CORROSION
OF CONFORMITY
Bob Muldowney's "Kick Ass" won the
band the attention of Slayer manager
Brian Slagel and his label, Metal
Blade Records. With the engineering
work of Slayer and Trouble producer
Bill Metoyer, Metal Blade released
Corrosions's second LP "Animosity"
in the summer of 1985. "If you con-
sider what was happening at the time
in music," says Woody, "Metal Blade
was taking a total chance on us. They
had no idea what we were or what we
were going to do and they certainly
helped us out a lot."
'But still," says Mike, "I think that
we backed it up with a lot of time and
energy"
"Definitely," jokes Reed, "stickers,
t-shirts, boxer shorts...it's a total
marketing concept. Kids across
America see the spikey skull and go,
'Corrosion...dude....
"Animosity saw a return to CO.C's
Sabbath-based roots and as cuts like
"Kiss of Death" bounded along with
an adrenaline-paced intensity, others
such as "Holier" and the title cut
OR
By Mike Gitter
OK, let's get the record straight.
Raleigh North Carolina's Corrosion of
Conformity are not speedcore, speed
metal, black metal, green metal or
pink metal. They are not a trendy
band. They play the balls-out, power
charged thrash they played at their
first gig four years ago just much
more competently. COC are one of
hardcore's best, playing their unique
blend of power thrash like there's no
tomorrow, despite the fact they've
already torn up yesterday. Nonethe-
less, they remain one of hardcore's
most committed, breaching the boun-
daries of punk while maintaining the
socially critical ideals they've posess
ed from their origins. While newer au-
dience members headbang along.
Corrosion fail to pander Unlike a vast
number of bands who literally play into
the hands of bandwagoneers, CO.C.
remain true to themselves, charging
forth with a fireball of white-hot energy
influenced by the likes of Black Sab-
bath and the Bad Brains.
Guitarist Woody Weatherman
burns away with a soulful lead as
bassist Mike Dean, capped by a flop-
ping mass of fiery red dreadlocks
plucks away with reckless abandon.
Drummer Feed Mullin pounds with a
seldom known fury comparable to the
likes of drumming legend Chuck
Biscuits. Newly joined vocalist Simon
Bob Sinister, ex of Raliegh's Ugly
Americans passionately flips about a
mass of hair vocalizing with more skill
and clear delivery than any vocalist to
front the unit in their four year ex-
istance. They may be friendly and
easy going, but these guys know how
to do some damage.
86
Though CO.C. once toured through
the U.S. and Canada, known only as
a lightning-paced thrash act with
somewhat of a metal influence, recent
gigs with Anthrax, Slayer and Metal
Church have expanded Corrosion's
audience as a greater amount of
headbangers and metallers swell
COC's rank of fans. "The crossover's
a pretty interesting thing," says Mike.
"It's very strange when people come
up to us and ask us for autographs
and just relate to the band in a fashion
we really don't understand. That's a
boundary we should be helping to
break down and destroy. I think our
band is one of the few that motalheads
will come to see that really has
anything to say on a lot of issues."
Times were once simpler for CO.C.
Formed in mid-1982 as an off-shoot of
No Labels, one of Raleigh's seminal
hardcore acts that Reed drummed
and Woody played bass for, Corrosion
quickly became known as one of the
South's most vicious outfits. With the
addition of Mike Dean and original
vocalist Benji, CO.C. were initially an
attempt to embrace a heavier,
Discharge-rooted assault. Initially, the
band proved to be a virtual malestrom
of hardcore fury as captured on the
"No Core" and "Why Are We Here"
compilations. Corrosion, then fronted
by the atheletic presence of Eric
Eycke, toured the US and Canada in
the summer of 1984 supporting the
release of "Eye For An Eye," CO.C's
first full-length album. Wherever they
went overwhelming reactions were
generally the rule.
Write-ups in some of the more
open-minded metal 'zines including
Howling aggression 2 years back...Woody strumming, Reed pounding at
possess a variety of tempo changes
and distinctive structures that have
come to trademark the COC sound.
By this point, Eric had left the band
due to personal differences and Mike
had taken up the vocal duties.
Suprisingly, by the spring of 1986,
Corrosion were just about ready to call
it quits. Enter new vocalist Simón Bob,
whose vocal prowess quite literally
redefines the overall COC, snarl. As
apparent on both Ugly Americans
records, "The Dream Turns Sour"
(Discipline) and "Who's Been Sleep-
ing In My Bed?" (Metal Blade) as well
as the recently released "Philadelphia
Freedom" EP (Metal Blade) Bob
posesses a clear and concise vocal
ability. Backed by Dean's famialiar
The
CBGB's, New York.
screech and Reed's powerful bellow-
ing. Bob literally explodes over the
mayhemic din, directing the barrage
rather than merging with it. According
to Bob, "I think that the Ugly
Americans were very different than
COC, but if you look at the songs
COC are doing now you can see how
different it is from the stuff they were
doing two years ago. Every combina-
tion of people works out in a different
manner so hopefully man and C.O.C.
will work out in its own right."
With the addition of fresh blood,
CO.C. hope to push themselves far
away from categorization and iden-
tification with any number of punk-
cum-metal outfits that seem to be pop-
ping up at a ridiculous rate. Although
bands such as SO.D. offer much in
terms of balls-out delivery, there
seems to be little in the way of idea
and belief. "The Storm thing," says
Mike, "was speed and energy mixed
with complete Archie Bunker politics.
It's ignorant, nationalistic and proud
of itself which is a very sad thing.!
think we got lumped with that type of
band simply because the bulk of
magazines and people are simply in-
to the asthetic of what we're doing.
They can't perceive much of a dif-
ference between us and bands like
SOD. I think our sound is pretty
radical in comparison."
Looking back at the beginning of
the band's crossover popularity,
COC seem a bit disappointed. "We
were really enthusiastic about attemp-
ting to reach more people" says Mike.
"It got overdone," interjects Woody.
"It got to a point where instead of there
being one or two bands that metallers
liked, there started to be millions upon
millions of bands that just started pop-
ping up and all sounded pretty much
the same. Simply, they were just co-
pying each other and not learning
much at all."
"It's one of the quickest trends to
go stale," says Mike, "and I think the
funny part is that it's taken this long
for record companies and magazines
to exploit it. Let's face it, if thrash is
presented in the right way, it can
become a totally mainstream
phenomena. Unfortunately, too much
bullshit and imitation has made it hard
for things to be very sincere. You can
thank good bands like Metallica for
putting the correct manner of the form
in front of larger audiences. Still, I
think the music has lost a lot of its
credibility and is no longer very
sincere. I certainly don't think it's done
very much to educate people. Simp-
ly, it's become a commodity."
COC see themselves possessed
of a tremendous responsibility; to pre-
sent ideas and heartfelt beliefs in a
thrash form without giving into imita-
tion or insincerity. According to Mike,
"In an age of censorship or potential
censorship, I think it's a good thing
that larger audiences are able to ac-
cept a band that challenges the con-
strictions society puts on them. Even
if one out of ten people fully com-
prehend what COC is doing and
what we're about there is some
amount of communication going on
and for us, that's what makes it all wor-
thwhile."
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