Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / "Heroes of the Metal Underground: The Definitive Guide to 1980s American Independent Metal Bands"/Alex Anesiadis [Episode 154]

Transcript

"Heroes of the Metal Underground: The Definitive Guide to 1980s American Independent Metal Bands"/Alex Anesiadis [Episode 154] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Oh, We're totally bow. I think I'll leave you. You're reading Little
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Hands. It's time to run and roll road. We are totally booked.
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Welcome to book don Rock, the podcast for those about to read and rock
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online. At booked on rock dot com, you can find every episode of
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Booked on Rock there, along with links to your favorite listening platforms, exclusive
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videos, blogs, links to all of the social media sites, and the
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latest rock book releases. Our guest is alex Annasiatis. He's the author of
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Heroes of the Metal Underground, The Definitive Guide to nineteen eighties American independent metal
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Bands. This is the only encyclopedic and definitive book on American indie metal.
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Heroes of the Metal Underground profiles over eleven hundred American bands from every town and
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city in the United States who ever released a record. These bands borrowed a
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page from Punk's d i y Handbook and did it all themselves. Regional favorites,
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hometown heroes, tour van veterans, bands who invested their life savings into
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recording and pressing their songs onto albums for a shot at immortality on vinyl.
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Alex is here to share some of what's inside the book, So let's get
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to it. Alex, Welcome to the podcast. Hello Eric, how are
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you? Thank you so much for the invitation. Man. Oh, absolutely,
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and and you might be a little tired where you're where you are right
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now? If you want to explain to the listeners where you are and what
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time it is, well, right now it's to am the morning in Greece.
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Oh, I've woken up at six fifty am. I haven't slept things
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because I'm working on a full time role and doing my PhD. I'm writing
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some new books, so I keep it busy old day along. Man.
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It's like Man's Hardcore Hardcore, which which is a good segue into this book
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because this was for the hardcore fans of metal, Heroes of the Metal Underground,
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the definitive guide to nineteen eighties American independent metal bands. So tell me
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first off before we get to the book, tell us about yourself, your
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background in music, What led you to writing this book. Well, I'm
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forty two years old. I was born in Greece. I've lived abroad for
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about ten years. I lived in London, Monster, United Kingdom and the
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nicol in Siena. And regarding music, the best things I remember for my
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life. I connected with music. I mean, my sister told me that
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when I was four years old, I was going like crazy the song from
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my band named King Kurt. It was a rockabilly band, ka rockabilly band,
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and I was going like crazy in the house. My sister and my
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brother, they were musicians. I wasn't a musician, but I love music,
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you know, I was. I was. They were older than me,
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and I was getting on their nerves because I was always searching their records
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and always telling them, okay, playing me this song, playing me the
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other song. So it was something like, you know, it was about
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to happen. I started, you know, getting collecting records, buying records.
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When I was eleven twelve years old. I felt just in between you
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know, the Grounds Explosion. I was. I was eleven years old in
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the Grounds Explosion. And yes, I like you know Nirvana or Madhoney,
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but it was something that was faster, more raw, more crazy. So
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this is when I get to meet, you know, the hardware bands.
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My first hardware record was their Rise Perfect Kind that was fourteen years old.
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And and and since then, you know, there was no way back.
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I started going to the shows listening to that kind of music. I love
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that kind of music. I was traveling to see bands and buying records like
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crazy. I started writing writing books because I thought I was also buying books
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to musical books. I loved, then Glassberus books, I loved for all
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house books, for example, American Hardware. I said, okay, why
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why anybody haven't hasn't wrote about a book about the crossover hardware pund in metal
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worldwide? And I was like, I'd love to read that book, right
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and okay, why so I have to do it? Okay, I did
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it, and you did it. Yeah, twenty nineteen that came out,
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that book That's Crossover The Edge where Hardcore, punk and Metal Collide twenty nineteen.
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Yeah, this was my first book. Everybody you know. My partner
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said, Alex, you're crazy. You're writing a book in English. It's
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not there navy black webs and how are you going to take all those interviews
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and other words. I'm going to take them because I know those key people
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in the scene, they like me and blah blah blah, and said okay,
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go ahead and do it. And when I first got into my hands,
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I said, well, man, this is what I wanted to do
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initially in the first place. I was so happy. Yeah, it's quite
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a rush, your first published book. That's that's quite an accomplishment. Thank
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you, Thank you, Eric. And the second book was We Canna Be
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the New Wind. I focused on another crossover arto Bank with alternative rock.
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And finally here we come to Heroes of the Underground. I have to say
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that bring a lockdown due to COVID for about two years, increase increase my
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productivity. I said, Okay, I have to do something because I'm okay,
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I'm working remotely, I'm working from home, but I have to do
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something. I have to write books. I can't go out and work out.
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I can't go out and run, I can't go do things that I
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love. So let's write your new books. At the same time, it
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was it was harder, okay, Oh, I'm sure after reading this book,
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the research that went into it, it was hard. It was hard.
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I'm telling you it just like it was like hell. I was like,
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man, how there are thousands of bands in the in the USA during
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in this decade in the nine eighties. But what led me to do it?
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First of all, it was a di y nature of those bands.
