A Band Called Death Page #5

I guess, you know,

all of them wanted to play the drums.

Well, I was always, you know,

influenced by my Uncle Dannie and Bobby,

'cause, you know, he always had

drums laying around the room

and I kind of caught on to that.

Yeah, my dad and uncle,

they always had a very strong,

serious musical connection,

and that was something that made

a profound impact on me.

Bobby came to me one day and says,

"Hey, man, you're turning

all of my sons into drummers."

(LAUGHS) You know?

My Uncle Dave, he was really my...

One of my favorite uncles.

And he was just always so crazy

and so out there and so out of the box.

JULIAN:
He just had the best sense

of humor and the best laugh,

and I used to love talking to him.

You know? 'Cause he was just so lively

and so funny, you know?

He was like a child.

BOBBY:
The thing that was kind of sad was

I never got to see him at his prime.

I only... 'Cause he was...

He really got into the bottle,

he really got into alcohol.

So most of the time that I saw him,

he was always drunk.

BOBBY:
David thought...

He's one of these genius types,

man, you know?

I mean, the demons get to you.

You know what I mean?

The demons get to you.

EARL JR.:
And David was gonna do

what he was gonna do.

And he was hell-bent on that.

And nobody was gonna mess with him.

And the more that people tried to

correct him, if you will, or change him,

the worse it became, okay?

He was a visionary.

He had a plan,

and that plan didn't go through

the way he wanted it to.

And I think part of his drinking then

was from not being able to

fully express what he wanted to do

with his music and his art.

This is part of the diary

that David had started,

and he's just talking about,

uh, one day of his life.

"Check the dreams that are in your mind.

"Take a flight to see

which ones are really there.

"Open up your eyes and see

the paradise of a dream.

"The world we know shall be no more."

That was when David revealed that

his music would not come forth

until after he had left this earth.

I think he was just feeling

like he wanted to leave back then.

He always was in another world, like,

he just kept saying that

he didn't wanna be here anymore.

Hendrix.

Uh, no, he was never an idol.

He was like an influence to me.

I don't have any idols,

not on this earth.

My idol is Jesus Christ.

I follow him, until the day I die.

And then show me how to get up

to the orchestra, you know,

that's gonna play

in front of the throne of God.

That's my destination.

I wanna play

in front of the throne

of Almighty God.

DANNIS:
And the last

time David was up here,

the last thing he did,

he filmed my wedding.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

DAVID:
All right, we at the church, here.

And this is what it looks like inside.

There go the groom.

(WEDDING MARCH PLAYING)

There go the bride

and her dad.

(DAVID LAUGHS)

Look at Dannie.

DANNIS:
I had a conversation

with my mother.

She said, "You know what your brother

David told me?"

I said, "No, what'd he tell you?"

"He said, 'When you get home,

"'get ready to bury one of your sons."'

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

And we noticed that he was frail

and that he didn't look that good.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

Hey, man. Hey, man.

(LAUGHS)

BOBBY:
And we asked him,

you know, "ls everything okay?"

And he never said nothing to anybody. He...

"Yeah, everything's okay. Everything's...

I'm all right. I'm all right."

(MUSIC PLAYING)

I just wanted to say these words,

'cause me and my brother Dannie

have been through heaven together,

we've been through hell together,

we've been down in the ditch,

we've been on the heights.

We've got a great career as musicians,

and we're well-respected here

in the community and we thank God for that.

DANNIS:
But before Dave left my wedding,

he brought all the Death master tapes

and told Bob to hold them.

He says, "One day the world's gonna

come looking for this,

"and I know that you will keep them."

(INAUDIBLE)

BOBBY:
And I say,

"Dave, I have enough tapes.

"I got enough of our stuff, man."

He says, "No."

He says, "You gotta keep these."

He says, "The world's gonna come

looking for the Death stuff."

And he says, "I know that you'll have it

when they come looking for it."

That was when he told us, he says,

"Man, when y'all make it with this music,"

he says, "I'm not gonna be with you guys."

When I hugged David before he left,

David let me know

that I wasn't gonna see him again.

BOBBY:
And then after he got back home,

a few months later,

we got a call from our brother Earl.

You know, Earl said to me...

He said, "He's dying, Bob."

(SOBBING)

I remember that so well,

like it was yesterday.

I mean...

"What do you mean David's dying?"

David had a pretty advanced cigarette habit

that eventually ended up

taking a toll on his life.

He says, "Yeah, Bob," he says,

"he's got full-blown lung cancer."

And that just floored me.

Once he hit intensive care, man, it was...

(EXHALES)

It was all over.

David died,

uh,

day after my wife's birthday.

Tammy's birthday is on the 8th of October,

and I think David died on the 9th.

I just put the tapes in a safe place.

I didn't think about them.

I was thinking too much about David.

DANNIS:
When I eventually went

to David's funeral in Detroit,

I thought that,

"I guess the Death thing

is just gone with Dave."

EARL JR.:
David's dream and the thing

that he always said was consistent

from day one.

And he never wavered in the story,

nor his dream.

And so, yes, he did carry that

all the way up till the end.

My wife used to say that Dave was Dave

when he was playing his guitar.

If you wanted to see the real Dave,

you gotta catch him playing his guitar.

BOBBY:
You know, David continued to write

beautiful music, right on up until he died.

This right here

is, um,

the last record that David made

before he died.

And, as you can see,

his nickname was Rough Francis.

You know, the name of the song 'vs

I'd Be Your Doggie.

And then it was backed by a song called

We're Gonna Make It.

And you know who plays on this?

David did recruit,

uh, myself and Dannie to help him

on the tracks on this.

So, you know, this is kind of like

the last time that we really got together

and made a recording.

(SINGING)

"Now the way that it's been, we've seen thick

and thin, and dark days all around us."

Um...

"But now that it's over,

let our love grow stronger.

"Don't you cry now,

"we're gonna make it.

"Don't you cry now, we're gonna make it."

I think that says it all.

We stuck together

through thick and thin for 22 years.

(SOBBING)

(SONG PLAYING)

(CABLE CAR RUMBLING)

Talk about record collecting, he says.

Well, you go by hunches.

I mean, I found this in a thrift store.

Glenn Schwartz and the

All Saved Freak Band,

with a brain on the cover.

I thought, "How can I not take this home?"

And here's my favorite

Christian ventriloquist,

Marcy and Little Marcy.

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