Thursday, July 24, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Mark Slaughter, Las Vegas' homegrown rocker, returns for show at Orleans

Slaughter to take stage with other `hair bands' on Saturday

The men of Slaughter from left to right: drummer Blas Elias, guitarist Jeff Blando, bass player Dana Strum and singer Mark Slaughter.

The metal band Slaughter is one of the few Las Vegas acts to make it big on the national scene. And their legacy? Music video channel VH1 named the group the ninth best "hair band" ever.

"That's kind of funny to me," singer Mark Slaughter says, while preparing to open a metal show Saturday at the Orleans Arena. "It's really a genre that a lot of the industry tries to forget."

For instance, he says, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame features exhibitions on 20th century stars, from Etta James to Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones and beyond. But hair bands from the late 1980s and early 1990s are not highlights.

"There's a big part of (hair band music) that's still out there. Motley Crue is huge and has sold 50 million records. People try to forget they lived through that" era.

Why is that?

"I don't know," Slaughter says, bewildered. "The time of the '80s was a time of big fun, and big parties, and a free life."

Even though Slaughter's band put a national star on Las Vegas' map, he doesn't live here anymore. He took his wife, his two sons and his dead-on Wayne Newton impression to Nashville several years ago.

The story of his leaving is a story that started in the early 1990s. While still living in a Las Vegas neighborhood, neighbors began complaining about the traffic generated by fans who journeyed to Slaughter's house.

"There were a couple girls who parked on my lawn and kind of sat outside," Slaughter says. "I can't complain, but they did."

The singer moved to the Fountains subdivision, because its gates were more prohibitive. That didn't satisfy him, either.

"When I bought my house in the Fountains, I planted over 87 pine trees. I finally realized I wanted a change of scenery. (In Nashville), the trees are natural. And I'm not fighting God's way," he says and laughs.

The rest of Slaughter is scattered geographically. Blas Elias lives in Las Vegas and drums in "Blue Man Group: Live at Luxor." Bass player Dana Strum runs a video production company in Las Vegas. And guitarist Jeff Blando lives in Orlando, Fla.

In Nashville, Slaughter plays on some other people's records. He has played music for Hot Wheels ads, Fox Sports and taken other TV jobs. He has done voice-overs on cartoons such as "Animaniacs" and "Batman Beyond."

But his band is his real career. In the late 1990s, Slaughter was playing 300 shows a year. In 2002, the band took its first full-year break. Now the band is performing 30 to 60 shows a year. And record companies are rereleasing albums by Slaughter and Slaughter's precursor, the Vinnie Vincent Invasion.

When Slaughter did live here, he did his share of mentoring. He taught guitar to Scott Kirkland, of the electronic duo, Crystal Method, which is one of the only other Vegas acts to go big nationally.

"I totally remember that. The one thing about not doing drugs is I have a memory of everything," Slaughter says. "It's great music. I'm real proud of him."

Slaughter says his vocal chords haven't taken a beating from his unique delivery, which gets pretty high.

In 1992, he developed nodes on his vocal chords by talking and singing too much, and not resting enough.

"It's like if you're curling weight, you can only curl so long before you end up pulling the muscle so much that it doesn't work," Slaughter says.

But it wasn't a case of Slaughter singing too frequently in his high-register voice, he says.

But what of that high voice? Other macho metal and rock bands of the 1980s and early 1990s had their own vocalists who sung in high pitches and falsetto, too. Why is that?

"When we were doing it at that time, the melody would pop out much easier in a higher voice than it would in a lower voice, against a rock and roll guitar and everything else," Slaughter says. "Now, everybody sings in a low register."

Slaughter says Las Vegas has always been good to hard music such as Slaughter's rock, as well as to punk, heavy rock and other forms of metal. He recognized this when he was growing up.

"The Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts was the venue. And I had seen everybody of a rock and roll ilk there. In fact, my first concert was right there. On that same stage, I ended up graduating" from Chaparral High School. "And I ended up playing" at the Aladdin, he says.

All these years later, Slaughter has found an ever-decreasing number of 1970s and 1980s metal acts and hair bands to tour with. They are a collection of survivors, such as Alice Cooper, Whitesnake, Warrant, Motley Crue and Dokken. Slaughter fits right in.

"To me, even after touring with him twice," Slaughter says of Cooper, "I still look at him and go, `This is so cool.' I'm lucky to be onstage with people I'm a fan of."