When I was 11, I was reading an interview with one of my two idols, Peter Criss (Willie Mays being the other), and he was explaining how, when he was a kid, he had told his folks, "I'm gonna be a big rock star and play Madison Square Garden!" And I thought, "Good enough for him, good enough for me." So I went, "Hey Ma and Pa! When I grow up, I'm gonna be an underground thrash metal musician, and play the Target Center in Minneapolis! Plus, I'm gonna play every rathole in the States and Europe for YEARS before I make a living at it." No wonder my Dad urged, "You might wanna stick to baseball, son. That doesn't sound like fun. Slayer's better than you." Of course it didn't go down quite like that (the "Slayer's better" mantra didn't come outta my dad til a few years later), but I did announce when I was 11 that I was gonna be a rock dude. And later, when I was 13, I became a sponge on the LA club scene, absorbing every bit of knowledge I could about 'how to make in the music biz'. I figured, "If this is going to be your plan, your life's goal, you better work your ass off at it. Oh, you'd better actually LEARN how to play those drums, you air-drumming goof".

It was the early summer of '78, and I had been air-drumming (the best way to learn drums, I swear) to all my faves, KISS, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, Angel, etc. And I KNEW that my band was gonna sound just like Van Halen, probably my favorite band of all of 'em at the time. They were fast, heavy, and Alex was a storming drummer. I would practice in my bedroom, with my little pair of sticks that I had painted black and silver, just like Roger Earl from Foghat. Man, I can remember my folks barging into my room on many occasion without knocking, as was customary for them to do, and catching me rocking out to whatever was on my turntable, and me freaking out at being caught redhanded, being that air-drumming goof. I would've rather had them discover me cranking myself, than captured in the horrifying act of 'rocking out'. Later in that same summer of '78, while visiting family in El Paso, Texas, the light shone on me. Driving in my cousin Ken's Mustang, and hearing Rush's "2112" (on 8-track, no less!), it was like the gods were smiling down on me with an epiphany so overwhelming, I just listened in shock. I had found the ultimate band, and the ultimate drummer. I ran out and bought the vinyl to "2112", and learned it backwards and forwards, on the air drums of course, my air-drum kit now expanded to Neil Peart-size dimensions. And I was the SHIT! I still had never touched a real drumset, but armed with newfound Neil Peart-knowledge, I was one bad-ass air-drumming mofo. That's when I started realizing, "Y'know, you're getting down the styles of all these drummers you like, when you actually break your cherry on a kit, you're gonna have a greater aptitude for it than the average 12 year-old who's just learning how to go 'boom-PAP-boom-PAP-boom-PAP', don't you think, Gene?" Ahha!¦the effortless recollection of an 11 year-old's internal dialogue. So, armed with that knowledge, I knew it was 'time to break my cherry'.

TWO WHOLE YEARS LATER I got my first kit, a sharp-lookin' chrome-finished five-piece Slingerland with a 26(!) inch kick drum. 14", 15" toms, and an 18" floor. And some non-descript, yet decent snare. I can remember, the first thing I played on it was 'The Rover' by Zeppelin, and I wasn't even a huge Zep fan at the time, but I knew at the time that I would have to tell this story someday, just like now, so, "Remember your first song on your first kit, dude." I then moved my turntable out to the garage, and I left my professional air-drumming ways behind.

Where my house was situated, it was about a block away from the junior high I attended, and half the school would walk past my house on their way home. We all know how brutal kids that age can be, so I figured, I'd better get real good, and only bring out my 'A-game' when jamming after school. The cliques were all present and established, and oh yes, there was the definite 'drumming-clique', which, although I got along with those guys okay, I would never be a part of them. These guys were the elite, all of them members in the school band, learning rudiments and how to read, and I was bashing away to Pat Travers and Molly Hatchet records. Thus, the embryonic form of my 'messianic complex' was taking shape, and I was like, "You can HAVE all your para-wingdang-diddly-doodles, I'm gonna actually become a REAL drummer, BE in a band, SEE the world, have an awesome LIFE, and you're all gonna be weekend warriors at best, with crappy 9-to-5 jobs with zombie-wives and zombie-lives," and then I'd kick in to 'YYZ' by Rush. And play it pretty decently for an ex-air-drumming goof. I knew what I wanted, I had known for two years already. And I wasn't ever going to stop until I made something of myself.

What that was, I had no clue.

I think that was the last period of time I gave a fuck what anybody thought of me or my drumming.

