“Being an independent label, you’re faced with all sorts of challenges because you don’t have a major label’s money and distribution network. But you do have more freedom to do whatever you want and to find things that are a little bit different,” explained Brian Slagel in an interview with Hit Quarters in 2002. This year, Slagel celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of Metal Blade Records, his independent rock and heavy metal label that has played a part in the early careers of artists as diverse as Metallica, the Goo Goo Dolls and Cannibal Corpse. Despite recessions, changes in music taste and the dawn of the digital age, Slagel has remained a successful figure in the metal scene without compromising by bowing down to the mainstream.
Slagel was born in Los Angeles and spent his childhood there, where he discovered such classic rock groups as Deep Purple, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Black Sabbath. The scene that would make the biggest impression, however, was the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which marked the arrival of Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and Diamond Head. It would be these bands that would seduce the young Slagel and spark his passion for heavy metal. Following a performance of Michael Schenker at the Country Club in Reseda, Slagel met a young, enthusiastic metal fan from Denmark called Lars Ulrich and the two, along with a few friends, began to share tapes of their favourite groups.
In 1981, Slagel landed a job at a local music store called Oz Records, stocking imports in an effort to help publicise new or overlooked artists. He also began writing a fanzine called the New Heavy Metal Revue, while also lending his amateur journalism to both Kerrang! and Sounds as their Los Angeles correspondent and working as a promoter for radio station, KMET, and a club called The Valley. At this time, the live circuit around Hollywood was thriving with young metal acts and Slagel was eager to be a part of the scene. Bringing together groups that he had met during his promotional activities, Slagel decided to produce a compilation album that featured Ulrich’s new group, Metallica (misspelt on the cover as Mettallica), along with rising stars Ratt, Steeler and Bitch.
“I just went to all the bands and said if you can record something I can put this compilation album out, and they all said, “Sure, why not?” It was kind of the only exposure they were gonna get, you know?” recalled Slagel, in a quote that was republished in Mick Wall’s Metallica biography Enter Night. The compilation, entitled Metal Massacre (or, to give it its full title, as printed on the front cover, The New Heavy Metal Revue Presents Metal Massacre), emerged in June 1982, with Slagel distributing the record independently. What started out as a simple idea quickly grew into a product that attracted attention from various musicians and fans and soon Metal Blade was born. Among the first releases to be produced by Slagel’s new company was Damnation Alley, an EP from the aforementioned Bitch, and the self-titled debut from Demon Flight.
The minor success of Metal Massacre soon brought Slagel to the attention of other labels and, following a short-lived partnership with Metalworks, Metal Blade signed a distribution deal with Green World, who would soon blossom into Enigma Records. Following a reissue of Metal Massacre, Slagel brought together another host of artists for a sequel that included Armored Saint and Warlord, while also releasing albums for many of the featured bands. Metal Blade slowly gained momentum and, along with British label Music for Nations, began to dominate the independent metal scene, signing such emerging artists as Lizzy Borden and Voidod. Another significant band to join their roster was Slayer who, along with Metallica, would help to usher in the thrash metal scene of the mid-1980s.
While at a CMJ showcase in the late 1980s Slagel discovered a band that would become a prominent force within the label over the following twenty years; Gwar. Having already released their debut album, Hell-O, on another independent label, Metal Blade signed them soon afterwards and produced their follow-up, the well-received Scumdogs of the Universe. “Metal Blade has stayed consistent all of these years and it truly is the home of Gwar and indeed all of our crazy side projects as well. I really can’t say enough nice things about Slagel and crew, they are the fucking tits!” declared frontman Oderus Urungus in a 2010 interview with Digital Retribution, shortly after signing a new contract with the label. With their Grand Guignol-style horror theatrics and shock rock mentality, Gwar have remained a cult favourite among metal fans for over two decades, with Metal Blade allowing them complete creative control, even when it threatened deals with distribution partners such as Warner, whom the label worked with for a short time during the 1990s.
Another long-serving Metal Blade group was Cannibal Corpse, arguably the label’s most controversial act, whose artwork and dubious song titles (such as Entrails Ripped From a Virgin’s Cunt) have earned them both notoriety and a cult following, as well as a live cameo in the hit movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Metal Blade released their first album, Eaten Back to Life, in the summer of 1990, with producer Scott Burns fresh from his success with Sepultura‘s seminal classic Beneath the Remains. In March 2012 they released their twelfth studio album, Torture, having remained with the label for over twenty years.
In a contrast to the brutality of Cannibal Corpse, Metal Blade also signed a young punk group in the late 1980s called the Goo Goo Dolls. When guitarist John Rzeznik eventually took over as frontman, their sound began to evolve from basic punk to the mainstream rock they have since become renowned for, resulting in their 1998 breakthrough hit Iris. “They started out as more of a hardcore punk band. If you listen to the first album, Jed – the first album they did for us – you can hear that they can write great songs. They just matured over the years and wrote some stuff that’s not so heavy,” Slagel told Billboard in 2002.
As Metal Blade entered the new century they continued to work with both established artists and new bands, ranging from Cradle of Filth, Manowar and Kings X to All That Remains, As I Lay Dying and The Black Dahlia Murder. Even as the music industry changes and music fans turn to the internet for free downloading and file sharing, Metal Blade has tried to remain relevant. “We have been around for thirty years now and have seen a lot of change in the business including different formats. You have to adapt and use what you can to make things work. We have been able to do that and I do not see that changing. We embrace the future and the technology as well,” Slagel explained to Braingell Radio last month. “We are happy with what we have and that even seems to get bigger every year. It is all about your expectations and how you run your business. It works really well for us right now.”
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