The Dark Stuff is an online music magazine and podcast that focuses primarily (though not exclusively) on independent artists that perform in Omaha, Nebraska and the Midwest.
Do you remember when you went to the record store and would just get lost in the racks? You would study the images on the front cover, check out the band's logo, and in some cases, make your buying decision based (mostly) on that cover! In the 80s, there was no streaming, and record stores usually had no way for customers to preview an album before buying. A good album cover was everything!
For this episode, Erika and Dave are picking some of their favorite (and a few least favorite) 80s metal album covers. We divided them into six categories.
Do our favorites match yours? What are your favorite 80s metal album covers? Please leave them in the comments.
For our newest episode, we have a special one! We have an interview with the legendary drummer of POISON, Rikki Rockett. Erika was able to interview Rikki as the band was celebrating the 40th anniversary of the release of Poison's debut album, Look What The Cat Dragged In.
Rikki and Erika reminisce about the glory days of MTV, Poison's domination of the Sunset Strip, and how it feels looking back 40 years on this iconic album. In addition to sharing some behind the scenes stories from Poison's early days, Rikki also shares his plans for Rockett Mafia -- his newest band.
Rikki has just released his autobiography, Ghost Notes: My Life in Poison.
What made '80s metal concerts truly unforgettable? In this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika look back at six memorable heavy metal and hair metal shows from the 1980s that still stick with them nearly 40 years later.
From ticket outlet lines and cash-only merch tables to parking lot hangs and wild arena moments, we dive into the nostalgia, energy, and chaos of attending live rock shows before cell phones and digital tickets took over. Plus, Dave delivers a "Not-So-Deep Dive" into Dinosaur Jr. and why metal fans love J Mascis's guitar shredding, followed by Erika's concert "Atmosphere Check."
In This Episode:
Dave's Not-So-Deep Dive: Dinosaur Jr., J Mascis, and the metal crossover appeal
Erika's Atmosphere Check: What made going to shows in the '80s a whole different experience
The Top 6 Concerts: Dave and Erika's most vivid and unforgettable '80s metal memories
Did Nirvana and the grunge revolution really kill hair metal, or was the genre already on its way out?
On this episode of Against The 90s, Dave and MarQ welcome special guest Erika from Rock of Aging to tackle one of rock music’s most enduring debates: Did grunge kill hair metal?
The conventional story is that Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains arrived in the early '90s and suddenly made bands like Mötley Crüe, Poison, Warrant, and Ratt irrelevant. But was it really that simple?
We dig into the changing musical landscape of the early 1990s, including MTV's shifting priorities, record label decisions, oversaturation in the hair metal scene, and the rise of alternative rock. We also examine something that often gets overlooked in this conversation: the massive popularity of country artists like Garth Brooks and how changing mainstream tastes affected the entire music industry.
With Erika bringing her lifelong love of '80s metal to the discussion, Dave and MarQ challenge the accepted narrative and explore whether grunge was responsible for hair metal's decline or simply arrived at exactly the right moment.
Join the debate in the comments! Do you think grunge killed hair metal, or is that one of the biggest myths in rock history?
Subscribe to Against The 90s for more discussions about the music, artists, albums, and cultural shifts that defined the decade — without the tired narratives or nostalgia goggles.
Football season has begun! Your friends here at Rock of Aging have come up with a great way to merge your love of 80s metal with your love of football. Today's episode is the first ever Rock of Aging Fantasy Football Draft!
Here's how it works...To be eligible for the draft, you must have had a studio album released in 1987. Erika and Dave each picked a drummer, bassist, singer, and two guitarists!
Who had the better team? Erika or Dave? Who would be on your team? Leave it all in the comments.
Just before the draft, we have Dave's (Not So) Deep Dive. For this episode, Dave reviews the newest release from KISS, Destroys Anaheim '76. In The Atmosphere Check, Erika reveals her love of football, and what it takes to make her team in this year's draft.
NOTE: We post a new episode of Rock of Aging on the 10th and 25th of every month!
Some bands only make one good album. That's it. So, what happens after you make that stellar album? Can you follow it up with another? What about a third? Is it even possible?!
For some bands, creating an epic, three album run is simply unattainable. In this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika offer up some of their absolute favorite 80s metal and hard rock three record streaks. Three Albums. No Misses.
The rules?! The only rules are: three consecutive studio albums from one artist, and that the albums were released in what is considered the "80s metal era." In other words...the 80s.
Before the episode begins, we have Dave's (Not So) Deep Dive. This time around, he's diving into the new album from The Rolling Stones, "Foreign Tongues."
In The Atmosphere Check, Erika reconnects us back to our younger selves, and taps into the feelings we had for a band releasing its third great album in a row. The anticipation was epic.
What is your favorite three album run? Leave it in the comments!
This time on Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika are going deep into one of the defining bands of the 1980s hard rock scene: Ratt.
From the raw swagger of the 1983 Ratt EP through the massive breakthrough of Out of the Cellar, Ratt quickly went from the Sunset Strip to arenas, MTV, and multi-platinum success. But there’s a lot more to their original run than “Round and Round.”
