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The History Of DeceasedThe Early DaysAs told by King Fowley
When I recieved word of what had happened, it was close to six hours later. I was talking with a friend when my sister came in and told me that Mark was on the phone hysterical. I instantly went into shock when he told me what happened! As time went by I waited for Doug to piece his life back together as he and Mark had done for me during my drug troubles. We eventually got in touch and decided to go on with Deceased. We deeply felt that Rob would of wanted it that way. We started rehearsing and preparing new material as a three piece just like in the beginning. We played our first party in a year and a half to over 400 people and that's where we met Les. A friend introduced us to him and said he played bass. We met up with lots of different bands and made new friends along the way. Back on the home front we were writing a bunch of new songs that were going to continue the concept we had started on the last demo. Exactly a year after the last demo was released, we again booked time to record at Inner Ear Studios. We had just one thing on our minds, our best demo ever! We wanted to keep the clarity and crispness of the second demo's sound but return some of the raw edge that the debut tape had. Relapse Signs DeceasedDue to financial funds and still feeling a bit discouraged by our third demos sound, we decided to record away from Inner Ear Studios. Mark had a friend in Maryland that could get us a good deal at a 24 track studio called Oz. It was definitely a bad decision! It turned out to be and hour drive to get there and we had to record late at night till early in the morning. It affected all of our playing. We couldn't relax. We couldn't get it together. We were coming in at 10/11 P.M and staying until dawn. I'll never forget having to put down vocal tracks at 4:30 in the morning. When it was all over, the record sounded out of synch. The fuding increased between Doug and I during and after the studio, then it all came down. Doug Souther left the band in late 1990. The Blueprints EraWe went back out on the road to new states including Illinois, North Carolina, and the U.S death metal state of Florida. It was really nice to see and meet people who enjoyed our brand of musical mayhem. Eventually, we settled back down and started preparing for our next really important task, "The Blueprints For Madness". This was going to be our real test as a band. We needed to create a follow up to the E.P. that delivered on all cylinders musically, but we weren't going to jump the gun. We kept fine-tuning, changing, and even demoing new songs (something we had never really done in the past) to make sure they were 100% up to par. In the summer of '94, we returned to Inner Ear Studios with our best recording budget yet. We now had plenty of time to make sure this record was how we wanted it. "The Blueprints For Madness" is an album we spent a few years preparing throughout 1993, 1994 and 1995, in one practice room after another! We had no 'set' homebase to practice at the time. We were jamming in friends basements, rented storage spaces, and about anywhere with electricity! We were coming off "The Thirteen Frightened Souls" E.P and were ready to make a really bizarre and odd record. We think we did and it showed alot of sides to the band! We incorporated some keys, some really odd-timings and just let the pencil fly across the paper when creating. With a title like "The Blueprints For Madness", it should be no other way. I personally was really into ELP at the time and was throwing so many changes and weird time signatures into the percussion. It was wayyy busy for a Deceased record up to then. We wanted to change somewhat our approach for this record! The songs I think over time have held up nicely. Stuff like "Morbid Shape In Black", "The Creek Of The Dead", "Mind Vampires" and the live favorite "The Triangle" still sound 'fresh' today! It's fourteen years now since the record was recorded and it's nice to venture back at a time of the band when we were really growing as songwriters and just letting our ideas unfold how they did. An instrumental still exsits we did for the album entitled "A Dose Of Reality." It was set to appear on the remix version but listening back we see why it wasn't used the first time either. It's a good song but poorly played and not up to par with the album. One day maybe we will re-record it and unleash another 'round of lunary'. Incuded on the remix is the Doors cover "Not To Touch The Earth"! It appears as it was originally mixed and recorded during the "The Blueprints For Madness" sessions. The Fearless EraWhere do I begin with talk of "Fearless Undead Machines"? Considered by many to be our best record/finest moment/ect., to me honestly it's a damn good album from us and the storyline and concept really came together well! After writing and recording "The Blueprints For Madness" in 1995, the band stepped away to gather our thoughts and figure out what were our strengths and our weaknessess as a writing force. We're all from the old school sound of heavy metal and loved incorporating these ideals into our sound. We were focusing on the arrangements and melodies more then ever. We loved epic tracks and wanted to create what we hoped would