NEW! Brian Walsby's account of the early years! A must read!
Corrosion Of Conformity has been rocking the house down for over 25 years now. That's incredible! If you don't know already, they've gone from selling blood and hair to record their first album to scoring a major label deal in the mid-90's. In the days when Punk and Metal were two genres at odds, COC became the forerunner in fusing the styles into their brand of music, confusing and enlightening fans of both everywhere. From the Black Flag-ish monstrosity that is Eye For An Eye to the Black Sabbath-inspired Deliverance, this band has been everywhere and has done almost everything. Punk, metal, southern rock.
When Deliverance, their best selling album so far, came out, there has been a lot of press regarding their constant member rotation. You'd think they were Megadeth or some band like that from reading what was basically a few singer changes in their early days, an additional guitarist and one different bass player. That's about it. Please check out the Spin-Offs page if you want to know more about where these guys have come and gone...
Guitarist Woody Weatherman met drummer Reed Mullin in the fifth grade and they formed C.O.C. in high school. The band was originally called No Labels, or at least that was a band that Woody was in prior to COC. Mike Dean showed up one day and the core of the band was now complete.
The band went through a lot of singers in this time, from Eric Eycke on their debut Eye For An Eye to Simon Bob Sinister on Technocracy. Mike Dean would sing, I don't know how often or why they would choose to let him sing after Eycke but then have someone else sing after Mike's attempt on Animosity, but I bet it didn't help the band get a definitive sound for people to catch on to. After the success of Animosity and the EP Technocracy, there's a bit of confusion as to what happened to whom next. (To be honest, it's hard to find an exact date (as in year, believe it or not) as to when these albums were released, probably because they were each released two or three times due to one label releasing one version, then another label stepping in and releasing it again. Eye For An Eye was on COC's own label, then released on Toxic Shock, then several years later on Caroline. Animosity on Death and then Metal Blade and so on.) But anyway, the band was having some trouble with tour promoters and distributors and the like, and decided to temporarily call it a day.
As for the band themselves, they were trying to get out of their deal with one label, doing so by releasing Technocracy. But from what I've heard, as soon as the ink dried on the next label's deal, the band got the worst of the worst vibes and did their best to get out of that one by allowing that label to re-release Eye For An Eye again as well as a separate release for Six Songs With Mike Singing, while 'breaking up' and forming another band (just Mike and Woody and new drummer Brian Walsby) known as Snake Nation, which came out in 1989.
COC reformed again, and Pepper Keenan from the band Graveyard Rodeo just showed up to join the band. Wow. I should have tried that with Metallica after Jason quit! The band started anew with Karl Agell singing and Phil Swisher on bass (Mike Dean was living in Philadelphia, playing in a band called Ninefinger). The band started touring in 1989 and 1990 and secured a deal for a new album, Blind, a totally new blistering direction for the band.
Unfortunately, there was a wholesale firing at their record label when the album came out, and as it was and would be for COC, they were going to have continue to depend on themselves. Well, the fired A&R from their previous label got a job at Sony, and ushered in a new era for the band by signing them to Columbia. Woah! Not bad for a band whose video Dance Of The Dead would break into...Beavis & Butthead!
During the recording sessions for Deliverance, some members weren't getting along and it resulted in the firing of singer Karl Agell. When Pepper replaced Karl on vocals, Phil Swisher had apparently not been privy to the situation and found out after the fact, and quit.
The reason for Mike's departure, according to his AOL chat found on the C.O.C. page, "I left COC over a small quibbling about a tour that was poorly booked and whether we should honor our commitments to do it or to cut our losses and start over. I came back because they had sort of a schism in the band before recording 'Deliverance' and I kept in contact. The suggestion came up, sort of as a joke, but once it was said it sort of made sense so I heard a tape of the material they were working on and I dug it and went back down to N. Carolina to see what it felt like and it felt really good. So we recorded 'Deliverance'."
So that's how Mike got back into the band. Deliverance was released in Sept. of 1994 and was VERY well received. It almost went gold in the US. Not bad for a bunch of guys who were selling their blood and hair 12 years prior to release their first album! The band would tour with Megadeth and Monster Magnet. Soon after they began recording another album in 1996, Wiseblood. Despite touring with Metallica in both the US and Europe and their own ass kicking tour with Machine Head, the album didn't sell as well as Deliverance. Hmmm, as a radio DJ at the time, I remember it being odd that Sony released a video for the single Drowning In A Daydream but released a radio single for King Of The Rotten instead. What the hell? Sony just wasn't interested.
Well, Sanctuary records to the rescue! The band was let go from Sony and signed with the BMG-distributed Sanctuary and weeks after signing quickly recorded and released America's Volume Dealer in October 2000, almost four years to the day Wiseblood came out. And a song made it to radio, Congradulations Song, so that made some of us happy.
UNFORTUNATELY, drummer Reed Mullin had somehow hurt his back a few years prior and never had the problem corrected. The back problem apparently became worse and Reed wasn't capable of touring. What a big ball of suck that was. Drummer Jimmy Bower, who played in Down with Pepper (and a few other bands), filled in on the tour, a show of which was recorded in Detroit in 2001 and released on CD and DVD, Live Volume. In this time however Reed was singing in a band called Brown, which seemed to be taking off as COC toured, and the band and the longtime member severed relations.
2005 COC released In The Arms Of God on April 5 and toured with Motorhead before that. Galactic drummer Stanton Moore played on the album and did a few shows with the band on their headlining tour with Crowbar, Fu Manchu, and a bunch of other bands. Jason Paterson filled in on drums the rest of the time. Then the band went on the Jagermeister tour with Disturbed, which some members of the band described as the worst decision they ever made. In 2006, Pepper is touring with Down and Mike & Woody are working on new COC material.
2010 news so far: after a long hiatus, with Pepper touring and recording with Down, and Reed and Mike working on the Righteous Fool project (which at one time featured Woody before Reed joined), Woody, Reed and Mike are rumored to work together on new material and perhaps tour the west coast.The band released "Your Tomorrow," a 7" single on Southern Lord Records as of Fall 2010. Righteous Fool also released a single on the same label. The bands are touring together.
This site is copyright Paul Czarnowski. All guitar tabs n such are property of Corrosion Of Conformity, for educational purposes, and open to interpretation or some such stuff. Don't sue, I love this band.