"Wichita s the most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas", says Wikipedia. "Points of interest: the Exploration Place science and discovery center, the Mid-America All-Indian Center, the Old Cowtown living history museum, and..." And to hell with that! The real points of interests for us metalheads are Manilla Road and Stygian Shore who put Wichita on the map of heavy metal. They were close friends and it was Greg Marshall, the Shore's bass player/singer, who christned Mark Shelton as Shark. But even without that Manilla Road connection Stygian Shore deserve your attention. They played that rare brand of metal which takes you by the throat from the first note and leaves you breathless in the end. The band remained unnoticed by labels but carried on despite everything. They worked hard and kept gigging and recording even when Greg Marshall lost his right arm — he just started playing bass with a hook. So here we are talking with Greg about all the ups an downs of his career wit Stygian Shore and other bands.
Hello Greg! Let’s begin with an obvious and used to death question: how did you fall in love with music overall and hard/heavy music especially?
I used to crawl upon our console radio/stereo and play my brothers Beatles and Beach Boys records when I was just a toddler. I couldn't even read yet, but I knew the records by the covers. As far as heavy music goes, I heard Black Sabbath when I was 8 years old, that would have been 1973. I knew at that point that heavy music was what I loved most. I started searching out other heavy bands to listen to, and there weren't a lot at that point. I got into Deep Purple, Rush, Kiss and others.
Did you pick up bass guitar for a certain reason? Or did it kinda happen?
I played guitar initially, but when I started jamming with other people, the guys I was jamming with needed a bass player and I volunteered for the position. Once I started playing I really loved the instrument and realized bass was it.
Would you say that you had natural talent for music? Or did you spent countless hours practicing in your living room trying to figure out what to do with that stick with four strings?
I played around with friends and relatives pianos/organs when I was quite young, I realized I had an ear and understood melodies. There were a few guitar stores in my neighborhood, so I spent I lot of time hanging out and playing different instruments. I started singing in Wichita's All City Choir in 1976, so vocals became something to me at this point as well, it taught me how to harmonize with other voices. So I guess you could say I had natural talent, it was fun and I knew that music was the major part of my life at this point.
What were your sources of new music back then? Were there local radio stations and record shops with import LPs?
Going into my teen years, I remembered listening to Mark Shelton's show “After Midnight” on KMUW, Wichita's college radio station. I didn't even know Mark at this point, but he played really obscure and heavy music so it interested me. I taped several of these shows on my cassette recorder, so I could listen later. There were a few independent record stores I bought vinyl and cassettes from.
I believe Wichita was a good place for rock music in the 70’s with some cool venues that let bands play live. What are some of your brightest memories about those days?
I was just a kid most of the 70's, my first concert was Kiss in '75 when I was just 10 years old. All the major acts came to Wichita.
By the way, did you attend Van Halen’s show in 1978 at the Pogos nightclub? Did that band influence in any way?
It was a club show, so I was too young to get in. The Van Halen debut album was a game changer for me, I wasn't even playing guitar yet, but I knew it was something special.
What about the riot at Herman Hill which Mark Shelton described in a song with the same title? Were you there?
I would have been 14, I was staying at my grandmother's house a few blocks away and remember it happening. I didn't even know who Manilla Road was at this point.
Mark Shelton said that Sherry Avett from the KMUW radio station was very important for the rock/metal scene in Wichita. Could you tell me about this man? Did he play your songs on his station?
Well, Sherry is a girl! Haha! (Stupid me! – Author) Sherry was a good friend, her time at KMUW was before Stygian Shore.
Were you into NWOBHM bands and/or heavy metal bands that were coming from New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco in the early 80’s?
Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Armored Saint and many others played shows frequently in Wichita. In 1984 Stygian Shore opened a club called the Echo Chamber, specifically for us and other heavy metal bands to play. In 1985 Megadeth and Exciter played the Chamber, Stygian was supposed to open for them, but Dan Beehler's drum kit was so HUGE we had to construct a last minute addition to the stage, so there wasn't enough time left for us to play. That show was insane, packed house.
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| 1982 playing a house party. Mike Palmer and Greg Marshall |
Stygian Shore was my first band, we started October of 1982, I was 17 and Mike was 15. Stygian was the creation of myself, Pete Dawson, Mike Palmer and to lesser extent Robert Henderson.
