Death Becomes You
MSN
27th October '02
   
Rock to die for! No tricks just treats from this month's Featured Artist of the Month, Death Becomes You. Blood, gore, Killer tunes - these guys have it all! If Hell was a gig then DBY would be the headliner act. Heavier than a marble gravestone, cooler than a week old corpse, this band have a sound and stage presence wicked enough to transform any crowd into an army of zombies! SkidMcSkidder catches up with the band - John Janos, Christopher Lee, Nicodemous and Gory as they prepare for their Halloween night assault on the world of the living!!
SkidMcSkidder: Welcome dark lords of the undead! Thanks for taking the time out from torturing the souls of sinners to talk to us here at SkidMark!

Nicodemous: Anything for you Mr. Edwards, are you touching yourself?

SkidMcSkidder: Not with anything living!

Christopher Lee: The deader the better...

SkidMcSkidder: : (Laughs Out Loud) So let me kick off by asking what has "Hell's House band" got planned for this coming Halloween?

Christopher Lee: We're gonna perform the most fitting tribute to halloween

Christopher Lee:That's our Christmas that's us in our element

Gory: We will top ourselves once again

SkidMcSkidder: Literally?

Christopher Lee: We always said we were the greatest show on Earth - the Satanic Barnum and Baily

Christopher Lee: And basically we will surpass our live reputation in the Heavens and Hell this will be the best show that we have ever done

SkidMcSkidder: Cool! And how did such a ragged bunch of zombie flesh eaters such as DBY get together?

Christopher Lee: Janos had the idea in 97 to form a band that melded his influences from horror films and music. And basically being his brother, he asked me because we had the same influences and I've been playing drums since birth. Plus the fact I'm totally flamboyant when I play, total showman like Tommy Lee or Neil Smith from the original Cooper Band

SkidMcSkidder: Talking about Alice Cooper takes me onto the next question - What's the DBY look based on? Is it a cross between Kiss & the night of the living dead??

Christopher Lee:Basically it's derived from wanting to be a total sinister band, totally larger than life much to the chagrin of '75 era Kiss and the Original Cooper Band that was banned from England before they even got there

Christopher Lee: Basically making rock and roll fun and dangerous again

SkidMcSkidder: I hear ya - metal has become "blunted" in latter years - too much gloss and commercialism

Christopher Lee: Just like your country gave us the Sex Pistols who I'll take to the grave saying are easily one of the best bands ever, just a bunch of naughty little bastards

SkidMcSkidder: Heh heh

Christopher Lee: We don't consider our music "metal" we fit into that genre but we call it "grave-wave"

SkidMcSkidder: I totally agree to you having your own genre - I really dig your sound (especially like "Planet graveyard"), heavy but with a unique deadly quality!

Christopher Lee: Cheers

SkidMcSkidder: So how many virgins have you sacrificed on stage during shows?

Gory: Six hundred and sixty six!! And Halloween night we're gonna do that many more

Christopher Lee: We're trying to vie for Gene Simmons record

SkidMcSkidder: "Do" being the operative word huh!?(Laughs Out Loud)

Christopher Lee: Actually it's pronounced "fornicate"

SkidMcSkidder: You mean fuck?

Christopher Lee: You're absolutly correct sir

SkidMcSkidder: (Laughs Out Loud)

SkidMcSkidder: Tell me more about your first show...

SkidMcSkidder: I remember reading something about sheep's heads on sticks?

Gory: It was a very good performance for your first show as a band

Gory: Musically we were right the fuck on it

Christopher Lee: Totally confident

Christopher Lee: And we went up there with the addage that the audience is the enemy, basically saying attack

SkidMcSkidder: And you won the battle huh?!

Gory: The place was packed, it was a Sunday night. And yes we did have lamb's heads which we might just resurrect for this Halloween's performance

SkidMcSkidder: Great music and finger snacks too? my kinda gig! (Laughs Out Loud)

Christopher Lee: Basically it was all made to represent the corruption of innocence, and the whole death trip

Christopher Lee: We had makeshift cemeteries, gallows with disembowelled children, basically we were heavily influenced by the Love It To Death era Cooper live show

Nicodemous: And basically the stage show for the first three Kiss records and their image from 73 to 76

SkidMcSkidder: I bet it was awesome - I remember seeing a Cooper show on TV and the effects were wicked!

