When the Motor City Metal record label released Don’t Metal With Evil by Detroit band Halloween in 1985, the glam and hair metal genres were just on the verge of exploding larger than too much hairspray near an open flame. Halloween had every quintessential element to make you love their 80s metal schtick…they had the cheap horror-show theatrics, falsetto-howling vocals, and the raw, don’t-give-a-shit attitude about their whole presentation which metal thrives on at its core. The video for the week says it all — “What A Nice Place” is the 7th track from the album Don’t Metal With Evil, and once you get past the cheese-tastic D-list horror movie credits (there is definitely some intrigue when a music video thanks Elmwood Cemetary in the opener), you get to reapers, pyrotechnics, and Bill Whyte using a couple of femurs(?) as drumsticks. When you get down to the actual music, Brian Thomas, Rick Craig, George Neal, and Bill Whyte know how to mix speed riffs and punch-in-the-face bass drumming to create really authentic metal, even if some of their imagery would lead you to believe they are mostly appearance and not much substance. The fact is, Halloween never broke through into the mainstream as the story goes with many Detroit bands, but they are still together and now 3 decades later recording their latest album without ever being signed to a major label…and that’s fucking metal.
Enjoy Halloween’s magnum music video opus for “What A Nice Place” below.