A Favourite Sad Story: Rozz Williams 1964 – 1998

07Jul08

This album is spookier than sitting in a graveyard on Hallowe’en while listening to gutwrenching vocals by someone who cleans their tonsils in acid is an apt description of the review that appeared in “Sounds” on 17 April 1982.  April may not be a kind month, but in his review muso Ralph Traitor made it sound exactly like the kind of music I wanted to listen to.  Ralph Traitor’s review was of “Only Theatre of Pain” recorded by Rozz Williams with James McGearty (bass), George Belanger (drums), Rikk Agnew (guitar).  Rozz drew the picture on the album cover, apparently loosely based on Hamlet holding Yorick’s skull, done in gold on black.  The album was released in Europe by the French L’invitation au Suicide label.  Shortly afterwards, this line-up split up.  Rozz was actually 18 when “Only Theatre of Pain” was recorded, although it would seem that Christian Death probably started two years previously because newspaper interviews claimed Rozz was 16 at this time.
        Originally Rozz described the name as a “bringing together of opposites.  Christianity is so life-reinforcing, live by these rules you’ll go onto eternal life, and death is the complete opposite of that”.  Quickly realising this opened the band to accusations of being pretentious or pseudo-intellectuals, Rozz began to refuse to discuss the band’s name.  Later he said some band members had been throwing names into the air.  One person had been wearing a Christian Dior tee shirt.  The suggestion Christian Death came up.  It suited Rozz’s dislike of organised religion.  In interviews he often stated that any belief in God should come from the individual and be explored internally without automatic acceptance of churches’ creeds, “Learn to accept yourself for who you are and screw other people’s expectations of who you should be.”  Rozz’s two spoken word albums and his collaboration with Gitane Demone had God on their thanks list. So Rozz personally did have a faith.
        Rozz listed his influences as David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Velvet Underground Charles Manson, Throbbing Gristle, Current 93.  He frequently read Rimbaud, Baudelaire and William Burroughs.  Particularly in the nineties when the British label goth was taken up by the US music press and made a straitjacket, Rozz complained about being compared to The Sisters of Mercy when he wanted to be compared to bands that had influenced him and wanted musos to consider the whole range of his song-writing – rock, noise/ industrial, spoken word, pop and death rock.  Death rock was a term Rozz coined to separate him from the more theatrical or vampire-influenced goth bands whose members claimed to be blood-drinkers.  “I want to branch out and do other things.  People should not limit their minds to one thing,” commented Rozz.
 After “Only Theatre of Pain”, L’invitation au Suicide also released a series of outtakes, without consent, titled “Deathwish”.  Although rejected for “Only Theatre of Pain”, the song “Desperate Hell”, was later revisited by Rozz.  Valor Kand, Gitane Demone and David Glass, members of the band Pompeii 99, met Rozz at a party.  “Catastrophe Ballet” followed.  Initially Constance joined on bass, however, whilst on tour, Dave Roberts of Sex Gang Children replaced her.  It was decided to continue using the Christian Death name.
        At this time in the UK the Sisters of Mercy were trying to be Suicide after reading “The Waste Land” and ‘goth’ was a word coined in a review of Bauhaus, but hadn’t yet been exported.  So, despite Christian Death’s traditional rock band line-up of drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, male vocal and female backing vocal, California couldn’t categorise them.  “Catastrophe Ballet” dealt with states of depression, the story of “Electra” and queried faith.  It highlighted a dark side to California’s climate of AOR and sunny, synthesised pop which generally didn’t go down too well although fans of post-punks 45 Grave and Community FK lapped it up.
        For “Ashes”, Christian Death set up their own label, Nostradamus, which basically licenced the band’s recordings to other labels.  After negative reactions in the US, mainly from religious groups, Valor, Gitane and David Glass settled in Europe, although David Glass soon returned to the US.  Rozz didn’t want to leave California, so by staying put, effectively left the band.  No formal agreement appeared to have been reached as to who owned the rights to pre-1984 Christian Death songs although Rozz held copyright and publishing rights to the lyrics he’d written.  Rozz’s friends have suggested that Rozz asked Valor not to use the Christian Death name.
