Whether you call it hard rock, heavy metal, cock rock, hair metal, melodic rock, pop-metal, AOR, glam or sleaze, this is the place to find out what became of your favorite 80's rock bands.
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Whether you call it hard rock, heavy metal, cock rock, hair metal, melodic rock, pop-metal, AOR, glam or sleaze, this is the place to find out what became of your favorite 80's rock bands. |
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DANGEROUS TOYS: PLAYIN' WITH DANGEROUS TOYS: RIP Magazine, August 1991 By Katherine Turman It's no accident that Village Recorders is right next to the West Los Angeles police station. And if there were a law against major-league hangovers, you can bet Dangerous Toys would be next door, behind bars on this sunny Saturday morning. The Texas tornadoes--singer Jason McMaster, guitarists Danny Aaron and Scott Dalhover, drummer Mark Geary and bassist Mike Watson--are in L.A., working with producer Roy Thomas Baker (Queen) to finish up Hellacious Acres, their second Columbia album. Though the majority of the quintet seem rather fatigued from the previous evening's exploits, they're still their fun-loving selves--well, with the exception of Mark, who semi-snoozes next to me. "If I say something wrong, just go, 'Wrong,' " he requests, peering briefly out of red-rimmed eyes before flopping back down on the sofa. Dangerous Toys, who broke onto the scene in mid-'89 with a rollicking debut that featured cool tunes like "Scared" and "Teas'n Pleas'n," sport a variety of styles. Noting that critics tend to describe bands only in relation to other bands, Jason accepts the challenge and tries to describe his group without comparing. "We have very traditional guitar riffs," he begins. "I think the difference is maybe in the arranging or styles between Danny and Scott, because we are guitar rock, basically, with scratchy blues-approach vocals and bashing drums. It sounds like I'm describing AC/DC, but I'm not. We're a lot taller! "I felt like I was shaking hands with a five-year-old," he recalls of his meeting with Angus Young. "I wasn't shit-faced, but I had a good buzz, so I was really freaking out. I got his autograph. I was like a kid in the candy store. I did my whole spiel. I felt like he had to know that I wore an AC/DC shirt in our second video. He probably hears that from every f?!kin' band. The autograph is hangin' on my wall." At this point beer arrives at the studio--nothing like the hair of the dog to start the day off right! As the suds flow, so does the conversation, and Toys tell the tale of the title. Seems the band took their cool album moniker from an even hipper source. "It came from a movie soundtrack, from a song in A Star Is Bom. We were describing an old abandoned amusement park to our manager," relates Jason. "He goes, "Wait a minute, let me call you back.' So he told me about Hellacious Acres, the abandoned, messed-up amusement park where all these demons and murderers had taken over, and they were like the carnies that ran it. It was like Lizzie Borden and Jack the Ripper were all the guys in the carnival. It was everything spooky and goofy and horrific and funny that Dangerous Toys is and was turning into." The tune, which is not on the album, was written by Paul Williams (anyone remember Phantom of the Paradise7). Jason, who once described his lyrical approach as "fiendish," says that vibe still holds true on Hellacious Acres. "The dark thing is still there a little bit, but it's more fun and a little dirtier and sexier than the last album." So how do you get sexier than "Sportin' a Woody"? Survey says..."On Top." That particular ditty is "dirty, but not nasty. There is a difference, I think," clarifies Jason. "Then we have a song called 'Gypsy' That one is kinda about dancers. You know how most bands write about dancers, like, 'Oh, baby, shake your boobs'? This one's about their point of view; that's it's not all a lot of fun. Some of these girls are putting themselves through college, and they can make more in a weekend than they could working all week as a waitress. I think where gypsy comes in is, they can always quit, pick up and go somewhere else. I thought the word gypsy kinda related to that. They're getting banged around, but I don't think they'd do it if they didn't like it. They beat themselves up. Get it?" queries Jason. "Hopefully someone out there will get it. Our lyrics are taken so many different ways. But I like that." Fiendish, maybe, but a kinder, gentler Dangerous Toys can also be found on the disc. Take the ballad "Best of Friends," written by Mike. "It's a tearjerker. It's a serious note for us," admits Jason. "Mike wrote the words, and I think it's kinda touchy for him. I don't want to get boo-hoo on you." "Actually," says Mike, "the song is about when you have a friend that you grew up with, and then you move away, or grow up, and you pass them in the hallway, and you kind of avoid them, or they avoid you. It's like, 'Where did that go?' The best of friends. In this situation you hear about someone who died, and remember all the good times." The mood is momentarily heavy in the room. The topic turns to sad songs, and it's time for a sing-along of Terry Jacks' 1974 hit "Seasons in the Sun." ("Goodbye, Michelle, it's hard to die/When all the birds are singing in the sky." Oh, yeah.) Things lighten up when we get on the topic of the tune "Sugar, Leather