Daron Malakian - ON METAL (Part 1)

18:55Ozzy-esque vocals. Yeah.

19:12Yeah, yeah! Raymond Black is on my track He showed me how to neutralize the night Showed to me a surgery The odds of fighting were to call the night So yeah, there was stuff like this I got blind Bands that are kind of like unsung heroes at the time. You know, Zeppelin, Savage, Deep Purple, they get a lot of the glory and they get a lot of the attention, but there were other bands.

20:00So, you know, you had all the early 70s stuff. You know, here's a deep purple fireball.

20:15Double bass, which also became something later on in heavy metal.

20:34Oh yeah, they wonder where I found you All my love, it's a long way Where you from, it's a long way I tried to understand you I tried to love you right The way you smile and touch me Always sits my heart in light Your lips are like a fire Why are you burning for my soul? People ask me where you're from They really don't know All my soul, it's a long way. Where you're from, it's a long way.

21:13Magic woman breaking up my soul. All that, as much as Ozzy was an influence, Ian Gillen, a lot of people started doing that towards the late 70s, early 80s.

21:32You're racing like a fireball, dancing like a ghost. You're Gemini and I don't know which one I like the most. My hand is getting broken. Also, Ian Gillen in Black Sabbath was great, too. Yeah, Born Again. Some people don't like that record, but I love it. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I love that record. And I love Sabbath with Dio as well. Dio is really different than the others to me. It turns into more like mythical. Well, his lyrics, his vibe. There's another dude that isn't from England That probably should be mentioned Or a band Have you ever heard of Sir Lord Baltimore? I've heard his name but I never listen to music They kind of get a little credit For being heavy before there was Heavy

22:22It's heavy From the US though, from the East Coast guitar solo

22:58Thunder and lightning Caught me in the storm of sin Woman You are the master heartache Woman You are the master heartache Let it be the dam That bless the very girls of heartache You lead me to the rain And trust me in the sea of my grave Woman You are the master hearted It's gloovier than pretty much everything else we listen to. Yeah, they're from the U.S. You know, there's probably a difference in influences. You sometimes hear when a band is from a certain place, you hear the place, you hear that there's a difference in sound.

24:01The L.A. glam sound compared to what the Seattle sound was, you would hear different genres come out of different parts of the world, and you would hear that part of the world in that genre.

24:19I don't think any of the bands that we've listened to yet, when they formed, formed as heavy metal bands. There was no such thing yet. Yeah, I mean, some people call my band new metal. But I remember when we were doing it, there was no such thing as that. I mean, I don't really consider us new metal. I think we came out of that genre. I think it was just the time we were around. I think there's things about our music that might be there. But when it's happening, I'm sure the bands in Seattle weren't calling themselves grunge. No. it's the press happens after yeah the press starts has it has to put a label on it in some way so when did heavy metal start i don't know i wasn't around at this time that we're gonna move into a direction where i was actually alive i was i wasn't alive yeah during all this stuff you gotta mention kiss yeah rock and roll all night party every day but the energy the look spikes black and silver the theatrics because theatrics is a part of a lot of metal as well what would be a kiss song that would be representative of their metal side i always thought parasite was kind of heavy let's hear that

26:09But she didn't know That I was sad and wanted her to call

26:26Parasite lady Parasite eyes Parasite lady No need to cry.

26:49It's the image of the demon, the fire breathing, the blood. That was huge to the kids that grew up with that and then started bands. It was huge for me. I mean, I was three years old, three or four years old when I first saw Kiss. It scared the shit out of me. But you liked it. But I was just obsessed with it. I couldn't stop looking at it. Never heard a song yet, even at that point. Just the image. Just the image, just seeing them. Maybe Kiss's music wasn't as heavy as what Black Sabbath was doing. But Black Sabbath didn't look like Kiss. Kiss's image with Black Sabbath's music together. Matched.

27:37Yeah. Matched. And that's what brought forth the next wave of heavy metal. Which people call the new wave of British heavy metal, which started happening mid to late 70s into the 80s. What bands would those be, do you know? Well, you could start with bands like UFO, but they were still kind of in the mid-70s, you could say. Then Judas Priest. Did Judas Priest start in the 70s? I think so. Yeah, Judas Priest was pretty early on, but then their changes happened through their sound in the early days. it started becoming the blues and the jazzy elements that the earlier bands had these bands kind of didn't have that a band like ufo had a great guitar player they kind of the early couple records were kind of more psychedelic but then you get into say a song like this one

29:11You hear that gallopy kind of thing? There's a little Led Zeppelin in that.

