Last week, Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch broke his silence about the 2022 sale of the company he helmed for more than a quarter of a century to Sapporo USA, while also sharing some memorable anecdotes from his time in the craft-beer industry. Today, in the second of this two-part Craft Q&A series, we shift gears to find out what life has been like since Koch moved on from the hustle and bustle of brewing and his high-pressure headman role. His life now moves at a much slower pace down a wide-open road replete with forks giving way to endless possibilities. He’s content – happy even – pursuing a number of artistic ambitions and participating in creative projects with collaborators both new and old. One such venture recently brought him back to San Diego, where he debuted his new graphic-novel series, Metal Warrior, at the 2024 edition of Comic Con. That concept was conceived and written by Koch, with accompanying music collaboratively composed with friend and pro shredder Keri Kelli. A number of those tunes feature Koch, a longtime musician in his own right, on lead vocals. Read on for more about Metal Warrior and the double-album’s worth of accompanying tunes releasing next March, songs from which can be found here.
What has life been like since you retired from the beer industry and in what ways is it, perhaps, better?
With the benefit of a couple of years passing, I can really reflect with a lot more clarity on how, ultimately, I think Stone became too big of a company for me, personally. I am very much a DIY, go-my-own-path, anti-bureaucratic mentality kind of person, and there were some natural tensions that came as the company grew and needed formalization on a range of aspects that were necessary to operate properly. Now that I’ve retired I’ve had a weight come off of my shoulders that was much larger than I had previously or ever anticipated. It’s almost like having some rattling air-conditioner running all the time for years, but you never notice it until it finally shuts off and then you’re like, “aaaahhhh”. I appreciate the relatively modest number of emails and phone calls I now receive, not waking up feeling concerned about the health and welfare of 1,000 employees and having to make X number of decisions every day. I had many, many, many sleepless nights throughout my career with one problem or another nagging at me. It’s not been zero problems since I retired, but it’s dramatically reduced. Now I’m worried about more normal life stuff. Additionally, I always wanted to be a people person, but the truth of my reality is that I’m an introvert and being around people requires a constant demand of energy for me that has always been difficult. I think this is probably demonstrated by the fact I moved to a place that is extremely remote with a low population. It’s a two-plus-hour drive to the closest grocery store or Home Depot or airport by car. I like people but they’re challenging for me. After retiring, I remember telling my wife, Sara, “You know what…I never have to go to another beer festival again.” The truth is it was a huge relief not to have to be around throngs of people as part of my business. Stone’s anniversary celebrations were always the hardest part of the year for me. They would loom large over my psyche for months in advance. I’d build up my mental strength to put on a smile and shake hands. To be clear, I didn’t go out and fake it – I greatly appreciated our fans’ enthusiasm and support – but it’s not my natural state. I put everything I had into it, and when you’re constantly putting everything you have into something that is so mentally and emotionally taxing, it takes a toll. These days I’m really enjoying working with a small group of interesting people who do interesting things, including my new thing, Metal Warrior.
How did Metal Warrior come to be and who are your partners on the project?
Metal Warrior came about in a completely happenstance way. There was this guy by the name of Ben Fellowes, who had submitted a winning design for the Stone IPA “Guest Art Project” a number of years back. I had a nutty idea, and I contacted Ben about it. One thing led to another and we developed the concept for a graphic novel focused on four intergalactic characters whose raison d’etre is to fight righteous battles and play metal music together. I then went in and wrote the back stories. During that process, I off-handedly mentioned the project to my buddy, pro guitarist (and all-around gifted musician) Keri Kelli, and he said, “Cool! Let’s do some tunes for them!” And so we wrote and recorded a short theme song for each of them and really liked the results. That led to us fleshing out those songs, then writing and recording others. Then I talked my wife into lending her vocal prowess to the part of a character called Queen Va, and that worked really, really well. A couple years later we turned around and Keri and I had a full double-album’s worth of material that we were really proud of. By then, Ben and I had written a nine-issue graphic novel series and found a publisher we were excited to work with that specializes in bringing the worlds of comics and music together, Z2 Comics. (Look ‘em up, they’ve got projects with heavy bands like Anthrax, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Ice Nine Kills, to other genres, including The Grateful Dead, Weird Al Yankovic and Tori Amos.) It’s all great company to be in.
You recently debuted Metal Warrior at Comic Con. What was that like?
Comic Con is so massive and attendance was around the highest it’s ever been. For the rollout, we decided to get a box truck decorated with really cool graphics, since that’s what Metal Warrior is all about: amazing music, amazing graphics and amazing storylines. So we did that with the plans to have it drive around downtown San Diego and parked close by Comic Con, but then it got destroyed – well, mostly destroyed…fortunately it was still drivable. We believe it was a Malaçite attack. (Wondering what a Malaçite is? You can find quality reference materials here.) People loved it. It was fun watching the heads turn and the cameras coming out.
What was it like applying your energy to this creative venture and what are your ambitions for the project?
It’s very interesting to me how all the ideas just flowed with this project. We’ve put in countless hours of real work, of course, but we’ve spent very little time being “stuck”. The characters are interesting and complex. The music is heavy and complex, with a lot of variation and intricacy here, and just plain thumping music there. I’m proud of how wide-ranging everything is and yet how it all just comes together in a cohesive universe. Then to top it all off, I wrote a screenplay focused for television “streamer” networks and a musical-theater script based upon the story…because of course I did. It took me about five weeks of sitting down and writing every day for six hours to get it done. It was interesting to learn how to structure it, make it flow and make it interesting. I was able to find a highly qualified literary agent in Hollywood who’s currently shopping it. Will anything happen? It’s hard to say, but still, it’s been interesting to wake up that part of my brain!
Are there any particular characters from Metal Warrior that you identify with?
I’d say we all see ourselves and draw from life experiences when we’re creating something like this. I think there are parallels for all of us because these stories and story arcs are not uncommon to the human experience. There are things we can relate to with the proverbial hero’s journey. “Pskydin’s Descent”, which is the primary story arc of the nine-part series, is very much a hero’s journey, but admittedly a bit darker. Personally, I relate to the character named Pskydin. He struggled a lot in youth as an outcast, and has become somewhat embittered with an I’ll-show-you kind of attitude. But Pskydin went a lot darker than I ever did – I never killed anybody or ever wanted to kill anybody…well…
Click here to view the first part of our Q&A with Greg Koch