Donald Meckiffe (Demon Pact)

 

Demon Pact came up around 1979 in Bromley, Kent, London, England at the heydays of the NWOBHM, having recorded two demos and a single in their first years. We had a chat with lead singer Donald Meckiffe, who later was a Professor of media history and film studies for UW Colleges in Wisconsin.

Q. - Hello Donald, tell us a bit about the origins of Demon Pact, how and when did it all start? Who were the first members of the band?

Donald - Really we started when we were still in high school; specifically “Hayes Comprehensive in Bromley, London, this was in spring 1979. At the time, punk rock had really shocked the culture of young people and one of the key aspects of punk rock was that anybody with limited musical ability could still form a band if they had the desire. Although none of us (Alan Dickerson bass, Richard Dickerson guitar, Phil Wickenden drums and me vocals) were punks we were able to take advantage of that attitude of “Do It Yourself” which punk had unleashed. For example I could not sing like a Robert Plant or Rob Halford, but because of punk, the fact that I had the attitude/look and was good at the front was enough. In retrospect I can now see that a lot of the later interest in Demon Pact on the Internet is because we are a very early heavy band with a singer who just kind of shouted… I can now see that this prefigured (wasn’t planned) the later styles of heavy metal (Thrash, Death, Black, Doom etc). We started playing school type gigs and practiced a lot in grim studios with no ventilation while those guys were smoking with flammable acoustic material on the walls! The original drummer was not really into the kind of heavy stuff that we were doing and Richard found Iain Finlay who was a 17 year old who worked in a drum warehouse and had a really good kit. Iain was the key to finishing the initial line up and added a lot of power and virtuosity. He was really good.

 

Q. - Was Demon Pact your very first band? Or did you have any other band previously? How did the band name came up?

Donald - Demon Pact was the first and only band I was in. As I mentioned before, I did not consider myself a “real” singer. I felt that performing in the band was one step above head-banging to records in your bedroom. It was fun for me, I didn’t think of it as a road to a “career” in a band; I was much more punk in my attitude than the others who were proper musicians. As I remember it, the name was something that came up quickly because we had to have a name in order to do a gig. Alan came up with it, promising that it would be a temporary place-holder as I rolled my eyes! Alan and Richard were more influenced by the dark aura of stuff like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Angelwitch and so forth and went in that direction. I was always more drawn to the sex influenced stuff like AC/DC or Kiss; (the Eaten Alive track I wrote was sex based) but the Demon Pact name stuck.   

Q. - What were your main influences at the beginning of the band?

Donald - We were probably most directly influenced by the big international and national hard rock bands of the day. Obviously Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Motorhead, UFO, Scorpions, Angelwitch and so forth. Again, the more indirect influence was punk, in the shape of speed, aggression, DIY; so we were unwittingly combining elements of classic heavy metal with punk… although we never would have admitted it at the time

Q. - Two demo tapes were recorded in 1980. What memories do you keep from these recording seasons?

Donald - For me the studio recording sessions were kind of pain because you had to break stuff down for different tracks. I was singing with a backing track and sometimes we would go line by line to get some semblance of tunefulness from me. So for me it was not like a live performance, which was the way I enjoyed rehearsals and gigs. I think Alan and Richard enjoyed the studio more because they could go over mistakes, clean stuff up and do overdubs. Iain was great live and studio and would just smash it out like a machine. 

 

Q. - Did you sell these tapes at shows, send it to fanzines, or got support from the media in general?

Donald - We did not sell tapes at shows. We did record some gigs and when Roy Bridle joined the band after we recorded the single (Alan did not have a job and Richard was sick of paying his share for rehearsals and such) he learned the songs from one of those tapes. The exposure that we got was really the 2^nd issue of Kerrang because that magazine was starting at the same time as we released the single and my school friend Pete Cronin, who became a professional band photographer for the magazine, put the single on the pile for review as they were digging for content in those early days. Kerrang was what made a local band like us a bit more visible at the time. Certainly afterwards, the article was important as everybody looked back to construct the history of all this stuff subsequently.

Q. - How was the single "Eaten Alive" received by the fans? Did it have airplay on radio stations?

Donald - It had minor airplay, but was not in any rotations. The few dozen fans that we had locally bought copies and liked it and the Kerrang article meant that some shifted as well. The original pressing was for a 1000 copies and I always used to joke that Richard had 500 of them in his bedroom! I did not expect it to become this collectors thing that it seems to have turned into. As I have said elsewhere, it was almost tongue in cheek for me. I loved Bon Scott as a lyricist with all the double entendre sexual stuff (stick this in your fusebox) and was inspired by the original version of “The Jack” where a card game stands in for sex. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YouL-hy5umI In Eaten Alive it’s my 18 year old self playing with food/sex metaphors in the mode of Bon Scott.

Q. - How did you get the chance to enter in the “Kent Rocks” compilation, with the track "Escape"?

Donald - That happened largely out of our sight. Richard had a friend, Paul Pelletier, who put up the money for the studio and pressing, so he had the “rights” to the tracks. I think Paul was contacted by the people who were putting that collection together and just licensed it.

 

Q. - Did you try to approach a record deal at that time?

Donald - No. At the time, proper record deals were really hard to come by. The pyramid had a wide base and a very narrow top. In my opinion there were really only two NWOBHM bands to fully blow up and that was Iron Maiden and Def Leppard. NWOBHM was influential on later sub genres of metal and there were loads of low-level bands like us, but real record deals with sustained investment and promotion were very rare… as they are to this day.

