Hair metal… glam metal… butt rock… call it what you will, but I loved it in the 80s, and I still love it today. In 1983 I made yet another in a series of cross-country moves with my parents, experiencing the pure, unadulterated culture shock of going from Alaska to South Carolina. Another new city. Another new school. And for a scrawny, unathletic grade-schooler, that meant a whole new group of kids to navigate and try to survive while I found my tribe. Which I was not looking forward to.
As a bit of an apology for having to attend what was, by my count, my sixth different elementary school, my parents had cable TV installed in my bedroom. And that meant I had access to as much MTV as I could possibly want. MTV became my radio station. It was the friend I hung out with while I played with my G.I. Joes. Once I had a few real friends, they were even more glued to it than me when they spent the night. For two years or so MTV was my constant companion.
A great thing about MTV back then was they played a wild assortment of music. Where else would Michael Jackson follow Tom Petty, and in turn be followed by Quiet Riot and then A-Ha and then Mötley Crüe? It was a musical melting pot. Who needed radio? Not me.
And it was early 1980s MTV that turned me, and many of my friends, onto hair metal. It’s a bit difficult to believe today, 40+ years later, but those guys in Ratt looked hard. Mötley Crüe looked like they’d kidnap you and sacrifice you to the devil. Judas Priest might as well have been a post-apocalyptic biker gang. Without the internet all we had were these music videos and copies of Hit Parader and Circus magazines, meaning there was a great air of mystery and more than a hint of danger to it all. I never saw anyone in real life who looked even remotely like these guys. I can remember desperately wanting my own spiked leather glove or forearm brace, but being self-aware enough to know that wearing it out in public would surely result in ridicule at best, an ass-kicking at worst. But I’m sure there were lots of secret metalheads like me, singing out loud and pumping fists in their rooms while still turning in their homework assignments on time.
Anyway, back in 2022 Numero Group put out a killer-looking boxset called Bound For Hell: On The Sunset Strip, devoted to those earliest days of the Los Angeles hair metal scene. I wanted it, but ultimately the $100 price tag seemed a bit too much for two records and a book, even if it was put out by a label as well-known for attention to detail as Numero Group. Fast forward about three years and for whatever reason I found myself on the Numero Group website poking and around and, lo and behold, Bound For Hell was on sale – the black vinyl version for only $50. For that price how could I not buy it?
I’m glad I did, too, because as always Numero Group exceeded my expectations. Packaged in a heavy and stark red-on-blackmslipcase, Bound For Hell includes a gatefold jacket housing the two LPs (the inside of the gatefold itself shows a collage of show flyers) and a 12″ by 12″, 144-page hardbound book with glossy pages and tons of amazing photos. I have Numero Group’s Ork Records boxset, so I had a general idea of what to expect, but man it’s still a fantastic production, even more so given the reduced price (it was still available for $50 on the Numero Group website HERE as of the date this posted).
As for the music, we’re given 21 tracks by 21 different bands. While I’m a fan of the genre, my knowledge doesn’t run terribly deep beneath the surface. Yes, I recognize bands like L.A. Rocks, Lizzy Borden, Bitch, Hellion, Armored Saint, and Odin, but there are also a bunch of groups here I’m not familiar with – Jaded Lady, Steeler, V.V.S.I., Reddi Killowatt. So I have a lot of new stuff to hear.
One effect of 40 years of subsequent music is that these songs, which would have definitely been thought of as metal at the time, feel very hard rock to my modern ears. Stormer’s “Going to the City” feels closer to Journey than it does to Slayer, while L.A. Rocks’ “Cocaine” could just as easily be a Thin Lizzy song. But lest you think that is a criticism, it’s not. I won’t pretend that these bands were “extreme” circa 1982-83, but they were still way harder than anything you’d find on the radio in most markets, or MTV for that matter. It’s not Venom, or Kill ‘Em All or Fistful of Metal, but the stuff is hard, and it rocks. Do you like guys stretching their voices and guitars? The these bands are here for you. It was never a genre that demanded deep thinking. These are songs about rocking and girls and cocaine and rocking and women and rocking. The second record does seem to hit a bit harder though – Angeles’ “Blade of Steel” is pretty bad-ass, as is Knightmare II’s “Cold Reception”.
The boxset is still available from Numero Group HERE, though I’m not sure how much longer this price (or quantities) will last, so if you’re interested, best to grab it while you can.