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Impaler |
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 Back in the 80’s, we watched a lotta
splatter flicks. We liked movies that were loud and flashy and violent,
especially if they had half-naked teenage cheerleaders gettin’ knifed. I
dunno why, although I’m sure the cocaine and nuclear fear had something to
do with it. Anyway, plenty flash metal
bands sought inspiration in splatter, as evidenced by plethora of
ginchy shock n’ roll bands around at the time, midnight tatterdemalions
and groovy ghouls like WASP, Gwar, Green Jello,
Ripper, Haunted Garage, Nasty Savage, Hallow’s Eve,
Lizzy Borden, the Manimals, the Wild, and Kery
Doll, among others. But if ya really wanna slice through the all the
grisly meat ‘til ya hit bone, let us simply park our hearse in front of
the 80’s gravest gore whores, the darkest defilers of ‘em all, the blood
eating bad asses from Minnesota themselves, Impaler. And let me
just mention that, to this very fuckin’ day, whenever I even say their
name out loud, it lands exactly like a teeth-shattering punch in the face
– “IMPALER! FEAST OF FLESH AND BLOOD! IMPAAAAYYYLLEERRR!” Like
that, see? Impaler didn’t fuck around, baby. Still don’t, matter of
fact. ___________________________________________________________________________________ |
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| Impaler was formed in the early 80’s in St Paul, Minnesota, a cold, desolate tundra of black ice and purple rain, by one Bill Lindsey, who I will tell you right now, is one of my all time rock n’ roll heroes. And not just cuz he drank blood and wrote the line, “I don’t want no intellectual, I need something wet and sexual” either, although those are both very good reasons. No, I am D.T.K. with Mr. L because, via a live Impaler tape circa 1984, he introduced the Teen Sleaze to the Stooges. See, unlike a lot of shock-flash bands from the 80’s, who mighta LOOKED like punk n’ roll mutants from planet Motherfucker, but often sounded like boring ol’ horse galloping Iron Maiden rip-offs or screechy thrash metal Frankenshredders, Impaler had IMPECCABLE taste in the rock and the roll. There is no doubt that a whole lot of who they were was a direct result of Alice Cooper, but it was GOOD Alice Cooper that rocked ‘em - ya know, “Killer”, “Love it to Death”, “Billion Dollar Babies” - AND they were just as influenced by those other Dee-troit Rock City proto-punk legends, the Stooges and the MC5. |
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Hell, they went on about it in every
interview. Now, I know that every band cites the Murder City 3 as direct influences on
their raggedy old nth generation sleaze band these days, and that’s
beautiful, but it’s EASY, now. In 1984, you actually had to be HIP, had to
have GOOD TASTE in REAL rock n’ roll, to dig the Stooges. I swear to
Christ this is true, man, just ask anybody that was around. I was 15 at the time, and I HAD, of course, heard of Iggy and the Stooges, and had, of course, heard “I Wanna Be Your Dog” a few times here and there. But on said live tape, Bill said, “This next song is by Iggy. Iggy and the Stooges. That motherfucker was bad before there WAS bad!” and then Impaler launched into a NASTY, raw, metal-tinged, kill for thrills rendition of “Search and Destroy”, and I tell you, brothers and sisters, I had never heard such holy fucking rock and roll before. Ok, so maybe it woulda been cooler coming from the source (maybe), but when you hear the line “I’m a streetwalkin’ cheetah with a heartful of napalm” and you are 15 years old, well, let’s just say it’s a pretty overwhelming influence. And sure, I was probably already fucked by rock anyway, but Impaler pointed me in exactly the right direction, at exactly the right time. Just about every record I bought and worshipped over the next cuppla years was a direct result of Bill Lindsey’s deranged, shock rock rendition of “Search and Destroy”. |
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But this ain’t about Iggy (not anymore than usual, anyway), it’s about Impaler, and their first, enthralling, amazing EP, “Rise of the Mutants”. We (we being myself and this gangly cat I ran with in high school, Luke) interviewed Lindsey in our first fanzine, Frightmare, back in ‘85, and although I remember our interview bring REALLY stupid, I also remember Bill being warm and funny, a stark contrast to the berserk creature in spikes and tin-foil, eating raw meat on the cover of “Rise”. This record has one of the greatest cover images EVER. It looks like the work of a mental patient, maybe several of them. Your fears are not quelled when you meet the rest of the band on the back cover, either. The drummer’s name is “Meaty Bob Johnson”, and in his picture, he’s screaming, and holding the head of a bloody blonde. In his other hand, he appears to be holding a two-sided crucifix. Why? Perhaps he’s gonna “nail” the blonde with it. Court Hawley (what a name!), the bass player, is wrapped in black spandex, and posing in front of somebody’s gravestone. Guitarist (“ALL guitars”, it says here) Michael James Torok holds his exploding axe aloft. Together, they are Impaler, shock rock mutants ridin’ the Meatwagon to Hell City USA, baby. There is NO WAY that any self-respecting teenage Sleazegrinder could have EVER let a record like this slip by ‘em. |
