Issue #56 was the second official issue of HM Magazine, even though the tiny script above the oval HM logo said “HEAVEN’S METAL.” David Bach of Guardian did me a favor and laid out the cover art for this issue for me, since his band was on the cover he had all the motivation in the world to make it look really cool. I like the subtitle to the cover: “Real Men Wear Black.” It’s fitting for the black t-shirt wearing crowd, don’t you think?
The inset features Holy Soldier and Grammatrain. While these two bands may not seem to have a lot in common, both were on ForeFront Records and both were putting out … grunge music at the time.
There’s a crazy-looking ad from Charlie Stringer’s Snarling Dogs guitar strings. Opposite that is an ad from MxPx – On The Cover. “The New Covers E.P. from MxPx! ONLY $9.99 CD/$7.00 Tape”
The table of contents page feature a live photo background (of James Salters of Reign of Kings … Seems like he used to be the singer for The Brave). The Letters to Ed page was still two full pages. There was some controversy over the song “GOP” by Crashdog that people were discussing … as well as that racy Epiphone Guitars ad.
The Hard News section showed some photos I took while at Foundations Forum in LA, along with a couple in-studio shots of Doug Pinnick of King’s X. There’s a rare interview with Allan Aguirre of Scaterd Few, where he talks about his new project, Spyglass Blue. There’s an interview with Mike Lee of Bare Bones that is sideways and hard to read over a distorted photo.
There’s an article about the Bride “Drop” contest, which would have involved several contest winners (including HM Assistant Editor, Brian McGovern) skydiving with the members of Bride. Turns out the weather didn’t permit the drop that day, and so a game of laser tag was the substitute fun time. There’s an ad for Michael Sweet’s second solo album, Real. Turns out our next issue (the first for 1996) would have him on the cover.
There’s a Grammatrain article focusing on their debut album, Lonely House. The Guardian cover story spread uses a headline that I was tickled to use. The name of their album was Buzz and I borrowed a line from a popular song from the Broadway musical, Jesus Christ Superstar: “What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a happenin’.” Those are some of the small-time joys of designing a magazine and coming up with text and headlines…
There was a color ad for the Davdon Agency, which was run by a friend and former compatriot of Brandon Ebel. A guy named David Bonson, I believe. I wonder what he’s up to these days.
There was an article on an under-appreciated (at least in our pages) Christian rock band called White Heart. It focused on their album, Inside.
The Holy Soldier article was creatively (not) laid out sideways. This band had a new vocalist and a whole new sound, which was very unlike their melodic hair metal days (first two albums) and more like Stone Temple Pilots. In fact, it was tempting to put this album, Promise Man, on the Top 100 Christian Rock Albums of All Time list. It really has some good songs on it.
There’s another “gang ad” in this issue that brings back some memories. I wish we still had these kind of ads in the magazine. It was an ad for Camelot Music – a retail music store. They featured six album covers of new titles that they carried. I think they charged each label a small amount (maybe a couple hundred bucks) to have the album promoted in this ad. Featured were: Upstairs Over Looking by Joe Christmas; Teenage Politics by MxPx; The Hope That Lies Within by Focused; Oceanic by Raspberry Jam; Rocketship to Heaven by DigHayZoose and Real by Michael Sweet. There’s a cool No Innocent Victim ad for their Strength album that Rescue Records put in there.
The very first (1993) intern for HM Magazine, Andy Crump, wrote a feature on the band Rose. There was an article on a melodic metal band from Australia called Cry Mercy. We did a spread on “Fresh Produce” that focused on E.D.L., Upside-Down Room and Unashamed. These were written by Chris Callaway, Andrew Crump and one of our greatest freelance writers, David Jenison. There was an article (and an ad) on Reflescent Tide, written by Ginny McCabe. We did a story on the blues, which featured Darrell Mansfield, Rex Carroll, Craig Erickson and Chris Lizotte. I took a pair of blue jeans and placed it on the scanner for the subtle gray background for this spread feature. There was a nice ad for Darrell Mansfield’s Mansfield & Co album on Ocean Records.
