Heavy Metal

In recent years I have been challenged on my knowledge of the genre of music known as Heavy Metal, both times by my own children, the first time this happened was around 8yrs ago when my daughter was 16 years old and we were discussing music, I don't remember the exact conversation but it resulted in her blurting out that I "Know nothing about metal music".

This was met with laughter from the friends I had visiting at the time and by myself and a swift lesson in good old 80s/90s British thrash ensued and she has since changed her mind.

The recent repeat of this took place after my 15 year old son read my article about the Sunset Strip in LA, his reaction was to inform me that "none of those bands mentioned in the article are metal" again I put him straight on the matter.

Now for someone who "lived" the metalhead lifestyle from being 12yrs old upwards I took offense at my knowledge being challenged but I guess that's just kids for you who think us adults "know nothing" and they know it all.

However it did get me thinking, what I know as metal and grew up with would probably be known as Classic Rock to someone of my sons age and so I decided to explain to him about influences and the bands he knows as metal and who they were influenced by.

One of his favorite bands is the Finish Rock/metal band Lordi one of their influences was the 70s/80s glam rock/metal band Kiss and they in turn were influenced by people such as Elvis and the Beatles.

So where are the real roots of Heavy metal and can we still call those bands of the 70s, 80s and 90s metal?

To begin with we need to go back, further than the Beatles and as far back as the 1930's, it could be argued that the roots go back even further to the great composers, however the 1930's was the era that was defined by Blues and Ragtime jazz.

Now I am in no way saying that the blues is heavy metal but the rawness and energy infused into this music which was born in the cotton fields in an era of slavery was quite possibly the first of many building blocks which brought us to what we now know as metal music.

Artists such as the infamous Robert Johnson, Peetie Wheatstraw, BB King and Muddy waters went on to influence the Rock n Roll stars of the 50s and 60s, Elvis Presley was influenced by Gospel and Blues, Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry all took the blues to a new level in the USA and in the UK The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Jerry and the Pacemakers to name a few were bringing that "devil" music to this side of the Atlantic, Rock n' Roll was born.

In the late 60s the music took yet another turn, burst amplifier speakers gave us distortion first discovered by the Kinks and later adopted by the likes of Keith Richards, Pete Townsend and Jimmy Hendrix, In fact some may argue that Hendrix's performance at Woodstock was possibly the first Heavy metal act to play to a large audience, although we would never say Hendrix's music was of the metal genre.

In fact the term Heavy Metal was used first used in the late 1960's in Steppenwolf's 1968 classic song Born to be wild, that same year would see the emergence of bands like Led Zeppelin, Black sabbath and Motorhead which became more popular throughout the 1970's, these were your first ever Heavy Metal bands.

Dark and brooding with songs about sex, drugs and devil worship (apparently) these bands went on to become the greats we know of today as the godfathers of heavy metal.

The 1970s also saw the rise of bands like Rainbow, Whitesnake and Deep Purple, all who were revered by those of us who liked heavy music that we could bang our heads to, of course I was too young to be into these bands at this time and it wasn't until the 80's (as mentioned in my Sunset Strip article) that Heavy metal became a lifestyle choice for me.

I won't go too much into the metal scene of the 80s at the risk of repeating myself but suffice to say it was a blur or hairspray, spandex and make up for many metal bands or black jeans, leather bike jacket, bullet belts and studs for the heavier end of the genre.

Despite Glam metal becoming popular in the 80s there was also the side of heavy metal which brought out aggression, mosh pits were created around this time with bands like Prong, Acid Reign, Megadeth, Slayer, Metallica, Napalm Death, Nuclear Assault and others, thrash, death and speed metal were added to the ever growing genre of Heavy Metal, not all 80's metal songs were about sex, drugs and Rock n Roll.

Then we have those bands that emerged from the working class backgrounds of steel mills and coal mines and one or two university's, Saxon, def Leppard and Iron Maiden, along with the bands from the 70s who were still going gave us a form of British heavy rock/metal that appealed to many.

The 90s saw a bit of a decline in Heavy metal, it became commercialized, MTV had firmly taken hold by now and American pop Punk, was being thrown into the mix along with grunge, from here on the term Heavy Metal would cover a wider range of genres, even now in 2020 we cannot really define a band by genre anymore, or so it seems.

Take the track Sound of Silence by Disturbed for example, the original was a folk/pop song by Simon and Garfunkel, the cover version is an immaculate sounding specimen of art but if we compare it to other songs by the band it is as far from their usual genre as you can go, yet it still works.

According to some people I have spoken to there are so many offshoot genres of heavy metal that I find it difficult to keep track of them all, so going back to my original question, can we still call these bands that came before Lordi, Slipknot etc heavy metal?

In my opinion yes, they were heavy metal when I was growing up and they still are and always will be part of the history of the genre of metal.

To some they may be rock or classic rock because of the age of some of the songs but to those of us who grew up going to the gigs, wearing the clothes, bullet belts and studded wrist bands, waking up the day after a gig with a sore neck from headbanging, listening to the music day in and day out, religiously going out and waiting hours to buy that concert ticket, new single or album.

Metal is and always has been more of a lifestyle than a genre.

We wore the bands T-shirts, not because it was "cool" or a fashion statement, but because we loved the bands as a whole, it wasn't just the odd song and I recall many a day and night locked away in my poster clad bedroom blasting out music and listening to the album track by track from beginning to end.

The record sleeve was my entry into the world of music, the information it held was like a book of magic to my inquisitive mind, I didn't want to just listen to the music I wanted to be a part of it, I wanted to know who played each instrument on each song, who wrote the music and lyrics, who produced the tracks/album, who created the artwork or took the photographs on the sleeve.

Heavy metal isn't always about playing loud and fast, it isn't about growling or shouting angrily down a microphone its about rock n roll, its about love,sex, drugs, life and fantasy, its about a large community and being a part of something much bigger than ourselves.

So next time you question if a band is "Heavy Metal" ask yourself are the fans of this band dressed similar to fans of other heavy rock/metal bands when they attend their gigs? has the band been included in one of the many heavy metal festivals? were they described as Heavy Metal in years gone by?

If the answer is yes then its a big probability that they are considered a Heavy Metal band, the term being as broad as Poison to Behemoth, Black Sabbath to Baby Metal or Prong to Tigertailz.