Older readers will doubtless know the name Hal Patino from the man’s two stints as bassist for Danish theatrical metal legend King Diamond, but for the last nine years Patino has been working on the Maryann Cotton concept with his son, singer Jackie Patino. This year saw the band releasing their fourth album, Hallelujah, an album which quickly became a staple on the office stereo here at Sentinel Daily HQ.  Wanting to find out a bit more about the album and the MC concept, we hit up the band’s ‘people’ for a chinwag about life as a Las Vegas shock rocker…

It’s fair to say the dust has settled around the album now – were you pleased overall with it’s reception from the press and fans? “Yes, we were very happy with the reviews and about fan reactions. It is always cool to have a good review because we write the music in the way we like it, and it’s great if people dig it”.

Tell us a bit about the band for those of our readers who might not be too familiar with Maryann Cotton. “We started up in 2011 as Maryann Cotton. The whole idea was to create this character and brand it was when Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson, et cetera did, and not compromise on the music and lyrics. Everything we’ve ever done is straight from the heart and written in moments and in a way that we felt is right for us”.

Although Hallelujah obviously owes a lot to the seventies, it’s a remarkably fresh-sounding record. How did you achieve such a compromise between the old and the new? “I was born in the sixties and am raised in the seventies. Thus, I was a teenager in the early seventies, where the music was all about hard rock. So it is a natural thing for me to influence the band’s music with my input. Maryann Cotton was raised with the same kind of style while listening to my music. The result of that is to be heard in our songs today. I guess the individual performances and the way it is played is like in the seventies, but with a more modern sound”.

Obviously COVID has wrecked your ability to tour behind the record. As time drags on and on, are you more tempted now to perhaps record another album and tour with two ‘new’ records when things get back to normal, or are you happy to just get out behind Hallelujah when the time comes? “We are actually already in the writing process of a new album in this Corona time. Additionally, we have spent a lot of time on the business side of the band, too. So let’s wait and see what will happen. Hopefully, everything will be back to normal next year, because we intend to do a U.S. tour in March 2021, but let’s wait and see what will happen”.

Here’s hoping! Now, here’s your chance to sum up in one sentence what each song on the new record means to you:

Night in California: “A hot summer night in L.A.”
I’m Your Saint: “The Las Vegas strip”.
White Pearl: “It’s about sex…”
Those Things to Come: “Working class chaos”.
Eternal Love Forever: “My part was written for my girlfriend”.
Take Me Home (Delilah): “Tours and groupies”.
My Own Way: “A mirror or flashback on Maryann Cotton’s life”.

If I can be a bit indulgent here, I’d like to talk a bit more about My Own Way, which is one of my favourite tracks of the year so far – where does such a staggeringly good track come from? Our writer Gavin Strickmann described it to me as ‘Alice Cooper meets Jimmy Webb by way of Axl Rose’ – how accurate would you say that description is? “The description of the song is very close and all credit in this song has to go to Maryann Cotton. We spent a lot of time on this song on the lyrical side, but we chose MC’s words in this song because it is about his life experience as the character Maryann Cotton”.

Anything else you think the readers of Sentinel Daily should know about the album? “Thanks to all the readers and you guys from Sentinel Daily for this interview. We are very proud of the final result of our latest album. Go check it out”.
Thanks for your time!

Hallelujah is out now on El Puerto Records.