29:32That gallopy thing became a very Iron Maiden thing.

30:00So bands like this, and I'm going to give the Scorpions some love.

30:19In a heavy metal kind of way, a song like The Sails of Cheron.

30:31So those are all English bands we were talking about. These guys came from Germany. Scorpions had really metal album covers.

30:46Yeah, if you would play this, I wouldn't be surprised.

30:55Wow. I love the Slarbius. I can see. Oh, you hear it in my ear. Yeah, but I never heard that before. It's very interesting.

31:13Uli Rock, amazing guitar player.

31:19I didn't know it was this original.

31:52Dark night, there is no light In the realm of the black magic man Souls flight into the cold flight Of the destroyer's magic land Poor man, whose spirits are stronger There's the ones who will reign Geals, love, and die in pain Light man, you suck in your own blood To black magic's dying You'd better start crying

32:42also has like an operatic vibe vocally yeah and kind of arabic kind of guitar lines and stuff so their sound kind of changed as it went on into the 80s it became a little bit more poppy they're known for like their rock ballads which i love rock ballads and scorpions did some of the best rock ballads. You know bands like Thin Lizzy.

33:17Heavy as hell.

33:37This dual guitar thing they did. The harmonies. Very influential with bands to come like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden. They did these dual guitar solos. Thin Lizzy, I think, was one of the first.

34:06baby take my chair

34:24still not metal none of these bands i don't think we would have called metal yet i don't think they would have called themselves metal exactly but the kids that were listening to them or the teenagers that were listening to them that were about to be 18 19 20 years old and start bands the next set of bands yeah going into the late 70s new wave of british heavy metal bands like judas priest you would say we're starting to take the blues out and then the imagery as well judas priest also i think had a lot to do with the look of metal with the spikes and the stuff which hits did it first but they kind of made it their trip and they weren't wearing makeup they weren't playing monsters they were playing themselves yeah but they dressed like that yeah and um a lot of that spike and stuff came out of the bdsm kind of imagery and that that's kind of where that came from so kiss and judas priest i would say had a lot to do with that heavy metal spikes black leather towards the late 70s early 80s and here's a judas priest song called hell bent for leather

35:58Stranglehold again. Hey, Ted Nugent had probably something to do with this to you.

36:10Hear the roar as they sling the fear. Double kick. A goose of steel and a flash of light. Screams from a streak of fire as he strikes. Hellbent, hellbent forever.

36:28Hellbent, hellbent forever. There's an emotion that heavy metal gives you, which is that fist in the air makes your face change into mean grim face. It does to me at least. I can't help myself sometimes.

37:05To prove that their past are but they didn't last That they died as they tried guitar solo

37:43Try!

37:50Are they the first band that we've listened to that had two guitar players? Finn Lizzy did. That's definitely a difference. Yeah, yeah. Dual guitar playing, dual solos. Yeah, trading off solos. Trading off. Became a thing.

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39:54So we're at the new wave of British heavy metal Late 70s Early 80s I start remembering at this time of my life remembering the older kids at my school when I was elementary school the shirts they used to wear it was just all like wow to me man like black t-shirts with bands on band shirts at the time Judas Priest yeah Iron Maiden Ozzy you know Ozzy had separated from Black Sabbath at that point I mean early Ozzy solo stuff you can't deny Randy Rhoades guitar playing I remember going to the record store with my mom and uh seeing the album cover for speak of the devil which is a live album but it's ozzy and he has his mouth open he has this shit in his fucking mouth i don't know it's like jelly or something but at the time it was like oh ozzy used to bite heads off bats and all that stuff so you would think oh is that the head of the bat in my head as a kid and i don't know man as a kid i was really young man i was like five years old but i was like really into this shit like to the point where my mom should have maybe been concerned you know but but i was just really really into this shit and so we're also getting to the point where people are starting to accuse these bands of being devil worshipers oh yeah which was also something that was appealing to me as a five-year-old but i'm sure as like kids that were 10 11 12 13 14 whatever i've I'm sure that was also something that was dangerous.

