Necro's Story
Necro was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in the Glenwood Housing Projects and has been living in Brooklyn ever since, only traveling to other places on tour. The Projects was a rough place for young Necro, getting into drama literally everyday with someone. This is how it was in the early 80's in Brooklyn, especially growing up with The Decepticons gang in your projects. What made it worse was being white living in The Projects, and this made all the rich white kids from surrounding neighborhoods look down on you, so Necro was fighting everyone, it seemed like everyone had a problem back then.
Born into a Jewish family, he is the son of two Israeli expatriates with ancestry from Israel and Romania. Necro's father is a Romanian born Israeli soldier and his mother an Orthodox baal teshuva. His parents got divorced when he was 2 years old, and were constantly at each other's throats, which young Ron witnessed repeatedly, making him feel like he had to choose sides, being very confused at this time in his life.
His first introduction to music was a mixture of styles coming from his mother, father & uncle. Necro’s mom would listen to all the disco of the 70’s like Donna Summer in the house blasting while dancing, while his father was heavily into Israeli music like Chaim Moshe, as well as Country like Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton, and would play this in the car every time he would pick young Ron up for his once a week Burger King trip, father & son bonding. His Uncle Chanan RIP, who was deeply into 60’s acid rock like The Zombies & Animals had an even bigger impact giving Necro his first guitar, an acoustic Ovation, which Necro fell in love with at the age of 9 and started mastering daily on the hard rugged strings. Around this time (6 to 8 years old) Ron had been listening to Hall & Oates non stop (young Ron wished Darryl Hall was his father in fantasy while listening to their songs) religiously along with Billy Joel & Elton John who had a major influence in the baby stages, but things were about to change as Metal & Hiphop would come into Necro’s life as it started getting popular in music culture and appearing on TV often.
He then began his premature musical career at 11, playing in a death metal/thrash band named Injustice. It took a lot to get accepted into this band, which was fronted by his brother Bill, because all the members were 4 to 6 years older, and they didn’t really want Ron around, he was seen as a nuisance. This motivated the youngin to practice so hard that he became so extremely impressive on the guitar they had to let him join the band. Not only could he play the technical riffs they wrote better than anyone else they had in the band, but he was writing some of his own insane riffs, and this made him a novelty, an 11 year old with long hair down to his ass, playing a yellow B.C. Rich Warlock. Everywhere they played, people would be shocked that this little kid was on stage and it was exhilarating to young Ronny to be out in the world experiencing night life so young.
He made a transition from Heavy metal to Hiphop based on the fact they could not get signed to a Metal record label despite having a very respected demo tape, which after all these years earned them cult status respect from old school metal heads. One of the moments Necro remembers is getting a rejection letter from RoadRunner Records, which hurt deeply because some of the bands Necro worshipped were signed to that label but it just didn’t happen, and the band members grew apart, while him and his brother started focusing full time on Hiphop.
In 1988, he started rapping daily after being influenced by his older brother, rapper Ill Bill. The goal of rapping was to earn respect, get girls, but also because Necro was in love with the concept of writing poetry that rhymed, and saying insane things, then making it sound good over a beat, which he would start to develop a production style from making loop tapes from old vinyl found in the project garbage bins.
Necro derived his stage-name from the Slayer song "Necrophobic" with it first being, “Necrophiliac” because he wanted the craziest name on earth that would shock people when they heard it. After people started calling him "Necro" for short, and him realizing that it had more meaning as a pre-fix, he started really pushing Necro as his name and brand, creating his own logo by hand after seeing the 70’s font on an old dusted vinyl record. Little did he know people all over the world would tattoo his name and N symbol all over their bodies paying homage to his original musical creations.
Before that he called himself "Mad Mooney", which was a character from a Clive Barker book. He made his first demo in about 1990 and won a demo battle contest on the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show on WKCR-FM with a track called, "Check Out The Demo" which featured his brother as well. Part of winning this contest was being allowed up to the show to rap, but for some strange reason, Bobbito kept giving Necro excuses of why he couldn’t come up, even after winning the contest. It would take 4 more years & sneaking up to the show without Bobitto's permission (Rapper Fatal brought Necro up with him by surprise and Bob couldn't do anything about it), before Necro was let up to the show where he did his legendary freestyle, “Necrophiliac, Nineteen Ninety Gore!”, which he performed in a death metal voice, before changing to his regular voice in ’95 for the rest of his career. Necro felt this vocal style was a little too much for people to handle, and decided having insane content was enough as it is.
In about 1993 Necro started rapping full-time and made a demo called "Do The Charles Manson”. During the beginning stages of his career, he would travel to Newark, New Jersey by the path train, and work with an engineer named B-Wiz. The deal was, Necro would bring all his own records, and sometimes a bass guitar, and B-Wiz would engineer the session for him, since Necro didnt know how to do this yet. B-Wiz would do all this work on an Ensoniq EPS, and would charge Necro $50 for each track, with Necro recording vocals in his studio on these songs.
