Three Dallas Cowboys offensive linemen – Marc Colombo, Leonard Davis and Cory Proctor – make up three-fourths of the metal band Free Reign which just signed a record deal with Riot Entertainment of Australia.

    Did I say they were a Metal band? Strike that. Make it a heavy metal band. Strike that.
Make it the heaviest metal band of all time. Four members, three Cowboys. The one non –Cowboy – guitarist Justin Chapman goes a mere 220. Pencil neck pipsqueak! Let me introduce the others: Marc Colombo. Rhythm guitar and lead singer, that’s Marc with a “C” you-got-a-problem-wit-dat, Boston, mean ass tats, shaved head, attended 16 Metallica concerts, 6’8, 320, make that a mean-ass 6’8, 320. Leonard Davis plays bass. Big Leonard, former Longhorn (if you remember, Leonard was wider that the tip-to-tip of Bevo’s horns) and has his own zip code. I  remember Leonard ending the football career of my deaf football playing friend, Eric Thunderer, with a block so vicious it caused Eric’s brain to leak. (By the way, buy Eric’s great book Silent Thunder). Leonard goes 6’6, 360 (we’re being kind.) Cory Proctor, the drummer, is another 300 pounder, from Montana with multiple tats. Mean looking, Montana mean.

    This may be my first and possibly last music review. I don’t do them, not qualified. But since I’m about to do my first music review, I’m reminded of the time I contributed humor columns to a magazine called “Nightlife”  and of a conversation I had with one of their music reviewers  named Bob who called himself “Spacedog.” I asked “Space”, who was a very accomplished musician himself, if he ever felt uneasy about giving a band a bad review. Was he ever worried about retribution because some of these guys might be a little, shall we say, unstable? Here’s what Space replied:

    “Nah, I don’t worry much. The jazz guys are mellow, dope smokers, who wouldn’t bother getting off the couch to go after you. The country-western guys can get wasted and mean, but I don’t review them. The boy bands are just that, a bunch of boys. The acid rockers can’t read and the head bangers can get violent. But most of the metal guys are beanpoles, skinny freaks, or junkies that I could whip if I needed to.”
    That stuck with me.

    Spacedog went on to tell me that most metal bands except for a few, like Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeath just produced organized noise, that it wasn’t uncommon to find the rhythm and bass guitarist playing different tunes at the same time. Or the drummer being two pages behind the rest of the band. He called that tendency “disorganized noise.”
    It’s all so clear now.

    If Free Reign is a garage band, they’re the biggest garage band in the world. (I bet they have big garages because between the three Cowboys they pull in $ 12 million in salaries a year. They can afford good instruments.) Free Reign may be the best heavy metal in the world! They can blend disorganized noise that will make a head banger want to bang his head. Do you remember the movie Spinal Tap?  Well, with Free Reign all their amps START at 11. Marc Colombo, as the singer, goes the extra mile. When he screams, dogs howl. If you’ve got ear wax you can’t quite get rid of, he helps you bleed it out.  Free Reign is a wonderful band. If you want to rest your ears from having to hear things for a couple of weeks, go to a FR concert.  Free Reign is the best band ever and all their members are so good looking.