Helstar and the Making of Houston Metal

Helstar is the Houston metal band that helped build American power metal. Guitarist Larry Barragan founded it in 1981, singer James Rivera joined in 1982, and Combat Records released their debut, Burning Star, in March 1984. More than forty years later, Rivera and Barragan are both still in the band. “There has always been Helstar,” as the Houston Press put it.

Who Is Helstar?

Helstar is a Houston five-piece that plays a hybrid of power metal and thrash. The Houston Press called it “the city’s quintessential power-thrash quintet” in 2014.

Brad Sanders of the Houston Chronicle pins down the sound well. Their classic records, he wrote in 2023, “split the difference” between the thrash of Metallica and Testament and the “neoclassical melodicism” of Savatage and Queensrÿche. He also calls the band “some of the genre’s most visible Latino icons.”

How Helstar Formed in Houston

Rivera and Barragan came up in Houston-area cover bands. Both of their bands lost a 1981 battle of the bands in Pasadena, southeast of Houston. Afterward, Rivera told the Chronicle, Barragan found his address and knocked on his door.

“Dude, you need to quit that band and join Helstar. They suck, and we’ll blow them away, and together we’re gonna go places.”

Rivera wasn’t won over on the spot, but the two kept calling each other, and he joined in 1982. Barragan told the webzine Full in Bloom that Helstar grew out of a three-piece called Black Rose. Drummer Hector Pavon and bassist Paul Medina had pulled him into what was “strictly a garage band,” and they dropped the covers to play only originals.

Burning Star and the Combat Years

The band’s 1983 demo reached England through the tape trade. “We were the number one demo” in Metal Forces, Barragan told the Chronicle, and “that’s when Combat Records started looking for us.” Our 1980s tape trading piece explains how that worked.

Helstar re-cut the demo songs at Sunrise Studios in Houston in December 1983, adding guitarist Tom Rogers’s “Dracula’s Castle.” Combat released Burning Star in March 1984. Barragan says the album was cut in four days, and he was unhappy with its guitar sound. The next year, Combat also released the debuts of Megadeth and Exodus.

It is closer to traditional heavy metal than what came next. “Run with the Pack,” the six-minute close of side one, is one of the band’s best-known songs and gets played at every show. Start there.

By Remnants of War, only Rivera and Barragan remained from the Burning Star lineup. Bassist Jerry Abarca, drummer René Luna and guitarist Rob Trevino came in, all about 19. Barragan wrote almost half the record, and Rivera had started vocal lessons. In March 1986 the new lineup toured Texas with Anthrax, the band’s biography says.

Randy Burns, who also produced Megadeth’s Peace Sells, produced it at Mad Dog Studios in California, according to Barragan. Combat released it in summer 1986. It marks the band’s turn toward power-thrash. Play “Evil Reign” and the title track.

Metal Blade, Los Angeles and Nosferatu

Their manager, Mike Faley, had left to become a vice president at Metal Blade, Barragan said, and he played the band for Brian Slagel. Helstar moved to Los Angeles in 1987, with André Corbin on guitar and Frank Ferreira on drums. A Distant Thunder came out in September 1988, produced by Bill Metoyer, who had worked on Slayer’s early records.

Metoyer remembered being struck by “how complicated their music was.” He told the Chronicle: “It was almost like classical metal, and certainly not easy to play.” Their first European tour followed, including arena dates opening for Yngwie Malmsteen and a sold-out headline show at the Dynamo club in Eindhoven.

Back in Houston by 1988, the band made Nosferatu at Rampart Studios, again with Metoyer. Barragan brought the idea of an opera on Dracula, and Rivera ran with it. Rivera told the Chronicle he reread Bram Stoker’s Dracula obsessively, memorizing every line, and painted his apartment black. The first half follows the story, with samples of Frank Langella from the 1979 film.