be some of our own. We still loved the speed and aggression, but also wanted to include traditional time changes a bit more and just better our choruses and song structures in general. Mike Smith told us from the get go he wrote his best material with inspirtation from the old metal sounding ways. We realized this was where we were at and that this is where we wanted to go musically in late 1995-96! Mike and I had thought of making the album one long song, 50 minutes in length at least. But then we decided to make it a bunch of songs all brought together as one massive entity. So off we were, as Mike and I sat down in my house on 10th Street in Arlington, VA. and started writing and arranging what would become "The Silent Creature"! As we jammed I heard hints of Maiden's "Wasted Years" in the opening riff and then it took a Venom-like sounding turn. We were off and running!!! It pretty much wrote itself there and then, and we knew we were on to something special. I told the band I was reliving and recreating the demo days storyline of the end of the world as told through one man's mind. The struggle of losing friends and family, thinking you've lost touch with reality, and finally having to accept the maddness that was the dead returning to life and that the world was quickly becoming a feeding ground and tombs anywhere and everywhere! We talked of all our favorite zombie flicks and I told them that all the horror films were obviously going to influence me willingly or not. I told them it was to be called "Fearless Undead Machines", a title I don't really know where popped into my head, but it fit perfectly!!! We spent many, many months writing and rewriting songs for the record. We did demos a few songs at a time at the then brand new Oblivion Studios, which is run by a friend of ours. I had set up an 8-track recorder in my basement rehearsal space where we wrote this entire record and we recorded every practice we did! It gave me time to break away and really delve into the structures of the songs after every jam we had. It was easy to get deep into this record as I'd spent so much thought and time on the concept years earlier with the "Birth By Radiation" and "Nuclear Exorcist" demos of 1988 and 1989. I wanted to update it and I had some new turns in the tale, but overall it was what I always wanted it to be, fictional and in some ways, non-fiction at the same time. The songs were coming in at a steady pace. Everyone in the band was contributing tenfold. Everyone was steady on the home front and the power within the band was devastating. We wrote an instrumental piece that was loosely inspired by "Irrealta Di Suoni" by the incredible Italian band Goblin from the film "City of the Living Dead" a.k.a "The Gates of Hell"! It really gave the feeling we wanted in the storyline and we were very pleased. We wanted an in-your-face, shorter, gore inspired tune, which Mark and I put together called "Graphic Repulsion". New songs were pouring out of us, and everyone was contributing greatly. We were about halfway done writing the record when we kind of hit a wall. We just stopped writing for a while and stepped back from it all. This project was to be mammoth and the story was indeed at the turning point. But, as soon as we realized we'd hit that wall it seemed suddenly "The Psychic" basically wrote itself too, and after a slight slowdown we were off and running again. We fine-tuned stuff and altered bits and pieces throughout the entire project. Things could seem perfect for a song then one day suddenly feel wrong and in need of a slight change or alteration. People always ask me if the album was written in order of the storyline and track listing placements, they weren't. It all came together in segments and over a long bit of time. It worked best that way, though by coincidence "The Silent Creature" was the first song written and "Destiny" the last! Finally around mid 1996 it was complete! Now it was time to record it! We wanted to go to our friend Mike Bossier's studio Oblivion Studios in upper Marlboro, Maryland to do the fill lp. He had taken it from a 8 track studio to a 24 track studio, and built it up nicely in a year's time. Finally, we passed the tapes over to Relapse Records and got to work on artwork. I wanted something zombie traditional obviously, yet with it's own personality. Relapse sent ideas and even a few pieces of art. They all stunk! Scissor handed robot cadavers was one thing sent, and I knew Relapse had no clue what we wanted and we were going to be in for a hard time here. Wes Benscoter who had done a great job on "Blueprints" was finally mentioned again to do it. Wes and I talked and I thought we were on the same page with an idea I had. But he'd fax me sketches and it would be way off what I wanted and what we had talked of. It sadly got tougher to work with him over time. He was becoming more a popular artist now and he kind of had a poor working attitude about the project suddenly. Finally he did what is the finished artwork after Relapse spoke up to him and said we needed completion on this. While some folks love the artwork, I have never been happy at all with it. I wanted so much more! It looks rushed, contrived and just basically average at best! I knew after this ordeal Deceased would never work with Benscoter again! But it is what it is