First Ever Dead Alive Band Rehearsal

Photo By Ray Lee Rose

Brian Roberts (Left), Count Scapula (Top Left), Parker The Bandit (Front), Brother Of Manthing (Back), Manthing (Right)

Photo By Ray Lee Rose

Jan 3rd of 2023 I received an email from a booking agent asking if Dead Alive wanted to play a show on May 7th. I immediately said "yes."

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At that time, I was in a very deep depression. I had finally finished college after seven years, was going through some health problems and had just ended a seven year long relationship.

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At that moment I had no "band." Just an album I had released a few years prior.

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I called Manthing to "get the band back together" and asked a previous coworker, Brian, to fill in on guitar.

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Fun Fact: Count Scapula, Manthing, Cody, and Parker were all in a band together, right out of high school.

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This first show kind of became the final farewell to that first band. The last song we played that night was one of the songs from that band.

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While I was away at college, Parker and Cody started another band that was a little more produced. I played as a live guitarist for that band, even while I was in college and starting to work on Dead Alive with Manthing.

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That last song from the setlist was re-written to be played with that second band. That version was never released.

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For this last hurrah for the four of us, we re-wrote that song a third time, and played it one last time.

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We've kinda started a game about not telling anyone the name of those two bands, because the music is VERY DATED and kinda cringy looking back on it. Just to see if anyone can figure out what they were called and find the music.

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Another fun fact: The first song that I ever co-wrote and sang guttural vocals on was with that first band. It wasn't the song we played that night.

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I've left little clues around the website with hints to what those two bands were called.

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It was a bittersweet moment. The end of an era for our 16-18 year old selves. The Era of Dead Alive had truly begun.

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The three on the left were one of the other bands that played that night. It was the first time I ever heard Brett (Dead Beat) play the drums and I was amazed! I wanted him in my band.

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That band, Dystopian, isn't together anymore. I lucked out and he joined my band three shows later. We also met our future Bassist, Dedmen Walken, at this show as well as our future Guitarist, Dreadward.

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That chest plate was so hot. The (p)leather jacket that was starting to peel. I thought it would look really cool like its rotting. However it quickly became a mess nightmare with me leaving a trail of "Scapula" flakes everywhere I went, like confetti or glitter... but EVIL AND DARK

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This and the first show were the first times I put on corpse paint by myself. As you've noticed the paint design for The Count has evolved over time. For the first album, and with the early explorations of the character I had close friends help with the application. The "cheek" design to outline the jaw was inspired by Dee Snider's cheeks.

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The early shows I had such an issue with my hair getting in my mouth, and choking on it. It still happens occasionally, but both my body and my hair were not healthy at this time.

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Fun Fact: There was a Violent J (I.C.P.) show happening across the street at The Exit/In. Right after we finished playing Brian left to go to it. It was funny, Horror Rap on one side of the street and Horror Metal on the other side of the street. Lots of people in face paint.

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The first shows are always a bit rough around the edges. But they were fun! And all we hoped is everyone else were having fun too. During some of the dead air for guitar changes and tunings I told a couple cheesy skeleton jokes.

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Brian Roberts (Center) Jeremiah Pritchard (Right)

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After this show I needed to start finding long term band mates. I transitioned to playing guitar and vocals.

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This Warlock is my baby. It is my main writting instrument and I have recorded all of Dead Alive's songs with this guitar.

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Dedmen Walken was just dripping with style, charisma, and attitude.

The eyeholes for the bag kept getting wider and wider each show. Dedmen would tell us that while he's trying to headbang and move around the bag would move and he wouldn't be able to see his bass.

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We slowly improved on our stage presence, musical "tightness", and visual aesthetic.

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We're still working on refining Dead Alive's "look." But at the time the mentality and the goal was "Return of the Living Dead + old school Thrash/death metal."

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One of the most frequent compliments I get on the performances are the intense facial expressions I do. Part of the reason I wanted to do corpse paint was to accentuate my features when I would make extreme facial expressions.

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These early shows of me playing guitar were tricky for me since I really had never played and sung at the same time and found it really hard. I also had/have the compulsion to act with my hands, so I would "cheat" by not playing guitar during certain verses and upped the theatrics with hand gestures.

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Dedmen loved standing on his bass cab. Unfortunately in this basement the roof was pretty low and he couldn't really stand up all the way. He would jump off of it during Deadites.

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This was mainly a hardcore punk show. I learned what two-stepping was and realized that the hardcore punk crowd is not our scene. Our songs do not cater to Two-stepping or crowd-killing, and they didn't connect with the music because of it.

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Since I first came up with the Idea for what would become Dead Alive. I knew I wanted to do a "Trve Kvlt" cover of Spooky Scary Skeletons and if I ever did a music video for it, I would do an homage to Immortal's "Call of the Wintermoon."

