Sheriff Scabs
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Michael D. Brya (born in Libertyville, Illinois on February 17,1978) also known as Sheriff Scabs, is an American rock singer / songwriter / multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as a solo artist, as well as a former founding member and frontman for the legendary local Chicago rock band Black Cuntry Rock
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early projects and influences
Michael started playing music while attending Carmel High School, a Catholic college prep school in Mundelein, Illinois. He was heavily influenced by the works of heavy metal groups such as Metallica, Black Sabbath, and White Zombie. The works of these bands inspired him to teach himself to play guitar. Soon after he and three other Carmel class mates formed a punk metal band called The Ciggarettes, which mainly relied on playing covers by The Misfits and The Ramones. But around the time Michael turned 18, he had discovered industrial music- bands like Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Pigface were his new found loves and his music showed.
[edit] Angel In Black
In 1996, Michael formed a new group, one that was set in the ways of his new love for industrial, but with a darker tone. This new gothic rock group was called Angel In Black [1], a name that, oddly enough, was lifted from lyrics of the Cracker song Eurotrash Girl. Together with co-founder Ivan Niezdek (aka Christoph), Michael made extremely dark music, violent lyrics, with terrifying vocals, and devastating guitar and keyboard effects. Different variations of Angel In Black took Chicago stages through 1998, including the addition of Michael's cousin Chris Kolar on bass and drums. During Angel In Black's final show, they were joined on stage by Ahab Rex and Johnny Nero (of the band Skarred) to perform a version of Gary Numan's Down In The Park.
[edit] Sheriff Scabs and Black Cuntry Rock
Black Cuntry Rock recorded three official releases, played live concerts from December 1998 to April of 2002. Scabs, Rex, and Nero were the heart of the band until the very end. Right Eye Rita accompanied the band through most of its existance, as well as a large rotating stock of live drummers. After the band disbanded, Scabs kept his Sheriff title, and all the members of BCR went on to continue with solo careers.
[edit] Failure To Communicate Records
A year after BCR went their separate ways, Sheriff Scabs founded Failure To Communicate Records, a record label who's goal was to sign smaller, but more deserving rock artists, as well as produce tribute compilations. Through Failure To Communicate, Scabs has worked with the likes of The Dresden Dolls, Voltaire, The Arcade Fire, Meg Lee Chin, David J (Bauhaus / Love and Rockets), James O'Barr, The Red Paintings, as well as the solo projects from Rex and Nero among others.
Failure To Communicate remains in opperation today, with Sheriff Scabs as president of the company. They release one tribute CD a year - which the most successful to this point has been .2 CONTAMINATION: A Tribute To David Bowie. Sheriff Scabs plans on releasing his first full length CD of solo material in late 2007, followed by a full length studio album of previously written Black Cuntry Rock material.
[edit] The Name
Michael did most of his promotion for Angel In Black through e-mail. Being a fan of schock rock group Marilyn Manson, Michael made his e-mail address scabwings@hotmail.com - from the song Angel With The Scabbed Wings. This was well known among his friends online and in real life, and before long everyone in the music world who knew him either called him Scabwings, Scabbie, or just plain Scabs. And one late night while drinking with Nero and Rex, the idea came about to start something of a super group, with Scabs on vocals, Rex on Bass, and Nero on guitar. They thought, since they were all David Bowie fans, that they should name the new group after a Bowie song. And after scrolling though the Bowie catalog, they drunkenly settled on Black Country Rock (though the "O" in country was later dropped due to a mistake in an artist's rendering of the band logo). At first, the band thought of forming this glam rock group around a country theme- cowboy hats, boots, gun holsters, chaps, mechanical bulls on stage, and the frontman would be The Sheriff. This is when the title of SHERIFF SCABS was born.
