Heavy Metal Thunder

Heavy Metal Thunder
September 27, 2013

I remember somehow ending up backstage at The Bridge School Benefit at Shoreline Amphitheatre in October of 2008. I was still drinking at the time so was slightly out of my mind. Somehow I stumbled upon Jeff Tweedy of the “Alt Country” band Wilco. I had been a fan since their “A.M.” record but wanted to ask about a song from a later album called “Heavy Metal Drummer.”

Growing up on Heavy/Glam Metal music the line “Playing KISS covers, beautiful and stoned” as well as more references to the metal drummer with bleached blonde hair, double kick drum, and a girl who fell in love with him, resonated with me. When I asked Jeff Tweedy about the song he said he never liked ‘that music’ but was kind of jealous of the scene and bands that looked like they had more spirit and were having so much more fun than him and his friends at the time. They were probably into The Replacements and R.E.M. (bands I would later grow to love).

I spent my youth trying to emulate Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue (two t’s in Britt). Seeing as he was not the singer but the bass player, and also the main songwriter/visionary for “The Crue” gave me hope and inspiration to write songs.

Being from New Jersey I always had an affinity for Bruce Springsteen and his music. After moving to California in 1988 and marching up and down The Sunset Strip it was his cassettes late at night on a Walkman that would remind me of home. “Born in the U.S.A.” had a song called “No Surrender” that reminisced on playing music with friends and how “there’s a war outside still raging and you say it ain’t ours anymore to win.”

Well, for years I’ve been on a quest to merge my New Jersey/Bruce wisdom with my Motley Crue/Guns ‘n Roses/Poison youth that I spent up on ‘The Strip’ in Hollywood. I think I finally captured it in the new MK4 song “Heavy Metal Thunder”. Anyone who was up there on The Strip and tuned into Headbanger’s Ball, or read Circus magazine, knows that the force and spirit of that time in music was a very special experience. We based our lives on these bands. That is what this song and a good part of our new album is about. We will never forget the “Heavy Metal Thunder.”
Thanks,
Britt (with two t’s) Pennella