Call's only real responsibility the next day was to pick up Aiden, his 17-month-old son, from his sister-in-law's house in Lewisville. On the road in his Jeep (which he drives when not behind the wheel of his 'Vette), Call talked about how styles of music have changed over the years. The question came up: Is Aska a museum act? "We didn't grow up in the '70s," he said. "We grew up in the '80s. Metal acts grew up in that time. We're a product of those times. We're now a new movement of metal. It harkens back a bit, but it's today. We didn't write Avenger in the 1980s. It's today. There are more metal bands that have sprouted up over the past 10 years than there were in all of the '80s." Playing metal in Fort Worth-Dallas, awash in alt-country, rap, and indie rock acts ... well, there are easier paths to take. The word on Aska in national and international fanzines leans toward the favorable. Rock and a Hard Place: "Aska is on the fringe of greatness." CMB: "Aska really have moved into the major-leagues of a truly first-class, pure metal band." And Powerplay: "I can't help but think that the big league is beckoning." Locally, Aska is -- no pun intended -- a four-letter word. The Dallas Observer is a favorite source of angst for Call. "You can't take anything the media say here seriously," Call said. "They're so jealous of us. That's it: We're in the same city as these critics, and we're in the same competition for women. They think, 'Aska might fuck my old lady or the chick I'm trying to pick up.' It has to be something primal or else [local media] wouldn't take all these cheap shots at us." Call eventually arrived at his sister-in-law's house, and spent a good five minutes knocking on the door before a teenage boy answered and let him in. His sister-in-law was still out with Aiden at the mall, so Call and the teen, Raynor, talked hunting, family, and school -- and Aska. "Hey, man," Call said. "Is your friend gonna buy that c.d.?" "Josh?" Raynor said. "I dunno." "You tell him he has to buy it," Call said. Then, to no one in particular, Call said: "When niceness fails, use intimidation." Then, enacting a possible situation with Josh, Call held a fist in the air and, deepening his voice, said, "You like the c.d., right, Josh?" A few minutes later, Aiden appeared. He was immediately snatched up by his father and covered in kisses and hugs. The relatives now in the room didn't act as if Call's actions were out of the ordinary. After a bit of chitchat with the family, Call grabbed Aiden's portable bed and car seat, and set out for the Jeep. Aiden didn't fuss the whole way back home; he just let his dad fuss over him -- in Spanish (which Call speaks fluently). To help Aiden get ready for a nap once they got home, Call sat his son in front of the tv and popped in a DVD disc called Baby Praise. (Call said his wife is "very religious.") Images of small children set to Christian music cast a spell over Call's blond child. He didn't move from the tv or say a word. "Kids," Call said, "They love looking at other kids. It's amazing." Aiden soon fell asleep, and big-kid Call put in a DVD disc of his own choice: Manowar: Hell on Earth, Part 1. Here was the heavy metal band on tour throughout Europe in the late 1990s. Lots of screaming teenagers, lots of insanely long lines of insane fans, lots of leather, lots of topless babes, lots of chugged beers. Naturally, Call got contemplative. "There's something happening in the metal world," he said. "Worldwide. The U.S. is not the center of the universe. "This [video] should give you a clear perspective of what it is. This was during alt-rock's heyday, and you don't have 20 bands on one bill, like a Lollapalooza, it's just one band, Manowar, and probably an opener. Look at how many people." When Black Sabbath turned the peace-love-and-understanding vibe of '60s-era rock into a rumbling death knell, heavy metal was still outré. Though "crossover" bands like Led Zeppelin and Rush experienced much mainstream success with the sound, real metal -- metal with no aspirations of commercial viability -- remained largely underground throughout the '70s. The genre received the kiss of death in the early 1980s when "glam bands" took metal to the top of the charts. Stateside audiences lustily follow trends, and in no artistic medium is this fact as painfully obvious as in popular music. As with any sound du jour, there was a backlash against power metal which has kept the style off the American radar ever since. Italian kids, Russian kids, Asian kids -- every type of young, non-American music fan, though, eats power metal up. Still, Call is pleasantly content with the way things are going for him and his band: "To be able to strap on a guitar, see the world, and get paid to do it?! I have no complaints. I've made some of my wildest dreams come true, and I haven't given up on the rest. When I'm not playing and I'm on the road, hey, I'm out in the pool ... I'm gonna have a good time, enjoy myself, and be as moral as I can be to the extent of my morality -- you know, don't do to somebody else what you wouldn't want to have done to you. You're here once -- make something out of it." Call said he understands that his band probably won't be a favorite on MTV's TRL or "The Edge." And another gig like the one with Judas Priest might also be a long time coming. But Call said Aska won't give up until the band has secured status in the small but formidable universe of power metal -- a likely event. Major heavy-metal labels that showed interest in Avenger are already asking Call about Aska's next c.d., which Call said will be recorded within a few months; and a steady diet of performances at local spots like Fast Freddy's and J. Gilligan's will by all accounts keep the band busy and in the black. "We're not trying to do anything trendy or be, like, the next Limp Bizkit," Call said. "In fact, if we notice something 'trendy' in one of our songs, we're like, 'Take it out.' We're not interested in it. It'd be like if you asked a country guy to do rap -- just 'cause it's 'in.' If we did that, we wouldn't be true to ourselves. "We know our style is not popular with the masses," he continued. "We don't compare ourselves to Creed or [Stone Temple Pilots] or, I dunno, Godsmack. Our influences are," here Call paused and leaned forward, "Manowar. Primal Fear. Virgin Steele. We're playing music and drawing people, and we're appealing to a crowd by playing this type of music that mass media have tried to sell to the public as dead. Well, if it's dead, then where are all these people coming from who're going to our shows? And even if it is 'dead' in the U.S., the U.S. isn't the world. Overseas, you can listen to techno, then you can listen to metal, then you can listen to pop -- you don't have to pretend. Here, if you're not listening to what's 'in,' then, you know, it's sad to say, but you're just not 'in.' And Aska -- to tell you the truth -- will just never be 'in.' That's the way we want it."
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