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“Rise of the Mutants” was released by Combat
records, home of Sweet Pain,
TKO, and a few dozen thrash metal bands, in 1985. By that time, Impaler
were already a known quantity in metal circles because of a widely
circulated round of demos (the “Vicious Demos”, as they were known) live
tapes, and a carpet-bombing homegrown media campaign that infected even
the smallest circulation Xerox metalzines of the day. Wherever there were
metal kids in ‘84-85, believe me, there was an Impaler tape blaring. Not
that Impaler’s sound was even all that METAL, at that point – they were
more of a metallic punk band at that point, like the Dead
Boys-meets-Poison Idea-meets Venom, maybe- but the spikes, leather, blood,
and subject matter (death, pussy, the devil) were all close enuff for rock
n’ roll. |
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| The flipside is more metal-tinged, but no less manic, as theme song “Impaler” lays on the glam-doom slabbage like St. Vitus fighting off a knife wielding New York Dolls (or voice versa, whichever image pleases you more), and closer “Heaven’s Force” throws a little 70’s thunderboogie and devil imagery into the mix. And OK, Impaler wrote themselves in on the side of 'Good' in Heaven's Force, for some crazy reason, but it's still an evil SONG. And sure, the whole record sounds like absolute HELL (it’s been remixed and re-mastered since then, so you might never even hear the original, but believe me, it’s pure mud) but it hardly matters, since it just BLEEDS sleazy rock n’ roll from every filthy groove. A damned and demented classick, this one. |
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 “Rise” was released at the height of the
PMRC record-banning hysteria, and
made their vaunted “obscene” list, along with WASP and 2 Live Crew, which
helped Impaler’s sales enormously. A year later, they followed up with
their first full-length, the more metallized “If We Had Brains We’d Be
Dangerous” (Combat, 1986). “Brains” was produced by Husker Du mainman
Bob
Mould (!) and contained their cover of “Search and Destroy”. It was also
much more of a straight-ahead metal record, which only cemented Impaler’s
stature as the Shock Metal’s reigning mutant kings. In 1988, they even
recorded at Prince’s Paisley Park studios (the album, “Wake Up Screaming”
was eventually released in 1990, on Channel 83 records), which, even
you have to admit, is pretty fuckin’ shocking.
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| Like most Flash Metal bands, Impaler went underground once grunge kicked in, and have existed in various forms (although always with Lindsey at the helm) ever since, playing metal festivals and horror conventions, and releasing albums every few years, including "Undead Things" (1996, Vlad), "It Won't Die" ('98), "One Nation Underground" ('01), and "Old School Ghouls" ('02). Since 1998, they have been signed to Root of All Evil records, and have amped-up the goredevil image to ever more gruesome heights, as evidenced on their recent DVD release, "20 Years Undead", which collects 2 decades worth of live footage. And since they really are the cursed undead, I suppose they will continue to operate until the end of time. |
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As for me, I am still knocked out by the buzzsaw wreck n’ roll of “Rise of
the Mutants” after all these bloody years. I think that might be where
Impaler’s Flash Metal Suicide kicks in – after you’ve posed with raw meat
in yr mouth on the cover of your first record, and after you’ve ALREADY
written a song called “Shock Rock”, exactly where are you supposed to go
from there? Sometimes ya just get it TOO right, man. At any rate, the
songs on “Rise” still rock as wildly as they ever did, and I betcha Bill
Lindsey is STILL hipping fledgling Teen Sleazegrinders to the power and
glory of the Stooges and the MC5. When he’s not showering them in buckets
of blood and chicken livers, that is. Impaler official site Listen to Rise of the Mutants in even muddier-than-usual streaming audio at Vibrations of Doom! ____________________________________________________________________________________ |
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-Sleazegrinder, a mutant rising
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