Original subtitles

- [Narrator] The Bay area club scene

was now internationally recognized.

Musicians started to come from all over the world,

knowing that San Francisco was a hotbed for up and coming

thrash bands.

On the other hand,

Los Angeles grew its reputation for its multitude

of glam bands, creating a rift between the two regions

encouraging Southern California bands like Megadeth,

Slayer, and Dark Angel to travel North calling the Bay area,

their second home.

(metallic rock music)

- Can't talk about San Francisco without talking about

that there certainly is a history up here

of individuality of people trying to figure it out

for themselves of a different kind of openness

to different political elements,

cultural elements, sexuality, and so on and so forth.

There's a different thing in the water up here,

where LA, Hollywood it's entertainment,

it's flash in the pan,

it's business,

up here it's just a different thing.

- LA seemed much more vast,

whereas in the Bay area,

the congregation was in a smaller area.

LA to me seemed very larger.

I became friends with some of the guys

in Arvin Saint and all that

and gravitated towards some of those people

and a couple of guys from Agent Steel,

things like that.

But it definitely didn't have that sort of warm sort of

vibe that the musicians shared in the Bay area,

I thought to me.

I thought the industry was there

and so there could be a chance of,

maybe breaking through and having the right person see you.

But I always wanted to take my chances

and to stay here in the Bay area.

- And so I meet Dave and one of the first things after

we're putting the band together,

one of the first things he says is,

we're not playing any clubs in LA.

I hate the clubs here,

they suck, we're going to San Francisco.

It's all different scene.

And obviously he had just been living there with Metallica.

So he was hip to the whole movement up here.

And I say up here, because we're in San Jose tonight.

- Believe me, we were excited to get out of LA because of,

the glam,

movement that was happening during that period.

I remember playing on stage and seeing the fans

jumping on stage

and then jumping off bodies were just flying everywhere.

It's like, wow, this is amazing.

I felt very much at home.

I felt welcomed.

- We loved staying in the Bay area because

the LA scene was so crowded with musicians

and everybody was getting to know each other

and everybody was starting to get almost too,

associated with each other.

And they all started sounding similar to each other.

Because they were hanging out at each

other's rehearsals sessions.

- The record companies would sign people out of fear to LA.

You know what I mean?

They'd see all the other record companies and go,

God I don't wanna miss out on this.

In San Francisco it would always take longer to get a deal.

But most of the fans that we had all came from the suburbs.

So it was actually a really great testing ground

because it's like we basically, after we got signed,

did our same show that we did at the Stone

and it worked everywhere in the world.

Because it was the same people that would go to big concerts

would come see us and then we'd know what songs

we're working the best,

and we knew if you could sell that place out,

you had something going, but it took longer.

And we did have some record companies,

major record companies come and say

here's the deal we're gonna give you guys.

We're giving you a development deal,

we'll rent you guys a house.

We want you to come to LA for three months

and play every place in LA.

And we just wanna...

And we just said no.

And in retrospect we probably would have been better off

to move to LA.

We might've got a different deal,

sooner because we didn't know time is running out too,

for the...

But it's like, we kinda felt loyal to all the people

that supported us too.

Because we'd sold out so many shows.

- Dave had that totally pegged right.

Because in LA everything was paid to play.

You'd have to go out and hang up handbills,

you'd have to sell tickets.

And Dave was kind of doing it at any of that.

You know what I mean?

And to Dave's credit,

he always held himself as a star

and he was, and he is and that really kind of raised the bar

to everybody in Megadeth.

- We played like one of our first shows

up there in the Bay area at Ruthie's Inn.

And it's funny because I met Gary Holt from Exodus

and like we've been listening to that Bonded by Blood,

it was in the tape traders scene beforehand.

And we were listening to that on the way up and all that.

And, honestly for me in the Bay area,

I didn't get into it that much personally.

Because I lived over in Huntington beach

and whatever.

So Bay areas

that didn't really affect me personally.

- And it really just came down to some opportunity

and looking at the Bay area

as something as also a special place equal to LA.

It was kinda roll the dice, but I'll tell you what,

I really feel like it was the right move.

- I'm assuming that the thrash scene

came out of Northern California.

But I came in complete

the contrast to what was happening in Los Angeles.

- I don't know if we ever felt even opening for SACS

and that we belong.

We would definitely had a bit of

a kind of an identity issue at the time

with just not belonging anywhere.

We were just outcasts,

and that was why when we finally came to San Francisco,

in that fall,

that was the first time we felt like we belonged anywhere.

- There was more like a sort of like brother metal,

like a brotherhood of metal.

Everybody was kinda like a little more tolerant

and just very open, whereas

LA was a little more like Hollywood.

- My perspective of the LA thrash scene

is that anybody in LA who was into thrash,

came up to my house.

Not my house but you know what I mean?

came up to San Francisco.

- I think in San Francisco, in the Bay area,

the difference is people just wanted to

be in a band first.

I wanna be in a band and jam and then play someplace.

You know what I mean?

And it wasn't like,

we didn't see rockstars like every second walking by

or something.

Maybe somebody go, hey, there's Carlos Santana.

or maybe, Pablo Cruz or something,

there wasn't like...

But in LA the bands were like,

we can't wait to go to a gig in a limo.

You know what I mean?

It was like so much more over the top.

Not that their bands were bad,

but there were so many bands like that

and that didn't happen as much here.

People really practiced more.

And I think just wanted to be good.

- But I'm gonna say I was lucky enough to go

and play in the Bay area and have some great shows

and play with Metallica on a few occasions.

And we did our own shows at the Stone and the Keystone

and Berkeley and Palo Alto.

And there was a great gig in Ruthie's Inn

with Laaz Rockit.

So San Francisco had its own scene as well

that was kind of happening and LA was happening.

And it was a good time to be in California.

- I always thought the Bay area had really cool bands

that would push boundaries and be original,

whereas LA it's like once one band got big,

all these bands tried to sound like that one band

and then this other band would also get big,

all these other bands would try to sound like that band.

- We are proud to be from San Francisco though.

Because we are from small town kids really.

We were suburban kids that moved to the city.

That was the big city to us.

Like now we're gonna live in the Haight Ashbury where

music exploded like in the late 60s.

And now it's like the 80s

and we're gonna be part of this whole resurgence of stuff.

So we were kinda proud of that

and the way that community would help bands

and even the strip clubs,

Like, oh you're San Francisco band,

like the Alfaro theater, which is the best place.

They'd let us in free and we'd hang out

and strippers and like support us.

- Me and my buddies would drive up to the Bay area

all the time and see shows.

And just pack them into my truck

and we'd sleep in the back of my truck,

in a Safeway parking lot.

- We played in LA and it was actually pretty good.

And LA isn't anywhere near as bad as everybody says it is,

it is actually pretty reasonable.

It's just there's a lot of fake people

who opposes one or two.

So a lot more there than up here.

But nowadays it's all weird

because now we have the horrible hipsters and they suck.

- Up in the Bay area, we can go up and play with Exodus

or Laaz Rockit or there could be a three band bill

of minded metal.

And that's where I think the Bay area folks

were just a lot more open-minded.

We had our stores down here,

but they had the Record Vault.

They had, what was the place in Walnut Creek?

- [Interviewer] Record Exchange.

Record Exchange Walnut Creek there.

- Megadeth one of the big four,

if you look at their history, the first like

at least five or six maybe more shows

were all in Northern California.

- Gary's name came up and he was really into it.

He always said he saw Dave play with Metallica

opening for SACS and the whiskey

a year or two earlier and how it changed his life.

So Gary was definitely a fan of that era of days.

Participations with Megadeth in his guitar playing.

So it was great and men Gary came in

and he really just fundamentally understood how Dave played.

- When we went to Frisco the first time,

we didn't know how we were gonna eat.

We went up there,

which we'd stockpiled food before we went just in case.

And it was great because the first night

we made a bunch of money and we were good to go.

- I was 16, I was on the road with Slayer

and we played Ruthie's with Exodus headline.

And then there was a Vermin from LA

and they were the opening act and then Possessed.

It was my first time seeing Possessed as well.

So I was stoked on all of that, that was great.

And I just remember that there was...

LA was just,

everybody knows full of lameness

and Slayer was the heaviest thing we had

and Dark Angel was also down there.

I wasn't in Dark Angel yet,

but he had like Abattoir and Vermin and--

- [Interviewer] Agent Steel?

- Pre Agent Steel.

- Pre Agent Steal?

- Yes.

And we would come up here to see the shows.

We'd come up here to see,

Megadeth and Slayer and see Possessed shows.

