The Road Before Dethbed
The Ancient Scribes
Back in the day, before Dethbed, there was a trail of riffs, stages, and stories.
Early '90s · Buffalo, NY
The Real Rulers / RULE!
Three original members of The Real Rulers, together again decades later. Between the five of them in this one photo sits nearly every chapter of this story, Buffalo, Florida, and the Bay Area all standing in the same frame.
Formed in Buffalo, The Real Rulers featured Johnny Panic on drums, with Cyco Joe originally on bass before leaving the band by his own choice. Deep answered a bass player wanted ad and stepped into the role, a phenomenal slap-style player and one of the most memorable people Angst ever shared a stage with. The two wrote about half a dozen songs together, and Deep worked well alongside Johnny Panic before Johnny eventually moved on, drummers John Misso, Dave Riccio, and Kevin O'Connell each taking a turn behind the kit as the band evolved into RULE!.
Raji joined that same era after Angst caught him performing live with another local band and invited him to try out. He won the spot on lead guitar, pairing a graceful playing style with the heavy riffs that kept RULE!'s sound aggressive and dynamic, short of full death metal, a sound that fit right alongside influences like TOOL, Corrosion of Conformity, and Overkill. Angst and Raji wrote about half a dozen songs together before Angst's instincts pointed him toward Florida.
When Angst left, he and Deep lost touch, the way distance tends to do, but the mutual respect never went anywhere. If their paths crossed today, Angst likes to think it'd start with a hug and 'how you been, man?'
Steve Hettinger, Angst's longtime friend and self-described 'musical concierge,' came up with the name The Real Rulers and later connected Angst with Paul from Tirant Sin, a friendship that pulled Angst back into music after he'd stepped away to build a career in door-to-door cable sales. Mark Franko, known to friends as Ballz, was Angst's roommate during this same era, the two of them trading ideas back and forth in South Buffalo. Mark passed young. Decades later, Angst returned to Buffalo and found his grave for the first time, mostly buried under grass, his son Kiko beside him.
Mid-to-Late '90s · Florida
Pimp Slap the Atmosphere
PSTA
Angst and bassist Migwell relocated to Florida and landed on drummer Bezl at a bar in Daytona, forming Pimp Slap the Atmosphere. The lineup was completed when Mike "Louis" Polito flew down from Buffalo to join as lead guitarist. The band logged roughly 100 shows, including a grueling 30-in-31-days East Coast run, and a personal highlight: a couple of shows sharing the stage with Acid Bath in Daytona and Tampa Bay, a band whose sound Angst always felt a real kinship with. Acid Bath is enjoying a major reunion revival right now, decades after their breakup. Through the connections made along the way, the band found its way to Scott Burns, who recorded their seven-song EP at Morrisound Recording in Tampa.
The band came to an end when Migwell joined Kelly Shaefer's next project, Neurotica, whose second album was produced by AC/DC's Brian Johnson and landed a deal with WWE's SmackDown! Records and a spot on Ozzfest.
Twenty-five years later, PSTA reunited for one night, September 21, 2024, Buffalo, NY Music Is Art Festival, with Ace on rhythm guitar.
Reunion Show · 9/21/2024 · Buffalo, NY
~2000 · Florida
Medic / Define Divine
In the early 2000's, Ace and Angst recorded a one-song demo called Medic, "Doctor," the only surviving copy still pinned to a wall in the studio today. That song would later find its way onto Define Divine, recorded with a lineup that briefly reunited in Florida: Bezl, moved from drums to bass and backing vocals, alongside Neurotica's original drummer G.J. Gosman and rhythm guitarist "Shizz." The band came to an end when Angst's first child was born, and Angst relocated back to California for good.
Bleed the Freaks · 2012
Bleed the Freaks
Bleed the Freaks built its own following in California, with two real highlights along the way: an acoustic set on Playboy Radio, and a night sharing the stage with Steve "Zetro" Souza of Exodus, one of Angst's favorite metal bands if not his favorite, fronting his own AC/DC cover band in Livermore. Before the show, Angst spent time at Zetro's house listening to Def Leppard's High and Dry in his kitchen, an experience made easy by how genuinely accommodating Zetro was, not the first time either; the two had crossed paths once before, backstage before a Raiders game in Oakland.
During his time in Bleed the Freaks, Angst didn't go by Angst at all. Mike Matheny gave him the nickname "Will Rule," and that's the name he answered to on stage for the life of the band.
2019-2022 · Bay Area
Medic Sun
It started with a Facebook post. Rick "Ricky Baby" Andolina shared a photo of his drum kit sitting alone in Manteca, joking that it was as lonely out there as he was, wishing he had someone to play with. Angst saw the post and told him to hang in there, he was remodeling his garage into a recording studio, and soon they'd be able to play together again. Around the same time, Ace Ybarra was working alongside Angst in the solar industry, coming into town for a couple of weeks out of every month. The three of them started writing.
The lineup did some experimenting with structures at the DETHBED 925 home studio pre-COVID. David Hughes not only helped wire the DETHBED 925 studio, he also mixed the band's earliest demo tracks post-COVID in 2021. In 2022, "Demonic Dave" co-produced a 4-song release at David Hughes' Shine On Studios in Oakland, California. The songs from those sessions became Medic Sun. When Bezl was in town visiting back in October of 2020, he sat in on bass for the original scratch tracks, alongside Rick "Ricky Baby" Andolina on drums, Ace Ybarra on guitar, and Angst on vocals. We played some of our Dethbed songs during those sessions, including "Smiley Face" and "The Pupa," while she was still metamorphisizing. "Real Good Medicine" and "How About Now" were conceived during that same visit with Bezl, while we were sheltering in place together. The final versions still carry those scratch sessions largely intact, close to how the songs were actually built on October 16, 2020.
Greg Reynard, a vocalist Angst once roadied for his band Assailant in the late '80s and later a backing vocalist for Green Jelly on "Three Little Pigs," added backing vocals to How Bout Now during that first trip back to Buffalo, recorded at Robby Takac's GCR Studio.
When Rick was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the songs took on new weight. The project's name changed to carry his spirit forward, Dethbed, and Medic Sun became, in every real sense, the birth of DETHBED 925.
The Deep Cuts
These names never became the headline of this band's story, but they're the reason it has one. Deep answered a bass ad and became a critical songwriter and recorder through several lineup changes, locking down the rhythm section alongside whoever was behind the kit at the time, all of it captured on cassette demos, though a few songs they wrote together never got finished. Raji got scouted from another band's set and gave RULE! its sound for a few years before Florida called Angst away. Steve Hettinger never played a note in Dethbed, but he's the reason any of this exists at all. Mark Franko never got to know where any of it went. This is what the band actually sounds like, if you trace it back far enough, everyone who ever answered a riff, tried out for a spot, or just showed up and played.
When Angst thinks about Rick, it makes him smile. Same with Mike Morales, and the fun they had together. Same with Jose, and what he built here with his own hands, working to give his own kids a better life. Same with Mike and Dan Matheny, good musicians and better friends. Same with Mark, always. That's what spirit actually is, as far as Angst can tell. Not a theory. Just a smile that shows up when you think of someone, every time, for the rest of your life.