Perhaps one of the strangest moments at the american music awards in 1997
was the appearance of christian crooner Pat Boone. Boone had a new album at the time but
it took a lot of people by surprise as he went from playing gospel & R&B and country music
throughout most of his career to all of sudden covering hard rock and metal songs. The album and
his change in appearance had some christians up in arms, with some taking pretty drastic actions.
In fact boone would save a four letter word for his detractors in the religious community
when he appeared on Jay Leno’s tonight show. Stay tuned for the full story.
Pat Boone’s would establish himself as a successful singer and actor in addition to
writer, & television personality. In fact he was the second biggest charting artist of the 50’s,
only lagging behind to Elvis Prseley. He would take the number 9 of highest charting artists
between 1955-1995 according to billboard Throughout the 50’s Boone would cover various
black artists including Little richard and fats domino with some criticizing
him for cultural appropriation, but Boone was steadfast claiming his covers broadened
those artists appeal telling the LA Times Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard
were R&B; guys, and pop radio in those days never heard of R&B.; There was no chance for an R&B;
guy to get played on pop radio until pop artists did versions of their R&B; songs.
It wasn’t until deejays demanded the originals that they got played. All those R&B; artists
were thrilled--and they told me so--because their songs got to a wider audience he'd say.
.By the 60’s Boone got more into gosepl music as popular music at the time were more focused on sex
and drugs and that clashed with his christian faith. The pivot in boone's career resulted in
him gaining a pretty big christian audience in america. So obviously his core audience
was pretty shocked when he decided to do an album of hard rock and metal covers in 1997.
He would reveal that the idea came to him during a discussion with his band members
of what his next project should be. He would recall to AV Club“My conductor one day said,
‘You know, we've been laughing about that idea, but there really are some great songs that only
metal-heads know. And if we went in and did them a different way, we could introduce them to a whole
new audience. They are good songs,’” “So, I said, ‘Like, what and how? Do them how?’ He said, ‘For
instance, if we did big-band jazz arrangements of ... ’ And then he rattled off the names of songs
I really wasn’t familiar with" he'd rec all. Boone would discover a lot of hard rock and metal
songs two ways, one was through his conductor who made a mixed tape and the other was him going to a
record store incognito and buying up different bands albums as he told Jay Leno in 1997 and i
started going into different record stores tower and camelot all those stores musicland
hat pulled down, dark glasses, collar turned up yeah i'd like to have some Ratt please,
and some Motorhead, some Skid Row and some Poisons and some Scorpions
and some Metallica and i started listening to hundreds of CD's to find terrific songs that i
could do. I couldn't do most of the songs I heard. Well let me ask you another question. I know your
parents are still alive, they are in their 90's, Yeah, daddy's 90, mommy's 87. ok alright now
he's a biker do they think this is a phase pat is going through in your in your 60's do they say
it's just something the the boy is passing through. you'll grow out of it
When it came to choose the tracks Boone had one rule. He would only cover songs and artists who
didn’t clash with his religious beliefs. The resulting album would be released in January
of 1997 and be called In A Metal Mood, No More Mr. Nice Guy. The album would consist of covers
of judas Priest, Guns N’ Roses, Deep Purple, Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix to name a few. In
addition to that Boone was able to get some of the composers and musicians who played on the original
recordings to join him on his album including Ronnie James Dio and Ritchie Blackmore. Slash of
Guns N’ Roses was supposed to apepar on the album and perform the solo on paradise city but Boone
would tell the publication inquistor that this was 1996 and Guns N’ Roses were re-grouping to record
their long awaited follow up to the spaghetti incident and things didn’t end up working out.
Dio would comment on appearing on the album telling the arizona daily wildcat “I never
thought I’d have the chance to meet Pat Boone,” “I mean, he’s Pat Boone – that guy's a legend.
Since the album was set to drop the same month as the American Music Awards,
Boone decided to not only attend the show, but also present an award alongside shock rocker
Alice Cooper, Boone and Cooper would present an award for favourite hard rock artist/heavy metal
artist which would be awarded to Metallica. The award ceremony seemed like the perfect
opportunity to show off Boone's new image. Dick Clark whose company produced the awards
show came up with an idea for both Cooper and Boone to trade personas with the night.
