2015 Pedal To The Metal Tournament: Thrash Metal Divisional Final: Testament Vs Slayer

It’s come down to this as we are down to the elite 8 in our march madness style tourney, the 2015 Pedal To The Metal Tournament. What you are looking at is the Thrash Metal divisional finals where the winner will meet the winner of the Extreme Metal Divisional final in the final four round. This is definitely one of my favorite finals matches that pins two of my favorite members of the Thrash Metal genre in Slayer and Testament and I’ll be interested to see how this one turns out. These were two bands that were not going to be denied while on the road to this point. Testament started the tournament eliminating one member of the Big Four in Anthrax and then they proceeded to crush Death Angel who also pulled off a huge upset in the tournament. Slayer started off the tournament crushing Exodus in the first round while they fought tooth and nail against Megadeth wining by only two votes to reach this point. Gary Holt’s original band gets eliminated, but he still has a chance to make it to the finals with Slayer as they try to make Jeff Hanneman proud. You have until March 27TH at 8:30AM ET to vote for who you want to win and remember the keyword is that YOU vote.

2015 Pedal To The Metal Tournament: 2ND Round Results

One of the divisions that absolutely makes me laugh is the heavy metal division and I’ll explain it to you. The first round featured you (the voters) having the ability to vote multiple times in a day and that pissed people off because one artist was losing to another. I change it in the next round that you are only allowed to vote once a day and people are still pissed off and blaming the tournament because one band’s fans showed up and voted for their favorite artist. You just can’t win, but the show must go on. So in the heavy metal division, Iron Maiden easily dispatched of Dio by gaining 500+ votes more than Dio. Savatage pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the first round, but their luck ran out on them as Accept and their fans showed up in style as they won by a huge margin. In the hard rock/hair metal division, AC/DC proved their brand of rock and roll was superior to Motley Crue’s winning 131 to 62. Cinderella’s fans always showed up for the band when the time was right last year and it looked like they were about to do the same, but their luck also ran out in this round as the Scorpions move on to the next round. The thrash division featured some great matches and like Savatage, Death Angel pulled off a huge upset win over Metallica, but they met their match against the mighty Testament who won by gaining 69% of the votes. One of the tightest matches of both rounds came as Megadeth and Slayer’s match was decided a whopping two votes as Slayer moves on to the next round. The extreme metal division also featured a match that looked like it was going to come down to the wire, but Venom squeaked ahead an never looked back as they defeated Death. Celtic Frost had no chance as they were easily dispatched by Kreator. There you go, the elite 8 has been decided as we quickly approach the final four. Stay tuned as I’ll post the next round’s matches very soon.

2015 Pedal To The Metal Tournament: 2ND Round: The Thrash Division

Alright welcome everyone to the second round (or Semifinals) of the Thrash Metal Division that is now live, but there are some rule changes that have been implied to this round and future rounds. Due to the fact that we are going to try and avoid any controversy moving forward, you are now only allowed to vote once a day instead of multiple times per day. Some were whining about being able to vote multiple times per day because there favorite acts were losing and so we changed it to appease everyone moving forward. Death Angel is a team that pulled off the upset of all upsets when they defeated the mighty Metallica in the first round, but they have to get by Testament this time around. It’s the battle of all battles as Megadeth take on the mighty Slayer. You have until the 24TH of March to vote for your favorite bands so get to it.

2015 Pedal To The Metal Tournament: 2ND Round: The Extreme Metal Division

Alright welcome everyone to the second round (or Semifinals) of the Extreme Metal Division that is now live, but there are some rule changes that have been implied to this round and future rounds. Due to the fact that we are going to try and avoid any controversy moving forward, you are now only allowed to vote once a day instead of multiple times per day. Some were whining about being able to vote multiple times per day because there favorite acts were losing and so we changed it to appease everyone moving forward. Death proved they were the were the death metal band in the first round, but now they’ll have to dispatch of the black metal pioneers Venom in order to move on. Kreator is looking to continue to move forward into the next round as they face Celtic Frost. You have until the 24TH of March to vote for your favorite bands so get to it.

2015 Pedal To The Metal Tournament: 2ND Round: Heavy Metal Division

Alright welcome everyone to the second round (or Semifinals) of the Heavy Metal Division that is now live, but there are some rule changes that have been implied to this round and future rounds. Due to the fact that we are going to try and avoid any controversy moving forward, you are now only allowed to vote once a day instead of multiple times per day. Some were whining about being able to vote multiple times per day because there favorite acts were losing and so we changed it to appease everyone moving forward. Accept has to be one of the standout bands of this tournament as their fans pushed them to the next round in one of the most heated battles in the history of this tournament. They’ll look to repeat the success against a band that upset the defending two time champs (Judas Priest) in Savatage. In the other match Dio has made it pretty far before, but he’ll have to go through Iron Maiden this time in order to do it. You have until the 24TH of March to vote for your favorite bands so get to it.

2015 Pedal To The Metal Tournament: 2ND Round: Hard Rock Division

Alright welcome everyone to the second round (or Semifinals) of the Hard Rock/Metal Division that is now live, but there are some rule changes that have been implied to this round and future rounds. Due to the fact that we are going to try and avoid any controversy moving forward, you are now only allowed to vote once a day instead of multiple times per day. Some were whining about being able to vote multiple times per day because there favorite acts were losing and so we changed it to appease everyone moving forward. Motley Crue made it once again past the first round, but they may have some trouble against the boys from down under in AC/DC. In the other match, the Scorpions are looking to press their luck against the fan backed Cinderella whose fans always show up to vote them through. You have until the 24TH of March to vote for your favorite bands so get to it.

