'Bloody & Bruised,' which features bands such as Pariah and Dangerous Toys, will screen at the San Antonio Film Festival.
David Derrick is pretty sure that Pariah , the San Antonio heavy metal band he fronted in the 1990s, still has a lot of fans, though it’s been a long time since anyone has asked him about it. That’s slowly starting to change, thanks to “Bloody & Bruised : The Untold Story of the Back Room ,” a new documentary about the Austin nightclub where the band made its bones.
“I’ve gone years and years and years without anyone having any interest in Pariah,” said Derrick, 54, who now does sound for concerts. “This film seems to have really sparked a bit of interest.” The movie will receive its world premiere Aug. 3 at the San Antonio Film Festival. It’s one of more than 200 films that will be shown during the fest, which is marking its 30th anniversary this year. “Bloody & Bruised” director J. Budro Partida squeezes a lot into just under two hours. MORE MUSIC: Texas icon Kinky Friedman finished one last album before his death All kinds of big names came through the nightclub on Riverside Drive, both before they hit the big time and after they got famous. That includes Pantera, Motörhead, the Ramones, Stone Temple Pilots, the Misfits and Public Enemy and the Austin band Dangerous Toys. The club closed in 2006. For a time, the lineup tilted heavily toward heavy metal. “Austin is famous for the Continental Club, Antone’s, Armadillo World Headquarters — I’m sure I’m missing something — but the Back Room never gets mentioned in the same breath as those iconic clubs,” said music journalist David Glesner, who hung out at the club for about a decade after moving to Austin from San Antonio 30 years ago and is featured in the film. “But it was here for 33 years. And there’s so much history and so much attachment to the venue that I really do appreciate the filmmakers seeing the value in telling this story. “We’re not the hard rock, heavy metal town that San Antonio is. There’s a scene here, but it’s often overshadowed by the blues and more of the country-western, singer-songwriter type stuff.” “Bloody & Bruised” is packed with memorable stories. Singers talk about having to deal with the pole that was part of the stage, and patrons recall the Pantera show that had to be cancelled because the band blew out the sound system during sound check. There was the Pearl Jam show right before the band broke big, when Eddie Vedder climbed up into the lighting trusses and got this hair caught, leaving behind a chunk of his mane that hung there for years. And there was the riot that broke out during a 2 Live Crew show. Partida had to cut some material out to reach a reasonable running time. But it was important to him to keep Pariah, the San Antonio metal band that got going when most of the musicians were still at Clark High School, in the mix. “They were a staple,” said Partida, who started hanging out at the club after Pariah had disbanded. “I also wanted the film to have balance. While we had the success of the Cinderella story of Dangerous Toys, there was kind of the almost the tragedy that was Pariah. “Also, this is the first time, at least to my knowledge… that the origin story of Pariah has ever been told.” The members of Pariah — Derrick on vocals, Shandon Sahm on drums, Jared Tuten on guitar and brothers Kyle and Sims Ellison on guitar and bass, respectively — cut their teeth at San Antonio clubs, initially playing mostly covers at places like Sneakers, Alberto’s Rock Palace, Rock Island and the Showcase. “The second we started playing in Austin, we realized that for what we wanted to do as a band, we needed to be in a scene that was a seven-days-a-week live music scene,” said Derrick. “That just wasn’t happening in San Antonio. “I know a lot of people in San Antonio were bummed when we went to Austin. They said, ‘Oh, I guess you’re an Austin band now.’ We got a lot of heat out of that. But we had to do the right thing for us.” Once they started playing in Austin, Pariah swiftly made a name for themselves. “Back in the day, watching them play was like watching a fire ignite,” said Tamara Salem Moore, a talent booker and general manager at the Back Room who co-wrote and co-produced the documentary. “They were so beautiful, so talented. I had just never seen anybody put as much firepower and energy into their performances at the club level as these guys were doing.” Moore, who also appears in the film, was close to Sims Ellison and managed Hush Scarlett, which opened for Pariah. MORE MUSIC: SA musician Max Baca will be inducted into the conjunto hall of fame “There was this excitement around them,” she said. “The musicians were watching them, learning from them, because even though they weren’t signed at that point, there was this energy that circulated around them where you just knew they were going to be big.” The feeling that they would be the next big thing got stronger when the band signed with Geffen Records. Instead, the band’s fortunes started to veer in a different direction. “Basically, we were a baby band at the label,” Derrick said. “And some of the cash cow bands were impeding the flow of the baby bands to get their stuff out because they were taking their time getting their follow-up records out. We just kind of got lost in the shuffle.” Pariah languished for about two years before they finally got into the studio. By the time “To Mock a Killingbird,” their major label debut, was released in 1993, grunge was ascendant. There didn’t seem to be a place for Pariah in the market. And Geffen didn’t do much to support the release, either. The band members were unhappy and wanted to be free of the label, Derrick said. Their representation negotiated a deal that freed them from their contract and netted them $50,000. They decided to take a break to figure out where they would go from there. Shortly after that, Sims Ellison, who had struggled with depression, took his life. In the wake of his death, the band fell apart. Derrick and his band Hellapeño played a Pariah tribute set at a 2010 benefit marking the 15th anniversary of the SIMS Foundation, a nonprofit founded in response to Sims Ellison’s suicide to provide mental health assistance to musicians. That’s the closest to a reunion show the band has gotten. They did play together in a rehearsal room about 10 years ago, Derrick said, but nothing came from it. “Every time we do start to get the sparks going to go play, it fizzles out before we make it happen,” he said. “We could never get everyone on the same page. “Sims kind of drove the bus, so to speak, when it came to a lot a lot of that. I could always hear him saying, ‘You guys need to do this! Don’t not do that because I’m not there! ’ ” Derrick said he got choked up a few times when he saw the movie, mostly during scenes featuring Ellison. He’s planning to come to the film festival. He might not watch the movie again — “I’d hate to go and hog a seat since I’ve already seen it — but he’s definitely coming to the after-party. As Moore sees it, it’s meaningful that “Bloody & Bruised” will premiere in Pariah’s hometown. “There’s a lot of people there, I’m sure, that love Pariah, love the people in that band, and I hope that they are able to turn out and see this,” she said. “Because that’s part of San Antonio’s history, too, in a big way. I’m a big believer in evolution, and the story starts in San Antonio and moves to Austin, and after the tragedy, this beautiful thing comes out of it, which is the foundation. They have helped countless musicians. And San Antonio is connected to that, too. “San Antonio is also a music city. So that’s something that both cities, San Antonio and Austin, can be really, really proud of.”
Bloody &Amp SIMS Foundation Stone Temple Pilots Public Enemy Ramones Motörhead Armadillo World Headquarters Pearl Jam 2 Live Crew Clark High School Geffen Records David Derrick J. Budro Partida Sims Ellison David Glesner Tamara Salem Moore Kinky Friedman Eddie Vedder Max Baca Antone Pariah Cinderella Alberto Shandon Sahm Jared Tuten Kyle Sneakers Ellison Hellapeño San Antonio Austin Back Room Continental Club Texas Riverside Drive Rock Island San Antonio Film Festival Rock Palace Pariah Bloody &Amp Hush Scarlett Killingbird Pantera The Untold Story Of The Back Room Showcase Bloody &Amp Bruised
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