Militia was the Austin band that proved heavy metal could fill a room in a city known for country and blues. Formed in January 1984, the five-piece played more than half its shows at the Ritz on Sixth Street, opened for Slayer, Megadeth and Metal Church, and pressed just 100 copies of The Sybling, which its 2023 liner notes call “one of the most sought-after private press U.S. metal records.”
The Short Version
- Militia formed in Austin in January 1984 and split in August 1986.
- Start with “Objective: Termination” from The Sybling, on the band’s Released collection.
- The Ritz at 320 E. 6th St. was Austin’s metal room; Rotting Corpse played it with Militia.
Did 1980s Austin Have a Metal Scene?
It did, though the city barely noticed. Austin is often called the live music capital of the world, and Metal Underground notes that country and indie rock have long dominated its musical legacy. In the early 1980s the radio was no help either.
Militia singer Mike Soliz, an Austin native, put it bluntly at a 2018 panel in San Antonio reported by Alamo True Metal.
“I don’t think Austin had time for metal. They were busy being bluesy.”
Guitarist Art Villarreal of S.A. Slayer (listen), who lived in Austin for a while, said the rock stations “were stuck on Led Zeppelin and maybe the new Van Halen.” Jason McMaster of Watchtower answered that San Antonio had DJ Joe Anthony and Hogwild Records.
So Austin’s metal kids built their own circuit: Watchtower, Syranax, Matrix and Militia. “There was definitely a brotherhood between bands,” Militia bassist Robert Willingham said.
Syranax, formed in 1984, were “speed metal thrashers” with a screaming vocalist, according to Texas Metal Powerhouse, and cut the Battalion of Death demo in 1985. Matrix, per Militia’s liner notes, was a progressive metal band.
The Ritz: Sixth Street’s Metal Theater
The room that made it possible was a 1929 movie house. The Ritz opened on October 13, 1929, at 320 E. 6th St., and it showed westerns until it closed in 1964, according to Wikipedia. By 1982 it was Austin’s punk club.
Black Flag opened the punk era there in May 1982, with Austin’s Big Boys on the bill. Punk violence cost the operators their liquor license that year, and the managers later brought music back, heavy metal included. The Austin Chronicle’s timeline labels 1982 to 1984 “the Ritz’s punk/metal years.”
“Because of our intense style, we were not welcome at any of the so-called rock clubs,” Willingham told True Metal Fan. The Ritz, he said, rented out for shows of all kinds, and crowds of 300 to 500 were common. Militia’s 2023 liner notes credit promoter Chris Gates of the Big Boys with booking much of it.
The Ritz Closed 2007
Austin’s metal room of the 1980s, where Militia played its first and last shows. It stayed a music venue, bar and pool hall until the Alamo Drafthouse made it a cinema in 2007. Since 2023 it has been Joe Rogan’s Comedy Mothership, with the original Ritz sign still out front.
Photo: WhisperToMe, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Back Room: Metal on East Riverside
By 1985 Austin metal had a second address. The Back Room opened in November 1973 at 2021 E. Riverside and moved to 2015 E. Riverside in the late 1970s, according to the Austin Chronicle’s 2006 timeline of the club. In April 1985 it doubled in size.
The metal shows started that same month. Raven played on April 10, 1985, “possibly the Back Room’s first metal show,” and Megadeth opened for Exciter there on July 11. Writer Michael Corcoran calls it a 600-capacity club, and counts McMaster’s Dangerous Toys among the club’s house favorites; the band signed with Columbia in 1988 after a South by Southwest showcase there.
No source we found puts Militia on the Back Room stage; the Ritz stayed its home. Rotting Corpse got there later: the shows page lists the Backroom on May 21, 2005, the first night of the band’s first reunion tour. The club’s farewell show came on July 29, 2006.
The Back Room Closed 2006
Austin’s other 1980s metal room, where Raven, Megadeth and Exciter played in 1985 and Rotting Corpse opened its 2005 reunion tour. Corcoran writes that the club was torn down and replaced by Emo’s, shown here. Come and Take It Live, in Building 4 at the same address, still books thrash.
The 2015 E. Riverside site today. Photo: Emo’s Austin via Google
Who Were Militia?
Willingham and drummer Phil Achee formed Militia in January 1984, before Willingham could play; he bought a bass and taught himself. According to the liner notes by J. Campbell for Nuclear War Now! Productions, seeing Metallica and Raven on the “Kill ’Em All For One” tour made him want to start a band.
Guitarist Jesse Villegas answered an ad in a local music store, and Tony Smith won the second guitar spot at auditions. The singer came through Watchtower. McMaster recommended Mike Soliz, then the drummer in the covers band Fallen Angel. Few people knew he could sing, and the band hired him on the spot for his high, Halford-style range.
