(by Jay H. Gorania)
When you’re 18 and you have nothing to do than pick lice off of yourself, playing in a death metal band in your parents’ garage isn’t that much of a strain. However, when you grow into your 20s and 30s, the dealer doles out a hand including college, work, significant others, children, so on and so forth. In the face of the pressures of life, many throw in the bloody towel in favor of more stability and normalcy.
It’s not easy being green.
But the gentlemen in Malignancy ain’t no fuckin’ Muppets.
“I feel that ‘pressures of life’ is bullshit. ‘Stand up, be a man and get it done.’ That’s my motto. I will always be in a professional band or be a professional guitarist. True musicians never stop playing,” says Ron Kachnic, Malignancy’s longtime guitarist.
Supporting their fall 2007 release, Inhuman Grotesqueries, Malignancy have been soldiering on and damaging ear drums with their technically violent sci-fi/horror death metal since 1992, in spite of the genuine difficulties that go along with playing underground death metal with relatively little financial reward or media recognition.
Perhaps their hardened shells and tenacious approach are virtues of them being New Yorkers.
“Growing up in the birthplace of NYHC and NYDM, it has definitely molded our careers. It made me love the grind of metal and the slam of hardcore at the same time. It was rough being part of both scenes,” Kachnic says. “In the older days we got in a lot of fights just because we were metalheads. Plus growing up with all the gangs, drugs and urban destruction around you definitely makes you a tough mutha. Where we live, in Yonkers, they say there’s something in the water. This city has spawned Demolition Hammer, Mortician [whose Roger Beaujard was Malignancy‘s drummer for years], Immolation and us.”
“Plus we had the Son of Sam. Excellent!”
He’s not from Yonkers, but Rudy Giuliani — very much a New Yorker — has a decent shot at becoming the next US president. That doesn’t amount to much, though, for Danny Nelson, Malignancy’s lone original member and vocalist:
“I do not really care for him or what he did or people claim he did. Any elected official visits a disaster scene, does a walkthrough and leaves. That’s what he did and he never went back. He was an orifice for the tragedy, but I don’t think he did any saving.”
Kachnic agrees, “I think Rudy did what any other mayor would do that day — not much but watch! The real heroes were the firemen, police officers and volunteers that went to Ground Zero to help find survivors,” Kachnic says. “As mayor, Giuliani took away my peep shows and prostitutes on 42nd Street and cleaned up Times Square. It’s like Disneyland now. I hate it. As president, who knows what freedoms he might take away.”
But a political band Malignancy is not. That said, Nelson’s lyrics do in fact convey social commentary embedded within a core of science fiction.
“I think he is made of four parts death metal, three parts Transformers and three parts Star Wars. The rude comedy part of Danny is the extra ingredient,” Kachnic says.
Nelson himself chimes in, “There are too many ‘I want to gross you out’ lyrics out there. Gutting women and the walking dead are not my forte anymore. To be honest, they never were. The content I choose sometimes is taken from a personal experience that I need to work through. What better way than to write it down and twist and turn it into a grotesque, macabre theme? If it is something that affects me deeper I tend to give the song more attention, even in the performance.”
Thematically, Inhuman Grotesqueries is based on the cover’s concept depicting a lab setting where it appears all sorts of experimental and, ahem, inhumane grotesqueries are taking place — delving into the gruesome nature of the laboratory setting as well as the corporate greed involved with new technology. With the lyrics from “Protagonist Complacence” (“Mentally unsound socialite/Rearrange to fit in/Blending flesh for status/Exterior changes dictated by the media”), a woman’s self worth as it relates to breast augmentation presents itself as an immediate and obvious interpretation.
“It is not just centered on breast augmentation,” Nelson says. “I wanted to almost give a day in the life of someone that is tormented by being perfect. The message or point is that we are so wrapped up in appearance thanks to the media. We are dictated to constantly [about] what is beautiful. No wonder so many kids have issues about their looks these days. Just once I would love to see a billboard in Manhattan with a model before airbrushing. I have seen the pictures before, and these women are nowhere near perfect. No one is.”
It’s unlikely; however, that Nelson will be reading feminist poetry in coffee shops any time soon.
“Do not mistake me for a nice guy simply because I do not choose to write lyrics involving the butchery of women. I am cool until you cross me, then I have no use for you.”
Musically, the band vomits forth a soup of influences ranging from Morbid Angel and Megadeth to King Crimson and Marco Minnemann. “Loud industrial equipment, like rock crushers and jackhammers, get me to write some sick riffs,” Kachnic remarks. “Also drag-racing in my evil ’73 Dodge Challenger, named Redrum, gets the death metal juices flowing. I also think sick tattoo art and death metal go hand-in-hand. After getting sleeved by Liorcifer at Paul Booth’s Last Rites, we wrote the second half of Inhuman Grotesqueries. It was a very creative and brutal moment in time.”
Ever restless, the band has been writing some new songs for a possible 7” as well as for their next album. “They’re just as brutal as Inhuman Grotesqueries with a few more special touches. One track uses backwards hammer-ons that I call jump riffs that bounce around like Super Breakout for Atari. There are hints of thrash and jazz,” Kachnic says. “The next track has a walking bass riff played on guitar with sick pull-offs that compliment the jazz grind beats of Mike [Heller, drums]. I can‘t wait to write some more.”
But now that Malignancy’s members are no longer 18-year-old, lice-picking cretins, what keeps them going, and how long do they plan on being dirty death metallers?
Kachnic states, “We will be dirty death metallers for as long as we can do it physically. If our sound becomes compromised because we can’t play as technical or fast, we will end Malignancy. The fans deserve the best Malignancy has or nothing.”
Nelson, too, says he highly regards Malignancy’s fans.
“We have a consistent following that has stuck with us throughout this turbulent ride. We do seem to be acquiring more fans the more we play. To be honest, I never really break them down into a who’s who. They like us. I could care less what they look like; dress like, sound like, what they listen to. I just care that they support us in what we are doing. All our fans are killer and we respect them all. Without fans, you are nothing.”
