Sound of the Beast

by Ian Christe

  In a new role as celebrity activist for election-law reform, Mustaine joined a coalition pushing for simplified access to voter registration. The so-called Motor Voter legislation was credited with doubling the election-day turnout of young voters over the next ten years. “I met Gore and Clinton when the Motor Voter bill was signed,” Mustaine says. “That’s probably one of my greatest accomplishments. Yeah, great, so I’m a heavy metal superstar, but I helped make a law here. That’s something where my kids can look back and say their dad helped do something good for this country.”

  At the close of 1992, with the dust still settling after a tumultuous year, the powerhouse lineup of Megadeth, Anthrax, Motör-head, and Soundgarden challenged Metallica—now widely regarded favorites—for the Best Metal Performance with Vocal Grammy. Jethro Tull had vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving an array of more worthy headbangers to compete for bragging rights. Not hip to the movement, ceremony emcee Whoopi Goldberg weakly imitated the frantic drumming posture of Lars Ulrich after Metallica’s performance of “Enter Sandman.” Nobody laughed with her—at that moment the world sided with Metallica. The Black Album took the prize.

  As Metallica broke into the pop world with obvious excitement, debate followed over whether heavy metal at the Grammys was a bad thing. The outcome depended on how far a person enjoyed seeing heavy metal leap into the mainstream. “I love all the early stuff by Metallica,” says Rob Halford of Judas Priest. “Everything was going great for me until the Black Album, but because of what it represented, I’ll have to applaud that one as well. I just love the adventure that Metallica created. They were metal freaks.”

  As heavy metal became commonplace, it formed the backbone of the complex musical landscape of the early 1990s. True heavy metal was not pop music—its virtues were not always apparent on first listen— but it was now a commercial monolith nonetheless, and the basis for limitless new directions in pop. With the new decade, it was wise not only for failing glam metal bands like Stryper but also for musicians of all shades to darken their style with something heavier.

  The buzzword became “alternative metal,” as bands everywhere grew long hair, neglected their razors, and leaned into metal-issue stacks of Marshall guitar amps. “[Our] new stuff is pretty damn heavy, that’s for sure,” singer Black Francis of definitive college-rock band the Pixies told Melody Maker in 1991. “We watch MTV and see those bands like Nelson and Warrant and think surely it’s possible to do a better job with that kind of music.”

  British new wavers Depeche Mode showed off a denim and leather image, and postpunk group the Cult rocked radio with metal-influenced hits like “Love Removal Machine.” The 1970s funk-inspired Red Hot Chili Peppers repaid the attention of metal fans by speeding up and adding grittier guitar solos. The Chicago duo Ministry was a dramatic example of heavy metal hegemony: the former disco synth act that signed with Anthrax’s agency, Crazed Management, grew beards, ran drum machines through distortion pedals, and loaded samplers with powerhouse guitar sounds.

  Once engaged with the outside world, heavy metal began to change in reaction to its many strange reflections. Pioneers like Chrome and Suicide for years had played electronic music that resembled heavy metal. Now Faith No More and Type O Negative finally embraced the most spurned of instruments—the electronic synthesizer—threatening the dominance of the hallmark Judas Priest—style dueling guitars with new technology. “I was aware of Kraftwerk for probably fucking ten years,” says Havard Ellefsen, aka Mortiis, who began a career as a heavy keyboard act in 1993. “But during the eighties, when you’re into heavy metal and in your early teens, you can’t properly be allowed to enjoy metal and synthesized music at the same time, because your pals would beat you up! That’s just the unwritten rule, which was fucking stupid.”

  In truth, most traditional heavy metal bands employed keyboard players—at least in the privacy of the recording studio. Deep Purple’s music was based on the heavy electric ivories of Jon Lord, and Black Sabbath also used keyboard players extensively. On 1974’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Rick Wakeman of Yes was a credited guest, and Ozzy Osbourne himself played synthesizer on “Who Are You?” Yet ever since Iron Maiden battled Duran Duran and the new romantics on the London music charts, keyboards had symbolized simpering wimpdom, a fate worse than disco. Though new waver Thomas Dolby added a blatant keyboard overdub to the radio mix of Def Leppard’s “Bringing on the Heartbreak,” he was credited under a pseudonym to safeguard the band’s reputation.