and the Nail," which is referred to as a "slight bondage" song. Just one hand tied, perhaps? "Both hands tied, but with leather straps, nailed as close to the ceiling as you can," grins Jason. "She's standing against the wall with her arms tight above her, and she's got honey all over her. Sugar, leather and the nail." "It's one of those intellectual songs," the band says, laughing. More importantly, is it a case of art imitating life? "We're just dreamers," they say, looking innocent. "No takers yet. I wish." "I just learned the other day that the mouth is the dirtiest place on your body--next to your brain," Jason tells me, smiling wickedly That being the case, sharing a mic might be dangerous for the singer. "I don't share Mike," he says, deliberately taking my words the wrong way "But if you're into it, I'll share." "Cher? I like Cher. I like her a lot," chimes in another Toy The situation is deteriorating rapidly, but when you've been buddies as long as these guys have...how long, you ask? Well, Jason and Mike were high-school pals. When Mike was a sophomore, he decided he wasn't overly fond of school, so he'd ditch and hang out at Jason's (who'd recently graduated) house. "His mother would come looking for him, and I'd hide him in the closet," recalls Jason. "We'd be at my apartment, eating TV dinners, watching MTV, his bass buzzing in the corner, and our moms would drive up. I'm pushing him into the closet, throwing blankets on him. They come in, see two plates, two Cokes, his bass on, and I'm going, 'I haven't seen him.' They go through the house like the Gestapo. They're in the bathroom, then in the closet, throwing shit out. They got to the last blanket and go, 'I guess he really isn't here.'" "I don't condone that," Mike tosses in. "Remember the time we were walking to the 7-Eleven," Jason continues, "and the cop pulls over, going [Southern accent], 'Aren't you supposed to be in school, boys?' It was pretty funny. Eventually we lived with Mike's grandma, and every day we'd go down to 7-Eleven or Dairy Queen and play video games. We were the 7-Eleven bums. Total. Tempest was our favorite game. If it was the Dairy Queen, it was Galaga." And, as typical Texas teens, most of the Toys boys encountered some resistance from parental units when the band thang became serious, and tattoos and earrings sprouted. Have things changed? "When the first record came out, my dad bought two copies, even though he didn't have a turntable," relates Jason. "He was so proud. He took the albums home, read the lyrics, and calls me on the phone, going, 'Hey I just bought your album. I can't listen to it, but I got to ask you one question.' Total redneck guy. Big, huge, fisherman. Two trucks. You can imagine. Total gun rack. My dad doesn't drink or smoke or cuss. So he asks, 'Why do all these heavy-metal and hard-rock bands write about sex and alcohol and drugs and all this. It's horrible. Can you tell me why?' I said, 'Well, if 58.1 % of America's youth didn't have a hang-up about sex and alcohol, I wouldn't write about it.'" But they don't have to count on their folks for support--it's the band's growing legion of fans that helped sell nearly 500,000 copies of their debut, and the band is fiercely loyal to them. "We just got our first fan letter from Russia the other day," they relate excitedly. Though they didn't have an easy time touring England ("We're too American for the Brits. We were too scummy") and haven't done any foreign-language recordings ("'Sportin' a Woody' doesn't translate well," they quip), they're in contact with fans worldwide. "I called a girl up in Wales the other week," says Jason. "It was four in the morning, and I woke her mom up." Oops. Perhaps part of the reason they care is from their own fan-mail experiences. They understand how important it is to get back a real letter from a band. "You can tell they answered it themselves, because the penmanship is so lousy, and there's beer spilled on it," laughs Scott. Jason pipes up. "I wrote to Twisted Sister once. I still listen to them. I begged and pleaded for a reply I was like, 'You have to write me back; you have to.' I met Dee Snider about a week before that. I had a tan back then. I had just moved from Corpus Christi. I was still a surf rat. I hung out with him. I was in heaven. I had a stack of albums, U.K. singles and all that, and they signed it all. I wrote to him a week later, and all I got was a merchandising thing. 'So, you wanna be an SMF,' you know, the fan club. I was bummed." But the current mood in Toy town is anticipatory. Off the road since April '90, Toys are anxious to get back to business. The band wrote 40 songs for Hellacious Acres, which they narrowed down to eleven (including a cover of Bad Co.'s "Feel Like Making Love"), so you can see that these hyper dudes don't like to remain idle. Though Jason feels the words music and business don't belong together, he understands that the wheels of the industry can't always turn quickly enough for these Texas tornadoes. But they don't like wasting a second of spare time; so, if they're not onstage, where is the most likely place to play with Dangerous Toys? That's the easiest question they've had to answer all day "Wherever they serve alcohol, I'd say we're likely to turn up," I'll drink to that...just don't forget the Alka-Seltzer if you're drinking with 'em! Buy Dangerous Toys CDs: |
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