After her unsuccessful audition with a bunch of…no-namers, she decided to fly back to Nebraska. She took this as a sign that finishing college was the right thing for her to do, and that playing guitar in a real, successful band was a mere fantasy. The flight to Nebraska had a connection at LAX. But an ice storm in Houston had resulted in flight delays for all the major airlines. So Vivian had four hours to kill. She went to a bar that was just on this side of the TSA checkpoint…so to speak, and sat down to order something to eat. As she waited, looking around, she was shocked to see Erzebet, Bathoria, Mallacaria, and Druvillia sitting at another table. It was clear that they were trying to not be noticed, to avoid being set upon by fans of the band. But Vivian noticed them, to be sure. Knowing full well that Morbia had left the band, she decided to walk over to their table and strike up a conversation. It was a gutsy move, but it worked. They asked her to sit down. When Erzebet asked if she wanted their autographs, she told them…no. Instead, she started talking to them about her own guitar playing, that they were exactly what she was looking for. The band was somewhat amused…they now had two platinum albums, and just finished a world tour, after which Morbia left, and had been approached by a seemingly never-ending stream of guitar players who wanted to take Morbia’s place. So they had no reason to take her seriously, but they told her that if she wanted to audition, she could meet them in San Diego next week. Vivian decided to change her travel plans, and fly down to San Diego. She spent the next three days practicing in her hotel room, stopping only to eat.

On Wednesday, Vivian called the number Erzebet wrote on a napkin at the bar. She expected that the band gave her a fake number. But the person who answered the phone was Bianca Lurgin, the band’s personal manager. Bianca said that the band was currently at the Red Line Recording studio. The main Red Line studio was in Los Angeles, but they opened a second location in San Diego. It was a smaller location, and Kiss of Death Productions and Bad Girl Records suggested that the band start putting their song ideas together in San Diego before going to Los Angeles for official recording. Bianca gave her another number to call. The phone was answered by Leroy Smalls, the Recording Director for Red Line Recording studio in Los Angeles. He told her that the band had already auditioned over a dozen guitar players, but turned them all down. He also said that he was unaware of an audition that day. So he gave her another number to call. This time Gigi Zimmerman answer the phone. She told Vivian that she was the mixing and overdubbing tech for Red Line, but she had nothing to with any auditions for the band. So she gave her another number to call. It looked familiar…Bianca answered the phone. Bianca apologized for the run-around, and gave her another number. Frankie Uler answered the phone. He explained that he was Mallacaria’s drum technician, but had nothing to do with auditions. So he gave her another number to call. Vivian was growing impatient, though she was impressed by the different people answering her calls. Surely she was getting closer,. She dialed the number that Frankie gave her, and Ria “Misty” Lanier answered the phone…the band’s manager. This was the right person. Misty recognized Vivian’s name. Misty told Vivian that the band was working on ideas for an upcoming album called Necromancer, which would go on to sell more copies than the previous two albums. She told Vivian to be at the sound studio by 3:30 that afternoon. But Vivian decided to get there two hours early. When she arrived, Misty met her at the receptionist’s desk, and asked her to wait in the lobby. Vivian spent her time practicing, unplugged of course, and trying to overcome her almost overwhelming nervousness.

At around 3:00 pm, Misty went to the lobby to see if Vivian was still there. She was, so Misty led her back to the recording booth. There was the band, sitting at the mixing console, with stacks of McDonald’s cheeseburgers in front of them. Bathoria had several cans of Schlitz Malt Liquor sitting in front her. Three of the cans were upside down. As soon as she had knocked back a can of beer, she would put the empty can upside down. Erzebet asked Vivian if she wanted a cheeseburger. Vivian declined, knowing that with her stomach churning so much, she’d never keep it down. Druvillia commented that they didn’t expect her to show up. Erzebet asked her if she had ever been in a recording studio before. When she said no, the band laughed. Vivian figured that was a bad sign. Erzebet led her into the recording booth, plugged Vivian’s guitar in, and walked back out. She pushed a blue button on the console. Erzebet told her to put on the headphones so she could hear herself play. Vivian put on the headphones, and Erzebet said…Charnal House. This song was on the first album, but was not one of the major hits. Vivian launched into the song’s main guitar riff. When she finished, Druvillia hit the blue button…Trial by Fire, she said. This song was on the second album, but it wasn’t one of the top songs either. After this, Mallacria hit the blue button…Written in Blood. Vivian figured that they were intentionally choosing the less well-known songs on the first two albums to test just how familiar with the band’s music she really was. Her nervous grew even more when Bathoria stood up, turned another can of beer upside down, and stared at her for several seconds. It seemed like an eternity to Vivian. Bathoria hit the blue button…Entombed. This would be the greatest challenge. The song appeared on the first album, and consisted of a ten minute guitar solo played by Bathoria, who hit the blue button again…get the distortion right, she said. Vivian took a deep breath. This was probably the make-or-break moment, but she leaned over to the control console and adjusted the distortion setting. Now the trick to playing this song is something that eluded everyone else who had auditioned. Fortunately, Vivian knew the trick, or so she thought. She played the first five minutes of the solo on the right distortion setting. But at approximately 5:05 into the track, she let the last note resonate, and quickly leaned over and adjusted the distortion control setting before the last note finished. Then she proceeded to play the rest of the solo. Bathoria looked at Erzebet and smiled. Erzebet hit the blue button…play, she said. Vivian spoke into the microphone…play what? Your own stuff, Erzebet said. Vivian began playing the riffs for several songs she had written.  After playing the song that would become…Witch of Endor, she finished the set by playing the song that would eventually become…Shape Shifters. Finally, the band told her to stop.

