Sixteen years.

Sixteen years since the famous Bay Area metal quintet Forbidden last released an album.

Sixteen years in which the world appears to have swiveled so hard on its axis that the spindle’s been thoroughly stripped of all meaningful gravity and weight, with a series of cataclysmic events continuing to unfold.

Sixteen years during which Craig Locicero and Chris Kontos further honed their very unique, individual, and passionate personalities to join forces in documenting the times we live in through that searingly honest Forbidden lens. 

In many ways, this new album Forbidden is the story of fierce uncompromising energies finding the balance and grace to come together and work within this established and ever-flexing vessel that is Forbidden. 

There is a confidence and maturity within Forbidden (their first album since 2010’s Omega Wave) which is the result of years spent churning and chewing over how their personal skills and sensibilities could bring Forbidden to a whole other level. Lean and muscular yet also complex and dexterous, Forbidden is also their first album with vocalist Norman Skinner, another fiercely independent Bay Area artist (best known for Niviane & Imagika) whose powerful alloy of melody and fierce guttural energy means Forbidden truly found their voice again in the last three years since he joined the band. Alongside his longtime neighbor and brother Kontos, the new energy of Skinner, the foundational power of longtime bassist Matt Camacho, and the multi-talented versatility of guitarist Jeremy Von Epp, founder/guitarist Locicero and Forbidden have arrived at their finest hour with their richest line-up.

“Forbidden is a vessel to tell the stories of our times as we see them unfolding,” says Craig. “It’s not about fighting the world, it’s about explaining it loudly from our perspective, as well as continuing to try and cause conversations about important things.”

The album was made at Oakland’s Sharkbite Studios with engineer/co-producer Zack Ohren, features a guest appearance on one song –“Sycophantasy”-by Mastodon’s Brann Dailor, plus a storming cover version of XTC’s “Dear God.” But more than anything, Forbidden is the sound of unprecedented alchemy, the sort which Forbidden have been building towards their entire career, and one which it is now clear could not have happened any sooner than it finally has.

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To understand the full scope of this journey, it’s worth going back to the start of the Bay Area thrash movement during the early 80s. Craig and Chris were key components of both the Bay Area metal and punk movements. Both were fierce and proud, forging paths which sometimes intertwined and sometimes decidedly did not, but each always sharing common ground when it came to the views on humanity and incredulousness at the devolving state of the world. As well as being a core part of the ‘80s Bay Area Thrash scene with first Forbidden Evil which then became Forbidden in 1987, Craig also created projects such as Manmade God, SpiralArms and Dress The Dead, while Chris threw down with the likes of Machine Head, Verbal Abuse and Attitude Adjustment. Both are in Bay Area skate-punks The Boneless Ones, and slowly, each have found ways to come together as opposed to push against, with much of that work happening as a result of covid and the desire to make the most of life given how unpredictable it can be.

“We’ve had some tenuous moments where we’ve drifted apart and had some rough water between us, but we found each other again,” says Chris. “We said things that we never said before, bared our feelings, and re-cultivated this great relationship. Having done that, we wondered whether we wanted to put stress on the friendship by being in a band together again, and we just concluded that as long as we embrace each other for who we are – our ying and yang, fire and ice, cool as a cucumber with a little unhinged pitbull – then that is the magic we cannot deny!” 

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“When you measure everything that we’ve been through, and the closeness of saying the shit that needs to be said, crying the tears that need to be cried, you’ve got a serious bond here that the other guys in the band look to,” furthers Craig, “so we have to have our feng shui or whatever you want to call it, set straight. I always said since the day we started, you just got to write things that you believe in so much that hopefully they propel us beyond perception: which is where we are right now.”

The potential for a new Forbidden line-up and project was in the air thanks to the formation in 2022 of Bay Area Interthrashional, an all-star metal band started by Craig and featuring Chris alongside Camacho plus other stars of the Bay Area thrash scene such as members of Death Angel, Lamb of God, Machine Head, Soulfly and Hirax. Having played the Dynamo Metalfest that August, the first US live appearance occurred on October 29, 2022, at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. 