- It's funny because when we came up here,

I remember the first trip we did a record store

an in-store signing.

I think it was at the Record Vault in San Francisco.

And all these fans were coming up going,

dude Gary what's going on with Slayer?

And all of a sudden, I think he realized, wow,

we've reached farther than LA

and maybe his first time out of LA.

And so he could see the wheels going,

Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't jump ship yet.

- [Narrator] In the early 80s,

Glam Metal was in full swing down in Los Angeles.

Taking a cue from Motley Crue and Red,

the Bay area also created its own sub genre

of the sunset strip inspired sound and image

with bands like Violation, Hans Naughty, Head On

and Roadrunner.

This flashy style, ultimately clashed

with the aggressive nature of the thrashier bands.

(heavy metallic music)

# I'm on my own #

# without you baby #

- Everybody keeps talking about the Bay area as

the root of the thrash metal scene.

And Bay area was so much more than that.

You really think about some of the bands

that really grew out of that.

It wasn't necessarily all thrash.

- There was a lot of glam bands.

Don't think that there wasn't.

It's just we kinda interbred with them.

- My San Francisco metal standards.

My friend if you came to a Exodus show,

or a Metallica show with Motley Crue, Laaz,

Bon Jovi shirt on.

Oh man, I felt sorry you.

I really did.

I would see these guys.

And I said, oh man, they have no idea.

And I didn't like to see that because it's like,

I like Wasp, I like Motley Crue, you know what I mean?

I like anything good music is good music,

but I understand what was happening up here.

They were rebelling against that.

- At DRI day I show at the farm,

with Discharge headline, discharge from the UK

and Discharge used to be a total hardcore punk band,

but they switched over to one glam metal band

and they play this infinite show with DRI, attitude,

and just but Possessed.

And it was a killer show DRI particularly, really killed it.

And then Discharge come out there and look at all like

a Hollywood send strip poisoned type of thing.

And the crowd just absolutely hated them.

They're getting fuck you, fuck you.

And throwing everything at them

and trashcan got thrown at them

they get and bombarded.

And they had to leave the stage.

And it was really ugly.

- Those bands did not wanna be considered like LA.

They didn't wanna be hair bands.

They despised makeup bands and teased hair and all that.

So they went out of their way to not be that,

and by not being that you had to be heavier,

you had to be more aggressive.

You couldn't be singing about banging a chick in the back of

your car.

- Toby Rage told me the Slayer said, "San Francisco

convinced them they didn't need to wear makeup."

They didn't know in early days, you see that on pictures,

they weren't wearing any.

San Francisco said you don't need that shit.

And I understand why

man they trying to make it in LA.

But LA was glammed.

That was like New York Dolls type.

That was glam rock, that was not metal

- The first album Slayer had makeup on.

We were trying to fit the LA.

- We played with you.

- Yes, you guys, I think came up

and the first show was with us, I believe.

- [Mike] Yes, we had the makeup on still.

- We got such a bad reception by the San Francisco fans,

Slayer can the maker.

- You remember Andy Airborne Anderson?

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- Okay, everybody knows him.

He was the one that would catch the most flight.

When he jumped off the PA cabinets into the crowd.

I remember seeing pictures of him

just hovering over the crowd just like that.

- What was his name?

- [Interviewer] Toby Rage

- And Toby, rest in peace.

Here Andy came up to us said, hey guys,

it sounded really good,

but it would have sounded a little better if you guys didn't

wear the makeup.

And from that moment on, we said fuck it, no makeup.

But we only did it because it was the evil thing to do.

- The makeup thing that was,

we needed something like again for LA,

we were doing everything we could to stand out

above the rest.

And it was just simple with the little eyeliner stuff,

but it would made him...

You wanted to look like a rockstar on stage,

you had to in LA.

And when we got to Frisco here,

it was a totally different scene.

They embraced us, they loved us.

They took us in as their own.

And they did.

They started commenting about the makeup

and it was not even a second thought to get rid of it.

It didn't mean anything.

We had this new home now we were being accepted.

People liked us.

So we didn't need that anymore.

- There's nothing like that going on down in LA.

So, I could just see where that really...

Gary, went home,

and it was kind of like wipe the makeup off.

Gary's kind of like, I've seen the Holy grail,

it's in the Bay area.

And so he went home

and it's cool because quite honestly what it did is it,

it now brought forth Slayer to be who they are today.

- There were some bands up here that were more LA.

There was a very cool guy named, Dave Vein.

There was Vein and Hans Naughty

And they're saying so.

Obviously, it was just a mixed bag.

- So even though our image was kind of

more of what you would consider glam or whatever

the music wasn't really glam,

it was like hard glam,

my favorite bands were like Coliseum 70s rock bands.

So even though I liked Hanoi rocks and stuff like that,

I didn't wanna be in a band like that

or even New York Dolls.

I didn't wanna play that kind of music.

I wanted to play like hard rock,

but just have a different image.

- Vein of course, you got Jet Boy,

which we were good friends with.

And it's like that little click you got like kind of

Sea Hags, Mickey Shields,

and I guess Lamonds they were kind of glam,

but the glam bands always had some

sick lead guitar players.

They're like kind of like in the Vein of rap

and like that kind of vibe.

So I liked the guitar playing.

There was a little bit of

that was a little light for us back then.

If you ask Paul Baloff about that,

he'll tell you the same.

- Vein, obviously Jet boy.

- Hans Naughty (laughs)

- Hans Naughty.

- Harry Carrie - Harry Carrie.

- I met Bella over the Harry Carrie Hans Naughty concert

for the very first time.

- All of a sudden other thrash bands started going,

Hey man, you wanna come down to the studio and stuff.

And the same guys that were

really like, oh, this guy's like really over the top.

Because we were getting more and more of the top women,

the crazy hair and tons of makeup

and like half naked running around stage.

But we'd be smashing guitars and playing really hard rock.

And to this day I just played with Exodus last summer

in this big festival in Germany.

And even they were always say like,

yeah, even though that kind of music,

wasn't exactly our bag,

we'd always come to your show to get laid

because there's so many chicks.

- Back in that point in time, we were in a thrash

and we were like street level fucking metal.

So even though we were good friends with Vein

and we were managed by the same person

deep down inside,

they were Posers and we were Thrashers.

So you had that thing going on.

But I think there were a quality band, they had good songs,

they had a good structure, they knew what they were doing.

It just wasn't our thing at that point in time.

- Another really great show that I saw

was a band called Road Crew,

which most people probably don't remember.

They were only around for like 30 seconds

or whatever.

It was Davie Vein from the band Vein

who was also from there

and Steven Adler right after he got tossed out of

Guns N' Roses.

And they came out and they were playing,

I don't know what they were playing.

I didn't know the songs and I knew Vein pretty well.

They obviously knew Guns N' Roses.

So they were playing, I guess, new stuff.

And it sounded really good.

And I was like, I saw it the one time.

I was like, fuck yeah, this is gonna be solid.

I can't wait till this comes out.

And then it never did it.

It just sort of fizzled away.

- I like Matt Anthony, for example.

They were one of the only local bands

that would sell out the army,

And they didn't have a major record out.

They were putting out bands, the Kidd Blue,

Flame who I'd mentioned before.

Sleeze was an old band that was around back then.

There was also the big wave of like bands out of

San Francisco that kind of sounded like

the London Choir Boys

that kind of like swaggery rolling stones thing.

But it was ironically,

those shows also did as well as well out here.

because even though it was more of a heavy base community

in Oakland especially,

you can still do a hair metal band,

you could still do a Liont or one of those kinds of bands

and still sell it out because

that audience was here as well.

- The friendship went beyond the genres of the music,

but somehow in another case,

the genres the music made a difference.

- Sea Hags that was great.

I used to go see them every time they play

when I first moved down here.

When I first moved down here I was kind of a loner

and I would go to shows by myself.

That band was great.

It should have been huge I thought.

There was a band that nobody knows about

called Hostage Slaughter

to me they were one of the best bands I ever saw.

- That was in the Tygers of Pantang, Venom, Merciful Fate.

And I loved the crew.

That was kind of like,

a no not to like that kind of band

being in my genre was like kill posers.

But Motley Crue kind of got away with it.

Everybody liked Motley Crue

because all the girls liked them.

- Thrash versus glam debate,

I think it was more between the fans

as opposed to the artists.

I think to the musicians it was all rock and roll to them.

But the fans, there was a real division about

whether you were really metal

or if you really weren't.

- Mind you, we were young.

