Jon Wiederhorn

Thrash bands such as Slayer, Exodus and Blood Feast had some pretty sick lyrics that alarmed some of the mainstream. But as soon as Death emerged in 1984 with songs like “Corpse Grinder “and “Evil Dead,” and Possessed surfaced the next year with…

Kids are told, “If you play with fire you’re going to get burned.” Adults don’t always follow their own advice, especially rock stars. Many big name acts rely on showers of flame to make their shows sizzle and setting off controlled explosions at…

Nine Inch Nails’ debut album, 1989’s Pretty Hate Machine, was an angsty, electronic pop album coloured with grinding samples and sporadic guitar blasts that sounded like a head-on collision between Depeche Mode and Killing Joke. Released on TVT…

Delivering snarky, well-timed barbs is a fine art, and the effects of a vicious diss can linger longer than the pain of a broken rib. Maybe that’s why so many hip-hop diss tracks have escalated tensions between rivals and even resulted in stabbings…

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When they formed as teenagers in 1982, San Francisco’s Death Angel strived to play complex, unconventional thrash influenced equally by Metallica and Rush. “Right off the bat, we were trying to be progressive when we barely even knew three chords,”…

This feature was originally published in 2008. Expanding upon the formula (or lack thereof) of 2001's Lateralus, Tool's 10,000 Days — released five years later — is filled with bizarre time signatures, unconventional riff structures, and open-ended…

This feature was originally published in 2008. Instead of taking a lengthy break after touring for 1996's Ænima, Tool headed right back into the studio, were the musicians quickly got on each other's nerves. At the same time they became involved in…

This feature was originally published in 2008. The first Tool album recorded without Paul D'Amour on bass, 1996's Ænima is texturally expansive and darkly psychedelic. In addition to passages that crash with the force of a head-on collision, there…

This feature was originally published in 2008. More complex and multi-textured than Tool's 1991 debut EP Opiate, the group's full-length follow-up Undertow, released two years later, marked the band's first major step in musical evolution. It also…

This feature was originally published in 2008. Primitive by Tool standards, 1991's Opiate is still more developed and expressive than most alt-metal records of the era. Driven by youthful aggression and contempt, the songs lunge and hammer in…

1994 was the most brilliant, exhilarating, chaotic year in the most turbulent, exciting, glorious decade metal has ever experienced. In the genre’s great particle accelerator, atoms were colliding constantly, whole new universes popping into…

As they prepared to take the stage to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock, Nine Inch Nails looked out from the covered backstage area at the sheets of rain pouring from the sky. The 200,000 fans waited on the mud-slick field,…

Every great band has its influences. Sometimes it sounds great when a group writes something that sounds a whole lot like a song by one of their favorite outfits — not just like another song, but in the style of one or more of their major…

When Slipknot released the crushing, commanding .5: The Gray Album in 2014, label executives fans and maybe even band members breathed a collective sigh of relief. Once again, the Knot proved that they were survivors. They had lived through the death…

Progressive metalcore band Born of Osiris celebrated their 10-year anniversary by completely re-recording their 2007 debut EP The New Reign as The Eternal Reign, and launching a tour to pay tribute to their fans who continued to embrace their…

He didn’t set out to make a star-studded solo album; he just wanted to write songs. In fall 2016, When Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton came up with the main riff of what became “Imaginary Days,” he loved the proggy, atmospheric vibe of the tune,…

Every longtime Slipknot fan knows that ex-drummer Joey Jordison and late bassist Paul Gray (who died May 24, 2010) were instrumental in writing the first four Slipknot albums, Slipknot (1999), Iowa (2001), Vol 3: (The Subliminal Verses) (2004) and…

This story was originally published in January 2009. "There's a lot of motherfuckers in this world walking around with teeth missing because of me," says Deicide frontman Glen Benton, who was known for playing shows back in the late '80s while…

More It was shortly after the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's debut album Bleach when I started working with co-writer Katherine Turman on the book Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal. At the time, we planned to include a chapter…