Metal on Ice: Tales from Canada's Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Heroes

by Sean Kelly

Canada has produced many successful proponents of the genre known as heavy metal, which grew out of the hard rock of the 1970s, exploded commercially in the 1980s, and then petered out in the 1990s as grunge took over, only to rise to prominence once again in the new millennium.

The road to Canadian musical glory is not lined with the palm trees and top-down convertibles of the Sunset Strip. It is a road slick with black ice, obscured by blizzards, and littered with moose and deer that could cause peril for a cube van thundering down a Canadian highway.

Drawing on interviews with original artists such as Helix, Anvil, Coney Hatch, Killer Dwarfs, Harem Scarem, and Honeymoon Suite, as well as prominent journalists, VJs, and industry insiders, we relive their experiences, motivations, and lifestyles as they strove for that most alluring of brass rings – the coveted record deal. It's a new perspective on the dreams of musicians shooting for an American ideal of success and discovering a uniquely Canadian voice in the process.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Canada

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Sean Kelly is the billboard-charting guitarist of his own band, Crash Kelly. He has released several classical guitar albums, and tours as lead guitarist for Grammy Award–winning superstar Nelly Furtado. Kelly has also performed with Helix, Carl Dixon, Gilby Clarke, and Carole Pope, among many others. He lives in Toronto.

Reviews

[Ampersand Inc. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fun, very personal history of heavy metal music in Canada. The author is totally charming, and I’ve really enjoyed reading all about hairbands and leather pants and small town tours.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

🤘

[S.B. (Beauty in Ruins) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gimme an R (R!)
O (O!)
C (C!)
K (K!)
Whatcha got? (Rock!)
And whatcha gonna do? (Rock you!)

If that snippet of lyrics doesn't have you breaking out the air guitar and already banging your head, then this book ain't for you. On the other hand, if it has you grinning like a maniac and longing for the days of long hair and leather, then you owe it to yourself to read Metal on Ice. Subtitled Tales from Canada's Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Heroes, this is a nostalgic look back at the history of hard rock and heavy metal in the great white north.

Sean Kelly has done an admirable job of tracing the evolution of rock north of the 49th parallel, and just why it was so hard to translate homegrown success south of the border. Interspersed with comments and stories from the bands themselves, Kelly weaves a story that's as enjoyable as it is easy to read. There's a lot of humor here, often at our own expense (good naturedly, of course), but also some tales of record company politics and human tragedy that will leave you shaking your head. Really, given the distances they had to travel, the climate they had to navigate, and the limitations of a world without YouTube or even Napster, it's amazing any of these bands managed to find success they did.

Kelly takes us on a journey from playing cover tunes in small town bars and clubs, to headlining cultural shrines like Maple Leaf Gardens and the Molson Forum. He takes us from video breakthroughs on the small screen of Much Music's Power Hour, to the big time success found in the glossy pages of Hit Parader and Circus Magazine. Inevitably, he also takes us through the era of Grunge that so quickly ended so many careers, and into today's nostalgic resurgence of 80s rock. In between, he establishes a close-knit family of musicians that almost begs its own musical version of six degrees of separation. Not surprisingly, he also reveals just how much of the 'image' we remember was so carefully cultivated by music company executives, sometimes right down to the name of the bands.

One thing you won't find here is larger-than-life tales of rock star excess . . . of ridiculous orgies, hotel vandalism, rampant drug abuse, and antagonistic violence. He does address the smattering of urban legends that cropped up around bands like Sven Gali, but is just as quick to dismiss them and get to the roots of the matter. Stereotypical Canadian politeness aside, there just wasn't time for that kind of hedonism, not when you were living out of an old van and driving day and night across the country to get to your next gig.

Perhaps the greatest part of reading Metal on Ice is remembering bands we forgot. Sure, Brighton Rock, Helix, Honeymoon Suite, and Killer Dwarfs are part of my regular playlist, but Kelly has sent me searching for classic tracks that I hadn't head in years . . . decades even. Suddenly, bands like Coney Hatch, Haywire, Harem Scarem, Slik Toxik, and Sven Gali are back on my radar, and I'm constantly driving my wife crazy with declarations of "I remember this song!" even as I'm cranking the stereo up another notch.

Whether you care anything about the music industry or not, give this a read. It's as much a story of rags-to-riches success as it is anything else. More than just a nostalgic journey, it's also a reminder that sometimes loving what you do is its own reward. The music industry may have a New Girl Now, but we can still Stand Tall and remember the days when we were Young, Wild, and Free, trading mix-tapes on the Monkey Bars, and having a Helluvatime dreaming of Canada's own Metal Queen.


Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good read if you're 1) woefully ignorant of SOME the metal/hard rock bands that were successful in Canada In the 80s and 90s, and 2) unfamiliar with a lot of the struggles of bands who often had to go to international labels to find success because of the struggles of the Canadian music industry.

I'll admit it took me many years before I actually knew any significant Canadian metal bands, and I think that's a testament to how little they're respected and appreciated on a global scale, even today. I had the big four of American thrash, Sabbath, Priest, Maiden, and some Teutonic thrash bands pushed on me when I was young, but I never heard Razor until I was maybe 19. Kelly makes a point about how little Canadian bands are respected (which I'll discuss a bit below).

I appreciate that Kelly took a step away from discussing Triumph and Rush, yet at the end of the book he acknowledges that he should have mentioned Triumph in depth... considering that this is about significant contributors to the Canadian landscape, I'm a bit surprised.

