Interview and live pics by Emily Eve; girls on stage pic by Friedia Niimura

In one sense, making records is like using the toilet: It takes more to do number two than number one. And in the case of L.A. heavy metal semi-parodists Steel Panther, a follow-up to their wildly funny and compulsively banging 2009 debut Feel The Steel is an even bigger, stinkier challenge: This time, fans can see them coming, um so to speak. But in the spotlight’s glare, before expectant ears and faces poised to smile, lead singer Michael Starr and crew deliver a bigger, dirtier, and awesomer mass of heavy metal hilarity called Balls Out (available Tuesday). The 14-track tour de farce covers 47 amazing minutes, a range of hot-button rocker issues (drugs, gender roles, boners), and a load of singalong mega-choruses and nip-scorching guitar solos unheard since pro tools was just an aisle at Sears. To those somehow able to resist Feel The Steel, I say: You’re fucked now. Balls Out is stronger than you and your feeble protestations. Crank. It. Up.

This feat of skill and cocksmanship on display in Balls Out begs for investigation, so last week I went to hear firsthand how Steel Panther achieved the equivalent of making a Ghostbusters II better than its Ghostbusters I. And though it was a rainy, gusty Autumn night, the huge Steel Panther dressing room was buzzing heatedly as I sat down with Starr and lead bass player Lexxi Foxxx to get answers. Just nearby were lead guitarist Satchel (at whom I gazed lovingly whenever his inattention allowed) and lead drummer Stix Zadinia (with entourage) as the three of us gabbed highly about Balls Out, drugs, vaginas, immaturity, maturity, the guy from Nickelback, shaving stuff, the responsibilities of being Steel Panther, and much more.

Click to read more…

Admit it: this picture makes you SO FUCKING HAPPY.

Recently, my friend sent me a YouTube link to a Bee Gees cover group. Excuse me, tribute band. That is the proper way of addressing them, as Mark Wahlberg taught us in Rock Star. I don’t like the Bee Gees. I don’t like disco. Disco is kind of terrible. Disco blows dogs for quarters. Disco is never amazing, especially not when KISS attempt it. To say I was a little confused would be an understatement. But my friends aren’t totally clueless to what I listen to, so I gave it a shot. It turned out it was a heavy metal Bee Gees tribute band. Okay, it was a little bit awesome. Weirdly enough, it worked. I only like thin-voiced men screeching when accompanied by equally high-pitched guitars, and that’s basically what heavy metal “Stayin’ Alive,” was. I turned it off about halfway through because, well, I still have my limits, but it kind of makes you stop and go, “Huh!” Metal just makes everything sound better.

Click to read more…

I feel bad for Frankie Banali, or for that matter for any aging rockstar who only ever had one or two big hits and whose heyday is long since gone. When you’re 59 years old (!) and you’ve only ever done one thing in life… what other options to do you have but to play shitty clubs and attempt to relive your glory days? It was only too fitting that “Metal Health” was the theme song for Mickey Rourke’s character Randy “The Ram” Robinson in The Wrestler, matching eras aside.

Poor Banali’s been forced to hire a mulleted former Van Hagar cover band singer to fill late Quiet Riot lead singer Kevin Dubrow’s shoes since his death in 2007, maybe because he wants to but certainly because he has to in order to survive. As my compadre Axl commented in September when this sad news was announced:

Not a Van Halen cover band. A Van Hagar cover band. A group of men who went out of their way to learn and perform Van Halen’s catalog without David Lee Roth.

Click to read more…

Kevin Dubrow is dead, and I think that most of us assumed he would take Quiet Riot (the seventh most-often-miscategorized-as-a-hair-metal-band of all time) with him to the grave. Those of us who did make that assumption, however, forgot that desperate times call for desperate measures, and an empty belly holds no room for dignity.

So Quiet Riot are re-forming.

Click to read more…

SXSW is, by far, the coolest music festival on the planet. Up until the last few years, however, heavy metal has always been the unwanted step-child.

