malicious intent
Malicious Intent
Black Ace
Whipped
Cry Havoc
Murder in Your Eyes
Carnivore
Reign of Terror
Blood Money
Judas
Killing Frost
Alone
Neo-Nazi
Latter Days
all lyrics by Guy
© 1990 Vengeance Incorporated used by permission
click song title to view lyrics/ liner notes
Black Ace
Boy, are you a boy or a man?
Little girl watch you move
Like a fool I just can’t understand
Flash, just a flash in the pan
You think you hold all the world
In the palm of your hand
Leopard skin panties and spandex
Knee pads slide cross the stage
Head scarves and Afro-sheen hair-gloss
Sweat pours out of your face
King, of the sleaze-bars you are
Amazing the crowd with your
Ripped off old recycled licks
Grind, bump and grind like a whore
Shaking your axe to the
Jungle-beat sway of your hips
Plays like the sound of an echo
Dresses like old mollycrew
You can teach any fool to play guitar
It’s all monkey-see monkey-do
Your heads swollen
‘Til its twice its size
Burst like a blister-
Pus runs out of your eyes
One man show won’t make you a star
Tributes to Hendrix never go very far
You’re big shit in your little world
Wait ’til you hit the real scene
They’ll laugh you right
Out of your dream girl
Voodoo Chile, black leather queen
NOTES:
This was about a guitarist we knew, a real show-boat (although he was a very talented musician, probably another reason for our animus). He was one of those guys who was very extreme in how he acted on stage and how he dressed, and who seemed completely unaware of what a parody he was, or how hilarious everyone thought he looked and acted.
This kind of excess is excusable if it attracts girls, but he did not, so it was worthless on every single level and made him look like a real tool, but it afforded us much amusement. All the guys in the band knew exactly who I was talking about from the moment I presented this song. This was the first one we wrote with Mark Malloy, Curt’s replacement, and an old friend of ours. He is in my band now and a wonderfully talented guitarist and mellow person, but at this time he was very young and cocky and a bit of a pill with which to work (not that I was any prize).
He first presented us with this song, and originally the main riff was a straight lift from, I think, Rock and Roll Crazy Nights, or something else off Loudness’ “Thunder in the East”, which we were all very high on at the time, it was new and an exciting, melodic, riff based way to go with metal as opposed to Sabbath or Priest’s “Metal Gods” type slodging, grinding dirges, and we all really liked it.
We changed the lick around enough to where we wouldn’t get sued if anyone ever took any notice of our pissant existence, and off we went, and here’s the song. The song is kind of harsh in retrospect, but that was the theme of the whole album; Malicious Intent. It was just random venom toward as many people as possible. All our albums were concept albums in the sense that there was an over-riding theme like that:
Predator: predation, killing, violence; Malicious Intent: maliciousness, unfairness, hatefulness, cheating, evil; Bad Crazy: insanity, psychosis, socio-pathic behaviour, madness; Love Kills: bitterness, desire, retribution, longing and the name of the band is Vengeance Inc, so there you have it.
The end of the song has some ominous, slowed down backwards spoken lines by me. I forget what I said. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Now, doing the revision, I’ll only say that they were some inexcusably unfair and terrible things to say about the guy, which I cowardly ran backwards because our stuff was distributed not only worldwide, but sold well locally and other bands took notice of other bands’ releases, and he would have heard it, and I’m glad he never did.
He did hear the song’s main lyrics, caught the reference, and was kind of pissed off about it. Eh, I was a dumb ass kid, I make no excuses for youthful excesses. We thought it was hilarious at the time but it seems kind of dumb now.
Whipped
When Mama calls you better listen good
You know you can’t stay out late
She don’t like you playin’ that metal noise
When she’s here I can feel the hate
So follow the leader, no mind of your own
Jump when the fat bitch calls
I watch you grovel and I can’t believe
She’s got your balls
There’s just one thing you gotta know
That you’re Whipped
You’re Mama’s little whippin’ boy
You’re pussy whipped
There’s just one thing, you better know
The lady’s little whippin’ boy
Phones every hour just to check you out
Keepin’ tabs on her baby boy
Snaps her fingers and the puppy barks
Commands and he plays her toy
She hates your music, she picks your friends
She’s trying to run your life
Walking the dog on a short little leash
Bitch-queen with a knife
NOTES:
Whipped was originally about our lead guitarist, who had just left the band, and ironically came back just as we were about to release the album with tracks recorded by his replacement, so we re-recorded all the lead parts except those Mike and I had done.
