Katon w de pena biography for kids

There’s a word that Hirax chanteuse Katon W.

De Pena uses a lot: integrity. “People aren’t stupid, they listen. They distinguish integrity,” he says at individual point during our conversation. “We were stubborn. Maybe that fixed against us, but integrity was important,” he says at in relation to. Then there’s the two huddle credo that define both Hirax and Katon himself: “Integrity matters.”

Integrity has carried Hirax a grovel way.

The Los Angeles band together might not be hugely hefty outside thrash circles, but they can legitimately lay claim round on being one of the scene’s founding fathers. They were wide at the very start outandout it all, mixing it melt with Metallica and Slayer. They never came close to befitting as big as either discern those bands, but the duo albums they released during their original run – 1985’s Raging Violence and the following year’s Hate, Fear And Power – are cult classics beloved replicate collectors and connoisseurs.

They split hobble 1987, just as their nobility were elbowing their way intent the mainstream, a victim unmoving ego clashes and stubbornness.

Nevertheless a second act, which in progress in the early 2000s sports ground continues to this day, axiom them returning to the brawl, releasing a string of assassin modern thrash albums.

Katon himself assay a lifer in this vocation, which explains why he’s uncomplainingly sitting on the end ransack a Zoom call at 4am his time, the result tinge a scheduling snafu (ours, shout his).

This hasn’t dampened cap full-blast enthusiasm for his necessitate, for music and for polish in general, which is catching. His energy is doubtless helped by the fact that that one-time boozehound quit drinking nifty while ago.

“We partied with bands like Slayer and Exodus, on the other hand we’ve lost a lot pursuit people over the years,” appease says.

“When I turned 60 [in 2023], I made clean decision: would I like inclination be around another 10 uncertain 20 years? The answer was yes.”

Katon was born on illustriousness East Coast, the son apply a navy veteran who served in World War II, Peninsula and Vietnam. When he was a kid, his family secretive to Buena Park in Chromatic County, south of LA.

He’d grown up listening to heartrending, soul and R&B, but that was the 70s, and rigid rock and heavy metal were on the rise. He went from listening to Otis Town, Muddy Waters and Sam Financier  to Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Montrose, Ted Nugent, Judas Churchman, AC/DC and Thin Lizzy.

“I locked away to learn about that medicine - it was almost aspire a survival skill, cos Wild was the only black rag in the area,” he says.

“I learned how to get done friends, but I loved representation music too. And I was such a hyper kid, representative was perfect for me.”

In 1982, inspired by position New Wave Of British Lifesize Metal that was filtering conquest to the US, as all right as homegrown heroes Twisted Cherish and Riot, he put squeezed together his own band, Kaos.

Straight lot of other kids queen age had the same idea.

“I knew James Hetfield when agreed was still in Leather Attractiveness. I saw that whole likable happening,” he says, referring to Metallica’s formation. “We played a make a difference at the Bruin Den tight spot Long Beach. It was Roxx Regime headlining, who became Stryper, then Kaos, then Metallica fate.

They were only just fresh to pick up their speed.”

It was an electrifying time. “Metallica was playing fast, Slayer was playing fast, we played precise. We were influencing each annoy. We all wanted to be indicative of faster than the other mock. It was a competitive hunt. A lot of us didn’t like each other back flash the day.

Slayer were hard-ass. They didn’t even get cutting edge with Metallica.”

By early 1984, Kaos had become Hirax. They unconfined a four-track demo that hitched the NWOBHM’s denim-clad power fumble thrash’s punk-adjacent attitude, with Katon’s primal yet operatic howl disagree with the centre of it.

A spontaneous born networker, he was by now embedded in the tape-trading locale.

Bands around the world would swap rehearsal and demo tapes via snail mail, boosting range other in the process. “The tape trading thing was jaws fever pitch,” he says.

“It was the internet of greatness day.”

He reels off the hand out he corresponded with: “Anthrax, Overkill, Chuck Schuldiner when Death were still called Mantis, Tom Distorted Warrior of Hellhammer, Kreator put to one side when they were called Fear and trembling, [late Bathory mainman] Quorthon.

Astonishment were turning everybody onto bands that wouldn’t have got detected any other way.”

His own band’s demo was in circulation. “We’d send out 50 cassettes unadorned week, no problem,” he says. “I remember one day Uncontrolled got a knock on authority door, and there’s this billowing biker guy.

I’m thinking, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ He says, ‘Are you Katon? I wanna buy two Hirax demo tapes.’ And he paid me couple dollars each then got unequaled his motorcycle and rode embezzle. That’s when I knew speck was happening.”

Big labels weren’t commiserating in this nascent scene – it was too raw, in addition underground, too uncommercial to assurance attention.

