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[metal music]

[growling]

- 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.

[metal music]

[growling]

- [Female] 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.

[metal music]

- And we both had a mutual friend

that went to school with me.

One day [mumbling] 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.

[death metal music]

[growling]

- [Male] 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.

[death metal music]

- 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.

[death metal music]

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.

[growling]

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.

- [Steve] 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.

- [Chris] 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

I'll leave my kit set up.

Told John you can play it.

John was like oh wow, cool

and they had all these new toys.

- At that point, Chuck was still living

in Antioch with this lady who was managing the band

and she found this little studio

and we rented a bass 'cause we didn't own a bass.

It was just me and him.

We couldn't find band members ironically.

It wouldn't be like that nowadays.

I remember being super happy with how it came out.

It was pretty crushing.

[death metal music]

[growling]

- [Male] It just evolved out of five different demos

until April of 86, we recorded our fifth demo

and we got signed finally to Combat Records.

- And originally they had a series they did

of bands that they were kind of afraid

to take a chance on where they put out a record

with a plain white sleeve

and a camouflage sticker on the record

and that's what they wanted to do, Combat,

and somehow she talked them into turning it

into a proper record deal and Combat

trusted us to find a studio to record in

which turned out to be a big mistake

so what happened was Chuck wanted

to go back to Florida and I actually went along

and stayed for the summer of 86

and we looked through the phone book,

okay, there's a studio in Orlando

and we talked to a guy named Otto

and we were explaining our vision.

He just gave us the blank look

like I have no idea what you're talking about

but I'll record your band.

We might have just been talking Klingon to him.

It would have been the same thing.

So anyways, we start recording

and I remember the first thing that was weird

is you know how you, you know,

tone down drum heads by putting pads

with like tape on 'em or something,

he stuck a fucking Maxipad on my floor tom.

I'm like I don't like this.

That's not what I would do

and now I have to look at this thing

every time I hit the drum so fuck.

So we got through I think seven songs

and Combat had a listen and they said no

so they just wrote off that first session

as a mistake and booked time in Los Angeles

with Randy Byrnes and that was insane for us.

Like yeah, we can work with fucking Randy Byrnes.

- The key to Scream Bloody Gore [mumbling]

with Randy Byrnes.

Randy had experience recording heavy thrash

so he was able to have some kind of frame

of reference and didn't throw his arms up

like what are you guys trying to do here?

It was like alright, this is what you wanna do.

Got it, let's do it.

That made all the difference in the world.

[death metal music]

[growling]

♪ Now you're going to die

For what death metal would be defined by,

Scream Bloody Gore is at ground zero

because it was the first record

that was released on a record label

that had a legitimate release

because prior to that you could not go

into a record store and buy a death metal record.

[death metal music]

- It didn't just come out.

It kind of started.

I know that people say it was either Possessed,

Seven Churches or Death, Scream Bloody Gore

but I listen to the performance of Scream Bloody Gore

in comparison to Possessed,

I felt like Seven Churches was kind of sloppy

and then you hear Scream Bloody Gore

and it's tight and the songs are really well produced

and it sounds great.

- We were sitting in Chuck's apartment

and the test pressings arrived

with two pieces of cardboard cut out

with the vinyl in between it

and I guess somewhere in transit

the temperature got to 'em and they got warped.

- I mean playable but warped.

I thought it would be a good idea

to set the test pressing out in the sun

and let it become soft and then kind of flatten it again.

- And we're sitting there, it's almost

like waiting for a cake to come out of the oven.

Finally we just put it on the turntable.

I remember he put the needle on it

and the waves, the lumps in the vinyl

are going by and the needle's flying.

A couple times it got thrown off the record.

- It just turned into this thing.

[mimicking album wobbling]

and it was completely unplayable then.

- That was a major thing.

I'm on vinyl.

I'm 18, this is an accomplishment.

- And I think they only gave us one

because Chuck was living with me

and I fucking ruined it.

[death metal music]

[growling]

- [Chris] Steve did learn the set

and we jammed with him in the Sadus jam room.

- [Steve] And we had plans for shows.

We even were starting to draw the flyers

with the Death and Sadus logo.

- We had the set ready to go and all that

and then Chuck said hey, I'm gonna

go back to Florida and visit my folks

and whatever, go home for a while,

and so some time went by.

Well actually I think quite a bit

of time went by, like a few months

because I filled in with a band called Desecration

for a while 'cause I didn't wanna get involved

in another full time band 'cause as far

as I was concerned I could be in Death still

and then Chuck finally said hey dude,

I'm here to stay.

I don't wanna come back to California

and so I was bummed.

I'm like oh, that sucks but okay.

He's like well, if you wanna come move out here

we'll just keep on it and get some other members

and just keep moving forward.

- [Male] Massacre did a tour of the east coast.

We came home from that tour and--

- We were supposed open for Megadeth and Overkill

at the armory in Tampa and we got to the show

and we're told we weren't gonna play.

- Megadeth's management had one of their other bands

come in, Massacre was kicked off the bill.

Well at that same show some guy

came up to Rick, said hey, Chuck's in town.

He moved back to Orlando.

So a few days after that Rick, he went to Chuck's house.

- Without calling him or anything

showed up at the guy's house.

He doesn't have a freaking clue why I'm here

so I just said hey, man, this is what's going on.

If you have any interest give me a call.

So he called me the next day and I

called Bill and Terry and they were really excited.

- We learned a few songs and we got together and jammed.

It had been literally three or four weeks

that we were together.

The first show was at Milwaukee Metal Fest.

I remember actually on the flight

going to Milwaukee going over each song

because that's how fresh the songs were in my mind.

[death metal music]

[growling]

- The United States back then,

they really didn't have these three day festivals

and Death was one of the bands on there

and they were I guess somewhere

like in the afternoon.

- I remember being in the McDonald's

next door to the Eagles Auditorium

which was where this place was at

and these kids were talking about the Mutilation demo.

These kids, they were just normal kids

just like me and they were like,

they couldn't wait to see Death

and they were talking about the Mutilation demo.

- Jack had been in contact with someone

at Combat who said we have this new act

and their record had only been out a short time.

I heard the record literally just one

or two songs and didn't pay much attention to it

so I stood in front of the stage

and I watched all these other standard thrash

and metal bands play

and then when Death came on

there was sort of an anticipation.

- And I remember when Death played,

one thing I remember about Chuck

was just he would kind of stand kind

of stiff, kind of still and when he'd

open his mouth for one of this big screams

his tongue would stick out a little bit

and he'd just omit this like--

[growling]

- So I was back stage meeting people,

talking to people and I eventually

made my way over and introduced myself,

said my name is Eric Greif,

I'm a manager promoter dude

and I live here in Milwaukee.

He had a card that said Death on it

and had an address for giving out

to people that he tape traded with

and I got in contact with him

and that was like their first real tour

where they came up that far,

had played shows on the way in, on the way back.

- Started rehearsing more and more

after that Milwaukee Metal Fest

and when word came down that we

had a tour lined up we'd already

started writing new songs and Chuck

was presenting the songs at practice.

Hey, check out these riffs.

A couple of songs Chuck had already

completely mapped out, had 'em already written.

He would just play and Bill would put beats to 'em.

We actually started playing a few

of the songs from Leprosy on the Scream Bloody Gore tour

we did, we'd already had two or three of those songs.

[death metal music]

- I got a call from Dan saying I got this record to do.

They call it death metal, it's the band Death

and Scott, your assistant, he'd do the record with me

'cause I always worked with Dan

with Savatage and stuff like that

and then I also went and Scott

asked me, you help me set the mix up right

so I went in and started the mix

but for me, Chuck and I were just

telling jokes to each other while I was doing it,

then Scott had to do all the hard work.

- And when I heard the final mix at the time,

I heard, I thought it was amazing.

Now when I listen back to it

the drums are a hair loud, blah blah blah, whatever

but I thought at the time it

was just the most amazing thing I'd ever heard in my life

but it was my first time in a studio.

It was all new to me.

The other guys had been to the studio

recording an album or demos.

I had Scott Byrnes staring at me.

Rick, Chuck, Bill looking at me.

The producer looking at me.

It's like come on.

