By WILLIAM J. WRIGHT

Fronted by Calico Cooper, daughter of legendary shock rocker Alice Cooper, and Chuck Garric, who’s been holding down the bottom end for Alice since 2003, Beasto Blanco enters its second decade in perpetual motion. With a legacy to uphold and a tough-as-nails, nothing-to-lose attitude, Cooper and Garric, along with co-founding guitarist Chris “Brother” Latham, bassist Jan LeGrow and drummer Sean Sellers, just delivered Kinetica, their long-awaited follow-up to the band’s 2019’s album We Are. Time away from the studio has done nothing to dull Beasto’s edge, and the first two singles, “Run For Your Life” and “Lowlands,” find Garric and his gang equally adept at wielding both a musical axe and a scalpel. 

Recently, Cooper and Garric took time out from Beasto Blanco’s grueling European tour schedule to speak with RUE MORGUE’s online managing editor William J. Wright. In this exclusive interview, conducted via Zoom from an Amsterdam hotel room, the hard rock power duo opens up about audiences, the creative process behind Kinetica, their evolving stage personas and an exciting (and ongoing) feature film project based on the new album.

So, you’re freshly back from Europe…

Calico Cooper: Oh my gosh, we’re still here! We’re in Amsterdam right now. We have a whole month left here. We’re playing Wacken and all those festivals. So we are here for Beasto.

Chuck Garric: We’re doing some filming as well and got a lot of stuff going on right now. 

What’s the state of rock ‘n’ roll in the rest of the world?

CC: You know, actually pretty rad. We just played a month’s worth of festivals with the Alice Cooper band, I stepped in because my mom had an injury. So, I said, “Okay, well, I’ll just kind of reprise my old job. I was so encouraged by the size of these rock crowds, right? Because it’s just not the same as in the States. And also, like, every single show we played was pouring rain. And when I say pouring, I mean, like, diabolically dumping. And nobody left. Every single person stayed in the crowd and screamed every lyric. It was just, like, man, it’s alive. It’s still alive. It really encouraged me because I was just, like, if I had come to the show, I would have stayed. It was amazing to see 20,000 other people that felt that way. It kind of reinvigorated me a little bit. 

Is there a difference between American and European audiences? Are European audiences more sedate or wilder than U.S. audiences?

Chuck Garric and Calico Cooper of Beasto Blanco

CC: I think that European audiences are there. They’re in it to win it, man. And so they are a little bit more primal. Yeah, they’re primal. That’s a great word for the day.

GC: We played Nova Rock, and it was the worst of the weather. It was raining. It was cold. These people were sticking it out. I mean, they ran with it. They were like, it’s raining; We’re still partying. It was just an excuse for them to take their clothes off, to be honest with you – to celebrate. I have more respect for those people than anybody. They really embody what rock ‘n’ roll is about. 

CC: We’re getting ready to go on stage, thinking, “Oh, man. These people are cold, and they’re wet.” And you go out there, and you’re greeted at the first song with a massive cheer, and they’re so excited –  you’re there. You rise to meet that level. I think that, like with any band that I know that’s worth seeing, we really feed off the crowd. So, in Europe, specifically, I just have had the privilege of performing for people that were just so there for the love of the band, or, you know, just the vibe or the people that love this kind of music. By the end of the show, we’re soaking wet. You’re soaking wet. Everybody’s in it. By the time we got home, we probably all had pneumonia, but nobody cared.

Do you feel like the tide’s turning? Is there going to be a mainstream resurgence in hard rock and metal soon?

CC: You know, the hope is always there. So, we’re releasing our new album, Kinetica, and it’s super visual. We’ve been doing theatrical rock for a while, and I think we’re seeing those audiences grow. Seeing the age of the people in the crowd has been surprising to me – seeing young girls, 17 [and] 18-year-old girls wearing the Machine Girl makeup. I think it’s an extension of comic cons and horror cons, right? You fall in love with a movie or a band or genre, and you are all in. I’m seeing that a little more in rock now than I’ve ever seen it before. 

I don’t think I would have thrown all of my weight into something that I thought was just like, “Man, it’s a lost cause.” I love it, and I would have done it just because I loved it and because [Chuck] loves it … I think it’s an outlet. I think people are just looking for that hand that we’re holding out. Hey, are you a weird, horror-rock freak? So are we. Take our hand, and let’s do this.

