Talk:Possessed (band)

Still not neutral
Every time I attempt to fix the article, someone changes it back.-70.17.71.215 (talk) 03:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

From what I hear from the Wikipedia people there are a lot of people who are trying to claim credit or History that isn't theirs (self-promoting their own bands, names on this "Possessed" page. So many are either being "blocked" or a code put into their "edits" that immediately changes this article back to the facts. Please do not vandalize this site.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by JeffMetal666 (talk • contribs) 14:33, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello! This is Jeff Becerra from the band Possessed. While I *really* enjoy and *love* your Wikipedia Possessed Article I felt that it was important for me to write to you what I believe to be some very important and needed corrections & additions to the Wikipedia Possessed page. Of course I hope that you will re-word, or change, include, exclude or whatever of my words you feel are best for your Possessed article. I am only trying to be helpful and shed some truth and light to some of what is written here. Overall I am very impressed with your Wikipedia Possessed page and I want to thank you for your time and efforts. I also want to add that I (Jeff Becerra, co-founder of Possessed, composer of bass & lyrics writer) am an extremely honest person and have no reason to mislead you or lie to you. I am just happy that we are even on these pages. Again, thank you so much this is a HUGE honor for me! ~Jeff Becerra~

ps. I also wanted these (my words) to go to Wikipedia Employee "Julica" so that she might help to re-write some of this article. Below you will find some initial changes. While I know my wording is not fully grammatically correct, I hope that you will understand my meanings and make the necessary corrections (To Julica or other Wikipedia editors). I have also been hearing rumors by some of you at Wikipedia that there have been many people trying to "add their names" to the accomplishments of myself and Possessed. This is a very fine article and besides the few amount of corrections (found below this paragraph) this is extremely factual. I am actually genuinely impressed with your research and how truly factual this article is. Also I am very impressed with the clarity of writing. Usually people just print a bunch of lies written by jealous people who want to take away my History. Thanks to you and to Wikipedia for helping to preserve my good name and the significant amount of work that I have done in order to first: Bring Possessed out of their 3 year plus Garage days and second: Again resurrect Possessed from oblivion and nu-metal blast beats to touring the world again and bringing our music to our fans and supporters. Please contact me before making any drastic changes and help me to stop what I feel is a systematic attempt of other musicians to try and alter the truth and give themselves credit where no credit is deserved. I *really* hope that you can see and understand that my words are not those of a self-serving person, but only a plea to you (editors) to help me to preserve what is rightfully mine. These are my life's work and achievements and I am not ashamed to say that I am proud of what I have done and of what Possessed continues to do as well as what will come in the future of my band. Thank You so much for your time, effort and quest for being factual. I *really* have no idea who wrote this Wikipedia Possessed Entry, but once again I say, "Thank You". I would be *truly* and genuinely honored if the writer of this would contact me at: jeffbecerra@live.com (Wikipedia Persons Only Please).

Some slight corrections that I felt should be clarified a bit more.


 * 1) 1 Brain Slagel DID offer to sign Possessed after the Metal Massacre 6 Album. In fact we had to pay him $2000 to get out of an overlooked "Album Clause".


 * 1) 2 Beyond The Gates was actually a huge success and actually brought Possessed to the "Highest Selling Combat Band". Also Beyond The Gates was, in fact, a very "Satanic" album and had some *very* dark lyrics. Although the "Inverted Cross" that normally ran through the "O" in POSSESSED was noticably absent because of pressure from Tipper Gore and the PMRC (They refused to sell our album in Musicland and other important record/music stores with the "upside-down cross". Also on a personal note (from me Jeff Becerra) I thought that Beyond The Gates contained some of Possessed's most important material. Beyond The Gates was produced by the Rod's Carl Canedy (sp?).


 * 1) 3 While Larry LaLonde did do some of the writing on The Eyes Of Horror I (Jeff Becerra) also continued to write all of the Lyrics just like the other albums (All but three songs in total, and even those I had to re-write in order to clean up the grammar).


 * 1) 4 While you have Mike Torreo's version of Possessed existing from "1990 thru 1993". They, in reality, never existed that long. They played one show in 1991 I believe before calling it a day.


 * 1) 5 The current line-up of Possessed has been around and either playing or recording (since before 1996). Possessed's current line-up is the longest running line-up in Possessed's History.


 * 1) 6 While you have Debbie Abono never Managing a band prior to Possessed this is not the case. Debbie Abono had previously Managed a band called "Outrage" which was of a huge influence on me (Jeff Becerra) and Larry Lalonde. Debbie Also Managed me (Jeff Becerra) and Larry Lalonde's band "Blizzard" prior to me (Jeff Becerra) moving on to Possessed. After joining Possessed I (JB) went back and got Larry from my old band (Blizzard) and brought him into Possessed. Larry and I had been professional musicians since 1979 (Marauder/Blizzard) and had played several shows together. While Mike Torreo brought in Mike Sus, I brought in Larry Lalonde (what I felt was a "ringer"), then I went back to Debbie and persuaded her to Manage Possessed. Since she had already been me and Larry's Manager before Possessed she decided to continue her Management of us. Also by this  time Possessed had already received an offer by Combat Records. Also we, in fact, never "terminated" Debbie Abono as our Management. When Larry Lalonde decided to quit Possessed Mike and Mike felt that it woulod just be "too much work, time & effort" to "rebuild" Possessed (by this time Larry had become that important to Mike Torreo). While I fought to keep Possessed from disbanding, Mike and Mike had made up their minds to quit so there was nothing more I could do. I (JB) was, of course, heartbroken that Possessed was breaking up for what I thought was an easy fix and even then had thoughts of putting Possessed back together again one day.