We were young teenagers in high school,

we were dealing with our life as a young teenager

and expressing it openly with no PC involved.

But back then it was a different trick.

- When we started headlining shows and selling them out,

then we got more and more popular,

but the whole thrash and rock things started kind of getting

a little bit of a separation

because the thrash people,

didn't wear any makeup at all.

And it was all like kind of a macho thing.

And so then if you kinda wear makeup wearing duty,

you were like a poser.

And we all lived in the Haight Ashbury.

So the people that lived in the Haight Ashbury at the time

were like alternative people that look way more freaky than

rock people,

So we try to get people around there to go to our shows

and it made us look even kind of more freaky.

Because that was a different lift than like Dark and glam

or something, it was like...

And we kind of incorporated a little of that image of just

living on the streets, and surviving by people,

giving us...

The Sea Hags lived there too.

If there was this one bar attender, the nitrate,

Karen Reynolds, we all would've died in star.

She'd give us free drinks food from behind the bar,

but she kept like at least three or four bands alive,

- Lamonds,

- Yeah (laughs)

- Remember Lamonds?

- Yeah, I remember Lamonds.

- Pete Marino. Yeah, you remember.

- As soon as they saw that I could write

that kind of genre asked

kind of stuff they were all, oh do that.

They had the publishing guys call me,

do that.

They were very aggressive,

and that's okay.

Because I was going with it.

I didn't care. I was 24.

I was just trying to get chicks. Okay?

And it worked.

(hard metallic rock music)

- I remember Exodus headline

and they had Toby Rage,

and Andy Airborne working for him, Andy Anderson.

- [Interviewer] Slayer team?

- Yeah the Slayer team working for them.

- [Interviewer] We'll be ready to explain that

the big guy was off the--

- Lonnie Udall too.

Lonnie is Rick's brother. Yeah.

- And he would also like head walk on people,

crowd walk on top of people's heads and he was doing that

and he had cattle, prawns and big ass like cattle prawns

prawn people with this

That was the greatest thing I'd ever seen.

Gosh it was awesome.

- Thank goodness. They took a liking.

I was always so scared of them.

- You never do hung up.

I didn't add did the Metallica house,

but there was another house kind of somewhere right

in town that everybody seemed to go hang out with.

And that was always the after show party house.

And it was just a cool scene.

The dreaded drive back to Los Angeles

after the show.

- Back then it was like, we're all together as one.

It's like the gig, party and the parking lot,

play the show. Where is the party?

We'd go to the party and it was like that every weekend.

- Parties would be either at

wherever Paul Baloff was living (laughs)

He moved around a lot and they always ended up

at Paul's house or out Alexis Olson of Legacy

would throw some amazing parties and Testament.

And they always ended up in East Bay

and we'd always have these drunken scary rides

back to the city.

Ran out of gas on treasure Island had to siphon gas from

a military vehicle 4:00 a.m. (laughs).

That was pretty sketchy.

But typical,

everything was in East Bay and all the biggest parties,

the craziest parties,

because all the LA people would come up in,

Suicidal and Slayers.

And you'd have to have huge parties for those guys.

- Slayer and Exodus play at Ruthie's Inn.

And they stayed at this little hotel on University Avenue

in the middle of Berkeley

and Ryan Slake down the hall.

Where are you sleeping?

Well, we were all in the Slayer room,

they had pizza nailed to the ceiling

and a TV covered with shaving cream.

And by the time I headed out the door,

people were kicking a hole through to the next room.

- The hotel room was, it looked like firewood kindling.

There's two addresses.

There was nothing.

- (background music drowns out speaker)

And laugh our asses off,

(crowd cheering)

because these guys are so fucking crazy

(loud chattering)

I will never forget those days.

We were at a party in

(indistinct) check around

and this fucking bitch passed out drunk with her mouth open.

(crowd laughing)

Paul Baloff pulls a dead mouse over her mouse trap

and drops it right in her mouth.

(crowd cheering)

Party over.

- At various homes

or warehouses where they were practicing or

at the El Ceritto Metallica mansion.

Mark Whitaker's poor house,

which man, the dirt out there, (laughs)

it's toxic.

- This guy from Sha Na Na shows up at a thrash metal show

and there was bad.

I land off every now and then there'll be a few girls there.

And I knew the girls there and this guy approached me

and said, hey man, you wanna party at the Fairmont.

And I'm in a band too.

And I go, what band are you in?

I'm in Sha Na Na

And I was like, no shit.

I go, hell yes,

let's go.

And I grouped together about five girls

and a couple of dudes.

And I said, this dude is from fucking Sha Na Na.

Dude it's like, will you do this kind of shit every night.

When are we gonna have this opportunity again?

And so we went to the Fairmont

and at least a day and a half passed.

And then, once he was out of blow

and the girls were all disappearing and everything was gone,

he was almost grabbing me like you can't leave too.

And I was like, dude, Sha Na Na

you're out of blow dude.

And it's like, I gotta get back across the Bay.

I got things to do.

- It was reckless time.

There was a lot, there was DEA agents hanging out

with the bands in San Francisco.

They didn't know this,

but there was some of them were tour managers

of other bands, like the Starship.

Starship had a DEA guy managing their whole tours.

- One time in Detroit we were playing

I don't know why they wanted to stop the show.

They called the cops and the cops came on stage

and we're playing our last song.

And I was like, kill is mine.

(indistinct)

And I was watching this all in like there.

I think they were arrested our tour manager

because he was trying to start a pit.

And then the cops were like walking on stage

and they had their weapons drawn and stuff.

And we're just like,

I'll say fuck.

I'm just not gonna stop.

I'll just put my head down and keep headbanging.

And then once he like came right here and he was

pushing me, then I just stopped and took off stage.

And then they were like,

oh, our tour manager got arrested for

trying to incite a riot and all this biz.

- [Narrator] The most drastic impact

on the Bay area metal scene

was the arrival of a fledgling young band called Metallica.

When they first played the Stone

during the Metal Massacre Night

sponsored by Metal Blade Records.

This night was a total game changer.

(hard rock metallic music)

- So I had this jacket that my friend,

Bill Burkhart from the Walnut Creek Record Exchange,

which was just an instrumental place for us to go

and discover new bands, new heavy metal bands of that era.

But he went to England and there's a present,

he brought me back this

green satin iron maiden killers jacket.

It was size small, but I didn't care.

I put it on.

It felt really tight,

but I wore it with pride and I wore it to

the Judas Priest show up in Oakland in 1981.

And a few days later,

I got a call from this kid down in LA,

who was saying, Hey, I saw you with this

Arne maiden jacket, tour jacket,

where did you get it?

That was just so cool.

And it turned out to be a Lars Ulrich.

And I was now of course the drummer of Metallica.

So we just started to talk and we hit it off

and it was a start of a new friendship.

- Metallica I helped those guys out

when they first came to San Francisco.

I had a Volkswagen bus, like I said,

and loaded all their stuff in there.

We did the Metal Mondays in San Francisco.

We did a few shows in the city.

I stayed over to El Cerrito at Mark Whitaker's mom's house

in my bus.

We had a practice shed out in the back

that we used to practice in.

It was, fucking bologna sandwiches

at the grocery store.

and no money begging Lars for gas money for the bus.

It was that kind of shit.

- LA Metal night in San Francisco,

Prine Slagle, Heavy Metal Massacre or the Metal Massacre.

And it was like, somebody canceled.

Do you wanna go?

And we were like, let's go.

And then we fucking threw our shit in a truck

and drove up and we played the Stone.

And that was really,

without being too dramatic about it,

that was what changed everything.

- When I saw the Metallica thing, that was a big eye-opener.

It was like, wow, we're onto something here.

Something's happening.

Intangible, you could just feel it.

And that obviously led to the Legacies

and the other bands that came in.

And then also like, to some extent,

that's what led up to the Heathen thing to

because the Bay area was suddenly

a super hotbed of real metal.

- I think it might've been the first time

they came up here I think it was in 82 October I think

something like that.

And yeah, I remember seeing them at soundcheck

I get, oh wow, yeah we're in trouble here.

They had fire and we heard about the band

and certainly heard the demo

and they were doing something that was just really

just shoot from the hip,

certainly influenced by

the new wave in British heavy metal sound.

- I remember a time playing

where it was Laaz Rockit and Overdrive.

And at the last minute, a week before the show,

the third band was at it and Metallica was the band.

And it said in the ad Metallica from LA and we were like,

who is this Metallica band who got us bumped down to

the opening spot?

- So Metallica played one of their major gigs

that everybody knew about and they sold out

the Waldorf or something like that.

