The episode on Early Metal US was a strange one.

We included the
stories of bands that, until I immersed myself in the research for the
episode, I had never even considered heavy metal. But during this pro-
cess it became clear that the story of early American metal couldnt
be properly told without Ted Nugent and Te Amboy Dukes, one of
Americas most celebrated garage rock bands. Although I wasnt a
fan of Teds music (nor his politics!), I was excited to include him in the
story, especially because he is such a larger-than-life characterto say
the least. We drove to his compound near Waco, Texas (yes, this co-
incidence was a bit creepy) and soon realized that the Nuge was gonna
be difcult to rein-in and
keep focused on talking
about music. He showed
me his gun collection
(I dropped a bunch of
ammo on the foor while
setting up the interview
which freaked me out),
shared some of his wild
boar sausage (killed and
cured by the man him-
self), regaled me with
stories of embarking on African safaris during tour breaks, treated me
to a lesson on musical burping (!), and berated me with opinions on the
state of America under the Obama administration. Tough Ted and I
dont see eye to eye on much, I lef his house with a deeper appreciation
of his musical legacy. Not to mention a newfound afnity for wild boar.
EPISODE 2:
EARLY METAL US

Metal Evolution Episode 102 Early US

Music-

Sam Dunn:
When people talk about the birth of heavy metal they generally talk about the great
British bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple but America also
played a really important role in the origins of this music and you cant talk about
American metal without talking about Kiss.

Music-

But the question for this episode is, what are the origins of American metal and how do
we get to Kiss?

Music- (Intro)

Music- (Surf Music)

Narration:
The evolution of heavy music in America goes back much further than the explosion of
Kiss in the 1970s and if there is one style of early American music that was heavy for its
time its surf music especially the sound of the surf guitar.

Sam Dunn:
And Ive been thinking back to the first guitar riff my Dad ever played for me and it was
a surf guitar song by the legendary Dick Dale and I remember loving it because it had
this real intense sort of shedding vibe to it. So Im wondering what place does surf music
have in the history of metal?
I read the little write-up on Dick Dale here at the museum and one of the first things it
says, father of heavy metal.

Dick Dale:
Thats what they called me, critics would say, this music sounds like the metallic
galloping of two trains coming and just crashing. I didnt consider myself a guitar player,
I dont know what an augmented ninth or thirteenth is and I dont care. I just bang on that
thing and I make it scream with pain or pleasure and I get sounds of Mother Nature.

Music-

Dick:
I heard about a man called Leo Fender, he said well how come you got to play so loud,
youre blowing up my amplifiers. And I said, well, because Im playing at a place called
the Rendezvous Ballroom and I want my guitar and speaker to sound like Gene Krupa.

Drum Sounds

Dick:
So the Stratocaster was built with a thick body so that it would give it that fat sound and I
put thick strings on it to gave it a fatter sound then Leo created the first 100-watt output
transformer peaking 180 watts. To this day thats never been matched and peoples ears
started, whoa what is this?

Don Branker (Concert Promoter):
He took the guitar and turned it into a instrument not just a small part of the music, he
was able to do things on the guitar that nobody had seen before. Now had he been playing
on a wall of amps like Van Halen had, heavy metal may have been twenty years earlier.

Music-

Narration:
Along with surf music another genre that was a distinctly American contribution to early
heavy metal was garage rock and it doesnt get much more American than Ted Nugent
who long before he became the Motor City Madman he was the guitarist for 60s garage
rockers the Amboy Dukes.

Sam Dunn:
Ive come all the way to his Spirit Wild Ranch deep in the heart of Texas and I think the
real challenge is to not have Ted talk about hunting and politics and actually try to focus
on the music.

Ted Nugent:
Barack, Barack Obama, you get that?

Sam Dunn:
Got it. Ted Nugent Take 3.

Ted Nugent (Guitar, The Amboy Dukes):
Open the show with that motherfucker. Its the only decent use I found for those
syllables, gas release.

Sam Dunn:
You heard it here at the ranch.

(Ted Nugent starts getting loud and overpowering)

Sam Dunn:
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Goddammit. The Amboy Dukes, were you
guys called garage rock?


Ted:
Sure the Amboy dukes were the quintessential garage band. We had all the flailing
kerrang outrage, the uninhibitedness, the furiousness of my Chuck Berry Bo Diddley
dreams was as raw and unrefined as possible. All of us garage bands, all of us kids taught
every band okay we cant play like pussies anymore.

Music-

John Drake (Vocals, The Amboy Dukes):
It was a bad boy attitude, you know just like a swaggering attitude, this is what we do.
The volume kept going up that was another thing you know, you just happen to notice it,
now you really just started getting this feeling.

Music-

Lenny Kaye (Journalist):
When the English bands came over here all brandishing guitars of some form or another,
it was like, oh we have to get back to where we started and thats when you have all these
garage bands in America suddenly taking root in every town all across the USA that
would certainly lay the ground work for the next stage of what the music would become.

