DEICIDE's BENTON: 'I Hate HOFFMAN Brothers More Than Anything In This World'

J. Bennett of Decibel magazine (web site) recently conducted an interview with DEICIDE frontman Glen Benton. An excerpt from the chat follows:

Decibel: Has it been weird writing songs without the Hoffman brothers [Eric and Brian, former DEICIDE guitarists]?

Benton: "It's been the fucking greatest thing in the world. Those two are a couple of idiots, man. I hate Eric and Brian Hoffman more than anything in this world, and I will not rest until I put shit straight with the fans. Up 'til now, everybody thinks I kicked them out of the band, but nobody kicked anybody out. They quit on their own, and I wanna set the record straight in regard to those two fuckin' pricks."

Decibel: What happened exactly?

Benton: "It's real simple: Eric Hoffman has a fucking steroid problem, and he's bi-polar. Brian married some young broad who's running his life for him. What initially happened is that when our publishing deal ended with Roadrunner, and our new deal started with Earache, we put them on notice that our publishing was no longer gonan be split four ways — it's gonna be based on who writes what. That's the industry standard. Brian writes one song for the album, Eric writes two songs and they wanna get paid for all the songs Steve [Asheim, drums] wrote. That's not fuckin' fair. And I wrote all the lyrics, so I'm entitled to 50% of the publishing. Why should I give those two money? They've been losing thousands of dollars for me and Steve for ten years now. If it was one of those things where they showed up and did their jobs, we wouldn't have a fucking problem. That's why the deal we signed [with Roadrunner] in '90 was set up like that. Back then, everybody wrote and contributed and it was a fuckin' group effort. But now me and Steve are the Lennon and McCartney of the band, doing all the writing, and those two wanna get paid for our hard work. Fuck that."

Decibel: So they quit?

Benton: "When they got their first publishing checks and didn't get paid for all the songs me and Steve wrote, they fucking quit. And now we gotta deal with Eric threatening Steve, driving to his house and screaming outside his window at 10:30 at night, making threatening phone calls, talking shit on Blabbermouth about Steve's dad dying, and all this other bullshit. Eric knows better than to come over here, though — he knows I shoot first and ask questions later."

Decibel: Didn't he get busted for steroids?

Benton: Yeah, Eric got busted, and when it happened, he put the drugs in his brother's bag and then his brother got busted. [Laughs]"

Decibel: Amazing.

Benton: "Yeah, they're real nice guys. We're in the process of suing them right now — for slander and everything else, dude. They're going around telling people I'm addicted to methamphetamine. You know what? Who hasn't experimented with a few things in their life? Big deal. So what if I experimented? They did, too! But, look, I don't even drink anymore, man. I mean, I'll have a Heineken every once in a while, but I was drinking a bottle of Jack Daniel's every night before I went onstage and another bottle while I was playing. That starts catching up with you real quick, and I started going blind in my right eye. So after a nice scare at the doctor's office about four years ago, I stopped."

Decibel: Aren't the Hoffmans suing you for the rights to the band name?

Benton: "They can't do a goddamned thing to me, dude. I own the fucking name. They went behind my back and filed on my trademark, so I'm in the process of suing them to get their names off it. And I will win. They abandoned their jobs, and now they wanna come back. Well, there's no coming back, man. Sorry. It's a better band now because they're gone. They're just a couple of losers, and they rode on me and Steve's coattails for all these years."

Decibel's entire interview with Glen Benton can be found in the magazine's April 2006 issue, available on the newsstands right now.