Larry LaLonde from Primus is the co-founder of this band, and played lead guitar on all the albums BEFORE they reformed. And the singer / bass player was on his way home from work one day decades ago, when someone attempted to rob him and shot him in the back thus paralyzing him from the waist down. He is the only founding member left in the group, and he only sings as he can't play bass and sing being in a wheelchair. He has actually stage dived in the wheelchair before. This was their first recording which was very rough around the edges. They would go on to be considered a little more progressive in their later recordings, like "Eyes Of Horror" and "Beyond the Gates" which was produced by Joe Satriani, who was also Larry Lalonde's guitar teacher. As far as crazy illegal activity on the road, I've never heard anything like that before outside of the normal drunken Shenanigans kids get into while in bands. But they were just normal kids. They were the first band to be managed by Debbie Abono, who is a thrash-metal legend. And she kept everything together on the road with them. One of the members was dating Debbie's daughter. Debbie had no experience managing bands then, but was a very astute businesswoman and they asked her if she was interested. She did it on a lark and wound up being pretty good at it. Which led to her being asked by many other bands(Vio-Lence, Forbidden, Exodus, Obituary). She went on to manage pretty much every Bay Area metal band that mattered at the time. In fact when she passed away, they had a memorial show for her in the Bay Area, in which even members of Metallica attended. Anyway, these guys were a bunch of really nice guys, that is based on the few times I've met them. But if Debbie vouched for them, that was good enough for me.
Some would argue - a first death metal full length recording ever, but some dispute that and say the officially Death's Scream Bloody Gore from '87 is the first death metal album. And yes, exactly, death metal was a continuation of that Slayer/Venom/Celtic Frost/Bathory sounds and making them more evil, more abrasive etc... Death metal was built on more extreme ends of thrash with some other influences. And early death metal vocals weren't so radically different from extreme thrash vocals, the kind you hear from early recordings of German thrash scene (Sodom, Destruction, Kreator). They did sound more intentionally inhuman and more throat-y than your average evil thrash metal abomination from this era. It's only in late 80s, early 90s that more guttural and more low growls were invented and the rest just took its course and more even more increasingly extreme.
You have a brilliant depth of knowledge regarding this music - really fantastic how alike the bands were at the roots of the sub genres, just ever so slightly different in their own ways
Larry LaLonde from Primus is the co-founder of this band, and played lead guitar on all the albums BEFORE they reformed. And the singer / bass player was on his way home from work one day decades ago, when someone attempted to rob him and shot him in the back thus paralyzing him from the waist down. He is the only founding member left in the group, and he only sings as he can't play bass and sing being in a wheelchair. He has actually stage dived in the wheelchair before. This was their first recording which was very rough around the edges. They would go on to be considered a little more progressive in their later recordings, like "Eyes Of Horror" and "Beyond the Gates" which was produced by Joe Satriani, who was also Larry Lalonde's guitar teacher. As far as crazy illegal activity on the road, I've never heard anything like that before outside of the normal drunken Shenanigans kids get into while in bands. But they were just normal kids. They were the first band to be managed by Debbie Abono, who is a thrash-metal legend. And she kept everything together on the road with them. One of the members was dating Debbie's daughter. Debbie had no experience managing bands then, but was a very astute businesswoman and they asked her if she was interested. She did it on a lark and wound up being pretty good at it. Which led to her being asked by many other bands(Vio-Lence, Forbidden, Exodus, Obituary). She went on to manage pretty much every Bay Area metal band that mattered at the time. In fact when she passed away, they had a memorial show for her in the Bay Area, in which even members of Metallica attended. Anyway, these guys were a bunch of really nice guys, that is based on the few times I've met them. But if Debbie vouched for them, that was good enough for me.
Incredible insight and details Thankyou for your time
Some would argue - a first death metal full length recording ever, but some dispute that and say the officially Death's Scream Bloody Gore from '87 is the first death metal album. And yes, exactly, death metal was a continuation of that Slayer/Venom/Celtic Frost/Bathory sounds and making them more evil, more abrasive etc... Death metal was built on more extreme ends of thrash with some other influences. And early death metal vocals weren't so radically different from extreme thrash vocals, the kind you hear from early recordings of German thrash scene (Sodom, Destruction, Kreator). They did sound more intentionally inhuman and more throat-y than your average evil thrash metal abomination from this era. It's only in late 80s, early 90s that more guttural and more low growls were invented and the rest just took its course and more even more increasingly extreme.
You have a brilliant depth of knowledge regarding this music - really fantastic how alike the bands were at the roots of the sub genres, just ever so slightly different in their own ways
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Had to practice for like a month to perform this song without getting carpel tunnel. It was fun
Hard work that HuskAngel