To me, the #1 rule is to have great songwriting.



Let's face it, they were good but nowhere near as good as those bands. Those bands progressed musicially and got more skillful, DH never did.



That's a shame. If they had been more consistent quality-wise they could've been as big as Saxon I think.

Did you read the Noise Records book? They thought they were going to be the next Maiden. But yeah, they lost their musical direction in a huge way.

I frankly don't know if even keeping Kai would've helped. Those early Gamma Ray albums were awful. Some bands just have the right lineup and the right motivation/inspiration at the right time and can make magic. When it's gone, it's gone and bringing back the same people doesn't always work.

To me, even Keepers pt. 2 was a big step down from the previous one, although it was quite good.

I don't think so at all. AfD had great songs throughout. SR only had a few good singles ... and ones that were probably co-written by Matt Fallon, their previous vocalist.

Even GNR hasn't proven they can write anything great without Izzy.

Probably because Bach is impossible to be around, and just not worth the trouble now that his vocal capability has diminished.



Unless they get a great new singer and write songs as good as those old singles, it's best to not release anything new.



No one I'm sure.



"Slave to the Grind" didn't have singles as popular as the debut, so even in their "peak" they were on their way down. This band has like 3 great songs and about 10 pretty good ones and have managed to still play shows based on that.



Exactly. The ballads on S2tG were nowhere near as memorable as "18 and Life", which IIRC was co-written by Matt Fallon. I think Bach gets too much credit, especially as a songwriter.

Nah, they never could've made it as big as those bands with that vocalist. Their style was also too derivative of Exodus and Slayer and they didn't have any ability to successfully adapt.

I do wish they would've reformed and released more material like Death Angel did after Thrash of the Titans because Vio-lence was probably sounded the best of everyone at that show.

And here's hoping Sean Killian makes a full recovery.

Yeah, they really should have.

I would blame 7 string guitars and alcohol. After they adopted 7 strings, they became pretty much unlistenable. Djent kids and Death metal fans will never like a band like Nevermore and they just alienated everyone else. It just became more and more tuneless.

There's just no justice that IE became bigger than Nevermore.

I know ZP from Dragonforce is singing for Skid Row now and I'm morbidly curious as to what new material with him would sound like.

I really don't blame their never getting big on 7 string guitars from Loomis. I know it was controversial, but they still wrote some amazingly sick albums with those guitars. I definitely blame alcohol first and foremost, and the illnesses that some of those guys came down with didn't help either. Sort of killed all momentum. But damn, you listen to an album like This Godless Endeavor and it's just so obvious how big they should have been.

Crimson Glory's gotta be up there. There was the detour of Strange and Beautiful, all of Midnight's craziness, and then the inability to actually write something once La Torre came in and they had momentum. Fantastic band with two timeless albums that then just faded away just when they could've been something more than a cult band.

They did reform and were going to release an album until Rob Flynn asked Phil Demmel to join Machine Head. It's too bad because Vio-lence is one of the greatest bands ever, and Machine Head is really bad.

I guess we could say Skid Row really caught one big break with "18 and Life" and the rest of their music was nothing special. It's not like Sebastian Bach's solo career was anything special - looks like his most successful album peaked at 194 on the Billboard charts in 2007, despite three songs featuring Axl Rose, a solid lineup of metallers, and a recurring appearance on MTV.

Oh god, I'd forgotten about that VH-1 reality show Supergroup Bach participated in -- along with Scott Ian, Evan Seinfeld, and fucking Ted Nugent (and apparently Jason Bonham, after looking it up to remind myself who the hell the drummer was).

The segments of them trying to come up with a band name were painful. Bach just repeating, "dude, Savage Animal. SAVAGE ANIMAL, DUDE. Dude. DUDE. Savage. Animal."

Also, lol from the wiki

That's a really oldnooby thing to say. I can say with absolute certainty that when Nevermore was at their peak, djent kids (before djent really had a name) did love the shit out of Nevermore, and they never really had death metal appeal in the first place so I don't know what you're even talking about with that one. Who they appealed to most was prog nerds, because they kept a lot of progressive trappings with the soloing while keeping the riffs pretty simple, so it was easy for prog nerds to feel like they were listening to a mega-heavy Dream Theater type band with the warbling vocals and crazy soloing, and more simplistic headbangers could just rock out to the simple parts while having their minds blown by the shredding. Switching to 7 string guitars only added to the appeal in both directions. In fact they didn't hit their stride until the switch. Blaming the seven string switch on them never getting bigger is certifiably insane because that switch coincided 100% with their big push.

