September 1987

CONTENTS

CHAINMAIL

LETTER PRINTED IN ITS ENTIRETY Art Roberts’s assessment of heavy metal magazines was cool, even though he did miss Aardschock and Metal Mania. I like the fact that he feels the Hit Parader letters column is superior; I edit it. But his comments in another metal mag blurb (Rock Scene):

I'll Take Sweden And EUROPE Too!

Roy Trakin

Europe come from Sweden. Is Sweden part of Europe? “No, I don’t think so,” says the band’s corkscrew-haired, pretty-boy leader Joey Tempest. “Scandinavia is Scandinavia.” Right, land of the midnight sun, Ingmar Bergman, King Gustav, masseuses and meatballs.

DAVE MUSTAINE OF MEGADETH

Whitesnake's Dramatically Cool Return!

Harold DeMuir

David Coverdale’s having a pretty good time at the moment. The new Whitesnake LP, the succinctly-titled Whitesnake, is doing encouraging business, leading the veteran singer and his corporate keepers to believe that 1987 could be the year Whitesnake finally duplicates its European success in the picky U.S. market.

Ratt: Who Are They Trying To Please?

Karen Schlosberg

It is a difficult assignment. Not to mention dangerous. Get something different on Ratt. Considering the amount of press the L.A. quintet has received since bursting out of the dumpsters and into the charts in 1984, it is a little disconcerting to Our Intrepid Reporter to consider what few new angles are left to discover.

BRITMETAL: "Take The 'P' Out Of Tempest..."

Sylvie Simmons

Congratulations! Independent researchers, numerologists and sacrificial-knife honers have determined that people who turn to Britmetal first are of a superior inquiring intelligence! Where did the Swedish Army look for the missing Joey Tempest?

RECORDS

Michael Davis

CHIP 'N' COVERDALE WHITESNAKE (Geffen) Lotsa questions and confusion about this baby; it’s become the who’s-on-first? of metal, ’87. And all because David Coverdale unveils a new band on the new album. And a different new band on the new video.

METAL VIDEO

Rick Johnson

That’s right, comrades! The fascist regime of video columnist Richard Riegel (aka Riggle) has been toppled and a new fascist regime (aka Reek) installed! FLASH—Riggle Ousted In Brainless Coup! So what, you ask? Sounds about as exciting as harboring a death wish, you say?

GREAT MOMENTS IN METAL LED ZEPPELIN

Lisa Robinson

“I think I realized what Led Zeppelin really was about around the end of our very first American tour. We started off not even on the bill in Denver, and by the time we got to New York City we were second to Iron Butterfly and they didn’t want to go on!

KERRY KING OF SLAYER

Headbangers Who Care

Mary Kinney Branson

Meet Mary Kinney Branson—a “middle-aged mom” (in her own words) who wants drivers to buckle up. So what’s she doing in METAL, anyway? Well, Ms. Branson has a story and a message: the story is about her efforts to get metal stars to spread the “buckleup” gospel... and the message is to get you to do the same.

SELECTRIC Funeral

Chuck Eddy

Yeah, so anyway, what we got here is a new column detailing the goings-on and goings-down and gettings-down of heavymetallurgy and hard-rockery, which if you’ve been perusing my ramblings in this journal long enough, you realize I deem less or more the same animal.

Bullets

Judy Wieder

For most Americans it’s still something of a shock to see the normal traditional Japanese raging away at us with the decidely untraditional sounds of ear-mashing metal. First to head West with the news that there was more than Kabuki music thundering out of the East was Loudness.

TOMMY LEE & VINCE NEIL

SHRIEK ATTACK!

Phyllis Pollack

Expectations ran high: this was to be Europe's first performance ever in Los Angeles. Despite having no past record of U.S. concert dates to acquire a live reputation, tickets for this show were sold out. L.A.’s Wiltern Theater, just south of Hollywood, was built by Warner Brothers Pictures in 1931 to show their film premieres of the day.

King Diamond's Tales Of Horror!

Don Kaye

I'm sitting in a hotel room with King Diamond, publicly-admitted practitioner of occult services (shall we say), ex-lead singer of Mercyful Fate, and leader of his own successful group named after him. We’re conducting an interview; King is intelligent, friendly, forthright, very keen to talk about his group’s new album, Abigail.

RONNIE JAMES DIO

THE KEVIN DUBROW/QUITE RIOT SPLIT!

J. Kordosh

The last time I saw Quiet Riot was on November 11, 1983. I know that because I wrote a story about them back then and I just found the story. On that date—nearly four years ago—Quiet Riot’s Metal Health had just hit #1 on the Billboard charts. They were the first metal band to ever crack the Top 10 with their debut album.

Y & T The Newest Beginning Yet

Paul Suter

Memories can be painfully short in the wicked world of rock 'n' roll; even with conservative signing policies, labels come up with an onslaught of new pro-duct each and every month, all of it ser-ving to whittle away at the status of even the hardiest of rock icons.

Anthrax In Nassau!