SNAPPING METAL
Photographer Mark Weiss witnessed rock history in the ’80s and he has a book to prove it
Not that long ago, when hairspray and rouge were as important as a Marshall stack, and when rock stars could leer freely at scantily clad women, a photographer named Mark Weiss got a job at Circus magazine. He was just 18 in the late 1970s when the now-defunct glossy began paying him to shoot rock shows. By the mid-’80s, Weiss was the undisputed Richard Avedon of the spandex-and-teasedhair set.
Now 60, Weiss is publishing The Decade That Rocked, a 376-page coffee table book that captures the glory of the hair band era. Here are some of his photos and personal observations of the shots.
ALICE COOPER AND DEE SNIDER (1985)
Dee was, at that point, unstoppable. And Alice Cooper was his childhood hero. Alice was on a downslope at the time. Alice was an alcoholic in the ’70s and he wasn’t looking good, but then he cleaned himself up. Dee never had a drink or took drugs in his life. A straight arrow. And he’s very boisterous and knows what he wants. And he wanted Alice. It was at a video shoot and I just grabbed him off the side. At first, they’re just standing there and I want a little bit more. One of the things I always say is “Do something with your hands.” Alice goes to me, “I do the hands.” So I said, “All right, no problem,” so he takes the whip.
AXL ROSE, MOBILE PHONE (1988)
Every time I went to L.A., I would see who is around and what’s going on. And I reached out to (Guns N’ Roses) publicist Bryn Bridenthal. I said, “Let’s not make this a big photo shoot. They don’t like that. Why don’t we just meet at the Sunset Grill. I’ll buy them some lunch and we’ll just take some photos.” Axl didn’t show up that day, so I shot him the next day by himself. We took some photos in front of the Sunset Grill sign. Just some portraits. And then at the end, he starts making a phone call and he’s like, “Mark, check out my phone. I’d never used one of them before.”
JUDAS PRIEST, CROWD (1982)
That’s my favourite crowd shot. It just epitomizes that era. The beautiful girl and the smile. If you were going to cast someone in a movie, that would be a person. The first concert I went to was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and that might have been the day that Nixon resigned and David Crosby announced it, and it felt like those 50,000 to 100,000 people there, with pot in the air, we had a sense of community. In the ’80s, it felt kind of the same. Everyone was like brothers and sisters. Everyone was hanging out. And passing the pot and going on people’s shoulders and high-fiving each other. That decade, those fans, they’re different from a Madonna concert back then. It was more of a culture. Heavy metal and rock.
OZZY OSBOURNE, HOLDING CIRCUS MAGAZINES (1981)
Rolling Stone was more mainstream, political. It had stories about things other than rock ’n’ roll. Creem magazine was a kind of a sarcastic magazine, a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. Circus was a builder. I don’t think they ever gave a bad review. It was like a fan magazine. They praised the bands. They saw the good in them and didn’t see the bad. For a new band, Circus was the golden ticket. And because I worked with them, I’d get little more love. I’d get to shoot the whole show and then do backstage photos.
DAVID LEE ROTH, STRETCHING (1982)
One of his security handlers would look for me and say, “David wants you in there.” In those photos, when he’s stretching, he didn’t have to be stretching then. He started stretching when I got there. He knew my photos would end up in the magazines, and he wanted to show what a rock star does.
DAVID LEE ROTH, BIG LEAP (1980)
Depending on the lens you have or the angle, you can make things look different, and I had the wide-angle lens, zoomed in a little bit, and it just gave it that perspective. If I had a fish eye, if I had any different lens, it wouldn’t have worked like that. I had shot multiple shows, so I knew when he was going to jump. You just have to be ready and plan for the moment. There would be times in the show, maybe two or three times, that I knew I had to keep my eye on the lens and be focused on David.
BON JOVI, SLIPPERY WHEN WET PHOTO SHOOT (1986)
Look, it was the ’80s. It was fun. Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll and the girls didn’t mind. The ’60s and ’70s were free love, and the ’80s were a little more mainstream. I would be on the road with all these different bands. Maybe two weeks with Ratt, a couple weeks with Crüe and I’d see the same girls. Everyone was willing participants.
JOAN JETT (1981)
I didn’t know her when she was in the Runaways. She was trying to reinvent herself as a solo artist. She’s rock. She’s punk rock. She’s kind of like an Elvis type of character. Black hair and a little heavy on the eyes back then. She wore leather. Just a cool chick.
ANGUS YOUNG (1988)
You just got to keep your eye on him. And make sure you get the shot. You only have 36 chances on the film roll. That’s why I had two or three cameras. It’s that one epic moment where a half-second earlier and a half-second later, it wouldn’t be that shot. These days, you can just grab it and spend two hours editing it, and you’ll find that shot. But back then you really had to wait and just go for it.
RONNIE JAMES DIO (1987)
He was a small man. He was the singer in a band called Elf. But with a big voice. Every time I shot Ronnie, he always had the persona of this dark, evil guy, and I wanted to show the softer side of him.