Original subtitles

♪ MTV ♪

[wind howling]

[fans whistling and cheering]

Open up and say, "Ah."

Ahh...

[Musak playing over speakers]

[Janet] I grew up in a dental family.

My grandfather was a dentist.

My uncles were dentists.

My cousins are dentists. [chuckles]

All right, I could, with check up.

Everybody is in the tooth business.

Come in.

How are you doing today?

Most of my patients...

[tool whirring]

...have no idea

that I was ever in a band

[laughs] or any of that.

Spent the first part of my life

in front of a bunch of people with my mouth wide open.

Now my patients have their mouths wide open.

[fans cheering]

[emcee] Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together,

Vixen!

[rock music playing]

[Janet] We were all part of that hair metal scene.

[rock music playing]

It was like all of a sudden being in the major leagues.

In the '80s, hard rock and roll, dominated the charts,

and it was the greatest thing in the world.

People singing your songs, the videos are doing incredible

on MTV.

[Dee] Pants so tight you could tell

I was circumcised.

That's what you do in 1985.

The, the term hair metal. Well...

I mean, what does it even mean?

[John] Those dudes with their palm tree hair,

settin' chicks on fire in a Ferrari.

I don't know what that means.

[laughs]

[laughs] The hair blowing in those videos.

[Taime] There was some pretty hokey shit,

but not all of it.

♪ Shake me all night ♪

♪ She said shake me ♪

♪ Shake it till... ♪

[Katherine] The look, the fashion, the hair.

The Aqua Net.

[Janet] You'd take one section

and just spray the Aqua Net on.

And then you'd go to the next section

and spray the Aqua Net on.

[Kip] We became like the darlings on MTV.

♪ Shake me all night ♪

♪ She said shake me ♪

And then, you know, soon after that,

everyone started hating us.

[woman] It got increasingly more absurd.

[Lonn] MTV said they're not cool anymore.

Which I guess is the kiss of death.

There was definitely a wind of change. [laughs]

♪ Shake me all night ♪

The rock star dream was gonna die for you, dude.

[Kip] I had had enough.

They just stopped playing it. The end.

[Vicky] People were buzzing about

the Seattle sound.

[Nirvana rock flourish]

And it was over.

The dimensions to being a rock star are enormous.

You're not a normal human being

if you're a rock star.

You're something out of the side of the box.

When a musician, who's just a dude that has a guitar,

and he's playing it in his room somewhere in Akron, Ohio,

looks in the mirror one morning and says,

"You know what, I'm not just a guitar player.

I'm not just a guy who flips burgers.

I'm a rock star."

Now then the shift happens,

and all of a sudden all these new elements come in.

Well, they are carrying a burden

that not the rest of us are carrying.

They're unique.

They are not of this world.

[men speaking indistinctly]

[drums riffing]

- [man 1 vocalizes] - [man 2 vocalizes]

- [man 3] You want a beer? - [Sabo] You got beer? Yes!

- You want a beer? - Of course I do.

[woman laughs] I almost sat on it, and realized...

[Sabo] I've been taking them to school in the morning.

- [man 3] Yeah. - [Sabo] But one of our songs

would come on the radio,

and my daughter is like, "Snaky? That's you."

- [man 3] That's awesome. - Yeah, it's fantastic.

[man 3] That is awesome.

[riffing electric guitar with no power]

[people chattering]

[Sabo] One of my older brothers had a $40 guitar

from the Sears and Roebuck catalog.

And the "Quick Picking, Fun Strumming Home Guitar Course."

- [man 1] Three minutes to show. - [man 2 vocalizing]

[man 1] You guys ready to rock?

Yes, sir.

[Sabo] And I started out playing on one string.

But I was like, "Holy crap, this sound."

[crowd cheering]

[man speaks indistinctly]

[band starts playing rock song]

[crowd cheering]

I knew that music was my future.

[rock music playing]

The allure of being a rock star

when I was growing up

was this larger than life idea,

a superhero in a sense.

I'm this strange kid from Sayreville, New Jersey.