I remember fighting with the SXSW organizers back in the late 80′s/early ’90s about bringing more metal to the fest. Their seeming non-interest in our favorite genre led to me and my best friend and fellow college radio metal show DJ Ray Seggern to host our own non-fest showcase at the old Riverside Drive Dollar Theater, featuring bands such as dead horse, Agony Column, and Sedition, long before non-fest showcases became the norm. The show was a huge success and even led to dead horse signing with Big Chief Records. SXSW, however, would not budge, and the metal pickings remained paltry over the next several years.

I was finally able to crack through SXSW’s anti-metal stance in 1996 when I brought one of the bands I managed, 16Volt, to the Backroom, along with Burn (which featured several ex-members of Skrew), Fear Factory, and Earth Crisis for an officially SXSW-sanctioned showcase. The concert was a huge success, and the presence of metal at the conference has slowly grown ever since. The metal pinnacle (or nadir depending on your perspective) culminated with the 2009 appearance of Metallica at Stubbs’ BBQ.

Now, you can help bring even more metal to SXSW by voting on which panels will be represented at next year’s music festival. I have been kind enough to peruse the 298 panel idea submissions and found three (yep, only three) that might be worth your headbangin’ time. Take a gander at these ideas, sign up (it’s free!), vote, and feel good about spreading the disease.

ARE METALHEADS SMART ENOUGH TO BE ONLINE?

This was submitted by Canadian metal blogger Laina Davis of Hellbound and will focus on the online community of metalheads. Hopefully, our very own Monkey Wranglers, Axl and Vince, will be on board.

Click to read more…

One day mankind will go extinct and the remains of our civilization will later be picked over by aliens. Though they can speedily assemble collections of most homo erectus artifacts for their alien museums, their super-brains will struggle to grasp and group the arts of Earth, y’know, for their encyclopedias and stuff. So it’s in the interest of preserving and defining Glam Metal across the cosmos that we at MetalSucks have counted down the Ten Best Must-Have Glam Metal Albums. We even tapped in to the genius of Bring Back Glam‘s Allyson B. Crawford to give it that “definitive text” feel. (Read part one, part two, part three)

Thanks to Allyson and our Anso DF, Glam Metal will live on in other worlds long after our planet has become a barren hellscape. That’s comforting. Here’s the number one Best Must-Have Glam Metal Album! So, come now children of the beast, be strong and …

Click to read more…

Read Leyla’s list of The Top Ten Worst Hair Metal Band Names here.

All right, this was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be and for a while I considered just doing a part two of bad names. But, like hair metal itself, there are always some gems floating amidst the crap, and with a little borrowing from other overlapping genres, ten candidates were found for the best of hair band names. So you’re safe for now, Trixter, Tora, Tora, Kix, and Stryper…

Click to read more…

Since its inception by the typings of some clever music journalist in the 80s, the categorization “hair metal” (or “glam metal”) has been as amorphous and, consequently, as misused as “metalcore” has been in the aughties. And since it’s hair metal week here on MetalSucks, we thought we’d try to address this issue by pointing the spotlight on ten bands that are often, and incorrectly, deemed “hair metal.” And to that end…

Like Van Halen, entry #9 on this most dubious of lists, it’s easy to see why so many people call Quiet Riot hair metal. The Los Angeles quartet displayed so many of the trapping of the hair metal era — namely lotsa hair (though Dubrow’s wig could call this into question in the later years), a bulge-in-the-pants sense of machismo and giant-sized rock anthems about sex, booze and bangin’ your head — but how can any band be part of a trend they pre-dated by so many years? Quiet Riot got together in 1973 — 1973!! — and released their first album in 1975, long before the Poisons and Cinderellas and even the Motley Crues and Ratts started patrolling the Sunset Strip.

Click to read more…

Since Ratt’s awesome Infestation release party took place at The Key Club on Sunset Strip, the birthplace of hair rock, one could conclude that nostalgia was inevitable. And probably intentional. Even knowing that, it still was easy to get choked up at the sight of Ratt guitar stud Warren DeMartini partnering on a harmony solo with a tall, blond guy. That hasn’t happened since cordless phones were invented and late guitarist Robbin Crosby hadn’t yet been ravaged by hard drugs.

