Walt Trachsler co-founded Rotting Corpse in 1985 alongside vocalist Jim Mulqueen, while working as guitar tech for Dimebag (billed as "Diamond" at the time) Darrell Abbott. He’d been carrying the idea since somewhere between 1982 and 1984 and spent more than a year looking for anyone else in North Texas who wanted to play it. Guitarist John Perez answered a card at an Arlington music store, drummer Dave Gryder came in through Mulqueen, and the band played its first show at Rascals in Arlington on December 6th, 1985. No other thrash band existed in North Texas at the time — they were building something from nothing, years before the Metroplex had a circuit of clubs to play or a scene with a name.
Forty-one years later he is still the only man who has been in every version of the band.
A Node In The Metroplex Scene
Rotting Corpse didn’t stay isolated for long. By decade’s end, the band had traded members with Gammacide, Hellpreacher, and Devastation — the same small, overlapping pool of players that also produced Pantera, Rigor Mortis, and Devastation. Trachsler sat at the center of that web from two directions at once: as Dimebag’s guitar tech before the band existed, and later as a full member of Devastation himself. In a scene that small, being trusted by that many bands at once was its own kind of credential.
A Detour With Death
In 1990, Trachsler was working as a roadie for death metal pioneers Death when Chuck Schuldiner opted out of the band’s European touring commitments, citing organizational and personal issues back home. Rather than cancel, drummer Bill Andrews and bassist Terry Butler kept the tour going — and handed Trachsler the guitar. It’s the kind of trust that doesn’t get extended lightly: stepping in for the founder of death metal, on his own album’s tour, in front of European crowds who’d paid to see him. It’s documented on Death’s own Wikipedia page.
A Guitar Credit On Massacre’s From Beyond
Trachsler also picked up rhythm guitar on Florida death metal outfit Massacre’s 1991 album From Beyond — a session that went uncredited on the original release but is documented in the record’s full personnel history on Wikipedia. It’s a quiet line in someone else’s liner notes, but it says something: by the early ‘90s, players well outside his own scene were calling on him.
Devastation
Trachsler also plays guitar for fellow Texas thrash outfit Devastation, joining their 2008 reunion. Frontman Rodney Dunsmore has said the reunion might not have happened without him: "Walt is 100% in the band; in fact if he would have said no there would not be a reunion," adding he’d "always been like our sixth member anyway" — running sound and handling tour logistics alongside playing guitar.
Still Telling The Stories
Trachsler’s history with Dimebag Darrell hasn’t stayed in the past. He’s appeared at a Heavy Metal Hall of Fame event in Arlington, Texas, sharing a firsthand Dimebag story on stage — one of a shrinking number of people who can speak to that era from the inside.
In His Own Words
“What we are doing now is not a reunited or reborn or re-what-the-fuck-ever — this is a new band with new material, with an old name and a legacy.”
Trachsler said that in a March 2010 Blabbermouth interview, conducted mid-tour by Soulfly bassist Bobby Burns while Rotting Corpse was out with Soulfly, Prong, and Incite. Asked about the road ahead, he put it plainly: "We will spend the majority of 2010 on tour around the world, finally bringing the Texas thrash metal circus to the masses."
A note on spelling: his surname has appeared inconsistently across old press (also seen as "Traschler" and "Traschsler"). Multiple independent Blabbermouth articles converge on "Trachsler," which we’re using here as the best-supported spelling.
More Photos
Walter as a founding member of the lineups pictured above; we haven’t been able to confirm which figure is him in every shot, so we’re not labeling individual faces where we’re not sure. More of him individually as we find them — see the full band photo gallery.
