Deicide frontman Glen Benton will absolutely go down as one of death metal’s most well-known characters. For evidence, look no further than the story of Benton allegedly walking into Roadrunner Records’ A&R man Monte Conner‘s office back in the early ’90s with a Deicide demo in hand, saying to “sign us, you fucking asshole.” Is it true? Not really, but it’s one of the many stories associated with Benton that’ll be talked about for the rest of his career (and beyond).
In an interview with The Garza Podcast, Benton lamented the fact that the music industry lacks big personalities (see above) these days. Benton‘s reasoning is that he dreamed of being a musician as a kid thanks to guys like Little Richard and Chuck Berry, and that maybe today those influences are less prevalent.
“From an early age, I knew what I wanted to do, man,” said Benton as transcribed by Metal Injection. “I mean, the first time I heard like Little Richard and Chuck Berry and The Beatles and [The Rolling Stones] and all that shit, I was like, ‘man. That’s what I want to do.’ I’d seen Elvis – I was a huge Elvis fan – I mean, that’s the stuff I grew up on.
“The music business doesn’t have those kind of celebrities anymore, those personalities anymore. It’s lacking that – the personalities of the days gone [by].”
He continued: “We need that guy out there biting the heads off of bats. We need these guys. Those are are the guys that made me want to do this stuff. That off the wall shit, that’s what made me wanna do this.”
Benton also had some positive words for anyone who feels like their dreams are being suppressed: “You got everybody trying to come down on your dreams and your aspirations and like I say man, you gotta just turn it around and use it to your advantage. The more you say that, the more I’m going to do this. That’s the way I was. ‘The more you tell me not to do this, the more I’m going to do.'”
In a separate interview with KNAC.com, Benton expressed a slightly more negative view on the state of modern metal. More specifically – and hilariously – calling the majority of modern metal musicians “wannabe-Weezer-looking dudes trying to play metal.”
“Metal was metal back then,” said Benton as transcribed by Blabbermouth. “Metal right now — you have so many subcategories of metal now, it’s ridiculous. I understand individualism and that, and we can really use a lot more frontmen like that, like Ozzy [Osbourne] and Ronnie and all them people, Lemmy and that.
“We don’t have that anymore. All we have is a bunch of wannabe-Weezer-looking dudes trying to play metal. Everybody’s sporting black-frame glasses and wearing trucker caps. Nobody gives a shit about imagery anymore, looking the part of metal and that. I walk around 24 hours a day looking [like I do]. I can’t shake it, man. I’m never gonna fall into that. I’ve always been that way, too, about the guys on stage, man. You’re not gonna come out there wearing a fucking plaid shirt and white tennis shoes. It’s not happening.”
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