Dale

I'm the middle child of seven, which has taught me how to be diplomatic. This is a skill that has paid dividends in my "bread-and-butter" job as a Warehouse Manager. I also have an extremely high math aptitude, which is also a big help in the Inventory Control aspect of the job. However, that's not my only interest in life, there are several. Paramount among those is Music. I'm not a musician and have never played an instrument.Plain and simple: I'm a rock writer. I have no formal training whatsoever, but writing always came to me naturally. How I came to write for the Harder Beat wasn’t natural, though. It was March ’97 and I belonged to the Metal Blade Records fan club, which meant they’d arrange a meet-and-greet with any Metal Blade artist touring through the Dallas / Ft Worth area, provided I notified the label fourteen days prior to the show.So I picked up the HB and saw that Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo’s then-new band, Grip, Inc. was playing the Galaxy Club here in Dallas – in eleven days. Realizing that this made meeting Mr. Lombardo impossible, I did the most unreasonable thing I could think of and faxed a blistering letter to editor Linda Hollar, blaming the magazine for denying me this opportunity. Her response? She set up an interview with Lombardo to be conducted by Kevin White, with the caveat that I sit in on the interview. Over the next eight months, and frequent correspondence, Linda expressed that she liked my writing style and offered me a position writing for the magazine. Now, years later I’m still here and eternally grateful to Linda for her foresight and generosity. So anyway, that’s how I came on board with the HB. Music? That’s another story…I was six years old and living on an Iowa farm when everything changed. It was my birthday. I was playing outside and came in to find that my mother had bought me a copy of Kiss’ Rock and Roll Over LP on a trip to the grocery store. Now, up to this point, I was obsessed with Kiss, and when I saw the album propped up on the kitchen table where my mother knew I would see it, I lost it. I don’t remember much of my reaction, but I distinctly remember turning cartwheels down the front walk and just being demented with joy. From that point on, music was everything. If it was aggressive in any way, shape or form, I was awestruck. Throughout the next 30-plus years and a near-constant stream of listening to and reading about musicians, though, my bullshit detector has become pretty keen. When an artist is coasting creatively, I usually pick up on it pretty quickly.Weird part is, through the years, I never wanted to play an instrument. No, my motivation was much more subversive: I had to get into the mindset of the people behind this music called Heavy Metal. Since that fateful day it’s been my mission to figure out what makes these people tick. Am I any closer to reaching my goal today? Not on your life.