Musician Devyl Dave (Dave Sussman): An Interview

Thank you for that compliment - although I never really thought of myself as actually part of the NY music scene. I have always thought of myself as someone outside the NYC clique of local rock stars who might have been or have never been. And...the more I see some of these guys who seem to be legends in their own minds and local bars, the more I feel that there are way more Mock Stars than Rock Stars, and I don't think I will ever fit in.

What was the first instrument you picked up?

My mother made me take piano lessons at age 10, but I never liked it although now I wish I stuck it out. Then there was the unfortunate stint on the violin in 4th grade, which was a huge mistake. Then I thought the cello would be a better choice in 7th grade, until the music teacher went crazy and threw a metal music stand at the gaggle of kids who weren't listening to him and babbling amongst themselves. The only thing I remember about playing the violin and cello is that I pretended to play it in the recitals although I made sure no sound came out, as well as I picked off all the finish from the back of the cello as the semester progressed. Fun times!

I picked up the guitar for the same reasons that most skinny, pimply, greasy-haired rocker kids pick it up - because I hated the jocks and the jocks hated me, and the guitar was the only weapon available at the time. I had dreams of their fat asses having sons and daughters that idolized me, or if that didn't happen, I had dreams of looking cool 20 years later while they got bald and flabby. Some of that came true, ;)

Do you still play a Gibson Les Paul?

Absolutely. I have the black '81 LP Custom that was with me all thru the BILE years, and I now play that with VULGARAS.

Did you play in your high school band?

No. They asked me not to re-apply for the orchestra when they realized I couldn't play a note on the cello after a full year.

Did you have your own band in high school?

Yes and no. I bought a piece-of-shit guitar with friends who also bought crappy-ass instruments at the local rip-off mart on Long Island, and we tried to play our favorite Dio/Sabbath/Priest songs. Although the strings on my plywood plank were about a half inch off the fret board, I think we did a pretty good job at learning the basic power chords.

With all the problems with the economy, the school systems are making a lot of cuts. The music programs in several schools are in danger of disappearing. How do you feel about this?

To be honest, I really don't care. I always thought that music can't be taught, it has to be sought. Kids these days are like animals in the jungle-they will eventually discover how to run their own lives (either upwards or into the ground), and I doubt you'll find ten kids serious enough to study music in any school; music that goes beyond an M-box and rhyme-spitting anyway. So they will find their music if they are called to it. If it is in you, you'll find it, school or no school.

How did you get started in your genre?

I got my ass kicked by dance music-loving jocks in high school. Denim and leather, loud guitars, and devil-worshipping was the furthest thing from gold chains, z cavariccis, hip-hop beats, and cross-wearing guidos, so I gravitated towards the NWOBHM and later thrash and industrial.

Who were your major influences back then?

Anything NWOBHM. Anyone from Saxon to Venom and Manowar to (early) Metallica. I also loved Mercyful Fate and I think Melissa and Don't Break the Oath are two of the best albums ever recorded. Later, when I worked at Tower Records in the late 80s/early 90s, I discovered Ministry, NIN, and all the industrial stuff. That's where the BILE thing comes in.

How about now?

I also really loved bluesy guitars such as in southern rock (Eagles/Skynyrd), so now with VULGARAS, I am able to mix my little blend of early metal and rock with blues and 70s style classic/stoner rock.

Tell me about a video titled "Anthony's Basement, 1983."

Ha-ha! See my above answer about dumb Long Island kids living in proximity to a crappy instrument store. I remember that store had the "real" guitars hanging untouchable behind the counter, so us kids only had access to the $50 plywood shit hanging on the floor. We bought instruments, and used my Super-8 camera to record ourselves. That video is the only surviving proof that I really did suck at music when I was a kid. As far as I know, nobody in that video has touched an instrument in years except me. If I am wrong, I would love to know where they are now.

Okay, I have to ask about Angeldust. I hear once in a while you still get royalties from some of the songs when they're used on Criss Angel's Mindfreak.

I am not sure what prompted Criss Angel to include me in the writing credits back when I was with him. Looking back, although I was in his band for 7 years, he was really into his magic and the image of the people around him. We had a really good band actually, great heavy industrial music written by his new partner Klay Scott (then of Circle of Dust and now of Celldweller) and we had quite a potential as a real band. I remember doing a private showcase for Atlantic Records, who actually wanted to work with us, but Criss turned them down and the band got pissed. Criss turned them down because they didn't want to pay millions for a huge magic show (if my memory is shoddy about this I apologize, this is how I seem to remember it)-bad for us as a band but ultimately good for him as his legend grew and he ultimately became the Vegas act he always wanted to become. More power to him-he and his family were always pretty cool to me.