He was not completely the target of the song, everyone knows bitch-queen girlfriends who try to wreck bands, but some of the lines were literal references to “incidents”.
Another one that the band fell out laughing when they first heard the lyrics, the reference was clear.
More maliciousness, in fact, these first 2 songs were the first two written after Curt left, both with Mark (he also supplied the main lick, although we reworked the song substantially after he left the band, and I’ve added his credits to the songs to which he contributed.
My puppy Rafe (the first one, I’ve had 3 with that name) supplied the “puppy bark”.
This one was a real crowd favorite and one of the songs people would sing along on the WHIPPED! part. It was usually the one people would remember also, lots of people would ask about the “pussy whipped song”.
Cry Havoc
So this is the ruin of the nobl’st man
Who ever walked on the tides of time
Woe to the hand that shed his costly blood
Over his wounds I do prophesize
A curse shall light on the limbs of men
Blood and destruction shall cumber all the Earth
And his spirit raging for revenge
With Ate by his side screaming hot from Hell
Shall Cry Havoc and in his anger
Let slip the dogs of war
Who scourge the Earth
With plague and pestilence
Fear and famine, fire and sword
Cry Havoc, take no prisoners
Cry Havoc, no mercy now
Cry Havoc, no quarter given
Cry Havoc, slaughter them all
Hunt the hills, scour the land
’til they’re cornered like a beast at bay
We shall wreak havoc on their heads
We shall make them rue the day
That they dared to tempt their destiny
That they dared to change their fate
NOTES:
These lyrics were inspired, (or partly lifted verbatim or slightly paraphrased with filler added so they would scan properly), from Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’. The lyrics on this entire album are what they are, appropriate for the music and the genre we were doing, nothing classic for the ages here, but this one worked out nicely,
I think it has good structure. Most of the songs on this album are kind of dark and violent, and this fits right in, plus Marc Antony was being pretty malicious when he delivered this funeral oration, he intended to stir up trouble when he was feigning smoothing things over. This is a guy to whom I could relate.
A version of Havoc was the first song we ever recorded, but it didn’t make the first album because the other half of it (a song by Curt we had combined with this, my composition) had double bass, and Chuck was a single bass player then. He did learn double bass quickly enough to do some double bass work on that album, but that song and another lost Vengeance number “Fear No Man” were not finished in time.
There’s Murder in Your Eyes
Give a good lickin’, strainin’ and kickin’
Slap it like a child
Wet and wicked, ready for the lash
Mad-dog wild
I don’t wanna play games anymore
I don’t see you anymore
I don’t even know you’re there
I can’t hear you anymore
But I know you’re everywhere
I don’t need you- I won’t free you
I can see the Murder in Your Eyes
Show no mercy, Malicious Intent
Give as good as you get
NOTES:
Along the lines of Carnivore, this one is also full of violent, mixed with sexist, images. But the chorus: “I don’t need you” etc. was a swipe at the guitarist and writing partner who had left the band just as we were writing the first songs for this album, so the maliciousness is all there, hate-fans.
I remember feeling very devious when I sang these lyrics, and singing them very snidely on the chorus, intentionally. We kind of played it up in the video we did of this song as well. Our lightman and very good friend Bobby Gibbs always liked the “run like a whippet” line and it was a catchphrase for the band for a while, “whippet” meaning something else I guess. The entire song is a bit over the top and hilarious now.
This song was one of two new songs I wrote myself, along with Neo-Nazi, when we were between guitarists. Kind of my mini-“Oh Darling”. I stuck in John Lennon speaking a line from a radio interview at the beginning. I regrettably lost the complete tape of the interview. I was going to splice it back in and clean it up when I remastered the track, but I couldn’t locate the cassette. There are some audible pops it was impossible to completely mask on the remastered version.
Almost all the echo on this album was done with an Echoplex tape echo, not a digital echo. I still use it, I think it gives an ambience digital delay can’t match. I have to make my own tape loops from 1/4″ tape though, they have long since become unavailable to purchase.
