The woman behind the curtain is busy today. She has too many orders to fill. Bottles of chemicals surround her as she leans over a small table and mixes a little from one and then another to create a “house blend” recipe while customers linger in the front room of…
Since the days of Joe’s Garage, North Texas’ metal venues have hosted some groundbreaking local bands like Rigor Mortis, Pantera and Drowning Pool with mosh pits reaching same intensity as the ones appearing at summer festivals at Gexa Energy Pavilion in Dallas, Dr Pepper Arena in Frisco or Quicktrip Park…
DOWN With Black Label Society, Butcher Babies, and Devil You Know Verizon Theatre, Grand Prairie Friday, May 23, 2014 Ten-year-old Jacob Trueblood had been waiting to meet Phil Anselmo all night. He’d been telling his mom that he wanted to give him a hug. He’s been listening to Pantera and…
Phil Anselmo is known by many things in the metal community. He’s been called “fucking brutal” when he takes the stage and the “Evel Kneivel” of heavy metal because of all his stage injuries. To some, he’s a brother and a tough guy; to others, he’s an asshole whom they’ll…
For nearly 20 years “Thrashin'” Alan Tuggle has been promoting metal on his radio show Hard Time Radio on KNON. It’s a position that has also afforded him opportunities to interview idols of the metal scene from Ronnie James Dio to “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott. He’s become a fixture in the…
Angus Young looks like a possessed schoolboy as fire explodes from his fingertips each time they dance across the fretboard of his signature Gibson SG. His older brother, Malcolm, has been providing fuel to his fire for more than four decades. And together they’ve created some of heavy metal’s most…
The Rail Club has been a mecca for metal since opening its doors in 2010. But new owner Josh Campbell hopes to expand it to include other genres of music, making it a mecca for all musicians. “When it comes to music, I play metal and I love metal,” Campbell…
This year’s Girls Rock Dallas’ annual Spring Fling festival will be held on Sunday at Sue Ellen’s bar in Oak Lawn. Although recently listed as one of the “Douchiest Bars in Dallas” by some local blog, this venue offers the perfect environment to channel a metal feel with a less…
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Ride for Dime, a charity event that raises funds for Little Kids Rock Foundation and pays homage to “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott. Every year co-founder Rob Elchelberger gathers bands from all across the country to play two nights of mind-blowing metal in honor of…
Donovan Warren stands center stage at The Rail Club, looking every bit the part of metal-band frontman: H.R. Giger-inspired motifs tattoo his arms. A pair of dice and an alien eye decorate the back of his hands. The words “Last Call” bleed from his fingertips. His long, blondish-brown beard is…
Cover bands, impersonators, tribute bands, they’re often the next best thing to the original act. Tickets are cheaper, and lines are usually nonexistent to get inside the club. Some of the band members even look and sound as if they’re channeling their idols as their instruments ignite the stage. Zoso…
In the DFW metalplex we’ve seen legendary guitarists meet an untimely end to their careers. Ten years ago, Dimebag Darrell Abbott of Pantera and Damage Plan was murdered by a deranged killer while playing a show in Ohio, and recently, Mike Scaccia of Ministry and Rigor Mortis died of heart…
The power of storytelling in songwriting has given birth to some of our most unforgettable songs like “Crossroads” by Robert Johnson, “Drifter’s Escape” by Bob Dylan or “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash. Songs that spin narratives from the art of nonfiction usually find a place in listeners’ hearts…
Ronnie Sterling isn’t your typical high school assistant principal. He’s also a guitarist in Protest, a local band known for its “unrelenting, no bullshit metal onslaught on stage.” It often comes as shock to students when they find out he plays in a metal band. “Wow, there’s no way,” they…
Jerry Warden is a conduit for promoting heavy metal in the North Texas area. The former lead singer of Warlock, one of the first heavy metal bands in DFW, started in the early ’80s hosting live shows in the middle of a pasture christened “Heavy Meadows.” He continued with several…
It seems like that, in the last two years, we’ve lost too many musicians and industry leaders in the North Texas music scene: Ronald Shannon Jackson, Kidd Kraddick, Donovan Warren, Monte Aaron Krause, DJ Quick Chris, Summer Amshoff and, of course, Mike Scaccia. Now Jason Merito joins the list of…
Bryan “Infidelix” Rodecker runs through the streets of Ireland trying to find some place to hide. He knows his assailant is getting closer. The clapping of the little man’s heels echoes through the streets of Dublin like the chiming of church bells. He doesn’t know what he’d done to piss…
Socrates once said, “Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is…
It sounds like tormented spirits screaming through the amplifiers as the guitarists play through the grinding riffs of “South of Heaven” by Slayer. They are fast, loud and soulful, as if generations of thrash musicians were inspiring them. Picks ignite strings that reverberate in rapid succession. Fingers run across the…
Every aspiring metal band knows that if they want their band truly to soar into the major leagues of arena playing, they need a drummer. Not just any drummer, but one who can keep the rhythm of the song and also provide the guttural devastation that lends depth and power…
Every working guitarists knows that if he doesn’t have a good guitar doctor, his dreams of being a master shredder who destroys the crowd with rakes from his pick as he slides it up the string are dead. From a broken headstock to a cracked neck, a guitar technician is…
Every generation has an underground music scene that only an elite group of fans and the NSA know of. In the ’60s, psychedelic music, for example, exploded onto the hippies’ counterculture scene with music by The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. (And let’s not forget the Velvet Underground.)…
