2024

A Visual History of Dead Alive.

Commentary by Count Scapula

No Signs of Life - Live

The very beginning of 2024 we had a Dead Alive writing weekend to finish writing the songs for "The Madness of Dr Ludvig Von Brainmatter." I have all of the lyrics written first as well as a big chunk of riffs for the songs, some even fully written like "Flip the Switch," "Fear...Conditioned," most of "Volt" and "From Beyond." We all worked together to fully finish the album, splitting off on which songs each of us are interested in focusing on. Dead Beat, naturally, adds his drum style to the whole album and the two of us wrote "Hollowman" together. Dedmen Walken came up with some added bass sections on the songs including a bass solo on "Volt" and wrote the strings for "Gone Mad." Dedmen and I worked together to write "Re-Agent." Manthing focused on "Exhumed" and all of us added riffs to "No Signs of Life." I did some song doctoring after we got all of the parts together and wrote out the tabs, and made adjustments here and there to riffs to make it all more cohesive with the "Dead Alive style."

Recording "THE MADNESS"

Recording was a lot of fun. We came in much more prepared then the first time. We kinda had to as well because we only had the budget to record for two days, and record 10 songs. Most of everything was done in one or two takes. I did have to do a couple of pick up sessions to finish vocals, and I had to record a couple of the guitar solos at home. We recorded old school with live drums, and live tube amps. The only thing we did direct were the couple of the solos that I record at home.

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Fun Fact: The morning of our first studio day I woke up and turned my head to stretch myself awake and pulled a muscle in my neck and was in a wild amount of pain for the two days, unable to move my head. I still played all of the guitar for the scratch tracks and on the recordings, except for "Exhumed" which Manthing played on.

Working with Jeremiah Scott was awesome! He totally got what we're going for, and did an awesome job recording and mixing the album. All of the other guys in the band were Demon Hunter fans which was cool for them. I really like his first band, DESTROY DESTROY DESTROY. Jeremiah told us a bunch of cool stories of him working with other bands, being on the road, and other industry stories and lessons.

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Fun Fact: Jeremiah goes to my parents church, and I was talking to him about how we finished writing the album and we were looking for a studio to record, and he was interested in working with us! So we set up the studio time.

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In recent years, while I haven't personally had bad experiences with my church or the denomination I was a part of, I have began to distance myself from the Christian faith. Mostly as a result of things surrounding the 2024 election that I felt were not how Christians and Christianity should act and associate itself with. So I've became agnostic on the topic.

Fish Fest Battle of the Bands

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

There's a nice couple that were trying to do their part in organizing metal and rock events in Nashville, with varying success. They put together a Battle of the Bands "to see who would play their festival" later in the year, and the winning band would also get 100 vinyl made of their most recent/upcoming album. I was gunning for that vinyl...

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

We pulled out all the stops for this show. We opened the show with me being carried in a coffin and placed at the edge of the stage while the intro tracks were being played. The other started our first song "Rise" which I then crawled out of the coffin to take the stage and we started the show!

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Every show we give it our all. Tons of energy, headbanging, movement, and crowd interaction. To this day I am always covered in sweat after a show.

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At The end of the show I "died" and fell back into the coffin to end the set.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

We were the first band performing that evening, and the crowd hadn't really showed up yet, unfortunately. We did our sound check and everything was set in place. When we went into "Army of Darkness" after I took the stage, there was an issue... The power chord from my amp was unplugged...

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Apparently they had sound checked the next band, and their front man had thought the gear was being shared and used my power chord on his amp and didn't tell me.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

We didn't win... In fact we were in last place. The "Judges" had favored the more "easy listening" bands, and the extreme metal bands were at the bottom of the rankings for the evening. Would we have done better if we didn't have those technical issues? Maybe. It still seemed very bias on the Judges taste and not on the "performance" aspect we were under the impression we were being judged on.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Shortly after we finished recording the album, Dedmen told us that the show at the Battle of the bands was going to be his last show with Dead Alive. He was young and still figuring out what his path in life was going to be. He also wanted to get married to his girlfriend and work to prepare for that big life change. He got a new mask to replace his makeup and he only got to wear it for one show.