But then AML course was playing a metal mania benefit

or something.

It was horrible word of mouth thing wasn't promoted well.

The next night at the Mabuhay.

And then suddenly Metallica

was supposed to be on the bill too.

But we'd been on the scene longer so we were headlining

because we were more known theoretically

and Metallica came out and opened up for our band

it was pretty nuts.

And they kept playing too long,

Damon statements was all drunk

and they kept playing over and we actually had to have

the power turned off on them,

which is pretty fucking hilarious.

- But yeah, at the time

I remember the show watching Metallica,

sitting back thinking, what is this?

What's going on here?

Is this metal or is this punk.

And a good half the crowd was up front just

totally enthralled and taken over by it.

The other half was sitting back like going wow,

what is this?

Should we be behind this or is this the enemy?

We didn't know.

But obviously in retrospect,

the people spoke.

- Before Kirk was in the band, he used to be in Exodus.

And I remember that, I guess,

what's his name?

- [Interviewer] Dave Mustaine

- Dave Mustaine was playing with them.

So Kirk was just,

he used to be a roadie for Anvil Course.

And I remember he would get help carry my keyboards

(laughing)

- Blizzard of Oz and Motorhead tour.

The first one we were following Motorhead around Greg and I

from the Record Vault.

We caught him down in Receda the country club.

And that's when I met Lars.

He got off the bus with Lemmy and a kid named Banger Birch

that used to hang out with the Record Vault.

- Kirk was in Exodus then

and Dave was,

of course Dave Mustaine was Metallica.

And in those days, man,

Dave was the man from what I saw.

- It was just like,

oh my God, there are people here like us,

there are people here that look like us

that think like us that smell like us,

that fucking feel like us,

do you know what I mean?

And then it was just like, we belong here.

- It was just a whole different world.

It seemed like,

we would go to their shows

and not understand what was going on.

Like why do people...

It seemed like

there was no girls in their audience at all.

You got to show

it as a bunch of dudes in leather jackets,

like who wants to do this?

- I didn't understand that whole thing

when Metallica first started out.

Every time I went to their shows,

it was all dudes with like spike collars sweating

like I am right now.

You know what I mean?

(indistinct)

These crazy dudes, and there was like no chicks.

There was no chicks.

And finally at one point Lars came to me and he said,

Peter, he goes, I hate your band.

I think you guys suck like Journey. Right?

But you do get a lot of chicks.

Maybe we're gonna to play the Stone now with you.

Maybe we'll play with you guys at the Stone.

- Lars said he was getting a band going.

It was Metallica.

They were gonna come to the Bay area.

He used to send me flyers.

I would hang them up in the city.

They'd come and do the Metal Mondays.

About the second they had Ron McGovney playing bass.

The second time they came over,

they had gotten Cliff from Trauma and it was Dave Mustaine,

James Sheffield, Lars Ulrich, Cliff Burton.

I had my bus, I loaded their shit for them.

They stayed in a record store a couple of nights.

And then we went over to Whitaker's house,

stayed at his house.

- The rest of that year,

we played three or four more shows in San Francisco.

Cliff Burton showed up on our radar.

- Cliff Burton, man, after my own heart.

He wore bell bottoms.

So you know bell bottoms to me,

I wear them to make a statement

because I grew up in the 60s.

I remember that time,

I come from that era

and when I would look at my records,

when I turned the records album over,

that's what the people were wearing.

And that never got old for me.

And Cliff, see him wearing them.

- Obviously I became friends with Cliff Burton early on

when he was in Trauma.

I've heard other musician mention

that they were just blown away by his stage presence

and not just the way he dressed

and behaved, but also the way he played

and approached music.

So we became good friends and actually it was me that

ultimately contacted Cliff to let him know

that there was interest from Metallica

and him joining the band

and Lars was too shy at the time

to actually call Cliff himself.

So I kinda arranged the first meeting for them.

And as you can see that developed into a tremendous success

for all parties involved.

- Where Cliff Burton came from was another world,

the kind of the Castro Valley Hayward,

full sentence purposes,

I'm dramatizing here a little bit for a fact,

but there were Rednecks.

They didn't give a fuck about anything,

the way they look, the way they dressed,

so there was a whole kind of even like what was

going on out there compared to what was going on in the city

in San Francisco, is people call the city,

that was a whole nother world.

So the Jim Martin's and the Mike Bordin

and the Cliff Burton's and that whole thing.

Then again also brought a kind of a different energy

and outlook into, because when I met Cliff Burton

he had no idea who Diamond Head were,

he didn't know angel,

which he was listening to ZZ Top and Leonard Skinner

Do you know what I mean?

So it was a lot of different shit

coming from a lot of different places that all just

blew up and kinda happen at the same time.

- I appreciated that man though let's see this guy,

it was obvious when he said he liked

what we were doing and he saw the show,

he was really open-minded guy and he was laid back, man.

It would be hard to not like him.

- All the Bay area music was really killer.

And we could understand why Metallica moved up here because

I'm not saying they were laughed out of LA,

but their kind of music was not...

- [Interviewer] Accepted.

- Yeah and they also,

in the early days they weren't what they are now.

- Obviously Metallica when they moved there and said,

they moved to Bay area, and they said,

we're a Bay area band.

They sort of like they put the flag on the moon,

like saying we're from here.

And we're gonna be part of this community

in this music scene.

Clearly that established a lot.

- Metallica were more, I don't even know what to call them,

it was like street metal or something like that.

I was in a more technical musicians and stuff like that.

And they were more just kind of

almost like a punk attitude to metal or something like that,

they weren't like

guys that spend forever practicing and stuff.

They were just going for it.

And it was fun really nice guys.

So always Cliff Burton was great.

I ended up we releasing a Trauma record with him

on four bonus tracks at some point.

- In those four months of them moving to El Cerrito

and being in the Bay area,

metal was just getting just insane in early 83.

It was just, the kids, everybody was talking about Metallica

and coming up and they're all waiting for Metallica to play.

And of course Axis was playing non-stop and getting huge.

So actually it was between those two guys at that time.

And of course,

Metallica just played those two shows at the Stone in March

of 83 and just blew everyone away.

- The two shows that Dave Mustaine did with Cliff

were just monsters.

Those two shows in 83, I think it was March 83,

it was just totally insane.

- I remember they told me that they wanted

their idea was to get John Bush and then get Cliff,

and that's what they wanted to do.

- And I said I would have bet everything I owned

when people said Metallica would be the number one band

in the world.

I said...

I spent some time with those guys.

They're pretty rough and tumble.

And I just didn't think they were all that manageable.

James was like...

They were kids with beer.

- One morning I get up come in the kitchen for some coffee,

and Lars is like talking to somebody on the phone.

He gets up the phone.

He goes, I talked to Johnny Z back in Megaforce in New York.

He wants us to come out and do an album.

And I'm like, oh, that's the Anthrax label.

That's cool.

So Lars' like, you wanna go?

And I'm like, dude, I don't know.

And I go, you really think that this kind of stuff

is gonna take off.

And he goes, yeah, dude it's got to, this is my life.

And I go, I don't know Lars.

Because I was older than these guys.

I was into the old psych and into the heavy 70 shit.

And this stuff was cool

the new wave of British heavy metal bands reminded me of

70s hard rock bands.

The 70s, hard rock bands, never got that big.

So I'm thinking this is like long haired kids

with the screaming and the metal got faster.

It's kinda like punk,

is it gonna happen?

Is it gonna be just a small little thing?

- [Interviewer] Yeah that's right.

Sure enough that shit took off.

I didn't go to New York by the way I stayed

and because I had to get a job

and get my shit together.

And I was hanging out with the kids doing metal.

- I ain't thought that Dave was the best part of Metallica.

And I was like, we were all waiting me, Brian, Louis,

everybody was like anticipating Dave coming back

and showing Metallica a thing or two.

And he did. He was awesome.

Carrie King, as guitars was cool too.

And we heard they didn't get along,

but I didn't see it (laughs)

So Dave is an amazing eyes.

I love talking to Dave.

He's always been awesome and nice and crazy and intense

and very intense.

Just try not to be around him.

If back then when he was drunk, (laughs) just be careful.

Because he could be volatile.

He didn't start many fights,

but I saw him in several

Boom (laughs)

He was quick.

- And you see he had something

because if he wasn't about nothing,

he wouldn't have went away and made something great.

- I was older than these guys. Right?

I got along with Lars and Cliff, pretty good.

James and Dave, it was a little rough.

- Right after Kill 'Em All came out on Megaforce,

they came out to the store

and my God, we had hundreds

and hundreds of bangers everywhere.

