Brian Slagel and Metal Blade Records--why they are cool

In the liner notes of the 1997 Metal Blade compilation Taste The Blade, Brian Slagel was asked which of the groups on the compilation we would most like to be in. His response was, "[Probably] the Galactic Cowboys. Because if I was in the Galactic Cowboys, that means I could sing. And that would be cool."

Galactic Cowboys were a progressive/thrash/alternative metal group that had an appeal to "intelligent headbangers" who like hook-laden power pop and Beatles-style vocal harmonies blended with fits of speed metal whiplash. The Houston-based group were essentially a little sister group to King's X, whose manager also managed the Cowboys and affected the group with the same general sonic fingerprints as King's X. In 1989, the Cowboys released an album on Metal Blade with a slightly different lineup under the name The Awful Truth. After that version of the group didn't work out, the band reorganized their musical approach into what would become the Galactic Cowboys as we know them today.

Meanwhile, in the pop music world, the then-dominant genre of heavy metal was running out of ideas. Geffen Records' success with Guns n' Roses gave metal an extra boost, but overall the genre was starting to suffer in quality, and attempts to expand it were sounding pathetic and stupid. ("Funk metal" with Bon Jovi vocals and no funk? No thanks, I just ate...) Then in 1990, Megaforce/Atlantic Records began to have some success with King's X and their fresh, radically reformulated take on heavy metal. Geffen responded by signing the Galactic Cowboys, and readied King's X's more intense little sister band to one-up King's X when the latter band hit paydirt. Instead, it so happened that King's X did not perform as well as anticipated, and the intense band that hit paydirt instead was Geffen's own Nirvana, whom they had bought out from Sub Pop Records. With this unexpected turn of events, the Galactic Cowboys became a superfluous signing for Geffen, so they dropped the band from the label's roster.

The writing appeared to be on the wall for the disappointed band, so they decided to break up. Then, two weeks after the Cowboys called it quits, they received a call from their manager letting them know that they had secured the band a contract with Metal Blade Records. Metal Blade would go on to promote Galactic Cowboys to death, even though the band's back-and-forth mix of tuneful music and speed was something of a specialty market and therefore a bit of a hard sell. The label saw the band through four full-length CD's, and promoted their catchier songs like "Feel the Rage" and "Evil Twin" via appearance after appearance on Metal Blade sampler albums like Taste the Blade and the Metalmeister series. "Feel the Rage" was even released as its own maxi-single style EP with b-sides and live tracks.

· Visit the official Galactic Cowboys website at http://www.galacticcowboys.com

We'll end this section with a story were a little more "taking the high road" was required in Metal Blade's label-to-band relations. French-Canadian thrash/progressive/alternative metal group Voivod has built a very unique image and sound around the sci-fi artwork and nuclear war-obsessed stories of drummer Michel "Away" Langevin, combined with the odd guitar sounds of the late Denis "Piggy" D'Amour. D'Amour claimed to have learned guitar from listening to Keith Emerson organ parts, and both members spent hours learning to play whole King Crimson and Rush albums forwards AND backwards!

As with Flotsam & Jetsam, Metal Blade invited the band to participate on one of their Metal Massacre compilations, and then signed them to the label. After Metal Blade released Voivod's debut album War and Pain in 1984, the band and the label had a very bitter dispute, which ended up in the band leaving on bad terms and recording a song dedicated to Metal Blade called "F*** Off and Die".

Voivod ended up building a relatively successful career under the German label Noise International before being bought out by the infamous Musician's Cemetery of America (MCA), where they joined Flotsam & Jetsam in getting the old major-label fork-over. During this period, Voivod contributed to the alternative metal phenomenon alongside Faith No More and Soundgarden (both of whom they toured with in 1990), and recorded amongst other things a rather un-metal alternative/art-rock album called Angel Rat with Rush producer Terry Brown.

Voivod's movement towards alternative should have cleared them from suffering under the Nineties metal backlash, but they didn't get namedropped by any grunge bands, so they ended up declining in the Nineties like any other another metal has-been. The band got dropped from MCA (no, really?), lost their original bass player and singer, and played fewer and fewer gigs to less and less money. Drummer Michel Langevin began taking graphic design jobs to make ends meet. To make matters worse, in 1997 the band was involved in an auto accident while on tour in Germany. Replacement singer/bassist Eric "E-Force" Forrest broke his back in three places, and doctors believed that if he survived he would never walk again (he is walking and completely recovered today).

Meanwhile, Metal Blade was firmly established and doing great with successful acts like Cannibal Corpse and GWAR on the label, and looked to have had the last laugh over Voivod. So what did Metal Blade do in 2000, sixteen years after that terrible falling out? Laugh at them and say, "You deserved it?" Nope, they did the exact opposite. They released a one-off live album for Voivod entitled Voivod Lives. The album was not a great seller, but it kept things moving for the band.

Voivod's true break came in 2003, when Jason "Jasonic" Newsted quit Metallica and joined the band. Newsted gave Voivod an infusion of new blood and fresh perspective, and the ability to foot the bill so the band could finish on top when guitarist Denis D'Amour passed away in 2005. But would Voivod have made it to the finish line without a little help from Metal Blade? Maybe and maybe not, but it certainly didn't hurt anything.

· Visit the official Voivod website at http://www.voivod.com