How did Death Mission Happen?

“Death Mission” came about after touring 1989,  I had written some new material we met and brought in Phil Kiklis as drummer in and began studio reheasals. 10 new songs we wanted to get the kinks worked out and recorded. Rehearsing them inside and out before entering the studio was our standard method. This is something I will tell every starting band, If you want to save studio time rehearse your stuff to death and try to layout all your dubs, vocals, etc.. before hand. Putting in the work before will save you tremendously on studio cost.

The way I worked is like this. During rehearsals I would record those sessions. Then when at home I could work on guitar over dubs, solos, write down ideas for track adlibs and such. Example of this is the voice overs on Soft Brown Coal. Those were taken from an LP I had about Nuclear Power. I don’t even remember where I got it from or what it was even called. But I listened to it at home and found the sections I wanted to use and noted them down so we didn’t have to play with it in the studio and waste valuable time and money.

We chose a small Studio in Bristol, R.I. called “Studio A” with the intent to record one main track called “Notes” for a compilation on a Swiss Label “Resistance Productions”. We had worked on compilations with them previously. We ended up in the studio on day one for about 6 hours and ended up with 8 songs.

Our recording process was recording all the basic tracks as a band first, then recorded all the vocal parts, then came the other guitar parts, laying in the samples, reversed symbol on Wasted World intro, and a vibra slap on Torrent. Some trickery we used was at the beginning of Death Mission the scratching guitar intro was recorded as we do live where I yell out a 4 count to go into the song. Why you don’t hear the 4 count? Because we cut the tape and spliced it back together removing the 4 count and making it a seemless transition into the track. aha! simple but effective.

The following day we returned to the studio for approximately 4 hours touching up a couple of vocals, mixing the tracks, and made a DAT for mastering. The Studio A guys were great to work with and I wish I could remember their names. We end up presenting Resistance with 8 finished tracks for the Justice For All cassette release in 1991. I am not positive has to how many were used on that release if not all. Of those 8 tracks, 6 were later re-mastered for releasing in the USA on the Black and Blue Records Death Mission EP.

The Death Mission release brought the attention of MCA Records whom we never struck a deal with, so we finish up some touring in 1992 after the release and took a break for a while. Warren Peace and I were already about 10 years deep in Boorish Boot at this time. Deciding it was break time from the boot. I took up office at Black & Blue Records with Peter Yarmouth working as Producer. Most importantly I took on song writing for “The Cedar Street Sluts” and toured with them as Bass Player for the “Off The Streets” Tour. During this time I also worked with “Stubble Musiczine”.

I needed a break from the U.S. and moved to the Ukraine in 1998 and brought back Boorish Boot recording with “Belligerent” and releasing that album when I returned in 2000 while I built Red Rum Studios. The story of Red Rum Studios begins from this point on.

During recordingThe manics of Studio A loved “Torrent” head banging through that tune every take. I remember Warren Peace recording his vocals while his pants were around his ankles. Our Drum Tech Bobby “Boota” was also in on the backing vocals since this was his favorite song. You could always expect him to join in on “live” gigs for this song.

Credits:

Phil Kiklas- Drums 
Warren Peace – Bass, Vocals 
Boris -Vocals, Guitars, Vibra Slap, Samples

Bobby “Boota”- Backing Vocals on “Torrent”

All Songs Written By: Boris

Recorded at: Studio A- Bristol, R.I.

Engineered, Mixed, Mastered, and Produced by : Boris