41:36But do you think it was about the danger of it? It wasn't about actually worshiping the devil. No. It was more like it was this scary thing. Taboo. Yeah. And it embraced the dark side that everybody has some aspect of in them. It wasn't hiding it away. It was celebrating the dark side. And you were like, are they? Were they? There's something like kind of, you know how wrestling has kayfabe? Mm-hmm. it's if there's something kind of kayfabe heavy metal and pro wrestling kind of work in the same way where there's there's definitely a theatrical element to heavy metal yeah like you know the kiss the demon what is is this guy really he lives like this is this really his life does he walk around the street like this you know we didn't have the internet back then we didn't have social media where everybody sees the person's life and what they are off stage and you You know, in my head, Ozzy was like this, wow, dude, this guy was like not even from this planet.

42:37The fantasy aspect of it appealed to you. It's almost like they're cartoon characters. Yeah. Like I imagined what they were like. Like this person is really like this all the time, you know, or is this. I never even thought about like, oh, they're not like this. I was very young. So in my head, they were fucking cartoon. I was still watching cartoons at this time in my life. you know i would take my mom to the record store and the band started playing into the satanic thing and um iron maiden had eddie you know the the mascot it was always like these evil album covers i was it was like a horror movie eddie would be like a horror movie character kind of yeah but i always wanted to get those albums but i knew if i took those albums to my mom she wouldn't buy them for me so i would like try to go to this safer like you know deaf leopard pyromania i didn't have that it was at a building burning but i had my way of getting those albums to me through like an older cousin or whatever they would record them on a cassette that didn't have the album curse so i still get to listen to like dio holy diver because the album cover for that is like the devil has this priest in the chains and you know so there's you know there's two singers in iron maiden paul diano and bruce dickinson how low was paul diano just two albums first two albums first two albums and i was gonna play a song from those records because if we're talking about the evolution and the new wave of british metal yeah this was the beginning of it yeah judas priest but early iron maiden i would consider and later iron maiden but it wasn't the new wave after that this this was kind of the new wave coming so the first singer is more like in line with the judas priest era of new metal necessarily but i'll let you hear it play i'll play Killers, which is the title track off their second album.

45:17guitar solo

45:50That gallop is signature to Iron Maiden sound.

46:07For mercy, he laughs as he's watching me Killer, behind you His bloodlust is by by his knee

46:25Two guitar players as well? Yes. Actors, and now they have three. My innocent victims are slaughtered with wrath and despise A mocking religion of hatred that burns in the night I have no one about to destroy all his greed A place inside me compelling to satisfy me

47:00Dual guitar playing

47:06And then the bass playing is very specific to Iron Maiden as well. I mean, Steve Harris is pretty much the main writer in the band. The bass player. Yeah.

47:24What are you not hearing, though? Blues. No blues. No blues, no rock. Nope. It feels almost more a little related to, like, classical music. Yes. It starts going more into that. Like Wagner, you know? Yeah.

47:47Solo's a little bluesy. But that's what guitar players did at that time.

47:58But the riffs are not bluesy at all. And there's nothing about the groove that's bluesy. It's very Germanic. Germanic? Yeah.

48:11I'm playing this era of Iron Maiden because this was very raw. This was their beginning.

48:23This is just the dirtier version of Iron Maiden. Still late 70s? This starts getting into the early 80s.

48:34Here's another song from Iron Maiden called Phantom of the Opera.

48:44This is the album before Killers. This is the first Iron Maiden record, self-titled.

49:02It's amazing. Undeniable.

49:09So influential.

49:16Nobody was really doing this. This was as heavy, I think, as it got at this point, of metal in the 80s. And it's very straight.

49:31It's not psychedelic. No, there's none of that. There's no blues, no psychedelic.

49:41It's aggressive, but very musical.

50:19I mean, I learned how to play my guitar playing these songs. In my room, just trying to learn them, you know? And would you play along? Yeah.

50:48Another thing about Iron Maiden, different parts, long songs. This one is like a seven minute song. And it goes from parts to where it keeps you interested.

51:15It's music that should be sat down and listened to. It's not a pop song. You don't dance to it. Well, you could. You know, heavy metal has its dances too, man. Mosh pit, head banging, that's the heavy metal dance. Probably head banging before the mosh pit, because I think the mosh pit came from hardcore and punk. But just banging your head is the feeling you get when you're feeling this heavy emotion. It feels right.