There was more denim and leather in that one square block

of Walnut Creek than there has been

or ever will be in the future.

The cops, nobody knew it.

We took the city by storm.

They were freaked out.

- I remember Tony Isabella calling my house and telling me,

you're gonna love this.

You guys wanna open for Metallica?

And we were like fuck,

like I almost threw the fucking phone

I was tripping.

(laughing)

And I can never forget it because on the way

to the first night,

the fucking van broke down

on my way to the show.

And I was fucked,

stuck on the freeway.

And luckily my dad,

I don't even know how we got a call,

There's no cell phones.

I don't even know how I called.

And my dad showed up through my cabs in the car

and got to the Kabuki and we showed up,

we threw my stuff on stage and we had...

It was fucked.

We like were into our set.

So we had to play like only three songs

or something on the first night.

And we were like ahh,

yeah, it was heartbreaking man.

But the next night we played our full set.

It was two nights with a Metallica, Armor,

Satan and Death Angel

I'm gonna ride, the lightning tour.

- One show I remember in particular

was a new year's Eve of 85, 86.

I remember just red T-shirt.

And it was at this San Francisco civic center.

Metallica, Exodus, Metal Church and Megadeth.

And I just seen something recently online. Right?

I think Scotty and had posted

that Anthrax was supposed to be there, but they couldn't.

So then they added us.

This is how we got on the bill.

But obviously the tensions,

the obviously Megadeth, Metallica,

that whole thing was certainly,

Dave had huge supporters up here in the Bay area,

which was smart of him to wanna bring Megadeth up here.

But now here we are all these years later,

I remember Lars saying that he had just finished

the master of what would become

the master of Puppets record.

So they still had to Ride the Lightning backdrop.

But it was a great show.

They were on fire.

Exodus was just incredible that night.

- [Narrator] The most notorious

of the Bay area of thrash bands was Exodus.

Led by the incomparable Paul Balloff on vocals

and guitars Kirk Hammett soon to be recruited by Metallica.

Exodus quickly became the epitome

of what Bay area thrash was all about.

(hard rock metallic music)

- Tony Isabella, she is a...

Tony is a woman we knew that worked

for Bill Graham presents.

And she was handling a lot of Exodus business at the time.

And she was very keen on the band.

She was right on target.

- You'd go to an Exodus show and number one

they would be a line wrapped around the place twice.

And once you got in,

you didn't know what mayhem was gonna happen.

- Exodus they're the epitome of a thrash metal band.

I think that, they're amazing.

I think that they barely represented the Bay area as far as

thrash metal.

- Actually this was the premier thrash band out of Bay area

and just the speed of their music

and just the insanity of their songs,

And then Gary's guitar playing and Rick and Gary.

And was just so to the wall all the time.

There's nothing like that going on down in LA.

- So I remember hearing it for the first time

here in Exodus and it was like, this is so heavy.

Just the riffing.

It was so great.

- Kirk would have left Exodus and they will go,

those bands were going somewhere anyway,

you know what I mean?

Exodus was gonna still make it

Metallica was gonna still make it,

Those bands really, they had something special.

It was rebellious man.

And there was nothing like it, on the radio.

But I understood it.

- Speaking for Exodus like we were just basically

doing like backyard parties and stuff.

Kirk was into like UFO

and like old Scorps, well it wasn't old Scorps then

it was kind of current Scorps.

And he was the first guy I knew

who had Tokyo Tapes and Strangers in the Night.

And we would read Creem magazines at his house

and listen to Pat Travers Live.

And like our friend from the East Bay named Merle

went and bought Iron Maiden's first record.

And three weeks later we were playing

that shit in people's backyards at parties.

And they thought it was original

because nobody knew who Iron Maiden was yet.

(background music drowns out speaker)

# No mutual friends #

# No mutual shit #

- Paul Ballof, that was a beautiful dude, man.

I saw him with Exodus.

He was outrageous, never seen anything like that, man.

Short dude kind of little chubby guy,

he was a Fire band.

Because a lot of bands

as good as Exodus was,

they could have had a pretty boy up there.

You know what I mean?

They could have a nice pretty looking guy up there.

Baloff was still needed for that band.

- I remember being at a party.

I don't know where we were,

but I came there with a couple of friends

Baloff was there, James Hatfield was there

and there was a pinball machine

and these guys smashed the glass on the pinball machine.

And then at one point I was walking around

and my friend was like backed up in the corner

and Baloff had a fork in his chest, like a fork.

And he was just like poking them in the chest.

And my friend was like,

and I kinda had to go up there

and go, hey, take it easy, bro.

So, Baloff was doing his thing.

(indistinct)

- Paul Baloff used to point out to people in the crowd,

if you're a poser,

and then the crowd would be really tough on that person.

And one day I was buying a new car and we talked about

the metal scene and how I was a singer in the metal scene.

And he brings up Exodus and he told me that

Paul had pointed them out called him a poser.

And that night it was like one of his first shows he had

ever went to, I guess,

the crowd was really tore him up.

But he told me one thing that really caught my mind,

made me think.

And he said that after the show, Paul Baloff actually

got ahold of him and told him to come backstage

and they treated him pretty well.

So as mean as Paul could be, he wasn't mean,

but as Paul could pick out posers

and he was pretty rough on them.

He had a good side too where,

he felt bad for that kid.

He brought him backstage and treated him right after that.

- You didn't go to an Exodus show with the peroxide hair,

pumped up like that.

You just didn't do it because he'd single you out and go,

bring out the posers in the crowd

I need you to kill him right now.

And he'd go kill, kill, kill.

And the whole fucking crowd would be going

kill, kill, kill, kill.

So it was just--

- So he'd go home and listen to rat and Molly

credible on occasion and Vein.

- I met Paul actually before he was in Exodus.

I met Paul when I was a freshman in high school

and he had this funky ass Datsun, five tandems.

- It looked like a little long?

- Like a what do you call it?

A Lego thing put together.

And he was one of these guys,

like I had the pipeline to metal oversees,

and he was already out of high school.

He was a few years older than me.

And he didn't even go to high school with us.

- I had known Ballof since 1979.

We'd hung out in Berkeley and stuff.

And we were all old friends

I didn't even know he was in

a band till I got back from Europe (laughs)

And I was so surprised that he was in a band.

Baloff's in a band.

He's our little buddy, he's crazy guys,

he was a Motorhead fanatic.

- He had this presence and it was just,

wow, everybody loved him.

He'd walk around with a Wolf in clubs.

And he was an awesome person.

(background hard music)

- He's incredible on stage charismatic singer.

And his screams are very unique and original

this what made Paul so special.

- Paul Baloff and I were good friends, which was,

nobody could understand it,

I didn't get,

but Paul used to secretly come to me and ask me about

music biz.

He knew, I know a lot about publishing deals and stuff.

So he'd get me in the limousine that Adam Segan owned.

And Adam used to pick me up after all of the Lamond shows in

the city in his big fancy ass limos with Paul Baloff. Right?

And it was totally weird because they were totally on speed

and I was totally on coke.

So it was a weird relationship and they drank

and I didn't drink.

So Baloff would be out drunk and be like,

tell me about publishing deals, man.

I wanna cut the heads off publishing guys

and put them on poles.

- His house was crazy.

It was just like, you wanna go to a party,

you wanna see a party where,

it's like animal house literally,

go to Baloff's cell house in Oakland. That was unbelievable.

- So there was a period when Baloff was in the Heathen

and after we were running into problems with Dave.

Dave was having too many problems trying to write lyrics.

And so we reached out and got in touch with Paul and just,

tried to see if he could like

sing on any of the new material.

And so when Paul Baloff was actually,

he was in Heathen for about four or six months,

somewhere around there.

Well, not that long.

But it was an experiment for us to try to see if back at

the beginning, we really wanted to get somebody like Paul.

And I always thought we should have a real singer guy,

which is why we got Dave,

but here was a chance that we could actually see it.

If we can get the real deal, let's see if it would work.

But trying to record them was always a pain in the ass.

It was very difficult and he just didn't have a good sense

of timing and rhythm.

And so trying to get good takes out of him was really hard.

And so here we are doing this Heathen thing

and I'm trying to record him.

And we were like down there all night long trying to record.

And I remember struggling with that

and we still wanna doing shows with them.

And the shows were pretty killer.

Him as a front man is awesome.

- It was really the big five.

And as the moment Baloff died Exodus

falls out of the equation unfortunately.

- My roommate was like, that was Ian,

of course. Ian was like, what are you doing?