Music-

Narration:
The American garage rock movement created fertile ground for bands to experiment with
heavy sounds in the mid 60s and it was the Steppenwolf song Born To Be Wild that
not only pushed music in a heavier direction but also featured the phrase, heavy metal.

Was Steppenwolf the first band to use the term heavy metal?

John Kay (Vocals, Steppenwolf):
To be honest with you it doesnt really matter very much, I do know that from that time
on there were people who thought of Steppenwolf as being the band that was perhaps
kind of a prototype for other bands to come which eventually became heavy metal.

Music-

Corky Laing (Vocals, Mountain):
The drums are there pulsing away kicking ass you know, you get shivers when you hear
the organ, the guitar is rolling, John Kay had that leadership voice of the generation, he
didnt just tell you about it he made a point of it you know, it wasnt just a lecture. He
beat people up in terms of telling them how theyre gonna live their life now and how
things are gonna change.

Music-

John Kay:
When we started playing some of the tunes that we kicking around we realized that our
sound was not only more aggressive and rocking heavier but also we were not stretching
out into these kind of ethereal sounding, you know eight minute songs that had long
sweeping solos that you know etc. we were more like, make your statement and do it in a
compact fashion and hit hard and then move on.

Music-

Sam Dunn:
In the late sixties rock music in America was becoming increasingly heavy and
aggressive and loud and one of the bands that often get cited as the loudest of all time is
Californias Blue Cheer.

Music-

Sam:
And so Im meeting with guitarist Randy Holden because I want to ask him, what was the
attraction to playing at such punishing volume?

Music-

Sam:
Tell me about San Francisco at the time and to what extent you guys were breaking free
from the typical San Francisco scene.

Randy Holden (Guitar, Blue Cheer):
The psychedelic vibe kind of co-mingled with folk music and rock and that was you
know, had its place I suppose, for myself I was always attracted to minor key and
powerful notes, I was tuning my guitar to D, a whole step note down from the time I
was playing surf music and I did it because I just love the sound of that thunder.

Dickie Peterson (1948-2009, Bass/Vocals Blue Cheer):
When Blue Cheer started, in San Francisco at the time the music scene was so wide open,
I mean there were no rules and it was the only way a band like Blue Cheer could have
surfaced was in that environment because we were going against all the grains, we were
too loud, we were, our music was too simple, we werent sophisticated enough, we were
rowdy, we were obnoxious little punks.

Geddy Lee (Vocals/Bass, Rush):
In many ways they were the first metal band but they didnt think in terms of metal, it
was volume that they were all about and fury.

Music-


Sam Dunn:
What was the appeal to you of playing so loud?

Randy Holden:
I dont know Im born with that, thats just something that totally takes me away. Theres
something, theres beauty in that. I would sit and imagine what would it sound like if you
were right there when a nuclear explosion went off and I thought if you had enough
amplifiers you could come close to that maybe.

Music-

ACT2

Music-

Narration:
Perhaps the most important city in the development of early metal in the U.S. is Detroit.
So Ive come to the motor city to meet with Wayne Kramer guitarist for the legendary
Detroit band the MC5 to find out why this city became the epicenter of heavy music back
in the late sixties.

Sam Dunn:
Can you describe what things were like back then?

Wayne Kramer (Guitar, MC5):
There was a sense of urgency in finding a militant position to take to oppose the
disastrous direction things were going in. Every day there were developments on the
national and international scene, political developments that poured gasoline on the fire.
Flower power was nice but that wasnt enough power, my generation was in agreement
that the way our parents were doing things completely was a disaster and the only chance
we got is to say something about it and say it as loud as we can and we found that electric
guitars were a good way to do that.


Music-

Wayne Kramer:
There was an esthetic that developed in Detroit unique in the world and it kind of gave
me the sense that you know I dont have to live in New York, I dont have to live in
London you know, I dont have to live in San Francisco, weve got something going on
here and we were all influenced by the industrial base of Detroit. This idea of metal and
the noise showed up in the music.

James Williamson (Guitar, The Stooges):
I think the music really more than anything else was a reaction to the industrial nature of
Detroit. You were either working on cars or selling cars or thinking about cars.
Scott Asheton (Drums, The Stooges):
Or stealing cars.

James Williamson:
Or stealing cars.

Wayne Kramer:
Every weeknight clubs would be full of workers that were working days or working
afternoons and they could stay in the bars till 2 in the morning and so bands could play.
So there was a lot going on for a musician.

Jaan Uhelzski (Co-Founder, Creem Magazine
We had all the California bands like the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and Big Brother but
the Summer of Love never made it to Detroit. We liked things that really got us off, you
know, simple direct over the top make you move, make you want to dance stuff. The
MC5 especially Wayne Kramer, they would go, Kick out the jams motherfucker, get off
the stage, meaning this is a weak performance, just get out of here and that just became
kind of their tag phrase, their motto.