And even though Ratt’s setlist relied on early singles, the event was firmly rooted in the present (contrary to my pathetic wishes). For one thing, there were a ton of 4/20 revelers, and the hot rock chicks present eschewed the timeless appeal of a loose florescent tank top for complicated tattoos and blinding douchewear. But honors for loudest outfit go to the singer, as it should be, as Stephen Pearcy was rocking leather pants that I guess become jeans at the knees.

Click to read more…

The Austerity Program play this Sunday January 31, in Brooklyn at Public Assembly (70 N 6th St) with White Suns, Immanent Voiceless, Daniel Malinsky. You should go, goddammit!!!

I did not get into metal until relatively late in life. My teenage years were spent buying everything that came out on Touch & Go and Amphetamine Reptile. I’d see long-haired wasteoids hanging out in suburban playgrounds and think “Look at those chumps who’ve got it so bad for Reign in Blood while I know that Atomizer is really where it’s at. (Actually, I still pretty much feel this way.) At that point, MetalSucks was not a website, it was a personal belief.

Still, I was not unaware of what the metal kids were up to, even around fourth grade. A few of them that I invited to my birthday that year party chipped in and bought “Shout at the Devil;” since I only had about twelve records at that point, I figured that I’d listen to the record once a day because what else are you going to do? And it kind of freaked my parents out, and that was cool. And it had a pentagram on the cover which I spent a lot of time trying not to look at because I was worried something might happen to me.

Click to read more…

If I asked some dude what his favorite song of all time was and he said “Bang Your Head,” I would assume he meant this song:

Even if you hate this song – and if you hate this song, please go take a long walk off a short bridge – but even if you hate this song, there’s no denying its infamy. Everyone knows “Bang Your Head.”

And yet here come Dream Evil, with a new song called “Bang Your Head” – and, no, it’s not a cover.

The fucking nerve.

Click to read more…

First Maynard, now this.

Look: I fucking love Vegas. I was there for New Year’s once and I think I had pretty much the best fucking night of my life.

But part of what’s so fun about that town is how friggin’ ridiculous everything is; it can’t be taken seriously at all, and if you try to take it seriously, you’ll probably just give yourself an aneurysm. As a place to go spend a couple of days drunk and act like a total dip shit, I think Las Vegas is just swell – but I think if I had to live in there, I’d kill myself.

Click to read more…

My first Fuck Rolling Stone post on metal singers was such a hit I thought I’d dig back into the RS archives and stir up some more shit. So, I decided to re-read their summertime list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time (also here).

Thankfully, there are a few metallic (but mostly rockish) noteworthy icons; however, extreme metal is woefully ignored. Nonetheless, the list did include Jimi Hendrix (#1), Jimmy Page (#9), Kirk Hammett (#11), Kurt Cobain (#12), Johnny Ramone (#16), Tom Morello (#26), Thurston Moore/Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) (#33/#34), Joe Perry (#48), Ritchie Blackmore (#55), Vernon Reid (#66), Eddie Van Halen (#70), Adam Jones (Tool) (#75), D. Boon (The Minutemen) (#89), Glen Buxton (Alice Cooper) (#90), Wayne Kramer/Fred “Sonic” Smith (MC5) (#92/#93), Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) (#95), Angus Young (#96), Leigh Stephens (Blue Cheer) (#98), Greg Ginn (Black Flag) (#99), and Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) (#100).

And, yet another reason why we here at the MetalSucks Mansion like to say “Fuck Rolling Stone!” — coming in at #86, TOMMY Iommi…yes, “TOMMY.” How the fuck do you not know the first name of one of the true legends of not only metal, but of rock guitars? Hmmmmmmmm….Please, clue me in.

IT’S TONY, YOU FUCKS!!!

