Herman was more of a hard rock/ heavy metal dude than an extreme metal fan, so he struggled with keeping the show heavy and underground, even with it already being less heavy and underground than it ever was. He was very good about supporting the local scene, but seemed unclear on the concept of Sweet Nightmares as an extreme, underground show (when Jason chastised him one time for playing Five Finger Death Punch and Black Label Society on the show, he said "But they won a Grammy!". The show was a long way from it's roots. Herman felt that playing bigger and more popular bands would grow the show's fan base more). However he kept the show going and kept the local Houston music scene as a high priority of the show, and eventually when it became apparent that Bill would not be coming back for a long time, he brought in Gilbert Kill Casta as co-host, who had more extreme and underground bands to play.
Sweet Nightmares 2.1 was on the air.
In November of 2015 Bill was fed up with being bedridden and pulled a truly metal stunt, calling Fraser Ian Dawson (who had also been coming down and bringing stuff to play on occasion) to break him out of the hospital. He put on several great shows after he got out, and became a fixture in the scene again for a while. Too short of a while. Tragedy struck in early 2016 when he passed away at the too young age of 53.
We miss Bill and his huge personality; his kind and generous nature and absolute love of music in general and metal in particular, and will for a long time.
Herman also had a tragedy the next year when hurricane Harvey displaced him and he had no choice but to move to another state. He asked Jason if he could take Sweet nightmares back over, however he could not. Jason tried to get Wes to do it (even promising to come up and co-host every chance he got), and Wes really wanted to but could not because of responsibilities to his family, band, and job.
So Herman got the next best thing to bringing Wes back: DJ Metal Lord. Bryan Posey had been doing internet radio for at least a decade, and running his own hard rock/ extreme metal radio station for a while as well. He had the same absolute love of music Bill did, and listened to Sweet Nightmares in the 80s and 90s and was very excited about being a part of the show. Equally as important was that he also had a huge music collection, including lots of really extreme and underground bands to make sure the show never got stale.
Sweet Nightmares 2.2 kicked off with a bang.
