MASTER – Interview with bassist/vocalist Paul Speckmann

There is old school death metal and there is MASTER. The Chicago, Illinois outfit first emerged in 1983—a time when death metal still went by the generic term, metal. MASTER served as an influence for many of the death metal bands of today. These bands gained recognition as the fathers of death metal, and even though they cited MASTER as an influence, MASTER rarely received this honor by the press and fans alike. Even the mighty DEATH, who eventually coined the term “Death Metal,” sought MASTER for early inspiration.

Part of the reason MASTER never gained the proper accolades was their inability to get mass exposure. The group didn’t find a label to release a full-length and gain national attention until signing to Nuclear Blast in 1990. Nuclear Blast released the group’s first full-length. This first self-titled offering helped establish the band as a steadfast act on Nuclear Blast’s early roster.

MASTER founder-vocalist-bassist, Paul Speckmann took MASTER to the Czech Republic in 1999. He has remained a Czech citizen ever since. Although MASTER has largely remained in the underground, the group has pushed on, never bowing to the latest scene trend. Before taking the stage in Austin, Texas with another veteran death metal band, GOREAPHOBIA, Paul Speckmann spoke to Metal Centre on the band’s colorful history, as well as current events in the MASTER camp.

Master planted its roots as WAR CRY and DEATH STRIKE in the early eighties. How did you progress from playing a thrash style with those bands into a death metal band?

Actually, WAR CRY emulated the sounds of BLACK SABBATH. In later years, for example Lee Dorian from CATHEDRAL quit NAPALM DEATH because he wanted to sound like TROUBLE and WAR CRY. He told me this. It’s a small world. We started out playing this doom, Sabbathy kind of stuff, and around that time I discovered a 7” single from VENOM—“Live like an Angel, Die like a Devil” and “In League with Satan” on the back of it. That changed my life. Bill Schmidt was fired from WAR CRY and he spoke to me about doing something heavier. I showed him the single and it changed his life as well. At the time, we started listening to MOTORHEAD, more SABBATH, SLAYER was around, but VENOM was the band that spurned me to play more thrash, more aggressive music. MASTER formed in 1983. We got as far as the pictures. The original drummer wrote the first three songs. Then we auditioned guitar players around Chicago, and could never find a stable lineup, so he and I parted ways. Then I put together DEATH STRIKE. I found the guitar player in this Illinois entertainer magazine. He and I wrote songs together. The drummer begged and pleaded to come back into the band, DEATH STRIKE, and then we were MASTER again. DEATH STRIKE recorded before MASTER.

When you came out, you were death metal.

They called it death metal, but at the time it was just metal. They didn’t really start categorizing death metal until DEATH came out. Here’s a funny thing, too, later on in life, before Chuck [Schuldiner] got sick, he did an interview that I read in ROCK HARD magazine where he claimed he never heard of Paul Speckmann or MASTER, even though he thanked me on his first two albums. Two years ago on was on tour with MASSACRE and Terry Butler from SIX FEET UNDER. This was the MASSACRE reunion tour in Europe. He said, “Paul, on the first DEATH tour in the U.S. we used to play this song ‘Mannequin, Mannequin/They're all the same.’ I said, “Yeah, ‘The Truth.’ He said they had played this DEATH STRIKE song for the first U.S. tour with DEATH. So for him to say that he never heard of me is pretty pathetic, but may he rest in peace. Life goes on, but people like to forget where they come from. I believe in supporting and never forgetting your roots. I’m the first to admit that VENOM, SLAYER, GBH, THE EXPLOITED, DISCHARD all influenced MASTER. These bands were big influences on me in the early eighties; I’m not going to say I never heard of them, even if I got bigger than them. Support the underground!

What happened when you almost signed to Combat Records?