- He was a nervous wreck.

It's not like he can't play the songs.

He played 'em on tour.

Play 'em at rehearsal.

- I was kind of thrown in the fire on that

and I basically had an anxiety attack,

panic attack at the studio

so I just asked Chuck, hey dude,

to save time and money can you do the bass

and at the time there was no problem at all.

Nothing was even said about it really.

Chuck's like yeah dude.

I did the bass on Scream Bloody Gore.

It's no problem.

[death metal music]

- I was living in the dorms at the time,

University of Iowa, and my roommate

and my dorm partners, the other guys

who lived in the hall, pretty used

to the metal that I would play fairly loudly

at the time throughout the day

and I remember getting Leprosy

and playing it full blast

and just it made people aghast.

What is this music?

It just was so obscene to ears

that had never heard anything like it.

- What really kind of hit in 88

is the grindcore movement.

Like Napalm Death released their second record,

Carcass releases their first record.

Earache continues to grow and crank out records.

- All that stuff was starting to bubble

in the underground.

So Leprosy came in and seemed to have a few more peers

in its weird little extreme world.

Productions were getting slicker.

Slayer had South of Heaven.

Metallica came out with Injustice For All.

Voivod were maturing.

First Sanctuary album.

Fates Warning No Exit came out.

That was a pretty big album at the time.

They're very dry.

They're very sort of clean albums.

Leprosy was still just total ferocity and brutality

and dirt but yet it was being conveyed really well,

the recording was really great.

- When he was writing he had hooks in mind.

Even as early back as Pull the Plug or Born Dead.

Remember the vocals, you remember the riff

but you remember the hook.

There were choruses in those songs

that people came back to and at the end of the day

in spite of all the early brutality,

in spite of all the later progressiveness

I think at its core he just wanted to write good songs.

- It was just super heavy but also technical but catchy.

It was memorable and I think that's what Chuck

took from all of the bands that he admired

is lot of these bands that he really looked up to

and loved to listen to, they just wrote really good songs

and really catchy songs and you

can be the heaviest band in the world

but you can still write a hook

and write a catchy song.

[death metal music]

- 'Cause we didn't have a booking agent at the time.

Scott, who was a good friend of ours

that actually worked at the label

and he's like hey, there's a tour if you want it.

It's you guys and Dark Angel.

- So two of the five acts that were in the video

would tour together and it sounded

like a great idea on paper.

- Combat, our record label, they mentioned to Death,

to Chuck or somebody, that it's equal billing

meaning that in the ads, on the posters,

on the gig fliers, you're gonna have Dark Angel

and you're gonna have Death right next to it.

Equal billing.

That does not mean co-headlining.

We started butting heads over it.

- [Male] The wording was just simply that Death

would be billed at the same percentage

of space or whatever.

Clearly Dark Angel was more well known

than Death and had an album out more than Death did.

It was implied that Dark Angel really was the headliner.

- You know, to me I'm like whatever.

We're on tour promoting our album.

Sure enough, somewhere around Milwaukee

or Utah or somewhere, that was it.

- I just remember an incident over drum risers

and they wanted Bill to set up in front

of the riser and Gene to set up on the riser

and everyone was rolling their eyes.

- His demands were starting to get rather cockamamie.

When Chuck, probably for the 10th time,

said we're leaving the tour,

this time our tour manager said go ahead.

If you don't wanna be here we don't wanna keep you here.

- [Male] So they turned around from wherever they were,

Buttville, Montana, whatever, and went home.

- Again, first time in Europe

which seemed like we all wanted to go to Europe so bad

and we got there, just seemed like

it was just an alien world to us.

Equipment was in one van.

We were in another van traveling.

- I think the van was driven by the promoter's wife

and he would just get on the phone

and be like I'm gonna die.

- We got hotels every night which whatever,

we were sleeping, there was no problem

but after about halfway through that tour,

again, Chuck's like I've had enough of this

so we quit the tour and came home.

- Yeah, that was kind of the pattern

was when I was in Milwaukee trying

to run things for Death in my office

a lot of the time I felt like I needed

to physically be there.

- They would rehearse in Chuck's mom's garage

in Altamont Springs and that was three

and a half hour drive.

We would load into my Wagoneer and go to his house,

watch the band rehearse.

- [Male] Right until then, before Rick was released

from the band we actually started working

on one of the songs that was on Spiritual Healing,

I think it may have been the song Spiritual Healing.

- Legion of Doom, which was one of our first songs,

other than we had a song called Mantas,

Legion of Doom riff was on Spiritual Healing.

[mimicking riff]

[death metal song]

- I was on the road coming from New York

heading back to Milwaukee

but I didn't go the normal way that I would

which was south of the great lakes

and straight across on the interstate,

I actually went through Toronto

because I wanted to go to the Relativity office

and it was in Toronto that I was at a payphone

and talked to Chuck and Chuck

said I've been thinking about it

and I wanna get rid of Rick and so I phoned Rick right away

from that same phone.

- Eric had given me a call.

I was in New Jersey at the time.

Chuck called me first and asked me

if I had my guitar and I lied and I said yes

but I didn't because I knew why he was asking me that.

I'm out, hanging out, I'm not practicing, this and that.

- Rick was very gentlemanly.

It was almost as if he knew the call was gonna come.

Now I don't know if he sensed that Chuck

was going in a new direction.

- I assumed that's why I was let go

'cause I know he was looking to broaden his horizons

and it was his thing so I have no,

I'm not gonna fight the guy.

It's not gonna help me stay in the band any better.

- For Chuck, I think his vision was always evolving

and part of the problem was that the people

that he needed to execute it at one point

in the band aren't the same people

that he needs to execute that vision

at another point in the band.

[death metal music]

- And so we had this tour of Mexico

that we had to do and we were

without a second guitar player.

- So we had been going up there

so there was this kind of relationship

and he knew we had a certain ability

on our instruments.

He could see that we were very serious

about practicing our instruments and getting better

and so Paul was the first call

when they were having problems.

- I met Paul and he had to learn the songs

and all of that.

I sat next to him on the plane

going to Mexico City and the entire time

I was trying to convince him to join Death

but he would not do it.

He said no.

He said I've got Cynic.

I had to respect that.

I just had to finally give up

and then when we had the pandemonium

at the tour of kind of death mania,

I would have thought that that would

have been enough for anybody to wanna join the band

and he had a record deal, he would have just walked in

but he just said no.

We had to go to plan B.

[death metal music]

- [Male] I had met James at a club in Tampa

so when time came to try to look for another guitar player

I recommended James.

I knew he was a shredder.

- James has a very keen sense of melody

in terms of guitar solos.

There really wasn't anybody else

who played like James on death metal records to that point.

He just had like this great feel

for how a solo should be.

- And it really worked for where Death

was going with the new material.

So this was the right guy to bring on at the right time.

- The first taste of Death that I got

would have been 1990, it would have been Spiritual Healing.

I was 15 then and I was a fan of heavy metal.

I liked stuff like Metallica or Iron Maiden

or Def Leppard or whatever and I had a friend of mine

who was infinitely more adventurous than I was

and he acquired Spiritual Healing

and Beneath the Remains and he basically played them

for me and I recoiled in horror.

I was just like I don't know how anybody

can be into this.

This is crazy.

You really like this?

And so I retreated to Injustice for All or whatever.

♪ Altering the future

- And Spiritual Healing was just a little bit less heralded

because it was the third one.

It wasn't anything new anymore

yet he was still taking it into new areas.

It was just as powerful, I think,

as the first two albums lyrically

because it was horror but it was real horror.

It was stuff that was actually happening

and these awful things.

- Death is a band that I can put my personal outlook

on certain things in life into

and I think it means a lot more

when you're singing about something other people

can relate to.

That's why you don't hear Death

singing about demons flying down

and plucking nuns from the Earth.

That's idiotic.

That's putting a limit on people's--

- So I think Pull the Plug might have been the gateway

to what happened on Spiritual Healing

because Pull the Plug you can look at

as maybe him wondering about assisted suicide

or being kept alive artificially

and that obviously has real life connotations.

♪ A way to freedom

♪ People are stupid enough to believe it ♪

- James and Chuck started clashing a bit.

