Radio Personality Eddie Trunk Hosts Dio Event Raising $80 Grand for ‘Stand Up & Shout’ Cancer Fund
Eddie Trunk (center) and Wendy Dio present the Steve Strange Award for Highest Individual Celebrity bowling score to Jerry Dixon of Warrant. Photo by Gene Kirkland.
In the upcoming The Jersey Sound documentary, metal historian Eddie Trunk, from Madison in Morris County, relates the story about the time that the late Jonny Z of MegaForce Records came to his WDHA-FM (“The Rock Of New Jersey”) radio show in Dover to demand he play a song from an unknown San Francisco thrash band. (Z, in one of his last interviews, is also in the doc.)
“But Jonny, I’m on the air! Just leave the tape and I promise to listen to it.”
That wasn’t good enough for Z so Eddie Trunk became the first disc jockey in America to play a track from an album called Kill ‘Em All in 1983. MegaForce released it and the 1984 follow-up, Ride The Lightning, and Metallica, from humble Jersey beginnings where Z got them to open shows for a host of bands, went on to rock super-stardom, propelled by Trunk’s trust in Z’s ear.
(Advertisement) Story continues below…
“The Jersey Sound” Editor Mike Greenblatt and Dio play pool at his mansion in the Hollywood hills.
Last month, Trunk hosted “Bowl For Ronnie,” a celebrity bowling party to benefit the Ronnie James Dio “Stand Up And Shout” cancer fund. It raised over $80 grand. Held at the Pinz Bowling Center in Studio City, California, on November 16, the sold-out event had members of Bullet Boys, Warrant, Anthrax, Dio, L.A. Guns, Armored Saint, Alice Cooper, Machine Head, Body Count, XYZ, Vixen, Megadeth, Toto, Dokken, Quiet Riot, Rage Against The Machine, Stray Cats, Ministry, Montrose and Styx.
“Trunk Nation” can be heard on Sirius XM. He will be co-hosting a holiday event at Dingbatz in Clifton on December 22. He will also be hosting the “Monsters Of Rock” cruise next year from March 2 to 7.