Why 'That Metal Show' rules music TV

None of the three “That Metal Show” hosts - longtime deejay Eddie Trunk and comedians Jim Florentine and Don Jamieson - looks remotely “metal.”

Yes, Jamieson has dagger-sized sideburns. And on-air all three hosts usually wear T-shirts championing their favorite artists (Judas Priest, UFO, Randy Rhodes, etc.). But otherwise, these New Jersey bros look and act like Joe Six-Packs you’d meet in the beer line at a Van Halen concert. There’s no eyeliner, Sebastian Bach-length hair, hoop earrings or visible tattoos.

These characteristics are important because there’s nothing to distract “TMS” viewers from the VHI-Classic program’s two most compelling aspects: 1.) You would actually want to hang out with Trunk, Florentine and Jamieson, and 2.) These three guys know a ridiculous amount about metal.

Airing Saturdays at 11 p.m. EST, “TMS” focuses on, as Trunk describes it, “MTV-era rock and heavy metal.” This fits in with VH1-Classic's target audience, a demographic that’s super appealing to advertisers. Early this year I wrote a feature on Greenville, S.C. classic rock station WROQ 101’s 20th anniversary, and their station manager told me WROQ’s two most popular artists aren't The Beatles and Stones but AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses. Hello, coveted 25-54 age group!

Whatever your thoughts on metal – particularly its ’80s heyday – the music and songs have proved more durable than some might expect. Yes, the production can get a little glossy. (Although this same criticism can be leveled at the LP that supposedly killed “hair-metal,” Nirvana’s 1991 release “Nevermind.”)

But consider this: Motley Crue’s scrappy 1982 debut album “Too Fast For Love” contains the exact same sonic elements as garage rock darlings The White Stripes’ 1999 self-titled first disc. Treble-knife vocals. Heavy yet tuneful riffs. Powerful and song-minded drumming. (I know, as a percussionist Tommy Lee can play circles around Meg White. But hey, they’re both sexually well-endowed.)

Both “Too Fast” and “The White Stripes” possess a charmingly gritty audio quality. And stylized lyrics. That said, Nikki Sixx’s stylized lyrics primarily deal with strippers and drugs, while Jack White’s are a hybrid of bluesman couplets and art-school abstraction.

Another thing MTV-era metal and “TMS” have going for it right now is it’s been a while since a new loud-as-hell, catchy-as-hell, popular-as-hell rock band emerged. The aforementioned Stripes are the last that come to mind.

And some major contributors to the next decade’s flagship rock genre, grunge, have disappeared forever. Kurt Cobain’s dead. Layne Staley, too. And let’s be honest, outside of Scott Weiland and Perry Farrell, a lot of the surviving ’90s greats are short on rock-star wattage.

However, the guests on “TMS” are colorful, and often larger-than-life.

On the Aug. 20 premiere of the program’s eighth season, the guest was Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi. For fans of the genre, this is a booking coup. (Ozzy Osbourne or Axl Rose would be rad, too.) Because of his horror-film/wasted-teenager-soundtrack riffs, Iommi is correctly regarded as the founder of heavy metal.

But for a guy responsible for some of the most beautifully brutal music ever, Iommi is surprisingly soft-spoken and humble. His ember-toned voice sounds more like that of a British novelist than the guy behind “Symptom of the Universe” and “Paranoid.”

Trunk, Florentine and Jamieson asked Iommi some questions metal dabblers and hardcore experts alike would love to hear answered: Iommi’s opinion of the deceased early-Osbourne guitar-whiz Randy Rhodes; details on the factory accident that severed the ends of Iommi’s right fingers off prior to joining Sabbath; etc.

But the hosts also queried Iommi on more-obscure shit like his recent recordings with Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan, and the risky 1980 move firing Osbourne as Sabbath’s frontman and replacing him with operatic-voiced vocalist Ronnie James Dio. (As Trunk noted in the premiere, this reconfiguration ignited a scorching second act for Sabbath and Osbourne's excellent first two solo discs.)

It would be extremely interesting to know the album, MP3 singles and concert attendance bump artists appearing on “That Metal Show” receive after their episode airs. Yes, some guests are still commercially viable on a large scale – Slash and Rush’s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson come to mind. But the star-power of many guests (dudes from Winger, Ratt, etc.) has long since faded.

The latter variety are actually some of the most interesting shows, such as season five’s episode featuring Dokken singer Don Dokken and guitarist George Lynch (who have a vitriolic history) and the season six appearance of Tesla (who seem to be such down-to-earth guys, you’re compelled to revisit their classic-rock-meets-metal material, such as “Love Song” and “Modern Day Cowboy.”)

The production values on “TMS” aren’t exactly at an HBO mini-series level. It looks like they’re hanging out in Trunk’s basement. The modest set is basically a few chairs, and in the background there’s a reel-to-reel tape player, retro wallpaper, a pointy guitar or two, and some random bookshelf relics. “That Metal Show” is filmed in Los Angeles, where a lion’s share of their guests lives. This presents a dichotomous subtext, considering the hosts' meat-and-potatoes East Coast roots and personas.

“TMS” also features a “guest shredder” for each show. Past guitar-slingers have included Tracii Guns and Gilby Clarke, both former Guns N’ Roses members, coincidentally. Although the guitarists’ skills are impressive, in general I can take or leave this facet of the show, but Trunk, Florentine and Jamieson are obviously jazzed about it.