and that's all I'll say about it. With band pics taken by at a run down house in Fredricksburg, Virginia, a cover art now added in with "scrathes" to the artwork to make it seem as if it was an old piece of film from a long lost movie, and the traditional band thanks list and a lyric sheet. The cd was laid out and completed. The record first came out on an advanced cassette tape to radio and magazine via Relapse promotional department. I got a lot of phone calls, postal mail and even faxes from media and people asking for inerviews and saying they really like the record and enjoyed the concept behind it. They thought Deceased had never sounded better. When the record finally hit the streets it had a nice bit of push already behind it, it did really well sales wise and behind some good promotion from Relapse, some high profile gigs and some baseball jersey shirts with the albums motif, it was a good day for the "FEARLESS UNDEAD MACHINES" era of the band. A question asked a lot by supporters of the band's music is "Was the record ever played in its entirety live?". And the answer is no! We came very close at a gig one time, playing all of it straight through minus "Contamination" and "From the Ground They Came". I personally would love to do the entire record live with all the intros/outros, and the entire production of the record. One day this may happen! It would be really fun and could be pretty wild visually as well if we added in some theatrics! Many times I've brought out zombie masks and smoke machines and fog lights and even a coggin for songs from record, and it's always gone over great. But to do an extravaganza for the record live would just be something I'd love for the band to do. Speaking of visuals, the album is actually in the early stages of becoming a full blown movie. Yes, you read that right. Some friends from Chicago and long time Deceased freaks are working with me on putting together a very haunting and dark movie to go with the concept and music of "Fearless Undead Machines". It's very early in the game but we will make it reality, so keep an eye out for that! As for the also always asked question "Will there be a sequel to the record?", the answer is maybe! I don't want it to just happen to happen, but if it feels right both timing and mentally, it may one day unfold. I'd like to close this out thanking all those involved with making this record over a decade ago. The band, who busted their ass crafting at the time our finest album to date. Mike and Oblivion Studios for the patience and tremendous help. Jim Barnes for his guidance, energy and creativity, wherever you are these days I hope you're smiling and doing well, GET IN TOUCH! Our families, our friends, our horror movie and musical influences. Everyone and everything that helped us to create and unleash this zombie tale. Many, many thanks for the memories! Supernatural AddictionSupernatural Addiction started off with a shout from me 'this new record is based on ghost stories and horror tales'!!! The band loved the idea and off we went to create it. I had ideas swimming in my head to have each song introduced by a narrator ala 'Tales From The Crypt'. I really wanted to get the guy who was the voice of thousands of '70's horror movie trailers, Percy Rodriguez to be the one. I realized early on that wasn't happening as he was in his '80's and very ill. I kept the idea in the back of my head and hoped it would work it self out. With all the ideas in place, the writing came together very easy and very quickly this time. We were snug writing and rehearsing in my basement with recorders always rolling and capturing it all to tape. I noticed alot of melodies and dark edges to all of it and it really all wrote itself very nicely. No setbacks or slow periods writing this record! The songs really seemed to fit very nicely from music to storyline! It seemed we had alot of traditional metal ideas more so this go 'round. It wasn't as fast as past Deceased records but this time the songs didn't call for it as much. I loved the vibe we were creating and everyone was in great form with ideas. After about a year of writing it, demoing it at Oblivion Studios, it was finally complete and it was time to pick a producer and get on with recording this horror show. We knew we were going back to Oblivion Studios but it wasn't going to be Jim Barnes this time. We talked with Relapse and Simon Efemy's name was mentioned. We had known he'd done work with Napalm Death and Paradise Lost and it had sounded really good production wise. I talked via the phone with him and he seemed really into what our ideas for it were, so he was hired! Simon arrived the night before the recording and came to my house and watched us jam the entire LP in the basement! He made suggestions on a few arrangements (both this night and during recording) and we all went out and ate and talked of how we'd approach this all piece by piece! Simon was put up at a hotel a block from the studio in Maryland and we all met at 11 a.m the day of recording. The recording budget would give us 10 days to record and mix. We got off to a great start and laid down drum tracks in the first 2 days. The guitars came along very nicely as did the vocals. When it came time to mix it all we got a wicked call from mother nature. A storm came through and knocked out