Here we are once more, thrashing the stages of our native Guadalajara in Mexico. This clip here is from our first, proper, come back gig, playing with Strike Master from Mexico City, Ebola, Mortoss, Damage, Fausto and some other band I can't recall. It was an awesome gig. The crowd response was great, but was even greater was the complete support of the younger thrash kids, most of them were barely born when we broke up back in 1994! Members from current local thrash bands like Bethraxer, Aggressive Conspiracy and Drunkiller were there cheering for us. Our deepest, most sincere thanx to all these kids and to all of our friends who hung out with us that night.

Hope you enjoy the clip: DRAKSEN, "Bigger Then Life", Live at the Zentro Underground, September 29th, 2012.

1st Draksen performance in 18 years!

Well, here we are again. A bit bold, gray hair and with some extra pounds, but happy to thrash once more. Enjoy the clip!

"Thrashcore" Live, August 2012!

From Beyond (demo 1990)

To many people, our "From Beyond" demo (1990) is the most well known recording of the band. Recorded during December of 1989 and released in early 1990, "From Beyond" was leaps and bounds superior to our humble debut demo (1988's "Thrashcore"). This time around we had a better engineer and we had progressed as musicians, although we were still learning. Martin Lugo was still on drums, Oscar del Rio was still our bass player and this marked Luiz Ahumada's recording debut with Draksen. We had 4 new songs finished and decided to re-do one of our earliest songs, "Permanent Anesthesia", which originally appeared on our debut album. Memories beging to feel hazy after so many years, but overall, we had fun recording "From Beyond". We knew we had something special and something that sounded closer to how we were during a live performance. The title track was one of the heaviest songs we had ever penned. Written when Andres Rodriguez was still in the band, "From Beyond" had a heavy european thrash influence: Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and some Exodus were definitely inspiring us during the writing of this song. Lyrics are basically the story from the movie of the same name, Stuart Gordon's "From Beyond", which in turn was based on an H.P. Lovecraft short story. When I saw the movie I was delighted at how over the top it was. Having seen it recently, it's still gory, but it's nowhere near as nasty as that other Stuart Gordon movie: "Re-Animator".

So the movie influences were still heavy on us. "Permanent Anesthesia" is about a psycho-serial-killer-doctor. Typical slash and dice, friday the 13th type of lyric. Musically, there's a bit of Iron Maiden, Metallica and Slayer thrown in. The main riff is actually a mixture of Iron Maiden's title song and Metallica's "Hit The Lights". This was like the second song I ever wrote in my life, back in 1985!!! I was still elegantly ripping off riffs off my favorite bands! Hahaha! "Something Wasn't Right '89", Martin Lugo came up with the title. I have no idea why he chose that title, save for the "89" thing, which of course refers to the year I wrote it. When recording this song, Luiz had not learned it yet, so I had to play all guitars here. I guess this is my "Joe Satriani" moment, hahaha! I wanted to do a guitar oriented instrumental, show off a bit. Some notes sound plain awful, but hey, I has trying hard!

"In The Name Of The Cause" became a live favorite. It was one of our few "mid-paced" songs, our answer to Metallica's "Four Horsemen". Musically, there's the obvious Metallica influence, but I can cite Destruction and Manowar too. Manowar specially with the lyrics about kings and swords and "Excalibur" type of shit. That was our "power metal" song! In reality, "the cause" was veil for something way cornier: heavy metal dude!!! Hahaha! But instead of writing about how "metal" we were, I decided to write an allegory about it and make it sound like a King Arthur song. By the way, I love "Excalibur", it is one of my all time favorite movies, so the song really wrote itself, easy as a cake. Musically, it was THE longest song we've ever written. I think it still remains as the longest, at over 6 minutes.

"Poisoned Environment", which originally had the "Thrashcore II" thing, was a more direct metal song. It dealt with the trends within the scene and how those trends will end up dilluting it. Musically, it was a concious effort to write a song very much in the vein of the original "thrashcore". You see, at the time (1989) I already had many songs practically ready to be played and or record, but those songs were slightly less thrash and more heavy metal. One of those songs was kind of Metallica's "Orion"  but with lyrics. I was frustrated the band did not like those songs as much as I did. I always said, "if you like faster or heavier or slower songs, write them yourself! It's nice to have a balance". But since I was the unofficial songwriter for the band, I had to write what I thought they would like. Hence, "Poisoned Environment". I love the song, but I do feel parts of the mid section lose plot a little bit; it could've been edited out, but the guys loved it so those parts stayed. It is one of Fabian Medina's favorite songs.