Eventually Necro bought his own Ensoniq EPS and started making beats and recording on a 4 track himself, making demos like, “Garbage Bag & Butcher Knife” in ’94. In 1995 he proceeded to rap on the Wildman Steve and DJ Riz show WBAU 90.3FM, as well as any other radio station that would let him up at the time. Necro and his homies would spit live unheard verses (called freestyles at the time), and these appearances started earning the young rapper a cult following all over the NYC/East Coast area.
Since the beginning stages, Necro had been making his own beats conceptually, finding the samples & vinyl digging, then playing live bass on tracks, but it wasn’t until he owned the Ensoniq EPS himself, and eventually an ASR-10 that he would really delve into his gritty horrific beat style.
All Necro’s first beats had drums that were looped with horror movie samples and death metal distorted basslines played over them. Necro also wasn’t too savy with equipment so some of his wires were creating feedback and he didn’t realize this until a friend named DJ Sizzahands helped him out, and he was able to clean the sound up a bit.
At this time, '95/'96, Necro was heavily influenced by beat makers like DJ Premier, Large Pro & Pete Rock, to name a few. One of the things Necro loved was how Primo cut up drums, and did this more perfect than anyone else, as Necro was mainly looping beats now and had not mastered the art of chopping drums yet.
One of the defining moments for Necro was when his homie DJ Riz took him to his friend G-Clef’s house to learn how to chop a beat, and G-Clef showed Necro how to cut up the break beat, “Impeach The President”. Necro was exhilerated and went home to practice and master the art of chopping a beat, which was rather simple once you got the swing of it. One of the first beats Necro made with a chopped drumkit was the track, “No Tomorrow” for Non Phixion which featured a sample from the movie, “Blood Sucking Freaks”. Necro had gotten the actual movie soundtrack reels from the composer himself, Michael Saul RIP, and had them transferred to cassette tape so he could sample the music for his beats. On the track, “No Tomorrow” you can hear Necro do the extra snair hits that Pete Rock was so popular for at the time.
Once he knew how to chop drums there was no limit to what Necro could do, as his style might have been influenced by many beat makers, but one thing Necro did different was sample things no one else would know how to freak, and do it to perfection, with original basslines played since he knew how to play guitar & bass. Necro’s goal was to never copy anyone else’s style and to be original plus super hardcore, so while he was influenced by many, his sound was his own brutal sound and this started earning him a lot of respect, with him producing not only 50% of all Non Phixion’s beats, but Cage’s legendary debut 12”, “Agent Orange & Radiohead” which ended up being his most popular songs even 20+ years later.
Born into a Jewish family, he is the son of two Israeli expatriates with ancestry from Israel and Romania. Necro's father is a Romanian born Israeli soldier and his mother an Orthodox baal teshuva. His parents got divorced when he was 2 years old, and were constantly at each other's throats, which young Ron witnessed repeatedly, making him feel like he had to choose sides, being very confused at this time in his life.
His first introduction to music was a mixture of styles coming from his mother, father & uncle. Necro’s mom would listen to all the disco of the 70’s like Donna Summer in the house blasting while dancing, while his father was heavily into Israeli music like Chaim Moshe, as well as Country like Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton, and would play this in the car every time he would pick young Ron up for his once a week Burger King trip, father & son bonding. His Uncle Chanan RIP, who was deeply into 60’s acid rock like The Zombies & Animals had an even bigger impact giving Necro his first guitar, an acoustic Ovation, which Necro fell in love with at the age of 9 and started mastering daily on the hard rugged strings. Around this time (6 to 8 years old) Ron had been listening to Hall & Oates non stop (young Ron wished Darryl Hall was his father in fantasy while listening to their songs) religiously along with Billy Joel & Elton John who had a major influence in the baby stages, but things were about to change as Metal & Hiphop would come into Necro’s life as it started getting popular in music culture and appearing on TV often.
He then began his premature musical career at 11, playing in a death metal/thrash band named Injustice. It took a lot to get accepted into this band, which was fronted by his brother Bill, because all the members were 4 to 6 years older, and they didn’t really want Ron around, he was seen as a nuisance. This motivated the youngin to practice so hard that he became so extremely impressive on the guitar they had to let him join the band. Not only could he play the technical riffs they wrote better than anyone else they had in the band, but he was writing some of his own insane riffs, and this made him a novelty, an 11 year old with long hair down to his ass, playing a yellow B.C. Rich Warlock. Everywhere they played, people would be shocked that this little kid was on stage and it was exhilarating to young Ronny to be out in the world experiencing night life so young.
He made a transition from Heavy metal to Hiphop based on the fact they could not get signed to a Metal record label despite having a very respected demo tape, which after all these years earned them cult status respect from old school metal heads. One of the moments Necro remembers is getting a rejection letter from RoadRunner Records, which hurt deeply because some of the bands Necro worshipped were signed to that label but it just didn’t happen, and the band members grew apart, while him and his brother started focusing full time on Hiphop.
