D is for Dread...

1. what is your name?
Dennis Dread

2. where are you from?
I grew up in Ossining, New York. Ossining is a suburb along the Hudson River about 40 minutes north of the Bronx. My hometown’s claim to fame is Sing Sing prison, which was known as the “Death House” because more than 600 prisoners were executed there while the electric chair was in use from 1891 until 1963. The infamous cannibal Albert Fish was electrocuted in Sing Sing in 1936. That’s also where the popular expression “up the river” comes from. If you got caught in the city and sent upstate to Sing Sing, you were fucked. If you grew up in Ossining, you were also fucked.

3. what is the first thing you remember enjoying to draw?
Uhh...monsters and girls. Mostly monsters. I used to draw Godzilla a lot and copy pictures out of my older brother’s ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ magazines. When I was about 6 years old I really loved to draw the band KISS! I used to collect the Kiss trading cards in the late 70’s and my older brothers and I used to sit around drawing Kiss and listening to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin records.






4. what are some of the albums you have worked on?
I’ve worked with Engorged, Phobia, Autopsy, Abscess, Frightmare, Axiom, Warmachine, Harum-Scarum, Abigail, Machetazo, Hellshock. I think I probably forgot some.



5. what was the first album you did art for?
In 1994 I did a drawing for a band called Pineal Ventana from Atlanta, Georgia. They were an unusual art-punk band that used to play at a strip club called the Claremont Lounge. They sounded kind of like Flux of Pink Indians meets Neurosis meets Siouxie & the Banshees. I did a drawing that they ended up using as a tour shirt.

6. what was your first grind show?
Probably Disassociate or Assuck. I was listening to fast music like DRI and Cryptic Slaughter when I was a teenager but I actually got into grind pretty late and I didn’t really go to many shows. I grew up during the crossover era and was lucky enough to catch Suicidal Tendencies on the ‘Join The Army’ tour and Anthrax at L’amours in Brooklyn on the ‘Among The Living’ tour. Mosh!!!





7. what do you have in the works?
I just finished the cover art for the latest Phobia record called ‘Cruel’. It should be out soon on Willowtip Records. Next up is poster art for the Razorback Records event happening here in Portland this coming June (2006). They don’t want to use the word “fest” but this will be 2 days of beer drinking, death metal fun!

8. how did you hook up with the guys in Machetazo?
About 6 years ago I ordered a Machetazo/Rise Above split 7” from Machetazo’s drummer Dopi and we became pen pals. We always talked about doing a project together and a few years ago Dopi asked if I would draw something for a live studio recording called ‘The Maggot Sessions’. The weird thing about that drawing is that the band didn’t know what I was gonna draw and I hadn’t heard what songs they were recording. I had a funny idea that I would surprise them with a spoof of the Iron Maiden album ‘Number of the Beast’ with Italian horror film director Lucio Fulci as Eddie. Without knowing my idea for the art, Machetazo opened that recording with a grind version of Maiden’s intro to ‘Ides of March’! As it turned out, we were all surprised by the strange Iron Maiden synchronicity. And that 7” rules!




9. why can't I find a copy of Destroying Angels?
I guess you’ve never asked me for one. In the true D.I.Y. tradition, Destroying Angels is 100% cut & pasted, copied, collated, stapled, and shipped by me alone. I do everything with that fucker. I seem to put out a new issue about once a year and I only print a few hundred copies of each one. There’s really no distribution. It sells pretty well at Reading Frenzy here in Portland and that’s the only store that carries it so far. You can always order copies directly from me (www.dennisdread.com) or from Ajna Offensive (www.theajnaoffensive.com) or Parasitic Records (www.parasiticrecords.com).



10. what is the worst experience you have had with doing art for people?
In general, it can be frustrating working with people that have minimal visual understanding or appreciation because they’ll try to give me some stupid concept that makes for horrible imagery. Also, my drawings have been reproduced very poorly over the years, mostly by D.I.Y. punk bands. I’ve seen hours worth of shading turn to shit when a band bumps up the contrast to give it that crappy “punk look”! A good example of that is the Axiom ‘Impaled by Chaos’ art. The worst is watching a band snort tons of coke and then tell you they can’t afford your rates. I also once had a label attempt to “colorize” my drawing in Photoshop. That was bad. But usually I have great experiences working with people. I tend to work with friends or people who just respect my ability and instincts enough to trust what I draw. The best experience was doing the art for an Autopsy DVD recently that should be out soon on Peaceville. The band let me draw whatever I wanted, everybody loved the art, and the label paid me immediately. That’s just about perfect.