"Guadalajara" was just a fun song. I thought that, since it's strange for people outside of Mexico to hear Mexican thrash, it'd be nice for them to hear a traditional mexican folk song all thrashed up. Back in 1989, the closest thing to international latin american metal was Sepultura, that was it. I wrote the arrangements for both guitar harmonies. Again, Luiz did not play guitar on this track. Oscar played some weird bass line that I was never really satisfied with; I wanted a bass line that did not follow the guitars, but did something closer to what is done in the original song. At the time, most of the guys in the band regarded "Guadalajara" as a joke song. Not me. I really like mariachi music and in no way I'm making fun of that song. I'm paying homage to a great song.

If you ask me, I prefer the songs we re recorded for the album. "From Beyond's" most important songs were re done for the debut album. But friends and fans have been wanting to have the demo on MP3 so here you go. Hope you guys enjoy it!

Download "From Beyond" (demo 1990)

DRAKSEN regresa a los escenarios!

Despues de casi 18 años sin tocar, Draksen regresará por un corto tiempo para destilar puro thrashcore. El 29 de Septiembre estamos invitados a tocar junto a Strike Master, Damage, Night Breed, Meatfückers entre otras bandas. Esperamos ver a varios amigos durante este concierto!

https://www.facebook.com/events/400461783348190/

At last, Draksen´s second official demo, "From Beyond" finally available on MP3 for you to download. It is probably our best known work, even more so than our debut album. We recorded it in December of 1989 and released it in early 1990, maybe February or March, I don't really remember. It was the last recording with original bass player Oscar Del Rio, now known as "Jobito Panteras", the frontman/guitarits of humor punks Garigoles. It was the only recording of Luiz Ahumada with Draksen. Luiz, who came to us from the band Crucified, is now the lead guitarist/keyboardist for the latest Hardware line up. About six months after the release of this demo, Martin Lugo also leaves the band to focus on college, leaving me as the sole original member. Oscar´s place was taken by the now controversial figure of Francisco "Frank" Uribe, currently one of the masked madmen in The Meatfückers, a retro thrash band that mixes Mentors style of humor with the early thrash of Venom. Martin´s place was taken by ex-Twitch basher and fellow school buddy Mike Moon. Luiz Ahumada would remain on board through out 1990, finally leaving in early 1990 to concentrate on the then new project Hardware.

"From Beyond" was considered by us in the band our first "real" demo. "Thrashcore", which was recorded in the summer of 1988, had and abyssmal sound quality, despite being recorded in a "pro" studio. Back then you had no internet to check on some recording techniques and we lacked the proper equipment to make our music sound as powerful as it could've been. Plus, we self produced it, knowing virtually zilch about how to "produce" or how to plan a studio recording. No one aided us, not even the inept house engineer, who suggested we just "plug in to the mixing board" and just thrash away. By the time we did  "From Beyond", we were better at our instruments and had aquired some decent equipment. The house engineer, Paco Loco, was at least helpful in guiding us to get a more powerful sound. We were still off with some of the timing; guitars and drums not always locked in, but the overall sound was a monumental step in the right direction. Despite being all Metallica die hard fans, our music tended to be more European influenced: Kreator, Sodom, Deathrow, Vendetta, etc. were clearly influential. On the American side, apart of Metallica, there was always the Slayer influence. Testament, which were relatively new also had an impact on us, particularly with their blend of thrash and neo-classical guitar stylings. Wehrmacht were also huge. Little known band from Portland, Oregon, with whom we had some contact through the mail back in the day, had an impact for their blend of proto-grind and wild time changes, all condensed in a compact and unique style of thrash and hardcore punk.

All the guitars were recorded with my trusty Marshall JCM800, 50 watt head. What I'd give to have that amp back. What an awesome tone I could get from it. I was always a bit of an "anti-pedal" guy, using an Overdrive every now and then, and during the recording, a chorus pedal lent to me by Galo Ochoa from CUCA. What you hear is our guitars, plugged straight into the amp and that´s it. For Luiz´s sound, we put some overdrive effect AFTER his guitars were done. My guitar, my trusty Ibanez ST300, had an active pick up set up from factory. It featured a booster and made a passive guitar active, just like an EMG, so it was easy to get a nice distorted sound but punchy.

Well, enough writing. Download and enjoy "From Beyond". Be sure to leave your comments!!!