  As a consequence, keyboard players were rarely seen amid the garish productions of 1980s metal concerts. Although he joined in 1979 and performed on every album beginning with Heaven and Hell, Black Sabbath’s longtime organist, Geoff Nicholls, was still positioned offstage during live performances. Dio’s loyal keyboardist, Claude Schnell, integral to set staples like “Rainbow in the Dark,” waited until 1984 for a place in the onstage castle. “He paid his dues,” says Ronnie James Dio. “He was willing to be behind the stage, to do what he had to do. It didn’t make him happy, but I told him, ‘Stick with this and there’s going to be a time when you’re going to have your own spot.’ Eventually that happened. It had to. I don’t see how you can take another musician and just stick him in a hole somewhere.”

  In the 1990s, digital sampling and a more adventurous musical climate allowed keyboards a greater piece of the limelight. The Swiss trio Young Gods used a strange configuration of live drummer and singer buttressed by a sampler-wielding keyboard maniac who banged his head crazily while triggering samples of electric guitar. After leaving his thrash metal band, Carnivore, behind in the 1980s and enrolling in the New York Police Academy, Peter T. Steele returned in 1991 with the high-concept Type O Negative. “Keyboards opened room for sampling, which is a big part of Type O Negative,” Steele says. “I consider virtually every sound to be music if it’s used properly, and that includes fifty-five-gallon drums being thrown down a flight of stairs, tires screeching, or babies crying.”

  Type O Negative formed a gloomy merger of thrash metal and gothic rock on the basis of a half dozen unused Carnivore songs. They were unafraid to combine pounding guitars and saccharine balladeering within the same song. “We were really excited that we had Pete under contract and were able to do it,” says Monte Conner of Roadrunner Records. “We saw Carnivore as very limiting and Type O as something with a much wider appeal.”

  Likewise, the long-laboring White Zombie indoctrinated the new decade in 1992 with its visionary La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1, peppered with hundreds of sampled sound bites from horror movies and less recognizable sources. Benefiting from the prior success of the eclectic Faith No More, these musical magpies surfed culture deftly, fusing Exodus riffs with hardcore rap in a mass of handpicked sonic elements, attaching fragments of metal found while touring with heavy hitters like Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax. They ascended the pop charts after overtaking MTV with a bedraggled Day-Glo horror show honed for years—since singer Rob Zombie was a production assistant on the first season of Pee-wee’s Playhouse.

  White Zombie, metal ragamuffins

  (Geffen Records)

  As a measure of the changes, Metallica returned to Oakland’s Day on the Green festival in October 1991, headlining to 50,000 sold-out seats. Supporting acts Queensryche, Faith No More, and Soundgarden were all alternative metal acts—and, significantly, bands, like Metallica, who rose through the ranks of independent metal labels in the 1980s. They represented the colorful results of metal opening up to face the outside world. Almost forgotten were the 1985 headliners—Ratt, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Y&T—who had then loomed over Metallica on that same stage. All were vaporized at the close of the 1980s like so many Members Only jackets and Delorean sport cars.

  ALTERNATIVE METAL

  The influence of heavy metal after the 1980s was so great that virtually every new band bowed to its sound, no matter what the intentions. While Metallica deserted thrash metal in 1991 with its commercially powerful Black Album, new groups like Sou
ndgarden, Ministry, and Faith No More seamlessly combined metal with alternative rock, synthesizers, and dance music. Though seemingly a hodgepodge of styles, the adventurous avenues presented by alternative metal bands all pointed to Black Sabbath and Metallica. The well-scrubbed Helmet looked like New Kids on the Block, and its hybrid of pounding pop and brutally meticulous guitars was a huge influence on the upcoming decade. Yet the band didn’t consider itself just a transition from Iron Maiden. “We fell into the whole metal thing by accident,” says drummer John Stanier. “We always hated it when people mentioned metal in conjunction with us.” Public image aside, the 1990s proved even short-hairs could play metal to the max.