The real reasons they ultimately petered out and dissolved were the reasons already mentioned: internal strife, pretty much everybody getting some horrible disease at the same time, and failing to capitalize on their momentum. Dead Heart was really accessible and helped push them further than they had gone previously, Enemies of Reality was marred by an awful production job but it got second life when Andy Sneap remixed it and even then I recall seeing the video for I, Voyager on MuchMusic/Fuse before that even happened, and This Godless Endeavor took the metal/guitar world by storm and made them the big name they'd always been pushing to be, getting high billing on Gigantour and everything. The problem was that by the time they had finally gotten that recognition, the band was pretty well in the midst of a civil war with Warrel/Jim and Jeff/Van being the Hatfields and McCoys and they had to put a lot of stuff on hold for the various health issues that started plaguing the band. Warrel and Jeff went off and did their solo stuff (with the former being met with "eh it's a metal singer's solo album what did you expect?" and the latter being met with gushing praise by every shredder ever) and by the time they finally decided to push through the personal issues and release The Obsidian Conspiracy, five years had passed and all of the momentum from TGE had worn off. It didn't help that it was a really disjointed album that sounded like a half-and-half split between the two solo albums since their writing styles weren't meshing at all at that point and it lacked any huge standout tracks like the three previous albums had. All the chemistry was gone, all the diems had gone un-carpe'd, they had the world at their fingertips and through a combination of bad luck and clashing personalities they just missed their chance.



I can agree with the band choice but not necessarily the reasons given. The multiple personnel changes really didn't affect the band's image all that much, because all the layman ever cared about were the singers. As long as Cam was shrieking his lungs out and they had somebody else doing harsh vocals, their identity was pretty well intact. I think you could definitely make the argument that booting Jamie in favor of letting Justin take over the harsh vocals ultimately hurt the band since he was much less distinct, and the music did get less interesting and a lot more generic as time went on but I think that's up in the air as to whether it was the fault of great songwriters leaving or the guys just running out of ideas as they went along.

They got a lot of comparisons to metalcore when they first broke out but I think anybody who actually listened to their music knew that was bullshit. The riffs were 100% metal to the bone and the harsh vocals were always higher and shriekier than the KSE/AILD type bands that were on fire at the time. In fact, the fact that they were playing true metal in the early 2000s when it was decidedly NOT en vogue was probably a big reason they got that initial exposure in the first place. They were picking up, and it wasn't because they were starting a trend (fast trad metal with comical wailing contrasted with harsh screaming never really caught on), but because the novelty factor at the time was through the roof. If you don't think novelty can be a big factor in metal's success, then I have some Gwar albums you can borrow. Cam's voice was, frankly, ridiculous. He didn't give a single shit about control or subtlety, he just wailed like a banshee and completely fucking owned it at a time when that was the lamest thing you could do in the mainstream. And you know what? It worked. They were playing Ozzfest and got Joey Jordison to produce their third album. They had momentum, slowly but surely they were breaking out and making a name for themselves.

It's stupid, but I speculate that what killed them was actually trying to "fix" their image. Their slide into mediocrity perfectly coincides with them trying harder and harder to shake the unfair stigma of metalcore that they never should've had in the first place. The aesthetics were all wrong. The name was a weird sentence fragment, half the band was made up of dorks with short hair and thick glasses, other than Cam with his massive beard and greasy locks, they never really looked the part. Once they started changing that (kicking out Jamie and letting the long haired guitarist take over, constantly rotating band members to include guys who were talented enough but clearly nowhere near as gifted in the songwriting department but at least had long hair, beards, and denim vests, etc) and changing the lyrical themes from metal-friendly themes like DnD styled fantasy and pirates to being about how fuckin cool metal itself is, their albums started to sound more and more like a band on autopilot. It felt like they just started checking off every cliche they could possibly think of in an attempt to make people see that "Guys, we're totally a real metal band" instead of just kicking ass the way they were when they got their big push. Cam's voice started getting more processed and less prominent, the riffs became more generic, the songs became less interesting, just everything got boring really quickly. They didn't handle the transition into "being more metal" nearly as well as a band who had similar problems (like The Black Dahlia Murder) did and instead tried to deliberately reinvent themselves into something they already were and quickly became a parody of themselves while simultaneously losing all the novelty. They went from a good second stage draw at Ozzfest with a big Roadrunner push to club tours supporting Municipal Waste to just local shit in Canada and eventually got frustrated and gave up. Whatever magic they had just dried up, and considering they only split up a few years ago I wouldn't say they called it quits too early either, if anything I'd say they pumped out an album or two too many.