Could you tell me how you met Peter Dawson and Mike Palmer? Were they the only members of Stygian Shore, or did you try to jam with some other guys?
I met Mike in 1982, he was one of the guitar players in the jam session when I changed to Bass guitar. We were all just kids in High school and living with our parents. From there, Myself on Bass, Mike on Guitar and a fellow Schoolmate Mark Morning on drums we started an early version of Stygian Shore. We played one show at a party in someones house and knew Mark wasn't going to work out. Pete and Mike had gone to middle school together and by this time Pete and I were going to school together, we officially formed Stygian Shore at this time. We practiced in the basement of Mike's dad.
Who came up with the name Stygian Shore? Were you seriously into mythology? Or was it just a cool sounding name?
Mike and Pete found it in a Thesaurus and thought it was a cool name. Mike was into mythology a little but we all ended up reading more on the subject.
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| 1983 The Silver Bullet. Stygian Shore playing "Tidal Wave" with Greg Marshall on vocals |
Robert was a childhood friend of Mike, he came in as a Singer/Rhythm guitar, but him and I would switch instruments on a few songs Mike and I were writing. I'd play Guitar and he would play Bass. All four of us sang at that time. As a matter of fact the first version of “Tidal Wave” I had written the Bass line but Robert played the Bass at shows and I would get to play front man and just sing. We started playing Clubs and Taverns in July 1983, we were all too young to be in most of them. The minimum age was 21 in Clubs and 18 in Taverns, I was 18 and Mike was 16. We would get paid 40 dollars and all the keg beer we could drink. By the end of 1983 we decided to take the band more seriously and become more professional, we had met Mark Shelton by then and played a show with Manilla Road. Mark had talked about us going into the studio, we had written at least a dozen original songs by then. We decided for the New Year, 1984, we would buy better equipment, stop drinking alcohol during our shows and prepare to go into the studio. I bought a Traynor Mono Block bass head and a 2x15 Peavy cabinet, the same rig Scott Parks of Manilla Road had. Mike bought a Marshall Stack and Pete bought a brand new Tama drum kit. Robert Henderson bought himself a truck. Robert's old equipment wouldn't now reach the volume and professional sounds that we were getting, so we asked him to leave the band. It worked out well because the three of us had become better vocalists than Robert, it really tightened our sound as a 3 piece.
How come that you became the singer of Stygian Shore?
I really didn't become the lead singer of Stygian, we all shared vocal duties. I would sing the songs that I wrote and Mike would sing the songs he wrote, Mike and I both wrote song melodies for Pete since he only played drums. On the EP, I sang "Tidal Wave" and "Stygian Metal," with Mike singing "Luv to Rock Ya" and Pete sang "Don't Look Now".
Tell me please about the chemistry within the band. Did you write songs during jams? Or was there someone who was the most prolific in songwriting?
Mike and I would come up with instrumental melodies and lyrics. Then we would build the song more during band practice.
At what point did you meet Mark Shelton who was not only a friend but also a kind of a mentor for you?
Mark was introduced to us by our mutual friend and our art teacher in high school, Cinda Hughes, after she saw Stygian play a show at a school assembly, Cinda told Mark he needed to come see us play since we were so young and talented, Mark came over to band practice shortly thereafter. This would have been early 1983. Around this time Manilla Road was putting together a “battle of the bands” (in reality it was simply a Manilla Road show) and they asked us to play. It would be our 1st show outside of house parties, and there was near 3000 people, needless to say it was exiting and almost overwhelming. After this Mark told us it was "time to get out there and start playing clubs and taverns". Once we got some experience with shows and crowds, he suggested we go into the studio.
Do you remember the moment when you and the others from Stygian Shore started calling Mark Shark Melton?
Well the “Melton” part was short lived, it quickly morphed into just Shark. Pete and I used to just mess around changing up the beginnings of various things and names, one day we joked around about Mark being Shark Melton, he was Shark from there on out. Before that Mark's nickname was Muck, so him now being Shark was a welcomed change to everyone.
Mark Shelton was larger-than-life type of person, so could you tell a few stories about him which describe him the best?
