Interview with Joe Cangelosi
(Deathcorps., Brooklyn Militia, Eliminate,
ex-Cerebral Hemorrhage, ex-Whiplash, ex-Massacre, ex-Kreator)
ex-Cerebral Hemorrhage, ex-Whiplash, ex-Massacre, ex-Kreator)
Hail Joe, welcome to the Archangel's Lantern! Hope you are doing well! Whats the latest news with You? What should we know about your activity in band Eliminate?
- Hello Georgius and fellow metal heads around the world!!
The Eliminate situation goes as follows... Last August I was contacted by Scott Owen former Guitarist of Hirax, Subversion and Paul Baloff's Piranha. He told me that he is in a new band called Eliminate comprising members of Devastation (Henry Elizondo), (Scott Owen) Hirax, Subversion (John Signorelli) and Dark Angel ( Don Doty) and they have parted ways with their former drummer Sasha Horn who did a stint with Forbidden and other bands. I was actually given the heads up by my friend and killer drummer Sid Falck from Overkill and Paul Diannos Battlezone who told Scott he couldn't do it but he knew the perfect guy for the job which fortunately was me. Scott called me and we agreed to try and make this happen.
I was given a set list comprising of 4 Dark Angel songs and 3 originals and was told we were going to play the debut show in L.A. At Grindcore 2 and a half Months later. I flew to California a couple of days before the show and did a few rehearsals for the gig. On Nov 7th 2015 Eliminate hit the stage for the very first time and proceeded to have a killer debut show. It was so much fun to play with some veterans of the thrash world that I never had a chance to before and to play some of those Dark Angel songs were a challenge. I am excited to get this band off the ground and we are currently in the writing process ...
We have excellent management in Mr. Marco Barbieri with Salem Rose Music and we are looking to get signed and get a CD out there by 2017.
G: Back in time a bit.... What was your very first band in the 80-s? ( a few days ago I've find on YouTube a great demo-track of Death Corps and it is still brilliant). How could we get to listen to the entire Death Corps-demos? Do You have any plans to re-release them in the future?
- Death Corps was my very first band, we were a thrash black metal band that was formed in 1985 with guitarist Lowell Wilson, singer Louie Adepietro, bassist Rich Day and myself. We did one demo called R.I.P. released the same year and played a couple of shows in the New York area. Bass player Rich Day left that same year and was replaced by Monster bass player Zowie aka Howie Ackerman bass player for Cause for Alarm, Leeway and later Circus of Power. Death Corps. Played CBGB that year and a newly discovered board tape was found and plans are to reform to put out our original demo plus the CBGB show plus possibly some new songs to tie that whole package together from old to new.
G: Would You be so kind to share with the readers about your past activity in Moondog, Cerebral Hemorrhage and The Burn Victims?
- Moondog was a band that was formed by former Whiplash Insult to Injury singer Glenn Hansen.
On my return to the United States in the latter part of the ’90-s I joined this band on 1999 with old Death Corps. Bass player Rich Day, guitarist Gene Segal and Glenn on both guitar and vocals and myself on drums. We recorded a demo that year self entitled Moondog and played many biker festivals here in New York and New Hampshire including AmJam and The famous Bike week in New Hampshire and upstate. The band was a sort of high powered classic Rock with a touch of southern flavor. It was another excellent band with great players.
The Burn Victims is a band formed by bass player Rich Day guitarist Gene Segal and myself on drums. We had special guests through the years like Tony Bono from Whiplash and some others. This band was a band that played all styles of music from metal to psychodelic to fusion.. We have a page on facebook also but no official demo just miscellaneous recordings through the years. You can hear music on our myspace page.
Cerebral Hemorrhage was a band formed by Tony Bono, Tony Scaglione and Jon Bonjiovanni in 1986 as a side project of Tony Bonos. 2 demos were produced. One on 1985 and one in 1987. The first demo was self titled and the second was called Multiple Trauma.. We did shows all around the city with bands such as Carnivore, Crumbsuckers and many others. The band was a satire funny band and it was so much fun to be a part of it. I put up a facebook page for it and former drummer Tony Scaglione is also involved with the page now. Tony Portaro and Tony Scaglione appeared on the second demo contributing background vocals and a couple of leads.
On my return to the United States in the latter part of the ’90-s I joined this band on 1999 with old Death Corps. Bass player Rich Day, guitarist Gene Segal and Glenn on both guitar and vocals and myself on drums. We recorded a demo that year self entitled Moondog and played many biker festivals here in New York and New Hampshire including AmJam and The famous Bike week in New Hampshire and upstate. The band was a sort of high powered classic Rock with a touch of southern flavor. It was another excellent band with great players.
