Heavy Metal Kids

The Heavy Metal Kids are a British hard rock band, formed in 1972 in London. The band's founding frontman Gary Holton, guitarist Mickey Waller, and early member Dave Dee are deceased.

Biography

Early years (1972-1985)

The Heavy Metal Kids were formed by the merger of two previous bands: Heaven and Biggles. They took their name from a gang of street kids, featured in the novel Nova Express by William S. Burroughs.

The initial, pre-recording line-up consisted of Mickey Waller (guitar), Ronnie Thomas (bass and vocals), Gary Holton (lead vocals), Keith Boyce (drums) and Cosmo (guitar). They were the first signing by Atlantic Records' new London offices, having been spotted by their A&R man, Dave Dee. In January 1974, they recorded their first, self-titled album, produced by Dave Dee and engineered by Phil Chapman.

Waller left the band shortly before they went in to Island Studios, to record the follow-up album Anvil Chorus, in January 1975, which was produced by Andy Johns. At this point keyboard player Danny Peyronel left to join UFO and was replaced by John Sinclair. Shortly after, Cosmo was replaced by Barry Paul, and the band moved to Mickie Most's RAK Records where they recorded Kitsch, which was produced by Most.

Heavy metal

Heavy metal may refer to:

Music

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal (or simply metal) is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and the United States. With roots in blues rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are often associated with masculinity, aggression, and machismo.

The first heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple attracted large audiences, though they were often derided by critics, a status common throughout the history of the genre. During the mid-1970s, Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence;Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility and an increasing emphasis on speed. Beginning in the late 1970s, bands in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal such as Iron Maiden and Saxon followed in a similar vein. Before the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as "metalheads" or "headbangers".

Heavy Metal (film)

Heavy Metal is a 1981 Canadian-American adult animated anthology science fiction fantasy film directed by Gerald Potterton and produced by Ivan Reitman and Leonard Mogel, who also was the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine, the basis for the film. The screenplay was written by Daniel Goldberg and Len Blum. The film was the sixth animated feature film to be presented in Dolby surround sound.

The film is an anthology of various science fiction and fantasy stories adapted from Heavy Metal magazine and original stories in the same spirit. Like the magazine, the film features a great deal of graphic violence, sexuality, and nudity. Its production was expedited by having several animation houses working simultaneously on different segments, including CinéGroupe and Atkinson Film-Arts.

A sequel titled Heavy Metal 2000 was released in 2000.

Plot

Soft Landing

The film's title sequence story opens with a space shuttle flying in orbit over Earth. The bay doors open, releasing a Corvette. An astronaut seated in the Corvette then begins descending through Earth's atmosphere, landing in a desert canyon (both car and occupant miraculously unscathed by re-entry friction heat) .