I think it was just egos a little bit.

James is a good friend of mine

but he was a bit quirky and at times

it might rub people raw.

It had been building up between him and Chuck

that whole tour.

Chuck just snapped and said that's it.

You're out of the band.

Unfortunately James rode home

with one of the opening bands that was stationed,

they stayed with us the whole time.

We didn't fly home, we stayed on the tour.

We came home for a couple months

and we actually started writing songs for Human

and we were to go Europe.

Walt [mumbling] was our sound man.

We'd been doing it for years, he'd run sound for us.

Call him up, said hey.

We're fixing to do a tour.

We need a lead guitar player.

Are you interested?

He said yes so Walt drove from Texas,

he stopped by Chuck's house.

Mercyful Fate was blasting through the stereo.

Someone was vacuuming.

Walt's knocking on the door, no one's answering.

He sees someone peek out of the blinds

then the music turns off

but no one would answer the door.

So he calls me, hey, what's up with Chuck?

He won't open the door.

I said come to my house.

There's a bunch of crap going on.

- He really dreaded getting on the plane

and going to Europe and he was also

going through a period of fatigue

with keeping a personal life going.

His pets, his family, his girlfriend

and at that point in time we were in a litigation

with each other.

- He never said anything to us about what was going on.

It seemed like everything was alright

but the thing with Chuck is, was,

if he turns his back on something,

over time it will go away.

A couple tours had been canceled in the past.

The same thing.

Cancel the tour, lay low for a couple months

and then everything smooths out.

But we had signed contracts and we

had all this stuff laid out already.

Merch was already made.

Techs were already hired from creator,

there's a lot on the line.

So I called the booking agent,

the booking agent called Chuck's mom,

she was Chuck's power of attorney

and basically what we worked out

stated that Chuck wasn't going to Europe

for the tour, he didn't want any part of it.

He wasn't gonna be held responsible for it

so me, Bill and Walt drove to Orlando

and Chuck had signed the paper,

we signed the paper, everyone got a copy

and that was that.

- And so they left and they got Louis

and they got Walter and then I got the call

from my lawyer.

You're never gonna guess who just called me.

- Look, they were young

and I think that everybody had their points

and everybody had their feelings.

At first Chuck was angry about it

but I think as the days wore on

I think that he was more thoughtful

and pensive about it and then

it turned into, instead of anger,

more of a sadness about it.

- You know, Death touring and I'm in Florida.

It's just really incredible concept

and it depressed me at certain times

and I tried to get over there at one point

and it's just not a very good situation.

There's a lot bad things going on out there

as far as feelings towards me in general

and so I didn't make it out there unfortunately.

I wanted to but never did.

- About three or four weeks into the tour

Chuck called the booking agent, TCI,

that was in New York, represented us

and told him his head was a little more clear now

and he felt like he could go on tour.

He wanted to be part of the tour.

Mitch [mumbling] from TCI told him dude,

you can not go, no.

Yeah.

He couldn't understand that.

That's my band.

He's like well contractually, through the label,

there are two thirds of the band over there right now.

I mean that's just the way it is

and Creator don't want you over there

just 'cause of what happened.

- I was with Bill and Terry for quite a while

and we were definitely more than just band members,

we were best friends so that's also another factor

that's really a drag when you lose members,

sometimes friendship is involved.

- And we knew at that point

when we did that tour that okay,

we're not in Death anymore.

We're fulfilling this tour, this contract and all this

as Death but we knew that when we came home

obviously that was it but if he had just talked to us

we would have talked to him

and maybe we could try to work something out.

- [Chuck] I wanna just keep moving forward

and then have a record each time around

where people could say wow, that's a lot different

in a way from your last album but still be the same.

You know what I mean?

Have a fresh approach but at the same time

have it where someone can put it on

and they can say that's Death

except a lot better.

- Therefore you're not getting the same Death album twice

and you never did and he continued

on this kind of path.

That path led to a lot of fall outs

with musicians he was working with

and he got a reputation for being difficult to work with.

I think it was more just having this solid creative eye,

this vision that was not gonna waiver

for anybody or anything and that's

how you get to a record like Human.

- So when Sadus, we were actually

sharing a bus with Obituary

and we were both support bands for Sepultura,

this was November of 1990

and we came through Florida and Chuck

came to town to the venue in Orlando early

in the day and invited all four Sadus guys to the place

and we just went, killed the day

just hanging out watching watchtower videos on his TV,

made some good food and just hung out there.

He had told us that some previous guys had kind of,

they had a falling out and they went on tour

without him under the name Death

and he was ready to just start over

with a completely new lineup.

- Well at the moment I'm working on new material.

Got half the record down right now.

I got friends of mine from the band Cynic.

The drummer Sean and guitar player Paul

are helping me out, rehearsing.

They're gonna help me out in the studio

so it's really great.

- And then I guess when he started having problems

with his lineup, I'm not even really

exactly sure what the reason was,

he asked Paul if he thought that I

would be interested in doing the record

so when A, I got the call from Chuck

and was like of course and then

it was gonna be like well, is he

gonna want me to, it's gonna be interesting.

What is he gonna want?

- And so to me that was exciting news.

I'm a friend of Chuck, fan of his music.

I'm a fan of Cynic and I'm picturing this union

and as the tour progresses we get up to Milwaukee I think

and [mumbling] was part of this Milwaukee Metal Fest.

- And the headliner was Sepultura

and then Obituary was on that tour

and then of course Sadus

and Steve just walked in and I just said hey hippy.

- Congratulations, you're gonna be on the next Death record

or something, I'm like what?

So I think I found a payphone and called Chuck

and he goes oh yeah, I was gonna ask you.

[death metal music]

- He had worked on some of the Human songs

with Terry, they had a split,

so some of the material was already written and recorded

like demos of these songs.

So to give these songs to these jazzy cats

from Miami was incredible because it

came together in a way that was totally fresh.

Look at that leap.

- Chuck was advancing to a point

where he needed guys like Sean Reinert

who [mumbling] and Mahavishnu Orchestra

and all these kind of fusion bands.

They understood that language.

They were studying that stuff and they were

well into death metal as well.

- I think what Human became was because

of the players themselves,

is the style of the playing,

is that Reinert is all over the place

so no matter what he would have

been presented a song that Bill

had done Bill's way and then he just said okay,

well this is how I play.

- That was the point of him bringing a guy

like Sean Reinert who, Cynic's already way different

than a lot of the, you know, Obituary,

Deicide, Morbid Angel, bands that

were really established.

He was looking for a departure

so he was looking for musicians

that would bring a different angle.

Obviously it comes in with context

of what Death is supposed to sound like.

We're not gonna go in there and play something ridiculous

but as long as it didn't stray too much

from the heaviness and the aggressiveness

that Death should be, of course all the little nuances

on each instrument were up to us.

- I was so nervous.

I was so nervous, it was my first real life,

legitimate record recording session.

I just remember losing sleep the week before that

and we had been rehearsing this.

We had cut demos.

- We came pretty prepared for Human.

We had some time.

We used the Cynic warehouse down in Miami

to work out Chuck's ideas and even

add our own ideas so we came pretty prepared

so it was easy going.

- We got in, we got tones in one day

and I finished that record in like two and a half days

and we had like eight days for drums

and we were left with like six days left with drums

on the schedule and they were like.

So we wrote Cosmic Sea.

We had worked on Vacant Planets

but we had written that in the rehearsal room.

We wrote Cosmic Sea in the studio.

I've always been writing my material without a bass player

in some way or some form.

So with me and Giorgio, we were just going for it.

We were just breaking shit down.

Oh, we can do this here, we can do this here.

- That was easy with Sean because he

had a completely different approach to it.

He was playing the beat but it was almost

like polyrhythmic to what the riffs were

and so that opens up this huge gap

between the guitar riff and the drums for the bass

to just cruise back and forth between everything,

between the melody and the rhythm.

- We spent quite a considerable amount

of time on that stuff so it was a little bit

of a disappointment when the mixes came out

and it was kind of buried.

'Cause there was a lot of stuff

that was matched up with me and him,

you know what I mean.

