Y’all: there’s a real good chance I’ll get to see Acid Bath live this summer/fall, and I am giddy with excitement. If you’re unfamiliar, Acid Bath formed in 1991 in Houma, Louisiana, south of New Orleans. They were the result of the smashing-together of two existing bands, Dark Karnival (so glad that name died with the band,) and Golgotha, and both of those bands are cool, but Acid Bath is better.

One time Sheila and I were driving through central Kentucky on our way home from Nashville, Tennessee when she had me detour to Cave City, near Mammoth Cave, so she could show me some of super odd/fuckin awesome roadside attractions. Pretty much everything was closed, on account of it being Sunday, but we could still stop and look. There was Wigwam Village Motel, which looked very cool, and Dinosaur World, which was closed, unfortunately. The main thing she wanted to show me was Golgotha Fun Park (“#1 Shaded Biblical Mini-Golf”), which in English translates to Place of the Skulls Fun Park, which is clearly fun for the entire family, and is also definitely the kind of thing that inspires people to grow up and form amazing bands.

See also, Chat Pile.

Anyway, I was talking about Acid Bath. The lineup consisted of Dax Riggs on lead vocals, Sammy “Pierre” Duet and Mike Sanchez on guitars and vocals, Audie Pitre on bass and backing vocals, and Jimmy Kyle on drums. Tomas Viator played drums before Jimmy Kyle took over, then he re-joined the band on keyboards for their second album.

Speaking of their second album, they released two of them: 1994’s When the Kite String Pops, and Paegan Terrorism Tactics (1996).

Sometime in probably 2000, I found myself in the late, lamented All Ears (surely among the finest record stores to ever exist in Bloomington, Indiana) with a little change in my pocket goin jing-a-ling-a-lang. I was (and very much still am) a fan of a band called Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, and I knew their last two albums were released on a label called Rotten Records, which was co-founded by DRI guitarist Spike Cassidy. I was digging through the discount CD section, filled with promotional copies and albums missing covers and the like, when I came upon a promo copy of When the Kite String Pops, which was also released by Rotten Records and co-produced by Spike Cassidy. This seeming affiliation with DRI made me think it might kinda sound like DRI, and it was only $3.00, so really I couldn’t afford not to buy it.

I’d never heard anything quite like it before, and as of December 8, 2024, I still haven’t. I listened to that CD one time, and it was too much for the big idiot that was 23-year-old Joel, so I put it in a box with a bunch of other CDs I never listened to, and it stayed there until I finally sold it, along with a huge chunk of the rest of my CD collection, before I moved to Austin, Texas in 2003. I don’t think much of 26-year-old Joel either sometimes, if I’m being completely honest.

The point is, I didn’t get into Acid Bath until later, like 2013, probably. I was killin time in my car before work one morning, dickin around on facebook, when I saw that a musician and writer whose work I enjoy very much shared the song “Graveflower”, from Paegan Terrorism Tactics. I clicked the link, and listened to the song, and then I listened to it three more times before I clocked in. Brothers and sisters, I’m here to tell you, I was hooked. As soon as I got home from work, I obtained a copy of both albums, and I listened to the fuck out of both of them, but I especially liked PTT, and I actually still prefer it just a little bit.

I’d very much like to post links to some other Acid Bath songs from both their albums, but the guy who owns Rotten Records doesn’t seem to understand that more exposure = more album sales, and he has any and all other Acid Bath videos with the album versions of songs taken down sooner or later. I will note that I can find nothing to indicate whether or not Spike Cassidy is still affiliated with the label, but when people talk about how much Rotten Records absolutely sucks, only one name gets mentioned, and it’s never his, so I assume that Ron Peterson is the sole reason why Rotten Records is a shitty, shitty label.

There are a few songs posted on YouTube right now, but there’s an excellent chance they’ll all be gone by the time you read this. If you wanna look some up to see if they’re available at that particular moment, I recommend “Graveflower”, “Bleed Me an Ocean”/”Dead Girl” (tied for number two)(hehe, “number two”), “The Blue”, “Venus Blue”, “Dr. Seuss is Dead”, and “Scream of the Butterfly”, in that order.

