Book Review: Greg Prato – Survival Of The Fittest: Heavy Metal in the 1990's

Book Review: Greg Prato – Survival of the Fittest: Heavy Metal in the 1990's
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Greg Prato - Survival of
the Fittest: Heavy Metal in
the 1990s

The party was over for glam-metal and more traditional metal acts weren't having such a good time of it either, their days in the sun darkened by dour, flannel-clad hordes from the Pacific Northwest intent on making everybody as depressed as they were.

Once and for all, a new lengthy examination of metal in the '90s by author Greg Prato completely eviscerates the wrongheaded party line that grunge was some kind of powerful insecticide that wiped out the entire genre as a whole, even if it did seem to, at the very least, harsh headbangers' buzz for a time. Still, after grunge's cleansing purge, heavy metal – beaten to a pulp in the press and, for a time, left for dead in record label boardrooms – miraculously recovered and even thrived, its durability enhanced by its own evolution.

Utilizing the oral history format that served him so well with other tomes, such as "Iron Maiden: '80, '81," "The Eric Carr Story" and "Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music," Prato covers a great deal of territory here, interviewing close to 90 subjects – Eddie Trunk, Riki Rachtman, Def Leppard's Joe Elliott, Overkill's Bobby Blitz, Les Claypool from Primus, Phil Anselmo, Cinderella's Tom Kiefer, Scott Weiland and others too numerous to mention – for over 600 pages of candid, insightful observations and memories from those who experienced one of the biggest sea changes in rock history. Along the way, Prato chronicles the splintering of metal and hard rock into seemingly a thousand sub-genres, as metal seemed to merge with "alternative rock."

In his forward to Prato's work, ex-Pantera bassist Rex Brown writes, "Back in the '90s, us and quite a few of our peers were doing something that was off-the-cuff, and you had to make it your own brand and style." Innovation was the order of the day, as bands like Pantera, Nine Inch Nails,Sepultura, Fear Factory, White Zombie and Kyuss expanded the possibilities of a genre that had gone stale, and Prato takes great pains to chronicle the onset and development of stylistic shifts that resulted in prog metal, extreme metal, funk metal, industrial metal, stoner metal and, of course, nu metal.

At the same time, Prato attacks the subject from all angles, painting a well-rounded picture of just what the hell happened in metal's most perplexing decade. It explores, in depth, Guns 'N Roses' increasingly grandiose aspirations and precipitous decline, the explosion of Nirvana, band break-ups, changes with KISS, Rush and Aerosmith, the "Gary Cherone Years" of Van Halen, and other earth-shattering events. Even with such a prodigious page count, "Survival of the Fittest: Heavy Metal in the 1990's" flies by, the conversational tone of the book resulting in a fairly quick read. Because of that, and the massive amount of interview material it contains, it's a work that owners can go back to again and again and still find it worthwhile to do so. For ordering information for paperback and Kindle, go to http://amzn.com/1512073067 and for Nook, visit http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/survival-of-the-fittest-greg-prato/1122273381.
– Peter Lindblad

Inside Iron Maiden: The Paul Di'Anno years

Author Greg Prato releases new book on metal giants' first two albums
By Peter Lindblad

Greg Prato's "Iron Maiden '80-'81" 2015

Iron Maiden's global domination as one of heavy metal history's greatest conquerors continues on unabated.

Still packing arenas and stadiums across the world, jet-setting to far-flung locales that embrace them as visiting royalty, the metal legends show no signs of slowing down, especially with singer Bruce Dickinson at the controls of Ed Force One.

There was a time, however, when a very different Iron Maiden was ravaging England with a vicious "punk metal" assault that spearheaded the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

This was before Dickinson, before Nicko McBrain and the most well-known Maiden lineup. This was the era of lead vocalist Paul Di'Anno – as well as guitarist Dennis Stratton and drummer Clive Burr – and theirs was a raw, visceral sound that generated two classic albums (Iron Maiden and Killers) and eventually gave way to the more melodic and complex "prog metal" that made Maiden famous.

A new book by noted author Greg Prato chronicles Maiden's Di'Anno years in "Iron Maiden '80-'81," an oral history of the period composed through tons of insightful interviews with producers, band members – including a very candid and forthright Di'Anno – and other metal musicians. In some ways, it's also a history of NWOBHM, with a detailed look at the making of those first two Maiden albums and insider perspectives on why this lineup didn't last.

