We tasked Bad Wolves (and former God Forbid) guitarist Doc Coyle with putting together the ultimate Slaylist - a playlist of songs that are guaranteed to get any room up and moving, and had a profound impact on his life. From Michael Jackson to Megadeth, Muse to Meshuggah - these are his picks...
1. Michael Jackson - Beat It (Thriller, 1982)
“I don’t think there is one singular artist that had as much of an impact on me as Michael Jackson, and the reason I chose Beat It is because it is, like, the rock one. What made Michael special, and why you’ll never have another artist like him ever again, is that Beat It is everything; it’s rock, it’s pop, it’s r’n’b… you know. There is no artist that has tried to combine everything and captured fans of all music. Beat It is every genre in one."
2. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody (A Night At The Opera, 1975)
“It’s feels kinda hack because the song is so popular, but I have to put Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen in here. This is right before I started listening to rock and metal and playing guitar, but I saw Wayne’s World and it was this weird thing of seeing something from 20 years ago that it felt like time had forgot being reintroduced to a new generation. It felt new, and it made me realise how important the guitar was, and also how adventurous music could be."
3. Guns N' Roses - You Could Be Mine (Use Your Illusion II, 1991)
"There’s another film connection, with You Could Be Mine by Guns N’ Roses. I was obsessed with Terminator 2, I went to see it three times in the cinema, and then you get that music video. It’s funny, in the movie Edward Furlong and his homie are riding around for about three hours and they only listen to You Could Be Mine! That’s how much of a banger it is!"
4. Megadeth - Symphony Of Destruction (Rust In Peace, 1990)
“Megadeth’s Symphony Of Destruction is like my radioactive spider bite origin story. There were these two girls in my neighbourhood and they were kinda rockers, and I went round their house and saw the video for Symphony Of Destruction and it was just like a lightbulb exploding in my mind. Everything about it – the guitar tone, the drums, his voice – it was like I had discovered a secret that no one else knew about."
5. Pantera - 5 Minutes Alone (Far Beyond Driven, 1994)
"This is when I had graduated to watching Headbangers Ball on MTV. I still hadn’t really got into the super-heavy stuff yet, but that all changed with Pantera’s 5 Minutes Alone. It’s crazy because it’s not melodically sung but it’s so catchy and the video was so cool. They were the baddest dudes you’ve ever seen, and I just had to be around that, it opened the floodgates for me to get into more extreme music: Slayer, Sepultura, death metal… me and my brother down-tuned our guitars one step and we never went back."
6. Meshuggah - Humiliative (None, 1994)
“I don’t remember how I discovered Meshuggah but when I did, they basically broke my brain. The None EP that they released still sounds unreal today, it just made me realise what was possible with music, that song Humiliative was like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?!’"
7. At The Gates - Slaughter Of The Soul (Slaughter Of The Soul, 1995)
And At The Gates’ Slaughter Of The Soul – I had never heard guitars like that, the tonality. It’s so fast, so melodic and such tight pop song structures. I was obsessed with that album, all the way down to the album cover."
8. For The love Of - Crawl To Hide (Feasting On The Will Of Humanity, 1997)
“You probably don’t know this band, they’re from New Jersey, For The Love Of and they put out an album called Feasting On The Will Of Humanity and the opening track is called Crawl To Hide. [Doc’s former band] God Forbid saw this band rehearse and it changed our lives – they introduced us to the hardcore scene. They were the first band to take us out of New Jersey, we were like their understudies. It was the first time I shared air with a great band; they showed us how the sausage was made."
9. Radiohead - Paranoid Android (OK Computer, 1997)
“I love Radiohead’s Paranoid Android. When I hit 21 or 22 I started going back to alternative rock, Radiohead was one of those bands, I read the review for OK Computer where it was called ‘the next game-changing album’, so I wanted to investigate that. It was the first time in a long time that I had got a record and felt like I was on a musical journey – this is like our generation’s Dark Side Of The Moon."
10. Muse - Stockholm Syndrome (Absolution, 2003)
"Then there’s Muse’s Stockholm Syndrome. I gravitate to a lot of Brits who sing falsetto! The through-line from Radiohead to Muse is pretty obvious, and Muse have become my favourite band as an adult. They changed my opinion on what you could do with musical ambition. They’re the heir apparent to Queen to me – they’re genreless.”
Bad Wolves’ Dear Little Monster is out now