I've got a job in this music store.

One day, I see this guy walk in,

he just looked like a rock star.

I said, "You want to come up and jam?"

We had such a great time playing together.

We would write until five, six in the morning

and then wake up at eight o'clock

to go to our day jobs.

And we were relentless.

We were rehearsing every night.

If we weren't rehearsing, we were writing music.

Good wasn't good enough.

You had to be great.

And if you were great,

maybe you would get that all-elusive record deal.

I had the distinct advantage

of my friend Jon Bon Jovi living up the street from me.

[playing rock music]

He's several years older than me.

I love to say that.

[rock music playing]

Jon had been paying attention

and listening to our music and giving us advice.

I get a phone call from Jon,

"Come up to my mom's house.

I want you to meet my manager."

"Well, who is your manager?"

"My manager is Doc McGhee."

"Oh, my God, I know that name.

It's on the back of Motley Crue's

'Too Fast for Love'".

They're in the backyard hanging out by the pool,

and there's this myth of a man.

This is my moment.

Take it.

I start going,

"I'm the best guitar player around here.

I am going to be a big star.

I'm going to have the greatest band in the world,"

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

"And you're going to manage me some day."

He looks at me, takes a little breath and goes,

"That's a great story. You want to go get me a beer?"

[rock music playing]

I just went... [makes falling noise]

[guitar strumming]

[man 1] I'm just sitting there waiting, man, like this.

- [man 1] Beautiful song. - [man 2] Can we go in there?

[man speaks indistinctly]

Wanna put a little acoustic down?

[John] Sure.

[groans]

[John] I'm John Corabi, singer,

guitar player, songwriter

from just every band but ABBA.

[laughs]

[rock music playing]

[John] I don't know what I'm doing now,

if it's the right thing or the wrong thing,

I'm just doing a song.

I let it sit for two or three months.

I just put a new song out.

And let that sit for another couple months.

- You could put a four songs... - Five.

and then package a little eight song album.

- [Marti] You know? - "Thriller" was eight songs.

- [John] Was it? - Yeah.

- "Thriller"? - Yeah.

- Are you fucking kidding me? - No.

[John] I think with this one

I should be able

to buy a bottle of Jameson

with the royalties.

- I'm a huge fan. - That's a success.

- I don't know. - [man laughs]

I don't-- I don't even know

what the word means anymore.

[dramatic theme playing]

[John] I'm originally from Philadelphia.

Nobody in my family was musical,

but there was music always playing in the house.

I was fascinated with the Beatles.

One year, I just came downstairs, and my parents,

I think they tried to cover

both ends of the spectrum with me.

I had a guitar,

and a microscope.

"Let's get him a guitar.

Maybe that will do the creative thing,

but hopefully he'll go in this direction

and be like a doctor or something."

And they failed miserably on that one.

I wanted to be a rock star.

[playing rock music]

In Philadelphia, I went from this band

to that band, to that band,

to that band, and I just graduated

to a really popular band, Angora.

And we just started plugging away

and playing, writing.

Some of the guys went out to L.A.,

telling us there's 50 clubs

where you can play original rock music.

"We got to go to L.A."

♪ Standing on the corner ♪

Hollywood, USA, baby!

Come on. Let's go. I'm a ham. I'm a ham.

Yeah!

The Sunset Strip was pure insanity.

Those two blocks from The Whisky to Doheny...

was wall-to-wall palm tree hair,

long jackets,

girls in lingerie,

fishnet stockings,

high heels,

dudes with as much makeup on

as their chicks.

Angora moved to L.A.,

and we just started plugging away.

Maybe get a record deal.

It's the golden ticket.

[rock music playing]

[Janet] I was and still am very shy.

I would never have mentioned,

"I want to be a rock star."

[chuckles] No.

[dramatic theme playing]

I grew up in Bozeman, Montana.

My parents were Mormon.

As young Mormon women, young ladies,

we were supposed to be groomed to be good wives and mothers.

