OVERKILL's BOBBY 'BLITZ' ELLSWORTH Interviewed By FoundryMusicHammer

OVERKILL has been a legendary force among New York/New Jersey Metalheads (like myself) not to mention legions of headbangers worldwide. Bobby 'Blitz' Ellsworth has been fronting the band throughout its twenty year-long history. I finally caught up with Blitz on April 22nd for what is my fourth interview with him over the span of the bands career.

Blitz calls me, and immediately starts off the conversation by busting my balls for living in the same area as him..and for blowing him off the day of the 2003 Yankees opening game; the game that was called off that Monday and subsequently played Tuesday (the day we originally had this set up for this interview). I switch on the speakerphone, and off we go...

FoundryMusicHammer: Can you hear me alright?

Bobby Blitz: Yup! Can you hear me now?

FMH: I can hear ya! (That old gag.) I wanted or am gonna start with some stupid questions. I run down the whole Foundry thing and he’s game.

BB: Alright, OK

FMH: When you felt the fire was it hot?

BB: It was actually hot. That was written about me being torched in L’Amour, so yea it was hot. A guy came up behind me with a lighter and a can of hairspray and he let me have it. Yes it was hot.

FMH: Is that a true story?

BB: Uh, ha(Yes)

FMH: How bout the Mets?

BB: What do you want to know? Oh how bout the Mets. You know what it is? I’m uncomfortable on the commitment of players. I think on paper they can have the National League Championship.

FMH: On paper for the last couple of years.

BB: On paper, On paper this year they are. But goddamn commit! Dive for that ball Cedeno . HAHAHAHA. Do not be afraid and say your leading off for a NY team and playing center field. I’d suppose Bernie Williams is proof of that. I’m really optimistic about Burnitz coming back around. I think Wigginton will handle third base fine Rey Sanchez at shortstop fine, Alomar’s got to hit 300, Mo Vaughn’s got to have 35-37 dingers. Piazza has to have 45. Right now I’m cautiously optimistic.

FMH: Did you really taste the blood that you longed for?

BB: ( He starts laughing and then says) I don’t even remember what song that was. (I start singing it like a dweeb) Continued laughing from Blitz as I make an ass out of myself. OH, god the Over Kill saga’s. No I never tasted the blood that I longed for. As a matter of fact when I bite my mouth I go shit!

FMH: That hurt!

BB: Yeah, that hurt. Ouch!

FMH: What was the most outrageous sex act that you have seen on tour that you took part in or not, Just witnessed?

BB: (He just loses it right here) Did I take part? First of all I just witnessed. Hum. I saw a camera tripod disappear.

FMH: I start to do the Caddyshack, hum, ah-ha.

BB: At full extent ion!

FMH: Ouch! Came out her ear.

BB: I one rear and out the other.

FMH: Where does Chaly live.

BB: NJ, he’s out of the cancer belt, he’s a Met fan. He only comes out at night.

FMH: Did you ever sleep with a bat?

BB: A couple of Vampireses, hahaha. Little scales on their spines.

FMH: OK let us get to the serious questions.

BB: Oh they weren’t. Fingering with a fucking Lollipop, kinda says it all.

FMH: We’ve sorta know of… each other over the many years. How do you look back at the days of boozing and parting?

BB: It was always necessary. I had some great times with that band. I’m never one to preach to other people that it is the wrong thing to do. I was just done it is that simple. I have done it for seventeen years hard and I had fun. It just got crappy at the end. When your parting with a group of people and you are the only one in the room. It’s not any fucking fun anymore.

FMH: All those years we weren’t even in the room? We were just feeding you beers. Here more beer.

BB: Dude, I remember I was writing WFO and I was sitting in this basement and it was covered in beer cans up to your ankles. And I just sat down here talking to myself. How the fuck am I doing this even writing this record? I suppose in retrospect the record came out good. But when you look at that record, its probably the most confused bunch of lyrics that you’d ever read in your entire life. Every record turned to eternal pain. I looked back at that record and said hey that its time to fucking stop this. All I could talk about is how everything hurts. Ya know (as he lets a laugh out). So the point being is that it was a fun ride. I’m not gonna say it wasn’t. It was one hell of a ride. It’s good to be on the other side of the fence now because I never go to bed forgetting the last thing was that I said. And its usually the last thing that I mean. Its not an issue, there are no more issues in my life.

FMH: Cool and good luck!

