In the Works: Fratricide Demo Part 3

I took my first trip to Ohio this past weekend (March 16-18). Hellfire and I worked on song arrangements with the session musicians and had an interesting photo shoot.

First off, I don't enjoy flying as much as I used to. Maybe it's age but I hate sitting on a plane for 3 hours feigning to be interested in what the person sharing the seat next to me has to say. Granted the trip TO Ohio was much more exciting than coming back. I think I wasn't exactly relishing heading back to my regular job the next day. I did supplement this disappointment by drinking a shot of JD and downing a glass of Budweiser at a bar next to my gate. I love solving my emotional problems with alcohol. Kids, there's a message here somewhere.

Ohio was cold. I mean, as soon as I stepped off the plane in Columbus, I saw my breath and it chilled me to the core. Normally this wouldn't be a problem as I usually can scam a way to find someplace warm. But the cold came into play when we did our photo shoot. On that later.

I flew in Friday evening and Hellfire and I almost immediately jumped on the guitar to start hashing out riffs. By the time we hit practice on Saturday, we had a pretty good idea of how things should go. Kellun, the drummer, and Curtis, the other guitarist have a pretty damn nice home and their basement was ideal to jam in. Kinda smelled like cat pee but I attribute that to all the cats...peeing on everything. Be that as it may, I already had an idea of how Bastards and Prayers would sound, but when they jammed out No One Conquers... and Attention to Orders, I thought that was the shit. We made a few final adjustments but I think the arrangements have been nailed down. My original plan was to jump on guitar but since Hellfire had been jamming with these guys more and they had a rapport, I figured it was best if I just tried to orchestrate things from the side while figuring out bass lines. All in all, a very killer jam session that lasted about 4 hours and the time went by pretty quick.

After that came the infamous photo shoot. We met at the photographer's apartment around 5:00 PM and started to get "geared" up. I have to admit I felt like a stooge putting on my "corpse paint" at this guy's house, but he and his girlfriend were very cool about it and accommodating. They've obviously dealt with freaks before. The only real stare down we had in that area was from the photographer's next door neighbor who looked at us like we were from Mars. I guess that's to be expected though since most people don't go out looking like we did.

We drove for about 15 minutes into the ghetto of ghettos in Columbus, Ohio. Both Hellfire and I had real semi-automatic weapons we planned to use as props for the pictures. We were happy that we had them because we may have had to really light up the place should the natives have gotten restless (we did have full magazines just in case). Luckily it seemed that most of the inhabitants of the area were indoors sheltered away from the cold so we didn't have to lock and load.

The warehouse we arrived at was humongous and something straight out of a gangster movie. Demolished and desolate, it was the perfect place to shoot evil soldiers from Hell dedicated to the eradication of humanity. The sun poked through the clouds once, but eventually a cold gray bleakness settled in. It fit the mood of the area we were in perfectly. I only wore fingerless gloves and the gloves weren't really gloves, but just a flimsy piece of material you can buy at a Halloween shop. So as the shoot progressed, my fingers became increasingly numb from the cold. As the sun descended, I was shaking. I'm surprised I didn't blur the camera because as much as I wanted to, I couldn't stop.

We did eventually wrap the shoot as the light of day was almost gone and finding our way through a dark warehouse in the middle of one of the worst neighborhoods in Columbus, Ohio was not exactly a bright idea, no matter what kind of hardware you're packing. Hellfire and I jumped into his SUV and the heater was turned on full. Feeling was returning slowly to my poor frozen fingers and we both started to vigorously remove our "corpse paint" with baby wipes. One of the reasons we were doing this is because the natives were starting to come out.

As we turned the last corner and reached the relative safety of the state highway, we were all ready being yelled at by a few. The most prominent phrase being "Get the fuck out of our neighborhood." Unbelievable? I guess if you're sheltered and think this country of ours isn't flawed in any way, then yeah, it is unbelievable. But after seeing the squalor of these neighborhoods, it's no wonder the inhabitants have their shitty attitude. If I lived on the margins of society and knew the government only cared about supporting it's top 1% instead of helping the rest, I'd be pretty fucking pissed too.

Back on subject, I scrubbed my face so hard with those baby wipes, my skin was literally raw. I did look pretty hawt with some of the black around my eyes. I should use that as my new "look" instead of the usual "douche bag" one I sport now.

That was a long day. I hit the hay around 2:00 AM that night and didn't wake up until 11:30 AM. Hellfire drove me to the airport later that day and I was back in California by that night.

Currently Hellfire's trying to sift through the many shots that were taken and create a promo picture and whatnot. We've been kind of butting heads on this the past couple of days as I think the ones he has chosen are sub-par at best. Also they're the ones where I look like a total douche bag (fitting since that what I'm usually accustomed to looking like). I'm not very photogenic so the few pictures where I look cool are the ones I want other people to see (obviously). We'll come to a compromise eventually. My biggest concern is that recording will go smooth. That's scheduled from May 11-14.