Writing in the New York Times, former Detroiter now East Coast music journo Mike Rubin famously said, "Death was punk before punk was punk." Yet this Detroit rock power trio was almost forgotten, though the band provided a musical link between the raw power of The Stooges and the MC5 and the advent of punk founders like Bad Brains -- another African-American band, often credited with helping to pioneer the sound of punk, who released their first record five years after Death.
The saga of Death -- buried recordings, label snubs, and yes, the passing of founder David Hackney in 2000 -- makes for great historical reading. But we're happy to report that Death lives again. Members and brothers Bobby and Dannis Hackney sat down with KTVU.com to reminisce on Detroit's music scene in the 1970s before a live show in L.A.
Excerpt:
How many rock songs and soul songs have there been about the assembly
lines in Detroit? That's the one thing that I think everybody connected.
The fact that this was the big, industrial Motor City and it was
churning 24/7. I think that everybody in Detroit was rhythmic because of
that. Our moms and dads would come home in the afternoon and their
bodies were kind of still wiggling from that churning and constant
rhythm in the industrial factories.
Read more about Death
here.
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