We would learn how to brush our hair,

and put on makeup

and look attractive,

and learn how to cook and do all that kind of stuff.

I definitely knew I didn't fit

in that whole thing.

[laughs] There was something, something amiss about all that.

When I first started to get into rock,

I remember checking out female bands.

♪ It's hard to live when you're by yourself ♪

[Janet] I remember checking out Fanny.

♪ Free, free spirit ♪

There was a band called Birtha.

♪ I got a free ♪

[The Go-Go's "We Got the Beat"]

And, of course, The Go-Go's.

♪ We got the beat ♪

- ♪ We got the beat ♪ - ♪ We got the beat ♪

♪ Hello, world, I'm your wild girl ♪

♪ Like a ch-ch-ch... ♪

The Runaways...

♪ Cherry bomb! ♪

But there were very few.

But they were all really good.

So it was like, girls can do this.

These are The Young Americans.

♪ Shenandoah, Shenandoah ♪

I ended up going to see The Young Americans.

I was blown away.

They were like my age...

♪ Oh, I vow to thee ♪

...doing amazingly slick,

professional performing.

♪ Shenandoah ♪

Afterwards, they were running around out in the halls.

I said, "Wow, I was blown away.

You are all so talented.

This was amazing."

They're like, "You should audition."

The director came out.

He said, "Just sing me a song that you like."

So out of nowhere, I picked a Bonnie Raitt song,

and he was like, "Oh, you know, you have a great voice."

[crowd whooping]

I crossed my fingers,

and sure enough, I got picked.

♪ I've seen it all and how do I make you? ♪

♪ How do I make you? ♪

The Young Americans, they were based in California,

and I was like, "This is where everything is happening.

This is where I should be."

So I called my parents and said,

I'm not coming home. [laughs]

That didn't go over very big.

You know, I quit school without telling 'em.

And then I started checking out

the local rock scene.

It was competitive.

Everybody was trying to get the most attention,

trying to get that elusive record deal.

All of the bands that were playing

that scene at the time were getting signed.

If you could draw a good crowd, you could get a record deal.

So who didn't want to be there?

- [man] Let me hear ya. - [electric guitar strumming]

[Kip] I never wanted to be in the L.A. thing.

New York suited me perfectly because it was like,

education center, you know.

It wasn't about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

That's never what I was about.

In New York, I can go see

the New York City Ballet one night,

and I can go to Radio City Music Hall

and see something else, and then I can go

to Madison Square Garden and see something.

You know, like that was my vibe.

I had a dream very early.

I did my first professional gig at eight,

my guitar broke ten strings, and it was just an awful gig.

But I got paid 30 bucks

and I thought, "I'm in. This is it for me."

I was just a little punk.

I was like, you know, I just wanted to rock.

I lived in Hoboken,

I'd go in the city and take ballet class.

I took bass lessons.

A couple composition lessons from a cat from Juilliard.

I was always doing a little bit here

and a little bit there.

I was shopping as a solo artist.

For years.

Totally bumming, I mean, it was like,

I'm never going to get anywhere.

- Okay, go. Oh! - [man 2] Oh! We got that.

One of my very good friends, Beau Hill,

had a room in Atlantic Studios.

He was producing Ratt,

and he would have me play bass on stuff

and do some background vocals.

So I was kind of like his backup,

like a utility team.

I gave him all these demos

and he kept playing 'em for record companies

that would just keep saying,

"This is terrible,"

and "Don't play me anymore Kip Winger."

For the most part,

I was dead in the water.

[tense music intensifies]

[man speaks indistinctly]

[Vicky] It's hard to really describe

what it is that makes a band sparkle.

[vocalizing]

Whoops. Sorry.

[vocalizing continues]

It's that hair raising experience

of when you hear their voice.

[vocalizing over speakers]

♪ Hello, world ♪

You just know that they can do it.

[man] That's good. Sounds good, huh?

[Vicky] Yeah.

Ever since I was a child,

I decided that I was going to be

the best rock and roll manager on the planet.

I managed my first boyfriend's bands.

