In 1993 I met the guitarist of Sell Death, Edward Beacham, at the San Canto Mall working in the record shop, Funki Music. He was planning to leave in the middle of his shift for a smoke of heroin when I walked up to pay for Vulgar Display Of Power by Pantera and I could see the heroin desperation on his face. I invited him back to the care home to smoke heroin and sniff up coke. He agreed and sneaked out. We got to the care home and we sneaked upstairs. We got halfway upstairs when Dinah shouted I grabbed her and told her that I'd get her hooked up with Wesley if she shut up and didn't say anything about Ed. Me and Ed got into my room and immediately got out the heroin and started to smoke it. Between puffs we talked about music, more specifically metal music and different genres. As time got on we talked until dinner. I finished my dinner and took my leftovers up for Ed. Ed slept over at the care home and got fired from the record shop. Ed was cool. Ed found a guitar in Ian’s room. He started playing and it was absolutely the greatest thing I’ve ever heard. He was an awesome guitarist, almost as good as Slash and Zakk Wylde. As soon as Liz found out Edward was staying over without permission, Ed left so quickly that he left most of his stuff. We met again in The Whisky A-Go-Go watching Ratt play a gig, we watched for free by sneaking in via bathroom a year later. We sat down and met a guy called Matthew Ross who wanted to be called Skar. We talked and he mentioned that he played bass for his brother, Randy's band, Dark Mist. We met up with Skar the next day in a huge abandoned warehouse that stunk of piss, stale piss, stale beer and sewers. Anyway we had our equipment although Edward only had a black acoustic guitar. We played 'Love Buzz' by Nirvana because the whole point was can he play bass well, or just a poser. Poser, kiss my ass, he was as good as Krist Novoselic. So we were three ambitious dudes, wanting to form a decent band and without a rhythm guitarist or singer, we were screwed. We put ads in magazines, newspapers, shops and on the internet. Finally after six months we got a reply just before we gave up. “Hi there I was wondering if I could talk to William Campbell?” The guy on the phone asked eagerly. “Yes, I am William Campbell, can I help you with anything?” I asked getting excited. “I was wondering if your job openings for a singer and rhythm guitarist are still open, me and my brother would love to be a part of your band.” He asked tense. “You're the only one to reply so yeah meet you tomorrow at the huge abandoned warehouse, Down town, bring equipment?” I asked demandingly. “Sure meet you 12pm.” The guy replied about to burst. He then hung up. The next day at 12pm we waited for these guys. They finally arrived at 2pm when we were about to pack up. The guys apologised. I went off my head, “How could you be late if we can't have you turn up early or on time how can we rely on you for anything else, leave we'll get some organised guys!” I screamed at them, I was furious. That's how we met Otto Durst. (no relation to Fred Durst, Limp Bizkit) Otto came up to us asking if we needed any help. We replied with a no we're good but thanks. Otto picked up the acoustic and started to play 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' then straight into the whole of 'I'm Broken' by Pantera. We stood there astonished by his skills. He was totally awesome. We looked at each other and said you're hired simultaneously. He looked at us and then asked what he was hired for I said, lead guitarist and I'm terribly sorry Ed but you can be rhythm guitarist. Now the hunt for a singer began. We auditioned so many really bad hopefuls and found Riley Orwell. He was a good singer, he was like Paul Dianno from Iron Maiden, his voice was suited for one thing and we needed the Bruce Dickinson. He did a few gigs until we replaced him with James Floyd. It was discovered that as a singer James was no good but a great guy. We broke the news to him and then asked a guy named Dave Wells to join as the singer. Dave we found via newspapers. Dave was a good singer but not great. He had anger issues and had more than often beaten me up for messing up my drum patterns, when he didn't play drums and I was just a midge out of time. He was looking for an excuse to beat someone up. Dave lasted about six months. We then held auditions for our lead singer, only one problem during that, everyone except Otto was high on whatever they found and all the stored up alcohol we had. If there's one thing you should know, but might regret knowing; In Sell Death when we are drunk and stoned we want to fuck with anyone we can. Those auditions were short, we chose the first guy and then began calling hookers to meet us at the giant warehouse. We were all there with our hookers, except Otto, he went home to see his girlfriend but we didn't realise until he told us. Otto is the smart, real, shy, anti-drug one in Sell Death, but he's a good, funny, awesome guy to talk to. The singer we hired was shit and that's put in the nicest way possible. We then met Zakk Sullivan through Otto, he was a close friend who could sing and play rhythm guitar. Edward was thrilled to hear that Zakk could play rhythm because Edward and Otto could play lead guitar. We met Zakk and he was a great guitarist and an even better singer, he was the greatest singer we'd ever auditioned. We had a gig on the Saturday and we had acquired Zakk on the Tuesday so we were all nervous to see if he had learned all of our songs. He didn't fail to impress, knowing all the lyrics and not knowing just a couple where the rest of the band and the crowd sang the lines. His guitar skills were just like his singing skills, they were amazing and he knew every chord, tab and power chord. He could sing and play his guitar with his eyes closed eventhough we advise not to. After about a year of playing small gigs, we hit it big after Metallica, Megadeth and Pantera saw our show in The Whisky A Go-Go. They told their record companies and they wanted a demo. Metallica came backstage at our next gig and told us that they would pay to let us record a demo to give to the record companies that could possibly get us signed. We were honoured. Sadly Vertigo didn't like our demo and neither did Roadrunner nor Sony. Pantera's label signed us. Right away we recorded an album, played Sonisphere, Bloodstock and Download to earn us publicity. We also released nine singles in one year and made music videos for them, which we didn't want to do because we wanted to remain anonymous to everyone but people who knew us, saw us live or met us and asked about us. I didn't want to be in music videos because I wasn't a good actor and my ability to play along to a track that we created is really bad. I can't play drums that don't make any noise, but on the other hand Queen decided to put out a music video for Bohemian Rhapsody because they weren't going to lip sync on Top Of The Pops. We would turn something like that down because we don't lip sync. We then released Future Demons in 2007 via Vertigo, getting us back and signing us at the beginning of 2007. A year later we released Death Rampage, then ...And Back To Hell, then Forever More Death a year later, a year after we released Sell Our Death and afterwards we released Kill and Sell. We are now more well-known than Evile and Adler's Appetite. We had arrived after we got showered with free items. It was amazing even after we played Wacken, Metal Camp, Headbanger's Ball and Orion fest, We also played the last Ozzfest gig before it stopped. We were received very well. Always received with applause, cheers, whistles and screams. People will now sing along to our songs, it was awesome.
