By
MIKE SMITH
METAL:
NOT A FOUR LETTER WORD
"Everyone hates to say the word metal," says Overkill vocalist
Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth, sitting in an Atlantic records conference
room.
"Everybody's into this serious alternative style. It almost seems to
be forcing us underground again. The phrase 'metal' had it's time, and now
it's like a dirty word. But then, take Metallica,
for instance. They're a metal band, what else could you call them?"
Ok. in a perfect world, here's what would happened.
When Alice In Chains left the Metallica
tour due to Layne Staley's, uh, health problems, Metallica
would've pondered a replacement that was truly deserving and appropiate, Jaymz and Larz would've remembered those early days when they were redefining
the sound of metal along with Anthrax and a few others. Then they woul've remembered their old buds
Overkill, and offered them the tour for the hell of it. Like, Metallica don't exactly need a name opener to sell tickets.
Instead of the grunge lite sounds of Candelbox, the crowd would've heard the admittedly somewhat
Metallica-influenced basic-black metal of Overkill,
and totally dug it. A bunch of new converts would've bought the guys' totally
raging new disc W.F.O., and everyone would be happy. In
a perfect world...
"We have a blue-collar work ethic," says Blitz, reacting to my suggestion.
Indeed, Overkill will play almost any "Which means that as long as we're
playing somewhere, for someone, somehow we're happy. The perfect situation
is to be on the road and able to play. For us, that's just going to work.
Right now, we're done recording, and I've still got to wait six weeks until
we begin rehearsals."
where, as evidenced by a gig I'd caught them at this past winter in a tiny
New York area dive, a show which Blitz mentions he'd played to "make
some extra money to buy Christmas presents for the kids." Since then
they'd been hard at work on the aforementioned new record (the title of which
translates as Wide F*uckin' Open, in case you were
wondering). Livewire got an early ear-bashing when we visited Overkill
in the studio in the secluded woods of Stamford, Ct., and were treated to
a sneak preview of "Gasoline Dream" and "Fast Junkie",
a couple of high-octane crunch riff monsters that left us expecting another
metal masterpiece from these veteran headbangers.
And that's just what they ended up delivering. Bobby himself seems pretty
pleased with the results, the third featuring the current line-up of cofounder/bassist
D.D. Verni, guitarists Rob Cannavino
and Merritt Gant, and drummer Tim Mallare. In fact,
he thinks it might just be the best record in their career.
"It's as heavy as anything we've done, but it injects some melody into
the heavy," he says. "Producing ourselves really worked out well.
To an extent we wanted to kind of go back to our early records and get that
kind of vibe, but just update it. Another thing that we did different was
to have Rob handle all the rhythm guitar and Merrit
do all the leads. It was a question of concentrating on your area, and Rob's
a tight, tight rhythm guy, while Merrit's style
of lead plying really fit the balls-out style of these songs. So they both
were happy to do it that way. I was happy with my vocals too. It's funny,
I listen to my voice, and there's a little difference on each record..."
Since "Blitz" brought up the vocals, I have to compliment him on
not giving in to any pressure to come up with some kind of trendly,
forced, gargling-on-glass singing style. "Yeah, I know, and I should've
also tatooed myself and grown a beard," he
says. "Overall there's followers and innovators.
The success of Pantera, for example, has lead to
a lot of people imitating that kind of vocals. Sometimes it's just easer to
be yourself. The way I look at it, I've finished the record, I'm
happy with it, and that's what counts. In '89, I didn't sound like Hetfield, and in '94, I don't sound like Phil."
Sticking to their own style has worked pretty well for Overkill, giving them
the opportunity to support themselves doing what they love for many years.
As Bobby explains: "I've only had to work two days in the last
ten years. I painted a couple houses when I was getting married to
pay for the honeymoon," he laughs. " Sure,
everyone asks me if I feel sucess has passed us
by. What happens is that in the recording industry, there's this brass ring
dangled in front of you in the form of a platinum record. Would I rather have
had a million-selling record and half the career time I've had? I'd personally
prefer to have less cash, and extend the career,
I've gotten to do this for ten years, a big section of my life, whereas most
people do this for 18 months."
Right now, with their new album out, Overkill intend to go do what they do
best and play live, wherever and whenever. And this is one area Bobby's sure
they won't let anybody down. "After seven records, at a low estimate
of 100-150 shows a year, you're talking 1100 shows. If you're done that many
shows and you don't know what you're doing, you better hang it up. And the
thing is, we'll give them a real show. Our stage goes up to 33 feet
wide, and we try to improve it each time. We'll get a few six-packs and spray-paint
it ourselves. We bring out the lights and foggers because I always put myself
in the position that if I'd spent $25.00 on a ticket, I'd want something really
good. It's important to me that the show is worth what you've paid for it.
I've had scars all over my head from Merritt and Rob smashing me with their
guitars, just 'cause we try to go all out on stage. We don't want anyone leaving
saying 'that was just OK.'"
Ready to start his second decade with Overkill, Bobby reflects on what it's
like to have played his brand of straight-ahead metal for years watching trends
come and go. We were born in an era that spawned Mötley
Crüe and all the