There just wasn't really an outlet

to go any farther.

I knew I had to save up some money

and move to California.

And that's exactly what I did.

I ended up taking a job

at Licorice Pizza,

which was the record store

catty corner from the Whisky a Go-Go.

[indistinct chatter]

If location is everything,

this was the spot.

There was always a concert going on at the Whisky.

It was love at first sight.

[rock music playing]

What's up!

Metalheads!

We're gonna be big some day.

[Vicky] Drugs, alcohol,

partying,

nonstop music all the time.

There were so many great looking rocker dudes in there.

We didn't have that in Indiana.

[Hamilton laughs]

I ended up meeting Motley Crue

because Nikki Sixx came into my store.

We had a thing called Borrow Book.

Nikki would ask me to get records for him,

and he'd take 'em out, but then he would

never bring the records back.

So then I would end up having to buy them.

Motley Crue, when I first met them,

they hadn't been signed.

They were just putting out

their first six inch record.

My manager instinct like kicked in,

and I knew they were going to be huge.

Put them up all through

the Licorice Pizza stores.

Then my boss said, "Those better all sell,

or you're going to lose your job." [laughs]

I had shared with Nikki

that I wanted to be a manager

and I was like,

"Wow, you can, like, work with us."

Management agreements are kind of like marriages.

You don't really know if it's going to work,

until you're actually in it.

[Candy's "The Weekend's Here Again"]

♪ The weekend's here again ♪

[Jonathan] I was in a band called Candy.

We wanted to look like four Nikki Sixxes.

We all had long, tall,

big black hair.

The bigger the hair, the bigger the paycheck.

♪ Whatever happened to fun? ♪

♪ Whatever happened to fun? ♪

♪ Whatever happened to fun? ♪

[Jonathan] We started playing gigs in L.A.,

but we had no following, we had no friends.

And we didn't really have any idea how to build one.

Nobody had a record deal.

Nobody was on the radio,

so it was really hand-to-hand combat.

♪ One, two, three, let's go! ♪

[Craig] Self promotion was the name of the game.

Every Friday, Saturday night on the Strip,

every band that wasn't inside the club

was outside the club on the sidewalk,

handing out these flyers.

Rock Asylum is a hot band from New York.

[Katherine] Bands would just go hand flyers to women.

That's how you met people. It was really...

pre-Internet, how you found out about a show.

"Oh, come to my show, come to my show."

[Katherine] You've got your flyer, "three dollars off."

Cool, all right. You know, you needed that three dollars off.

[Craig] You would try to find

a color that nobody else was using.

You had to have a really good photo,

sort of sexy or menacing.

And then you would have, like, the name of the band,

so you would need some sort of interesting logo.

And then hopefully you have some dates scheduled,

if you weren't a total poser,

and then a ticket hotline

where people could call and be like,

"Hey, this is Tommy from Paradise,

and we're going to rock your ass."

[Taime] You had all the poles covered,

the ground covered.

You couldn't see the sidewalk

from Tower Records all the way up to Gil Turner's.

It looked like it was New Year's Eve every night.

[Janet] Poison was the kings

of flyering.

[Vicky] Poison had this whole system worked out

where they would go out in the van

and one guy would like stir the glue.

The next guy would put the glue on the poster

and they would do this...

and then they would jump out of the van

and get on each other's shoulders

to put them up high on the poles.

You can't rip 'em down if you can't reach 'em.

And after every concert,

there would be tons of litter

and flyers everywhere. [laughs]

[Jonathan] The Beverly Hills Police cracked down on that.

If you got caught stapling flyers to the telephone poles,

you'd have to do community service,

taking them off.

- [wood creaking] - [Craig] You can't imagine

the number of trees that had to die

in the name of metal.

[Janet] I got a job at Guitar Center,

which was another great way to meet musicians.

And at one point, some girl comes up to me

and she goes, "I know a band you'd be perfect for."

So I got a call from a guy who said,

"I am the manager of the group

that's looking for a singer."