Nobody wanted it at the time. “When that album came out, you couldn’t find a good review,” Barragan said. Metal Blade dropped the band, and Barragan left not long after. Rivera kept going, and Multiples of Black (1995) is the one Helstar album without Barragan.

Now Nosferatu is the one many fans call Helstar’s greatest, and it’s the one to buy. Start with “Baptized in Blood” and “Harker’s Tale (Mass of Death).”

Helstar and the Houston Metal Scene

Houston came around slowly. Asked about other early Houston metal bands, Barragan named Bad Heaven, Aggressor and Metal X. The crowd came first in San Antonio, on a bill with S.A. Slayer where the fans rushed the stage.

Back home, people started calling Helstar “that band from San Antonio,” Barragan said, and more of them came out. He makes a big claim for the band, too: “We were the first [metal] band to get signed out of Texas, really. We were signed before Pantera or anybody.” Our San Antonio history explains why that city got it first.

The first arena show came at home, though. In December 1985 Helstar opened for Stryper at the Sam Houston Coliseum downtown.

Houston’s biggest metal export of those years came from the punk side. D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles) formed in Houston on May 2, 1982, the year Rivera joined Helstar, and played its first show at Joe Star’s OMNI that July. That November it cut the Dirty Rotten EP, 22 songs in 18 minutes, according to the band’s own biography.

D.R.I. moved to San Francisco in 1983 and lived in its van between gigs. Its sound kept drifting toward metal, and its 1987 album Crossover gave the punk-meets-thrash style its name. If Helstar’s operatic side isn’t for you, start there.

Dead Horse carried crossover into Houston’s next wave. The band formed in 1987 and released Horsecore: An Unrelated Story That’s Time Consuming on the independent Death Ride Records in 1989. AllMusic’s Steve Huey called it “a trashy amalgamation of thrash, death metal and grindcore,” and songs like “Hank” pulled in country and Texas culture.

Dead Horse split in 1997, reunited from 2011 to 2019, and announced a second reunion in 2025. Relapse Records reissued Horsecore in 1999 with the band’s 1988 demo added, and that’s the version to find.

Helstar’s own players kept feeding the local scene. In the mid-2000s Barragan and Rob Trevino formed Eternity Black, which Barragan told Full in Bloom was “straight ahead thrash metal” and “the heaviest thing I have been a part of.” Russell DeLeon, Helstar’s drummer at the time, played in both.

The newer Houston bands feed Helstar back. The Scourge, a Houston thrash band, recorded its 2014 EP First Comes Destruction in Spring with Garrick Smith on bass and Andrew Atwood on vocals and guitar. Smith was already filling in on bass for Helstar by then, and Atwood joined on guitar in 2016.

When Helstar played Fitzgerald’s on White Oak in April 2014, the Houston Press listed Venomous Maximus and Arlington’s Warbeast on the bill. Venomous Maximus formed in Houston in 2010, won back-to-back Best Metal Band titles at the Houston Press Music Awards and was picked by Down to open a run of its U.S. dates in early 2013, Blabbermouth reported.

The 2006 Reunion and Rotting Corpse

The reunion started with an anniversary. A friend talked Barragan into calling Rivera about a gig for the 20th anniversary of Remnants of War. They warmed up on old songs. “I looked over at James, and I was like, ‘I feel like I’ve never left,’” Barragan said. The drum chair settled later. Michael Lewis, who had toured Europe with Rivera’s Helstar reunion shows in 2004, learned the set days before Germany’s Headbangers Open Air in summer 2009, then joined for good in February 2010, replacing Russell DeLeon. Rivera’s call opened with “Hey Mikey, you still got your passport?”

Rotting Corpse was part of that year. On June 10, 2006, both bands played the 4th Annual Robb’s MetalWorks Showcase at the White Rabbit in San Antonio. The flyer bills Helstar’s set as a “twenty year reunion of the 1986 lineup,” playing Remnants of War “from beginning to end.” Bassist Steve Murphy counts it among the highlights of the reunion years, according to the band’s venues page.

