Audio By Carbonatix
Rigor Mortis were once “Condemned to Hell”–and irrelevance–but the Dallas metal legends have risen
By 1991, Rigor Mortis was through. The Dallas band didn’t just part ways–after signing with Capitol Records only five years before, they were booted off the popular music radar, along with most of their metal peers, by the grunge era. Members moved on to notable bands–lead guitarist Mike Scaccia would tear things up in Ministry and bassist Casey Orr joined famed hard-hitters like GWAR, the Hellions and the Burden Brothers–but after almost 15 years, RM reunites in the very same building that their career essentially began.
The Theatre Gallery (now the Galaxy Club) was just a ragtag art gallery in 1986, tucked in a desolate warehouse district called Deep Ellum. The Dallas death metal band had no idea what to expect from the venue at the time, as it wasn’t a typical metal spot, and the few hard rock clubs elsewhere in Dallas often insisted that bands play rote covers of hit rock songs. In fact, Rigor Mortis’ cross-town rival at the time, Pantera, regularly covered everyone from Aerosmith to ZZ Top.
But the band gave originals a shot at this new venue, the very same building where the New Bohemians, Rev. Horton Heat and the Buck Pets had played, and that dicey move to distance themselves from Dallas’ metal scene proved to be their major-label ticket out of town. Rachel Matthews, VP of A&R at Capitol, was in the crowd that night and offered a record deal on the spot. Within a year, the band opened for acts like Megadeth and Death Angel and rode the mainstream metal momentum built by Slayer’s Reign of Blood in 1987, yet the sudden rise didn’t result in any Behind the Music-style meltdowns.
“All of that stuff happened really fast,” Orr says. “We had been kind of isolationists, just keeping to ourselves, rehearsing and writing almost every day, not really aware of how the industry worked beyond what we were doing already. Then Michael Alago, the A&R guy from Elektra who signed Metallica, came to town one weekend and gave us a crash course on how the business worked. He took the time to give us the right kind of advice, to tell us the things we needed to know to see past just being a local band.”
RM survived with this advice, along with a willingness to reach beyond their chosen genre thanks to influences like Swans, Skinny Puppy and even Jane’s Addiction. These steps outside the meat-and-potatoes of metal have laid a foundation for a reunion–and a possible new album next year–as their unique musical attack still resonates with fans old and new so many years later.
“I can’t believe the response we’ve been getting from people on the Internet,” singer Bruce Corbitt says. “I get messages from kids who weren’t even born when the first album came out.”
Take that, Candlebox. –Jeff Liles
Prepare for an onslaught of pale, God-hating goths at Glen Danzig’s ultra-heavy festival