Mike Dean (right) and Corrosion of Conformity
Interview by Jason Schreurs
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always equated the city of Raleigh with the crossover metal band Corrosion of Conformity (also know as COC), who formed in the capitol of North Carolina back in the early 1980s.
I recently had the chance to chat with COC bassist/vocalist Mike Dean, so I decided to pick his brain about Raleigh and its food scene. Thanks to Dean, I can now think about Raleigh in terms other than just being the birthplace of one of the all-time best thrash metal/crossover bands.
Dean: So, in Raleigh, you have your traditional staples; obviously there’s the Carolina barbecue with the shredded pork and the vinegar sauce going on. I’m not really a meat eater, but that’s more your traditional fare, and there’s the traditional and modern expressions of that.
What’s a restaurant you like to go to?
There’s a place I really like called Fiction Kitchen, which was opened up by a couple of lovely ladies a few years ago, and it’s a mostly vegan place, but it’s not your typical vegan thing. They have a lot of people coming in and enjoying that place that don’t really impose any dietary restrictions on themselves; it stands on its own within the culinary world. It’s pretty amazing and it’s in downtown Raleigh and I really like it a lot.
What other kind of food can you find there?
We’ve got some crazy places. We’ve got a tradition in North Carolina of pizzerias and Italian restaurants run by Greeks posing as Italians that have a long history back to the ‘50s and ‘60s. We’ve also got some pretty nice diners, and that’s almost a dying tradition, but it’s something I think of when I’m away from home. But I don’t really eat out much myself. We’ve got a big garden, so I don’t have to buy too much produce, and I spend a lot of time at the house cooking.
Does Raleigh have a signature dish?
Oh, not really, not necessarily… But, like I said, the North Carolina-style pork barbecue is probably the closest thing. It’s the generic thing that you would have when you come here. You go to Philly and you have the cheese steak, and you come to Raleigh and I guess you’d go to Clyde Cooper’s BBQ or The Pit.
Are there many craft breweries in Raleigh?
Yeah, like everywhere else, that stuff is definitely exploding out here as well. My neighbour’s a brewmaster at one of those places; I’m not sure which one [laughs]. But, yeah, absolutely, that seems to be a universal thing these days. [COC guitarist] Woody [Weatherman]’s kind of the beer expert in the band and he was the one who [Georgia’s] Burnt Hickory Brewery reached out to when they wanted to do that Imperial Porter for the band. I saw a few bottles of it, but that’s about it. It wasn’t like the Iron Maiden beer, which is for sale 365 days of the year.
You mentioned the one vegan restaurant. Is there a vegan scene in Raleigh?
No, there’s not, and that’s kind of why it’s good that Fiction Kitchen has recognition for just doing cuisine in general. The fact that most of it is vegan isn’t really the main attraction. But there’s kind of a new restaurant scene in Raleigh. There’s a music venue called King’s and the principal people behind that have opened a restaurant downstairs called Garland, and that’s a pretty amazing place. One of the partners is from India and there’s a number of Indian-inspired specialties, but the menu’s all over the place. So that’s another really good place.
Corrosion of Conformity’s IX is out now on Candlelight Records.
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