"You Don't Need A College Degree To Rock" and Other Words of Wisdom From Teenage Thrash Band ShitKill

There are two things you should know about NYC thrash band ShitKill. The first is that they're some of the most promising young metal musicians we've seen in a long time. The second is that, when we say young, we mean barely old enough to vote: none of them are over 18-years-old.

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Already ShitKill have opened for veteran metal bands Anvil and Diamond Head. They cut their first full-length record (produced by Chris "Tomato" Harfenist) in 2011, when they were still in high school. And tonight, they're opening for Six Feet Under at Webster Hall.

This isn't music that's just pretty good for a bunch of teenagers. This is music that's just damn good.

Josh Musto is the lead guitarist, vocalist, and chief songwriter. (His musical pedigree is impressive: his mother Amy Burton is an opera singer; his father John Musto is a modern orchestral and operatic composer.) Now a freshman at the New School, Musto shared with us his strong opinions about religion, the evolution of metal, and how to wreck your voice with a Toblerone bar.

Your band bio says you are "not at all happy about the current trends in heavy music." What does that mean?
Yeah, that just about says it ... I didn't really grow up listening to rock music. I discovered it when I was maybe 10 or 11. But when I did, I gravitated much more toward classic stuff that has a lot of soul to it -- like Slayer, Pantera, KISS, Metallica, bands like that. It seems to me that now metal really is not up to par with any of that. The last metal band that came out that really blew me away was probably Mastodon ... and Lamb of God. But since then, I really haven't been wowed by a new band. I feel like I sound like an old man saying this, but it's true.

Lamb of God's been around for over 12 years now. You're 18.
Yeah, in my childhood, Lamb of God was kind of like the band you had to like, and I think it still sort of is ... And I'm still sort of waiting for that band to come out that tells everybody that you don't need to sound like Lamb of God or have a breakdown to make heavy music.