Formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1985, Vio-lence instilled themselves as groundbreakers of the second wave of thrash with their revered 1988 album “Eternal Nightmare”. Through the years until the mid-90’s, Vio-lence toured to great success alongside thrash comrades Testament, Voivod, Death Angel and many more before breaking up in 1993, with some members splintering off to form Torque and Machine Head. Some 26 years later, Vio-lence reunite with Phil Demmel (lead guitar), Deen Dell (bass), Sean Killian (vocals), Perry Strickland (drums) and Ray Vegas (rhythm guitar) as they unleash their hefty sound and stage presence to the Aussie masses in February 2020. We talk to original member and ex-Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel about the upcoming tour, the reunion and more.
Andrew: Obviously the big news down here is you and Vio-lence with Sacred Reich are coming to Australia for the first time! We’re excited about this, it’s huge.
Phil: Yeah we are so excited about it, so stoked for it.
Andrew: Yeah it’s definitely going to be a great tour and something that a lot of long time old school metal fans have been wanting to see for some time. What are you guys bringing to the fans here for the first time?
Phil: [laughs] Well there’s not a lot of dynamics! We’re a thrash band so you’ll be bludgeoned for an hour from start to finish, so have a whiskey redbull or vodka redbull or something to get the edge and be ready as we’re going to bring it.
Andrew: So Vio-lence has been a band that’s in the minds of a lot of old school fans for quite a long time and obviously you guys reunited quite recently so how did it all start and how did you guys get back together again?
Phil: Well Sean [Killian, vocals] had reached out in January 2018 and I had just quit Machine Head, I had just done the brief Slayer thing that I did and he sent me a text and said, ‘Hey how about doing some shows?’ And I just responded with, ‘Vio-lence shows? Are you kidding? Last time I saw you, you were pretty close to death man!’ So he assured me that he was ready and that he was healthy and could do it and give him a couple months head start to get ready and he did it! We put up a show, kept it a thousand capacity and sold it out in a few hours and put up another show and sold out in a few minutes like 15 minutes! So we were really stoked, super excited that people were still into it and really overwhelmed right now people want to see us. So we do our due diligence to have that quality product for people to come out and see us, so be prepared to be popped in the face a few times.
Andrew: Were you surprised by such a positive response like that?
Phil: Yeah! I think ticket-wise, yeah I was really surprised especially to the extent that it was. I mean we sold out 2000 tickets in hours and same with the L.A. show, it was sold out in a day so another 1200 or whatever there so it’s really gratifying and totally shocking to me that after all these years – we hadn’t played in 16 years, no product, no nothing. I think the fact that me and Robb playing together those years kind of kept it maybe a float a little bit with the coolness of us playing together or something. But I don’t get it man, I really don’t and I’m not going to try to do any mythbusters tests on it or anything, I just want to enjoy it! The people want to see it and we just want to try and ride the wave while it’s still there.
Andrew: Well we’re glad you guys are back and coming down to Australia with Sacred Reich who is another legendary band as well. You guys must obviously have some history together, what’s it like to get back together with those guys as well especially in Australia of all places?
Phil: With Dave [McClain] going back to Sacred and me back in Vio-lence, it’s like it’s 1994 all over again or early 90’s again especially with the Burn My Eyes guys back together again too so it’s like we’ve all been transported back to this time! It’s cool in a sense that me and Dave are connected, Metal Allegiance played through Phoenix and all the Sacred guys were there and I played independant with them so being on stage with Dave it’s always been pretty organic in a sense, even in the eye of the tornado that was some of the Machine Head days. Him and I have definitely had our differences but we’ve also over the years came to a spot where we could pull each other aside and just go, ‘Hey that was a dick move, this is how I feel about it’. We’ve found a way to communicate with each other to where we can recover from a lot of that and I think he was the catalyst into, ‘Hey we should get Vio-lence to do some of these west coast dates with them’, and it turned into, ‘Hey let’s go to Australia together!’ Then Dave was like, ‘Hey let’s do Europe!’ The guys have taken all their vacation time for these 2 weeks in Australia so we just can’t do an extended tour, so something as cool as Australia was where we wanted to take that time and use all our chips and put it all on us in Australia. So you guys gotta come through for us, dudes are banking all their vacation time and all that!
