The last post featured Jon Zazula and his latest book Heavy Tales. Zazula and his wife Marsha founded Megaforce Records in 1983 in New Jersey, USA, and released one of the most important albums in Heavy Metal history – ‘Kill ‘Em All’ by Metallica.
This post looks at the North East connection.
The couple also ran Rock n Roll Heaven, a record shop selling the latest NWOBHM imports from bands like Venom, Raven, Iron Maiden and Angel Witch who were heavily in demand.
Their customers would read Kerrang then ask for the latest releases from bands featured in the magazine.
Jon’s wife Marsha used to buy the records from distributors and pick up extra albums by Girlschool and Motorhead that she thought customers would like – and they did.
The couple also bought in records from American bands, The Rods, Y&T from California and New York’s Twisted Sister – ultimately creating a vibrant metal scene.
Over in the North East of England, Venom were rehearsing in a church hall in Newcastle and after releasing a demo through Neat records, exploded onto the scene.
Back in 2017 Venom drummer Tony Bray told me “Before we started there was no Slayer or Metallica. We were in front of all that. We heard Motorhead and knew we had to be louder and harder than them”.
“Venom had its own momentum, we were blasphemous, over the top, trying to get banned – and it kept working”.
Megaforce got in touch and brought them over to the east coast where they played shows with Metallica opening for them.
“This all happened in one big wave. We played our first proper gig in Belgium, it got massive reviews” said Tony.
“Next, we went to New York and Metallica opened up for us. We did two nights on Staten Island, New York but got our gear impounded, we were due to play the Aardshock festival in Holland with King Diamond and Raven”.
Read the full interview with Tony Bray:
Heavy Tales also details the story how Megaforce were responsible for managing and releasing important Heavy Metal albums by Anthrax, Ace Frehley, Testament, Kings X and many more.
The book includes over 100 photographs taken by friends and from the Megavault.
Heavy Tales: The Metal. The Music. The Madness. As lived by Jon Zazula out now on kindle or paperback.
Alikivi June 2021.
ALIKIVI : NORTH EAST UK 