Interview: Music industry legend Michael Alago on signing Metallica, working with Nina Simone, the Misfits, and much more

Michael Alago has been a music industry legend for decades now.

As a young gay Puerto Rican music fan growing up in Brooklyn in the ‘70s, he snuck into punk venues like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, seeing and befriending classic punk bands like the Dead Boys and The Damned. He then went on to work at New York venue The Ritz, and eventually became a talent booker there, including booking the infamous PiL riot show in 1981 where John Lydon and crew played behind a curtain as beer bottles rained on the stage from the angry crowd.

Barely out of his teens when he began working as an A&R rep at Elektra Records, Alago signed a young Metallica to the label in 1984, cementing the career of what would become one of the biggest rock acts in history. Alago also worked closely with the iconic and notoriously difficult Nina Simone, was instrumental in the early career of Tracy Chapman, and signed White Zombie and the Misfits when he was working at Geffen.

With all of his industry success, Alago struggled for years with drug and alcohol addiction, and was diagnosed with HIV and then AIDS years before there was medication to treat the disease.

Now clean and sober for over a decade, Alago reflects on his whirlwind life and career in his recent autobiography, I Am Michael Alago: Breathing Music. Signing Metallica. Beating Death (with Laura Davis-Chanin), out now via Backbeat Books / Rowman & Littlefield. We caught up with Alago from his home in New York to discuss the process of putting the book together, his memories from working with Metallica, Nina Simone, and the Misfits, 2017’s Who the Fuck Is That Guy? The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago documentary, his experiences being out of the closet in the hard rock world of the ‘80s, his recovery process, his current photography project, and much more. I Am Michael Alago is available now.

Bad Feeling Mag: How have you been holding up during this whole lockdown period in New York?

Michael Alago: I have kind of liked my quarantine. It’s not any different than usual with me because I’m always at home. And now, I decided after four months, you know that just going to the grocery store and/or the pharmacy is not getting out, you know? So, I have started a series of pictures, black and white portraits called Art in the Time of Coronavirus. And so I’m working on that right now and gathering up subjects for that.

What initially attracted you to photography?

Oh, I’ve always loved photographs my whole life. And then at some point, when I was going out to the clubs, I carried a little yellow Kodak Instamatic 110 camera, that I got developed at our friendly neighborhood candy store and pharmacy in Brooklyn.

I just love pictures. So, that started with the little Instamatic going to clubs and making these little snapshots that were not anything formal, at all, they were just snapshots. And then I started carrying around a Polaroid camera because I have no patience and I wanted everything to be immediate. And then I got a Minolta camera. And then I had to figure out, well, what is it that you want to do in regards to taking pictures and that all mostly came together when after 25 years of working in the music business, I decided, well, I’m going to shoot what I like. So, I decided I was going to shoot men who are scarred and tattooed and had a look about them. I never wanted to shoot models from agencies, although they’re very beautiful. I just felt that was a little too homogenized for me. And I wanted to shake things up visually.

That sort of ties into the music side of things because you were attracted to a lot of raw, honest music, everything from the Misfits to Nina Simone.

You know, I had loved listening to a variety of types of music as a very young person, because I listened to AM radio back in the day, and AM radio was not heavily formatted. So, I got to hear everything from Grand Funk Railroad to Aretha Franklin, David Bowie. It was just this wide variety. So, at a young age, I heard all these different sounds. I loved a wide variety of music and I definitely gravitated to people who told stories, whether those stories were Tracy Chapman, Metallica and people, artists who interpreted music beautifully like Nina Simone. She may not have written a lot of those songs that she sang, but boy, when she sang “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” by Bob Dylan, or “Here Comes the Sun” by George Harrison, she knew how to get to the heart of the matter of a song. And that’s what attracted me to her.

People would say to me, “Oh, she’s mean, she’s washed up.” That got me more excited. I wanted to know who this character was that one day I would hope to meet, and I also felt when I saw video clips of her early on, that don’t screw with this woman because she will fuck you up, right? When she smiled for me, all was well with the world. I just thought, “Whoa, this woman has the most radiant smile.” And she can go from A to Z in a second. So, don’t mess with her. And I loved all of that. And I think Nina, specifically, felt that from when I met her in, I don’t know, around 1983, I had just started at my job at Elektra Records, I was about 24 years old, maybe. And when she saw how young I was, she basically laughed in my face. And she said, “You’re an A&R man, from Elektra Records, isn’t that a big label?” I said, “Yes, it’s a big label, I guess I’m an A&R man.” She said, “You’ve got some money for me?” I said, “No, darling, it doesn’t work that way.” I said, “I came to introduce myself because I had been speaking to your brother Sam Waymon. And I think we need to work together.”