power to the studio for 3 complete days. We couldn't do a thing more! Now we were gonna be behind schedule. We also had an ongoing story that the local legend 'the Goat Man' was around the studio and watching us, we even made a short spoof film of it which you can see on youtube! This kept us busy on down time! We waited and waited and after 70 hours, the electric finally came back on! We were far from ready when power actually did return spending the last three days goofing off, drinking and talking about only British bands (the rules of the LP recording were only UK bands shirts could be worn during the sessions and we could only talk british bands, producer Simon is British!) and watching porn films from the vaults of the studio! We basically had lived there for three days just waiting for the power so we'd be ready to get right back to it! We got back to it and the professionalism really arose then. We brought in a girl we had met at a Motley Crue tribute band gig a few nights earlier. She laid down the female voice on 'a Very Familiar Stranger'. I added keys as we went song to song, the mix was ready to be done. We took it song by song and made it happen! We finished on time and on budget! It sounded great and everyone was pleased at what we had achieved in such a short time! The narrator idea never surfaced but I keep it in mind for another record at another time! Every thing we had wanted to get on tape was there otherwise! Simon took the finished record to the u.k and mastered it and we turned it into Relapse in January 2000. A problem soon arose, the samples we had wanted for 'Elly' were not cool by movie label Artisan and we had to drop the spoken intro from the song. To this day no one realizes we left on the sampled screams from the movie under the finale. I was bummed a bit but it had to go that way! The artwork came from artist Allen Koszowski, a man I met at horror conventions many times. I loved his art and he was very ready to produce the cover art. He had some health issues and was color blind so he couldn't do it in color. He gave me a black and white finished cover and i passed it on to the Relapse art department who did a great job 'coloring it in' and creating the CD layout as if it was an old book! We had one more run in with Artisan and the Blair Witch, which at this point of time was huge worldwide. We had the stick figure symbol drawn in the cover along with other hints of storylines on the record! Relapse said that it had to go! No way would Artisan allow it on the art at this time! ughhhhhhh... Ok that's that, produce it to CD and unleash it to the world.
Behind The Mourner's VeilAfter the success and good times of "Supernatural Addiction" it was time to keep it going while it was hot as the label put it. Relapse wanted something else from us and quick! No way were we gonna throw a new LP together just to get another product out there, so I talked with Matt at Relapse and we decided on an e.p! He said $1,500.00 was the budget and I want at least 7 songs. Now to me 7 songs is an album and we didn't have time for that, nor would $1,500.00 be even close to enough money to record!!! We decided half new songs, half covers. The band was in a fast mood. We wanted some speedier tunes to fulfill our thrash loving needs so we decided this would be a thrash orienated ep! We took off for Christmas vacation 2000 with nothing and I asked the guys to bring riffs to the table first of the new year. Well when we got back, no one had a thing, nothing! I was pretty upset I remember. We had a deadline and we had nothing. Relapse was pestering me to 'get it written' and I was the one in the line of fire! This was the first time we had faced pressure to jump into something. We didn't like the feeling and it really kinda unsettled us. We yelled a bit at each other (realizing the 'get it done' ways of Relapse were the cause of the argument) and then got to work and came up quickly with 2 rippers in 'It's Alive' and 'The Mausoleum'. We had a longer song in mind to be the third and final new cut this time. I was really into the WM3 murders at the time and I decided to write my angle on the crimes. The final song became a 5 part longer number that actually came together nicely! I was shocked because at this time my house on 10th street was sold and we now rented a practice space full of shit gear and a shit sounding room. We sure enough could produce when cornered but we didn't like this way at all. We then thought about cover songs! How many? What bands? We decided on recording D.R.I.'s 'Reaganomics' because we used to cover it in the mid 80's at parties. 