Prato recently took some time to answer some questions about his book and this volatile time in the life of Iron Maiden. Ordering information is included at the end of our Q&A.

Why did you decide to do a book on the early years of Iron Maiden? Did you feel in some way that it was an era that’s been somewhat forgotten?

Greg Prato: I was a huge Maiden fan growing up, lost track of them for most of the '90s, and then reconnected with their classic albums in the late '90s/early 21st century. And I found myself enjoying their first two albums (with Paul Di'Anno on vocals) the most of the bunch. I started reading up once more on the band's history, and noticed there was no book that focused solely on the "Di'Anno era" of Maiden. Like all the books I've done up to this point, it's a subject that I wanted to read about, but there wasn't a book on the marketplace, so I decided to stand up and do the bloody thing myself. To answer your other part of the question, early Maiden isn't necessarily forgotten (it seems like if you ask the average headbanger what their favorite two Maiden albums are, it's usually The Number of the Beast and Killers, the latter being Di'Anno's last album with Maiden) – I just wanted to read/learn more about it!

You talked about in the introduction how those early albums are the ones you enjoy the most, even though you were introduced to the band during the Bruce Dickinson era. It’s interesting that Mike Portnoy said basically the same thing. What makes those albums so exciting for you?

GP: Two of my favorite rock styles are probably vintage heavy metal and vintage punk rock, and to the best of my knowledge, Maiden was one of the first bands to merge both together (specifically on their first two albums) – Motörhead being the other band. And this style later served as the template for what became thrash metal. I also always dug Di'Anno's vocals – while I certainly appreciate singers whose voices border on the operatic (Freddie Mercury, Rob Halford, and Ronnie James Dio are some of my all time favorites), it seems like my favorite rock singers are those who don't sound like they're classically trained, but have a lot of personality in their voices (Di'Anno, Paul Stanley, Alice Cooper, Joey Ramone, Mick Jagger, etc.).

Author Greg Prato

You interviewed a wide range of people for this book. Who was the toughest interview to secure and, ultimately, what did it add to the story?

GP: Not many were difficult to secure, but perhaps the most interesting way an interview was conducted was with ex-Maiden guitarist Dennis Stratton. I got in touch with a gentleman through Stratton's website, who explained that Dennis now lives in a remote location and doesn't do email or phone interviews, but what he could do is if I emailed my questions, he would get them to Dennis, who would then record his responses as a sound file, and I would then get it sent back to me! Mr. Stratton was kind enough to answer two rounds of questions that way.

Tell me about talking to Paul Di’Anno. He’s such a big part of this story, obviously. What did you learn about him and his relationships with his band mates from your interviews that you didn’t know beforehand?

GP: It was great speaking to Mr. Di'Anno (who also was kind enough to grant me two interviews, as more questions came up after first round). I wasn't sure how he was going to be going in, because I had read his autobiography, 'The Beast," which includes some pretty darn wild and dangerous stories. But he was a very kind and talkative chap. As far as his relationship with his former Maiden mates, it sounds like he doesn't harbor any ill will towards them, and that he recently had a humorous run-in at an airport with longtime Maiden manager Rod Smallwood, which he recounts in the book.

There’s such a wide range of opinions about him as a singer. Do you think he gets the credit he deserves from not only the fans, but also his colleagues in the business?

GP: Yes and no. Any serious heavy metal fan I would think is well aware of Di'Anno's vocal contributions and importance towards Maiden's early albums and sound. But perhaps to newer fans who may just be discovering Maiden and other veteran metal acts, maybe not – since they've probably only been exposed to Bruce Dickinson-era Maiden. But as you read in the book, just about everybody interviewed has very complimentary things to say about Di'Anno's vocals on those Maiden discs.

Is Paul right, do you think, that the New Wave of British Heavy Metal started and ended with Iron Maiden? And with this story, did you want to tell the story of NWOBHM as well?