So I said, "Hmm."

I was looking for suspicious

long haired guys, you know, musician-y types.

I said, "I didn't see anybody."

And he goes, "Yeah, they're right over at the bar."

And it was Jan and Lori.

And I was like, "Oh! It's a girl thing!"

But I had never done that before.

I was always "the girl" in the band.

And we got together and it was a blast.

We just hit it off.

I mean, once in a while,

I would smile and stuff, too.

"Get ass!" [vocalizes]

- [growling] - [laughter]

[Janet] We pretty much spent all our time

rehearsing and playing the Strip.

We ended up going on the road a lot, though,

station wagon, van pulling a U-Haul trailer,

playing any place and every place

that we could, from anywhere

from five people to a couple hundred people.

We're going to do whatever we have to do

to get the attention we need to get signed,

make records and be rock stars.

[rock music plays]

The first bit of pip?? overdubbing.

The camera'd been on about three seconds...

and he fucked up! [exaggerated laugh]

While I was waiting tables in Hoboken, New Jersey,

Beau called me up and said, "Hey, get up here.

We need four songs for Alice Cooper.

I was like, "Oh, my God!"

- [people chattering] - [playing bass line]

I was a huge Alice Cooper fan.

A huge Alice Cooper fan.

I knew more about Alice Cooper

then he could remember.

That was like, preparation met with opportunity.

Walked in, playing that shit first take.

It was like, "Yes!"

You know, just like...

[makes arrow whooshing and hitting target sound]

And so I said, "Alice, man,

if you go out on tour, call me up."

But I remember him going, "Okay, I'll keep that in mind."

But nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

And then they called me up and said,

"Hey, do you want to do the gig?"

And I was like...

[playing rock music]

I had really short hair.

And they made us get hair extensions,

and then the next day, I've got hair down to here,

and we're all doing the Alice Cooper show biz thing.

♪ For criminal acts and violence on the stage ♪

Two months before, I was waiting tables.

Two months later, got on the stage,

sold out Joe Louis Arena,

live on MTV,

20,000 people flipping out,

and I had to get oriented.

I was completely losing myself in this, you know,

"Oh, my God, I'm playing bass."

♪ You can go to hell ♪

As much as I loved Alice, I felt like,

you know, once a side man, always a side man.

I said that I was leaving, you know,

and everybody was like, "What? You're leaving?

Oh, my God, this is a great band,

and we're going to go out on the road for another year,"

and everybody was like, "Wow! What a move!"

It's really hot, so don't blow

your voice out on the first pass.

But it was a pretty cool band, man,

and that's where I met Reb.

♪ She's so downhearted ♪

♪ She's what you want, what you need ♪

[Kip] I was like, "Let's start a band, you know.

We should put something together."

♪ Drops the bomb ♪

[playing rock music]

[Sabo] We're working.

I'm working at the music store, Rachel and I are writing.

We're rehearsing like crazy.

And Jon, he's getting ready to go on tour.

So he's like, "You want to come out and do three shows?"

And we're like, "No. No, I'd rather,

I'd rather sit here and work in the music store

for 12 hours a day and hear kids playing

"Smoke on the Water" and "Stairway to Heaven".

The singer that we had at the time

was this kid named Matt Fallon.

Matt was a good singer, but he wasn't great.

So we go to those shows and we play,

and we think we're the shit.

After the show, Doc McGhee comes in the dressing room,

and goes, "You guys are good.

You got really good songs.

Your singer sucks."

I'm like, "Yeah?"

He goes, "You got to get a new singer."

We were auditioning singer after singer after singer.

And we knew that if we could find the right person,

these songs would speak for themselves.

[playing rock music]

[screams out]

Mark Weiss, who's a very renowned rock photographer,

he has a wedding.

At that wedding,

a young singer by the name of Sebastian Bach.

And he's crazy.

He's like six-foot-twelve

and his hair is outrageous.

But he's an amazing singer.

We sent Sebastian four songs...

- [Sebastian] Huh! - [band playing rock music]

He says he loves the songs.