Carnivore
I’m in heat tonight, lookin’ for a fight
And I won’t take no for any answer
Well she’s soft and scared, proud and golden haired
But I could make her cry
Lookin’ for a piece, keep her on a leash
I ain’t choosy, I’ll take what comes easy
Gonna leave no doubt, if her claws are out
Then I know she’ll give in
Take a long hard ride, I’ll use all nine lives
I won’t waste on tryin’ to please her
Give her all I’ve got, ’til she’s wet and hot
I’m waitin’ on the edge
I got her down on her knees
Girl from the magazine
White lace seventeen
Young and eager to please
Sweet Carnivore
Straight to the root of my desire
She still wants more
And she won’t stop until I fire
NOTES:
Classic crotch rock, with all the prerequisite sexist and heavy-handed lyricism. Like Spinal Tap, I sometimes confused sexy with sexist. The maliciousness on this one is that it basically deals with cheating.
I was in a long term relationship, and right at the time I wrote this song I’d met a 19 year old dancer for whom I eventually left my long-term girlfriend and moved in with. Sex was definitely on my mind when I wrote this. This was mostly about an encounter the night I met her, but could have been any one of dozens.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was a dog in my youth, but I cleaned up my act after this transitional phase. This girl did have a body to kill someone over and was very flexible and athletic. She was also an incredible bitch and drank like a fish, but hey, nobody’s perfect. We did have a good, if eventful, time while it lasted, and I can say it was never boring. This tune is for you honey, wherever you are.
A nice touch was the use of overdubbed moaning from a Ginger Lynn porn film during the solo and the ending riffs. You can hear her jewelry clanking. Curt wrote most of the music for this, and I think the lick is a take-off of Shoot Shoot by UFO.
NOTES:
Interestingly, (to me, anyhow) this song was written around a drum pattern Chuck came up with and we hashed out in the studio, as we did with the last instrumental, FTW from Predator. Mark actually helped write this one, but after he left the band we expunged any credit for anything he did.
He and I co-wrote the acoustic ending part, and he used it on a demo for a metal band he joined later, Hemlock. We were kind of pissed at the time he would reuse a part we had written as Vengeance and represent it as a composition by another band, but it seems like much ado about nothing now.
Still, their version was never released on anything other than a very primitive cassette with a paste on label, so we didn’t really feel it was in competition with ours, which sold well overseas and ended up going into a 2nd run, over those few years we produced over 4000, which may seem like small potatoes, but it was a big deal to us. I still have several hundred in a box in a closet, if you want one.
Mark plays with me now in our present cover band project, docweaselband, and let me just say for the record he’s a heck of fine fellow and a hell of a guitarist. If you listen very close during a lull in the acoustic part, there was a cricket in the studio and it picked up while Mark, whose part actually forms the basis of that ending part, is playing.
I was careful to retain the cricket when first I, and eventually Curt, overdubbed acoustic parts so we could say it was only current band members, but I do think some of Mark’s work remains in the final mix. Nick Simmons overdubbed Mark’s work with a nylon string classical guitar, and I believe he wrote and played the very first part, with the harmonics.
All the electric is Curt, I play the Ensoniq strings. The heavy part of this, without the acoustic section, was a major section of our live show: Curt would play an extended solo guitar piece,then the band would come in and play the heavy part of Reign, then we would break into the title track of the Predator LP, which is like a seven-minute song.
It usually went smack in the middle of the set and Predator had a big ending so it always got a great response.
NOTES:
I wrote this one to fill out Judas. It was kinda inspired by the Brian May riff from One Vision, then I used an intro I used to do when we played Judas live in the original form of Vengeance, when Mike, in his first stint with the band, and I were lead guitarists, a keg party and bar band riding the crest of heavy metal’s surge into the mainstream.
It was kind of a combination of Eruption and the Brian May live solo and I kept messing with it when I got a 4 track, then an 8-track and finally worked out the entire piece with a drum track from something else. This was also something I was working on between guitarists.
As noted elsewhere, we changed two times before Curt rejoined, so I had time on my hands. I played all the instruments and stacked a bunch of guitars in several contrasting melodic patterns. Chuck added the drums after the whole thing was completed with a drum machine supplying the click track.
An odd decision I guess to end the first side, then begin the 2nd with instrumentals, but it kind of worked somehow. We did use Blood Money as an intro for big-deal gigs where a taped intro was appropriate. You can hear part of a taped Blood Money as an intro to Tiger Shark here: 92.05.11 Rocket Club
Judas
Traitor, you sold out your friends
Liar- betrayed all your trust for thirty pieces of silver
Fool, hang by your own hand
Drowning in Death’s cold remorse
Coward, now where will you hide?