We’re going album by album through Ratt’s classic era:
Ratt EP (1983)
Out of the Cellar (1984)
Invasion of Your Privacy (1985)
Dancing Undercover (1986)
Reach for the Sky (1988)
Detonator (1990)
We’ll talk about the songs, the videos, the albums that still hold up, the records that deserve another listen, and how Stephen Pearcy, Warren DeMartini, Robbin Crosby, Juan Croucier and Bobby Blotzer created a sound that was unmistakably Ratt.
From “You Think You’re Tough,” “Round and Round” and “Back for More” to “Lay It Down,” “Dance,” “Body Talk,” “Way Cool Jr.” and “Lovin’ You’s a Dirty Job,” we’re revisiting the hits, the deep cuts and the evolution of the band across one of the strongest album runs of the hair-metal era.
We’ll also get into the changing hard-rock landscape as the ’80s came to an end and why Detonator feels like the closing chapter of Ratt’s original glory years.
Six releases. Seven years. A whole lotta Ratt ’N’ Roll.
Where do you rank Ratt’s albums from 1983–1990? And what’s the one Ratt song that absolutely belongs on the ultimate playlist?
Before we begin with Ratt, we quickly recap seeing Riki Rachtman's One Foot in the Gutter tour in Lincoln, Nebraska. We got a little hang time with Riki after the show, and we ate some incredible chocolate cake.
Everyone talks about the debut album... but what about the follow-up?
On this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika dive into the best second albums from some of our favorite 80s hard rock and metal bands. The sophomore release can make or break a band's career. Sometimes it's where a band perfects its sound, delivers its biggest hits, or proves the debut was no fluke.
We'll discuss albums that took bands to the next level, sophomore slumps that weren't really slumps at all, and a few records that might even be better than the debut.
Check out this clip from our interview with Riki Rachtman! We asked whether he thought that Headbangers Ball changed the culture of the 80s or captured the culture of the 80s.
In this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika speak to Riki Rachtman, the legendary host from MTV's Headbangers Ball. Everyone watching this episode grew up watching Riki every Saturday night -- he introduced us to the bands, the videos, and the scenes throughout the world of heavy metal.
But Riki is much more than the host of a great TV show that we grew up watching. He has opened and ran the legendary Hollywood nightclub, The Cathouse, worked in radio, NASCAR, podcasting, and is currently on tour with a spoken word show called, "One Foot in the Gutter." The multimedia show finds Riki recounting stories from his lengthy career and exciting life.
Before online stores, limited-edition drops, and social media ads, there was one place to get the coolest band merchandise: the merch table at the concert.
In this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika take a nostalgic trip back to the golden age of 80s metal merch. From overpriced concert t-shirts and tour programs to posters, buttons, patches, bandanas, and everything in between, we remember what it was like to stand in line before the show and decide how much of our allowance (or paycheck) we were willing to sacrifice for a piece of rock and roll history.
We'll discuss:
The first concert shirts we ever bought
Why concert merch felt so special in the 1980s
The must-have items beyond t-shirts
Tour books, posters, patches, buttons, and other forgotten collectibles
The bands that had the best merch
Regrets over the merch we didn't buy
Vintage merch prices then vs. what collectors pay today
The legendary parking lot bootleg shirt sellers
Why wearing a concert shirt was a badge of honor
We'll also share some of our favorite merch memories and talk about the items we wish we had never thrown away.
Whether you spent your weekends at arena shows, haunted record stores looking for band posters, or still have a drawer full of faded concert tees, this episode is a celebration of one of the most fun parts of being an 80s metal fan.
Dave and Erika recently appeared on the Youth Gone Mild Podcast. We spoke with Gen X Joe about the state of 80s metal, Sebastian Bach joining Twisted Sister, which 80s bands still "bring it" live, and so much more. Thanks, Joe, for having us.
In this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika reminisce about the lost art of making the perfect mixtape. Nobody who wasn't alive back in the 80s can relate.
Whether you're recording your favorite songs from the radio for repeated playback, making a soundtrack for a road trip, trying to "turn on" a friend to some cool music, or trying to get the attention of a girl in your homeroom class, there are some basic rules you need to follow if you want to make a good mixtape.
What's a good first song? Do the songs flow into one another smoothly or abruptly? How do you end Side A or begin Side B? What's a good closer? We offer up our best suggestions for making the ultimate 80s metal mixtape.
Dave & Erika then battle it out for the title of mixtape champion! We each created a 60 minute, 80s metal mixtape for you to review and compare. Then you must vote on who made the better tape!
In this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika revisit our most popular video - The Lost 80s Hard Rock and Metal Albums episode. Everyone seems to love to talk about that great album that no one else knows about; or that one album by your favorite band that everyone ignored, but you loved it. All music fans can relate.
