In July 1985 the Chicago based death metal band Deathstrike was put to rest when they were joined by drummer Bill Schmidt. This became the birth of the new band Master. The name was suggested by Rick Manson from the local band Witchslayer (who had also appeared on one of Brian Slagel's Metal Massacre compilations), influenced by the song "Lord Of This World" from Black Sabbath's "Master Of Reality" album. Don Kaye had a radio program on WBCR Brooklyn College radio and invited the band for an interview. Shortly after the interview Kaye hooked the band up with Combat Records. On December 21st they received a contract. The band recorded an album during the summer of 1986 with money which Paul Speckmann had inherited from his father. They hired Kim Fowley (a man who had written songs for artists like Kiss, Runaways and Alice Cooper) to read the contract for 1 USD a minute. After Bill Schmidt and his mother had added some changes to it the contract was simply thrown in the garbage. At this time Speckmann parted ways with Schmidt and worked on side projects like Funeral Bitch and Abomination. Abomination eventually signed a deal with Slatko from Nuclear Blast and soon Master also found its way to the Nuclear Blast label. The label never paid Paul any money though and their cooperation soon ended. Some line-up changes followed as Paul moved to Phoenix, Arizona, around 1993 and around 1995 he had once again relocated, this time to Hollywood, California. In 1998 Master signed a new deal with Pavement Music which gave them an opportunity to tour Europe together with Malevolent Creation and Krabathor. After the tour Speckmann recorded the punk project Solutions in Tilburg, Holland. During the tour Skull from Krabathor and Paul had been jamming at soundchecks and Christopher and Paul had discussed a possible project. Paul moved to the Czech Republic to record Martyr and when Bruno left Krabathor he was offered the empty position. Since then Paul has lived in the Czech Republic. Their unreleased album which was meant to be released by Combat Records was finally released in 2003 by From Beyond Productions, a sublabel of Displeased Records out of Holland.
MASTER
