Brian Slagel was just a dude working in a record shop who loved heavy metal. With a passion for his local scene in Los Angeles especially, he drummed up a bit of cash and used some contacts from his job to put out a demo spotlighting nearby unsigned bands. That low-budget tape ballooned into a series, started the prestigious Metal Blade Records and launched the careers of some of ’80s metal’s most titanic bands.
Metal Massacre was just a young man’s passion project in 1982 but, today, is a revered institution among diehard metalheads. The original release contained the first-ever song by some spotty teenagers called Metallica. The second one, out later that same year, featured a newly formed Armored Saint and their future Anthrax frontman of a singer, John Bush. The first original Slayer song to ever be heard was the opening track of Metal Massacre III. Possessed, the first death metal band; East Coast thrash pioneers Overkill; progressive metal forebears Fates Warning – all of them were heard on Slagel’s compilations when they didn’t even have as much as a record label. Without him giving these bands a break, many metal subgenres would be wildly different today.