 * 1) 7 Possessed were in fact never influenced by Slayer in a musical way. While we, of course, loved, Slayer, we were much more concerned with making our own "brand" of music while making a concerted effort to not sound like any other band. Even going so far as to name our music "Death Metal". Initially we genuinely thought that by calling Possessed "Death Metal" we would be the only Death Metal band in the world. In short, we wanted Possessed to be it's own kind of music called Death Metal. So when other bands actually started calling themselves "Death Metal" I was initially very upset at this, but as time passed and more and more bands started doing it I was honored and truly proud that they were doing it. Today of course I am overwhelmed at the number of Death Metal bands out there and think it is fantastic. :D


 * 1) 8 Lastly Vanik Vartanian has NEVER had anything to do with Possessed under me (JB). In fact I have never even heard of this person and I honestly don't know who he is or how he ended up on this page. lol! I have always been 110% happy with Emilio's drumming and personally think that Emilio is one of the best drummers in the world. He is, by and far, the most talented drummer that I have ever worked with personally. :D

I also wanted to give credit to my very dear friend Keri Lindstrom-Luis who I asked to create the original Possessed Logo for me. Even though it has evolved throughout the years it was Keri that made our logo what it is today. Of course the name Possessed was cannibalized from the popular Linda Blair move, as well as "The Exorcist" & "The Heretic"..but as Mike T was a horror movie lover it really did make sense and fit our style of music. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JeffMetal666 (talk • contribs) 14:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your time and efforts. I hope that I haven't sounded upset or pushy or ungrateful for you fine article on Possessed. But I just thought that you would want to make some important corrections in order to make this article truthful. Again, thank you so much!

Sincerely, Jeff B Becerra Sr Possessed-Lead JeffMetal666 (talk) 14:10, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Bad Link
The link for The Eyes of Horror leads back to the main article. Fix this.

The Current Picture
The current picture, with Jeff Becerra playing with the members of Sadistic Intent, should not be up. It should be a picture with the "classic" lineup, Jeff Becerra, Mike Torrao, Larry Lalonde, and Mike Sus. Due to the copyright laws, the lineup as shown in the picture cannot sign a record deal under the name "Possessed" and technically isn't even in the right to perform under the "Possessed" name.

Use of images that violate WP:FAIR
How is a band's article not directly related to their album covers? especially their discography?!--Iron bob 21:18, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Wanna tell me why the added info in the intro was undone? Seriously, when anyone reverts something can that person use the talk page instead of just doing it, so they can tell me WHY i'm in the wrong. Cause the way that its being done now isn't helpful at all.--Iron bob 21:18, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You have to read WP:FAIR. Covers can only be used in articles about the albums themselves. Likewise... screenshots can't be used unless its an article about the source of the screenshot itself. Many Wikipedia administrators(and their edit bots) are currently clean-sweeping the project of all its copyvio image material. Images in dicographies located on band pages are part of the sweep. The weasel worded content was removed because its reference was from an amateur/poor quality fanzine. Please read WP:RS for what constitutes reliable sources. Also, avoid that metal-archives crap page. It only caters to the lowest form of heavy metal fan... the greasy haired/low IQ'd idiot. It should be blacklisted from Wikipedia altogether. 21:43, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to think that i am able to separate fact from fanboy bullcrap, but if you think that the source and info is invalid, remove it until a more reliable source is found, as far as the pics go remove them if you feel they violate policy. btw thank you for actually responding although the last two sentences weren't entirely necessary. . .--Iron bob 21:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * In 'Wiki's' lofty goal to become a 'pedia' (it's far from that title) it just doesn't make any sense to try and reference content from a website whose average regular reader rates 2 grunts below pea-brain on the IQ scale. I won't question the added content as I believe the band truly are one of the first death metal bands. But surely a cite with more credibilty can be found other than the 'tard page. 156.34.239.61 22:22, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I added a lot sources that are probably less than optimal, but since whether a band is the "first" death metal band or not is based largely on opinion; I added sources where Possessed is described as either the first or one of the first death metal bands. Hopefully that shows that Possessed are "often considered" one of the first death metal bands.

External links modified
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I have just modified 2 external links on Possessed (band). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131104070326/http://www.musicmight.com/artist/united+states/california/san+francisco/possessed to http://www.musicmight.com/artist/united+states/california/san+francisco/possessed
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110615091134/http://www.ugo.com/channels/music/features/bandsondemand/artist.aspx?artist=Possessed&cat=Metal&full=Possessed to http://www.ugo.com/channels/music/features/bandsondemand/artist.aspx?artist=Possessed&cat=Metal&full=Possessed

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 19:46, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Genre edit
Hi Lack of Plethora, thanks for the last edit. With the mass of disputes over near every band's genre, how subjective it can be and how different published references can even state opposite opinions, I always worry about even doing a re-order of the field. I agree with your edit as thrash metal is the major category they're in and death metal seems to be what they originated. On this talk page you can even see how about 10 years ago Jeff Becerra from Possessed wrote a bunch of info on this subject and the band in general. But, per Wikipedia polices, we can't use it. (Though, I suppose a good lawyer could say that Becerra's edit is a published "interview" and can be used as a valid source... 😉) Regards.– ░▒▓ №∶72.234.220.38 (talk) 23:03, 18 June 2020 (UTC) ▓▒░