About

Metal Urges is a metal-themed podcast by long-time friends Chris Ayers and Spencer Madsen.  With no meddling editor or nagging publicists to deal with, Metal Urges allows them to speak freely about the music that truly inspires them.

Chris Ayers is a metal fan and writer based in Boston, though he grew up in upstate South Carolina. In 1982, after a friend in his Boy Scout troop gave him a TDK cassette with Judas Priest’s Screaming for Vengeance on side A and Van Halen’s Diver Down on side B, his young life began to change. Fed on a steady diet of Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Kiss, Rush, Yes, Santana, and Pink Floyd, it wasn’t until the close of the ’80s that he took the plunge headlong into the metal pool. Slayer, Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeth, and Pantera were gateway bands, but early death and doom bands like Obituary and Cathedral galvanized the entire scene for him. He met Spencer in 1994 while writing for Indie File Magazine (R.I.P.) in Charlotte, North Carolina, and shortly after the brainwashing, they became lifelong friends. Freelancing for a handful of zines and a daily newspaper, attending hundreds of shows and festivals, and amassing thousands of CDs and records has been par for the course. He now writes for Exclaim! Magazine and plans to record Metal Urges podcasts until he takes his last breath.

Spencer Madsen is a former music critic, a former musician, a former entrepreneur, and currently on summer vacation while living in the Washington, DC area.  He thinks of his descent into the damnable genre of metal like a blossoming flower.  (Cue the strings, and prepare David Attenborough).  Nirvana sowed the seed covering it up with the dirt of Metallica and Megadeth.  The sunlight of Slayer, with its frenzied energy and darkness, struck the leaves, stretching the roots down into the decaying depths of death metal and doom.  Although his musical taste spans a wide palette, there is neither color nor timbre that stirs Spencer’s soul like metal (or perhaps an odd-metered math riff!).  Although straying away from the metal genre for a handful of years, Metal Urges documents his re-emergence as a metal head.  Phoenix flight?  Nah.  More like a zombie pushing up the dirt, but do know this, dear reader:  Goonies.  Never.  Say.  Die.

 

So, if Chris is in Boston, and Spencer is in DC, then how do they record their podcast?  Answer:  MAGIC!