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When was the last time you saw one of your favorite vintage Thrash Metal groups with their dignity (or their original or ‘classic’ line-ups) fully intact? It's been a while, hasn't it? Don’t get me wrong; I routinely find myself wholeheartedly embracing a truly befuddling array of artists and groups from both my youth and the various current scenes that in some cases lack many--if not all--of their key or founding members. I just wish a few more of these acts would focus their collective energies on writing and recording new and original material. Seriously, is it really too much to freakin' ask? Not surprisingly, when I was initially approached regarding Ironbound, the latest highly-anticipated offering from notoriously battlescarred Old Bridge, New Jersey-born Thrash icons Overkill, I was only more than happy to indulge…
Todd: Comparatively speaking, how did the overall creative processes involved with the writing and recording of Ironbound differ from the processes for (2007’s) Immortalis (or, for that matter, your other previous efforts)?
Bobby ‘Blitz’ Ellsworth: “Obviously we have a process and that process runs on a clock. When the touring is over, the album work starts. This one came together pretty quickly and I think that was because of the amount of touring we had done. It had made us very road-tested. Whenever you can roll into the studio from the road, you get different results and I think those results are on this record. I think it’s a reinvention of our past with some contemporary offerings in regards to production or at least production in regards to where the Thrash scene sits from a contemporary point of view. I think it’s a pretty good offering. It’s a basher, it’s a thrasher, but at the same time, it has a Progressive nature to it, especially in regards to the arrangements and the guitars. …It’s a record that I think is unmistakably Overkill, but at the same time… I wouldn’t say its miles away from Immortalis, but I would say it’s the next step. It’s actually more like three steps beyond Immortalis. I think Immortalis was our first subconscious attempt to reconnect with the Old School. We’ve never really lost touch with our roots, but at the same time, I think we have reconnected with a Thrashier Overkill to a certain degree. This next one is about three steps beyond that. …It’s about fifty five minutes of leaving bruises on your body.”
Todd: How much of the songwriting, both lyrically and musically, actually takes place while the group is on tour? As far as technologies are concerned, is it difficult to accurately capture the ideas regardless of the locale?
Bobby: “(Bassist) D.D. (Verni) is always the starter of it. He collects riffs. Some people collect bones and some people collect motorcycles, but D.D. collects riffs. It’s as simple as three, four or seven notes and then having the capacity to put that down on tape or onto a recording device. It happens on the road, it happens at sound checks, it happens in dressing rooms, it happens on the back of the bus and it happens in the hotel rooms sometimes. He never really knows when the riffs are going to come, but he’s always prepared to not lose the idea. And that, I think, is indispensible. The riffs are sorted through and are then developed into songs. Now a lot of this is just D.D., with the help of others, but a lot of it is his ideas on presentation. And then it goes through a kind of hacking-up process where the ideas go through everyone else. I’m involved, but obviously not on the musical end. I’m involved with the lyrical content and in regards to the vocals and the melodies. I put my two cents in, but I think these guys do more of that work as a team. And then I finish the house, ya know? D.D. and (drummer) Ron (‘The Animal’ Lipnicki) are the foundation and then I put the roof on after the carpenters and electricians have gone through it (laughs). I’m the last to get it. Then we assess the house and ask ‘But will it stand in a Hurricane?’ and in our estimation, this one will all across the board. All ten of them.”
Todd: Has there been a ‘…common denominator…’ behind the various label changes the group has undergone?
Bobby: “The music industry is changing and it’s changing quickly. Some people call it depressed. We consider the label changes putting ourselves in the best position based upon finance. When finance is not available, you’re usually in a bad position because if a label doesn’t invest, they really have nothing to lose with regard to promotion. Obviously they want to sell records, but they can use the spaghetti theory of ‘It’s done if it sticks to the wall’. If you’re not giving them the weight of investment, you’re putting yourself in a precarious position with regard to promotion. This is a technique we come up with while being self-managed. Whenever our deals are up, we usually try to move on so that we can instill new excitement with the other labels. That doesn’t mean this will necessarily be the case with our current label E1 (Entertainment) or our European label Nuclear Blast (Records). It’s just that the excitement has to be at a high level so that we’re a priority. If I go from Bodog Music to E1, my excitement factor at E1 is now huge, which gives me the opportunity to have a record like Ironbound, which I think is a pretty expensive piece of real estate as far as musical value is concerned. …It’s become a procedure of ours to remain visible and to keep interests in the band regarding labels and promotion.”