Christopher Lee: We do a lot of that stuff. but it's John Janos creating it all

SkidMcSkidder: What's the most bizarre thing to have happened at a DBY gig?

Nicodemous: Me taking punches for Chris

SkidMcSkidder: (Laughs Out Loud) So that 's why John wears the mask huh - to soak up the punches!

Gory: All kind's of sick shit, we could go on for hours on that topic itself

Nicodemous: Me throwing up numerously

Christopher Lee: Us getting into fights just for the fact that a guy wearing a jock strap fucks with peoples heads

Christopher Lee: It makes males recognize their gay tendencies and it angers them

Christopher Lee: We've had Christian groups flier the parking lots of shows we've played

SkidMcSkidder: No shit?

SkidMcSkidder: I guess you have some really heavy religious stuff going on over there?

Christopher Lee: It's florida it's always gonna be that way, it's the outskirts of the bible-belt

SkidMcSkidder: Sure

Christopher Lee: We played in Lakeland, Fl last December and we found out that the club we were playing was a Christian youth center, and we weren't told in advance and we had cops monitoring the show

SkidMcSkidder: I bet that was fun!

John Janos: It's like if you've ever seen the movie Gummo

SkidMcSkidder: No man

John Janos: We have inbreds in Florida

Christopher Lee: People with six rows of teeth in their mouth

SkidMcSkidder: Ha ha ha

John Janos: Husband and wife are brother and sister

SkidMcSkidder: Talking of films - You've a film due for release called "Realms of Blood" - tell us more..

Christopher Lee: It's our friend Robert, he started an independent called Fear Film, he's made two movies already and used our music in both of them

SkidMcSkidder: Ah so you're not actually starring in 'em?

Christopher Lee:There is talk of us doing a cameo in "Realms Of Blood"

Christopher Lee: And he's making a video for "Planet Graveyard"

John Janos: We'll start doing that next month, sometime in November

SkidMcSkidder: Okay! looking forwad to that one!

John Janos: We're connected to Fear Film on the website, there's a link on the website

SkidMcSkidder: Cool - will have to check it out

SkidMcSkidder: Talking of the site..

SkidMcSkidder: Who wrote your awesome website?

Christopher Lee: A lot of it is my ideas

Christopher Lee: I have no web knowledge I have the Karver do it

SkidMcSkidder: I like the really dark look

Gory: Thanks

John Janos: We're not dark we wear white face

Christopher Lee: The look is gonna evolve. Everything constantly evolves with us

SkidMcSkidder: Hey Chris - you've recently begun writing a column for the Pit webzine - How's that going?

Christopher Lee: It's strenuous, we constantly work on the band, I do the band emails, I tell karver what to do with the website, and sometimes you're just not in the mood to give forth any more energy, it's totally time consuming

John Janos: It's like having two jobs but you're only paid for one

SkidMcSkidder: I know that one dude - I seem to spend most my spare time maintaining SkidMark instead on working on the latest Incubus Lovechild CD I'm currently recording

SkidMcSkidder: And no pay for either!!!

John Janos: Send it to us

Christopher Lee: And if it sucks we'll sell it for cigarette money

John Janos: "fag money"

SkidMcSkidder: There's early shit on my mp3.com page www.mp3.com/incubuslovechild

SkidMcSkidder: If it sucks you abuse it! (Laughs Out Loud)

Christopher Lee: Thanks for the plug

John Janos: Does the London Dungeon have a souvenir shop?

Gory: Have you heard of Paradise Lost?

SkidMcSkidder: Don't know and no!

SkidMcSkidder: Don't do London very often - too far away

Christopher Lee: Have you had a spotted dick lately?

SkidMcSkidder: Yes

SkidMcSkidder: Red and sweaty

Christopher Lee: Stop beating it!!

SkidMcSkidder: Or are you talkin' puddings? 8-)

SkidMcSkidder: Let's talk DBY CD's...

Gory: Ok

SkidMcSkidder: Your last CD "The tarnished tapes of Transylvania" is getting loads of rave reviews in magazines / webzines any plans for a follow up album in the near future?

Gory: Yes, definitly in the works - already being worked on as we speak getting material ready and soon to be going back to the studio

Gory: Around the new year
:
John Janos: We've got about six songs

SkidMcSkidder: Excellent - Any plans for a national / international tour to promote the new stuff?

