Coroner’s Office Track By Track with John Alexander and John McCarthy (Continued)
5. “Concealed”JA: “Concealed” was my favorite song at the time we recorded Coroner’s Office. Most of the songs we recorded during the Coroner’s Office were a year or so old and I was completely bored of them. This one was shiny and new and fast! I don’t think this was a fan favorite. I can’t recall anyone ever talking about this song.
JM: We wrote that song in about 10 minutes in John’s house. I tried to make it more unusual but John objected. The original chorus has the line “Close it shut, I am on the moon.” John A. said it was stupid. So I said fine and changed it to “Close it shut, Concealed in doom.”
6. “(It was) Just a Thought”
JA: I am so amazed at how well some of these songs have held up. I still really like this song. It was most famously covered by Disharmonic Orchestra. For the intro, we dug through a box of small instruments the studio had and used most of them.
JM: I wrote the main riff trying to figure out Celtic Frost’s “Procreation of the Wicked.” The original mid-part was really fast and John changed it to what it is today. The lyrics were inspired by a story my father told me about a fight at the Orpheum Theater in the 1960s that led to a shooting. I tried to put myself in the mind of the person who got shot and how he felt as he was dying.
7. “Syncopated Jazz”
JA: This is the start of side two. These next three songs still baffle people a little. At the time, a taboo mix of humor on a metal record. Man, how times have changed! The song is called “Syncopated Jazz” but is it Jazz? Many people we talk to call this song jazz. To me it sounds like a frolicking bunny rabbit.
JM: We came up with this song in the studio. We were discussing that we needed something unusual to start side two. So, we came up with this song in like 10 seconds. It was very quick; we didn’t suffer over it.
8. “Soupy Sales”
JA: A surprise fan favorite the few times we played it live. We dedicated the album to the memory of Soupy Sales, even though he was alive at the time and still is! Hope he makes a new record soon.
JM: John was walking around saying “Scatman Crothers on the moon, Scatman Crothers real soon.” We knew we wanted something else unusual after “Syncopated Jazz,” so, I took what John said and did my own thing, everyone liked it, and told me to go into the vocal booth and do it. It was one take and we were laughing our asses off after. Of course, we thought no one was going to hear this record. We knew this song was going to be part of a trilogy (“Syncopated Jazz,” “Soupy Sales” and “Coroner’s Office”). We wanted people to be like “what was that?” and get caught off guard.
9. “Coroner’s Office”
JA: It goes from primitive grindcore-like riffs to hardcore to poorly executed lounge music all before the 50 second mark. Where else could you hear someone croon “dissecting human caresses, removing bloody vitals??”
JM: The lounge part was my idea. It was inspired by David Lee Roth’s “Just A Gigolo.” I helped with the arrangement. The song was written is less than five minutes.
10. “Death To The Masses”
JA: We were/are big Black Sabbath fans and this was really a product of that. The opening slower riff could be the song “Black Sabbath.” A bunch of styles are blended here with a catchy chorus. We worked hard on the guitar sound and I think it sounds great. The snare does not seem to cut through in the fast part though; too bad.
JM: As I recall Ron Quintana (the guy who named Metallica) said that “Death To The Masses” was the perfect heavy metal song. I was completely shocked. We were at a radio station in San Francisco where Ron was the DJ. Katon DePena, from Hirax, brought us there.
11. “I Want to Die”
JA: Our goal was to make a long depressing song (12:18) to inspire people to kill themselves. Sounds responsible. I remember getting cold feet about this song and wanted to remove it from Coroner’s Office. My thinking was we’d get sued or something if someone really did kill themselves because of this song. Turns out no deaths (that we know of) can be attributed to this song. My guitar is out of tune which gives the main riff a nice warble. My guitar solos are often bashed in reviews, but I really like the solo on this one. All the guitar solos were on the most part done in one take.
JM: I wrote this in detention in high school the same day as “No Time.” After school I went to John’s house and we both had the same idea. We wanted it long and monotonous.
12. “Run Amok”
JA: Run Amok is the oldest song on Coroner’s Office. It was one of Post Mortem’s first songs written in 1982. The beginning of the song is not edited correctly. On the New Renaissance CD re-issue we are including a version with the beginning edited properly. John McCarthy plays bass on this. Mark Kelley sings this one and many unreleased Mortem tracks.
JM: I remember people yelling out this song and one kid we ran into had this phrase in his high school yearbook: “the world is yours - run amok on it.” The words were written by Normal McIver who actually started the band and the music was written by Tom Nelligan who was the original guitar player. I personally hated playing it. We tended to end with it and I was all hyper with singing and then switching to bass was disorienting.
