Decibel Announces New Book on Scott Burns, Legendary Death Metal Producer
Decibel Books, the book-publishing offshoot of the extreme metal magazine, has announced the impending release of The Scott Burns Sessions: A Life in Death Metal 1987 – 1997. The book, which is expected to ship in late October, chronicles the life of legendary producer Scott Burns, whose work at Morrisound Studios basically defined an entire generation of death metal (seriously, just look at his credits).
Burns manned the boards for a staggering number of artists—Death, Cannibal Corpse, Cynic, Atheist, Assück, Deicide, Gorguts, et al—and helped to establish many of these bands as serious, listenable artists. The new book covers 100 albums that Burns worked on and the stories behind making them, featuring interviews from Burns and the bands. It’s also accompanied by a bunch of never seen photography from Tim Hubbard, who was there documenting the Tampa scene. Says Burns:
“It was awesome to take a trip down memory lane with David and reminisce about all the great bands I was privileged to work with at Morrisound and abroad. David did a fantastic job capturing the essence of the late ’80s and ’90s death metal scene. I think Tim Hubbard and the other photographers provided excellent pictures that add a powerful visual element to those great stories.”
There’s also an intro by Dan Swanö, in case you needed more death metal royalty involved. The Scott Burns Sessions was written by David Gehlke, who has previously written books on Noise Records, Paradise Lost and Obituary.
The announcement also contains a lengthy excerpt about the making of Death’s Human, which would go on to completely rewrite the DNA of the genre. Below is a part of bassist Steve Di Giorgio’s recollection of that time.
“Steve DiGiorgio: ‘Human’ was Chuck’s return. It wasn’t like the original lineup anymore. What the world knew of that lineup—all the albums leading up to Human—they were flushed out, and this was a new beginning. Chuck was on a mission. He was literally on a fucking mission to prove everyone wrong. He felt completely betrayed by his ex-band members. I think even the original release liner notes say, ‘This album is revenge.’ That’s something that Chuck put in there. It was literally a statement saying, ‘All right, listen to this, fuckers. Eat shit now. Everything you’ve ever said about me, boom, here’s this fucking album.’ That was the kind of drive he had.”
The book is available for pre-order now.