Mark wasn't only a mentor, he was THE MENTOR, a true friend and inspiration. Without Mark Shelton this interview wouldn't even be happening. We used to go to the drive-in theater and watch the worst horror movies imaginable. Mark had the most infectious laugh, him and I would just laugh and laugh at these ridiculous horror movies, he would start to laugh and we all started, we must have looked like a car full of crazy people! Most aren't innocent stories, many involving strip clubs and various substances, but I'll do my best. Going to the Road House back to those days to see band practice was something to experience, it was like getting to see royalty in the flesh, it was almost an initiation to the musicians getting to go. It was a tiny living room space with Marshall stacks and Randy's massive beast of a kit – they were UNGODLY loud! Manilla Road and Stygian Shore were very close, not only as bands, but we were also very close friends, that's why we were the only other band to record on Roadster Records. Really these stories are almost too numerous to mention, even talking about it to this day brings tears to my eyes. I played my 1st show with Mark and I played my last (with Temple of the Damned) in 2015 with Mark – that's how close we were. 32 years from show to show, unbelievable.
We spent about 10 hours recording the EP, another 5 on getting it mixed down. It was always a fun process at Miller, time kind of got away from us, we did the work, but for sure there were many other hours devoted to telling jokes, chatting and um, smoking things. He didn't help with the arrangements, but out of the original four songs we were going to put on the EP, he made us throw three out, keeping only “Tidal Wave”. He had the confidence in us at this point to know we could come up with new and better songs quickly. Three months later we went into Miller Studio with the four songs we all agreed on. As far as a demanding producer, he wasn't, it was basically a two day party in the studio. All of the Miller guys, engineer Larry Funk and owner Jon Miller were massive fun to be around, always a fond and memorable experience. With us, Mark and Larry we made a piece of metal history. This was March of 1984.
How many copies of the EP were pressed back then? Were you satisfied with the level of promotion that Roadster Records provided to you?
500 copies were pressed. The EP was promoted in several metal magazines next to Manilla Road's ?Crystal Logic”. Outside of that there wasn't much more promotion, Mark's heart was more into the band than a record label. We pretty much sold the majority of the EP's at shows.
Did you try to shop your music to bigger labels both in the States and overseas?
In early 1985 we recorded the follow up, Ultra “Psychic Nightmares”, again at Miller Studio. By then Manilla Road were shopping their albums overseas and Roadster Records was pretty much defunct. We did shop it on our own, both in the States and overseas, never to much success. Given the lack of label, we just printed cassettes and sold them at shows.
The band played a short US tour in support of the EP. In what cities did you play? Was it a headlining tour, or did you open for other bands?
I don't know if you'd call it really a “tour”, but we gigged as a headliner in Kansas and Colorado. A few years later we toured a bit more extensively, say around '86, Nashville TN, Houston TX, Atlanta GA and few others. By this time Grant Smith was the drummer in the band.
Bryan Patrick, who later joined Manilla Road, roadied for Stygian Shore. How did you get to know him?
Bryan went to high school with Pete, Mike and I. We met him when he volunteered to carry our gear in and out of a school show, he was our roadie from the very beginning. Bryan and I remained friends even after Stygian and formed two bands together in the early 90's, Bunch of Bozo's with Randy Foxe (Manilla Road) and Alan Sigars (Initial Impact) and Infernal Noise after that. Bryan and I are family and remain close to this day.
In 2015 the EP was reissued with 7 new songs which were recorded in 2010. Tell me more about them please! Were they all new? Or did you record old songs from various years? And what line-up recorded those songs?
Those seven songs were written and recorded by Mike Palmer, I had no involvement. They really aren't even Stygian Shore songs. The record company wanted extra material, and they were there.
In “Stygian Metal” you sang, “I know that me and the boys will hit the charts”. Were you any close to that? And what’s been the most rock star moment in your career?
We were a metal band from the mid-west, we weren't even close to being on the US charts. There has been far more interest in the band from Europe. Really that's my overall “rock star moment” having such an interest from overseas so many years later, the majority of Stygian albums were released after 2007, with continued interest in releases to this day. All of the credit in fandom goes to Europe! I'd say 90% were sold in Europe with the remainder in the US and elsewhere.
I’m sure you have loads of stories about gigging at such venues as The Silver Bullet, Indian Center, Echo Chamber and Century II. Could you share some of them?
The Echo Chamber out of all the clubs you mentioned was THE metal club, a family member of Stygian Shore opened the Echo Chamber as a place for us to work and play in September of 1984, it was the place for heavy bands to show their talent. We were the only club in Wichita to cater to exclusively hard rock and heavy metal bands. Silver Bullet was a great dive bar, we played there often early on, we honed our live shows there. The Indian Center and Cotillion were the larger of the venues, holding a few thousand rather than a few hundred, these were the most sought out of shows, every band wanted to play there.
