Marsha Zazula, 'metal matriarch' of Metallica and others, dies at 68
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Sunday, November 24, 2024


Marsha Zazula, 'metal matriarch' of Metallica and others, dies at 68
Marsha Zazula, with her husband, Jonny, backstage at a concert in Europe. Zazula, who with her husband founded Megaforce Records at the front end of a heavy metal wave and gave Metallica, Anthrax and other pivotal bands their start, died on Jan. 10 at her home in Clermont, Fla., about 20 miles west of Orlando. She was 68. Gene Ambo via The New York Times.

by Neil Genzlinger



NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Marsha Zazula, who with her husband, Jonny, founded Megaforce Records at the front end of a heavy metal wave and gave Metallica, Anthrax and other pivotal bands their start, died Jan. 10 at her home in Clermont, Florida, about 20 miles west of Orlando. She was 68.

Maria Ferrero, a longtime friend who was a key figure at Megaforce and its associated management company, Crazed Management, said the cause was cancer.

The Zazulas became important players in the early days of the 1980s metal boom, signing and promoting bands through their seat-of-the-pants business, letting musicians crash at their house in Old Bridge, New Jersey, and releasing breakthrough albums, perhaps the most important of which was Metallica’s debut, “Kill ’Em All,” in 1983.

“We took ourselves out of a comfortable place, rolled the dice — had nothing to lose but nothing to gain necessarily — and put our hearts and souls into doing it,” Marsha Zazula said in an interview last year with the website the Metal Voice.

James Hetfield, Metallica’s guitarist and lead vocalist, writing on Instagram, called her “the metal matriarch of the East Coast.”

In an interview for “Moguls and Madmen: The Pursuit of Power in Popular Music,” a 1994 book by Jory Farr, Scott Ian of Anthrax spoke of the dynamic that allowed the couple to become successful in a wild and fast-moving corner of the music world.

“Without Marsha, Jonny would be the blimp without the tether,” he said. “Marsha brings Jonny back down to earth.”

Jonny Zazula acknowledged as much in his 2019 book, “Heavy Tales: The Metal, the Music, the Madness.”

“People spoke differently to Marsha than they did to me, and that is what kept things going,” he wrote. “She doused fires between me and bands,” he added, “me and partners, me and the world. I felt like I was a bull in a china shop knocking everything around, and Marsha was right there making sure nothing got broke or knocked off the shelf.”

Marsha Jean Rutenberg was born on April 21, 1952, in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, William, was a furrier, and her mother, Ramona (Friedman) Rutenberg, was a jeweler.

She graduated from James Madison High School in Brooklyn and from the State University of New York in Farmingdale, where she studied childhood education.

In his book, Jonny Zazula wrote that he met Marsha when she was dating a friend of his. They hit it off thanks to a mutual love of jazz. Sometime later, when both were unattached, the relationship turned romantic. They married in 1979.

In 1981 they took a stall at a flea market on Route 18 in East Brunswick, New Jersey, hoping to sell from a modest inventory of hard-to-find music they had accumulated.

“We were selling predominantly picture discs from Europe by bands like the Kinks,” Jonny Zazula said in an interview quoted in “Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal” (2013), by Jon Wiederhorn and Katherine Turman. “But there was one picture disc I really loved, and it was Judas Priest’s ‘Sad Wings of Destiny.’ Someone gave me $200 for it. I said, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ I realized there was a real market for metal.”

Their little flea-market shop, which they named Rock ’N’ Roll Heaven, quickly became a draw for fans who had begun to discover the genre.




“We were like this mecca,” Marsha Zazula was quoted as saying in “Moguls and Madmen.” “Metal wasn’t even happening in America then.”

Among those who found the shop was Ferrero, then a teenager, who would eventually turn the skills she developed working with Megaforce into her own public relations firm, Adrenaline PR.

“Jonny and Marsha were the champions of metal,” she was quoted as saying in “Louder Than Hell.” “They brought us the goods, and we ate it up.”

The Zazulas also began staging concerts with heavy metal and thrash metal lineups at skating rinks, bars and other venues. In the days before cellphones and social media, promoting the shows was hands-on work in the most basic sense.