What was your initial plan with Nina Simone? The early ’80s was a weird time for her, she’d been through a lot, as you describe in the book. Producers and record companies had ripped her off and she was sort of notorious for being difficult to work with. What did you see in her and what were you hoping to work out together?

When I first met her, for me, she was a genius. And you know, you can’t throw around that word. But you know, there are only certain people who are geniuses. She is one of them. Her interpretation of anything from George Harrison to Jacques Brel, from French to English, completely blew me away. And I knew I had to be involved with this artist, no matter what people would say to me. Very early on at Elektra in ’83, ’84, people would say she was washed up. “Why do you want to bother?”

Because I heard all those recordings that were on Philips that were on Bethlehem and RCA and I thought, “She’s a master at what she does.” And she’s one of those people that the moment you hear the tune and that voice starts singing, there is no one else that sounds like her. So, I knew that I wanted to be involved with her. I knew it might not be easy, but I was ready to take that chance because I respected the music so much. And funny enough, I started at Elektra in ’83,  Bob Kraft, now our chairman, and a host of other people, didn’t want me to sign her. So I just let it go for a period of time. And whenever she played live gigs, which was very rare, I ran to see and hear her. I wound up not really getting involved with her until around 1991. And I said, “You know what, we have to do this. We just have to do this.” And by then, I had stayed in touch with her those six, seven years, and she liked me a lot because she knew how much love and respect I had for her. Even though she was a difficult human being, I didn’t care. I just ate it up. I egged her on. And like I mentioned in my book, I think she must have the longest chapter in my memoir. But that’s okay, because I wanted to tell what our friendship was and what our professional relationship was like.

One of the biggest stories in the book is the Metallica chapter and you signing them to Elektra. What was it about them that really struck a chord with you at that time? I’m sure to other people, maybe even label people, they were just one of a hundred thrash metal bands, but you saw something in them.

Well, in 1983, that was the very beginnings of what they were calling thrash metal. It came out mostly out of the Bay Area of San Francisco, California. I saw [Metallica] in ’82 when I was still working at a nightclub called The Ritz. I thought they were insane. In  ’83, I am at Elektra Records. I have some work to do on the West Coast, and I knew they were playing at The Stone in San Francisco, so I go hear them live. These were young people who were out of control. And when I say out of control, I guess I mean, there was so much energy on the stage. They were doing something live that not a lot of other bands were doing. They were combining hard rock, heavy metal, traditional British metal speed, and punk rock. And you could put it in a blender, which is what they did. And it came out like Metallica. Nobody was really doing that then.

And when I saw them live, I thought, these were young men who were wildly charismatic on-stage and my eyes darted back and forth, back and forth, wanting to see everything and hear everything. And now I focused on their lead singer James Hetfield, who I felt was a ringleader on stage. I felt like he knew how to whip the crowd into a frenzy, and it worked. Not everyone can do that, right? Not everyone has that charm and charisma. Not everyone radiates something from the stage. But James Hetfield had that in spades. And I bought it. I loved it. And I thought to myself, I’ve got to work with these people. They were signed to a little label called Megaforce records. I had met Jonny Z, who soon became a colleague of mine, from Megaforce. And you know, he had the minimum amount of money to promote and market these records. He wanted me to work with his band Raven, right? I loved Raven, I gave them demo money. They gave me back five terrific songs. But the problem was, I heard Kill ‘Em All by Metallica. And I knew I had to have these people in my life.

After The Stone show in San Francisco, I’d given Lars my business card. And he looked at me again, like — I never looked cooperate. I was a young person who was in a Plasmatics T-shirt, a Misfits T-shirt, some rock and roll T-shirt. So when he saw me, he had a question on his face, I could see, and I said, “Yes, I work for Elektra Records, which is part of Time Warner. And I love you guys. Let me know when you come to New York.”

