Albert, you're the Editor in Chief of Decibel Magazine:

First - can you tell me about Decibel? I remember your first issue, you're on fire right now!
Currently, we're working on our 27th issue, which means it's probably about time we settle down into a serious relationship, start putting some money away for a house and decide if we wanna have any little Decibels running around within a couple of years.

Let's talk about 'How you got that damn cool job'?

Briefly - What are you responsible for?
As Editor-in-Chief I oversee the content and general direction of the magazine. What that means is I commission and assign all the features, news stories, special pieces and artist profiles we run each month. And I get to decide who is on Decibel's cover every month. Our Managing Editor Andrew Bonazelli oversees all the assigning and editing on the reviews section, which greatly frees me up, enabling me to sell the advertising for the magazine as well. I don't recommend being the ad sales guy AND the editor, but when you work at a small company, these are the kinds of things you have to do to keep everything running. That said, we're finally at the point where we can bring in a full time sales person and plan on doing so in early 2007.

How many hours do you usually work a week?
I work 40 hours at the office and then another five to 10 a week from home. Maybe a few more if we're on a production deadline during a particular week.

How did you get started in journalism?
I accidentally feel into it. About 200 years ago, back in 1996, I was a regular reader of the metal reviews in a publication then called the Gallery of Sound Gazette. The writer responsible for them had a good sense of humor, but knew very little about the actual music (especially the more extreme death, black and doom metal bands) he was writing about. For whatever reason, I thought I could do a better job and fired off a couple sample reviews (of Cannibal Corpse and Dissection, if I recall correctly) to the editor/publisher. Well, he dug them and I starting writing metal reviews for the Gazette on a monthly basis. About six months later he hired me to be the publication's Associate Editor. The publication then developed into Stereo-Type. The company evolved into Red Flag Media. And RFM went on to publish Decibel several years later.

What classes did you take that have helped you get where you are today?
I was an English Major in college, which helped me develop my writing skills to a point. I didn't take any journalism classes in school, so there was a good deal of on-the-job training that guided my early (and bad) writings.

How did you prepare for your first job interview?
I haven't gone to a job interview since 1995 (which was for a manual labor job at a record store warehouse), so I might not be qualified to properly answer this.

Are internships good training?
It depends on how much attention the intern gets. Interns aren't usually provided a lot of direction. On their first day they're often instructed to do something like "go file this paperwork for the next four weeks." But no matter what kind of grunt work you end up doing as an intern-and, trust me, there's plenty of it-just about every internship can provide someone with valuable insight into how a music magazine is run on a daily basis.

What has changed since the magazine has grown?
More people get to read how fucking brilliant we are.

What is the hardest part of your job?
Selling ads. It's very stressful and if you're not careful you can get covered in music industry ick.

If someone 'wanted to get their band noticed':

How many demos and press kits do you get in a week?
We receive about three or four demos from unsigned bands each week. They reside in a box clearly marked "demos" right outside my office. When we're feeling adventurous, we dip into it.

What is one thing NEVER to send you?
Unsolicited MP3 files via email. They're a huge strain on an Internet connection and they only tax editors' already burdened inboxes.

What is the best thing to send you to get your attention?
Good music. Local press clippings, finished cover art, and promo photos of your band members strategically wearing Darkthrone AND Guns N' Roses shirts are endearing, if not slightly amusing, but, at the end of the day, it's all about the tunes.

Is it important to you if you're considering writing about a young band that they have a lot of friends on MySpace?
Not to me. But there are bands, like Job for a Cowboy in particular, who managed to start a bidding war for their services based on their number of MySpace friends, so it apparently does matter to a lot of labels. But music magazines are more concerned with a young band's Top 8. That was a joke.

And for the fun stuff:

How many concerts do you usually go to in a week?
I've dramatically cut back on attending shows. I'd say I only end up at three or four a month these days. I've been to enough overloaded, stinky basement shows to last a couple lifetimes, but the right band can still drag me out from the comfort of my apartment.

What is the most memorable interview you've ever done?
I interviewed all five members of Radiohead in New York back in 1997 right before OK Computer was released. It's not very metal, but it was still pretty cool that I had the opportunity to do it. Interviewing the late, great BBC1 DJ John Peel back in 2002 was also a pretty big thrill.

I'm sure you get a lot of free stuff, what's the best thing you've gotten lately?
It's over a year old now, but the A Life Once Lost promotion machete our pals at Ferret Music sent us is my favorite freebie. It's very handy to have around the office when you're enforcing deadlines.

If you had to give your best words of advice in 2 sentences or less, what would they be?
Train, say your prayers, eat your vitamins! Be true to yourself, true to your country, be a real American!

What's in your CD player right now?
At the start of this interview it was Prong's Beg to Differ. Now it's Ulver's Bergtatt

You recently wrote a book. Tell us about it.
It's called Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal & Grindcore. I guess the title pretty much speaks for itself. If, like me, you grew up a fan in the late '80s and early '90s of bands such as Carcass, Morbid Angel, Entombed, Obituary and Napalm Death, then this book will be a walk down memory lane's left hand path for you. It was published by Feral House and you can find it any place that sells books about death metal. And if your looking to learn a second, third or fourth language, it was translated into French, German and Finnish earlier this year.