John Perez spent most of 1984 hunting North Texas for anyone else who knew what Exciter and Venom and early Slayer were, and was ready to give up. Then Walt Trachsler called him off an old card at an Arlington music store and read out a list of favourite bands. “As soon as we met we had a chemistry that really ignited the whole Rotting Corpse concept,” Perez said later. “We were both totally dedicated to the heavy thrash metal cause and the energy we had was INTENSE!” He was a founding member of the band that started playing shows in December 1985.
A Different Calling
Perez quit Rotting Corpse in early 1987. In his own words, thrash just wasn’t where his head was: "I didn’t want to be part of a trend and I found thrash/death metal to be very limiting with what it had to offer. I realized that my true calling in the metal world was to write heavier, slower music with more melody. Something that stood the test of time." He’d been drawn that direction since the start of the decade — "I’ve always been into extreme metal since 1980! I remember buying the first Venom album, Witchfynde, Witchfinder General, Motorhead, Holocaust etc." — and wanted "a band much in the vein of Celtic Frost... super heavy Sabbath riffs mixed with evil thrashing death speed."
Founding Solitude Aeturnus
That vision became Solitude Aeturnus, the Arlington doom metal band Perez founded in 1987 and has fronted on guitar ever since (1987–2011, then 2023–present) — Solitude Aeturnus’s own Wikipedia page opens its history with him leaving Rotting Corpse to start it. During a mid-’90s hiatus he started his own label, Brainticket Records, and recorded a solo album under the name The Liquid Sound Company. He’s also contributed outside his own band — a 2010 guest guitar solo on Elliott’s Keep’s Sine Qua Non, on the track "Shades of Disgrace."
In His Own Words
“I still see a few of the guys. Dave Gryder, the drummer, is still around doing a progressive hard rock band, Mo Queen is a roadie for Pantera, Walt runs a bus company.”
Perez, asked about his old Rotting Corpse bandmates years later — a small window into a scene where everyone kept in touch.