At the end of that video, Erika asked the audience for their recommendations on other "lost" 80s hard rock albums that we should check out. We received hundreds of suggestions, and decided to do a video where we review YOUR top three picks. Which ones did you really think we needed to know about?
The three most suggested were: Shotgun Messiah "Shotgun Messiah" The Four Horsemen "Nobody Said It Was Easy" and Mindfunk "Mindfunk." We dove in!
For Dave's (Not So) Deep Dive, he offers a quick review of the brand new theatrical film about Iron Maiden, Burning Ambition. In Erika's Atmosphere Check, she returns to her record store days where the clerks had all the inside information about new music. Before the internet, before streaming, where else did you discover new music that wasn't on the radio or MTV? At the record store. In this instance, you get to be the cool person behind the counter making the suggestions about what to play or what to buy.
In this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika take a trip to the darker side of Hollywood in the late 1980s. The 1987 film, Less Than Zero, told a tale of extreme wealth and extreme behavior among a circle of friends navigating young adulthood. The movie starred some of the biggest actors of the era: Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr, Jami Gertz, and James Spader.
Neither of us was old enough to see this R-rated movie in the theater when it was released in 1987. The soundtrack, on the other hand, was an instant classic. Less Than Zero produced one of the best soundtracks of the entire decade!
Aerosmith, Slayer, Poison, LL Cool J, The Bangles, are just a few of the artists on this album. We go through the entire thing: the good, the bad, and the...meh. We get to the bottom of why this soundtrack is celebrated more than the actual movie.
For Dave's (Not So) Deep Dive, he is talking about the new heavy metal band from Brooklyn, Castle Rat (https://castlerat.com/). This doom metal band has been winning over crowds for years, and has just released a new album called, The Bestiary.
For Erika's Atmosphere Check, she explains the difference between 8pm - 10pm Hollywood in 1987, and 2am - 4am Hollywood in 1987. It could get pretty dark on those streets the later you're out there.
In this episode of Rock of Aging, we crank the volume and fire up the TV for a celebration of our favorite 1980s metal music videos. Back when MTV ruled the culture, videos weren’t just promotion—they were events. Bigger hair, louder guitars, cinematic concepts, wild performances, and enough smoke machines to fill an arena.
Dave and Erika each count down the videos that defined the era for them—from arena-ready anthems and sleaze-soaked party clips to dark, dramatic epics and pure headbanging chaos. We talk about which bands understood the power of image, which videos still hold up today, and how visual style helped turn hard rock and metal bands into larger-than-life icons.
We each picked our five favorites -- and we had only one overlap! Can you guess which video?
For Dave's (Not So) Deep Dive, he is talking about a recent box set from the 80s band, Hüsker Dü. The collection, 1985: The Miracle Year, features professionally captured live recordings from this legendary band from throughout 1985. For Erika's Atmosphere Check, she brings us back to 1980s basement culture. If you had a basement in the 80s, you were no doubt camped out down there every Saturday night for Headbanger's Ball
In this episode of Rock of Aging, we are talking about the harder side of 80's metal! Erika and Dave debate The Big 4 of Thrash: Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax. Let's just say that we don't see eye to eye on this part of the 80s metal scene.
For Dave's (Not So) Deep Dive, he is talking about a new band from Ireland called SPRINTS who has just released an EP called 'Trickle Down.' For Erika's Atmosphere Check, she sums up how she sees the differences between the Hollywood glam scene and the heavier, thrash scene.
In this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika are talking live shows. Which 80's metal and hard rock bands have we seen the most times in concert? Club shows, theater shows, arena shows, stadium shows, festivals -- they all count!
We both have a lengthy history of seeing concerts, beginning in the early 1980s. But who have we seen the most times over the years? Specifically, which hard rock and metal bands have we seen the most amount of times?
Who have you seen the most? Leave it in the comments!
Also in this episode, we have Dave's (Not So) Deep Dive. This time around, he will be discussing the album "Turn-Ons" by the band, The Hotrats. Erika's Atmosphere Check will take us back to 1980s pre-concert prep -- locking down the right clothes & the right look. What about transportation? Who's driving? Are we even old enough to drive?
In this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika discuss their favorite "lost" 80s hard rock/heavy metal albums. Our definition of a lost album is either one by an unknown band that seemed to have major potential, but was ultimately ignored, OR an album from a more established band that failed to live up to the commercial standards of past releases. We have some of both.
We'll be discussing lost albums from Lillian Axe, Bang Tango, Sea Hags, Blue Öyster Cult, Bad Company, and Richie Sambora.
In this episode of Rock of Aging, Dave and Erika rewind to the glory days of MTV, when music videos weren’t optional, they were everything. Before streaming, before algorithms, before phones in our pockets, MTV told us what mattered — what to wear, how bands looked, and which artists became legends.
We dig into how music videos transformed songs into visual events, turned musicians into larger-than-life icons, and reshaped rock culture forever. From late-night video marathons to world premieres that stopped time, MTV didn’t just play music — it created mythology.
This is a love letter to the era when image, attitude, fashion, and sound collided… and rock was never the same.