Fortunately, Vivian also dressed the part. She made a point of studying the band’s look. She had died her long hair red, and was wearing a black-lace see through blouse. A black leather studded corset covered it from the bust-line down to her lower abdomen. She wore a black lace skirt that extended down to the top of her knee-high leather boots. Vivian knew that this would be important to the band. Erzebet motioned for her to leave the booth. Then she stood up. We’ll think about it…you have a contact number? Vivian decided to take a big gamble, and gave Erzebet the number to her hotel room, adding that she wouldn’t be at the number after 4:00 pm tomorrow, so they needed to let her know by then. Druvillia smiled at her. Then Vivian packed up her guitars and left the studio. She could barely sleep that night, despite drinking half a bottle of merlot with her room-service dinner. But she did finally fall asleep, until she was awakened by the phone ringing. It was 10:00 am, and she figured it was simply her wake-up call. She was surprised to hear Erzebet’s voice. You’ll go by the name…Hekate.

The band was in a bit of a crunch, and Hekate’s real test would last for a period of ten days. The band finished at the sound studio, and the tapes were sent to Los Angeles. They were playing a show at 7:00 the next evening. Vivian took the stage with the band. When the lights went on, she stood at the right side of the stage, gazing out at the crowd. There were a couple minutes of dead silence as the audience realized that she wasn’t Morbia. Then she began playing a fifteen-minute solo, and when it was done the audience began hollering and pumping their fists in the air. Erzebet introduced Hekate just as the strobe-lights came on. Then she launched into the introductory guitar part that began the song…Dancing in the Flames. The band played a show every evening that week. Bathoria told her that the schedule only gets more strenuous as they go along. Vivian more than filled the gap left by the departure of Morbia, and she was thrilled when she saw the lines of fans wanting her to autograph pictures taken by, and distributed by, Misty Lanier. The week finished in Los Angeles, as the band went into Red Line Studios. The band dropped all the tracks Morbia recorded before she left, and it was left to Hekate to write new ones. Vivian was also easy to get along with, whereas Morbia could be quite domineering. She couldn’t believe that she was recording with them, and the others were thrilled with the recording sessions that led to the release of Necromancer. Hekate was listed on the back cover as one of the band, and she participated fully in the artwork and graphics for the album. This album included a booklet that had separate pictures of each band member. Misty helped her with her look for the photo shoot, and the band selected the best shots. Following the album’s release, the band went on a twelve-month world tour, and it was clear that Hekate was a bona fide member of the group. Vivian remained single throughout her life. After the band retired, Hekate recorded two solo albums before settling down in Iowa Falls, Iowa, where she raised horses.

Hekate

Vivian V. Vaster was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Mortin and Melanie Vaster. She was one of three children, including brothers Justin and Harry, and sister Deborah. Vivian was a high performer in all her subjects in elementary school, and then at George McGovern High School. She was particularly keen on math and science. While Justin and Harry became troublemakers who eventually became quite vexing to their parents, Vivian was independent from a young age, and her parents allowed her do things her way. The first thing she would do after school, which was only one mile from her home, was to finish her homework. Unlike her brothers, Vivian was rather quiet…she always wore headphones when listening to music, so, unlike with Justin and Harry, her parents never knew exactly what she listened to. Her favorites were Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend, Robbie Krieger, and Rick Nielsen...all guitar players, of course. The walls of her room were covered with posters of her favorite bands. Seeking to avoid the fights involving her brothers and parents, she took the TV from the spare bedroom downstairs. She even used her headphones when watching movies on what was by then her TV. Vivian made all her own meals, which usually included a healthy diet of TV dinners that she bought at the grocery store on Saturday. She usually went to bed, and got up in the morning, at a relatively early time. Vivian came to be very introverted, preferring to be by herself.