Rotting Corpse crossed paths with Rivera again on August 21, 2026, playing his Sabbath Judas Sabbath night at the 19th Hole Grill & Bar in Spring, north of Houston. See the shows page and the band’s history.

Helstar Today

The reunited band released Sins of the Past, re-recorded older songs, in 2007, then The King of Hell (2008) and Glory of Chaos (2010). This Wicked Nest followed on AFM Records on April 25, 2014, and Rivera told the Houston Press that most of it was recorded at home.

Jerry Abarca stepped back in 2013 for health reasons, and Mike Lepond and Garrick Smith of The Scourge covered bass live. Smith’s bandmate Andrew Atwood joined on guitar for Vampiro (2016). By 2023, the Chronicle reported, Rivera’s vampire persona had crept into his everyday life: he wears long black cloaks, plastic fangs and dark glasses.

The Devil’s Masquerade followed on Massacre Records on September 12, 2025, produced by Barragan at his own Hombre Malo Studios. The closer, “I Am The Way,” gathers Texas singers including Jason McMaster and Mike Soliz, both from our Watchtower story. Alan DeLeon Jr. now plays second guitar.

At home, the Chronicle reported in 2023 that Helstar had played every edition of Hell’s Heroes, Houston’s metal festival. The 2022 set was all of Burning Star. Helstar was on the Hell’s Heroes VIII lineup at White Oak Music Hall in March 2026.

Where to Hear It Live

As of September 2026, Helstar has no Texas dates announced. Its last Texas show was The Lost Well in Austin on July 18, 2026, followed by Mexico City, London, the Netherlands and Germany. Follow it on Songkick. These related dates are confirmed:

• Wednesday, November 4, 2026: Denver thrash band Havok, with Scottish black/speed metal band Hellripper, Slackjaw and Xoth, at Warehouse Live Midtown, 2600 Travis St., Houston. Tickets. The same tour plays AM/FM in Dallas on November 2 and Come and Take It Live in Austin on November 3 (tour dates).
• Thursday, March 18, 2027: Hell’s Heroes IX opens at White Oak Music Hall, Houston, with three-day passes on sale. Venue calendar.

For Rotting Corpse dates, check the shows page. New shows go up on Instagram first.

Sources

1. Houston Chronicle: How Houston metal legends Helstar rose from the grave (Brad Sanders, 2023)
2. Wikipedia: Helstar
3. Wikipedia: Burning Star
4. Wikipedia: Remnants of War
5. Wikipedia: A Distant Thunder
6. Wikipedia: Nosferatu (Helstar album)
7. Full in Bloom: Helstar guitarist Larry Barragan interview (archived)
8. Houston Press: H-Town Metal Institution Helstar Feathers Its Wicked Nest (2014)
9. Blabbermouth: Helstar Announces New Drummer (2010)
10. Blabbermouth: Helstar Announces New Album The Devil’s Masquerade (2025)
11. D.R.I.: Official band biography
12. Wikipedia: Crossover (D.R.I. album)
13. Wikipedia: Dead Horse (band)
14. Wikipedia: Horsecore: An Unrelated Story That’s Time Consuming
15. Bandcamp: The Scourge, First Comes Destruction (2014)
16. Bandcamp: Warbeast (Arlington, Texas)
17. Blabbermouth: Venomous Maximus ‘Path of Doom’ Video Released
18. Wikipedia: Sam Houston Coliseum
19. KSAT: The White Rabbit to shut down (2014)
20. San Antonio Current: Paper Tiger (Former White Rabbit) Announces Free Opening Weekend (2015)
21. Helstar: Official biography
22. setlist.fm: Helstar at Hell’s Heroes VIII, March 19, 2026
23. Wikipedia: Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!
24. Wikipedia: Bonded by Blood
25. Concert Archives: Helstar concert history
26. Blabbermouth: Havok Announces Fall 2026 North American Headlining Tour

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