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| Greg Marshall on stage in the Echo Chamber. 1985 |
In '83-'84 there was no place for heavy acts to play exclusively, there was beginning to be a huge market for the shows. Carol Palmer, Mike's mom noticed this and decided to back the project. Us guys in Stygian found a club for sale in Wichita, The Stadium. There was a hair salon right next door, so we decided to lease that space as well to give us even more room. The hair salon part was where the stage was built, the original club was two levels, we took out the east wall between the spaces. The stage was huge, even before the Exciter show. Funny story - the stage had it's own address, rest rooms and everything! The capacity of the Echo Chamber was around 240 people, though we exceeded that a number of times. We did all the work ourselves. Stygian, other bands, friends, roadies and family. Pretty much the whole place was painted black, I mean it was a metal club, what other color could be expected. From September of '84 to December of '86 it was a packed house every Thursday, Friday, Saturday. These were the nights the established bands played, essentially Mon-Wed was "try out" nights for newer bands. Playing the Chamber was a big deal for bands at that time, every band in town wanted a booking. No other national acts played the Chamber, but it really didn't matter, the local bands always packed the house. Some other bands to play other than Stygian was Manilla Road, Forsite, 'Lectric Leather, Ambush, Precious Metal, really any heavy band that had any kind of established following ended up playing there. Stygian Shore was the house band, we'd play at least monthly. As for the staff, they were all friends, even outside of the band I worked behind the bar many times. We never really needed security, pretty much between friends and bands we took care of the ruffians. The most memorable, involving Mark Shelton, was with a biker gang. Stygian was playing, some chick was in earlier who happened to be friends with the bikers. She was denied more drinks because she was becoming drunk and belligerent, so she brought them all in. This ended in a brawl between metal heads a drunk bikers, Mark was wearing his spiked arm bands, he jumped in middle and was scraping this dudes heads with spikes, we had stun guns and baseball bats. Pretty much the metal heads beat the hell out of the bikers, it ended fairly quickly because they knew we meant business. And Stygian went back to the stage. The Echo Chamber ended up going under in early '87 because they changed the drinking age in Kansas.
Sorry for asking, but could you tell me about that accident when you lost your right arm?
What accident? I lost my arm? HAHAHA! Stupid teenager + alcohol + freight train = lost limbs. I misplaced my arm on June 6th 1984, by August 10th I was playing live again even though I spent almost a month in the hospital.
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| 1985 The Cotillion Ballroom. Greg Marshall on keyboards |
We thought this would end the band, but really we became a much stronger band, it forced me to rethink my playing style, now having to play with a prosthetic. The majority of Stygian material was written after this, we definitely became heavier. I found trying all of this out, that the hook alone didn't have much of an area for hitting the strings, so I attached a metal sewing thimble to it. Before I was even healed I was out playing live shows, I couldn't play bass yet, so they propped me up behind a keyboard and I played the bass lines on that, this was short lived though.
What happened to the show in Century II where Stygian Shore along with Precious Metal and Forsite were going to support Manila Road?
That was going to be a great show. It was every Wichita bands dream to play Century II concert hall. Kevin Brown, a local guitar guru owned a guitar shop in Andover KS called Profound Sound organized the show, he was another one who loved and supported the metal acts in Wichita. Profound Sound was quite new at this point and Kevin wanted to do something promotional, he asked all of the major metal bands in town to play. So here's the story of the biggest local metal concert that never happened. Wichita has been known for extreme weather, summer gets to 100+ degrees and winter can bring blizzards and below zero degree temperatures. December 30th 1984 the day before the show Wichita was struck by a blizzard, several feet of snow in a few hours, the whole town is snowed in, completely shut down. It was a all-ages show and we were expecting a crowd of at least 3,000 people, it would have been Stygian Shores biggest show. If I remember right it also would have been Manilla Road's debut show with Randy Foxe drumming. All of the bands were bad-ass, Forsite was a prog trio and Precious Metal, whom Chuck Good was a member of, played cool metal cover songs.
You also shared the stage with such local heroes like Fathom Nagg. There is info that someone from Stygian Shore was involved in this band. Was it Mike Palmer?
