'Loudwire Music Awards' No AXS - UM Ganho Para Loudwire E O Heavy Metal

'Loudwire Music Awards' On AXS A Win For Loudwire And Heavy Metal

First of all thanks to Steve Baltin for this article.

On October 24 some of the biggest names in hard rock and heavy metal gathered at Los Angeles’ Novo Theater for the first annual Loudwire Music Awards. Fans saw a mix of cross-generational metal acts, from iconic artists like Judas Priest’ Rob Halford, winner of the Lemmy Lifetime Achievement Award, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iomni, recipient of the Courage Award, and Sammy Hagar, Humanitarian Award, to more contemporary artists like Avenged Sevenfold, who closed the night with a four-song concert after winning Metal Album Of The Year for The Stage, and Halestorm.

The show aired live on Mark Cuban’s AXS TV, making the real winners of the night the genre of heavy metal and metal website Loudwire, whose Josh Bernstein produced the event after years producing Revolver magazine’s Golden Gods awards.

“The reality is if you’re a current hard rock or heavy metal musician the opportunities to be on broadcast TV in 2017 are pretty limited,” Bernstein says. “Every once in a while you might get to be on Jimmy Kimmel or maybe one of the late night shows. The opportunities are very few and far between, so to have a network the stature of AXS giving us that opportunity and that sort of public voice is incredible. It means the world to these artists.”

Hagar, who as mentioned took home the Humanitarian Award and hosts the show Rock & Roll Road Trip on AXS, loves the marriage between the network and the show for the opportunity it provides young hard rock bands.

“Social media and TV, if used properly, is the most valuable tool on the planet because in the old days before you had computers and even cell phones and all those things a band would go on tour for three years before anybody had heard of them. And then here comes MTV and all of a sudden overnight you’ve got a Duran Duran and one of the biggest bands in the world with one hit because of the power of TV,” Hagar points out. “If you use that power properly I think it’s fantastic. My favorite band from the night was Halestorm. They opened for me at a festival in Kansas City earlier on in the year, back in June, and I interviewed them for Rock And Roll Road Trip. And Lzzy [Hale] is a real star, she screams her butt off and plays guitar and gives it up on stage. They’re a real band, they don’t have backing tracks, they’re just out there rocking hard. I like bands like that and I love seeing them be able to get exposure on TV so they don’t have to tour the world for three or four years before anybody hears of them.”

For AXS, picking up the show and giving a home to metal, which remains one of the biggest live draws as evidenced by the success of the Guns ‘N’ Roses and Metallica tours, No 1 and 4 for 2017 with 151.5 and 88 million respectively at the halfway point of the year, was an easy decision.

“Heavy Metal is one of the most underserved genres on television, despite its massive and dedicated fanbase that spans all across the globe,” said Evan Haiman, vice president of music programming and production, AXS TV. “By airing the 2017 Loudwire Music Awards, we wanted to tap into that audience and give them a chance to celebrate this dynamic and diverse art form on a grand scale. This year’s event had added significance for us, as AXS TV host Sammy Hagar was presented with the Humanitarian Award for his many philanthropic projects. It was a true honor to showcase one of our own, as he accepted this achievement.”

After Bernstein departed the Golden Gods Awards show to produce the more alternative and pop-leaning AP (Alternative Press) Music Awards, the former disappeared, so Bernstein was happy to be brought in by Loudwire parent company Townsquare Media to give metal another spotlight show.

“The Golden Gods went out of business and ceased to be, which is unfortunate,” he says. “And the drum always beat pretty loud for me within the industry to sort of come back and do something. So when I got offered the job at Townsquare Media the first thing they wanted me to do was build and create the ultimate hard rock and heavy metal show in America. In many ways Loudwire is taking the place of the Golden Gods, but building on what Loudwire has done and celebrating the genre.”

He was also excited by the cross-promotional opportunities Townsquare Media offers. “I always describe Townsquare as the best kept media secret in the business,” he says. “They have three main verticals – the first being radio, they are the third-largest owner and operator of radio stations in the country; they have a very robust live events business, including country festivals, state and county fairs; then the other part of their portfolio is the 20 or so massive digital brands, mostly that focus on music, including Loudwire, XXL, Taste Of Country, Ultimate Classic Rock and each of those is, in many cases, the number one or number two websites for their respective music genres. My role was to come in here and connect all the dots between all the different divisions. And a perfect example is this awards show. We have the Loudwire website, we have Loudwire Nights, which is a syndicated radio show and then we have a live events division that wasn’t really tied to that. So I kind of came in and created a live events property out of a digital brand and then looped in our radio brand so we can all work in synergy here. And it worked out really wonderfully.”

For Hagar, who admits he was embarrassed at first at being presented an award for his philanthropy just because he doesn’t believe charity work should be done for the credit and glory, it was a very special night for both he and the genre.

“Standing backstage the day of the show with all these people who started coming up to me and saying, Congratulations, dude, I’m such a fan, can I take a picture? I started feeling pretty good about myself,” he says. “They were all so friendly and so cool about it by the time I walked out onstage I felt really good. And it was so awesome, I got choked up being up there telling the story of how it really started, back in the Van Halen days when it was the Make A Wish Foundation in Indianapolis and some little nine-year-old boy named Steven, they brought him to the show and he was a Sammy Hagar guy. They said he’d watch MTV all day waiting for my videos or me and Van Halen so, so would I mind going down to see him at the hospital? I get there and it was heartbreaking. So having an experience like that tightens the bolts down pretty tight.”

It was also important for the genre of metal to present a humanitarian award and people to see the good work done in that world. “Especially metal bands like Metallica,” he says of other acts doing philanthropic work in the metal scene. “James Hetfield’s my partner for five years now with Acoustic For A Cure and when I asked him to do it he said, ‘I’ve really been thinking a lot about this lately. So everyone comes around to it.”