Interview with guitarist Craig Locicero
Interview conducted by Luxi Lahtinen
Date online: September 16, 2025
Live photos by PP Marila
Thanks for Jere Saajoranta of Ginger Vine Management & PR for setting up the interview
Few bands from the Bay Area thrash scene have left a mark as distinct and enduring as Forbidden. Emerging in the late '80s with a razor-sharp sound and a fierce sense of identity, they helped define a movement that would reshape metal 
worldwide. Now, decades later, guitarist Craig Locicero, one of the two original members still holding the torch alongside bassist Matt Camacho, is proving that Forbidden's fire is far from extinguished.
In 2023, the band announced its second official comeback, revealing a revitalized lineup and a renewed sense of purpose. This wasn't just a reunion; it was a rebirth. With new blood in the mix and a clear mission to honor and expand the band's legacy, Forbidden is charging forward once again, reminding fans old and new why their name still commands respect.
I managed to sit down with Craig for a brief moment, prior to Forbidden's electrifying performance at the Helsinki Metal Festival on August 8th, where they took the stage as part of their triumphant return to the global metal circuit.
In this conversation, Craig opens up about the band's rebirth, the energy behind the new lineup, and what lies ahead in the next chapter of Forbidden's story.
LEGACY AND EVOLUTION OF FORBIDDEN
Craig, you've been with Forbidden since its inception. As one of the last original members, how do you feel about the band's legacy? Has your perspective on Forbidden's influence and place in thrash metal changed over the years?
Craig: First of all, yes, Matt and I are the only two original members left. People who are wondering where Paul Bostaph is, well, he's playing with Kerry King. He was supposed to do the first reunion in 2008, but when Testament heard he was going to do that, they immediately got him to play drums, and they did Formation of Damnation. They said, "We need a drummer," so they got him. It just has never worked out. Glen was in the band for a year and a half back in the '80s, and then we tried it again in 2008, and you can have five really cool people in a band, and they might not all get along. He's a good dude, but he does his own thing.
Then Russ retired. Russ has retired from music. I thought I was retiring Forbidden forever, and I had intended on doing so, and there was a confluence of things that have come together to make me realize that Norm was the right guy, and I had to reconsider. Luckily, I did. Ever since we have, things have steadily been moving upwards for us. You were talking about the legacy of the band 
and everything, but people are looking past that even into this lineup and the way that this lineup brings fire and has really got a lot of chemistry.
Original Forbidden chemistry was something else; the lineups after were hit and miss, but you'll see today that we have really good chemistry. All our shows have shown that people respect the legacy as much as they respect the fact that this is, well, I call it Forbidden Reborn because it's not really a reunion. We did that in 2008. Now it's people that want to be here, putting commitment to the craft, writing really good music.
Working with Chris Kontos is killer because I get a songsmith. I get to work with him and really work on songs. Daniel Chewy is, next to Tim Calvert, the greatest guitar player I've ever played with. It's really, really good. With Norman, there's no one else that can do the job. Russ gave us his blessings.
CURRENT BAND DYNAMIC
Forbidden's lineup has seen several changes over the years. What do you think this version of the band brings to the table that's unique?
Craig: That's a rather easy answer. Wisdom that we did not have. Youth is great. Youth carries you a long way. Youth and luck will carry you through and bring you success. I've always moved on and done positive things in music. I didn't just play metal. I made different records with different people. I just moved to what I wanted to do personally.
This came along organically. A couple of things brought me to the realization, actually, 10 fucking different things brought me to the realization that the universe is trying to tell me if Forbidden is ever going to have a time, it's going to be now. I'm not under any illusion or having delusions of grandeur of being a gigantic band at this stage. Our cult status is growing, and the respect factor is much higher this time.
In 2008, a lot of people just looked at us. Russ wasn't healthy. You could tell. He wasn't 100%. There was tension. Any tension now lends to good chemistry. We all play great together. Norman takes a lot more of the mentality of lyrics than Russ ever did, 
which surprised me. I would give him a song title of what I want a song to be about, some riffs, and he'd be like, "I think I got it." The first time he said that to me, I was like, "That's not what you do." I was like, "You don't have to do that. I'll do that with you." Then he wrote great lyrics, maybe better than what I would have written. I was really blown away by that.
He's a very good fit for the band, in my opinion.
Craig: Everyone's a good fit. I think, to sum it all up, in all of Forbidden's inceptions, I carried a lot more water for the band because other people were lazy. I don't have to carry all that water. I'm carrying my fucking water, not their water. We work together. It's liberating.