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I figured since I wanted to do a music video and I had no budget and no experience with making a music video this would be a great learning experience and fun to execute on.

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We attempted at doing a shot for shot homage to Immortal's music video but since our song was shorter we were able to be creative and cut some of the more difficult or repetitive shots to execute on and we could have fun and do things our way.

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Our filming locations were a forested bike trail at a nearby park, and Mt Olivet cemetery, since there is a lack of good Norwegian ruins in Tennessee.

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We figured that since we are wearing very obvious costumes and had a camera, no one would call the cops on us. We still tried our best to kinda keep out of sight as much as possible. If people noticed us we would say "Hello, Don't mind us were making a fun video for Halloween."

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I plan on turning this shovel into a mic stand someday. I think shovels are underrated weapons in horror movies.

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It's a tool that is used to dig graves or exhume them. There totally could be metaphor or analogy you could derive from a protagonist in a horror movie using a shovel as a weapon.

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Here's a list of movies from the top of my head that has a shovel being used as a weapon. I'll update it if I can remember more, or if I see it in a movie.

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Evil Dead 2

Re-Animator

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

You'll probably noticed that the majority of these photos are by Ray. They are my darling partner, and one hell of a photographer!

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One of the next things to evolve for The Count Scapula corpse paint was the mouth. I was inspired by King Diamond's face paint and evolved the "teeth" pattern to look more "drippy."

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Early in the creative process I wanted the whole band to be Punk/Metal Skeletons but Manthing didn't like wearing corpse paint. So I decided Dead Alive would be more of a motley crew of monsters, and let everyone lean into their own creativity and "be their own monster." Just have to commit to the bit in some capacity.

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He also didn't know what he wanted his stage name to be. So the Manthing Character was created kind of in spite of that.

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In a band of monsters, what is a Manthing? Is he a serial killer like Ted Bundy? Nah, he's just some guy.

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What is more terrifying than Just some guy? A Creed fan, maybe? A Sigma Male? Makes my spine shiver.

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To play into the "Manthing" joke more and kind of establish an "air" of the comedy of the band, I also requested that Manthing Wear his green ribcage shirt and rip off the sleeves to be like Nigel Rufnel from Spinal Tap. I think this is literally the only time Manthing did not wear that shirt.

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It took Dedmen Walken around 2 hours to put on his makeup. Its a mixture of liquid latex glue, cotton balls, toilet paper, paint, and fake blood. Very DIY and Evil Dead-esq.

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These gloves I'm wearing are a combination of Hot Topic fingerless skeleton gloves, foam bone fingers from a cheap pair of Spirit Halloween costume gloves, and Hot Glue. The Idea is that I could still play guitar if I needed to and it would be more consistent with the texture of the rest of the costume.

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However they added to the heat of the performance, and the fingers would fall off after a little while and would need maintenance. You can see the chest piece popping out too.

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I think, In a way, Dedmen Walken knew what Dead Alive really needed to look like before I did.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose.

The idea was "Metal + Return of the Living Dead/Evil Dead" and he nailed it!

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It seemed like every show he was in a different outfit and it always looked 'on point'.

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In real life, he is funny, charming, lovable, excitable, and a little crass. He has a good heart.

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"The Dungeon" is what I call the detached garage at Castle Scapula (my house). Its where we do our band practice in, and over the years we've transformed it into a functional photography studio.

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Lol, yeah. I work with him as part of my day job. He's one of our management clients and I manage the distribution for his label imprint XOVR Records.

It was really cool to have him and my boss come out and support us at the show. Everyone else at the venue was surprised and amazed that he was there. I felt so cool.

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Because of our growing efforts on social media. We got reached out to - to be a part of a 40th anniversary tribute album for the Misfits' Earth A.D. Cody was done filling in and I needed a drummer who could do blast beats. So I called Brett from Dystopian and asked if we would be interested in playing drums on the track. He mentioned that conveniently (for me) "Dystopian is breaking up" and I asked if he would be interested in being Dead Alive's official drummer? I was so lucky. At this point in time, Dead Beat, was supposed to be a Reaper/Wraith/Ghost. It was way too much. He still was amazing on the drums, though inconvenienced.

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I started experimenting more with the Count Scapula look. Going for a very punk direction for the Green Hell video. I ripped the sleeves off a ribe cage shirt that I thought had a more comic look to match the corpse paint. The pants I made to continue the comic punk skeleton look, old ripped black jeans, and leggings I sewn a bone pattern I cut out from a pair of pajama pants. I also hand sewn the bracers and bicep tassel from some old material I had laying around.

Recorded With, Mixed, and Mastered by Dan Emery of Black Matter Mastering.

Artwork by Count Scapula

Photos from Ray Lee Rose

Misfits Tribute Album distributed by Horror Shock Records