Is Seth Putnam really the way his lyrics portray him to be? That is a racist, sexist and homophobic dirt bag? My impression is that, there are just some things that you can't take seriously, and Anal Cunt, in my opinion, is definitely one of those things. They are just too over the top to be taken seriously, and if I'm not mistaken, they founded the band just to offend people, so there's that (heck, even the name was chosen to be as offensive as possible). But there's also no doubt, that Seth lived an extreme lifestyle - drug and alcohol abuse, getting into fights at a regular pace - so there's the definite possibility, that his lyrics still contain some sort of truth.

What is your opinion on the matter? Most of you probably don't care, because Seth is not really a well respected musician, much less in a metal forum (let's face it, the music he made was barely classifiable as metal), but he still intrigues me to some extent.

EDIT: There's also, of course, the possibility, that he just didn't give a shit

"What's your deal, man?"

*Nudges corpse*

I think he started off as a guy who just wanted to poke fun at the more "serious" grind/metal bands and just sort of dick around with some guys who were decent musicians. But, somewhere along the line, his moronic rants were taken somewhat seriously but douchey fans who just want to write everything off as "it's a joke, man", without contextualizing Seth's penchant for being a huge asshole. He's an extreme guy, probably has some sort of manic/depression thing going on, and I do think some of his "art" is genuine and he's trying to capture the GG Allin spirit all over again - the only problem is that unlike Allin, Seth just sort of lacks any real ethos to his destructiveness.

Well, not anymore.

erm, yeah, you know what i meant >_>

What's the deal with talking about him in the present tense?

Talking in past tense is gay.

He was just a professional troll more than anything.

That's my impression of it as well: he made it his duty to piss off as many people as possible, heck, he even built an entire career out of it, but never seemed to take it all seriously. But the point PhilosophicalFrog made about him trying to revitalize the spirit of GG Allin is pretty interesting: it seems that GG Allin was more sincere in his pursuit of reviving the "spirit of Rock 'n' Roll" (as he put it, I believe) than Seth ever was. If you look at it that way, GG Allin actually had a goal he wanted to obtain (which of course was sidetracked by his rampant drug abuse and untimely death), while with Seth it seems, that he was destructive for destruction's sake, not with a sense of purpose behind it. He offended a lot of people, just to get a laugh out of it, but ultimately, he didn't take it all too seriously. I think if Seth had eve written a song about himself, he probably would have named it: "Seth Putnam is a fucking gay phony" or something along those lines.

He was a pin-dicked talentless hack who was malignanty selfish and should have died at a young age in a drowning accident.

Hating Seth Putnam is gay.

I was only paying him respects. I think he'd find my eulogy more appropriate than some bs fanboy drivel about Sorely Missed Seth. THAT would be gay.

Incidentally my friend Jason knew Seth on a first-name basis (yeah, I was also surprised to know he actually had friends) and thus Jason kept in touch with Seth's widow after he died...Apparently they were in a shitload of debt already and things only got worse after he passed.

I basically view Seth Putnam/Anal Cunt as a mostly unfunny joke band and as such I don't really care for it. Chuckle worthy for a few minutes in it's "so offensive ain't it' kind of way but the music has to be somewhat good to last beyond that or it just withers into unmemorable gutter trash.

Yeah there's only so far funny/outrageous song titles will get you when the actual music isn't really listenable.
No real opinion on Putnam himself other than to say he seemed to be pretty unlikeable, unpredictable, etc.
I did get a genuine few good laughs out of their fake cock rock album though, brilliant idea. One of the songs was called "blasting my band's demo on a boombox at the beach" - I think I choked laughing on that.

I'm a fan of Anal Cunt, their associated acts and Seth Putnam, who I likened to a more misanthropic Andy Kaufman. He had an unusual concept of humor and an impressively quick wit to go with it. Even if you don't like the way he chose to use it, this is hard to deny. I also had the impression that he was probably suffering some sort of mental condition. The thought that he might've been bipolar in particular does make a lot of sense when you consider how impulsive and self-destructive he was, and how erratic his behavior tended to be. These aspects of his personality were no doubt compounded by all the drugs and alcohol in the mix.