'Zombie attack' from Tankard was a natural as we had joked after "Fearless Undead Machines" came out that it should be the 'bonus' track for japan CD release! The next two weren't as easy! We had everything from 'Plunging to Megadeath' from Hallows Eve, 'Demons' from Rigor Mortis to 'Death Valley 69' from Sonic Youth (we had toyed with this idea as far back as "Blueprints For Madness"), None seemed right! We went with 'Deathrider' from Anthrax as it was a song we all loved and felt we could do justice too. It was odd as we have hated Anthrax as a band for many years but always hold a special place in our hearts for 'Fistful of Metal', their one great record! The last song sat and sat and sat. What would we record??? Finally I was jamming singles one day and put on Warfare's "New Age of Total Warfare". It seemed perfect! IT WAS!!! OK let's learn 'em! Mark sat down and figured them all out and we rolled through them over a couple weeks time. Time to record! Limited funds, so let's be ready! Oblivion Studios awaited us! We went in and laid alot of it direct to tape. There wasn't alot of time for punch ins or overdubs. I tuned my snare high to cut through the mix (too high actually) and hopefully save in mixing time. I shot through the entire vocals for the record in a few hours! Everyone was prepared and it showed. We made sure we had time for the cowbell part on 'Deathrider' and I mixed it all down in a one night session! I do believe the whole thing was done in 4-5 days start to finish! It came out as good as we could of hoped and Relapse was pleased. The art again came from Allen Koszowski who rushed a piece for me! The rushing by now was on all our nerves heavily. Music means too much to all of us and we were now starting to cut corners and hurrying things. Not good at all!!! The e.p came out to mostly good reviews and the band continued on in the public eye. We awaited a promised upcoming tour and new merchandise for the record. This never came to be. Matt bitched and moaned and stumbled through lies for no reason at all except he and Relapse had dropped the ball after we did our part and delivered. No tour, no merch, ALL LIES! That was it for us, we'd had enough. We had a band meeting and really thought how far and fast Relapse had shit on us and the working conditions had become terrible and everything from them was now a headache. Even getting through to talk with Matt on the phone was impossible suddenly. I am the 'business' side of Deceased when it need be so I know first hand all the hassles and nonsense and hoops I personally had to jump through to even attempt to keep things moving forward! Having to keep the band in check wasn't easy either. They were all disappointed at what was and had gone down! UGHHHHHHH, enough was enough! We had new ideas on the horizon and none of them included Relapse Records anymore! We cannot stand bullshit and lies on any level and this was all we were getting now! Bye bye Relapse Records, thanks for the memories! Information submitted by King Fowley |
The band Deceased means an awful lot to me! Not only is it one of the most important things in my life, but it is also a creative outlet to give our musical share to the heavy music world as well. I co-founded Deceased along with Doug Souther and Mark Adams in early '85. We had grown up listening to all the heavy matal greats such as 
Marcel Dosantos who could keep a steady beat so we asked him to join up. We tried all kinds of musical styles. Slow and heavy, fast and aggressive, nothing wasn't attempted. It seemed that Doug, Mark and I really enjoyed the "faster than the speed of light" style, while Marcel preferred the more traditional heavy matal approach. We quickly saw that Marcel was losing interest in the band and eventually he left. It really didn't affect us though, I was already playing his drums at practice when he wasn't around and was constantly thinking about making the switch to drums anyway. After the switch we started getting more serious as a band. We were without a bassist but we were becoming a decent unit as a three piece. We cut a few rehearslas and even played a few parties. I was the singer as well but I hadn't mastered the skills of playing drums and singing at the same time so we just played instrumental for the time being. We were doing covers by bands such as 
He was a headbanging freak who always came to our shows and one night we noticed he was playing 
We got his phone number and went on with our set, which included Les diving off our amps. We called him a few days later and he came up to our practice spot which was at my house. He arrived with an amp bigger then him and an eager attitude towards learning our songs. He instantly was in time with what we wanted to do musically, even if he was about four years younger than any of us. We only tried one other bass player out besides Les but when he started putting "funk", slap bass over our tunes the choice was obvious. We taught Les a bunch of Deceased "standards" just to get him worked into the band and then began writing our new demo. The song came together as a concept dealing with the classic tale of the dead returning to life through man's scientific errors. We called the tape simply "
The demo was named "
Mark, Les and I knew it was coming, we just didn't know exactly when it would. We instantly regained our thoughts. Mark called in another old friend from shows named Mike Smith to give it a go on guitar and somehow it all worked out great. Within weeks we were playing out again. We introduced the locals to Mike at the infamous "Deathbash" house, where he played his first Deceased show to a bunch of insane, drunk death heads. And he handled it all to perfection. It was the start of a new era for Deceased. Meanwhile, 
The remix I did for the record in 2004 was done for many reasons. The main reason being the horrid first mix and recording we got from the sessions. We had produced the record ourselves and at the time that was a really bad move! We figured we knew ourselves best and just flew with it. 
