Jason McMaster recalls Dangerous Toys avoiding power ballads so as not to be lumped in with “hair metal”

Jason McMaster recalls Dangerous Toys not doing power ballads so as not to be lumped in with “hair metal”

Dangerous Toys and Dirty Looks frontman Jason McMaster was recently interviewed by Andrew Daly for Metal Edge Mag.

McMaster was asked why Dangerous Toys haven’t had any power ballads on any of their albums to which the singer replied: “That’s a fair point. In retrospect, that might have changed things a bit. Or, at least, it might have made us a bit more money. But we were never the type of band to go for power ballads. If you listen to the first record, we had some gentler moments, like “Queen of the Nile,” but even that wasn’t really a power ballad. The truth is that we avoided doing that shit because we didn’t want to be lumped in with hair metal. I hate that term, and I hated that we ended up in that box because it really did limit the hell out of us.”

In terms of whether the grunge movement influenced Dangerous Toys‘ decision to roughen up their sounds in the mid ‘90s, McMaster indicated: “I appreciate you noticing that. And while that’s a great assessment, I disagree that grunge influenced us. I’ve heard that before, but it’s not the case. Like I said before, we hated being called “hair metal,” and I feel those ’90s depict the true sound of Dangerous Toys. But also, the ’80s were over, and sounds were changing, right? We got older, became more mature, and were no longer shackled by Columbia. With those influences gone, you got the true sound.”

Since Dangerous Toys didn’t want to be lumped in with “hair metal”, McMaster was asked whether he also disliked grunge to which he replied: “I could see how you’d think that, but the music we made after the Columbia days was definitely less Skid Row and more Smashing Pumpkins. Regardless of how influenced Dangerous Toys was by all of that is debatable, but I did like bands like Smashing Pumpkins and Soundgarden. And if those bands did influence me at all, I guess it might have been lyrically here and there rather than through an overarching sound. So, while I did like that music, I’m not a superfan. I don’t have a song by any of those bands that like “my song” or whatever.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Jason McMaster via Metal Edge Mag‘s website.

Dangerous Toys performing “Queen of The Nile” live on the Monsters of Rock Cruise in 2018 (video from Decibel Geek TV‘s YouTube page):