When they announced the split, they said in the statement that it basically just boiled down to there being no money to be made anymore and they all had bills to pay, the metal life just wasn't realistic anymore. They were obviously frustrated that their big break never fully materialized and felt like they got left out in the cold. It sucks, but that's what happened, and I can't help but feel like the reasons just boiled down to the novelty wearing off and the band not adjusting properly along with their music plain getting lamer and less fun to listen to.

Seven string guitars didn't kill Nevermore, they were a critical part of their sound and the added range and contrast definitely helped make their 2000- albums even more unique. I suppose they were one of those bands doing something so unique that they persevered, but there's also a ceiling to that. If you were into Nevermore, you were into Nevermore, but I can't imagine hearing one song from those later albums getting mass appeal via some other medium.

This applies to 99% of everything he has to say about metal, so...

FWIW I agree with everything you said.

Great post. I totally agree with the momentum all but being totally lost in the 5 years between TGE and TOC. TOC is indeed a disjointed album with hardly any standout tracks like you said. It lacked in all categories. Clearly the chemistry was desroyed - and it's even more obvious if you look on Youtube and watch footage of their last (I think it's actually their last) live performance. There is no energy, no passion at all. You can tell within the first 10 seconds that something is/was way off. Sad, really. I used to love those guys.

I thought Jamie had to leave 3IoB because of issues with his voice. Is that not correct?

That was the story, and it was pretty well believable too since he didn't sound like he had much of a technique, but he's been in a hardcore band ever since so I'm skeptical nowadays.

"lack of"? "approached"? do you guys know their discography?

I should have added more detail. Linda was approached around 1979 or very early 1980. It was before their debut came out. History may have perhaps been very different has the debut come out on EMI or whoever it was.

yeah the story was that diamond head were going to be next led zep

I fully agree with Skid Row and 3IOB. I love Skid — those first three records are favorites of mine from that era/style. I also really enjoy Sebastian Bach. His voice is killer (I saw him about a year ago and he still hit the highs) and I also really enjoyed his book. He seems funny and absolutely insane.

That said, I totally get why the band won’t work with him. He does come across as a bit of an egomaniac when he talks about the problems he’s had with the band over the years. But, given the status he rose to, I guess that’s to be expected. For what it’s worth, I’ve seen Bach several times over the years and never gone to see the current lineup of Skid Row.

3IOB had all the hype in the world around them but just had issue after issue with breaking through. There are a handful of those bands that had the same problems. It seemed like the era where Nickelback was the biggest rock act in the world, Roadrunner couldn’t be bothered to promote the metal bands on the label and spent their time looking for Nickelback clones. If you remember, 3IOB and Daath were both on RR at that time. I remember seeing both at Ozzfest 2007. Both are interesting bands that had a lot of buzz. Neither could breakthrough.

Given that we also have a separate thread rolling on the misfortunes of this band, I’d also submit Nachtmystium. I cannot ever recall a black metal band with more hype than them. Probably the most hyped extreme metal band, period, from 2000-2010. Century Media went all out marketing them. Nearly every big manager and booking agent tried working with them (before being burned by Blake). They were getting on mainstream festivals, getting mainstream press like NPR and Pitchfork. They essentially opened the door for bands likes WITTR and Deafheaven to have commercial success. Blake made an album with Thurston Moore... However, every time the band seemingly “got it together,” another disaster would strike. I wonder if Blake ever thinks of what could have been had he not burned every bridge he’s ever crossed.