51:56A lot of things are happening all at the same time That are making things what they are a year later, two years later While all this is happening with the new wave of British heavy metal bands You have punk rock and I think it's somewhat meshing together somewhere in the late 70s. Yeah, because the kids probably listened to both of those. I know I did. I listened to punk rock and heavy metal at the same time. And then when you started hearing, like probably Metallica was one of the first where it felt like this was different than what came before it. I mean, you would, Motorhead. Oh, Motorhead's in a class by themselves.

52:42Yeah. I love Motorhead. I never thought of them as a descendant of punk rock, though. The punks love Motorhead. Yeah. But it felt like they were Motorhead in spite of what anyone else was doing. Yeah, it was really aggressive rock and roll in a way. Yeah, like hard biker rock. Yeah, and let's be loud and let's be fast. Here's another band that Metallica covered called Diamond Head. You know, Metallica is a very influential band, obviously, but these are bands that influenced Metallica. Just like we're talking about bands that might have influenced Black Sabbath. These are bands that probably influenced Metallica and Slayer, you know, all the early thrash stuff, but there was no thrash yet.

53:41So this is Am I Evil? Metallica made famous. A lot of people didn't even know that it was a cover until, you know, like this is a band called Diamond Head. And this rhythm goes back to Jeff Beck. Yeah.

54:25We'll be right back.

54:49guitar solo

55:21My mother was a witch She was burned alive Tankless little bitch For the tears I cried Take her down now Don't wanna see her face Blister and burn Can't have my disgrace Twenty-seven, everyone was nice Gotta see them, make them pay the price See their bodies out of the eyes Take my time Am I evil? Yes, I am Am I evil?

56:13In the break between the two heavy parts of the song, there's a tapping guitar part. Yeah. Did Eddie Van Halen invent that, or were other people already doing it? Other people did it before Eddie Van Halen, but Eddie Van Halen made it his thing. No one had done it like he had done it before. Nobody had done it like he had done it. You know, and once again, guitar players, randy rhodes eddie van halen yngwie malmsteen these guys all shaped how heavy metal guitar players you know before there was jimmy page and there was all those dudes from you know more rooted in the blues really these guys were more rooted in like neoclassical that kind of also pushed the blues a little bit out of the guitar soloing because we just heard the early iron maiden stuff but as you go into deeper iron maiden you'll hear less of that bluesy stuff and it gets to be a little bit more minors and neoclassical types of vibes so singers players, influential guitar players that were influential drummers who played more aggressively as time went on.

57:32Double kicks started coming into the situation more, I'd say faster double kicks started probably coming into the situation in the early to mid eighties with Slayer. Yeah. But that was really different than what like John Bonham or Keith Moon were doing who were incredible at what they did. Yeah. But this was a different kind of great new drumming. Those dudes were still, you could hear the jazz, you could hear, which later on will come back in metal in some way, the jazz fusion drumming. But in the early 80s, I would say it was just this stiff kind of heavy beat, solid, keep things solid. In the 80s was also when drum machines were getting popular.

58:20Yeah. Also when disco was kind of in the air. So like the idea of the heavy straight beat was kind of everywhere from drum machines and from disco. Metal doesn't sound like disco, but it is as hypnotic, straight. It's not loose. Yeah, it's not like improvisational. Yeah. Here's another band I really like. I like this song. It's a band called Holocaust. The song's called Death or Glory. I just feel like... From around when? same early 80s kind of time you could say influenced heavier bands to come but wasn't necessarily that just yet

59:21fucking heavy

59:50big streets that fall off of my mind

1:00:02No date of sovereignty they know I'm not all bad I know that nobody loves me don't make me sad gonna stand up to the ones This will bring me down I've got blood off I'm not mine

1:00:37I can't feel it now It goes stronger every day And my interest goes For and more in every way

1:00:58For the early 80s It's made you bang your head

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1:02:48When you were a kid, did the other kids in your school all listen to heavy metal or was it unusual music? Some older kids I would see that weren't my friends. I would just see that they wore these shirts and stuff like that. My surrounding people, like my cousins that were like older cousins of mine, they hated heavy metal. I didn't really have anybody that was, I don't know what it is about this music that was just, I was just drawn to it. What sparked it was just, I walked into a distant older cousins, people that aren't really like that closely related to me went to their house and they were teenagers.