- I think that had an influence

on other people starting to play at the time

and it made them wanna stretch

and become Sean Reinerts on the drums

or be a Stevie Giorgio and be very fluent

and he brought almost a jazz fusion element

into the playing that really kind of fit with metal.

It's got a flow that I think spoke

to a lot of metal fans.

I think you had an immediate outgrowth

of a lot of musicians and bands

forming in the wake of Human.

None of the other Death albums

really sparked that kind of desire

or that ambition to play in that way.

- Because there were other death metal records

that I picked up first.

Like Cause of Death by Obituary

is the first death metal record

that I seriously got.

It was pure death metal that just changed things for me

and then it was a few months later,

I ended up getting Death, Human.

That was the first Death record

that connected with me 'cause again,

I'm 16 at the time.

Death metal is just blowing up.

- When I first heard Human, kind of saw,

like back then it was [mumbling] in a sense

so when I first saw the artwork

in comparison to stuff like Cannibal Corpse,

Tomb of the Mutilated, it's ...

[death metal music]

It's just more far out there and it's one

of the things that I really loved

about that record at that time too

'cause you'll have like Morbid Angel, Blessed Are The Sick

and then there's Human where it's just really kind of like,

at the time it was different.

- When you brought in Sean and Paul and Steve

they had so many different backgrounds

between the three of them, musical interests

and musical tastes.

It still had that basic raw aggression in it.

There was just so more to it I think.

You know what I mean, so many more textures.

- Something like Human seems more extreme

to me than Spiritual Healing or even Leprosy

even though technically it's less barbaric

and not nearly as heavy

in that old school traditional sense

but this idea of pushing stuff

and stuff being more--

That's what resonated with me

and that was something that was like this

is different, this is something that I'm into

and from there on I was just like,

I was a full on Death fan from that moment on.

[death metal music]

- It changed a lot of people's conception of death metal.

It made them understand that it could be expanded

and played around with quite a bit

and new influence would be brought into it

and not watered down necessarily.

Still very much a death metal record.

It's just a very, it's kind of death metal

operating on a higher level.

- Death metal kind of involved

from this weird little thing in the late 80s

to by around 1991, 1992, this movement

that had multiple bands that were

selling hundreds of thousands of records.

There were real media outlets

like even MTV covering these bands,

like getting real attention.

- So we just, like everybody else,

thought we have to do a video.

This is important to us now

and we went to Relativity and we just

said we need a video.

That's what's happening right now.

- I distinctly remember being like 16

sitting in my bedroom and having an old VHS cassette

in my VCR waiting when the Triple Thrash Threat

would start to hit record

so I could get this four minute video

of Death somewhere.

You hope maybe they're gonna play it this week

so you'd sit there and try to get it

but I know that I certainly

was not the only person who saw that video.

It really kind of exposed them to a wider audience.

- The idea of turning on the television

and seeing yourself was just so far removed

from our brain, like we couldn't even imagine

that the band Death would be on TV

and Headbanger's Ball was the really only opportunity

by that time for metal to,

this is even before Beavis and Butthead.

It's just, this was it.

♪ That creates its destruction

♪ Lies

♪ Right before your very eyes

♪ A reflection of the mistakes

♪ To the end you will deny

♪ Your part in the demise of a life ♪

- I knew the director because I

was managing a band called London

from Los Angeles and we had done a video

for one of their songs and this guy Dave Bellino

had been the director and I liked his work

so I just said would you do this one

and he just said yeah.

- A one camera shoot, one camera.

So I played that song something like 30 times

and of course I have to at least move most of it.

- Well actually, in a video situation such as this,

this is how we do it now.

I don't know about [mumbling].

We just run through the song about 30 or 40 times,

do individual, we call 'em iso's, isolations.

- I was living in Kansas when I was growing up

and I saw the video for Lack of Comprehension

on Headbanger's Ball.

I was just totally blown away especially by Sean Reinert.

There was a shot where he's playing like this

and he looks like an octopus

playing this crazy drum pattern.

I was like whoa, what the heck is that

and for me, being a drummer, it sounded

like Neil Pert crossed with Pete Sandoval.

It was just the craziest thing.

♪ Right before your very eyes

♪ A reflection of the mistakes

♪ To the end you will deny

♪ Your part in the demise of a life ♪

♪ Lack of comprehension

♪ Thriving on your cliche

♪ Compelled by self-resentment

- [Male] Oh my god!

- But what became striking was the European metal press

writing about the fact that Chuck

had an inability to follow through with tours

and that became a problem.

- I think maybe we get the inconvenient stuff

out of the way first, yeah?

Let's talk about the European disaster.

So why didn't you make it to Europe?

What is the reason behind it?

- They knew that he had bailed

towards the end of a tour and so

were thinking this guy doesn't wanna be out there

and now there's another tour with Kreator

and rumors were that Chuck

wasn't gonna show and then when he didn't show,

that was it.

It was very difficult going back to Europe with Human.

Nobody believed that it was gonna occur, really.

- And all I can do is say I'm looking forward

to making it to Europe finally

and I hope people show up and support the music

and you know, that's about it.

- You know that a lot of people

are fed up with the band right now.

Lot of Germany, there's a lot of people pissed off

so you gotta win 'em back somehow.

So will this band make it to Europe at last?

You sure?

What if not, what if not?

- Come back in another life as an acorn

and that would suck, seriously.

- And I said to him okay, so how do you wanna work this

and he said well I would like

to buy everybody new instruments.

We'll use the equipment for the North American tour

and then we'll ship it to Europe and use it.

I'm like what?

Why do you wanna ship it?

Because it's our equipment and I

wanna work with my own stuff

and we'll get transformers so they can be plugged in

and what am I supposed to say?

I just alright, it's gonna be crazy

and so because we had nothing left

I had to do a deal so that the bus

would be fronted by the British promoter

who had the British dates so he would do it at the end.

- And you know, Paul and I's first tour,

we got the bus, the whole thing.

We've driven vans and RVs and we were just loving it

and back then, man, your tours were long.

They were like two months at a time.

- By then Chuck was growing really homesick.

It would have been two weeks out

and he really wanted to go home

and then we got sick.

- And we were all sharing a bus

and they were a French band and they all smoked

and our bus driver smoked

so we were traveling literally

in just a 40 foot fucking second hand smoke capsule.

- And Reinert collapses.

He gets very, very sick.

Has to be brought to the hospital.

Then I, being a diabetic and not paying attention

to my health, I got sick.

- Then Eric had to go to a hospital

and then that's when it fell apart.

- So I stayed and the idea was I would keep in touch

by phone for the venues.

Something happened when Chuck got to Germany

where he flipped his lid about the promoter

and something related to the gigs

and by then, of course, he was at wits end

because he did not wanna be [mumbling]

and the next thing I know I'm fired

for not being by his side and he's quit

and the tour is over.

- I remember [mumbling] threatening Chuck

with lawsuits and it was definitely,

it was just a weird situation because we

were totally caught in the middle of that thing,

you know what I mean?

- And because the bus was put up,

the money for that was put up by the British promoter

who hadn't had his shows yet,

they were at the end of the tour,

he flipped out because he lost all this money

so he put a lien on the gear.

- Our gear got taken so my drums,

Paul's guitar amps and Mike [mumbling] and all that shit

were held hostage and we were now signed

and supposed to write and record a record

and it took us like nine months to get our gear back.

- And he gathered the guys together

and somehow they made it back to London

for the flights back home

because of course the flights were from London

two months later so they had to negotiate their way

to get back on their plane.

- Then it was Chuck saying Eric

and Eric saying Chuck and the bus company

saying the entity Death then that's

where everybody, it kind of turned into Lord of the Flies.

You know what I mean, everybody

just didn't know who to trust

and it turned into this whole weird situation.

- Well we cut it off two weeks early actually.

We did six weeks of touring

and then the financial part of things

completely fell apart due to people

mismanaging our funds, things not being paid,

a lot of things, it was a nightmare financially.

Tour wise it was great.

The audiences were great.

People really, they accepted things

and it was fantastic on that level

but financially it was a disaster

and you can not tour without funds.

We do not make millions.

This is not a big, big, big money making thing.