The Burn Victims is a band formed by bass player Rich Day guitarist Gene Segal and myself on drums. We had special guests through the years like Tony Bono from Whiplash and some others. This band was a band that played all styles of music from metal to psychodelic to fusion.. We have a page on facebook also but no official demo just miscellaneous recordings through the years. You can hear music on our myspace page.
Cerebral Hemorrhage was a band formed by Tony Bono, Tony Scaglione and Jon Bonjiovanni in 1986 as a side project of Tony Bonos. 2 demos were produced. One on 1985 and one in 1987. The first demo was self titled and the second was called Multiple Trauma.. We did shows all around the city with bands such as Carnivore, Crumbsuckers and many others. The band was a satire funny band and it was so much fun to be a part of it. I put up a facebook page for it and former drummer Tony Scaglione is also involved with the page now. Tony Portaro and Tony Scaglione appeared on the second demo contributing background vocals and a couple of leads.
- It's hard to be brief about the time I spent in the Whiplash band I got into the band when I was about 16 years old it's because Tony Scaglione was asked to join Slayer after Dave Lombardo left and I was playing with the original bass player I was with the band for 3 months before we recorded Ticket to Mayhem in Tampa Florida at Morrisound studios. My band Deathcorps was playing Lamour in 1985 which was our very first show, at that point original bass player Rich Day lef t and was replaced by Zowie former Cause for Alarm bass player who played with Scaglione in that band , when he joined Death Corps he knew Scaglione was leaving Whiplash for Slayer so he recommended me because he was now in my band. Tony Bono after hearing about me from Zowie aka Howie Ackerman) came down to check me out and asked me to join with the nod from Scaglione.. After Tony Scaglione finished his 6 week run with Slayer I already secured the position and proceeded to stay with the band.
Whiplash was a great band of brothers tight and always ready and will ling to play at a moments notice. We were the band they called for last minute Lamour gigs in the '80-s and played there frequently.in 1988 Carnivore was banned from Germany because of their controversial song Jesus Hitler and we were asked to play in their place on the Sodomania tour with Sodom which was the first time Whiplash stepped foot in Europe for the first time ever! One cool side note to that tour was that we were there when the wall came down and played that night, needless to say it was an incredible experience meeting fans that never got a chance to see any band live especially from the west...it was magical and unforgettable.
The year was 1989 as a trio we grew together to be a killer tight and brutal band ..we wrote all the songs for our next album which would be Insult to Injury. Roadrunner approached us and gave us an ultimatum they wanted us to get a singer or they would not release our next effort.
We eventually found Glenn Hansen who filled the vocal spot and we proceeded to record at Morrisound studios in which resulted in Whiplash's 3rd studio album. All of the music was already written so we were very prepared this time to record. In my opinion the band itself never sounded better with Portaro now only needing to concentrate on vocals. We lost fans and we gained fans and we went to Europe to tour the following year in support of the new recording.
Later that year we would disband and I would move out to Florida to join Massacre.
Georgius: You played on the drums in mighty Floridan Massacre-demo, called "The Second Coming" in 1990. Tell us please a bit more about this awesome death metal alliance.
- The year was 1990 ... after Tony Portaro disbanded Whiplash I get a call from Boijov from Blabbermouth telling me Sacred Reich was looking for a drummer.
I arranged to fly down and try out for the band because drummer Greg Hall left the band. I flew down there and tried out with a number of drummers and I stayed there for almost a week watching all the drummers come and go everyday. I stayed at Gloria Calaveras' house the whole time and they were so hospitable I will never forget it because I had such a great time and they were great people the band and the management and all of Glorias' kids. Long story short I didn't get in the band because I'm guessing I was a little over-being in terms of playing their songs at higher rates of speed to the point where Phil had a asthma attack...I think that might have contributed to their decision or maybe not..haha
Regardless of the fact that I didn't get the gig it was an incredible fun experience that I will never forget and I will always support Sacred Reich and their camp because they are an awesome bunch of people. After I returned home I got a call from my friend and former Whiplash founder-drummer Tony Scaglione telling me Rick from Massacre wanted him to join but he couldn't and he was letting me know if I wanted to try out. I decided to be in the summer of 1990. I packed up my drums and shipped them ahead of me to Florida.
