Meet Dead Alive

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dead Alive.

Hello Dead Alive, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
Dead Alive is the heavy metal brainchild that I started in 2015 with the goal to make metal music in Nashville and cultivate a metal presence in the music city. Unfortunately, college came first, so only a little progress was made until 2017 when I transferred back to Tennessee from a college in Illinois. At this time the band consisted of Me, “Count Scapula,” and my bandmate, “Manthing.” Together we created the seven demo tracks which would appear on our debut album. However, there would be more delays as I continued to pursue my college career and Manthing didn’t know if he wanted to pursue music professionally or not at this time – so the songs were shelved.

It wouldn’t be until 2020 that I met the other two members of Dead Alive’s initial lineup: “Soultaker” and “V.” After we jammed together for a few months, the role of the frontman and creative visionary fell upon me – so I decided we would professionally produce and record the original seven demo tracks as well as a new song we had written together into an album to the best of our budget and ability.

We independently released our debut album, “Rise of the Skeleton Army,” in October 2021, which was received decently well by the metalheads who unearthed it. I also decided around this time that I was going to change my college degree. This last-minute decision, among other responsibilities and trials of life, kept me from properly leading Dead Alive as a working band – so we’ve enjoyed the small successes we have achieved being an “Underground band.” Now that I have finished and graduated college we are gearing up to start playing shows and turn Nashville into Thrashville!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There have been many challenges, obstacles, and roadblocks and each of them is important to the story. I’ve previously mentioned the delays due to my college career at the time. One of the big challenges was the recording process for the album. In preparation for the recording days I had prepared all of the sheet music for the different instruments as well as instructional videos and notes and sent that to everyone to practice once we got to the first recording day to track drums, V underestimated the music and was not prepared enough to record so the first session was a wash.

It became apparent that no one else was prepared for the recording session. We then broke for three weeks and I brought V through a metal drumming boot camp to get him up to speed as fast as possible before our next recording session was scheduled. To save time I performed the bass, guitars, vocals, and some solos. Huge thanks to Eliott Virula (Hans Condor) who we recorded the album – he was a huge help in facilitating the sessions and was very supportive of my vision for the songs.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
At the heart of what Dead Alive is – is expressing myself in an outlet that makes sense to me. I love horror movies, heavy metal, and things that are generally dark, badass, and fun. I’ve tried to be as intentional with every aspect of the band and the album as I can; to create a product that I can be proud of.

The main concept for the music of Dead Alive is albums focusing on specific monsters and the themes that are associated with them. This first album that we have released is about my favorite monster, Skeletons. It’s a monster that shows up in imagery everywhere, especially in metal music. Skulls and Skeletons are generally associated with themes of death, doom, and the macabre. In more recent years the skeleton has also become associated with a fun and silly aesthetic, especially during the October season. I like this dichotomy of dark and fun. The lyrical themes will vary from graveyard humor like that of the crypt keeper to a dark nihilistic reaction towards the world, society, or oneself.

One of the sonic goals for the band was to attempt at doing multiple genre styles in one album while making it all fit together. From high-speed thrash metal to slower doom metal — the impending sound of death metal to the dark extremity of black metal, each song was crafted with a sonic blend that I think can best deliver an album experience of “the soundtrack to an 80s horror b-movie about an army of heavy metal skeletons.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://deadaliveofficial.com/#
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deadalivemetal/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeadAliveMetal
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPclQptas6Tn2xfn59SVXTw
• Other: https://deadalivemerch.store/