        There was much speculation about what happened to Rozz at this time: that he’d got AIDS, that he’d dropped out with a bunch of addicts, that he’d OD’d.  The only rumours that seem to have any basis in truth was that Rozz worked briefly as a washer-up in a San Franciscan restaurant.
        In 1987 Rozz resurfaced in LA having teamed up with long-standing friend Chuck Collison to form Premature Ejaculations, a band that used samples of literally anything: TV/Film clips, sound effects, from crying babies to chainsaws.  This was before the term ‘industrial’ was used and while Ministry were still trying to sound like Shriekback.  Premature Ejaculations’ vocals were spliced together samples and all instruments were also sampled.  The result could be disconcerting to listen to but was certainly original.  It paved the way for RevCo’s “Union Carbide” track about the Union Carbide chemical plant disaster in Bhopal which used Premature Ejaculations’ method of grinding, heavy, machine-like rhythms with repetitive sampled soundbites or slogans.
        Rozz’s lack of business skills meant that Chuck set up the Happiest Tapes on Earth which used the slogan “we just want you to see things as clearly as possible”.  Chuck also dealt with the mailing lists and shipping orders.  Rozz’s later attempts to set up a mailing list and newsletter for Shadow Project often got put on hold as the money was required to tour or for the next studio recording.
        In addition to Premature Ejaculations, Rozz worked on a side project, also noise-based, Heltir.  Through the Happiest Tapes on Earth Rozz released “Heaven and Hells” a compilation of remixes of Christian Death songs that he’d written and a couple of demo tracks, “Haloes” and “Spectre (Love’s Dead)”.  By 1988, Chuck was talking about Rozz working on some material for another band, Shadow Project.  Eventually Chuck licenced Premature Ejaculations and Heltir recordings to Cleopatra.
        Between 1989 and 1990, Rozz and his wife Eva O worked on remixes of Christian Death songs that Rozz had the publishing rights to.  “The Iron Mask”, “The Path of Sorrows”, “Rage of Angels” were released through Cleopatra and credited to Christian Death.  Rozz and Eva also played gigs in California under the name “the original Christian Death”.  Valor complained that he couldn’t sue Rozz for using the Christian Death name because Rozz “never had any money”.
        Shadow Project probably represented the direction Rozz had wanted to take Christian Death in.  It gave him the chance to write and play with experienced lyric-writers and musicians, who were allowed the freedom to take their own leads.  Rozz became more open in interviews and happy to talk about what he was reading or listening too.  In early Christian Death interviews, he used to leave the talking to Valor.  Rozz also spoke of the childhood trauma of watching his mother have a nervous breakdown.  Since his parents are listed in the thanks lists in his albums, Rozz did have a good relationship with them but it does seem that he cared for his mother during her illness.  This was probably another reason for him staying in LA while Valor and the rest of Christian Death had moved to Europe.
        Shadow Project’s original line-up was Rozz, David Glass, Johann Schuman.  This soon changed to Rozz, his Eva, Thomas Morgan and Jill Emery with Paris joining to play keyboards.  Eva and Jill had played together as punk rock band The Superheroines.  For Shadow Project’s second album, “Dreams for the Dying” in 1992, the line-up changed again to Rozz, Eva and Paris plus William Faith (guitar) and Steven Gary (drums).   After the “Dreams for the Dying” tour, Eva began to focus on Superheroines material and the other members took up side projects.
        Rozz commented that after gigs he felt, “exhausted sometimes.  It’s a nice feeling.  It’s a nice feeling when people actually appreciate what you’ve done.”  Before it became a cliché he’d occasionally come onstage in a coffin.  For one show he and Eva wore hooded cloaks, for another he wore a straitjacket.  It wasn’t unusual for Rozz to wear a vampish dress at one show then a suit and tie for the next.  Both outfits complimented his slender body.  Rozz took care of his appearance.  He knew what clothes and cosmetics suited him: often emphasising his pale skin by using kohl and dark lipstick.  Early Christian Death gigs saw him with the left side of his hair cut short and bleached while the right side was long and naturally dark brown or dyed ebony.  Obviously temporary work in San Fransisco  forced Rozz into having a reasonably sensible haircut.  He grew out the left side of his hair to the same shoulder-length as his right side and left it dark brown or added blond streaks.  He had toyed with the idea of having his Christian Death support Shadow Project but dismissed it as too exhausting.