Can't say Nevermore dropped the breaks when they never had them. They had the worst luck and the worst timing. That band was cursed.

I would have to say Motorhead. People tried like hell to make them big. Lars and Ozzy in particular went out of their way to promote Lemmy and give him good paydays, but Motorhead never got beyond cult status and being a t-shirt band. You know, everyone wore their shirt but no one ever went to see them.

It felt like Entombed had a big shot after Wolverine Blues but got caught up in legal shenanigans with their label(s) and the four years it took them to release a follow-up probably killed a lot of momentum.

These guys are an odd one. They were a huge band. Not exactly arena status, but comfortably selling out music venues and theatres. They even had the number1 record at the right time, as well as countless top 20 records for a spell, so they caught all the early breaks.

Iron Fist wasn't a great record, and even Lemmy admitted arrogance on behalf of the band after everything until that point turned to gold. Another Perfect Day could almost have been a Thin Lizzy record, and the lineup changes killed momentum. Record label quarrels around the same time halted progress for years.

Having said that, I'm not sure they could have kicked on further if they wanted to. Punk effectively died out in the mid 80s and they were too old to ride any thrash wave.

7 string guitars were the best thing that ever happened to Nevermore. There, I said it.

I think Nevermore's commercial/creative peak was probably DNB/PoE. DHIADW was pretty much unlistenable, and I was a huge fan when I bought it.

Lemmy did apparently regret not doing another record with Eddie, but I think it was a good time to part (creatively, not commercially). Eddie had a pretty limited repertoire as a guitarist in that template (this is definitely NOT a criticism) and he did very well with Fastway for a few records (particularly in the USA where they had more commercial success than Motorhead). I just tend to see Iron Fist as the point where that line-up ran out of steam. Another Perfect Day was wonderful and the twin guitar line-up produced its share of classics (Orgasmatron, Bastards and 1916!). I can't see it as anything other than the right move. Sure, they fell out of favour with the British press but that was probably bound to happen anyway given their fickle nature.

I dunno, Motorhead were always a very successful band in many ways. In 1981 they were probably the biggest metal band in the world and, while they didn't play arenas, hardly any metal bands of that time did (Sabbath, maybe, but even they weren't the big commercial draw as they had been in the early 70s). Especially for a band with such an abrasive sound their success is unparalleled... their crossover appeal is still massive.

Also, I'm not sure what is meant by punk being dead in the mid-80s.

Yeah, the idea of Motorhead being a cult band or not being big is baffling to me. I went to go see Motorhead in what's probably the largest non-arena venue in my city, and the place was packed. They definitely went through rough patches and could have been even bigger, but to say they weren't big is a very odd statement.

Their creative peak was for sure DNB. Commercial peak, if we're talking about intent, was Dead Heart.

It was simply a reference that Motörhead we one of the very few metal bands that had a significant punk following.

Where are you from, Germany? Motorhead were always bigger in Europe. In LA they played the House of Blues every time, 1000 people max. A while back I asked if the Bomber rig was ever used in the U.S. and everyone said no, Motorhead never played places big enough to use it.

Nah, dude, Kansas. They played a 3,500 capacity venue, and it was packed to the max. Can't speak if it was normally like that at their shows here, I suppose, but they filled that thing to capacity.

All three times times I saw Motorhead they were in a 2000 seat venue and it was packed.

And as for the Skids. Well they just had bad timing for one. They were getting heavier while metal was losing its mainstream appeal. I'm not sure they dropped anything. Saw Baz live a few years ago and he tore it up.

If Skid Row had reformed with Back around 2001 or so they could have parlayed the renewed interest in 80s metal at the time into a half-decent revival. If nothing else, they wouldn't be playing sheds like they do now.

I saw Motorhead in an arena in America in 2012. It was a co-headline with Megadeth, but the place was pretty full and has a capacity of 10k.

Protector. They (sadly) were lost somewhere between being too brutal for late 80s thrash and having no clear profile because of line-up problems to catch on the DM boom in the early 90s.

most of those really extreme thrash bands of the late 80s didnt really catch on though.

True. Death metal killed them all.

Not all of them. For example Massacra and Messiah also did well as DM bands (maybe even better).