Mosh Or Die

Photos by Tim Barber
 

When he’s not bawling about regret in $40,000 a month therapy sessions like in Some Kind Of Monster, Lars Ulrich likes nothing better than to bore people about how Iron Maiden and the New Wave of British Metal inspired the start of the thrash/speed metal revolution, changing music forever. The annoying millionaire is right. Not only did they influence the next ten years of riffs, solos, and lyrical themes, but Maiden’s mascot Eddie ensured every imitator would have to have a mascot of its own.

Pre the boredom and bombast of death metal (early to mid 90s), the goth pretentiousness of black metal (mid to late 90s), and the unbearable felch of nu-metal (now), thrash was the funnest form of metal, combining influences from punk, hardcore, and prog with lots of stuff to do with hell, spaceships, beer, futuristic disasters, and violence. Of course, none of that meant shit if they didn’t have a mascot. Eddie went from a stupid skull head nicked from art school to an 80 foot giant that would lift Maiden’s drummer into the sky and spin him around. If you want to follow in the footsteps of Maiden, you had to at least get Eddie’s shoe size. Let’s see who came closest.

Rules:
The mascot cannot have been confined to one album sleeve or one tour promotion. It has to have been a constant companion to the band and the fans, like Eddie. This is why Metallica’s And Justice for All lady and Sodom’s gas-mask guy from Agent Orange weren’t allowed in the competition. Misfits, Samhain, and C.O.C. were also banned because, although they had their stickers on 90 percent of every thrash metal band’s guitars, they weren’t officially metal. If we’d have let them, we’d have had to include the Descendents’ Milo and fucking All’s Allroy and that would lead to Marillion’s jester guy. Motörhead was also banned because they are more rock and roll than metal. OK? No more fucking arguing. You have to have rules.
Anthrax (NYC, USA)
Invented by guitarist Scott Ian, the Anthrax “Not” guy would only appear occasionally throughout Anthrax’s long and troubled career.

His main job was to signify the more light-hearted moments in the New York thrash kings’ catalogue. The rap pastiche “I’m The Man” and the party thrash anthem “State of Euphoria.” Looking a lot like one of those rubber-face puppets you’d buy from a toy store for $2 and get bored of in five minutes, he lacked any sort of menace at all. We hate him. For their more serious songs, Anthrax relied on Judge Dredd, from 2000 AD.
1.4/10 Accused (Seattle, USA)
Ah, Martha Splatterhead. The Accused used her up like the sleazy transvestite Eddie imposter she was. They ran her into the grave. She was on virtually every album cover and shirt they made from 1984 onward. While she did have the best tits of any thrash mascot, there’s one little fact that we can’t overlook—her name is Martha. So regardless of how many heads she could splatter, she still couldn’t fuck with Eddie. We do give her credit for her longevity, though, and she’s way tougher than Helloween’s pumpkin (who we cut to put Martha in here).
8.84/10 Overkill (NYC, USA)
Really badly animated in the video for “Hello From the Gutter” and not as far as I know named, Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth’s Overkill had a green flying skull as their boy. He covered all the requisite thrash aesthetics in one lovingly created little package, i.e. aggression (scary sharp teeth), speed (wings), a sci-fi comic-book otherworldliness (the skull was green so obviously it didn’t come from Planet Earth). Dude also had green eye lasers but his lack of hands would mean that he could carry no weapons so he would cause no threat to Eddie in a fight. Eddie would just duck and then plow him.
7.6/10 D.R.I. (Houston, USA)
This is a design classic that deserves to be ranked alongside anything that Peter Saville did for Factory Records. D.R.I’s chrome skankin’ man told you all you needed to know about the band: They were punks who were also metal, and showed you the correct dance steps in the days before pit kung fu. Because he was so easy to draw on leather jacket/school books/venue walls, he had a slight advantage over Eddie. One thing, though—he never became an Egyptian God. Eddie did.
7.9/10 Megadeth (Los Angeles, USA)
Vic Rattlehead was a skull with steel hooks embedded in his mouth and a steel plate bolted across his eyes in true metal style. In place from the start of the band’s career, he was originally a photo on their Killing Is My Business…and Business Is Good album, then was painted by Thrash artist-in-residence Ed Repka for follow-up albums. He looked OK but was dropped in the 90s for some godawful sub-Hipgnosis nonsense. Though he’s back now that metal nostalgia is filling venues once again, his deviance from the original path means he’s just not in the same league as Eddie.
7.95/10 Kreator (Essen, Germany)
This guy took a couple of albums to develop. He started on the band’s Pleasure to Kill album as a scythe-wielding demon, courtesy metal artist Phil Lawverve. By Terrible Certainty—a fucking concept album about the AIDS crisis—he’d started to wear jeans and a leather jacket. Sadly, for Extreme Aggression he was dropped for a band shot. He would return periodically but they never even really gave him a name (they tried “Son of Evil” but later dropped it).
8.66/10 Voivod (Canada)
Designed by drummer Away, the artwork centered around the concept of the Voivod and was a mix of sci-fi and an unhealthy obsession with insects, which perfectly summed up their odd mix of Tank, Motörhead, and Pink Floyd. As Away designed all the artwork for the band, they have retained a consistency throughout their 21 years. As they have become more prog over the years, the Voivod has kept pace. This is the only mascot that comes close to Eddie.
9.891/10 S.O.D (NYC, USA)
The Skrewdriver factor is OK here because it’s “funny” and they had a half-Eddie, half-G.I guy called Sergeant D who actually appeared in the horror movie House. He mainly existed to distract from the fact that the people in the band—pizza boy Billy Milano, Muppet Show reject Nuclear Assault guy Dan Lilker, and Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Charlie Benante—were more like cartoons than the entire casts of The Simpsons and Pokemon combined. Total bullshit.
2.3/10
WINNER: VOIVOD (Sorry, it’s nerdy but true.)

HEAVY METAL ALASTAIR, ANDY CAPPER, AND OMID FROM BATTLETORN
Thanks to GenXGear.com.