“We were putting that all-star band together and didn’t have a vocalist because all the other singers were either not local or on tour,” Chris explains, “and it was hard to get through all those thrash classics without a proper singer because all those songs cue off great vocals. So I said, ‘let’s get Norman Skinner down here, he’ll kill it.’” 

So it was that Skinner was one of several vocalists who fronted the band, and when he sang “Chalice of Blood” alongside Warbringer, Skinner stood out head and shoulders above the rest, leaving a serious impression on Craig and Chris. 

“The show was great,” recalls Norman. I was expecting a call to do some more Bay Area Interthrashional shows but when he did call, he got right to the point and asked if I wanted to front the new reformed Forbidden. I think I said yes in less than a second.”

“I knew then that all the elements were there for Forbidden to return,” says Craig, “honestly, it wasn’t anything I ever really knew would -or could- happen again, but between me and Chris, plus Norman just being the right person in so many ways, it was something which became clear had to happen. Russ (Anderson – former vocalist) was obviously a great singer and frontman for us with a distinct identity, so it had to be right if it was ever going to be at all. And that’s the thing with Norman, aside from his incredibly dynamic vocal range, he is very much his own person and personality, plus he’s a naturally fearless performer.”

Forbidden were officially reborn in August 2023 at Belgium’s Alcatraz Festival, officially celebrating 35 years as a band, but more auspiciously stating that Forbidden was enjoying a whole new beginning.

“There’s been a lot of self-realization, which you could pretty much sum as us figuring ourselves out along the way and fully acknowledging that the end result of the music is going to be the thing that propels this,” explains Craig. “If we had kept fumbling around on the same fucking path of worrying about stuff that is of no real consequence to the music in the bigger picture, then there would be no point. And Norman is such an important part of this equation, because like us, the music is also the driver for him. So for us now, after all these years, to have that unity and clarity is not just a gift but the reason it works.”

“And it’s like a lotus that keeps blossoming, right?” adds Chris. “We’re still unearthing more and more to help us deeper into this journey, which is great therapy for both of us, it’s affecting the band, it’s affecting the people around us, it’s affecting our business, and I have never experienced such a positive situational play like this in a band before.” 

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Norman Skinner was 10 years old when he moved to the Bay Area from Vancouver, WA back in 1985, and despite spending his formative years with the Bay Area thrash scene exploding around him, harbors a wide range of tastes.

“My core taste is European power metal mixed with Scandinavian melodic,” he explains, “I love some thrash bands, but I like more the traditional and heavy power metal singers like Matt Barlow who is in Ashes of Ares, Andy Franke from Brainstorm, then the classics like Rob Halford, Dio, Sebastian Bach back in the day, and for heavier stuff, Chuck Billy’s immense. 

“When you start playing with him, you see that he’s incredibly confident without being arrogant,” furthers Craig. “He can get up in front of those 30 or 40,000 people, and he’s so at ease with himself that it makes everyone else at ease with him. He was immediately accepted in the live setting, with no questions and no doubts from the fans.”

The writing for Forbidden started swirling in early 2024, but Craig found the process evolving was much different to previous Forbidden albums.

“Most Forbidden songs start with my riffs, but what has changed is that within that, I am now far more willing to allow other clay, and molding of that clay, so as everybody’s full realization of any idea can be achieved. It started with Chris and I, then Matt would come over to hang out once in a while, then Norman sitting down with us to suggest moving things, which meant it became more of a team effort. There is a lot more focus on this album that would have never happened that shift in how we work.” 

Undoubtably, Craig working with Chris so closely again was an enormously important part of Forbidden’s creation.

“We’ve written great together since the SpiralArms days or whatever, and that was why I wanted him, because I knew he had that to offer. He had the extra depth and foresight, kind of producer ears, creative, like beyond the guys that I worked with that were just like writing parts. So if you think about songs, like overall songs, that’s where Chris and I are at our best, because we both think that way.