Beast- hunted and hated by those who once loved you
Wretch, soon you will burn
Flames tearing and searing your soul
Judas, you stab in the back
Judas, you freeze in your tracks
Judas, you sleep with the damned
Judas, you wear Satan’s brand
Judas, you planned it so well
Burn now in fiery Hell
There’s no escaping the well
Cry for the lives, scream for their sighs
Die for the lives that you sell
Demon, you run with the dogs
Scourged, down on your knees
Broken beaten and bleeding
Dying, your life ebbs away
Blood that is blacker than sin
It comes to you as it came to me
Fear and despair shall rise in your throat
Feel sorrow burn, evil mem’ries return
Soon you shall meet with your end
Fall with your face to the ground beg mercy
Cry to the gods but they send no relief
Darkness falling, hell is calling
No escape now, fire awaits now
Soon you will meet with your end
NOTES:
“Jesus Christ Superstar” inspired this one, I was and still am a huge Ian Gillan fan, if not a Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber fan.
I wrote this several years before the band formed, but it didn’t get on the first album because that was a collaborative thing. After Curt left, I recorded this and Blood Money, the intro, by myself with Chuck on drums. Mike rejoined during the recording of the other tracks and Curt rejoined soon after that.
This song is a malicious as it gets! Judas! What more can you say? Altogether we recorded the lead guitar parts for most of the songs 3 times, with two temporary members then again when Curt rejoined.
We had basically been treading water in the year he was gone, playing no gigs and writing the songs for Malicious Intent; 3 of them (Carnivore, Latter Days and Alone) based on ideas started before Curt left, 3 old songs of mine (Cry Havoc, Blood Money and Judas), 2 new ones I wrote myself (Murder, Neo-Nazi), and 4 we hashed out with Curt’s first replacement, Mark Malloy (Killing Frost, Black Ace, Whipped and Reign) although he was never credited, he came up with some licks in those songs, let the record now show.
We rehearsed these songs so much through the 3 different guitarists, that we ended up playing all but Judas and Blood live. Those two we never really played them as a band, as I played all the parts in the studio, no rehearsal was necessary and I never showed the other guys how they went. Chuck learned Blood Money and Judas right before playing them, based on my drum programming.
Killing Frost
Burning acid rain is falling
As we run from the Killing Frost
Horizon’s lit by frozen fires of
Cities that are lost
We race on to the shoreline
To escape into the sea
Frost is getting closer
Cold death chasing me
Invaders from the ocean wait
In ambush for their prey
Caught between the fire and frost
We fight like dogs at bay
I feel the icy fingers of the
Frost stab at my heart
A killing cold has reached us
Tears our world apart
You can’t escape, you won’t evade the frost
Another step into the depths, you’re lost
The Enemy has sealed our fate
Unleashed the Killing Frost
Now it reaps its cold white deadly cost
The planet’s changed from blue and green
To evil black and grey
The sun’s gone out but still the blast
Lights the land like day
Winter has descended
That will last a thousand years
Savage cold that burns your flesh
And dries your frozen tears
NOTES:
Kind of a horror movie set to music.
Re-reading these songs after not seeing (or hearing) them for several years, I notice they are somewhat redundant in the use of words and images. Very derivative of the stuff I listened to at the time; Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Dio, Gillan, Iron Maiden, Samson, Accept et al were huge influences.
Really nothing to say about this song.It was a staple of our live songs for several years, until we did a major revamping right as we began work on Love Kills and this one was dropped, along with Alone, Black Ace and Latter Days in favor of newer stuff.
Whipped, Cry Havoc, Carnivore and Reign of Terror (and occasionally Murder) stayed in the set right up to the end of the time we played all original songs. Oddly, or not, they are all in a row in the running order of Malicious Intent. Although Mark wrote the initial lick, Curt really liked this one and that was probably why we played it live. Mark also wrote the cool break to this.
Alone
Now I’ve been left out in the cold
Alone, without a word
I’ll never hear another voice
Once I was happy on my own
Alone, never needed someone
Now I reach out no one’s there
Here comes the fear I can’t resist- I’m Alone
I never thought it’d come to this- I’m Alone
Which way can I turn there’s no on there
Naked on all sides and no one cares
I never thought I’d need, I’d need
Winds cut my wounds, I bleed, I bleed
There’s a darkness deep before my eyes
Stretched out the past before me lies
I have no sense of time or space
I’ve lost all feeling in this place
Been on my way here all my life
Now at last I see the light
There is no sin, no wrong or right
There is no day, no black or white
NOTES:
The intro to this is very light and pretty (a precursor to my Love Kills stuff), with stacked Queen-type guitars and big vocal chorus, then it gets really dark and grinding.
