Impaler

Were it not for the fortuitous clueless-ness of Tipper Gore and her fellow, misinformed "Washington Wives" in the Parents Music Resource Center, who placed them on their notorious "offensive albums" list alongside Prince, Cyndi Lauper, and Judas Priest, St. Paul, MN's Impaler would likely be a long forgotten footnote in the back pages of '80s heavy metal. Instead, the until then relatively obscure speed punk-metal ensemble led by vocalist and Alice Cooper disciple Bill Lindsey saw their self-financed 1985 EP, Rise of the Mutants, and its 1986 full-length follow-up, If We Had Brains...We'd Be Dangerous, lifted out of their underground indie metal obscurity and blamed for widespread corruption of the nation's youth — talk about a dream come true! In fact, Lindsey and his Impaler henchmen, guitarist Mike Torok, bassist Court Hawley, and drummer Bob Johnson, had been going about their business of recording inauspicious demos since 1983, but after their unexpected brush with infamy, sadly managed only one more album, 1989's Wake Up Screaming, before going their separate ways. The singer would never give up the fight though, and eventually recruited a fresh batch of backing musicians in order to carry on releasing sporadic albums — always featuring tongue-in-cheek stories about zombies and gore playing out over an assortment of heavy metal subgenres — through various independent labels, well into the new millennium. These included 1996's Undead Things, 1998's It Won't Die, 2000's One Nation Under Ground and The Gruesome Years collection, 2002's Old School Ghouls and The Mutants Rise Again EP, 2004's 20 Years Undead DVD, and 2005's Habeas Corpus CD. Chances are, Tipper and co. no longer even remember their past dealings with Impaler, but should they ever get it in their heads to torment rock & roll fans again, Bill Lindsey and his ghoulish co-conspirators will be waiting.