- Any notion of us sitting at a table

and having a discussion before the tour

about what we need to do if you want all your gear

sent to Europe and not, we don't just rent stuff,

all of that went down the drain and someone

had to be blamed and so he just,

it was very convenient to blame the manager.

- I never had any resolution with Chuck unfortunately

and I never really had a big fallout with Chuck

interestingly enough.

I never got the phone call.

I got a phone call from Steve DiGiorgio

saying hey dude, we're in the studio right now

and Gene's playing drums.

The only thing I'm upset about

is just not the communication.

Hearing it from somebody, from somebody

when they're in the studio, just like really?

Just call me, dude.

I understand.

You have a timeline, you're a professional.

This is how you're living.

I'm not gonna be angry.

I'll be disappointed but anyway,

that's a whole other part of that thing.

- [Chuck] [mumbling] went on to do their band

which they still had together at the time

when they're helping me out

and so they're doing their thing now

and that and then I needed

to start looking for new people

and luckily that wasn't any problem.

I lucked out and got a hold of Gene

formerly of Dark Angel and called him up

and he's into jamming out.

- That was rather strange.

I was in the process of leaving Dark Angel

when I got a call from [mumbling] one morning

saying hey man, Chuck is looking for a drummer

and I talked to Chuck earlier

and I brought your name up.

Whatever happened I called Chuck a day later

or whatever and I said hey man,

[mumbling] called me and said that you're looking.

He's like yeah, are you interested

and it was completely just like we

picked up our last awesome conversation.

We just kind of picked it up from there

and everything was great and within a couple

of weeks or a month I was in Florida

and we were rehearsing in his mom's garage at that time

and Scott came up from Tampa

and he bought Chuck a little four track.

Just like hey, you're not gonna

record your demos on a ghetto blaster again.

Taught us how to work it.

- [Chuck] And then to top it off I got Steve back

jamming again.

He's taking time from Sadus right now

who are still together hanging out

and so it's been fantastic

and we got Andy LaRocque from King Diamond

to come down and do some lead work.

- It was just Andy LaRocque from King Diamond coming in.

This is the man and Chuck had picked the songs

he wanted Andy's solos on but instead

of sending him the whole song

he just recorded the little segments

where the solos go.

So Andy said he received this tape,

it was just these little blurbs of music

and he was kinda, it wasn't really locked in.

He was out of context.

He didn't have the vibe of the song.

He didn't know the move.

He just had these little parts.

Chuck was like here's where you play

and Andy's like I'm not feeling it.

He had showed up and said yeah, I listened

to the tape but I didn't really listen to it.

I didn't sit down and analyze it.

I didn't really prepare something

and Scott was like oh no, here we go.

This guy comes all the way in from Sweden

and he's just, and he was only scheduled

for a couple days really.

He's like how are we gonna get this done?

This is brutal.

We're gonna have to start from square one.

Andy just looked over at me and Chuck

and shrugged and said don't worry about it, guys.

It'll be okay.

Just push record, we'll see what happens.

This guy takes a big sigh, alright, here we go.

Hits record, boom.

Andy lets something rip.

[death metal music]

Me and Chuck are just hair standing up,

goose bumping up watching this guy in action.

We get to the end of it and Andy's like,

kind of laugh like oh well, I'm just getting warmed up.

Give me another run through.

Let me do something for real and Scott

goes hold on, let me set you up another track.

I'm keeping that.

I don't know if he really prepared at home

and just kind of played it off

or if that's just what comes out of that guy

but whatever it was, it was awesome

'cause he was knocking his solos out

and not only just playing a cool melodic solo passage

with very, very few takes

but as soon as he would finish a take

and we all got the nod around the room

like that's it, that's it, he would say roll it back

to the top and give me another track

and he would double it.

Note for note, inflection for inflection

and was just nailing what he just did

in a harmony position or something

and it was like holy crap.

- I don't ever try to control what people play.

I just say come in and let loose,

let the metal flow and that's exactly what happened

and it's great to be able to get people

that you know, that you're friends with

and that are really professionals,

strong at what they do and have their own identity

and that is crucial in any type of music.

You have to have your own style

whether you play piano or whatever.

- He had made it clear during the recordings,

I think he even made it official one day.

We just went out for lunch.

- It was something like hey, we've

been offered a two or three week run

over in Europe and might you be available for it?

It's a festival thing that we're headlining.

- We weren't expected to in the recording

to go out live but he said you know,

I'd really like to have you guys there.

Are you willing to do it?

And we just looked at each other like hell yeah.

Go out and play this material we just helped you invent.

That would be great.

- Death will always remain a growing band

'cause I think there's definitely

too much of a limit being put on death metal right now

with this big rise in Satanic stuff

and just brutal lyrics for the sake of being brutal

rather than putting some thought into

and trying to conquer what people

already think of heavy metal and death metal

or hard rock in general.

I feel like I won't put a limit on this

and I wanna keep continuing to grow as a musician

and as a person in life and to try

to put into the music what I learn, so to speak.

- I think he made it clear that the scene,

the death metal scene in and of itself

was for a lot of people kind of a limiting box

to be in.

It was always be more extreme, be more extreme.

Be brutal, be this, do the sickest stuff ever

and I think he didn't wanna do that anymore

and I think he realized that where do you go?

You can't just keep pounding out

those kinds of lyrics all the time

and if you're not, if your heart isn't in it

you don't wanna fake your way through it

so for him, I feel like it would be pretty natural

for him to react negatively

to the idea that he was just a death metal guy

and you saw him do that, obviously

he said it in interviews at the time

but he would kind of go against the grain I think

in really I think fun ways

especially with like the t-shirts that he wore.

That shirt that he wore in a Headbanger's Ball interview

where he's got the cats, the little kitties on them.

Like stuff like that was always like,

nobody else would do that.

Nobody else had the balls to do that

and it was just basically, it was fun

but I think it was also kind of a fuck you.

You don't have to be this brutal all the time

and what is the point of it

and really, are we all really this brutal all the time?

Is this really how life is?

- Now on the other hand, Death went out

and what appears to be like a pretty high budget video.

- Actually, it's very budgeted.

- Where did you film the video?

- We filmed it actually, part of it was outside

in Natural Springs in Florida and the other half

was shot two hours away in some warehouse

in the middle of tornado land.

- 'Cause looking at the video

it looks like it was in some rain forest or something.

You went and spent all the money on it

and it's a nice video.

- Thank you, we're very happy with how it turned out.

Definitely.

♪ Do you feel what I feel

- [Butthead] Ew, is this a joke?

- [Beavis] Yeah, yeah.

I think this is supposed to be funny.

- [Butthead] Hey, check it out, it's Jeremy.

- [Beavis] Yeah, he's still running.

- Who would have guessed that they

would be cultural pacemakers?

Like if you got Beavis and Butthead

to comment on your video, you

were getting a lot of extra eyes on it

in primetime television because like it or not,

the Headbanger's Ball audience

was still pretty limited to midnight to two a.m.

on the east coast on a Saturday night.

Anybody who stayed up was already indoctrinated.

You were already into this shit

and were waiting for it.

IF you're watching Beavis and Butthead

and you got hit with 40 seconds of a Death video,

that could hit anybody at any point in time.

- Was it spawned out of a love for the music

that was being played?

I don't know but things [mumbling] everyone apart

no matter how good the music is.

I mean White Zombie, Crowbar.

I mean Crowbar are one of my favorites bands

[mumbling] apart but I mean it then

becomes a part of the mainstream

when you have such a popular show

like Beavis and Butthead featuring Death.

- And the fact that Chuck's only real job

was in a Del Taco when he was a teenager.

I think that's classic.

- [Butthead] I think saw this dude in Burger World once.

- [Beavis] I'd like two tacos please

and a small order of fries!

- That was pretty good, Beavis.

You suck almost as much as this dude.

[death metal music]

- We heard the stories of the previous cycles

and I think me and Gene had kind of committed

to each other to kind of preempt that

as much as we could.

Like whatever was in our power

just as Chuck's buddy but I think there were a few times

that some stressful moment would come up,

I don't know if Chuck was having family issues

at home or maybe there was some kind

of bullshit with management.

