Deathrock or
deathpunk is a term
used to identify a sub-genre of
punk rock
incorporating horror elements and spooky atmospherics, that emerged
on the
West Coast of the
United States in 1979.
Characteristics
Deathrock songs use simple chords, echoing guitars, a prominent
bass, and drumming which emphasizes
repetitive, post-punk and tribal beats within a
4/4 time signature. To create atmosphere, scratchy
guitars, spooky or sinister synths, and experimentation with other
instruments are sometimes used. Lyrics can vary, but are typically
introspective, surreal, and deal with the dark themes of isolation,
disillusionment, loss, depression, life, death, etc.; as can the
style, varying from harsh and melancholic, to upbeat, melodic and
tongue-in-cheek. Deathrock lyrics and other musical stylistic
elements often incorporate the themes of campy
horror and
sci-fi films, which in turn leads some
bands to adopt elements of
rockabilly and
surf rock.
The frequently simplistic song structures, heavy atmosphere and
rhythmic music place a great demand on lead vocalists to convey
complex emotions, so deathrock singers typically have distinctive
voices and strong stage presences.
Despite the similar sounding names, deathrock has no connection to
the similarly named
death metal (aside
from occasionally similar lyrical themes), which is an extreme
subgenre of
heavy metal. However
bands such as
The Birthday Party
may have influenced the vocal styles to be used in the
latter.
History
Etymology
The term "death rock" was first used in the 1950s to describe
a thematically related genre of
rock and roll which began in 1958 with Jody Reynolds' "Endless
Sleep" and ended in 1964 with J. Frank Wilson's "Last Kiss." These
songs about dead teenagers were noted for their morbid yet romantic
view of death, spoken word bridges, and sound effects.
The Shangri-Las' "
Leader of the Pack" is arguably the best
known example of the '50s/'60s use of the term.
The term deathrock re-emerged 15 years later in 1979 to describe
the sound of various West Coast punk bands. The term most likely
came from one of three sources:
Rozz
Williams, the founding member of
Christian Death, to describe the sound of
his band,; the music press, reusing the 1950s term to describe an
emerging subgenre of punk; and/or
Nick
Zedd's 1979 film
They Eat Scum, which featured a
fictitious cannibalistic "death rock" punk band called "Suzy Putrid
and the Mental Deficients."
Origins
The earliest influences for some deathrock acts, such as
45 Grave for example, can be traced to the horror
themed novelty rock and roll acts of the late 1950s and early 1960s
such as
Bobby “Boris” Pickett with
"
Monster Mash,"
Screamin' Jay Hawkins with "
I Put a Spell on You" and
Screaming Lord Sutch & the Savages
with "Murder in the Graveyard." These songs used sound effects to
create a creepy atmosphere, dealt with taboo subjects (such as
cannibalism) in a humorous, often campy
manner, and are still occasionally played at deathrock clubs.
This horror influence on rock music continued into the 1970s with
theatrical hard rockers
Alice Cooper
and
Kiss. Rozz Williams has specifically
credited the 1970s output of both
Alice
Cooper and Kiss as childhood influences,
45
Grave also covered Alice Cooper's "
School's Out" on their debut full-length
album.
Other rock and
glam rock bands who
influenced many early goth/deathrock artists include
The Doors,
David Bowie,
The Velvet Underground,
Iggy Pop and the Stooges,
the Cramps,
T.
Rex,
New
York Dolls,
The Damned,
MC5, and
Richard Hell and the
Voidoids(For a more complete listing of influential artists,
see
Punk
Forerunners and
Gothic Rock predecessors.)
Horror movies also directly influenced deathrock artists. According
to
Dinah Cancer, Italian horror movies
were a large influence on
45 Grave's visual
style. Zombie movies influenced many deathrock artists, especially
George Romero's
Night of the Living Dead
(1968) and its sequels. John Russo's
Return of the Living Dead
(1985) which featured
Linnea Quigley
and a mostly punk soundtrack influenced later deathrock bands.
Horror-themed TV shows, such as
The Addams Family,
The Munsters,
The Twilight Zone,
Dark Shadows etc., also
provided some visual influence, as did spookily-clad horror movie
hosts on TV such as
Vampira in Los
Angeles,
John Zacherle in Philadelphia
and New York,
Elvira in Los
Angeles (then later nationally), and
Ghoulardi in Cleveland.
However, horror was not the only influence on deathrock. Film noir,
surrealism, cabaret, and various religious iconography
(particularly
Catholicism and
Voodoo) supplied much lyrical and
visual inspiration to deathrock artists.