GP: Tough to say – before Di'Anno told me that for the book, I would have said that there were other important contributors to the NWOBHM, tops being Def Leppard, Saxon, and Diamond Head (while a few veteran acts that were gaining steam at the time seemed to be lumped into NWOBHM at the time – namely Motörhead and Judas Priest). But after Di'Anno's quote, I can kind of see his point – think "NWOBHM," and Maiden is really the band that automatically comes to mind. And out of all the NWOBHM bands, Maiden probably stuck to their stylistic guns the most, and didn't soften their sound further down the line (not to take anything away from Def Leppard, who I think did the right move with the direction they went with on Pyromania and Hysteria).

Reading about Iron Maiden’s evolution in this book, it seems like Paul’s time had an expiration date from the very start. Was his departure almost preordained?

GP: Another tough-to-answer question – you're hitting me hard with these questions! It seems like Di'Anno and the rest of the band were going in two different directions regarding what they thought Maiden should sound like, Di'Anno wanting to stick with the "punk metal" sound, while Steve Harris and the others wanting to open up their sound (which eventually shifted towards a more "prog metal" approach). It would have been interesting to hear what Mr. Di'Anno would have done on The Number of the Beast material, though.

Who, besides Paul, is the most interesting character or interview in the story of Iron Maiden’s rise? Maybe Dennis Stratton, whose relationship with Paul was pretty frosty? They definitely have different views on Rod Smallwood, the band’s longtime manager.

GP: Tony Platt, who produced the "Women in Uniform" single (as well as engineered AC/DC's Highway to Hell and Back in Black) had some interesting things to say about what really happened behind the scenes at the recording session for that song (it was a cover song that supposedly the band was forced to record against their wishes, in hopes of scoring a hit single). And interviewing the producer of Maiden's first album, Wil Malone, was very cool – to the best of my knowledge, I don’t think he has ever been interviewed before about his memories of working with the band.

There seem to be disagreements over what went on in the studio during the making of the first album, at least between Wil Malone and the band. Does he get an unfair rap for the production of that record?

GP: I personally like the sound of the first record! Raw and live – the way most of my favorite all-time rock n' roll recordings are. I admit that the sound of Killers is better, but the sonics of Iron Maiden get a bad rap, in my opinion. That album still holds up well – both sonically and musically.

Whose reaction to hearing that first album or memory of making it surprised you the most?

GP: Well, obviously Di'Anno's, who holds nothing back in voicing his disapproval of Malone's production!

In talking to everyone, did you come away with a new appreciation for that first album that you didn’t have before? Did what someone said about it make you look at it differently?

GP: No, my three favorite all-time Maiden albums are Iron Maiden, Killers, and Number of the Beast, so I've appreciated those early releases for a very long time. I thought it was interesting that Mr. Malone explains that he was consciously going for a "punk meets metal" sound on the album – so it may not have been solely the band's doing.

What was the best Iron Maiden touring story you heard from your interviews?

GP: The late/great Clive Burr filling Di'Anno's shoes with shaving cream right before going on stage, Stratton going out for his birthday with Kiss' Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, an interesting story by Raven's John Gallagher about getting ripped off opening for Maiden, and Tygers of Pan Tang's Robb Weir almost falling off the stage backwards opening for Maiden…but being saved at the last second!

Everybody talks about the production of that second album, Killers. Was that the main difference between those first two records, or was there more to it than that? It seems as if there was a real sea change in the direction of the band in the aftermath of that first record.

GP: The sonics have a lot to do with the difference between the two. As far as the material, both albums are great from start to finish. But there is something about Killers – if I really had to choose a favorite Maiden album, I'd probably go with that one. Perhaps because there are so many songs on it that have either been forgotten or are seldom played live anymore by Maiden (namely, a song that I always thought could have been a rock radio hit at the time – "Prodigal Son").

What do you think set Maiden apart from the other NWOBHM bands? And do you think the other bands from that era were aware of the differences?

GP: As I said earlier, they appeared to be one of the first bands bold enough to merge punk and metal, and the fact that they became a global success by not shifting their approach towards a more pop direction. Not sure if the other bands were aware of the differences, as most NWOBHM bands followed a similar "punk metal" sound on their debut albums.

What would you like Iron Maiden fans to come away with after reading this book?

GP: With all my books, I make sure the main story is included, but also, I always try and include a few facts or stories that have never been recounted anywhere before. Ever wonder if Di'Anno was presented The Number of the Beast material before he left? What was Maiden up to when they learned of John Lennon's murder? What are Di'Anno's two favorite rock concerts he ever attended? All are included in "Iron Maiden: '80-'81," dear friends!