Dead Alive - Army of Darkness | Battle Clips

Fish Fest Trials 2024

Clips from the Fish Fest battle of the bands at the Vinyl Lounge in Nashville. 05/09/2024

We didn't win...

Kingston from the band Outpost unplugged the power cord from my amp. WTF bro?

NEW ENGLAND DEATH METAL FUNTIME BONANZA

NEDMFTB 2024

Dead Alive's first outing out of Nashville, playing at the NEW ENGLAND DEATH METAL FUNTIME BONANZA 2024 in Lebanon, Maine.

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This was a lot of fun. And met a lot of really cool people. My parents helped us get a trailer to haul our gear, and we got Dead Beat's band mate from Hive Mind Blunt Rotation to fill in for us on Bass. It was a 24 hour drive up there (we hit traffic) and about 18 hours back home.

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Introducing... Dreadward

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

After Dedmen left the band, we needed to find another member. The question is do we get another bassist or guitarist. I wasn't a very strong shred guitarist and neither was Manthing. Dead Alive needed a shredder!

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

There was one guy I had in mind for a while. But I had to wait for him to finish college before he would be available to play. Then Dreadward joined the band!

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

It was pretty much a done deal to me. We auditioned him, and he killed it on all of the songs! I offered him the position right after the initial audition.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

That first show with Dreadward was awesome! Our stage chemistry was at a whole new level, and I fit into the Bass player/vocalist role really easily.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Dead Alive was getting better and better each show.

Notably, Ray had some family visiting from Europe, and they were blown away by the performance.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

We were already getting some notoriety, but now Dead Alive was becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

One egg that we are still trying to crack was how to make the Nashville scene bigger. It's a game of endurance. Each show is generally lucky to get in front of 5 or more new people at each show that aren't just other bands.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

I soon found out Nashville is considered a C tier market for shows - because there are so many events happening here all of the time. We're not just competing with other shows, but video games, movies, and an economy that would prefer people to stay at home.

A Word of Warning...

The Madness of Dr. Ludvig Von Brainmatter

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Now it was time to tie up the loose ends for the album release. We called Dedmen back for one last photoshoot.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

One of the things that we needed to do was plan a music video. So we built a set in "The Dungeon." The walls were provided free of charge from Ray's dad, I made the floor from an old wood fence that I tore down with a claw hammer over a week, We bought set dressings like the faux brick walls and other props, and rented lights.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

This is one of my favorite photos of the band.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

While The Count is a character within the band Dead Alive, I kind of see him like a horror host of sorts, like the Crypt Keeper, or Elvira. Having him be a sort of Narrator of the Monster stories we sing about.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

It's fun playing a character playing a character.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Evil Pointy Guitars are superior to all other guitars. I absolutely loathe any guitar that just looks like a squire.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

I had a plastic neck bolt costume piece that I gave Manthing to wear for a photoshoot, to kind of put him in as the role of "The Monster." He immediately broke it trying to put it on.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

So I took the bolt parts and hand sewn them to some material I had laying around to create that costume piece. I thought It was punk and Misfits-y.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

He only wore it for one show and then "would forget" to wear it for other shows. So instead of having him be "Manthing The Monster" we leaned into "Manthing The Creed Fan"

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Even though Dedmen was "out of the band" we still needed to do a final photoshoot for the album promo and packaging.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

At this time Ray and I we're in the midst of filming the music video for Re-Agent, and since that song was written by me and Dedmen I wanted to include him in the video somehow - since he helped write the song.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

I had him come in early the day of this photoshoot to film a couple clips for the music video, where he is a corpse the Mad Doctor exhumes for fresh parts to experiment on - and his eye becomes the Diddle creature.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Dead Beat is the best drummer I've ever seen. It's still crazy to me that he's in MY band. However a trend within Dead Alive seems to be, I'm really the main "horror fan."

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

The whole "spooky ghost" character from the first show and Green Hell music video wasn't really sustainable. So when it came time to launch the "Mad Scientist" album I thought it fitting for him to be the hunchback character - ala Igor/Ygor.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

One of the first "Horror Movies" I watched as a kid was Mel Brooke's "Young Frankenstein" and I always loved Marty Feldman's Igor character. So Dead Beat became our version of Igor. You can hear us reference Young Frankenstein in our song "Flip The Switch."

