VIC: I am Evicerator of Idiotic Losers. I play guitar and write some of the songs. The other avatars of Death Beast are my fellow guitarist and songwriter Axecutioner of the Worthless, drummer Black Tormentor of Scenester Wussies, and vocalist Notorius Butcherus Poseurii. We just kicked out our last worthless excuse for a bassist, the latest in a long string of weaklings...


2.DARK RECOLLECTIONS: Give us a brief band bio..

VIC:The band started as an idea I had with Dementor of Song of Melkor. As you know, my main band was Rampage, and in mid-2001 I organized the three-way split "New World Blasphemy" with Song of Melkor, Rampage, and Cross Sodomy. After the split Dementor mentioned that he wanted to do some kind of project with me doing the music and him doing vocals. I read the lyrics and it was great, hellish stuff that gave me the same kind of feeling as classic albums like Bonded by Blood, Seven Churches, that kind of thing. It made me lament how pussified thrash became when it became sterile, life-loving moralistic 'CNN Metal' that had to be 'socially relevant' and 'politically aware'. We decided to form the band as a thrash band to show these socialist greenie pussies how REAL thrash is supposed to be.

3.DARK RECOLLECTIONS: How did the different members in the band meet to form DEATHBEAST?

VIC: Well, like I said above, I'd known Dementor before we formed the band. When I was working on the earliest songs a friend of mine, Axecutioner, another person I've known for a while, saw the stuff and wanted to be a part of it. Since I usually only did stuff alone, I thought it would help make Death Beast distinct from Rampage to have someone else contributing to the songwriting and the overall sound. That first demo was just the three of us - Dementor, now known as IRONFIST, Axecutioner, and me. The bass spot was a revolving door from the get-go, and we never really bothered looking for drummers at first, but that changed later on which I'll get to in a bit...

4. DARK RECOLLECTIONS: How hard was it to find band members that shared your vision of what DEATHBEAST should sound like?
VIC: It's not hard to find a few, but it's hard to find enough. As you see already, I'd already known Ironfist and Axecutioner, but we didn't have anyone else for the band. The bassists we tried out all sucked, then Ironfist had to quit and I did too, for a while, and that's when Axe found Black Tormentor for the drumkit. Afterwards, again, we'd find people who were kinda into it, but were more interested in just 'furthering their own careers' or gaining some scene points, not really worshipping at the altar of real satanic thrash/death. So, yes, I guess it has been a hard road, as we're still without a bassist.

5. DARK RECOLLECTIONS: How did the deal with Barbarian Wrath Records come about and why did it take so long for Cd to be released?
VIC: Well, you can thank that bitch Fate and my penis.
Right after Dementor, Axe and I formed the band we started working on the album and had four or five songs done when I mentioned it to Black Goat. I'd been working on him to sign Rampage, and he never wanted to because he hates my vocals (this was back in 2001, when I was still singing for Rampage). I mentioned that I had a band that I wasn't singing in, and he wanted to hear it. We didn't really have a demo, just these four and a half songs that weren't totally finished, but we sent him those songs as a 'demo' and he loved it and signed us on the spot. That was early in 2002.
We worked on writing the rest of the songs, recording better versions, and finally got to the point where Axe and I had the whole album done musically by June 2002, and gave it to Ironfist to record the vocals, just in time because my son was going to be born in August, and Ironfist's vocal engineer/producer was moving away in August also. Through July he sang and sang and got all the songs done vocally, and then the computer they were recording on died - and not just 'died', but died with a crashed hard disk - we lost EVERYTHING. This was about the time that Ironfist decided to basically give up music totally, but this setback just hastened it. We were stuck without a vocalist, without an album, and with my son being born the next month. That's when I told Axe he could do what he wanted with the band but I'd have to bow out for a while.
That was lucky in a way, because in putting together a band then he found Black Tormentor, and he found he could work much faster with a real drummer than with programming drums like I do, so it sped things up and saved time - enough time that I even managed to fully rejoin the band after a few months since I could just come to practice and play, not spend time programming shit. And this only takes us up to about the middle of 2003.
The three of us, Black Tormentor, Axe, and I, started reworking all the material to accomodate real drums, figuring out how to record it, and of course looking for a bassist and singer. And that took forever. The bassist problem never did really solve itself - half the guys were just transplanted guitarists looking to play bass just to get a gig, so I thought for a while about moving to bass and looking for another guitarist. And that's how we found a vocalist, ha ha ha ha...
We thought we could get Ramrod from Chemikiller on vocals, and he agreed to join and demoed some songs for us, but then time got away from him and he had to bow out to keep going with Chemikiller and his KISS tribute band Strange Ways. During that time was when I was on bass and we were trying out guitarists, and I remembered one of the guitarists who auditioned. During the auditions, since Ramrod lives in Delaware, I was doing the vocals, but this guy said he hated my singing. He just kept bitching at me about my vocals between every song, and it was pissing me off, but he kept at it and I thought that was at least honest - then he said 'fuck you, man, give ME the mic and the lyrics' - and he did the rest of his tryout doing the vocals and the guitar. His guitar playing wasn't that great, but he sounded GREAT on vocals. I didn't think much about it at the time since we officially had Ramrod, but when he bowed out Axe said "You know, that one guitarist could really sing..." - and that's how we got Notorius Butcherus in the band. That was early 2004, so we spent the rest of 2004 teaching everyone their parts and getting the stuff recorded.
So, in a nutshell, blame the delay on Fate for killing the album the first time around, and on my penis for giving me a kid right when things fell apart, which kept me from putting them back together quickly. Still, all's well that ends by breaking your neck.

