AceTheRaven : the whole story !

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IN THE BEGINNING

In the early days of my life I had a natural propensity for all things musical. My parents encouraged my interest, and growing up I enjoyed playing keyboards (the only instrument for which I received much formal training), drums (I got a drum set for Christmas at age 5) and guitar (my dads old hollow body electric through a rockin’ 1950s Silvertone 1x12 tremolo amp!) I owe a lot to my mom and dad for being supportive and putting up with so much noise for so long.

ACE THE RAVEN…ON DRUMS?!

Throughout high school I played with a lot of different people, and in my first real “band” I was actually the drummer! Although I knew some guitar, it was during my drumming days that I had access to the guitar players’ quality gear on days we weren’t practicing, and started to figure out the right way to play the songs in the set, and how to correct their mistakes that I would hear as I played the drums. I figured the guitarists would not have been too keen on being shown the riffs to the songs by the drummer, so those days, and that band were soon history.

I GET A GUITAR

Being a huge Black Sabbath fan in High School led me to seek out a Gibson SG as my first “name brand” guitar. Purchased out of the “Trade-N-Times” with help from my grandmother, I bought a 1971 Gibson SG Standard for $375 in 1982. Now I was still playing in High School bands, but this time as the guitar player.

METAL FORCES CONVERGE

By around 1983 I ended up playing in a band that included Darren Winne on Bass. Of course as players shift around, and bands form and break apart, it would still be a while before me, Darren and fellow classmate Bryan Renken would settle into a group which eventually came to be called “Severe Warning”, a band name Renken reputedly thought up from watching storm warning crawls that would appear on the bottom of the TV shows during severe weather. At this time Bryan had already got a former incarnation of Severe Warning a track on the Cleveland Metal “Etched in Steel” compilation (“Metal Malice”, an instrumental). For whatever reason, (I never knew), Bryan ended up with the name Severe Warning, but with no band. Probably around late 1984 or early 1985, me and Darren were playing with a drummer named Jimmy Shore in what was the waning days of a prior band who suffered death due to line-up changes, and after Jimmy the drummer departed, which was almost simultaneous to hooking up with Bryan, it was Renken who brought in a drummer friend he knew from his work, to see how we would work together. This drummer was Dave Fox, and this line-up became Severe Warning.

ROGER GANLEY—THE SOLIDIFYING FORCE

Besides struggling to start SW, me, Bryan and Darren all had one other seemingly minor, but ultimately very important thing in common: We all knew and went to school with a non-musician but huge metal fan named Roger Ganley. Roger was the kind of person who went after, and got, results. Roger was friends with Bryan and would often find himself in the position to help with many band issues. In the early days of SW, Roger had (but did not formally claim) the manager position. I need to give a lot of credit to Roger Ganley for taking Severe out of the basement and starting to get the band known around town. He did this through contacts he had with DJs at the College radio stations, and ultimately with the work he did for the band including everything from helping to get shows at the clubs to helping to distribute the demos around the world. As many bands find out, sadly it is not always how great you play or how killer your songs are that make you successful, often times “who you know” is even more important. This fact is distasteful to me (and I’m sure most other musicians), however there is truth behind it. Roger may not have had the ability to play an instrument, but he knew metal-- and more importantly, he knew a lot of people in the business of metal.

THE GOLDEN YEARS

For time between 1985 and 1990 Severe enjoyed moderate local success, recorded the 2 demo tapes and received some interest from outside of our local area such as the compilation albums and positive reviews in international metal magazines. Severe had the good fortune to play many clubs around the Cleveland area with a lot of great metal bands during that era. Again, from what I recall, most, if not all of these shows were obtained with help from Roger. Severe was on track to do a full lenght LP with New Renaissance Records out of California after the success of the single “Its not easy…to be the Antichrist “on Satan’s Revenge !!, but, the label went under before that could happen.