Todd: At this point, do you consider the group’s current incarnation to be the definitive or best Overkill line-up?
Bobby: “It’s really hard to say. All of our different line-ups have had positive aspects to them, but I do feel this one is the most gelled and I do feel that what backs that up is the record. …The chemistry between people changes constantly. Sure, we are what we are and are recognizable as Overkill, but a year from now, that chemistry will be different because each man will have evolved in his own unique way. I think that under these circumstances, this truly is the best record we could have gotten out of this particular line-up in 2009 because of the overall chemistry. I do believe this is the best line-up we’ve ever had in regards to both the studio and live.”
Todd: Did the departure of (ex-lead guitarist) Bobby Gustafson originally have a negative impact on the group?
Bobby: “Who? (Laughs) Sorry, I just like doin’ that. Whenever some asks me that about (former drummer) Rat Skates, I just go ‘Who?’ and then I move onto the next question. I suppose so because he was an intricate part of the songwriting process. But what was very different then as opposed to now is that our development was young and I don’t think we were ever in a position, and I’m saying this in hindsight, where we were locked into having to stay. This was truly about enjoying this for us and has remained so because we’ve learned that changes don’t necessarily have to be negative. We though it could have been a big problem at the time, but we were real youngsters. We were four records deep and that was twelve records ago, man. So when I think about what was and what is, obviously it didn’t make any difference. The realities of it, at the time, it felt like you were losing your arm, but I think it gave us the opportunity to learn that change doesn’t have to be a bad thing. …New members add new hunger and new energy. Internally, you can look at a line-up change either way. It can either be ‘Oh, man! We’re losing so and so. That’s so much energy going away!’ or ‘Oh, man! We’re losing so and so. Maybe we can replace him with more energy’. It really becomes a ‘glass half-empty or half-full’ situation. Some people dilute within their failures, but some people gain from their success and that’s really what we’re trying to do. It’s really a simple philosophy: let’s make the best of this or at least die trying’.”
Todd: At this point, aside from the obvious desire(s) and determinations, to what do you attribute the group’s longevity? I would imagine your vast experiences within the industry provided you with a wealth of insights…
Bobby: “Illegal contraband (laughs). I run illegal guns and a small prostitution ring from my basement (laughs). I think we have tenacity. We learned about management from some great guys and they were different personalities. Two were club owners and one was actually an executive who started out doing accounting for Ted Nugent and then went on to start a club with the two other guys and eventually went on to Sony. He still secures one of the top two positions in Sony. He’s just fantastic. These three guys are our mentors. The club owners taught us the street value of how to get through things, how to make instantaneous decisions…ways to protect ourselves to ways to get money from club owners who don’t want to pay you. The smaller things that the other guy taught us were about being prepared with regard to the business side of the industry. I think we run Overkill with a love of what we have along with the schooling that they’ve taught us. If we run Overkill with the love of what we do but are still prepared for the business aspects of it, we can weather a lot of storms. What we’ve done is consolidate it down to a smaller unit. D.D. and myself run the business, with the others guys being paid employees in that business who are obviously songwriting contributors. It’s consolidated to the point where even the record company demises of the early 2000’s and even to date do not affect us enough to say ‘We can’t’. We always could and this happened even during non-fruitful Metal times. Grunge came out in the mid-‘90’s and stomped all over Metal. It left boot marks and pieces of flannel shirt all over the Metal community. Our take on this was ‘Let’s go back underground. This is where we’re comfortable.’ We were on Atlantic Records at the time. We were above ground, but in an uncomfortable situation. That self-preservation brought us back to the underground. A lot of the other bands that were getting stomped on said ‘Hey, I’m breakin’ down my tent. I’m goin’ home and I’m gonna go work for my Dad. That’ll be the way to do this. That’ll be the way to weather this storm’. What happened to us in the ‘90’s was that now the room was cleared. In ’93 or ’94, there were sixty or seventy touring Thrash Metal bands competing for two hundred venues around the country on different nights. Now, there were eight and we were one of them. It’s was really cool. Everyone was sayin’ ‘Oh, the scene’s dying. Nirvana killed Metal! (Pearl Jam frontman) Eddie Vedder’s gonna piss all over it’, but it didn’t matter because it was an underground scene. So with everything that happened from that point on, our numbers started goin’ up. We started selling more records; we started doin’ sold-out shows and doing sold-out tours. People were like ‘You gotta bring the Metal bands back, man. You sold out Cincinnati last time and we want you back’. So while everyone else was thinkin’ this is a fuckin’ disaster and a debacle, we’re goin’ ‘Fuck the accountant. Let’s bury it in the backyard’ (laughs). It’s not all about money, that’s not what I’m talkin about. It’s about loving what we did and sayin’ ‘Hey, it’s not about how hard the wind is blowin’. If the house is truly correct and if we’re in the position where we can still make this happen, it will clear and it will ultimately reward us’. And it did. I think it was a great lesson for us to learn and it’s one of the reasons I think we’ve survived even past that and continued to be one of those handful of Metal bands that started in the mid or early ‘80’s that continued on without any breaks.”
