Pat Boone’s Unexpected Turn into Heavy Metal

On this episode of Our American Stories, for more than forty years, Pat Boone stood as one of America’s most enduring entertainers. His smooth voice carried songs like “Love Letters in the Sand” and “April Love,” and his reputation for clean-cut wholesomeness made him a symbol of the nation’s musical past. But in 1997, Boone did something that stunned both fans and critics: he appeared at the American Music Awards dressed in black leather and released In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy—a collection of heavy metal covers sung in his unmistakable crooner style. What began as a lighthearted experiment became one of the most talked-about moments of his career. The album mixed humor with genuine musical craftsmanship, turning metal classics into swing arrangements and reminding audiences that reinvention is its own form of artistry.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Up next, a
story from Pat Boone. While Pat is known mostly for
his ballads and classic pop music hits, he's here today
to talk about a musical one eighty he took late
in his life.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Take it away, Pat, listen. I'm so glad you brought
that up, because it's a great example of how I've
made my way through this entertainment morass. But I did
an album of heavy metal classics. It came about because

(00:49):
while I was in England with my musicians play, you know,
doing all my hit records and the tour going very well.
But we're at an airport between airplanes and one of
my musicians said, we like doing your hit records, you
know people, why don't we go in the studio and
do something different, now new together? And I said, look,

(01:09):
I thought of it, but I can't think of anything
I haven't done ten times already. I've already done gospel
and pop and rock and roll and big band swing.
They said, well, you never did any heavy metal, and
we laughed about it. No, I never did any heavy metal. Well,
I didn't have any use for heavy metal either or

(01:30):
the performers who were doing it. But my conductor, Dave Siebels,
who's still my musical conductor pianist, said you know, there
are a lot of good songs underneath all that noise
that we could do a different way. And I said,
like what He said, well, big band swing, And I said, oh, well,
now you're talking, what kind of songs do you mean?

(01:53):
And that's when I was introduced by them to the
songs we wound up recording like Smoke on the Water,
Long Way to the Top if you want to rock
and roll, and then of course Crazy Trains, which as

(02:14):
I listened to that lyric and him singing it, I
realized was really good social commentary about how hard it
was for young people coming up to cope with all
the hypocrisy and double standards. It was his take on
how hard it is for kids to grow up and
growing up on a crazy train.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Millions of people live in ass bhoos.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
And so we decided we got the Big Band vest
Arrangers and Big Band Swing each to take one song,
including Crazy Train, and do big band swing versions.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Mantel Wounds not lights of beIN shame, I'm going off
the rails on a crazy train. I'm going off the
rails on a crazy train and we.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Put out the album, and the night before the album
was coming out, Dick Clark, who produced the American Music Awards,
had heard it and felt like it was going to
be a hit because it was all those big, big
songs but done a totally different way. No more mister
nice Guy. Alice Cooper was one of them, and that
was a subtitle. It was Pat Boone in a metal mood,

(03:46):
No more mister nice Guy. And Dick Clark had me
and Alice Cooper present the Award for Hard Rock Hard
Rock Heavy Metal, which happened to be for Metallica, and
I was doing their song in the album, Enter Sandman,
and to do that, Dick Clark had the idea that
I would come on dressed like a heavy metal guy,

(04:09):
and Alice Cooper would come on like Pat Boone and
the v neck sweater, carrying a glass of milk, wearing
white buck shoes, his long hair pullback under a golf cap.
And I would come out in leather vest made by
designed by Bill Blue, who did Elvis's costumes, just opened
all the way down to my navel, bare chest, no sleeves,

(04:31):
tattoos on my arms, biceps, and pectoral muscles, and you know,
choker and earrings and boots and leather and and so.
Alice Cooper introduced me.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
He's the master of shot run ladies and gentlemen, Alice.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
Cooper, I know the history of heavy metal, but now
I'd like to introduce you to the future of heavy metal,
Pat Boone as.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
The future of heavy metal. And Dick Clark had smoke
on the stage and had me stomp out through the
fog to confront Alice Cooper, who was looking unlike Alice
Cooper at that point, and he was stunned because he
hadn't seen me in the outfit I was wearing. And
the crowd went crazy in the audience and it was

(05:21):
so noisy. I we couldn't talk yet, and I realized
what was happening is the young people are saying, who
is that? And the older ones said, well, they said
it's Pat Boone, but it can't be Well, who's Pat Boone?

