.Total.Fucking.Slam. III

In death metal history there has been a multitude of powerful vocalists but only a handful have stood out that have established the foundation for future vocalists. Death Metal demands a powerful and energetic front-man that can command the crowd with the highest of mastery and deliver a devastating lyrical onslaught that can annihilate the masses. The vocalist is one of the most important and most integral components of any death metal band and I believe that Frank Rini was one of these people. He was the reason for Internal Bleeding's evolution into higher levels of intensity and supreme display of brutality. This is what death metal is suppose to be all about. Once again, it is with great honor that I now present to you Frank Rini's recollection of his experience in New York Death Metal and Internal Bleeding.

Its time to feast on the flesh of man... -Lou









I was the vocalist for Internal Bleeding from 1994-1997. I was there for the beginning of New York Death Metal. It all really started out with bands playing thrash metal and then shortly after bands began to get heavier and faster. I attended tons of shows back in the day. I saw Carcass open up for Death and many of the greats. I remember seeing Suffocation play when they were unsigned along with Winter who were a incredible doom/death band that played the slowest music possible. When I first saw Suffocation back in 1989, I was like what the hell is this! It was not something that I had ever heard before and they were pretty raw back then but the vocals, for me, stood at the most significant, since I always wanted to be in a band. I would go to shows at the Sundance and supported the local scene. You had Apparition, who later became Sorrow, Human Remains from New Jersey always played, as well as Ripping Corpse from New Jersey and then you also had Pyrexia and Immolation. Talk about a show at Sparks on the Island! In one night it was Immolation, Suffocation, Pyrexia and Human Remains. I bought the Pyrexia demo, Human Remains and tons of Suffocation and Immolation shit. I believe that Pyrexia and Suffocation are the pinnacle of the slam death metal. Shows were not always packed, which was a shame but we all pitted and stage diving was mandatory. Back in the early 90' no one gave a shit about that, no bouncers, nothing. I had a blast. I had long hair and had a denim jacket with Entombed's Left Hand Path airbrushed on the back and I would mosh while smoking the biggest cigars. The scene was united at that point. I would go to shows with my friends the McGuirk brothers and Bill Tolley, who went on to drum for IB. I went away to college in 1992 and when I came back, I would go back to the shows and growl. One day at a sparks show, Bill said that I should be a singer, but I had to finish college first. I saw Internal Bleeding first open for Cannibal Corpse and Sinister in 1993. I bought the “Invocation of Evil” demo from Chris Pervelis and hung out with him for a while. I loved their show and thought the pit was pretty devastating. Never had a death metal band create so many breakdowns but still play death metal and not hardcore. When I graduated from college in the summer of 1994, I went to Slipped Disc Records near my house, and saw that Internal Bleeding were looking for a new singer. Chris Pervelis came over to my house and we talked for a while and I had to learn “Prophet of the Blasphemes” and “Anointed in Servitude” from the “Perpetual Degradation” EP demo that was due to be released in about 2 months. It was tough and my vocals were raw, but the band liked what I had to offer. Anthony Miola was really pushing me to hold out the growls longer and was killing me in the rehearsals, but in the long run it made me better. So I think it was after the 3rd try-out that they basically said they wanted me in the band and I went home and shaved my head. I had a shaved head in college, but grew it back. When I was first trying out for Internal Bleeding they were probably going to say that this alternative hairstyle had to go, but I knew all along if I got in I was shaving my head. They loved the look and then I had to learn all the songs from both demos. We headed out that summer and played the Milwaukee Metal Fest, some other Midwest shows then we went up to Canada and tore it up. The scene was tight and I had become friends with Mortician, Afterbirth, Necrosis and a lot of other NY bands. I received a great reaction from the fans and they liked my live rants where I told people to rip up the floorboards and I wanted to see body bags get carried out of the club. I bought a cordless microphone and sang in the pit for probably 2/3 of the shows. I loved the community and I was such a supporter of the scene that I would buy everything in site.


