NEWS: The return of Seattle's Plague Bearer

Recently the Seattle death metal veterans Drawn and Quartered made a very interesting announcement. They announced that Plague Bearer had been resurrected. With that in mind, this publication asked for a bit of history and context about Plague Bearer and its relation to Drawn and Quartered. For Seattle underground death metal supporters and supporters of underground death metal in general, this news should be of interest. Below you will find the text by guitarist Kelley Kuciemba.

PLAGUE BEARER is a music project that I developed in 1992. I was influenced by the emerging music of the time such as MORBID ANGEL and BOLT THROWER as well as all of the bands of that era, including grindcore and black metal bands. After a few attempts at being in or starting a band, I established PLAGUE BEARER and recruited some like-minded individuals (Jeff Smith-bass, Eric Brewer-drums, Shalom-vocals, Kelly Kuciemba-guitars). After some rehearsals and a performance at the legendary LAKE UNION PUB. The line-up changed in 1993 to Dave Procoppio-drums, Danny Hodge-bass and Herb Burke-vocals, Kelly Kuciemba-guitars and the “Bubonic Death” demo was recorded. 3 more shows at the LAKE UNION PUB, the last 2 with Jason Austin-drums were performed. Ultimately we needed a permanent drummer to try to get off the ground. In 1994 Matt Cason joined as the drummer, along with Herb and I. We had both Jeff and Danny as bass players early on. We renamed the band in 1995 or so as we slowly worked on our new material Danny helped record the self titled DRAWN AND QUARTERED later in 1996. PLAGUE BEARER became DRAWN AND QUARTERED.

Over the years I would develop new music ideas and concepts outside of DRAWN AND QUARTERED. In 1999 I started writing and rehearsing some THRASH and BLACK METAL inspired DEATH METAL in different tunings from the original PLAGUE BEARER. From 2000-2001 we recorded the “Incinerate the Flesh of Christ” 4-song demo and a 7-song album that has yet to be professionally released called “Defiled by Sodomy”. The line-up was Kelly Kuciemba-guitar and Tadd Grinke-drums, with Greg Reeves-bass and Herb Burke-vocals. This was music and lyrics I wrote with Tadd, and I had my bandmates in DRAWN AND QUARTERED help in the recording. We started working towards playing a show, and release the recordings, but had to stop the project due to a work change and my other band changing drummers while writing our 2nd D&Q album.

In 2004 I was able to record 4 new PLAGUE BEARER songs for an EP “Rise of the Goat” that was eventually released by NUCLEAR WINTER records. The line-up consisted of Mike-drums(FUNERAL AGE), Kelly Kuciemba-guitars with Herb-vocals and Greg Reeves-bass. These were in some ways a continuation of the 1999-2001 PLAGUE BEARER style, but the guitars were tuned back down and Herb mixes death and black metal style vocals. The EP was recorded at the AUTOPSY ROOM, where we'd done 4 of our full-length records as DRAWN AND QUARTERED. We were all too busy with other projects to work on PLAGUE BEARER any further at that time.

In 2004 members of DRAWN AND QUARTERED formed WINDS OF PESTILENCE. To me, it was basically a continuation of PLAGUE BEARER (band name came from our 1993 demo). Greg Reeves-drums, John Fryer-guitar, Kelly Kuciemba-guitar, Herb Burke-bass/vocals. Some of the songs were from my PLAGUE BEARER back catalog of songs and riffs. Herb also contributed a song that was never recorded, unfortunately. WINDS OF PESTILENCE rehearsed, performed shows and did a small tour before recording a demo produced by Dario Derna in 2008. The band disbanded soon after.

Over the last 16 years I'd occasionally run into my friend Tadd, and talk about jamming again. Finally in 2017 the time was right for us to start rehearsing as PLAGUE BEARER again! I have also been working on getting all of the recordings released in various formats. In 2017 the DRAWN AND QUARTERED-“Plague Bearer” cassette album was released on END OF MUSIC. This tape consists of the 1993 “Bubonic Death' demo and 2004 “Rise of the Goat” EP with a new logo, artwork and lyrics. The music consists of material sounding similar to DRAWN AND QUARTERED, and the members are from D&Q thus the title. A CD project has been proposed with VOMIT RECORDS, and the next release is to be titled PLAGUE BEARER-“Winds of Pestilence” Tape and CD to be released by END OF MUSIC. I'd like to release vinyl of those recordings and possible the “Incinerate the Flesh of Christ” demo. The concept of the project is to perform songs from our PLAGUE BEARER and WINDS OF PESTILENCE recordings.

Will there be new PLAGUE BEARER music? There is a very good chance of that. I'd like to spend some time just working on these songs. I've spent a good deal of time reworking certain songs and trying various things. To keep my life easy, we've tuned back down to B (from the Eb of WINDS OF PESTILENCE), since my guitars are set-up for that. So we've been working on getting a set of songs together chosen from our old demos and recordings. I'd like to work on the songs we have, focus on being a live band. We have plenty of room to grow and at some point work on new music and recordings.

PLAGUE BEARER is Tadd “Anus Defiler” Grinke-drums, Kelly "Plague Bearer' Kuciemba-guitars, Herb “The Butcher” Burke-bass/vocals and Mike “Nihilist” Sheldon-vocals (THY INFERNAL/WRAITHEN/LORD GORE/IN MEMORIAM/ABAZAGORATH). We are rehearsing for FAMINE FEST SEATTLE INVASION 2017 September 22-23rd!

Thanks for the support! HAIL METAL MANIACS!!! K.S. Kuciemba 7/27/2017

facebook.com/drawnandquartered