Christopher Lee: Any plans to finance it

John Janos: Money's the only thing holding it back

SkidMcSkidder: I can send a couple of bucks!!(Laughs Out Loud)

John Janos: We'd go to Europe as soon as we can. In Europe they read about you in a magazine and they go see you. Over here they see you then read about you

Christopher Lee: Over here they are told it's the cool thing

John Janos: Kerrang for years people read about the band and go see the band

SkidMcSkidder: From contact with other SkidMark listed US artists I envy your music scene - it's much more vibrant than the UK scene just now

Gory: I don't know about that

Christopher Lee: You're the country that welcomed the Ramones on your bicentenial in 76. I think they've always been ahead of us, from the Beatles all the way down

John Janos: If it wasn't for the new wave of British heavy metal, you wouldn't have had the speed metal movement

SkidMcSkidder: We get the same dance / hip-hop / R&B rehash rammed down our throats week after week. The American charts seem to be a little more diverse

Gory: We have the same problem here, when the highest selling acts are Britney Spears and N'Sync and shit like that

Christopher Lee: It's all about safe, cuddly, cute white people

Nicodemous: Rich white people

SkidMcSkidder: Okay - you win!! (Laughs Out Loud)

Everyone: HA

SkidMcSkidder: Britney does have nice tits though

John Janos: Eric Burdon is God, long live the Animals

Christopher Lee: She's a media whore and she needs to go away, she needs to start doing porno. Drop the music and do porno

SkidMcSkidder: I hear that!!

Christopher Lee: I'll drink to that

SkidMcSkidder: So, DBY relaxing... What's your favourite weapons for murder death kill sprees on a Saturday night out?

John Janos: My fork tongue, I hurt people with my words! last night we got in a brawl in one of the local clubs. Christopher Lee smashed this guy with a catering tray

Nicodemous: After I spit in the guys face for him throwing shit at me

Christopher Lee: We have a propensity for violence

SkidMcSkidder: What - actual shit??

Christopher Lee: It was human waste

Nicodemous: G'Day mate

SkidMcSkidder: I'm not a fuckin' Aussie!!!

John Janos: They're a bunch of ginger beers anyway, fags

SkidMcSkidder: That's like me saying you're a Canadian

Christopher Lee: Blame Canada

Gory: Fuck Canadians

Everyone: Except for the folks at Rue Morgue

SkidMcSkidder: So whatcha wanna talk about now?

Gory: You're doing the interview

Christopher Lee: How arts been raped

SkidMcSkidder: Oohhh. give details

Christopher Lee: Just everything is totally expendable, art's expendable

John Janos: EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE. A little nod to Davros

Christopher Lee: In America everything is dictated by MTV and radio, no one knows what to like first, people don't go out and search for things

Gory: How old are you?

SkidMcSkidder: About three hundred years younger than you!

SkidMcSkidder: 34

Christopher Lee: You've seen a lot of shit, i'm sure. a lot of shit in music

Nicodemous: Totally

Christopher Lee: Are you old enough to have seen the Sex Pistols in the 70's?

Christopher Lee: What about the Damned

Christopher Lee: Your music scene rules right there

SkidMcSkidder: A lot of shit music yeah - but I was lucky enough to grow up with the new wave of metal that developed in the late 70's / early 80's

Christopher Lee: God bless the Damned

SkidMcSkidder: No didn't catch the pistols - a little too early even for me

Christopher Lee: John Janos is the modern day Dave Vanian

SkidMcSkidder: Saw the stranglers a few times

John Janos: Bollacks to you

SkidMcSkidder: Should that be bollOcks? (Laughs Out Loud)

SkidMcSkidder: God save the queen

Gory: Have you ever seen our friends in New Found Glory when they tour over there?

Nicodemous: How do people react to a band like there, now?

SkidMcSkidder: How'd you mean?

Gory: The band members aren't actually typing, we have our friend the karver's doing it

SkidMcSkidder: Well boys - I running a little dry

Christopher Lee: Do a couple more and we'll mummify you

SkidMcSkidder: Great - will that be with or without organ removal?

SkidMcSkidder: Where do you want DBY to be a year from now?

