Earlier this year, when I started my podcast “Taming Monsters With Dirty Rotten Bill,” even some of my closest friends were perplexed by the title. Who, they wanted to know, is this Dirty Rotten Bill character? I can understand their confusion, as the overwhelming majority of the people I know now did not know me at all when I earned that nickname.

My high school years were an atrocious time, though my friend group made my junior and senior years tolerable. Most of my friends were considered outliers, the freaks and weirdos, and all of us were connected by our shared love of punk rock and heavy metal. I found a lot of music on my own, by reading fanzines or just wandering the aisles of music stores and taking a gamble on an album, usually because of the cover art—the darker and more offensive the better—but back then you found a lot of new music by word of mouth and passed-around dubbed cassettes. I will forever be indebted to three friends—Pat, Mike, and Dan—for introducing me to albums the likes of Siouxsie and The Banshees’ Scream, Possessed’s Seven Churches, and Cryptic Slaughter’s Convicted. To this day, most of my favorite music is from artists I started listening to way back when: Danzig/Misfits/Samhain, Siouxsie, Cro-Mags, The Cure, The Accused, Megadeth, Celtic Frost, Dag Nasty, Twisted Sister.

Pat, my closest friend from age seventeen to twenty-two, had been obsessed with a band called D.R.I., short for Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, particularly the Dealing With It! and Violent Pacification albums. At one point, he started referring to just about every object in his line of sight as “Dirty Rotten This” or “Dirty Rotten That”: Dirty Rotten Calculator, Dirty Rotten Religion Book, and, one time as we saw each other in the hall, Dirty Rotten Bill. The name stuck.

In the spring of 1991, we started Violent Society, a crossover band incorporating elements of punk and metal—Pat on vocals, Mike on guitar, me on bass, and Andy on drums; our good friend “Mr. Kelly” took over drumming duties a short while later. When it came time to choose stage names, Dirty Rotten Bill was the logical choice for me. Over the next four years, we wrote dozens upon dozens of songs, not all of them good, because we weren’t quite sure who we wanted to be. Still, I’m proud of everything we put out into the world. (I took lead vocals on one song, “Food Center.” Have a listen.) We recorded a lot. We rehearsed a lot, twice a week at a hole in the wall in Hatboro, Pennsylvania. We played out a lot, often in support of established punk bands, like G.B.H., Sloppy Seconds, F.O.D., The Fiendz, and, once, our old favorites D.R.I.

Being in a band is a lot like being in a marriage; it’s a living, breathing thing, only more than two people determine its fate. The four of us got along well for the most part, but we also argued and occasionally fought about the band’s direction, about songs and setlists, about trivial matters. I have not been able to replicate the camaraderie I felt during those years—hanging out in the parking lot after rehearsal, talking about music and life on the way to shows in the van, playing pranks on each other to pass the time in between.  

My last show with Violent Society came in September or October 1994, if I recall correctly: an opening slot for D.I. at The Firenze in Philadelphia. The band was changing, my life was changing, and it seemed like a good time for me to “let go of childish things”—a misguided thought, in hindsight. After we finished our set, the four of us went outside and sat with our backs to a wall so we could be interviewed for a punk fanzine. I still remember feeling the cold brick against my back, knowing that as soon as I stood up and left my bandmates behind, everything would be different; not only would I no longer be in the band, or any band, but the ties that bound us together would weaken and fray. I often wish I had kept going, kept playing music, though not necessarily with Violent Society. Starting a new band in the vein of The Cure, paired with the dark theatricality of black metal, would have been great fun.

That D.I. show in Philly would be the last time I picked up a bass for years to come; the next week I took all my guitars to a pawn shop and sold them for a fraction of what I had paid for them. I also tossed all of the flyers, photos, T-shirts—all evidence of my time with the band—because I knew I would not be able to move forward with so many reminders of what I left in my wake. I then threw myself into other interests: first, ice hockey; and, once that ran its course, writing, because I found I still had something I wanted to say. I became someone else.

Violent Society became something else, too. With a new bass player, the band became tighter, faster, harder, more visceral. The band would go on to tour the U.S. and Europe, and record albums that are now considered classics in certain circles. (Check out Not Enjoyin’ It and The Rise of Punk Doesn’t Mean Anything …, which are my two favorites.) Looking back, the best thing I ever did for Violent Society was leave, so it could become better. Violent Society continues to this day, with Pat, the singer, as the sole original member. Earlier this year I saw them play on a bill with Scream at Broken Goblet in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. They sounded fantastic.

My father asked me on more than one occasion why I used Dirty Rotten Bill as my stage name rather than going by my full name. I likely didn’t have a good answer. So when I started writing fiction, with the intention of pitching my stories to publishers, I promised myself I would not hide my identity, not try to be someone else. Some might see William J. Donahue as needlessly formal, especially for the horror genre, but it feels right and proper to me.

I cross paths with the guys from my band days once or twice a year, usually at punk or metal shows in the area. It’s always a thrill to hear one of them use the nickname I took all those years ago, or some iteration of it, like Dirt or DRB. Each time I feel a mix of happiness, sadness, nostalgia, and, above all, the feeling that I’m no longer sure where I fit, or with whom. I take solace in the fact that my former bandmates and I will forever be connected, at least in my mind, because of the music we made, the pranks we played, and the time we spent together.