Did he literally hate women? Was he a racist? No, I don't think so. He was too nihilistic, self-loathing and depressive to feel that strongly about anything in particular. In terms of his physical violence, I imagine it was the combined result of his impulsivity and drug use.

Anybody hating on Anal Cunt is a fuckboy twerp who I guess can't tolerate ripper grindcore songs.

Haha, no one was hating on Anal Cunt, and at this point I'm convinced, that the type of hate he seemed to spread was nothing but the expression of his brand of humor. Never thought of him to be depressive, but I guess it does make sense now, especially if he was bipolar, which would explain quite a lot - his destructive nature and his apparent hate of everyone. I mean, to some extent it reminds me of Type O Negative's song "We hate everyone". Surely, since he hated everyone, he couldn't hate anyone in particular more than the next.

What a nihilistic misanthrope!

I think the best joke Anal Cunt ever pulled was recording a track called "Manowar is Gay," and then doing a note for note cover of Gloves of Metal. I'm a big Manowar fan, but that was a pretty damned elaborate gesture.

FWIW, he has said in his own words that his coma around '04 was the result of eating a month's worth of Ambien in an attempt to commit suicide.

The story he gave was that he rented a motel room after his birthday and cooked up a huge spoon of heroin (enough that he knew he could kill himself with it), but decided against it (I assume because he thought that was a very "gay", cliched way to die) and instead ate the Ambien, hoping to kill himself that way.

IIRC, he wrote this on his defunct website, and I believe it was in a later interview that he explained his attempted suicide was because he was tired of being depressed all the time, or something similar.

EDIT: I actually found a pretty illuminating interview where he talks about his near-death experiences posted here a few years back that I hadn't read before: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=94804

and another one: http://hellbound.ca/2011/06/seth-putnam ... interview/

I remember when he died and we wanted to have a song named "Your vocalist just died".

Did it ever happened?

I didn't knew you had a band, young_Metalhead.

And after waking up from the coma, when interviewed about it, Seth Putnam said it was every bit as gay as he had described in that song, years earlier.

What a fucking badass.

Metal and hardcore and extreme music in general have always been about presenting yourself as extreme in order to get a rise out of people. But as you or I should know, most metalheads and hc kids are the most benign people on earth. They're polite, egg-headed, nerdy white boys that don't use drugs and come home before bed time, and extreme music is a portal they sue to make themselves feel more badass. Okay, that's an over generalization, but you get the idea. Seth Putnam, obviously doesn't think that way, he's just a dickhead 24/7. His personality is offensive, but to the point that it's antisocial. You notice they never play huge gigs for their legacy, and it's not because they don't get around, it's because nobody in their right mind would want to hang out with a person like that. Also, every time you see him in an interview or picture he's whacked out on drugs and acting like an edgy teenager. He clearly doesn't give a shit what people think about him, and you can say that makes it an act, but I say it gives him all the more reason to start believing everything he says. Considering he's been known to start altercations and use slurs in public, I'd say he's the real deal. People that start altercations and use slurs in public are what we call assholes. The asshole is not an act, he's an asshole.

That being said, while I find Putnam to be a giant manchild with the emotional maturity of a shower head, I do enjoy the music. Morbid Florist was a great album and it's so painful to listen to that it's relaxing. But not only does Putnam's assholishness delegitimize him as a human being, it unauthenticates(?) him as a musician/artist, because you know he's not really trying hard to put on an act or presentation, he's just being the same dumb old Putnam.

^Haha. chill out, guy... You could learn a thing or two from Sensitive Seth!


C'mon, pet Mr. Mellow Puss!

I'm pretty sure Seth's life (we're talking about his life here, not his band, remember) wasn't about "being an asshole" so much as considering life itself a huge, stupid and fucked up joke that couldn't be taken seriously in the first place. Who can't relate to that from time to time?

I agree with CF_Mono, from everything I read/saw of Seth Putnam in his later years he seemed like an unashamed douchebag bully, not like the typical jock quarterback bully but more the secretly gay dickhead that can never be with a female without money, who calls you a fag everyday and smears shit on your books. Nobody can really deny this as well. Maybe he was just anti-social and insecure but I don't know, at some point you reveal your intentions and try to make amends, even Andy Kaufman had moments of sincerity.

