Corrosion of Conformity
(also known as C.O.C.
) is an American heavy metal band from Raleigh, North Carolina formed in 1982.
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CORROSION OF CONFORMITY TICKETS
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History
Early years (1982–1987)
Corrosion of Conformity (C.O.C.) was formed in
Raleigh,
North Carolina by bassist and vocalist
Mike Dean, guitarist
Woody Weatherman and drummer
Reed Mullin in early 1980s.
[1] Their
hardcore punk-oriented 20-track debut
Eye for an Eye
—the only album featuring the vocalist Eric Eycke—was released in 1984 (later re-released by
Caroline Records during 1990).
[2] Soon after, Eycke left the band and C.O.C. continued as a three-piece with Dean and Mullin sharing the vocal duties on the 1985's follow-up
Animosity
.
In 1987, COC recruited
Simon Bob Sinister away from their fellow Carolina band and Death Records labelmates, Ugly Americans. The band's 1987 release,
Technocracy
featured the hectic thrash musicianship of COC with a cleaner vocal style than they had in the past.
Departure of Mike Dean, hiatus and Blind
(1987-1992)
Mike Dean departed in 1987 and Simon Bob soon followed, leaving COC in a state of flux for a couple of years. The remaining members re-tuned the line up and searched for a new vocalist, even posting a classified in Flipside Fanzine for a singer similar in sound to "
James Hetfield or
Ozzy Osbourne" to go with their new metal sound.
Caroline Records released some old tracks with Mike singing during this time with the aptly named
Six Songs With Mike Singing
EP.
After much searching, Karl Agell was recruited on vocals,
Phil Swisher on bass and
Pepper Keenan as a second guitarist. COC gravitated towards a more straightforward
heavy metal sound. By 1991's
Blind
they had become a heavy metal band.
Blind
was the first COC album to receive mainstream attention. The video for "Vote With A Bullet" received airplay on MTV and the album cracked the Billboard Heatseekers chart in early 1992. The album has sold around 250,000 copies in the US to date.
Deliverance
and Wiseblood
(1993-1998)
In 1993, Agell and Swisher left the band and formed the band
Leadfoot, Dean returned and Keenan took over lead vocals. The following year COC signed to
Columbia Records, and the release of
Deliverance
saw the band move toward Southern metal, a sound that they also carried onto the
Wiseblood
and
America's Volume Dealer
albums. In 1994, their song Big Problems
was featured on the
Clerks soundtrack. The song Clean My Wounds was also featured in the anime movie
Tekken: The Motion Picture.
Deliverance
was the band's biggest selling album. This was mainly due to the singles "Albatross" and "Clean My Wounds" becoming Top 20 hits on rock radio and the album managed to spend almost 4 months on the Billboard Top 200, peaking at No.155. On the Heatseekers chart, it peaked at No.5 and lasted almost a year on that particular chart. US sales for the album were just over 440,000 by the end of 2005 and this album should be eligible for Gold status within the next few years.
Wiseblood
was released in October 1996. Despite producing a Top 30 radio hit with "Drowning In A Daydream" and a worldwide tour with Metallica, the album failed to match the sales set by the previous album. Total US sales to date are just over 150,000. COC was nominated for a 1998
Grammy Award in the "Best Metal Performance" category for the song "Drowning in a Daydream".
America's Volume Dealer
and In the Arms of God
(1999-2006)
Soon after the release of
Wiseblood
, Columbia dropped COC, who then moved to
Sanctuary Records. The band released its first album for its new label,
America's Volume Dealer
, in November 2000. The album was even more of a commercial failure than Wiseblood not even managing to make the Billboard Top 200. However, the single, "Congratulations Song", did give the band another Top 30 hit. No videos were made from the album. Mullin left the band in 2001. Since then the band has worked with a series of drummers:
Jimmy Bower of
Eyehategod, local Raleigh percussion professor Merritt Partridge,
Stanton Moore of
Galactic and Reed's former drum technician Jason Patterson, who previously played drums in the Raleigh-based rock band
Cry of Love.
In April 2005, COC released
In the Arms of God
to much critical acclaim. The album performed much better than their previous effort, debuting at No.108 on the Billboard Top 200 and even topping the Heatseekers chart. This was achieved without even one radio hit from the album. A video was made for the song "Stonebreaker" which saw airplay on MTV2's recently revived
Headbanger's Ball
. The band spent the rest of the year touring the US and Canada. They were the opening acts for Motörhead and Disturbed and also went on headlining tours with Crowbar, Fu Manchu,
Alabama Thunderpussy and Danko Jones all providing support. A European tour was scheduled for September/October 2005 but was later cancelled, after Hurricane Katrina ravaged Keenan's adopted hometown of New Orleans. A co-headlining UK tour with Clutch commenced in January 2006.
Recent history (2007-present)
The band is currently on a hiatus while Pepper records and tours with
Down. Starting in March, 2009 Karl Agell and Reed Mullin have started touring with Jerry Barrett, Scott Little, and Jason Browning as "COC-Blind", performing the Blind album. There are talks about COC-Blind creating original material moving forward. Reed Mullin and Mike Dean along with Jason Browning are also touring in a new band called "Righteous Fool."
Collaborations/side projects
They have also collaborated with a number of other artists:
James Hetfield of
Metallica contributed vocals to the song "Man or Ash" on
Wiseblood
;
Warren Haynes of the
Allman Brothers' Band and
Gov't Mule played slide guitar on "Stare Too Long" on
America's Volume Dealer
; and Stanton Moore of
Galactic played drums on
In The Arms of God
.