A QUIET WAR WAGED

During this period there was a slow but steady tension brewing within the Severe Warning unit, which at that time most certainly included the manager, Roger Ganley. Most of the problems that would (in my opinion) eventually lead to the demise of SW centered around conflicts between Roger and Bryan. At this point in time Bryan could be…let’s say “difficult” to work with. By his own admission to this day, Renken was often times a real bastard. I say this in a friendly way, and with utmost respect and admiration for Bryan and I remain on good terms and in contact with him and have even went back to play with him again years after Severe broke up with Cardavercus, and several other projects. But, back then, whoa he could piss anybody off in a hurry! From a charisma standpoint, Bryans “damn the torpedoes” outlook and explosive temper earned him notoriety in the metal community and could be considered a very real asset to the band. In my opinion, some of the greatest and most memorable moments were born of Renken’s unabated outward hostility and liquor-fueled “devil may care” attitude towards just about everything and everybody. Like him or hate him, not many forgot Bryan Renken and his antics in the heyday of SW. His metal attitude was genuine, authentic and did not end when he stepped off stage; he lived his life at all times the same way. This “positive”, (as far as being memorable to the general metal public), carried with it a lot of negative effects on the band internally, most notably in regards to Roger. Part of this is due in my opinion that Roger, who is a very “hands on” and results orientated personality, (as a good manager needs to be), ultimately just could not cope with the “loose cannon” that was Bryan Renken during those years.

ROGER FANS THE FLAMES OF A METAL STORM

Roger’s increasing distaste for SW as a band, (and I feel towards Bryan specifically), led to him formulating plans for an alternative project as far back as 1989. Roger had an idea to form a unit called “Metal Storm” in which several excellent players from different bands would join forces to write and record together. Me, Dave Fox and Greg Krol, (the bass player from Mutant Soldier) had several sessions where the seeds of what were to eventually become several Nitefall songs were planted. Roger of course orchestrated the entire thing with the best intentions of creating a “Side Project”, which would “Co-Exist” with its members’ respective original bands, made up of like-minded, talented and creative players who were willing and able to focus on the music, and not waste valuable time and energy on personality conflicts and beer-guzzling. Even though Metal Storm as a project did not evolve into a lasting entity, my opinion is that Metal Storm succeeded in proving to me, and especially to Dave Fox, that there was life without Bryan, and music outside of SW worth pursuing. At this stage SW was in its 4th year and trudging along--I don’t want to say “stuck in a rut”, however new tunes were sounding kind of tired, slow to evolve and scarce to come by. Severe started to sound like a band that was “going through the motions” and was starting to become a caricature of itself. There was a feeling of waning creativity and less frequent, less productive songwriting in SW. In Metal Storm there was a tidal wave of creative and cohesive ideas, spontaneous, yet meaningful jamming with a ton of riffs going in new and slightly more evolved directions, and an overall sense that any and all musical ideas were easy to explore. Was highlighting this contrast Rogers goal from the very conception of the “Metal Storm” project? Was Rogers hidden agenda to “show me and Dave the light” in regards to putting SW behind us and moving on? Intentional or not, I believe that is exactly the catalyzing effect it had on us.

DARREN WINNE DISEMBARKS THE TITANIC

By mid to late 1989, Severe Bass player Darren Winne was missing a lot of practices. As I said, at this point in the band’s history we were mostly getting together to practice the same set of 12 songs over and over and over again, so I personally can’t blame Darren for being a little less than enthusiastic about reporting to band practice to repeatedly rehash the same tunes an insane amount of times, but still when you are in a band, practice is practice. He was MIA or late so many times that Roger prompted us to find a replacement. First up was Rich Ronges, an excellent bassist and long time friend and schoolmate of drummer Dave Fox. I am not sure, but I think at that time Rich was still involved in his own band, and was mostly filling in on bass as a temporary favor. Rich lived nearby the practice spot and did an excellent job of learning all the tunes quickly. Rich was prompt and dedicated, but his bass playing style, while technically of virtuoso caliber, was diametrically opposed to that of his predecessor Darren Winne. I do not intend the slightest discredit, either to Darren who I always regarded as a great bass player, or Rich Ronges who I also tremendously respect as a musician, with this next observation, but Rich was, strange as it may seem to say, in my opinion, ”too good” of a bass player for SW, and the overall texture of the SW rhythm section underwent a slight sonic change with him in the band.

