This story was featured in Time, Engadget and a Medium Top 10 Most Read.

What The Hell Was Megadeth, Arizona?

20 years ago today, the first website for a band debuted in cyberspace

“The music industry’s first runaway hit on the web” — Interactive Age

This is the story of how an unlikely threesome—a girl, a heavy metal band and their fans — pioneered the web at its infancy, bucked the status quo and proved that the Internet wasn’t a fad.

It’s 1994. I’m working at Capitol Records in Hollywood, California.

Pulp Fiction was about to hit the box office and infiltrate pop culture with its timeless lines, some the music industry should have noted:

“Look, do you wanna play blind man? Go walk with the shepherd. But me, my eyes are wide fucking open.” —Jules Winnfield

The #1 song was “The Sign” by Ace of Base. They saw the sign and it opened up their eyes.

Prince wouldn’t be partying for another 5 years.

And for the record business — well, they didn’t have anything to complain about. They printed money selling shiny plastic discs and virtually controlled everything from record stores to radio stations. Their marketing strategy of million dollar print, radio and TV campaigns was tried and true and as the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” It was the golden era of the music business and the good ‘ole boys, they liked to throw parties. I should know, I went to them.

So, during this “diamonds on the soles of their shoes” era, there was no vision for the future.

They didn’t think they needed one.

As for me, I had moved from Texas to Hollywood to pursue a glamorous career in rock & roll but things were going a lot slower than planned. After years of paying my dues as an assistant, I knew I needed to do something bold or I would be making photocopies and answering the phones for the rest of my career. This was the year that was finally gonna bring on the magic.

What happened next was about to change music history.