How could Steve (played by Billy Houston) resist Nikki Steele’s charm?
Head Bangers (1991) starred a murderer and white supremacist. During his life as a skinhead in 2008, Billy Houston, who is otherwise known as Darrell Madden, was convicted of killing two men. According to police records, he strangled a gay man with a coat hanger as an initiation rite into the Aryan Brotherhood. Houston then shot and killed his accomplice to the killing. He is now serving a life sentence in Oklahoma for the double murder. Hate crimes are not recognized based on sexual orientation in the red state, so the gay bashing was never more than just a speculation. And immediately after the national attention that this arrest received, the film was upstaged by its murderous star and reduced to being a reference as a possible motive behind the violent homophobia.
Twenty five years after Houston shaved his mullet for the whites, Hollywood is still a place to make dreams and live them. Head Bangers is about a group of boys who have all moved to Hollywood to make rock ‘n’ roll music. Many of them go to the Academy of Rock. One of whom is a rockstar and hosts naked jam sessions, naked skateboarding, circle jerks and sexy orgies in his large production studio and playpen for his crew and roadies. Head Bangers didn’t just go after simply rock music, it went further into the sub-genres of it. Hair Metal. Glam Rock. And everyone is after rocker Nikki Steele.
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Nikki Steele is a dreamboat. Nikki, who is played by Tommy Wilde, and is otherwise known as Douglas Dinkler, tragically had his life cut short in a car accident in 1994 at the age of 32. His youth and gorgeousness eternally lives on. Avalon Video, the production company of Head Bangers, even made a full-length music video of the Nikki Steele song, which is now finally on YouTube. In the video, his large white fringe leather jacket drapes over his smooth lean frame and over a pair of sexy striped tights that leave little to the imagination and barely hold in his bulging package. And the hair. His hair is voluminous like the hair of Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe and honey blond like the sun-kissed locks of a California surfer. It’s edgy, but pretty. And his intensely blue eyes and trim physique capture the bygone era of the pretty boys in hair metal bands.
Houston, who plays the small town boy named Chris, is in for some cruising. Chris will learn that he’s not straight, at least with one special guy, before indulging in a lustful and dreamy encounter with Nikki. And it all begins at his new apartment. The apartment complex he lived in, aptly called The Cinema and located in the underbelly of Hollywood on Lexington and Cahuenga, is the hot hair metal sex house of 1991. It begins with Chris strumming his guitar to a tape recording of his idol Nikki Steele’s music video “Better Believe” and him singing in a cage amidst glowing neon pink lights. Chris then stops the tape and sighs. And then the front door opens and two skinny shaggy-haired boys walk in wearing absolutely shredded jeans, thrash metal t-shirts, and one holding drum sticks and lollipops.
Rockers Steve and Tory hang out on the couch, sharing lollipops, pizza and boys.
It is his roommate Steve and his friend Tory that come into the apartment. Before anything happens, Chris grabs his guitar and runs out the door to catch a “fingering lesson” offered by his teacher Mr. Harrison at the Academy of Rock. Tory laughs and says, “I’ve heard that before.” Steve warns Tory about scaring Chris. “He’s real small town. I don’t think he’s ready for Hollywood yet.” “Well shit, he’d better get ready man!” Tory then asks if he’s horny. “Yup.” He chucks his lollipop, which sticks to the wall, and they begin making out.
Cut away to the Academy of Cock. I mean, Rock. Oh, where to begin here? It is the stereotypically porniest of all the scenes. You’ve got Mr. Harrison servicing his young and hung student with a deliciously long dick and his horny teacher delivering just as deliciously a long blow job. His student was standing on top of the desk, moving his dick in and out of his teacher’s mouth in long strides to the beats of his walkman, as he chews pink bubblegum and blows bubbles. It finished with both of them being caught by Chris, who leaves after balking at the sight of oral sex. “Well, there goes my job promotion.” “Gee, what a bummer. Want to fuck?” The teacher bends over on his wooden desk and takes his student’s eight inches.
Chris had nowhere else to turn and walks over to the benches behind the softball field at Hollywood Recreational Park. One cool thing about this film is that these filming locations are actually walking distance from each other! There, he meets Ripper, who tells him he’s Nikki Steele’s roadie and invites him to come to Nikki’s recording studio down the street. “If you want to come over, we can have some fun.” Chris hesitates. “Uh, you too?” And he declines the invite.
Sexy cock rockers Ripper and Petey lip sync to Nikki Steele’s “Better Believe.”
This studio where the magic happens is located a hop skip and a jump from the park at an industrial space on 1000 Cahuenga Blvd. Ripper and another roadie named Petey are loudly jamming at the studio naked amongst a medley of boas, porno magazines, and spray painted cardboard posters. Petey wears a big blond curly wig and lip syncs poorly to Nikki’s song, as if he’s remembering the lyrics of a completely different song. He’s whipping his dick back and forth, while Ripper plays guitar and drums. Petey throws his wig at Ripper, which bounces off the guitar and his thick dick appears as he’s flinging it off with his guitar. They then lay on a floor mat together as they jerk off and dry hump the mat. Petey stands up and looks at Ripper as if he wants to rip Ripper in two, as the two cum together on the mat.
Meanwhile, Chris walks to a pay phone to call his roommate, who is busy fucking a third boy he invited over and doesn’t answer the phone. So he walks over to the studio.
“Holy cow, you’re Nikki Steele!” “World famous.”
Nikki is there. He is decompressing after a long day of being a rockstar and watching a recording of another blond rockstar on his fat televisions in the production room. He hears a knock at the door and walks over to answer it. “Holy cow, you’re Nikki Steele!” “World famous.” Nikki takes his guitar and invites him to sit on the couch and Chris follows. Nikki lies down next to him and puts his feet up, against Chris’ leg. “I hear you’re a little paranoid about guys coming onto you.” “Well I’m – I’m straight. I like girls.” “So? Nobody’s perfect.” Nikki approaches Chris, who springs off the couch. Nikki grabs him by the back of his pants, manhandles him and brings him back to the couch. “I told you I don’t bite.” He tries to takes a love bite to his ear after taking his white leather jacket off, and invites Chris to take his jacket off as well. “No I’m fine, really. I’m not ready for this.” Nikki suspects Chris is turned on and gently goes further. “Hurting you is the last thing I want to do.” Chris then relents and Nikki kisses him. If there ever was a love scene in vintage gay porn, this is it. He then take’s off Chris’ jacket and gives him a slow and sensual blowjob. They are laying and holding onto each other on the couch in a 69 position on the production studio couch. And Chris begins fucking Nikki.
Tory knows how to play the drums.
If it was not for the rocker hair in Head Bangers, this barebacking hipster hamburger fest, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, would only be simply amazing. It is a 70 minute long homage to breaking gay porn tropes of dominant tops and submissive bottoms from scenes that are often so scripted. Headbangers beautifully eschewed the type of actors we never knew could be in porn. A few of them looked like it was their first time ever playing with something other than a musical instrument. And all of the big, voluminous hair.
Head Bangers‘ storyline could have easily made its way into cult status if straight people weren’t so prude. It’s a rarity to feel uplifted after the end of a porn film, but this movies does it. Usually porn ends with the cum shot, just like a night at a sexy gym spa or a gay bathhouse! But the protagonist Nikki Steele goes out of his way to make a small town virgin feel comfortable. In the end, Chris got free backstage passes, Nikki’s white fringe leather jacket and a ride to his own show. And who knows what else? Head Bangers is like the beginning to a good erotic novel between two lovers, one who eventually dies and the other who eventually kills.
