Raine Arguelles Von Kiszka (Pronounced: Rain Are-gel-ees Von Kiss-ka) or RVK, born William Lawrence(Larry) Sapp on November 20th, 1965, is a musician/song writer from Tampa, Florida. Von Kiszka is best known as the founding Vocalist/Guitarist/Song writer in BRUTALITY, ASTAROTH, THE GRAVESIDERS, GREEN OVER-DOSE (G,O,D,), and RVK.

Early Years-1965 to 1986

RVK was born, raised and still lives in the heart of Tampa Florida, and is the older of 2 children with brother James Edward (born March 13, 1967). RVK’s father, William Larry Sapp, born January 29, 1945 in Gainesville Florida to Leo James and Florence Laverne Sapp, is a retired master electrician, sometime musician, has 3 brothers, Terry, Gerald, and James, and is the son of Native American ancestry. RVK’s mother, Karla Jean Kiszka/Sapp/Wyzynski was born November 14, 1945 in Dayton Ohio to Edward Anthony & Dorothy Jean Rheese Kiszka, is a homemaker, has 3 brothers, Charles(deceased), Paul, and Anthony, and is of polish decent. RVK is once divorced, and has one son, Darrel Wesley Sapp.

As a youth, RVK (known as “Littlie Larry”) generally stayed out of trouble, started playing his father’s guitar and had learned his first song, “Wipe out” at 5 years of age. Soon after, RVK’s parents bought the first in a long line of guitars that continues to this day. “I was hooked; I took music lessons and did fairly well, but lessons bored me, the teachers bored me. They all wanted me to play “Jingle Bells”, and “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue”, I had just heard Kiss’s “Rock N Roll All Night” on my little A.M. pocket radio. This is 1975 or so and I was about 9 years old. I didn’t even know it was KISS at the time, but I loved that song (I really DON’T love it anymore, it’s so over-played) and I wanted to play music like that.”

RVK attended Forest Hills elementary, then Lake, Young, and Adams Jr. High. Small in stature, RVK was a loner, had few friends in school, and visited first grade teacher, Mrs. Hobbley from time to time well into Jr. High and High school.

RVK’s first concert was SHA NA NA in 1978 at the Lakeland civic center with parents. The second concert was KISS a year later at the same venue, with brother James and maternal uncle Paul Richard Kiszka. RVK’s parents divorced in 1980, The father moved out and RVK moved with the mother from 313 E. Bougainvillea to 9415 N 19th street and transferred to Van Buren Jr High, then Tampa Bay Tech. High, but was caught with marijuana, was expelled, and failed for the year. Chamberlain High was the next attended school. By this time, KISS was a major staple in RVK’s life. “I had an after school job and bought KISS and OZZY albums, went to many rock concerts, and got my first electric guitar and amp. I cranked it up and had my mom yelling about the volume. I was learning KISS and AC/DC songs and the like, about that time, I got into METAL, Especially NASTY SAVAGE. METALLICA, EXCITER, MERCYFUL FATE and a pile of other HEAVY bands started popping up with albums everywhere. The whole thrash/speed/death metal scene just absorbed me. By 1984, I dropped out of Chamberlain High school, got a full time job doing construction with uncle Paul, and I started learning about writing songs and thinking about putting a band together. My mom always supported me with my music, but she drew the line at a band rehearsing in the house.”

The beginning of 1985 sees RVK moving to a duplex with a mistake of a girl friend, Michelle Stiller, This relationship ends less than a year later when Stiller infects RVK with gonorrhea. “I’m 19 years old, embarrassed, having to tell my mom this, but she was pretty supportive an took me to the doctor for curing. I never saw Shelly again.” The duplex managers would not allow bands or excessive volume, either. At the end of 1985 RVK leaves the duplex when the lease was up. In 1986 grandparent Dorothy helps RVK with the down payment on the house at 7508 N. Orleans Ave. RVK can finally indulge in a band situation…. and does.

Purgatory & Brutality-1986-1991

In 1986, RVK met Jon Schaffer & Greg Seymour, who were putting together the beginning stages of Iced Earth, called Purgatory. Though never an official member, rehearsal tapes and pictures exist of RVK’s very brief association with the band.

“Then I met Jeff Acres and Donny Yanson who wanted to start a musical group”. The name of that group would be BRUTALITY after going through the names Abomination and Darkness.