We're like, "Well, do you want to come down and audition?"

So we fly him in from Toronto,

where he was living,

and shows up at my mom's house.

One of the first things he says,

"Yo, dudes, what's up?

I got a nine-inch dick."

And Rachel looks at me, but he says to me,

"He's a great singer, but it's going to be trouble."

[rock music playing]

[John] Angora had a lot of interest

from different labels,

different managers.

Gene Simmons was interested in us.

We did a demo tape with Steve Vai.

So we were getting

a lot of interest.

[rock music playing]

We had a rehearsal room that was 500 a month.

I was kind of the de facto leader.

And I'd go, "Okay, I need your... I need your rent money.

It's the first."

Some of the guys would not have their rent money

for rehearsal, but then I'd see them

the next day with a giant bag of weed,

and I just said, "I came out here

to get a record deal.

I came here to be a rock star,

and you're kind of fucking with my plan."

But then a couple of 'em actually started smoking crack.

Equipment started to go missing, and...

and I just said, "You know what, I'm out."

♪ Whoo! ♪

['80s pop music playing]

[Janet] Within probably a few months

of joining the band, we ended up doing

this goofy movie Hardbodies,

and some of our songs were in that.

[rock flourish]

♪ Oh ♪

And of course,

my Mormon mother went to see it.

I warned her.

I said, "Trust me.

You don't want to see this movie." [laughs]

♪ By the phone, all alone ♪

And I think she brought

a couple of her friends with her.

She said, "Oh, it was fun."

Right on, Mom!

What record company you guys record for?

Uh, we don't have a label.

We can't even get a gig.

[laughter]

[Janet] We kind of realized

we need to find a manager now.

Alan Kovac did have a couple of great artists.

He was like, "I know I can do this.

I know I can make this happen, and I'll get you signed."

And it didn't take him long

to come back with record deal offers.

And we were stunned.

It was exciting, but it was also scary

to sign on that dotted line.

So like this sound...

[electronic pulsing beats playing over speakers]

Because it's an octave down in the solo.

I programmed an octave down.

So maybe just this sound in the solo, you know,

where it's panning and shit.

[Kip] I said read to Reb, "Like, let's make a pact."

No outside work for six months.

Like you don't take one job.

I am not going to do anything,

but we're going to focus on writing songs.

- This is where I sing. - [Kip] And we'll make demos.

We're making the album now.

And we'll try to get a record deal.

[rock music playing]

It was four guys who had played

their whole lives in clubs

and different bands, putting a band together.

I mean, first day we wrote "Madalaine",

"Time to Surrender" and maybe even "Seventeen".

[Kip] Do you remember that cord thing

you did in the very beginning of it? The...

[vocalizing chord progression]

[playing chord progression]

[Kip] Reb and I worked for six months.

And everybody turned us down still.

Beau Hill was very good friends

with Doug Morris at Atlantic.

Doug was like, "Don't play me anymore Kip Winger."

Beau just said, "Just listen to this."

[playing rock music]

What planet are you from, man? That's great.

We got it!

Doug was like, "That sounds pretty good.

Okay, well, we'll just give you the minimum deal."

Like, we got the worst deal.

And we're like, "We'll take it.

Just give us a shot and we'll fucking take it."

[Sabo] We started getting interest

from Atlantic Records.

They fly on a helicopter.

We're playing a roller skating rink.

['80s pop music playing]

You know, you expect this to be happening,

some posh venue in New York City or Los Angeles.

We're in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania at a roller rink.

They're like, "We want the band."

We were like, "Oh, my God!"

The record deal to a young musician

is the Holy Grail.

It's what sets you apart

from every other band in the club circuit.

♪ We are the youth gone wild! ♪

We were getting a shot.

We were getting a shot to have our music

on a frigging album,

with that Atlantic Records A in the center of it.

We're on the same label as Led Zeppelin, man.

