BPMD

Lore & Background

BPMD was conceived in the summer of 2019 when Ellsworth, Demmel, Menghi and Portnoy teamed up to record an album featuring covers of 1970s songs, titled American Made. In a January 2020 interview on The Blairing Out with Eric Blair Show, Demmel revealed that the project would be called BPMD, in reference to three of the members' last names as well as Ellsworth's nickname Blitz.

American Made was released on June 12, 2020 through Napalm Records and includes ten song covers. About the project, Demmel said: "It's all cover tunes from American bands of the '70s. It's called American Made, [and it's got songs from] ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, James Gang, Aerosmith, Grand Funk Railroad — all these cover tunes that we modernized them and not really thrashed them up, but we made kind of metal versions of them."

Reader's Guide

BPMD represents a focused collaboration among established metal musicians to reinterpret classic American rock songs from the 1970s. The band's name derives from the initials of three members' last names and Ellsworth's nickname, Blitz. Their sole album, American Made, released in 2020 on Napalm Records, contains ten covers of bands such as ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, James Gang, Aerosmith, and Grand Funk Railroad. The project's significance lies in its deliberate modernization of these songs into metal versions without fully thrashing them, as described by guitarist Phil Demmel. As a supergroup drawing from Overkill, Vio-lence, Machine Head, and Metal Allegiance, BPMD highlights the enduring influence of 1970s American rock on later heavy metal musicians. The band's output is limited to this single album, making it a concise but notable entry in the catalog of cover-song projects by established metal artists.

Did You Know?

• BPMD was formed in the summer of 2019.
• The band's name references three members' last names and Bobby 'Blitz' Ellsworth's nickname.
• The album includes covers of songs by ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, James Gang, Aerosmith, and Grand Funk Railroad.

Formation & Naming

BPMD came into existence during the summer of 2019, when four seasoned musicians decided to join forces for a collaborative recording project. The group was assembled from the ranks of the American heavy metal scene, bringing together individuals who had already built reputations in other well-known bands. The project was initially conceived simply as a vehicle for recording an album of covers drawn from the classic rock era of the 1970s. The band's name, BPMD, was not announced publicly until January 2020, when guitarist Phil Demmel revealed it on The Blairing Out with Eric Blair Show. The acronym is a clever nod to the members themselves: it incorporates the last names of three of the four musicians, while also weaving in the stage nickname "Blitz" associated with vocalist Bobby Ellsworth. This naming choice reflects the personal, almost inside-joke quality of the project, emphasizing that BPMD was born from a shared friendship and mutual respect among the participants rather than from a calculated commercial strategy.

Musical Philosophy

From its inception, BPMD was defined by a clear and specific artistic mission: to revisit the catalogues of 1970s American rock and present those songs through a modern metal lens. In his own words, guitarist Phil Demmel explained that the band's approach was to take material from artists such as ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the James Gang, Aerosmith, and Grand Funk Railroad, and to modernize those compositions. Crucially, Demmel stressed that the group did not simply thrash the material into unrecognizability. Instead, the four musicians crafted what he described as metal versions of the originals, preserving the spirit and melodic identity of each song while infusing it with the heavier tonal palette and rhythmic drive characteristic of their respective primary bands. This philosophy positioned BPMD squarely in the hard rock and heavy metal tradition, treating the 1970s catalogue not as a novelty exercise but as a genuine source of songwriting worth reinterpreting for a new generation of listeners.

The Debut Album

The sole release from BPMD to date is American Made, an album of ten cover songs that crystallized the band's entire raison d'être. The record was released on June 12, 2020, through Napalm Records, a label well known for championing heavy music across a wide spectrum of subgenres. The title itself is a direct statement of the project's scope and intent: every track on the album is a rendition of a song originally performed by an American rock band from the 1970s. The ten-song lineup draws from a diverse cross-section of that era's output, spanning the blues-tinged rock of ZZ Top, the Southern rock of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the hard rock of the James Gang, the swagger of Aerosmith, and the arena-filling sound of Grand Funk Railroad. By concentrating exclusively on American material from a single decade, the band created a tightly focused listening experience. American Made thus serves as both a love letter to a particular era of rock and a showcase for how four accomplished metal musicians can collectively reimagine familiar songs without losing their essential character.

The Supergroup Lineup

BPMD is a quintessential supergroup, drawing its four members from some of the most recognizable names in American heavy metal. At the front of the stage stands Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth, the long-time vocalist of Overkill, whose deep, commanding voice has defined that band's sound for decades. Behind him on guitar is Phil Demmel, a musician whose résumé includes stints with both Vio-lence and Machine Head, giving him a broad command of thrash and metal composition. The rhythm section is anchored by two members of Metal Allegiance: bassist Mark Menghi and drummer Mike Portnoy, the latter a name synonymous with technical precision and powerful groove across multiple genres. The pairing of these four individuals—each already a pillar of their respective primary projects—creates a combination of vocal power, guitar versatility, and rhythmic authority that is difficult to replicate elsewhere in the metal world. Their shared history and mutual respect, forged through years of touring and recording in overlapping circles, gave BPMD a natural chemistry that went well beyond a mere one-off collaboration.