Not to say anything bad about Fathom, they were a good band. More so, there were several other bands that I would consider influential to me, but not necessarily “hero" like, bands that just kicked ass — Manilla Road, Dead-O, Dementia, Initial Impact. They were a good band, but didn't draw huge crowds, fun band though and I was friends with Harvey Patrick (Bryan's brother). Harvey and his friends would ride their bikes over to watch Stygian practice when they were 14-15 years old. I was Harvey's mentor, he bought the same Bass rig as me, the same effects pedals and the same Ibanez Roadstar II bass.
All three releases, the EP, “Ultra Psychic…” and “The Shore Will Arise” were written and recorded as the Marshall, Dawson and Palmer line up. It was quite exciting going back in Miller Studio again. This would be the first album I recorded after misplaced my arm, so I was still figuring out how to play bass with the prosthesis, I actually played two songs on the bass, “Can't Get Away” and “Just A Dream”, I played the rest on my Roland Juno 6 synthesizer. My years playing the music store and family keyboards finally paid off! Of the ten songs I wrote and sang lead on three, “Who is He Now”, “Crygian Stue” and “World Wilted Wings”. Mike and I co-wrote “Visions of Doom”, “Can't Get Away” and “Blood Bath”, Pete did lead vocals on all three of these songs. Mike wrote and sang lead on “Branding Iron”, “Just A Dream”, “Stagnant Mist” and “In the Night”. All in all the recording process took about three days, record two days and mix one, probably did ten hours a day recording and another five or so with mix down. One evening Mark Shelton brought in some new music for us to listen to on the studios system, he said “listen to this”, at this point he hadn't told us who it was. We knew whatever Mark played would be good, because he had killer taste in metal music. The sound that came of of that system blew us all the fuck away, it was the opening song of Metal Church's debut “Beyond the Black”. Basically Stygian Shore thought about packing it in at this point, even before our second album was done we knew we had to up our game even more if this was the bar that was set. All of the songs on this album meant a lot to us as well as Mark, “Crygian Stue” was his favorite Stygian song. Going back to the switching words around thing from earlier, the name of this tune came about from us talking about our roadies – our Stygian crew, so that became “Crygian Stue”. As I was writing “Crygian Stue” I thought it sounded mythical, which immediately made me think of Mark and his writing style, Mark was very much in my mind for the rest of the writing process, it ended up being very Manilla Road-ish and a kind of tribute. Several of these songs would show their faces again on “The Shore Will Arise”.
Could you introduce the Crygian Stew guys? I guess they deserve some recognition fortheir loyalty and the ground work they did for you and maybe some other bands.
The Crygian Stue, our Stygian roadie crew. Really early on, friends of ours Steve and Rob Jordan decided to build a light system for our shows exclusively. A bit later on Steve started messing around with pyrotechnics, so Stygian was probably the first band in town to use flash pots at our shows - it was pretty damn cool. We had a ton of friends who helped out, Bryan Patrick, a friend Charles helped us roadie and they worked at the club as well. Steve Jordan ended up running lights for many of the acts who played there, he also played in a blues band with Pete Dawson. Bryan ended up having a long running gig thanks to contacts he made there.
How come that the album was shelved for so long? I know that the tapes were found in Mark Shelton’s archive after his death, but why didn’t you try to release it on Roadster Records or some other label back then?
We shopped it around a bit, by this point Roadster wasn't releasing anything else. We made cassette copies and sold them at shows, we did the independent thing with it. Sold them out of the trunk of the car, just like all of the greats. It was finally released on vinyl through Phil Ross's label Postmortem Apocalypse in 2020.
Why and when did Peter Dawson leave the band? How did you find G Carden Smith? Was it him who played on “Ultra Psychic Nightmares”?
Grant didn't play on any of the releases. He did one (since lost) demo with us, this was going to be the original ideas for “The Shore Will Arise”. We were fortunate over the years to have recordings saved in some form, like finding things in Mark's archive, this one to date has never been found. Pete left at the end of '85 to pursue other projects, one being Initial Impact. A few years prior we were playing a party and some kids asks if he can play on Pete's kit, Grant was 14 at this point and was already showing promise as a killer drummer. He immediately popped into my mind when Pete decided to leave. We sought him out after this and he joined the band.