I remember Mark was in the band at the time, and was a little nonplussed at my adding a major guitar part to one of the songs like that (he wasn’t yet used to my excesses, me being actually the bass player and he the lead guitarist and all) so he wrote a very complicated and convoluted thing for the Killing Frost break, but it was very good really.
A case of rivalry sparking competition and inspiration, in a good way, I think. Curt also wrote a very good double lead part that was probably the reason this stayed in the set as long as it did.
One of the highlights of our shows was the very complicated and fast double lead solos he and Mike would do live, and Curt wrote almost all of them. If I haven’t before, I can’t over-emphasize the fact that without Curt we would not have developed our unique sound and sounded as contemporary and technically proficient on the lead guitar end.
Even though I consider both Mike and myself fine guitarists, Curt possessed a very unique and classy style that would take some piece of dreck I’d written, and with the rhythm accompaniment, plus lead fills, parts and solos he’d add, it would make something of the primitive piece of shit into something really worthwhile.
Mike and Chuck also contributed invaluable qualities to the songs, and Mike and Chuck were irreplaceable live, where they held the rhythm together while I was singing lead and Curt played lots of fills and “specials” as he called them, or “colors”, ala Ritchie Blackmore.
On about 80% of the material, it was a very collaborative effort, even if it seems I went off on my own and did a lot of recording and composing with no input from the guys. There would have been no band without them, and I certainly don’t think we’d have been successful as we were – and I mean that in a good way, any short-comings in our success have to be laid at my door, as I handled all the publicity and shopped us around when we didn’t have an agent, which was most of the time.
I had just broken up with my girlfriend at the time I wrote this (I write my best stuff after a breakup) so I was probably feeling a little sorry for myself, and compensated with these melodramatic lyrics. This one might just be about being malicious to yourself.
Wahrmacht, stalks the hills
Neo-Nazis, moving faster, pushing further
Bloody butchers, screaming bastard, scheming murder
Fourth Reich is here and they’re hungry for Vengeance
Gestapo is back and there’s blood on the streets
Death camps are filled and the furnace’s burning
Aryans avenging der Fuhrer’s defeat
NOTES:
Another violent epic, this one has Hitler ranting in the intro. These were the days before the internet, and we actually had a bitch of a time finding some recorded Hitler speeches (I’m sure we’ve all run into that same problem in our lives).
Finally, Mark located a guy who was a WWII aficionado and he had some records with Hitler’s speeches.Most of the songs on the album have some non-musical weird thing overdubbed or other production extravaganza:
Black Ace: backwards spoken words
Whipped: puppy bark
Murder: John Lennon quote
Carnivore: porn chicks
Reign: cricket in studio
Judas: Bobby “Deacon” Gibbs backing vocals
Killing Frost: massive flange, stacked guitar army break
Alone: guitar orchestra intro
Neo-Nazis: air-raid siren, Hitler and ammo fire
Latter Days: backwards spoken bible verses
This one also has weapons fire throughout from an LP Chuck (the gun nut) had of WWII weapons fire. An archivist at USF was kind enough to supply the air raid siren. I tried to add some overdubbed sound effects on just about every tune, I love that kinda stuff.
The lyrics to this make my face red now, but seemed evil and devious at the time. The chorus, especially when you hear the actual recording, is just hilarious. Spinal Tap could not write anything in jest as funny as we were doing in dead earnest.
I purposely left the holes in this to allow Chuck to stretch out, it was very calculated. I think that’s why this existed for so long in our live set, although it was not a stellar tune, it did contain some nice drum work.
Latter Days
The Latter Days are drawing near
Ending from the beginning
New empire rising fast
All but the Elect are thinning
In the Latter Days, in the Latter Days
From the East revelations flow
Old kingdoms fall and new ones grow
Northron king shall rule the Earth
Even over Virgin birth
Hear false prophets speak of wonders
Our race shall burn for mortal sin
No escape from hellish thunders
Damn the devil’s evil wind
You, you hold the key, you have the power
For the end of the world
“Behold a pale horse, and his name that set upon him was Death/and power was given unto him/to kill with sword and hunger, and the beasts of the Earth/for the great day of reckoning is come/and who shall be able to stand?”