He called me in early ’84. He said, “We’re coming to New York as part of a three-act bill. It’s a Megaforce night with Raven and Anthrax. Are you still interested in us?” I said, “Absolutely. I am.” Fast forward, it’s August of 1984. They’re playing Roseland Ballroom on West 52nd Street. Unfortunately, that historic venue doesn’t exist anymore. So they were the middle act, and again, they wowed me and about 3,500 people in that sold-out venue. And when the show was over, I went backstage, I was a little drunk, which was my usual, and I just told them how much I loved them. And they came to my office the next day. I knew we had to get them out of their deal [with Megaforce]. And we had to do that with great finesse, because as a major label as part of Time Warner, we didn’t want to get sued. So our business affairs people talked to the Megaforce business affairs people, and a deal was struck. Everybody walked away financially satisfied, and that day in 1984, they got signed to Elektra records. And like I say to everybody, the rest is history.

What did it feel like watching them basically turn into the biggest rock band in the world over the years since then?

Really, I am so proud of them. I knew from the get-go, when I saw what was happening in 1983-84 in the metal underground, that they were the band that everyone was talking about. Because even though they call these young people — as a joke, but not really – Alcoholica — they were very focused people. They knew what they wanted to do with their lives. They were incredible. They were incredible on stage. And I just knew from the start, these people are going to be huge, and I’m very proud of them and I’m proud that I had the know-how to say, you know what, this is not radio-friendly. This band is a band that we have to keep on the road constantly so that people can see what the insanity is all about. And it’s incredible that 36 years from when I signed them, they’re an act that plays stadiums — not right this very minute because of the pandemic — but you know what I’m saying, 36 years later, they’re huge. They’re huge because they always stuck to what they believed in. They didn’t adhere to what I may have been suggesting, or, you know, anyone, management anything. They did what they wanted, and what they wanted to do was always correct.

In the book, you mention that growing up, you really didn’t know what a closet was, you didn’t have that imposed on you, which obviously must have been a great relief. But the metal scene or hard rock scene at that time wasn’t necessarily that open back then; what was your experience like in that world?

As a young person, I didn’t know what a closet was. I was just being Michael. And Michael meant I was being gay. I knew I liked young men. I was a bit flamboyant. And, you know, at some point, I just thought, “You’re either gonna like me or you don’t, and I really don’t care.” Because I just didn’t know how to be any other way. And I always loved all the straight boys in Brooklyn, and I tried to seduce [them] and I mostly did. People did talk about, you know, “If you’re going to see Michael, one of the things everybody says is that he’s gay.” I didn’t care. Do I think some of those young artists were nice to me because they wanted a record deal? Sure. I think that’s part of it. And then I think the beauty — again, it’s not ego or arrogance — I just wanted to show people what being honest looks like. So I was always an honest person. And like I said, everybody knew that I was gay. And when artists came to my office to look for a deal, we weren’t talking about sexuality. We were just focusing on our love of music in general because we were fans. They were musicians, and there was always something to talk about.

You had the documentary come out a couple of years before the book. Was there anything that you wanted to elaborate on or touch on that wasn’t included in the film?

So, a director in New York named Drew Stone, he has a company called Stone Films NYC, was doing a lot of rock and roll videos. Like skateboard videos, he was managing a group called Biohazard and Subzero, and he would always see me at concerts. He literally used to say to everybody, “Who the fuck is that guy?” So it’s very funny. And one day in 1997, I had just signed the Misfits to Geffen and he had a band called Subzero. So he asked Jerry Only from the Misfits, “Could they go on the road?” And Jerry said, “Sure.”  It was a European tour, so we all met up in Spain.

I wanted to ask you about the Misfits tour in Europe — you touch on it in the book, and mention lots of crazy things happened. What was that tour like?

There were lots of crazy things, as I was always drunk. I was always getting into fights with people. I don’t know why. You know, I think when people were looking to screw with some of the bands, I got myself right in the middle of all of that, being drunk and careless. But other than that, I couldn’t tell you anymore because I probably blacked out a lot.

It must have been a big tour for the Misfits at that point, being on the major label and touring Europe.

