After leaving Hirax in 1986 Katon De Pena founded Phantasm, a new band together with Ron McGowney. “The band of ex-Hirax and ex-Metallica members” — that would be a real titbit for fans, press and labels. And after hiring Gene Hoglan Phantasm became a real super-group of thrash metal. I think a lot of people would sacrifice their right hands if the band had recorded a full-length album. But Phantasm exploded after just one demo and a short tour. Why? Guitarist Nathan Williams reflects on the band’s history.
NOTE: this interview was done in 2017
Nathan, please tell me about the beginning of Phantasm. As far as I understand, you were only 17 when you joined the band. So how did you get in touch with Katon and Ron? How did you feel playing with these legendary guys? Didn’t you ask them for autographs?
At the time I was only 15 years old, and had gotten turned down to join Possessed a year earlier because I was too young! I had seen a flyer for Possessed needing a new guitar player and it had Debbie Abono’s phone number on it, who was the manager for Possessed at the time (and eventually also manager for Forbidden, Vio-lence, Exodus, Broken Hope, Sepultura, Cynic, Obituary, 40 Grit, Skinlab). She answered when I called and was very nice to me, but told me that after Mike Torrao (guitarist) spoke with his Mother that he felt I was too young (I was 14) to join the band. Debbie and I struck up a friendship and she handed out the demo of my band Dismal Void to Katon De Pena whom at the time had just quit Hirax and was making a new band. Katon told me my demo was the best one he received and I took a greyhound bus to Orange County that month, auditioned… even played my first club show ever! I quit high school (I was in 11th grade), moved to Orange County and we did our demo in Dec of 1986 I think. I was totally intimidated to be playing with these guys. I was very very nervous the very first time I was in Rodney’s garage auditioning. I think I had to tune my guitar like 5 times, I was so nervous! Katon had like a million show flyers from shows he had done with Hirax and KAOS. He had a huge PA in his bedroom and I was like, “Oh man I’m with the big boys now!” Playing with Gene Hoglan I will never forget. When he found out I was a fan of Rush, he asked me which Rush song I wanted to hear (he knew all of them!) and when he started to play “Xanadu” (note for note I might add….or drum fill for drum fill) my fucking jaw hit the floor… He was only 19 at the time, and Jesus Christ that boy could play like a motherfucker as a teenager! He played that Rush song perfectly! I couldn’t believe I was in the band the whole time it happened (for me sadly only for 9 months).Ron would tell me all kinds of stories about taking photos of Motely Crue (he was a pro photographer shooting shows all over LA in the 80s), kicking Jeff Hanneman out of his apartment because he was too drunk, haha. I would drink shots of tequila or vodka at his house, and we would write Phantasm songs. Gonzo, singer of F.U.B.A.R., was always hanging out, getting drunk and causing mayhem !I was very happy to be playing in Phantasm, it was my teenage rock and roll fantasy come true for sure.
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| Katon, Ron, Rodney and Carlos |
I know for fact that Johnny wrote some of the drum intros which Gene then twisted around a little. I guess he quit because he didn’t want to play in a band anymore. I really can’t remember why he quit but he did play one show with us. The show at Fenders, Nov 8, 1986. I was totally in awe of playing with 2 guys from Hirax, Katon and John. I loved Hirax as a teenager, and I really loved Katon’s singing most of all. I remember Carlos quit because he was in school still (he was 17) and he had a girlfriend. I felt bad replacing him, but I met him at a party and he was happy for me. I think he did add a few parts to the songs. i don’t know what though.
Usually it is guitarists who bring main ideas for songs but you and Rodney were only teenagers while Ron and Katon were a bit older, had studio experience etc. So who was the main songwriter in Phantasm? Did you and Rodney have equal voices when it was up to arrangements?
Actually Rodney wrote most of the music, he was very prolific in writing riffs. I had writers block the entire time I was in the band, although I did add riffs to “The Blind Leading the Blind” and I added riffs to future songs that sadly were never recorded in the studio, although you can hear “Lucid”, “Future Victims”, “Bactericide” on the live in Phoenix, AZ part of the “Wreckage” compilation on Deep Six Records. I felt very very intimidated by the high caliber of musicianship that the band had, mostly because of Rodney. Ironically after I quit Phantasm in 1987 i wrote about 11 songs in one year in the resurrected version of Dismal Void that were totally influenced by Rodney’s music. I am in the process of rerecording those demos next year, because all have is a 3rd generation cassette tape of the two Dismal Void demos. That’s 1988 baby!
Ron quit Metallica because he was tired of drunken antics of Mustaine and Ulrich and — in his own words — he wanted to run the band in a more professional way. So what was his attitude towards Phantasm? Was he a kind of guy who picked up everyone before rehearsals, talked to promoters and so on or was the band just a fun for him? 
Katon and Ron
Yes, yes and yes, Ron deserves almost all of the credit for Phantasm surviving and existing really. He drove all four of us to Jim Korthe’s house for practice twice a week for several months, we ran through the setlist twice, and then worked on new songs. We had a great work ethic which is why we did one demo and a small tour in just 7 months and we got 17 record offers which is a different story! Ron even bought equipment for the band. He bought us beers all the time. He paid for the gas, although we had band funds we used to pay for things (we actually got paid on every show (500 bucks at Fenders once, and we made 800 bucks at a house multiple beer keg party!) Once Rodney’s dad wrote a check to Ron thanking him for all the help he did for the band. We were too young at the time to fully appreciate what Ron did for that band. I think Ron did want the band to go far and be very successful but sadly we did not get along. The band had many fights over music and how to manage the band properly. Rodney and I felt that, even though we were 16 and 17, we had better ideas and ways of managing the band. We would have liked to play more shows for one. We only played maybe 6 or 7 gigs in 7 or 8 months, which really sucks. Bands like Metallica and Death Angel were doing shows 2—5 times a month when they started. I really think we could have gotten much further if we would have played twice the shows we did. Maybe we could have learned to get along better. I don’t know…
What was the role of Gene Hoglan in the band? Was he just a hired gun to record the demo or did he stay with the band for quite a while after that? By the way, did you get a chance to rehearse with him or did he just record his parts and that was it?
Yes ,Gene was just a hired gun, but I think he did it for free! It was 1986—87 ya know… We paid I think 750 to Bill Metoyer for the demo. Gene had to run and get all new drum heads while the clock was running on our studio time. I remember we were pissed about that, it’s like, "Dude, really? Buy your drum heads before you record, man!" Although maybe Bill told him to replace the heads, I can’t remember! Gene did rehearse with us several times before we recorded the demo. I literally rehearsed with the band twice before I recorded the demo, A lot of people online complain about how shitty the solos were. Hey, I was only 16 and I had zero time to write solos! Gimme a break! I thought it sounded pretty good for how little practice we did with Gene. Of course Gene made that demo sound killer. For a very short period of time Gene debated whether to play in both Phantasm and Dark Angel or one or the other, and in the end he opted to stay in Dark Angel. It all worked out because Jim was a monster of a drummer, not as tight as Gene, but he had a manic, Keith Moon type of energy that was just as chaotic as Gene but almost more crazy and punk influenced.
Jim Korthe sadly passed away in 2010. What can you say about the guy? I know later he joined a street gang and became interested in hip-hop. So was he a crime person while playing in Phantasm? 
Jim Korthe during 3rd Strike era
No, Jim was not a crime person when he joined Phantasm. i know he suffered with mental illness (as I also did, but didn’t realize it fully until I was 19). He was diagnosed as bipolar or something like that. I was also diagnosed as schizoaffective manic depressive disorder when I was 19. I take meds to balance out my brain today, and I quit drinking and doing drugs. Jim also like all of us in the band started to drink a lot. In 1989 we tried to reform Phantasm and when I saw Jim then he had made a transformation into gang life: he cut his hair, was working out, drinking WAY too much and his drumming started to suffer. i was afraid of him when I saw him in 1989. He was scary looking and crazy acting. We ended up not reforming the band, and Rodney made a new band called the Bridge with a new drummer and bassist, who by the way were fucking awesome. They seriously sounded like progressive Death except it was in 1989, 2 years before “Human” came out. I ended up contacting Jim in 2003 when I heard him being interviewed on a radio show for his band 3rd Strike. He was a different person. He gained about 100 pounds in pure muscle, he looked like a Pitbull covered in tattoos! I had some very cool conversations with Jim on the phone. At the time I was addicted to meth and Jim tried his best to convince me to quit, and I did quit a few months later, I went to rehab. He totally influenced me to get clean. I have heard conflicting stories about his drug use so I am a little uncertain if he had problems when he died. The story was he died from an overdose from meds given to him for depression. Although that is a very real possibility. Doctors give patients the wrong dose of meds all the time and people die from the hand of pharmaceutical meds every day. I always wondered if street drugs had anything to do with it. Who knows? Either way it doesn’t define him as a person. He had quit the gang life in 2003 and was trying to live a normal life, and I am very glad I got to connect with him before he died.
Please tell me about record session for the demo. I know it was done in one day (January, 9th, 1987) but do you remember anything about the studio? Did you work with a producer or was there just a sound engineer?
Yes, we worked with Bill Metoyer at Track Record in LA where Slayer, Dark Angel and many other LA thrash metal bands recorded their first few albums. To be in the same room that Slayer recorded “Hell Awaits” was too much for my teenage brain to handle. I was very, very, very nervous recording that demo. It was all recorded totally live all 5 of us, and Katon overdubbed some vocals. Everything was one, two takes each. Everybody was drinking a lot. Well not everybody, all of our “entourage” were drinking, and some of them puked all over the recording den, which really sucked. Bill spent a lot of time mixing and mastering. For 1987 it was fantastic sounding.
Why didn’t you record such tracks like “Bactericide”, “Lucide” or “Future Victims”?
We hadn’t even written those songs yet, we only had a set of like 5 originals and 2 covers when we started. I think the songs we wrote later that year were gigantic, epic thrash masterpieces and it is such a shame we didn’t stay together. We got 17 record offers from that demo, and we probably could have made a bit of money had we stuck it out. Not only that, but we could have toured with some of the greatest metal bands of that era. We were so young, and had plenty of time to develop our direction and sound. I remember the studio being kind of big, grey and ugly, and Katon was singing in some isolated box with a window, and Gene was waaayy across the room I could barely see him. In fact if I remember correctly he was in another room entirely so we really had to play by the seat of our pants.
In the early 80’s metal underground was boiling and people were excited about everything they could get — tapes, demos, pictures of bands and so on. Did this situation change in 1987? Was it easy to spread your demo and get people’s attention?
If anything tape trading was getting more and more popular, which shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone when it lead to Napster of eventually. Our demo got us record offers, it got us paying gigs, really good money. We got paid 500 bucks to play the show with Wendy O Williams (Plasmatics), Mentors, Nuclear Assault. 500 bucks is a lot of money in 1987! Plus tons of free passes to our entourage to get in the show without paying. It got us in connection with bands like Nuclear Assault in New York that we ended up doing a small tour with, and in Phoenix AZ we slept on the floor at Gloria Cavelera’s house, back when she was managing Sacred Reich. Katon was largely responsible for getting most/if not all the demos out there. He would sit at home or at my place (he lived with me for a few months) and just mail, mail, mail demos all day long, no matter how far away: Europe, Asia, whatever. And we got requests for demos from all over the world. It was pretty surreal. We did only a small handful of interviews for zines back then, I think we were in R.I.P. and Kerrang, I'm not sure, maybe Metal Forces, too. We had a few featured interviews in a few major underground zines that helped get the word out for sure. Me and Ron would help with mail sometimes. it was really fun sitting down, having a few drinks at Ron’s house, and writing handwritten letters to people all over the states and beyond.
I love the demo in its entirety but it’s “Blown To Oblivion” which blows my mind away every time I listen to it. Can you tell me about this track? Who wrote it and what the lyrics of the song are about?
The intro riff, I think was written by Ron. I’m not sure though. I’m pretty sure he wrote a riff or two in it. Rodney wrote pretty much the whole damn song. Mr. Riff, he was back then. I wrote my own leads on it, though, which was actually a riff on a Dismal Void song, the intro lead part, the first vamp. The lyrics are about World War and what would happen if we blow each other up to oblivion, so to speak. I wish I had the lyrics. Katon wrote very simple, yet very profound lyrics. He tended to write a lot about politics and world problems, which I personally love. Bands like Megadeth, Nuclear Assault were also doing this and we were definitely into the political musing.
Another tune I’m really interested in is “Dachau”. Who came up with this idea to write a track about Nazi concentration camp? I guess it was Katon who’s always been interested in history of WWII, is it correct?
Again, not totally sure, this was 29 years ago! I know this was Ron's song. He wrote most of the music to this song. I would bet it would be either Ron or Katon that thought of the idea of naming it "Dachau", but something tells me Katon thought of this. I personally love this song. It really grew on me over the years. It's so fucking heavy and it's really sad and unfortunate that we never got to record it in the studio. It could have used some creepy, feedback laden whammy bar evilness ala Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman style leads on the solo section to really embody the atmosphere of a concentration camp!
Who came up with the idea of doing a cover of SSD song? Did you personally love their music? Did you play any other cover songs during live sets?
Katon’s idea for sure. He turned me on to a lot of hardcore bands. I was already into hardcore from my high school years, i went to high school with Rob and Mark from Death Angel, and punk and hardcore record were being traded around almost as much as metal from 83-85. I was into Septic Death, Black Flag, Discharge, Crumbsuckers, etc. Yes I love SSD control. It is real punk, fuck Green day and New Found Glory! We played “Helpless” before Metallica released it in 1987 on “Garage Days”, since Ron played it with them in 1981—1983. i think that's it. Sometimes during practice we would try Sabbath songs, but who doesn't do that, right? The Holy Sabbath, man!
As you mentioned, you got a lot of offers from labels. So why did you fail on that?
Well, it’s because we broke up. Katon was the first to quit the band. I remember he and Rodney did not get along too well and the type of music we were writing was not what Katon or Ron liked too much, even though Ron stayed in the band through the end of 1987, playing a few more shows before he left, too. I quit right after Katon quit. I was only 16, going on 17 and I was, to be honest, pretty freaked out living on my own in Orange County in a kinda bad neighborhood with gangs and stuff, and I wanted to move back to Central Coast, California to be near my family. Living in LA was a bad experience in some ways. I had to work fulltime at a horrible fast food place to pay the rent, and I got my life savings ($700, whih was a LOT of money in 1987) stolen from me right before I quit the band. Possibly stolen from some of our "friends" we hung out with. We got 17 record offers. I remember a few of them from major labels like Elektra and Island I think. It’s really, REALLY too bad we broke up! We could have been huge! We definitely would have gotten some killer opening slots of tours had we stayed together at the very least.
Even without a deal you went on tour with Nuclear Assault. I guess it was chaos and anarchy all the way around, so do you remember anything about those shows?
Yes, I do remember some things, specifically about Danny Lilker (Nuclear Assault). Danny and I shared a bunk in one of the RV we were touring in. Tthat and a hearse! We toured in a fucking hearse! And it was so cramped we had to lay on our backs, very flat, no movement at all. It was very claustrophobic. Danny shared some very strong weed with me and then on a cassette Walkman played me I think early demos or advance recordings from Voivod’s “Killing Technology”. Man, my mind was blown off! Rodney and I were heavily influenced from that album that spring/summer of 1987. We loved Voivod soooo much. When “Dimension Hatross” came out it was all I listened to for many weeks. Thanks Danny! I was already into Voivod from hearing “War and Pain” in 1984 but that album was nothing compared to “Killing Technology” to me personally. Danny and the drummer were both a bit older than us and I remember feeling funny that I was so young hanging out with these older men. Most of my 16 year old friends were in high school hanging out with kids their own age, let alone hanging out with guys in their mid-twenties, with alcohol problems and stubble on their faces every morning!