“I’m an arrangement freak,” chuckles Chris, “it’s been a core part of everything I’ve done in my career very hard, even on (Machine Head’s) Burn My Eyes album. So, Craig brings these great riffs, and my idea is to condense things, to go five riffs instead of ten, to go with one ‘boner’ riff over several good ones. It’s something I think Craig has really freed up to, and now we really trust each other and watch each other’s blind spots. And as a writer and a writing team, that is awesome to experience, to be able to really look out for serving the song above all.”

Forbidden is a journey of defiance and, at its core, a primal roar for people to realize what is happening around them, to see the forced separations in societies, and how they can rise up and above it. 

“I feel that we’re calling out human nature on this album more than any one side,” explains Chris. “We’re singing more about the flux that either separates us or binds us, what are the false conflicts and what are the true things we as human beings share.”

For much of the band’s career, Craig has handled the lyrical duties, as much because of his own fierce and passionate beliefs and philosophical observations on life, however Norman is also a lyricist and quickly showed Craig and the band how much he could offer in that regard.

“That was a huge surprise,” says Craig. “I threw Norman one lyrical bone with “Divided By Zero” and when I saw what what he wrote I realized I had someone else to shoulder the whole lyrical aspect, which was a huge deal.  I didn’t realize he was really going to be able to do that.”

“Writing lyrics and melodies is probably the thing I like most about being a musician,” enthuses Norman. “Craig did mention to me at the outset that within the writing he didn’t want us really choosing a side on anything, that it’s more about showing realities and getting the conversation started. I’m very much an independent, and probably more of an ‘us against them’ type of person, so that felt very comfortable. When we did ‘Divided by Zero’ for example, Craig told me what he wanted it to be about, gave me the chorus, gave me the main ‘Divided by Zero’ lines, and what he considered a verse. I took that verse, hibachi’d it, took bits and pieces, and rewrote the song my way. There was lots of that on the record. “Take the song ‘Sol Grave.’ They came up with this name and told me it was basically the end of the universe, where there’s just darkness, nothing else. So, I took that, thought of the universe from beginning to end as a performance, and thought of it as attending a performance, a play with an orchestra, and turned into sort of an opera. I loved working with the ideas and coupling our two approaches together.” 

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Writing continued, with Dan ‘Chewy’ Mongrain of Voivod replacing Steve Smyth on guitar, this despite the knowledge his Voivod commitments always meant he was a short-term appointment. Regardless, Craig wanted his influence on the album, and Mongrain helped with three songs. His replacement in both the process and the band was Jeremy Von Epp, a local player with thrashers The Venting Machine and stoner rockers The Watchers. Jeremy, a multi-instrumentalist, had already been aiding the writing process by helping bridge the gap when Chris Kontos had to take some personal time away.

“Jeremy set me up for success because he’s also a phenomenal drummer, and when Chris was taking some time out, he learned the Kontos style and was able to bring that to the demos, which was huge for me,” explains Craig. “I want to make sure both Chewy and Jeremy get some flowers here, because both those guys are brilliant guitar players. I’ve always had a guy who’s technically better than me on the other side of the stage, because I’ve always been the guy writing most of the stuff. But these guys have written incredible parts, plus Jeremy helped write the songs.”

Forbidden explores many core elements of current society and perspective, with one of the most defiant and pronounced being “The Burden”, a song which honors women, recognizes what they go through, and features singer Kayla Dixon (formerly in Dress The Dead) alongside Norman.

“I was raised by women, and it just hit me like a stone,” says Chris. “I said we have to address this incredible influx of women in metal,” says Chris, “it’s great to see all manner of women in the scene, real earth dogs, awesome tribal humans. And I felt we needed to do have this alliance and show solidarity. Some people freaked out, they said who wants to hear five fat white guys talk about women and their issues? It’s a valid question in one sense, but it needs to be done!” 

“I wrote about women living in a male-dominated patriarchy and the burden they have to deal with in doing so every single day,” furthers Norman. “They wanted a woman to sing on the song as well, and I’m really proud of it. We found the right balance between Kayla and me, where she sings the pre-choruses with me, and she’s at the end of the song too.”