To read a sample chapter of 'Iron Maiden: '80-'81,' go to: http://www.songfacts.com/blog/writing/iron_maiden_80_81/

For ordering info (and to view Greg's other books), go to:

amzn.com/e/B002MJ4CXI

A look back at the early days of MTV with author Greg Prato

By Peter Lindblad

What an insane notion it was. Playing music videos on television, 24 hours a day – who in the world was going to watch something like that? Might as well have a channel devoted just to cooking food …oh, wait. Never mind.

MTV came into being on Aug. 1, 1981. Doctored images of the Apollo 11 moon landing, with a flag sporting the MTV logo, ushered in a new age in music history, even if hardly anybody in the country took notice early on. After all, the only cable system in America that had it was in northern New Jersey, and viewers, who, ironically, got to see The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” as MTV’s first video, initially numbered about a few thousand. Of course, things would change dramatically in the next few years.

Artists and their management teams would come to see MTV as the ultimate promotional tool to sell records. And stars such as Van Halen, Duran Duran, Men At Work, Judas Priest, Madonna and scores of others embraced the new medium, making entertaining, and oftentimes high-concept, video art to accompany their latest singles. And people – lots of them – did watch. Incredibly, viewers found it hard to turn away from MTV. They would sit in front of it for hours on end. They wanted their MTV, as Dire Straits would make abundantly clear in the biggest hit song of their career.

 MTV had turned the music industry on its collective head, and in Michael Jackson, it found its king. Nobody made better use of MTV’s potential than the man who created Thriller and became one of the biggest-selling artists of all-time. But somewhere along the way, MTV changed. No longer much of a music channel, MTV now caters to the lowest common denominator with some of the trashiest reality TV on the air.

Coming along to save us from what MTV has become is author Greg Prato, whose new book, “MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video,” details the halcyon days of a television channel and its VJs that impacted pop culture in ways its creators couldn’t possibly have ever imagined. Prato talked about the book in a recent interview.

To read samples of the book and for information on how to order the book, visit http://stores.lulu.com/gregprato.

What were the expectations at the beginning for MTV? The channel’s use of Apollo 11 moon landing footage seems to indicate that there was a sense, even then, that it was going to change the world.

Greg Prato: I think that the people that were putting together the channel really had no idea that MTV was going to be as successful and eventually create as big a change in the music industry that it would. In fact, during MTV's first year or so, there was talk that it may be taken off the air, because it wasn't making enough money (in fact, it was losing money). It wasn't until 1983 (two  years after first going on the air) that the channel was a success financially. This is discussed in my book, as well as the subject of the Apollo moon landing footage, and how they almost weren't allowed to use it!

One of the sources interviewed for the book is Nina Blackwood, one of the original MTV VJs. How did she and the other VJs get hired for MTV? Does she remember if being a VJ came naturally to her or the others or did it seem like something completely foreign to them?

GP: Nina was living in Los Angeles at the time, and she read about job openings at a new music video channel in a trade paper. She was actually already hosting a local music television show, so she had some experience going into it beforehand. I also interviewed another original VJ for the book, Alan Hunter, who was an actor looking for work at the time. He happened to bump into MTV head Bob Pittman at a picnic in Central Park a few months before the channel was to be launched (Aug. 1, 1981) and got a tryout that way. It seems like it took a while for the VJs to get the hang of it, as Nina explained that at first they were told to follow scripted things to say, but after people thought they came off as too stiff, they were given more room to improvise.

What decisions went into the programming for MTV? Was there any real plan at the start or was the channel taking whatever videos it could get?

GP: At first, MTV played pretty much any videos that were given to them. They only had a limited amount of clips in their library and quite a few were repeated over the course of a day. Also, some record labels wanted MTV to pay them for use of their video clips at first. But when they realized it was such a great promotional tool for their artists, they were willing to hand over their clips to MTV. Early on, you certainly saw an awful lot of Rod Stewart, Pat Benatar, and Loverboy.

In talking to different artists for the book, how did they view MTV initially? Were some of them wary about this new medium? Did others embrace it early on?