Why is Baloff here?

- [Interviewer] Ian Kallen?

- Yeah. Ian Kallen.

And he had the name of the house.

He was sort of like main head roommate.

But this didn't work out really well in the long run

because Paul just didn't have any way of making any money.

And he was just kind of hanging off his living.

- I got nowhere to go. So I was just like, okay, fine.

If you're in between places,

you can set up,

I got some couches and stuff down in the workshop,

in the basement and hang out there.

The next thing,

Hey, in your bail has no place to go,

can you see her too? Like what?

Like, no, but okay.

So Baloff moves in, Baloff Doug moves in

And so we got Doug, Baloff and Lavo

Lavo is like bear or a wolf dog

living in the basement.

- He stole my jacket that I stole from someplace else,

but that's another story.

There was a photo that showed up later.

I think Heraldo had a picture of him at some party.

And there it is my jacket and Paul's good wearing it.

- My friend's Dave

from reality check TV told me that actually

Exodus lost their bass player

and they were looking for a bass player.

Stevie Stiletto was literally just broke it up.

I managed to dig our grave by putting out that album.

So I went and auditioned for it

and I managed to get the gig.

Thanks to my good friend, Danny.

- [Fan] Loosing to Exodus, whoaa.

- When Metallica left April 1st with...

They also took Exodus' manager,

Mark Whitaker from the house they were staying.

And so that week Exodus, Paul and Gary came up to me

and asked me to be their manager.

(breathes heavily)

Within a week the first thing they wanted me to do

was fire the bass player, Jeff Andrews.

So well aside everything, they wanted everything.

They wanted money. Give me money.

You're our manager give us money.

I just started (laughs).

Within a week, they had lost a bass player,

Jeff Andrews, and a guitarist Kirk Hammett,

who flew out that week.

So within two weeks,

I had three fifths of a band and they were insane.

They were absolutely maniacal.

Baloff was crazy, Gary was insane.

And when they got together, they were dangerous (laughs).

So I only lasted as manager for like two months, if that.

And luckily Adam Segun came - [Interviewer] Adam Segun,

I think he's in LA.

- He's an awesome guy.

- We got some joy this time,

we do not have to

(indistinct)

- We signed with the first people that came along

and said, hey, we wanna sign you to make an album.

And we're like, what album?

Okay, let's do it.

And then they treated us great.

And we went on some amazing tours.

Thanks to Venom for like,

believing our band and taking us to Europe

for the very first time.

at Dead Toward records, passed us on to Combat Records

and relativity,

which was doing bigger things with the music.

And it all worked out.

- Combat helped us

They did, they really did.

Toward was in a position where they were like, well,

they couldn't do a second record,

but they weren't interested in Exodus doing a second record

with anyone else either,

and Combat Lax said, look, we'll pay you guys here,

we'll do what we want but we want Exodus.

And when we went to Combat,

we were the number one band on the label.

And they treated us that way too.

- When they finally got signed,

they asked our singer to join the band.

And kicking Paul out of the band was just like

blasphemy in the Bay area.

I remember it took a long time for Seth to get

the recognition for being the singer in the band.

I remember going to shows

and the whole front row would have their back turned

to the band.

And it was just like, wow,

their fans are making a statement.

- Is this the LA motherfucker?

- Well, Legacy started because I think everybody

wanted to emulate what Exodus was doing at the time.

We were all very much...

I think that goes for any of the Bay area, thrash bands.

If you go after from Violence or Forbidden or,

Possessed, everybody wanted to be Exodus.

(heavy metallic rock music)

(soft music)

(heavy metallic rock music)

- Yesterday & Today we're are...

What a great band Yesterday and Today was.

They're still great. Dave's amazing really still.

- And we were so isolated up there in the North Bay

because nobody else was playing to our style of music.

So we just were onto our own thing.

And that's it.

Which was, I think, it was an advantage for us

to some degree.

- Yesterday & Today they're all up on stage

and they were playing.

And you know, what they were doing?

They were having a lot of fun.

I could see that the vibe they were digging,

they were doing what they wanted to do.

It was just like a vibe. They were having fun.

And I just remember going back going, like,

I could do that.

I could play music

even if it's just in a small little space.

I could play music and have fun like those guys,

it just looked appealing.

- I also credit the fact that we played a lot of cover tunes

when we first started out

before we ever did original material.

And in some ways I think that kind of gave you a general

idea about how to put a song together.

You know what I mean?

Because you have to learn other people's tunes

the way they did it

and it starts making sense after a while.

And so all of those experiences, I think,

led to making you who you are over the years.

- I never heard of Y&T until we opened up for them.

And we had bottles thrown at us,

had a rough fucking crowd.

- Love them.

- Yesterday & Today they're the greatest band around.

They played every weekend or two, they played everywhere.

So we'd go see them in Oakland, San Francisco, South Bay,

North Bay we'd see him anywhere.

Because they were always good.

And they had good opening bands.

They'd get in good bands like Violation.

- If you look into Y&T's history, everybody opened for them.

Van Halen, everybody, Legs Diamond, Metallica.

Anybody who's anybody opened for Y&T,

even Motly Crue.

And then in the advert,

as these bands got big, Motly Crue

took them on the road.

Everybody took Y&T on the road.

- People who weren't even hard rock or heavy metal fans,

would go see Y&T.

And they would brag how many times they've seen Y&T.

And a lot of these people, like I said,

we're not into rock or metal,

but going to see Y&T was a thing.

And they were that huge

and they were that mainstream in Northern California.

- Last show we played with them was at

Petaluma Civic Auditorium.

And we were so stoked because it's a huge place and would

figure that any club we played.

And our singer Mark Berglund was up there singing,

and a bottle came flying at him, (laughs)

to his right fucking nose

He went down. It was great.

(laughing)

I will always remember that was funny.

- Leonard Hayes, another one of the greatest drummers ever,

made my spine tingle.

I thought I was playing with John Bonham at sometimes.

Like Bonham was coming through his body.

And like his drum sounded amazing.

He joined Lamonds after Y&T.

Oh, yeah. For like almost two years.

And we played the Saratoga club scene

with Leonard Hayes on drums.

(heavy metallic rock music)

- A band that actually I really loved

and became a big thing was Vicious Rumors.

Were not really talked about that much

and really should be included in the conversation

because they were as pioneering as anybody else.

- Vicious Rumors, which were a killer.

Geoff Thorpe.

Dude, he used to come out of a coffin.

They had a coffin on the stage

and there'd be smoke and shit.

It'd be like little guys with fucking candles

and he'd be coming out just rip it on a guitar.

- I was always a huge fan of people like Alice Cooper

and Kiss and Bouncer incorporated

a lot of theater in their music.

And just to this day, I still love bands

that put on extra shows like that King Diamond

and those kinds of things.

- Vicious Rumors.

Good, amazing hard rock, good guitars.

But they get kinda get left behind in history

just because they were playing a more conventional

type of rock from the early 80s.

Whereas everything was just getting faster and faster

and crossing over and getting more intense.

And (indistinct) (laughs).

- Vicious Rumors they were never thrash, right.

They were classic metal bands kind of in line

with the Armored Saint who was doing down in Los Angeles,

Vicious Rumors was kinda doing up in San Francisco.

- It's true we have a lot of candelabras and these monks.

And I remember, our bass player used come out

with a chainsaw, Jeff Barnacle,

our first bass player in Vicious Rumors.

And he'd like cut in half this wooden doll of boy George.

And it was just crazy stuff we did.

- Vicious Rumors was the fact that

Carl Albert had this incredible voice.

He just was so amazing and such a great front man.

Quite a shame of what happened with him.

- Our band had released two records,

I joined after the first album replacing Vinnie Moore,

but after our deal with Shrapnel,

we went through years playing shows and then we got signed

to Atlantic in 89.

And we did the handshake with the Atlantic rep

right after we got off stage opening for Paul Stanley

at the Omni in Oakland, which was a great venue.

- We never wanted to be pigeonholed into any category.

And if you listen to our records, one through 12 now.

We have 12 studio albums,

we just finished our new album, Concussion Protocol.

We've ventured into

ruse, speed metal,

traditional metal, some dark kind of stuff, ballads.

We've done a lot of different atmospheric stuff.

We've covered a lot of ground.

(hard metallic rock music)

- Couple of bands that I remember very clearly from those

early days was this band Laaz Rockit,

and they weren't really a thrash band.

They were more indicative of something that

may have been going on maybe down in Los Angeles.

And I hate to say heavy metal, but they were

they were not a full on thrash metal band.