The Iommi episode was missing a crucial component that’s often a “That Metal Show” highlight, “The Vault.” This is when video footage involving the guest is played on a modest-sized TV behind Trunk. It’s typically a clip of the highlighted musician mega-sloshed 25 or so years ago. (The best one was probably original Guns bassist Duff McKagan giving a “Cribs”-like tour of his Los Angeles home in a hilariously coked-out state. McKagan, now sober, appeared horrified at the sight of the footage. He also didn’t appear to remember it being filmed.)

So, bring back The Vault, guys. But definitely keep Ms. Box of Junk, aka Jennifer Leah Gottlieb, the blonde hottie who in the season eight premiere strutted on camera in a scantily-altered “Girls, Girls, Girls” T and black leather pants that are probably the tightest I’ve ever seen on a person. This is obviously, in Gottlieb’s case, a positive aesthetic.

Besides providing eye-candy, Gottlieb has two chief responsibilities on “TMS.” The first occurs after the hosts deliver their opening monologue. She oversees an oversized blackboard, which is used during the TMS Top 5, a segment in which the hosts debate a metal-centric topic. On the season eight premiere, the topic was “covers,” as in the best cover songs recorded by metal artists.

The seriousness to which Trunk, Florentine and Jamieson take Top 5 is pretty awesome. You’d think they were debating the solution to America’s economic crisis or creationism versus evolution, not whether Metallica’s version of “Am I Evil?” is more bitching than Iron Maiden’s re-do of “Cross Eyed Mary.”

Herein lies the most endearing quality of “TMS”: authenticity. There is no doubt the hosts live and breathe metal. In a mainstream context, it has not been “cool” to like metal since “Cheers” was America’s top-rated TV show. In other words, 21 years. If this was “That Indie Show” and the guests included Bon Iver, Radiohead or whoever, it would be difficult not to write it off as trend exploitation.

There’s also onscreen chemistry on “TMS” that can’t be faked.

The hosts are friends off-camera, too – meeting up for drinks and Whitesnake concerts. On the season eight premiere, Florentine and Jamieson, who’ve cut separate comedy LPs for legendary thrash label Metal Blade, teased Trunk unmercifully (this is a recurring theme on the show) because one of his Top 5 nominated cover songs, Anthrax’s recording of “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” was misspelled “Sabby Bloody Sabbath.” (In reality, Trunk, who recently published his first book, "Eddie Trunk's Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal," had nothing to do with the bungle. Top 5 nominations are printed on magnetized strips, an aspect of production that obviously the hosts would leave to their presumably skeleton staff.)

Trunk caught more hell during another fantastic regular “TMS” segment, “Stump The Trunk.” This is when Florentine, who has a gruff accent and a haircut straight from 1987, hands his microphone over to audience members who get to quiz Trunk on metal trivia. Those who succeed in stumping the host receive a metal-oriented prize, which the audience member obtains via a blind grab into the "Box of Junk" Gottlieb totes in a manner similar to those cigarette-sales girls of yore.

Stump The Trunk questions can range from the legitimate (name every album Sabbath made with Dio) to the preposterous (who wore the “Eddie” mascot costume in a certain Iron Maiden video).

Trunk has been a major player in metal for decades as a marquee radio deejay. In the mid-80s, he even signed former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley to a record deal with Megaforce Records. In 2006, Trunk conducted a rare interview with Axl Rose when the then-reclusive Guns singer made a surprise visit to New York classic rock station Q104.3.

So Trunk knows his shit. The frumpy host, who admittedly purchases his clothes at Walmart and Target, bats about .500 on Stump The Trunk questions.

But in the Iommi episode, he whiffs on, what should be for him, a softball. A backwards-cap-wearing kid asks Trunk to name three Sabbath tunes Iommi, famous for his electric guitar acumen, played acoustic or keyboards on. Trunk can’t name one. (“Changes,” Eddie, “Changes”!) Trunk takes the ribbing in stride and, like anyone secure in their prowess, laughs it off.

The final segment of each “TMS” is the “Throwdown.” It’s basically a roundtable discussion in which the hosts and guests weigh in on such issues as Rush fans versus the Kiss Army, “Led Zeppelin II” versus “Led Zeppelin IV,” and the Guns acoustic ballad “Patience” versus Tesla’s “Signs.” Like the TMS Top 5, it’s the hosts’ passion and insight that makes the segment. The guests too often answer diplomatically or bow out of the argument altogether. (Although Iommi checked in with a definite opinion for the Throwdown topic of “Best Sabbath Replacement Singer” by touting Ian Gillan.)

At the Throwdown’s conclusion, a host - usually Jamieson - asks the crowd to cheer for the opinion they support. Jamieson, who in addition to those sideburns usually wears a can-you-believe-how-awesome-my-gig-is grin, gooses the crowd into supporting his vote by announcing that one last.

When describing “TMS” to friends or fellow journalists, I’ve used the old MTV show “Headbangers Ball” as a reference point. But that's a lazy comparison. “Headbangers” was primarily a music video program inter-spaced with limited interview segments and a single host who seemed more like a “personality” than someone with a deep knowledge of the music. “TMS” is actually closer to a real-life "Wayne’s World," albeit one with a lot more brains.

It would be cool if “TMS” added a live music aspect. Have the guest artist’s band perform a song, much like the musical guests do on network late-night shows. However, this is probably cost-prohibitive.

The bleacher-style seating at “That Metal Show” looks like it holds 50 people, tops. But I’d much rather be at a “That Metal Show” taping than one for Leno, Conan or Letterman because the guests, even when I’m not into their work, and the commentary are always entertaining. You can tell the black-T-shirt-wearing “That Metal Show” audience, which contains a decent amount of females, feels like they’re in Shangri-La. And in a way, they are.