2015 Pedal To The Metal Tournament: First Round Results

First and foremost, I want to take the time to thank everyone who voted because this year’s tournament had a record turnout that this tournament and blog had never seen before. I’ve said many times, if it wasn’t for you, we could not do this. So, I want to say thank you for that and I also want to thank the bands. I saw that some bands shared my status on their Facebook pages which helped attract the people as well, so thank you to the bands that shared the status. If you haven’t checked out the page yet, then you are probably wondering who won. I want to start with the heavy metal division because that alone attracted the most votes I have ever seen with over 15,000 votes coming in one match alone. The match was between King Diamond and Accept and that was truly one of the wildest matches ever. The lead was constantly changing hands between King Diamond and Accept that it caused a little bi of controversy amongst the fans. It has actually lead to us changing the way you can vote in the upcoming rounds because we don’t want to hear people cry because their favorite acts are losing or what not. For while, it looked s if Accept was going to go down to King Diamond as one point, they were only a little less than 300 votes behind, but they finally pulled ahead of King Diamond and they won by 632 votes. The division also saw a major upset occur as the defending two time champions Judas Priest were destroyed by Savatage losing by a total of 2,391 votes. To round out the rest of the heavy metal division, both Dio and Iron Maiden won their respective matches. In the Hard Rock division, Cinderella’s fans proved that they were going to move their band on to the next round as they defeated Quiet Riot. Motley Crue, Scorpions, and AC/DC all scored wins as well.

In the extreme metal division, this was the division with the lowest amount of participation, but nevertheless some fans did show up. Kreator defeated Carcass by a 35% margin while Celtic Frost defeated Obituary. Death proved they were the supreme death metal band by defeating Possessed while Venom easily handled Entombed. The Thrash Metal division was another interesting division because their was one major upset tat occurred that I never saw coming. Metallica was beaten badly by Death Angel who secured 73% of the votes. Megadeth scored a win over Overkill while Slayer beat Exodus out of the Big Four picture. This was definitely a tough match to vote on, but Testament scored a huge win over Anthrax to see them through to the next round. So, their you have it, the results from each of the divisions and what a wild tournament it has been so far. As I said above, we are changing the way you can vote in this competition to avoid any scrutiny or spamming because that would be unfair and we want to be fair to everyone. Stay tuned here as we will provide you with the next round of matches soon.

Soundtrack Saturday: Nobody Rides For Free by Ratt

For today’s soundtrack Saturday track, we are going to one of my all time favorite Keanu Reeves films in Point Break which co-stars Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, Lori Petty, and even The Red Hot Chili Pepper’s own Anthony Kiedis in this bad ass surfer/heist movie. The film contains one of my all time favorite Ratt songs that is truly also one of their most bad ass songs in Nobody Rides For Free. The song starts off very melodic with a great guitar riff and a bad ass bass line to go along with it from Juan Croucier. The song has tons of swagger and coolness that just oozes out of it and overall it’s just an amazing rock song that features a kick ass guitar solo from Warren DeMartini. The song actually fits the film perfectly as well in this story of bank robbers who end up being surfers as well as the cool, calm, and collective agent Johnny Utah who is on the case. The soundtrack also featured songs from The Concrete Blondes, Shark Island, Little Caesar, L.A. Guns, and so many more. Check out the song below and check out the film if you never have before you see the remake that is coming out this summer.

2015 Pedal To The Metal Tournament: The Hard Rock Division: 1ST Round

As I had stated in a previous article, I was going to have the actual matches up for you to be able to vote. We are moving on with the Hard Rock division that features some titans of Rock taking on some titans of Hair Metal as well. Last year’s tournament saw Cinderella as the “Cinderella” story (pun intended) as their fans drove the band all the way to the finals where they unfortunately lost to reigning back to back chaps Judas Priest. In their first round match they take on the first heavy metal band to ever score a number one hit on the billboard charts in 1983 in Quiet Riot. In the second match, one of England’s best rock bands to come out of the NWOBHM scene Def Leppard takes on Germany’s legendary rockers The Scorpions. The third match features Australia’s number one rock band of all time in AC/DC taking on one of the original LA Hair bands in Ratt. The final match features 2012’s Pedal To The Metal Tournament winners Motley Crue taking on New Jersey’s finest Skid Row. You have until March 21ST to put in your vote to see who gets to the round of 16 (semifinals in the Hard Rock Division). Vote below:

2015 Pedal To The Metal Tournament: Heavy Metal Division: 1ST Round

As I had stated in a previous article, I was going to have the actual matches up for you to be able to vote. We are moving on with the Heavy Metal division that features some heavyweights of metal that ruled the airwaves from the 70’s well into the 80’s and beyond. In the first match, the Metal Gods of Judas Priest take on American metal band Savatage who spawned some of the best musicians in the business. In the second match, King Diamond who may arguably be one of the most influential musicians as far as theatrics and that falsetto voice as he takes on the powerhouse German metal kings Accept. The third match features one of the greatest voices in metal history in the late Ronnie James Dio who almost defeated Judas Priest for the crown back in 2012 as he takes on German Power Metal kings Helloween. The last match features anothe rband trying to claim the crown of the biggest English Power Metal band in Iron Maiden as they take on underrated kings of decibels in Manowar. You have until March 21ST to put in your vote to see who gets to the round of 16 (semifinals in the Heavy Metal Division). Vote below: