Before Death, Mayhem, and Morbid Angel rose from the depth of the undead, there was POSSESSED! Indubitably Possessed are the kings of 80's thrash/death metal. POSSESSED were a barbarous, unmerciful maelstrom both on and off stage. The were the epitome of what fucking speed, death or black metal is all about! Vocalist jeff Beccera alone made an essential, stalwart impact to the face of metal music as we know it. Even Chuck Shuldiner (DEATH) has cited Jeff as his primary vocal influence. What more can I say? Micha Kite got the extreme privilege to converse with Mr. Becerra recently after a series of hit and miss phone calls (Jeff still has penchant for a night out on the town.) So come hither if you dare.
POSSESSED is eternally omnipresent in the metal world. I threw the opposition at Jeff, "what if" the band had blown up into full potential? "Well, to get much bigger then we were, I don't know if it would have been cool or not. We just wanted to party, fuck some girls, do some drugs, just basically thrash you know? Just tear shit up! We wanted to stay underground, and we were starting to hit some huge fucking shows, selling out stadiums and shit. After awhile it was like we did what we wanted to do, and I kinda wanted to go back home to tell you the truth (ha, ha, ha...). At the time, Mike Sus was going to college, and Larry wanted to get out of the band and wanted to get the Primus thing going (after BLIND ILLUSION of course.) Who wouldn't, that's a musician's dream. I didn't want to be 35 years old and playing metal. I still have $20,000 in guitars, and I still play for family and friends. I'm getting married and I'm going to finish collage in June. I just couldn't do that playning in a band. It gets old after awhile, and you can lose your identity in that shit."
The original mind warping album Seven Churches paints a picture of horror and Hell. Originally Seven Churches cover was to depict a horrendous and blashemous vision. So what happened to the original hyped artwork that ended in a Back in Black type layout? "(laughs) Yeah, we got declined on our first one. It was a nun hanging from a tree in front of a satanic church. All the windows were stained glass pentagrams, and there were all these cracked gravestones with upside down crosses on them. Some of the graves had our names on them, and this owl was holding onto the chain that was wrapped around this nun with her tits hanging out. It was really kind of cool man, but we ended up going with the simplest, cheapest album cover. Now that I look back on it, I like that style better. It didn't overstress the point. I think that helped achieve some different attention. Like the part in the movie "Trick or Treat" where the Seven Churches album is floating across the kid's room. That was pretty cool."
There has always been controversy when the origins of SLAYER and POSSESSED and discussed. Neither claims to have been induced by one another, and both claiming they were the first of their kind. Let's straighten up on rumor surrounding Kerry King embezzling his gauntlets up coast into San Francisco to become POSSESSED. "Mike Torrao was telling me about that. Mike used to take care of a lot of the business stuff back then. I can reaffirm it with him, but if I remember vaguely, Kerry was considering joining POSSESSED. We didn't want a POSSESSED meets SLAYER type thing, because both bands are so kick ass on there own. I thing it would have been a shame if we didn't have both bands."
Rumor is something that has always encompassed POSSESSED. From the rumors of their reunions, to the rumors of the fatal accident that left Jeff in a wheelchair canceling the chances of a POSSESSED return infinitely. What really happened? "It was about eight years ago, I was coming home from work and I got robbed and shot by a couple of crack heads. You may hear a lot of stories, but that's what really happened. Becoming paralyzed is a crushing thing, but what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. I felt sorry for myself for about four years. I did a lot of drugs and drank a lot. Then one day the post dramatic stress wore off, the sky was blue and I sat the whiskey bottle down and kinda went on. Now, these are the best days of my life. I was going to law school, but I decided I hate lawyers (laughs.) I'm just gonna get my BA and play it by ear, I'm kinda eager to get back to work."
Recently Jeff got a chance to execute vocal duties with SADISTIC INTENT on the impending Possessed Tribute Album to be released by Dwell records later this year. so are Jeff's old pipes still holding up? "oh yeah, I thought it sounded killer! We did "the Exorcist" and it was fun as fuck, we hammered down some tracks and parties a little bit, it came out really good. I think I sound different because the song is turned in a lower key. I guess that's what all the kids are doing now is tuning down, which we had experimented with on POSSESSED's intros but we never took it to "B". It sounds so heavy. What I'm doing isn't rocket science though, the screaming is the easy part, you just gotta get fukin' pissed off and worship the devil."
Those who weren't old enough for the initial 80's Metal crush can now buy some of the prime cuts from that era. POSSESSED-Seven Churches and Beyond the Gates, EXODUS-Pleasures of the Flesh, DARK ANGEL-Darkness Descends, and AGNOSTIC FRONT-One Voice are just a few of the quintessential albums Relativity has re-mastered and re-released. After such a hiatus from public release what dose Jeff think of the recent Relativity reissues? "Well I have seen them, but I don't own them. I should be a bigger stick in the mud to the record companies than I am, but figure there is only a limited amount of money in the music business, and you get what you can. I think you should be playing just to play, if it's that kind of music. I do some of the merchandise that's produced right now. It's always cool for me to see people wearing POSSESSED shirts. I'm not concerned with making money. I just want to see the shit out there."
-Micha Kite-