Todd: With that in mind, do you feel the onset of Grunge was actually a blessing in disguise for the Thrash Metal community? It seems unusual that someone from your era would have such an unconventional opinion…
Bobby: “It was good for me (laughs). It wasn’t necessarily good for Metal, but if you think what this was all about… In 1982, there was this narcissistic approach where there were a whole bunch of West Coast Hair Bands that emulated American Rock bands like Aerosmith. Aerosmith had great value with what they did. I’m a huge Aerosmith fan, but there was this West Coast vibe of narcissistic bullshit. ‘I can’t play my guitar, but it doesn’t matter because I write the same songs as the guy in the next rehearsal room. We all wear the same makeup and we all go to the same hairdresser and we’re kinda thrashy’, ya know? That’s kinda narcissistic to me. That’s like sayin’ ‘Worship me because I’m a pig’, ya know? (laughs) What came out of that was a revolution. That revolution may have started in San Francisco and it may have started in Los Angeles with the forming of Metallica. The East Coast had Anthrax and us and others to follow like (guitarist) Gary Holt in Exodus. We said ‘Piss on you! You can’t take the purity away of the shit that I fuckin’ love’. This is much more important to me than spendin’ my life thinkin’ ‘Live fast, die young and leave a pretty lookin’ corpse. Fuck me, who’s got the coke?’ It has nothin’ to do with that. This was a reaction to that. We were that reaction and it was revolutionary at that time. What has happened is that the value of that revolution has transcended generations over the course of a twenty five year period, in my personal experience, to the point where there are now new bands taking the flag. And its fuckin’ good that someone else is takin’ the flag because maybe they can take it another twenty five years because I’m sure as hell not gonna do it. …This showed the value of it to me. The action versus reaction in how this kind of revolutionary way of starting something, the ‘Piss on you all, we’re gonna do what we wanna do’ mentality. …That’s the values of it to me.”
Todd: Did the health issues you have undergone (a bout with a highly aggressive form of nose cancer in ‘98 and an onstage stroke suffered in ‘02) ever cause you to doubt your ability to continue as a full member of Overkill?
Bobby: “Yeah, I suppose so. I just lit a fuckin’ Marlboro. Isn’t that nice when you fuckin’ ask me that? (laughs) …I suppose it was. In hindsight, it’s ancient history to me. The worst part of it to me would have been not being able to do this. The other outcome, obviously I wouldn’t have been able to do this if I had the worst outcome because I would have been six feet deep, was never the scary part for me. I don’t know what it is about me, but I’ve never feared the end as long as I’m livin’ life along the way. That’s always been my approach to things. But it taught me some great things. I remember how it taught me to enjoy things even more so afterwards. How to hold them in a higher esteem, how to value them and how to protect them. When I was goin’ through the first issue that I had back in the late ‘90’s, D.D. was like ‘Dude, what can I do?’ and I was like ‘I don’t know. We’ve got a week. I’ve got a month where they’re going to give me these treatments and then either give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down. They’ve got me on all this stuff.’ He was like ‘Well, what do you want’ and I was like ‘I don’t know. You got any riffs?’ (laughs) I was like ‘Send me some tapes over here so I can at least keep myself busy’. In any case, (1999’s) Necroshine came out of that whole era. And that’s why I continue to hold that record in very high esteem. That’s what the title Necroshine meant. It had to do with that light in the dead dark. The light in that dead dark was D.D. getting me those riffs. That was really important. I remember another health issue that I was having where I had gone to the doctor and he was like ‘Well, obviously you’ve had an incident where you’ve had a stroke’ and I was like ‘Well, I’ve never had one before’. He was like ‘Well, I want you to take these pills’ and I was like ‘Well, what are they for and he was like ‘Well, they’re for Epileptics’. I was like ‘But you told me I had a stroke. I’m not an Epileptic’ and he said ‘But these will help you live your life better’ and I said ‘I gotta do a little research’. So I went home and found out that I was gonna lose my hair, my energy, I was gonna put weight on and I wasn’t going to be able to do Overkill while taking these pills. So I came back a week later and he’s got the pills on the table, I was sittin’ down and he was like ‘Well?’ and I was like ‘I think you should take ‘em’ (laughs). ‘I’m not into this. I’d rather have eighty good days than eighty good years’. And that’s the way that I’ve been livin’ my life in regards to the health issues. They’ve taught me some great lessons about talkin’ the talk and walkin’ the walk.”
