Utter Trash--Destructor

Maximum Metal

An interview with Dave Overkill of Destructor

By Bob Ignizio

Most of Destructor, l to r: Dave Overkill, Matt Flammable, and Jamie Walters (not pictured is Pat Rabid)

Destructor came into existence in October of 1983, just about the same time as bands like Metallica and Anthrax were releasing their first albums. It was after playing only their first gig that the band was approached by Bill Peters, legendary college radio DJ and founder of Cleveland independent record company Auburn Records, about recording for his label. Guitarist/vocalist Dave Overkill says, “We were really blown away. He had already put out a couple of Cleveland metal bands like Shok Paris and Black Death. We were fortunate enough that he wanted to do an EP with us. We didn’t start recording until early 1985.” After a few gigs original bassist Paul Warhead was replaced by Dave Holocaust, and along with Overkill, Matt Flammable (drums) and Pat Rabid (guitar) the classic Destructor line-up was in place.

According to Dave, Destructor was influenced by, “Seventies hard rock acts like Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, Kiss, BTO. Anvil definitely was one of them. Stuff like that - heavy guitar driven rock n roll. We were trying to do it but we weren’t good enough so we were playing thrash I guess. That’s really how our sound evolved. Around the same time we listened to Discharge, GBH, The Exploited. Early 80’s British punk.” In addition to influencing their music, the punk bands also had an impact on Destructor’s lyrical content. “We were listening to GBH and Discharge talking about the problems of the world. We were young, dumb and drunk and we took it a little bit farther and went into writing some more stuff about good and evil, war and death,” says Dave. It certainly comes through on songs like “Iron Curtain” and the anti-Satanism anthem “Pounding Evil” of which Dave says, “We were just making a statement that you didn’t have to be demonic to be heavy. I think Trouble definitely had a big influence on us taking that approach.”

By the time the band was finished recording their debut, it had gone from being an EP to a full length album titled ‘Maximum Destruction’. It did well in the metal underground and their follow-up was scheduled to be jointly released by Auburn and Island Records. Then tragedy stuck. Bass player Dave “Holocaust” Ianicca was killed and the band almost died with him. Destructor tried to soldier on with new bassist Brooke Hodges but Overkill says, “Through no fault of his own things just didn’t work out. We were too devastated mentally from that and losing our major record deal with Island.” After that the three remaining members of Destructor played in a space rock band called Spacecore. Dave says, “In 1990 Bill called us up and he asked us if we wanted to open up for Hawkwind. I told Bill that I didn’t think Destructor was a good fit, but let me put something together.” Along with synth player Paul (Screwtractor, Nucleon) Resnick the three did the gig and enjoyed it enough to keep Spacecore going for a while.

Now Destructor is back with a new bass player (the extremely busy Jamie Walters, also of Boulder and Abdullah) and a new EP called ‘Sonic Bullet’. Dave says, “We decided to reunite in 1999 and we played with a couple of bass players before Jamie and none of them really fit Destructor. Jamie is the first guy we’ve worked with that has written Destructor songs. We didn’t hand him songs and say this is what we want you to play; he came to the table with some riffs. Most of the song “Sonic Bullet” from the EP is his riffing mixed with some of our riffs and lyrics. He’s contributed considerably to the writing and arranging of the new album that we’re going to start recording this fall. Jamie is the perfect fit for the band.” Thanks to distribution deals with Century Media in the U.S. and Nuclear Blast in Europe ‘Sonic Bullet’ shouldn’t be too hard to find for metal fans the world over.

Although most of the songs on ‘Sonic Bullet’ are new to fans, many of them actually date back to Destructor’s as yet unreleased second album ‘Decibel Casualties’. Dave says, “Truthfully only two of the songs are brand new on the EP. All the other stuff was written with Dave Holocaust to be on the second record back in the eighties. At the time bands like Armored Saint and Savatage were becoming more popular so we were kind of naturally progressing into being something a little less raw and a little more refined. But on “Heavy Artillery” and “Sonic Bullet” working with Jamie I think has brought us closer to ‘Maximum’ than we were with the second album. The stuff that we’ve recorded now is back to the basics, not really too complicated. Kind of raw and to the point, just good heavy metal rock ‘n’ roll. We have probably 7 or 8 new songs that we’re going to record for the new album that nobody’s ever heard outside of our practice studio.”

For now Destructor is doing their best to make up for lost time. In addition to releasing the new EP the band recently played the prestigious “Bang Your Head” festival in Germany to great response as well as a small club warm-up show in the land of lederhosen. Dave says, “At the club show we played in Germany 800 people showed up. We sold every CD that we had and every T-Shirt that we had printed. We didn’t have any merchandise left for the festival. We were the opening act for the festival on Friday. We went on at 10:00am and there were probably 6000 people in front of the stage. Considering it was a work day and 10:00 in the morning and people were chanting “Destructor” by the time we were done with our set it was a really good feeling. We’ve done a lot of shows in Cleveland where nobody shows up. You’re lucky if you get 100 people. You go over to Europe at 10 in the morning and people are standing in front of the stage waiting for Destructor to go on. It definitely helps to rejuvenate your own faith in what you’re doing and not get so discouraged.”

While Dave wonders a little how things might have turned out if someone like Jamie had come into the band earlier, for the most part he seems content with the way things have played out. Rock stardom may have its rewards, but these days Dave find satisfaction in things like helping his young son put together a Gene Simmons model kit. He says, “Back at that time we wanted to be stars. We wanted to tour the world and be successful. Now we’re just kind of having fun with it. We all have families; we all have full time jobs. We’re not really in a position to drop everything we’re doing at this point in our lives and dedicate ourselves blindly like we did back in the day. Of course if there’s a demand for us we’ll answer the call. But we don’t have stars in our eyes anymore. Mostly we want to leave some good music behind and have some good times while we’re still young enough to play this stuff.”

Concert review and pictures: Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles 6-Pack Weekend at The Odeon 06-12-03