Pavement Records enjoyed our Milwaukee Metal Fest performance and signed us. We reworked some older demo songs and coupled them with the newer songs that were released on the “Voracious Contempt” full-length. The purpose of my vocals was to growl but to punctuate and make at least some of what I was growling to be understandable—I think that I achieved that to some degree. Pavement Records did not like the original recording mix of the first album and sent it to Scott Burns for remixing that compressed everything. I actually still have the original “Voracious Contempt” mix on a crappy cassette tape. The guitars were more upfront in the original mix, but in reality the Scott Burns mix was better. The original was just too raw and did not sound as tight. It sounded a little sloppy (I just listened to it last year). It was my first time in a recording studio and some may say the overall sound did not capture our live sound fully. But, hey back in 1995 for a first full-length recording, I think that “Voracious Contempt” sounds pretty good still. They got the tape to Chris Barnes who was now singing with Six Feet Under and I spoke to Chris at Milwaukee and he liked it. We got booked on the Six Ft Under “Haunted Tour” with Immolation. It was an amazing experience. We sold tons of merchandise and met all our friends that we had been keeping in touch with. There were no emails back then and I remember-all snail mail. After that tour I did some vocals on Immortal Suffering's second demo, along with Kelly from Deathrune and also did vocals for Dystopia 1 on their second record. Things were going really well. We then started to write “Extinction of Benevolence” in between playing shows. The music was getting heavier and I was had began to experiment with my vocals more. I had been taking vocal lessons before the tour because I was having problems with my throat. The teacher trained Tony Bennett. He was this little old guy who thought I was insane to be singing death metal. But, he helped me out and I never had a problem ever again. I learned to do the inhale growling singing and hold my growls for over 2 minutes and I incorporated that onto the second record. The problem at this time, around 1996, was that I had moved down to Maryland to live with my girlfriend, who is now my wife. Playing shows was not happening a lot and I could not get to New York as much as I wanted to since I was working and supporting myself. Yes, you can say this was the old cliche of a chick breaking a band apart. What was I to do? I worked on my vocals really hard and I think they came out great on “Extinction of Benevolence.” They carried a lot more range and were angry sounding. The music was killer too and it was so heavy. The production was marred by Anthony, who was listening to a lot of rap and wanted to put 808 bass drops everywhere. The album is overloaded with those bass booms. I guess you can say that we were the first death metal band to do that. Now, “deathcore” bands do it all the time. But “Extinction of Benevolence” is the first record to include those sonic bass parts and that was back in 1997. Once “Extinction of Benevolence” was recorded, I was promoted at the Correctional Facility that I was working at and knew that my days in the band were over. I went up to New York and had a nice steak dinner and smoked cigars at Chris Pervelis’ house. We both had tears in our eyes because he and I were close friends. When I told the rest of the band that I was leaving, they were upset and Anthony was pretty angry that he even tried to get my vocals removed from the recording. Let's just say that he and I had a little talk and he understood how important the vocals were to me and they were left alone. By this point I was a little bitter. The band had been sued for $10 million. It was a ridiculous lawsuit from someone that was hurt at an Internal Bleeding show. It turned out that I was named in the lawsuit, but the incident happened in early 1994, when I was not in the band. At the time, I was in upstate New York attending college. I had to shell out over $2000 to clear my name, while some of the other members in Internal Bleeding did not put in any money. So I was a little bitter, but that is not why I left, it was because of the job and I knew it was not fair to the fans and the band. We parted on good terms. Ryan from Disfigured filled in for me when I left and then the band got Ray from Immortal Suffering to sing and he was also on the “Driven to Conquer” record. I knew my name was bad mouthed by some of the Internal Bleeding members for a while, but I still bought “Driven to Conquer” and thought it was a killer record. I loved Ray's vocals. A few years later, Chris Pervelis and I were back in touch and the summer of 2005 was the Maryland Death Fest where Chris was playing his last show with the band and wanted me to do some vocals. They had Jerry in the band at the time and he was cool with it. He complimented me by saying he could not really sing too much off “Extinction of Benevolence” because my phrasing was pretty complicated. That made me smile. I was introduced during Internal Bleeding's set and the place went wild! We ripped into “Languish in Despair” and the pit became an NY style pit instantly. I cried after the show, no one knows that. It brought back a lot of memories and I signed posted and autographed the entire weekend. Internal Bleeding then released “Onward to Mecca” and not a lot of people like it due to Jerry's hardcore style but I think Internal Bleeding released an amazing record with the best production they ever had. I loved Jerry's vocals on the record and think the songs were killer. Chris Pervelis and I then began talking of reforming the old band. I wrote an entire album worth of lyrics. Matt from the Illinois Death Fest had us headlining the 2007 summer death fest that we were planning to do, but I got another promotion at work and my wife was pregnant with our daughter. I could not do it. I know it pissed Chris Pervelis and Brian Hobbie off as well as Matt and a lot of fans. I felt really bad. I had memorized all the music from the first two Internal Bleeding albums again and was practicing at my house three times a week and my vocals sounded really good. Unfortunately, I was entering another new stage of my life in fatherhood and could not pursue the music. I tried to get into a metalcore band over here in Maryland about 5 years ago, but my vocals were too “heavy” for them. I still miss playing live and would love to do some singing again. I want to be back in a band that plays a form of Death Metal, but with alot of Grindcore influences. As a father of two and working in corrections for over 13 years now I have never stopped listening to death metal and Grindcore. I actually do love all the deathcore bands, maybe because they took a page or two out of the Internal Bleeding book. I love Whitechapel, I Declare War, Impending Doom, Suicide Silence, Oceano, Carnifex, Acacia Strain, Chelsea Grin, and Despised Icon. I do not like melodic Death Metal. The music has to be brutal as shit, whether it's Defeated Sanity from Germany, Tech bands like Braindrill, Origin, Gorod, Ulcerate, Fleshgod Apocalypse, or Grindcore like Defeatist, Captain Cleanoff, Wormrot, Misery Index, Mumakil, Squash Bowels, Napalm, Insect Warfare, and bands playing an older style like Asphyx, Hail of Bullets, etc. I still listen to the bands from the 1990's, and I still love Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Scattered Remnants, etc. My wife complains that at 38 years old I still buy records and shirts and ruin family pictures with my Pig Destroyer or Krisiun shirts. She knows it's a non-winning battle since Death Metal will always be in my blood. I will be 90 years old sick and decrepit but I will still listen to death metal.