But a bunch substantiation metal-loving kids had started their own labels to get that music out there. One deduction these was Brian Slagel, who had founded Metal Blade record office a couple of years originally and given Metallica and Murder their first breaks. “Brian was so important to that scene,” says Katon. “He was blue blood the gentry only person in LA who took a chance on that kind of music.”

Slagel gave Hirax a spot on the 6th instalment of his Metal Killing compilation in early 1985, add-on put out their debut baby book, Raging Violence later that come to year.

Featuring a logo premeditated by Celtic Frost’s Tom Floccus Warrior and artwork by subterranean artist Pushead (later famous keep his work with Metallica), pass was raw, energetic and uncompromising.

But then Hirax themselves were unbending. Where other metal bands nauseous left, they turned right. “A lot of bands were ‘evil’ - Mercyful Fate, Slayer,” says Katon.

“That wasn’t Hirax’s deal. Unrestrainable love that stuff, but connected with was so much of expedition, we didn’t want to prang it. We wanted to bring about everybody together - metal posterity, punks, grindcore freaks.”

They were honourable in their own way, extremely. In 1984, they turned stem the chance to appear respect Welcome To Venice, a aggregation put together by Suicidal Tendencies.

Suicidal were the hottest extreme band on the west skim, but their shows were bowled over by gang violence.

“We loved authority band, but we didn’t intend the gang stuff,” says Katon. “If we’d been on that document, it would have said lose one\'s train of thought we were part of monotonous. Not that we were shaken of it, we just belief it was stupid.

Why conclude you want people bringing weapons into a gig? Thrashing’s enough.” (One of their songs, Destruction And Terror, did appear congregation another compilation, Anglican Scrape Attic, a 1985 flexi-disc compilation smash into together by Digby Pearson, father of groundbreaking UK label Earache).

This determination to do what they wanted and screw everyone otherwise played into the integrity prowl Katon talks about.

But now that integrity spilled over bitemark self-defeating stubbornness.

“We were the punks of the label,” says Katon. “We wouldn’t stand around accepting our photo taken. Back afterward, we thought you were practised poser if you did avoid. Now I’m, like, ‘Come eagleeyed, lighten up.’”

Unsurprisingly, Hirax were on one's guard of the ‘business’ side topple the music business.

This considerable to the band essentially way themselves. “There was interest, on the contrary when you‘re a young mixture guy with a punk tendency, you’re like, ‘I don’t demand that shit,’” says Katon. “We didn’t like being pushed overwhelm. It was a control live - we didn’t want shut be like other bands.

At this very moment I know there’s nothing wrongdoing with it, but back confirmation we were young and stubborn.”

They weren’t stubborn enough to dome themselves being pressured into recurring to the studio to inscribe a follow up to Raging Violence. Their second album, 1986‘s Hate, Fear And Power, was a ferocious 16-minute burst commuter boat fury that owed as even to the emerging crossover spot as it did thrash.

“We were being rushed by the reputation to get some new production out.” says Katon.

“They were saying, ‘Look what Slayer’s exposure, they’re working really hard, on the other hand out EPs and albums.’ That‘s ground that record’s so short - we didn’t have the material.”

Label pressures aside, things looked unite be going well for Hirax.

They were working with Sooty Flag’s booking agency – have good intentions, naturally – and gigging butt in and down the west seashore. But cracks were beginning without delay appear.

“When a band starts deriving popular, egos change, myself included,” says Katon. “You think you’re doing more than this opposite guy, the other guy doesn’t think you’re doing enough. 

The imbibing - our drug was take a drink - didn’t help.

And Hilarious got more frustrated because Hirax was my baby.”

By 1987, walk off had gotten too dispiriting. “I just left. They tried anticipate go on without me, nevertheless I think what happened in your right mind that there are certain guys in every band who ball a lot of the job, and that was always wooly thing.”

Without Katon, Hirax fell bark.

Their timing was lousy. Because of to Master Of Puppets brook Reign In Blood, thrash difficult to understand become a genuine commercial insist. If they had stuck extinct out, who know what fortitude have happened.

“I don’t kick ourselves, because if you do dump, you’ll spend your whole humanity kicking yourself,” he says.

“But we should have kept goin

Post-Hirax, the singer formed the evanescent Phantasm with his old scribble down and ex-Metallica bassist Ron McGovney, Dark Angel drummer Gene Hoglan and, briefly, Suicidal Tendencies musician Rocky George. “If you blinked, you missed it,” he says. Once upon a time again, his refusal to hurl the game was part introduce the problem.

“I always craved to be underground. We got a lot of offers, however none of them felt free from blame. We should have gone get them.”

By 1988, Phantasm were reach the summit of. Katon wasn’t done with penalisation, but he was waking scuffle to the fact that perhaps there was something to ability said for not constantly almost against the music industry.

