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November 2001
Every serious metal fan surely knows the name Damien Thorne. Their 1986 debut The Sign of the Jackal is an underground metal masterpiece that is hailed as a classic all over the world. Although there was supposed to be a "lost" second album, the band disappeared a few years after that first record, only to resurface in the late 90s with a new EP and plans for a new album. I recently spoke to Ken Mandat (who was known as Ken Starr on the TSOTJ record) about the Damien Thorne, their mysterious second album, and the future plans for a triumphant return to the metal scene.
Update: Some months after this interview, Damien Thorne struck a deal with Iron Glory Records to release their catalog of albums on CD! Look for the discs to appear sometime in 2003...and congrats to the band — welcome back!
It's good to talk to you, Ken. We exchanged e-mails a few years ago, right when Former Life came out (1998). At that time, you were talking about a forthcoming new record. How's it going with the new DT material?
Basically, at the time we released the four-song demo, it was originally supposed to be a full-length record. The only reason we did a four-song tape was that we were shopping it to record labels as a demo to try and get a deal. The plans were to release the full-length record also as Former Life. That was supposed to be the album title, but we used it for the demos, too. We sold a few of the four-song demos, on a cassette version. We weren't planning on doing that, but we sold a few and handed some out to people, and it started taking off and there was a demand for it. So we started selling the four-song version. Needless to say, we didn't plan that we wouldn't get a deal out of it.
 Was there any label interest at all in response to the demo?
Well, we sent it to a bunch of places, like Metal Blade, Century Media, etc. Everybody gave us the same answer, kind of like, "We know you guys are good and you had a great record, but you've been away for so long, it's just too much of a risk."
That's disappointing...
Yeah, but I was cool with it. I mean, if they don't want you, they don't want you. So the intention was to go back into the studio and finish the full-length release by ourselves, and then put it out on our own, on our web site and places like that. But we ran into a lot of bad luck financially, and we were never able to finish. We'd have to work on little pieces at a time, or we'd get halfway done with something and then run out of money. So it's taken us years...
Are you getting to the point where there are enough tracks that are finished?
Right now, almost everything is finished. In fact, in the meantime, we've written so much new material that we could probably make three new records! It's crazy now; we've got so much new material, it's unbelievable. But still, nobody (record labels) is willing to touch us. Why? I don't know.
It doesn't make much sense.
No. So this past summer, we decided to stop the whole recording process for a while and just get back out and play. We figured that maybe the labels were passing us up because we hadn't played out in a few years. Actually, it's been more than a few years since we've been off the scene.
That's true, it's been a while.
We thought that if we got out and started playing again, maybe that would create some more interest in us. So we spent the summer playing some different festivals. We did Milwaukee Metalfest, of course...
You played at the Classic Metal Festival, too, right?
Yeah, we did the Classic Metal Festival, and we did some local outdoor festivals near Chicago (Illinois), stuff like that.
 How did those shows turn out?
Everything was great! I think we had a great response from all the crowds. The Classic Metal Festival was the first show we had done in years. I think the last formal live show we played was actually in 1990, maybe 1989. So it's been quite a while.
Man, that's a long time!
We didn't know what to expect when we agreed to do the show. It was wild...I mean, the whole crowd there was basically European, people who had come from overseas to see these bands. There really weren't many local people or people from the U.S.
That is so depressing.
It was! But the people from Europe were amazing, and a lot of people gave us a lot of credit for being there. Some people came to us after the show that day and told us that the only reason they had saved their money all year was so they could fly over from Europe to see the show. That's pretty cool!
That has to make you feel really good.
I was in shock, you know? I didn't think that anyone would even remember who the hell we were.
Well , TSOTJ is a classic...that's a very beloved record.
It's really surprising to me because, at the time we did that record, we didn't get to go to Europe to tour, so we didn't really see what was going on over there. And in the U.S., the response wasn't that good. So we didn't get to see all the stuff that was going on with the record in Europe. And then people would tell me how they loved TSOTJ over there, and it's just unbelievable.
It's a very well-known album.
We were having a lot of trouble with our record label then, and we weren't really getting accurate figures on record sales, so we really didn't know. We did get a huge bombardment of fan mail from Europe, so that was the only clue we had that something was happening. There was maybe a six-month span, right after Roadrunner put the record out in Europe, that I was getting at least 20 or 30 pieces of mail from Europe every day. It was just piling up; it was pretty wild. And you know, people still seem to like the record a lot.