On July 3, 1984, about a month after Soliz joined, Militia opened for Wyzard and Watchtower at the Ritz. Wyzard was a San Antonio band with a Knights of Metal EP on Pazuzu Records, per its Last.fm biography. “Man, when those lights came on, I felt like I was in a dream!” Villegas remembered.
Within months Militia was opening for touring bands. The band’s history lists shows with Slayer, Megadeth, Exciter, King Diamond and Metal Church. It also played a short Texas tour opening for Nasty Savage.
The biggest night was November 30, 1984, at the Villa Fontana in San Antonio. Militia and Syrus opened for both the California Slayer and the hometown band, a story told in our S.A. Slayer piece. “That show was probably the highlight of Militia,” Soliz said in 2018.
Militia
Austin speed and power metal, formed 1984. Start with Released, which has all three songs from The Sybling, then the 2023 Regiments of Death / No Submission reissue.
The Sybling: How 100 Copies Became a Grail
The first session nearly broke the band. In October 1984, Militia booked 20 hours at a home studio called Austin Trax and finished only “Regiments of Death.” In mid-1985 it cut “Metal Axe” and “Search for Steel” in a weekend at First Star Studio. Those three songs became the Regiments of Death demo, sold at shows and at Waterloo Records. Our piece on 1980s tape trading shows how demos like it spread.
The demo drew fans but no labels. So Militia paid for its own record. In September 1985 the band self-promoted a headline show at the Ritz. Willingham told True Metal Fan that about 500 metalheads came, and the net profit “paid for the entire process of recording and pressing The Sybling.”
The band cut it at Music Lane Studios in Austin that October, according to the liner notes. It has three songs: “Objective: Termination,” “Salem Square,” and the instrumental title track, which fills side two in five sections. Tony Smith told True Metal Fan the song is about an ordinary family whose child “happens to be the Antichrist.”
Then came the pressing. The plant offered two options, 100 copies or 10,000, and the band could only afford 100. The plan was to mail half to labels. Achee invented Scythe Records to make it look official. Its address was his mother’s house, and “Suite 1A” was a sarcastic nod to his bedroom. The release year depends on who tells it: the band’s Bandcamp bio says 1985, and the 2023 liner notes say 1986.
No label bit, and leftover copies ended up in Austin record stores. A bootleg appeared in Germany in the 1990s, and an original sold for $1,136 on eBay in 2003, according to the band’s Do512 biography. In 2007 Achee sold his own copy for $3,000 to a fan in Germany.
Is it worth the fuss? Yes. Start with the opener. As J. Campbell’s liner notes put it, from the first seconds of “Objective: Termination,” “Smith’s melodic leads ricochet off Soliz’s piercing and powerful voice.” The same notes call the record “an amalgamation of the most potent elements of aggressive speed metal and melodic power metal,” and that is exactly how it plays.
Why Did Militia Break Up?
The lineup came apart after The Sybling. Villegas had already been dismissed after the Austin Trax session. Then Smith quit. After short stints by Louis Beltran and S.A. Slayer’s Art Villarreal, Phil Patterson of the progressive band Matrix took the spot.
Patterson pulled the songs toward Queensrÿche. The No Submission demo, cut in a three-hour session at Cedar Creek Studios in early 1986, sounds more technical and less abrasive. “By ’86, metal was changing fast,” Willingham told the liner-note writer. Crowds cooled on the new songs, and so did Soliz.
The end came in August 1986. After an August 21 show opening for Metal Church and King Diamond at the Ritz, Soliz left for the Austin band Assalant. The 2023 LP of its demo The Damage Is Done has two versions, sung by McMaster and by Soliz. The band’s history says Militia “disbanded” a few months after The Sybling came out.
Soliz kept singing. The Metal Files notes he was later Watchtower’s interim singer between McMaster and Alan Tecchio.
Watchtower
Austin, formed 1982, the scene’s flagship. Start with Energetic Disassembly (1985); our Watchtower history has the full story.
Rotting Corpse at the Ritz
Militia’s own history names Rotting Corpse among the Texas bands it played with, alongside Watchtower, S.A. Slayer, Karion and Syrus. A hand-drawn flyer in the band’s gallery bills Militia, Rotting Corpse “from Dallas” and the Austin band Sentinel at the Ritz on a Friday night in July.
According to the venues page, Rotting Corpse played the Ritz in 1986 and 1987. Drummer Dave Gryder names a Ritz show with Militia as one of two out-of-town gigs that stood out. The other was a 1986 Fourth of July Brain Bash with Watchtower at the Continental Club, where “the other bands were super cool to us,” he said. “Austin and San Antonio were always great to us!”
