The Hard Corps
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The Hard Corps (THC) were an American rap-rock band, founded in January 1990 in Nashville, Tennnessee.
The bi-racial group teamed rappers Bob “Deputy Dirty Bob” Samuels and Ronzo “The Beast” Cartwright and DJ Terry “Major Kutt” Hayes with rock musicians Kelly “Machine Gun Kelly” Butler (bass), Kenny “Maestro K.O.” Owens (drums), and Kevin “Rev-Kev” Reinen (guitar).
Band Formation[edit]
Butler’s experience with rap metal dated back to 1986, when he formed the Nashville band Mr. Zero. He was high school friends with fellow metal fan Reinen. A country musician, Owens rounded out the rock half of the rap-rock formula.
Cartwright and Samuels gained acclaim in Nashville with rap group The Vice. They were friends with Hayes, a prominent DJ in the same scene. Cartwright also knew Butler and Reinen already, as they all worked together at an audio company.[1]
The group struggled in early rehearsals to find their sound. "The rappers would go, ‘Be more hip-hop.’ Well, I didn't know what that was," Reinen told The Scene (Nashville). "Or the rockers would say, ‘Do this rhyme for eight bars’ and the rappers would go. What's a bar?’ Or I'd play a bit of a rock song I thought everyone knew but find out they'd never heard of it and I'd never heard some of the classic raps they were doing.”[2]
Eventually, the group found enough musical middle ground to gel. "One day it just wasn't working and we decided to jam one more time, but from a different perspective - making the beats with more pocket instead of a speed metal beat, making a fat, tight, chunky beat. Once we got that groove going, it all happened,” Cartwright told The Scene (Nashville).[3]
The Hard Corps wore military gear onstage, which the Tennesseean’s Robert K. Oermann interpreted as representing “the battlefield against prejudice and misunderstanding.” He added that this presentation matched the group’s streetwise yet optimistic lyrics, which placed them on “the frontline of a new musical style."[4] "We're about doing the right thing and we have something to say," Butler told Oermann. “But we're not political, we're musical. We address certain issues and we cross certain barriers, including race, but that's not our main focus. Just by being who we are and doing what we do is a message in itself."[5]
Within a year of forming, the band caught music industry attention at the Nashville Music Association's Extravaganza, which was heavily attended by major label scouts. A deal with Interscope Records followed.
Def Before Dishonor[edit]
Debut album Def Before Dishonor was recorded in May and June 1991 and produced by Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay and and Grammy award-winner Phil Nicolo.[6] The video for debut single “Hard Corps”[7] made MTV history as the first added to both the Yo! MTV Raps and Headbangers Ball playlists.[8]
The album was released on Oct. 15, 1991. Songs included covers of AC/DC’s "Back in Black" and War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends” as well as party jam “Let’s Go” and message songs “Crime Don’t Pay” and “Three Blind Mice.” Oermann praised the album, writing that “it takes the ferocious emotions behind rock's two wildest expressions and focuses them on brotherhood and positive messages.”[9]
The band toured with Primus, Fishbone[10],, 24-7 Spyz, and Ice T & Body Count. However, by the spring of 1992, THC split with their management, label, and booking agency and returned to Nashville to regroup.[11]
That summer, four of the six THC members – Cartwright, Hayes, Butler, and Owens – enlisted Ludichrist and Scatterbrain guitarist Glen Cummings to play a handful of outstanding live dates. The provisional line-up immediately geled, and they renamed themselves Stone Deep. According to Cartwright, the name is a surreal juxtaposition of two words: Stone, meaning “heavy”, and Deep, meaning ponderous like “philosophy.”[12]
References[edit]
- ↑ Oermann, Robert (December 7, 1991). "The Hard Corps: Serious Fun". Tennessean.
- ↑ Parsons (October 3, 1991). "He Ain't Heavy Metal... The Hard Corps Plays Nashville & Releases Debut Album". The Scene (Nashville).
- ↑ Parsons (October 3, 1991). "He Ain't Heavy Metal... The Hard Corps Plays Nashville & Releases Debut Album". The Scene (Nashville).
- ↑ Oermann, Robert (September 6, 1991). "Hard Corps forecasts rap-metal thunderstorm". Tennessean.
- ↑ Oermann, Robert (September 6, 1991). "Hard Corps forecasts rap-metal thunderstorm". Tennessean.
- ↑ "Interscope Records, The Hard Corps "Def Before Dishonor" press release". September 1, 1991.
- ↑ "The Hard Corps- 'Hard Corps' Official Music Video". YouTube. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
- ↑ "Interscope Records, "Video makes MTV History by being added to BOTH Headbanger's Ball and Yo! MTV Raps" press release". November 28, 1991.
- ↑ Oermann, Robert (December 7, 1991). "The Hard Corps: Serious Fun". Tennessean.
- ↑ Stroud, Stephanie (October 31, 1991). "The Hard Corps to tour with Primus and Fishbone". The Nicholls Worth.
- ↑ Moton, Darryl. "The Perfect Chord from @darrylzero: The Hard Corps". The Good Men Project. Retrieved 9 August 2023.
- ↑ "An Interview with Stone Deep Vocalist Ronzo Cartwright". The Meista/YouTube. Retrieved 9 August 2023.
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