Gary James' Interview With The Editor Of Hit Parader Magazine
Andy Secher



Andy Secher was the editor of Hit Parader, one of the leading music publications of the 1980s. When I interviewed Andy Secher in 1984, Hit Parader was in the midst of a format change, a change to Heavy Metal or Hard Rock. That change resulted to a 450% increase in readership and a press run of a half million copies every month. The magazine even launched a TV program on the USA network titled Hit Parader's Heavy Metal Heroes and a new magazine with the same title.

Q - Andy, is it true that Hit Parader is the leader of all Metal publications on the market today?

A - It's tough for me to say. Circus is doing just about as well as we are, but they're a little more expensive than we are. They'll touch on Duran Duran. They'll show pictures of The Eurythemics and The Pretenders. We don't do that. We're much more straight down the line, commercial Metal. It's I guess our one drawback. We are not really doing that much for the newer bands. We're giving them maybe a page, a quarter page in our Shooting Stars.

Q - Hit Parader wasn't always synonymous with Heavy Metal. Who decided to change that and when?

A - The real changes started to happen in 1980. At that point, Lisa Robinson was the editor and Lisa has very strong New Wave leanings. She was going to England four times a year to interview The Clash. She wanted to be on the cutting edge of the whole Avant Garde, New Wave movement. The trouble was the magazine wasn't selling. They were printing 200,000 copies and selling about 30%. They were doing 60,000 units four years ago. At that point, Shelton Ivany took over, who was the editor-in-chief and my partner, and started running general interest stuff. That was my first issue at that point. I had been doing a syndicated column around the country called Rock USA. I had always been a Heavy Metal follower, freak, but because of the newspaper column I couldn't afford a Judas Priest or Van Halen. I had to go to the Chers, ABBA, Kim Carnes. When he took over I had just done an AC/DC interview. So, the first piece I did for him was AC/DC. So I became basically the Heavy Metal person. Every issue I was writing more and more about Metal and took over two years ago as editor. And at that point we made a major step in the Heavy Metal direction. I think it's possible for a magazine like ours to sell a million units a month. That's by the sales figures of the Def Leppards, Scorpions and Van Halens. If they're selling three to six million copies of their record, there's no reason whey we can't get those kids to buy a copy of the magazine every month.

Q - Your June, 1994 issue was your biggest. Why?

A - Controversy. Motley Crue is hot as Hell and it's also word of mouth. I first met Motley Crue back in December in Mexico. Vince (Neil) grabs me by the arm and says, "Come with me." So I go into the room and the other three guys have this young woman, spread eagle on the bed, naked, and they're going at her with a wine bottle. And I printed it. I tried not to make it quite that raunchy, but I did run it. And that word of mouth got around just like you talk about a band who is into the devil. That band will sell more copies. This thing happened to get out there and caused a bit of a stir. Seven Eleven was going to take us off the shelves, blah, blah. And it just happened to be the right issue at the right time. We happened to hit perfectly with Motley Crue. That June issue was on the stands in April, just when "Shout At The Devil" was peaking.

Q - Your TV show Heavy Metal Heroes features interview segments of only two minutes. How can you get an in depth conversation with anybody about any topic in only two minutes?

A - The interviews don't last for two minutes. We just clip them that way. We do basically thirty to forty-five minute interviews, but it's USA's ruling that if it goes more than a minute or two, it's going to be boring. I find that hard to believe.

Q - It's truly amazing what's going on in L.A. with Metal and the numbers of groups that are getting signed. How much longer can this go on?

A - It is amazing. You have to look at it two different ways; one being that the medium is going to kill itself by doing that. I have this incredible fear that because every group with an amplifier is being signed that just as they killed off New Wave to an extent and Power Pop by signing every group with a "The" in front of their name, they're going to kill off Heavy Metal. They're not signing quality anymore. They're signing in quantity and that's always a very dangerous situation.

Q - What are record labels looking for?

A - They're looking for outrage right now. That's why W.A.S.P. is going to be very big. The labels are not looking for song quality. They're not looking for musicianship. They're looking for someone who can go and get their face plastered on the covers of magazines and sell them. Get a lot of attention. Another Motley Crue. Motley Crue proved that what KISS was doing ten years ago is still viable and there are bands coming along to prove what Motley Crue did a year ago is still viable. Until that plays its course, we are going to have some weird goings on in this business.

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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