ROCKY DICARLO GETS ONBOARD

For whatever mutually agreeable reasons, Rich Ronges gracefully parted ways with SW in late 1989, and brought in his own replacement, bass player Rocky DiCarlo. Rocky turned out to be an outstanding bass player, an all around great guy, and ended up being a good friend of mine (I had not known him prior to his joining SW.) This was a time of constant uncertainty within Severe Warning, and deep underlying tensions were already at work eroding the gap further between the band, Bryan and Roger. Looking back, I feel bad for Rock who was good enough to step in to this veritable “hornets nest” of a band which was consumed with tension and conflict, at a time when unbeknownst to him, SW was in its’ final agonizing death throes, and give it his all. Meanwhile, while Rocky was settling in, learning the tunes, and having fun playing out at the shows, internally the old, unresolved destructive forces continued to fester and were causing the very foundation of the band to come crumbling down from all sides. As a side note at this point I wanted to say that I always felt bad for Darren, because it was at this transition period, after he recorded the Bass on “A Good Day…” and right when he left SW, that the artwork for the tape cover was changed to include the picture of Rocky, since he was at that time the new bass player, and a tag line wishing Darren “good luck” was added in place of his photo giving him credit for writing and playing those tunes in the studio. I realize it was right, but it somehow just doesn’t seem like it was fair. Rocky got to enjoy about 3 months as the Bass Player for a distraught Severe Warning, however the end of the band, and the end of an era, was about to arrive in dramatic Renken fashion.

THE BOILING POINT

The end of Severe Warning happened, as I recall, relatively early in the year 1990, after a fairly good and seemingly routine performance at the Sandusky Ohio Metal Festival. The entire Severe Warning 5 year run was suddenly and irrevocably destroyed because of a dispute between Bryan and Roger over what amounted to $5.00 gas money to get to the show (which was about an hour and a half outside of Cleveland), and some SW T Shirts that Roger had for sale at the gig. I remember it as one of those surreal moments in life where it seems almost like you are not there in person, but rather watching it on TV. From what I recall, Bryan and Roger were having one hell of an argument at which time, Bryan who finally was venting all his pent-up frustration at Roger’s control and influence over the band, decided to proclaim his leadership in grand fashion, and said to the rest of us in the band something to the effect of “We don’t need Roger! C’mon, who is with me?” At this time Bryan dramatically jumped about 2 feet across the floor from where we were all standing and says: “Let’s get rid of him -- all who are with me take a step forward!” Did you ever have the feeling that 10 seconds seemed like an eternity? Those next 10 seconds where we all stood in our place like we were made of stone and silently glared at each other was one of those times.

NITE MUST FALL

In January 1990 when Severe Warning disintegrated, Bryan Renken went his way, and me, Dave and Rocky went in a different direction. The formation of Nitefall (the name intended as a slight homage to Candlemass) fell into place quite simply and very naturally. The formula was: Take Severe Warning, minus Bryan, and have me do the singing and play all guitars. I had done a little bit of vocals prior to singing in Nitefall, but I had been spoiled by having the luxury of playing guitar in a band with a full-time singer for all those years with Severe. The prospect of being the only guitar player, and having to sing was a bit daunting. But, for better or for worse, that was the line-up for the entire run of Nitefall: Me on guitar and vocals, Rocky on Bass and Dave on Drums.

THE GANLEY FACTOR

Roger Ganley remained in place as manger for Nitefall to help the band as he had done for so many years with SW. The difference was that now there was Roger, who was doing even more than ever to help us, PLUS all three band members working together as a team. All of us were working in unison for the good of the band and we experienced favorable results very rapidly, including being able to open a show for Candlemass when they played in Cleveland, which always stood out as a personal highlight since they are one of my favorites!

A TIME OF CREATION

During the first few months of 1990 things moved fast for Nitefall--Very Fast. It was mind-boggling to experience the super-charged songwriting sessions when me, Dave and Rocky would hold those early Nitefall practices (still over Dave's house where we used to practice with Severe.) A few tunes fell into place almost instantly since me and Dave had worked on several parts together during our time with Greg Krol in project "Metal Storm" within that prior year. Others were spawned from ideas I had for years, but was reluctant to bring up during SW since I felt the songs were not a good fit for that band. I can not be exact about this (due to the fallibility of memory and the rapid pace of events back then), but I think Roger booked Nitefall into the studio to record our first four-song demo only a couple months after the band formed! In this (relatively) short time we were able to write an impressive number of tunes, and were able to select the ones we wanted to include on the demo. (It took SW over five years to write a total of 12 songs--in contrast to Nitefall getting 4 songs written and studio-ready in 2 months.) Once the first demo was done, we spent the next few months working to promote the band by playing a good number of shows around town. Our set used to include the songs from the first demo as well as some of the newer tunes we were already working on for the next demo. On occasion we would get requests to play SW songs, since Nitefall was ¾ of Severe, however we never played any SW songs as Nitefall, choosing instead to leave the past honorably untarnished, and keep a well defined distinction between the two bands. This was fine with me because if you've ever tried to sing like Renken, well, it can hurt! Roger immediately released the song "Black Tomorrow" as an advance single cassette. The song "Die for Destiny" was selected to appear on the Underground Express compilation release entitled "Distant Thunder: Sounds of the Cleveland Metal Storm".