BB: Nine years almost now eight and a half.

FMH: No more True Blues?

BB: Actually on the NJ quit net that’s why I’m sucking this lollipop. I moved it up to Marlboros. In fact its my only bad habit that and public nudity. Laughs

FMH: Other than obvious stuff any other meanings to Killbox 13?

BB: Do you know what a Killbox is?

FMH: Enlighten us.

BB: It is a screen in the cockpit of a fighter jet. It by no means had anything to do with recent world situations or to have political ramifications or whatever. In retrospect it worked out pretty well. This has always been a band that has been aggressive edge of things. I was actually watching a special on the 91 Gulf War. They were interviewing a pilot about hitting a target in the Killbox and I said that’s our word. That’s not his, its ours. Not the US Navy or Air Force, that’s ours.

FMH: Now its mine!

BB: We coupled it with our team this being the thirteenth studio release. I suppose in hindsight hitting the mark is such. If you look at it abstractly It wasn’t about bombing the hell out of Iraq it was more so about the word was very descriptive of the band as apposed to anything else and it had the word Kill in it. Kinda a cool title the way we looked at it.

FMH: Did Jarvis Smith come up with the new medallion logo? And for the cover and stuff like that?

BB: We had Line Art and his name was Travis. We had line art done by a guy out in the Midwest that has done some stuff for us. This guy Gerry Nibble.

FMH: He’s a writer.

BB: Yea he does cartoons and all sorts of other stuff. Jerry has always been a very good friend of the band. He’s always helped us with this stuff. He gave us some line art of it and we had it a round for a long period of time we sent it back to him and he said he was busy. We sent it to Travis who sent it to another guy and they really brought the lone art to life. They used the outline and filled everything in from the outline. We said we want it to look like an old uniform that it is pinned to. It’s really just supposed to be a medallion. The record sorta has a military feel to it. Even like the pictures; I’m like a big Civil War buff Matthew Brady was the first action photographer. He’s one of the first to take pictures of the battlefield. Even the internal shots on that record were supposed to be that kinda stone face almost out of focus black and white brown and white vibe to it. Travis was responsible from Travis with help from his friend.

FMH: Are you guys gonna make any medallions out of it?

BB: It makes sense wouldn’t it. It is all about dollars and cents. I do want to be stuck here hold 35,000 medallions.

FMH: I bust out laughing.

FMH: Do you feel any of the vibes from any other of the band members bands are finding their way into the Overkill sound?

BB: No not really. I think this is a great blend of all the shit we’ve done in the past. This is like WOW, there nothing groundbreaking on this record except that its fucking solid! The record has a vibe. Not the individual songs I think that if “I Rise” was missing I think the record would be less. I think if “Dance” was missing the record would be less. I think that we accomplished with this record was putting songs together and creating a vibe on a record. You know we make records not songs. That’s the misconception here. And when it hits, its got a feeling. Whether it’s a record like Horrorscope. Horrorscope was a record. You can put it on from start to finish and then say that was is leaving me with a feeling 55 minutes of it. Killbox has a vibe to it from start to finish and that’s where we hit. As for the side projects, there’s no Bronx on this. We’ve always written that; have a gloomy Doomy face to it. We’ve had like five different writing phases over this twenty years, maybe six. Its that thrash face, its that slowed down melody and heavy ballad like thing that you hear on “Till I Die”. The thrashy stuff, the doom and gloom the crystal clear, the hot be damned the Over Kill temporary “Devil By the Tail”. This is what we do and they are not all the same. The other guys are coming in with Dave’s SpeedKill, DD Bronx thing; it doesn’t really have any effect on outcome.

FMH: I thinks its more thrashy throughout, like YEA!

BB: I think it’s a reinvention you know. If you hear Dave’s stuff it is spectacular rooted aggressive stuff. I think Dave’s SpeedKill is about Chaos as a compliment. Not to be detrimental to it. In order to get Chaos across to be pure is outstanding to do that. I think we are about Chaos but a more controlled chaos. There is somebody steering the ship quite honestly. I think that is what the difference is. A guy like Dave had a riot playing on this. When I hear Dave’s stuff from Speed, I sorta say it has that unbridled Exodus thing. When I heard Bonded By Blood, no matter how much you liked the record you can’t tell me there wasn’t a plan behind that. It was their first fucking record, they got lucky. It was a great fucking record and they are great musicians but they got lucky with a first record out of the box. It’s an all time classic and it is about that kind of Chaos and I think Dave’s got that kind of vibe to about the Chaos. I think that Over Kill over all these years, we kinda know what we are doing when it comes to how we are going to portray ourselves. Or how it’s gonna be, how the chaos is going to be portrayed and who’s gonna push the buttons for it. If it’s the whole band or Dave’s side leans on Derek’s side.