She saved up her allowance for some time to buy an acoustic guitar in 9th grade. After it became clear that she had a natural talent for music, her father bought her an electric guitar in 10th grade after she brought home straight A’s. Through the rest of high school she rarely dated, and avoided the drugs and drinking that were become entrenched at George McGovern High School. She preferred to rush home, finish her homework or study for tests, then put her headphones on and play guitar, using two really cool amps she got for Christmas. Vivian could listen to a song once, and then play the guitar parts…lead and rhythm. By her senior year in high school, which was her eighth straight semester of straight A’s, she played guitar and sang in several garage bands. Vivian didn’t just like playing other band’s songs. She was a prolific song writer, and recorded her own guitar parts using the sooper-dooper stereo her father bought her as a reward for her grades. By graduation she had numerous cassette tapes full of her own guitar parts. Her main problem was that she didn’t encounter any local rock musicians that were anywhere close to her level. She then started recording bass riffs after purchasing a bass guitar, which she played with, and without, a pic. By her first year in college, she already had a large library of her own material, some of which would form the basis of several songs appearing on her band’s albums. This included Black Dawn, Balefire, and Witch of Endor on the Necromancer album, Left for Dead and Shape Shifters on the Santa Muerte album, and On Your Knees, Gnashing of Teeth, and Ghost of Golgotha, which appeared on the Sin-Eater album. She also wrote her own guitar parts for all of her songs later on.

It should come as no surprise that Vivian received a full-ride scholarship to the University of South Dakota. At first she majored in Veterinarian Sciences, then Astronomy, and finally…Geometry. She lived in the Jeanette Pickering Rankin Girls’ Dormitory. This was the dorm that housed many of the high-performing students, so it tended to be a relatively quiet place. Vivian would play guitar and bass using her headphones so as not to disturb the other students. She was fortunate enough to have a single room on the dorm, which was rather expensive. As interesting as she found her classes, as time went on she spent more and more time playing guitar and bass. By her sophomore year, she decided that she wanted to play guitar in a heavy-metal band. She had heard the music of a band founded by a girl name Erzebet from Nebraska, hand read a dedication to her on Rickie Steele’s second album…Made of Steele. Vivian decided that her favorite guitarist was Morbia. She suddenly started dressing like Morbia, and wore make-up the way Morbia did. This more than made her stand out at the Jeanette Pickering Rankin Girls’ Dormitory, and often attracted unwanted attention from male students at parties. Although not a partier per se, she started going the rounds of parties hoping to meet other heavy-metal musicians. She found none. Vivian had Erzebet’s band’s first two albums…Curse of Darvulia and Phantasm. Days after purchasing them, she could play all the guitar and bass parts, although she admitted that it took longer to learn Bathoria’s parts.

As it became more and more likely that Vivian would choose a musical career instead of Geometry, her parents resigned themselves to the fact that she would be leaving school before graduation. Her brother Justin was in prison for selling cocaine, and Harry left home to work menial construction jobs. Vivian felt as though she was letting her parents down, a feeling she would quickly lose once the money and fame started coming in. By the time that Santa Muerte went platinum, she had already purchased a beachfront ranch house in Florida for her parents. Her mother would brag endlessly to her friends about Vivian the Rock Star, and though she didn’t like heavy-metal music, she liked the cherry-red BMW Vivian bought her as a birthday present after the release of Sin-Eater. Vivian would visit her parents whenever the band’s tours took them to the east coast. She heard only once from Harry, who contacted her to borrow money. On the advice of her mother, she denied the loan. Justin’s prison sentence was lengthened by ten years after he was found guilty of stabbing another inmate. He would later die in a vicious prison riot that left thirty prisoners dead.

One day she was reading a copy of Metal Distortion. She flipped through the back of the magazine and found an ad requesting cutting-edge guitarists to audition for a heavy-metal band in Arizona. Vivian grabbed a flight to Tempe, got a rental car, and drove to Apache Junction. She showed up around 1:30, just as another guitar player was finishing his audition. The group was made up of four guys. She was asked if she was familiar with their music. She admitted that she wasn’t, but insisted that it didn’t matter since she could learn any style she chose. Vivian began playing…Death Knell, a song from the Curse of Darvulia, written by Tammy Hedrick and Erzebet. They didn’t look impressed.  She then starting playing…Mistress of Salem, a song on the Phantasm album.. followed by Dancing in the Flames, also on the Phantasm album. She followed this with a fifteen minute solo. After a long period of silence, she suggested that they play some of their own music for her so she could play it. She received a discouraging response when their vocalist said that she was the only chick who auditioned for the band. She responded by packing up her gear and walking out of the audition.