Metal-heads know that Kyle Shutt is a shredder. It's clear in his band, The Sword's music. Even non-metal-heads that played Guitar Hero knows that he can shred, and have likely played along to his guitar licks on "Freya." But Kyle also has ska roots. At age 15, he played trombone in the Hobbs, New Mexico Christian ska band Ten Betty Zane. When he was 17, he took a 24 greyhound bus ride to see Blue Meanies play a free show in Chicago. And in Austin, he was part of the Blue Meanies (And MU330) street team. 

On Oct 20, 2022, Kyle's two decade-long group, The Sword, broke up. For his first post-Sword interview, he did what all non-ska bands should do; he chatted about ska with us. Listen as we discuss Kyle's ska roots, break down the hundreds of metal subgenres, talk about meeting Anthony Bourdain during the No Reservations Austin episode, and discuss how he turned Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon into DOOM side of the Moon. 

We talk about how the metal scene differs from the ska and punk scenes, dish about Nickelback, Dead Milkmen, Zebrahead and Lit, he tells us about singing about poop with his daughter on the Dirty Restaurant of Death side project, and Kyle tells us what it was like to invent an entirely new metal subgenre: Shitgrind. 

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.

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