Regarding Slam Death Metal, New York Style: Prime songs to listen to are Suffocation “Liege of Inveracity,” Pyrexia “God,” Internal Bleeding “Anointed in Servitude” or “Ocular Introspection,” Repudialtion, and Skinless. New York Death Slam music usually has a “rat a tat tat” type of blast beat that abruptly goes into a slow breakdown made to incite mass riots and violence. With respect to what we did, we loved the hardcore breakdowns of hardcore bands and incorporated that type of breakdown into the music that then had hardcore bands/fans loving us. I listen to a band like Braindrill and I love them, but seeing that live, not sure how that would translate. In a death metal band with slam, you are going to have group participation from the fans, where people are pitting and feed off the energy of the bands performance. New York Death Metal has influenced a lot of other countries. For example, Germany’s Defeated Sanity, are similar to a more brutal 1990's version of Suffocation and their slowdowns are NY Death Metal inspired, then you have Deranged From Sweden who used to incorporate a lot of NY Style influences. The NY Style is very recognizable.



Heavy vocal contenders of the 1990's in the tri-state area were obviously Frank Mullen from Suffocation, Daryl from Pyrexia, John from Mortal Decay, Will from Mortician, Matt from Afterbirth, Sherwood from Skinless, Repudilation. I would like to think that I also had an impact on the scene as well. When preparing for the second Internal Bleeding record, my prime vocal influences were John from Mortal Decay, Rick from Embalmer (Ohio), and Will from Mortician. That is why my vocals were deeper on the second record. I just developed my singing from doing lots of growls, listening to bands, accepting feedback from the guys in Internal Bleeding, and the vocal lessons I was taking. Take note that breathing is an integral part for any singer.

I have to say that being in Internal Bleeding in the 1990's was one of the highlights of my life. I felt Chris, Brian,, Anthony and Bill were my brothers and we would try and give the crowd the best show possible, even if it was in front of 30 people, and yes we had shows that you could hear crickets sometimes. We toured together, were in car accidents together, fought together, and we hung out together as friends which is why I cherish those moments and will do so for the rest of my life. I buy records, shirts, but only go to maybe 1-2 shows a year now. The scene is younger now. They don't know what unity is, the way it was in the 1990's. Yet, I am still happy to see that heavy music is so popular. So what if a “deathcore” band sells 7000 records on their first week, the fact that so many people are into heavy music makes me smile. Sure, we were all competitive as bands and there was some shit talkers, but by and large, we were all friends having a good time. I looked at myself as a fan first and band member second.

