Dark Angel drummer Gene Hoglan reflected on the early days of the thrash metal movement and its enduring impact on heavy music in a new interview with Remzi “Jam Man” Yates of Rocking With Jam Man. The veteran musician, widely known by nicknames like “The Atomic Clock” and the “Human Drum Machine,” discussed the genre’s origins as a counter-reaction to the mainstream “hair metal” scene of the 1980s and argued that the grunge movement of the 1990s was significantly shaped by thrash’s foundation.
When asked if he felt part of a revolutionary movement 40 years ago, Gene Hoglan admitted that the band had no idea they were changing the industry. At the time, they were focused on creating music that served as a direct, aggressive contrast to the “c**k rock” and “hair metal” dominating the airwaves.
“Not at all. We had no idea. If anything, we were the ones swimming upstream, because at that time of thrash, hair metal, cock rock, whatever people wanna call it, just hard rock, radio rock, that was huge at the time. And for us, cranking out just brutal music at the time, we were very unaccepted by the masses. It was the fans who probably were also getting tired of that hair metal and hairspray. It just all seemed kind of plastic, that kind of music. It all just kind of seemed fake. These guys are all hairsprayed up on the weekends, but on the weekdays they’re going to their day jobs, and that kind of thing,” Hoglan explained (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
He emphasized the authenticity that defined the thrash scene: “So at least thrash metal was just real. We went on stage in what we wore to the show, what we wear in real life and just day-to-day life. And the music we played was real aggressive in countering what was going on in the public eye at the time. So we didn’t know that there was gonna be any life to this. It was just music we loved playing. It was music we loved creating. We really dug helping create a scene. But to the extent that it went, we had no idea. We were playing the music we loved. And like I said, I think a lot of people were getting a little tired of all these [hair metal] bands who sounded the same, looked the same, had the same lyrical content — partying, girls, driving your car kind of thing. We were trying to just kind of bust out of that sort of template that others had made, and that’s kind of where it led. And it is pretty amazing, 43 years later, getting to chat about the early days, and it being a part of everything.”
Addressing the common narrative that the rise of the Seattle grunge scene ended heavy metal’s dominance, Gene Hoglan contended that the two genres were actually connected through a shared appreciation for heavy music. He noted that many prominent grunge musicians were themselves fans of the thrash era.
“That’s one thing I always felt. When metal sort of, kind of went away in the early ’90s, it just went back to being underground the way it was for all of us. It never died, but the one thing that did stay true to all of it were all the thrash or thrash-based, thrash-influenced bands. Those guys were the ones that were able to kind of ride the tide a little bit. All of us that were in the heavier side of things, we all were proud of where we were. We were all proud of what we had done, so we had nothing to be embarrassed about. When grunge came around and people thought that grunge killed metal, it didn’t at all. Grunge was very influenced by thrash metal. You can hear it. You talk to the guys from all these grunge bands, the big ones, they’re, like, ‘We loved thrash. We were all about thrash.’ So, thrash was a wide-ranging, influential style of music. Especially, it influenced everything that came after it, in my opinion. Death metal, grindcore, everything that was really heavy, I think, really did come from the thrash era. So, when you have roots that strong, the trees grow tall,” he said.
Gene Hoglan‘s reputation for technical precision is built on decades of work across various subgenres of metal. Self-taught from the age of 13, he began by playing along to Kiss and Rush records. His career officially began in 1984 as a roadie and light engineer for Slayer before joining Dark Angel, where he contributed as both a drummer and a primary lyricist.
In the mid-1990s, he achieved further fame performing with Death as bandleader Chuck Schuldiner shifted the group toward a more progressive sound. His extensive resume also includes several albums with Testament and a long-standing partnership with Devin Townsend, both in the band Strapping Young Lad and on Devin Townsend‘s solo projects. For the past 15 years, Gene Hoglan has collaborated with Brendon Small on the Dethklok project associated with the show Metalocalypse. He also performed on the Fear Factory album Mechanize after joining the group in 2010.
