POPOFF ARCHIVE 3: HAIR METAL: The Introspection Under The Hairspray

One of the major appeals of Martin Popoff's books onhard rock and heavy metal is the fact that they primarily utilize newinterviews conducted by the author himself rather than relying entirely onolder books and magazine/newspaper clippings. Indeed, Popoff is a prolificinterviewer who has supplemented his publishing career by doing interviews forwebsites, various publications and record labels, the latter for the purpose ofwriting band biographies.

As a result, Popoff's got a voluminous archive ofinterview material, including a lot of stuff not designed for book projects,and he's done a series of Popoff Archivebooks to collect this material for devotees of different hard rock and metalsubgenres. The third installment of this series was devoted to the topic ofhair metal, collecting about 250 pages' worth of interviews that Popoff did forvarious outlets between 1997 and 2002, an era one might consider the comebackperiod for hair metal artists who began touring to what had become a cultfanbase and recording for indie labels. Most of this material was only released piecemeal via band biographiesor brief magazine/website news items so Popoff presents the full interviews inunexpurgated form in this book.

The result creates a pretty interesting snapshot of aonce commercially dominant subgenre trying to lay down the roots that willallow it to become a legacy proposition in the music business.  Several members of heavy hitters like Ratt,Poison, Def Leppard and Guns 'N Roses appear in these pages alongside membersof more cultish acts like L.A. Guns, Love/Hate and fellow travelers likeTwisted Sister (not really a hair metal act in the traditional sense but a bandwho played the commercial game during the same era).

The heavy hitters tend towards 'protecting thefranchise': Phil Collen from Def Leppard is the classic example of a companyman who stays on message, talking up how great the band's newest material isand gingerly sidestepping around topics that might yield controversy, and allfour original members of Poison pop up to discuss the successful franchise ofpackage-tours they create and how this proves they are worthy of beingconsidered a legacy act (they also have a weird fixation on claiming there is apunk element to their sound, something Schlockmania has always foundmystifying).

An interesting exception to the rule is Joe Elliott, whois quick to make a claim that Def Leppard was never a hard rock act, a conceptthat makes the blood boil for a hefty contingent of NWOBHM fans who love theirfirst two albums. There are also some talkers who give up the minimum amountnecessary to answer the questions, like Warren DeMartini from Ratt: he'spleasant but not much of a storyteller.

The interviews that really make Popoff Archive 3: HairMetal worth picking up are the ones where the participants recognize that theycan maintain interest by being bluntly honest about their salad days. Forexample, Kevin DuBrow of Quiet Riot gives an impressively blunt rundown of theproblems with the band's vintage album catalog and Dee Snider not only franklyexplores the mistakes he made during Twisted Sister's time at the top but alsotells some revealing tales about the treachery that can occur when dealing withthe mercenary executives that dominate the record business.

Similarly, Jeff Keith is frank about the relationshipissues that brought Tesla's first era to an end and Jizzy Pearl provides anostalgia-free portrait of what it's like to be a performer who made it onto amajor label but never found commercial success. Schlockmania's favorite interview was the one with Bill Leverty fromFirehouse, one of the last success stories in the subgenre before grunge tookover commercial rock. He provides a candid account of record labelcapriciousness, including how a turnover in executives can doom a band and howbands are encouraged to overspend on producers, studios, etc. without aconsideration for the impact of these expenses on their bottom line.

There's plenty more of interest for hair metal fanshere: the rivalry and dysfunction between Don Dokken and George Lynch, the goodvibes of the early '00s reunion for L.A. Guns, Mike Tramp reflecting on tryingto create a career after the comet-style success of White Lion, etc.  If you're into this kind of music, Popoff Archive 3: Hair Metal is worthchecking out because it captures a lot of the key players at a uniquelyintrospective moment in their careers and allows them to speak frankly aboutthe travails they experienced in creating all that musical escapism.

Limited print copies of Popoff Archive 3: Hair Metal are available here and you can pick up the eBook version anytime here