So at Rick's house, in the garage Massacre was writing material together for almost a year and playing local shows. We recorded the second coming demo for Earache records and they got back to us and they wanted the original members back so I was forced to leave after 1 year of hard work and in between all of this all of my drums were stolen from the garage where we kept my drums. Many years later Kam Lee decided to release the demo without permission and screwed the band over Rick and me and Butch the bass player have taken about releasing the recording officially. The record that came out sounded like shit because it was a copy of a copy of a copy. Me and Rick have the original recordings, so we shall see.
G: You totally crushed our ears with your drum-parts on Kreator "Cause for Conflict" Would you be so kind to tell us a funny story from your Kreator-era?
- We were somewhere in Europe in 1995 when our tour bus experienced some problems. The heat was totally gone and it was freezing like hell on the bus. The bus driver had this bright idea to put a gas heater.in the front of the bus with a fucken open flame which is totally a fire hazard. One Morning I woke up coughing and heard screaming our bus was on fire and we all had to evacuate immediately. Everyone got off the bus including our friends Grip Inc. Who was our support band for that tour The following gig the driver had to bring the bus in the shop while we played our gig. In the crazy rush I left the bus with my steel toe boots and forgot to bring my sneakers to perform in. I had no other pair and the bus was gone and I had to play. It was showtime without my sneakers and playing with these boots was not going to happen. I finally decided to play barefoot which was one of the dumbest ideas eve.
During the set I noticed my feet felt wet and after one of the songs I stopped and looked down to see my pedals and feet all bloody. I tore my feet apart and there was nothing that I could do to prevent that from happening. The DW logo on the pedal board was the cause of the destruction. One more quick story as a side note. During that tour Dave Lombardo wasn't traveling on the bus, he was driving to every gig with his wife and kids and was always late for soundcheck. I wound up playing for Daves soundcheck for every gig because Dave was always late arriving after the bus almost every show. It was fun to jam with Grip everyday for a few One of these times I approached Dave with a Red Bull which was new to me at the time and I told Dave about it and that he should try it and it could possibly help him to get to the gigs faster...hahaha. Dave never had a red bull and he drank it and made this weird face... He said Joe this tastes like roach spray!!!!! Hahaha I lost it!
G: With my old mates of Ukrainian/Transcarpathian Castrum, we always played between 1995-1997 in our rehearsals a brilliant track from "Cause of Conflict" called "Lost". What do you remember about the clip-making process about this awesome song with Kreator-guys? By the way, what is your favourite track from "Cause for Conflict" album?
- "Lost" seems to be the favorite song of "Cause for Conflict". It is a super catchy song and I knew it was going to be something special even during the first rehearsals when we first put it together starting with the drum intro that in hindsight is inspired by Iron Maiden's "Run to the hills" which I recently discovered that probably was the original subliminal inspiration for the intro. The video clip of Lost was filmed in Germany in a couple of days inside an abandoned hospital that was closed for some decades. It was creepy because there were a couple of floors to the hospital and a lot of things were just left there like they were in a rush or something to get out of there. We discovered that in the basement was were signs of past operations and a small room for embalming in which we found slides of doctors holding medical instruments covered in blood and also holding human organs. This was pretty freaky because we were filming on the main floor and the basement and other floors didn't have any electricity so we had to enter these places with flashlights. It was definitely creepy in that hospital, but.I think they did a great job with the video.
Joanna (Poland/Germany): You enjoyed the drums on 2 tracks of different compilations of Kreator: "Scenarios of Violence" called "Suicide in Swamps" and "Voices of Transgression: A '90-s Retrospective", Italian Raw Power cover, "State Oppression". Any thoughts about it?
- The 2 songs that were recorded outside of the Cause for Conflict sessions were done at Woodhouse Studios with Siggi Bemm at the helm in Hagan Germany. The songs were "Suicide in Swamps" and "Limits of Liberty". They were both recorded for noise records for the compilation Scenerios of Violence which I believe was the end of Kreator's contract . Limits of Liberty was a hardcore type of song with a great hook... A lot of fun to play. Suicide in Swamps was a experimental song that was also a lot of fun because it wasn't typical once again for Kreator's known sound. I played percussion on that one too!! This was the studio were Grip Inc. recorded their first CD with Dave Lombardo. Getting back to the Raw Power song State oppression since I am a big Raw Power fan since I'm like 14, I suggested this song to Mille and he agreed to cover it. This song was a part of the CFC recording session and during the European tour we played this song in Milan and got to perform this with the groups founder Mauro who I still keep in touch with to this day and always wait for their arrival in NY when they are in tour!!! Mauro gave us his blessings and it was a blast to play that with him !!