Members of COC have also participated in collaborations: Keenan plays guitar with the metal supergroup
Down, and Dean contributed vocals to a track titled "Access Babylon" on
Dave Grohl's Probot project. Also Pepper is on Metallica's Garage Inc CD playing guitar and singing the second verse of the Lynyrd Skynyrd song "Tuesday's Gone", he is also in the documentary "Some Kind of Monster" auditioning to be Metallica's replacement for Jason Newstead.
Members
Lineups
| (1982)
|
- Benji Shelton
– vocals
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Mike Dean
– bass
- Reed Mullin
- drums
|
| (1983-1984)
|
- Eric Eycke
– vocals
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Mike Dean
– bass, vocals
- Reed Mullin
– drums
|
| (1984-1986)
|
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Mike Dean
– bass, vocals
- Reed Mullin
– drums
|
| (1986-1987)
|
- Simon Bob Sinister
– vocals
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Mike Dean
– bass, vocals
- Reed Mullin
– drums
|
| (1987-1988)
|
- Simon Bob Sinister
– vocals
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Reed Mullin
– drums
|
| (1988-1989)
|
(C.O.C. on hiatus)
|
| (1989-1993)
|
- Karl Agell
– vocals
- Pepper Keenan
– guitar, vocals
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Phil Swisher
– bass, vocals
- Reed Mullin
– drums
|
| (1993-2001)
|
- Pepper Keenan
– guitar, vocals
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Mike Dean
– bass, vocals
- Reed Mullin
– drums
|
| (2001-2002)
|
- Pepper Keenan
– guitar, vocals
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Mike Dean
– bass, vocals
- Jimmy Bower
– drums
|
| (2002-2003)
|
(C.O.C. on hiatus)
|
| (2003-2004)
|
- Pepper Keenan
– guitar, vocals
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Mike Dean
– bass, vocals
|
| (2004-2005)
|
- Pepper Keenan
– guitar, vocals
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Mike Dean
– bass, vocals
- Stanton Moore
– drums
|
| (2005-2007)
|
- Pepper Keenan
– guitar, vocals
- Woody Weatherman
– guitar
- Mike Dean
– bass, vocals
- Jason Patterson
– drums
|
| (2007-present)
|
(C.O.C. on hiatus)
|
Collaborators
- Warren Haynes – slide guitar ("Stare Too Long," America's Volume Dealer
)
- James Hetfield – vocals ("Man or Ash," Wiseblood
)
- Robert Stewart – vocals (performed live, never recorded)
- John Custer – producer of Blind, Deliverance, Wiseblood, Nativity In Black, America's Volume Dealer and In The Arms Of God
Discography
Studio albums
| Date of Release
| Title
| Label
| Chart positions
| US sales
|
| 1983
| Eye for an Eye
| No Core/Toxic Shock/Caroline Records
|
|
|
| October 1985
| Animosity
| Metal Blade Records
|
|
|
| 1991
| Blind
| Relativity Records
|
| 250,000
|
| November 27, 1994
| Deliverance
| Columbia Records
| 155
| 440,000
|
| October 12, 1996
| Wiseblood
| 104
| 150,000
|
| October 10, 2000
| America's Volume Dealer
(Available as Dualdisc)
| Sanctuary Records
|
|
|
| April 5, 2005
| In the Arms of God
| 108
|
|
Live albums
| Date of Release
| Title
| Label
| Chart positions
| US sales
|
| August 7, 2001
| Live Volume
(CD, DVD and DVDA)
| Sanctuary Records
|
|
|
EPs
| Date of Release
| Title
| Label
| Chart positions
| US sales'
|
| 1987
| Technocracy
| Metal Blade Records
|
|
|
| 1989
| Six Songs With Mike Singing
|
|
|
Compilations
- No Core
tape (1982, No Core)
- Why Are We Here?
7" (1983, No Core Records, "Poison Planet", "Indifferent", "Too Cool")
- Empty Skulls
tape (1984, Fartblossom Enterpises, "Poison Planet", "Eye for an Eye")
- Cleanse the Bacteria
LP (1985, Pusmort Records, "Kiss of Death")
- Thrasher Skate Rock Vol. 3
LP (1986, Thrasher/High Speed Records, "What", "Not For Me", "Citizen")
- Empty Skulls Vol. 2
LP (1986, Fartblossom Records, "Center of the World", "Eye for an Eye", "Negative Outlook")
- Complete Death
LP (1986, Death Records, "Loss for Words")
- Life is a Joke Vol. 2
LP (1986, Weird System Records, "Eye for an Eye")
- Flipside Vinyl Fanzine Vol. 3
LP (1987, Gasatanka Records, "Intervention")
- Rat Music for Rat People 3
LP (1987, CD Presents Records, "Bound")
- "Clerks" Soundtrack
LP (1994, Columbia Records, "Big Problems")
- Nativity In Black: A Tribute To Black Sabbath
LP (1994, Columbia Records, "Lord of This World")
- ''UMPF LP (1995, - , "Clean My Wounds")
- Duke Nukem: Music To Score By
LP (1999, RED Interactive, "Land Of The Free Disease")
- Xtreme Rock: Music That Changed Our Lives LP (1999, RED Distribution, "Land Of The Free Disease")
- Motorcycle Mania 3
CD (2004, Artist Direct BMG, "Thirteen Angels")
Music videos
- "Vote with a Bullet" (1992)
- "Dance of the Dead" (1992)
- "Albatross" (1994)
- "Clean My Wounds" (1994)
- "Drowning in a Daydream" (1996)
- "Stonebreaker" (2005)
References
- Corrosion of Conformity > Biography
- MusicMight - Artists - Corrosion of Conformity