Heavy-Metal Video-zine on Fast Forward

Want to see Axl Rose hanging out at a wee-hours L.A. club? Is Kip Winger going deaf--not from loud guitar noise, but from girls screaming at his concerts? Does Skid Row really idolize Kiss?

There’s only one place you can get these headbanger inside scoops--Hard ‘N’ Heavy, the world’s first heavy-metal video magazine. With issue No. 6 due in the stores next week, Hard ‘N’ Heavy has emerged as a surprise video hit. Armed with 80 minutes of clips, interviews and animation footage, each of the first five issues have sold nearly 100,000 copies apiece. In fact, at one point last year, each of the magazine’s three volumes were all on Billboard’s Top 20 Video chart.

“I find it far more fun doing something directly for the fans instead of always having to please the record companies,” said John House, Hard ‘N’ Heavy’s outspoken founder and producer, who launched the video-zine after a long stint as a rock video producer. “I knew we were really on to something when we got a letter from a whole gang of high-school kids asking if they could use our logo in their high-school yearbook.”

HNH is a cheeky celebration of all that is wondrously wild, profane and stoopid about heavy metal. The magazine is liberally sprinkled with foul language and macho posturing typical of the heavy-metal scene, including anti-gay remarks. Highlights (or lowlights):

A hilarious interview with up ‘n’ coming band M.O.D., whose lead singer cheerfully recites his various injuries sustained during the band’s recent tour: “I had broken fingers, broken knuckles (from hitting his guitar player), a bruised spleen, fractured ribs, broken toes, 17 stitches in my forehead. (Laughter) The hospital bills cost more than the bus!”

A chat with Motorhead leader Lemmy, who explains how the band’s typical day begins: “Usually we throw the girls off the bed, scrape the crust off the jeans, put on the hat, get on the bus and ride the jolly old range.”

A sheepish admission from Cinderella’s lead singer Tom Keifer that the band had to fire the two attractive women it used in its early videos because “everybody kept seeing the girls and forgetting about the band.” Keifer is also filmed riding his bicycle, astride what he calls his “(gay) seat,” saying “I hate (gays).”

The brainchild of an Irish-English music journalist named Harry Dougherty, HNH costs about $250,000 to produce--and retails for $19.95. It’s distributed worldwide in 33 countries, including Japan, Spain and Germany, who all receive subtitled issues. The next target is the Soviet Union, which will begin receiving the magazine in June, also with subtitles.

With all its raunchy candor, it’s no wonder that HNH carries a sticker warning buyers of offensive material.

“The ‘uncensored’ attitude is a big attraction for us,” House says. “We’re not like MTV, which is always scared of offending its advertisers. (As a video producer) I had enormous problems with the last clips I submitted to MTV. If you got within two inches of someone’s breast, they’d start screaming, ‘Oh, my God, I think we saw a nipple! Get rid of it!’ ”

House says record companies, with the exception of CBS, have cooperated fully with HNH, whose new issue features interviews with the Cult’s Ian Astbury, Whitesnake’s David Coverdale and Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, who are seen donning their Kiss makeup for the first time in 15 years. “If we continue to succeed, it’s because we’re honest, unpretentious and we don’t ever preach,” says House. “Kids know what’s authentic--and what isn’t--and we’re going for something that is real.”