Remembers RVK “Jeff couldn’t even play a bass at the time, I was the band chauffer, Financier, Practice space. No one put in any money to speak of for years except me. I paid for every thing!!!. The only one who helped out with money was Don Gates, but he didn’t even join as a permanent member until 1990.”
During this time period the CLASSIC “Abomination”, “Brutality”, “Dimension Demented”, & “Metamorphosis” demos would be completed and would lay the groundwork for one of the most recognized names in death metal. “During these years I was becoming an increasingly better song writer/engineer for sound, I would hang out at the soundboard whenever we were not playing, watch and ask the sound guy questions, sometimes to the point of him asking me to leave.” RVK played about a hundred of shows with BRUTALITY and most are in the RVK archives.

Though the band would go on to make 3 full length albums for Nuclear Blast records, RVK would not be on these albums due to “the greed on the part of my ex-band members at the time”. I was thrown out of my own band, and then to make matters worse, Gates was the only one to fulfill his financial obligations, the rest left me with the bills and stole the band. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a difficult individual to work with when I’m paying all the bills from 86 to 90 and ¾ of the bills after Gates joined, but my band was stolen from me”. This was the first week of November, 1991. It would be over 10 years before Acres and RVK would jam together as BRUTALITY.

Astaroth, The Buttneckks, G.O.D., Ole’ Guitars, Devolution, & Astaroth(Mark II)-1991-1998.

After getting over the back stabbing and being thrown out of Brutality, RVK and Bryan Winton, an incredible bass player who at one time, was going to replace Jeff Acres in Brutality, decided to put a band together. ASTAROTH was born. The first crude demo, Drowning In Blood was released in 1992. The next E.P. “Lost State of Dreams” or LSD (Named after the title letters and the “hit” of LSD printed inside the cover, which caused controversy over whether it was real or not)) was released by Thrash corner label in 1993 and features RVK, Winton, Tony Laureano on drums(Who later would do albums with Nile and Angel Corpse) and Demian Heftel on lead guitar. For a while after the release of LSD, Astaroth became a 5 piece band, adding Mike Garrett on Lead Guitar.

Before the next project was completed, “Songs of Sorrow” or SOS, Heftel would quit and Laureano would be replaced by Tomas Viator(Disincarnate). SOS took an entire year to record, from early 1994 to early 1995 and though epic and supreme in sound quality, it has never been officially released. Astaroth picks up where “Metamorphosis” left off, with many of the Astaroth songs on LSD and SOS starting out as Brutality songs. Like “Metamorphosis”, LSD & SOS have no breaks in between the songs and the production is to die for. RVK states-“The first 2 Astaroth releases are the heaviest death metal I’ve ever done.”

Then came The Buttneckks, a band with only 2 official members, RVK and Ken Clark. The Buttneckks wrote the most material in the shortest amount of time, Producing 4 unreleased, album length demos(The Buttneckks, A Butt And A Neck, Those Are Fast Chickens, and Baby On Board) and an official released double length live album in just under 2 years. The Buttneckks marks the first time RVK plays all the instruments in the band, Guitars, Bass, Drums, and Vocals. Ken Clark did some vocals and production, RVK played all the instruments. Though a joke, The Buttneckks garnered a small following and the Live cd’s have been seen on the internet for as high as 50 dollars. The Buttneckks never officially broke up.

Green Over-Dose(G.O.D.) was next. The “Attack of the Green Thing” album is a taste of hardcore and metal mixed. G.O.D. was based on the colour green, bugs, the fast drum beats of the first Obituary album and the structure and song writing of SOD’s “Speak English Or Die” album. Short, fast songs with great production. This was going to be the next Buttneckks release, but it was decided that “Attack” was a different musical direction.

Ole’ Guitars was a country duo consisting of George Castendyke Sr. and Lamaar Hooks. Since Rvk was a close friend of George Castendyke Jr.(R.I.P. 1967-2011), They were invited to record an album at RVK’s now famous Mega Rabbit studios. The album was recorded on a top of the line Tascam cassette 4-track. RVK does bass and light backing vocals. The songs are a mixture of country classics with originals by Hooks and Castendyke. 15 to 20 songs were recorded and 8 were chosen by the band for the album. Though never officially released, many copies have “gotten out” over the years through family members and friends.

1997 sees the release of Devolution-“Cerebrequiem” E.P. Devolution is Mike Garrett’s band and RVK did session vocals. “I was going back and forth doing the G.O.D., The Buttneckks, and session vocals for Devolution in 1996, and the Devolution album didn’t come out until the next year. The Devolution album sounds a lot like an Astaroth release, in fact, Mike told me to do my vocals as I would have in Astaroth and the music is very much in the Astaroth vein as well.

1998 comes the 3rd Astaroth project, “Burning Christians”, Sounds nothing like the first two Astaroth Releases. This one is more speed oriented death and was kind of based around the Deicide song writing style of anti-Christian themes. It is much more raw too, as it was recorded on a tascam 4-track cassette recorder, but the sound quality is heaps above the average 4-track recording.

