GAMMACIDE
RICK PERRY
Gammacide was a shortlived band that only released one full length-album called Victims of Science from 1989. They gigged with Dark Angel, Exodus, Rigor Mortis, Watchtower, Kreator, Angkor Wat, Hexx, Acridity, Sacred Reich, Death, Morbid Angel and many more. I have spoken with guitarist Rick Perry.
We can begin with a small presentation of Gammacide...
Gammacide was a band that I formed with bassist Eric Roy. We had been in one of the first metal bands in Dallas called Warlock. Gradually we became more inspired by hardcore punk and these brand new bands called Exciter, Raven, Venom and Metallica. Around 1986 Warlock split up, leaving Eric and I without a drummer or vocalist. We started searching for other members and within about 6 or 8 months we had found Jamey Milford on drums and Varnam Ponville on vocals. Musically, we continued on the path we were on when Warlock disbanded, but we took it in a more science-fiction type vibe.
Is it true that two weeks after your first gig you opened up for Watchtower and Rigor Mortis?
Yes that was an excellent way for Gammacide to introduce our new band to all the die-hard headbangers and speed metal freaks in Dallas. Both Watchtower and Rigor Mortis had opened up for Warlock the year before, and when they heard about our new project, they asked us to play with them on a concert they advertised as “The Heaviest Night of Your Life.” It was at the Arcadia Theater on Greenville Avenue in Dallas, which was a very prestigious venue.
Your first demo Gammacide from 1987, It was produced by Jerry Abbott, father of Vince and Darrell Abbott of Pantera? Tell us about it
Jerry Warden was the vocalist for Warlock, and he knew Pantera quite well. He promoted some of their earliest gigs, and I remember Darrell coming over to the Warlock shack to buy weed. Darrell and Vinnie’s father ran Pantego Studios and Pantera had recorded their early records there. So when Warlock did a demo, we did it there also.
Later on, when it was time for Gammacide to record our tunes, we returned to Pantego and so Jerry engineered the session again. He was very cool to us back then, even though he was mainly a country and western producer he understood metal because he was exposed to so much of it from his sons. So for Eric and I it was our third time in the recording studio, for Varnam and Jamey it was their first. We recorded five songs in one day and came back a day or two later to mix it.
Your first demo spread quite well?
We took the extra step of having a professional sleeve printed up for the demo cassette and YES it took off like crazy! We sold tons of them at local and out-of-town shows and then we started sending them to underground magazines including Metal Forces, Kerrang!, and Aardshok. After these mags printed favorable reviews on Gammacide, we soon got people from all over the world wanting to purchase our demo. From about 87 to 88 I probably was sending two or three tapes out every single day, sometimes more.
How did you get in contact with Wild Rags Records?
Richard C was selling our demo at his store in Los Angeles. My parents lived out there at the time so when I went to visit them I stopped by his shop. He talked about the other albums he was releasing like Bloodcum and Recipents of Death. I asked if he would release Gammacide and he was all over it. At that point the other labels we talked with like Combat, Metal Blade, and Roadrunner all wanted us to give them another demo so we decided to take a chance with Wild Rags. It turned out Victims of Science was one of the fastest selling Wild Rags releases of all.
In 1990 Victims of Science was released. How do you feel about it in retrospect?
Honestly, I like it a lot better now than I did back then! When we had just finished it, I was too close to really evaluate it. All I thought about were the things that I wished I would have done differently. But now, I think it is pretty fucking good! I don’t think many other thrash albums have as much intensity and non-stop raging attitude as Victims of Science. It is 100% blazing heavy-as-fuck thrash metal from the first note to the last! The internet has really given Victims of Science a new audience as well. Of course there is a whole new younger generation who are interested in thrash metal, and to them, Gammacide is like a shocking discovery!
Metal Forces took a liking in Victims of Science, how was it to get attention from them?
Gammacide was featured in many, many underground fanzines in the late 80’s and early 90’s… I still have copies of many of them… Morbid Mag from Norway, Blackthorn, Aaarrgghh from New Zealand, Curious Goods, and many, many more… too many to remember them all. But of course Metal Forces was back then like Metal Hammer or Revolver is today… Metal Forces and Kerrang! Were the biggest metal mags available, and Metal Forces was focused more on the underground metal. So yeah, when they gave Victims of Science a rating of 85 Excellent and then followed that up the next issue with a full page feature, it surely gave us a good boost and helped increase our recognition throughout the metal underground.
Tell us about your Gammacide 91 demo...
We were happy to have an album out on Wild Rags records, but we were also hoping for a bigger label. We were talking with Century Media, Metal Blade, Combat, Steamhammer, Roadrunner, and anyone else we could think of. They all wanted to hear new material, they wanted to hear what direction we were headed after Victims of Science. We took a royalty payment from Wild Rags and went back to Sound Logic studios again. The 91 demo turned out to be heavier, faster, and certainly more brutal than our LP! These songs were largely written by Scott, whereas I had been the main riff writer on Victims of Science. Scott was on a roll at the time and came up with most of the music for “Crackdown,” “Forces of Nature” and “Ballistic” – I wrote a song that was somewhat inspired by grindcore, “Sex Cult”. Varnam and I collaborated on all of the lyrics together…
Why did Gammacide disband?
Towards the end of 91, going into early 92 the thrash metal era sort of quickly overexposed itself. There were too many mediocre thrash bands getting signed and the market was flooded with forgettable, bland thrash bands. At the same time, death metal and grindcore were becoming more popular, so the kids who were into the heavier stuff gravitated towards that style of metal. When we sent the 91 demo out to the labels, they liked the fact that the music was fast and heavy, but they wanted the vocals to be more in line with Death or Obituary.