I love death metal and still listen to my older records. My death metal collection, both new and old tops at 1000. As I convert them into my hardrives, the records will still adorn my house and I always need to look at the lyrics and see the record for myself. The newer bands today are using better technology and are faster than they were years ago. But a show back in the 1990's in New York would tear your head off. The pits were so vicious. Look on the inside tray card of “Voracious Contempt” and there is a picture of one of our pits, while we are playing live. Just a sea of bodies smashing into each other, that's how it was and all the New York fans were the best, most down to earth muthafuckers, and I love them for supporting Internal Bleeding and the bands in the scene.

I will end by saying thank you to Lou and to all you crazy death metal maniacs. Support your death metal and help stop the building of the muslim Mosque near ground zero in NYC!

.Total.Fucking.Slam. II

The saga continues. My journey to unfold this special part of death metal history has now led me to another man that was an integral part of the Internal Bleeding sound. His name is Brian Hobbie and he is the original bassist of the band. It was great to learn his side of the story as he shared some memorable moments from the early days of NY death metal. If my mind serves me right, he was the youngest member of the band and was responsible for delivering the subsonic low end emissions for the massive slams that are Internal Bleeding. He tells us of his time in the band when he joined in the beginning of 1993. This guy was there for the birth of some of our favorite and most cherished bands of all time. It is with great appreciation that I now present to you Brian Hobbie's recollection of his experience in NY Death Metal.


It was a slam filled era... -Lou




It has been forever since I’ve been asked about my time in Internal Bleeding. I must say that the best years took place almost 20 years ago. I know that you are looking for evidence that are fact—the real deal. Sometimes a certain question might get me going or make me have to think. I did the best job I could for the reader and I apologize if I took long. I remember a time when I used to do a lot of interviews at once and would be on a roll. Regardless, I am very excited to describe to you all my experience in Internal Bleeding and the entire New York Death Metal community.





The early days of NY Death Metal were very active and fresh. It seemed as though a lot of new Death Metal acts from the early days had an easier shot at reaching a pivotal point due to the new movement of death metal that was going on in New York. The basics made you work harder and you gained strong potential from it if you had your shit together as a band. Those days were the beginnings of Immolation, Cannibal Corpse (relocated to Tampa, Florida), Baphomet, Mortician, Demolition Hammer, Sorrow, Malignancy, Suffocation, Morpheus Descends just to name a few. Malevolent Creation and Deicide, who were based in Upstate New York, relocated to Tampa also in the early days too from what I recall. Around 1991-1992 that bands like Embrionic Death, Pyrexia, and many others came to be throughout the decade. Communication and Press activity was a big part of the times and was personal too. Fanzines, demos, and any source of mass communication through mailed letters made it work. The bands were also heavily networking throughout the world and traded live media of the shows. There are bands that still do it today but just not as many. Atleast not in the same fashion as it used to be, I've noticed. Today, NY Death Metal bands rely on the internet. In the early days, there were times when I would actually get hand written letters from fans that lived no more than 20 minutes away. These letters were to buy a demo tape, merchandise, and to correspond with the band. I do not see if that truly happens anymore but at the time it showed how active and involved the NY Death Metal community was. It was more fun with less distractions and bullshit. It was one state under brutality.




I must say that Internal Bleeding is the best band I've ever played in. I started working with them in early 1993. I was about 19 years old at the time. It was a great time to be playing NY Death Metal during the early 1990's. One of the coolest things was getting a plaque-like award for the sales of the “Perpetual Degradation” record. A record store in California called Wild Rags Records, the label that released it, had the award made for us. This achievement made the band work harder to reach high potential. I learned many of the do(s) and don’t(s) from being in Internal Bleeding also. It was the first time I started corresponding with people around world and the experiences in the whole music business. The 1996 U.S. Tour with Immolation and Six Feet Under during the “Voracious Contempt” days was incredible! We used to practice in this two level auto-mechanics warehouse. We had rented it from a friend and had five bands in there later on. It was big enough to pull off a show and brought out some out-of-state bands to jam with. Needless to say, it got insane and had a lot of cops showing up. People ran everywhere to get away. It was truly great, something out of a movie.