6. DARK RECOLLECTIONS: Talk about your debut Cd "The Awakening"

VIC: Well, "The Wakening" is an album we've been working on for four years. It's a statement of war on all that has weakened thrash over the past two decades. We envisioned this to be part of a somewhat-themed trilogy, centering on the mythology of the Death Beast - the avatar of plagues, war, and humanity's destruction. "The Wakening" focuses on his awakening and humanity's coming doom. The next album will be titled "The Onslaught" and will focus on the destruction as it happens - sort of like the rapture and tribulation except that nobody will be saved. Then, the third album will be "The Aftermath" and will focus on life after the death of the world - total post-apocalyptic horror.

7. DARK RECOLLECTIONS: Can we expect any other releases on the near future, perhaps a vinyl release of Cd?
VIC: I don't really give a shit about vinyl so I'm not pursuing anything, but if anyone wants to offer they know where to find me. Other than the next two albums, the only thing we're planning is a demo compilation that will showcase both Ironfist's and Juggernaut's contributions to the Death Beast sound. We're not sure yet when that will be done or who will release it. Until our last jerkoff of a bassist quit we were also planning a live album of some sort, but thanks to him wussing out that idea is in the shitter.

8.DARK RECOLLECTIONS: Is DEATHBEAST a studio only band, do you get to play live?

VIC: Until we get a full lineup we are a studio-only band. We actually managed to do a couple of shows in mid-2002, just before I had to quit. It was terrible - Axe and I were trading off vocals and the 'bassist' we had then was even worse than the last jerkoff we just booted.

9. DARK RECOLLECTIONS: Talk about the extra tracks on Cd... whose idea was it to include them and where there any other songs that might have been included instead?

VIC: Okay, since a lot of people asked, I guess I should set the record straight - the last two songs on the CD are covers - Nasty Savage's "Witches Sabbath" from their "Wage of Mayhem" demo in 1984 and Twisted Sister's "Stay Hungry".
Back on Rampage's 1998 album "This End Up" I did a cover of "Witches Sabbath". Black Goat heard it and loved it, even despite my vocals. When he signed Death Beast he said that he wanted Death Beast to do a new cover of it, so we did.
The Twisted Sister cover was more of a surprise birthday gift. Not a lot of people know this about BG, but he's a BIG fan of Twisted Sister. He also got a kick out of the cover of WASP's "Animal" that Ironfist, Axe, and I did on that first demo, so I knew he was open to covers from that end of things... back before MTV made stars out of every poofy-haired whiny faggot who could string together a power ballad, glam metal could have some real balls, and when we covered "Animal" our intention was to show that. Since BG was such a big fan of Twisted Sister, and since the projected release date for the album was near his birthday, I thought it would be fun to give him a surprise by covering this song for him too.
I'm not sure what other covers we would have done back then, but I know now that I want to do something from either the first Slayer or the first Exodus album for our next album. We'll see what happens, I guess.

10.DARK RECOLLECTIONS: Is there any DEATHBEAST merchandise, if so... how can people order it?

VIC: Just the CD right now, though some people have bene asking us about shirts. Just stay tuned to our webpage.
11.. DARK RECOLLECTIONS:How do you feel about today's so called black metal scene... any bands you have recently discovered that you would recommend checking out?

VIC: At the risk of sounding like shilling for myself, Misantropical Painforest's debut just came out on one of my labels (Alpha Draconis Records) and I think it's a very unique piece of work.

I'm not sure what to make of black metal anymore, mainly because everyone has fragmented so far into their own sub-ideologies that I don't think the bands themselves know what to make of it anymore either. Not that it should matter much - at its core, metal started as an individualist reaction to the conformity and normative effects of society, so to codify what makes any subgenre of metal (or 'metal' as a whole) somewhat seems self-defeating. "I'm an individual, just like everyone else...".

12. DARK RECOLLECTIONS:What is the song "Enslaved Cadavers" about, and what inspired it? (a book, a movie, or something you made up?)

VIC: You'd have to ask Dementor - he wrote almost all the lyrics on that one. It sounds to me just like a story of the dead rising back to life at Satan's call to fight on his side in Armageddon.
13.DARK RECOLLECTIONS: Any last words, comments? Thanks for the interview...

VIC: Drink Whiskey, eat beef, hail satan, and thanks for the interview
for DEATHBEAST samples visit:
www.myspace.com/deathbeast

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