Every one of the big four was built by an independent label run by somebody with no business being in the record industry, and in each case a major arrived two or three years later with a cheque and took the band.
Metal Blade
Brian Slagel worked in a record shop in Woodland Hills and wrote a fanzine. In 1982 he could not find anybody to release the Los Angeles bands he liked, borrowed money from his family, and put out a compilation called Metal Massacre.
It carried Metallica's first released recording with the band's name misspelled. Volume three carried Slayer, whom Slagel had seen playing an Iron Maiden cover at a party. The label had no money at all: Show No Mercy was paid for by the band, out of Tom Araya's wages as a respiratory therapist and a loan from Kerry King's father.
Metal Blade is still operating and still owned by the same man, more than forty years later, which is close to unheard of.
Megaforce
Jon and Marsha Zazula sold second hand records from a table at the Route 18 flea market in East Brunswick, New Jersey, under a sign that said Rock and Roll Heaven. They heard a fourth generation cassette of a Los Angeles band's demo, could not get anybody to sign them, and mortgaged the house to press the album themselves.
The label was Megaforce and the album was Kill 'Em All. Their second signing was Anthrax, and they went on to release Overkill, Testament and a substantial part of the East Coast scene.
Combat
An imprint of a New York distributor, and the least romantic of the three. Combat released Megadeth's debut, Possessed, Dark Angel, Exodus after the Torrid collapse, Nuclear Assault and a long list of others, mostly on budgets that would embarrass a modern demo.
The Megadeth debut was made for a sum so small that Mustaine has said half of it went elsewhere and the band mixed the record themselves after the producer walked.
| Label | Founded by | Key signings | Lost them to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metal Blade | A record shop employee with a fanzine | Slayer, Bitch, Abattoir | Def Jam and Geffen |
| Megaforce | A couple with a flea market stall | Metallica, Anthrax, Overkill | Elektra and Island |
| Combat | A distributor's imprint | Megadeth, Possessed, Dark Angel | Capitol |
| Torrid | A small independent | Exodus | Collapsed |
| Noise | An anarchist punk promoter | Kreator, Celtic Frost, Voivod | Various |
| Cogumelo | A record shop in Belo Horizonte | Sepultura, Sarcofago | Roadrunner |
What the independents actually did
The expensive part that returns nothing for two years: pressing, distribution to the specialist shops, the first tours, and the adverts in the fanzines.
None of that is glamorous and all of it is the difference between a demo and a career. A band with a better album and no label in 1985 reached nobody.
What happened next
Between 1984 and 1987 a major arrived with a cheque for each of them. Elektra took Metallica. Island took Anthrax. Capitol took Megadeth. Def Jam and then Geffen took Slayer.
In no case did the major interfere with the music in any obvious way at first, which is the part people forget: Master of Puppets, Among the Living, Peace Sells and Reign in Blood are all major label or major distributed records and none of them are compromised.
The interference came later, and it came in the form of expectations rather than instructions.
Why the pattern repeats
Because an independent that does the unglamorous work is structurally a stepping stone. The moment a band becomes capable of more than the label can supply, it leaves, and the label gets a small payment and another act to develop.
That is not exploitation in either direction; it is the shape of the industry, and it played out identically in California, New Jersey, Berlin, Newcastle and Belo Horizonte within the same five years. The bands the labels found in Los Angeles are in Los Angeles Thrash Beyond Slayer, and the full account is in Los Angeles, New York and the Big Four.
The compilation as a business model
Worth separating out, because it was the mechanism that made all three labels possible.
A compilation spreads the cost of a pressing across ten bands, none of whom could have afforded it alone, and it halves the label's risk because no single act has to carry the record. It also solves the listener's problem: in 1982 there was no way to hear an unsigned band except by going to the show or knowing somebody with a tape.
Metal Massacre is the famous example and it was not unusual. The same logic produced Warfare Noise in Brazil, the German samplers and dozens of others, and it is the reason so much of this genre's earliest recorded evidence exists at all.
The contracts
Bad, mostly, by any modern standard, and it is worth saying so without pretending it was villainy.
These were tiny companies signing teenagers with no legal advice, on terms that assumed the records would sell in the low thousands and would be worthless within five years. Several of those records have since been in print continuously for four decades, which is not an outcome anybody drafted for.
The consequence has been decades of disputes about ownership, royalties and reissue rights across every scene in this history, and it is a substantial part of why the catalogue situation for so many of these albums is a mess.
Where to look now
The catalogues have mostly survived and several have been reissued properly. Metal Blade still owns and reissues its own back catalogue, which is why those records have been consistently available. The Megaforce material has moved around and is generally findable. Combat's catalogue was absorbed into larger companies and is the patchiest of the three.
The compilations are the interesting archaeology. Working through the Metal Massacre volumes in order is a short course in what southern California actually sounded like between 1982 and 1986, and about half the bands on them never released anything else.
Sources and notes
Years and labels refer to original pressings. Funding details for Show No Mercy and Kill 'Em All follow the participants' published accounts.