- Laaz Rockit before they got signed,

they just ruled the Bay area.

They were like a huge band in their live show,

the pyros and they had some really good songs

and I don't know what happened.

Like it was their album cover, the artwork wasn't so good.

And the production was kinda weird.

- That type of music also built,

strengthen and build character.

I think that we felt we could take on anybody at any time,

as long as I got that stage,

I'm gonna win them over

and we're gonna blow this place up.

And I would say 99% of the time it worked

- If you listened to Laaz Rockit, they were definitely

a crushing band, but they were slick.

And I think that they're probably miscategorized

into power metal because they were a little bit slick.

- Yeah. They had a crazy manager who

made a lot of stuff happen.

I remember I was living with Jeff Weller

early on in Laaz Rockit.

And I remember the day that he came home

with some pyro stuff.

And the first time he blew off the flash pot

in the living room of the house,

the whole house scotched the ceiling

and the whole house built smoke.

(heavy metallic rock music)

- Working in Walnut Creek at the Record Exchange,

there was a little band playing at a pizza parlor in Concord

called Death Angel.

There's four guys and they were really young.

I'm thinking Andy might've been nine.

And the other guys were, 13, 14,

and then maybe 16 or 17.

- I stood out in front of the Stone with our demo,

with our heavy metal insanity demo.

This is Pre Killers One.

- [Interviewer] And no time for love and fucking?

- Yes, no time for love,

- [Interviewer] Intruder.

- Intruder, Barren Land?

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- Right. So we have this demo

and I just stood out in front of the Stone until like

the Coroner dudes showed up.

I'm like our demo.

And sure enough, they called us up

and we started playing at the Stone.

- Death Angel, they always look 12 years old (laughs),

how old are these kids?

And they were always amazing

from Andy's crazy drum.

He was the best.

- When I'm with Death Angel,

Kirk is a Metallica guy now,

and Metallica were pretty big.

So when the word got out

that Kirk was gonna help Death Angel with this demo,

they're like, ooh, kill as one,

I think it was called.

- Makes some noise from my dearest...

(crowd cheering drowns out speaker)

He produced Death Angel's demo that got us signed.

The reason

(crowd cheering drowns out speaker).

Everything just comes together.

- We get new openers.

Death Angel was clearly,

10 years younger than us.

I remember when they came to see us

with Marshall fade at the Kabuki.

- I remember someone coming in, who dude,

you got to check this band out,

the drummer's 11 years old.

We're like really, they sounded great.

They were just these little,

I got these little Filipino kid and they're done.

They're just thrashing away. And immediately,

literally 11 years old. You're like, man this is awesome.

- We got mentored a lot by some cool musicians

and opened up for a lot of great bands that we loved.

And so, again, like to us, it was just normal.

Because we were just running around partying and rocking

and having fun.

But we were younger

so sometimes we had to deal with getting snuck in

and sneaking around.

- Death Angel got their cousin in their Mark to sing.

So now they were a five-piece and they did

the Metal Blade did a first album called the Ultra Violence.

It was fucking killer,

like the best album of all that stuff.

And they wanted to go do a tour.

So a friend of mine named Cat,

that we had a record store up in Santa Rosa

called Rebel Records was gonna manage them.

I didn't wanna manage Death Angel because

I wanted to be their friend.

- So then my manager ended up finding this band Death Angel.

And they were gonna go record their first record

in Santa Rosa in the studio that we always went to.

- We would do Death Angel at the army,

Death Angel at the One Step Beyond

and Death Angel at the Stone.

And every one of those shows would sell out.

- So she goes,

hey, is there any way,

that you guys are really young and they're really cool.

You wanna come meet them and maybe you could help them,

a little bit.

Because they don't have that much experience in the studio.

So I'm like, okay, cool.

So I had to talk with them.

I go, hey, I'll come by and stuff like that.

They're like, okay.

Yeah, no problem.

That'd be great, man.

So they came by and then,

they started kinda doing their thing

and then I go,

Hey, what is he saying there?

And then, it was really crazy

because they're like, oh, I'm not really sure, man.

I'm just like, we don't really hear what he...

Like this is a new song.

I don't really hear my guitars man.

We're blasting, he's a screamer and this guy was screaming.

So I'd kinda worked with him a little bit and go, hey,

you know what that melody you're doing.

And I think it's that.

So I started doing some stuff and then I go, okay,

well I'll see you guys in, here they go, hey man,

come back tomorrow.

You can just do the whole thing and produce it with us.

I'm like, oh, okay.

So that's kind of how I got into it because...

- One that really grabbed me fast was Death Angel.

I was just...

Those early Frolic in the park and Act Three

and all those records, I was just like holy shit,

this is good.

- When they play together and the energy they had

and just the focus

and the attention to detail they'd have.

And then it's just like, and then all of a sudden,

boom, there were still kids though, you know what I mean?

So then it was like, okay, that's over now.

I'm gonna skateboard.

There'll be out skateboarding and shit.

And I'm just like, hey man, don't fall or anything.

(heavy metallic rock music)

- [Narrator] Flash forward to today.

The metal scene is no more.

As in so many cities, gentrification has taken over.

The clubs have mostly closed.

The record stores are gone.

The memories, however, will last forever.

The Bay area scene of the 1980s will never be replicated.

It happened at the perfect point in time,

in the perfect place, a true once in a lifetime experience.

(heavy metallic rock music)

- When I think of those times, we were so lucky.

I teach a little guitar nowadays.

And the young students, I always say,

if you could have seen the San Francisco Bay area

in the 80s.

I played with Greg Almond for 10 years

and people that I would meet at Greg shows

would find out that I used to play metal

and they would scratch their heads in disbelief.

And I would say,

you don't understand the Bay area scene.

It was all about that.

- You had all these little thrash bands

that were starting to happen.

Riding the cocktails of all these mainstream bit rat

and all this stuff was getting major label contracts.

So the metal scene was huge in America for a little while.

It was top 10.

We had stores that was doing metal.

There was like concerts were sold out.

It was like all the magazines had,

there was tons of shit out with metal

and then it (clapping hardly) grunge.

(laughing)

- I get asked a lot, did grunge killed thrash?

- No, not at all.

What killed thrash was death metal.

Death metal killed thrash.

Because for eight years, thrash was the most brutal,

most edgy most over the top kind of music around.

And then it just got uglier.

Where thrash bands started sounding polite.

- Grunge did not kill thrash metal, but in our case,

because we were about to sign to RCA records

and we had a huge deal on the table.

And then Paul got the offer to do Slayer

and we got Steve Jacobs play drums

and everything was like all go.

They were like, we love this.

This is great, your demos,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then boom, while we were doing it,

Smells Like Teen Spirit came out

and it pivoted, everything pivoted.

So we were on the cusp,

we weren't a death metal band

and they weren't interested in any death metal on RCA.

They wanted our commercialized more melodic.

Forbidden was kind of

in a Queens where I could ask period.

- I think the whole club scene was completely changed.

The Broadway scene was kind of

really not what it was.

This would have been like 1991.

So at that point,

the Stone was close to being gone.

Then the Mabuhay and the on Broadway

were pretty much gone.

Were not gone gone,

but not active as what it was.

And there was a whole new scene.

Like it was more like the I-beam and night break and it was

a whole new scene of bands.

That's when Seattle, some brunch stuff

started to pretty much take over everything.

- What happens with any, any great thing.

And it became more clear when it happened again

to Seattle later.

You have everyone having so much success at first,

then all the bands going I could do that,

I could do exactly that.

And there was a formula that happened to us, very advanced,

where we all had a certain,

kind of circle that we were running in.

And then after a while,

you knew the label had expected a certain thing

as it worked for this band.

And when Metallica did have their first Ballard,

we all did something, everyone,

but that's kind of where there's this,

like the succession of we were all doing the same,

it's all different music,

but it was all kind of the same formula that everyone across

the country started doing after we all did it here.

So then it all kind of went like a wave

where it wasn't as new

as like when we first started it was violent,

people were kicking each other's asses and it was all edgy,

then later,

because Metallica had so much success.

We all just kind of followed on the back end of that.

And it's like a whip,

And it just, after a while,

wasn't this exciting to the rest of the world.

They were looking for something new.

- I think I lived in San Francisco during the glory years

because when I left,

I moved to LA in 1991 because I had joined Red Cross,

it was an old LA punk rock band.

And that was right when the .com scene that the internet

kind of broke out and it was already getting

too expensive for

most of my friends to live there anymore.

And nowadays I don't think artists can live in San Francisco

anymore. It's so expensive.