Whatever the fact, when he would get that tense

kind of irritated like almost ready

to do something, whatever that may be,

me and Gene would step in with a calm voice

and just assure we're there, we wanna finish.

We wanna trudge on and I think sometimes

it pulled Chuck back in 'cause we were able

to finish all the dates and everything.

- Individual Thought Patterns was an angry record.

Angry lyrically because he was just,

that was how he got out his aggression

at a very volatile time for him,

at a time when we were at odds with our partnership.

- [Chuck] A lot of the new lyrics

reflect that what comes around goes around type attitude.

I am set in my ways.

I'm going to continue doing what I do.

It's what I enjoy and what I know best how to do.

If I didn't do this I don't know what I'd do.

Maybe I'd be a cook.

I like cooking.

That's pretty limited.

- He put a lot of meaning.

There was some stuff if you read between the lines.

It was a way for him to express himself

and he was honest about stuff

but he was a whole lot bigger than his music.

- It's obvious he was a complex guy.

Everybody knows that.

It wasn't like he was personally attacking people.

It wasn't like that.

- He was wound a little tighter than most people

so I think sometimes when those stress issues came up,

he was right on his last coil

and it just got to him so we would see times

where he would drift into that mode

but I think a combination of having maybe guys

that were determined like me and Gene,

trying to bring an air of calm to the environment

plus I think Chuck was maturing too.

We were all getting older.

I think he was able to control himself too.

It just seemed to go a little smoother that year.

When Symbolic songs were being written

I was gonna be in the lineup for that

and I was called to Florida

to work on the new song ideas with him and Gene.

- Yeah, I essentially moved into Chuck's place

for a long time, him, myself and Steve DiGiorgio.

We had an eight track recorder now

which was still not a lot of tracks

but I remember we, there was no way

we were gonna get the decent drum sound

to make demos, it just wasn't gonna happen

so we would work out the songs, we'd play 'em

and I had my drum machine with me

but what I did was I just took my drum machine.

Everything that we'd play in the afternoon

I'd spend hours at night replicating

on the drum machine.

Then we'd have a great sounding demo

where I'm the drum machine.

I'm playing exactly what I'm playing live.

- And I recorded the demo version of the song

and then my first kid was being born

and Chuck was in a really determined busy mode

and I wasn't able to commit the time

so I wasn't able to finish Symbolic.

- I can only speak to the guy that I knew really well

and I know the guy I worked with

was really fun to be around

and really artistically creative.

It was our first record together

but we had known each other for probably seven

or eight years before that

'cause he'd been working with Scott

so we'd see each other in hallways,

go out to lunch and hang out.

When he first came to me to say would you do the record

I said if you really wanna do this

let's do it right.

Let's leave no stone unturned.

So he was very excited about doing it.

He had no intrepidations about doing it.

He just wanted to make sure that we didn't

just say okay, that's good enough.

It was always no, is that good enough?

Yes, that's good enough.

Okay, let's try harder, let's do it even more

and Chuck really wanting to make a big step forward

on the record all at the same time

and he kind of wanted to break his own mold a little bit.

- There was no hiatus going on.

There just wasn't a lot of live activity.

I know there was Voodoo Club and then Voodoo Cult

but I didn't know that Chuck was like yeah,

I did some project some guy.

- [mumbling], he did produce a lot

of the early Century Media records

and he was also [mumbling].

I think that was his project mostly.

It was kind of this early super group.

You didn't have a lot of metal super groups at that time

and that was one of the first ones

but it didn't have a US release,

I don't believe it did.

You can only get it on import here

and it just didn't do that well

and I remember listening to it

and thinking that's too bad.

All these great guys on one record

and it's just not that great.

- When I eventually did end up getting a call from him

to see if I would be interested in auditioning

we remembered that day, remembered that afternoon.

We actually had a mutual friend.

John worked at this store called Guitars Plus

which was in downtown Orlando

and he just called my house and left a message.

Bobby, pick up the phone.

Bobby, pick up the phone.

God damn it, Bobby, why aren't you home?

- So we kind of had that guitar spot still open

which we were looking for a permanent player

and we found Bobby Koelble.

He's an excellent guitar player

and he plays really from his heart and soul

which is very important.

We need to keep things running smoothly

and we need to have the right people in the band

and this I feel is a very good band right now.

It's excellent.

- So I got home and I heard it, I'm like.

Obviously I called him back.

He's like dude, do you remember that afternoon

at Dave's place and I was like yeah man,

I remember that.

He was like yeah, that was awesome right?

And I was like yeah, cool.

- For Symbolic, Chuck's riffs were starting

to really explore his love of 80s power metal.

It's like he went back 10 years

and really started letting his metal flow.

- And he wanted to really inject more

of a melodic content into death metal

which is somewhat of a dichotomy there, right,

but he really wanted to do it

so if you listen to Symbolic and listen

for the guitar parts, there's a giant leap forward

to my year in the melody content of the guitar parts.

- [Male] Maybe again some of that was through

that appreciation for more power metal structures

and vocals and things like that.

He was able to take those influences

and translate them into something

not necessarily more commercial

but something more relatable to [mumbling].

- I think there's a chunky sort of heavier direct element

to Symbolic that we hadn't heard since Spiritual really.

I think Chuck started to bring in some

of the riffs, bring in some of the arrangements.

Make it maybe a little more memorable.

- I think that just came from his influence

of listening to more mainstream metal acts

or even hard rock acts.

It's well known that he was a fan of Queensryche

and all kinds of different bands.

He wasn't just a brutal metal guy,

only listen to brutal music.

It was far from it, you know what I mean?

But he brought some of those elements

but he did it his own way.

I think the song structure certainly on Symbolic

had more metal in it and not so much brutality

although it's still brutal but in a different way,

you know what I mean?

Almost even the way he sang the songs,

you could almost, he seemed

to pronounce the words more clear.

- There's a stealthy melodic content to his vocals.

He wanted to take melodies and go.

He wanted to really drive that direction.

How do you put more melody into his music?

You can't do it with the guitars.

He's already really, really melodic

so the vocals is the next piece

and then I heard him sing and I'm like oh my god,

you can sing, you're great at doing this.

You could sing any kind of metal stuff

and he said yeah, but I don't like

to sing when I'm playing guitar

so I have to have a singer.

I still wish I could have recorded Chuck

actually doing the vocals through it

and had like another version of the record

but that would never go.

- I think that the last couple records

in particular, Symbolic and The Sound of Perseverance

were records that I think they were lost

to a generation of early death metal fans

and I think people only kinda began

to rediscover them as time went on.

- Because he clearly he wasn't kind of

doing the usual death metal thing.

He wasn't sticking to the stereotype.

He wasn't playing with all the usual tropes of death metal.

He was always moving forward and I think

by the time Symbolic had come out

there really wasn't that much great

happening in death metal at the time anyway

so naturally he would wanna distance himself a little bit

from that and again, Chuck just wanted Death

to be a really really super heavy metal band

and that's it, nothing more or less.

It's just that he was ensnared by his band's name

and his band's logo and you can't get away from that.

- It's a pretty brutal name definitely.

At the time I wanted something extreme,

something brutal, shocking to go along with the music

and now I would probably call it something different

but it's kind of stuck with us.

I think the name Death only hinders the band

to a certain point but at the same time

people really dig it and hopefully

they just take it as a name

describing the sound that we started with.

- If you had a Jeff Tate type vocalist,

a vocalist that would grasp the invisible orange,

Chuck, that was Chuck's action right there.

He would complain constantly about like,

I wish I didn't have to sing on this music.

I wish I had a real singer doing this

because then I'd be really happy.

- But it wouldn't be Death.

Roadrunner would flip, right,

if suddenly Chuck sang and Chuck could sing.

They would've flipped because they

were expecting Death and the fans were expecting Death

so what the heck is Chuck supposed to do?

So in his mind he invented Control Denied at that point.

- I was gonna be more of a melodic project

with him just playing guitar with a different singer

and he was just kinda like dude,

I don't wanna deal with this anymore.

- He just wanted to do something bigger.

He felt like the death metal thing

had kinda been done really, really well

by him and other guys up to that

and he wanted to say let's do the next thing.

Let's go farther.

- I don't know if that's something a lot of people realize

but yeah, Death was actually over as a band

after the Symbolic tours.