Q. - What about shows? Did you play regularly in the UK? Did you open for some other bands, or was it headlining shows?

Donald - We only ever played fairly locally in the South of London and into Kent. I don’t remember going more than 50 miles for a gig.  We played with other bands at our level; sometimes even “New Wave” or punk bands. It was always smallish, local gigs in pubs and clubs.  I cannot remember playing to an audience of more than 150 people.

Q. - Why did the band split up? What do you think went wrong with Demon Pact to achieve real success?

Donald - Well, this was basically because I was not prepared to pack in my job and get in a van and wing it. I had bought a motorcycle and I never considered myself some kind of rock star in waiting. Like most of the punks I just enjoyed the band as a fun performance activity where you would play in front of like-minded people and feel excited by the volume and the fact that you were part of a band and sound. Richard wanted to tour nationally and saw the band as a ticket to his way out of a dead end job. We could not agree and I was fired/quit because I wasn’t prepared to take it to the next level. Roy, the bassist, had basically come into the band because of me and he left soon after I did and that was basically the end of it.

 

Q. - Did you try to go on as singer in any other band, after Demon Pact?

Donald - Nope, I felt that it was just something that I did, that I enjoyed and didn’t really look back. There were girls that I dated in the 1980’s that never knew I was in a band. I wasn’t ashamed or anything, it just didn’t come up. Stuff used to disappear in those days, now everything everyone does is archived and stored as everyone puts up the edited highlights of their lives on Facebook and Instagram. People forgot stuff in the old days!

Q. - Did you stay in touch with the other former members over the years?

Donald - Nope, again in the old days when people’s lives diverted, then if you weren’t directly moving in the same social circles those friends dropped away. No hatred or anything… just how it used to go without the Internet making it easy to stay in touch and updated. The first time I really thought about Demon Pact at all since I was in the band, was in 2000 when people started getting in contact with me as the Internet expanded. Then those people cataloguing the scene and producing zines showed me the Ebay stuff. On the back of this interest all kinds of moves were made to dredge up the old tapes/photos and put together the modern collections and so forth.

Q. - Have you ever thought about doing a reunion show in the future?

Donald - No. We’re all over the world now. Richard is still in the UK and works as a stage sound professional setting up equipment on British tours for high profile artists (until the pandemic anyway). I have been in the USA since 1992, Roy lives in Portugal and Iain has toured and lived in Germany for many years. I don’t think they’ll be a reunion! 

 

Q. - Are you happy with the edition of the compilation "Released From Hell", by High Roller Records? What do you think of it? It surprises you it still has so much acceptation these days?

Donald - Yes, it’s a very nice package. I never thought that the stuff we did would come to anything. I feel that we kind of left it on the “rubbish dump” back in the early 1980’s and that it would all disappear without a trace. Now all these people interested in what they see as the early days of heavy metal have dredged it all up again and are able to circulate it in this new miraculous media environment. Every year somebody from somewhere in the world sends me an e-mail or message. It’s very strange.

Q. – So, what are you doing these days? Do you still play in any band? Tell us a bit about it.

Donald - These days I live quietly on my own and work for a big trucking company in Green Bay as an Emergency Maintenance Specialist. For many years before that I taught media history and film as a college professor here in WI and IL USA. The hobby that stayed with me from the 1970’s is the motorcycling, I ride often, and too fast, on a new motorcycle that echoes the style of the ones that I used to ride, but has all the modern features. As I mentioned before, I have not been in a band since Demon Pact. The closest I got to performing again was a couple of years ago doing a bit of ballroom dancing. I guess that’s ok because the sports guys do it on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Q. - Do you still keep an eye to the heavy metal scene? Is there any band that you still like to listen?

Donald - I don’t really follow the metal scene at all now. When I was in the band I listened to very little else, it really helped to keep me somewhat sane (there are people that would say it didn’t keep me sane).  These days I listen to all kinds of stuff, especially new artists that echo the old ones that I am familiar with. For example I love “The War on Drugs” and “Tame Impala” do some nice stuff. I like the female singers like Amy Winehouse and Melody Gardot. I throw back with Dire Straits, Bee Gees, Cure, Simple Minds and so forth. I have just set up a new stereo system with an old turntable and classic amps (Carver early 1990’s) with some ridiculous floor mounted Klipsch speakers. I will put on the AC/DC or Motorhead or Priest, but it’s really nostalgia when I’ve had a couple of drinks.

 

Q. - What do you think about all the N.W.O.B.H.M. movement, and the repercussion it had around the world?

Donald - I suppose I’m surprised about how long the influence has lasted, albeit in altered forms. I think that perhaps the social conditions that helped to generate punk and NWOBHM still pop up around the world. Especially lots of young men (and now women) who are bored by the jobs and lives on offer if you are not a success in conventional “education.” In 1980 the economy and outlook for many young people in UK was really bad. Bands and music were quite a distraction. It seems that punk and NWOBHM appeal particularly in urban/suburban areas with quite restrictive cultures and rituals… for example Japan or parts of South America. But there does seem to be a kind of “beard stroking” collectors/connosoeur element somewhat like happened with jazz and blues music.

Q. - How do you want to end up this interview? Anything more you want to say?

Donald - It seems to me that music in general (particularly rock music) doesn’t have the centrality that it used to. For young women, now it looks like social media is the main focus of their lives (which may involve music on occasion). For young men, as far as I can see, the focus seems to be video games. The young guys at work seem to talk about the equipment, reissues, technology, nostalgia, competition and emotions connected with video games in the way that guys my age used to use and talk about rock music back in the seventies. It’s still male and competitive and goading and exciting and funny, but just different material now… often the young guy’s primary exposure to music actually comes from video games as well!    

Thank you for your time, and wish you all the best for the future!

Sure… sorry I took so long to answer.