FMH: The Soloing is amazing and it is surely solid.

BB: There is no doubt that the guitar is back for us quite obviously in the hands of Dave. I attribute where this record is because the guy world on this shit forever. He put more hours into this more than any other band member to make sure it was done right. Make sure it was recorded right. We gave him a free hand as far in the interpretation and arrangement when it came to certain things we said nothing is sacred from overdubs. We all don’t like it well all just dump it in the mix it’s that simple. You can overdub the whole fucking song. It was like handing a kid the keys to Toys R Us. He really went ape-shit on it but he did it tastefully. There is a difference between going ape-shit going WOW listen to me. As apposed to listen to how good the song sounds now. That is what I mean about pushing it up a few notches and I attribute it to Dave. He brought the guitar back and he brought it back healthy, brought it back fresh, reinvented and in some cases he put the songs over the top.

FMH: Yup! Do you find it key to be in touch via the internet and stuff?

BB: Yeah! How do you think I get laid? Laughs

FMH: Do you see that 10000 more units went out because you went online a handful of years ago?

BB: No No No. I don’t think it has anything to do with anything. I don’t attribute it to that. I thinks it, you know its really simple for us and as much as you said we’ve known each other for a long period of time. There’s really never been any ulterior motive by myself or by the band. Sometimes business is business and you gotta get down. You gotta move through shit and you gotta make shit happen. I think the way we are is the way we are and its that simple. I think when people who appreciate things from people. Like if they come and take the time to come on and ask me a question I’m probably gonna have time to answer it (the message board). I may not go on everyday but sometimes I do. Then maybe I’ll take three weeks off, but eventually I’ll get to it. It s something that keeps us grounded. This hasn’t been a band based on popularity it has been based on we like doing this and that why people can asks us those questions. It is a comfortable feeling for me when they can go that far to ask. I can definitely take a step or two in that direction and answer.

FMH: Getting to know your fans was a bit funny.

BB: I know all of them, I know their faces. The Chat Rats, you were there. Shake hand and how’s it going and occasionally get a private message on there you know. This or that, I heard something went wrong in your life and wanted to send you this well wish and that’s a nice thing. Its not really a horrible fucking thing. That to me is simple one of the perks of this whole thing is you get to meet good people through it.

FMH: this is a three part question. How long did it take to get the Wrecking DVD together? Was the DVD packaging an undertaking? How did you pull off two DVD’s?

BB: It took us from when we recorded it until October. It was roughly five weeks before the release in the states. We had problems with editing. With people being hired and in our opinion it was out of their league. They were handing us stuff that never looked like it never changed from what is called the truck edit. When the directors calling from one camera to the next. The live feed that shows up in the truck. It didn’t look any different than that. It totally had no excitement it just went on and on. So much space between songs... Shit not locking up. The strobe lights just throwing everything out of whack. Staying on that strobe for four minutes right in that same spot sorta coming on for the whole song and its in that spot and he’s saying he can’t find other shots. I’m going you had nine fucking cameras. You had nine cameras you can’t tell me this was the only one on. In any case we pulled that out of his hands in late summer 2002. In early September we gave it to a company in Rhode Island that we have worked closely with to make this happen . They put it together. These guys had high class credentials. Worked real closely with what we wanted out of it. We said we want excitement. The excitement was movement on this, cuts with Tim. Tim is directing the cuts you’ll be able to hear it in the drums. There shouldn’t be more than a four count on one shot. So we did have a lot of input. When it came to the packaging we put a whole bunch of different live shots from that show. That’s actually a Jerry Nibble cover. When it comes to the two DVD’s? DD and I did the other one in 2001 and it was a history of the band and we did it with this guy J Bones from Viking Video, kinda a local guy. I was introduced to him by Dan Lorenzo of Hades. I love what he did with the Hades thing. Kinda a bootleg behind the music deal. W e were gonna actually sell that to Sanctuary. But when we decided to move labels lets hold it and add it to the DVD. One of the things people scream about is the upping price of DVD’s. if it was gonna make it that long it would be a value. Three and a half hours on DVD, we haven’t heard any complaints.

