As the latest band on this fair city’s “signed” roster to release an album (Epidemic) delightfully devoid of trademark grunge, Panic readies for the headlong plunge into the mosh pit that is “thrash metal” with the intent to ride out the set by adding their own little twist to an already twisted genre. That twist is a blues groove undercurrent to the heavy metal rapids above, flowing into an ocean of sound and power that fluctuates with each listen.

Birthed a half dozen years ago between vocalist Jeff Braimes and bassist George Hernandez, they first called the band Cold Steel. About the same time, guitarist Martin Chandler and drummer Jack Coy were playing in Strychnine. When Strychnine disbanded, Marty joined Cold Steel and they changed the name to Panic. A demo or two later, Jack Coy came in to complete the Panic debut lineup.
Before their series of good breaks, Panic pounded the pavement and starved like most hard rock bands. Even with Some serious interest in their demo, they were too broke to dub any copies. With the financial backing of Lance Goodwin from Bubble Records, they did a run of cassette tapes and began mailing them out to labels but as many musicians know and Jeff indicates, “without representation or connections…it’s not really talent or songs or any of that. It’s timing, who you know and maybe, how you look.”
Well they apparently had something or other in their favor for shortly thereafter, with a demo called Sex And Violence, they began making some very influential friends. People like the original Metal Shop mistress, KISW’s Kathy Faulkner and Lora Porter of Combat Records. Lora was such a good friend that she got Panic’s cut Morbid Curiosities on the Z-Rock national network, where it became a regular on Mike Paine’s Headbanger’s Heaven. Not bad for a song off an unsigned band’s demo tape. Unprecedented, in fact.
Then came N.A.M.A. 1990. Panic scored not only a nighttime club showcase but even a 20 minute slot at the actual convention (which didn’t go quite like imagined).
“It was just a really dry, weird thing. Here we thought this was our big break and we played first of all these bands in this really dry room full of people sitting on chairs. We thought we were going to knock ’em out and we died. It was terrible,” Jeff cries. As fortune would have it tho, the nighttime showcase at The Central is where ‘it’ happened.
Exodus guitarist Gary Holt came up to them after the set and told the sweaty crew, “I wanna produce you guys’ record!” Gary was in town for N.A.M.A., traveling with his manager, Toni Isabella of the legendary Bill Graham agency. Toni quickly took on a similar enthusiasm for the quartet and signed them up with BGA. Next assignment: get signed to a label.
Having the benefit of established management and their producer selected for a debut, Panic was pretty well able to take their business wherever they wanted. After six full months of label shopping plus negotiations, they ultimately penned their deal with Metal Blade. With as sweet a package as they had going, you might wonder, ‘why not a major label’? By choice.
Afraid of being swept aside within a corporate mechanism, they chose the intimacy of an independent, Jeff tells why. “The thing with Metal Blade is that they were offering the money that we needed. We had Rick (Hunolt, another Exodus guitarist) and Gary lined up to produce the record so that was going to cost us. It was going to cost us to do it in San Francisco because they had a room picked out to do it in and they wanted to do it with their engineer. [Exodus] being on Capital, they have major label standards and all [these costs] came with those connections so we had to have more money than independents usually give their bands, but we got enough [from them] to do it the way we wanted it.”
As Marty explains, “The more it evolved, the more it became a family type situation, everybody was real tight knit. We didn’t have to go thru a bunch of fuckin’ red tape to get things done. We didn’t even have to go thru an A&R rep, Toni just went straight to Brian [Slagel, of Metal Blade] who is the president. So we didn’t have to go thru any of that bullshit and it saved us a lot of time.”
After that, things just fell into place. Before they knew it, they were in a Bay City studio. Now they had to choose the songs for the big plunge, “For any band that’s been together for any length of time, a debut album usually represents a long period of time writing songs,” Jeff relates. “911 is a three year old song, and the newest on the album, High Strung, I mean, I was putting finishing touches on it while the tape was running. I hope that the newer songs aren’t any less heavy, but they probably are a little more diverse.”
Marty describes their style of song structuring, “Me and George come up with riffs and we compile them and make songs then give Jeff a tape and he writes lyrics to them. It’s a chemistry and concept that works real well…and it’s just always worked [that way] for us.” He goes on to describe Braimes’ lyrics as “anonymous observations of a world gone wrong.”
However, this doesn’t mean they’re bringing out the soap box. “So many metal lyrics are just thrown away to ‘whatever works,” Jeff laments. “I think lyrics are really important and I don’t [just] mean in terms of a message or anything political.” To which he adds, “I don’t have the time at this point to get too tied up about what’s going on in the world. It’s not that we don’t ever hope to have a social or political conscience, it’s just that I hope to grow into it honestly. I also think anybody in rock and roll deserves to have a period of time where they can just do it and not have the responsibility of raising someone else’s children. I realize that entertainer do, or can, have a big influence and even tho I think there’s a lot of fucked up things happening in the world and young people probably do need guidance right now. I’m still one of those young people.” Now there’s a shot of honesty for ya.
In fact, they’re pretty adamant about two things; their music and the honesty of same. “We don’t put ourselves in any category, we just do what we do and if people think that’s a cop out or sellout, they can pretty much fuck off. Music’s supposed to be a sea of change, you’re supposed to do what you want to do.” Marty, obviously proud of his surrounding mates, continues, “Seattle’s based on honesty. Queensryche do what they wanna do, Alice In Chains do what they wanna do, we do what we want, still everybody seems to have a different identifiable sound. In L.A. you’ve got a bunch of glam bands that look and sound the same. It’s not even like that here. Everybody’s doing their own thing and that’s what people respect you for. We don’t go too far out of our little sphere of our style on this album but we’re not afraid to try different stuff with our music. That’s the way it’s gonna be, that’s what this band is about.”
This band is also about the full frontal assault of their live show. With relatively scant touring under their belt (a few CA dates with Pantera) it will be interesting to see how they hold up when they join Reverend on tour at month’s end.
Can they maintain the in-your-face intensity night in and night out?
I do know one thing: they’ll give it their best.
Next week they’ll be filming the vid for Blackfeather Shake with Tom Ensign on the roof of The Paramount. Should make a good vantage point for watching the epidemic spread.
Hellfire Club
PO Box 80042
Seattle, WA 98108