This was the same contract that Chuck signed. I was offered the contract before he was. What happened is we met this famous producer, Kim Fowley, not to be confused with King Fowley [DECEASED]. People always get them mixed up. He was a big recorder producer and manager of Joan Jett and THE RUNAWAYS back in the day. He wrote songs for KISS, ALICE COOPER—many famous bands. He came into the studio when we were recording the original MASTER demos and offered to read our contract for us. He charged us a dollar a minute! He turned it into a multi-million-dollar contract. We were an unknown, underground, unsigned band. Then the original drummer and his mother rewrote the contract a second time. Combat threw it in the garbage. This was 1985. It took me until 1989 to get a new deal with Nuclear Blast. After four years, all these bands had blown up, so there were a lot of clones of MASTER. Bands like PESTILENCE, BENEDICTION and DISMEMBER were all bands that copied the style of MASTER, and also all bands that have made it today. I met a lot of these players and they admitted without MASTER they wouldn’t have a band. It’s an honor to be respected. They may have more money than I do, but I know where I came from. Influences go a long way sometimes.

MASTER hails from Chicago, Illinois, which as an excellent death metal scene. How you view what MASTER has done from the scene in Chicago?

We opened a lot of doors for bands like SYNDROME, TERMINAL DEATH, DEVASTATION. All these bands watched MASTER, supported MASTER or came to our practice and learned things by watching. Good for them. There was also DISINTER, they were good, too. There are a lot of good bands in Chicago. I agree with you.

What about MACABRE?

MACABRE, we go way back. We still see each other all over the world. Every year we are hooking up somewhere at a show, whether it’s Chicago, the Czech Republic—we are always hooking up somewhere. I went on the road as their merchandiser a few times as well. We are really good friends.

MASTER is working with a new label, Pulverised Records. How did you connect with them?

They contacted me and offered me a lot of money, tour support and all kinds of things. We’re going to record a new CD, probably in December or January, and it will be out in February for the European tour. I’m quite busy right now. I don’t have time to record the new album. I have songs written. It’s call “The Human Machine.” Eliran Kantor: did the artwork. I already saw the rough sketches last week. He did the last TESTAMENT and DESTRUCTION album covers. He’s an Israeli artist who lives in Berlin. He’s fantastic! I’m finally going to get a great new cover, a lot of publicity and a lot of push from this label. Right now they are doing really well with the new WHIPLASH album. It’s fantastic! They are my label mates. I’m happy about that as well.

MASTER is mostly a three piece with session players.

In Europe I have a stable lineup, but ever since your ole’ president Bush came into power some years back, he has made it impossible for Czech’s to come over to America. The thing is, I can’t book a tour hoping I can get the guys in. If somebody says he can’t come in, it’s cancelled, so I’m using Jim Roe of GOREAPHOBIA and INCANTATION and Alex Bouks also of INCANTATION. Anyway, they are great players. They are doing the U.S. tour. The Brazilian tour that comes in November (twenty dates) will be the European lineup. In September, we have a Mexican tour that will have the U.S. lineup. Then in the spring, after the album is released, we’ll have a European tour with the European lineup.

Did having one of the members of GOREAPHOBIA in your band make it easy for you to tour with that band?

Actually, PATHOLOGY was supposed to do the tour. They cancelled at the last minute. They said there were too many days off. In the end, there were only two days off out of twenty-four days. Obviously, they are one of the newer bands. Whatever…maybe they don’t know what hard work is, man. They were saying on their Myspace page that we had a bunch of days off and MASTER would be staying at hotels on those days. (Motions to his van) you can see where our hotel is right over there, a Ford van. We sleep in that band, too, yo. We have some friends that put us up at their house sometime, but that’s not a hotel, it’s a van. It was completely wrong what they were assuming. We don’t get paid on the days off, and if there is a problem with the van, we’ll sleep at a camp ground. We’re underground—there are no rock stars in this band!

Does being in a band so long and not having a tour bus or getting hotels get frustrating?