1:03:29I was three or four years old, open the door and I saw Kiss all over their walls. As I got older, it was just something, you know, my mom would go to the grocery store and I would be at the magazine stand and I would be looking at all the heavy metal magazines and not really reading them just looking at the pictures you know the funny thing is she'd always say as long as it doesn't influence you too much right it seems like it influenced you just right yeah right without you know she's happy now but look I'm into a lot of different kinds of music you know that you and I always exchange you know send each other stuff it's usually psychedelic music or world music or i mean it's all over the board just like you i have like a pretty broad taste but heavy metal was my first spark my first love my first thing that put me in my direction you could say my roots and you play along with those records to get started growing up yeah even though there was i could say i love disco at the same time that i love this stuff too obviously if you listen to my band you hear more than heavy metal for sure and that's why people some people would be like well why is darren talking about like extreme metal because he's not in an extreme metal band but i grew up with this kind of music i grew up with extreme metal by the time i formed my own band i wanted to do something original i don't want to copy the bands of course you know can't be formed but i was very influenced by yeah can't help but be yeah Everything that we're playing and stuff we haven't played yet are all things that someone as a fan of heavy metal, we're talking about like the evolution of heavy metal, but it was also my evolution with heavy metal at the time that it was happening.

1:05:19Yeah. You grew up with this music. So get to some of the stuff that starts getting a little bit heavier in the early 80s, which is Merciful Fate. I realize that King Diamond is not for everybody because there are even metalheads. They're like, I don't know. I can't get into it. I can't get into the voice, whatever. I love King Diamond. I love Merciful Fate. Yes.

1:05:49Black Funeral.

1:06:02Now raise your hands And do the soil Now hail Satan Yes hail Satan Lay down your floor And the evil's love

1:06:31It's a black funeral

1:06:38She was the fixer of my cavern

1:07:02Heavy as shit for that time.

1:07:11I love this right now. I'm playing King Diamond on Tetragram.

1:07:24Yes, I will say to you Now drink and now drink, drink Forget that world

1:07:41With the black in the world

1:07:48She was the victim

1:07:58Tell me the story of Merciful Faith. What do you know about him? They're from Denmark, I think. I don't know much about the history, about, like, why he started singing like that. I think Ian Gillen was kind of an influence on him, but he just, like, did Ian Gillen the whole time. Maybe D.O. too a little bit. Maybe. Maybe. They were around in the late 70s, but kind of this album and they have a few albums but like the two classic ones are the first two and then king diamond went solo king diamond went solo merciful fate has more of like a raw sound it's kind of like if you compare early iron maiden to later iron maiden it became a little bit more polished merciful fate has a little bit more of that raw late 70s early 80s production sound the riffs King Diamond stuff became I'd say you could say even more theatrical the whole album had a theme like them was the whole album was like a story but his style and I get it some people don't get it but it's signature he goes from high to and it's just kind of like how do you what made him like I don't know how do you come up with singing like this it's very unique there is nobody before him or after him it's just him that does this with the different voices and the different harmonies and the over the top high pitch thing and then the makeup like in merciful fate there was like five dudes the rest of them just looked like regular heavy metal dudes and then there was him with the makeup and going back Back to satanic kayfabe.

1:09:47Yes. The other people you were kind of like, maybe, maybe not. But this guy kind of convinced you that he was. And the way he talked and the way he explained it in his interviews and stuff like that made you think, oh, this guy is really a devil worshiper. This guy is really satanic, which gave him this extra street cred kind of credibility that made it convincing. And I think he has those beliefs to some degree. I have no idea. It always sounded to me like a theater kid doing heavy metal as an act. That's what sort of turned me off about it. It was theatrical to the point of parody. If I remember correctly, I probably didn't like it the first time I heard it, which was not Merciful Fate for me.