I have to say something about my time in Criss Angel's band now. I was a replacement in 1991 for a guy named John Dadey, who died a couple of years ago from Cystic Fibrosis, and the "project" then was simply called "Criss Angel Band." I remember John teaching me the songs, and then I auditioned and got the gig, not because of my playing which I think sucked back then anyway, but because I was skinny and had hair down to my ass, and the "project" as Criss called it was always very image conscious. The band was total hair-band/Bon Jovi/Whitesnake style music, keyboards and orchestrated leg kicks and everything. I still have videotapes of rehearsals that I will never release. The bass player was a guy named Gary Taylor Sabo, who played in a band called Saraya (with Sandy Saraya, who I think married a guy in Tesla) and played on Saraya's first album. Way-talented motherfucker, but a hard drinker and I haven't heard about him in like 13 years. I think the booze killed him. I would love to know where he is now if he's still alive. I ran into the Criss Angel Band keyboard player Jamie one night in Florida in like 2003, at a Dream Theater/Queensryche/Fates Warning show, but I was completely blitzed with a girl I was seeing because we spent most of the day drinking on Fates Warning's bus-so I don't remember if he said anything about knowing about Gary being alive or dead, and I never saw Jamie again after that chance meeting.

When Nirvana came out, the Bon Jovi thing was dead, and Criss Angel Band then wrote songs to sound like Nirvana, and we recorded a cover of that Barry Manilow song "Could It Be Magic" in that heavier, grittier style, still with keyboards. As far as I know, I have the only cassette copy of the song in existence, and again, I will not release it.

Then Criss discovered NIN, and Jamie the keyboard player was sacked and Criss started writing with Klay Scott, a local Long Islander mentioned above who is a master programmer and sequencer in industrial music. They changed the name of the band to Angeldust, holed away for half a year, and came out with a fucking fantastic collection of songs-some of the best industrial metal music I had heard up to that point.

Criss, Klay (who played guitar and did all the sequencing), Gary the bassist, a drummer named Phil, and I learned all the songs, and we started to do showcases for labels, one of which was the Atlantic Records showcase I also mentioned above-we even filmed a video with a huge professional film crew for a song called "Come Alive," a song which I guess is being played on his TV show because that's the song I am getting royalty checks for. We played in front of people a total of maybe twice. The band was really good, the songs were awesome, and absolutely nothing happened for a couple of years.

I never saw a finished cut of the "Come Alive" video. We never played a real live show past 1992 when we were a hair-band. We never took any band pictures besides the ones on my Myspace site in Times Square. We never did shit, and I wanted to play music. That's when BILE came along. In 1997 I met Krztoff and we hit it off and I was asked to do a BILE show. I told Criss Angel this, and he said that was awesome, but he was sad to see me go as he was just about to hook up a huge tour, I believe centered around Dee Snider and the movie Strangeland, which BILE was actually in. I said I wasn't leaving Angeldust for BILE, I just wanted to play a few shows, and Criss kinda Soprano-like said that he couldn't have his guys seen playing with someone else, especially before a huge tour he was almost finalizing-so I told Krztoff that I couldn't play with BILE because my band of 7 years was about to do huge things. So I quit BILE before I even started with them.

Fast forward at least 6 months. No Angeldust tour. No Angeldust shows. No Angeldust anything, not even any phone calls. I got sick of it, and went to a local bar, ran into Krztoff again who kinda laughed at me and asked if I was ready to fuckin' play with him now, and the rest is history. My first BILE show was playing to a sold out Webster Hall crowd for the Strangeland movie premiere in front of 2000 people.

Fast forward again. The next thing I hear is Criss Angel retired the name Angeldust, and he and Klay Scott reworked all those awesome heavy industrial songs from that initial collection, which now included hip-hop beats and sounded as if all the balls were cut off, and that became the first in his batch of released CD's. I hated it, and still do, because I know what those songs were really supposed to sound like-again, I have it all on tape and will not release those early versions. I never spoke to Criss again, and he ultimately dissolved his musical aspirations anyway and became a huge megastar as a Las Vegas magician, which is what he really wanted to do all along anyway.

