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After sixteen years of makeup, metal, and stage blood, Impaler remains proudly undead
Maybe it's the conspicuous dearth of folded arms in the audience. Or maybe it's the unusually high number of baseball caps, or the increased cubic volume of hair. Maybe it's the bobbing heads topped with either of the above, thrashing in a slavish fervor near a stage befogged with dry ice. In any case, there's something instantly recognizable and entirely dislocating about the 7th Street Entry during an Impaler show. For a few hours it's the coolest spot in some Bizarro universe where metal--not punk--accrued the largest heap of subcultural cred over the past two decades.
 The only local band that really splatters: Impaler's Tom Croxton, Bill Lindsey, Erik Allyn, and Brad Jonson Photo By Daniel Corrigan |
But Impaler seems cramped in the Entry: There's barely enough room for their wooden tombstones and the bald, ax-lugging executioner who loiters stage left. And their makeup doesn't seem as carefully applied as on the sleeve of their latest disc, It Won't Die (Root-O-Evil). Lindsey isn't as baroquely scarred, and the black smudges underneath the eyes of Brad Jonson make the guitarist look more like a shortstop than a hungry warrior of the undead.
"Who's a fucking wrestling fan here?" Lindsey demands, eliciting a shout of affirmation--who isn't these days? But when Lindsey calls for a moment of silence in memory of dead wrestler Owen Hart, the crowd, either mishearing or hopped up on adrenaline, responds with a flurry of applause. Still, the fans pay closer attention to the band's gruesome finale, executed with choreographed precision. A short, hyperactive zombie leaps onstage to cause trouble. In a matter of minutes, Lindsey batters the interloper into submission with an arsenal of metal folding chairs. Then he plunges his hand into his adversary's gut, producing a mushy strand of intestines. The disemboweling complete, the singer pounces into the crowd and smears stage blood on anyone fortunate enough to linger within reach, including one prim, carefully arranged, and visibly startled scenester girl. After some final shouts of obscene gratitude to their fans, Impaler is gone.
"Metal never goes away," Lindsey remarks one week later, the makeup scrubbed from his face. And he's not boasting. No matter how industriously critics shovel dirt on the genre's casket, metal--like Freddy Krueger or Jesus--perennially rises from the grave to take care of unfinished business. With hard-rock acolytes ranging from Korn to Buckcherry to long-toothed Metallica on the radio waves--and Axl Rose glaring out from the cover of Spin when you'd expect to see him on Behind the Music--Impaler's album title seems apt. Numerous variations on a heavy theme are once again amplifying the not-so-secret desires of suburban male teendom, once again terrifying the neocon ninnies who have appointed themselves our nation's moral protectorate.
When Impaler gathers in its lair--a St. Paul practice space postered with images of Kiss, classic horror flicks, and bare breasts--the four band members chat idly about their chances for success, speaking politely and with elongated Midwestern vowels. Except for bassist Erik Allyn, each has a comfortable paunch. And, except for 32-year-old drummer Croxton, they share a common age, 37. But their space is a monument to a kind of lingering adolescence filled with nerdy collections and gear. Lindsey may have two kids, a house in Eagan, and a day job as a physical therapist, but he has remained as proudly, if unassumingly, uncool as when he was a misfit from a blue-collar family at the affluent Highland Park High School.
"The two things I like, heavy metal and pro wrestling, they come in waves of popularity," says the unreformed fan. "They peak and then they go back underground. But they never go away, because there are always the core fans."
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From the Archive
- Nowhere Man Terry Eason transmits ingenious basement pop Via Satellite (Music - Jun 9, 1999)
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