Tell me about the new album, Kinetica. 

GC: This is our fourth studio album. It was produced by Chris Harms from Lord of the Lost and recorded in Hamburg, Germany. The whole experience was great. It was something we’ve never done; We’ve never traveled outside of the United States to make a record. Chris Harms and I started writing early on, and we realized that it was going to be a really good collaboration between the two of us. It was also something new to Beasto. We had never really collaborated that much before. It was always “in-house.” This time, it was important for me to see and hear what somebody else’s take is on the Beasto sound. Chris and I just had a riot writing the songs and inspired Calico. She’s written for this record as well and just knocked it out of the ballpark. 

Everybody was just so consumed with being creative and being accepted. Everything was on the table. Nothing was ridiculous. We were just having the best time making this record. And Harms knocked it out for us as well. Coming from a guy who’s been listening to Beasto since the beginning – and where we are now –  it’s really exciting to hear the growth, to hear a band who can just spread their wings while still keeping true to who they are but also going for different things. 

I think it’s important as an artist to be able to expand yourself not to stick and draw yourself into one thing. I don’t have anything to say bad about people who do that, but I do think it’s nice for me as an artist. I want to become a better songwriter. I want to become a better singer. I want to become a better guitar player, bass player – the whole thing. The only way I’m going to do that is by challenging myself. And that’s what we’ve done on this record. We’ve tried new harmonies and new melodies and new arrangements. I wasn’t sure how it was going to be, but we went in open-minded, and we had a blast making this record. We’re excited for everyone to hear it.

CC: We did the record first, without the idea of what the name was going to be. When I listened to the songs, I think I dug a little bit into comic lore and horror lore. I come so much from that world that my brain couldn’t help but go to “What’s the backstory?” Where did these people go? The record wasn’t written to be a concept record at all. It was these songs that were all great, but when I listened to them, I would listen in the order that they sent [them], which was no particular order. I would drive around and think. So, there’s a story that’s developing in my head. I just pitched this wild idea where I was like, I know we’re gonna get the money to do the one single and then the second single, and that’s usually just kind of standard, right? For the first time in my life, I think that I’m willing to dig into my own pockets and my own resources. I want to make a video for every song. I see a story here. And so, I said to Chuck, “I see a story.” So we made videos for every song – eleven videos. Then, when it was done, I watched all of them. And I said, “I’m not done. I think there’s a movie here.”

So, we went back and shot acting pieces in between the songs to make it this full feature. The best part of it is it’s what we love. You know, like you as a horror nerd and me as a horror nerd, it’s what we loved back in the day of heavy metal. It was this easy fit of being like this doesn’t have to be a Steven Spielberg production. I love the wink and nod to the ’80s sci-fi, but what was really relevant and current was that when I’m not doing Beasto, I do film and television, and I write really heart-wrenching stuff. So, I sent the idea for the film, the last scene in the film, to our social media woman, and I said, just off the record, “What do you think about this?” And she wrote back, and she goes, “Are you trying to kill me?” She was like, “I just cried for twenty minutes!” And I was like, “Perfect,” because the last thing you think you’re gonna do at the end of a heavy metal music video melange is be like, “Okay…  I’m not okay.” It’s an Avengers Endgame moment, right? I just thought, why not? Why not tell it now? Why not do it now?

We’re editing it currently. I’m so excited for people like you to see it because we’re the people that we did this for. I love rock ‘n’  roll. We all love rock ‘n’ roll. A bunch of the songs on this record, surprisingly, transcended what we thought … My focus, though, was always on the storytelling of it. And to see people reacting the way they are to that part of it is so exciting to me because it’s like, wow, theatrical, rock’n’roll – it’s not dead. It’s still so alive and kicking. 

GC: That’s the thing, too. She’s talking about just how the record and the sound of the songs and what they started doing for her, visually. That’s where the name Kinetica came from. What we realized was happening was that we just couldn’t stop with the record being done. Everything kept moving forward,

CC: Kinetic energy. It just kept going and going.

GC: New things happening. And that’s where the name Kinetica came from. It just kind of felt like this thing is in motion, and it keeps staying in motion. I still feel that’s happening that way. The energy of this record is really, really positive.