Cooper was supposed to wear a v-neck sweater with his hair in a knot, while holding a glass
of milk on stage. Boone, meanwhile would don a leather vest, with a fake piercing
and tattoos and a dog collar. His costume would be designed by Elvis’ former costume designer.
As the award show approached Cooper backed out of the idea, but Boone agreed to wear his outfit.
In fact, Boone’s appearance was the talk of the show and the next day the newspapers
covered Boone’s metal transformation. According to Boone the appearance at the american music awards
propelled sales of his album with him The album would peak at number 125 on the album charts.
While most people seemed cool with the whole thing he got a tremendous amount of blowback from his
christian base, despite the fact that Boone had warned some of their leaders of what was to come
that night. Boone would tell the LA Times A lot of these songs have sensible and intelligent lyrics,
you just can’t hear them on the originals. For example, on “Crazy Train,” Ozzy is singing about
the confusion of today’s world. All while boone was promoting his album he had a tv show on the
christian tv station trinity broadcasting in fact In february of 1997 trinity broadcasting
would claim it had received thousands of viewer complaints about the musician's new image change
As a result trinity pulled boone’s gospel show on the network. The station would release a statement
at the time that read The decision was based on recent changes in the focus and content of
Pat's music, which represents a different genre than the Gospel and traditional inspirational
format and ministry of the 'Gospel America' program," The network would also claim that
Boone had alienated some of his core audience even before the stunt at the American music awards
with representatives of trinity claiming his show was focusing less and less on the gospel themes.
By April of 1997 Boone would appear on the network's flag
ship show Praise telling the audience. “To whatever extent somebody was wounded,
I am very sorry,”“That was never my intention.” The audience ironically included a contingent
of leather-draped Bikers for Christ, He would go on to say “Little did
I dream that the media and a lot of Christians would take it seriously,”“I
was really stunned that Christians, evidently by the thousands, having known me for 35 to 40 years,
would think that overnight I just radically changed my orientation and all my priorities.
“Just because I wore some leather pants and fake tattoos and non-piercing earrings
doesn’t mean that I’m a fundamentally different person" he'd say.
It was on the same program that they took a poll of the viewers thoughts about cancelling
Boone’s show 500 votes were cast in favour of bringing Boone’s weekly show back,
while 50 votes were cast against bringing it back. Eventually the network would renag and
brought the show back. But perhaps my favourite thing Boon said was when he appeared on Jay
Leno’s tonight show and brought up a four letter word that the religious right should consider.
God bless you you are having fun with it. May i say one word all my dear friends i mean folks like
mercy core, easter, tbn all the people that think i have dived heardfirst into the pit.
I want to give you a four letter word I'm not going to say i am just going to spell it j o k e.
Please look it up there is a little humor in this thing i think well there is a lot of humor. Will
you come back and see us again. Metallica Drummer Lars ulrich’s would
meet boone at the american music awards and share his thoughts on boone covering enter sandman and
how about this pat boone version of this have you heard this? You know what? I have got to tell ya i
am going against i can already tell from talking to a few radio stations there seems to be some
hostility building up towards this, but i don't know what people are scared of this guy is like
so unthreatneing i mean do you know what i mean i think he's great. I met him at the ama's the
other day, he was really nice, he was really funny and really friendly and i think he's done
one of the more interesting versions of one our songs that i've ever heard because most
versions that end up of our songs end up being something that is very unimaginitive
and very close to the bone and at least this is very different & i think it's really cool.
In 2017 the album would be reissued and Boone would reveal there were plans to release a second
covers album telling the inquisitr. Because it became a big hit, I was already preparing a list
of other songs to do for Volume 2, and some of the groups immediately after was like Poison,
the Scorpions, Aerosmith... They were saying, "Hey, why don't you do one of our songs?"
Bruce Resnikoff, the exec at MCA, they thought it was a fluke and that a Volume 2 might not work,
although they were selling the fire out of the first one, but they just quit while we were hit.
That does it for todayh's video guys thanks for watching be sure to hit the like button
and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.