1:10:40It was King Diamond's solo. But then I didn't like Slayer the first time I heard it. Wow. Because remember, I'm growing up with this kind of vocal. Yes. Iron Maiden, Dio, Ozzy Osbourne kind of vocal. When I first heard the vocals in Slayer, it was something that was brand new to me. But then I gave it another shot and it became like my favorite band. When it's so different, the first reaction is not from me. Most of all, my favorite music I didn't like when I first heard it. It's too much. Yeah. but then when you realize i remember laughing at the ramones when i heard it was ridiculous why would anybody play that fast it's like tasting a food for the first time not have any point of reference yeah you don't have any reference and it's kind of like you don't recognize it but then you try it again and it's like for that next month you're eating that food and you know it becomes your favorite food yeah okay what would be a good example of king diamond as a solo artist?

1:11:39For me, it was, I love the album Them. How old were you, E.T. when it came out? Them, 1988, I was 13 years old.

1:12:02This song was called Welcome Home. Let me know What the truth You have been gone I want to know Is this a dream? Are you really in God? Let me help you Out of the chair Get the cracker Let me touch you Let me feel

1:12:53I mean listen to how many voices he does.

1:13:03Sometimes you let me feel Oh, oh, oh, oh

1:13:19This was kind of a big song. He used to come on Headbangers Ball and stuff. Really? Yeah, yeah. This was, I'd say, the breakthrough song for his solo career. There was an album before this or two, solo. So, you know, there's bands around this time. Remember a band called Metal Church? People that were metalheads at that time were into Metal Church. Metal Church fucking was relevant.

1:13:53It's a band that's not talked about as much now. But at the time, we would look forward to the new Metal Church album, you know, as young metal heads.

1:14:22This song is called Metal Church, subtitled off the first album.

1:14:36You hear the Black Sabbath influence. You hear the Black Sabbath, but you don't hear no blues. You don't hear no jazz.

1:15:02Many, many years ago on a distant shore Made together secretly beyond a hidden core Traveled lonely, travel far, dark into the night Yes, it's the place they've chosen to build a middle side

1:15:26Like up until this, Judas Priest, Maiden, all that stuff was the heavy stuff. Now we're getting into the mid-80s. And this was happening around the same time as Slayer and Metallica. Was there a name for this genre? Some people would call it power metal. Power metal. It definitely sounds like an escalation on what came before it. Yes, and it is. You can hear it.

1:16:30It's a fucking mean riff. Yeah, it's almost like thrash. The riff, but not the beat. Yeah. And not the vocals. Yeah. Vocals are more like traditional metal. Yes.

1:16:46So during this mid-80s time, the metal was getting kind of more aggressive. Because while we're listening to this, Metallica is putting out, you know, Kill Em All and Master of Puppets and Slayers putting out Show No Mercy and Hello Waits and Rain and Blood and all that stuff. Things were kind of getting more aggressive and faster. But then there was bands that were kind of taking it back to the Black Sabbath thing and doing like a more doom metal thing. Like a band like Candlemas. A new song called Demon's Gate. An ancient passive surrounded by hate. Dare I wasp with a hand on my clit. Theatrix.

1:17:41I went into the time of fate.

1:17:55These guys kind of slowed it down while everyone else was going faster.

1:18:07I believe they're from Sweden. Thank you.

1:18:53So this is considered doom metal. Feels related to prog rock, but much darker. Yes.

1:19:10Among the mists of Hades The gate of stone marks the bar To souls that the nation can hear the roar

1:19:26The truth is you hear more Ian Gillen in vocals as time goes on than you do Ozzy in some ways. Those high-pitched Ian Gillen things kind of stuck around with a lot of bands through the years. and they built on it or just became like the head... Ciao! That kind of thing.

1:20:05So another band you could say that was doing this at this time when other bands were doing other things was a band that I think you worked with called Trouble. Early Trouble had doom elements, and more bands came and started. A subgenre started through this stoner metal, some people like to call it. Also, more of these bands, the splintering, after the Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, it started getting more independent. Like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest were on major labels. Yeah. You saw them at an arena when they came to play. These other bands were more like... Roadrunner, Metal Blade. Yeah, more like independent labels.

