I purchased this magazine religiously, every month along with all of the US magazines I could get my hands on. It carried the slogan, “Australia’s Loudest Magazine” and here is an example of some of the cool stuff in it;

KISS

Gene Simmons record label “Simmons Records” was all but finished as distributor RCA had dropped all the bands he had signed to it.

Eric Carr had open heart surgery to remove a growth and was expected to make a full recovery, however Eric had a business dispute with Gene and Paul over a cartoon comic character Eric was developing. Gene and Paul felt that since Eric is in the band, anything he creates means they should also get a cut. Carr rejected this as his cartoon comic has nothing to do with Kiss and the earnings he would have to give up would be significant.

GUNS N ROSES

Axl Rose rejected 27 mixes from Bob Clearmountain, wasting another $200K of Geffen’s money as the “Use Your Illusion” release dates kept getting pushed back from April to August and eventually it would came out in November I think.

Meanwhile the band had started touring in support of the albums and in between stops they managed to enter different studios to finish of the recordings and a new person was hired to mix.

WHITE LION

White Lion was a duo after James Lomenzo and Greg D’Angelo took a walk. And it wasn’t for musical differences. A few months after, White Lion was finished.

DEF LEPPARD

Def Leppard was seen as a band who may not have that much more of a future as Steve Clark’s death was still fresh and band members became keen to pursue solo projects.

We all know that didn’t pan out and while Def Leppard might have had a lean 90s period, they did come back bigger and better than ever later on.

RECORD LABELS

Lizzy Borden was dropped by Metal Blade and Bitch assumed they got dropped as nobody from the label would return their phone calls, but they never got anything in writing. To top it off, they finished up recording demos for a new album and didn’t know if they should give it to Metal Blade or shop it around.

Enigma Records finished up (meaning they went bankrupt) without paying its artists. Some of their artists got picked up by other labels. Stryper went to Hollywood Records, Yngwie Malmsteen went to Elektra and XYZ went to Capitol.

REVIEWS

Van Halen got a pounding review of 4 skulls out of 5 for “FUCK” with the reviewer saying, “this album is much, much better than anyone could reasonably expect from Van Halen at this point in their career.”

It’s because artists didn’t have a long shelf life and with every great band their are poor releases in the career, just ask Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Kiss and Black Sabbath.

Dangerous Toys got 3 skulls out of 5 for “Hellacious Acres” with the reviewer saying, “Sadly they haven’t delivered the biting, driving punch of the first album, maybe third time lucky.”

Well we never got to hear a third album.

L.A Guns also got 3 skulls out of 5 with the reviewer saying the second half of the album is shit and a mini album should have been on the cards as the first half is excellent.

QUEENSRYCHE

Queensryche had momentum with “Silent Lucidity” just outside the Billboard Top Ten and “Empire” selling 1.6 million copies in the U.S. Chris DeGarmo spoke about how “Operation Mindcrime” laid dormant for 8 months and then went from strength to strength on the back of the “Eyes Of A Stranger” single. And they couldn’t tour Australia because they didn’t have enough sales.

POISON

Bret Michaels and CC came to fisticuffs and things were unwell in the Poison camp. We all know how that one played out.

FASTER PUSSYCAT

Taime Downe from Faster Pussycat spoke about how they got pelted by the Y&T fans in 1987 when they opened up for the band.

AC/DC

Brian Johnson could imagine himself becoming a Vegas act and singing “Back In Black” when he is 50. He was 44 at the time of the interview and when he was 50, he was still on top of the music world playing arenas and stadiums.

MINDFUNK

Mindfunk spoke about no limitations and no boundaries to their music. And I still haven’t heard how they sound.

METALLICA

Metallica started the press for the upcoming self titled “Black” album and the interviewer was blown away at what they heard.

The band was also still finishing off the mixes for “Enter Sandman” as the single was scheduled to be released in two weeks time.

The interviewer was also privy to hear the tracks “My Friend Of Misery”, “Sad But True”, “Holier Than Thou” and “The Unforgiven”.

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