Music-

Sam Dunn:
So why does The MC5 get included in the conversation about heavy metal?

Wayne Kramer:
Well The MC5 gets the credit or the blame, and Ill take both, for what came to be known
as metal and punk rock, wasnt my plan (laughs). Guys like Townshend, Jeff Beck,
Jimmy Page, I was heavy influenced by these guys and when I combined that with what I
was hearing from the free jazz movement, I thought well this is clearly the next step. I
can do things with the guitar to make it sound very unguitar like.

Music-

Ted Nugent (Guitar, The Amboy Dukes)
I thought I was a bad motherfucker on the guitar, I thought the Amboy Dukes were bad
motherfuckers they had that James Brown Wilson Pickett Sammy Davis shake going on
and then I saw The MC5, it was stupefying.

Lenny Kaye (Journalist):
My life changed by The MC5, a great show band, beyond politics, beyond anything, a
great loud roar of high energy, complimented on the other side by the complete simplicity
and directness of The Stooges.

Music-


Narration:
While The MC5 created a sound that hadnt been heard before in America, another
Detroit band that took music to new levels of rawness and intensity in the late sixties was
Iggy and the Stooges.

Iggy Pop:
When we were forming our group The Stooges before we were ever on stage, wed all
liked heavier rock, that just made me feel like it had an inner unstated message. To insert
myself in a primal way, to take the sex when I wanted it, to take money when I wanted it,
to be somebody not to have a job and to be somebody.

Music-

Iggy Pop:
When we first played those songs, people would do this, I mean literally, if there was any
room to get back most people got back but didnt want to leave and some people, the type
that later became called stoners or sluts, those are our two big fan bases and then a
few intellectuals, theyd come forward and the others would peek in horror from the
back of the place and the shit sounded heavy. Thats what it was desperately important to
me to be.

Music-

Iggy Pop:
I think the one thing that allows people to find all sorts of stuff in our music is that we
never really stuck it out in your face too much. It was in your face in one way but in
another way it had kind of a sullen, an inward quality that you also find in goth music,
grunge music, in metal music.

Music-

Narration:
The Detroit bands established a new direction in heavy music in the late sixties but
Detroits reign as the epicenter of American hard rock was short lived. By the early
seventies the legendary Grande Ballroom had closed and The MC5 and Iggy and the
Stooges had fallen apart due to drug problems. But there would be one Detroit musician
who would eventually drag American hard rock out of the underground and into the
mainstream.

ACT 3

Music-

Narration:
The story of American heavy metal would not be complete without the Alice Cooper
Band. Theyre one of the most extreme live acts of all time and theyve also written some
of heavy metals most memorable radio anthems. So how did this outrageous
underground band from Detroit get their start?

Alice Cooper:
Every weekend at the Grande or the Eastown or these great rock dungeons, it was like,
you know, The MC5, Iggy and Alice. Iggy was the king of the punks and I was this other
thing, I was this sort of, you know, Phantom of the Opera kind of character. We loved it,
you know, we could go as far as we wanted to go on stage, and I mean, it was always
whos crazier Iggy or Alice?

Sam Dunn:
What do you think enabled you guys to achieve that marriage between a harder sound
and yet also be accessible on radio at the same time?

Alice Cooper:
It was time and we had a producer named Bob Ezrin who got it, he heard us at Maxs
Kansas City, he heard Eighteen and he went ohh, he said, whats that song Im Edgey?
and I said theres no, you mean Eighteen? And he goes, yah yah yah. He says that song is
so dumb, its a hit. We would play it and he would go no no no no, dumb it down, the
song is about a guy thats Im eighteen, Im a boy, Im a man ahh and I dig it.

Music-

Bob Ezrin (Producer):
I didnt have a clue what I was doing in the early days of Alice Cooper. Mike Bruce was
writing great pop stuff that then the band would take and make into hard rock and then
Alice had these you know strange ideas and sensibilities that he would inject into the
lyrics. The job that I had was to take all of those elements and to organize them in a way
that brought a kind of spine to each of the songs.

Alice Cooper:
Bob knew how to take our insanity and make it into a real palatable package. Songs like
Eighteen and Schools Out, even if you hate Alice Cooper you have to like those
records because theyre fun to listen to.

Music-

Sam Dunn:
Did radio have a significant role in catapulting Alice?

Bob Ezrin:
The Alice Cooper group owe their career to radio, it was actually Rosalie Trombley who
was at CKLW The Big 8 in Windsor, Ontario, the other side of the river from Detroit
who heard our sad little rendition of Im Eighteen.


Alice Cooper:
She heard this record and her son liked it, her teenage son, her son said thats the coolest
record, so she added it and the next thing you know, it got request, request, request and it
was a major hit. Now if you were to hit on CKLW that means you, that was the biggest
station in the Midwest, if you got a hit on CKLW you had a national hit. Radio wise we
were a bit of an oddity. The hardest rock thing on the radio at that time probably was The
Guess Who. To crack the Top 40 you were up against Motown, Burt Bacharach. In order
to get into that Top 40 you had to have a record really made a dent, that made people go,
what was that? You know and thats what Eighteen did.

