C’MON! – My Story of Rock, Ruin and Revelation Read online

  I slept through most of high school. I cared little and consequently knew little about the college experience or even colleges in general. That was about to change during this trip. As I found out, Columbia is home to the University of South Carolina. Known as the “Fighting Gamecocks,” I learned that both the school and the town take their athletic program quite seriously. So seriously, that upon arriving in Columbia, we discovered the word “cock” prominently placed in various ads on buildings and billboards throughout the town. Given the lowbrow mentality of Dead Serios band members, we found this to be extremely amusing. Heck, I’m nearly fifty now and it still makes me giggle.

  Dead Serios was actually sort of a divided band. There were Bill and Phil, the “party hardy” Wild Turkey-drinking “alterno” guys who were all about musical credibility, and then there was me and bassist Joe Del Corvo, the Dallas Cowboys-loving Kiss fans who just wanted to be rock stars. Whenever we were on the road, Bill and Phil typically wound up hanging out and crashing with members of the bands we played with while Joe and I opted for staying in hotels. Consequently, while in Columbia, Bill and Phil stayed at a house rented by guitarist Mark Bryan and frontman Darius Rucker while Joe and I lounged in our hotel room each day before the show, ordering from room service and watching hair band videos on MTV.

  At the time, Mark Bryan was an afternoon DJ on the local college radio station in Columbia, He graciously invited Bill, who was also a college radio personality in Florida, to co-host his show during our first journey to South Carolina. It was a great opportunity to promote our music and plug our first gig that night at Rockafellers nightclub. And at one point during the show Bill called me at the hotel and asked me to come to the radio station and join him for an on-air interview with Mark.

  In those days I went by the stage name D.L. Serios. I went to great lengths to create and protect a certain image for myself and my band. So when Mark referred to me by my real name on the air, I threw a fit. Although I don’t think the listeners were aware of it, those who were in the control room couldn’t help but notice my discontent. The guitarist from the headline band had graciously given my unknown band prime air time and in return I acted like a jerk. I later regretted my behavior and I humbly apologized to Mark.

  From the tips of my toes at the front of the stage to the club’s rear exit sign, Rockafellers was packed that night. We gave a rock solid performance and the crowd response was awesome. This particular show, however, was a fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Hugo, a mighty storm that recently had ripped through the area. We knew that we wouldn’t get paid – and we didn’t. But we also performed with Hootie the following night at a different club that was not part of the fundraiser. Consequently, I was a bit taken aback when Rusty, the band’s manager, offered us nothing more than a few T-shirts as payment for the second night’s gig. We certainly appreciated the opportunity to perform in a new market and we realized it would be a money-losing journey. In fact, unless you’ve had at least a couple of hit records, every journey is typically a money-losing venture. However, a little gas cash would have been nice. After all, it ain’t always easy finding a friendly Hess station along U.S. highways that accepts “Hugo Relief” T-shirts as a form of currency!

  On a subsequent Dead Serios trip to Columbia, Rusty and the Hootie members literally locked themselves in the office of Rockafellers after their set to secretly count out that night’s take. About an hour later they presented our road manager with $50 cash as payment for our opening set – which was okay – I guess. It was certainly more valuable than a couple of T-shirts. I didn’t even really care how much we were being paid and I cared less about Hootie’s cut. After all, we were friends, right? Heck, I’d just spent most of that day sitting on Darius Rucker’s couch, filling out my Christmas card list! So to be left standing in the hallway like a common fool, while the Hootie guys snuck in back to divvy up the spoils, was a little insulting.

  A couple of years later, the Hootie guys journeyed from Columbia to Melbourne to attend our guitarist Phil Billingsley’s wedding. During the reception Mark Bryan informed me and Bill Erwin that Hootie was in negotiations with a major record label. In “the land of unsigned bands,” everybody has label interest so I found Mark’s news a bit difficult to take seriously. Sure, Hootie and the Blowfish had a few good tunes and a large college following, but they were no Dead Serios! In my view, we blew Hootie and the Blowfish out of the water and there was no way they were getting signed before us. To my chagrin, Hootie and the Blowfish was soon officially signed to Atlantic Records. Their debut record, Cracked Rear View, arrived in stores on July 5, 1994. Packed with Top Ten singles, the record reached #1 on the Billboard Top 200 and has gone on to sell in excess of nineteen million units. Conversely, Dead Serios’s self titled 1994 record contained no hits and barely sold one thousand units. I guess we showed them!

  Holy (Rock and) Roller

  Shortly after our first Hootie excursion in October 1989, Dead Serios embarked on a Florida mini tour with the southern California-based Christian metal band, Guardian. Produced by Stryper guitarist Oz Fox, Guardian’s debut record, First Watch, had just been released and I was amped to be out performing with true blue Christian heavyweights.

  The Guardian members were extremely cool and they seemed to “get” Dead Serios. “We gotta get a deal for Dead,” they would declare as we hung out together before the shows. And given my semi-genuine spiritual posturing at the time, I became fast friends with the guys.

  But I was a complete fraud in those days. I’d suck up to the Guardian members and strike up conversations with them about Jesus and current contemporary Christian music, only to slither off after the shows (usually drunk) with random rock chicks who had really big hair and extremely small skirts. And to make matters worse, I was married at the time. But given the turmoil which Trish and I were beginning to experience in our relationship, I could somehow justify my behavior. But truth be told, I was just another rock and roll dirtbag.

  I briefly kept in touch with Guardian bassist David Bach following our little 1989 tour. And although Dead Serios was credited in the “Special Thanks” section of the next Guardian record, they never secured “a deal for Dead.”

  Me and Dead Serios bassist Joe Del Corvo hanging

  out with the Guardian guys in October 1989.

  Money Talks

  Dead Serios was a promising up and coming band on the indie scene by late 1989 – performing around the country and receiving substantial college radio airplay, as well as generating national press coverage. Unfortunately, while we certainly were “happening,” there was no significant amount of money coming in. We were beginning to draw huge crowds on the club circuit, but we were rarely ever paid more than a couple of hundred dollars per show. And with equipment vans to fuel, a crew to feed and hotel rooms to pay for, it was tough just slogging from gig to gig. Even the up-and-coming major label touring bands we were performing with were typically broke.

  These loutish corner boys belted out two grunts of noisy acoustical clatter and one chunk of garage slop that made me smile a lot. These full-grown men shambolicked at the edge of chaos. All of their stuff kicked more butt than a whanging drill press, filling the ballroom with songs full of menacing anti-establishment screeds which without a doubt shook all the plaster off the walls.(The Orlando Sentinel – 1989)

  Then there was the challenge of financing the promotional effort necessary to keep us in the press, on the radio and appealing to booking agents and club owners. Fortunately, for a while I had great medical insurance coverage through my day job at the record store. For every bone I broke, I received an insurance check – and in those days I broke a lot of bones, particularly while onstage. My broken hand in 1988 financed the pressing of our Possessed by Polka record. In 1989 my broken foot paid for the pressing of our “Best Of” compilation. But by 1990, as the demands of promoting the band became greater, I could only work part-time at my day gig and I was no longer offered medical insurance.
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  This Florida Top Ten music chart appeared in Orlando’s Jam magazine in December 1989. (We were #1 and #3!)

  Consequently, I was earning less and I wasn’t receiving compensation for my frequent onstage injuries. It soon became clear that I couldn’t continue personally to finance the band. And if we were going to succeed, I’d now have to get really creative in terms of acquiring the necessary operating capital.

  *******

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Next Big Thing

  I now realize, given my frequent self-righteous attitude, what a complete hypocrite I really was during the Dead Serios heyday. Publicly I’d align myself with local and national level Christian rock musicians, as if I was “right on.” But behind the scenes, I was hanging out with various hometown pimps and drug dealers in order to secure the capital necessary to keep the project moving forward. These individuals were well aware of my band’s potential. They had tons of cash and many were eager to own a piece of “the next big thing.”

  Capital Gain

  In 1990 there was no Internet widely available to quickly and inexpensively market a band. From promo photos, demo recordings and bios to complete press kits, all materials were hard copies and had to be physically mailed to the recipient. Analog multi-track recording onto two-inch tape reels was still the industry standard, and a band literally could spend hundreds of dollars on cutting one single track in a pro studio.

  The convenient digital photography age also was still years away. Whenever Dead Serios had a photo shoot it was necessary to hire a professional, medium format photographer. He would then return to his lab, develop a hard copy contact sheet and days later we’d all stand around viewing thumb nail images with a magnifying glass to select the best shots. A few days after that we would receive a hard copy 8x10 master photo that would be sent off to a printing company. About a month later, we’d have a thousand new, glossy, black and white, hard copy promo photos and a bill for hundreds of dollars worth of photo-related expenses.

  Add to this, demo duplication charges, folders, packing materials, postage, and bio printing costs at the local copy center and you can appreciate the expense involved in simply mailing out a few presentations. And let’s not forget about rehearsal space rental, long distance phone bills and advertising in various print publications. In short, the annual price tag for financing Dead Serios in those days was staggering.

  In 1990 Dead Serios was being represented by a guy who had recently relocated to Melbourne from L.A. named Hank. To Dead Serios members, Hank had a rather impressive industry background. He realized how close we were to making it, and he understood the importance of operating capital. Hank didn’t care by what means he acquired the cash, and neither did I.

  Dead Serios isn’t supposed to be taken serios-ly. On the other hand, whether it’s intended or not, using the concept of the “novelty song” is an excellent way to break into radio play and achieve national attention. Dead Serios may in fact be calculatedly serious. (Rex Havoc – Jam magazine, January 1990)

  Hank and I became close friends and we often traveled together to gigs, separately from the rest of the band. On one occasion Hank informed me that we needed to “make a stop” on our way out of town. I soon found myself sitting at a restaurant table with Hank and a man named John. John was the leader of one of the area’s most infamous motorcycle clubs and he was notorious for dealing drugs and teenage girls. Standing well over six-feet-tall and covered with jailhouse tattoos, John resembled rock legend Gregg Allman and had an intimidating presence, to say the least. Although he seemed to like my band, I never knew for sure whether John was going to shake my hand or slit my throat. Consequently, I rarely spoke during Hank’s meetings with John. And in hindsight, I’m glad that he never became one of our investors.

