Richard Christy

For the past five years, Richard Christy has been one of Howard Stern's sidekicks. Richard won the contest "Get John's Job" in 2004 and was initially hired to be a writer for three months. It turned into a full-time gig, creating all kinds of comedy bits and shenanigans for American radio shock jock’s satellite radio show.

What much of Howard Stern's audience isn’t aware of, however, is that behind the redheaded boyish All-American look and Southern drawl, lies a monster of a drummer. The good-natured kid with big dreams from Kansas has been behind the kit for such influential bands as Death, Control Denied and Iced Earth. With his newly formed Charred Walls of the Damned, Richard is ready to pound the skins again, all for the love of metal.

Calling from the Metal Blade Records office in Los Angeles, Richard talked about comedy, his love for metal and his new band.

Metal Mayhem: Tell me about Charred Walls of the Damned, what the name means and how you came up with it?
Richard Christy: How I got the name is really a funny story. It came about from working on the Howard Stern Show. I do a lot of crank calls on the show and one day Sal (Governale) and I crank called a Christian radio station in a Southern state. We'd also send fake e-mails to them with goofy headlines like "Blumpkin pie for sale" and "Fudgepacking kit." So after a few days of constant pranking, someone told the station they were being pranked by these two guys. So a woman at the station got on the air and claimed that we were going to go to hell for pranking them, and if we didn't repent our sins for crank calling, we would be "charring on the walls of the damned." Sal and I just looked at each other and he said that would be an awesome name for a band, and I said I was just thinking the same thing! So I googled the name to see if it was out there already and nothing came up, so I was really excited. There were band names like The Damned and Legion of the Damned, but this one was original enough and was such a cool band name. So I checked with friends and threw the name out there, and everybody thought it was a great name, so it stuck.

MM: The new song "Ghost Town," which is featured on your MySpace page, sounds killer. How did you go about writing it?
RC: Thanks so much. Well, I have a guitar and I just come up with some riffs, and I have a drum machine and I use Pro Tools to write music with. The drummer of Meshuggah, Thomas Haake, has a program out called Drumkit From Hell to use with Pro Tools and I just write riffs in my apartment. It's really amazing to be able to do that sort of thing now. I can write the whole song right there in my apartment and then take the song to my rehearsal space at the Howard Stern Show. So I just took a cool opening riff and built on it from there.

MM: What a great lineup. Tell me about how you got Tim "Ripper" Owens, Steve DiGiorgio and Jason Suecof to form with you?
RC: Jason and I have been friends since 1997, when I was living in Orlando. He's really talented. He's an amazing guitar player, but he's mostly known for his producing skills and writing. In 1999, he started Audio Hammer Studios. I was working as an electrician and I helped with the studio and laid down the flooring in the drum room. I'll tell you, it's the best drum room flooring you'll find in any studio! So my band Burning Inside was the first band to record there for our second album "Apparition." He's really busy with other bands he's producing, but he's a great guitar player and songwriter and I just talked to him about the band and he was really into it. Steve and I have been friends since '98, and I'm a huge fan of his playing. He's just a fun guy to hang out with. And of course I knew Tim from our time together in Iced Earth. When I was putting this band together I thought of each of them right away. I wanted a band that was real easy-going and painless as possible. I wanted people that know their parts, to go into the studio and have a fun time and make a killer metal album, and I knew that these guys could do that.