Andrew: [laughs] Extra incentive for sure then! So Vio-lence and Sacred Reich have what I guess you could in some respect call a cult following among old school metal heads, when you think back to the early days when the band started what are some early memories of those early days when you were first started out?
Phil: Oh man I was in high school when I first started out with these guys, I hadn’t even graduated high school yet. So being a skinny dude who street wise was considerably younger than the guys I was playing with, it was Eddie Billy was playing bass – Chuck’s brother, it was 3 other dudes, it wasn’t Sean, it wasn’t Robb, it wasn’t me and these guys were punks of the town. Getting into all the fights at parties, breaking things, stealing things and I was the getaway driver for the most part! And so slowly forming a band like this and starting to re-write lyrics and starting to write all the songs and just grow as a musician and a songwriter and having the respect of these dudes to be able to be able to do that and slowly become – not the leader of the band, but to become a catalyst for a lot of the direction and ideas and having the respect of them that way. So that’s what I think, just me growing up and growing up in this band. It’s been what, 1985 so 34 years? When we played in Phoenix it was June 1st which was the first Vio-lence show. We were called Death Penalty previously but June 1st of 1985, so we played in Phoenix and that was the 34 year anniversary of the first Vio-lence show.
Andrew: Wow that’s a long time to have passed and obviously a lot has changed in that time. People have gone on to bigger, and better things to a certain degree but when you look back at that time did you ever think that you guys would be where you guys are now at this moment?
Phil: No nobody could have guessed that we would be here [laughs], and to put the record out and then to break up and to get back together to do some cool stuff and then me join Machine Head, rejoin Robb and then me quit, there’s no way, it’s a story all on it’s own. It’s just a weird wave that has come along and we’ve just hopped on it, we’re just really fortunate and really grateful that we’re able to do this.
Andrew: So what’s the future plans for Vio-lence? Are you guys going to continue doing shows and stuff like that or is it just a one-off thing?
Phil: We’ve got a bunch of shows booked through next year and we’re taking it just by the weekends, other than this Australian tour, we’re taking it through the weekends. We’ll do a weekend here and all over the world we’re going to Belgium, we’re going to Vegas, we’re going to New York, going to Mexico City, we’re going to Japan, Puerto Rico. We’re just taking these one-off shows, enjoying each other for the weekend and taking it from there. I’m a musician by trade so it’s fun to be in Vio-lence right now but I’m also looking for a full time gig too. So doing other things, I just recorded a record over the weekend with Mike Portnoy and Bobby Blitz and Mark Menghi. The Metal Allegiance guys but it’s not Metal Allegiance. I want to do solo stuff, there’s a lot of stuff I still want to do that isn’t Vio-lence. These guys can’t be a full-time touring band and I’m kind of looking for that right now.
Andrew: Well we are looking forward to seeing you guys in Australia. I hope you guys enjoy it and I hope you impress everyone out there as I think it’s something a lot of people have been wanting to see for quite a long time.
Phil: Yeah man super excited to get down there and yeah, be ready for a one hour bludgeoning [laughs].
Andrew: [laughs] Thanks for your time, really appreciated and we will see you early next year.
Phil: OK sounds good!
NEW SACRED REICH AND VIO-LENCE 2020 TOUR DATES:
TUES 7 JULY – CANBERRA – THE BASEMENT
WED 8 JULY – BRISBANE – THE OUTPOST
THUR 9 JULY – MELBOURNE – MAX WATTS
FRI 10 JULY – SYDNEY – CROWBAR
SAT 11 JULY – ADELAIDE – ENIGMA
TICKETS FOR THE NEW DATES ARE AVAILABLE HERE:
https://hardlinemedia.net/current-tours
