Episode 5 of the Burning Ambulance podcast features an interview with guitarist Matt Hollenberg. He’s one of the most adventurous players around right now, and he’s got a lot going on. He’s a member of John Zorn's trio Simulacrum, along with organist John Medeski and drummer Kenny Grohowski; we interviewed all three of them a few years ago. He’s also a member of the band John Frum, with Liam Wilson of the Dillinger Escape Plan and some other underground metal folks; we reviewed their debut album earlier this year. He’s also just launched a new instrumental metal fusion project called Shardik , and his longest-running band is Cleric. They’ve been around for more than a dozen years, but they’ve only released two albums, one of which, Retrocausal, just came out. Apparently, though, they’ve got two other records in the can, one of which is entirely made up of Zorn compositions, from the Masada songbook.

Matt has a lot to say in our interview about Cleric, about Simulacrum and working with Zorn, about Shardik and John Frum, and about the state of metal in general. He also talks about a very bad accident he suffered earlier this year, which made it impossible for him to play for several months. It’s a really interesting conversation, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.