Whiplash

Perhaps best known for a lineup anchored by three musicians all named Tony—guitarist and singer Tony Portaro, bassist Tony Bono, and drummer Tony Scaglione—the New Jersey thrash outfit Whiplash also gained brief notice when Scaglione stood in for Dave Lombardo during Slayer’s first, short-lived separation in 1987. Despite these connections, the band never progressed beyond a modest regional following. Taking their name from the Metallica track widely viewed as the genre’s anthem, Whiplash coalesced in late 1983, produced a pair of demos, and placed the fittingly titled “Thrash Till Death” on New Renaissance Records’ 1985 Speed Metal Hell collection. Roadrunner Records soon signed them, issuing their debut album Power & Pain later that year and following it in 1986 with Ticket to Mayhem, on which Joe Cangelosi replaced Scaglione after the latter’s temporary Slayer stint.

Those two releases offered solid yet derivative thrash that failed to expand the group’s audience, prompting an initial dissolution shortly afterward. A first attempt at revival brought vocalist Glenn Hansen aboard for the 1990 album Insult to Injury, yet it took another six years before an altered configuration—singer Rob Gonzo, guitarist Warren Conditi, bassist James Preziosa, the ever-present Portaro, and returning drummer Scaglione—completed the fourth album, Cult of One. Only a year later the band delivered its fifth release, the still more awkwardly titled Sit Stand Kneel Pray, this time with Bob Candella on drums and without Gonzo, as Portaro reclaimed lead vocals.

Marking their fifteenth anniversary, Whiplash briefly reassembled the original three-Tony roster for the 1998 collection Thrashback. That effort proved to be their last substantial statement; after the 1999 odds-and-ends compilation Messages in Blood, the group again disappeared from view until May 27, 2002, when news broke that founding bassist Tony Bono had died of a heart attack at age 38.