Emergence
Deathrock
first emerged in America
in the late
1970s as a darker offshoot of the pre-existing punk rock and the emerging hardcore LA music scene.. The most active and
best documented deathrock music scene was in Los Angeles
, which centered around the bands The Flesh Eaters (1977), Kommunity FK (1979), 45
Grave (1979), Christian Death
(1979), Gun Club (1981), Super Heroines (1981), Pompeii 99 (1981), Voodoo Church (1982), Burning Image (1983) and Radio Werewolf (1984). Other western cities
in the United States also had bands which would later be described
as deathrock such as Theatre of Ice
(1978) in Fallon,
Nevada
and Mighty
Sphincter (1980) in Phoenix, Arizona
.
These early West Coast deathrock bands took the pre-existing base
of punk rock and added dark yet playful themes borrowed from horror
movies, film noir, surrealism, religious imagery, etc. A couple of
bands blended hardcore punk with a gothic sound, most notably
TSOL and
Burning
Image.
These early post-punk deathrock bands were not immediately
identified as part of a new subgenre of punk; they were simply
considered a darker flavor of punk and were not yet considered part
of a separate musical movement. During this time, these bands would
play at the same venues as punk, hardcore and
new wave bands. A similar situation arose in
New York circa 1978-79, albeit on a much smaller scale, in which
influential punk rock bands like
The
Cramps and
The Misfits, as well
as
The Mad (fronted by future horror-film
effects artist Screaming Mad George) had incorporated extensive
horror themes into their lyrics, visuals, and stage show, though
they did not use the term "deathrock" to describe themselves.
Merger
Around the same time as deathrock was emerging as a distinctively
darker subgenre of punk rock in the United States, other subgenres
of punk and
post-punk were developing
independently in the UK.
By 1982, a wave of darker, more tribal post-punk bands had
coalesced, influenced by punk rock, and the first-generation
post-punk bands (and specifically the noisier 1980-81 post-punks
UK Decay,
Killing
Joke, and
Theatre of Hate). The
primary bands in this new movement were
Sex Gang Children and
Southern Death Cult. Along with
Brigandage,
Blood and
Roses,
Ritual, and others, they were
dubbed "positive punk" by the UK press to differentiate them from
other bands who were attempting to fly under the punk banner, such
as the
UK 82 and
Oi! acts.
These positive punk bands featured tribal drumming, high-pitched
vocals, scratchy guitar, and bass as melodic lead instrument, and a
visual look blending glam with Native American-influenced warpaint
and spiky haircuts, the first generation of the UK's post-punk goth
bands. Other related bands like
Ausgang,
Inca Babies, and
Bone Orchard shared much of the tribal ethos
and spiky look, but took more inspiration from
The Birthday Party.
During
1983, a related movement was brewing at a London Gothic rock club called the Batcave
. Initially envisioned as a venue
specializing in
glam rock and
new wave musical acts, the two main bands
which debuted and performed frequently at the Batcave,
Specimen and
Alien Sex Fiend, developed their own
different sounds strongly influenced by horror in British
pop culture, which set them apart from the rest
of the glam and post-punk scenes in Britain. Also in 1983,
The Gun Club toured in Europe as did
Christian Death which meant the European
gothic rock scene and the American
deathrock scene were now able to directly influence one
another.
By 1984,
the term "positive punk" was outdated, and the tribal positive punk
bands, the various bands from the Batcave scene, as well as the
bands from Leeds
(such as
The Sisters of Mercy, March Violets, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, and others)
some of which used drum-machines, had all come to be referred to as
"gothic" or gothic rock.
The same year, California deathrock band
Kommunity FK toured with UK
Gothic rock band
Sex Gang Children (and the following year
with
Alien Sex Fiend) which
continued the trend in which American and British movements
intermixed.
Influenced more by the British scene and less
by California, deathrock bands began to form in other parts of the
United States, such as Samhain (1983)
in Lodi, New
Jersey
, Gargoyle Sox (1985) in
Detroit,
Michigan
, Shadow of
Fear (1985) in Cleveland,
Ohio
, and Holy Cow (1984) in
Boston,
Massachusetts
(and later Providence, Rhode Island
). The fertile New York
scene featured Scarecrow
(1984), Of a Mesh (1984), Chop Shop (1984), Fahrenheit 451 (1984), The Naked and the Dead (1985),
Brain Eaters (1986), The Children's Zoo (1986), The Plague (1987), and The
Ochrana (1987).
Irreconcilable differences
While deathrock, positive punk and the Batcave bands were similar
enough in sound to eventually all be filed as "gothic" , later
generations of gothic rock moved progressively away from the
original sound, and towards a more heavy-guitar rock influenced
sound.