Bob Ezrin:
Then after that we were looked at like a radio act. It was kind of expected, it wasnt a
matter of trying to get radio anymore, it was radio was waiting for the next thing we were
going to do.

Music-

Narration:
With Im Eighteen on the charts and Schools Out hitting number one in the UK,
Alice Cooper was now a household name. But radio success was an anomaly for hard
rock bands during the 1970s. For most bands, touring was the only way to reach
audiences and theres no better example than the successful touring act than Kiss.

Music-

Sam Dunn:
I wanted to get you perspective on how touring became so critical during the seventies.

Ace Frehley (Guitar, Kiss):
In the early days I remember playing certain places where I knew the people werent
huge fans when we walked in. People in the audience after you know the first couple
songs, some of them would be sitting like this going, all right prove it. Half way through
the show you know people were up and you know by the time the drums levitated and
everything blew up, they walked out of the club you know, fans.

Peter Criss (Drums, Kiss):
You know we do these shows, sell it out, there were cheering and smiling, we got a lot of
girls at night, had a great party and then go back and go, why arent we on the radio?
Next day we would read the papers, it said we sucked, we were loud, we were boisterous,
we were out of control, they dont understand us, this band should be killed or shot or
hung. Whats wrong here?

Christopher Knowles (Author, The Secret History Of Rock N Roll):
If youre not getting played on the radio you have to play it to the people directly. This is
before MTV, this is before You Tube, touring was really the only way that they could get
their music out to the people. So these guys are touring incessantly.
Sammy Hagar (Vocals, Montrose/Van Halen):
There was a cult thing to where a band would come to town and you had 500 or 600
people that were saying, Im gonna see this band but even Kiss didnt explode on their
first record, you know they went out and worked and opened for people and busted their
balls out on the road.

Larry Harris (Casablanca Records):
Heres a band who was only played on FM radio, got very little Top 40 airplay which is
what most bands in those days had to get to explode, and we had left Warner Brothers
who was our distributor and we had none of our own money and we couldnt afford to
put them back into the studio so what we did was do a live album because we really had
no other choice.

Music-

Sam Dunn:
Why do a live record at that point?

Peter Criss:
Desperation, and yah, we were like at the end of our rope, we were so frustrated that we
could not get our sound ?? You have a lot of other English bands, you have from
Zeppelin to The Who, all these other bands, a few bands by then did do live albums and
they sounded phenomenal, why cant we do this? And finally Eddie Kramer came into
the picture, we went out on the road with Eddie with a bunch of trucks and we recorded
every night live. When we went and listened every night in the trailer, that it was so
exciting, what we were missing was the audience, the screaming, the kids involved in the
energy of the music, we thought now this is what kids will bring home to their living
room and get partied out and get crazed and stoned, and put it on and party all night long.

Music-

Larry Harris:
We never thought it would explode the way it exploded, nobody did, the live album gave
this energy that no studio album could capture with this band. It was for fans who saw
them and wanted to relive it and it was for fans who didnt see them and got off on what
was going on, the excitement.

Ace Frehley:
It was the right record at the right time and it gave the band a shot in the arm because
prior to that the first three albums did ok, we were in a million album selling group, if
Alive would have failed you know, I dont know what would have happened. You know,
but Kisstory is Kisstory (laughs).

Music-


Narration:
Alive was Kiss first album to reach the top 10 and is still the bands longest charting
record of all time, so now that Kiss and Alice Cooper were selling millions of records,
what did it take to bring the entire American hard rock genre into main stream culture?

Music-

ACT 4

(Outside Noise)

Narration:
In the early seventies Kiss wasnt the only American hard rock band building a devoted
fan base through their live show. Kiss main competitor was Bostons Aerosmith.

Music-

Narration:
Aerosmith has sold 150 million albums and holds the record for the most gold and
platinum albums by an American group. But Aerosmiths musical contribution to the
evolution of heavy metal remains largely untold. So Im meeting with bassist and
founding member Tom Hamilton to find out where the Areosmith sound came from and
why it made such a big impact back in the early seventies.

Tom Hamilton (Bass, Aerosmith):
Joe and I had been playing together in bands before Aerosmith when we were teenagers.
We loved Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, we technically werent great musicians, we just
got the loudest amps we could. Turn them up and play it as fast as we could. Steven was
sort of on a parallel route with his bands but they were very professional, very polished,
more towards pop. Joey was way into funk bands, Kool and the Gang and James Brown.
When we finally met up and got together, those elements developed into the sound of the
band.

Christopher Knowles:
Aerosmith to me is a swing band, all their riffs are basically horn charts transposed to the
guitar. I mean Aerosmith are really taking the Rolling Stones and combining it with Led
Zeppelin, talk about a sure fire formula for success.

