5 Albums I Can’t Live Without: Dan Sugarman of Ice Nine Kills

Name Dan Sugarman

Best known for Being the lead guitarist in Ice Nine Kills and ex-As Blood Runs Black. Riffs and slippery-dumb leads, mentoring other musicians, and wearing costumes, makeup and suits in front of too many people.

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Current city Los Angeles.

Really want to be in I really loved Portugal… Belem was unreal. I’d probably be cruising around and walking way more than a human should if I was there right now. I had the best food of my life there. Seafood, meat, cheeses, green wine… lawdy lawd. I’m also the guy that needs to follow that up with “I’ve been a vegan for the last 7 years” — but I’m not a stupid one. I know how good meat and seafood are, I just made a choice that makes me feel good in my life. Not in a “superior to others way”…but I mean… Just kidding. My life is so much harder because of it (haha).

Excited about The launch of my new online education company Slipstream. I built it to fix what’s broken in online music education. Most platforms offer lifeless, pre-recorded courses where you can’t even ask questions. You end up talking to a screen and not getting a response. We’re here to fix that by doing all live-streamed group sessions where I bring students on screen and coach them in real-time—so everyone learns something from questions they didn’t ask, getting an answer they didn’t know they needed.

Our first event, ‘How to Write a Song like Ice Nine Kills,’ starts July 26th. I’ll walk attendees through creating an INK-style track from scratch—they’ll watch me hit creative walls and break through them using tactics I’ve developed over years. Then I explain the what/why/how behind every choice, so they leave with actionable advice for their own songwriting.

After that, we shift into weekly [Labs] where I dive deep on guitar techniques, recording workflow and software fluency, drum/orchestra programming—the full spectrum of my creative process. Eventually we’ll bring in other known artists to lead their own sessions. It’s about making high-level mentorship accessible to anyone ready to level up, and creating lifelong changes through lessons with your favorite artists.

The future of online education is bright, and we’re aiming to help illuminate that path with Slipstream.

I’m also working on the final mix of my third instrumental record, [Inside/Out | Part II] as well as a remix/remaster of my first band Fallen Figure’s debut album deVival. There’s more in the pile of music I’m working on, but those are getting the focus right now.

My current music collection has a lot of Nostalgic metal and feel good music that I can do focused work to, cook to, or workout/rock climb to.

And a little bit of Chillhop… such a good vibe and calming at the end of a day. Also great music to cook dinner to. Some very vegan dinner.

Preferred format I was probably the last person on earth to give in and get a streaming service. I was strictly CDs only. Only listening to music in my car, or from CDs I imported into iTunes… Which is now apparently called Apple Music? I’m so behind. But lately, the ease in convenience of being able to stream anything on my computer when I’m focused and doing other things has become a really big factor in that. I’m not about to bring my computer into my car so I can listen to a CD. Although I have a feeling some companies in the future will be bringing computers into the cars for me. Until then, I’m streaming.

5 Albums I Can’t Live Without:

This is tough, and I’m gonna do this in no particular order. Because that’s like choosing my favorite kid. And the problem is I don’t have kids. So I haven’t practiced that skill yet. Because we all know there’s a favorite. What I will do, though, is put these in order of when they were introduced to me in my life. That seems fair, right?

1 Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Red Hot Chili Peppers

I miss my mom. This was an album that we would listen to every day on the way to school. It’s something that I’ve listened to literally thousands of times. There’s not a single moment on this record that doesn’t bring me joy. Not a single note is played on this record that doesn’t bring the memory of my mom flooding back into my mind. I thought about listing all of my favorite songs from this record, until I realized I had listed every song that’s on it. Something about the organic tones, the energy, and the music itself just speaks to me.

To this day, I think it’s the best record they’ve ever made. It also was my introduction to Rick Ruben, who is a producer that I study diligently. If you haven’t checked out his book The Creative Act or listened to his podcast Tetragrammaton, I recommend you do that yesterday. There’s also so many cool stories from the creation of this record too. The lore is deep. From the old mansion that they rented to record it in, to the spirits that the drummer, Chad said, haunted the house, which is why he would never sleep there, to the madness that John Frusciante went through in the attic… There’s a bunch of killer documentary footage that you can watch on YouTube. Highly recommend it if you’re a fan of the band.

Honorable mentions are Aja by Steely Dan, and Bob Marley and the Wailer’s Legend. Bob Marley was my favorite as a kid, and more recently was the soundtrack to my whoopin’ cancer’s ass. I played this record almost daily to keep the good feels up.

