Are We Born Again After Death
Mike Gantzer was on the road with Aqueous in March 2020, about to commence a run of high-profile California shows supporting Umphrey's McGee.
Abruptly, what promised to be another feather in the cap of the Buffalo-born band's burgeoning career was instead exchanged for a plane ticket back home, where Gantzer and his bandmates were greeted by a pandemic that would decimate the live music industry for the better part of two years.
For Gantzer, what came next was a period of time that he recalled as "the most radically honest time I've ever spent with myself," a stretch where the guitarist, singer and songwriter examined his physical and mental health and reassessed his relationship with the muse.
Soon, a decision to get sober led Gantzer toward what he described as "a sense of clarity and the realization that I could do what I do without alcohol, and ultimately, a reconnection to joy," which manifested itself in the rekindling of a teenaged infatuation with skateboarding and a renewed passion for the punk and metal records he had grown up with. That renewed passion would become a prime mover in the next stage of Gantzer's life.
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Summer Camp connection
Flashback to the summer of 2017, when both Aqueous and Umphrey's McGee were slated to perform as part of the annual Summer Camp Music Festival in Chillicothe, Ill. What started as a fun way to blow off steam for Gantzer, Ryan Stasik and Kris Myers – bassist and drummer, respectively, with Umphrey's McGee – by covering Green Day tunes during a late-night set at the festival, laid the basis for what would become, during the depth of the pandemic, the punk/doom metal/heavy alternative supergroup Death Kings.
Following Summer Camp, the three musicians would gather for after-show Green Day sets around their respective bands' touring schedules, whenever time permitted. Gantzer and Stasik became particularly close, and when Myers' various commitments above and beyond his Umphrey's duties made it plain he would be unable to wholly commit to the project moving forward, the pair began fantasizing about turning the punk cover band into an original music project, one rooted in their rekindled love for metal, punk and thrash.
Then the pandemic hit, and the entire industry machinery ground to a halt. Or so it seemed.
"Stasik called me while we were all stuck at home and freaking out about the world, and he said, 'Dude, we need to make an album, right now,' " Gantzer recalled. He then started "making it a practice every day to skateboard, and listen to one of the albums Stasik sent me as inspiration, or some playlists of old school punk and metal from my teenage years, and I'd skate hard for hours, and then come home and just write riffs – a lot of them."
Soon, the two were swapping those riffs and song ideas across the ether between Gantzer's home studio in Buffalo and Stasik's in Charleston, S.C., where he lives with his wife, HGTV's "Breaking Bland" host Mary Welch Fox Stasik, and their two young children.
Building a partnership
Gantzer recalled the work done on what would become the heavy epic "Welcome to Hell," the final song on the band's self-titled debut, as emblematic of the richly productive working relationship the pair developed.
"Stasik sent me this riff, and I was so inspired by it that I finished the rest of the tune in less than two hours. The dude has a work ethic, commitment and level of enthusiasm like nothing I've ever seen. It's contagious."
Mike Gantzer, left, and Ryan Stasik of Death Kings performing at the 2021 Summer Camp Festival in Chillicothe, Ill.
Stasik, who fell in love with heavy music after moving to Kalamazoo, Mich., from Pittsburgh as a 12 year-old – "I was the new kid, and this other kid gave me a Guns 'n' Roses tape and a Dungeons & Dragons book, and said, 'We're friends,' so my life became all about Nintendo, skateboarding, wizards, dice and metal" – found the partnership with Gantzer satisfied an inner need.
"I wanted to have an outlet for this writing, this creativity and this channel of music," he said. "Mike and I had done some tribute stuff together, and it was a blast. Then Covid really lit a fire under me to do some music, so I set up a studio, I learned (digital audio workstation) Abeleton and just started writing and sharing with Mike.
"I live on the beach, so during lockdown, I'd surf all day, and then I'd FaceTime Mike and we'd talk, tell tour stories, discuss our struggles growing up and, inevitably, metal stuff. Mike is a fantastic lyricist and musician."
Enter the ox
With the songs coming at a rapid pace, the need to fill the vacant drum throne became explicit. Enter Michelangelo Carubba, former drummer with alt-funk powerhouse Turkuaz and Buffalo music legend.
"Mikey has always been a point of inspiration for me, because he's from Buffalo, he's a world-class musician, he's done so much, and he's always been someone I felt I could speak honestly to and with," Gantzer said.
"We decided to get Carubba with us because, simply put, he's on our page," Stasik enthused. "He's an ox! And he loves metal!"
Death Kings backstage in Boston. From left: Mike Gantzer, Michelangelo Carubba and Ryan Stasik.
For Carubba's part, the timing was right – he'd only recently parted ways with Turkuaz – and the opportunity to indulge what he called "the primal and animalistic" side of his musicianship was an attractive one.
"This group and this music gives me the opportunity to play raw, unabashed, heavy sounds," Carubba said. "There's been a sentiment of that in my playing with other groups, but it was always filtered through an aesthetic of funk, R&B and soul. With Death Kings, I have the freedom to let loose. That's scratching an itch that's been around since I saw Queens of the Stone Age live, in 2013.
"It's a long time coming and I'm grateful for it."
The addition of Buffalo's Brett Robertson (Fernway, Exhibition) as an auxiliary guitarist made Death Kings a road-ready entity, and after a debut performance at Summer Camp '21, headlining shows in Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, Boston and Columbus followed.
Death Kings perform in Boston earlier this year.
A time for reflection
For Gantzer, the Death Kings project represents a return to the wellspring of creativity and a reconnection to the primal roots of his earliest musical passions. He hopes to carry the positive experience of working with Stasik and Carubba forward as he re-enters the fray and hits the road with Aqueous once again.
Gantzer looks forward to more Death Kings recordings and live gigs down the line. Death Kings play the Summer Camp Festival in Illinois on May 29. Both Aqueous and Umphrey's McGee have full rosters of dates across the country this summer, but band members hope to add Death Kings dates – including a Western New York stop – to the schedule when they can.
"I feel like I've started over, in the most beautiful way," Gantzer said. "I've been working and touring with Aqueous since I was 15 years old. Now, I'm 32. A lot has changed, in terms of growth and perspective.
"It's interesting to re-approach it all with a sense of gratitude, first, for the chance to reconnect with the shared experience that we all feel so deeply in our souls, whether we're musicians or audience members. But also to do so with the knowledge that letting your self-worth be dictated by an industry that is constantly in flux and moving from highs to lows in the blink of an eye is not going to give you a healthy, balanced life.
"Now, the goal is to stay present and maintain a sort of interior stillness, even within that constant flux, and to focus on all the reasons I fell in love with music in the first place."
A decision to get sober led Mike Gantzer toward what he described as "a sense of clarity and the realization that I could do what I do without alcohol, and ultimately, a reconnection to joy."
Source: https://buffalonews.com/entertainment/music/death-kings-a-mostly-buffalo-supergroup-born-of-soul-searching-sobriety/article_54b9928a-b757-11ec-ab04-272d044087bc.html
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