Slash:
They had a certain kind of swagger that sort of developed and progressed from record to
record. I just love the sort of misfit almost hopeless screw up sort of sounded like on
record but with this great back beat and this sort of like anxiety-ridden kind of delivery.

Music-


Tom Hamilton:
When we first came out, Rolling Stone just said these guys are just a second rate Stones
rip off basically you know, oh I get it, you know Jagger/Richards. The rock press wanted
to hear a little bit more, you know, of intellectual component from their bands and we
were just about, you know, rocking out.

David Krebs (Former Manager):
Aerosmith was, a sore thumb because I think at that point in time Columbia looked at
Aerosmith as being in their eyes dclass, like the difference between where Havard and
you belong at some local school kind of thinking.

Tom Hamilton:
We just had to go out on the road and now you would call it viral marketing, get on the
best tours we could opening for whatever band. We opened for some weird people back
then but it was a crowd, we didnt care. And so eventually you know we just built that up
to a critical mass.

Music-

Sam Dunn:
As you know I mean, the band really started to hit big with the album Toys in the Attic.

David Krebs:
Toys in the Attic had Sweet Emotion and Walk This Way. Dream On was a
single came out, off of the first album and I think may have cleared the high seventies
and fell off the charts. After we had success I convinced Columbia to re-release Dream
On and it went to Number 6.

Tom Hamilton:
I remember the first time hearing one of our songs on the radio, thats when Dream On
became a hit. I realized, oh my god if Im hearing it, that means theres like thousands of
other people listening to it right now for the first time and it was such an amazing rush.
All at once the whole thing just gave way and we were this big band and we were playing
stadiums, playing in front of 50, 60 thousand people. We had reached a creative pinnacle
and we were staring to become successful doing something like what we idolized, boy
were we having a fun time at that point.

Music-

Narration:
With Aerosmith cracking AM radio on Toys in the Attic, they opened the door for
other American hard rock bands to hit it big on radio and theres no seventies hard rock
song more radio friendly than Kiss power ballad Beth.

Music-


Sam Dunn:
Tell me the story of how you came to work on Destroyer and specifically Beth.

Bob Ezrin:
The first thing that happened was that I saw them play live in, I believe it was Saginaw,
MI in a 9000 seater and what was remarkable about it was that, from the moment they
started playing people were up on their feet and they never sat down they just stayed on
their feet through the whole concert and yelled and screamed and pumped their arms in
the air and they left and they were very happy. But the whole crowd was made up of 15-
year-old boys so then I met them and I said we got to expand your horizons here and your
fan base. What we have to do is make you more attractive, a little more romantic so in
looking through Peters material he had this thing called Beck.

Peter Criss:
And I said, I got a great song man, and I know we dont do ballads, god forbid the band
dont do, because the band, that was the rules well never ever do a ballad as long as we
live and so I spruced it up and I upped the beat and I sang it to Gene, he goes, thats not
so bad and finally when Ezrin got to rehearsals I sang it for Bobby and he said no I hear
it much lower and I think we should call it Beth.

Bob Ezrin:
It was almost like a country song was sort of folky, you know it had a kind of little
bounce to beck (sings) I hear you calling so I said to Peter, do you mind if I take this
home and play around with it a little bit and he said, no go ahead. Once I hit that little riff
in the piano, I suddenly heard a lush you know orchestral approach to this thing and I
heard a lush ballad.

Music-

Bob Ezrin:
And then the job was to go back and sell Kiss you know the cock and balls maters of the
universe on the idea of doing a song with a piano and an orchestra.

Peter Criss:
Gene and Paul, they hated it so they knew I had to go in and sing it, the two of them were
sitting there in the console as I was out of the room and theyre doing this and theyre
doing this to me, so Ezrin threw them out and sure enough by throwing them out we got
it maybe on the fifth take and it came out beautiful.

Music-

Peter Criss:
The album went out and they wound up putting it on the b-side of Detroit Rock City.
And sure enough a DJ in Georgia flipped it over one day for the hell of it and put it on
and then the phones starting ringing and it was like, you know, play that song again.
Once Beth got on, everything got on, everything went gold, everything started being
played.

Ace Frehley:
Beth was a big shot in the arm for us, it gave us exposure to people that normally
wouldnt even know who Kiss was. That album sold twice as many copies because of
that one song. We all got houses and cars out of it too, you know that didnt hurt.

Music-

ACT 5

Announcer:
Im talking to you people over here, I would appreciate it if youd stand up again and
move to your rear, please ladies and gentlemen Mr. Ted Nugent.

Music-

Narration:
By 1978 American hard rock was peaking and there was no bigger celebration of the
genre than Cal Jam 2, a massive two-day festival in the heart of Southern California. Four
years earlier Cal Jam 1 featured British headliners Black Sabbath and Deep Purple but by
78 the focus had shifted to American bands.