CREATIVE PROCESS
You've been a key part of Forbidden's songwriting for a long time. How has the creative process evolved over the years? Is there anything you do differently now compared to when you first started writing with the band?
Craig: I'm pre-answering your questions [*chuckles*]. Wisdom is a huge part of it. The fact I played so many kinds of music. It was all heavy, but it was really heavy rock. It was different kinds of metal. My songwriting skills have evolved because of being around great musicians that are great songwriters my whole life. Sure, I'm the main songwriter in Forbidden, but everyone contributes going back to the beginning.
That's a very important thing that everyone can contribute to the songwriting process.
Craig: I think so. I'm not the kind of guy who likes to write on a--
It builds up more coherent chemistry inside the band as well when everybody is involved in the songwriting.
Craig: It gives everyone unity and ownership.
Yes, exactly.
Craig: Nowadays, while we're out here struggling, financially, we're all in it to win it and splitting 
everything evenly when the money comes. That's the way to keep everyone working together. What if one guy is like, "I need X amount of money per gig"? Then the whole balance is out of whack and then somebody's resentful. I'm like, "No. I'll split my publishing equally. I'll split everything equally." If there's nothing, then we all get an equal part of nothing. If there's one penny, we get an equal part of the penny and so on and so forth. That includes merchandise and everything.
Now that's a very good policy in the band.
Craig: It is.
Sharing is also caring.
Craig: Yes, exactly. My lawyer, our band's lawyer, management, everyone's like, "Really? You want to do that?" I'm like, "Yes, I want to do that." Right now, we're in the leanest part of where we're ever going to be in our career doing this tour because we came into this having fired our booking agent before we got here. There are all kinds of things that nobody would even want. I'm sure you have the same adage here. Nobody knows how a sausage gets made. Our sausage, we had to do it ourselves. We worked really hard to make this happen, and all the shows were great. Getting from show to show hasn't always been easy. That's rock and roll. I'm not even complaining.
INFLUENCES AND SOUND
Many fans have seen Forbidden as one of the pioneers of Bay Area thrash metal. How would you describe the band's sound today compared to when it was first forming?
Craig: Again, it goes back to the wisdom thing. I think when you're young, you're just doing things. Most bands don't have the foresight to predict how their career arc is going to go, especially in metal. You're just playing reactionary. The riffs were crazy. I was really hyperactive. I was also thrust into being the musical leader of the band when Robb Flynn quit in '86 and I was the youngest guy in the band. You can imagine what kind of tension that was back then. That was probably the worst tension.
Now I am 56 years old. I'm not a kid anymore. I started in this band when I was 15. We're starting our 41st year of ever having the name, as it says on your shirt. I think our sound has changed over the years. The leap we made from Forbidden Evil to Twisted into Form was so crazy when you listen to how much musical growth we had in a four-month period. From when Tim joined the band and we did the tour, we came home, finished writing, we're in the studio, this record so much further evolved than Forbidden Evil.
Forbidden Evil had a great crazy bombastic musicianship that kids shouldn't have. We were kids, man. Three of us were teenagers when we made Forbidden Evil.
Apparently, you guys were rehearsing together non-stop because you sounded so mature on your debut album when it came out back in 1988...
Craig: We wanted to be as much Judas Priest as Exodus. You know what I mean? We really respected Exodus 
and all the bands in the Bay Area and Slayer and everything. I grew up loving Venom, but I also fucking loved The Beatles and all the classic metal bands, new wave of British heavy metal bands. I think our influences were so vast and that really paid off. We didn't know it at the time. We were so unaware. We didn't even know how that album was going to be reacted to. It wasn't until the album cover was done that we realized we had the whole package. Then we're like, "Oh, okay. People might like this."
Nowadays, the arc of each record is so different because, between Twisted into Form and Distortion, those were years and years of metal being shunned. No one cared. We were writing for ourselves. We scrapped a bunch of songs and rewrote a bunch of other songs. We had to make our own vibes in our own scene. People didn't really care that much back then. Green is just angry. Just mad. Nothing more and then we broke up. Then you have Omega Wave, which I felt was really a cross between all of four of those albums. I feel like it really spanned. I was super proud of what we did on Omega Wave. Russ tried so, so hard. He paid so much attention to the craft at that time and then he fell back into bad habits after that. He put all of it himself into that record.
Now these guys are just insane players. Matt's a way better bass player than he ever was. He's really good now. He stopped playing bass for about 10 years and then he's the one in a million that stopped playing and then says, "I fell in love again with my instrument," and then got better than he ever was. Plays with his fingers now. He used to play with the pick back in the day. Matt has got a lot of good hand tone.
