Decayed Jesus - aka Brad Post #2

Sometime when I was in the eighth grade my dad saw drumset pieces out by the curb on his way home from work. He brought them home, I spray painted them and started wailing away. Punk!!! The drums were top-heavy on the stands and would always tip over or slide on the concrete floor. We had spare paint cans lying around so I used those to anchor the stands down which worked pretty darn well. Note the name "Death Tongue" spray painted on the top of the bass drum. "Death Tongue" was the name of Opus and Bill the Cat's metal band from the Bloom County comic strip which I thought was hilarious at the time, especially how Bill "played" his tongue like a bass.

Shortly after getting those drums my first band was formed. I don't remember how or whose idea it was but by dog it happened. The band consisted of myself on drums, Greg Pettay on guitar, Jason Harp on vocals and Andrew Croke unwillingly on bass. Greg played a Gibson Flying-V that was black with silver pinstripes. He was a huge James Hetfield fan at the time and boy did it show right down to his Zorlac Metallica skateboard and tight blue jeans. We took some band "shots" in my bedroom and in the practice room. What a handsome bunch we were.



To further summon satan and all things METAL Greg came up with the name Decayed Jesus and drew us up a logo.

My parents had an unfinished room that we used for storage/laundry which they graciously let us use to practice in. Unbelievably they continued to let this room be used for every band I was ever in which kinda explains their therapy bills now. We usually practiced on Friday after school and it was always quite the challenge. Andrew did not have bass equipment. And Andrew really didn't want to be in our band, so much that he would call Greg weekly asking if we had found another bassist yet so he could be off the hook. Needless to say we had to find him equipment and get said equipment for him. What a fuckin' rock star! Mr. Croke and I lived in the same neighborhood and in the back of our 'hood lived a guy named Paul. He hung around us "scums" (what the cheerleaders and preppies called us at the time) but was kind of a dildo. Paul had bass equipment so we started chumming up to him just to use his stuff. One person would carry the bass and I would put the amp on my skateboard and take 'em to my house. Of course after practice we'd have to do the same damn thing which was up a few steep hills. This kinda got old and Paul started to seem not so cool with all of this after awhile.

Decayed Jesus practice tape.

There was a guy we went to school with named Jay West. Jay was a very odd character and was a talented artist. He also was our number one (and only) fan. For some unknown reason he absolutely loved us. I let him borrow a practice tape of Decayed Jesus and he returned it months later with a "cover". We had some originals and did some cover songs as well which were usually picked by Jason and I. Greg was more into death metal than punk at the time and Andrew was starting to get into the Didjits, Jesus Lizard and Big Black, but Jason and I were punkers through and through so we covered the Exploited, Sex Pistols and the Misfits. Yes I know, we were were awful. At least we weren't sitting around jerkin' off like a gang of douches with Guitar Hero or Rock Band! The best part of the practice tape is Jason singing with a fake Brit accent then aping Danzig at the end of "London Dungeon" by saying "I hate the fucking British" ala "Evil Live". We didn't know anything at the time about playing out or of any local scene so after a few months we quit playing. I can't exactly remember what happened but I'm sure Andrew finally had reached his fill of our crap ass punk music.