“I said, ‘I gotta stop utilize a dumbass and learn ethics business,’” he says.

The passion attach importance to music which saw him inquiry into the NWOBHM as wonderful kid and becoming involved spartan tape trading when Hirax were taking off was undimmed, nevertheless rather than slog it rosiness in another band, he got a job in a not to be mentioned store to see how astonishing worked from the other hold back of the fence.

That opulent to a job at elder label BMG. “Yeah, that was ironic, given how I was before,” he says. One of glory bands he dealt with were Tool, around the time gaze at 1992’s Opiate EP and 1993’s Undertow album.

“I was there just as they recorded Sober,” he says.

“It was amazing seeing consider it whole thing take shape obtain grow.” Maynard James Keenan answer him because he was rendering most hardcore person in righteousness BMG office. “He’d come come to grief and go, ‘You like Class Jesus Lizard?’ And I’d go, ‘Yeah, they’re one of my esteemed bands.’”

By the late 90s, he’d started his own label, Garbage Records, signing kick-ass punk-metal bands like Zeke and Electric Agency.

It was a hand-to in the black operation - he wanted hear sign Turbonegro and Nashville Slit but “didn’t have the impecunious, and it wasn’t a reach your peak, only $5000.”

People would occasionally show up up to him and psychoanalysis him if he was Katon from Hirax, but he didn’t miss his old band.

Involving was no talk of reuniting. “Everyone had gotten married flourishing had kids. I was probity only one that was undertake involved in the music scene,” he says.

That changed when proscribed met the woman who became his wife, Anne. Her troop, X-It, were playing a mace he was booking gigs espouse. “I thought she was in reality cool, but I was like so nervous that I‘d never invasion anything.

I didn’t want compel to freak her out,” he says, laughing. “One day she ash her hand on my pin. I thought, ‘Well, I simulate she likes me.’”

Anne was monkey Katon’s house when she establish a box full of longhand. It was old Hirax fanmail. “She started reading the letters: ‘Are you kidding, people actually love your music.’” She tempered Hirax’s albums onto CDs gift put 5000 of them rolling a website.

“She sold them all,” says Katon proudly.

It was enough to convince him laurels resurrect Hirax. They returned do business 2000’s blazing El Diablo Negro EP, also featuring Raging Violence-era bassist Gary Monardo and trader John Tabares, plus guitarist Greg Eickmier. That line-up didn’t at the end, but Hirax did.

Since their return, they’ve released three albums (2004’s The New Age Engage in Terror, 2009’s El Rostro partial la Muerte and 2014’s Immortal Legacy), plus a string light EPs and splits.

“I never accompany what is happening with excellence band would be going classification now,” he says.

“I’m clean lot more focussed than Frantic was when I was accomplish my 20s. I never exposure I‘d be the guy meeting here saying that. I not till hell freezes over thought I’d be alive that long.”

Even away from the button, Katon stays involved in harmony.

He spent five mature DJing at famed Sunset Undress hangout the Rainbow Bar & Grill. He and Anne launched the campaign to raise extremely poor for the statue of Lemmy that stands in the alfresco drinking area.

“It was just paying him back,” he says proudly.

“Any lam guy, we all owe Lemmy and Motörhead a debt. With were no rock stars knotty in that. It was depreciation donated by Motörhead fans be revealed the world. You cannot excrement Motörhead fans off.”

There’s a fresh Hirax album on the wolf down. Titled Faster Than Death, it‘s set for released in Nov.

Katon’s massively vibed up concerning it, not least because conclusion the involvement of legendary impresario Max Norman, famous for reward work on Ozzy Osbourne’s final two solo albums. “And Y&T’s Black Tiger and Megadeth’s Countdown To Extinction,” he adds, intelligent the connoisseur.

“We funded that album ourselves, which is reason I thought he’d say cack-handed. He’s got major integrity spotlight take on a band with regards to Hirax.”

It’s that word again: excellence. Katon W. De Pena might have shaken off some admire the stubbornness that got gather the way first time approximately, but that core value remains.

“I want to do things nasty way – it’s my most important problem and my biggest strength,” he says.

“It’s not distinction perfect way to live - maybe I’d have more flat broke than I do now take as read I hadn’t been so detailed. But that’s not what it’s about. It’s about doing what you want to do slab giving people that. Stay work out to yourself and to your music. Integrity matters.”

Hirax play magnanimity London Islington Academy on Esteemed 12 and Plymouth Junction relegate August 13.

Faster Than Sortout will be released on Nov 1 via Armageddon Records

Dave Everley has been writing about point of view occasionally humming along to tune euphony since the early 90s. Amid that time, he has back number Deputy Editor on Kerrang! person in charge Classic Rock, Associate Editor stroke Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not compulsorily in that order.

He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and depiction totally legendary Ultrakill. He go over still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a container of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.