I began writing this October 9th of 2025 and I’ve tasked myself with a 3-year project. No, this is not about some self-improvement, home improvement, or world improvement endeavor. I don’t exactly know why it took me until October to realize that 1985 was 40 years ago. FORTY FUCKING YEARS AGO! It so happens that 1985, and subsequently 1986 and 1987, were life-changing times in music for me. All three years ended up influencing the music I’ve listened to, the music I’ve played in my bands and the friends I’ve surrounded myself with to this day. Outside of my personal relationships, music has been the most important aspect of my life.
Something very special happened in the fall of 1984; I discovered Metallica on their Ride The Lightning album. No, I’m not going to fake that I was one of those people who bought it the day it came out and I definitely didn’t own their debut Kill ‘Em All at that time. I was a ordinary metal kid listening to Dio, Priest, Maiden, Sabbath, Ozzy, Crue, Scorpions and many of the typical heavy or hard rock bands of the day. Plus, I listened to a ton of Top 40 radio and watched MTV when it first aired. Metallica was my initial deep dive into extreme metal, which wasn’t a term anyone used back then. I made a friend right away in 9th grade through our shared love of the aforementioned bands. He was a few steps ahead of me musically and told me to listen to some band called Metallica on a portable cassette player he’d brought to school. I only got to hear a few minutes in between classes. Mind. Blown. I needed to own it, but I was nervous to pull the trigger on the purchase because I knew it was going to be very different when compared to the bands I worshiped at the time. Also, I knew nothing about the bands that came previous to them such as Raven, Venom, Motorhead, or even the earlier releases by bands who would become their contemporaries like Slayer, Voivod, Celtic Frost and Anthrax. I can’t even imagine what would’ve happened if I heard Venom in 1982. No eleven year old should be exposed to that!
People need to remember there wasn’t much information about the underground unless you were involved in the zine and tape trading scene, which I became involved in later in the year. I don’t remember who the first band I ever wrote asking for a demo, but I wrote just under 30 bands in the span of two years, sending “well hidden” cash in an envelope and hoping something would end up in my mailbox. I also have rather vivid memories of all the work I did around the house to earn money for this adventure. With the exception of a couple bands (still not happy about the ripoffs!) everyone was incredible and always came through with the goods. A number of people from the bands just became pen pals. At the time I didn’t realize how cool that really was. Big shout out to Jeff from Wicked Angel and Killjoy (RIP) from Necrophagia for being two of the best! I still have 90% of the demo tapes I ordered and traded away a few I really wish I hadn’t. To my old friend Brian, I truly hope you still have that Necrovore demo and are still enjoying it! Obviously, I was hooked.
Another aspect of all of this is that I was doing this on my own. At 14/15 years old, I didn’t have a single friend that was searching for new music in this fashion. My friend at school left after 9th grade and I never saw him again. No, I wasn’t some pioneer or elite person who was special, but I truly was on the ground floor of something new. I went to a decently small school that was based on Catholicism, so the odds of connecting with another weirdo similar to me were slim. I’m sure there were other kids my age doing the exact same thing I was in the suburbs of Detroit, but since I wasn’t in the live scene quite yet, I didn’t have any local connections at the time. But now that I look back, I probably enjoyed these discoveries as much as I did because they were all my own. Metallica opened a door for me that had immeasurable influence on my music journey. So, in honor of that monumental shift, I want to discuss and throw love at ten very special albums that came out in 1985 that were not only brand new discoveries but also had a lifelong impact upon me. They deserve recognition because without them I may not be the same person I am today.
To be perfectly honest, I have no clue what order these albums came into my life. It doesn’t matter. What clue I do have is that hearing Metallica and wanting more like them led me to independent record companies. Very soon I discovered labels such as Combat, Metal Blade, Megaforce, Death, Shrapnel and Black Dragon. It’s not that I was ignoring the big labels or anything like that, it was just a new, unknown path for me to travel. Also, don’t get the wrong idea, I still bought and listened to things any self-respecting thrasher would call “poser” bands. I still loved the glam scene of the 80s. Whatever, good music is good music. Go ahead and try to tell me Pyromania by Def Leppard sucks. Anyways, as I started morphing into a thrash fan, I began paying attention to the shirts bands were wearing or the bands named in the liner notes. I started buying and ordering magazines and fanzines that weren’t Hit Parader or Circus. Even the super vanilla publication Hit Parader started reviewing underground and import bands which they tucked away in the back pages of their magazine. I still have a copy of the Celtic Frost review they did for Morbid Tales. It slammed the band hard, which made me want to buy it even more! Now that you have a touch of my backstory, let’s get into this.
