OVERKILL ( Rat Skates )

OVERKILL Drummer Rat Skates - "I Miss The Fun Of Playing In Front Of An Audience"



Dawn from Themetalweb.com spoke to former OVERKILL drummer Rat Skates about a number of topics including his new DVD, Born In The Basement. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

www.Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: I loved Born In The Basement! It brought back so many memories of a different era. Though I have to say, I felt it to be more of an autobiography from your standpoint while being a member in Overkill than just a thesis on the thrash movement of the early '80s. Would you agree and if so, why now after all these years did you feel the need to do this?

Rat Skates: "Thank you! This is how this started; I'm the co-producer of the movie Get Thrashed. I've been working on it with Rick, who's the Director for about four years at this point. Rick is I believe 35 years old and he's sort of in that, what I refer to as the mid-school, not the old-school thrash. Old school thrash really is 1981, '83, '84 and he came in a little bit towards the real back end of the 80's whole thing because he wasn't old enough to even go to a lot of the shows. I started working on this with him being that I'm one of the first guys involved with the whole scene, and you saw Born in the Basement, so you saw everything that I was working on. I had saved everything that I put my time into over the years. Rick would give me a section, and I'd start doing photos and start doing all kinds of graphic things to it and sometimes I would look and say, I know I have a better photo somewhere. I started looking through my stuff and I hadn't done that in twenty years. I'm really looking at it and just like how you watched Born in the Basement, it's bringing back these memories. I'm looking at the people and I'm thinking, wow, all these things that I'm remembering that I haven't thought about in years and it really started to hit me. Besides the fact that I saved everything, with all the bands, the thrash movement, the culture was different and the time was different, but it was a DIY effort. I'm sure you know because you have your own business, The Metal Web! and it's your company and your thing and you kind of do things for yourself and you find a way to make it happen and that's it. In this day and age, sure, you still have to work at something, but back then there was no MySpace, no internet. Well, you know this stuff! (Laughs)

What compelled me to do Born in the Basement? It's definitely an autobiography. As you seen in Born In The Basement, it's a combination of the DIY thinking of thrash metal and I'm trying to relate what I did to what the other guys were doing and I don't have other guys in it. But, that's something else I'm working on actually. I also told my story, my journey and tried to relate it to the movement, to the culture and to the club band scene. I tried to get the best of all worlds, so to speak. It can definitely be viewed, without a doubt, as this is the "story of Overkill". I didn't call it, "this is the Overkill story" or Overkill whatever, it's Rat Skates. It's a musician and this is my journey. As a film maker and I just know this from other film makers, I don't want to get booked too strongly into one thing. Even though you may do a good job at it, you get labeled and they’ll say, Rat Skates is a thrash metal film maker and I don’t want that. Fortunately, outside of the music circles, I’ve had an interest in it and that’s what I wanted. I just wanted to tell a compelling story, even if you’re not a metal fan, about a guy working at what he believed in. If I linked it too strongly to thrash to Overkill, I’m actually limiting my potential and I didn’t want to do that.

Plus, I am not a member of Overkill. If they had wanted to tell this early story of actually how Overkill was formed, which I did actually tell, they could have done that because they had a DVD out a few years ago which I just saw recently. I haven’t actually said this publicly, but I will now, when I was shown that DVD, I was insulted. I was insulted that I was barely mentioned at all. I was jumped over so fast almost like; I was a burden and let’s just get through this as fast as we can. Besides being insulted, that’s not fair to the people who know Overkill, like yourself from those early days. There’s a history and a root and everything that’s happened after that, nothing could have happened after that if the beginning wasn’t there. With DD and Bobby, Overkill’s in its 20th version or whatever and the thing is they’ve had so many different musicians and everything, but still, Overkill has a name from the day, they have a colored logo, and things are still identifiable. It was insulting to me and also, throughout the years whenever I am asked about, they tap dance and blow that question off so fast that I’m insulted by it."

www.Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: But, can I tell you, I’ve talked to the guys in the past about you and they’ve never had anything negative to say.
Rat Skates: "It’s not that it’s a negative thing. It’s just the fact that and I guess I understand this, in other words, you don’t want to be known for something that you’ve done in the past, you want to be known for what you’re doing now because you’re still making records. It’s kind of like, well, let’s get past this whole Rat Skates era and let’s talk about now because Rat Skates isn’t part of Overkill anymore. So, probably after a while it gets annoying to have to answer, have you talked to Rat and stuff like that."

www.Dawn/TheMetalWeb.com: Are you currently working on anything musically?
Rat Skates: "I still play. When I play and get together with a few musicians, which is very rare now and it's been less and less over the years. But, when I do, it's just like the addiction that I was just talking about. (Laughs) One night a week turns into two and it's just unbelievable. The band that was a significant band after Overkill was a band called BOMB SQUAD, and I found myself looking in the mirror going, what am I doing, I'm trying to get signed again? I just went through all that. I had a successful band and it's not that I didn't enjoy the actual Overkill, it's just that, I'm going to go and get signed and go through the same thing. I miss the fun of playing in front of an audience. That is an absolute rush. It's a great trip. It's so much fun. But, everything else that goes with it, just out weighs that. So, I do miss playing and I still do play and I have fun with it and that's my whole thing. But, it is an addiction. Playing right now is one beer. Getting in a band is a twelve pack. (Laughs) It's just the way it is. I'm too busy and enjoy what I do to much in film making and production. It's interesting, my children are all guitarists. They're exceptional guitarists and their "old school" heads and I’m talking anywhere from AEROSMITH to TED NUGENT to METALLICA. I'm actually working on something with my son, not playing on it, but, producing it. It sounds like JOHNNY THUNDERS and THE HEARTBREAKERS meets the SEX PISTOLS."

To read the entire interview head to this location.