FMH: Why did you go with the brutal master Colin Richardson to produce this record?

BB: Friendship, relationship, trust. He mixed for us in the past and always we’ve been happy with him. My Colin story is that he flew from Leeds to London and fly’s From London to Newark. Somebody gets him. The Engineer is doing cuts and Colin comes in a nice mannered guys. They say high, Kentish. He says he’s hungry and the engineer runs to get him a menu so he can call. Then he says can we leave him alone in the control room for an hour. Just so he can hear what we’ve been up to since the last demo. We just met him so we leave and I look back and he’s standing on a chair playing air guitar, doing like he’s Pete Townsend doing the whirly bird thing.

FMH: REALLY

BB: And right, really. I turned to DD and said that this is gonna be the best thing that we’ve done in our lives or we’re fucked- laughs.

FMH: Here’s your Spinal Tap record.

BB: Obviously we are happy with the outcome and that’s what Colin is about enjoying this thing. And we are to. I think when we started back in the underground and it progressed to wouldn’t it be great to have a person to have a person produce a record for us when we can just focus on our tracks. Who would be the natural choice? It would be Colin. Mr. Drums and guitars and Mr. Metal. Really a good choice.

FMH: What happened with the cancelled dates.

BB: New agent. Dissatisfied with his definition of a tour. He had so many weeks to do this and send it in, it looked like it was going fine. Then we told to confirm and he balked. Apparently all the money wasn’t confirmed. Venues were confirmed and he had to go back and have them confirm. By the time this happened it was three weeks to the first date. We were like what the fuck are you doing? W e thought we were in advertisement?? No! We had to blow it. you can’t do a tour with three weeks lead time. In many cases it was being advertised but not in all cases. There would have been some great shows and others with two weeks knowing were coming. It was based on that. We had to reorganize. Even if the money came in it would have been a professional disaster. When you do 200 when you normally do 1,000 based on the lead time. You’re cutting your own throat. As far as letting people know you have impact on the market. People don’t know that. They see Over Kill is coming up and they’ll miss the other eight weeks of that. Why didn’t I know, huh nobody’s talking about it. Maybe I’ll go maybe it’s just me. 150 show up and go god these guys aren’t drawing like they used to. Laughs, right. We’ve been doing this long enough to know.

FMH: Why not on Ozzfest.

BB: I can tell you we’ve tried every time and I don’t know what it is. Its about the new bands. I suppose we don’t have the reputation that Motörhead would have. We tried all through the CMC years.

FMH: Cradle Of Filth aren’t to new and they made it. They’ve been around ten year. It’s a bummer. (BB:They are way more evil than us.) The Newark was summed up as a cluster fuck.

FMH: Would you ever go back to putting the white face paint on?

BB: HAHAHA to be more evil than Cradle Of Filth.

FMH: The skulls and stuff like that. I got this off the DVD thinking it would be funny.

BB: That was our journey through puberty, now were done. I couldn’t even say for a goof, I’d be laughing too hard. Were gonna get laid tonight guys!

FMH: Are their different meanings to the songs?

BB: let me give you a general overview. Naturally introspective, always alittle deeper from record to record. Simply a journey. Finding out what makes the man tick. Don’t think the man is any different than another man or women that listen to this. Used as a guideline through the whole thing the seven deadly sins. How they have affected me. Which ones do I celebrate which ones do I find as flaws or downfall and kinda use that as a general overview? In many of the songs they are named. “Devil By The Tail” is envy, “Crystal Clear” is lust, “Unholy” is greed. Anger gets a few spotlights in there.

FMH: Then you get to “I Rise” and…?

BB: It’s about overcoming. Really about making your own decisions and coming to your own conclusions. Not necessarily being the sheep. I don’t want to get to deep. It’s been a puzzle over a lot of years. They have specific meanings to me. But I think its kinds wrong to sit there and say it means this and now it ruins the whole tune for you. A lot of it is pulling up your boots, getting knocked down getting up again. Finding out what knocks you down. Are you willing to take the chance again? It’s the hopes, dreams and the fears and facing the fears. I’ve always, since Horrorscope every record is deeper than the last. For me it becomes a release for me when the whole things done.

For more on Bobby 'Blitz' Ellsworth and OVERKILL, check out their official website at WreckingCrew.com, and be sure to pick up their latest disc, Killbox 13, out now on Spitfire Records.