Death metal’s Eliseo Lara has toured the United States, Mexico, and even Japan as the bassist for Sacrocurse and as vocalist and guitarist for Venereal Baptism and has no plans to stop. “The goal is to always go further,” he says.
For a Laredo lifer like Lara, music is a familial talent. His grandfather was a musician, and his tio — a one man show — played flamenco, mariachi, and rancheras, and was part of Laredo rock band Spectrum in the 1970s and 80s.
In middle school, Lara first got a guitar, an amp, and three-way calling to practice music with a friend. He spent more time doing scales and chord work than homework, but once his grades improved, his family supported his passion.
Lara’s first band, Aggressor, played covers and originals at parties. He cut his teeth at venues like the Juice Stop, but the Boogie Bash at Sal’s Pizza was his first big show. He remembers nervously asking promoter and full frontman “Boogie” Gonzalez to be part of the festival. “I even called him ‘sir,’” Lara recalled.
After high school, he got deeper into the death metal scene, a scene that “came and went.” He played with the horror punk band In the Graveyard, but found himself without a serious band for years until getting involved with Decayed Mutilation, and toured South Texas and Northern Mexico for years.
Venereal Baptism was later formed by members of Nethermost and A Monumental Black Statue. Under the name Fermentor, Lara helped with guitar solos at first and eventually joined Venereal Baptism whose original singer quit after their first full-length LP Deviant Castigation Liturgy (2017), leaving Lara to sing on Repugnant Coronation of the Beast (2019), the band’s second full-length album.
Venereal Baptism toured from Houston to Austin, the Río Grande Valley to Kansas City, Monterrey to Torreón, and even Mexico City. The band’s biggest tour was with French depressive black metal band Anti-Life, a tour Lara said was “not for the faint of heart.” Two bands in one minivan played Veracruz, Puebla, Querétaro, and Saltillo while surviving on “a lot of OXXO food.” He said the tour was “difficult, but extremely fun.”
Lara played Japan with Sacrocurse, and reminisced about touring Colorado with legendary extreme metal band Nunslaughter. Once, while riding with Nunslaughter to visit the infamous Stanley Hotel (The Shining), the band had a fender-bender. He said it was like “living out of a Seth Rogen movie” as metal royalty and Nunslaughter’s lead singer, Don of the Dead, flirted with the responding police officer. She never made it to the show, but Lara said, “those are the moments you live for as a touring musician.”
Lara said that death metal is an underground artform. “Don’t bring it to a ‘tío’s carne asada, unless it’s my tío’s,” he said. Sometimes that means playing for 1,000 people or five. And while he described underground metal as a “money pit,” he is proud of his ongoing career.
Relatively unknown, Venereal Baptism was signed to Osmose Productions, and with his guitar, determination, and like-minded friends, Lara has exhibited his talent to American, Mexican, and Japanese audiences.
Lara believes Laredo needs a strong metal scene, but advises young musicians to look outside the local scene. Metal bands used to count on local venues like The Dug Out and Cold Brew.
Even if success stories are rare, Lara advises musicians to “go out there because you love it. If you want to jam, jam. Maybe there won’t be a crowd, but creating art is what’s important.”
He said he has played music because he “wanted to be heard,” and that was enough to start his ascent (descent?) into the underground world of death metal.
