Dangerous Toys frontman Jason McMaster recalls being asked to audition for Skid Row and Pantera

Dangerous Toys frontman Jason McMaster recalls being asked to audition for Skid Row and Pantera

Dangerous Toys, Broken Teeth, Ignitor and new Dirty Looks frontman Jason McMaster was recently interviewed by Chuck Shute for the Chuck Shute Podcast.

With respect to being in so many bands, McMaster indicated (as transcribed by the Chuck Shute Podcast with slight edits): “Well, it’s an honour to be asked. I said no to a lot of cool shit.”

In terms of being asked to join Pantera, McMaster clarified: “I was not asked to join Pantera. I was asked to do an audition.
They called me once. Yeah. Yeah. They called me once and then they called me twice and both times I was like, man, I’m in the middle of, I’m in the middle of doing something. I’m in the middle of really trying to get this band off the ground and it’s nice to be asked. Plus you have to remember, I was in a like a weird weirdo thrash metal band for almost a decade. And during that decade, for the most of that decade, Pantera was like a glam rock band.”

McMaster added: “And so when they, when they started to write, you know, really heavy, powerful, sort of almost thrashy kind of angry metal — bro metal or whatever, I think some people call it for fun. That was before ‘Cowboys [From Hell’]. I hadn’t heard anything from ‘Cowboys’, but I’d heard plenty of their other stuff with a different singer. I think if I would’ve gotten that gig, I would have been on the record that would have been the ‘Power Metal’ album. So that would have been ’80… Wow. Wow. So ‘Power Metal’ was a couple of years prior to that. So probably ’88. So yeah, it would have been ’86 or ’87. When Sebastian left Skid Row, [Dave] Snake [Sabo] called me a couple of times and it was really, him and Rachel [Bolan] really wanted me to audition for Skid Row.”

The singer continued: “Well, so today, I think that they write great songs and I think that I’m just not a huge fan. I don’t own any Skid Row. I think that they’re an excellent rock band and I think that… I mean I might up one day and regret that decision to not even try, but I was trying to get [Dangerous] Toys back on the road and we were trying to ride and get it together and we had just made some decisions and I guess that would have been like ’93 or ’94 or something like that.”

When asked about joining Skid Row, McMaster clarified: “Not join. Not join. Sebastian was gone. So whatever year he was gone, when you left and Snake and you know, here’s a campfire and Snake and Rachel are sitting around, ‘Well, who do we want to try out?’ And my name was on the list. That’s an audition. That’s a compliment.”

You can listen to the entire interview with Jason McMaster on the Chuck Shute Podcast via Buzz Sprout‘s website.