1:20:51And it was almost more of a punk rock aesthetic, even though it was metal. It was underground. It was underground music. Yeah. A lot of these bands I would either find because I liked the album cover or the guy at the record store knew what I liked and he would be like, check this out. It wasn't from mass marketing or MTV or anything like that. Oh, Headbangers Ball. At that time, you would find some bands that would play on Headbangers Ball that would only be played like after midnight on Headbangers Ball, though it wasn't in the regular rotation of MTV. At that time, the regular rotation of MTV was like the glam bands and the goods and roses yeah the hair bands motley crew look man early motley crew is you could say very influential too and or like shout of the devil era motley crew there was some heaviness to that it wasn't all bubble gum it wasn't you know there was the riffs were heavy the imagery was satanic and kind of dark i remember when i was a kid i had the motley crew cassette and in the back of the cassette it had written if you play this record backwards it plays satan i don't know it plays backward messenger it's they purposely wrote that because they wanted you know once again satanic kayfabe so you know as a seven eight year old kid i was like oh wow this is something that you know i gotta hide from from my mom i don't want her to read that you know um at this same time though you had more aggressive stuff that was a precursor to thrash what would be an example of that i wouldn't consider discharge a heavy metal band but discharge definitely played influenced influenced thrash music so a song like this came out in the early 80s.

1:22:59Dischard, Drunk With Power.

1:23:30Thank you.

1:24:07It's really, really heavy for that time, man.

1:24:15Like, you would sit there and think, how are they doing this while all these other bands are doing that? It's less music. It's more assault. It's a repetitive riff. It's mesmerizing in some ways. It just stays the same. Every song has the same vocal approach. It's the same. It's a lot of the same vibe.

1:24:44This takes, like, the Ramones and all the... that takes it to this other place. Such an original band. It baffles me on like, how are they doing this at this time? They formed in the late 70s. And this was probably early 80s.

1:25:14If you heard this at that time, you would be like, what is this? Still now it sounds insane. Yeah, it's aggressive. Drunk with fire, and sash with death, death and destruction, Drunk with fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire.

1:25:37Bands like the Bad Brains and Discharge definitely took it to a whole new level. Of intensity. Yes. And speed. That still feels intense now. You know, you had these bands coming out in the early 80s that were not necessarily metal. But the same metal kids might hear those, and it might be one of the influences. For sure on Slayer, there was the influence of, in addition to Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, clearly the extreme punk rock was part of the... Well, they were fusing this with Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Merciful Fate, and they were fusing the music and the riffs of that, but the intensity of this.

1:26:23But for me, you know, in punk rock, you have MC5 and the Stooges, right? Yeah. you could say are like the precursors precursors to the ramones and all that stuff in extreme metal world for me sure discharge was a player in that but you can't deny motorhead

1:26:59Heavy as fuck man. Speed. Because he was on speed, so...

1:27:26You can put discharge in this.

1:27:34He would like bill them on the same gig and it would make sense. The intensity of it was there, even though they probably wouldn't consider themselves in the same genre or whatever, but the vocals. He's not singing, he's got this same like the discharge guy. You know me, prepare to die You know me, you can't resist Devil Smith, you're in Christ

1:28:35I think at the time, metal and punk people, like the metal kids didn't really listen to punk and the punk kids didn't really listen to metal, but there was some bands that they could agree on and Motorhead was one of them. Everyone liked Motorhead. Yeah. Most people in metal, if they knew about them, loved them. but they were a little more underground than the above ground metal stuff yeah like we said mc5 and the stooges motorhead and venom venom is a big deal okay in extreme music influential on thrash influential on black metal they named black metal the album was called black metal really and the vocals of venom i remember uh tom's brother john what was my guitar tech for a long time and he would tell me that when slayer started they wanted to hear tom sing more like venom wow and you hear it in early slayer show no mercy era really you hear a lot of that venom in the slayer but this is a song called black metal by and also the production

1:30:44This and a couple other bands. were considered the first wave of black metal because black metal has another act coming in the early 90s, which is my favorite part of our story. I love black metal music.

1:31:06You could say black metal music got its name from that song, but if you want to hear how its influence on Slayer,

1:31:19This could have very well been a Venom song.

1:31:33Same kind of beat, right? Black metal. Rap beat.

1:31:46I have the reason we fight. Surviving the slaughter, the killing we've lost. Then we return from the dead. Attacking once more now, we're twice as the street. We can't go then move on ahead. Yee-haw, my world's defied. Yee-haw, I've known this guy. Yee-haw, we'll take your soul. Yee-haw, I rock the fall. But you can hear how this came from Venom. The thing that this has that Venom doesn't is Dave Lombardo. Yeah. The thing about Dave Lombardo is no matter how fast it gets, it's always groovy. Yeah. It never sounds like, it's always swinging. I got a chance to once jam with Dave. And could you feel it?