As well, Rob from Sacrifice shouting out not only Danko Jones, but also Propagandhi as "criminally underlooked" which I agree on, when you look at news coverage of either group compared with 80s stars that take the center attention in this book. There's a consistent theme of Canadian bands not receiving apt recognition (even from a Canadian himself?).

Even further, Kelly acknowledges in the "With Regrets" section a number of bands I had never heard of, which I intend to check out, all of which he notes as important. At the end, however, he makes a point of bringing up Annihilator and Exciter (the latter of which was only mentioned ONCE before in the entire book). it irks me that the two biggest metal exports from the Nation's capital don't get apt attention in this book, especially with how successful Annihilator in particular has been, and Exciter now with recent guitar player Daniel DeKay (BangerTV icon!). Toronto was the main focus for majority of the book, and this makes sense considering the personal connections, but I would have loved to see (and this is for someone else to accomplish) a rundown on bands important to the scenes across the country, not just emphasizing the biggest names. After all, even the ones that "didn't make it" still contributed to their scene.


one other hilarious thing I'd love to mention is that Kelly ends one of the chapters (in a transition into discussing the 90s) with, "I may have been looking California, but soon enough I was going to start to feel a bit Minnesota," and I feel like it is my favourite thing at the moment. I still don't know what Chris Cornell ever meant by that, but I'm going to guess it is "looking pretty and hot and feeling cold and spaced out" or something.

anyway, I enjoyed this a fair bit, but I wish there was more on Triumph, among other bands.

[Richard Cosgrove · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised when Metal On Ice popped up for review, as I’d met Sean Kelly back in the early 2000s when his band Crash Kelly had supported melodic rockers Enuff Z’nuff at the Camden Underworld in London. We talked for ages that night about music and Canada – I was born in England but spent my early years in Calgary – and I ended up buying his album (and still play it occasionally even now).

Fast forward a decade and I find that not only has Kelly been playing all over the world with Nelly Furtado but he’s written a book on Canadian rock music, a topic that often gets overlooked in the avalanche of tomes about California and Seattle. Now granted, Rush aside (and Bryan Adams back when he was good around the Reckless era), most people couldn’t name more than a couple of Canadian rock bands (and a good portion of the general public may struggle to name even one!) and Canadian metal isn’t exactly dominating any list of classic rock acts, but for those of us who were rocking hard in the 80s, there is more than enough here to make this an interesting and entertaining read.

Kelly has put together a decent history of the Canadian rock scene, wrapped up with a healthy dose of humour (often self-deprecating) and writes with a voice that feels as though he’s sitting beside you at a bar telling these tales over a few cold Molsons.

While he relates a lot of good times, Kelly also paints a realistic picture of the grind that touring a huge country like Canada can be, not made easier by the freezing temperatures and unforgiving landscape. The uphill battle of trying to get America interested in anything from north of the border is covered in depth as well, and you can’t help but wonder at times how anybody got discovered at all.

Blood On Ice is a great rock book, and a fascinating read for anybody who was into metal at the time and wants to discover the other side of the coin to the sun drenched, drug fuelled Sunset Strip scene that is usually talked about whenever 80s rock is discussed.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read. Starts off a little slow, but hits its stride when it gets into interviews with members of Canadian metal bands. The bands featured were a mixture of bands I knew, bands I had heard of, and bands that were new to me. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the Toronto metal scene in the late '80s - early '90s and M.E.A.T. magazine because I used to pick up M.E.A.T. all the time and recognized a lot of the bands that Kelly talks about as ones that I'd read about there. I had heard about the Queen St. alternative scene that he mentions, but didn't know that there was such a strong metal scene focused around Rock N Roll Heaven and the Gasworks.

The chapter on touring reminded me a little of Dave Bidini's On a Cold Road but with a metal slant. The chapter on signing a contract and dealing with a record label reminded me of a Canadian documentary that I've seen called Working Class Rock Star. And I read this book concurrently with Martin Popoff's The Big Book of Hair Metal, so as Kelly starts focusing more in-depth on that era, it kind of reinforced Popoff's book on a local level.

Kelly does a good job of letting the artists voices speak for themselves, and I found it a thoroughly fascinating read.

[Rod Horncastle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is the story of my youth: (Canadian hardrock bands surviving the 80's and 90's)

I'm guilty of enjoying almost every band mentioned in this book. I remember waiting for a Brighton Rock concert in the rain...it was cancelled. Watching Lee Aaron from 2 feet away. Being pleasantly surprised by the hilarious insanity of The Killer Dwarfs. And many hours spent grooving to Coney Hatch and yet never getting to experience them live. So many memories.

AS much as I wanted to be a successful Canadian Rockster (yes, rockster...never even thought about being a ROCKSTAR)I just wanted to be in-the-band and performing some great gigs. This book shows us some of the dark times and endless frustrations of the Music Biz. Glad I chose a different career - I couldn't have properly handled the chaos.

Wish I could have read a book like this 20 years ago. You can get alot of wisdom from these pages. But when the day is done: Sean Kelly and I agree - we still have some great Canadian Music to relive over and over again.

[Jonathan Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book starts really poorly. An info dump of every name we're expected to remember is first, followed by generic rock star origin stories that don't really help us distinguish them. It's a quarter of the way into the book before the Canadian-ness really becomes an ingredient, and then it starts to get interesting. The chapter on the women in the scene adds up to little more than lip service, possibly because with a reduced sample size there weren't enough to draw from, but other than that the rest of the book is genuinely pretty fun. I can't recommend running out to buy this, but if you come across it it's worth a look.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book about the hair metal scene in Canada in the 80's.