MASSACRE

MASSACRE was death metal before death metal was a genre. In other words, they were true progenitors of down-tuned gore and horror obsessed metal. To say MASSACRE has been through its ups and downs would be a ridiculous understatement. There were several times when the band ceased to exist. But the latest iteration has been chugging brutally along since 2016.

The growl behind the band has almost always been Mr. Kam Lee. There were a few years when others sang lead for MASSACRE, but very few fans remember the product issued during those times. Kam can be considered a true template and originator of the subhuman bear-like growls that have come to be associated with death metal. Even before MASSACRE, he was the frontman for MANTAS, which later became known as DEATH and which was headed up by the late Chuck Schuldiner. To this day, extreme metal vocalists follow the pattern established by Kam in the early 80’s.

For Kam and MASSACRE, musical progression is not an issue worth considering. On the new album “Necrolution”, they have regressed to the very earliest days of MASSACRE and even MANTAS. “Necrolution” is naturally primitive...not a trend to hop on as many bands are doing.

I got a chance to speak to the affable big man about “Necrolution” and the journey he’s been on for 40 years...

WORMWOOD CHRONICLES. Greetings and hails to you, Kam! A pleasure to speak to you. The new MASSACRE album “Necrolution” is definitely a case of “evolution through devolution”. Is the sole purpose of the record to create feelings of nostalgia or is there a bit more to it than that?

KAM LEE: That’s exactly it. It was intended to be a complete retrospective nostalgic album that was reminiscent of days of the past especially the late 80s / early 90s sound and style of death metal. That was the era that I feel when death metal was being birthed. 

WC: “Necrolution” is meant to evoke the earliest death metal bands of the 80’s….of course, that includes MANTAS, DEATH, MASSACRE, OBITUARY & MORBID ANGEL but are there more obscure bands that are an inspiration? I think of NECROVORE, BAPHOMET, MASTER….

KL: Overall is just a retrospective look back to the era. There wasn’t one specific band or another specific band that we really attempting to emulate or adhere to - but one thing I definitely was adamant about was not making it sound like another clone of itself. I didn’t want it to be another “From Beyond”, and that’s where some fans that seem to not like the album are confused and indifferent about it - because they expected something they’re used to or something that was a repeat of itself. I tried very hard to make it where it wasn’t repeating the past but purposely reminiscent of the past.

WC:  I was part of those times and it was exciting to see the envelope being pushed constantly. There was still a great connection to thrash metal, but early death was a “level up” from that. Did you see your task back then to make things as extreme as possible or was it more a case of “we write what we want to hear”?

KL:See, I don’t think I ever thought of it as a competition. I know probably 95% of the bands out there now think it’s some sort of competition almost like a sporting event. That competitive mindset didn’t really come into play until bands started popping up everywhere in the early 90s. For me, though, I was never one to think I am gonna try to outdo this band or try to outdo that band, more or less it was taking influences from the bands that we really liked. We just Frankenstein all of those influences together. Everything from hard-core punk like DISCHARGE to thrash like SODOM to pre-death metal stuff which I consider early SLAYER and even early HELLHAMMER. Even VENOM was part of that early influence. 

WC: Today bands continue to push the envelope beyond what was imagined back then. I think of deathcore, ultra-technical death, dissonant death metal. But none of that seems to have the same charm and morbid feeling as the originals, at least to me. When you hear this newer type of extremity, can you relate to what they’re doing or is it a case of “I’m too old for this”?

KL: See, that’s where it gets kind of tricky but yeah, I can understand what they’re doing and trying to do - yet, I don’t necessarily like everything. There’s some bands that are newer that I do like but there’s some bands that are new that I’m thinking well that’s just fucking poser of them to put that in their influences. But then again I come from a time where I thought that as soon as death metal started using prog metal or neo- classical  influences it was no longer pure death metal - to me it was shit - as it completely lost  its raw roots. 

See, in my opinion, death metal should be raw and aggressive, and not so polished and technical. And I know some fans think that that’s bullshit or they think that that’s not so true because there’s fans out there that never were ever really true death metal fans... they were more prog metal fans that got into death metal because of certain death metal bands that were was adapting that sort of style into the music they were creating. it was funny because you started seeing it go from bands that were basically influenced from the most raw basic stuff like VENOM, HELLHAMMER/CELTIC FROST, MOTORHEAD, and other more basic simple metal to suddenly guys that were listening to bands, like RUSH and YES came into the scene. And I tend to think the only reason that those prog metal guys got into death metal was because they could play the fuck out of their instruments, but nobody could sing so they decided hell ,I’ll just get a guy to growl or scream and call it death metal. So to me it was faux and poser because they just found a loophole and crack in the scene to slip into. But that’s just my opinion and there’s a lot of people that don’t not agree with my opinion, but I don’t fucking care. 😂🤣

WC: You were one of the very earliest death metal singers to put a stamp on the genre. Do you have younger bands and fans say you were their inspiration? What’s the feeling like when you hear that?

