Bowman on keyboards, and Chris Jenson on drums. Another configuration of this group was called Three Hard Men with Custer on guitar, Adams on bass, and Kenny Soule on drums. Over the years, Custer played with a number of short–lived bands: John Custer and Kevin, John Custer and the Malcolm Baldridge Memorial Rhythm Section, John Custer and Asylum Hill, Teresa Williams & John Custer, and his own John Custer Band. In 1990, Custer joined Jake Ferrell in a reboot of the band Subliminal Surge. Custer met Byron McCay, former guitarist of Subliminal Surge and founder/owner of JAG Studios in Raleigh. McCay had soured on the music business, but was invigorated by Custer, saying "Custer was a guitar whiz, one of the first locals to crack the Eddie Van Halen's supersonic code". At age 25, Custer began producing and developing original artists at JAG Studios. He produced a four-song cassette for the Raleigh band, The Distance, in 1989. One reviewer of The Distance's recordings noted, "Producer John Custer creates a madcap roller derby of ringing guitar riffs" on one track, and "crisp, clear aural onslaught' on another. Custer also produced a rap song for comedian Rich Hall, his own original music for the WRAL–TV's Rob and Bill's Talk Show, and demo tapes for the Raleigh bands Cry of Love, and Automatic Slim. Career Corrosion of Conformity Custer's first major project was producing the album Blind (Relativity Records, 1991) for the Raleigh punk thrash band Corrosion of Conformity (later COC). Decibel notes, "Allowing the North Carolinians ample space to find their proverbial groove was fledgling producer John Custer. When Corrosion of Conformity entered Baby Monster Studios in NYC in 1990, they were a full-on heavy metal outfit, and Custer was, to a large degree, the group's sonic tactician." COC bassist Mike Dean seems to agree, stating, "We were dabbling in metal. When [we] got up with John Custer and started really refining that stuff for Blind, that's when something really awesome started happening." An AllMusic review praised Blind as "simply one of the most important heavy rock albums of the decade". COC ended up on the major label Columbia Records because Sony/Columbia acquired half–ownership of the COC's first label Relativity. Since Blind, Custer has produced numerous COC albums, including Deliverance (Columbia, 1994), Wiseblood (Columbia, 1996), America's Volume Dealer (Sanctuary Records, 2000), In the Arms of God (Sanctuary Records, 2005), Corrosion of Conformity