With “Psychophantasy”, Craig and Chris were very excited to have their old friend, Mastodon’s Brann Dailor, make a guest appearance.

“I asked him if he’d be interested and it was an instant ‘yes’!” smiles Craig, “I spoke with Norman about it, and we decided to have two characters in the song, Brann is one of them and he’s so great. I think Forbidden and Mastodon are kind of similar, because they forge their own path. They don’t fucking do a bunch of sampling and fake sounds, and we’re both rock and roll at our root, so as a friend and a guy, I’m forever in his debt.”

Another dynamic surprise is their cover of XTC’s “Dear God”, a letter written by an atheist to God questioning their existence.

“I’ve wanted to do that song for decades,” smiles Chris. “It’s such a heartfelt message, but I didn’t have the vehicle. And Craig and I agreed that if we were going to do it, we needed to jump off the deep end and go deep.”

“Andy Partridge (XTC) ended up putting it out a B-side to a single because he didn’t trust it for the Skylarking album,” furthers Craig, “but DJs everywhere picked it up, so the label insisted it be on the album, it went on as the last track and became one of their biggest songs. I read that he said it isn’t necessarily that he does or doesn’t believe in God, it’s that he doesn’t believe in people’s versions of God, so questioning those. I work in a similar way, so in many ways it felt like a full circle moment coming around for that song to be included. It’s such an overall philosophical fucking stamp on how we think.”

The album’s crescendo point is undoubtably the beautifully savage yet also orchestrally layered journey “Flower Of Life”, which in several ways captures the essence and spirit behind Forbidden.

“I’m really into sacred geometry, and I had this whole ‘lotus plus 64 concentric circles’ thing in my mind,” Kontos explains. “And it just hit me that we had this opportunity to do something epic, that all of our heroes had already done in their 20s and early 30s, these long songs, these “Stargazers,” and that 58 years old it was time. So, I didn’t say anything in practice, I went home and I called my friend Ben Shirley, who I’d been introduced to by a friend called Jimmy Arceneaux.  Ben’s a great guy who went through a crazy, very tough journey and worked extremely hard to get through to the other side, and eventually became a composer and just exploded -he works with Danny Elfman now, he travels the world working with orchestras in the likes of Beijing, so I knew he was the guy who could help us realize this vision. And for me, it all comes back to the lotus flower, because I do feel like that whole thing opens up in envelopes into something much more emotionally connecting. People have gotten really emotional with that song.  

“It was funny because I had a chord progression, which is the chord progression, which is the piano progression, which is this beautiful part. And then Chris was just sitting behind the drums. And Chris said, ‘what if we just kept adding to this?’” Craig chuckles. “So there’s the trust thing right there. I had no idea what the fuck was going on, just playing this chord progression over and over again, and then in came Ben Shirley with these great string ideas, and between us we worked out how to make these pieces fit.”

Whether it is lacerating your ears with razor-sharp riffs, or warming your soul with dynamic melody, Forbidden is the realization of decades making their way to a point of thrilling transparency.

“In every sense, this band is not interested in distortions or needless repetition,” says Craig. “As an example, every rhythm guitar you hear is the personality of one guy and the other guy and doing it fast because we were prepared. It was almost like a live setting. I like to record the entire song all the way through and then go back and look to see if I missed anything. That keeps the true ‘feel’ of what we sound like. Those are real drum tones, no fucking triggers. I don’t want to hear the same snare sound. I want to hear a few different things each time Chris hits it. So yes, not a lot of fixes, because we keep some shit that’s ‘imperfect’ on purpose. If you hear it, it’s meant to be there.”

In so many senses, Forbidden the band -and Forbidden the album- are the freshest of new starts, which equally would not have been possible without the journeys of the past. 

“I think,” smiles Craig, “it all stems from being exasperated with trying to be anything other than ourselves,” says Craig. “It feels like we finally surrendered to completely being our true selves, and it’s translating into real connection with everything we do. And I have to say, it feels so, so great to have found this peace within the power.”