        In collaboration with Ryan Gaumer, Rozz made two recordings of spoken-word material, “Every King a Bastard’s Son” (1992) and “The Whorse’s Mouth” (1996), the latter containing the renowned “HEROnlysIN”.  At this time Rozz became more open about his heroin use, that is, he didn’t deny it but didn’t openly talk about it, and made attempts to come off the drug.
        James McGearty got in touch again asking if Rozz was interested in forming another rock band.  Rozz initially expressed cautious interest then became convinced James was “involved in bullshit” and instead focused on Daucus Karota with Mark Barone (bass), Roxy (guitarist) and Christian Omar Madrigal Izzo (drums) instead.  Daucus Karota only recorded one EP, “Shine”, with tracks “The Stranger”, “Angel”, “Love Lies”, “Father of Temptation” as well as featuring a cover of Iggy Pop’s “Raw Power”, which Rozz managed to persuade the Stooges’ producer, Hunt Sales, to produce for him.  Rumour had it this particular track was recorded with the band on heroin, the song’s theme.  This was dream come true territory for Rozz.
        In 1995 Rozz got the chance to work with Gitane Demone again.  Gitane had since left Valor’s band and had settled in Amsterdam.  The result was “Dream Home Heartache”, with covers of Bryan Ferry’s “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” and Jimi Hendrix’ “Manic Depression” along with original tracks written by Rozz and Gitane.  A brief European tour followed in 1996, where Rozz and Gitane sang tracks from “Dream Home Heartache”, then Gitane sang from her Demonix album, after which Rozz would perform from his spoken word material and the gigs ended with songs from Christian Death’s “Ashes”, such as “Lament, “When I was Bed” and a blistering version of “The Luxury of Tears”.
        April was still to prove a cruel month.  On April 1, 1998 Rozz’s body was found by his roommate Ryan Gaumer in their West Hollywood apartment.  With hindsight it’s easy to trawl through lyrics for sections such as, “In willing suffocation / neck twisted, new cadence/…/ There is no season of birth / I am out on a limb which is broken, hanging / abundance of nightmares, my last words” (from “Zaned People”).  Without a suicide note, no one can ever say for sure why Rozz decided to take his life.
        His widow Eva released “From the Heart” a compilation of studio recordings that Rozz had completed with her before his death.  These are mostly remixes of Shadow Project songs.
 Cleopatra released remixes of Rozz’s cover of Bowie’s “Panic in Detroit” plus remixes of a few Christian Death songs, provided by bands such as Rosetta Stone, Numb, Die Krupps (Juergen Engler), Spahn Ranch (Matt Green), Leather Strip (Claus Larsen), Noise Box (Josh Helm) and Zero Gravity (Len Del Rio).  Bands such as Wreakage, Bis Ende, Switchblade Symphony, The Shroud, Bloodflag and EXP have all claimed Rozz Williams as an influence on their music.  Commentators often use Rozz’s Christian Death as a comparator or reference in music reviews.
 Former band members Rikk Agnew, James McGearty, Gitane Demone have had varying degrees of solo success.  David Glass now plays with Dave Roberts’ Carcrash International.  Jill Emery played bass on Hole’s first album, “Pretty on the Inside”, after which she left to give more time to the Shadow Project then joined Eva O when the Superheroines reformed.  William Faith formed Faith and the Muse.  Paris now models and still occasionally plays keyboards.
        Rozz’s own recording career had spanned 16 years.  An output of some 20 albums with a variety of styles from extreme noise to spoken word.
        I met Rozz backstage at the Hellfire Club in Leicester in April 1996.  Here was a man who used and developed his talents by being open to new influences.  This had earnt him a great deal of respect.  Rozz could select any of a number of accomplished musicians and talented songwriters to suit whichever project he wanted to work on.  He had a record company willing to back him.  Yet, after an initial wariness, I found him friendly, open and unaffected by sychophancy and pretension.  Rozz enthusiasically talked of meeting one of his own heroes, Hunt Sales, barely allowing me to get a word in edgeways.  Although I wouldn’t have wanted to interrupt as I was more than content to just listen.  When news of his death reached me, I felt as if I’d lost a friend.  This is probably the best tribute I can give him.

Emma Lee

Filed under: Articles   |  2 Comments
Tags: Emma Lee Articles, Rozz Williams