This is glorious. I need to see if my friend knew anything about Seth's evident affinity for cats...I guess it makes sense as the most asocial people tend to only trust animals.

That's a really weird description, not to mention oddly specific... Is it based on real-life experiences you've had with a bully? Harrowing stuff. I'm so sorry. :[

As someone who only occasionally lurks here now, I'll throw in my .02 on the original poster's question based on my experiences.



It is important to understand something - just because someone is racist, homophobic, a raging drug addict, or even all three simultaneously, does not mean they aren't a human being. Seth was capable of being friendly and chatting with you. He was probably capable of loving his cat. He probably had great affection for his wife. Seth also hated people for the color of their skin, ethnicity, and religion. Even after he died, his wife's rants about Judiasm on Facebook towards fans were some of the most cringe-worthy things I've seen on the internet (note: I don't go places I know will offend me, so I know there's far, far worse out there). I have no doubt that he played some of it up cartoonishly for attention, but Seth "lived the gimmick." Seth was very likely severely depressed, seemed to have a less than outstanding childhood, and turned to very hard drugs very early on in his life. Likely the drugs and mental issues were the driving force behind him punching people at shows, throwing things at the audience, and so on and so forth. It was a manifestation of the issues he had internally that he never did anything about.

The shows were wild and dangerous. If that didn't appeal to you, it was best to stay home. I went a couple times when I was younger and had a blast and admired the perversity of the spectacle and the idea of a rock show as combat. In my 30s, I would never go. The danger he offers no longer speaks to me in any way. There are other unhinged performers going completely mental on stage who aren't nearly as big a piece of crap as Seth (ie why I'm going to see Death Grips in a couple weeks) or anyone else in that wheel house. Yes, I'm looking at you Bad Luck 13. It is also important to note that grindcore was an offshoot of punk and in its pure form *is* punk rock and not really metal, and Seth wasn't really a metalhead in any easily definable way by how people here see metal fans. This isn't to say that metalheads have better opinions about societal issues than punks by any stretch of the imagination, but obviously his ethos is much more matched to that than whatever stereotyped version of being "metal" is now. He was a product of a different era.

I've posted this once before, but I've always laughed at the stories my friend told of Seth going up to people wearing Pantera shirts at AxCx shows and saying "You're a fucking wigger!"

I would think that if someone was "really trying hard to put on an act", that would deauthenticate them. I mean, if he's being himself, doesn't that authenticate him as a musician/artist, since he is, you know, being authentic in his music/art?

Same as push for "realness" in hip hop. Seth was definitely authentic and real. He was also not a "good person" as far as being a functional, helpful member of society is concerned. Any society. For a lot of people on every side of all the fences, the push is made to dehumanize those who do or say things they don't like at any and all levels of scale. That seems to be part of the human condition even if it is may be just as fucked up to do as it is to be Seth Putnam.

you seem upset.
were you really that unsatisfied by his small penis?

It's ironic that you've mentioned that. Putnam performed additional vocals on Pantera's The Great Southern Trendkill. I really have no idea how he EVEN ended up on the album. I assume it's due to his relations with Eyehategod. Putnam was a friend of EHG and Anselmo has been connected with the band for a while.

I watched a interview with Putnam in it a couple of years ago. Any man over 40 that says "gay" after every word is truly suffering from a severe case of arrested development. Something else is bothering me now. Why is "R.I.P." in front of his name on MA?

He died of heart failure on 6/1/11.

I think he really meant what he wrote about. Its made obvious in some of his interviews.

Yeah i just watched an interview where he thought 'niggers' cut the power in a venue due to one of his songs. The way he so nonchalantly said it leads me to believe he was the real deal...A sad, broken, hateful, self loathing little dude. That being said some of their song titles crack me up. I'm still not sure if by that I am laughing at him or with him.

Seth was a party-buddy of Phil's, probably through the EHG connection, as you mentioned. I remember Phil writing a tribute to Seth after he died and he admitted that he knew that Seth wasn't a fan of his (Phil's) bands.

I've known he's been dead for years. I was just wondering why he deserved so much respect with the acronym, "R.I.P."

I can see this thread's set to become another one of these: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=110580
I think I'm done here.

Just the way Ol' Sethikins would have wanted it, no doubt!