Drafthouse Films
Punk before punk existed—three teenage brothers in the early ’70s formed a band in their spare bedroom, began playing a few local gigs in Detroit and even pressed a single in the hopes of getting signed. But this was the era of Motown and emerging disco. Record companies found Death’s music— and band name—too intimidating, and the group were never given a fair shot, disbanding before they even completed one album.
A Band Called Death chronicles the incredible fairy-tale journey of what happened almost three decades later, when a dusty 1974 demo tape made its way out of the attic and found an audience several generations younger. Playing music impossibly ahead of its time, Death is now being credited as the first black punk band (hell...the first punk band!), and are finally receiving their long overdue recognition as true rock pioneers.
Like Sixto Rodriguez of Searching for Sugarman, The Hackneys brothers are from Detroit. They were preacher’s kids, devout Christians (Jehovah’s Witnesses) raised in a classic working-class black neighborhood. They didn’t have white friends or go to a white school or anything; they must have stuck out at concerts by Alice Cooper and the Who.
Punk before punk existed—three teenage brothers in the early ’70s formed a band in their spare bedroom, began playing a few local gigs in Detroit and even pressed a single in the hopes of getting signed. But this was the era of Motown and emerging disco. Record companies found Death’s music— and band name—too intimidating, and the group were never given a fair shot, disbanding before they even completed one album.
A Band Called Death chronicles the incredible fairy-tale journey of what happened almost three decades later, when a dusty 1974 demo tape made its way out of the attic and found an audience several generations younger. Playing music impossibly ahead of its time, Death is now being credited as the first black punk band (hell...the first punk band!), and are finally receiving their long overdue recognition as true rock pioneers.
Like Sixto Rodriguez of Searching for Sugarman, The Hackneys brothers are from Detroit. They were preacher’s kids, devout Christians (Jehovah’s Witnesses) raised in a classic working-class black neighborhood. They didn’t have white friends or go to a white school or anything; they must have stuck out at concerts by Alice Cooper and the Who.
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