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Those bands had a very punk element, sometimes into their sound too, but
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also into their mindset. They had a very DIY said. They said,
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Okay, I don't care about not being signed by a big label. I'm
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gonna release my record, I'm gonna book myself, I'm gonna I'm going to
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run my too by myself. So this was very intriguing. Alongside though,
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I wanted so much to explore how these bands from all over the America where
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you know, this all happened simultaneously. There were thousands of bands on the
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same mirror. There were bands that they were reading from the rereading the mainstream
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from the underground. They had a sense of authenticity, a sense of something
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very genuine into their sound and do their attitudes. And I had to say
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Eric that I've asked about one hundred and sixty musicians for an interview. They
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didn't know me initially, eight and every one of them were so humble and
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so nice, and it was like, man, these cats are cool.
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Man, this guys are really cool, grateful for it. Well, how
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did you track all of these musicians down? How did the process it actually
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before you get that? How long did this book take from start to finish,
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it was two and a half years. Yeah, okay, seven out
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of seven. Yeah, because there's over eleven hundred bands, American bands.
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So you could have, like you said in the introduction or the preface,
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I think it was, you could have gone beyond the US. If you
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did that, it would have been it would be can you would never end?
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No? No? Yeah? So how did you? How did you
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connect with all of these guys? A lot of virtual during COVID, A
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lot of I told those guys. Initially, I first of all, I
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tracted, I dropped them down from emails, from social media. I started
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searching, you know, relatives of them, and because some they don't have
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a social media presence, I told him I want to speak with your brother
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or your or your father or whatever about his band in the Nine Nabies,
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and they were so excited. There was a case with a band named Destroyer,
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Kenny Burke and Erica Burke. This is actually part story. I sent
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a message to and his father on Facebook and told him hello, I'm Alex
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and he's eighteen years old, and he was very happy. He told me,
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okay, I'm going to give your email to my to my son.
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He gave he sent me an email just right away. And we were talking
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for so many months via email, so actually we needed we didn't need to
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take an interview because we're speaking all the time. What's actually when It's very
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funny that his brother is the American Cowboy in New York City is a guy
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who plays guitar dressed as a cowboy. Yeah, he's in Times Square right.
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Me and my partner we went to New York City six months ago,
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but I was so it was it was awfully hot and I was so tired.
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And I saw that guy and I said, oh, the guy dressed
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dressed like a cowboy playing guitar. And when we left and when we got
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back to the hotel, said, oh, man, he was He was
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Kenni's brother. Man. And that guy in the American Cowboy posted the book
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in his Instagram and he said, I'm very happy. And I said,
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oh, I'm such a dummy. Man. I didn't speak to you,
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and you're just in front of me. He was like, now, how
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did you find out about all of these bands? A lot of them you
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already knew about, or did it just kind of like a snowball getting bigger
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and bigger. People said, hey, you should check out that band,
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because we're talking These aren't bands that you know, are on everybody's radar.
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These are bands that local huge where they're from, but not worldwide. First
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of all, I knew many bands, but obviously not as many, but
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from collecting, collecting records, collecting all that, right, that's that.
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So just over the years, friends would recommend or you'd be at a record
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store, Hey check this out. That's how it all came about. And
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what's what's actually funny that in Greece, when we are talking about psychedelic row
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garage rock, punk rock or hardcore, there's no there are no, not
11:05
so many people that are are deep into it. But in terms of heavy
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metal, I mean like there are so many people into heavy metal, into
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crazy obscure bands, into stuff that they have never nobody outside you know,
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a home village in the US, a village in the US has ever heard
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so they love this kind of stuff. Heard that about metal fans, devoted
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loyal Yeah, yeah, I have friends, you know, I have friends
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that they listen to metal, they listen to punk, rollsten to hardcore.
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And through all those years we managed to swap records to talk about music.
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Stuff like that It was like, so I knew so many bands that self
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released their record. But what was really, you know, really exciting,
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is that I said, there's no way, but there are only you know,
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one hundred or one hundred fifty bands, and I know they're there are
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much more many than those bands. So I started searching in my in my
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fathers, in my farmils, my old farms, bands from you know that
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self release their record. I started searching collectors lists, people that collect records
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their lists. One by one, I started searching on discos. I started
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searching everywhere in places that you know that they're not even in the on the
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web, records that have never seen you know, are not even listed on
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discocs or in metal archives or stuff like that. This led me to an
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endless quest. It was like, yeah, no, now tell me about
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Yiannis Scarpelos right here. Yeah, that's important to mention Yannis too, because
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well, Yannis is a metal head. So like he's recommending as you read
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throughout this book, he comes in and says, hey, these are the
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albums you should check out. This is really good. And here's why I
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thought that was cool. A nice added touch to it. Yeah, youngs
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against the Metal of head of this book, The True Medea. He's one
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hundred percent be voted to medals. He's a really nice guy. He's a
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very cool professor in the university. He likes all things metal. He loves
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medal. So yeah, so you break it down, You've got East Coast
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bands, West Coast bands, and then Central slash rest of the US.
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I'm sorry for the Northwestern band, so yeah, but I had to,
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I had I had to file them under, you know, and quite a
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few bands. And I can't wait to ask you about some of the bands
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that formed right near where I'm at. I was telling you before we recorded.
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You're asking what part of one part of Connecticut I'm from, And I'm
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right in between Hartford and new Haven, and there are some bands that formed
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in the New Haven area. In fact, I believe Richie Cottson, who
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has going on to two big things, he was in a band I believe
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that formed in New Haven. If I'm not mistaken, Arthur's Museum is the
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one Richie Cotson was a member of, Yeah called Arthur's Museum YEP, Shrapnel
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Records Tate's Warning. Both are from the Yes Yes Fate's Warning YEP a Leeds
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Lord, we're from Bennecticut. Have you ever heard the Believes? Lord?