At the same time, I was starting to become interested in industrial music like Godflesh, Ministry, and Skinny Puppy… I started a new band in that vein called Puncture. Puncture started off as just a side-project, but it quickly took off and became so successful that I started focusing on that more and more, and Gammacide kind of just faded out. When we played our last show, we didn’t know it was the last one…. we just slowly drifted apart.
Gammacide reformed and made a tour of Texas in 2006. You also wrote a few new songs then, what happened to those songs?
In the early 2000’s, I became interested in designing web pages. So I bought some software and started experimenting. I decided to put up a Gammacide web page after I googled our band and discovered so many people selling bootleg Gammacide music online. That led to me deciding to reissue Victims of Science along with the 91 demo. To make the package even more special, we got back together and recorded two Gammacide songs that we had played live back in the 90’s, but had never recorded.
I sold the CD’s through the website and it was a very successful release, we got great reviews and a whole new generation of fans. We decided to do a Texas tour to promote the CD. Scott and I were jamming a lot and we wrote several songs which we ended up playing live on that tour. At the time, we thought we would eventually record a new Gammacide CD, so we wrote about 7 or 8 songs back then. However, since two of the members of Gammacide lived outside of Texas, it made it too hard to hold the band together. Eventually Scott and I formed a group with Rigor Mortis vocalist Bruce Corbitt, which turned out to be Warbeast… but it started out with the name Texas Metal Alliance.
Tell us about Texas Metal Alliance...
Shortly after the Gammacide tour, a good friend of ours – Wayne Abney from the band Hammerwitch – was involved in a very bad motorcycle accident. Bruce from Rigor Mortis wanted to put together a benefit to assist with Wayne’s medical bills. He asked me if Gammacide could do it, but we had just done the tour and Varnam and Jamey were not available. Rigor Mortis couldn’t do it either, so Scott and I decided to join forces with Bruce… our plan was to play songs from both Rigor Mortis and Gammacide, along with other Texas metal bands like Rotting Corpse and Hammerwitch.
The benefit concert was a big success, and after it was over, Bruce, Scott and I didn’t want to stop… we kept it going, eventually renaming the project Warbeast. Several of the songs Scott and I had written for the possible Gammacide album were revamped and turned into some of Warbeast’s first original songs… so “The Controller,” “Plague at Hand,” “Unleashed,” “Self Will Run Riot” and “Krush the Enemy” all were originally intended for Gammacide.
What's the highlight of your career?
Man, that’s kind of hard – I’ve had a lot of great moments through my music. I’d have to kind of cheat and name one from each of my bands: for Warbeast, writing and recording Krush the Enemy and having Phil Anselmo produce it and release it on his own label was definitely one of the coolest things that ever happened to me, and the fact that it happened so late in my career was an unexpected and very cool twist. For Puncture, it would have to be the six week tour we did opening for GWAR –
I played for the biggest crowds I ever had before or since, and we kicked ass every night. But probably when it comes right down to it, it would be Gammacide’s Victims of Science record. I was proud of it at the time – but as the years go by, that record has gained a reputation as one of the most balls-out ballistic, no-holds barred thrash metal albums EVER – not by EVERYONE I realize, but it definitely has a devoted cult following, and it gets bigger every year. And that’s got to be my proudest accomplishment so far.
What's your plans for the near future?
Well, remember I was talking about my first band Warlock at the beginning of this interview? Now my career has come full circle, because Warlock vocalist Jerry Warden (who happens to be one of the godfathers of the Texas metal scene) and I are preparing to release some previously unreleased Warlock recordings, and have put together a live band that is going to deliver a full blown old school metal ASSAULT. We’ve also been writing new Warlock material, and eventually we hope to record and release that as well. So metal is in my blood, and I don’t think I will ever stop – my greatest joy in life comes from forging NEW METAL!
Have you got any funny story from your past?
I will tell you one from Warlock. Jerry and I were (and are) pretty hard headed and stubborn when it comes to our opinions. Back around 1985, we participated in a Battle of the Bands that was put on by a cable show called Dallas Music Video. The grand prize for the band that won this contest would be a full blown conceptual video, which was going to be submitted to MTV’s Basement Tapes. Well, out of 30 or 40 bands, over several months, Warlock won that battle of the bands. So DMV told us to choose one of our songs to do a video for. Jerry and I could not agree on which song to do the video for. The date for the video shoot arrived, and we had all our gear set up in a club, which we had packed with all of our fans – we were going to do one of those videos where it looks like we are rocking out in front of a rabid, moshing crowd, right?
The cameras were set up, the lights were set up, the director was telling the crowd what she needed them to do, we were all set – except Jerry and I still were arguing about which song we were going to do! We continued to argue all afternoon and past the time the video was supposed to be being shot…and because we could not compromise and settle our differences of opinion, the director finally came up to Jerry and I and said, “listen we’ve gotta go… if you guys ever get your shit together, call us…” And that was it, we didn’t get one second of footage, we packed up our stuff and went home. We had a chance to do a professional video for free and we blew it because we couldn’t agree on which song to do.
Any last words for our readers?
Jim, thanks for your interest in Gammacide. I tried to check out your site, but the link you sent me didn’t work… hopefully all is well. Anyway, stick to your guns, fuck the bullshit, and the cream of the crop will float to the top! Thrash hard and long! You can download Gammacide from our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/gammacide or CDBAby.com, itunes, amazon.com, or any of those outlets! Support the artists and fuck the bootleggers!
By/ Ruthless
(11-05-2014)
No comments:
Post a Comment