1:32:37Dave is a different kind of drummer, man. Totally different. You can play one riff and Dave will change what he's playing and he will change your riff. The story with that is we were playing the whiskey once. Dave was in our mosh pit. That's so cool. And we had never met him before. And we were just playing and I kind of was like, dude, that's Dave Lombardo in the fucking mosh pit. And I was like, oh, we have to meet him. We met him afterwards. And my first thing was like, dude, you got to come to our studio. I was like, I got to play with Dave Lombardo. Yeah. And he came. He came to our studio like a week later or something like that.

1:33:20I don't know if he remembers this, but I do. It was great. I'm sure he does. And we didn't, it wasn't even like at first we were playing songs. I was just like riffing, just jamming, just free jamming, which a lot of metal guys can't do, you know? And he just free jam. And it was just like going from one thing to another. But one thing I noticed was like, I could just sit there and play a riff. and this guy was changing the things he was playing. And I didn't have to change anything, but he was just changing the vibe of the riff. Yeah, it made like the riff into three parts without changing the riff.

1:33:53Yeah, without doing anything. So the hype on Dave is definitely well-deserved. For me, it's like that feel of it's groovy. And most drummers, the faster you get, the less groovy it gets. It gets more stiff, more straight. Yeah. But Dave's always swinging with any tempo. He's special. He's a special drummer. I always felt like that's what separated Slayer from all the other speed metal bands, was just the way Dave played. I love, obviously, the songwriting in Slayer regardless, but the feel of it was always what drew me energetically to Slayer. The groove. Yeah, his fills, the fills that he would play on later albums, like that was kind of very straightforward, raw Slayer.

1:34:38Yeah. I'm kind of playing these albums from these bands that some of these bands changed along the way, but I'm playing their early versions of this band. Like I just played that song from Slayer because I wanted to set that song up with the Venom. Yeah, see the connection. So you can see the connection of how Venom inspired that. Yes. So I see Venom being an influence on Slayer when I hear that sound, but then I hear Motorhead being a key influence for Metallica and making that Motorhead drive with more of the metal kind of riffs and early Metallica. Well, Motor Breath.

1:35:38You can't fuck with early Metallica. I mean, it is what it is.

1:35:52Motorhead Drive, you know?

1:36:03We'll see you tomorrow.

1:36:33Full speed or nothing, I'm taking down your whatever's in my way. Getting your pizza, shooting the light, sending the shivers up and down my spine. Moves our breath, sound within my life, I can't take it any other way. Moves our breath, sound within the path, it is going to take your breath away.

1:37:24I mean, what is this, 82, 83? Heavy as a clock. Anyone who heard this for the first time at that time was blown away. Or it was too heavy for them. Like some people wouldn't get it because it's too fast, too crazy. What I hear different about that than Motorhead, let's say, is there's a technical proficiency. Yes. With Motorhead, it's super power slur. Yeah. Distorted bass. Yeah. But James is... Riffing. Strumming, really. Tight. It's so tight. And that's very different than whatever punk rock roots they might have. Yeah. Punk rock really sounds technically tight. It's just a different thing. Mm-hmm.

1:38:21Yeah. And the skipping also, it's like... Mm-hmm. It's not just straight fast. It's... It's not open chords either. it's muted guitars people call the genre junk now which i i don't really like that junk because it's like a whole thing that's after my time to be honest like it's metal yeah younger younger metal heads have like you know bands they call junk but uh it's got the junk but you also have to think of the guitar tone was more of um compressed kind of guitar tone it wasn't your regular it's more percussive really yeah yeah it's not that rock tone anymore that starts becoming the heavy metal tone so when you mute your guitars there's just like bass behind it there's this tightness behind it you start seeing that at this time do you remember when you first heard metallica i remember exactly where i was but i didn't know that it was metallica some kids in a parking lot when we were on a trip to Lake Arrowhead and I heard faster, faster in my head out of their car coming out.

1:39:34And I was like into metal, but I was like, what is this song? Faster, faster. I didn't know they were saying master, master. And then it wasn't until I ran into the cassette and accidentally played the song. And I was like, oh my God, it's that faster, faster. but there's a master master.

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