FROM CLOCKWERK TO MARS

The first Nitefall demo was recorded at the same studio we used for SW, Clockwerke Sound in Rocky River Ohio. Considering our ultra-low budget, we were happy with the results. I think this recording accurately reflects the sound of the band at that point in time, and I believe it captures the fresh and relatively raw elements of Nitefall during that period. I think the Nitefall songs from the Clockwerke sessions still hold up today. For the second Nitefall demo, we went to Mars. Bill Korecky of Mars Recording (which at that time was located on Cleveland's west side), did a great job with our songs on the second demo, and they remain to this day some of my favorite "band" songs to listen to. We did not spend much time messing around with the songs in the studio. One or two takes for the basic tracks along with some minor overdubbing and it came together quickly. The second 4 song demo (technically titled "Waiting for Darkness") was actually semi-released around 1991, where as the first one never actually had much of a formal release, only being used to promote the band for shows and on the radio as a "pre-release advance". The third and final Nitefall demo, "Journey into Terror" was also recorded at Mars and released around early 1992.

A QUIET DEMISE

Nitefall survived for over 2 years, and I look back on those times as a great and creative time in my musical life. Conflicts within the band were few, but the relentless distractions of life and aging were plentiful. Dave was getting ready to go to school at that time, and I was focusing on a different job, so sadly some of the focus drifted off of the band as a priority. Another factor was that Metal clubs around town were forced to close or change formats because of Metals declining popularity during that time. Add to this a dispute between Nitefall and Roger because we were asked to play a benefit show for his radio station, and we decided to leave the very song that was on the radio stations compilation out of our set list! Needless to say, the fact that we even considered doing this really pissed Roger off, and at that point he basically gave up getting us further shows and helping us. From then on it wasn't long until the band was paralyzed. Funny thing is I can't remember if we ever actually played that song at the show or not. I'll have to check with Roger, I bet he recalls for sure if we ended up cutting it out of the set or not. Either way, without Roger’s support things fizzled quickly. At its end, Nitefall did not combust in the explosive way that Severe did. It kind of faded out and slowly withered on the vine. A series of different forces, some with no relation to music, combined to grind the band to a sputtering halt.

WHAT COMES AROUND

After oceans of water under the musical bridge, the year 1998 would find me and Bryan Renken together again in a band called Cardavercus. Trying to think of a new band name that didn’t sound lame or already used, I created this horrible beast by combining and rearranging the main letters from the words cadaver, and carcass. Little did I realize that the name, although original sounding, was also one of the hardest to remember and most "difficult to spell correctly" band names of any band I've ever been in. The Cardavercus lineup consisted of Bryan on vocals only, me on guitar, Mike Marzak on bass and Scott Boardman on drums. Cardavercus survived roughly 2 years and in that time we played a pretty good number of shows and managed to record a 4 song demo (even though we had a lot more material finished, it never ended up getting recorded).The music in this band had a good range, all the way from the more simplistic "in your face" variety metal, up to some pretty intricate and complicated riffs, usually masterfully arranged and crafted by Marzak.

At least this was a fun band, if not a very productive one. Bryan could still be slightly difficult at times, but he had just ever so slightly mellowed to a point where he was still crazy and very fun to watch on stage, but some of the outright evil edge had been softened a bit with time. He had a long time to retrospect between SW and Cardavercus, I suspect that perhaps some revelations had occurred during the 8 years between the two bands. He was definitely more flexible and easier to get along with as far as being in a band with him than he was back in the Severe days. But he was still pretty quick to blast a lame audience and call their attention to the show. If they started to slip away, Renken would still rope 'em in by any means necessary, including blatantly cursing the crowd. It didn’t matter to Bryan if it was 1988 or 1998; the concept of "negative attention is still attention" was put to good use. When Bryan retired the trademark Explorer and stuck to just being the Cardavercus vocalist/front man, it opened up a whole new opportunity for him to go totally nuts onstage. Turned out that without the guitar holding him back, he was able to run around like crazy-- one minute he'd be curled up in a ball on the ground, the next he's jumping off the PA speakers all while screaming his head off singing. I missed his guitar playing, but the trade off was a good one to keep him free to roam the stage with mic in hand (and beer in other hand!).

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