♪ We are the youth gone wild! ♪

[vocalizing]

[band vocalizing]

[vocalizing]

♪ We are the youth gone wild! ♪

♪ We've gone wild! Gone wild! ♪

[Kip] You're strapped to that rocket ship, man.

And you're riding this thing

and you don't know where it's going,

but you know it's going forward.

[Katherine] Sebastian Bach was kind of like

nothing you'd ever seen before.

He had the aura of the rock star.

He had the "It." He had the je ne sais quoi.

He had the whatever. Not everyone can do that.

David Lee Roth had that,

Bret Michaels has it.

That's why these bands all are up there.

So I wrote a book called "Louder Than Hell".

It's billed as the definitive history of metal.

And so my co-writer and I went to people

and were like, you know, "What is metal?"

"Where did metal start?"

♪ Gotta kick out my... ♪

The first wave of metal,

where it all began.

♪ Gonna kick out the jams ♪

♪ Yeah, kick out the jams ♪

Detroit was kind of the proving ground

of the MC5.

Then came The Stooges.

♪ I got you under my wheels ♪

[Katherine] Alice Cooper.

♪ Got you under my wheels ♪

["Cat Scratch Fever"]

And Ted Nugent.

Distortion, loud guitars, just antics, energy.

You know, who-gives-a-shit kind of passions.

[Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll"]

In England, Zeppelin...

♪ There once was a woman, a strange kind of woman ♪

Deep Purple.

♪ Man in uniform ♪

Iron Maiden.

[playing hard rock]

We all arrived at Black Sabbath.

Everyone sort of arrives at Black Sabbath.

Ozzy may not arrive there, you know, he said,

"Well, we're just a fucking blues band, aren't we?"

[rock music playing]

Van Halen were from Pasadena,

and they had a whole lot of backyard parties.

And they played Gazzarri's.

And they influenced so many other bands.

[guitar riffing]

Van Halen had the template for the shredding guitarist.

The outrageous frontman with the hair.

Never would I call them metal,

never would I call them hair metal,

but an influence on every single band

that was metal that came afterwards for sure.

♪ Come on, feel the noise ♪

♪ Girls, rock your boys ♪

Quiet Riot were definitely one of the first wave

of the Los Angeles bands starting in the '70s.

"Metal Health" was, unbelievably,

the first to metal album to top the Billboard charts.

Provided the impetus, like, metal, it might be happening.

People are buying it. We can do it.

[MTV opening flourish plays]

Of course, MTV played a huge part

in the explosion of metal.

♪ We're not gonna take it ♪

Both Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot

tapped into the teenage boy angst thing in their videos.

Hits disenfranchised kids everywhere.

Take check.

[man] Here we go.

- Just don't kick my coffee... - [laughter]

because that would be the end of our friendship.

Well, MTV was a visual medium,

and, uh, they were quickly,

uh, scurrying around to find bands

that were visually interesting.

And lo and behold, in the heavy metal world,

visual representation was as important as musical,

so bands like Iron Maiden, Kiss, Twisted Sister and so on,

we were concerned about the visual as well as the audio,

and that was just perfect

for a visual audio medium like MTV.

What do you do with your life?

♪ I wanna rock! ♪

♪ Rock! ♪

♪ I wanna rock! ♪

♪ Rock! ♪

- ♪ I want to rock ♪ - ♪ Rock! ♪

[screaming]

♪ I wanna rock ♪

♪ Rock! ♪

[Dee] When they first started out,

MTV needed heavy metal.

And they really helped take heavy metal,

re-birth heavy metal

and take it to a whole 'nother level.

Hold on to your jams, because for the next two hours,

you're going to see all out,

no-nonsense, wall-to-wall metal.

Back here on Heavy Metal Mania with my guest, Jon Bon Jovi.

[Dee] I hosted a show called Heavy Metal Mania.

After a year and a half, I asked to be paid.

MTV said,

"Dee, we don't pay money.

This is great for you. This is promotion."

I was like, "You gotta be fucking kidding me.

I really don't need Heavy Metal Mania

to give me exposure.

I need money."

MTV's Heavy Metal Mania.