There was a colorful full-page ad by Belly Acres, which featured several Christian t-shirt designs. An apparel vibe, as opposed to the “we print shirts and merch for bands” type of service they focus on now. One had an illustration of Jesus and the phrase “Liar, lunatic or Lord” on it. Another had His portrait and the headline below that said, “I’ll be back.”
One of the things I’ll remember the most about this issue is the three-page concert review we did for the Tom Festival. I think my friend Mikee Bridges appreciated being treated like a special event promoter for his first-ever Tom Festival. But it was a simple case of us just doing our job and covering what was going on and this festival was massively cool. It was great seeing Sometime Sunday, Plankeye, Fold Zanduar, Black Eyed Sceva, Grammatrain, Starflyer 59, MxPx, The Blamed and about 200 other bands jam over that 4-day weekend.
There was a nice centerfold poster of Guardian, another RAW Tour ad (for Rez and Whitecross), a Steven Patrick (former Holy Soldier vocalist) ad. There was a gang ad by Tooth & Nail (featuring Everdown, Overcome, Stavesacre, Crux, Rob Walker, MxPx, Unashamed and UPside-Down Room); an ad for a Scott Wenzel (Whitecross vocalist) solo album called Film At Eleven. Truth had an ad for their clothing, as well as their Extreme Faith VHS video tape. There was a reader-response type ad from Campus Life magazine. I can’t remember if we traded ads with them or not. Glenn Rowlands had an ad for his company, Floppy Fish Records. Godfear took out an ad for their band. A band called Grace Thirsty Souls had a half-page ad, too. There was an ad for Z Music Television. One of the coolest ads was an endorsement-type ad by bassist Eddie Pruitt of Jeff Scheetz’ band, Sign of the Times. It promoted the album, Disengage, as well as Conklin bass guitars. In a similar vein, there was a Kansas City Drumworks ad for Sign of the Times drummer Jim Riley. I wish we had more of those type of endorsement ads. We have one in our upcoming issue featuring the bassist for Red, Randy Armstrong.
We had a Radio & Sales Chart. The song “Seen it All” by Mortification was #1, followed by “Empty” by Focused at #2. The top album was This Beautiful Mess by Sixpence None the Richer, followed by Teenage Politics by the up-and-coming MxPx.
The Kansas Says article was an interesting one that involved a tense interview with drummer Phil Ehart. Apparently he didn’t want to talk to me on the record about his faith. He said he’d call back to talk about it personally, off-the-record. I did my best to approach the subject ever so slightly. Much to my respect, Phil called back twice to talk about these things. Turns out that both times I was away and all I got was a voicemail. One of the times he was on vacation in Alaska. That says a lot about the man – that he was willing to do that and that he’s a man of his word.
Album reviews included most of the bands we mentioned already, as well as Live Bootleg by Audio Adrenaline; Language of Fools by Love Coma; Failure to Yield by Crux; Live in Deutschland by Saviour Machine; Extended Empire by XT; Unplugged by The Kry; In Darkness or in Light by Metanoia; the self-titled by Ordained Fate; Breathe by Sunday Blue; My Cat Puddin Head; Beheaded; Apathy Denied; The Warning; Ayers & James; Clay; Begotten; Pentecost; Subculture; LIghtmare; Preacher; Thryce Denied; Thresh; Thre3; Redeemer; Exit Eden; The Serfs; Sercher; Neptune; Process; Purge; New Society; Soul Fisher; and Straightway.
There were three pages of book reviews, including Frank Peretti’s The Oath; Peter & Patti Lalonde’s Left Behind; a Joe Dallas-penned novel about a bashed homosexual called Unforgiven Sins; Charles Colson & Ellen Vaughn’s Gideon’s Torch – all reviewed by Bride’s Dale Thompson. Precious Death’s Christopher Scott reviewed a book called A Gentle Thunder by Max Lucado.
Pastor Bob had a column about freedom in Christ. The back page message was about being an alien (which featured a photo I took of an energy company mascot in a lightning bug costume).
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