festivals if he can find a suitable singer.
Doling discusses the shift in the music industry from lavish record deals to the internet era, where artists can self-release but struggle to be heard.
Doling announces upcoming European tour dates with Woyote and Channel Zero, and encourages listeners to check out Woyote's album "Mother of the Universe."
Summary:
In this podcast episode, host James Kennedy returns after a hiatus to interview guitarist, producer, and songwriter Mikey Doling, known for his work with Channel Zero, Woyote, and the legendary Snot. Doling shares his busy schedule, including writing the second Woyote album with producer Chris Collier, who is also working with Korn. He recounts how he joined Belgium's Channel Zero 15 years ago after a chance recommendation and an effortless audition, leading to four albums and ongoing success in Europe.
The conversation explores differences between the American and European rock scenes, with Doling praising Europe for its artist-friendly venues and deeper artistic appreciation. They also reminisce about their chaotic but memorable European tour with Snot, marked by bus breakdowns, personal crises, and financial mismanagement. Doling reflects on Snot's timeless album "Get Some" and expresses interest in reforming the band for festivals if he can find a singer capable of filling the late Lynn Strait's shoes.
He also discusses the evolution of the music industry from lavish record deals to the internet era, noting both opportunities and challenges. " The episode ends with mutual appreciation and plans to meet again in Europe.
The James Kennedy Podcast is a Society and Culture podcast hosted by musician and author, James Kennedy. Exploring the big questions around health, social issues, the arts, politics, mental health, the human condition and how to navigate this thing called life through casual conversations with scientists, activists, rock stars, philosophers and academics. Please subscribe, leave a rating and support the show.