They were on Geffen, we made a record called American Psycho, and it’s a fabulous record. They had a new singer then named Michael Graves, and the slant of the music took on more of —  If you ask me, I think the Misfits were always a pop band. And they just have that certain dark angle about them.

When you see a band like that, that you worked with who really came up from CBGB and now they’re doing reunions at Madison Square Garden, what does that feel like?

I think it’s not unbelievably shocking that so many people really want to see present-day Misfits with Glenn Danzig because they may have missed them in all those times at CBGB and Max’s and small clubs around the United States. So it’s like one of those phenomena that people have been waiting for for 30 years. They were that confident that they knew that once they started advertising and being kinda sneaky about these things, and just giving you a sneak preview of what’s coming soon — all you saw was the logo, that flipped all of us out. It was like, “What is it? Wait a minute, is there a new record coming out or what’s happening here?”

And then once the major and final ads came out, and we all went, everybody went and bought their tickets, and they did brilliantly. And the staging, when you play an 18,000 seater, you know, you really need to like, step it up. Well, their staging looked like a combination of Blade Runner, Tokyo at midnight, Times Square. I mean, Las Vegas, it was flash, it was light. It was black and white George Romero clips. It was coloured clips of them from back in the day. So you are not only getting to hear all these great punk rock tunes from back then, the visuals were stunning. And it just made for an extraordinary evening.

Fast forward now to 2014, [Stone] keeps seeing me. So one night, he approaches me at a Cro-Mags show. And he says, “Man, I see you everywhere. I want to talk to you.” So at our lunch meeting, he said, “I’d like to make a film about you. You’ve had a very interesting life.”

And at that point in time, I had already been clean and sober for probably eight years. So I wasn’t a fall-down drunk that he was going to be making a film about. We talked a lot. We had a couple of meetings. And then here is where my ego did take over. And I said, “Yes, I would like you to make a film about me.” So we started this film. And the funny part is that provocative title, Who the F**k is That Guy: The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago, stuck. I was grateful that I always had wonderful relationships with my artists. So when I asked John Lydon and Cyndi Lauper and James Hetfield and Rob Zombie and Mina Caputo from Life of Agony, all these people just said yes. And Doyle from the Misfits, who I adore, my angel. And I was so grateful that everyone said yes.

Now in an 80-minute documentary, you just can’t tell everything, but I knew I just didn’t want Drew to make a music documentary about me. If we’re going to be together for a small few years, I wanted to talk about my 25 years as an A&R executive, I wanted to talk about addiction and recovery. I thought that was very important. I thought it was important to talk about my health because I had full-blown AIDS in the ’90s before there was medication. And here we are. Now, if I died, my sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll tale would be a cliché, but I’m alive. And I’m clean and sober coming up on 13 years.

So at one point in 2017, the movie gets picked up by Netflix, which took the movie all over the world, because everyone has Netflix, about a year and a half after that, a little company called Backbeat Books /  Rowman & Littlefield approached me and said, “Do you have more stories to tell? Because we’d like to make a book with you.” And I was like, “Do I have more stories to tell? Honey, I’ve been going out for 25 years.” Of course, I did.

I knew I wasn’t going to be able to remember half my life because of all the drink and drugs. And half of my brain never really came back. So I was reintroduced to this woman, Laura Davis-Chanin, we knew each other 30 years ago when she was the drummer for a band called The Student Teachers. And we had some lunch, again, we’re always eating. I’m always eating with everybody. And I said, “I need help with this book do you want to work with me on it?” So, what I was also grateful for, is I kept journals my entire life. I don’t know why at 15 I thought it was a good idea to keep journals. There was nothing poetic or creative about it. It was lists, getting on the B train to Manhattan. Going to three nights of The Dead Boys and The Damned at CBGB. And I made those lists for years. So, going back into these duffel bags of journals, I just looked and I went, “I remembered none of this.” And then once Laura and I started Skyping with each other, these memories came back.

When Laura and I started making the book and I was going through all of my journals, it brought up a gamut of emotions, from sexual abuse as a child to getting to see these concerts that I’ve been reading about. I didn’t have a plan B. I knew I had to tell the whole truth, as they say, and nothing but the truth.

I Am Michael Alago: Breathing Music. Signing Metallica. Beating Death is available now. Stay up to date with Alago’s Art in the Time of Coronavirus project via his Instagram.