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Alice?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
They're laughing at you.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
You're looking good.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Does this signify the death of heavy metal? No, it's
a whole new rebird.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
You know, Alice, you are my role model.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
You know that. I mean all this was a cacophony
in the audience. So I just walked to the front
of the stage and stood there, flexing my pecks, looking
like a de Niro and taxi driver. Hey, you got
a problem with me? You want a piece of me? Hey?
But I had no mic. I was able to do
it with attitude. So I walked back to Alice Cooper

(06:12):
and he's standing there with his jaw hanging open, and
he had to say, does this mean I have to
sing love Letters in the Sand? And I had the
sound man ready and I said that would be nice,
and we just made the most of this humorous take
on the songs that I'd done very seriously. Well. I

(06:34):
was kicked off Christian TV and that night, I mean
it looked like I had gone off to the dark side,
and it was raising a furor. I had a regular
show on Christian television, but it was canceled and that
was in the news. And then Ozzie moved in next
door to me and took up residence and we hadn't

(06:55):
even met yet. But when he had moved in and
i'd he had done his song and he was walking out,
I went out to get the mail and here comes Iz.
He's shuffling along the sidewalk to get into an escalade
and he said, hello, Pat, nice to meet you. Said,
I got to go to an AA meeting right now,

(07:16):
but when I get back out, we'll got to gunther
and have to tell you, okay, And I said, well sure,
so we did. We got to be friends and neighbors
for three years. Two years, and then he began the
Osbourne television show and lo and behold. I tuned in
to see the show and the first thing I hear

(07:37):
is hit my version of crazy Train as his theme song,
not his version. He used my version of crazy Train
crazy Hey, That's how we go? Whose big band Swing?
As his theme song? And so we, as I say,
we were friends and neighbors, he and Sharon and the kids.

(07:58):
So you know, I was able to be friends with
and have the respect of, and actually the friendship with
a guy with whom I had very little in common,
but we were good neighbors. And that was when Sheriff
sat on the show. Don't you miss Pat Boone? Oh
he was a best blanketed blank neighbor we ever had.

(08:22):
I mean, I won't fill in the blankety blank, but
that was just the way he talked and I took
I didn't mind it as that's the way he talked.
I knew he grew up, you know, as a hard
luck kid in England, and he had said it was
either crime or music for him, and he chose music. Well,
I'm glad he didn't choose crime.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Had a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monte Montgomery, and a special thanks to
Pat Boone. And we've told several stories with him about
his life. One just a broad soup and nuts beginning
to end. One just about the two loves of his life,
and that would be his music and his bride. And
my goodness, it'll bring you to tears. It is absolutely beautiful.

(09:06):
And last but not least, Pat Boone of metal Fame
in a Metal Mood was the record the subtitle no
More Mister Nice Guy. Of course, that scene with he
and Alice Cooper friends by the way, golfing buddies and
two Christian guys, Pat Boone a Christian and Alice Cooper
a born again Christian later in his life, and imagine

(09:29):
the scene when Ozzy Osbourne moves in next to Pat Boon.
Everybody would have thought, Wow, these guys would have nothing
in common, and they didn't, but they did because they
had music and they were neighbors. We need more of
that in this country. We don't have to agree on
everything or live the same lives to love on another
and be good neighbors. Pat Boone in a metal mood,

(09:49):
his story his brief dalliance with metal. Here on our
American Stories