Documentary Charts The Struggles of Black Punk Band ‘Death’

An unlikely but true story, three African American brothers from Detroit, Michigan, formed an impressive power-trio band in the ’70s called Death, playing the high-energy, hard-driving music we know today as punk rock long before anyone else.  The band self-released only one single, and recorded an album that collected dust in a member’s attic for nearly 35 years, unheard by the public because the music industry hated the name “Death.” Years later,  in a documentary called A Band Called Death,  the group’s sound and story have been unearthed for the masses to consume.   In fact, the documentary has become so popular that programmers at the Los Angeles Film Festival were compelled to announce an additional screening of A Band Called Death tonight at  at L.A. Live’s Regal Theatres in downtown Los Angeles.

Directed by Jeff Howlett and Mark Covino, A Band Called Death charts the journey of brothers David, Bobby and Dannis Hackney, who bought instruments and equipment with money from a family insurance settlement and set upon their own musical path, moving from an early incarnation called Rock Fire Funk Express to the name Death.  Record executives and radio stations were all unnerved by the band’s name.  When the brothers moved from Detroit to Vermont and posted flyers for a show around their town, local police tore all the flyers down and expressed concern the Hackneys were trying to start a street gang. The group lost momentum and faded away.

It was the next generation of the Hackney family, three of Bobby’s sons who are themselves musicians, who were active in getting the music out to the world. They were as surprised as anyone to learn of the music their father and uncles had made many years before. The band’s album, “… For the Whole World to See” was finally released in 2009.

Howlett has known Bobby Hackney Sr. for more than two decades, but didn’t learn about the existence of Death for many years. “Like everybody else, I was just completely floored,” said Howlett in an interview with Podpecay at a post-screening party at the LA Film Fest. “Are you kidding me, this music has been in an attic for 35 years? What is going on here?”

The film resonates because it is more than a documentary about a band few people have heard of  until now.  With David’s death in 2000 from lung cancer, A Band Called Death  feels more like a tribute to a music pioneer, a trend-maker who never lived to see is efforts bear fruit.  “There’s so much tragedy in the family’s life, but they are so humble and caring and outgoing,” said Covino. “They always have a positive outlook on life.”

As for why they kept the music of Death even from their children for so many years, Bobby Hackney Sr. said after Saturday’s premiere: “Like any dad, we didn’t want our children to be exposed to anything that we didn’t succeed at.

“We never sat down our kids like a family heirloom and said, ‘Hey kids, let’s listen to some Death music,’” he added. “For me and Dannis it was a painful episode in our lives, not because of the music, we really kept the music in our hearts, but just the broken dream and the fact we had put so much of our life dreams on what all three of us were doing and us three staying together.”

He said that the recent enthusiasm for the group has been entirely unexpected, saying “I didn’t think there was anybody in the world that liked Death, liked our name or our music, except us three.”

“Thank you guys for bringing back Death,” Dannis Hackney said to the enthusiastic audience Saturday. “You saw the rejection, so acceptance is strange to me.”

A Band Called Death screens at the Los Angeles Film Festival in the Documentary Competition.

Directed By: Jeff Howlett,
Mark Covino