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Mel Brooks films were early imprints on my sense of humor - coupled with the fact that my family would quote their films and other classics like "The Princess Bride."

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

As I got more into horror I really fell in love with Horror Comedies and the Classic Gothic Monsters. And Like everyone in 2012 Zombie movies was also a phase - thanks to The Walking Dead, and Call of Duty.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

One thing I've heard as a suggestion to new film makers is to "cut their teeth" with Horror or Comedy. I'd like to be like Rob Zombie and be a rocker who gets to make horror movies.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Dead Alive as a Horror themed band has allowed me to kind of experiment with these horror film making aspects - and I hope to be able to scale it up with time.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

The Re-Agent music video was very fulfilling in that sense - to cut my teeth in the production standpoint. Building a set, adding lighting, planning out shots, telling a narrative and acting.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

I consider "Count Scapula" and "Doctor Brainmatter" separate characters in my mind. But I kind of brought in the corpse paint character into the Re-Agent Music video.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

In a way as the author and the actor of the character I am "Both" The Count Scapula and Doctor Ludvig Von Brainmatter. As I write this and we are planning the third album - I juggle the idea of each album being a contained story, or if it should be a connecting narrative.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Again, I see The Count more of a horror host frontman - rather than the actual character within the narrative. Though, naturally as the face of the band The Count kind of gets inserted into the narrative of the videos and subsequently the albums.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

I write the albums/songs with multi-tiered meanings.

  • Fictional Narrative - The monster story being told.
  • Metaphorical Commentary - What the songs are trying to say through the narrative or imagery.
  • Personal Connection - My personal experience, thoughts, or observations.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Given the medium in which I'm creating these stories. It seems like most people are "getting" the general story of the fictional narrative - with some minor confusion.

Most also figure out the metaphorical commentary, however, I think personal interpretation is important for people to get their own meanings out of songs. If I say "Gravestoned is a warning song about drug abuse as a cope for monotony" but someone thinks its a song praising weed, they've misinterpreted my intention but they might connect to that meaning more.

Most songs have some kind of personal connection to it. Whether or not its implicitly included within the narrative or just inspiration for lyrics depends on the song.

For instance in Re-Agent. The fictional narrative is the Doctor returning to his lab to begin experimenting on parts of corpses to figure out the secret to re-animate the dead. He studies books on science and ancient tomes of magic searching for the answers. He creates a potion and he injects it into himself, declaring "death will die" bringing the dead to life and attempting to make himself immortal.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

There are multiple metaphors within these lyrics. Both in the commentary and in my personal connection.

There is some commentary on drug use and temptation, but that's not the main point. The main point is the song is about the next generation of metal, and my position in it as someone who is trying to do the whole "band" thing.

The "laboratory" is my workspace. The "bubbling flasks" are my libations, usually a soda or wine. The "Ancient tomes" are my collection of vinyl, and movies, and the various other things that give me inspiration. The "whispering corpses" are the legacy bands that are retiring or dead, and I'm trying to bring them back to life by being inspired by them and keeping the soul of the music that they make alive. Even against the odds of popular taste and algorithms that would prefer "other things."

With the section about the "spike" (syringe) that is multi-layered. One, I have an aversion to blood, and when I get my blood drawn I typically get woozy and risk passing out. Two, The syringe represents my passions and obsessions. Three, I'm dooming myself to the consequences of my life choices.

Released July 26th 2024

Recorded with and mixed by Jeremiah Scott

Mastering and Cinematics by Davey Oberlin

Artwork by @DirtyDustVoid on Instagram

Stream

Original Rough draft sketch of The Madness of Dr. Ludvig Von Brainmatter by Dan Goldsworthy

Releases October 4th, 2024

Artwork By Dan Goldsworthy

Jeremiah Scott: Recording and Mixing Engineer

Davey Oberlin: Mastering Engineer and Cinematics

Stream

Re-Agent

Dead Alive's New Monster... Dreadward!

