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Stars Pick Their Top Five! This Week: Dead Cross

The members of hardcore metal band Dead Cross hate the term "supergroup." We suspect that's 'cause of connotations linking it to bloated '80s hairballs like Asia. But still, the cap fits. The ranks here are blessed with Dave Lombardo (Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies, Misfits, Fantomas), Justin Pearson (The Locust, Head Wound City, Retox), Mike Crain (Retox), and Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, Tomahawk), and their just-released self-titled debut album is as insanely, brutally, melodically intense as one might expect from said bunch. In other words, it ain't Asia. The band plays Tucson this week, so Pearson told us about the five albums that changed his life.

1. Downcast–Downcast EP: I saw this band play when I was 15. I rode in the back of a U-haul from San Diego to Berkeley to see them live. They played these four songs. The guitarist jumped over his amp and broke his arm. It was perfect.

2. Drive Like Jehu—Drive Like Jehu: I got this when I was 14. This altered how I would see music for the rest of my life. The album still holds up as if it was released today. 

3. The Cramps—Bad Music For Bad People: My dad hated that I liked the Cramps, and I hated my dad. 

4. Sex Pistols—Never Mind the Bollocks: This is the album I needed for basic survival as a shitty kid in the '80s. Growing up in Phoenix. I saw there was another world thanks to this band. I then knew I had to get out of the dying world I lived in.  

5. Various Artists—Skate Rock Volume 3-Wild Riders of Boards: The gateway drug. 

Note: As much as I would love to appropriately list only five [albums] and five reasons why those albums changed my life, it's just way too hard to choose a specific number, and a small one at that, all for a topic that is so massive. Life is really weird. Every day there is a soundtrack to something in my head. That is a lot of music to sift through for such a short list.

With Author & Punisher, and Silent on Friday, August 18 at 8 p.m., Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress St., 520-740-1000, $25-$27, all ages.