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No? See, Now, a lot of these bands I noticed in the
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book that are from New Haven area. I noticed a few there right before
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my time. I was born in seventy two, so I was just a
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little kid when they formed, so kind of missed out on that. And
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I'm sure if I was a little bit older, I would have heard about
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them. For those you know just listening, because we do put up a
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video segment, but Alex is so rounded by Vinyl records. Well, the
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funny thing is that this is this is our house and at the same time,
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this place is our office. This is my own that's in front of
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me is my office, and next to me it's my partner's office. She
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works as a data analyst, and we work all day here, and just
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nearby are my records and turntable where I play records all day in heaven.
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Yeah, well, Liz Lord, I won't to tell you about Leeds or
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Anthony Truglio spoke to me in this book and he and you can find his
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words and the conclusion in the last chapter. The basis of Liz Lord died
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yesterday and he was such a sweet guy. He was a very sweet guy.
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He just passed away. He just passed away from cancer. She said,
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yesterday, he passed yesterday. Oh my god. I was like,
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I managed to to get to recollect you know, Leazard music. I don't
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know if you like Iron made them a power slave? Do you like them?
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Yep? You should listen to Master Control by Leads Lord. It's that
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kind of level of intesting. The only it is American and it's faster and
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morow and crazy. It's one of the best metal records you can ever listen
16:25
in your life. I'm sorry about over over reacting or over but it's a
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truth. It's an amazing record. But now one of these bands not make
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it as big as the others, because that's an interesting thing because I'm not
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sure all these bands wanted to get to that level. I don't know if
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they wanted to deal with the big labels and all the headaches that come with
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it, while others may have wanted that. But you've got to be in
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the right place, right time or whatever. Right what's the what's the breakdown
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in the book as far as that's concerned. How many these bands just said
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I don't give a shit about being on a big label, and honey,
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how many of them wanted to, but just it never happened. There is
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an answer to do this one because Manila Road band that a suddenly couldn't get
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an interview because the central character behind that band, Mark Selton, passed away
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about three or four years ago. A Manila Road were from a would Sita,
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Kansas and they did put all the records by themselves in the early eighties.
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They only got picked up by a French label called Black Dragon Records that
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released their records in Europe, but all their first pressings, the first records,
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were in their label. And he was so dedicated to this one he
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didn't care about, you know, big labels or getting There were so many
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bands like that that they didn't want to go, not to CBS or Sonio
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or em I, but even to you know, small metal labels like Metal
17:56
Blade or Megaphors or labels like that. And I think that you can see
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it in the book that most of those bands are either in between heavy metal
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and hard rock or heavy metal and power metal. There's no there's no thrash
18:15
metal, there's no glad metal because those kind of bands, you know,
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fell just writing between glam metal and thrash metal. Yeah, and if they
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were to sign to a big label, I'm sure they knew that these labels
18:30
would tell them to dress differently, change the sound, so they'd be restricted
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creatively. They prefer just to stay where they are. How do they do
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they Are they able to make a living off of this or do a lot
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of these guys do. They have regular jobs nine to five and then at
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night they'd be playing the clubs and recordings. Most of them had regular jobs.
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There are very few bands that made a living, and I think that
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they made it out late. For example, Series Angles from San franci Cisco.
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There were bands since nineteen seventy six, seventy seven, but they didn't
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They didn't make a living when they were active in ninet eighties. Actually,
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there's a very funny story of Metallica because they were in San Francisco. They're
19:15
too calling sirif Angle us a dinosaur rock and mocking them in the LA eighties
19:21
because they didn't go either glamor or trust metal and they were like, but
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you can see that the level of authenticity of sirif Angle is beyond any any
19:34
level, and they're right now they're back. They're Guard Records again. They
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go tour, but you know they had they had to make a living initially
19:44
in order to do it again. By the way, Arthur's Museum, I
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want to just get this out real quick before we move on to some of
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the other bands, because Richie Katson, I think he was from Pennsylvania,
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if I'm not mistaken, initially born, Yeah, reading Pennsylvania, nineteen years
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old. Arthur's Museum. Arthur's Museum. They formed out of they might they're
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the New Haven band. I think one of the New Haven formed out of
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New Haven, so he was there briefly. Richie Cotson's fur this is from
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your book. It was guitarist Richie Cotson's first band, and he entered the
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rock and roll world at the tender age of fifteen. The one thing I
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love too is band names. There's a theme is it's dark, it's got
20:27
it's aggression, it's got some kind of attitude to it. Like, for
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example, let's say running through him, Let's say Strange Flesh. Yes,
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Caliber, you know you strange splay, you messing straight slist that yeah,
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Graham batting from Strange Swist. He used to be a fantastic artist. I
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think that he is the auth abat artist. He used the Flyers from Heaven
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Metal and Hardcore Bank Souls in the East Coast. He did so many the
21:00
iconic flyers. Look, many people know about them, but he did them.
21:04
And I think that I'm not one percent that he did the Aize out
21:10
art book for one record. He was that good. And nobody ever know
21:15
mentions Graham Baton, but he's he's one of that of those guys right and
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Strange Places are a good band to him. The book down Rock Podcasts.
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We'll be back after this. There was one band, actually there might have
21:30
been a few of them. They named themselves after influenced by Kiss, and
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one of them there's a track off of music from the Elder from Kiss,
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their Most Obscure album, and Odyssey was a song on that album, and
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one of the bands named themselves Odyssey. That's one of the East Coast bands.