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Last I spoke to Dedmen he's doing well. Hoping the best for him. We're going to miss the style and personality he brought to the band, but this change was for the best.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

In a way, Dead Alive has always been what it needs to be when it needs to be it. Even though it'd be nice to have something "pop-off" and penetrate the wider conscious of the global metal underground there's still a lot of work to be done at home.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

We went from demos on SoundCloud, to making our first album, playing our first shows as a hodge podge of friends, to a quick and dirty punk outfit, to an actual "band". Our costumes are simple and somewhat tacky, but it's what we can do. Our stage setups are simply foam gravestones and plastic skulls. But the effort we are able to put in is better than just showing up in our street clothes.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Keep in mind, this whole time I was broke, getting paid barely 20k a year and going increasingly further into debt. Most of that debt was not even from trying to fund "band things" though band expenses did help bring my taxes down. The financial weight of the band was something I made my personal responsibility, though If the others wanted to participate in buying merch they would get a cut of the profits.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

When I was a Junior in high school there was a girl I liked and when she found out I played guitar said "You look like you should play the bass though?" I was offended when she said that at first (mostly because I didn't know what she meant by "looking like a bass player")... but I get it now... And I really like playing bass.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Playing in the gloves meant I couldn't play with a pick. Which is fine since I preferred finger style anyway. I feel like I can play at high tempos easier being able to use three or four fingers to pluck the strings. I also picked up some technique from Xander at the NEDMFTB with a modified upstroke technique.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Dreadward was an amazing addition to the band. Not only was he a killer guitar player, but he was also a nice, fun, chill guy as well. I also appreciated him also being dedicated to doing music as a career and caring about the business side as well.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Also being down with the costumes. He makes a great vampire.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

We had a handful of out of city shows lined up. One in Knoxville, Chattanooga, Alabama, and North Carolina.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Knoxville was SICK! Unexpectedly we were the headliners of the evening, and a bunch of people came up to us for photos, autographs, and told us they were at the show FOR US!

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

The crowd was practically moshing during the entire set! Which was a huge difference from the crowd in Nashville. It filled us with so much energy - it was probably one of our best shows we've played so far.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Chattanooga was also great. Similar audience energy. Good times.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Alabama was kind of dead though. At this small scale when shows hit, they hit! When they miss, its just another day of band practice. We played in front of like 5 people.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

North Carolina was for a "Haunt Fest." Similarly we played in front of like 9-10 people... We did get a guarantee for performing, so that made it worth it.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Just getting out of Nashville for these shows made me realize that what they say is right. Nashville is a C-Tier Metal Market...

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

But when I go to "big shows" rooms are packed. So there is an audience in Nashville for the type of metal that I enjoy.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

The hard part is getting them to come out to small venues. I've had conversations with "metal" looking people at events around Nashville. And these people "love going to shows." But what they mean is they love going to big arena shows, and had no idea about the local music scene or what venues host the shows.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

I've even had a few of them say "I'll catch you when you play at Bridgestone" or the Brooklyn Bowl, etc, etc. Which for a band at my scale to play at these kinds of venues at that time in our career, was practically impossible... and in a way was sort of a backhanded insult.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

But I'm still dedicated to Nashville. The scene we do have is full of some of the best musicians and people I've ever met.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

We all want to "make it big" or at least, be able to live off of the music life. From those few shows playing outside of Nashville it was very apparent, that is where we are going to see our growth from.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

By this time we were already pretty well established among the other bands in the scene. Playing shows in Nashville, for the most part are to our friends, other bands, and to a handful of new faces.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Social Media did ok. We haddn't had a "viral" moment yet. But our interaction on Instagram was strong. Tiktok... eh not so much. Though we'd still get occasional new fans from that platform, it did not compare to our Instagram presence.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Our community was much more engaged on Instagram. Our friends, our fans, and our THRASHVILLE music community are all very supportive to each other. Commenting, liking, reposting, and sharing stories.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

After playing Nashville for every month, it was time to start to make the shows special for our Nashville.

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Like an Album Release Show!

IT'S ALIVE! - The Madness of Dr. Ludvig Von Brainmatter Out Now!

The Madness of Dr. Ludvig Von Brainmatter Album Release Show

As Dr. Ludvig Von Brainmatter

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

as Dreadward

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

As Manthing

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

As Dead Beat

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

This show was special. Not just because we were releasing an album but because we had a full story to tell.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

The show was still pretty bear bones set-wise. We got a friend to bring extra lights, and we had skeletons hung up (and our foam gravestones of course).