11. what is your favorite cover (of yours) so far?
I really like the Engorged ‘Where Monsters Dwell’ cover. It’s very simple and stark but it captures the mood I was going for very well. It also has funny details that actually reproduced well, like the advertisement on the back of the comic book. I also really like the drawings I did for the Hellshock/Consume split 7”, but it reproduced like shit.



12. top ten favorite records right now?
I only get 10?? Ok. Here goes, off the top of my head:
1. Moondog ‘The Viking of 6th Avenue’
2. Engorged ‘Where Monsters Dwell’
3. Golers ‘2nd Generation’
4. Cro Mags ‘Age of Quarrel’
5. Ennio Morricone ‘Per Qualche Dollaro In Piu’
6. Funerot ‘Invasion from the Death Dimension’
7. Deathspell Omega ‘Kenose’
8. Anal Vomit ‘Demoniac Flagellations’
9. Alice Cooper ‘Love it to Death’
10. Toxic Holocaust ‘Hell On Earth’






13. are you still doing alot of volunteerwork?
You’re probably referring to the work I do with homeless kids downtown. I actually get paid to do that. I’ve worked in Portland’s youth shelters for several years and I’ve worked as an intake counselor at an alternative to juvenile detention. Now I’m running a non-profit (duh) street outreach program and I train volunteers to go out on the streets and attempt to assist homeless people. I also go out under bridges and into camps and find young people who might need shelter or GED assistance or drug treatment or mental health evaluations. It’s exhausting and thankless and occasionally rewarding work.

14. how does it feel to be an aging crusty fucker with kids?
I’m already an “aging crusty fucker”? Damn. Now that I'm over the shock of that realization, it actually feels pretty good. I became a father at a fairly young age (by today’s standards) and it never occurred to me that I should stop being who I am just because I’m raising children. They’ve grown up right alongside me and we’re very close. I honestly can’t imagine life without my daughter and stepson. The advantages of having children young is that I’ve had a lot of energy to play with them and work and still take care of my own shit. Sleep becomes less important. The obvious disadvantage is that I’m broke all the time and don’t own a house. It’s also sometimes alienating to have to socialize with other parents that are much older than me, but I’m extremely loyal and a very dedicated father. If being a good dad means I don’t wear my Ghoul shirt to the school picnic, well, I can live with that.

15. What is your daughter’s favorite record?
Kallisti is almost 9 years old and she loves anything positive and girly. She really likes this harp player named Joanna Newsom. She also really likes Joan Jet and Hilary Duff. I listen to alot of Scandinavian folk music around the house and she loves dancing around to that stuff. But if it makes you feel better, Lebenden Toten dedicated the song ‘Blood Drinkers’ to her at their last show in Portland a few months ago.

16. how was it living over a record label (Tribal War Records.) for a couple years?
That was a great and crazy time. Back then the Mississippi House was a fun place and my family lived communally for three years. My kids were very young and I wanted them to experience a sort of extended family environment. I’m not too fond of the nuclear-family ideal and I think that type of “family unit” doesn’t necessarily foster creativity and joy. Children thrive on meaningful interactions with a broad range of people and my kids loved living there. I attribute much of their advanced social maturity and critical thinking to that early experience of living with so many people. They also got to see Tragedy and Atrocious Madness play early shows in our living room! My drawing studio was set up in a ’57 bread truck I had parked in the back yard. I ran an extension cord from the house and had a desk, a lamp, and a stereo. In the winter I would put a space heater under the desk and draw until my hands and feet went numb. I was drawing a lot and broadcasting a weekly metal show on a pirate radio station in the neighborhood that was probably heard by about 3 people...haha. Neil Robinson was a good friend and my kids would sometimes hang out in the Tribal War distro and help package new releases. He was with me when I taught both of my kids to ride bikes. Of course everything has a life cycle and eventually the dynamics in that house became irritating and fell apart. I mostly had huge differences with some of the self-righteous “political” opinions that were circulating. So I moved my family into a house of our own and have never looked back.

17. thanks dennis.
My pleasure, Mike.

*Check out Dennis at his new site dennisdread.com (The title for the article is a link)