  However, many of Hank’s other associates did contribute to the Dead Serios cause. I remember a few instances during our more dire cash-poor days when I accompanied Hank to what I can only describe as crack houses. I’d typically sit on a filthy couch in a dimly lit house with boarded-up windows, surrounded by an array of weaponry, while waiting for Hank to make an “arrangement” with a dealer holed up in a back room. I’d sometimes wait on Hank for an hour or more while enjoying the company of various unwashed, ninety-pound teenage girls with bad teeth and tattoos who resided at the house. As a rule, Hank ultimately would reappear from a back room, wiping his nose as he’d toss me a roll of large bills and motion for the front door. It was dark stuff.

  Dead Serios live circa 1990.

  State of Control

  Had you looked up the word “hypocrite” in Webster’s Dictionary in 1990, you would likely have found my picture alongside the definition. I genuinely had a true passion for the Christian rock scene and I went to great lengths to establish a connection to that world but at the time, I certainly didn’t “walk it like I talked it.” And although I did a pretty good job of fooling many, there was one particular Christian rock insider who would see right through me.

  While on tour with Guardian in the fall of 1989, bassist David Bach had given me a series of spoken-word audio cassettes by Pastor Bob Beeman. As head of the L.A.-based Sanctuary church, Beeman was well known in the Christian rock community. I was thoroughly inspired by Beeman’s cassette series and as I became more familiar with his church, I discovered that one of its leaders was Barren Cross bassist Jim LaVerde. Best described stylistically as a Christian version of Iron Maiden, Barren Cross was one of the biggest names in Christian rock and had been a longtime favorite of mine. Given LaVerde’s Sanctuary connection, I was delighted to get the call confirming Dead Serios as the opening act on the Florida leg of their 1990 State of Control tour.

  I was excited to have the opportunity to connect with Barren Cross on a professional level and I was eagerly looking forward to our upcoming appearances with them. However, Dead Serios failed to make a terribly positive impression on Barren Cross or their fans during our first show together in Orlando. Unlike the connection we enjoyed with Guardian fans a few months earlier, Barren Cross fans were noticeably less enthusiastic regarding our garage-type, punk-meets-metal songs about lesbian cops, exploding potatoes and boogers. In fact, during one of our Barren Cross dates, I noticed a girl in the crowd clutching her Bible close to her chest with her eyes shut tightly and mouthing words as if she was praying for deliverance from an evil presence throughout our entire forty-five minute set. Looking back, given the content of our act, I can’t say that I blame her.

  From simulating sexual acts with mannequins to showering audiences with F-bombs, to stripping, spitting and puking, there was nothing I wouldn’t do or say while performing. Being onstage made me feel six-feet-tall and bulletproof. I recall one time in particular, we were performing in Miami, opening for the hard core kingpins, Circle Jerks. Two songs into our set, we began getting heckled by a rather large and disapproving skinhead faction. And be sure, I wasn’t going to allow their taunts to go unanswered. “You suck!” they shouted repeatedly from the mosh pit. I finally replied over the microphone with great confidence, “No, dudes – YOU suck!” Oddly, they remained non-disruptive for the rest of our set, as if they suddenly respected us for having displayed a little gumption. In fact, I recall partying with many of those guys behind the theater after the show!

  At best, Dead Serios are side-splitting. At worst, their jokes are too obvious. But the hooky, thrashy Megadeth-meets-SOD music generally carries ‘em away. Live, Serios use more props than anyone this side of Gwar.

  (Tom Nordlie – Thrash Metal magazine, July 1990)

  In typical Dead Serios fashion, my bandmates and I immediately headed to the bar following our first Barren Cross opening set and we soon achieved a level of drunkenness that was unprecedented, even by our standards. I remember getting so loaded that while Barren Cross was onstage I had to go outside of the club to walk it off before I passed out on the bar. As I came around the back of the club, I noticed Phil, Bill and Joe hanging out next to our equipment van. Upon
stumbling closer, I noticed that Phil and Joe were arguing and by the time I reached the van, their verbal dispute had turned physical. Apparently only half as drunk as the rest of us, Bill attempted to break up the now bloody scuffle while I stood there in a stupor, trying to comprehend what was taking place.

  Wine produces mockers; alcohol leads to brawls.

  Those led astray by drink cannot be wise.

  Proverbs 20:1 (NLT)

  This type of occurrence actually happened with such frequency in the Dead Serios world that I coined the term PGS (Post Gig Syndrome) to describe our predictable acts of after-show dysfunction. In later years, I began arranging to have a car waiting outside of each venue at the end of every show with the engine idling so that I could walk directly off the stage and immediately speed away without having to be involved in the inevitable PGS.