Drummer Mike Portnoy (Sons Of Apollo, ex-Dream Theater), vocalist Bobby Blitz (Overkill), guitarist Phil Demmel (Vio-Lence, ex-Machine Head), and bassist Mark Menghi (Metal Allegiance) recently announced their existence as a new band with no additional context. So of course the second someone could ask any of its members about what the deal was, they did.
In an interview with Underground's Voice, Blitz revealed the band is called Made In America and is a thrashy cover band of 70s music.
“It was a fun project. It was kind of a summertime hobby project. Phil, Mike, Mark Menghi from Metal Allegiance did a record called ‘Made In America – The 1970s‘, so we took American bands that were done in the ’70s and thrashed up the approach.
Grand Funk [Railroad]’s ‘[We’re An] American Band‘; Mountain; Cactus; Blue Öyster Cult. We put the Machine Head, Sons Of Apollo, Metal Allegiance, Overkill spin on the whole thing. It’s a cool project.”
Interesting that Cactus is now being mentioned by major metal bands for the second time in 2019. The first time being Clutch covering Cactus's rendition of "Evil" for their Weathermaker Vault Series.
