Welcome to another edition of From My Collection. Today’s essay pays tribute to one of the most larger than life characters in all of metal, Gord “Piledriver” Kirchin, who succumbed to lung cancer last Thursday, September 22. He was a day shy of his 61st birthday. Although not widely known by the masses, Kirchin was a beloved fixture of the underground metal scene, specifically in his native Canada. He is best known for his alter ego/band Piledriver, with which he released two classic albums, 1986’s Stay Ugly, and its predecessor, the subject of today’s essay, 1984’s Metal Inquisition. Much mystery surrounded Piledriver in the pre-internet age, and even in the hyper-technological climate of 2022 (Sounds like a Voivod album title, doesn’t it?), the line between fact and fiction is extremely thin. So join us as we pay tribute to one of metal’s most underrated and unexpected visionaries, Gord “Piledriver” Kirchin. Rest in power Piledriver!
To answer the question, “Who was Piledriver?”, one must first ask the question, “Who was Gord Kirchin?” By all accounts, Kirchin was a professional musician in the Montreal music scene, hopping from band to band and gig to gig. At the time, hard rock and heavy metal ruled supreme everywhere, and Canada was no exception. After all, this is the country who gave us Rush, Triumph, Moxy, The Hunt, Max Webster, Helix, Coney Hatch, Anvil, Exciter…you get the idea. Kirchin was surrounded by a goldmine of hard and heavy bands, with nearly everyone snatching up record deals left and right. It only made sense Kirchin formed a metal band of his own, and he did!
In 1984, Kirchin formed Piledriver. Eager to capitalize on the ongoing metal trend, the band rushed into the studio to record their debut full length, Metal Inquisition. Joining Kirchin for this release was lead guitarist Bud Slaker, rhythm guitarist “Knuckles” Akimbo, bassist Sal Gibson, and drummer “Former” Lee. Together, the quintet was dead set on creating an album so extreme, so vile, and so over the top, that metal sites such as this one would be looking back romantically on it in the next century, and they did! There’s only one problem.
Everything you just read in that last paragraph is complete and utter bullshit.
There was no “they” or “quintet”. There was only “he”, Gord Kirchin. Well, he and Leslie Howe, better known on the back cover as “Bud Slaker”. In reality, Kirchin handled all vocal duties while Howe performed all guitars, bass, and drum programming. That’s right folks. Not even the drums on this classic release are real. Now by no means is this casting any aspersion upon Metal Inquisition. I’ll still take it over most of the here today, gone tomorrow Priest clones that were dominating the demo circuit at the time, and as far as in-studio albums/bands go, it remains, the be all, end all, or at least tied with Exorcist’s Nightmare Theatre (1986).
Metal Inquisition opens with its sing-along title track; one that has since grown to be iconic within headbanger circles. If we were to make a Top 10 Metal Songs About Metal list (Perhaps next week?), there’s no doubt in my mind this song would easily crack the top 5. Musically, it’s a NWOBHM derived banger on steroids, but killer as it is, it’s the lyrics that take centerstage. In fact, the lyrics take centerstage throughout this entire album. This isn’t to undermine the quality of the music: An unorthodox blend of dark heavy metal, speed metal, and very early black metal. However, it is blatantly unavoidable. There’s no doubt that Kirchin was attempting to outdo the satanic sensationalism of Venom and sex-crazed ramblings of Anvil, first grabbing listener’s attention with the lyric, “And if you’re not a metalhead you might as well be dead.” Were any truer words ever spoken?
Side A rages on with the dark and diabolical “Sex with Satan”. No, this is not some clever analogy in which the singer reveals himself to be the dark one like in Black Sabbath’s “N.I.B.” or Rainbow’s “Gates of Babylon”. In true Spinal Tap fashion, this song is literally about “Sex with Satan”. Such outrageous lyrics call for an equally outrageous soundtrack, and they sure got it. Slaker’s riffs on this one are blistering, raw, and tuned lower than hell itself. As far as I’m concerned, this is full blown 80s black metal that can be viewed as the missing link between Venom and Sarcófago. The equally absurd “Sodomize the Dead” serves as less a song and more a follow-up piece to “Sex with Satan”, infernal and unrelenting.
Closing out side A is the epic and anthemic “Witch Hunt”. Slow, low, and overtly ominous, “Witch Hunt” sees the Piledriver conjure his inner Sabbath, wailing out some nasally Ozzy Osbourne inspired vocal passages over some colossally doomy riffs. I wouldn’t specifically call this doom metal along the lines of Saint Vitus, Trouble, and other practitioners of the genre in its early stages, but at 7 minutes and with lyrics about, you guessed it, hunting and burning a witch, it would fit right in on a mixtape of said nature. Also, who can get enough of that intoxicating chorus (“Witch hunt! I’m going on a witch hunt!”)? Who said doom couldn’t be groovy?
As we flip over to side B, we’re greeted by the self explanatory “Pile Driver”. On this one, we’re formally introduced to Kirchin’s alter ego, who wastes no time reminding us that he is “the exalted, the one and only”, not that any of us ever questioned otherwise. In case you did, prepare to be, uh, piledriven by this “dirty rotten son of a bitch”. Side B continues with yet another imposing, slower paced number in “Human Sacrifice”. My best comparison for this pummeling headbanger is the similarly natured Venom compositions like “Warhead”, “In League with Satan”, “7 Gates of Hell”, and so forth. As you all know, there’s more to early extreme metal than speed!
In true Piledriver fashion, the “band” saves the most outrageous for last with the 8 and a half minute “Alien Rape”. Despite its eye-opening song title, “Alien Rape” is actually about a violent extraterrestrial take over that plays out like Orson Welles’s adaption of The War of the Worlds set to a low budget thrash metal soundtrack. Granted, it doesn’t make the end outcome any more pretty. Of course the aliens took over, and “The smell of blood choked the earth…’till it breathed no more.” Read that line again. Does it get more metal than that?
Despite “breaking up” in 1988, Piledriver reformed in 2004 under the moniker The Exalted Piledriver. And guess what? This time around, they were a real band! Kirchin spent 15 years touring the globe, bringing the Piledriver spectacle to life for eager legions of headbangers. Unlike many 80s cult metal acts that I and others my age missed “the first time around”, this truly WAS the first time around for Piledriver, making their return all the more triumphant. While we will now unfortunately never be treated to any incarnation of Piledriver ever again, we should all be grateful for the music and the memories of Gord “Piledriver” Kirchin. Those who aren’t will be “sentenced to death…by guillotine!”