Chapter Text
Maelstrum Magazine
I’m sitting in the studio of Upside Down Records. The notoriously private Eddie Munson is sitting on a sofa across from me. His leg bounces and there has not been a moment where he doesn’t have a cigarette hanging from his lips. First impressions are, he’s nothing like his stage persona. The tattooed wild haired singer is quiet, almost nervous as we prepare for his first in depth interview.
“So we should start with your upcoming album. Your third studio album. It’s very different to say the least.”
Munson smirks “Uh… yeah I guess it is.”
If you’re a fan of Corroded Coffin’s thrashing guitars and thumping drums then their new album “Heirs & Heretics” might come as a shock. It still has their gritty, underground style but it’s a beautifully melancholy memoir. A slight lifting of the veil to Munson’s tragic and traumatic past.
“It was just something I had to do, I guess. I had been carrying this shit for ten years. I wrote a lot of the lyrics when I was in my early twenties. I never planned on releasing it. But I think we all have regrets in life and I just had to kind of put it out there, like if I just confronted it maybe I could move on. The band was pretty receptive to it and kinda allowed me to have that space.”
"Obviously you're all from the small town of Hawkins and this album is centred around that period in your life. Any avid fan who's done a little digging can find the newspaper articles. What was it like for you at that time?"
Munson takes a moment, his tongue slips out ever so slightly as he ponders his answer. "It was fucking insane… I’d always been seen as a freak but this [Wrongfully accused of the Hawkins Slayings in 1986] was just… another level. I think anyone who’s grown up in a small town and is different will know what I’m talking about but I had good people around me which made the whole thing - not easier - but I wasn’t alone at least. I think what's most important is not to forget the victims y'know? Like I became the story when really those poor kids should be the ones that are remembered, their families. Not me."
The victims were Christine "Chrissy" Cunningham aged 17, Fred Benson aged 16 and Patrick McKinney aged 18.
"There's a lot of religious imagery. One of the songs, Have Mercy On Me, has a lot of overarching themes of sin and forgiveness. Is that in response to the accusations of satanism that were leveled at you?”
“No.” Munson is quick to set the record straight. “I guess it’s something we’ve always played with in our songs. None of us [Corroded Coffin] are particularly religious, I’m certainly not. The song is about hypocrisy. Look, I am by no means a saint but I find it interesting that the people in society that judge others or seem pretty intolerant are often the ones preaching about loving their neighbor and ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’. I guess it was my way of calling them out on their bullshit” Munson looks up with his signature cheshire cat grin.
Corroded Coffin are no strangers to controversy. They aren’t afraid to push boundaries or talk about political issues, their song, Did the Devil Make the World (While God was Sleeping) from their second album resulted in a number of states banning the song from the airwaves and sales of the album. It seems Munson, while hoping to find some closure with this new album, is not quite ready to back down.
“I take it even though this new album is somewhat different that we should expect to see a return to the usual abrasive and acerbic style fans have come to love and expect? You don’t think the experience of this album has mellowed you in any way, or for lack of a better word, more palatable to the industry?”
“Blame my uncle!” Munson laughs “He raised me this way, send any pending lawsuits to him!” Munson stretches back on the couch and takes a few long drags of his cigarette. “No I wouldn’t say I’ve mellowed. I always wanted our band to be a sort of outlet for young people. A lot of our fans have been mistreated for not fitting the mold that society wants to put them in. Corroded Coffin will always champion them, give them a space to just be themselves while sticking up a finger to bullshit forced conformity.”
“Interesting, you were raised by your uncle?”
“Yeah. I didn’t have the best childhood. It was a pretty abusive household. My uncle got me out of that situation but y’know taking on an angry, frightened preteen as a single parent can be a lot to deal with and I certainly didn’t help. Our local chief of police was like a secondary caregiver” Munson chuckles “But my uncle did his best and I’ll always be grateful to him. Even if his advice most of the time was ‘if someone hits you, you hit 'em back harder’ which tended to land me in more trouble”
There’s a hint of a southern accent when Munson talks of his family, having been born originally in Kentucky before growing up in Indiana.
“But yeah, he was a bit of a trouble maker as well. He taught me a lot. Especially not to let anyone tell you who or what you should be and he always had my back. Heaven help you if you pissed him off”
“Seems like a family trait. How does he feel about your success?”
“He’s probably just glad that he doesn’t need to sit and listen to me for hours trying out new lyrics or riffs or whatever but I owe it all to him. He always played music when I was growing up, we lived in a trailer park so when I was younger he would put on these old records to drown out the noise of the crazy neighbors. Granted it was all whiskey soaked country shit - which I suppose is my guilty pleasure - but he bought me my first guitar. It was a secondhand scuffed up thing but I still have it to this day.” Munson grins.
As we come to the end of our interview we return to talking about the new album.
Woven through sad distorted recollections of a young boy from a broken home, attacked and persecuted for being different, the lasting scars of that experience both physically and metaphorically that led him down a dark path of drug use there seems to be the ghost of his biggest regret - as he puts it- that follows him through every experience.
A constant melody plays lightly in the background, barely distinguishable if you’re not listening for it. It comes together rather poignantly on the last track “Quiet Evenings” where the melody can be heard in all its glory on an echoey bar room piano, played by the very man himself. Munson’s signature raspy voice adds a wonderfully unpolished tone.
It hasn't been overproduced, mixed or changed to add fancy flair or artificial impact. It's a raw, brutally honest recording. It's vulnerable. He sings as if he were a man older than his years, calling out to a long lost love. He lays his heart bare and beautifully underplays the fact that he is still in love with them.
It’s almost annoyingly vague, written in a way that only the person for whom the song has been intended can decipher. Lyrics like “I guess that our being together, Was never meant to be” leaves you despairing over why this pair could not be with each other, desperately hoping for the possibility of their reunion - maybe that is the point. Maybe Munson himself is hoping for a reunion.
The song ends with “And I remember quiet evenings, trembling close to you” as the piano trails off. Which is quite possibly the saddest part of the song. The lyrics themselves can be overlooked on first hearing. A couple trembling together in the evenings could have a myriad of meanings. But given where Munson was in his life at the time I think this is more than an interesting way to end a song. It has depth, an unspoken secret between them.
Munson is not afraid of double meanings or playing with words as we've seen in his previous work but it's not until you listen to the album as a whole that you find this person has been with him throughout. And that is why it is so heartbreaking. After everything they went through together, they still drifted apart.
When I ask him the inspiration behind this heart wrenching song that is so unexpected of the charismatic presence he usually exudes on stage. He gets a far off distant look in his eyes, the knee that has been bouncing throughout this entire interview suddenly stills and it’s a while before he can bring himself to answer.
“Fuck, yeah uh… it’s definitely a letter, or an ode I suppose, to someone. Someone special. Someone that saved me. Uh… yeah I guess…that’s all I want to say about that.”
I feel as if I’ve stumbled through a door and seen something so precious and fragile that it now makes sense why it was locked behind giant rusted unyielding chains for many years. The atmosphere in the room has changed from one of jovial politeness to an oppressive sorrow. In my haste to leave this interview on a light note I moronically blurt “I hope you get a response from her.”
And that is when Eddie Munson drops what might be the most interesting, intriguing and quite frankly unexpected insight into what’s behind the veil. “Him.” he says as he shakes my hand and walks me to the door.
Corroded Coffin's new album Heirs & Heretics will be available from March 27 1996.