Dangerous Toys: Austin’s Gold-Record Rockers, From Watchtower to the 1989 Debut’s Reissue

Dangerous Toys is an Austin hard rock band formed in October 1987, fronted by Jason McMaster, who came from the technical thrash band Watchtower. Its self-titled 1989 debut on Columbia reached No. 65 on the Billboard 200 and went gold on the strength of “Teas’n, Pleas’n” and “Scared.” On November 13, 2026, that record returns as a remastered two-disc Definitive Edition.

Who Are Dangerous Toys?

Dangerous Toys is a five-piece from Austin that broke out of Texas in the late-1980s rush of hard rock bands onto MTV. As RockLists.com put it, in a line quoted on Wikipedia, the band “played hard rock with a wink, the lyrics often good for a laugh.” The early songs are tongue-in-cheek party rock with a Southern swing.

This is not a thrash band, and this site won’t call it one. It belongs here because McMaster fronted Watchtower, one of the bands that pioneered technical thrash, right up until Dangerous Toys signed its record deal.

McMaster thinks the Texas roots made the difference. He told Margaret Moser of the Austin Chronicle in May 2008:

“I think being from Texas made us shine a bit harder than some of the other ‘Class of ’89ers.’”

From Watchtower to Dangerous Toys: How the Band Formed

The band began in Austin in October 1987 as Onyxx, a group led by guitarist Tim Trembley. Trembley invited McMaster to sing, and the lineup settled with Scott Dalhover on lead guitar, Mike Watson on bass and Mark Geary on drums. The name changed to Dangerous Toys within the year.

It moved fast. In March 1988 a publishing representative signed the band at South by Southwest, and Columbia Records signed it later that year. “The band was only Dangerous Toys for six months before we were signed,” McMaster told the Chronicle in 2008. “We barely had enough material to make a full record.”

The 2026 reissue announcement on Blabbermouth says the industry buzz started with “a cassette of a live local radio broadcast.” After “several shows in Texas,” it says, a bidding war broke out among major labels.

McMaster stayed in Watchtower until the contract was signed. Leaving, he told Sleaze Roxx in 2005, in an interview excerpted by Blabbermouth, was “pretty hard, I felt like I was leaving school to go home to bad news.” Guitarist Billy White’s exit from Watchtower had already changed things for him and “made me start to look at other styles.” He added: “If it were up to me, I would’ve liked to have done both bands.”

That Watchtower era is where this site’s own band crossed paths with McMaster. Rotting Corpse shared the 1986 4th of July Brain Bash bill with Watchtower at the Continental Club, and played The Rail in Fort Worth with Watchtower in September 2025, per the band’s venues page and timeline. Both bills were Watchtower shows, not Dangerous Toys shows. The wider 1980s Austin scene is in our Militia and Austin metal piece.

The 1989 Debut: “Teas’n, Pleas’n”, “Scared” and a Gold Record

Dangerous Toys came out on May 9, 1989. Max Norman produced it at Sound City in Van Nuys, California, between September and November 1988, and mixed it at the Record Plant. Bob Ludwig mastered it at Masterdisk in New York.

Trembley left before recording, so Dalhover played every guitar part. Danny Aaron joined shortly before release; he is pictured on the back cover and credited, but Wikipedia notes he does not play on the album. McMaster wrote or co-wrote the lyrics to ten of the eleven songs, two of them with Trembley, and Watson wrote the words to “Ten Boots (Stompin’)”; the music is credited to the band.

MTV made the record. Andy Langer’s December 1995 Austin Chronicle profile credits “MTV’s heavy rotation of ‘Teas’n, Pleas’n’ and ‘Scared,’” with sales “near the 400,000 mark.” Wikipedia places that rotation on Headbangers Ball, the show covered in our Headbangers Ball history.

The album reached No. 65 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 36 weeks. “Scared” peaked at No. 46 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart. The RIAA certified the album gold in 1994, five years after release.

Hellacious Acres and the Arena Years (1990–1991)

The debut put the band in arenas. In 1990, the Chronicle reports, Ian Astbury invited Dangerous Toys to open The Cult’s Sonic Temple arena tour. Langer wrote that Astbury “saw the Austin band as a late-Eighties Texas take on the New York Dolls.”

Columbia wanted a second album fast, “only six months after their debut release,” Langer wrote. McMaster put it this way: “We were led into the studio by the almighty dollar and the hand that feeds.”

Hellacious Acres came out on June 4, 1991, produced by Roy Thomas Baker and recorded in the Los Angeles area (Santa Monica, North Hollywood and West Hollywood) from November 1990 to February 1991. It includes a cover of Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” and it reached No. 67 on the Billboard 200. It was Aaron’s only album with the band and its last for Columbia.

That summer the band joined a package with Judas Priest, Alice Cooper, Motörhead and Metal Church, the Operation Rock & Roll tour. Langer says it ran about 10 weeks. Columbia dropped the band soon after.

McMaster has since been blunt about the timing. Asked by Metal Edge magazine why Hellacious Acres stalled, he pointed to the Seattle movement: “It’s an awesome record, and at the time, it boggled my mind that people weren’t into it.” Blabbermouth reprinted that answer in 2025, dating it only to “a few years ago.”

In a 2025 interview with Anthony Bryant of The Hair Metal Guru, quoted in the same Blabbermouth story, he took a different line and called the idea that grunge killed hair metal “wrong”: “I think that hair metal killed hair metal. Too many bands got signed.”