There was a venue called The Roxy Music Hall that was our second home because we played there all the time. We got to open up for alot of awesome acts such as Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Overkill,Broken Hope, Morbid Angel, and Forbidden. We had more out of state friends than local. Sometimes, we would drive to New Jersey or even Maryland to hang out with bands and people. Don't get me wrong, we hung out we with a lot of people at home too. Most of them either moved or got into different things. People came and went all the time. I still talk to some of the old school fellasthrough internet. I have even made some new friends that we never got to jam for but they are die-hard Internal Bleeding fans since the “Invocation of Evil” days.





I believe that slam has many different forms. What many of Death Metal, Thrash Metal, or even some Black Metal bands don't realize or don't want to admit is that everyone has some slam parts in their music in one way or another. I think that just about every band that plays brutal music wants to see people go nuts in the pit. Slams are heavy grooves and heavy rhythms to make people move. Black Sabbath was a heavy and headbanging band with slam parts in almost every song. They are a major influence to everything we listened to. Metal bands all over the world express slam metal in their own way or style. The NY style just has a very well-known presence in the metal community for being the style it is. NY Slam is an extreme force of rhythm and groove as opposed to flat-out speed and intensity all the time. For Internal Bleeding, grinds and fast stuff was just filler for the slams—this was the priority in our style. A completely different approach from what everyone else was doing. During this time every band from Long Island (and still today) was getting by default, tagged as a "Suffocation clone", which was at the time expected. So, it sort of gave us a reason to just experiment with the slam riffs and less technicality to avoid that. It worked for us.












Here is a review tagging Internal Bleeding as a Suffocation clone.
Taken from http://www.metal-archives.com/

These are the roots of... something... - 42% out of 100%
Written by Noktorn on January 31st, 2008

Once upon a time, Internal Bleeding was a crappy Suffocation clone instead of a uniquely crappy death metal/hardcore hybrid, and in this style, they turned out one album called 'Voracious Contempt'. The year of this album was 1995, which was the height of both death metal sucking and second-string underground death metal labels like Pavement being willing to put out just about anything in the wake of Roadrunner offering up their roster of DM groups as a sacrifice to the Gods Ov Capitalism. This is a very important thing to remember, because I can assure you that in NO OTHER YEAR would Internal Bleeding ever be signed by a decent label. At least, that's what I like to think. I love to pretend that there aren't labels who will release such mind-numbingly mediocre music onto the metal public. With this capacity for self-deception you'd think I would have liked the latest Obituary album!

Musically, 'Voracious Contempt' sounds almost exactly like Suffocation's 'Pierced From Within' (which was conveniently released five months prior to this album). Granted, it lacks the very convoluted riffing and song structures and abstract themes of that band, but every track on this album is pretty much a straight-up clone of 'Thrones Of Blood'. Remember that song's breakdown? Remember how it became the prototypical breakdown for just about every NYDM song that came out for, oh, a decade after it? Well, Internal Bleeding was clearly riding that wave hard, because every track has that same, sludgy "CHUN... CHUN... CHUN..." break. There are some blasting sections with mostly inaudible tremolo riffing, lots of midpaced, hardcore-inspired grooves, and lots of guttural, somewhat burping growls. There's also a constant procession of start/stop chug riffs over double bass that all sound pretty much exactly like each other.

One of the big things that prevents this from being a mediocre yet enjoyable piece of brutal death metal is the production. It's got that mid to low level studio production of a lot of mid-'90s DM groups, with decent sounding drumming, somewhat submerged vocals, and way overly distorted guitars recorded at too high a volume to preserve any modicum of tone. Same thing happened to Suffocation on, surprise surprise, 'Pierced From Within'; the distortion gets to the point where you can't actually, you know, hear the difference between notes, preventing coherent riffs from being composed. This alone pretty much damns the album from ever being in regular rotation from me. Mortician can get away with it. Internal Bleeding can't.