The mid 1980s marked the second wave of gothic rock, when the sound
began to shift away from its punk and post-punk roots and towards
the more serious, rock-oriented approach.
Bauhaus broke up, Rozz Williams left
Christian Death, and The Sisters of Mercy
became the dominant and most influential gothic act. The term
"gothic rock" became preferred over "deathrock" (previously, they
had been used interchangeably), a change which Rozz Williams
attributed to the influence of the
The Sisters of Mercy. As a result, the
term "deathrock" was seldom used except in retrospective reference
to the Los Angeles bands
45 Grave and
Christian Death.
The mid 1990s marked a so called "third wave of gothic rock," as
the music drifted its furthest from the original punk and post-punk
sound by incorporating many elements of the
industrial music scene at the time (which
itself had moved away from experimental noise and into a more
dance-rock oriented sound) and the more repetitive and electronic
sounds of
EBM. Some clubs even
completely dropped deathrock and first generation gothic rock from
their setlists to appeal to a
crossover crowd. These changes alienated
many in the goth scene who preferred the livelier, punkier
deathrock sound and led them to seek out their earlier deathrock
roots.
Revival
Dinah Cancer and other deathrockers at
Release the Bats.
Nearly 20 years after deathrock and goth first appeared on the
music scenes in Southern California and London, the deathrock
revival began in Southern California.
During 1998 in
Long Beach,
California
, owners of the Que Sera, a local bar, asked Jeremy
"Jermz" Meza and friends to throw a one-night "old school" Gothic
Halloween party. After the success of the one-off party, the
event quickly evolved into a regular deathrock club called Release
the Bats and a focal point in California for the re-emerging
deathrock movement. (The club is named after a song by the
Australian band
the Birthday
Party.)
The current deathrock movement is similar to the original deathrock
scene in Los Angeles and the Batcave movement in London, but more
unified in the US, UK, and Europe through various record labels. In
addition to clubs, the current scene is centered around concerts,
special events, parties, and horror movie screenings, as well as
bands like Ex-VoTo, Cinema Strange,
Bloody Dead and Sexy,
Chants of Maldoror,
The Brides,
Antiworld,
Cult of the Psychic Fetus,
and
Tragic Black. The
internet is playing a major role in the deathrock
revival. There are
websites devoted to the
discussion of deathrock
music,
bands and
fashions as
well as horror movies, such as
Deathrock.com and
Post-Punk.com, plus
mailing lists for
deathrockers on various online virtual communities, such as
MySpace.
In terms of differences from the original scene, there has been a
shift to a more post-punk sound as a result of the influence of the
European bands of the '80s. Also, the apolitical influence of
psychobilly discourages political
debates that have the potential to fragment the scene (however some
famous deathrock acts, such as
Rudimentary Peni, were originally
anarcho-punk bands, and there is still some
slight crossover between the two scenes). The
Drop Dead Festival, similar to
psychobilly's Hootenanny, gave bands with smaller fan bases an
opportunity to play before larger crowds.
Currently there is a growing trend of
Lo-fi
Goth music in the indie scene, which developed partially out of
the deathrock revival. Some have already described this as the
fifth wave of gothic music.
Artists
Only Theatre of Pain,
Christian Death's 1982 debut album, is widely held as the first
American goth and deathrock album and cannot be easily classified
as either a darker flavor of punk, horror punk, or post-punk. As a
result,
Rozz Williams, the lead singer
of
Christian Death,
Shadow Project,
Premature Ejaculation, etc. is
considered one of the most influential artists in the goth and
deathrock scene. Patrick Mata of
Kommunity
FK is another influential male deathrocker as well as Larry
Rainwater of
Ex-VoTo.
Dinah Cancer has been referred to as
the Queen of Deathrock, the Goddess of Deathrock and the High
Priestess of Deathrock for her role as the frontwoman for
45 Grave during a time when female lead singers
were still considered somewhat of a rarity. Other influential
female deathrockers include
Tina
Winter and
Eva O.
Many artists in the United States released EPs and LPs prior to
1982 which would now be considered deathrock, such as the
previously mentioned
Theatre of Ice
and Mighty Sphincter. British bands also made major contributions
to the deathrock sound by adding a strong post-punk influence,
including
Joy Division,
Bauhaus, and
Siouxsie & the Banshees.
Other bands from around the world added their own unique
contribution to deathrock, including
Xmal Deutschland in Germany,
Virgin Prunes from Ireland, and
The Birthday Party in
Australia.
However,
The Sisters of Mercy,
who are frequently played at deathrock clubs, are generally not
considered to be a deathrock band, as the most prominent example of
their sound
Floodland has more in
common with second-wave gothic rock bands (as they were the second
wave's prime influence)..
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