2 Vulgar Display of Power, Pantera

Pantera was the first true metal band that I got into. My first introduction to metal was Iron Maiden, and then Megadeth, and then Metallica. I love all of those bands. But none of them were as heavy as Pantera. I feel like those three bands I just listed would be better deemed as classic metal. Pantera feels like the first generation of actual metal (to me at least). Dimebag is one of my favorite guitarists of all time. I learned so much from studying his playing. His death hit me incredibly hard. I remember playing every riff that I could from A Vulgar Display of Power. Dimebag and Vinny‘s use of rhythm and syncopation is something I still reference to this day in my own music. Dime’s playing was just on another level.

Honorable mention to Megadeth from their Marty Friedman era. Marty’s playing hit me hard too. All of my weird and slippery phrasing that I do is definitely born from my early years listening to him play. My use of bends and vibrato, and bending into my target note from a half step behind is something that I learned from studying him and his approach to melody. The pure stank and attitude that I implement into my playing though comes from Dimebag 100%. No one did it like Dime.

3 Ashes of the Wake, Lamb of God

I got into Lamb of God in my formative years as a musician. I almost put down Avenged Sevenfold here, but Lamb of God is what took me in the direction of the metal that became my future life. Honorable mention to A7X’s City of Eviland Waking the Fallen, though. When I was 13 or so, those records introduced me to screaming and technical playing in a way I never heard before.

But Lamb of God spoke to my soul in a different way. Ashes holds up 20 years later. It still stands the test of time, and I still spin that shit on the regular. It was more aggressive and pissed off. More pummeling and heavy hitting. I remember watching the Killadelphia DVD until it wore out. I would watch that over and over again, envisioning myself on stage doing the same thing they were doing. I never knew that would become my life. Ironically, I remember on my first tour with Ice Nine Kills we played in the same venue that they did on that record, and it was a moment for me, for sure. After watching that DVD so many times, I knew that’s what I wanted in my own life. Perhaps it’s what some new age folks would call manifestation. But I’m not THAT vegan. Or am I?

Another honorable mention goes out to Chimaira, their self-titled record is a masterpiece. And it brought a new type of riffing and production to the forefront of my mind. I often still reference some of those riffs and tones as some of the best to this day. Jason Suecof and Andy Sneap… what a tone-team.

4 Planetary Duality, The Faceless

When I was 13, I went from loving classic rock to Avenged Sevenfold. My introduction to metalcore was swift and potent. But soon after finding metalcore, and shifting into true metal, such as Lamb of God, I found technical death metal. My home. And my trajectory in life changed drastically. Harmonic minor was cool, but modulating key centers and metric modulation and odd time signatures… It was something that was brand new to me. Something exciting and fresh. A challenge that I wanted to step into with every cell of my body.

That’s when I wrote the record deVival for my first band, Fallen Figure. I was 15/16 years old, and inspired to hit the technical limits of what I could do. Incredibly, that record is being remixed and remastered right now for a future release by the legendary Zack Ohren at Castle Ultimate Studios… Be on the lookout for that!

But damn—Planetary Duality still holds up to this day. It’s terrifyingly good. So technical, so powerful, and beautiful in the most twisted way. The riffs, leads, drums, and vocals are all flawless. It’s also heavily focused on aliens… Nice.

Honorable mention to Decapitated and their album Nihility. That record messed me up in the best way, and when I found out they were also in their teens when they wrote it was super inspirational to me. RIP to Vitek… one of the best drummers ever. Another honorable mention or two: Through The Eyes Of The Dead and their record Malice, as well as Despised Icon and their record The Ills of Modern Man. The records from that era of modern Metal speak to me heavily.

This is the nostalgic metal that I’m talking about. These are the albums that I bleed if you cut me open. Plus actual blood. Lots of blood.

5 Currents, Tame Impala

I literally found this record at Whole Foods, probably while grabbing some vegan stuff, wedged between bags of chips in an aisle. This was eight-plus years ago and they were already huge, but don’t take that discovery away from me. To me, I found them… in a bag of chips. Super weird entry point—potentially genius marketing since Whole Foods folks probably love this stuff.

It was wrapped and brand new. The album cover caught my eye, so I threw it in my cart. At checkout, they looked confused when I asked if they were selling it, but said since I found it, I could take it home. I put it in my car and was immediately blown away. It’s got this retro 70s and 80s vibe—like John Lennon jamming with the Grateful Dead, with the Bee Gees as a backup band. Acid. Lots of acid and mushrooms.

This honorable mention isn’t the same genre as Tame Impala, and people argue this band isn’t metal at all. I think they’re incredibly metal. Metal to me is a middle finger to the norm, and this band going so against the grain is the most metal thing you could do in my opinion.

Shout out to Sleep Token. I discovered them right before Take Me Back to Eden dropped, and it’s probably my most-spun recent record. Their newest record, Even in Arcadia, is also incredible and slaps equally as hard. Respect to these dudes for being so authentically themselves that it pisses the world off. Metal as fuck.

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