Shane Clark grew up with a bluegrass-playing dad.

Sure, as a kid he also listened to AC/DC but, like many young boys, his musical taste was still developing.

Then a family friend took the then-11-year-old to see Iron Maiden “and that was it for me.”

Now much older, Clark has stayed true to the revelation that concert created, as one of four who make up 3 Inches of Blood.

The metal band has just finished recording a third album — Here Waits Thy Doom — and, after a few weeks to rest, they’re heading out from their Vancouver base on a small tour of the Interior to prep them for what Clark said will likely be a two-year worldwide tour to promote the recording when it drops in September.

That includes a gig on Friday (July 17) at The Max, 205 Lorne St.

But right now, with the hard work done and the next hard work yet to start, who’s Clark listening to?

Jerry Reed.

Yes, the country singer/guitarist Jerry Reed.

Yes, the guy who was Burt Reynolds’ sidekick in Smokey and the Bandit.

Yes, the man who won a Grammy award for When You’re Hot, You’re Hot.

“He’s an amazing guitarist,” Clark said. “And that’s the kind of music I like. Good, honest music of any type.”

The band’s been around in various configurations since 2000, but it’s just been the last five years its new members — including Clark — started to think making metal could be a real career.

Clark and Justin Hagberg (both play guitar, Hagberg adds vocals) do most of the writing. The band is rounded out by bassist Nick Cates and vocalist Cam Pipes.

Clark said none of them pretend “what we’re doing is so original, but what we try to do is take that and make it our own.”

But he added that, no matter what metal band he listens to, if he hears a riff he thinks is unique, “you’ll find it was already done by Black Sabbath.

“I play music,” Clark said.

“That’s all I do.”

As for why metal just never goes away, almost four decades after Ozzy Osborne and Black Sabbath released their self-titled debut, Clark attributes it to the

fact the genre has never really changed.

“It never went anywhere,” he said of metal.

“Real metal is in the underground. It’s another world.”

Opening for the band is Blood Drunk and Damned Grave.

Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door.