Back Room
Saturday, January 18
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“You can definitely shake your ass to us,” says Corrosion of
Conformity founder and drummer Reed Mullin. Shake ass? Isn’t COC — together
an astonishing 15 years — best credited with being hardcore, metal, and
grunge before each was cool? “You know what it was?” Mullin asks
in return. “It was playing with the Big Boys at Liberty Lunch in 1983.
That’s where we first learned to shake our asses. It was the first time
we’d ever seen the Big Boys and I was kind of slackjawed for a while. It’s
still a pretty vivid memory.”
Obviously, those memories, as well as Mullin’s recollection of playing
Austin gigs with Scratch Acid, have drifted their way onto Wiseblood,
COC’s sixth and latest release. And while COC displays its penchant for
East Coast hardcore outfits like Minor Threat and Bad Brains all over this
dense and diverse collection, Wiseblood is perhaps best viewed as
the cohesive slab of metallic boogie Metallica meant to make with last year’s
Load. In fact, the real bridge between The Big Boys and Metallica
— and 1983 and 1997, for that matter — may be the new album’s centerpiece,
“The Door,” which reveals a serious ZZ Top sweet tooth.
“Fuck yeah, we’re good Southern boys and dig ZZ Top,” says
Mullin. “We were in Europe with Metallica last year and met Frank Beard
in Germany. It was amazing. Then we met Billy Gibbons and told him we probably
owe them a lot of money in royalties for ripping them off all these 15 years.”
Sadly, Mullin will probably have to wait just as long before admittedly
COC-influenced bands like Pantera, Korn, and Soundgarden start sending him
checks, although COC ought to be able to pay a few bills of their own after
beginning a four-month stint opening for Metallica next month (slated for
the Frank Erwin Center in April). Could this high-profile stint finally
be the payoff for 15 years of pioneering?
“Sometimes we were too early, sometimes too late,” Mullin says.
“It was a life hazard just being a punk rocker in North Carolina back
then, getting beat up and stabbed by rednecks. Now you just go to the mall
and pay $50 to be insta-punk. But you know, boogie’s a peskier little rascal
and doesn’t die as easily. It’s sort of like us, just still kickin’ around.”
And shakin’ ass? — Andy Langer
[Orange 9mm and Flow open.]
This article appears in January 17 • 1997 and January 17 • 1997 (Cover).