A couple of years later, I was in high school, and pretty much given up any thought of becoming a pro ballplayer in pursuit of my rock'n'roll pipedream. Y'see, though I had the skills, I also had too much hair and a weirdo mentality.

A typical exchange:
Coach: Hoglan, you got too much hair, and you dress funny.
Gene: What about it, coach?
Coach: Your hair is almost to your tits. You wear your sister's clothes, you wear leg-warmers, and what're those things on your arms called? Gauntlets? And what's with the make-up? You a fruit?
Gene: Just psychin' the other team out, coach.
Coach: You bat over .500 and you've got got a flamethrower for an arm, what's there to psych-out?
Gene: You, I guess, coach.

Ah well, if only there had been a Dennis Rodman back then, I wouldn't have been such a freak.

Y'know, I did learn about groupies back in my playing days. Most of the other kids had their little cheerleaders and girlies from whatever high school they went to. Me, I had single moms. A lot of moms were like, 28, with a ten year-old. I was 13, 14, 15, six feet tall, this wanna-be rock'n'roll wildman, flirtin' it up with women twice my age. Life was good.

After I threw my flamethrower out (for those of you who've played baseball as a kid, remember when they told ya, "Don't throw curveballs. Your arm is underdeveloped, and you'll ruin yourself"? Well, there's wisdom in them thar words), baseball was just too rigid to for me to continue. I wasn't cutting my hair or dressing non-freaky for anybody, and I gave myself wholly to the Rock'n'Roll dream.

I was in high school, and I'd be going with my sister Lisa to all the clubs and catching all the LA 'hair bands' who hadn't made it yet, all the Motley Crue's, Ratt's, Dokken's, you name it. The band to which we were closest was Great White, only back then, they were called Dante Fox. All these bands were actually pretty heavy (with the exception of Motley Crue, who were never considered 'heavy'. Or ever by me, 'good') cuz they hadn't cheesed out yet for the radio. Dante Fox had a plethora of double bass numbers, which I always dug. The progenitors of thrash metal, those 16th-note 'chugga-chugga' songs, and every band had one, or two. Only Dante Fox had three or four, and I always got off on anything fast and heavy. I could never find anything fast enough, or heavy enough, though, so I started delving into the NWOBHM, and all the great European and Japanese bands, like Torch, More, Angel Witch, Tank, Motorhead, Bow Wow, Titan, etc. Raven were my personal gods, 'cause they threw double bass into like, every song! Anvil had a crapload, too, and Rob 'Wacko' Hunter from Raven, and Robb Reiner from Anvil were my idols of metal drumming. Along with Tommy Aldridge, Cozy Powell, Philthy Animal Taylor, and Animal of the Muppets. I also played along to tons of progressive rock stuff, like Yes, UK, King Crimson, Gino Vannelli, Al DiMeola. That's when I started to develop tons of the chops that would come to fruition in later times.

When I was sixteen, I had been running lights for Slayer at tons of their local club shows, and they asked if I wanted to hit the road with them. "Hell yeah," was my reply. There was one time, in early '84, when they came over to my house to do an interview for a fanzine run by a friend, and Dave and I nipped out to my garage to whack some drums. After they were done, Kerry, Jeff and Tom filtered into the garage, and watched us trade licks. Dave was killin', but it was MY kit. I knew that thing like the back of my hand, plus I had a goofy set-up even back then, so it was not an easy kit for someone else to master. Dave jumped off, I jumped on and pulled the best stuff that I had outta my ass. After my little 'audition', the dudes all turned to Dave and said, "We got ourselves a new drummer, dude!". Much hilarity ensued, but that little moment meant a lot to me. They were the first people to ever see me play. How cool is that?

Anyway, we hit the road in summer of '84, on their 'Haunting the West Coast' tour. And I tell ya, all this wanna-be rockstar posing sure got me in trouble. Let me state, and I'm sure all would agree, that I have to be the WORST tech in history. I thought, as 'lighting tech', all I had to do was push buttons and that's it. What an idiot. No one told me about loading gear, etc. And I was sure too stupid to figure it out on my own. All I ever did was hang out and talk metal with the locals. God, those Slayer guys musta hated me, and probably couldn't wait to dump me at the first bus terminal they could find. Fortunately for me, they didn't, but I sure didn't get any more calls from them to hit it up again, either!

I got to see some amazing shows and meet some super-cool people. Slayer/Exodus/Possessed all on one bill, in Portland there was Wild Dogs (I shared a sink in the men's room with Deen Castronovo!) and in Seattle there was Metal Church, wow. All this was before anybody had albums out, save for Slayer. They only had "Show No Mercy" out anyway. Which, about maybe 3 of you might not know by now, was my vinyl debut. Backing vocals on 'Evil Has No Boundaries'. A friend just recently pointed out, "Y'know, that's quite a historical metal moment there, you guys all debuting on the same slab", to which I thought, "Wow, I never looked at it that way before, righteous!"