KL Yeah, every once in a while, I do have someone come up and tell me that they grew up listening to my music when they were just teenagers and it’s kind of surreal because I’m never looking for fame. I think that’s the difference between me and a lot of the other people doing this music - it is because they have a rockstar sensibility about themselves where I’m just a guy who enjoys doing what I do - and if people like it cool and if people don’t like it - they can fuck off!😂 But it is cool to hear and it’s very nice to know that you were part of somebody’s life in someway that was hopefully positive.

WC:  I 100% appreciate what MASSACRE is doing on “Necrolution” because it has none of the tricks of modern technology. There seems to be a kind of revolt against this super-digital or even AI stuff with newer death metal bands. Is there a place for high technology in death metal or is it something that just doesn’t belong at all?

KL: Well, you’re asking a question that is pretty much something that everyone is going to have an opinion on and a majority of them probably won’t stand behind their own opinion. I find that the scene is very fickle and the fans nowadays are very fickle. No one actually stands up for truly what they believe in anymore. It’s more of a thing where they decide what the room is, they come in and they listen to how the climate of the room is and then they sort of morph into that climate in order not to stir up controversy. A lot of people are pussies, ha ha ha.

I’m the kind of guy who stands his ground firmly and because of that I am not liked because I won’t bend my opinions just to appease someone else’s mind. It’s not that I’m being an elitist or a gatekeeper. I don’t like that old man shouting at the clouds attitude either as I try to be open minded - however the way that I am, I can also call out when something is completely fake or something is being done for a different agenda. People like it when you agree with their opinions, but they don’t like it if you have an opposing opinion about that particular opinion that they hold so dear, and that’s when it becomes conflicting and possibly contradictory.

WC: On the new album, you’ve assembled a pretty great team. Rogga and Jonny are veterans of the Swedish death metal scene. How did you hook up with them and how devoted to MASSACRE are they? With all the bands they are in, that has to limit the time they have for MASSACRE.

KL: I’ve been working with both of them for years on different bands that I do. I think when they’re writing for MASSACRE, they are very devoted, but they are not touring musicians in the sense that they do live in Sweden and it was a lot easier to just have them come in and write an album because they’re very proficient. You really have no idea how lazy a lot of musicians in metal truly are. There are a lot of musicians that just take years to write an album where there’s other musicians like Rogga and Jonny, who are very proficient and can come up with something within a couple of months rather than years. This is why I worked with them because I know how good musicians are and how they can adapt to a certain style.

WC:. I understand that the live band has a different line-up. Do these guys contribute musically or are they pretty much “hired guns” for live performances?

KL: Originally, they were just hired guns, but they have are taking over as full-time musicians where the recording lineup has now stepped down after the release of the recent album “NECROLUTION”.

WC:  The shadow of H.P. Lovecraft hovers over “Necrolution”. How did you get introduced to the works of Lovecraft? This must go back to the earliest days of MASSACRE.

KL: Yeah, pretty much going all the way back to my teen years when I discovered Lovecraft books in paperback that were being reprinted. I still own those paperbacks today and they are a very important part of my own history. It goes back to the 80s when I realized that there were so many death metal bands at the time and they were writing a lot of similar lyrics to each other and I wanted to kind of stay with the horror, aesthetic, but put something a little different in it. I didn’t want to write the stereotypical Satanic bollocks with Christian bashing lyrics that a lot of other bands were adapting at the time. Instead I wanted to come from a different perspective. I don’t believe in religion, even though I was raised Catholic until I reached the age of reason, but I never really believed in the whole concept of hell and demons and stuff. I always thought that was just as trite and seemed as much a fairytale as Santa Claus and the elves in the north pole. But I was open-minded enough to believe that maybe out there in the vast universe there could be possibly cosmic entities outside of our human understanding and that was the type of stuff that I really gravitated towards. Not only that but a lot of it has to do with my own misanthropy, and I began to read a lot of Lovecraft and saw the underlining misanthropy in his writing, and I kind of really gravitated towards that, and was able to use Lovecraft and his aesthetics as a way to express my own nihilism and misanthropy. 

