June 2000

After much mishandling at the hands of several major labels, Deadsy, the electronic-driven doom-pop band fronted by Elijah Blue Allman, will have their Commencement album released via a joint venture between Elementree, the label run by the members of Korn, and their management, and Dreamworks.

The band--Allman, Renn, Alec Pure, Craig, and new guitar-synth man Carlton--were slated to have their album Commencement released by Warner Bros. last September, after a 1997 deal with Elektra went awry. When the new regime took charge at WB, label execs gave them their record back, despite the fact that promotional copies of the disc were made available to media (these discs have been fetching huge amounts on the online auction site eBay). Despite accolades from a bevy of rock personalities including the Deftones, Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath and Limp Bizkit, Deadsy couldn't get arrested in the fiercely competitive L.A. music scene.

Enter Korn singer Jonathan Davis. As a director of Elementree, Davis wanted Deadsy on the label, but since Elementree uses Warner's marketing division, Deadsy would have been at the mercy of the same executives who spurned them the last time. Davis and Korn manager Jeff Kwatinetz got the go-ahead to take the band over to DreamWorks, whose A&R man, Ron Handler, sealed the deal.

When asked if he was a believer in fate, Allman laughs. "Is there any other way to see it? I'm glad that we get to manipulate our first impression on society. We can now proactively execute that, now that we've been through all the unnecessary shit.

Deadsy will enter the studio in May to record several new tracks, in addition to remixing existing songs from the Warners version of Commencement. Several songs from the disc will be removed, including the band's cover of the Sweet's 1974 glam epic "Fox On The Run," which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Whatever It Takes. The band may replace it with a version of Rush's "Tom Sawyer." "We'll see what happens," says Allman.