In a new interview with Andrew McKaysmith of the Scars And Guitars podcast, veteran metal bassist Steve DiGiorgio spoke about the status of the long-awaited second CONTROL DENIED album. The effort is the final material recorded by the band before CONTROL DENIED mainman — and DEATH mastermind — Chuck Schuldiner‘s untimely passing.
Chuck — who died in December 2001 after a battle with pontine glioma, a rare type of brain tumor — began work on the CD, tentatively titled “When Machine And Man Collide”, but never managed to finish the effort before his health quickly deteriorated in the months leading up to his tragic death. The remaining members of the group — DiGiorgio, vocalist Tim Aymar, guitarist Shannon Hamm and drummer Richard Christy — subsequently announced their desire to complete the album and release it in Chuck‘s memory, but legal hassles between Schuldiner‘s family and Hammerheart Records (to whom Chuck was signed at the time of his death) put the entire project on hold. (Karmageddon Media — which was the name Hammerheart Records operated under between 2004 and 2010 — later issued various incomplete demo recordings as two separate low-quality albums, “Zero Tolerance” and “Zero Tolerance II”.)
DiGiorgio told Scars And Guitars about plans to release the second CONTROL DENIED album (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We’ve had the sketches of the songs since [Chuck] was alive. He sent us the rough demos, and you could hear him singing the guidelines on it for Tim to learn how it goes. They’re not worthy of releasing, and we wouldn’t do that to Chuck, but we have all the blueprints ready when we do it final. It’s just — fucking Tim died [in February 2023], and that really stalled it out, after all the other stalling out that’s been going on. And then some of the [singer] choices that were explored [by Chuck] before we found Tim, we were going back and saying, like, ‘Well, at least Chuck asked so-and-so to sing on it before [Tim came into the picture], so let’s go back [and see if they can lay down their vocals it].’ And some of these guys are just older, [and] they don’t think they have the [vocal] range [to pull it off]. It’s been tough. So I really don’t know. It’s been one of the hardest things to complete. But it seems like over the past [24] years, we haven’t stopped trying or at least thinking about it. We haven’t stopped at all.”
After McKaysmith suggested that there are “plenty of young up-and-coming vocalists” who might be able to do the material justice, Steve concurred. “Yeah. I was talking to someone who’s not fully one of us in the inner circle that would make the choice,” he said. “It was somebody that’s kind of on the peripheral, and just ran the idea by ’em about, ‘Hey, what about so-and-so?’ And they go, ‘Oh, it would be perfect.’ So that kind of motivates me to bring it to the inner circle. I’m definitely not gonna say who it is — you know that — but the idea of just saying, like, ‘Hey, let’s just make it a good album,’ because we’re so far away now from what Chuck was leaving behind, because his parts are gone, the singer’s gone. The original stuff is getting down to minority stuff. So we were, like, ‘Look, either we’re not gonna do it or we’ve gotta do something alternative just to get it done.’ So, yeah, we might look into someone that wasn’t considered when Chuck was alive. But I don’t know.”
Steve added: “I’ve been answering this question [about a second CONTROL DENIED album] for, like I said, 24 years. But, yeah, I’ve been answering questions about this album — and especially when Eric Greif [former manager of DEATH and president of Perseverance Holdings Ltd., which managed Schuldiner‘s legacy until Greif‘s death in 2021], was meddling and butting in everything, and he was making official statements that I don’t know where he got his information from. But it was on, it was off, it’s on, it’s officially over, this guy’s in, he’s out. So anytime we talk about finishing this album, the answer’s gonna be different. [Laughs]”
Chuck‘s mother, Jane Schuldiner, previously stated about the unfinished CONTROL DENIED recordings: “[Chuck‘s] last masterpiece deserves more than to be released as unfinished bits of rehearsal room recordings on CD, or to be grabbed for free on the Internet. It deserves to be finished by the rest of the band and to be released on a full-length album, titled: ‘When Machine And Man Collide’.”
CONTROL DENIED‘s first album, “The Fragile Art Of Existence”, got the deluxe reissue treatment in October 2010 through Relapse Records.
“The Fragile Art Of Existence”, originally released in 1999 to critical acclaim, was remastered, repackaged and features liner notes from Christy, never-before-seen photographs, as well as over an hour of previously unreleased demo and rehearsal tracks.
Two versions of the “The Fragile Art Of Existence” reissue were made available. The worldwide version was a two-CD set including the original album plus a bonus CD of early demo material. The second version was limited to 1,000 copies and was a three-disc set including an extra bonus disc of demo tracks, many of which have Schuldiner on vocals. The three-disc set was made available at Relapse.com exclusively.
In a 2021 interview with TrueMetal, Tim stated about how he landed the CONTROL DENIED gig: “It was actually Jim Dofka who hooked me and Chuck up. Chuck asked to ‘borrow’ me for CONTROL DENIED and Jim knew it would boost my career, so he was all for it. Chuck called me, and we hit it off. He invited me to his place in Florida to record three songs as an audition. Obviously, it went well.”
Regarding his memories of the making of “The Fragile Art Of Existence”, Tim said: “We all had a great time working with [producer] Jim Morris and each other. Then Chuck told me he was having severe headaches and couldn’t sleep because of it. He was also experiencing partial paralysis in his left hand which scared the dickens out of him. I recommended a chiropractor since I have neck and back injuries that were being treated by one. As it turned out, well, we know the end of that story.”
Photo credit: Alex Solca (courtesy of Adrenaline PR)
