Heavy Tales: The Metal. The Music. The Madness. As Lived by Jon Zazula

Book excerpt: Heavy Tales is the detailed never before told story as lived by Jonny Zazula on how he founded Megaforce Records out of a flea market in New Jersey with his wife Marsha and built a dynasty unmatched by many others forever changing the scope of Heavy Metal. The bands they worked with would go on to release some of the most prolific and important albums in Heavy Metal History giving it it's Golden Era. As a renegade youth who went from living on the city street to later work on Wall Street and then moving unexpectedly towards the music business, when in the winter of 1982 he received an unexpected demo tape of the underground, unsigned band Metallica while working in a flea market. Eager and determined to have the music heard by the entire world Jonny and Marsha founded Megaforce Records in 1983 and released Metallica's debut album, Kill 'Em All. Through this release Megaforce had cemented its position as the de-facto music label in America for Heavy Metal but that's just the start. Heavy Tales details the stories of how Jonny worked miracles by managing and releasing albums by Metallica, Anthrax, Testament, Overkill, Ace Frehley, King's X, Ministry and others. With a foreward written by Chuck Billy and over 100 photographs unearthed from the MegaVault and photographer friends, Heavy Tales is definitively an American story of a family man with a dream to prove to the world that Heavy Metal belonged on the stage, on the radio and in your living room. H.C.M. Jonny Zazula is the co-founder of Megaforce Records and CraZed Management. A lifelong music disciple and avid Nightmare Before Christmas toy collector he now spends retirement with his wife, Marsha, and the dogs in Orlando, Florida.