Never running from the Reaper...

Deadmen. It is a name that draws a swift conclusion. It is an acknowledgement of the final destination. It is urgent and direct. This is what the members of Indianapolis’ newest whiskey and beer soaked hell-raising five piece evoke. Urgency.

Veterans of a multitude of current and former bands, vocalist Nate Olp (Demiricous, Whiskeytits, Lair of the Minotaur), guitarist Garrett O’sha (Coffinworm, Salvation, Angelville), guitarist Carl Byers (Coffinworm, Salvation, The Retreads, The Dream Is Dead), bassist Bob Peele (Whiskeytits, Suicide Note), and drummer Patrick Driscoll (Red Shadows, Salvation, Angelville) came together in the summer of 2008. After the demise of Salvation, O’sha, Byers, and Driscoll still wanted to pursue a more aggressive musical path together. This formed the core of the band. Olp and Peele were soon asked to join and round out the lineup.

Summoning their collective powers, the band down stroke their way into a brand of metal that infuses hardcore and punk into a brutish malaise. This is urgent music fueled by the mutual love of metal and hardcore punk between friends to bring about a unified sound. It is meant to be loud and rowdy. If a party springs up along the way, then it makes life that much better.

Making no bones about it, Deadmen’s music is not the wheel reinvented. Rather, it is a direct boot to the head. It is a blast furnace turned up to melt faces and cause a ruckus. Like their song title suggests, ‘Been there, still there,’ Deadmen invoke their collective consciousness to come together in stamping out weak riffs with a steadfast resilience backed by experience. Carl Byers spoke with The Cracked Skull about motives, inspiration, being from Indianapolis, and running from the reaper.

Why Deadmen? What’s the motives and inspiration behind the band and name?

The band name doesn’t have much intended meaning, but I think it’s as good as any other we could have picked. I was listening to the Dead Boys, and I was thinking about how snotty it sounded to call themselves ‘Boys.’ Dead Boys to men… Deadmen. The name isn’t exactly a nod to them, nor is the music specifically, but I thought it sounded cool. Everyone liked it enough to go with it. I think the main inspiration for me with name and approach to the band is to blend what we all love in the realms of heavy metal and hardcore—punk into one cohesive sound. It’s not anything new, but it ain’t broke so why fix it? I’d say that all of us in the band are aligned in that thought. To be more specific, regardless of how cliché this sounds, but it’s just friends making music together that we all like. Turn it up and party!

It would seem that the songs on the demo have a sense of urgency. Where is this urgency coming from, and are you all running from the reaper or what?

Haha! Not exactly, but that makes a good source of inspiration. I guess the best way to sum it up is that the majority of the riffs we come up with won’t sound good played at slower speeds. We slow it down from time to time, but usually it’s a down stroke picking, d-beat party.

What’s a typical writing session like for Deadmen? Does one person contribute more than another, or is it a collective effort?

Everyone contributes to the writing process, but generally the songs come together from riffs that Garrett and I bring to practice. We build from there. All of us put our two cents in though, and if a song seems even mildly weak we trash it.

As far as being straight out of Naptown, what do you think makes Indy’s collective heavy music scene so diverse and productive?

I think this city is easily one of the best examples of what an underground music scene should be. Granted, the outside community is generally not very supportive and the amount of people involved directly is on a smaller scale, but I like it that way. People can’t afford to get too cliquish, the hipster contingent is almost nonexistent, and people here are proud of what we have going on.

What other Indy bands at the moment are you all feeling?

Honestly, I wouldn’t say there are any that I’m personally not feeling, at least from the hardcore and metal scenes. Those scenes continue to produce great bands.

As a relatively new band with veteran members of numerous bands, what is on the agenda for Deadmen (recording, obviously shows, tour)?

Deadmen is strictly a fun thing for us. We have no plans to tour. Hopefully, we can make it out of state soon on some weekend warrior excursions to play with friends in surrounding cities, but that’s about as much as we want to do. Everyone in this band is busy with their other bands, jobs, or whatever. The shows we have coming up should be great. Our first show will be a Punk Rock Night at the Melody Inn on August 22. I can’t think of a better place to birth the band into a live setting. We also have two other shows booked in September. We may be playing a benefit show for the new collective DIY space, The Dojo, too. As for recording, I’m happy with the way the demo turned out. It was my first attempt at recording a full band. Not sure what we’ll do for anything after this, but eventually there will be a legit release of some kind. We’ve got six songs finished, and we’re currently writing at every practice. I’d really like to do a 7 inch if we can find a label to put it out. Regardless, we should have enough songs for a full length by the end of the year. We’ve talked about recording with Bob Fouts at Basement Rage Studios here in town if our schedules will allow, or possibly continuing to record further material ourselves. I’ve got some new recording gear on the way that should produce better results, so hopefully we can keep everything in-house.

Speaking of dead men, who are three that you would like to meet if you could raise their cold corpses from the ground and why?

I can only answer this question for myself, but if I had to pick three former living humans to resurrect and chat with over a beer it would have to be Nicola Tesla (to hear all the great ideas he probably had that were never brought to fruition), Phil Lynott (probably the best storyteller in rock ‘n’ roll history and never toppled from that throne in my opinion), and Thomas ‘Pig Champion’ Roberts (for obvious reasons).

What does a group of dead men drink to stave off the grave or get that much closer?

The simple answer is whatever adult beverage you put in front of us. Whiskey and beer make the good times even better, and when it’s free…

First chance to see the Deadmen: 8/22/09, The Melody Inn, $5, 10 p.m.
www.myspace.com/deadmencomesripping