G: When did you start with your new band Brooklyn Militia? Tell us more about the beginnings, please. When will your debut material be released? Any future plans after the releasing (tour in U.S.A., Europe)?
- Brooklyn Militia was formed in 2009 after my last and final departure for me away from the madness and dysfunction of Whiplash which I am sorry to say original drummer Tony Scaglione and myself vow to never ever be a part of again. When no respect is given and no respect is given to the music it is over. The situation there has proven to be a sad disappointment.
It is a shame that the legacy of a once killer band is being destroyed by ego and greed and with each member passing through an endless revolving door of substitute musicians that in my opinion devalue everything the band once was. I don't even appear in the bio of the band!!!! So I have laid that to rest for good. in 2009 Me and friend Rich Day former Primal Scream /Death Corps/ Whiplash bass player formed Brooklyn Militia with guitar player Paul Bento. We later recruited Glenn Hansen former Whiplash singer for Insult to Injury.
Brooklyn Militia is inactive at the moment. We can resume at a moments notice because we are friends for decades and can make it happen whenever we choose to. We finished our demo and we are waiting to get a label to release it to the public. You can check out our Reverbnation and facebook pages. Brooklyn Militia is comprised of Glenn Hansen former Whiplash singer and Rich Day on bass who was also a Whiplash member from the last CD entitled Unborn Again and both life long friends which I always make great music together with. Stay Tuned for some kind of release in the future.
As I said before, I was asked last year to join Eliminate which is an all star band with Don Doty (Dark Angel) on vocals Scott Owen (Hirax, Subversion) on guitar Henry Elizondo (Devastation) and John Signorelli (Subversion). We played Grindcore in L.A. Last year and it was our debut show. It was awesome and it looks like we have some good things ahead of us, I want to thank my friend and killer ex Overkill drummer Sid Falck for giving me the heads up on this gig because he was the first one approached by the band but couldn't do it so he recommended me for the job. He has a new project called Hail Mary with Bobby from Overkill and John Galagher from Raven..look out for that!!
Barbara (Northern Ireland): Hello Joe, I love the unique style of music with your band Brooklyn Militia. What band or bands influenced you? Which drummer(s) is/are your influence( s)?
- Brooklyn Militia is basically a crossover fusion of all of the styles myself and the band listen to and grew up on. We didn't want to make a band that was one specific style because we have a lot of different influences and felt that we would expand the vocabulary of the music by doing exactly what we want to do without the labels or genre specifications. We have songs that range from a minute to 6. minutes...so it is all very unplanned and spontaneous We draw deep from the well of all of the music that we love from Exodus to Bad Brains from the Dead Kennedy's to Slayer....
As for drummers my favorite thrash drummer has to be Tom Hunting from Exodus, I have a ton of drumming influences that are not associated with the genre like Jack Dejohnnette, Elvin Jones, Tony Williams and.so on and so on. I don't discriminate when it comes to good music or good musicians...if its good ....its good.
Joanna (Poland/Germany): Would you be so kind to recommend to us some special drinks and kind of foods from your region, Brooklyn?
- The food here in Brooklyn is coming from almost every nationality in the world because we are a big melting pot of cultures. One native drink from the old days has to be an egg cream. This is a drink that contains seltzer which is carbonated water, milk and chocolate or vanilla syrup. Coney Island is famous for the incredible hot dogs and almost every single neighborhood has some kind of special cultural food or drink from their region so you can never get bored and always can discover new things.
- I like to relax behind my drum-kit and learn new things. I always challenge myself and continue to grow as a musician. I also enjoy traveling to different places around the world and meeting and
experiencing different ways of life. Listening and playing and watching music in any order is one of my favorite things to do.
G: Thank you very much for answering, Joe. Would you be so kind to send a message to the readers?
- I want to thank you Georgius and friends and I'm glad I got another chance to do this again and give you guys the heads up on what I am doing these days. I want to thank everyone for their great questions and interest and thanks for listening all these years. Stay tuned for an upcoming Eliminate CD and live shows hopefully in your area!!!
Brooklyn Militia: facebook.com/BROOKLYNMILITIA/?fref=ts
YouTube channel of Joe Cangelosi: www.youtube.com/user/animalosi/videos
Uncivil War: facebook.com/uncivilwarofficial/
New track of Uncivil War:
youtube.com/watch?v=AHp3G0aCKvc&feature=youtu.be
(Interview with Joe done by Georgius, Barbara
(Northern Ireland), Joanna (Poland/Germany), Innominandus (Ukraine)
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