Covers albums are nothing new, especially in the metal world. Everyone from Metallica and Napalm Death to the Melvins and Sepultura have made them. But Midnight mastermind Athenar put a geographical twist on Steel, Rust and Disgust: All the covers here were originally performed by bands from his native Ohio. In fact, most of them are from his hometown of Cleveland, with just a couple of stragglers from nearby Akron. Alongside two ripping new Midnight originals (“Cleveland Metal” and the title track), Athenar takes on tunes by such colorful characters as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and David Allan Coe, plus Cleveland punk staples (Dead Boys, Rocket from the Tombs) and ’80s obscurities from metal bands who were Athenar’s friends and neighbors back in the day (Synastryche, False Hope). “I wanted to make it very specific to this region,” he tells Apple Music. “Ohio doesn't really get its due sometimes, as far as how much inspiring music has come from here. There were a lot of musical trailblazers from Cleveland, and that gets overlooked sometimes. Like the Dead Boys song, there ‘Ain’t Nothing to Do’ here. But there’s always time to do something wacky like this.” “Cleveland Metal” “I wrote this back in 2018. We were supposed to tour China in 2020, and we were going to put out a Chinese tour single. I recorded ‘Cleveland Metal’ for that, and I changed our song ‘Berlin Is Burning’ to ‘Beijing Is Burning’ so the single would be kind of a Cleveland/China combo platter. But obviously COVID happened, so I ended up using it for this. I know it’s teetering on total cheeseball-ness, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s only cheesy if you don’t mean it.” “Iron Beast” “Kratos put out this EP in the ’80s, a four-song 12-inch that’s under nine minutes. And they’re all just fucking burners. They’re really over the top and just sloppy as fuck. The album cover is so amateurish, it’s hilarious. It’s totally unpolished teenage metal. And they’re from the outskirts of Cleveland, so they’re kind of like me in a way because they’re not from downtown or anything like that. They were in the sticks, so they had that isolation.” “I’m Insane” “This is a song by Synastryche. The singer, Tony, lived down the street from me for a long time. Their house was the after-school teenage heavy metal hangout. For me, this is one of the most important tunes on the album because Synastryche was the heavy metal band that I saw directly in front of me. Of course, I was listening to Kreator and Possessed and stuff, but I don’t know those bands. Tony and Sam and John are guys I know. They’re writing these songs, I’m watching them play in their garage, and it sounds fucking great. They were a massive inspiration to me.” “Final Solution” “Rocket from the Tombs had many great songs, but I thought this was the one I could best realize. The lyrics are really good too. I mean, [vocalist] Dave Thomas always had cool, smart-ass lyrics. I actually heard the Pere Ubu version before I heard the Rocket version, and they’re slightly different. The version I did is kind of a combo platter of the two, and I made it a little more straight-ahead.” “Frenzy” “Another thing I liked about doing this covers album is that there’s so many wackos from Cleveland. These crazy characters like Rudy Ray Moore and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, who have these alter egos. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, his voice is just fucking wild, and he was a full-on crazy person, so he just had to be represented here. That’s what it came down to: He’s a crazy Clevelander.” “Child Eaters” “The Rubber City Rebels are from Akron—hence the ‘Rubber City’ in the name—not Cleveland, but it’s still Northeast Ohio. I didn’t get into them until the early ’90s or so, but they were punk with guitar solos. The dude played an Explorer and sometimes a Flying V, so he was using cool metal guitars even though they never fit with the punk thing. They were also just dirtbags. They were playing obnoxious-sounding rock stuff that came out punky because the musicianship was still rough and raw.” “3rd Generation Nation” “You can’t deny how good the Dead Boys’ first album is. But I chose a tune off the second album because I think there are some great songs on there, like ‘3rd Generation Nation’ and ‘Son of Sam.’ The production on that album is wimpy—I think even the band was disappointed with the way it sounded—so I figured I’d beef it up a little bit. Originally, I wanted to have Michael Monroe [of Hanoi Rocks] do some guest vocals on this because I met him in Germany a few years ago, and he was roommates with Stiv Bators from the Dead Boys at one point. The timing didn’t work out, but it would’ve been cool.” “Rock n’ Roll Fever” “This song is off of one of David Allan Coe’s more controversial albums that he put out himself, but it’s such a great tune. It’s got total Skynyrd-style lead guitar. And David Allan Coe is another wacko with his rhinestone cowboy thing, but he’s a great songwriter. He was born in Ohio and served in correctional facilities here before he went to Nashville.” “Carrions Keep” “False Hope is another band from Cleveland back in the day that are my buddies. The guitar player would come over to my house and turn me on to a lot of bands. He was a few years older than me and was one of my heavy-metal mentors, if you will. But they were popular around here, as far as their live gigs and stuff, because they were just a good band. ‘Carrions Keep’ is off their first demo, and it’s so slimy. It’s detuned, which was kind of rare at that time for this type of music, which is kind of a weird combination of COC’s Animosity and Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales.” “Black Leather Rock” “This is a weird one because it’s a cover of a cover, which I didn’t know when I first heard the Electric Eels do it. But ‘Black Leather Rock’ was originally in this weird biker movie from the ’60s called The Damned. Electric Eels did their kooky version of that, so I made mine a more traditional speed-metal version. I just thought it was funny because I’m continuing to bastardize the song in a way.” “Steel, Rust and Disgust” “I wrote this in my head while I was driving. Cleveland is a great city. I love it. But it’s like a dangerous tide, man. You know, when the water looks awesome, but the undertow will suck you in. Cleveland is just as fucked up as it is kick-ass. So, ‘Cleveland Metal’ is my tribute to all the great metal bands from here, and this song is the bookend, the darker side.” “Agitated” “Just like Metallica did multiple Diamond Head covers, I did multiple Electric Eels covers. I recorded this in my basement years ago just for kicks, so I already had it when I started putting this record together. I didn’t want to have 11 songs because I don’t like odd numbers on an album, so I included it out of necessity—which is a very Cleveland thing to do. I put it at the end because it was done on a 4-track, so it’s very different sonically than the rest of the album. It would’ve sounded a little fucked-up had it just been sandwiched between two of the more hi-fi tunes.”