ROTHENBURGER – From death metal to hip hop – how Daz Tha Punk turned his life around

To me, he’s Darrell Sharp, a guy I’ve known since he was a teenager playing drums in the Kamloops Pipe Band. He prefers not to be called Darrell anymore, which we’ll get to in a minute.

We’re in The Vic, talking about recent, dramatic changes to his life and his music. Darrell/Bloodlust/Daz is 35 now, back in Kamloops after a stint in the oil patch and some time at the Coast pursuing his death metal career.

Death metal is a form of heavy metal that seems to the outsider (including me) to consist mainly of ear-splitting, thumping bass guitars, a lot of screaming and totally indecipherable lyrics about destroying the world or some such thing.

Near as I can tell, heavy metal is a form of punk rock, and death metal is, like, extreme heavy metal. Daz always saw death metal as “a living piece of art,” as much about the performance as the music.

He spent years in one band after another, sometimes more than one at the same time, touring Europe, the U.S. and even South America. But the lifestyle took its toll. Drugs were part of it. “I did everything,” he says now of the smorgasbord of substances he experimented with. “I was very self-destructive.”

Two years ago, he was at a party in an East End apartment in Vancouver. Drugs, as usual, were involved. That night, he had an epiphany. “I suddenly realized I was surrounded by sycophantic people. I saw the reality of the situation. I was not being a good father, husband or friend.

“I just decided, I’m out.”

“Out” meant quitting drugs, quitting the bands he was playing with, and coming home.

It wasn’t easy. Unemployed, he lived in rodent-infested apartments and houses, and slid into depression. He missed the music scene that had been part of his life

for so many years. But he stayed clean, got a good day job as a stone mason and found a basement suite that offered better living conditions.

One day he borrowed an iPod from the landlord. It happened to have some hip hop music on it, including a song by Kool Keith, a rapper and record producer from The Bronx in New York, where rap was born.

Something about it grabbed hold of him, and he began jotting down bars, as the verses in rap are called. “I just liked doing it.”

Gradually, he schooled himself in hip hop, learning the lingo and style of “slant rhymes” and “multies,” and listening to everything he could get his hands on. He drew inspiration from the likes of Travis Scott, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, KRS-One, Public Enemy and Wu-Tang Clan.

At first, he kept it to himself, reluctant to admit this death-metal drummer was now rapping.

But the more he got into it, the more confident he became. He took on the name Daz, a nickname a friend gave him. It’s short for Darren or Darrell in the U.K. (One definition in the Urban Dictionary is “badass.”) Changing his name is part of changing his life, he says.

Hip hop is a world away from death metal when it comes to writing, though there’s a genre called rap metal. Daz usually writes a few bars when he gets home from work, starting out by finding words and combinations of words that rhyme, then forming the rest of the lines from there.

Like punk rock and heavy metal, though, hip hop is a lot about political and social issues. “I try to write about real things.” Things like war, corruption, mental illness, genocide, but from a place of trying to make things right, he says.

“I think the reason rap is so huge is that people are in a place now where they want to hear poetry.”

Daz Tha Punk is part of a growing hip hop community in Kamloops. He reels off a list of local rappers and DJ artists including names like The Kwote, Otis Davis, Gray Baker, D.J. Virtue, and Perspektive. “It’s definitely growing.”

They perform at bars and events like the monthly “Back to the Boom-bap” open-mike that Daz hosts at the 808&Bench shop.

Monday, Oct. 28 will be exactly two years since he quit drugs and started turning his life around, a good day to release his first, six-track, hip hop EP, self-titled Daz Tha Punk.

Produced by Kamloops record producer Lex Plexus, it will go out on digital download platforms.

A YouTube single produced by videographer Leon Racicot for the EP, “One for the Underdog,” reveals some of the reconfigured Daz Tha Punk. His punk rock look transfers easily to hip hop and there are hints of the old Bloodlust Abominator in the new music.

His voice is gravelly and growly, his style is still angry, like it was back in the Necroholocaust days, but Daz says “One for the Underdog” isn’t typical of the EP.

“That’s the only dark-sounding song on the entire record, because there are a lot of harsh realities out there.”

And even though it’s dark, he says, it has a positive message. “The song is basically my mission statement.”

Among the bars that can be repeated here without having to censor the numerous f-bombs is one that seems to sum up Daz’ new outlook on his life and craft: “This one’s for the underdog and the underdog is you.”

All the music behind the rap is his own, laid down in tracks over many hours with the help of Lex Plexus.

Daz isn’t sure where the trajectory of his new hip-hop calling will take him but, for now, he has lots of opportunities to rap at local venues. And, in this digital age, it’s a lot easier to produce recordings and get your music out.

He still marvels at the abrupt turn his music has taken. “I never, ever thought I’d do rap.”

The main thing, though, is Daz’ new attitude. I don’t know whether hip hop has helped form it, reflects it, or just happened along at the right time to fill a creative void. Whichever it is, it suits him.

I tell him he seems more settled now, more grounded, and he agrees. “I’m interested in other people now,” he says. “When I ask them how they’re doing, I mean it.”

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He writes five commentaries a week for CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.

by Mel Rothenburger

ROTHENBURGER – From death metal to hip hop – how Daz Tha Punk turned his life around

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