Deadguy – “Fixation on a Coworker”

DB HOF NO. 17

The making of Deadguy’s “Fixation on a Coworker”

released: 1995

label: Victory

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“Hi Kevin, I’m coming down to your office now. Um… could you please make sure that noise you’re always blasting is off by the time I get there? Thanks!”

It was late ’95/early ’96 and I was enrolled in grad school, employed as a teaching assistant. The above quote was a paraphrased heads-up my thesis advisor would quip over the phone a few times a week before coming down for meetings regarding all things educational. Usually his request wasn’t so polite, but that’s understandable, as the “noise” in question was Fixation on a Coworker by New Jersey’s Deadguy and, rightly, it scared the living shit out of him. It didn’t help that this caustic, skin-peeling metal/hardcore mix was almost constantly being cranked at maximum volume and my slice of academic real estate was located at the end of a dank, poorly lit hallway in one of the oldest and ricketiest buildings on campus. No wonder I rarely received visitors—academic superiors or co-eds willing to “anything” for a passing grade alike; Fixation was not only a metal/hardcore benchmark that dripped with blatant negativity and confrontational anger, but the jagged rhythms provided by drummer Dave Rosenberg and bassist Tim Naumann [AKA Pops], Chris Corvino [AKA Crispy] and Keith Huckins’ slash ‘n’ burn guitars, and Tim Singer’s hellish vocals made it feel like that fucking building, if not your entire existence, was about to come crashing down around you. Fixation’s sales figures may not be on par with those of most of our other Hall of Fame inductees, but the album’s influence is inarguable, as it brought a new musical freedom, cantankerous attitude and irreverent aesthetic to extreme music, paving the way for much of the tech/metal/noisecore of the last decade. For that, we welcome Fixation to our hallowed Hall.

—Kevin Stewart-Panko