Vinnie Vincent Invasion fans broke Slaughter (Billboard scans)

[Luxor]

Remember 6 months or so when people were "questioning" stories posted from Billboard magazine. Some didn't believe them. They demanded scans of the articles or they wouldn't believe.


Here's scans from Billboard and they are exactly what was said on this board. Although some people around here "questioned" their validity. I won't name names but you can take a guess



These two about Invasion / Invasion fans breaking Slaughter
https://www.kissfaq.com/forum18/downloa ... &mode=view

https://www.kissfaq.com/forum18/downloa ... &mode=view


This is from John Sykes (Chrysalis) and how Slaughter used its heavy metal following from VVI to score
Already past 700K in sales by May 1990
https://www.kissfaq.com/forum18/downloa ... &mode=view


Talking about their hit video "Love Kills"
https://www.kissfaq.com/forum18/downloa ... &mode=view

The "White Heat" band is Firehouse. They are the ones mentioned in another thread about how bad Dana screwed them (Metal Sludge interview with Slaughter inside and then also a quote from Bill (Firehouse) about Dana. Not pretty.


Very very odd people would have questioned the legitimacy of those Billboard articles.

[drmoorejr]

WOW, nice post. When I have time I will check out the links.

[drmoorejr]

Ok, so I lied, and I read them right away since they were shorts reads... Good info. I would agree that Slaughter got a boost from Vinnie Vincent Invasion fan base.

[Genebaby]

I wouldn't doubt Slaughter got a boost from the VVI fan base, but, what fan base?

It was better than nothing, for sure, but VVI had Vinnie who was in KISS and Slaughter had Mark and Dana who were in VVI and it gets watered down each time, along with the fact that even KISS wasn't big in reality, just in the magazines and their own imaginations.

Not being complete unknowns is going to be beneficial, but the history behind Slaughter was not what did it for them. They were able to get new fans, lots of new fans.

So the articles are a cool read from back in the day, but wow, you can't make it seem like the VVI connection means instant #1. They didn't leave a very successfull band, but they were in Metal Edge a fair bit, playing with all the actual big boys of metal.

[Genebaby]

In case they are removed here are the scans:

image 2.png (33.64 KiB) Viewed 2539 times

[Genebaby]

Slaughter also helped the HITS tour sell, as the brand new, never played live before opening act. KISS were lucky to have them. It wasn't the VVI fanbase doing that, it was all the Slaughter fans, many more than VVI ever had.

[Luxor]

I wouldn't doubt Slaughter got a boost from the VVI fan base, but, what fan base?

It was better than nothing, for sure, but VVI had Vinnie who was in KISS and Slaughter had Mark and Dana who were in VVI and it gets watered down each time, along with the fact that even KISS wasn't big in reality, just in the magazines and their own imaginations.

Not being complete unknowns is going to be beneficial, but the history behind Slaughter was not what did it for them. They were able to get new fans, lots of new fans.

So the articles are a cool read from back in the day, but wow, you can't make it seem like the VVI connection means instant #1. They didn't leave a very successfull band, but they were in Metal Edge a fair bit, playing with all the actual big boys of metal.

Thankfully the heads of Chrysalis know more about Vinnie's big fan base than others.

And I would say since each album was over 500K by the time the Invasion broke up, I would say thats a great start for Mark and Dana. Especially since they got the entire (very large) paid fan club lists and other things as well.

You also seem to neglect many things. Without VVI fans buying all those initial albums and keeping them on Dial-MTV daily (while MTV refused to add their video to rotation for weeks and weeks).

Slaughter could have been over before they ever began. Thankfully, the label heads at Chrysalis knew that and gave VVI credit for that.

Also, I think the KISS connection was huge for Vinnie. I mean look how big Lick It Up had sold less than a year after release. As the reports said, IM in the US and 1.5M WW. That was before the release of Animalize. That's not huge huge. But that's certainly one reason why a gas station attendant in the middle of nowhere knew who Vinnie Vincent was when Bobby was driving out to LA from Houston.

Mark and Dana benefited from huge tours with Alice and Iron Maiden.

They benefitted from having Boyz on rotation on MTV longer than KISS' "Crazy Crazy Nights"

They benefitted from countless magazines stories, pictures about them from countless publications WW.

It is funny how Dana tried to act like it was nothing and then he also tried to downplay the KISS connection and the Kerrang writer called him out on it.

I can see how things might seem different for somoene half a world away from all the action to really have a sense of what happened. But thankfully the guys who were in the midst of it at Chrysalis knew full well the huge impact VVI had in breaking Slaughter.

and without VVI and the VVI fan club base, Slaughter could have very easily been over and done with before getting started. If MTV never added a video of their to rotation, they would have been over.

[Luxor]

Slaughter also helped the HITS tour sell, as the brand new, never played live before opening act. KISS were lucky to have them. It wasn't the VVI fanbase doing that, it was all the Slaughter fans, many more than VVI ever had.

KISS was certainly lucky to have them, Winger and the others.

KISS had nothing going for them at all during that time. An album that didn't sell at all. Without Slaughter, who knows how many dates the HITS tour would have done.

and one can probably safely assume a big portion of the 700K albums by around the time the tour started were Invasion/KISS fans buying them. Sure Slaughter gained alot more fans along the way. And then those fans quickly deserted them.

But without VVI, Slaughter most likely would have done nada