I wrote the bulk of “The Shore Will Arise”, I was leaning more to darker and heavier themes, I called it “pissed off metal”, angry stuff, that's where I was headed musically. We recorded “Ultra…” in '85 and “The Shore Will Arise” in '89, by this time I was playing bass on everything, I still doubled my parts with the synth, but I played live bass with the hook. We took four of the heavier songs off of “Ultra Psychic Nightmares” for “The Shore Will Arise”, three are mine and one I co-wrote. We also did a re-recording of “Tidal Wave”.
And again, please tell me about the recording process. How long did it take to record everything? Were there some arguments within the band about certain songs, arrangements etc.?
“The Shore Will Arise” took the longest. Actually every subsequent album took longer than the prior, which I guess is the way it should be. We did 3 ten hour days recording and another eight mixing down. Did some late nights, Jon Miller would come down to the basement where the studio was, in his pajamas and robe about two in the morning asking us if we were about done, he said he didn't care but the wife was "beginning to bitch". We laughed, shared a bong hit or two (that bong could be a paragraph in itself, let's just say you could end up drinking the water while not necessarily wanting to) and called it and evening. Much love and respect for Jon and Larry. Miller Studio was an institution, in more than one way. Mark wasn't the producer on “The Shore Will Arise” over all, he was on tour promoting the newest Road album so we did the studio part of it with just us and Larry Funk. Mark was credited as the producer, he did more of the back end things, he handled the transfers of what was recorded, mastered it a bit and got the version ready for release. No arguments really. Stygian split up in '87, in '89 we got back together with Pete and did a few shows, because people apparently still wanted to see us play live. We all got along and had a blast. It was this kind of vibe going into the recording process of “The Shore Will Arise”, so there weren't any arguments, probably “discussions” about things, but nothing more. Really the only time Pete, Mike or myself argued or fought was when we were drunk. We never drank when we were recording or playing live though, so our mishaps were on our off time.
Why didn’t you release “The Shore…” at least on Roadster Records back then? And how did the chance to release the album on Shadow Kingdom Records?
Mark made the Road his priority, I think he realized he could focus on a record label or he could focus on his band, he chose the band. The EP was the last album to be released on Roadster Records, the others up to Crystal Logic were the first releases. We had the privilege of being the only other band other than Road to be on the label. The Shadow Kingdom release was all about Mark, they had released some Road albums by this point, so he set it all up.
A hard question to answer but: why didn’t Stygian Shore gain more success? Lack of commitment? Bad luck? Anything else?
Wichita Kansas, never was, never has been, and never will be on the map for becoming a successful band, or anything else really. If we wanted to succeed we would have to relocate, we all had families and I guess we weren't willing to do that. It was all a story of a geographical challenge. Wichita is the middle of nowhere, like what you might consider Siberia. Again, all of the success of Stygian Shore came about way, way, way later and was all thanks to the European market. We can't thank the entire continent enough.
I know there were talks about playing in Europe with Manilla Road. Why didn’t that happen? Were you at least asked to play at Keep it True or Up The Hammer festivals?
We were, but I was more focused on my band Temple of the Damned, we could have done it, but I considered it a step back musically. We'd talked about doing it with Temple and just call it Stygian, but it wouldn't have been the band, even though Temple did play some Stygian tunes and would have been killer in the role. By that time I had transitioned to being a keyboard player, and with Temple I sang too.
At some point of your career you played with Betterlate. What kind of music that was? Is this band still active?
This is the band that became Temple of the Damned. Randy Foxe from Manilla Road played guitar and keyboards in Betterlate briefly, when he left we changed the name.
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| 2015 The Lizard Lounge. Greg Marshall with Temple of the Damned opening for Manilla Road. |
Chuck and Alan got Initial Impact back together in 2010 with drummer Ron Gilbert, a killer local drummer. Randy Foxe joined them in early 2012 and they became Betterlate. Although Chuck and Randy both sang, Alan decided they needed a new vocalist. Initial was playing the old Stygian Shore song “Tidal Wave” and invited me out to watch them play and to come on stage to sing it with them. I think Alan was auditioning me to see if I still had the vocal skills. I had kept my voice in shape over the years recording various projects on my own and with Blockhead. Alan called me a few days later and asked me if I would sing permanently with the band. I hadn't played live with a band for 20 years at that point in time but I always had major respect for and loved the band Initial Impact. Together with older tunes from Initial Impact and new songs being written by Alan, Chuck and I we knew we had to record them. In my opinion Temple of the Damned is some of the best material I have ever been a part of and I'm very proud of the two albums, “Farewell to the Flesh” and “Awaken”.
