Thrash metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its overall aggression and often fast tempo. The songs usually use fast percussive beats and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead guitar work. The lyrical subject matter often includes criticism of The Establishment and concern over environmental destruction, and at times shares a disdain for Christian dogma with that of black metal. The language is typically direct and denunciatory, an approach borrowed from hardcore punk.
The Exploited are a Scottish punk rock band from Edinburgh, formed in 1979 by Stevie Ross and Terry Buchan, with Buchan soon replaced by his brother Wattie Buchan. They signed to Secret Records in March 1981, and their debut EP, Army Life, and debut album, Punks Not Dead, were both released that year. The band maintained a large cult following in the 1980s among a hardcore working class punk and skinhead audience. Originally a street punk band, the Exploited eventually became a crossover thrash band with the release of their album Death Before Dishonour in 1987.
Venom are an English heavy metal band formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1978. Coming to prominence towards the end of the new wave of British heavy metal, Venom's first two albums, Welcome to Hell (1981) and Black Metal (1982), are considered major influences on thrash metal and extreme metal in general. Their second album proved influential enough that its title was used as the name of the black metal genre; as a result, Venom were part of the early wave of the genre, along with Mercyful Fate and Bathory.
William Sheehan is an American musician. He is best known for playing the bass guitar with acts such as Talas, Steve Vai, David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, Niacin, and The Winery Dogs. He is also known for his "lead bass" playing style, including the use of chording, two-handed tapping, "three-finger picking" technique and controlled feedback. Sheehan has been voted "Best Rock Bass Player" five times in Guitar Player readers' polls.
John Gary Driscoll was an American R&B-style rock drummer who performed in a number of successful bands from the 1960s until his unsolved death by murder on June 10, 1987.
Gregory Arthur Phillinganes is an American keyboardist, singer-songwriter, and musical director based in Los Angeles, California. A prolific session musician, Phillinganes has contributed the role of keyboards to numerous albums representing a broad array of artists and genres. He has toured with notable artists, such as Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour and Toto, served as musical director for Michael Jackson, and has released two solo studio albums.
Joey Belladonna is an American singer, best known as the vocalist for thrash metal band Anthrax. He is also the vocalist and drummer of the cover band Chief Big Way. Belladonna has six Grammy Award nominations and is known for his wild, energetic stage behavior, and tenor vocal range.
Redgum were an Australian folk and political music group formed in Adelaide in 1975 by singer-songwriter John Schumann, Michael Atkinson on guitars/vocals, Verity Truman on flute/vocals; they were later joined by Hugh McDonald on fiddle and Chris Timms on violin. All four had been students at Flinders University and together developed a strong political voice. They are best known for their protest song exploring the impact of war in the 1980s "I Was Only 19", which peaked at No. 1 on the National singles charts. The song is in the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) list of Top 30 of All Time Best Australian Songs created in 2001.
Underground Zerø is a British space rock band, based in Norfolk, UK. The band is also known as UZØ. While the band is often referred to as "Underground Zero" or "Underground Zer0" in print, the official name of the band includes the slashed zero in its name. Their sound is influenced by Hawkwind.
Graham Anthony "Gizz" Butt is a British musician, lead vocalist and lead guitarist for Janus Stark best known for being the live guitarist for the band The Prodigy in the late 1990s. His own band Janus Stark, from the same era, enjoyed a minor hit with the song "Every Little Thing Counts" from the album The Great Adventure Cigar.
Lȧȧz Rockit was an American thrash metal band formed in San Francisco, California, in 1981. They are most notable for their association with the Bay Area thrash metal scene of the 1980s, and they are considered to be one of the scene's so called "big six", along with Exodus, Testament, Death Angel, Forbidden and Vio-lence.
Jeffrey "Mantas" Dunn is a British guitarist best known as one of the founding members of thrash/speed metal band Venom, with which he played as a guitarist from 1979 to 1985 and 1989 to 2002. He currently plays in Venom Inc. alongside fellow former Venom member bassist/vocalist Tony Dolan and drummer Jeramie Kling.
Andrew "Duck" MacDonald is an American heavy metal/hard rock guitarist, who has played in several bands, the most well-known of which being Blue Cheer.
Randall Desmond Archibald, better known by his stage name Randy Rampage, was a Canadian musician and founding member, bass player and vocalist of the Canadian hardcore band D.O.A., along with Joe Keithley and Chuck Biscuits. They are often referred to as the "founders" of hardcore punk along with Black Flag, Bad Brains, Angry Samoans, the Germs, Negative Trend, and Middle Class. Their second album Hardcore '81 was thought by many to have been the first actual reference to the second wave of the American punk sound as hardcore. Hardcore 81 included a fourth member of the lineup Dave Gregg.
Tyrants Blood are a thrash/death metal band from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Rhett Forrester was an American musician best known as the lead singer for New York-based band Riot from 1981 until 1984.
Jack Starr is an American heavy metal and blues guitarist and songwriter, born of a French mother and American father.
Craig M. Gruber was an American rock bassist, best known as the original bassist in Rainbow. He also played in Elf, consisting of vocalist Ronnie James Dio, keyboardist Mickey Lee Soule, drummer Gary Driscoll and guitarist David Feinstein.
Michael Christopher Landau is an American musician, audio engineer, and record producer. He is a session musician and guitarist who has played on many albums since the early 1980s with Boz Scaggs, Minoru Niihara, Joni Mitchell, Rod Stewart, Seal, Michael Jackson, James Taylor, Helen Watson, Luis Miguel, Richard Marx, Steve Perry, Pink Floyd, Phil Collins on "Two Hearts" and "Loco in Acapulco", Roger Daltrey, Stevie Nicks, Glenn Frey, Eros Ramazzotti, Whitney Houston, and Miles Davis. Landau, along with fellow session guitarists Dean Parks, Steve Lukather, Michael Thompson and Dann Huff, played on many of the major label releases recorded in Los Angeles from the 1980s–1990s. He has released music with several record labels, including Ulftone Music and Tone Center Records, a member of Shrapnel Label Group.
Acid, which started as Precious Page, is a Belgian speed metal band from Bruges, formed in 1980. The band was one of the first bands in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal on the European mainland and their records have become collector's items in the metal genre.