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Yeah, now here's another one. And you tell me if you have
21:53
some favorite band name origin stories. But the one that stood out to me
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Murder Sweet and go back to them all right. This is page forty eight.
22:04
Now, this is great, this story behind how they come up with
22:08
their name. This is you were speaking with. Let's see, who are
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you talking to for this? This is Lenny Spickle. Were you talking to?
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Right? Guitars and vocalists. They formed in Milford, Connecticut. Small
22:21
town, is right? You mentioned it here. We formed the winter of
22:22
nineteen eighty four and the small town of Milford, Connecticut. So yeah,
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he says, some might wonder how we got our name. Carl. Carl,
22:32
by the way, was the Carl was a singer. Some might wonder
22:36
how we got our name. Carl owned a small hotel. Don't remember too
22:40
much about it, but I think you could rent the rooms by the hour.
22:41
There was a small banquet room that we turned into our rehearsal studio,
22:45
and that became our hobbin home. We now needed a band name. One
22:48
day, over what I'm sure where man was many beers, Carl told us
22:52
a story about what was probably a hooker that was killed in one of the
22:55
rooms. So of course instantly we all wanted to see the room. Carl
22:59
took us the room number seventeen, the murder suite. I'm about ninety nine
23:03
percent sure that was at that moment that that was the band name. So
23:07
if you look at the cover of our record, there's a hotel key for
23:10
room number seventeen. Oh I love it. So we covered a lot of
23:14
these East Coast bands, but what about West Coast? What are some of
23:17
the bands that stand out to you from from the West Coast? Ruffians,
23:22
Seriffians, Ruffians, Ruffians amazing band. Yeah, amazing band, top people
23:29
right now. Greg Berkhost guitarist of Ruffians. He plays in a punk rock
23:34
band with Manitoba from Dictators, played punk rock covers. Yeah. He's a
23:40
very nice guy too. Villaine, Ruffians and Villaine have a commonalty. It
23:47
was a vocalist Carl Albert who died, who passed away from in the early
23:55
ninety nineties, and amazing voice. He also he was also the vocalist for
24:00
Vicious Rumors. The Los Angeles band serif Angle. Of course West Coast.
24:06
You can't go wrong serif Angle. There are so so unique Broke as Helm
24:11
Broke, a selve or from San Francisco. They're really old, they're really
24:17
really weird, and they're really great. They have a very rough sounding metal
24:22
style. It's one of those are that can drive you nuts. It's so
24:29
crazy. They have a very tiny, underproduced and rough Selbing Record, but
24:34
they're very clever. They write songs, you know that they're not your typical
24:40
metal song. So these people that are listening to this, they may be
24:42
interested in finding these artists. Are they more easily discovered now with the Internet
24:48
or is it still hard to track this down? I mean, you're not
24:52
on Spotify, they're not on you maybe YouTube well, and you can find
24:56
many of them on YouTube. You can find some of them Spotify, but
25:00
you can find you can still find many of them on YouTube. And luckily
25:04
for us, there are labels like Heaven and Hell, like eight Metal,
25:11
like cult metal classes like No Remorse. These are labels that reissue all that
25:15
stuff with Bondus songs with whatever you want. There are small labels, you
25:21
know, one hundred and fifty two hundred copies each of their records, but
25:26
it's still out there for a nice price for everybody intersted to get it.
25:30
Is there any similarity or differences between the bands on the East Coast and the
25:36
West Coast or the central or did they all kind of just because they're all
25:40
from the same area. Do you notice that their influences there's a thread that
25:45
goes throughout each of these bands on specific coasts of course. Yeah, well
25:51
the look to sound, well, Eric, I can say safely say that
25:55
the Detroit bands are unbelievably rough bands have a very rap They're not slicky.
26:02
They're rough bands. East Coast bands in general, they have a very hardware
26:07
or punk influence in the verse sound. They're bands like Nightmare from New Hampshire,
26:11
from Manchester, New Hampshire. That they're those guys, two of them
26:17
though they played also with the DG Allen and get the Yeah, so they
26:23
were they were very rough metal bands. On the other hand, the West
26:27
Coast bands are most sound more professional, more slacky, more they're not so
26:33
rough sounding. What do you think that is it? It's just the environment
26:37
that they're in the bands is the environment it's I mean Los Angeles it's totally
26:45
different from San Francisco, and both of them are totally different to New York
26:49
and Detroit. And I think that in the nine eighties there were something like
26:56
the polar opposites in terms of living there. Even though Los Angeles was,
27:02
you know, the birthplace for all the gangs, it was still not as
27:07
rough as it was New York or Detroit. You talk about winters in Detroit,
27:12
winters in New York rough, you know winters in LA. That's the
27:18
sunny skies, beautiful weather. Yeah, that can have an effect on a
27:22
Seattle. That's the thing with the grun scene. Yeah, of course.
27:26
This is the thing that saddens me in today's music is that everything has been
27:33
You can hear to a band from Finland playing like a New York band or
27:38
a Chicago band. Well, this shouldn't be the case. Your own character.
27:45
That's because of the Internet. Yeah, that's everything now. The world
27:48
has become so much smaller. It's so true. It then came out of
27:52
nothing. But Chicago bands, Sicago meto bands have a very unique melodic sound.
27:59
You know bands like how but like Paradox band, like Decoy Paris.