Dirty Rotten Imbeciles – Dealing With It
Stormtroopers Of Death – Speak English Or Die
Halloween should have been huge; at least for a small window of time. They were easily the biggest independent band in the Detroit area from about 1985 through 1988. The stories have been told about why they were never able to take anything to the next level, but they truly should’ve been scooped up by a bigger independent label if not a major. It could be my deep nostalgia for the band talking here, but I do think their style of metal certainly could have garnered a large audience, but even as fantastic as I believed their music and gimmick was, I don’t think that popularity would have lasted forever. Nevertheless, they deserved the shot instead of being a cult-metal favorite as they are today. With that said, Halloween was MY band. They were the first band I remember feeling territorial about; like I knew a cool secret the typical person didn’t know. They were the first local band I saw live and over the next few years I saw them a ton. They were always great no matter the venue! I got to see Rick’s hair catch on fire by backing into a candelabra at a teen night club! They couldn’t have been any cooler musically or visually! I mean a heavy metal band based on the best holiday of the year, which they used to the fullest potential at their shows. In my eyes, they were my Alice Cooper and Kiss. I wrote to them and the bass player’s mom wrote me back! Kind of funny. I also owe Halloween an enormous debt of gratitude because they absolutely inspired me to be in a band, so I did. As much as I adore Don’t Metal With Evil I don’t think I will convince anyone that it’s one of the greatest records ever made. There are many other records from 1985 that are superior, but none of them live in my heart like this album.
One of the greatest albums I own out of all the albums I own. I know that technically their debut album came out in 1984, but anyone that tells you they had the Ground Zero version of the album, and they lived outside of Seattle, well, they are just lying. Elektra Records reissued their self-titled album in 1985 and I was all over it after hearing “Gods Of Wrath” on the Metal Shop radio show. I used to record every episode on a cassette and I just kept listening to that song repeatedly, which motivated me to find their release. My god the power this album packs is astounding even by today’s standards. I might not have known exactly what the band was at the time, but I knew they created something exceptional and unique. I only imagine this is how people felt hearing the first albums by Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden. Metal Church carved out a niche of their own and established a career spanning 40 years and somehow avoided the superstardom they deserved. I only got to see Metal Church live once with David Wayne when they opened for Anthrax. That concert is still burned in my memory. I hate the notion of picking my favorite albums when it comes to any genre, but if you forced me to pick my favorite heavy metal record, this would be the album. I’ve listened to very few records as much as this one. It’s timeless and perfect. This album still makes me as happy as the day I bought it.
Walls Of Jericho was my introduction to the pumpkin crew and my initiation into the world of speed metal. While so many bands were trying to go more “evil,” Helloween embraced melody in all aspects of their music from vocals to bass lines to guitar solos. Dare I say they are catchy? Yes, I dare to say that because it was absolutely their intention. They took what Priest, Maiden and NWOBHM bands were already doing and put a 400hp engine behind it to blaze just as rapidly as anyone else out there. Every guy in the band was a top notch musician and didn’t shy away from showcasing their talent. Let’s get to the sticking point for many people, the vocals. Just like certain chemicals shouldn’t be combined, many people felt super melodic, high-pitched vocals shouldn’t be mixed with thrashy music. There was justification in some cases where the music style just didn’t fit together with the vocal delivery. Hey Hirax, I’m looking in your direction. I never minded melodic vocals, so having the power and fury of a thrashing band behind them was super cool with me as long as it sounded good. Helloween defined what became the standard for both speed and power metal and they are as relevant and vibrant as they have ever been to this very day. If you haven’t listened to their last two albums or have seen them live recently, you’re doing it wrong. (I'm curious if Gen X readers will get the movie reference of those last three words)
I saved the outlier for last. Why am I referring to this album as that? Well, Rogue Male was one of my first purchases that I remember knowing absolutely nothing about at the time. I never saw the name anywhere. I never saw anyone wearing their shirt. I never heard a single note. They were on the same label as Metallica, so maybe that sparked my interest. I believe it was just the cover and the fact that it was in the heavy metal section of my local Harmony House record store. It was the first of a slew of, “I don’t know anything about it but it looks cool” purchases. This type of purchase became prominent in my life soon after. This led to many amazing discoveries, but also bands that were pure garbage. I was greatly rewarded for my risk with Rogue Male. First Visit is another album I wouldn’t say is the strongest from 1985, but it has been in consistent rotation since I bought it. They played with a more traditional punk rock edge which wasn’t on my musical radar. To put it plainly, they sound like Motorhead which also existed outside of my familiarity. Once I heard Motorhead, I knew exactly what Rogue Male were doing and they did it very well. I know I’m about to get a ton of shit from this, but I like this album more than any Motorhead album. Send your hate mail to….yeah, not doing that because someone will say something terrible about me!
Sadly,
I know I will never have another musical experience like I did from that era. I’ve unearthed other bands over the past 40
years which have come close to the same feeling, but nothing has been as
exciting, involved and formative as what happened with me in the mid-80s. 1985 was a year of discovery and wonder, and
was the catalyst for what happened the following couple of years. It was so personal, which made it
everlasting. I’m always curious if
younger kids have the same experience now.
Well, that’s my long-winded 1985 tribute. As I looked over my collection, there are almost to many albums to name that had perpetual and significant effect on me at some point in time. To this day, I'm about the discovery of music and seek out bands and releases I missed in my youth. I suppose that's me trying to recreate my experience as a kid. It's still fun! Now I need to start thinking about 1986 for
my next post next November.
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