Rotting Corpse returned to the Continental in December 2025 and, according to the timeline, played the Hole in the Wall on September 5, 2026, a night marking forty years since the band’s 1986 Austin show. The band’s full story is on the history page.
The Continental Club Open
Where Rotting Corpse and Watchtower played the 1986 Brain Bash, and where Rotting Corpse returned in December 2025.
Photo: Steve Takata via Google
The Reunion, and Where to Start Listening
Achee’s $3,000 sale in December 2007 restarted Militia. Willingham’s daughter helped him set up a MySpace page in January 2008. Within a week, according to the band’s bio, Germany’s Keep It True festival offered a slot. All five original members played it in April 2009.
The recordings followed. In November 2008, Blabbermouth announced Released on Rockadrome’s Forged in Fire label. The new album Strength and Honor came out on March 15, 2012. Achee was in Alabama, so Soliz played the drums himself.
That album was later remixed and remastered as And the Gods Made War on SKOL Records. Villegas died in 2016, and Villarreal rejoined. The 2023 liner notes say that lineup, with drummer Chip Alexander, “continues to perform live to the present day.”
Where to Hear It Live
As of September 2026, Militia has no announced dates; watch its Bandcamp page. These Austin shows are on the calendar at Come and Take It Live, at 2015 E. Riverside Dr., the Back Room’s old address:
- Tuesday, November 3, 2026: Denver thrash band Havok. Tickets.
- Tuesday, November 17, 2026: Bay Area thrash veterans Forbidden and Heathen. Tickets.
- Wednesday, December 2, 2026: Houston crossover pioneers D.R.I. Tickets.
- Friday, March 19, 2027: Metal Church, the band Militia opened for at its last show, with Armored Saint on the Metal Saint Tour. Tickets.
For Rotting Corpse dates, check the shows page. New shows are announced on Instagram first.
Start with “Rotting Corpse” (1986)
It opens Demo One, cut at Pantego Sound in the spring of 1986, the year the band shared the Ritz stage with Militia; the words are on the lyrics page.
Sources
- Nuclear War Now! Productions: Militia, Regiments of Death / No Submission (liner notes by J. Campbell, 2023)
- True Metal Fan: Militia interview (2009–2010)
- Alamo True Metal: South Texas Legion’s all-star cast shines brightly, adds to legacy
- Do512: Militia artist biography
- Militia on Bandcamp: Released
- Militia on Bandcamp: And the Gods Made War
- Rockadrome: Militia, Released CD
- Blabbermouth: Militia, Released collection of ’80s recordings now available (2008)
- Wikipedia: Ritz (Austin, Texas)
- Austin Chronicle: Final Countdown, a Back Room timeline (2006)
- Michael Corcoran: Back Room, Rockin’ Out in Rivertowne (2022)
- Austin Chronicle: The Life and Times of the Alamo and the Ritz (2007)
- Metal Underground: Unearthing the Metal Underground in Austin, TX
- The Metal Files: Militia
- Come and Take It Productions: event calendar
- Texas Metal Powerhouse: Syranax, Battalion of Death demo (1985)
- High Roller Records: Assalant, The Damage Is Done LP
Frequently Asked Questions
Who were Militia?
Militia was a speed and power metal band from Austin, Texas, active from 1984 to 1986. The original lineup was singer Mike Soliz, guitarists Tony Smith and Jesse Villegas, bassist Robert Willingham and drummer Phil Achee. The band re-formed in 2008 and played Germany’s Keep It True festival in April 2009.
Why is Militia’s The Sybling EP so valuable?
Only 100 copies were pressed. The plant offered the band 100 or 10,000, and it could only afford 100. An original sold for $1,136 on eBay in 2003, and Phil Achee’s own copy sold for $3,000 to a fan in Germany in 2007.
Where did metal bands play in 1980s Austin?
Mostly the Ritz, an old movie theater at 320 E. 6th St. The rock clubs would not book metal, according to Militia bassist Robert Willingham, but the Ritz rented itself out for shows of all kinds. Militia played more than half of its shows there, including its first and its last. From 1985 the Back Room at 2015 E. Riverside also booked metal, starting with Raven that April and Megadeth opening for Exciter that July.
Did Militia play with Rotting Corpse?
Yes. Militia’s own band history lists Rotting Corpse among the Texas bands it shared bills with, and a flyer in the Rotting Corpse archive bills Militia, Rotting Corpse and Sentinel at the Ritz. Drummer Dave Gryder names a Ritz show with Militia as one of the band’s best out-of-town gigs.
Where can I listen to Militia?
Militia’s Bandcamp page carries Released, which collects the Regiments of Death demo, the three songs from The Sybling and more. Nuclear War Now! Productions reissued the two demos as Regiments of Death / No Submission in 2023.