28:04
They have a very melodic sound that sounds like the wind of Chicago. They
28:11
sound like that. You can spoil it, you can feel it, you
28:15
can hear it. They're not as rough as New York. There's not as
28:18
a sleek yards Los Angeles band or fancy or posse like Los Angeles band,
28:25
but they have their own sound. The greatest moments in rock and roll from
28:30
nineteen fifties to nineteen nineties was the fact that it's sitting its scene had a
28:37
specific sound. You knew what you're going to get beforehand when you bought a
28:44
record and you say, oh, this band is from Shaddle, so I
28:48
expect this band to be moody. Oh this band is from Texas. I
28:52
expect this bands be crazy. What about on stage? These bands form its
29:00
art. You mentioned gg Allen, bands like him doing stuff like he did
29:04
on STA. What were the or did it just vary? No? I
29:07
think it's very I mean I can think that Nightmare we're asked crazy. But
29:12
there were theatrical bands. When you were talking about the article bands you can
29:17
only you listen to all the time, the names like Alice Cooper I Merciful
29:22
Faith. One of the first the artical bands in heavy metals was Hallowing from
29:27
my Detroit. They're in your book. Yeah, one of the first and
29:33
the best the article metal bands. Their shows were We're Explosive where you know,
29:40
oh I remember reading this part. Yes, Detroit's heavy metal horror show
29:44
exactly. And then you had bands like Medieval Still from Nashville. Oh,
29:51
yeah, first band, the first band on that chapter on the central slash
29:55
rest of the US. They're from Memphis. They're from Memphis. Yeah,
29:59
yeah, they're Memphis Medieval Still they're playing in Greece in three days from now.
30:04
And those guys they had you can tick them on YouTube. They're they're
30:11
so in ninety five, nine ninety six, they did play on a full
30:15
on armor like there were like knights on stage. Those bands were different,
30:22
Each one of them had their own, their own styles. And here you
30:26
go, Alex. This is the quote from talk about Medieval Steel. Right,
30:30
Bobby Franklin, h he says, well, you right. In nineteen
30:34
eighty four, through their own label, SIR Records, Medieval Steel recorded and
30:38
released their first twelve inch simply titled Medieval Steel. Bobby mentions quote, the
30:45
reason we released it on our own was that we didn't want to be told
30:48
what to put on the record or when to release it. We wanted complete
30:52
control. There you go. That's it right there, complete control. I
31:00
don't want to be a pain. But you know, eric labels that like
31:06
Metal Blade or Megaphors, they were still even from marily on. I don't
31:14
think that they did treat for the musicians and the bands. Why I'm telling
31:21
that because I think that those bands and those are labels were the ones that
31:26
created all these year's hot take on metal. So you had thrust metal done
31:34
thrust metal. After the first month it was death metal and the first metal
31:38
were bands were dropped or the plastic heavy metal bands that those labels had,
31:44
they were dropped from the labels. So it was really sad for those bands
31:48
to see that they that the labels moved on to another trend, musical trend,
31:55
leaving them behind. And the market. I think that the market then
32:00
it had something for everybody. What's actually very fascinating that it is a buying
32:05
nineteen eighty one eighty two heavy metal records had only the sales of heavy metal
32:12
records in the US. It was only about two to three to four percent
32:15
in the US. By nineteen eighty five it was ten percent, and by
32:21
nineteen eighty nine it was forty percent. It was a huge market, right,
32:27
so you didn't need to drop any band. You shouldn't be greedy finding
32:31
the next Metallica or the next Megade or the next Down or the next Slayer
32:37
or the next whatever, and then if you don't find them, you drop
32:40
those bands. It wasn't cool enough, It wasn't it wasn't cool at all
32:45
yeah. And speaking of Slayer, that's the thing too. There's some bands
32:49
there's Slayers in this book, but not the Slayer that most may think,
32:52
right, Slayer from San Antonio, short lived band from Phoenix, Arizona.
32:57
This is a Jannis writing on a Slayer cut to the chase and then he
33:01
writes Slayers only release nineteen eighty two's Dangerous Appetite LP remains both a major rarity
33:07
as well as an item that only a few hardcore metal heads are aware of.
33:09
Musically, it is pretty good hard rock slash metal. Not a classic,
33:14
but always enjoyable. The funny thing is that Eric, there's another one
33:17
Slayer from San Antonio, Texas. Those guys are called Work called Slayer and
33:22
they had the change that are named to Essex Layer San Antonia's Layer, and
33:27
they did play a Soul in Texas with Slayer from Los Angeles. And there's
33:34
a desert they saw with player and Santa Thonis Layer and I have a picture
33:40
of Toma Ryan wearing that desert a Slayer and sound wow. Yeah, let
33:47
me just kind of piggyback off of that because there's a part in the end
33:50
of the book. Then caught my attention I want to ask you about list
33:54
of the best privately released records in the United States from nineteen eight to nineteen
34:00
eighty nine. So there was a band called White Lion, not yeah,
34:05
the White Lion with my tramp and Vito Brad Yeah, who was White Lion?