One of the coolest people I met on that tour was Michelle Meldrum, and when I got off the road, we became fast friends. We met in the Bay Area, at that massive triple bill mentioned earlier, and a while after I got back, she had relocated to LA, and we started jamming together in what would soon become War God. Y'know, I've never known how to spell that. WarGod? Wargod? Anyway, we wrote some tunes, recorded a little demo, and ate a lot of chocolate.

It was then that I'd started doing lights for Dark Angel, with whom I'd been friends for a few months prior. They were growing increasingly unhappy with their current drum situation, and as I'd seen 'em go through quite a few drummers in the couple of years that I'd followed them. I guess I had walked up to Jim Durkin, their now-legendary guitarist and said, "Hey, I blow your drummer away", or words to that effect, so he called up Kerry King and asked, "Tell me something about Gene", and Kerry replied, "Good drummer, whiny kid. Probably never gonna make it." So Jim said, "Then that's our guy!"

I really liked what we had going with War God, so I was in no hurry to leave, but Michelle, in her 15 year-olds' wisdom, said, "Look, join Dark Angel, they're gonna go places. Who knows what War God's gonna do?", and so I reluctantly left the nest. For my second 'Dark Angel'. Y'see, two years earlier, I was in another, extremely short-lived band called Dark Angel, whom I made change the name to 'Carnage' (no relation to the Swedish band), 'cause I thought Dark Angel' was a goofy name. These days, I realize that I've been in three of the goofiest-named bands on the planet. You figure out which ones.

Back in those days, sonny, there was our 'internet', which was the underground tape-trading scene. Poorly recorded demos, rehearsal tapes, board tapes, you name it, it didn't matter the quality, as long as it was metal. Before I joined DFA, I remember playing War God demos/rehearsal tapes against Dark Angel rehearsal tapes for my girlfriend and asking, "Are we faster?", like that was all that mattered. To which she would reply, in a robotinous (is that even a word?) monotone, "Yes, Gene, you guys are FASTER", like someone who liked only Def Leppard could. Or, someone who just knew better that speed wasn't everything. Took me years to figure that out.

My first rehearsal with DFA was December 10th, 1984. With a kickdrum borrowed from my best friend Tom, 'cause I still only had a single bass kit. I had gotten pretty good with that one kick, though, and since double-bass tunes up 'til then were relatively easy, speed-wise, to get by on with one kick, by doing 16th notes on the kick, in a '1-2-snare-1-2-3-snare-1-2-3-snare' action, I hadn't ever needed to step up my kit-size. But, Dark Angel was a brand new machine, and I heard double kick all OVER the place with their new stuff, so I had to bite the bullet, and get a new kit. Immediately.

My first gig was on New Year's Eve, 1984, at Radio City, New York City. Nah, I joke. Radio City, in Orange County, Ca. I thought I was gonna crap my pants before the show, I was so nervous. I told the guys, "There's NO WAY I can do this, dudes," and their reply was, "Look, you little shit, you back out now, and we're gonna cut your fuckin' eyes out, you got that?". Holy shit, what could I do? I was seventeen years-old, and these were badass nineteen year-olds.

I was pacing around before the show, feeling sick to my stomach, when we got the call. Five minutes 'til showtime. This horrific feeling had built up to its breaking point, and I was so nervous, so scared. I had wanted nothing but THIS MOMENT for the past six years or so, and now it was here, and all I wanted to do was crawl underneath the stage and puke. I couldn't remember the tunes, I couldn't even move, I was now frozen in terror. Somebody grabbed me and threw me out onto the stage, and as the crowd went, "RRRROOOOOAAAARRRR!", something happened. All fear drained away as the adrenalin from the crowd's chorus took over. I got behind the kit, which was about six feet from the crowd, due to the stage's tinyness, and just roared back, "ALRIGHT, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS, WE'RE GONNA KICK YOUR FUCKIN' TEETH IN, YOU BUNCHA BASTARDS!".

And proceeded to kill every one of them.

Over the course of time, I proceeded to put out a bunch of deadly records with Dark Angel, then, I moved on to Death, and later, Strapping Young Lad. With coffee-breaks in just about every other metal band on the planet, seems like. I'll tell ya all about that some other time...

Gene Hoglan July, 2007