[Dee] Eventually, they did pay me.

[rock music playing]

After I left, Heavy Metal Mania

became Headbanger's Ball.

Riki Rachtman here, welcome to the Headbanger's Ball.

[Riki] For many years,

well, five that I remember,

we had the Headbanger's Ball on MTV.

We traveled far across the globe to...

...to Rio de Janeiro...

- New Orleans... - Japan...

We've got Metal Church, Dangerous Toys,

Motorhead, Judas Priest and Alice Cooper.

[Riki] Headbanger's Ball broke so many bands.

And here we have Jack Russell from Great White.

[Riki] And all of a sudden, we're in your home.

We're bringing these people to your home.

This is Alice Cooper,

and this is Joe Satriani.

If you live in this small town, it was the way

that people found out about these bands.

Remember to keep one foot in the gutter,

one fist in the gold. See ya.

[Vicky] I was pretty involved with Motley Crue

in trying to help them get a record deal.

I took a few meetings.

I didn't really know that many A & R people yet,

but I, like, played it for John Kolodner

with Geffen Records and a few others,

but then they got new management,

and all of a sudden I was kind of out of a job.

[laughs] They still owe me $3,000.

You know, $3,000 in interest

has got to be a lot of money at this point, right?

♪ Plug me in, I'm alive tonight ♪

[Katherine] Motley Crue was one of the first hair bands.

Motley were very lucky or smart

in that they got both men and women,

in the early days.

♪ 'Cause I'm alive! ♪

♪ Live wire ♪

This was the first type of metal that appealed to women.

[rock ballad playing]

[Lonn] They were aesthetically forbidden,

visually forbidden, sonically forbidden.

They were just bad boys,

but they had hooks

and they looked so fucking cool.

[Katherine] It was so exciting and new

and cool and unpredictable.

People were just thrilled.

[Lonn] "The local glam metal movement

was ignited by Motley Crue in '82

with their lecherous landmark debut, 'Too Fast for Love',

and taken to further cacophonous extremes in '83

with Dokken's 'Breaking the Chains'."

♪ Breaking the chains around you ♪

♪ Nobody else can bind you... ♪

[Lonn] "The following year brought

Motley running mates Ratt

into the fray with their "Out of the Cellar" LP."

♪ Round and round ♪

♪ With love, we'll find a way, just give it time ♪

[Lonn] "The Sunset Strip had become the vortex

of volume and decadence,

for not just Los Angeles, but the entire rocking planet."

Thank you.

[laughs]

♪ I'm live in Texas! ♪

♪ Texas! ♪

I was just like, "Wow! If you grow your hair long...

♪ No way, no way to love ♪

...you can be on MTV and be rich." [laughs]

♪ Don't you change that song ♪

♪ I miss my baby ♪

Everything in Hollywood was just kicking ass.

[Taime] That big scene was like a magnet

for people across the country to come here.

♪ We got your number off the bathroom wall ♪♪

[Taime] We were all kids from different areas,

trying to become rock stars, to get record deals.

That was like, "Got to get a record deal."

The odds of getting a record deal

were actually, at that time, not bad.

They were probably like one in ten.

The odds of having a hit

were maybe one in a hundred.

The odds of making it,

were maybe one in a million.

[light rock ballad playing]

[Janet] Getting signed,

we knew that was a huge step.

But then, when it really happens, it's kind of like,

"Well, what does this actually mean?"

Got a record deal, freaking out.

Put the record out.

Nothing.

Nothing happened.

You pictured champagne being opened

and this atmosphere of celebration

for your lifelong dream,

and it was not that.

In reality, it's only the start

of the hell that you have to go through from there.

Ha!

♪ Now you tell me there's a change in plans ♪

♪ And our castles were just made of sand ♪

♪ I try to act like I understand ♪

♪ But I don't at all ♪

♪ Whatever happened to fun? ♪

♪ Whatever happened to fun? ♪

♪ Whatever happened to fun? ♪

♪ Whatever happened to fun? ♪