34:08
And this is an LP called One of a Kind nineteen eighty four and
34:13
I this was on YouTube and it kicks ass. It sounds great. Tell
34:16
me about Who's White Lion? Where they from? There were a mist coast
34:20
bands, there were anstals. I couldn't get them and I couldn't find them
34:23
to get on an interview. There are about one thousand bands in the final
34:29
chapter and the chapter that says I never forget the Warriors chapter, there are
34:35
all the bands but I found and reviewed by myself that I couldn't find them
34:40
or get them an interview. So in that final chapter I can find all
34:45
those bands in that There are so many great bands in that chapter. Actually,
34:50
I have to say that the best time for me while writing this book
34:54
was at this chapter because I got to listen to so many different stuff every
35:00
day every day and write about those bands that I know that even people that
35:07
they're in this in those bands and they couldn't find themselves. You know,
35:12
there was a band named Closing Speed. You can find this band in the
35:19
in that section, the section never forget the Warriors. Closing Speed. You
35:23
said, yeah, let me find a record. That guy from from Closing
35:30
Speed, Nick has a Greek heritage, and he sent me an email and
35:34
he told me, I know that you wrote about our band, and you
35:37
wrote a story about Metallica and our band. There's a story about them,
35:44
and yeah, what's this story? Click Barton played for some days or in
35:52
the Closing Speed Yeah, yeah, yeah, And he sent me a record,
36:00
son, I want to send your record man, and I was so
36:02
happy. There's also another one band, Lesser Mados, our bands that are
36:09
named from a US segregationist politician, and they have two records out and those
36:20
records I thought that they were writing records. And I wrote in my review,
36:27
I'm not going to review those writing records because I don't condone any writing
36:31
politics. And I think that this is crap. That guy got the book
36:38
on my email send me a message and he told me, thank you for
36:45
having the Lesser Madics name written on a book, even though I don't agree
36:52
with us calling us writings, etc. And I told them, you call
36:55
yourself Lesser Mados and have a song named white Power? What can I think
37:00
of? And he never told he never told me his name. I told,
37:06
please speak who I'm asking, who am I talking to? And he
37:10
told me no, I'd like to keep things privately, but all I can
37:15
do is sent he sent you a T shirt of Lesser Magics for you to
37:21
wear. I was like, Okay, don't don't worry. There's not gonna
37:25
be any white power or right wing things on that t sert. I was
37:30
like, okay, man, I don't know what to say. How many
37:36
how many guys did you end up? Did you hear from like right after
37:37
the book went to publishing, like, oh, like they finally get back
37:42
to you. Any of those every day? Every day, every day,
37:46
every day I get messages. I'm so happy Eric. For one thing,
37:53
my goal for the books was like, Okay, I'm gonna say it.
37:59
When I started writing my books, that were we had so many we were
38:04
through hell, through very through so difficult times with my family. So I
38:09
had my daughter in the hospital and I needed this to do something in order
38:14
to, you know, to overcome all those things that they were were in
38:17
my head hospital. She was in and up in the hospital for six months.
38:22
She was you know, all the three four years old. And we
38:25
were so we were so upset about that. And I said, was partner
38:31
two thousand and eighteen and we were you know, always said I said,
38:37
I said, my partner, Okay, I'm gonna do something about that because
38:39
I'm gonna go crazy. I have to write a book. And my goal
38:44
mist while I was writing that books. In my first book, it was
38:46
like, I'd love to make somebody happy about the band that found in my
38:53
in this book. Would this is my main goal? I don't want it
38:59
was like that. And right now I'm seeing people, you know, musicians,
39:01
they're sending me that they're they're so happy with with a book, and
39:07
they send me messages and send me, Alex, you made my family happy,
39:12
you made my my friends happy, and I'm so happy and I'm so
39:16
happy about that that that's awesome. You're giving giving back to these bands.
39:22
You're giving more than you're getting. Really, that's that's rights Like with this
39:24
podcast, it's just something you're doing it because you love it, but also
39:28
you want you don't want it to just be all about yourself. You're you
39:31
want to help, it's not about someone else. Yeah, you've made a
39:37
lot of friends through this process. A lot of these guys know you.
39:39
I'm sure you consider a lot of these guys friends now. You stay in
39:44
touch regularly with a lot of these. Well, we went to New York
39:47
with my partner and I got to meet the baris from Chromax and Freddie Alva.
39:54
And I never posted on my showcal Media where am I at the moment?
40:01
And I did. I bload some pictures of New York about one week
40:06
after we got back home, and I got messages you were New York and
40:08
you didn't tell anything. You could You could have met so many of those
40:14
guys you who wouldn't have gotten out. And I said, oh shit,
40:16
I didn't tell him and him and him all those East Coast bands in the
40:21
book, right, Yeah, but I told him, Okay, I promise
40:24
I'll be back next year in New York. No worries. Cool. So
40:29
yeah, speaking of New York, you do have one band in here.