CC: The hotter and faster it burns, the more we want to give and do. I just love this genre so much. You know, we came up in theatrical rock, obviously, at the foot of geniuses – Dio and Alice and all that stuff. I think it would be silly to throw away the unbelievable knowledge we learned there. And now, we’re bringing in guys like Chris Harms and all these really modern sounds. We’re on the cutting edge of what we can do in film and TV, and I chose to pull back and go, “I don’t want to see the best CGI, I want to see something fun.” I’m just going to make what gives me joy. 

My next question was about your new videos. I was going to ask if you ever thought about doing a full-length film based on the adventures of Beasto Blanco… 

GC: Now you know, right? [Laughs]

When will this project be available in a form Beasto Blanco fans can enjoy?

GC: Right now, we’re focusing on releasing the record on the 26th of July. As you can tell, the way things are being released now is different. We’re saving everything up and trying to follow the rules the best we can, but the rules are so different from Europe to the US and how people release things. So, we’re staying within the boundaries. I would probably estimate that the full feature, everything comes out at the end of our journey. We’ve got tour dates in July and August. We’ve got tour dates in September. We got tour dates in November.

I really feel like I want to stretch this thing out as much as I possibly can. We work so hard on making music and making videos. I do think the attention span kind of gets a little bit quick nowadays, so the more we can spread it out, the better. The long answer is that it’s going to be at the end of when this is all said and done, when we’ve gathered our army, when we’ve gathered our forces, and we can get somebody to release it properly – and we can have the audience paying attention. Maybe it’s something we do at a theater, where people can watch it together with us. We haven’t gotten to that point yet. How can we make the end the most exciting for our fans and for us? We want to go out with a bang. I think it’s gonna be more toward the end, towards November.

CC: I’m editing it as we speak. Every day I edit it, I want it to be tomorrow that everybody sees it. I’m so excited every time I put another piece to it, and I just cannot wait to put it out just because I’m so proud of it. It’s the culmination of what I thought we were capable of.

Of the two videos that have been released, “Run For Your Life” and “Lowlands. “Run For Your Life” is, stylistically, the sort of thing that I would expect from Beasto. It has that sci-fi, Road Warrior, brawling, ass-kicking vibe. However, “Lowlands” has a gothy, Hammer Horror feel. Will–you be incorporating a little bit more of that elegant style in the future?

CC: The cool thing is that was the question always. My world has always been sort of like that elegant gothy thing, and Chuck brought to me this Road Warrior thing, so, when we came together, I thought, in what world –  and this is what actually spawned the film – did these things all exist? After hours and hours of just thinking and driving and whatever, I went, “Oh my God,” and I got it. So, when I made “Lowlands,” it was a full look into my brain. That’s what is happening in there. This is such a piece of this story. We’re seeing where Machine Girl came from, where Beasto comes from, and so, it all ends up in the story. 

So, when the set presented itself, which was unbelievable – that castle was so good – I let the room and the space inspire me. With [the Machine Girl character], there’s so much makeup and hair and all this stuff going on. I was like, “What would happen if all of that was washed away? And you could see every line under my eyes, no makeup, just raw, raw.” …  I said roll on everything, and I was falling out of the sheet. So much was happening that, when I watched the playback, I didn’t see any of the flaws. There’s a raw performance that I don’t think I could have gotten if I was worried about if I looked the prettiest I could look. And I loved it. It’s my favorite thing that we’ve done because now that it’s plugged into this movie in the story, it makes so much sense why this creature becomes the Machine Girl. And I was like, “Thank you God for this inspiration.”  I love vampire lore. I always have. My parents let me read Interview With The Vampire when I was like 12 … And I was hooked. I’ve always wanted to tell that story, so I’m glad you like it. I love it with a passion.

When will North American audiences be able to see Beasto Blanco this year?

GC: We’ll be hitting the road with Lord of the Lost on September 19. We start in Cleveland, Ohio and work our way all the way up North a little bit, then work down to the West Coast. We do Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. In total, it’s about seven shows. And we’re going to be out there with our new buds in Lord of the Lost. They’re developing a pretty big U.S. following as well. 

I wouldn’t want to miss the show. Now’s your chance to see two of the biggest upcoming bands in a smaller venue … I think it’s great to see us in these places that are 1000 seaters and sold out. Come party with us. 

Kinetica, the new album from Beasto Blanco is available for order now at their official Bandcamp site on limited edition vinyl, CD and digital. Rock on, loyal beasts!