It's probably fair to suggest that we here at DC9 have been on a bit of a metal kick as of late. But who can blame us, for this? Recent shows from The Deftones, Graveyard and Testament, to go along with ear-busting discoveries and all kinds of Mastodon news has made many of our metal jeans get extra tight in all the right spots.
When you add the significant metal news on both a local and national scale, there are more than enough reasons to follow a few simple rules on how to really delve into metal music.
If that hasn't been enough to sate our thirst for doom and cranked amps, Decibel Magazine's latest issue has really sent our Dallas-metal minds screaming. In the new issue, on newsstands and online now, metroplex masters Rigor Mortis' self-titled 1988 album are inducted into the magazine's Hall of Fame alongside legendary albums such as Motörhead's Ace of Spades, Metallica's ...And Justice for All and Slayer's Reign in Blood. That's not bad, given the magazine covers a wide range of "extreme" music and has just released its 102nd issue.
The real, and poignant, highlight here, however, is the involvement of deceased guitarist Mike Scaccia.
The magazine's story accompanying their HoF induction, written by Adem Tepedelen, is made up of enlightening first-hand accounts of the landmark album's creation from Bruce Corbitt, Casey Orr, Harden Harrison, and indeed, Scaccia. Such is enough to raise the hair on one's arms as each of Scaccia's colorful quotes roll off the page. Scaccia died a few months after the interview for the article took place in December during a show celebrating Corbitt's 50th birthday at The Rail Club in Fort Worth.
While the full article isn't available on the magazine's website, here are a couple Dallas-specific gems that will make any North Texas metal fan nostalgic for big hair and bigger riffs.
Scaccia on how the band wound up on Capitol Records: "It's pretty crazy, isn't it? From what I remember, there was a show at the Longhorn Ballroom, Megadeth was playing. Me and my singer, Bruce, decided, 'Hey, man, we need to be on that show.' So we went down there to meet the guy promoting it, and his name was Jeff Liles. We gave him our demo and he freaked out on it and put us on the bill immediately. That [show] was the first introduction to Capitol, because Megadeth was on Capitol."
Scaccia on what he remembers about recording the debut album for Capitol at Dallas Sound Lab: "We had the studio from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and Stevie Ray Vaughan had it from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., so I would run into him quite frequently walking down the hallways. That was pretty cool. We rented out the whole entire complex, so we had it to ourselves. That was right around when Nintendo came out, so we had a big-screen TV set up watching horror movies, playing Nintendo, with all the beer and barbecue you could want. We were smoking tons of weed and doing tons of speed and tons of coke. We were writing our names with it on the mixing console. It was classic shit. It was just a big, fun party for us. I know we should have probably taken it a little more seriously, but you can't take yourself too seriously."
That's but a small sampling of the memories of Scaccia, not to mention the thoughts of the other key players. While Scaccia will certainly live on in many hearts of his fans, the album that was perhaps his seminal work will have a bit of immortality of its own right as well.