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

And because of the lack of stage props for the story, It all had to be narrated instead of "acted".

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Which I think better fits into the "Band" aspect of Dead Alive. The albums are the story, and the Band are the narrators. Kinda like a "Tales from the Crypt" kind of vibe, but with an attempt at somewhat serious storytelling.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Everyone played a part in the story.

I was the Mad Doctor, Dead-Beat was my henchman, and Manthing was implied to be "The Creature" but he didn't wear his neck thing.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

And Dreadward was just there, lol

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

It was really fulfilling to present a show this way. A change up from us "just playing songs" to telling a full story front to back.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

Unfortunately, this isn't wholly sustainable as a reoccurring performance. As we needed a whole hour to do it, where most sets we play are 30 to 45 minutes.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

We got the whole performance recorded. We hired a videographer to do a multi-cam set up for us to release later.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

However, on the day the show. I was denied getting a board mix of the audio from the sound guy...

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

I had contacted the guy who'd been doing the audio for the venue the last 3 or so times we've played there, and he mentioned it was doable.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

However, I found out there that he had recently quit working for the venue, and no one else was notified about us wanting a board mix and there was some red tape preventing us from getting it otherwise.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

So the audio from that show was salvaged from the cameras doing the recording. Our videographer did a decent job at trying to make it "workable." And I couldn't just throw it out.

Photo by Ray Lee Rose

I had to figure out a way to lean into it. There's a stereotype with certain genres of metal for being very lo-fi. And I figured that if I take this beautiful 4k footage, and make it look like an old horror movie in black and white, put it on a VHS and release that.

The Madness of Dr.Ludvig Von Brainmatter Live (10/10/24)

VHS

$50.00

Live Wire

Fright Night

Photo by Joshua Herndon

Rounding out the rest of the year, we played a couple more shows in October. This one being shortly before halloween. "Fright Night" as it was called.

Photo by Joshua Herndon

This one was a little hectic. The day before the show the venue cancelled on the guys putting together the show because of bullshit that none of our bands did that they cited as reasons for them not to host the show. (I guess someone died at an Avatar show moshpit or something).

Photo by Joshua Herndon

So last minute the venue got changed to a smoke shop that had this GIANT face of Seth Rogan behind us.

Photo by Joshua Herndon

People still showed up, and we got to play for a crowd we wouldn't usually have played for as the band putting the show together was more in the Horrorcore, rap-metal realm of things.

Photo by Joshua Herndon

I don't think anyone bought merch, and the organizing band lost their deposit on the first venue so there wasn't a door split for us - so in general the show was a wash for us in that regard.

Photo by Joshua Herndon

But we did get to meet this other really cool band called Guillotine, and they loved what we were trying to do.

30 Years of Embodiment

Photo by Lester Hathaway

November is usually when we play our last show as Holidays make everyone busy, and its important to make sure to have time to prioritize family and loved ones.

Photo by Lester Hathaway

This year, our last show was played in Dickson, TN. Organized by the Death Metal band, Embodiment who were celebrating 30 years of being a band.

Photo by Lester Hathaway

This was the largest crowd we'd played for yet! Around 220 people attended the show. Old Heads, Kids, my parents.

Photo by Lester Hathaway

We opened the show, but we stole the show! The reaction was amazing, and everyone loved what we were doing.

Photo by Lester Hathaway

Many of the Old Heads loved that we were playing "old school" style riffs, but it was still "fresh" in execution.

Photo by Lester Hathaway

There were kids that looked up to us in this moment. One kid who was impressed with my bass technique said "You're one of the best bassists I've ever seen! I hope to be as Badass as you some day." It was very touching.

Photo by Lester Hathaway

There was another kid who's dad said we were his first metal concert ever! And the kid saw our logo on one of the big fliers on the store front and wanted to go to see us! Ray and I became friends with his Dad, and Count Scapula has become a sort of "Santa Claus" to the kid - where I wear the corpse paint when I go and visit.

Photo by Lester Hathaway

Another year done, and another skeleton sacrificed! Greg-gory II was ripped to pieces, and we all got to sign a bunch of plastic bones. It was the end to a great year!

2023
2025