Mouth Sown Shut - A Trip Down Memory Lane by Alick Wargood

    After writing about a few things for Dosed I decided to write about something a little closer to my heart. Something that shaped me into the musician and person that I am today. What seems like 2 lives ago sits a 3rd previous life that I had no idea would become the vague memory that it is today.

   I found electronic music very early on. I had always been a Mortal Kombat fan so (of course) when I was 8 years old and the OG movie was released I HAD to see it. One night staying at my Grandparents house they rented it and for the very first time I heard the sounds of The Immortals, Bile, KMFDM, Psychosonik, and MANY more.

   Though I had found something that I liked I didn't really "understand" it. It was there... but I was still in the primordial stage of classic rock, hair metal, oldies... the typical "I listen to what my parents listen to" era. So, thinking about anything that wasn't simply guitars, drums, bass, and a keyboard didn't have a very strong staying power in me, yet.

   It wasn't until much later that I saw my first (real industrial) band. I had watched Marilyn Manson, American Head Charge, Godhead, Rob Zombie and more of the likes live a couple of times. They were all great and definitely had electronic/industrial roots... however, when I was 17 years old I saw a fantastic band named Psyclon Nine perform at Harpos in Detroit, MI. They were absolutely stunning to me. The heaviness, the expression, the raw anger, the costumes, and the complete "Go fuck yourself" mentality won me over before they had even gotten to their first chorus.

   Since then I have explored the endless corridors of that rabbit hole and have even carved out my own tunnels with a band not many outside of the confines of the mitten and god's forgotten land known as "Ohio" know. We were called Mouth Sown Shut. We were hokey, we were obnoxious, we were silly, and we had a great time doing it.

   Mouth Sown Shut started in a bedroom in Adrian, MI around 2004 with a borrowed computer, some janky monitors, and a blue snowball microphone. The computer was borrowed from Rodney Kennedy (RIP) of Mentel Breakdown. It had a copy of Fruity Loops 3 on it as well as a primitive recording station called "Magix". After finding Psyclon Nine and having a couple of years to dig the trenches to find other great bands in the genre I sort of figured out how to sample and compose a drum bank. So, I made a drum bank titled "trashy shit" that became the go-to query for (many) years to come.

   The first song ever written was a song called "Sin=Love". I wrote the beat over a weekend off of my factory job and then put it on a CD. The next week at work I played that beat (probably) about 5,000 times while I mindlessly put together parts and came up with the lyrics without ever even writing them down. I was hooked. Industrial music was now my passion. After that I put together a lot of other songs such as Since Your God Slips Away, Pleasure Is Violence, and We The People. Thus finishing rhe very first MSS demo. It didn't have a title... just "Mouth Sown Shut demo" in permanent marker on top of the disc. Everyone who "got it" loved it. So. I kept going.

   Mouth Sown Shut actually started as a solo project. I was given the name "Stichiz" by a man named Ryan that hung out with the old Razorkasket crew. So, obviously, the name was inspired by that. It was just me, a guitar, a microphone, a backing track, and 2 floor toms. I was validated in finally putting it on stage after watching Kain Kinetic perform a BMM set at The L.A. Cafe in Adrian, MI. I told him how impressed I was and about the music I had been writing... also, that I wanted to put it on stage. Seeing him have the confidence to do it all alone gave me the fuel I needed to give it a try. I did that for about 4 years until one day I re-connected with a friend in my home town.

   Eric "Waldo" Waldron began coming over to my house pretty regularly after we rekindled a friendship at a mutual friends garage party around 2009. He hadn't heard the music I was doing until one night of beers in my grandmother's living room when I showed him the demo I had done as well as some newer material (XTC, Half Half, VIO-REV, and Law Denomination) and he was blown away. He mentioned that he would be interested in playing bass guitar and that his friend (Alex "Surge" Burton) was also looking to join a band. We got together for the first time and clicked so loud it sent shock waves. All we needed was a drummer and someone to tap on the keys.

   I had began our social media presence on MySpace with just the 3 of us... mainly old pictures and old demo tracks to initiate people to our style. That's where Josh (Tr0ll) Root decided to reach out about being a synth player. He lived far away but we made it work. We started sending tracks back and forth and discussing sample ideas. After a few months with those guys I started playing auxiliary drums with my former band Razorkasket who was playing shows all over the place at the time. With that came the opportunity for Tony (Coal) Bush to start playing drums thus completing the first official MSS lineup. We got to do some really fun shows at The Machine Shop, The Zodiac, The Irock, Headliners, and many other great venues.

   Durring that time the very first MSS e.p. would also be released. The album simply titled "FUCK" did not feature any of the new members... just old recordings of songs so that we had something to distribute. This was before the days of regularly streaming music so you had to have hard copies. It wasn't great but people dug it and it made its way into many folks" daily rotation.

   It was at a show in Chesterfield, MI with the absolutely legendary "Columbine" that we officially got to know a man simply named "Glitch" (like he was fucking Cher or something hahaha!). He had seen us perform in the past and was a fan. He mentioned how obsessed he was with electronic music for many years. He had underground artist names falling out of his mouth all night. He also told us about his past projects and his experience as a performing samplist. We couldn't ask him to join us fast enough. It took us about another 6 months before we ever actually knew his real name.

   After a very long story short we parted ways wth our drummer Coal. We went drummerless for a few months before we decided we needed to get back on that horse. We had a band named "Static Ego" from the same town as us with a kick ass drummer named "Kevin "Tw33q" Jankowski. He had hopped up and sat in on drums for us a few times at The Skateland in Morenci. It was just for fun at the time but actually worked really well. He joined us and that set us back in track.

   Just a few short months later it became apparent that Static Ego and us had a working kinship that ended up at a lot of the same shows and events... so we decided that 2 drummers are better than 1. With that the longest running and most mentioned MSS lineup was born.

Stichiz Massacred - Vocals & programming
Where's Waldo - Bass Guitar
Surge Tronic - Guitar
Tr0ll - Keyboard
Glitch - Samples
Zyn - Drums L
Tw33q - Drum R

   Through those years we got do so some fun stuff including playing with some of our idols in the scene such as Mushroomhead, Dope, Ventana, Cyanotic, Columbine, Combichrist, Dead Star Assembly, Hanzel Und Gretyl, and so many more. We released 3 more albums s a band called "Violence & Revenge", "Lilith", and "Prey On Sunday". A fun fact is that Prey On Sunday was originally supposed to be called "Guns In School" but pushback from the very conservative side of our hometown got us to change the name. Now they want guns in school... how ironic. I could go on forever about the great times I had with this band and how much I miss it. We officially broke up (mutually) around 2016. After 1 or 2 attempts at re-visiting it as a solo act it was very apparent that without the crew it wasn't the same so it was laid to rest in the many folds of Lenawee Local music.

   There is a glint of hope for a 1 stop reunion in 2025 (which is what spurred this article) but it is just an idea at this point. We just really enjoy it as great memories of even greater times. We've all moved on in our lives and have things that mean a lot to us to replace that old void. But it's still something that we all talk about when the opportunity arises.

- Alicks Wargood