DEATH by MetaL

- I went to a party, it was like late, late 1982.

There was local parties in certain neighborhoods.

They would have bands play and charge whatever,

five bucks to get in and have a keg of beer

and just come in there and hang out

and watch local band play cover songs

in the backyard instead of in a bar

and Chuck just happened to be there

and we just struck up conversation coincidentally

and had a lot of the same musical influence

and stuff like that so me and Kam

dropped out of high school first,

pretty much the same time then Chuck

dropped out a week or two later

and then we pretty much spent seven days a week

in his garage.

Everybody heard the music because when he

started the band Mantas, it started coming

from the garage and we were, my parents

were trying to figure out ways

to soundproof the garage and everything else.

All the way up way away you could hear,

actually you could feel the vibrations,

the drums and stuff.

- Chuck had a really great infrastructure

in terms of his, in support from his mom, Jane,

and she allowed him to follow his dream

to be a musician no matter where it took him.

Whether that meant bailing him out of Canada

when things didn't work out with the Slaughter lineup

and helping him get back home

or whether that meant putting up people

who were moving halfway across the country

to join his band or jam with him.

- They would pretty much, there were times

they would come over for dinner

and it was always a family dinner

and mom would say oh, what's going on?

Well where are you staying?

Oh no, come stay with us.

That kind of thing.

- That was after my son Frank had passed away

so to me that was great.

They were all about the same age and it was great.

They were wonderful, wonderful kids.

Now they're grown men and all but back then.

- She believed in him as an artist

and I think that considering the art

that he was writing and performing at that time,

that's a pretty sizable leap of faith

because I think most parents

would just be like what is this shit

that you're doing?

- It was never like that with her.

It was always complete support and love for Chuck

and not to exclude his dad as well.

His dad probably tolerated it

more than loved what he was doing.

- And we both had a mutual friend

that went to school with me.

One day he invited me

to come over to his house and listen to some records.

I went over to David's house that afternoon

wearing my cutoff jean jacket

and my Iron Maiden shirt or whatever.

We each got an armful of albums

and eventually Chuck came over

and he's wearing his cutoff jean jacket

and we're all wearing our cutoff jean jackets

so that was like standard issue back then

and on the back of his cutoff jean jacket

he had this drawing on the back of it

of this crazy evil looking creature

that said Mantas across the top of it

and then along the bottom it said Florida's

original death metal band.

At that point I hadn't heard Possessed

but I asked him about it.

I'm like what's that and he's like oh,

that's my band Mantas.

We're Florida's original death metal band.

He said it just like it was written

across the bottom of the jacket

and I was like cool, death metal, right on.

Haven't heard of that yet.

I was lucky and found out about underground metal.

Just by chance there was a record shop

that carried Metal Forces and I

got the second issue with Dio on the cover.

You know the one.

- You didn't have access to this stuff otherwise.

There was no other way to get it.

These records or these recordings weren't in stores.

They only really had the major label stuff

and maybe a couple of independents, Metal Blade,

the early Roadrunner stuff.

Loudness and stuff but there was way more out there

and because of the groundwork No Life Til Leather

had created and this network

that it had created globally, you had a lot

of hardcore fans.

- And people would have like catalogs

of what all demos they owned.

It could be a whole photo album

full of just titles of demos and live shows

and stuff like that and just fill up a 90 minute tape

with however many demos or shows you could squeeze on there.

- And then go and scribble out a track listing,

find a package, get to a post office and mail it,

cross your fingers that it got there

and hope that whoever you sent that tape to

will be cool enough to send you something back.

- I didn't realize until Frank the mailman

said Jane, I'm a little worried about Chuck

and I said why.

He said well, look at this.

It was addressed to Death and stuff

and I said he's doing all that in his room.

- I remember that Chuck in his bedroom

had all of these envelopes and he

would be on the phone and sometimes

with really big phone bills to my parents

talking to people and trading tapes back and forth.

- So I thought that was really cool

that they were making their own music and sharing it

and spreading the music and that's

how a lot of these bands became popular.

Be able to put a jam box down

and hit record with a tape player

outside the garage with a towel over top of it

and it sounds okay to where people can listen to it.

- And they would play for hours, practice

for hours, all day Saturday, all day Sunday.

Basically you couldn't go in your own house

on Saturday and Sunday.

And one day he comes in,

he had a box of cassettes and they were Death cassettes

and he had a stack of t-shirts and he's like Freddy,

would you mind?

I wanna put my music in your store.

Would you mind selling it, consign it?

So I said yeah, absolutely, I'd love to.

This is like maybe a day or two passed,

I called Chuck and I'm like Chuck, hey, it's Freddy

and right away he's like oh, dude,

you don't wanna carry my product.

I said no, man, I sold out of your cassette

and the shirt.

- So a friend of mine works for a small radio station

in our area and she came up to me one day

and said hey, this guy is looking

for new members for his band called Death

and I was just thinking to myself

there's no way it's the same band

or the same guy 'cause I'm already into this

so I said yeah, give me the phone number.

Let me call it.

And talked on the phone.

Try to feel things out.

I was kind of worried because I was only 17 at the time

so I'm like yeah, I like Artillery and I like Sodom,

Slayer or whatever and he played me some riffs.

He's like yeah, let me show you these riffs I got.

It's this song called Scream Bloody Gore.

Well, that's a good title.

It's to the point.

I got the Sadus DTP demo, Death To Posers.

I'm like oh, okay, a local band, cool

and they're fucking badass.

That tape is a screamer.

- And the phone rings and one of the guys

says man, you're not gonna believe this

but there's a guy on the phone

saying they play in a band called Death.

The name's not too serious because it was too obvious.

Well it was no big deal because they said they got the demo

and they liked it and they wanted to hang out

so like alright.

Let's see what these guys are all about.

- The whole band Sadus actually piled in a car

and they came over to my house.

They just showed up.

I met the band Death which was two guys.

A funny accented guy from Florida

and a young skinny dude that was still in high school.

They all had like matching denim vests

or jackets and looked like a fucking gang

and we went and we hung out, smoked joints or whatever.

- And we were fans of Rush and Maiden and everything.

Everybody's got the big kit.

During the day we would go up to where they practiced

and Chris has a big shining white drum kit.

John was looking at that like man, that's great.

Killer, you can do a lot of stuff on that set

and then when Death would come over

to our practice house they were really

digging our situation and the room we had.

The deal was made pretty easy.

It's like Chris said man, if you guys

let us come here and practice