Five Points of the Pentagram: An interview with Serpentine Dominion Drummer Shannon Lucas

What happens when George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, Adam Dutkiewicz and Shannon Lucas get together and form a band? A pizza party? Nope. Some disco dancing? Wrong again! Serpentine Dominion happens, that’s what!!! All joking aside, this veteran-laden trio have created some ripping tunes and let us brand them with a pentagram regarding such topics as, Corpsegrinder’s neck, Adam’s stage attire and the Hell that is Guitar Center….Read on.

Let’s cut to the chase and address the elephant in the room. Does George Corpsegrinder’s neck deserve its own zip code? Please explain your answer.
Lucas: Look, it’s not nice to call George or his neck an elephant. 😉 The only person that can troll George and live to tell is Dan from Suicide Silence. I literally heard Dan call him “Shrek dick” out loud on an airplane once. Haha. His vocals are definitely deserving of their own zip code though. When you head-bang and windmill like that guy every night, you gain a strong fucking neck. Besides, women like dudes with thick, strong necks.

A 2-parter… Adam Dutkiewicz won big on The Price is Right last year. Did he use a portion of his earnings to help fund this record? Also, how the hell did you three think this motley crew of metal musicians would make sense?
Lucas: The video of Adam crushing it on The Price is Right was hilarious and honestly kind of ironic to me. I doubt money was much of a concern for him in the first place. This was a fairly low-cost record given that Adam recorded most of the record at his house. He played all guitars and bass, and mixed the record as well. I guess the most expensive part would have been drum tracking at the studio. I still can’t believe he won big on a show I watched as a kid. LOL…

You worked at Guitar Center at one point. How many customers did you accost for playing “Stairway to Heaven”? If the answer is none, did you jump on a drum set and start to play along at least? We want a horror story!
Lucas: So back in early 2007 I managed the drum department for a few months at a Guitar Center in between bands. I didn’t hear much from guitar world but occasionally I heard some busted “sweet child of mine” riffs. I mostly dealt with young kids playing the shittiest and shortest blast beats ever because they heard Job For A Cowboy on MySpace. It was awful. So back then (not sure if things have changed) you could get “demo sticks” in the drum department to try out the drum kits or electronic kits. There weren’t any real rules in place so you had to suffer and then get people to be quiet if the phone rang back there.

Most of the people were repeat offenders. They either came there after school and beat on the drums because they either didn’t have a set, had no place to practice, or wanted better gear. Most had no intent or ability to buy anything. So I implemented a new rule that management let me get away with. Any time someone wanted demo sticks I would issue them out with a pink happy birthday cone party hat that they had to wear while they had the sticks. This was my way of weeding people out and also keeping track of who had sticks. Some guys would get shitty and be like “I’m not wearing that, forget it.” and leave and others would proudly rock it. If they were willing to wear these pink party hats then I felt they deserved 5-10 minutes of annoying me. I didn’t play much there and you’d be surprised but I don’t like playing in front of people without a band to keep me company.

Check out the song “The Vengeance In Me”

Would Lemmy approve of Serpentine Dominion?
Lucas: If I was able to ask Lemmy what he thought of Serpentine Dominion and he disapproved, I would then quote him to himself. “If you think you are too old to Rock N Roll, then you probably are!” Then see if he slapped me or laughed.

It’s a known fact that Corpsegrinder is a family man. If you had to cook dinner for them one night (No, you can’t order a pizza and be done with it), what would you prepare for him and his wife and what you prepare for the children?
Lucas: Well I’m not sure how much they would like my cooking as I don’t eat meat or dairy. I’ve seen George consume lots of meat at a Brazilian steakhouse in Sao Paulo, so I’m sure his family also eats meat. I would go out on a limb and make something somewhat healthy and see if they throw it at me or like it. I think I would make Buffalo Cauliflower tacos in lettuce wraps. At least that’s what I’m craving right now. Haha.

BONUS 666 Question! If you guys ever perform live, will you guys let Adam pick out the Daisy Dukes and capes to wear or will you pick out Adam’s?
Lucas: I think the bigger question here is, if this project ever performs live, would George wear daisy dukes and a cape!?!? If so, would Adam wear a black shirt, black jeans, and boots? I’d vote for this outfit swap in a heartbeat. I think drumming in daisy dukes would be pretty comfy. The cape might get in the way though. Have you seen the Death Metal Batman video? This is what came to mind when I imagined George wearing a cape.

Check out the song “Death Metal Batman”