But one day I was listening and he was gone and you were on and I was like, oh wow, this is kind of cool. This is a little bit different. I like the guy's vibe. He's, you know, from the West Coast and the whole thing. So I've been there since probably the first day you were live on the air on 690 at night. Wow, the night show. You go all the way back to the night show. The night show. I I actually not a lot of interaction with the show

but I did win a huge facts of the day once with a some something about Marcel

obu who is the owner of the Kuipnortiques at the Kuwaitnarchis at the time

Welcome to episode 397 of the Jim Roan podcast, my original side hustle where I come to stretch out,

go long form, and have the types of conversations that simply are not possible on our daily

program.

And sometimes with folks that just need a longer runway.

Take this week's guest.

He's a music executive and a creative consultant and the founder and CEO of Metal Blade Records.

He was arguably the first to see the brilliance of Metallica when their first officially

released song appeared on his 1982 Metal Massacre compilation.

He's also the author of, for the sake of heaviness, the history of Metal Blade Records,

and Swing the blade,

more stories from Metal Blade records. I am talking about Brian Slagel. He's this week's guest

on the Jim Rome podcast, and it's coming at you right now. Brian, my man, I don't know why we didn't do this sooner. That's on me, but absolutely great to run you down. Great to have a chance to chop it up with you. Thanks for making time. How are you doing, man? What's going on? I'm good. I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. It's a bit of a surreal moment for me as a over 30-year clone to be doing this, but it's awesome. I'd love to start right there, but I'm not going to. I can't make it about me. Why don't we go to the very beginning? You and I actually share similar roots. We both grew up in the mean streets of the 818, the San Fernando Valley, you in Woodland Hills, me a few streets over in Hidden Hills or Calabasas. How would you describe your childhood in the valley? And what were you into growing up? I mean, I loved it there. It was a real great place. Single mom had a nice house, though, and it's a beautiful part of the world, obviously Woodland Hills. A little hot in the summertime, and we only had a swamp cooler. but I've learned to enjoy the heat.

But it was great.

I, you know, growing up, I played baseball. I played baseball from like five until I was 18. Dude, dude, what little lady did you play in? I played it to, I forget the name of the league, but a Shoup Park. Okay. You know where Shoup is? Sure I do. Shoup Park, yeah. We played there. Yeah, I said I played for like 13 years And so that was really great

I did really well in school Sure I do. Shoot Park. Yeah, we played there. Yeah, I said I played for like 13 years.

And so that was really great.

I did really well in school up until the point where I had to, so I went to Hughes

Junior High School.

All of my friends went to El Camino.

...