That’s the U.S.A., dude. In Europe, I’m on a tour bus—a double decker with twenty beds. I have no problem in Europe. Every day I get paid, and I make a lot of money in Europe. In America, it’s more of a struggle, but that’s ok. It’s called surviving the underground. I’m into the underground. It’s underground music. The thing about MASTER is we are still playing the same style we always have. We’re not changing when the new genres change. When new guys are jumping up and down, playing faster and faster…I don’t care. I just want to play MASTER’s music. I have nothing against anybody and their ideas. If you believe in that music and play it with heart, then that’s great. I feel the same way with my music. I’m still playing old school death metal. The younger generation thinks it’s easy. It’s not easy. It’s a fucking struggle! I’m living proof of it. I drive that van. I sleep in that van. I sell the merchandise. If I wasn’t talking to you (motions to me), I’d be in there doing the merch for all the bands. I do that every night, too. I pack shit up, I unload it—I do everything. There is no rock star here (laughs). It’s all hands on for me. I write the songs, record the songs—it’s metal, man! I do it because I want to be part of it.

On past albums you penned songs about the hypocritical idea of America. You touched on mind control, oppression, war, biological warfare and other tools of the New World Order. Will your next album continue on such topics?

I write about what I always write about, real life, the trials and tribulations of mankind. Obviously, what is going on in the world today is fuel for thought. I let the lyrics come to me. I write the songs on guitar usually and the lyrics just come. I’m watching CNN or whatever, later on a song comes into my head and the lyrics just fit in there. I deal with everyday life. That’s really important for me. I realize all these satanic bands are making millions of dollars because the gullible youth of today thinks that Satan rules, but I don’t believe in Satan or Jesus. I believe in myself. On the other hand, I respect guys who play in these famous satanic bands. I’ve gone on the road with many of them. I went on the road working for DISSECTION. I went on the road with VITAL REMAINS two or three times. They are great people and they make great music, but they have a different tool for selling their music. I’m dealing with what is going on in the real world today. I’m not living in a fantasy. I have no disrespect for these guys. I love these guys; they are personal friends. Whatever works for you is fine by me. I’m not a judge or jury. It’s just my opinion, and opinions are like assholes: everyone has one. I just believe that what is going on in the world is more important than Satan.

It’s really much scarier if you know the truth about what the New World Order wants to do to people.

People don’t want to know the truth; they would rather be lied to. For some reason, people don’t want to read my lyrics. They are too stupid. Lyrics are important. My lyrics come to me naturally, then I go over and over and over them, change words, put in better words, and after a while, there is a concept for a song. A change them over and over, and then…BOOM, there’s a song. I take it very seriously because lyrics are very important.

How do you know what is truth when you are watching CNN?

They are not giving the truth. That’s why I watch it. Then I can get all sides. There was a guy who wrote me from the Middle East around two months ago. He was giving me a hard time about the song from the “Abomination” album—the second one, “Blood for Oil.” He was upset over the lyrics. He said, “We’re all good people over here.” I thought, “You just read that now. That came out in ’91.” The lyrics on that are true. We betrayed our blood for oil in the Gulf War. Everybody knows that. I finally wrote back to him and said it was a song I wrote eighteen years ago. At the time, that was what was going on. Maybe things are different now. Maybe he could show me a different side. I wrote a song on the last record called “Anarchy Nearly Lost.” What that is about is if the youth of today don’t stand up against this governmental power, then you are going to lose their freedom even more than they already lost it. Every year, you’re losing more and more freedom. I was on the highway on the way here today from Tennessee, and I saw twenty-five cars pulled over off the highway, mostly in Texas. That’s ridiculous! They have nothing better to do than give speeding tickets every day.

That’s the police state that we are becoming.

That’s what I’m talking about. The whole U.S.A. is becoming a police state. I’ve found more freedom in Europe than I’ve found in this country. They don’t ask you questions all the time—“What are doing here? What do you want? Where are your papers?” They don’t ask shit in Europe. I walk into the Czech Republic and say “Hello!” Then they scan my passport. Every time I come to an airport in America, they ask me, “Where have you been? Where are you going? Let me check your bags. “It’s nonsense. I’m in America. Why do you need to check my bags?

Now they have the military working with the cops.

I just heard that, too. That scares the hell out of me. The thing is, you’re stuck here. In two weeks, I’m going home!

Check Metal Centre's GALLERY for pictures of MASTER on their tour with GOREAPHOBIA.
http://www.myspace.com/masterspeckmann