Pissed, The R*tist and the DMZ Years

Kevin Fowler replaced Aaron in 1992 and toured with the band without recording. Paul Lidel took the rhythm guitar spot in 1994. The Chronicle says the band then signed with Antone’s new DMZ label and cut a record in about a month.

Pissed came out in June 1994, produced by Billy Sherwood and Tom Fletcher. It was Lidel’s first album with the band and Watson’s last; he left just before the tour. EMP Label Group reissued it on September 8, 2017.

Michael Hannon, from Salty Dog, played bass on the 1994 to 1995 tour, and when he left McMaster took over bass himself. That lineup made The R*tist 4*merly Known as Dangerous Toys for DMZ in 1995. Langer called it “a dark and challenging record.” It sold poorly and fans reacted badly to it, and the band went on hiatus.

It came back in 1999, the year Cleopatra released the live album Vitamins and Crash Helmets Tour – Greatest Hits Live. Shows followed in Austin and Tokyo in 2001, and Watson returned on bass that year. The band marked its 20th anniversary with an Austin show in 2008, and in 2019 it played “Hold Your Horses,” its first new song in 24 years.

Dangerous Toys Band Members

The current lineup, per Wikipedia, is the four founding players who made the debut, plus Lidel:

• Jason McMaster: lead vocals, 1987 to present; also bass, 1995 to 2001.
• Scott Dalhover: lead guitar, 1987 to present.
• Mark Geary: drums, 1987 to present.
• Mike Watson: bass, 1987 to 1994 and 2001 to present.
• Paul Lidel: rhythm guitar, 1994 to present.

Former members are Tim Trembley (rhythm guitar, 1987 to 1988), Danny Aaron (rhythm guitar, 1989 to 1992), Kevin Fowler (rhythm guitar, 1992 to 1994) and Michael Hannon (bass, 1994 to 1995). Lidel came from Dirty Looks, a hard rock band from Erie, Pennsylvania.

McMaster kept singing heavy music beyond this band. Wikipedia lists his other Austin bands as Broken Teeth, Sad Wings and Capricorn USA; Lidel played in Broken Teeth too, until 2006. McMaster returned to Watchtower in 2023, and he sang with S.A. Slayer (our S.A. Slayer history) at Houston’s Hell’s Heroes, covered in our Hell’s Heroes piece.

Dangerous Toys Albums: Where to Start

Start with the 1989 debut. “Teas’n, Pleas’n” and “Scared” are the songs people search for, and “Bones in the Gutter” and “Take Me Drunk” show the Southern-boogie side. It is the record the band built its name on, and Norman’s production still hits hard.

For a quick playlist, take the singles: “Teas’n, Pleas’n” and “Scared” (1989), “Sport’n a Woody” (1990), “Gimme No Lip” and “Line ‘Em Up” (1991). Add “Demon Bell (The Ballad of Horace Pinker),” the band’s song for Wes Craven’s 1989 film Shocker.

Go to Hellacious Acres next, the one McMaster still defends. Then try Pissed, a heavier, rougher record made in a month. The four studio albums are Dangerous Toys (1989), Hellacious Acres (1991), Pissed (1994) and The R*tist 4*merly Known as Dangerous Toys (1995).

The newest release is Demolition, out on December 12, 2025, through Cleopatra. It collects 10 unreleased songs recorded between Hellacious Acres and Pissed, a stretch in which the band wrote at least 70 songs. The first single was “Rock Shock Cowboy.”

Then there’s the reissue. Blabbermouth reports that Kenyon Records releases the debut’s Definitive Edition on November 13, 2026, remastered by Norman. It adds “Live in ’89,” nine live recordings from the 1989 tour, with “That Dog” as a CD-only tenth. Katherine Turman wrote the liner notes. McMaster says of the tapes they came from: “No copies were ever made of these master cassettes.” The Kenyon Records store also lists new vinyl editions for December 18, 2026.

Dangerous Toys Tour: Where to Hear It Live

As of November 2026, Dangerous Toys has no announced shows. Songkick lists no upcoming dates, and the band’s tour page has none posted.

The band’s most recent Texas shows were at Come and Take It Live in Austin on May 30, 2026, and The Backyard in Waco on September 26, 2026, per Songkick. To catch the next one, follow the Songkick page and watch the Come and Take It Productions calendar, which books the Austin room the band played in May.

That room’s metal bookings run through the winter. On Tuesday, November 17, 2026, Bay Area thrash band Forbidden plays there (tickets; background in our Forbidden history). Houston’s D.R.I. follows on Wednesday, December 2 (tickets).

Rotting Corpse plays the Haltom Theater in Haltom City on November 14, 2026, and Spam’s Bar and Lounge in San Angelo on December 5. Details are on the shows page.

Sources

1. Austin Chronicle: Andy Langer on Dangerous Toys, December 8, 1995
2. Austin Chronicle: Margaret Moser, “Boy Toys,” May 2008
3. Blabbermouth: Jason McMaster discusses Watchtower, Dangerous Toys and Broken Teeth, June 14, 2005
4. Blabbermouth: Dangerous Toys to release Demolition, November 7, 2025
5. Blabbermouth: Definitive deluxe reissue of 1989 debut due in November, September 22, 2026
6. Wikipedia: Dangerous Toys
7. Wikipedia: Dangerous Toys (album)
8. Wikipedia: Hellacious Acres
9. Wikipedia: Pissed (album)
10. Bandcamp: Dangerous Toys, Demolition
11. Kenyon Records: webstore
12. Songkick: Dangerous Toys calendar

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