I'm recording more stylistically, more like Forbidden Evil in a raw and simple way. We're not using two-inch tape, but we're using Cubase-like two-inch tape where we're not fixing shit. You lay it down, it's done. When Chewy sent me his guitar tracks, because we talk about things and go over stuff, he said, "Well, these should be good, I'll go back and redo them," I'm like, "No, you're done." He's like, "What?" I'm like, "You're done. That sounds great. If you redo it, it's only going to get more perfect, and that's not going to be what I want."
I really want everything we do from now on to have the feel of a band that plays tight, has chemistry, but is raw. I think that's why people go back to the old albums and there's a reason for that. Also, we're playing everything in E. We're tuned to E now, which is what that "Divided by Zero" is in. A lot of the songs of the album are going to be in E. The whole set we're playing tonight is in E. We haven't done that since 1990.
How do you feel about the direction of modern thrash music? Many younger thrash metal acts are trying to copy that '80s sound and vibe but only a rare few of them do it right. I mean, trying to make it all sound like they come straight from the '80s era of thrash but, unfortunately, most of the time not quite succeeding at that.
Craig: I feel good about the fact that it makes that kind of impact, but I don't know that it's really 
possible. It's like repainting the Mona Lisa. You don't have the same stroke. Your influences are part of what makes you what you are. If you're influenced by us and we were influenced by X, Y, and Z, you're going to be missing the link unless you study what we were into, and you really delve into that. We had old punk rock. We had, like I mentioned, The Beatles and all those classic rock bands and then the new wave of British heavy metal.
I think that it's really cool to watch the kids adopt the look and try to have that vibe. There are some really good bands out there. There are a few really good bands, but they're never going to do it quite like we did. That's okay because maybe the other guys are trying to go out there, be dressed like fucking Led Zeppelin. You know what I mean? That's okay. I don't have a problem with it. I just don't think that they're ever going to quite know what it was like to do it when we did it. We lived through Baloff. He was my friend. [*laughs*]
It's hard to copy the '80s thrash metal sound to make it all sound convincing.
Craig: Yes, I agree. Good luck. But they do try. I have no problem with them trying. Somebody might actually go in and reinvent. There are some great bands but they're mostly a little older now. The guys in Warbringer and Havok and stuff, they're older now. They're getting the identity and they're leading the way for the new pack.
THE FUTURE OF FORBIDDEN
Where do you see Forbidden in the next few years? Are there plans for more new music?
Craig: We've been recording already. You have already heard one song. We recorded three. We will go home and finish writing a bunch more. The entire record should be done by the end of November. I figure it'll be out by May 2026, because you need a few months to set it up. We're going to release at least four or five songs before the record comes out. That's how they do it these days, right?
Music is like a business card now. You put all your heart, money, and soul, and everything you do into it, and then you hand it over to people for free, you go, "Here you go." Then if they like you, they'll buy a shirt. It's a sad business compared to what it used to be. I'm doing it now because I think it's a good time for Forbidden, not just musically and scene-wise, but I think it's a good time because the political climate of the world screams for our music, the philosophical left side, right side of the brain. Just everything that Forbidden was about, this is it. We were writing about this shit when I was a fucking kid and now we're in it. We are in it. I'm really close to Russia right now. [*laughter*]
I also am kind of curious to ask about the direction of your new songs? Are you going to go back to your first two albums or is it a mix of two of them, perhaps?
Craig: We will never do a Forbidden Evil thing because that was kids. There are a few deep moments there, but it was all kid stuff. It is Twisted into Form and stuff like that. As I said earlier, with a song like "Divided by Zero," I had a concept and I had some lyrics and I had the chorus. I handed it over to Norman, I said, "We'll work on this later," and then he came back with all these great ideas and wrote really poignant cool lyrics and had the delivery. He had the idea to sing it the way he sang it to make people feel comfortable right away and it was his idea to sing it the way Russ would have belted it out, like the "March into Fire" song, da, da, da.
I was like, "Wow...!" He showed me how smart he is because it was right the first way. I was like, "I don't know about that," but then when he sang in the studio, "Oh, that's fucking great." In the song itself, if you know what "Divided by Zero" even means, it's a forbidden number. It's argued about to the end of time. Can it even exist? It's infinity. It's about conflict. "Divided by Zero" is basically that all the arguments equal nothing. Always just keep arguing your point. Until humans figure this part of it out, it's going to amount to nothing.
THE CHALLENGE OF KEEPING IT THRASH
Thrash metal is a genre that has seen its ups and downs in popularity over the decades. What do you think keeps thrash relevant today, and how do you ensure Forbidden stays true to the roots of the genre while also evolving?