Sam Dunn:
What happens between 74 and 78?

Don Branker (Concert Promoter):
Well you started seeing a transition, all of a sudden American bands started doing a
sound that attracted a wider base audience and that was Nugent, Heart, Foreigner and
Aerosmith of course and we drew a 100,000 more people with that show than we did the
show in 74.

Ted Nugent:
It was a great great day, the audience was awesome, it was perfect, it was just a sea of
unified celebration.

Music-

Sam Dunn:
What are your memories of Cal Jam 2?

Tom Hamilton:
We were staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel and every half an hour somebody was coming
in and saying, my God theres a 175,000 people, no theres 250,000, theres 300,00
people until there was 350,000 people there. The thought that way out in the darkness
people were just going all the way to this invisible horizon, it was really cool.

David Krebs:
Strategically we were at a point where Im beginning to see cracks in Aerosmith and part
of my thinking was to try to do these giant events to build sort of a canopy over them
while they were covered because it was not fun by then.

Tom Hamilton:
We were starting to make money and were starting to buy instead of just little packets of
stuff, we could buy bags of it, it was so decadent. One of the sad things about our history
is that you know moments like that are inspiring and really exciting but theyre also, it
brings out a lot of intensity that somehow got the better of us. Talk about monkeys with
guns you know, you give these guys this situation and what do they do, they get burnt out
and fucked up and blow it.

Music-

Narration:
In the wake of Cal Jam 2 Aerosmith started to freefall and their record sales were
declining. So given that the biggest band in American hard rock was struggling, what was
the state of the hard rock genre as a whole?

Christopher Knowles:
The record industry is hurting badly, sales are way down and a lot of the big groups that
made the seventies the seventies are really starting to either break up or burn out or sell
out.

Don Branker:
Hard rock became kind of irrelevant to a whole new crop of people interested in music.
You stared seeing music dissect and diversify as the beginning of disco even started.

Jaan Uhelzski:
Disco, disco killed so much in its wake.

Sam Dunn:
I Was Made For Lovin You baby.

Jaan Uhelzski:
I know. But you know, yah, I have no excuse for that.

Music-

Peter Criss:
A disco song (laughs). They bitched about a ballad, were doing disco now. It was like to
me Black Sabbath doing a disco song, I could not see Ozzy singing a disco song.
Larry Harris:
There were a lot of bands who wanted disco doing disco songs, Kiss saw what was
happening with Donna Summer and the Village People and Cher and they saw the sales
and how huge this was becoming. Knowing Gene and Ace and everybody they probably
said, well if we can sell more records and make more money well give it a shot.

Ace Frehley:
I Was Made For Lovin You was a huge departure and it was something that I wasnt
really happy about either because it started to get into the disco vein but somehow it
happened then, it was a big hit. Do we want to be remembered for it, is the big question.

Music-

Narration:
Kiss doing disco put the nail in the coffin for American heavy metal and by the late
seventies Creem magazine had declared it officially dead. But it was California
newcomers Van Halen that help reinvigorate metal in America. So what exactly was new
about the sound of Van Halen?

Slash:
When I first heard Van Halen I was just like, wow, the overall vibe of Van Halen was
very energetic and very new sounding, very fresh sounding and it had a ton of attitude, it
was just in your face.

Kevin Estrada:
It was time to give up on Styx, you know it was time to give up on Foghat even though
those guys might have been 20 or 25, they look like theyre 40 with those mustaches.
When the first Van Halen album came out it just blew me away and we never heard
anything like that put together in that kind of way with the hooks and the hard edge.

Michael Anthony (Bass, Van Halen):
When we came on the scene we didnt want to be a pigeon hold into one kind of genre so
we would always tell everybody, no were big rock because it was just something that
was different you know, Van Halen plays big rock.

David Lee Roth:
We got everything, we got enough food and booze for about 500/700 people here this
evening you know. Originally what we were gonna to do, is that we were gonna turn all
the equipment around backwards and show our behind to the audience and that way
everybody be backstage you know.

Christopher Knowles:
Van Halen recapture what I think hard rock lost in the seventies and thats sort of a
Dionysian celebration. Partically with the rise of more distinct heavy metal, they lost that
feeling of celebration and Van Halen are all about that.

Sammy Hagar:
They came on crazy drinking friggin straight out of the bottle and doing drugs and got
the chicks. Just opened it up for Poison, opened it up for Motley Crue. Van Halen were
the next generation in my opinion of reinventing metal.