What was the first band that you toured with? What was that like? TV portrays touring as being totally glamorous and carefree. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But I'm guessing there's another side to it.

The first band I toured with was BILE, and it was a blast. It can be glamorous and carefree if your on a bus, which we were for the last BILE tour I did opening for KMFDM in 2003, but when your in a van and have to drive 700 miles overnight to the next show, you gotta be a little more careful. There is sex, there is rock and roll, lots of booze and there are drugs if you want them, but there's also loading and unloading the trailer, making sure you get paid, finding a motel in the middle of nowhere when you can't drive any further at 4 AM, eating like shit, nowhere to take a shit in the shitty clubs you play, etc, etc. That's what it's like for 99% of all bands on tour.

The best BILE tours were the major ones, with KMFDM on the World War III tour and Pigface with My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult on the United Tour, both in 2003. We played a tour called the Bush and Gore 2000 tour in 2000 with Rorschach Test, N17, and Snake River Conspiracy. We started that tour as the opening act and ended the tour as the headliners. We did a number of smaller scale tours with Nocturne, the band fronted by Lacey from the Brett Michaels Rock of Love and Rock of Love Charm School shows on VH1. Lacey's a pretty good friend of mine actually.

What are some of the bands that you have played with?

I was in a rather good but unsuccessful local Long Island band called Soul Shaker back in 1990-91, which I left to join Criss Angel. After Criss Angel, there was BILE, and now my new and amazing baby called VULGARAS. In the late 80s, I was in some suckass hair-bands that played the local hot spots all over Long Island.

I work in a middle school and I see all these "metal" kids-just like I remember my friends being at that age. Do you remember those days?

I remember everything. I can look through my high school yearbook and tell you which jocks kicked my ass because of my love of metal. I remember being the school "devil worshipper" when all that satanic panic that Geraldo Rivera did exposes on TV about was in full swing. I remember which cheerleaders called me "Devil Dave," a name which was supposed to be a put-down and which I proudly bear now as my nickname in VULGARAS. I remember which jocks I swore I would seek revenge on, one of which is on death row in Florida at this moment. Karma's a bitch, dude.

You are covered in some pretty awesome ink! What was your first tattoo? Are you done?

Not done by a long shot, and thank you! My first one was a small rendition of the cover of the Mercyful Fate album Melissa on my shoulder 20 years ago.

Some of your work was done by Paul Booth. People wait on a list for years for an appointment with him. How'd you swing it?

I went in and had my hand tattooed by his apprentice named Liorcifer. He told me Paul was looking to have someone redesign his website and I said I'd love to do it as I was designing sites professionally. Paul called me that night and we worked out a trade. If I had to pay for all the work he did on me, including a full back piece, I'd never be able to afford it. I was usually able to get an appointment within a week of asking for work, lucky me!

We've discussed that playing music, or really any creative pursuit, doesn't always pay the rent. What are some of the ways you've supplementing your income?

I have a full time freelance job as a photo editor for MLB.com, been there 8 years. They are awesome in that they let me leave to tour and I have a job waiting for me when I get back. I have never made a dime playing music, and I have paid tens of thousands of dollars for the love of doing it. Great hobby, huh!

What's your connection to Alyssa Milano's blog?

For her blog on MLB.com, one time I made a photoshopped picture for her. She never even knew my name, ha-ha!

Tell me about your band BILE. When did you join?

Like I said in my long-winded Criss Angel story above, I joined around 1997.

The BILE Web site says: "Once described as a 'post-nuclear photo-negative opera under blacklight.'" Is that an accurate assessment?

It was. We used to paint ourselves all up with green blacklight poster paint and it would burn our eyes and flake off when we sweated onstage. We were dirty, smelly, wet, shirtless, and loud, and we had tons of smoke and strobes onstage. There are some videos in the BILE Myspace site. We were a really fun band to see.

What's on tap for BILE?

Krztoff has a new CD he is putting out soon. He will have all new guys from when I did my last BILE tour if he ever decides to play out again. I have decided to put all my effort into VULGARAS because that's where my heart is. I turned 40 years old this year, so a big part of me feels like the time is now or never to make my own music in some fucked up way, which is why I am putting so much energy into VULGARAS. I love all the memories I have with BILE, and I am proud of the band's success, but it was really Krztoff's success as BILE was always his music, his albums, and his thing. All of the rest of the band including me were just live players.

