Jonny Z is going on the record.

Jon Zazula, who founded the massively influential Central Jersey-based label Megaforce Records with his wife Marsha, tells all with his new memoir "Heavy Tales: The Metal. The Music. The Madness."

Due out Tuesday, Oct. 29, "Heavy Tales" is a hard-rocking New Jersey epic — complete with supporting appearances by the likes of Metallica and Anthrax, now-legendary metal bands that the Zazulas gave vital support to in the early 1980s.

Landmark Megaforce releases, for those who need a refresher, included Metallica's "Kill 'Em All" (1983), Anthrax's "Fistful of Metal" and the American release of "Melissa" by Mercyful Fate (1983).

“What surprised me was how much we did in such a short period of time, and how much of it was quality, and how many home runs and grand slams we hit," said Zazula. "We made mistakes. I write about them in the book. We had some hard times – many, many, many hard times. But I’m just amazed by the accomplishments that we had in such a short period of time."

The Zazula saga traces the highs and lows of life and in and out of the music industry, from Wall Street success to legal turmoil before the couple even opened its iconic Rock N' Roll Heaven record shop, famously located in the Route 18 Flea Market. That led to Megaforce Records and Crazed Management, based out of the couple's Old Bridge home, then later in East Brunswick, Manalapan and the Morganville area of Marlboro.

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Megaforce brought internationally-hailed rockers Venom and Raven from England and Anvil from Canada stateside to play for the New Jersey faithful.

“He low-balls it but I tell you, the guy definitely had a vision,” said Ray Dill, also known as Rockin Ray, forefather of the Old Bridge metal scene and co-founder of the charitable Old Bridge Militia Foundation.

“You could go to Jack’s (Music Shoppe) in Red Bank and he would have a few copies of stuff, Cheap Thrills in New Brunswick, there was a few record stores, but Jonny had strictly metal," said Dill. "So he made it easy for everybody to access and everybody would be at the store every weekend, and it made just a following of people that we lived for the music. The music brought everybody together, and he was the guy always coming up the ideas of what the next thing was going to be.”

“Heavy metal is a blue collar kind of music, and you had all blue collar people living here," said Zazula. "And they came to my store and they knew that I knew what I was talking about (at) Rock N' Roll Heaven in the East Brunswick Flea Market, Route 18. And they went back to their friends, and it grew and it grew.”

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Old Bridge native drummer Pete Perrina met the Zazulas at their record shop, and eventually helped out at the area shows they produced, doing everything from working security to transporting musicians and gear, and even tuning Metallica's Lars Ulrich's drums.

“If you would have asked me back then if I would have thought that Metallica would be the biggest band in the world right now, I would tell you you were absolutely out of your mind," said Perrina. "But it’s amazing how things happened and I couldn't be more proud of Jon and Marsha and even myself for being helpful for all of these bands back in the day.”

Zazula will celebrate the release of "Heavy Tales" with an appearance at the Cutting Room in New York at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24. Zazula will be in conversation with journalist Brad Tolinski, Perrina's Motörhead tribute band Headmotör will perform and Dill, along with Metal Joe of the Old Bridge Militia Foundation, will be spinning classic metal. (Tickets, $19.50, are available via tickets.thecuttingroomnyc.com.)

Vintage Vinyl in the Fords section of Woodbridge will host a signing of "Heavy Tales" from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26.

After making waves for years in the world of heavy metal, Zazula — a Grateful Dead fan for decades — shifted in the 1990s.

“I got burnt out on metal," Zazula said. "The whole grunge movement came and really put a hurting on the metal market, and during that time I said, ‘You know what? Let me take a hiatus and try to find some new things.' "

After working with progressive-leaning outfit King's X, Zazula returned to his jam band roots, releasing Allman Brothers Band and Gov't Mule guitarist Warren Haynes' solo debut, "Tales of Ordinary Madness" on Megaforce in 1993. He managed the Disco Biscuits and helped innovative Colorado jam outfit the String Cheese Incident with distribution and marketing.

“If you have good ears, you have good ears," said Zazula. It doesn’t have to be for metal, it’s just music.”

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While all these acts are now forces to be reckoned with, at the time the releases didn't connect the way Zazula's heavier offerings had.

“It killed me that we didn’t break out with Warren Haynes and get to do another album and get involved with his career," he said. "But nobody wanted to talk to me when it came to non-metal. When it came to metal, I was the guru. When it came to other stuff, they didn’t want to hear it because it was their realm."

"Heavy Tales," more than a year in the works, was written in collaboration with Harold Claros-Maldonado. "I tell the story, and he makes the story real," Zazula said of their collaboration. "He put it all down.”

In addition to being an essential document of a New Jersey chapter in music history, the book is also a testament to the power of the decades-spanning partnership between Jon and Marsha Zazula, a tandem that helped change the sound of the world. After years of not getting recognized, Jon said, Marsha is now getting her due.

“They call me the co-founder of Megaforce, not the founder, because Marsha’s the other co-founder," he said. "And she has the respect that she, I think, deserves. She’s been with me 40 years. She’s been my mentor, in fact.”

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