Music-



METAL EVOLUTION

EARLY USA

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Directed & Produced by
SCOT McFADYEN & SAM DUNN

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Written by
RALPH CHAPMAN & SAM DUNN & SCOT McFADYEN

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Edited by
MATTHEW WALSH
REGINALD HARKEMA

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Director of Photography
MARTIN HAWKES

---------------------------Start Rolling Credits---------------------------

Appearances by
MICHAEL ANTHONY
SCOTT ASHETON
DON BRANKER
ALICE COOPER
PETER CRISS
DICK DALE
JOHN DRAKE
KEVIN ESTRADA
BOB EZRIN
ACE FREHLEY
SAMMY HAGAR
TOM HAMILTON
LARRY HARRIS
RANDY HOLDEN
LENNY KAYE
CHRISTOPHER KNOWLES
WAYNE KRAMER
DAVID KREBS
GEDDY LEE
TED NUGENT
DICKIE PETERSON
IGGY POP
SLASH
JAAN UHELZSKI
JAMES WILLIAMSON

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Head of Production
ALLAN WEINRIB

Producer Assistants
DAVE PATTENDEN
LANA BELLE MAURO

Associate Producers
RALPH CHAPMAN
LIISA LADOUCEUR

Music Supervisors
AMY FRITZ
ERIN HUNT

Graphic Design and Animation
DEREK TOKAR

Supervising Producer
DAVE PATTENDEN


Production & Post Production Coordinator
LANA BELLE MAURO

Location Sound Recordist
KEVIN MACKENZIE

Additional Sound Recordists
STACY BROWNRIGG
JASON FYRBERG

Additional Filming
DAVE PATTENDEN
JONATHAN STAAV

Camera Assistant
JONATHAN STAAV

Technical Supervisor
ANDREW KOWALCHUK

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Online Editor and Post Production Supervisor
ANDREW KOWALCHUK

Assistant Editors
MARY JURIC
AMY DAVIS

Writing and Research Supervisor
LIISA LADOUCEUR

Researchers
MARTIN POPOFF
RANDY CHASE

Visual Researchers
SCOTT McMANUS
CORINNE McDERMOTT

Transcription by
MARTIN POPOFF
GRAHAM KENT
APRIL SUEN

Title Design
DEREK TOKAR

Set Decorator - Title Sequence
JEFF BAI

Design Production Assistant
ADRIENNE MARCUS-RAJA

Re-recording Mixer
LOU SOLAKOFSKI

Mixing Assistant
GRAHAM ROGERS

Audio Post Production Facilities
TATTERSALL SOUND AND PICTURE, TORONTO
SUPERSONICS PRODUCTIONS, TORONTO

Dialogue Editor
FRED BRENNAN

Sound Effects & Music Editor
DAVE ROSE

Assistant Sound Editor
SUE FAWCETT

Colourist
JOANNE ROURKE

Closed Captioning & Descriptive Video
CFA COMMUNICATIONS, TORONTO

Production Accountant
PATRICIA AGUIRRE for BANGER FILMS, INC

Legal Counsel by
DAVID STEINBERG for HEENAN BLAIKIE

Auditors
JIMMY YE for KUDLOW McCANN

Interim Financing
AVER MEDIA

Travel Agents
HEATHER REIMER for STAGE & SCREEN TRAVEL
RANDI GELMAN for FROSCH TRAVEL

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Archival Photos and Videos Courtesy of
(ALPHABETICALLY)
AMALIE R. ROTHSCHILD
BOB LEAFE/FRANK WHITE PHOTO AGENCY
CARL LUNDGREN
CASABLANCA ENTERTAINMENT
CHRIS WALTER - PHOTOFEATURES
CREEM MEDIA INC.
DALE GAGO
DELTONE
ETIQUETTE RECORDS
FRANK WHITE
FRAZER PENNABAKER
GARY GRIMSHAW
GNP CRESCENDO
HISTORIC FILMS ARCHIVE, LLC
IAN DICKSON
ISLAND/MERCURY
JANET MACOSKA
JERRY DUFFY ROCKSHOWVIDEOS.COM
JIM KOZLOWSKI/FRANK WHITE PHOTO AGENCY
LAURENS VAN HOUTEN/FRANK WHITE PHOTO AGENCY
LENI SINCLAIR
MARTY TEMME ARCHIVE
PETER CRISS PUBLISHING
PHOTO OF AEROSMITH SUPPLIED BY GEMS/GETTY IMAGES
PHOTO OF AMBOY DUKES SUPPLIED BY MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
PHOTO OF LEO FENDER SUPPLIED BY MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
PHOTOS OF AEROSMITH SUPPLIED BY FIN COSTELLO/GETTY IMAGES
PHOTOS OF DICK DALE SUPPLIED BY MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
RAINMAN, INC.
REELIN' IN THE YEARS PRODUCTIONS, LLC
RON PONWALL/FRANK WHITE PHOTO AGENCY
SONY MUSIC
THOUGHT EQUITY MOTION
TROELS HADBERG
UNIVERSAL MUSIC
UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP
VH1
WARNER BROS.
WARNER CHAPPELL


Music
(IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)

The Trooper
Written by: HARRIS
Performed by: IRON MAIDEN
Published by: Universal Music Publishing Group a division of Universal Music Canada Inc.

Detroit Rock City
Written by: KISS
Performed by: KISS
Published by: Universal Music Publishing Group a division of Universal Music Canada Inc.