The only other real detail to speak of when it comes to this album is of influence. While listening to 'Voracious Contempt', you can actually pick out a lot of riffs that seem very ahead of their time; many of the groove riffs sound like modern slams that a band like Devourment would use, and many people do suggest that Internal Bleeding is one of the bands that really coined the concept of slam death, if not the name or a real grasp of what the style was. At the same time, though, I don't know how much of this is slam death and how much of it is just overblown Suffocation worship that sort of blindly stumbled into the 'slam' sound by accident. Internal Bleeding sounds like slam death in a lot of ways, but slam death doesn't really sound like Internal Bleeding; I'd argue that the biggest thing here is the fusion of hardcore and death metal (though more limited than on later albums).

Internal Bleeding got somewhat better from here, but this really wasn't a promising start. If you're trying to start a museum for random Suffoclones, you might as well pick it up, but I don't see a real reason why. You'll never remember any of the songs, riffs, or lyrics, and it's not even that pleasant when it's going on. It's easy to ignore, and doing so isn't really a bad idea.











The NY Style of Death Metal is credited to Suffocation for being one of the originators of the N.Y./Long Island style. With their influence, it got taken to the next level trying to be as original as possible. Just like when Motorhead and Venom influneced just about every Thrash band in California in the early 80's and beyond. When Internal Bleeding first started, the local Death Metal scene at first wasn't the first influences we had. Whoever we were trading demos with at the time were. Underground bands like Mortal Decay, Dying Fetus, Tyrant Trooper, Exmortis, anything underground were influences. You just couldn't ignore it because it was a form of slam too. East Coast Death Metal got as far as the other coasts too. No matter what, it was all extreme and brutal metal. Even if not all of them had a lot of slam riffs, the tradition was upheld in their music still. Vital Remains from Rhode Island has their own style of slam parts, I've always thought. The East Coast scene has come a long way and has offered plenty. All of the coasts of the U.S. have had their own legacies and histories of playing Death Metal.





On an ending note, one of my best times was when we got to play a festival in the same building as Slayer in 1994 and again after their five year hiatus. These were great times to play Slam metal. Somewhere out there, there is four or five seventeen year old kids in a practice room playing slam metal in some form and they just may be the next best thing if they do it right and keep it real. We'll see what the future brings and can hopefully fill the void we have in Death Metal today.




Thank you all. It has been some of the best times of my life.




Internal Bleeding is forever.

.Total.Fucking.Slam.

Sup Fellas!

It is with the greatest pride and pleasure that I now create this blog. My name is Lou and I am a native of New York. How should I begin? There was a time... I have dedicated a better part of my life to a form of ear obliterating music known as Brutal Death Metal and after all of my experiences with this horrendous music, I felt that the time has come for me to create a place to preserve an important part of the history of this incredible music. Brutal Death Metal has taken many forms over the decades and one of its originating seedlings known as Slam has captivated me so deeply that it literally changed my life. I can safely say that the creature responsible for the birth of slam is New York's very own Internal Bleeding. These NY natives of a land filled with thugs, light-speed lifestyles, and much "kawfee" consumption have laid out the foundation that remains a major factor in the evolution of modern brutal death metal. They took it upon themselves to create a style of death metal that centralized around the element that would normally be used in a climatic moment of your favorite death metal tune aka Suffocation's Liege of Inveracity. You know what I am talking about. That beastly moment, that part of the song that is so hyped up it literally implodes, that chuggy chug moment that feels like a sawed-off buckshot to the face, or better yet that slammable onslaught moment that sends the savages in the pit into an endless frenzy of annihilation. Yeah, now you know. Internal Bleeding is responsible for taking that element of a death metal tune and making it universal; where every song is a stream of perpetual groove drenched pit riffs. The purpose of this blog is to provide to you, the reader, a place to learn all about this monster known as slam. Its history and the fine gentlemen responsible for creating timeless tunes that to this day remain unmatched. They shadow just about every new modern death metal band while continuing to leave you wanting more. These forefathers have develop something special, something immortal, that all of us avid death metal listeners can still look back on and say to ourselves, "Oh shit! no way!" I will focus on the birth of it all in the East Coast of North America and its critical peripheral influences all around the world. I will bring to light the relationships between these gentlemen and their correspondence that transcended state-lines, coast-lines, and international oceans. I will not forget about that foul monster from Texas known as Devourment, a most digusting beast that it is and the immortality that is Molesting the Decapitated. I hope that you will enjoy this as much as I will enjoy digging up the remnants of slam death metal history straight from the thoughts and memories of these savages responsible. What better way to initiate this blog of slam death metal history than to start by presenting to you an anecdotal recollection straight from the core of slam itself. The man himself, Chris Pervelis. It is an honor to have dissected his memories and the end result will serve as the foundation for the modus operandi of this blog.

