Photos courtesy of Metal Force, Billy Hale and Blood Metal Donors.

Episode 123 continues its Classic Albums series, this time around we focus on Overkill’s Taking Over. This episode will contain comments by Overkill front man Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth, and former guitarist Bobby Gustafson. You will also be able to read a Q&A interviews from the band’s original drummer Rat Skates, and former guitarist Joe Comeau below.

Others that discuss the album include Feel The Fire producer, and The Rods drummer Carl Canedy, Testament’s Gene Hoglan, Dangerous Toys Jason McMaster, Justin Christian and Bill Bodily of Toxik, fellow New Jersey native Alan Tecchio, Stu Marshall of Death Dealer, Tom Potter of Gundriver, Guitar World’s Dave Reffett, Count William Jannusch of Witchcross and Ravensthorn, and Mick Michaels, James Pera and Sean Nelligan of Corners Of Sanctuary.

You will find the podcast at the bottom of this post. You will also find links to the album on Spotify, or you can purchase the album from here.

Remember that you can go here index page to find out further details on everyone involved in the column.

Here is the Q&A with founding member of the band Rat Skates:

How did you first meet Blitz and D.D.?

Verni was in my high school. I found Ellsworth by running an ad
in “The Aquarian” newspaper; it was answered by our founding guitarist “Riff Thunder”, who brought Ellsworth along. Watch my film “Born in the Basement” to discover the untold story. You can still get the DVD FREE at http://ratskates.com/Free/

You tried a bunch of different guitarists, but no one really stuck until Bobby Gustafson, what made him stand out from the rest?

He was into Maiden and all the NWOBHM bands; he played well and was open minded to the direction Verni and I had in mind.

Taking Over has tracks that are still played on metal radio, and the band is still playing live, could you ever have foreseen that tracks off of the album would have that sort of staying power?

No, absolutely not; the reason being is that we were breaking new ground and part of a new movement that was evolving so fast that I really didn’t have much of a chance to think about anything except where we were AT; not where we might end up.

What are your memories about recording with Alex Perialas?

GREAT memories…lots of crazy times…lots of beer. He was - and still is – the real deal, and my friend! He was a rebel and not afraid to take chances. Technically, he knew his shit. Broadly, he knew the metal scene, and above all he always gave us 110%.

In recent years musicians have come out and complained about how he produced certain albums, do you have an issue with how he produced Taking Over?

Great question! I have always had an issue with the album production. BUT, Alex was not THE producer; it was a co-effort between him and the band. The regrets I have are not with anything Alex did, it’s what the band did.

I was really impressed at the way Terry Date produced the “Metal Church” album, it was really heavy and each instrument was crystal clear. THAT is the production I was pushing for. BUT, naively thinking we could sonically out-do “Master of Puppets” (which was EVERYONE’S frame of reference), we layered WAY too many guitar tracks, eating up a lot of “bandwidth”, and hence, the drums got completely buried, and it ended up one big wanna-bee-Metalli-mess. (But, something positive DID eventually come out of it for Overkill; after I left, they used Terry Date to produce their next record and got a great sound).

During Overkill’s ’87 “Taking Over” time period, there was not just a blatantly obvious Metallica influence amongst certain members, but an embarrassing attempt to copy them. That lasted only about a year until the thrash fans saw through it; big white high top and peg-leg Metalli-pants intoxicated the musicians and saturated the scene. Thrash became predictable and burnt out faster than it arrived.