A day in the life of a metal head...

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".

My taste in music is all over the place. I’ll listen to pretty much anything except country (the twang is just too painful, man).

Hello everyone welcome to chapter two of MT&U! Our topic today: Is heavy metal and what they call “extreme music” just as beneficial (in a music therapy aspect) as something soothing and relaxing, we’re just gonna use classical as our default. But before we begin I just wanna say thank you to everyone who read chapter one! Fun fact: I actually started this endeavor on Youtube, and originally wanted these to be podcast episodes, but school got in the way, and I fell off the wagon. Round two, fight!

I knew the type of song I wanted to add here but like many people their favourites can change with mood. So I went a little backwards on the rules, I hope that's ok. I thought of the songs that have helped me through bad times, have cheered me up and helped me forget the world for a while. Despite my increasing age nothing beats screaming along to songs with a crowd at a heavy metal or thrash metal concert.

I've been to two concerts in my life. The first was actually a music festival, Warped Tour 2017 in West Palm, FL. The second one was just in August 2019. It was an Attila concert in Jacksonville, FL. If you aren't familiar with the band Attila, they are a metalcore band from Atlanta, GA. Wikipedia categorizes them under the following genres: metalcore, deathcore, and nu metal.

I got my first King Diamond album round about the year 1992 or 1993, I think. An aunt got it for me from a CD club she belonged to. Those still existed in those bygone, halcyon days.

"I want to see all of you motherfuckers on the ground—every single one of you... Now, on my word... when I say, 'Jump the fuck up,' what are you going to do? WHEN I SAY, 'JUMP THE FUCK UP,' WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?"

Iron Maiden kicked off the UK leg of their ‘Legacy of the Beast’ Tour at the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle. The tour, inspired by the smartphone game of the same name, brought with it songs from across the bands 16 albums but most significantly it showed that the group are still at the very top of their game.

[Note: I am not a professional metal historian, nor a huge metalhead. However, to the best of knowledge, this information is accurate—also, sometimes even huge fans get facts wrong, so I wouldn't be alone in that regard if I messed something up.]

During a conversation on Facebook a couple of years ago, my friend mentioned that his adult brother had come down to visit. Apparently he was a fan of the same music that I was, particularly Bring Me The Horizon. This should've been brilliant. I had someone else to bond over one of my favourite bands with. Well, once I had passed 'the test'.