Misirlou
Written by: LEEDS/PINA/ROUBANIS/RUSSELL/WISE
Performed by: DICK DALE
Published by: EMI Grove Park Music Inc.

Drummin Man
Written by: KRUPA/PARHAM
Performed by: GENE KRUPA
Published by: EMI Robbins Catalog Inc.

Baby, Please Dont Go
Written by: WILLIAMS
Performed by: THE AMBOY DUKES
Published by: EMI Full Keel Music

Journey To The Center Of The Mind
Written by: NUGENT/FARMER
Performed by: THE AMBOY DUKES
Published by: Rockland Music & You Look Good Music Publishing

Born To Be Wild
Written by: BONFIRE
Performed by: STEPPENWOLF
Published by: Universal Music Publishing Group a division of Universal Music Canada Inc.

Summertime Blues
Written by: COCHRA/CAPEHART
Performed by: BLUE CHEER
Published by:Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp.

Looking At You
Written by: DAVIS/DERMINER/KAMBES/SMITH/TOMICH
Performed by: MC5
Published by: Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp & Robert Derminer

Kick Out The Jams
Written by: DAVIS/DERMINER/KAMBES/SMITH/TOMICH
Performed by: MC5
Published by: Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp & Robert Derminer

1969
Written by: ALEXANDER/ASHETON/ASHETON/POP
Performed by: THE STOOGES
Published by: Bug Music & Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp OBO Itself and Stooge Staffel Music

TV Eye
Written by: ALEXANDER/ASHETON/ASHETON/POP
Performed by: THE STOOGES
Published by: Bug Music & Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp OBO Itself and Stooge Staffel Music

I Wanna Be Your Dog
Written by: ALEXANDER/ASHETON/ASHETON/POP
Performed by: THE STOOGES
Published by: Bug Music & Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp OBO Itself and Stooge Staffel Music

Im Eighteen
Written by: BRUCE/BUXTON/COOPER/SMITH/DUNAWAY
Performed by: ALICE COOPER
Published by: 19th Opus Publishing obo Third Palm Music & Ezra Music Corp.

Schools Out
Written by: BRUCE/BUXTON/COOPER/SMITH/DUNAWAY
Performed by: ALICE COOPER
Published by: 19th Opus Publishing obo Third Palm Music & Ezra Music Corp.

Deuce
Written by: SIMMONS
Performed by: KISS
Published by: Universal Music Publishing Group a division of Universal Music Canada Inc.

Rock And Roll All Night
Written by: SIMMONS/STANLEY
Performed by: KISS
Published by: Universal Music Publishing Group a division of Universal Music Canada Inc.

Train Kept A Rollin
Written by: BRADSHAW/KAY/NATHAN
Performed by: AEROSMITH
Published by: Fort Knox Music Inc. & Trio Music Company

Beth
Written by: CRISS/EZRIN/PENRIDGE
Performed by: KISS
Published by: Peter Criss Publishing & Rock Steady Music c/o Reach Music Publishing, Inc & Chappell & Co Inc.

Cat Scratch Fever
Written by: NUGENT
Performed by: TED NUGENT
Published by: MAGICLAND MUSIC

I Was Made For Loving You
Written by: CHILD/EZRIN/PENRIDGE
Performed by: KISS
Published by: Universal Music Publishing Group a division of Universal Music Canada Inc.



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Thanks To
VILLAGE RECORDING STUDIOS, LA
RAINBOW BAR & GRILL, LA
LE PARC SUITES HOTEL, LA
THAT METAL SHOW
RUTH MYER GALLERY, CA
COOPERSTOWN, PHOENIX
THE MUSIC INSTRUMENT MUSEUM, PHOENIX
WALDORF ASTORIA HOTEL, NY
WILLIAM STONE
KISS CONVENTION, NJ
GIBSON SHOWROOM, LONDON

Special Thanks To
PATRICE BUTTERFIELD
SARAH HALES & CALEB HALES McFADYEN
KEN & DENISE DUNN
NAN & MAURICE McFADYEN
NOAH SEGAL

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Produced in association with The Government of Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit


and with the Assistance of The Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit



and in association with Much More Music


Distributed by Tricon Films Inc.

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FOR VH1 CLASSIC:

Production Management
RACHEL ROCA

Standards and Practices
ALICIA GARY

Business and Legal Affairs
SETH LEVIN
GLORIMAR NEGRON

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Coordinating Producer
JAY MORAN

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Executive Producers
RICK KRIM
LEE ROLONTZ
BEN ZURIER

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The following has been a Vh1 Classic Special Presentation (End Page)

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BANGER LOGO

Ownership of this motion picture is protected by copyright and other applicable laws of Canada, the United States
and other countries. Any unauthorized exhibition, distribution, or reproduction of this motion picture or any part
thereof, including the soundtrack, may result in severe civil penalties.

2011 Metal Evolution Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

www.bangerfilms.com

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