 It's a great album! It's one of those records that has a certain sound, and it doesn't matter that it was recorded 15 years ago.
Man, the recordings for that were totally half-assed. We were so young, and we had no money. That record was recorded before we actually got a record deal, really.
So did the band finance the recordings?
Yeah, we financed everything, except for some of the final mixing and stuff. Most of it we paid out of our own pockets, before we even got the record deal. If we had done it afterwards, it probably would have been a better quality recording. But I think the rough edge kind of lent some character to the recordings. I don't think it would have sounded right if it were recorded better.
I agree. It sounds exactly like it's supposed to sound...
It's raw, and loud, and in your face. It's something that hard to duplicate.
Did you have any previous recording experience? I know you did a couple of demos first.
We did some demos, but that was about it. We had spent a lot of time in the studio, but we had never released anything before TSOTJ. We had just done some demo-quality stuff, but nothing really professional.
So the demos weren't available for sale?
No, they were never really intended for that. However, there was a TSOTJ demo; it was a five-song demo that we put out before the TSOTJ record. That actually sold pretty well and got written up in "Kerrang!" and "Metal Forces." So through mailorder we sold probably thousands of those tapes.
Did the demo have advance tracks from the album? A friend of mine has a demo simply called Damien Thorne, but I don't know what tracks are on it.
Hmm, that might be it. I don't think we ever actually titled that one, but it had the song "TSOTJ", and "Escape or Die", I think it had "Siren's Call" on it, and also a couple of songs that we left off the record. It had "Phantoms of Fire" and maybe something else; I can't even remember now. That tape is kind of hard to find; I don't even think that I have more than maybe one copy of it.
How did you end up getting David DeFeis (Virgin Steele) to help produce TSOTJ? Was that arranged through the record label?
Actually, we signed to Cobra A&M, which was the same label Virgin Steele was on, and Piledriver and some other cool bands. What happened was, Jack Starr was in Virgin Steele at the time, and he had seen us play here in Chicago. We hit it off pretty well, and he took that first demo of ours to Cobra. That's basically how we got that deal. I guess Jack sort of "found" us. And we had all the tracks recorded for TSOTJ, because we were planning on releasing it ourselves. The label said, "We need to mix these tracks, so why don't you guys come out to New York?" Dave DeFeis was producing a lot of the records that were coming off that label, so we hooked up with him to produce and finish the record. So we went out there, and we stayed at Dave's house. We became pretty good friends; those guys are great. Dave is an incredibly talented guy.
Virgin Steele is still around.
Oh yeah, he'll never stop!
When you initially recorded the TSOTJ tracks on your own, how long did it take you to record the songs?
The TSOTJ record was actually done very quickly. I don't remember the circumstances, but for some reason we managed to get our hands on a big chunk of studio time, like three full days in a studio. So we basically went in there and hacked through everything. A lot of that stuff is the first take; we just set up and played.
I think that's part of what makes it so cool; it has a "live" sound.
We still do it that way. If we start taking our time, we end up scrapping everything. We sound better when we just set up, start the machine, and go.
You mentioned that you never got to go to Europe. What kind of touring were you able to do in the U.S.? Did you stay local, or did you get to branch out a little?
We branched out some. It was mostly Midwestern stuff; we'd go out and hit the Midwest, and do a couple of weeks here and there. We did a little bit over on the east coast, but never went to the west coast, until we moved there a few years later. Actually, before we had the falling out with Cobra, which happened between TSOTJ and the second record (which never came out), we were trying to convince them to send us to Europe. We were actually going to go out there with Virgin Steele, but it never happened.
And Roadrunner didn't help out? It seems like they could have set up something like that.
Roadrunner was actually the only one that was doing anything for us. They would have gladly helped out, but they would have needed Cobra to get it started, and Cobra basically refused, for some reason. I think it was stupid on their part, and I think the timing was right for us. If we could have gone to Europe at that time, who knows what could have happened?
What more did Cobra want? You were getting tons of fan mail from Europe...
All Cobra was interested in was a quick buck. They wanted to make some fast money off us. That was their intention from the start, and they didn't have any long-term plans. I don't think it mattered how well our record was doing; it seemed like they had set in their mind that they weren't going to do anything with us. That's just how they did business, which is why they're not around any more.
How many copies of TSOTJ were pressed?
