I was gonna lie and say I’ve been into Corrosion of Conformity since their very first album, Eye for an Eye, came out in 1984, but the truth is I didn’t start listening to them until their third album, Blind, came out in 1991, like some sort of poser. I was just a pretty young thing at the time and had started doing some freelance writing for various music magazines when I was asked to write a story about the CoC and their new record for now-defunct Rockpool magazine.

Still largely hairless and wearing a button-down shirt my mom had gotten me from the J.Crew catalog, I took the subway down from my apartment in the Bronx, where I attended Fordham University, to the Gramercy Park Hotel in Manhattan. There I sat down with then lead singer Karl Age 11 and guitar player/future lead singer Pepper Keenan to nervously ask them whatever hard-hitting questions I had come up with on the train. They both had long hair and cool sideburns and wore these awesome leather cuff bracelets that made them look like Vikings who drank Coors Light. I was terrified.