In 1988, he started rapping daily after being influenced by his older brother, rapper Ill Bill. The goal of rapping was to earn respect, get girls, but also because Necro was in love with the concept of writing poetry that rhymed, and saying insane things, then making it sound good over a beat, which he would start to develop a production style from making loop tapes from old vinyl found in the project garbage bins.
Necro derived his stage-name from the Slayer song "Necrophobic" with it first being, “Necrophiliac” because he wanted the craziest name on earth that would shock people when they heard it. After people started calling him "Necro" for short, and him realizing that it had more meaning as a pre-fix, he started really pushing Necro as his name and brand, creating his own logo by hand after seeing the 70’s font on an old dusted vinyl record. Little did he know people all over the world would tattoo his name and N symbol all over their bodies paying homage to his original musical creations.
Before that he called himself "Mad Mooney", which was a character from a Clive Barker book. He made his first demo in about 1990 and won a demo battle contest on the Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito show on WKCR-FM with a track called, "Check Out The Demo" which featured his brother as well. Part of winning this contest was being allowed up to the show to rap, but for some strange reason, Bobbito kept giving Necro excuses of why he couldn’t come up, even after winning the contest. It would take 4 more years & sneaking up to the show without Bobitto's permission (Rapper Fatal brought Necro up with him by surprise and Bob couldn't do anything about it), before Necro was let up to the show where he did his legendary freestyle, “Necrophiliac, Nineteen Ninety Gore!”, which he performed in a death metal voice, before changing to his regular voice in ’95 for the rest of his career. Necro felt this vocal style was a little too much for people to handle, and decided having insane content was enough as it is.
In about 1993 Necro started rapping full-time and made a demo called "Do The Charles Manson”. During the beginning stages of his career, he would travel to Newark, New Jersey by the path train, and work with an engineer named B-Wiz. The deal was, Necro would bring all his own records, and sometimes a bass guitar, and B-Wiz would engineer the session for him, since Necro didnt know how to do this yet. B-Wiz would do all this work on an Ensoniq EPS, and would charge Necro $50 for each track, with Necro recording vocals in his studio on these songs.
Eventually Necro bought his own Ensoniq EPS and started making beats and recording on a 4 track himself, making demos like, “Garbage Bag & Butcher Knife” in ’94. In 1995 he proceeded to rap on the Wildman Steve and DJ Riz show WBAU 90.3FM, as well as any other radio station that would let him up at the time. Necro and his homies would spit live unheard verses (called freestyles at the time), and these appearances started earning the young rapper a cult following all over the NYC/East Coast area.
Since the beginning stages, Necro had been making his own beats conceptually, finding the samples & vinyl digging, then playing live bass on tracks, but it wasn’t until he owned the Ensoniq EPS himself, and eventually an ASR-10 that he would really delve into his gritty horrific beat style.
All Necro’s first beats had drums that were looped with horror movie samples and death metal distorted basslines played over them. Necro also wasn’t too savy with equipment so some of his wires were creating feedback and he didn’t realize this until a friend named DJ Sizzahands helped him out, and he was able to clean the sound up a bit.
At this time, '95/'96, Necro was heavily influenced by beat makers like DJ Premier, Large Pro & Pete Rock, to name a few. One of the things Necro loved was how Primo cut up drums, and did this more perfect than anyone else, as Necro was mainly looping beats now and had not mastered the art of chopping drums yet.
One of the defining moments for Necro was when his homie DJ Riz took him to his friend G-Clef’s house to learn how to chop a beat, and G-Clef showed Necro how to cut up the break beat, “Impeach The President”. Necro was exhilerated and went home to practice and master the art of chopping a beat, which was rather simple once you got the swing of it. One of the first beats Necro made with a chopped drumkit was the track, “No Tomorrow” for Non Phixion which featured a sample from the movie, “Blood Sucking Freaks”. Necro had gotten the actual movie soundtrack reels from the composer himself, Michael Saul RIP, and had them transferred to cassette tape so he could sample the music for his beats. On the track, “No Tomorrow” you can hear Necro do the extra snair hits that Pete Rock was so popular for at the time.
Once he knew how to chop drums there was no limit to what Necro could do, as his style might have been influenced by many beat makers, but one thing Necro did different was sample things no one else would know how to freak, and do it to perfection, with original basslines played since he knew how to play guitar & bass. Necro’s goal was to never copy anyone else’s style and to be original plus super hardcore, so while he was influenced by many, his sound was his own brutal sound and this started earning him a lot of respect, with him producing not only 50% of all Non Phixion’s beats, but Cage’s legendary debut 12”, “Agent Orange & Radiohead” which ended up being his most popular songs even 20+ years later.
PSYCHO+LOGICAL-RECORDS 2016