Both albums of Temple of the Damned were digitally released by Iron Virus Records. Did you try to release them physically? Weren’t labels like Shadow Kingdom Records interested in that? I think the band deserved bigger recognition.
We shopped “Farewell to the Flesh” to a couple of labels, I believe Golden Core/ZYX and High Roller, no one really bit. We thought the European labels might be interested, but this time – nothing. With the material being as killer as it was, professionally recorded and mastered, the connection to Stygian & Manilla Road, we thought interest would be better. In retrospect, there was a lot of left over material on “FTTF”, songs from Betterlate and even others. The best songs were the ones we wrote together, “Different” and “Carnival”, the labels probably noticed that difference, it was great album, but nowhere near where we were going. “Awaken” was quite different from “Farewell to the Flesh”. Alan and I took over the majority of the writing duties, we were the idea machines. We still wrote together as a band, working on arrangements and such, but the vast majority of the music and lyrics were written by the two of us. Chuck was the studio guy, our engineer, and taking nothing away from the songs or performance on the album, he was getting kind of burned out. The material was excellent, the recording was good, but there was one big difference, we didn't spring for the professional mastering this time, Chuck did it, and since this was the end of the process, it was his max burn out period too. We thought the projects deserved bigger recognition as well. Alan and I remastered “Awaken” a bit, both albums are definitely worth a listen. The digital version of “Awaken” also has a bonus track, a song Alan and I wrote in '20 called “Planet Plague”. Both albums are available at Ricky Vanatta's digital label ironvirusrecords.com. Iron Virus is a much of an archive of Wichita (and surrounding) metal music, there's a ton of content for those that would like to know more about our breed of metal in the Midwest. He keeps his content cheap too, all downloads, either EP or LP are only $5.00 US or individual songs for .99 cents. All songs can also be listened to for free. So we'd love to have a few metal heads give it a listen, another cool band other than Temple you might want to try is a band called John Woodson's Leg (or JWL), they're really cool.
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| 1993 Infernal Noise. Greg Marshall, Bryan Patrick, Andy Olson |
All bands I've ever played in have been metal. Most more progressive than Stygian Shore. The Blockhead album is also available on Iron Virus, it was a recording I did with Wichita guitar legend Joel Hesser. Joel and I had a studio in '98 together and Blockhead was a product of that. I played all the instruments, except for lead guitar and also did the majority of vocals. We never did a live show. And I must warn you, it's metal, but it's quite weird. A version of Bunch of Bozos started in '92 with Randy Foxe, Bryan Patrick and I. We were going by a different name and lost our bass player, Alan stepped into the spot and we became Bunch of Bozos, this name was kind of a play on Mark's project The Circus Maximus. These were all songs I had written in my head at my boring ass late shift job, I'd sing and write songs to get rid of the monotony. I knew if these songs were going to come to life I had to find musicians who could even play them, so that's the reason Bunch of Bozos came into play. Bozos never played a live show and no known recordings exist. Infernal Noise happened in '93-'94. It was a project with Bryan on drums, I played bass and sang and Andy Olsen (Odds Against) played guitar. The project was short lived, we played two live shows and no known recordings exist.
I guess It was impossible to live off of the music, so what have you done to earn daily bread so to say?
Numerous odd jobs.
What are you up to these days both musically and personally?
In 2013 Alan and I bought a small farm in Southeastern Kansas. When we first moved to the country we were writing and recording a lot of the music for “Awaken” and traveling to Wichita to play live shows. Eventually country life won out over the metal band. We still jam here and there, but the last thing we recorded was “Planet Plague”. Our focus in on the farm and just living a good down-to-Earth life.
Any last words to round up the interview?
First off, thanks to you Konstantin for doing this interview, I can honestly say this has been the deepest I've went into this history. Also thanks to the fans of Stygian all around the world, I would have never thought in 2024 that I'd be doing interviews. I hope the fans out there will give Temple of the Damned a listen. It's some of the best work Al and I have done. If you like Stygian's brand of metal, you're sure to like it. I'd like to thank my brother-in-chaos and literal right-hand-man Alan as well. He knows almost as much about Stygian history as I do and has been around the Wichita metal scene since near the beginning. In going through these questions together he would get me telling deeper stories and such, many of which made it into the interview.
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