GP: There is an entire chapter about this in “MTV Ruled the World” titled “Initial Impressions,” in which artists such as "Weird Al" Yankovic, Gerald Casale [of Devo], John Oates, Stewart Copeland, Marky Ramone, and Rob Halford (among others) discuss this. I think it took a while for people to fully understand the potential promotional power that MTV had, but just about everyone I spoke to said they were very intrigued by it initially. In fact, Halford talks about how he would just leave it on 24 hours a day whenever he was in a hotel room on tour around that time!

What do some of the VJs or other MTV people you interviewed remember about the launch and the planning for it? Behind the scenes, was it chaos?

GP: Yes, it was a mad dash to get everything in order before its Aug. 1, 1981 launch. And the night of the launch, they hit several technical difficulties, including the order of the VJs being jumbled up (Mark Goodman was supposed to be on first, but Alan Hunter's taped bits wound up being aired by mistake). Bob Pittman also talks about how there was a technical problem that would result in silence on the channel at various points that first night. I also interviewed a lot of "behind the scenes" people that worked for MTV for “MTV Ruled the World,” and they talked about how the set was being designed and finalized very close to the deadline, and how it was chaos leading up to the launch.

Did there come a point for everyone, or at least some of them, when it really hit them how big MTV was going to become?

GP: Yes, and there is a chapter in the book about this very thing, appropriately titled “Success!” Both Nina and Alan talk about when they would go to make promotional appearances in towns where MTV was being played (keep in mind, not all of the U.S. got MTV at the same time), and there would be mob scenes with hundreds of fans wanting to meet an MTV VJ. It was at that point that people who worked for MTV realized they had struck a nerve.

Do many of the people interviewed for the book lament what MTV has become? Are they nostalgic for what it used to be?

GP: Indeed. And guess what? Yes, you're right...there's another chapter in the book that tackles this very subject in the book! The chapter is titled “MTV Today.” The vast majority of the people who I interviewed are disappointed in what MTV has become – almost no music and all about horrible reality shows that aren't based in reality at all (just a bunch of poorly behaved idiots acting obnoxious). That said there are also a few of the interviewees who say that they think MTV is "as it should be" in 2010. I tend to wholeheartedly agree with the former opinion, however.

What lines from the book struck you as being particularly poignant or insightful about the impact MTV had on the music industry?

GP: Michael Jackson's videos for "Billie Jean," "Beat It," and "Thriller." Before those 3 videos, very few black artists were played on the channel, and MTV was getting criticized for it. But once Michael was played on the channel, then it opened the doors for a wider stylistic variety of artists – it wasn’t all about just rock n' roll anymore. Which is obviously a very good thing, as variety is the spice of life.

What did you learn about the early days of MTV that surprised you?

GP: I wasn't aware how much behind the scenes work it took to get MTV to play the Michael Jackson videos for “Thriller” – which if you think about it now, is quite funny, since Michael quickly became "the face of MTV," and probably more than any other artist, is the one you associate the most with '80s-era MTV. I also learned a lot about the behind-the-scenes filming of some of this era's most popular videos. I was lucky enough to interview such directors as Bob Giraldi (Michael's "Beat It," Lionel Richie's "Hello"), Steve Barron (Michael's "Billie Jean," Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing") and Pete Angelus (Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" and David Lee Roth's "California Girls"), all of which had tons of great stories about what it was like on the sets of these videos and working with these artists.

What happened that caused the departures of some of those early VJs? Was there a point for them at which they could see things changing for MTV from its early mission?

J.J. Jackson, Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman
Martha Quinn and Alan Hunter

GP: It seems like there were conflicting versions of this, as you'll discover in my book. Some people that I spoke to claim that MTV would take a stance that the VJs were the "face of the channel" one moment, and then the next moment, [they] would say that MTV was bigger than the VJs. Many of the VJs were also being offered other work at the height of MTV's initial wave of success (roles in movies, offers to host other TV shows) and had to turn them down at the behest of MTV. Also, the VJs realized the writing was on the wall at the first-ever “Video Music Awards” in 1984, when the VJs were not the event's hosts (Dan Aykroyd and Bette Midler were) and were only given small spots on the show. For me as a viewer, I always say that MTV started to lose its luster for me when the original VJs started to leave – around 1985-1986. It just wasn't the same, as then MTV's playlists got more formatted, video budgets become astronomical, and videos required musicians to act and recreate “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

Click here for Information: MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video