He had good rates, we knew him well, and it wasn't too far from our homestead overall. We also wanted a producer to come in after the last lp fiasco and help us out. We were offered Jim Barnes from the west coast fresh off damn good productions for Mindrot and Morgion. I talked with him on the phone for a few hours one night and felt he could help us out. He was flown in and was to stay with us for the recording. I'll never forget this hippie like blonde haired guy coming off the plane in the terminal cranking up a boom box radio of the Deceased rehearsal tapes we had mailed him two weeks back. It was helpful indeed to have him there, though Jim did have his downside "producer moments". He threw a shoe at Mike one time because a guitar part wasn't what he wanted. He yelled at me VERY LOUDLY because I ate cereal one morning on a vocal recording day and he screamed the milk would mess my throat up! He was outlandish and crazy, but he indeed helped us a lot. One of my favorite "goof off" memories of the sessions was when I was sitting on the studio floor in just candlelight at 1 a.m in headphones to record the voice over for "Contmination". The studio ws crudely set up like and old 1930's horror film for the right mood and the other guys were in the control room listening as I recorded the track. Well, Jim decided to sneak out the side door and come down the stairs with his jacket over his head during a take and scare the hell out of me. He indeed succeeded! All was going so good 'til Jim had family issues back home near the end of the sessions and had to leave early back to the west coast. The last two days he was there he was having lover spats with his wife constantly on the phone. It really made his mood go poor! He had left two days early for California and Mike Bossier and I were left to finish the mix and sequence the lp, which has no stops throughout the hour long record. Mike and I worked all night for the next few days and finished it! I passed on the tapes to the band and all were pleased except Mark who didn't like my extra keyboards on "Contamination" I had put in, it just didn't work for him. As the music was his completely on this piece I felt it only right to give him final say on this. I went back on my own dollar and the keys were taken out and the song left "as is" and Mike Bossier and I sequenced the record a second time (we weren't using pro tools or really any editing help. We laid a song as a track then the next song or piece as the next track and bounced the machines back and forth from start to finish onto dat 'til it was done).
We had plenty of ghost stories and weird tales to choose from. I knew Poe's 'The Tell Tale Heart' was gonna be in there. As was the classic 'Hitchhiker' tale! I then thought about segments and stories in books and in film that really stayed with me. The Trilogy of Terror doll had to have a song! That Karen Black classic has always been a favorite of mine. I went with 'Frozen Fear' from the British Amicus horror anthology 'Asylum' when chopped up body parts come back from the dead and take care of the persons who put them there. I wanted a Twilight Zone story in there for sure and decided on the 'Twenty Two' episode and the deadly premonition that plagues the woman throughout. There was so many ideas, but I had to stop at some point and get it down to 8 stories! I wanted to do a song on the film 'Burnt Offerings'! That film has been one of my most creeped out feelings in a film since I first saw it in 1976 at the age of eight at the Arlington theatre. It was going to be the epic closer for the album. It never surfaced though because right when we started writing the final song for the LP a movie came and just took all of our souls.. 'The Blair Witch Project'! It was the summer of 1999 and that film just seemed to bring the 'bogeyman' back to all of us and our childhood fears. I HAD to write a song about the film and tale of Elly. 'Elly's Dementia' was born!!!!
It came out February 2000 to some damn good reviews. People really liked the story lines and enjoyed the latest output from Deceased. A few dumb folks thought the melodies were us 'cashing in ' on In Flames and melodic death bands of the time, we laughed as it had nothing to do with that at all!!! Relapse marketed us as fighters of the old school of metal and keepers of the flame or some nonsense. We did a short tour with label mates Exhumed, Cephalic Carnage, and Origin, and various other gigs on and off all year. We were proud as hell at all that the l.p did for us on and off stage!!! Looking back here in 2010 I still find this record to be my favorite Deceased record. I love the way it all came together and I think the terror tales work good with what we are about musically. I love the choruses and I love the playing. I'm sure we'll be revisiting the idea of horror tales within the band on an album in the coming future, it really sits close in my heart :)