Now tell me about VULGARAS. I have seen VULGARAS's music described as Torch Rock. What is that?

From Wikipedia: Torch rock is a term that refers to a heavier version of the traditional jazz or blues structured Torch song style, such as a female fronted Stoner Rock style band. Torch singing is more of a niche than a genre, and can stray from the traditional jazz-influenced style of singing, although the American tradition of the torch song typically relies upon the melodic structure of the blues. The term comes from the saying, "to carry a torch" for someone, or to keep aflame the light of an unrequited love.

Velocity's lyrics in VULGARAS can definitely fall into that arena, but they go deeper than just some boyfriend dumping you. For example, one song called "Mother Heart" deals with the unrequited love one can experience for the person that is supposed to love you more unconditionally than anyone else-your own mother.

How would you describe the music?

VULGARAS is heavy, bluesy, sometimes stoner rock style music. A huge departure from BILE. It is very guitar oriented, but not in a fast thrashy way-more slow and heavy with a cool sorta spooky feel. And we have a female singer who has an amazingly powerful voice, like a mix between Concrete Blonde and Janis Joplin.

What's the story behind the name "VULGARAS"?

That is something that Velocity will have to explain as she named the band years before I joined it, although I think it was derived from something from Alice in Wonderland. I am not sure as to the extent of it-perhaps an interview with Velocity is in order.. ;) [I would love that!]

I don't believe VULGARAS's image is all that G rated. In fact, it's pretty hot. It's very cool how the band took punk/metal and made it kind of burlesque. How'd that happen?

In short, Velocity Chyaldd. She has always been the brains behind VULGARAS. She is a legendary Burlesque performer in the NYC scene, and she married that with her onstage presence fronting her band. But there is a twist. She was never the typical Bettie Page style performer-more of a bloody, raw, in your face performer that challenges the audience rather than tries to please it. She started VULGARAS as a vehicle to get her ideas out there, and it gained momentum in the underground music scene here in NYC, and the legend grew. I remember seeing VULGARAS flyers tacked to poles all over the Lower East Side years ago. I was fascinated as were a whole slew of people who were never in the "norm." The misfits and outsiders came to the shows.

As VULGARAS grew, they had a notorious reputation for over-the -top stage shows, and I remember seeing them at a strip club that hosted bands a few years ago. Later that night I met Velocity and she slipped me a CD. I went home, listened to it non-stop, and finally, months later, told her that if her guitar player ever fucks up, then I am next in her band.

The guitar player fucked up. They had a big show at CBGB's, and he was giving grief about being able to make it to the show on time. I learned all the songs in one day and the next day I played in front of 250 people in a jam-packed CBGB's. Another trial by-fire first show, just like with BILE, and I never looked back.

Fast forward again. Although VULGARAS used to be known for blood, fire, nudity and gender-bending on stage, the band has made a dramatic change since I joined. The band is now known as being a kick-ass rock and roll band that is actually a force to be reckoned with next to any other band in the NYC scene, no stage antics necessary. People expecting to see some sort of fucked up show of old come away just as entertained by how good the band is without that added element. Velocity is an amazing singer with awesome thought provoking lyrics, and we are a powerful band to see live. I love the music we are making.

Speaking of hot, I see a lot of incredibly hot promotional shots of you. Without trying to ruin your rock and roll image, I have seen you sitting my couch, eating salad and almost giggling over secretly slipping some lettuce to a little black dog who you were also cuddling. We had all left a club in favor of watching Law & Order and The Simpsons and eating leftover Italian food (that we ordered because none of us wanted to go out). So is it possible there is a softer side to you?

Only when it comes to little black dogs!

Your CD Heavy Handed Heart just came out. It's awesome. Where can we buy it?

Well, we have a couple places. You can buy digital downloads from www.digstation.com/VULGARAS-or you can get the actual packaged physical CD from CDBaby (CDbaby.com, search for VULGARAS.) You can hear sound samples on both sites. ITunes is coming soon, for anyone who loves DRM limited MP3's. ;) You can also see our brand new video for the title track to "Heavy Handed Heart" on our Myspace page or on YouTube - I know I don't really havta tell anyone how to find those (...google!)

I don't see you retiring from music any time soon. What's next for you?

Sex, beer and rock and roll. What else is there?