Rev 6-8,17 (backwards)
In the Latter Days to follow
North and East shall rise as one
Flash across the land with fury
Pave the way for God’s own Son
Pagans pray for sweet forgiveness
Mercy at the end of time
“Vengeance is Mine” the Lord sayeth
Cast your pearls before the swine
NOTES:
I got the idea for this one from a TV evangelist, and even took notes of what he was saying (I immediately sensed that this was heavy metal gold), paraphrasing it later for the first two verses. Catholic school catechism came in handy for filling out the rest of this apocalyptic jeremiad. The bible verse was predictably backwards tracked, but I liked it so much I included it in the lyrics of the original album (I liked being blatant about my subtleties).
This song is interesting in that it also contains a riff from 5 other tunes on the album, reprised ala Queen on More of That Jazz, but instead of using song edits, as they did, we actually rehearsed and recorded it, adding all those parts. Took a little work, all have different speeds, tempos and time signatures. When I brought up the idea, during the time Mark was in the band, before Curt had rejoined, he and Chuck thought I was daft, but once they got the idea they were all for it.
Several songs and parts that made the final cut weren’t written when we first tried it. Latter Days was done intentionally in 3/4 time, we had never heard a metal tune done in that time signature and it seemed like a neat idea. Now though, reflecting back on it, it seems heavily influenced by the song Diary of a Madman, which uses several odd time signatures, including 3/4 measures throughout, especially the “Monday through Sunday in stages” and ending part, which now seems very like the Latter Days ending part, and even ends our album as Diary ends Ozzy’s.
The first 2 Ozzy albums with Randy were absolute favorites of ours and hugely influential; Randy was my and Curt’s favorite guitarist and we were both extremely influenced by him and by those songs. Curt had the Randy technique and style down cold. Before he joined the band, I had been the main lead guitarist and took the solos on all the Randy/Ozzy songs; when he joined I ruefully handed them all over to him, there was no question he had the parts mastered and I was just hacking them.
In fact, my moving to bass is probably the best thing that could have happened. It allowed all the members to have their “moment in the sun” as Curt and Mike played their individual and dual lead solos. Plus, I considered and still consider myself a pretty good guitarist, but I could shine as a stellar bassist (if I do say so myself) as well as being the singer, it just seemed a better fit. I never would have been known as one of the area’s premier guitarists, but on bass I had the opportunity to play on a number of high-profile projects and was sought after as a song-writer and instrumentalist, as well as vocalist. So it turned out to be a good move for everyone concerned.
Although I was flattered to have been nominated as “Best Bassist” in local music awards, I’m well aware I mostly played a Steve Harris, riff-driven style of bass on these songs. But I had learned my technique from McCartney, Chris Squire, Leland Sklar and Carol Kaye of the Wrecking Crew and brought a song-writers approach to playing bass on other projects: I understood the music, the groove, what the guitars and keys were doing, I knew music theory and chord structure and that gave me a leg up on most bassists, even if they were superior in technique.
I never could slap and pop believably, it just wasn’t my thing, but I could effortlessly follow any rhythm pattern and compose a bass part that complemented the groove on the spot, that was my strength and why I was tapped for a lot of studio work. It didn’t hurt that I played bass for literally hundreds of sessions in my own studio for projects who either didn’t have a bass player or whose bassist was very inexperienced in the studio and who needed someone who could quickly come in and lay down a professional bass part without rehearsals or a lot of overdubs. The entire LP is not bad sophomore effort, we definitely made some progress from the first album, especially in the area of stacking vocals and guitars.
My lead vocals could only have gotten better, they are so dreadful on Predator I almost never did add those mp3s to the site, and believe me, I was doing you all a favor, unless you just want the humourous cringe factor of “wow, that’s bad!” I think the song structures are much better also, we were beginning to develop our own style. You notice in these notes I admit to and refer to many songs and bands we got ideas, lyrics, and even riffs and musical parts from.
The truth is, every band and composer does this, most just don’t go around talking about it. I think its interesting where stuff came from, and we never really plagiarized anything, just adapted it, so my conscience is clear. Also, in revising these notes in ’08, after originally writing them in ’97, I’m a lot more honest and willing to address things that seemed important not to talk about then, but with the passage of time I can talk a lot more about different band members and events without ruffling feathers, I think.