Christopher Lee: Signed to a predominately new label, brand new label. Just getting in the van and going, getting our name in more magazines than we have already

Christopher Lee: We've had interest from a few independent labels and that's where we'll probably have to start off
:
John Janos and Nicodemous: And action figures also

Christopher Lee: And we'll probably be referred to as DBY

John Janos: Tell the Queen we're coming!

Christopher Lee:: Fuck the monarchy, everybody should be on the dole

SkidMcSkidder: Most of the younger population already is! (Laughs Out Loud)

Christopher Lee: All the stank and none of the bank!

Nicodemous: Why don't you get four last questions for each of us, before we wrap it up

SkidMcSkidder: Okay a question for each member....

SkidMcSkidder: Hummm........

SkidMcSkidder: Nico - do you set off alarms when you walk through detectors with all that metal in your face?

Nicodemous: Actually we went to California to stay with new found glory. That morning we left at 4am, walking through the gate at 4:20 for a six o'clock flight they made me take all my shit out and made me sit at the gate for ten minutes - practically with an audience as if I was bringing a bomb on the plane!!

SkidMcSkidder: it's a good job you don't look like an arab then - they'd have shot you on sight! (Laughs Out Loud)

Christopher Lee: Killing an arab. A great Cure song

SkidMcSkidder: Gory: Relating to your FAOTM "favourites" entry, how many times have you actually taken experimental psychoactive drugs, found random people and followed them to their home, and brutally tortured them in front of their families?

Christopher Lee: Gory's been a test subject for the government, he's fucking smoked uranium. Anything flammable

Gory: Smoked gun powder. I actually smoked it once with Nicodemous

SkidMcSkidder: Did it BLOW your mind???

Gory: We were playing Ghoul's Night Out in North Carolina, and we went to a head shop and bought some fake weed and smoked it and tripped balls!!

Nicodemous: My dick was gonna explode I thought, about twenty times
Christopher Lee: The most colorful show we've played

Gory: It was better than the gun powder!!

SkidMcSkidder: Heh heh wicked!

Christopher Lee: We were born for burial!!

Christopher Lee: Excess is best!!

SkidMcSkidder: How'd I follow that Q?! (Laughs Out Loud) okay John...

John Janos: You rang?......

SkidMcSkidder: Just how big is your monster toy &horror model collection?

John Janos: I've got two walk in closets full of model kits that aren't even built yet. In a thirty by thirty foot room. I've got a ton of shit.

John Janos: A ton of bollocks as you would say

John Janos: Karloff is God

SkidMcSkidder: 30 x 30? You live in a fuckin' mansion???

John Janos: YES, haunted, you'd be impressed it fits the band

Christopher Lee: It fits the motive of the band

John Janos: We live what we do, no bullshit

SkidMcSkidder: And what would you say was your favourite item?

John Janos: Anything to do with Universal horror films and Hammer horror films, I don't really have a favorite

Christopher Lee: My portion of the crypt is like a record store

John Janos: He has more vinyl than anyone I know

Nicodemous: He's got his own record store

SkidMcSkidder: Ah another vinyl junkie that's another thing Chris and me have in common as well as being Scorpio sex gods!

Christopher Lee: The little girls understand, as Jim Morrison once said

Christopher Lee: Graham Parker rules!

John Janos: Cliff Richard

Gory: So when are you gonna come here and party?

Nicodemous: When are we gonna party?

Christopher Lee: When are you gonna fix my sink?

John Janos: Bring me some Jelly Bellys

Christopher Lee: We're rock and roll theologians

Christopher Lee: Music is life

SkidMcSkidder: I'm hoping to come to the US again next year and you can guarantee if I hit Fort LauderHell I'll be looking you guys up!

Christopher Lee: We'll be hitting all the Michale Peters adult establishments

John Janos: You can stay at my flat, but it's haunted you've been warned

SkidMcSkidder: Well guys I'm just about spent so, thanks a lot for taking time out from your Halloween rehearsals to talk to me - here's hoping your Halloween gig rocks Fort Lauderdale to it's very foundations!

Gory: Thanks for the opportunity for letting us do this interview

Christopher Lee: SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Death Becomes You…
LET THE SLAUGHTER BEGIN!

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Virtual Interview conducted using MSN instant messenger ™ 27-10-2002
© SkidMark Multimedia Productions MMII