Even Oakland's getting to be.

So I was just glad that I lived there when I did live there.

Because that that world is pretty much gone.

- Back then there, Bay area was probably

one of the coolest rock, not just metal,

just the coolest music scenes all around.

Those were fun times,

but we still were here again, but sadly never will be again.

- You don't have to feel really good about is the fact that

we played our instruments.

We met four or five nights a week in our rehearsal space.

We wrote together, we treated it as a job we loved,

we lived it and breathed it, in hell or high water.

And I look at how music is created today.

I don't think in my personal opinion,

without being as offensive as possible,

it lacks authenticity to me.

- I am really blessed to,

be accepted in this music scene

and just have live through it.

And I definitely, no regrets.

- That's what's so near and dear about

the San Francisco Bay area thrash scene,

is that it really, this was the epicenter.

And it's like,

in Silicon Valley where all the great minds come up with

all this wonderful wizardry and gadgetry

and did yet here it was also the heart and soul

of something so passionate as thrash metal.

- The Bay area scene was just...

It was a scene of encouragement.

It wasn't a scene of judgment,

it was encouragement,

it was power.

- I am honored that many fantastic players

are influenced by me.

It means the world to me.

- It was a great training ground.

I got spit on and had stuff thrown at me,

but the guys were at the band's Robbie's totally,

really cool.

But it was pretty intense again,

that's where I learned how to sing,

how to try to draw in an audience.

It was obviously a challenge to me.

I never minded it.

But it was not a pretty sight at all (laughs).

It was good.

- Sitting down and kinda analyzing it,

obviously, if you get some people together,

your Brian Louis', your Ron Quintana's,

your Ian Kallen's, your John Nan Skis.

maybe you could kind of intellectualize all of it,

but I always get scared if you wanna try to

intellectualize some of this stuff too much,

because I'm not sure that it should be intellectualized.

It just fucking was a moment and it just happened.

And it was a bunch of people at the right place

at the right time.

- Follow your gut, follow your instincts,

and that's been a large part of what really has fueled

Megadeth over the years.

Again, this decision to come down

to San Francisco and all this stuff.

It was always just real kind of gut instinct stuff,

which to me is real rock and roll.

- I've always been a champion of all ages venues because

you have to get that flow.

You want that people to come in and understand

the experience and grow from that experience.

And it's a lot less available to them now.

And I think that that kind of hurts the scene a little bit

as well.

- I don't get really excited

like everybody else these days.

I don't get super excited about music

unless it's something

that has that Bay area sound.

Havoc, Lazarus A.D, Municipal Waste.

Those records they fucking get me cramped again

like, all right, this stuff might come back.

- I think people should go out

and see live music a lot more.

Not because it makes money for the promoters

or the talent buyers, but because it's an art form,

that slowly seeming to become extinct.

And the live scene

needs to be turned around.

- We grew up in the metal scene.

It was part of our upbringing and our

invasive teenage years.

So everything was great.

We used to escape, drink under age,

go to shows on Friday night, Saturday night,

running back and forth playing shows nonstop.

I just feel fortunate to have experienced that.

And been in the right place at the right time.

And we did what we did,

We just loved everything we did.

And we just loved music and loved the scene as we still do.

And it's fucking it man.

(hard metallic rock music)

- He got Aerosmith,

their first record deal and their second one.

And he goes, who's your favorite singer?

I go, it's gotta be Stephen Town.

He goes, I'm gonna introduce you to him.

They're playing tonight you gotta go backstage.

So I go backstage and I go, God,

this is gonna to suck because

everybody in the world come up and say,

hey, I've got a band because of year or whatever.

So I met him and he's all pumped up and he's like, yeah,

man Brian tells me you just got a record deal right on man.

I go, yeah, I know you probably hear this all the time, bro.

But it's like, well, I got your first.

When I got like the rocks record, I put it on.

I go, God, I wanna do this.

I wanna be in a band. And I want...

And he's like, dude, that is so fucking bad ass.

And now you are fucking signed.

We'll go to the Alfaro Theater tonight.

We're gonna fucking party and all this shit,

you've just got a record deal fuck yeah.

And I'm like, oh, this guy's like real.

Like he's like putting this on.

He's really excited that I got a record deal,

from the guy that got him a record deal.

So we end up going to the strip club

so there's this one room. That's a flashlight room there.

I don't know.

You've been there, right?

so you shine flashlights. These two nurses coming,

I'm sitting next to Steven Todd,

try not to be too much of a fanboy.

But he's treating me like you got a record deal.

You're in the club.

And all of a sudden,

these chicks starts taking their clothes off,

taking out vibrators

you're putting them on.

And all of a sudden this one chick comes and just straddles

us and Sebastian box there too.

And he's sitting there and I'm going to hit Mike.

It's really tripping me up

being really close to Steven Tyler

and he's going I know, man,

that's hard to get used to

and you'll get used to it after a while.

And so the chick hands, Steven, the vibrator,

he's just loving it.

Because he's just the total perverted guy.

And then he's just like, she's like,

you know what to do with this?

And I'm just like,

when I was a kid listening to rocks,

I never could have imagined this ever happening.

You know what I mean? It's almost too close.

I almost want an extra seat apart.

So then he just looks at me.

He turns on the vibrator,

he hands it to me. It just looks at me dead in the eye.

And he goes, you just got a record deal.

Doe jij het maar.

- Besloten om de sc�ne te maken.

Ik besloot om het anders te maken en het geen Metallica te noemen.

Ik wilde het Metal Mania noemen.

omdat mijn vriend ervandoor ging met een band die Metallica heet.

- Ik kan het me herinneren alsof ik weer op school zit.

En net als iedereen had men doelen.

Ik ga dit doen.

Wat is je doel?

Het is alsof ik geen enkel doel heb.

Ik leef gewoon in het moment en luister naar mijn muziek.

- MTV en dat soort programma's.

Ze lanceerden me op hoge hakken en hij vertelde ons...

wat metaal is.

- Ik ging vroeger naar Exodus,

We gaan naar Exodus (onduidelijk)

Er zullen tien mannen voor hen op het podium staan.

Op een gegeven moment werden mensen terug naar binnen geduwd.

Er zullen meer mensen op het podium staan.

dat je de band niet eens kunt zien.

- Het waren bands die actief waren in de thrashscene van de Bay Area.

en de glammetalscene die deel uitmaakte van die scene

maar ze worden nog steeds niet vaak genoemd of erkend.

Zoals bijvoorbeeld Skizzo, die tot op de dag van vandaag nog steeds bestaan.

Er was de Crossover, de Slam Bodian.

En er waren bands zoals Relic, Hell Hound,

Verachting, Grafschrift, Onrust, Uitvalkoorts, Oorlogsvoering DC met

Will en Ted, toekomstige leden van Death Anthem.

Er was een waarschuwing.

Er was Morticious, de militie,

dan Demented, Oblivion of

Fertile Forces, geen logo.

Ik kan nog wel even doorgaan.

En dan is er nog de glammetal-kant van de zaak.

Er is een Cherry Bay, een Arista Katz, een Tramp,

Teaser, Erotische pop, TYR, TYR,

Tonight You Rock uit Santa Cruz.

Er was Kamikaze met de broers van Dick Jr.

Later werd het Electric Dick.

En dan heb je nog de hardrock van bands zoals

Ghost Town of The Alley Boys.

En vergeet ook niet dat we Girl Band hadden.

En we hadden de Mischief en we hadden Moeder Aarde.

en Fantasia, die tot op de dag van vandaag nog steeds bestaat.

Dat is echt jammer.

dat veel van deze bands geen erkenning krijgen

dat ze het verdienen.

- Al vroeg in mijn carri�re bij Apple Charlie

Hij kwam daar vroeger vaak, toch?

Vlak voor het archief, waar dit allemaal geweldig was.

En hij was waar...

Hij werkte destijds samen met Whitney Houston.

met Gardein Auteur.

En ik gebruikte coca�ne.

Ik gebruikte veel coca�ne.

En ik had limousines en zo.

En Randy zag me.

En op een dag kwam hij naar me toe.

en greep me zo in een houdgreep.

En hij zei: luister, kleine broer.

Ik wil dat je leeft, man.

Ik wens je een goede carri�re toe.

Je moet meer op Whitney en Michael Jackson lijken.

Je moet je meer zoals hen gedragen.

En je begrijpt wat ik bedoel, toch?

En dan pak je de draad weer op na al die ervaringen.

Ok�, Randy.

Wedden dat je dat niet had zien aankomen?

(harde metalrockmuziek)