  Strange Attractors

  Butthole Surfers, Locust Abortion Technician (1987)

  Faith No More, The Real Thing (1989)

  Helmet, Meantime (1992)

  Jane’s Addiction, Nothing’s Shocking (1988)

  Kyuss, Blues for the Red Sun (1992)

  Metallica, Metallica (1991)

  Ministry, The Land of Rape and Honey (1988)

  Soundgarden, Screaming Life/Fopp (1992)

  Type 0 Negative, Bloody Kisses (1994)

  Voivod, Angel Rat (1991)

  White Zombie, La Sexorcisto, Devil Music Vol. 1 (1992)

  Prior to Metallica, the career arc of nearly every successful heavy metal band involved a noticeable wimping out—some slow and steadily, some precariously quick. Celtic Frost took a drastic slip in 1988 with Cold Lake, transforming from the hellishly powerful Swiss demons of 1985 into stomach-churning L.A. glam metal imitators. Regal album artwork gave way to hair spray and public displays of pubic hair, while classic literate themes dissipated into banal love songs to Marilyn Monroe. Though leader Tom Warrior now calls Cold Lake “a mistake,” mystified fans pondered whether the puffy-haired escapade was the ultimate enigmatic high-concept twist from a band whose career perpetually reeked of surprise—or just the unfortunate result of radically misguided commercial hopes.

  Although they had paid their dues, thrash metal titans like Metal Church were not automatically entitled to inherit the success of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Soon after deposing traditional heavy metal, thrash metal was decidedly no longer a lean contender. In some cases the changes were visible to the eye, as more than a few overfed bangers began watching their beer bellies. Slayer famously switched from full-bodied Belgian beer to watery Coors Light. According to guitarist Gary Holt, Exodus singer Steve Sousa shed forty-five pounds after beginning a NutraSystem diet. “He got the idea because Chuck Billy, Eric Peterson, and Louie Clemente from Testament all went on it,” says Holt. “He showed me one of the NutraSystem hamburgers, and I was like, ‘Man, I’d eat the box, too!’”

  In the wake of the Black Album, wimping out was no longer the problem. Yet as Faith No More and Soundgarden were heavy without necessarily being metal, there were now scads of second-division Anthrax and Metallica imitators who played metal but lacked the depth of spirit. Overpolished commercial bands began bogging down thrash metal, underwhelming new audiences who should have been eager for more bands that sounded like the Big Four. “The major labels killed thrash metal,” says indie A&R man Monte Conner.

  Warner Brothers flooded stores with 20,000 free copies of the debut EP by the competent Powermad and placed them in David Lynch’s film Wild at Heart. But imitating old-school Metallica was no longer enough to make the grade. “There was the Big Four: Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer,” says Conner. “All those bands were doing well, and the majors were like, ‘Hey, we gotta get in on this!’ Then, overnight, two hundred generic fifth-rate bands like Gothic Slam and Powermad got signed and flooded the market. None of those bands sold anything, because none were any good. Kids got sick of it, because there were too many records coming out, and eventually those bands disappeared.”

  A less visible reason for the stalling of thrash metal was narcotics, as success brought the onset of heavier drug habits. Black Sabbath had survived its first decade despite excessive chemical abuse, but by and large heavy metal had been content with casual alcoholism of the kind trumpeted by Metallica’s pet name—Alcoholica. Hard drugs seemed to be an affliction reserved for the Hollywood music industry and its star-tripping bands—such as the heroin-ravaged Mötley Crüe, whose manager, Doc McGhee, had been caught smuggling several tons of marijuana into America in 1988. “Mostly we were about writing positive stuff and not writing a lot of dirt,” says journalist Ben Liemer, who covered all breeds of heavy metal extensively for Circus, “but we saw all kinds of stuff that didn’t go in the articles.”

  Heavy metal certainly had a few skeletons in the closet. “I think you should go out there and do your drugs, and do your booze, and stay up late, and fuck your brains out, and do all the things that you want to do,” says Rob Halford. “Those things are great only in terms of living, and life is a great gift. However, falling into the trap of addiction and fucking yourself up is a bad thing to do. I’ve been down that road. I hit the wall, like a lot of musicians do. I had obsessive personality traits that I didn’t discover until I became addicted to booze and drugs. It was affecting what I love to do with music because it was screwing with my voice, so I did something about it in January 1986. Now I see other people that are my age, and I thank God that I don’t look like that.”

