Hair metal, heavy metal. Mark Weiss shot it all. By Geoff Edgers June 2, 2020 at 11:00 AM EDT
Not that long ago, when hair spray and rouge were as important as a Marshall stack, and when rock stars could leer freely at scantily clad women, a photographer named Mark Weiss got a job at Circus magazine. He was just 18 in the late 1970s when the now-defunct glossy began paying him to shoot rock shows. By the mid-’80s, Weiss was the undisputed Richard Avedon of the spandex-and-teased-hair set. He bopped from photo pits to backstage, capturing everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Aerosmith and Twisted Sister.
What made Weiss so good? “He was a pain in the ass,” Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider says, laughing. “You can’t walk lightly and be a photographer and get the shot. You’ve got to get in there and fight your way through and push for more. The album cover shot for ‘Stay Hungry’ was the last roll of film taken after 22 hours of shooting.”
Now 60, Weiss is publishing “The Decade That Rocked,” a 376-page coffee table book that captures the glory of the hair band era. Here are some of his photos and personal observations of the shots, which he recently offered from his home in New Jersey, where he was quarantining.
David Lee Roth, big leap, 1980 Depending on the lens you have or the angle, you can make things look different, and I had the wide-angle lens, zoomed in a little bit, and it just gave it that perspective. If I had a fish eye, if I had any different lens, it wouldn’t have worked like that. I had shot multiple shows, so I knew when he was going to jump. You just have to be ready and plan for the moment. There would be times in the show, maybe two or three times, that I knew I had to keep my eye on the lens and be focused on David.
David Lee Roth, stretching, 1982 The other guys [in Van Halen] — when I went on tour for a few shows, I would pop into all their dressing rooms, “Can I take a photo?” “Yes, no, maybe.” The yes was always from David. And one of his security handlers would look for me and say, “David wants you in there.” In those photos, when he’s stretching, he didn’t have to be stretching then. He started stretching when I got there. He knew my photos would end up in the magazines, and he wanted to show what a rock star does.
Couple more images from “The Decade That Rocked” David Lee Roth 1982 (Photo courtesy Mark Weiss The Decade That Rocked (Insight Editions)) “Dave always wanted me to photograph him. The other guys it was hit or miss. Whenever I walked in the room Dave would start posing. We built a great relationship and I photographed him when he came to New York.”
“The first time I shot Van Halen was at Convention Hall in Asbury Park in 1979. I started getting assignments shooting for Circus magazine. I had a photo pass and got there early and went up to Noel Monk who was working and asked if I could take pictures of the band for Circus. He brought me back and I met Eddie and Mike. I didn’t meet Dave at that point. I took a live shot of the band that became the centerfold poster in Circus. The band and management loved it. And once they like something you did, the doors open up. You start a relationship with them.”
Eddie Van Halen 1982 (Photo courtesy Mark Weiss The Decade That Rocked (Insight Editions))
unchainedheart: i saw a review of this book on youtube and it is awesome
Note, the version of the book he gets here (postcards and prints) is not what you’ll get from a place like Amazon. It looks like that version (with the extras) is $500!