Todd: Once touring for Ironbound actually commences, what type of set list can the atypical Overkill fan expect? Is it safe to say that it’s become quite difficult to determine which songs should or shouldn’t be played?
Bobby: “We put all of the records on a wall and each take turns throwin’ darts. Wherever they land is what we end up playin’. We’re talkin’ about over a hundred and sixty songs right now. With Ironbound having the strength of a lion and being the new one and the fresh one, it’s gotta be in there. It’s going to be hard to pick the four, five or six from that one. But we do some of the standards. I’m still partial to the song “Fuck You” because we always change up the center section with either a cover tune or something that we haven’t done like a demo for instance. We’ve been known to play “Dirty Deeds” by AC/DC or Motörhead’s “Overkill” or a Ramones song, so that’ll always stay within the set. But for the rest of the set, it’s going to be interchangeable.”
Todd: In hindsight, after nearly thirty years, do you still consider Overkill to primarily be a Thrash Metal band?
Bobby: “I think there are many elements that make us up. I think there’s a little bit of Rock ‘n’ Roll in us and I think there’s a lot of Punk in us, certainly in regard to attitude. I think that we’re primarily a Metal band. I think the energy that we have throws it into the Thrash vein. We carry more melody than a lot of Thrash bands and we carry more diversity in our songwriting, I think. We don’t write in a formalized manner. Ironbound comes across as a Thrash record because of the energy, but I think you can hear the differences in there. “Bring Me The Night”, the third track, for instance, come across like The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. …Motörhead, great Rock ‘n’ Roll on speed, ya know? That’s the way I hear that. I don’t necessarily hear that as a Thrashy song except for the energy that’s instilled into it. So I don’t necessarily think of us a Thrash Metal band, but I think for sure that we perform live as a Thrash Metal band. …What keeps us interested in this is the nuance, the differences from year to year. I know that we’re identifiable to the listener. I know that when they hear us, they’re like ‘This is Overkill. I recognize the voice, I recognize the mix, and I recognize the bass, the piano string type approach to D.D.’s bass’. I think that’s a great compliment…that people recognize us. What I recognize when I hear records like Ironbound as compared to Immortalis or as compared to records like (1989’s) The Years Of Decay is all of the changes that have actually happened, changes that have happened or have been brought to fruition by not being afraid to experiment. I love this whole thing that (guitarist) Dave Linsk did on this record. He totally blew my mind. When I listen to a lead on Ironbound and the guitar parts and harmonies that he did…he went from Jeff Beck to (Rush guitarist) Alex Lifeson, but did it in his own way. It was one of the coolest things that I had hear and as the record developed around Dave’s work, it actually leant itself towards sounding Progressive. There’s so much further interest that goes deeper. This is a guitar player’s record. It’s pure Overkill, but it’s laced throughout, from start to finish. It’s a true guitar player’s wonderland.”
Select Discography
Ironbound (2009)
Live At Wacken Open Air 2007 (DVD) (2008)
Immortalis (2007)
ReliXIV (2005)
Killbox 13 (2003)
Wrecking Everything: An Evening In Asbury Park (DVD) (2002)
Then And Now (2002)
Hello From The Gutter: The Best Of Overkill (2002)
Extended Versions (2002)
Wrecking Everything (2002)
The Masters Of Destruction: Live From The Longhorn (2000)
Bloodletting (2000)
Coverkill (1999)
Necroshine (1999)
From The Underground And Below (1998)
!!!FUCK YOU!!! And Then Some (1996)
The Killing Kind (1996)
Wrecking Your Neck (1995)
W.F.O. (1994)
I Hear Black (1993)
Live To The Core (EP) (1992)
Horrorscope (1991)
Hello From The Gutter (1990)
The Years Of Decay (1989)
Under The Influence (1988)
!!!Fuck You!!! (EP) (1987)
Taking Over (1987)
Feel The Fire (1985)
Overkill (EP) (1984)
Power In Black (EP) (1984)