Stay tuned for more intensive updates an revisions! Enjoy!



TOTAL FUCKING SLAM
By Chris Pervelis







I must confess that my memory may be a little hazy; time can do that to you. If I have omitted or incorrectly identified certain people, places, bands and time frames, I am truly sorry.


When Internal Bleeding first started in 1991, there were handful of bands out on Long Island and in the New York area and naturally they were a big influence on us. Particularly Bill and Anthony; they were more tuned in to what was going on in NY than I was. I had been more into slow, heavy and groove oriented sounds from bands like Black Sabbath, Obituary and others. Tom (original bassist) and Brian (original vocalist) were more into European and Floridian stuff. At first we struck a pretty good balance with these influences and our first two songs "Invocation of Evil" and "Genocide" reflect that mix.





One night, Bill, Anthony and I were at a diner after practice. We had a long discussion about the direction of the band. I can remember this day like it was yesterday. Anthony and Bill weren't happy with the sound, and I wasn't either. We started talking about what we should sound like and we all pretty much came to the conclusion that we wanted to be a band that concentrated on writing heavy riffs with groove to them and throw a few blast beats in to separate the grooves.





We thought most bands concentrated more on the blasting and grinding, so we decided to go the other way. That's basically how our sound was born. Is it completely original? No. But I think it is an approach that some bands hinted at but no one took to the level we did.





We always hated the word "mosh" so Bill had suggested we use "slam riff" instead of "mosh riff" and so "TOTAL FUCKING SLAM" was born. It became our standing philosophy to write music that would always be centered around slam riffs and we held ourselves to a very high standard. We slaved over every riff we wrote, dumped songs that didn't make the cut and we really worked hard on arranging things for maximum tension and release. On top of that, we marketed ourselves pretty well, defining ourselves as "Total Fucking Slam." That gave use something that other bands didn't have...a marketing slogan (it's the ad man in me. I own an ad business).





Funny story, when Anthony wrote the big breakdown in "Anointed in Servitude," we almost dumped it because it was a little too happy sounding (we used to say riffs like that sounded "bouncy"). I am glad we changed our mind, but it took a lot of internal arguing with each other to keep it in the song. It wasn't originally in the place it is now and with some creative arranging, we got it into a spot that made the riff really powerful and dynamic.





In all fairness, I think Dying Fetus was taking this approach as well and I think that's why we sparked up a great friendship with those guys. We shared such similar values musically. I can remember getting the "Bathe in Entrails" demo in the mail, popping it in, listening to it and saying "Fuck! These guys get it!" I took the tape right to the studio to let the band hear it and we all freaked. I can remember Anthony totally loosing himself and throwing a garbage can against a wall and kicking the couch in our studio when he heard it. Pretty soon after that we went down to Maryland to play with them and Ripping Corpse.





The ONE DOLLAR DEMO was just a rehearsal tape that we put together because one of our buddies liberated a bunch of blank tapes from a law school. I had a four-track, so I figured lets record something so we can sell at our first show. It came out horrible, but we sold it for a dollar, so the price was fair. I listen to it now and laugh. I can hear our sound developing, but it wasn't quite "there" yet.





I think the sound we were looking for came to fruition on INVOCATION OF EVIL. The production was good, the playing was good, albeit a tad sloppy in places, and the songs I think were excellent. When it came out, people went totally nuts for it. I couldn't believe it. We packed our asses in a van and went anywhere and everywhere to play and sell demos. We met so many great down-to-earth people and bands and their hospitality was amazing. Eventually we put the demo out with Wild Rags and it took off even more. A lot of people didn't like Richard at Wild Rags, but I loved the guy. All business all the time. He taught me a lot and I owe him a lot for his guidance and the boost he gave the band.





