Local Author Tackles Heavy Metal And Movies

By Casey Moffitt in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 13, 2014 7:00PM

photo credit Chris Roo

Mike "McBeardo" McPadden's infatuation with heavy metal and music took him on an intense three and a half year journey which culminated with the release of his book Heavy Metal Movies, published by Bazillion Points. We caught up with McPadden just prior to its release Tuesday and a scheduled appearance at Quimby's Saturday night for some special readings from the book.

The Chicago author explained the book is basically a collection of his reviews on movies that relate to heavy metal music, either directly or loosely.

"The book goes all the way back to Thomas Edison's Frankenstein from 1910 and up to As The Palaces Burn, a documentary about the singer from Lamb of God being brought up on manslaughter charges overseas," McPadden said. "That one just hit the festival circuit this past spring, and it's a really good movie."

In all, McPadden said there are more than 850 movie reviews in the book in alphabetical order. Some are movies about heavy metal bands or music, like This is Spinal Tap and Airheads. Some movies reviewed include heavy metal musicians who have appeared in the movie, like Wayne's World. Also included are documentaries about metal, including Heavy Metal Parking Lot, and concert films such as The Song Remains the Same. Others are a bit more ethereally related to metal.

"Then there are the movies that have been inspired by, or inspired, heavy metal music," McPadden explained. "Movies like Conan the Barbarian, or the Mad Max movies. Just about any post-nuclear, apocalyptic-type movie. There's some sword and sorcerer movies and slasher films."

The consuming project had McPadden watching all these movies, taking notes and writing reviews every day for more than three years in a process he described as "madness." Despite the time spent and effort expended, McPadden said the book still isn't quite a complete look at metal in movies.

"There are about 400 reviews that were cut from the book," he said. "I was losing my mind at one point while writing this book, but something will be done with those reviews. Whether its Heavy Metal Movies: Volume 2, or just posted online, something will happen with them."

"Plus I just missed things," he said. "There's a movie Phantomas, which is about a European superhero. It's kind of a James Bond-type, sexy espionage film. There's also the band Phantomas fronted by Mike Patton from Faith No More with Buzz Osborne from Melvins and Dave Lombardo from Slayer. I was wearing the fucking T-shirt when I looked down and said, 'Oh fuck! I forgot to review Phantomas.' I called Ian Christe (Bazillion Points publisher) and said, 'Stop the presses. I forgot to review Phantomas.' And he basically said, 'No. Your book is done.'"

Just finding all the movies to review was a chore. McPadden said he "spit out about the first 300" movies reviews and then turned to online research to find more. After that, he asked some respected friends and colleagues, and finally he put out an APB over the Internet for suggestions.

"There was a little crowd sourcing involved," he said. "People just started emailing me videos and clips. It was really cool."

Heavy Metal Movies is McPadden's second book. His first, If You Like Metallica, was published in 2012 by Backbeat Books while he was working on Heavy Metal Movies.

"It's a good book, but certainly not the labor of intense insanity that Heavy Metal Movies is," he said of his inaugural effort.

The whole idea for Heavy Metal Movies began when he wrote two chapters for Eric Danville's The Official Book of Heavy Metal Lists. The first list was a compilation of the explosion of metal in horror movies in the 1980s, with films like Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare and Black Roses. The second was a list of 13 heavy metal moments in non-metal movies.

"This included stuff like Twisted Sister's appearance in Pee Wee's Big Adventure or Marty McFly blowing his dad's ears with Van Halen tunes," he said. "After that, I read Destroy All Movies: The Complete History of Punks in Film, and I said, 'OK, I've got to write this book.'"

McPadden said there is simply something about metal and movies that makes them uniquely compatible.

"The music is heavily cinematic," he argued. "If you look at the themes of metal - monsters, power, rage which evolves into things like Satan and witches - it's enlisted in the stuff of movies tapped into even very early on."

"I think metal wholly cam together with Black Sabbath. There were proto metal bands like Blue Cheer and Iron Butterfly, but it all came together with Black Sabbath," he continued. "They saw a line of people outside a movie theater waiting to see Boris Karloff's 1963 movie Black Sabbath, and they said, 'What if we tried to scare people with music?' They took their name from that movie. Before that they were a blues band called Earth."

During the event at Quimby's, McPadden said he will be reading from his book and will incorporate some multi-media aspects. He said he also plans to read some original essays about movies. Others have agreed to read their own original essays on metal, movies or metal and movies. Guest readers include Andy Ortmann (Nihilist Records), Katie Rife (Everything is Terrible), Andy Slater (The Velcro Lewis Band), Gregory Jacobsen (Lovely Little Girls), Rachel McPadden (xoJane) and Chicago zine legend Dan Gleason.

McPadden's reading is Saturday, June 14, at Quimby's, 1854 W. North Ave. and the event is free.