Brutality reformation, coming out-1999-2004.

After a complete and total breakdown, Rvk decided that being a male person was ruining her life and had to become female, or at least have the choice to be female when she wanted. About this time Jeff Acres and Rvk buried the hatchet and reformed Brutality long enough to make a 3 song 2003 demo. Soon after, Acres unburied the hatchet when he found out of Rvk’s plans to become female.-The feud was on again. Rvk posted that “Larry Sapp had gone to the other side”. Most people took this as Larry had died, which in some ways, he did. Rvk was intent on letting the rumor spread and retire from pursuing any music.

Then, a year or 2 later, in an interview, Acres brought out Rvk by telling the publication about the gender issues. That brought her storming back to the music front with a new band, “The Gravesiders”.

The Gravesiders, RVK, Original Brutality, and the future-2005 –Present.

The Gravesiders were formed by Rvk and Ken Clark in June of 2008, and was stared because the two loved “The Misfits” and wanted to do music in the genre. In October the same year “The Horror Has Begun” was released and contained “Halloween”, and “Dusk Brings Dead” with Don Gates and Steve Pantley on Lead Guitars. Rvk and Clark started to write an entire album. 20-30 songs were written and recorded over the next year.

In 2010 The Gravesiders full length album was released. Rvk states “It’s probably the best album I’ve done in my career to this point, It’s freakin great.”
The Gravesiders recorded a 4 song follow-up E.P. called “The Dead Next Door” in august of 2011 as a 3 piece with Rvk, Don Gates and Steve Sestile. Those studio sessions were the last time The Gravesiders played together.

Since November 20th 2012 (Raine’s 47th birthday) Rvk has been busy re-recording Old Brutality songs From the demo days and plans to release them in an album sometime in 2015. The project is being called “Original Brutality”, to avoid any legal conflict between Rvk and Former Brutality band mates. Songs already recorded are “Abomination” and “Now Mosh” . Demo CD versions of these songs were given out at a local Brutality show in June 2013 to promote “Original Brutality”. Said Rvk-“I started Burtality, so I’ll show up at a Brutality show and promote Original Brutality all I can”.

As of January of 2015 most of the new Original BRUTALITY album is complete in recording, and Demos are circulating. Songs on the album: THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT / ABOMINATION / RETURN OF THE DEAD / NOW MOSH / WORLD WAR III / BRUTALITY / AGORAPHOBIA / ASHES & SNOW / SMASHIT.

As of July 14th, 2015, Rvk is divorced. "I am looking to become friends with genetic girls and M to F transsexuals like myself (no men please). I love long hair, honesty, and the ability to sit down and talk with love and respect."

Raine Von Kiszka Discography:

Year/Band/Project title/Songs/Release info/Instruments played/Style
Note: Raine archives nearly everything played on and has literally 1000’s of demos and rehearsals on tape and cd.
The following are official projects:

1-1987-Abomination-Self Titled Demo with 4 songs “Abomination, Thermonuclear Devastation, Jammer, & Return Of The Dead”. Lead vocal/Guitar. Not officially released until 2011. Thrash metal.

2-1988-Brutality-Self titled Demo with 4 songs “Brutality, Now Mosh, World War III, & Return Of The Dead”. Lead vocal/Guitar. 3 versions of this demo exist. About 1000 total made by the band. All 3 re-released in 2011 on cd. Thrash metal.

3-1990-Brutality-“Dimension demented” album 1000 pressed by RVK on cassette. 8 songs. Lead vocal/Guitar. Thrash/Death metal.
Re-pressed by RVK in 2002 on cd. Also pressed on 7” record Gore/Nuclear Blast Label with 3 of the 8 songs on the album. Amount pressed unknown.

4-1990-Dead-“Dead” 11 songs-Producer/engineer. Death Metal. Pressed on 7” record Gore/Nuclear Blast Label with 4 of the 11 songs on the album.

5-1991-Brutality-“Metamorphosis” E.P. 10,000 cassettes pressed by the Wild Rags label. 3 songs. Lead vocal/Guitar. Re-pressed by RVK in 2002 on cd. Death metal.

6-1992-Astaroth-“Drowning In Blood” demo 100-200 cassettes made by RVK. Lead vocal/Guitar.

7-1993-Astaroth-“Lost State Of Dreams” E.P. 500 cassettes made by RVK covers have matt finish/5000 cassettes pressed by the Thrash Corner label gloss finish. 5 songs. Lead vocal/Guitar. Progressive Death metal.

8-1995-Astaroth-“Songs Of Sorrow” E.P. Never officially released. 10 songs. Lead vocal/Guitar. Progressive death metal.