Anyway, here is my stab at the best Metal Guitarists of All Time — and for a point of reference, my Old Fartness will be shining through here, as will my love for rhythm guitarists:

Click to read more…

Behind the scenes at the MetalSucks Mansion yesterday:

Vince Neilstein [via email]: Wanna cover this? I think it’s pretty big news.

Michael S. Robinson [MetalSucks' Hair Metal Happy Hour columnist]: Old news; this has been circulating for a while. I think the bigger news will be where John Corabi ends up – it won’t be Velvet Revolver, but it should be! Anyway, no one gives a shit about Ratt, not even Ratt, so I’m not sure MS readers would care. Cavazo is useless anyway – what has the guy done worthwhile since Metal Health? Even then, that record was great, but he wasn’t. Anyway, let me know if you want me to put something together, but I just don’t see people caring.

And there you have it. This is how news is made, folks.

Not much else to say. Drugs take another life.

-VN

Surprisingly few people know that one of Quiet Riot’s biggest hits “Cum on Feel the Noize” was actually a cover, originally a hit in 1973 by British glam rockers Slade. So the brothers Gallagher of Oasis figured, “Why not cover it again?” Here’s their own version.

Oasis – “Cum on Feel the Noize”

-VN

After the announcement yesterday that Quiet Riot singer Kevin Dubrow passed away in his home Sunday at the age of 52, drummer Frankie Banali and original bassist Kelly Garni issued statements about losing their friend. More public statements have been issued today by current and former Quiet Riot members. Says one-time guitar player Billy Morris (also ex-Warrant) to the Cleveland Scene:

“During our tours together, he would really take care of himself, eating well (certainly better than the rest of us). He’d take his vitamins every day, and always kept his body and voice in check. One thing about Kevin was that he was always so thankful for what he had.”

Says current bassist Chuck Wright to MelodicRock.com:

“I have so many fond memories and it’s a blessing that these recent few years have been so great with the band. There is no reason to say ‘I wish we could have…’ We did! I still can’t believe I won’t be sharing the stage with his larger-than-life presence ever again.”

And one-time touring bassist Rudy Sarzo (also ex-Ozzy) to Headbanger’s Blog:

“He was somebody who really loved life. He loved to have fun and have a great time. Every day to him was like a party — that’s what it was like when I played with him. I think he’ll be remembered for being a hell of a rock singer. He was definitely one of the best singers of the ’80s.”

R.I.P. Kevin Dubrow.

-VN

Michael Politz of The Vegas Eye reports that Quiet Riot singer Kevin Dubrow was found dead in his home last night, Sunday, November 25, at the age of 52. Little is known thus far other than the above article, and statements written by original bassist Kelly Garni and drummer Frankie Banali. From Garni, on the Randy Rhoads message board:

“I ask this to all of you not only for myself but for other friends and family. I ask that no one here offer any speculation or opinions, theories or other things that could be construed as negative or, and I’m sorry for this, even sympathetic, right at this immediate time. I am already within hours of this having to deal with untrue rumors and speculation and that only adds fuel to that. There is a tendency for the subject of Kevin to incite flames on every board and now is not the time for that. I will explain to everyone here the facts and the truth in the next 24 to 48 hours as I realize this will effect us all. So please, until then, be patient. All details and other pertinate [sic] info will be passed on to you here when it becomes available to me. Thank you.”

And from Banali on his official website, in lone white text on the main and only page:

“I can’t even find words to say. Please respect my privacy as I mourn the passing and honor the memory of my dearest friend Kevin DuBrow.”

We will of course update when we have more information.

-VN

MetalSucks reader Brandon S. has provided us with this incredible find, a 7″ of “Crazy Train” signed by Ozzy and Rudy Sarzo, scanned image below. The best part: he found it at a New York City street fair for the unbelievably low price of 20 cents. Though Sarzo didn’t play on Blizzard of Ozz, the album containing “Crazy Train,” he did serve as the bass player for the subsequent tour, playing for Ozzy from March 1981 to September 1982 before improving his Metal Health in Quiet Riot.

-VN