If you like guitar-based sometimes kinda bluesy rock music and are not bothered by extremely dark lyrical themes, I promise you’ll find something to like in at least one of those songs. Most of them feature vocals of the screaming/shrieking variety, so if that’s an immediate turn-off for you, just listen to “Dead Girl” and “Scream of the Butterfly” and “The Bones of Baby Dolls”, all of which feature no screamed vocals at all. Be aware that the mellow nature of the vocals in those songs makes the disturbing lyrics much more discernible.

“Tranquilized” has very few screamed vocals, and in fact could’ve been a radio hit if the lyrics were a touch less heavy, or if people weren’t such big babies about lyrics.

“Old Skin” is a spoken word piece, so it also technically has no screamed vocals, but I have to advise against starting with that one unless you’re already into some really weird and/or spooky shit.

Both albums are currently available on Spotify (along with Demos: 1993-1996), and maybe some other streaming services, but Spotify is an even worse company than Rotten Records, so I don’t really know how to conduct myself anymore. It’s becoming exceedingly difficult these days to not do business with shitty companies/people who do shitty things, and that seems doubly so in the world of professional music. I just try to do the least possible amount of harm.

Anyway, you should check out Acid Bath in whatever way you can, then go to Dax’s website and pre-order the vinyl. They aren’t cheap, but it’s the only way I know of to get em new without giving money to Rotten Records, which is a thing you should not do if possible. I bought mine on CD and vinyl from Rotten Records, and I feel like a giant piece of shit for doing so, but I really wanted the whole album package, and they weren’t available anywhere else at the time. The jewel case for the CDs is every bit as cheap and shitty as you might expect. I also bought a PTT t-shirt from their website, and I feel like a dick for buyin that, too, but I really wanted an Acid Bath shirt. Several people at past Louder Than Lifeseses have complimented that shirt, and that’s a net win, but also, that fact will come into play later.

The important conclusion to draw from that section there is that if you take my advice and listen to Acid Bath, and you happen to like what you hear, buy the music and merch direct from Dax. If you want the CDs, try to get them used. Rotten Records absolutely does not deserve your money.

On January 23, 1997, Audie and his parents were killed in a car crash when a drunk driver ran a stop sign. Audie’s brother Kelly survived with a broken rib and a mild neck fracture. The band played their last show on April 25, 1997, then broke up. The surviving members all went on to form and/or play in a bunch of other bands, and they all fuckin rule (Goatwhore and Deadboy & the Elephant Men/Dax Riggs solo are my favorites), but Acid Bath is my number one most favorite of all their collective projects.

Earlier this year, to the surprise of pretty much everyone in the world who has ever heard of Acid Bath, the band announced that they would be playing at Sick New World Festival in Las Vegas in April 2025. That fest had an absolutely killer lineup (so stacked that Napalm Death was all the way down on the bottom row!), but it was later cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances”, which I have to assume includes the fact that not enough people were willing to drop almost $500 for a ticket to a one-day festival where most of the bands would’ve had to play for like 20 minutes, which probably could’ve been foreseen by most people. I can’t imagine trying to cram that many bands into one day, either from a production standpoint or as a fan of music.

Not long after the Sick New World lineup dropped, Acid Bath was announced as one of the bands at Sonic Temple 2025 (another Danny Wimmer Presents production), and the lineup for Welcome to Rockville 2025 (also a DWP joint) has been announced, and one slot is still blurred out, but it’s marked as a reunion/special performance, and I feel pretty confident that the yet-to-be-announced surprise band is Acid Bath. I was wrong once before, so there’s precedent, but if I am wrong, I’ll be surprised.

Remember earlier when I mentioned wearing my Acid Bath t-shirt to Louder Than Life? Here’s where LTL comes into play: I got an email survey recently from DWP about LTL. One of the questions was something like “which of these bands would you like to see play with Slayer, give us an answer, 1-5”, and then there were a few pages of bands (so many incredible bands on that list), and they wanted you to choose between “Not at all, thank you” and “Very much so, yes, please” for each of them, and Acid Bath was one of them, so at this point, if Acid Bath does not play Louder Than Life 2025, then I don’t even know what the fuck we’re doing here.

Just kidding, I already don’t know what the fuck we’re doing here.

In conclusion, to reiterate what I said on one of the various LTL fan pages I frequent: “If Acid Bath gets announced for Louder Than Life, I will shit everyone’s pants”.

I absolutely cannot wait to see this band live.

Thanks for reading. Listen to Acid Bath. Share both with your cool friends. Peace.