WC: “The Colour Out of Space” in my opinion is one of the greatest horror stories in the English language. What would you say is your favorite Lovecraft tale?

KL: Of course, I really like “The Colour Out Of Space“ as well. Of course, I love “Herbert West  Reanimator”, “At the Mountains of Madness”, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “ Call of Cthulhu”  - I even really short stories like “The Outsider”. But I like some of his dreamscape stories like “The Quest for Unknown Kadath”. One of my favorite novels of his is “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”. 

WC: You also pay tribute to the movies of Stuart Gordon. Which of his movies is your favorite?

KL: Probably the ones I wrote songs about. “Reanimator”, “From Beyond”, “Castle Freak”.I also like “Dagon”. But I didn’t really feel that movie alone could be summed up in one song as that movie actually adapts several different Lovecraft stories into one.

Although it could be argued that a lot of my lyrics are simple and don’t really encompass and capture an entire Lovecraft story in them as well. Some songs I just find a little niche in a Lovecraft story to sort of put into the lyrics and not try to write a complete fucking synopsis of the story or the movie in my lyrics. I usually try to find a little hook or something that kind of can grab you and just go with that and base the lyrics around that. Sometimes it can be a full explanation of the story and sometimes it could be just a small part of it. It all depends on the groove of the music and how it all fits together. 

WC: Have you ever toyed with the idea of maybe writing horror literature or doing a low budget film yourself? MASSACRE certainly seems to be a horror-obsessed band.

KL: Well, I did write a complete novel which ended up becoming the lyric basis for my first album for the band THE GROTESQUERY. “Tales of the Coffin Born” was the first album that the majority of the novel influenced lyrically. Actually the majority of the story is in those lyrics and that first album as well as the third album “Curse of the Skinless Bride” is a general breakdown of the entire novel in lyric form.

WC: Are you involved with any of your other bands such as BONE GNAWER, THE GROTESQUERY and more, or does MASSACRE take precedence over everything else?

KL: Well, when I came back in to take over MASSACRE in 2018, a lot of stuff happened. Everything from my mother becoming very ill to me having to take care of her for a couple years until her passing While all that was happening I had to deal with basically all the drama caused by former members, which has always been there because of their narcissism, their chronic gas lighting and lies - but it has become increasingly worse in their old age and drug and alcohol induced mindset. I had to shuffle through several former narcissistic members - included two that were hired guns who felt their brief inclusion in the band gave them some sort of authority  - Of course I was forced to put all focus into MASSACRE because of it. It was now full on MASSACRE until I could find people that were like mind and not interested only in their own personal agenda or treating the band as a cash cow.

Now that things have gotten to the point they are I’ve been able to return back to working on new BONE GNAWER. Rogga and I have a new album completely written and ready to go into the studio. We’re just trying to find a label willing to us and put it out.

WC:  Do you have any live plans for touring behind “Necrolution”...maybe some festival dates?

KL: We’re always looking to do shows and tour. It’s just a little hard in this climate nowadays... there are so many bands and so many Rockstars. A band of our caliber still is underground so it’s a lot harder for us to get a backing from an agency to get a proper tour. Of course, I do a lot of it DIY… and I think a lot of fans don’t understand that there’s a difference when a band does it themselves as opposed to a band that gets set up with an agent and promoters and all that where they just sit back and ride the bus. I don’t do bus tours. I’m not a rockstar. I still ride around in a van. I still sell the merch at the merch booth myself. We don’t hire some pretty young merch girl that can flash her cleavage and get horny young guys to come over to buy the merch. It’s my old fat ass behind the merch table majority of the time. 

WC: If you could have dinner with any 3 people from history, who would they be?

KL: Attila, the Hun, Genghis Khan, and Vlad Dracul.

WC:  Is there any “Spinal Tap” moment from the history of MASSACRE that you could share with us? It could also be from any band you played with…

KL: Not really, we’re generally just boring as people in real life. I’m just a horror nerd. I like to watch horror, movies, and read horror novels and comic books. I’m also a gamer and like to play horror, video games and RPG’s so I don’t really have any thing exciting that ever happened to us on the road. And I’m not gonna fabricate something just to sound exciting . I’m just an average guy pretty much a nerd for horror movies that just goes out on stage for 45 minutes to an hour of nihilistic horror based lyrics and misanthropic chatter. With a couple of inappropriate NSFW joke thrown between songs to get a  laugh.

WC: Any last words to all the death fiends out there?

KL: Thanks for the support!

MASSACRE