At that point in time, Chuck's relationship

with Roadrunner had pretty much gone south.

- People were getting boxed in.

It became like really, really a stiff genre

which is exactly backwards from the way it got invented.

The original death metal stuff was let's be outrageous,

do new stuff, be totally different

and then a few years later, be totally different

as long as it's exactly this and just one little thing.

Don't go outside of that.

You don't say that to Chuck Schuldiner.

Don't do a thing different

would not work too well with Chuck.

♪ This is not a test of power

♪ This is not a game

♪ To be lost or won, let justice be done ♪

- We were in Europe for about probably maybe five

or six weeks or so, maybe four weeks,

and Symbolic was just coming out at that time

I remember after or during, after one show,

we got the latest whatever huge magazine

in Europe it was, [mumbling] the back cover

was a Symbolic ad and it had four other albums

from four different death metal bands

and this is when Chuck was really trying

to get away from that tag, just flat out.

It's what he was trying to do.

He didn't wanna be called death metal

and he called the record label screaming,

raging at 'em, I told you not to do this,

I told you not to do this, fuck you,

I would rather break up my band

than work for you anymore.

Then a few days later I had done something

to piss him off and I had really

never done anything to piss him off before

but he got pissed at this and then

the last 10 days of the tour

were just absolute misery.

- We were touring with the English band Benediction

and we had a night off from the tour

but Benediction had a gig that night.

It was somewhere in Germany

and so we ended up going to the gig

and we just parked outside

but we didn't do the gig, Benediction did the gig.

So anyway, Benediction was like oh,

you gotta come up and play a song.

You gotta come up and play a song.

It's like alright, well whatever.

We'll see what happens.

Anyway, Chuck stayed on the bus.

Bryan, bass player Bryan, Gene and I

ended up going inside and checking out the Benediction gig

and there were like five people in there in the audience.

There was nobody there.

There was like literally five fans

standing in front of the stage

and then other beside from that

it was just staff of the place.

So we're just kicking back having a couple of beers,

watching the show and all of a sudden

Benediction's like we're gonna have some musicians

in Death come up and play a song.

Me and Brian are just kind of looking

at each other like okay, what's gonna happen?

And Gene started getting up on stage.

It's like okay, I guess we're on.

So we went up and we got up there,

we're standing around, we didn't know what to play.

We're just kind of standing there

looking at each other.

What are we gonna do, what are we gonna do?

Well come on, Gene's like come on,

let's play something.

What are we gonna do?

Okay, Chuck's nowhere to be found.

Let's play Zombie Ritual in front

of these five German fans

and our sound guy Paul happened

to be hanging out there and who's gonna sing it?

I don't know, who's gonna sing it?

Paul, can you sing Zombie Ritual

and Paul's kind of like well, okay I guess.

So he got up there, grabbed the mic

and we plowed through Zombie Ritual

and Paul was up there singing it,

just kind of having fun with it.

Anyway, we did it and that was that.

We all thought it was harmless.

Well Chuck found out about it

and he wasn't very happy about it.

The next day he kind of sat us all down.

He's like you know what, that was really not cool

and disrespectful and basically,

you shouldn't have done that.

Very strongly worded

and no one else really said anything

so I just for whatever reason,

I decided to speak up, I'm like Chuck,

we really didn't mean anything by it.

It really wasn't that big of a deal.

There was no one in the club.

And he's like you know what, man?

You're conjuring a dick.

I'll never forget that phrase.

It echoes in my head all the time ever since then.

You're conjuring a dick.

I set you up, I take care of you guys

and you go out and you disrespect me and my music.

You're conjuring a dick.

- That last 10 days were just, they weren't fun.

They were a real challenge to get through.

We got through it and that's the thing.

When Chuck broke up the band,

when he said this is it, we're done after this

I was like now I don't have to quit

'cause I was quitting after Symbolic

because we had started working

on what was gonna become The Sound of Perseverance

and I wasn't super satisfied myself

with the direction things were going.

I was dreading it because I was like man,

I'm really gonna let him down.

He's probably happy to have a relatively solid lineup

together and probably thinks this

is gonna go on for a long time

and he told me something like

they had prepared all these Control Denied demos.

They had the lineup, they had the logo.

It was a full band.

They were ready to move on to the next step.

That was to get a budget from a record company,

get signed and do it the real way.

- The labels didn't wanna gamble

with Control Denied.

They didn't wanna gamble with him changing the name,

changing the plan because Death

was an established thing

and they wanted to invest in something

that they knew was more solid

and they had a better idea of what he was gonna do.

- Signs was Nuclear Blast.

They're the savior.

They're gonna be so fantastic.

They're my new label.

But they said we'll do a Control Denied record

but we want one more Death record.

- In other words, Bite the Pain, Spirit Crusher,

Story To Tell, Voice of the Soul

and a Moment of Clarity, all five

were originally Control Denied songs.

We had recorded those as demo versions.

Chuck had put some clean vocals

on a couple of those and we

were auditioning different singers with those.

- When I got to Metal Maniacs in 97

as a fan of Chuck and Death,

I had nothing to do with him

and then suddenly Borivoj Krgin, he now runs Blabbermouth,

he was the news columnist for Maniacs at the time.

He wrote something about Control Denied

that Chuck didn't like.

It sort of intimated that Control Denied

was being put on ice because he couldn't

find a record deal and he was reviving Death

and he even intimated that Death

was gonna be using some of these Control Denied riffs

and Borivoj and Chuck's relationship

up to that point had been a little bit strained already

so Chuck took that very personally,

though Borivoj was slagging him

or making, kind of cutting him down a little bit

and I got the heat on that

because I printed what Borivoj said

without checking with Chuck

and Chuck came to me directly,

I think I got a call one day, it was Chuck,

before caller ID or whatever

and we talked and by the end of the conversation

he understood that I'm totally on his side,

I'm a total fan and that I don't think,

I tried to tell him that I don't

think Borivoj wrote anything all that negative.

He was just reporting.

- But since those songs were complete

and it was a last minute deal

because they wanted to push for that album,

for another Death album,

they wanted us to go do that Dynamo festival,

headline with Pantera.

- And when I heard that I was like,

it can't even be real because the Dynamo festival

is massive and Dynamo is the third live show

I'd ever played with the band

and it's in front of about 40000 people.

[death metal music]

- So we didn't even really get much opportunity

to really even rehearse for that whole first leg

of that tour.

The lineup started getting a lot tighter

near the end of it, around the time

where it got to Chile and the shows

were getting a lot better

because we were a lot tighter as a group.

[death metal music]

- It wasn't too long after we finished the American tour

for Sound of Perseverance that we

started working on recording the Control Denied album

and I helped Chuck move from his house

in Orlando out to his farmhouse,

we're at his home studio

and we're moving some heavy cabinets and things like that

and I kind of remember a little bit after that,

he had some soreness and--

- I thought he was stressed out.

We talked about it a lot and both

of us thought that the issues he was having,

the tension he was feeling in his neck

and stuff was because of tension.

- He told me early on.

He told me when he had like a pain in his neck

or something, he said that,

he had asked me if I was familiar with acupuncture

and I was like no, I have no idea.

He said he was going to a chiropractor

to fix a pain in his neck, it wasn't doing anything.

- I can't remember what they did for him.

They probably made some adjustments

which didn't help him obviously.

Then he went to an acupuncturist

and from what I understand she put one needle

in the back of his neck and went like this

and said go get an MRI.

- It was on his birthday

and the doctor told him he had a brain tumor.

Yeah, I remember that day like it was yesterday.

- And he picked me up early from high school

which was strange and it was my grandfather

and Chuck in Chuck's van, my grandfather was driving

and Chuck said I got some bad news, I'm really sick.

- And I remember kind of being horrified

because I had just not even given a thought

to something like that.

- You don't even know how to respond

or react when your best friend

tells you that they have cancer.

It was just devastating.

- They went into the studio to do the Control Denied record

and apparently it was kind of a bad session

and he called me and he made a cassette copy,

mailed it to me and said will you play on the album?