40:31
I'm curious to the decision that went into it. Twisted Sister, isn't this
40:36
book? And this is the Twisted Sister that we know because they were,
40:38
they were underground, they were d they were played right here where I am,
40:44
or Upstate, New York. They were huge at some of the clubs
40:46
around there. And then they then, of course they did sign to a
40:50
major label. But you do have here the seven inch I'll Never Grow Up
40:54
Now, the B side Under the Blade, which ended up Under the Blade
40:59
ended up on one of their albums. Yeah, so what went into you
41:00
deciding to include this in the book because they self released it. It was
41:07
our first, it was their first and released and it was it was self
41:10
released, it was prior to you know. The funny thing is that Erica
41:15
is his sister. They never initially, they never got a contract from a
41:21
UK from a US label. The first contract that they got was from Secret
41:25
Records, a UK label that was releasing only punk records. So really yeah,
41:31
Under the Blade was released the first press on Secret Records, and Under
41:37
the Blade it was re recorded in nine eighty five and came out of CBS
41:44
with a much more police and sleek sound. So this seven inches a different
41:50
sound. Yeah wow. Yeah, you know they used to there was a
41:52
club that I used to hear about because the radio station worked out was up
41:57
near Upstate New York and people used to tell me back in the day,
42:00
there was a place I think they called it the Fore and After, and
42:02
Twister's sister would pack that place, pack it. You know. They had
42:06
a huge following, a huge following. Which that's the other question I had,
42:10
like, what about some of these bands, what would be like the
42:13
biggest attendance numbers that they would get. I don't really know about the crowd
42:17
in the US, but I can safely say about some bands in the Europe
42:23
when they came to Europe, they were treated like gods. I mean,
42:27
my Mitla Road there were treated like gods. They were like they played in
42:31
fact places one thousand people while in their own play in their own town with
42:37
Tita in Kansas, maybe not even fifty people. People were attending because nobody
42:45
was interested in them. So yeah, right right, wow, Yeah,
42:50
this is a great book. It's it's it's not it's you don't necessarily have
42:52
to read it from start to finish. You could just go in check out
42:55
a few bands here and there, discover that band and look them up on
43:00
YouTube, listen to them, seek them out, maybe get some of their
43:04
records, and it's it's a fun read. The Heroes Heroes of the Metal
43:08
Underground, the definitive guide to nineteen eighties American independent metal bands. And we've
43:15
got to give credit to the Feral House who publishes it. Farrell House is
43:20
really cool. They have a lot of these types of books that support the
43:23
underdogs in music and exactly. And I've got one question for York. Which
43:31
was the band that you didn't know that you listened that they founded the book
43:37
you listened to and you liked it. Well, I gotta tell you that
43:39
white line I think stands out to me. What about you? Do you
43:43
have favorites from the Yeah, yeah, number one favorite basically, No,
43:51
I'm not gonna give a number one. Number two. Well, Streetschild from
43:54
New York. Yeah, Street Tild they have a huge Iron Maiden sound.
44:00
They're so inspired. They have grades with lyrics to personal lyrics. They're such
44:05
a nice band. Yeah. There one the first bands in the book,
44:07
page twenty seven, so they're right up there. They're the second band mentioned
44:12
from the East Coast bands. Yeah, who does the artwork for their album
44:15
Beautiful? I think that it was one person from the of the band.
44:20
And you lead with hands down one of the most wanted Holy Grails by metal
44:24
collectors worldwide is Street Child's eponymous nineteen eighty nine twelve in GP, something that
44:30
is totally justifiable since we're talking about one of the highest quality private metal releases.
44:36
Overall, initial pressing of five hundred copies is nearly impossible to get a
44:40
hold of. Do you have it? I'm sure no, you don't know.
44:45
And there's a there's a very ugly story behind this one. Robert Riglio,
44:52
the guy that got to interview from street Sild, he got the book.
44:55
He posted the book on Facebook, and I got the message from from
45:00
a friend of his but who wasn't my friend, and he told me,
45:06
okay, Alex, Robert told me about the book. Blah blah, blah
45:08
blah. I was a roommate from one of the members of Streets Out and
45:15
he left me about one hundred records of Streets Out when he was when he
45:21
moved, and then I moved too and got married and didn't know what to
45:25
do with the records. And I called him and he he told okay,
45:29
fast and you know, throwing me the truscan or whatever, and he did
45:35
through the records. And when they found out that this record because it's one
45:38
of them, course about one thousand, five hundred dollars. Oh my god,
45:44
yeah, exactly. It's like thrown away like a rookie Babe Ruth card
45:47
or something like a mint Mickey Mantle card. That that that was a very
45:53
sad story. I was like, come on, wow. The other band
45:59
that I loved was Actual Incourasion, Spectral Incourasion. I can't I can't really
46:04
tell you how great business. And this is a very weird progressive metal record,
46:12
very weird, very clever, great lyrics, great musicians, and great
46:16
everything. And I have a story for that band too. Still members from
46:22
that band, Spraccal Incursion, they did play in a punk rock band,
46:25
Broken Toys, and they did tour Europe, and I already had their records
46:30
Broken Toys Records and didn't know about, you know, that connection. I
46:35
was like when I was speaking with them and all that, you know,
46:38
Broken Toys, and of course I got your records too, and I did
46:42
to send them a picture of their records that man, you gotta have spec
46:45
Incourasion too, And they did send it to me, you know, as
46:49
a gift. Thank you, Alex, at leastally the gift from us.
46:52
And this band is a great band too. It's not it's not. It's
46:57
not just the rarity, but they're they're very, very weird and unbelievably clever
47:05
progressive metal band. They make face warning sound as usual. They're out of
47:12
this place. They are crazy. Other bands I love Brocker Selling too,
47:16
Brocker cellm Are Yeah, definitely a band that needed more notice they have.
47:24
They have it quite a following in Europe though still together. Yeah, they're
47:30
still together. But they're really old too. Of there. I think they
47:34
are seventy years old or something like that or even more. There's so many
47:38
acts, so there's so many bands. Hammerwich Hammerwitch Metal, I will.
47:44
They have enormous power Hammer which sound like they're blend Justice Priest and Aaron Maiden
47:52
and turn it up to seventy eight rpm a regular third three rpm seventy eight
47:59
RPMs and you're halfway there tom week and people could get to but you could.
