This is the 2nd story I wrote working at DFF Magazine in 1991 for their August issue.
Malice isn’t one of those bands that was poised on the threshold of Fame, but never made it to the Big Time. Malice is a band that most people don’t remember and theres a reason for that. You see Malice’s rise to International Fame was extremely rapid. In fact it was so rapid its considered a once in a lifetime phenomenon in the Music Industry. That combined with their Hardcore intensity on and off the stage Malice crammed a full 20 year career of Sex, Drugs and Rock’n Roll into just 2. Malice was the epitome of “Live Fast, Die Young, and Leave a Good Looking Corpse.”
The Story of Malice started in Slaughters Kentucky when Drummer Robbie Rage met Bassist Vic Vile while they both were attending The Gus Hubbard School of the Vocational Arts. Rage was there learning the in and outs of welding while Vile was there learning the fine art of Landscape Maintenance. The two quickly became inseparable friends and decided to start a band together a Black Metal duo called Aborted Faith.
Vile managed to get Aborted Faith a weekly gig on Friday Night’s at Lane’s Lanes a near by neighboring Bowling Ally. The Aborted Faith was going no where fast as playing in a cramped corner of the Bowling Ally Bar hidden behind a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke. Further more the open concept meant the band was constantly drowned out by the continuing Bowlers.
It was at one of these shitty shows when future guitarist Gar Fisch got stupid drunk and wondered over to where the band was playing and started playing along with them on air guitar. After the show Rage and Vile had a brief meeting and then promptly asked Fisch to join the band. Fisch took the guys up on their offer with one exception that they ditch the Black Metal schtick in favor of becoming a Hardcore Punk Band. Rage and Vile agreed to Fisch’s condition and their new band Stank Breath was Born.
Stank Breath went on to build up a local fan base by playing house party’s and by winning every “Battle of the Bands” that they entered. Stank Breath Shows were known be raucously violent fueled by Fisch’s outrageous stage antics (such as shoving high powered fireworks in his ass Actual M-80’s for example and lighting them) catapulted the Band even farther words fame. The only issue the band had was that they all seriously sucked at singing. After a late night of drinking Rage introduced the idea of hiring a singer to which both Gar and Vile agreed. So they put an Ad in a small music magazine, sat back, cracked a beer, lit a joint, and waited. Instead of getting plenty of replies by people who were no better vocalists than the rest of the band, They got no replies at all.
Pissed off and confused Rage and Fisch went on a beer run and outside of the liquor store pan handling was a rather tall and slim man with long greasy hair wearing a leather biker’s jacket. The man asked for spare change as the two exited the store Fisch asked what the man needed money for to which the Man told Fisch he needed the money for Beer and Smokes. On a whim Rage asked the Man if by any chance he could sing worth a damn. As it turned out He could so Rage asked the Man his name and if he would be interested in joining the band. The Man said his name was Von Dire and since he had nothing better to do than beg for beer money he’d be glad to join the band.
It was after Dire’s joining the band in January 1988 that it once again changed their musical style to Heavy Metal and name to Malice. Not long after the switch Malice was killing it at the Minnesota “Battle of the Bad Ass Bands” in when Dire literally bumped into Clive Mangina who was the front man for competing Hair Metal Band known as Rectal Invasion at one of the plentiful Beer and Booze stations. This lead to one of the most heated and out of control Rock’n Roll Rivalries of all time. You see Clive was a snark and bitter little man with a raging Napoleon Complex who took great exception to Dire accidentally staggering drunkly into him in line.
Clive called Fisch a “Drunk Dickhead” and Fisch hauled off and head butted Clive. Clive went down like a ton of bricks with blood pouring out of his now broken nose. At this point the other members of Rectal Invasion saw what was going on and jumped in. Fish undeterred by being out numbered (5 on 1 as Rectal Invasion in addition to 2 guitarists, singer,drummer and bassist had a keyboardist (I told you they were Hair Metal so what did you expect?!) Fisch put up a good fight but ultimately he was overpowered by his 5 advisories. Rage and Vile who were vomiting exited the bathroom and immediately came to their fellow band mates aid. Rage ran around kneeing every member of Rectal Invasion repeatedly n the balls until they vomited. Vile proceeded too break $182.99 of the Bar’s glassware over the various heads of the members of Rectal Invasion.Von Dire broke several chairs across the backs and over the heads of Rectal Invasions members. When inevitably the Police showed up with Billy Clubs a blazing everyone scattered like roaches when the light is turned on.
In spite of the brawl Malice went on to win the Minnesota’s “Battle of the Bad Ass Bands” and just their luck Jerry Jerkin the owner of a local Record label was in the audience. Jerkin fell head over heels for the Band and enthusiastically signed them to a 3 record deal on his label RatFuck Records. Now RatFuck Records was home of other small time bands such as The Young Cocksmen, Guttural, and Spit Shine. Right away Jerkin booked them on a 10 show tour opening for fellow label members The Salty Yogurt Slingers. The “Mad As Hell” tour was set to hit the road just 2 days after Malice signed their contracts, but that was no problem for Malice. The entire band had been couch surfing at friends places and owned next to nothing.
The “Mad as Hell” tour went so well that Jerkins called up The Salty Yogurt Slingers and told them that they would now be opening for Malice since Malice was a bigger draw at this point. The Salty Yogurt Slingers responded by quoting the tour on the spot under great protest. Malice went on to finish the second half of the tour on with another RatFuck Records band Grind Spine. Malice built a huge following and was expanding their fan base faster than a Crackhead at an all you can smoke Crack Buffet. By the time Malice ended the tour (in the first week of February) they had racked up a slew of business cards from much larger record label reps.
Stay Tuned For Malice Part 2 Posting Next…..
Thanks for Reading,
Les Sober 