I'm not sure of exact numbers, but I think that Roadrunner did at least a couple of hundred thousand copies. Who knows what Cobra did. It was our first record, and we had no promotion or publicity at all. The only thing we did was putting our own reviews into magazines like Kerrang! and Metal Forces and whatever else was around. We had to do it ourselves, since the label wouldn't do it for us.
But aren't labels supposed to do that stuff?
Yeah, but there's no use complaining about it now. The way I look at it, Cobra might have ripped us off of money and stuff like that, but the record still got out there.
That's true, it made it all over the world.
We had excellent distribution worldwide, and the record just did something on its own. We didn't even have to do anything; it did it by itself. And Cobra can't take that away.
The copy of TSOTJ that I have was released by Grudge Records.
Right, Grudge is the label that released the album in the United States. Roadrunner did it for Europe and South America, and Cobra put it out in Canada. Cobra was actually a Canadian branch of A&M Records, and they licensed the record to Grudge. And Grudge didn't do anything for us either.
I've only seen one or two other bands that were released on Grudge...Attacker maybe, and Jersey Dogs, with some former members of Attacker...
I think maybe the Killer Dwarfs did something on Grudge, but the label was short-lived.
It seems that all you guys needed was a break.
Yeah, every chance we had to get a break, we got smacked in the face. And it's still happening [laughs]. It's unbelievable. I just don't understand the politics involved. For some reason, we're blackballed or something. I don't know if that's the right term to use, but...
So what happens now?
Actually, right now we're kind of talking to this German label called Iron Glory. They have Manilla Road and some bands like that. They're not a big label, but they're interested in us, which is a huge plus. [laughs] They saw us at one of the festivals, and it sounds kind of promising. We just sent them a new demo version of the full-length "Former Life" record, stuff that nobody has heard yet.
Hopefully something will come out of that.
Well, they seem to be interested in giving us a new record, as well as in rereleasing TSOTJ and the second record, which never came out originally.
I was going to ask about that record. I know that it's available now through MP3.com, but there's really no packaging or anything. It doesn't seem like the proper treatment that the record deserves.
Yeah, it's garbage, but we are probably the most broke people on the planet. And we get so much pressure from people, like, "What are you guys doing? Why aren't you releasing this stuff? Get it out there!" We're really trying, but it's not that easy. So, in the meantime, and as futile as the attempt is, all we were really able to do was put out those MP3 CDs. But at least it gives people a chance to get their hands on the stuff.
 I guess it's better than nothing.
At least you're able to get TSOTJ on CD now, and I threw some bonus tracks on there, stuff that isn't on the vinyl release. And Wrath of Darkness too, the whole second album.
So the MP3 CD of Wrath of Darkness is the full follow-up album as it was intended to be released?
Right, although the sound quality is pretty horrible. I mean, the master tapes that the material is coming off of are from 1987, and I don't have the money to actually go in the studio to actually remaster the stuff digitally to bring the sound back. And we will do that eventually, because the stuff does sound fantastic coming off the master tapes. But it was a half-assed transfer onto CD from whatever tapes we had here, just to get the songs out. Really, the sound quality is not that bad, but it's not great. And MP3 CDs are pretty cheap, so it's not like you're going to pay $15 or something. There are 11 or 12 songs on there, so it's a good deal.
The demo song "Phantoms of Fire" is on the TSOTJ CD, plus three other songs, "Vlad", "Eye of Ra", and "Caretaker". Were these songs left over from TSOTJ?
I think "Phantoms of Fire" was intended to be on the record. "Caretaker" and "Eye of Ra" were written maybe a year after the first record, in between TSOTJ and WOD. Those were songs that I thought were pretty strong, and thought that they belonged in that group of material. They fit the same feeling we had for that group of songs, so I added them to the TSOTJ disc. You know, I've got so much stuff that we've done that nobody has ever heard, and I hate to not be able to get it out. It kills me for people not to hear this stuff, because when I listen to it, I get excited, like "Wow, this is cool." So I think other people would feel that way too. Plus those versions of the songs were completely raw demo versions. A lot of that stuff was recorded during rehearsals; we'd slap up a tape deck and a few mikes. We'd finish writing a song, then we'd turn the tape decks on and record it. Some of the stuff on the TSOTJ MP3 CD is like that; I think "Caretaker" was that type of thing. And the material is strong; it's awesome stuff. Unfortunately, since we don't have a label that will let us make two records a year, we end up stockpiling all this stuff that could be ready to come out.
Continued...
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