9-1995-The Buttneckks-“Live” album. 1000 pressed on cd by RVK on the Mega Rabbit label. 18 songs. Lead vocal/Guitar/Bass/Drums. Comedy metal. The Buttneckks also did 4 album length demos in the 2 years preceding this live album. Non have been released. LIVE CD AVAILABLE NOW!

10-1996-G.O.D.- (Green Over-dose)-“Attack Of The Green Thing” album. Never officially released. 22 songs. Lead vocal/Guitar/Bass/Drums. Thrash/Speed metal.
Songs: Welcome to Heck/Attack of the Green Thing/I Wanna Be Like O.J. Simpson/Beat Your Wife/Money, Power, Titties/I got Fucked at the Drive Through/Hurling Vomit/We Don't Like the White Man/Money, Power, Titties(Reprise)/I'm Glad I'm Not a Redneck/That Thing on Your Butt/My Dick/I Love Your Morning Breath/I can't Drive 155/French Fries/Flies/ Anti-Procrastination Song/Big Edna/Isn't This a Wonderful World?/Truck Bomb/Over the Wall/Bonus Song
G.O.D also did a 3-song EP in 2003 and it has never been released.

11-1996-Ole’ Guitars-“Me And My Old Guitar” album. Session bass and backing vocals. Never officially released. 8 songs. Country & Western.

12-1997-Devolution-“Cerebrequiem” E.P. Session Vocalist. 1000 pressed on cd by Mike Garrett. 5 songs. Death metal.

13-1998-Astaroth-“Burning Christians” E.P. Never officially released. 6 songs. Lead vocal/Guitar/Bass/Drums. Death/Speed metal.

14-2002-Brutality-“Metamorphosis/Dimension demented” Both on 1 disc. 1000 pressed on cd by RVK on the Mega-rabbit label. AVAILABLE NOW!

15-2003-Brutality-“2003 Demo” Released to labels only. 3 songs. Backing vocals/Guitar. Released in 2011 on cd. Death metal.

16-2008-The Gravesiders-“The Horror Has Begun” E.P. 100 pressed for labels by RVK & Ken Clark on the Mega-rabbit label. 2 songs. Lead vocal/Guitar/Bass/Drums. Punk metal.

17-2009-The Gravesiders-“Funeral For Our Fiends” live. Recorded for video release. Lead vocal/Guitar. Video shot on a rainy night and gliched. All video of the night was lost and the audio portion has never been released.

18-2010-The Gravesiders-“Graveside Manor” album. 1000 pressed by RVK on the Mega-rabbit label. 13 songs. Lead vocal/Guitar. Punk metal. AVAILABLE NOW!

19-2011-The Gravesiders-“The Dead Next Door” E.P. Not yet released. 4 songs. Lead vocal/Guitar. Punk metal.

20-2011-Brutality-“The Demos”. A 3 cd and 1 dvd box set package consisting of Brutality demos. 1000 known to be pressed on the Area Death label. This box set is full of flaws and misinformation and even has songs included that were not even brutality songs. The songs were “Remastered” without the band authority and as a result some of the songs are overproduced and sound fuzzy.

21-2013-Original Brutality –2 song Demo #1 of 3-(The red demo)Abomination/Now Mosh. All instruments and vocals. Thrash/Death metal.

22-2014-Original Brutality-2 song Demo #2 of 3-(The green demo)World War III/Return of the Dead-All instruments and vocals. Guest lead guitar by Steve Pantley. Thrash/Death metal-AVAILABLE NOW!

23-February 2014-Brutality-“The Archives Vol. 1 1986-1988 demos” A comprehensive collection of early Brutality demos and outtakes compiled by RVK. Since the 3 disc boxed set was inaccurate and incomplete, this series corrects those mistakes. Volume 2 will cover 1988-1989, and Volume 3 will cover 1989-1991.

24-2015-Original Brutality-3 song Demo #3 of 3-(The blue demo)Ashes and Snow/Brutality/SmaShit. All instruments and vocals. Extra backing vocals by Ken Clark. Thrash/Death metal-AVAILABLE NOW!

25-Late 2016-Original Brutality-SPEEDEATHRASH-full length album with songs: Abomination/Return Of The Dead/Now Mosh/World War III/Ashes And Snow/Brutality/Smashit/Agoraphobia. All instruments and vocals. Extra backing vocals on Smashit by Ken Clark, Guitar solo on World War II by Steve Pantley.

Citations favorites

"Yes, That's really me"
"THAT'S FUCKIN GAY!"
"EAT ME!"
"YOU CALL THAT HEAVY?"
"MOST PEOPLE ARE DUM DUMS."

Source : Raine Von Kiszka FB