The pinnacle of our demo days were reached with PERPETUAL DEGRADATION. We went back to the same recording studio (Legend in Islip NY) and worked hard on making it sound heavier and less thin than Invocation of Evil. I think we achieved that. It was a bit of a panicked time for us because we dumped Wallace, who was a great frontman, but he just wasn't serious enough. Instead of waiting till we got a new vocalist, and cutting off our momentum, Bill stepped up and delivered a great vocal performance. Perfect for that demo.





We found Frank shortly after that and we all just knew we had something really special. We hit the road, played hard and busted our ass. Frank was just unreal as a frontman. He took the band to such an incredible level. Now, not only were we putting out what we thought was good stuff, but we were all working our asses off to give listeners a hell of a stage show too. It all just clicked. Pretty soon Pavement signed us.





We went into the recording of VORACIOUS CONTEMPT confident and ready to put out a great album. We had new songs, plus the demo songs and things felt so right. Unfortunately, poor production obscured the quality of that album. I think we were overwhelmed with being in a big 24 track studio and we lost sight of the production aspect. Scott Burns did what he could to it, but I just think it would have been a great success if it had better production. Our tour for that album with Immolation and Six Feet Under was great though. We couldn't believe how many people knew the material. Some shows were just nuts, with our pits generating blood and broken limbs!





Although it never got the exposure that it deserved, I think THE EXTINCTION OF BENEVOLENCE was our best release as far as all-out heaviness is concerned. It suffered in the production department, but the songs and Frank's vocals were just insanely heavy. I wish more people got to see us perform these songs on tour and that the album got greater exposure.





From a production and songwriting standpoint, DRIVEN TO CONQUER took IB to new heights. The addition of Guy Marchais on guitar really pushed me and the rest of the guys to play harder and better. Guy is the consummate musician. He was a total pro when he joined us and I think we were still really good amateurs. I think the lyrics on that album are my personal best, and I think Bill's drumming on that is his best as well. This release also had a lot of Brian Hobbie's touch on it, which is great. He is a great bass player, and he got to show it on this album and in some of the riffs he put together.





I think we've made a place for ourselves in deathmetal history. I am really proud of that. We weren't the best technically, but we made the most out of our concept of how deathmetal should be and pushed ourselves to the limit on every song. I am glad people recognize our music and our hard work. It's a source of endless pride for me, and I'm sure, my bandmates.







The best part? The fans and friends. I still talk to many today, and all IB fans and bands we've played with are encouraged to contact me. I'd love to hear from you. At one point in the mid-1990s, I think Long Island and NY was the place to be. We had such incredible bands floating around. Suffocation, Afterbirth, Necrosis, Pyrexia, Dehumanized, Baphomet, Immolation and so many others. Places like the Wetlands, Castle Heights and the Roxy were constantly packed for underground bands. National acts did even better, and one of the best shows I ever attended was the Hangman's Ball at the Ritz. The place was packed and all the bands just ruled. Suffo, Grave, Ripping Corpse, etc. Man what a show!


There was always an element of competition amongst underground bands (though many didn't talk about it), but I think that made each band better. Call it friendly competition if you will, but the level that underground bands got to was unreal. Tight, precision playing, excellent vocals and stage presence were the norm, not the exception.








Basically, I think its the level of brutality that sets NYDM apart. It was never all about blasting. NY bands all had riffs you could remember. And in a scene where blinding speed is highly prized, the memorable riffs are a breath of fresh air. I cannot help but think the aura and reputation of NY has something to do with it too. NY is filled with thugs, tough-guys, etc. and I think that helps all the NYDM band's reputations.



I still listen to a lot of deathmetal and the music has progressed greatly. However, call me a child of the 90s, but I still am constantly listening to great releases from that era: "Effigy" from Suffocation, "Sickening Erotic Fanaticism" from Mortal Decay (NJ band, but godly), "Sermon of Mockery" from Pyrexia, "The Dead Shall Inherit" from Baphomet, and so many more. Bands such as Dehumanized, Afterbirth, Malignancy, Damonacy (NJ I know, but they ruled), Mortician, Repudilation, Embryonic Death, Immortal Suffering, Necrosis and so on...I cannot keep up with all the greats from that era!








I wish I could find the time to put a band back together and play some old-school style IB, but with kids and a business to run, my time is so limited. I have about 100 riffs to go, but it's hard to get things together. I know Bill is into doing it, just need to find some others. It'll happen, just will take some time.