A Band Called Death Page #2

First thing we did was

went to Manny's Music, man.

Manny's Music!

BOBBY:
I bought a Rickenbacker guitar

and a Fender guitar.

David bought a brand-new Fender guitar.

Bob went and bought himself

an acoustic amplifier,

so I had to have the

best drums I could find.

I went and bought me

a Slingerland set of drums.

BOBBY:
I had a bass,

Dannie had some drums, David, his guitar.

We started jamming together.

MAN 1". Here we go.

MAN '2". One, two, three, four!

(ROCK MUSIC PLAYING)

BOBBY:
The first band

that we formed as brothers

was called Rock Fire Funk Express.

'Cause at that time we wasn't sure

whether we wanted to be a funk band

or a rock band.

(MUSIC CONTINUES)

DANNIS:
Rock with a fire, you know,

add a little funk in there

and just keep on going, like an express.

(LAUGHS)

But then the Who came to town.

And when Dave went down to see them,

he was like, "That's it."

You know, "We gotta play this music.

This is the music we gotta play."

(ROCK MUSIC PLAYING)

David, every time I would leave, man,

he would have that stuff playing.

He'd just be laying there, listening.

And then I'd come back

and the same thing would be playing.

DANNIS:
You know, when I saw Alice Cooper, it

was like, you know, "All bets are off, man."

To me, if we ain't playing this,

then I ain't gonna be having no fun.

BOBBY:
Rock 'n' roll just kind of...

We just kind of immersed ourselves in it.

That's what David called it,

he said, "it's pure rock 'n' roll, man."

Not like a lot...

You're gonna have your one hit,

but the pure rock 'n' roll is what

they don't play over the radio, you know?

That's what David always said.

MAN:
(ON RECORDING) One, two, three, now!

(BASS GUITAR STRUMMING)

This is the room where Death was born.

Look at this door, right here.

Only something like this could come

from the mind of my brother.

- That's David's thing, right there, man.

- MAN:
Oh, yeah!

BOBBY:
We used to play.

This was my station, over here.

David was right over here.

And this was all Dannie' drums.

And then we had our PAs.

We just gutted the whole room.

And we just made it

into this little rock 'n' roll haven.

If it wasn't for our mom...

She let us turn our whole entire room

into a workroom for music.

DANNIS:
She got behind everything

we wanted to do.

While I'm on camera, I'm gonna say,

"Thank you, Mom. Thank you."

BOBBY:
And she just made

an agreement with us.

She said, "Hey, look, 3:00

to 6:
00 is your time.

"After 6:
00, you gotta cut it off."

MAN:
(ON RECORDING) All right now,

here we go. We're gonna get this right.

One, two, three!

(PUNK MUSIC PLAYING)

David, he could practice for hours

and hours and hours, literally.

BOBBY:
He got to the point

to where he played along

with just about every album

that was in our collection.

So he was learning Queen,

he was learning the Who.

David had a slogan. He said,

"if I could play chords like Peter Townsend

"and play lead like Jimi Hendrix,

"I am the ideal guitar player."

David's amp was always positioned right

here, because he liked it like that...

So he could, you know,

roust up the neighbors.

And then there was like a... Some girls...

We'd be practicing so loud,

that after we're done with a song,

we could hear all this

loud knocking on the door.

And that was them trying to get in.

One day this transpired and David started

playing these riffs, you know?

(KEEP ON KNOCKING PLPOHNG)

You know, we just came up with the words

right then and there, you know?

- "Keep on knockin'."

- "Keep on knockin'," you know?

(SONG PLAYING)

EARL JR.:
(LAUGHING)

And then they're playing in the house,

and, oh, man, they were...

They sent people down the street

holding their head.

DANNIS:
You know, we would start to

practice and the doors would slam

and the cop cars would pull up,

because we know they called them on us.

BOBBY:
See, we grew up

in the black community, so...

At that time people were tuning into, like,

groups like Earth, Wind and Fire.

DANNIS:
And, you know,

here we are in the middle of all of this

playing rock 'n' roll.

And, I mean, it was just...

it wasn't a rock 'n' roll culture.

White boy music!

I mean, the more people tried

to talk to us about changing,

I think the deeper we

went into rock 'n' roll.

MAN". One, two, three, now!

(ROCK-N-ROLL VICTIM PLPOHNG)

(SINGING)

All of that is pure anger.

We are fighting with the neighbors

to maintain our identity.

And we would not be not heard,

especially with David.

(LAUGHING) And people

were running around,

"Turn it down! Turn it down!"

BOBBY:
My dad, Earl V. Hackney, died.

Though it was an accident,

I think it impressed us a lot in our lives

from then on, when they described to us

how he died.

DANNIS:
He was an electric lineman,

so his job was to climb up the poles,

fix the wires.

I guess he had a trainee

with him one night.

And this trainee, I guess,

stuck his screwdriver in the wrong place.

And he got shocked,

and it threw him off the pole.

So my dad races down the pole, you know,

throws him in the back of the car...

And they take off for the hospital.

But just so happened, a

bar was letting out.

And there was a person

who was drunk behind the wheel

and they swung right out in front of him.

And he slammed right into her

and he died instantly.

BOBBY". I mean, the last thing that he did

before he left this world was a noble deed.

He was trying to help someone.

BOBBY:
I think when my dad died,

it had really a big effect on David,

as it did all of us.

Um, and David became obsessed

with a lot of spirituality.

Seeing our dad at a funeral,

I think really was for the first time

that we was up close and

personal with dying,

and the fact that someone that you love...

You're never gonna see this person

in this existence.

And that, I think, had a

big effect on all of us,

but on David probably the most.

DANNIS:
Bobby was in school, I was at work.

So when we get home, David says,

"Man, I got this great, great new idea

for the name of the band."

So he holds us in suspense.

Let's run up to the room

and find out what this great name is

that David then came up with.

We're waiting with much suspense.

And as soon as he says,

"Yeah, this is the name, dude. Death."

Death. Oh, man.

DANNIS:
So me and Bobby just kind of

looked at each other as if to say,

"This dude's gone way off the deep end."

I know what I would do

if somebody came up to me

talking about their band,

the name of their band was Death.

I'd be like, "You don't wanna...

No, I don't wanna hear it."

DANNIS:
But there again, that old thing

in the back of your head kicks in.

"Back up your brother.

Back up your brother."

BOBBY:
And David always said

that our name would have shock value.

And we're like, "Why would you say that?"

He says, "Because death is real."

DANNIS:
He had so much conviction,

so much belief,

until we just went along with it.

And that was right around

the spring of 1974.

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