DISEMBODIED "existence in suicide"

Picking a first post has kind of been hard for me. Where to start? What to pop my cherry with on this mofo? Perusing all of my old hardcore & punk CDs is like walking down memory lane for me. I've been fortunate enough to see and let alone meet a ton of awesome bands over the years. Many people don't realize that before Surprise Attack started putting out records it was a fanzine. Boy did I talk a lot of shit in that mag. Looking back I can't believe some of the crap that spewed from my mouth. It's quite humorous to me still to this day as most of the opinions on the scene and music in general are pretty much exactly the same. I'm a weird mix contempt, bitterness and a hopeful / optimistic view on hardcore.

All of the time I would write bands about doing interviews and after they would agree to do it I would send them questions. Many times the bands would flake out and never get things back to me. One issue I think over 10 bands totally flaked. One of those bands was Minneapolis hardcore / metal band Disembodied.

The year was 1996. A pen pal (yes this is pre-internerd if you can believe it) had sent me their debut CD to check out. Immediately I fell in love with it. At the time this style of hardcore wasn't as overdone. Tuning this low and going for a slow sludgy apocalyptic feel mixed with traditional hardcore was a bit more fresh at the time. The pessimistic attitude & lyrics from vocalist Aaron was right up my alley and the delivery was amazing. I knew I had to interview them because I was always interested in featuring more obscure bands. Once the band had agreed to do the interview I sent them a list of questions. A few weeks pass by then a few months... nothing. I wrote the band asking what was up but got no response. Finally the aforementioned pen pal told me that the band didn't want to be in a "HARDLINE" fanzine. This made my blood boil as I was not a member of the Hardline movement. I was so worked up thinking that the band would just jump to an inaccurate conclusion like that without at least manning up and asking me personally. So in the true style of my zine I contacted them giving them a piece of mind. I can't recall anything specifically as it was around 10 years ago now but I’m sure it had lots of swearing in it and derogatory remarks because well, that's how I roll.

Several months later my band at the time was set to play the infamous Cleveland hardcore fest (the much talked about One Life Crew "riot"). I'm standing at a urinal taking care of business and a husky guy walks up and asks if I'm EMS. So I responded with a "Yeah, who are you?." Turns out he's the drummer of Disembodied and he was looking for me. Immediately I'm like "Oh man, here we go. Time to back up all the shit I talked to these guys" (even though he probably would have demolished me). He goes on to tell me how they got my mail and were all confused as to why this kid in PA would write a letter so pissed off at them. It turns out that the band didn't even really know the kid who was speaking on their behalf and that they got the questions but someone was probably just too lazy to finish it. We then washed up, shook hands, and I went and met the rest of the band who over the following years became some of my great friends. My band went on to tour with Disembodied in 1999 and then went on tour with their newer band Martyr A.D. While I was filling in for Stretch Arm Strong I once again got to tour with the revamped Martyr A.D. as always having a fucking blast with all of the guys and girl from Mpls. So in one sense I'm glad I wrote that juvenile letter to them because otherwise I would never have had the opportunity to meet such fun loving people and talented musicians who unfortunately always seem to run into bad luck with their bands.


l to r: Chris Bazan (now in The AKAs), me with some seriously nappy hair, Tara (bass) who broke her ankle on tour, & her now husband Joel (guitar), Sept 1999.

These 5 songs are from Disembodied's first CD "Existence in Suicide" released on Furface Records. It was recorded in Feb of 1995. From what I remember I think only 1,000 of these were pressed. Hearing it today still gives me the same feelings it did 10 years ago. I'm just glad I didn't have to wind up fighting their drummer Justin because he was a fucking maniac and would have destroyed me!!!


1. "Scorn"
2. "Shattered"
3. "Asura"
4. "Invisible"
5. "Existence"