48:06
They could go to Feralhouse dot com. It's probably the best place to
48:09
go to get the book. You'll see it there. Where can people connect
48:15
with you? Well? I have both Facebook and Instagram, but I keep
48:19
it in terms of things like I don't post stuff to my notes bad.
48:23
But my my current role is that I'm working us social media manser for Grace's
48:31
Top TV show, and it's a very demanding work, really interesting. Okay,
48:37
yeah, and I don't want I'm not so happy with social media overall.
48:42
It's like it's a necessary thing, but it's it's like you have to
48:46
do it. It's not like you can't really choose anymore, because it's it's
48:52
it's the way to get get the word out about a product. I have
48:57
to be completely honest about that area. If it wasn't for you know,
49:01
all the great people the music, I would have dropped every social media of
49:07
mine because if you if you add me too on Facebook, if you see
49:12
what I'm writing now I'm posting, I've told it about five or six years
49:19
ago. I told everybody, Okay, guys, I'm going to post only
49:22
postive things and only about music, just because there's enough negativity out there.
49:30
There's enough chaos out there, and I don't want to be a part of
49:32
that. If I do live you, Sorry, guys, something must have
49:37
been wrong with you, because I don't accept nasty stuff, nasty comments,
49:44
bigotry, yeah, I mean somebody recent racism, yeah, most of social
49:49
media is antisocial. It's things that people would say, things that people wouldn't
49:53
say if you're in that in the same room with that person, you would
49:58
never say that to them if they are standing right in front of you,
50:00
because you'd probably get knocked out. But you say it because you're a million
50:07
miles away. You're not even using your real name. Yeah, it's true.
50:10
I wouldn't have if if it's not for this podcast, I would not
50:15
bother with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. I do all of
50:20
them because you know, the worst thing is, just like with your book,
50:23
you probably would say the same as me. Hey, if somebody looks
50:27
at the book reads and says, man, not for me, that's fine.
50:29
At least they got a chance to read it. But if nobody even
50:34
knew it existed, that's the problem. So you want to let people know
50:37
about it. You want at least give them the opportunity to to read it
50:40
or listen to the podcast. Yeah, that's the only reason I do it.
50:44
Personal stuff forget it. Yeah, but Eric, I mean because I'm
50:50
I'm tithing like the common the common moder water too. In my role,
50:55
No, I read all kinds of stuff every day. I I say,
51:00
Okay, it's tough about beyond me. The fact that people have become so
51:07
vile and nasty. It's like it's something like you know, it turns me
51:12
off. Yeah, this is what this is what I'm telling to everybody.
51:15
I mean, be kind, be big, zemble because this is the new
51:20
part. It's a big kind of gentle. Well not when everybody become zemble
51:24
and kind, I'm gonna be rude man. So yeah, no, if
51:29
anything negative pops up on when I put stuff up on YouTube, it's rare.
51:34
But if something's really negative, like in a personal way, ll E
51:37
remove no place for that. Yeah, Alex, this was great man,
51:42
Thanks so much for being on and thanks for staying up so late. It's
51:45
about thank you so much. I mean, no worry, I'm a night.
51:52
So to conclude, Eric Tech leave the lord. Man. Check what
51:57
stort from Connected Tech Master control Yep, I will, I sure will check
52:01
it out. Man. It's it's it's gonna blow your brains. It's like
52:06
if Iron Maiden recorded They're pain Killer. This would be the record. I
52:12
just wish and I just hope that somebody would pull out a book on the
52:19
US Medal compilations of Night Navies and somebody would pull would pull out and the
52:25
South America Private release records and somebody that will pull out Australia or somebody that
52:31
will right you know, because I'm not gonna do it. Guys again,
52:37
it's time well worth spent. But it's a lot of time. Yeah,
52:42
yeah, yeah, yeah. You should be proud of this. And well
52:45
you know what I want to also mentioned, because you did, you have
52:46
three books that we should just again. Let's plug those two you have along
52:52
with the new book Heroes of the Metal undern Ground, there's We Can Be
52:57
The New Wind, which came out early twenty twenty two, which is the
53:00
interaction of punk, hardcore, punk, power pop, and neo garage with
53:04
alternative rock in the nineteen eighties. And then the other is cross Over the
53:10
Edge where hardcore, punk and metal collide and people can find those on Amazon
53:15
if they want. Yeah, yeah, where every suddenly crossover. The Edits
53:22
has been sold out for quite a while. I'm gonna I'm right now working
53:27
on it to release a second edition, but I just told the publisher that
53:32
plays man, give me some time. I have so many things to do.
53:37
You'll have to wait because I have to finish my piece. They have
53:39
to have a full time role. I'm a parent and my partner is living
53:45
every every from Sunday to Tuesday, season a London. I'm alone with my
53:51
with my Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna drop that guy. Yeah. Yeah,
53:57
don't put too much pressure on you, man. Yeah. And always
54:00
comes first, that's for sure. But you know it's it's that's kind of
54:04
pressure that it's you know, very very satisfying pressure. I mean, you
54:07
know, I'm so happy about all this. I'm not thanksous, are you
54:13
know, getting eurotical whatever. I'm happy that I'm able to do those things.
54:17
And I'm happy that when my daughter grows older, she's gonna say,
54:22
Okay, my dad was cool enough to write or something. That's it.
54:28
Maybe that's right, alex An a Seatus, Thank you man, this is
54:35
great to have you here. Thank you, mister standing. I'm so happy
54:38
for our individw that's it. It's in the books.