Craig: I think I keep pre-answering your questions because I think what I said is the reason why. Maybe 
not for every band, but some bands it's vibes and they're just fun. There are bands like Municipal Waste that are fucking awesome and funny. I think even we have a sense of humor about our lyrics, too. A little bit. There was a lot of it on Omega Wave. I was really tongue-in-cheek talking about all the conspiracies and everything was taken with a grain of salt. I think lyrically, thrash metal has a very purposeful place on this planet if you do it right. It's the music screaming back at the system. It is the punk rock of metal at its best.
It shouldn't be safe, and it shouldn't be comfortable, and it should be something to make you sit back and feel a little bit "Oh, shit, there should," but not everyone's going to get that. Some people just listen to the music. If they don't listen to lyrics at all, that's fine. They might not be listening on a conscious level, but unconsciously they're catching it.
OF TOURING
You have done a lot of shows around the world and toured a lot with Forbidden over the decades. How do you see all these challenges of touring? With the demanding nature of touring, do you still enjoy the challenges, like traveling long distances, waiting at the airports, etc.
Craig: Yes, it happens. Yesterday we arrived just a few minutes too late to get our luggage checked in, but we got the band on, and then the crew had to follow. That costs a bunch of money. We'll get it back. It was the airport's fault. They didn't have enough checkers, and they kept pushing us back. We're like, "You motherfuckers." They owe us money. There's always going to be something. I don't give a fuck. That's Spinal Tap. There's always going to be something. I was hanging out with Matt Thompson (King Diamond). He was telling me some Spinal Tap shit that those guys have dealt with and they're getting paid a lot of money per show.
Their overhead is insanely high. They must pay a lot of money to their crew. It's a very expensive business. We pay more money to our crew than we make because we love our crew and they're fucking great. You want to keep these people. You want to keep them around so if the ride gets fun, they could stay with you on the ride. I never had any ambitions... I shouldn't say ambitions. I never had any ideas that it was going to be easy coming back. Even though the paydays are better, things are more expensive. To me, it's about the music and making damn well sure that we make that worthwhile.
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
Looking back at your career, are there any moments or experiences with Forbidden that stand out as defining, either personally or musically? How do those experiences shape how you approach the future of the band?
Craig: Yes. The first one would be Dynamo. Our show at the very first Dynamo Festival we played lives on. That festival is our second home. We just did a sold-out show there at the Dynamo Club, and they packed over 600 people in a place that's not supposed to have more than 500. Shh..., don't tell anybody, ha ha! There are shows that are stuck in my head as well as moments. If you talk about swings and misses, we've had more misses and big swings.
Even in baseball, if you hit the ball 2 out of every 6 times, you get a 3.33 average, and you're going to the Hall of Fame. You know what I mean? You're missing it 4 times out of 6. I think that, with the right realistic point of view and a really good attitude, and a lot of hard work, we can write an album that would be relevant in these last days of humanity, because I don't see this lasting that much longer. I don't think it's going to be us destroying ourselves either. I think it'll be a supervolcano or something stupid. I think it's going to be something that's completely out of our hands.
I don't think everyone worries about what happens in the war. That could be taken care of really easily. Yellowstone looks like it's ready to blow, and that'll crush the US in a matter of hours.
MESSAGE TO FANS
Finally, with so many fans still supporting Forbidden after all these years, what would you like to say to them as the band continues to move forward?
Craig: I would say thank you. I would say thank you for continuing to be a fan all these years and not completely giving up on us because the payoff is here. If you want something special and you're a Forbidden fan and you like things that are unique and different, we're going to deliver that because we have got the guys to do it. This is a lineup of ringers. Chewy in the band is a fucking godsend. I don't know if you're a Voïvod fan or not, but that dude is one of the five best guitar players I know on the planet.
Well, one big Voïvod fan is sitting right here, next to you right now... ;o)
Craig: I love Voïvod. We're not here to steal Chewy from VoÏvod. We're here to work in between when he's got time to work and when it all plays out. He's a big fan of Forbidden. Otherwise, he wouldn't be here. He's a really good friend of mine. Again, otherwise, he wouldn't be here.
Alright Craig. Thanks a lot for your time and all the best for your show tonight.
Craig: Thank you—and good to see you after all these years, Luxi. I remember you. You have got to hang out for the show, then we'll maybe see each other after? We'll go have a beer backstage, downstage, or something.
| Other information about Forbidden on this site |
| Review: Forbidden Evil |
| Review: Omega Wave |
| Review: Twisted Into Form |
| Interview with Craig Locicero (guitars) on October 9, 2011 (Interviewed by Luxi Lahtinen) |
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