Horrendous Disc - Background

Background

DA had almost completely abandoned the country sound of their first record by late 1977 and early 1978, when this album was recorded with co-producer Mike Stone.

The album was dropped by Maranatha! Music after the label decided to quit releasing rock and roll albums and focus on children's releases and the new praise style of gospel music. So the band, now without a record contract, began to shop the project around to various labels like Curb/Warner Brothers. Word bought the tapes from Maranatha! and Larry Norman's Solid Rock Records, home to such artists as Randy Stonehill, Tom Howard, Mark Heard, and others, leased the recordings from Word. Norman had the album mixed and took photos of the band for the album's cover. In July 1979, Norman released a test pressing with a different track listing and slightly different mix. This pressing was distributed to reviewers and extra copies were taken on tour.

Some of the songs from the album, like "Hound of Heaven" were being performed by the band in concert as early as 1977. Aside from live performances, music from the album, the test pressing, was first heard by the public on the Rock & Religion Radio Show on January 20, 1980. Several tracks were played and the band was interviewed about what they had hoped would be their soon-to-be-released album. For reasons that remain a mystery, the album was shelved by Solid Rock until its long overdue release in April 1981, nearly three years after it had been recorded and just weeks before the band's follow up on Newpax Records, ¡Alarma!, hit record stores.

This album frequently appeared at the top of Christian Music magazine readers polls of the "album that people most wanted to see released on CD," until its eventual reissue on CD in 2000. It was listed at No. 63 in the book CCM Presents: The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music (Harvest House Publishers, 2001).

The CD re-release stirred controversy among Daniel Amos fans by the inclusion of two bonus tracks: Tribute recordings that Larry recorded for the When Worlds Collide: A Tribute to Daniel Amos CD that he decided to include at the end of the Horrendous Disc CD. The covers sung by Norman were of his favorite Daniel Amos song – "Hound of Heaven". One recording was a straight-ahead tribute version of the song and the second tribute recording was a version using a very laid–back jazz band. The decision to include these cover tracks on the CD, along with some long, wandering liner notes, bewildered DA fans.

Daniel Amos had approached Larry about putting together a "Deluxe Edition" of Horrendous Disc in 2006 with the original Horrendous Disc on the first disc and many bonus tracks on the second disc. That deal fell apart suddenly when Larry first agreed verbally to the deal, and then announced plans for his own CDR reissue with a computer printed cover. DA fans were very disappointed with the cheap and apathetic approach to what they consider a legendary album. That arrangement was nearly resurrected and put in writing once more shortly before Norman's death in March 2008. It is now uncertain what the future of any kind of joint release between Stunt and Solid Rock might be. Stunt hopes at the very least to revisit HD with a collection of rarities and out-takes.