By the way, during that tour you recorded live set which appeared on Deep Six Records’ re-issue. I had an impression that there were only a few people at that show. Was it really like that? What can you say about attendance of the pther shows during that tour?
Yes, the show in Arizona was super dead. I dunno, maybe 20—40 people were there, I can’t remember. But it didn’t matter. We played our asses off and our hearts out like were trying to blow every band off stage, espcially Sacred Reich, whom I had a major repect for. What a great singer and lead guitar, Wille they had!. Other shows like the Wendy O’Williams show were fucking insane, maybe 1000—1400 people, camera flashes going off everywhere, stage divers, big pit, tidal waves of crowd surfers. Other shows like with Dag Nasty and Youth of Today had lot of scary as fuck Nazi skinheads. They would fight anyone for no reason and generally keep everyone on edge and everyone scared shitless of them. Once they kicked all of our gear off the side stage at Fender’s onto the floor and I didn't say a damn thing about it. I let them do whatever they wanted. I was terrified of the Nazi skinheads.
Phantasm’s music is a mix of pure thrash metal and hardcore (at least to my ears). What was reaction from the fans of both genres? Did you have a good response playing with Wendy O’Williams or Verbal Abuse?
I’m not sure what the fans reactions was really, but i think more than anything they really liked the energy we gave onstage. Even during rehearsals we would practice stage moves for fun. In later years I have seen peoples posts online on Youtube about our music. Most seem to like it, but many think our guitar solos sucked. I can agree with that. I personally spent a lot of time trying to write guitar solos and so did Rodney, but I guess we fell short on that. Playing with Wendy O’Williams was the best show ever. I don’t remember the verbal abuse show!
After two years of activity Phantasm broke up. What led you to this? Was it because some internal problems or was it just because it was impossible to go further without label’s support?
Well, Phantasm started I guess sometime early 1986 with Katon, Ron, Rod, John Tabares and Carlos Quacio. In the summer of 1987 Katon was the first to leave the band. Rodney and Katon did not get along at all from what I recall. There were times the arguments almost grew physical. Usually they argued over the music direction and the way the band was being managed. The fact we never signed to a label meant there was no future or plan to stick together unfortunately. After Katon left, I followed. I was only 16 and feeling homesick, it was the first time i was on my own, out of school and working fullltime. So after Katon and I left Rodney continued the band with Ron and Jim and they got a new vocalist and guitarist, played a few more shows and they recorded a single song in early 88. In 1989 Rodney and i got together a few times with his new band The Bridge (Jim on drums and a new bassist) but since i was still young, 18 then, I was afraid to go back to LA and be on my own again. I regret not doing that. Rodney and I could have been very successful. So at that point the Bridge was just 2 former Phantasm members, Rod and Jim. They recorded an amazing demo. It’s like Phantasm but more progressive and weird. And then in 2012 i moved to Arizona to try to reform Phantasm with Rod, but due to irreconcilable differences we were not able to do the band again.
After Phantasm Katon went on to play with House Of Suffering. Did he ask you to join him in this band? And tell me please about your and Rodney’s musical activity after Phantasm.
I have had very little contact with anybody in Phantasm after the breakup. Katon never asked me to join any band after that. Like I mentioned before Rod asked me to join the Bridge, but i declined. As far as I know Rod was in a few more bands after the Bridge, a hardcore punk band or two. But soon after he had a child i think he stopped playing bands after the late 80s. I myself have been in about 13—14 bands. After Phantasm I re-formed Dismal Void, the band I formed at age 15, and the demo we made was the demo that got me into Phantasm. Dismal Void made a second and third demo in 1988. I need to make digital copies to put on Youtube. And this year (2017) I am going to rerecord the Dismal Void demos for better sound quality. I then played in a dozen bands over the years: goth, punk, hardcore, metal and even rock bands
In 2001 Deep Six Records re-released the demo. Were you involved in this project?
No. I found out about this after i auditioned for a band, and the guitarist asked me if i was the same Nathan Williams that was on the back of a record he had! I had no idea a Phantasm record existed! I had nothing to do with it, Katon made that deal with Deep Six Records.
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