Dangerous Toys is an American glam metal and sleaze rock band formed in Austin, Texas in 1987, best known for their raw, street-level hard rock sound that favored grit and attitude over the more polished and pop-influenced approach of many of their Sunset Strip contemporaries. The band consisted of vocalist Jason McMaster, guitarists Scott Dalhover and Paul Lidel, bassist Mike Watson, and drummer Mark Geary, and built a regional reputation in the Texas club circuit before signing with Columbia Records and breaking onto the national scene at the tail end of the 1980s glam metal boom.
Their self-titled debut album Dangerous Toys (1989) remains their most celebrated work, produced by Mark Dodson and delivering a high-energy collection of hard-driving rock tracks that captured the sleazy, anything-goes spirit of the era with genuine conviction. The album produced their best-known track Teas'n, Pleas'n, a strutting, hook-driven rocker that received solid MTV and radio airplay and introduced the band to a national audience. McMaster's raspy, powerful vocals and the band's unpolished Texas swagger gave them a distinctly different feel from the Hollywood-based acts that dominated the genre, and earned them a devoted following among fans who preferred their hard rock loud and unvarnished.
Their sophomore album Hellacious Acres (1991) arrived just as the tide was turning against glam metal in the wake of Nirvana's breakthrough, making commercial traction increasingly difficult despite the quality of the material. The band persevered through the shifting musical landscape of the early 1990s, releasing Pissed (1994) on Mayhem/Zoo Entertainment as grunge and alternative rock reshaped the industry around them. McMaster briefly departed to pursue other projects, including a stint with the progressive metal band Watchtower, before the classic lineup regrouped for sporadic reunion activity that has included new recordings and live performances for a fanbase that has never lost its affection for the band's brand of no-frills Texas hard rock.
Dangerous Toys occupy a respected place in the catalog of late 1980s hard rock — a band that never quite achieved the arena-level commercial success of their biggest contemporaries but delivered music with an authenticity and raw energy that has kept their debut album in circulation among hard rock enthusiasts for decades. Their Texas roots gave them a toughness and straightforwardness that distinguished them from the more image-conscious acts of the glam era, and their influence can be heard in the work of subsequent sleaze rock and hard rock acts who valued attitude over artifice.
