The Plague was formed out of the ashes of the Defnics. It could’ve been called Defnics II. All my bands up to that point seemed to have been a one or two member changes along with a name change. The Plague was John Korosec (Korrosion), Duke Snyder and I. Duke was a kid that lived down the street. I was best friends with his older brothers which made him like my kid brother. There were instruments at his house, so he was always messing with them. I showed him how to play "Be Stiff" by Devo. When I needed a bass player I thought, well this kid can play guitar so…We formed in October 1982. Our inspiration was the British band Discharge, The Stooges and some other American bands that were happening at the time. We did an eight-song demo right away at Crossen’s studio on E.185^th St. and that was all the recording we did for a while. In 1985 we set out to record a masterpiece at this home studio called Moonliner. We got wasted on gin and the engineer couldn’t wait for us to leave. It was a masterpiece of shit.

We played about every place there was to play (except for the Pop Shop) in Cleveland and Kent. We only played live then. The reason we didn’t release anything was I had this wacky idea that anonymity was cool. The only way to experience the Plague was to see us on stage. Mike Metoff of the Pagans basically kicked us in the ass in 1986 and insisted we go in the studio and record something. So we did and released the "Just Say No" single in 1987 DIY style. Some German guy found it highly suspect that a band formed in 1982 put their first single out in ’87, but it’s true, ask anybody! That record got a glowing three-sentence review in Maximum Rock-n-Roll that sent us on our way to the meager successes we achieved. Most of this was due to Metoff in my opinion. The next thing I know, I got a call from Stefan Wicklander in Sweden. He wanted to sign us. So after a discussion with the boys we accepted his offer and Stefan produced a split LP called "Distortion Head" with Swedish band Rosvette (Ass Sweat), a tour promotion single "Unresting Place" and our full LP "Chain Sawng Massacre". All those records were recorded at The Beat Farm and I’ve been informed that I still owe Chris money.

We started out as a three-piece band, I was on vocals and guitar, Duke played bass and Johnny drummed. We added a singer in 1984 named Don Piccarillo. He was a great lyricist and fun to be with. He got tired of playing out I think, he seemed to not be into the band thing any more so I had to replace him. Mike Duncan sang for Agitated. They were a great band formed by Tom Miller. I asked Mike if he would like to join the Plague after Agitated's demise, he accepted. As a side note Agitated and Plague were referred to as Metal/Punk bands. The term Crossover wouldn’t be used for a while. We recorded all of our vinyl with Duncan. I consider this the classic Plague line up. Bill DeGidio was in there too for a while (he’s on J.S.N. and D.H.).

Our next adventure was the European tour. That was allot of fun but we got ripped off big time and we didn’t travel well together for various and sundry reasons. But the best part of the tour was that we were the first Cleveland band outside of the Dead Boys and Pere Ubu to go to Europe. That is the first outside of the first wave of Cleveland punkers. Am I making sense?

This band definitely died with a whimper and not a bang, no farewell gig, no pizza party, no nuthin’. I had to replace John because his business was taking up too much time and after a while Mike got fed up with my shit and quit. I think burn out was a major cause, you just can’t maintain being in a band for ten years without getting sick of the whole thing. And not getting paid helps too. We recorded one more session with Tom Madigan on guitar, Warren Thompson on drums and Duke on bass of course at a digital studio in 1990. I didn’t have a tube amp and played through the board, which I hated. The Plague lasted so long there are way too many hilarious stories to put here, like how we got kicked off the plane to Europe at J.F.K. in ’89. But don’t get me wrong the Plague was the wildest band I ever played in. We did make one hell of a noise.
(Bob Sablack. Jan. 2001)

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