So I called him, I said sure, I'd love to

'cause I keep getting called back

and when he sent me that tape,

I told him I'd like to listen to it for a few weeks

and absorb it and really get into it

and he's like no, I need you to come tomorrow.

This is already overdue so we don't have any time

to spare, you need to get here

and just get it recorded.

And so I said okay, well I'll come straight

to your house, we'll just go over everything.

Just push play, sit there and jam with it

and I'll just learn it.

I'll just crash course, learn as fast as I can.

He says okay.

The next day comes and he calls me

and he says you all set to come?

I said yep.

He goes well I tell you what,

I'm not gonna be here when you get here.

I need to go to New York for radiation.

Whoa, okay, that's heavy in two places.

Obviously the first one being wow,

you're going to get radiation but then

I said what am I gonna do?

I heard this stuff like a day ago

and I need to record all eight songs.

So he says well Shannon will help you out.

Okay.

- It happened fairly fast.

By the time we finished the album

he was already in New York

when Steve flew here and I was showing Steve

all of the songs and we went over there

to do his bass tracks.

At that point Chuck was actually in New York at NYU

being operated on.

♪ Painting pictures of what we would like to see ♪

♪ The vision is taking judge of him ♪

- Me and Jim, we would take a couple minute break

from playing, we'd sit there and we'd just

go this is unbelievable.

We had his number where he was staying up there

and we talked to him several times every day

and played him parts of songs

for him to kind of approve

and make sure we were on the right track

and so we called him on the phone

and held the phone up to the studio monitor

and just let the song roll

and me and Jim were looking at each other

like kind of remembering how we finished up laughing,

like it's cool, remember, ah, remember that?

And so after the song's over go to the phone

and Florida to New York, a little bit long distance

so I hear this [mimicking crackling].

I thought we lost the connection

'cause I had held the phone for the whole four

or five minutes, however long the song is

so maybe at some point we got cut off.

Chuck, are you there?

And I here this kind of choked up voice.

Yeah, I'm here.

What happened?

Nothing, I was listening to the song.

I said oh, you didn't say nothing.

I thought you left off.

He goes, then I could hear him.

It sounded kind of like he was sobbing a little bit.

What's the matter, man?

He goes that was the best get well card

I've ever heard in my life.

And I just, right then give the phone right to Jim.

I was like I'm out.

I had to just compose myself

'cause he was up there.

He's used to being part of the session

and I told him, I said first time

in my life I've ever been in Florida

without him there, the first time,

and not only was I just in Florida

but I was working on his record

and he wasn't there like he always is

and to hear him react like that, I was just ...

♪ When it's all said and done

♪ What is left to really say

♪ To be one turns to none now we are just yesterday ♪

- I just felt terrible.

This is my friend that's in trouble,

really bad trouble, and it's getting worse

and I really would like him to know,

I'm sorry.

I would really like him to know

how important he was to me as a human being.

- It was weird because he just always assured us

that even though something scary

and serious was going on,

he always kind of had this assurance

that it was okay, he was gonna go get it treated.

- And he actually did start getting better after that

and that's when we started working

on this follow, the second record.

- So much time had gone by from the recording of it,

the patching of the bass tracks and all that

that he was busy writing and he was ready

for the next album right away

'cause I had recorded bass in the middle of 99

and by the next year, he had all kinds of new stuff

and he was working on it extensively with Richard Christie.

- I remember rehearsing and Chuck

writing the second Control Denied album

and I just remember us being so excited

for this second album and Chuck

was so proud of the music.

We were so well-rehearsed.

I went in there and we did the drums in one day

and I remember Jim Morris too looking at me

and looking at Chuck and he was like what's going on here?

He was like, it was such crazy, unique, innovative music

that Jim Morris just didn't know what to think of it.

- And all of a sudden it hit him again.

With this album, When Man and Machine Collide,

he had taken home those for that reason.

He had taken home Richard's drum tracks

and put 'em on a little eight track

digital hard disc recorder so that he

could work on it at home and he wouldn't

be sitting there at Morris Sound

where time is money.

Of course that's what led to us having

to extract all this stuff from that machine

and all the other issues we've run into since

but that was the primary reason

is because he knew that he didn't have the stamina

or the endurance to play through the whole thing

and do it in a timely fashion

so he just wanted to bring it home.

- There's a possibility of finishing an album.

The amount of work that would have to go into it

is tremendous to do it right

which is what Chuck told me had to be done.

My last conversation on the phone with Chuck

was I want you to finish the record

if you can but don't fuck it up.

If you can't do a good job don't do it.

- So at that point, I don't think we ever

really came close.

There was a brief moment where we

had considered going to Italy

and opening up for Metallica

at the God's of Rock Festival

which would have been the biggest show

that Death had ever done and Chuck

literally waited until about the last week

before canceling to see if he could do it

'cause he was having problems with his left arm.

His whole left side was just,

he had no control of his motor skills

so he couldn't really count on it

and we rehearsed quite a bit to strengthen him up

but he would have good days and he would have bad days.

- Chuck's a fighter and Chuck

had a really positive attitude about it.

I can't imagine how scary it is

to go through something like that

and Chuck has the greatest family

that anybody could ever ask for.

They were always there with him

and encouraging him and they were like you know,

we're gonna do whatever it takes.

- I was constantly on the phone

trying to find new doctors and we would travel

and when one doctor would say no,

we don't have anything, that just meant to me

that they didn't know what to do.

There must be somebody.

In my mind there had to be somebody

that knew what to do and Chuck

told me I feel like I'm standing

at the edge of a cliff with one foot off

and when he said that to me I knew

we just have to try everything.

- I ended up calling him.

He was already like really sick

and so I called him up on the phone just to say hi

and he sounded terrible on the phone.

It was really kind of heart breaking

but we talked for a couple minutes

and that was about all he could do

'cause he was really pretty zonked out

with everything that was going on

and I remember telling him for some reason

about the new Voivod album.

I'm like dude, you've gotta hear the new Voivod.

It's insane.

He's like oh yeah, cool.

Yeah.

We did have this thing from Make Them Die Slowly

where one of the cannibals goes [mumbling]

and the other one goes [mumbling]

and so we got one of those in

in that last conversation.

It was kind of a weak [mumbling]

but he still did it.

I was like alright, that's cool man.

And that was the last time we talked.

- And they did one more hail Mary pass

and that was there was a drug

and it was still at an experimental stage

and they really didn't know about dosing at the time

and they agreed to take the risk

as a last ditch effort to save his life.

- So when we got back to Florida

he could barely walk and we went right into a hospital

and then I showed him the pretty little pamphlet

they gave me with the pretty flower on it

and they were like oh god, it's a child.

♪ The fragile art of existence

- Nobody could blame anybody because at that point

working with this drug was really

the only possibility, as remote as it was

and I think that when they knew that it was over,

I think they decided to take him home

and they took him back to Citrus

and he passed away within an hour

of being at home.

♪ What should have been, what should have been ♪

- That band was just, as far as I'm concerned,

was responsible for expanding,

breaking out of that closed box

'cause death metal had to be, again,

had to be brutal all the time

and I think Chuck is largely responsible for that,

of having the balls to want to do something

that he wanted to do and not conform

to whatever everybody else thought he should be,

you know what I mean?

And that is a testament to a true musician

and somebody who follows his own path

and not caters to what he thinks other people

should think Death should be

or you should be like this or you should play, you know.

- And somewhere there's a lesson in there

for all of us.

Keep wanting to do better

because you never know when you're not

gonna have a chance to do anything else ever again.

He is a great example of growth.

If you wanna know the guy, listen to the guitar playing

'cause that's him talking to you right there.

That was the guy.

To me, the best musicians I've worked with

are the ones where you hear them in the notes.

You hear them and I think that's

where you get the real personality of the player.

[death metal music]

♪ When you think of me in your multidimensional mind ♪

♪ Try and wash the evil from your mind and open it ♪

♪ When you taste the truth

♪ You will see like others before me to you ♪

♪ I am past, a story to tell

♪ You will see like others before me to you ♪

♪ I am now past

♪ I am past

- Look, if you like certain styles

of death metal or if you're partial

to the early brutal stuff and you don't

really care about progressive stuff, fine,

but to say Death wasn't a death metal band

up until the end is just silly.