  While Metallica still openly celebrated their love of vodka, former guitarist Dave Mustaine’s angry alcoholism had accelerated into a never-ending appetite for speed, heroin, and freebase cocaine as Megadeth accumulated gold and platinum albums. Only bassist David Ellefson stayed with Mustaine during Megadeth’s ascent. “The first two guys were asked to leave because they were using drugs and stealing equipment,” Mustaine says. “The second two were asked to leave for real, real bad drug problems. One of them clicked into a phone call with my fiancée and told her he fantasized about having sex with her when he’s having sex with his girlfriend. I said, ‘You’re outta here!’”

  Later Lars Ulrich described his own lifestyle during the period to VH1 as “staying up all night partying with Guns N’ Roses.” Such revelations did not bode well. “There’s always drugs in the music business,” says King Diamond. I don’t want to associate with it. I’ve seen its damage, and it brings a lot of stupid things with it.”

  Metallica’s friends and labelmates Metal Church spiraled entirely out of control after relocating from sleepy Seattle to the badlands of Los Angeles. “When I left Metal Church, there were a lot of drugs going on,” says vocalist David Wayne. “I’ve never put it on them, but there were a couple guys in Metal Church that [flopped on the floor like] fish. I saw some overdoses, and I overdosed. As much as Hollywood and rock and roll glorifies this crap called cocaine, I’m done. The addiction factor on this drug is so off the scale as to not be believed. You just keep wanting more and more, as Metallica wrote on their song ‘Master of Puppets.’”

  Superstars like Megadeth cleaned up and prevailed, selling 6 million albums in America during the 1990s. Likewise the squeaky-clean Anthrax recruited former Armored Saint singer John Bush—courted years earlier by Metallica—and signed a new $10 million deal with Elektra in 1992. Yet many former peers were falling like heavy flies. Even proven major-label mainstays Metal Church and Exodus were left wandering the treacherous back burners of record companies that no longer cared about their careers. “Metal Church [was] handed the CD of 1993’s Hanging in the Balance” recalls former singer David Wayne, who left several years earlier, “and the artwork was a fat woman on a tight wire wearing what looks to be Viking-type opera diva stuff. It’s quite possibly the ugliest heavy metal album I’ve ever seen. They weren’t even given a choice.”

  The key to survival in the 1990s was adaptation and transformation in an overexcited musical environment. Slaving away in the metal backwaters since their Metal Magic album in 1983, the Texas power metal act Pantera finally became successful by smartly riding the changing times. Shortly after acquiring New Orleans singer Phil Anselmo, Pantera ditched masc
ara, pink scarves, leopard-print spandex pants, and hair spray and settled on a tougher, precision-metal approach. The key was replacing “tuff” with tough, as guitarist “Diamond” Darrell Abbott changed his stage name to Dimebag Darrell, bassist Rex “Rocker” Brown became just Rex, and so on.

  Power metal Pantera flyer

  Released in 1990, Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell was a thrashing departure from Metallica’s imperfect … And Justice for All, synthesizing metal’s abrasiveness and rap’s sparse song structures to create a percussive, angry sound, with a trace of the deathly growls popular on the underground. The new Pantera fused metal and rap in a more fluid manner than Anthrax did and soon eclipsed the New York band in popularity. A black-and-white photograph of the barking singer, Anselmo, looking like a punk rock quarterback tattooed with the words STRENGTH and SHATTERED SOUL, won a Pulitzer Prize for photographer John Kaplan in 1992. Perfectly in stride with the times, Pantera next perfected its rhythm-heavy head-banging plan on Vulgar Display of Power, later extended through the erratically groovy and elegantly powerful Far Beyond Driven. After striving in the South Texas trenches for almost a decade, Pantera had become a group of market-savvy realists, rejuvenating the skills and boisterous attitude of the 1980s with a fresh, clenched-teeth approach.

  True to the title of the band’s later album Reinventing the Steel, official biographies tended to omit any mention of Pantera’s activities during the 1980s. “Of course, Pantera was something more before they did Cowboys from Hell,” says Rob Halford from Judas Priest. “They obviously wanted to survive, and they obviously felt they had something more to say than what they were doing in the very early days. They were just a great example of taking that metal development and bringing in a new definition in terms of the sound. I remember first listening to Cowboys from Hell and thinking, ‘Oh, my God, what’s this?’ It was just amazing in terms of what Dimebag was doing.