“Marsha and I would go to bars and change all the flyers every two to three days,” Jonny Zazula wrote in his book, “and we would poster telephone poles as if we were running an election.”

In 1982 someone brought a demo tape to the shop by a West Coast band. The Zazulas realized they were hearing something special and urged the unknown band, Metallica, to come east to play some shows. The group did, crashing at the Zazulas’ house for a time, “and things got a little crazy with women following them home and running through the house,” Marsha Zazula told The Courier Post of Camden, New Jersey, in 2009. The Zazulas started Megaforce to release the band’s “Kill ’Em All.”

Other bands and albums followed, with the Zazulas often giving the musicians a place to stay and feeding them, while barely feeding themselves.

“Marsha and I weren’t making any money,” Jonny Zazula recounted in “Louder Than Hell.” “We had just gotten into our first house, and all of this was happening as our children were being born.”

As Marsha Zazula put it in her “Moguls and Madmen” interview, “Bologna was our filet mignon.”

Hetfield, in his Instagram post, alluded to that time, and to Marsha Zazula’s role. “She was our mother when I had none,” he said. “She made great sacrifices for Metallica to grow.”

And the band, or its popularity, did grow, so much so that after releasing a second Megaforce album, “Ride the Lightning,” in 1984, Metallica moved to a bigger label, Elektra. Other bands, including Anthrax, followed a similar path, breaking in on the Megaforce label (Anthrax with the 1984 album “Fistful of Metal”) and then moving to a bigger one.

Other groups that released albums with Megaforce (sometimes in partnership with other labels) included Testament, Ministry and Raven. The couple sold their stake in Megaforce in 2001 and eventually retired to Florida.

In addition to her husband, Marsha Zazula is survived by three daughters, Danielle Zazula, Rikki Zazula and Blaire Brewer; a sister, Hedy Tehrani; and five grandchildren.

In the Metal Voice interview, Marsha Zazula reflected on the satisfaction of building up an unknown act to the point that it could get major-label attention, “which then puts them in a moneymaking position and puts you back on your feet to stand and do it again for some other band.”

“That’s the cool part,” she said.

© 2021 The New York Times Company










Today's News

January 18, 2021

Egypt makes 'major discoveries' at Saqqara archaeological site

The kids of survival are middle-aged - and transforming yet again

David Zwirner opens first solo show of Raoul De Keyser's work in Greater China

Lark Mason Associates announces sale of French Furniture and Chinese Decorative Arts

Dylan, Young, Fleetwood: Music publishing sector booming with high-profile sales

Germany's Buchenwald camp raps 'disrespectful' tobogganers

Sylvain Sylvain of the proto-punk band New York Dolls dies at 69

Exhibition at PDNB Gallery focuses on photography in the 1970's

Penn Museum exposes objects' exquisite details with Invisible Beauty: The Art of Archaeological Science

Collaborative exhibition by Casey Reas and Jan St. Werner on view at bitforms gallery

Rocker David Crosby on songwriting, 'emotional voyages' and Donald Trump

"Christo & Jeanne-Claude: The Tom Golden Collection' opens at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at FSW

When Raf met Miuccia

Pixar's 'Soul' has a Black hero. In Denmark, a white actor dubs the voice.

Marsha Zazula, 'metal matriarch' of Metallica and others, dies at 68

Six great movies about presidents

3Arts launches Disability Culture Leadership Initiative to advance advocacy and justice efforts in the arts

Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery opens an exhibition of works by three artists

Full programme announced for inaugural chapter of year-long LUX Scotland Artist Moving Image Festival

RØDE founder and chairman Peter Freedman AM donates $5 million to Sydney Festival

MAK Center for Art and Architecture announces new Director

'Cabello/Carceller │ I Am a Stranger, and I Am Moving' on view at Galeria Joan Prats

Richard Saltoun opens the first exhibition in a 12-month programme dedicated to Hannah Arendt

Heritage Auctions holds its first modern sports cards event at just the right moment

Phil Spector, famed music producer imprisoned in slaying, dies at 81

HOW TO WRITE A GOOD ESSAY INTRODUCTION




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Houston Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง
Motorcycle Accident Lawyer

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful