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Heavy Metal: A Way of Life

August 26, 2007

gilliland.jpgby Ben Gilliland

It’s an angry steed on a never-ending course. With grace and speed, it’s an unrelenting force.  His head thrown back, defiantly proud, under constant attack, it’s blasting, fast and loud. You can’t stop rock ‘n” roll! - Twisted sister. 
What is heavy metal to me? A way of life? Maybe. I listen to heavy metal music every chance I get: in the morning, at night, in the afternoon, at school, in the car, even when I go to sleep. Some people may call it an obsession, but I like to call it a passion. Other music fans listen to their music all of the time though, so how is this any different? 
Others tend to follow the “trend of the month”; they go out and buy whatever CD some big record company has engineered to be a hit, with a catchy beat and cliché lyrics. To them it doesn’t matter, it is just something they listen to and enjoy until the next big thing comes out, and they completely forget about what they were listening to a couple of months ago. 

  Heavy metal doesn’t follow trends.  In its thirty-year history heavy metal has outlasted punk, pop, grunge, rap, hip-hop, disco, and any other pabulum that has been polluting the airwaves. Although heavy metal has been pronounced dead numerous times, the news of its demise has been ultimately premature. Metal is an underground form of music, so it’s always there, occasionally making its way above ground. It all started in the early 70s when bands like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin made their way onto the scene and started to turn people’s heads with their new sound. People had never heard anything like it: dark and heavy, a definite change from the love and peace hippy music of the age. The music then progressed into the late 70s and mid 80s where it began to get even heavier. Bands from Britain such as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, and ACDC down in Australia were leading the way. It was in the mid to late 80s when the glam/hair metal bands, such as Warrant, Motley Crue, and Quiet Riot, (who was the first metal band to have their CD reach number one on the charts), all from L.A.’s Sunset Strip brought their music to the masses and introduced people to the underground metal scene. 
Many people look at me and do not see a heavy metal fan. I am a calm, laid back kind of guy; but let me tell you something, I am a head banger at heart. But, that’s not how it has always been. The first thirteen years of my life I thought I knew everything and I thought I had my life in order, but there was something missing. Music was not a big part of my life. As much as it embarrasses me to admit this, I listened to bands like N’Sync, the Backstreet Boys, and Britney Spears. It was not until that fateful day when I went downstairs into my dad’s domain (when he wasn’t there of course, otherwise he would have killed me). Walking down those stairs was like entering a dark dungeon; I had no idea what I was going to find. Then I saw it, my dad’s holy music alter. I began to flip through the countless number of CD’s. A lot of them had some pretty interesting covers, and I am not going to lie, some of the things I saw down there that day scared me. Skulls, bones, screaming faces, graveyards; I felt as if I had died and gone to hell. I picked up Slayer’s Reign in Blood album and I decided to give it a listen.  From the second I put the CD into the player I was blown away. Fast, relentless drumming, grinding, rapid-fire chording on guitars, squealing guitar solos, electric bass, unexpected, sudden tempo changes, and a sense of theatricality that’s inevitably threatening, like a horror film put to music.  I had forever been changed, and my life took a new turn for the better. Bands like Iron Maiden, ACDC, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Slayer, and Pantera became household names. All of that time I only thought that my dad was just this man my mom kept around to do the laundry and the dishes, a stranger; but now I knew the truth: my dad was a metal head. We had finally found something in common to worship. 
There are great milestones in every head banger’s life: moments that they will remember forever: the first metal concert, or the first mosh pit experience, to name a couple. I remember my first concert like it was yesterday. I saw Iron Maiden with Mastodon and Rob Zombie.  I knew I liked the music before, but that concert really got me hooked. Nothing can beat the concert atmosphere: a big stage, bright lights, and hordes of rowdy fans. The anticipation of waiting for the band to take center stage, waiting to hear that first note to play through the colossal speakers stacked as high as the Empire state building, designed to blow your eardrums out. Long hair and screeching vocals and the sight of thousands of devil horns raised high in the air. When I go to a concert I expect nothing less than to come home devoid of all human sensory devices.  Earlier this year I went to see Slayer, and it was probably the best concert I have ever seen. It was complete chaos. I was in the pit and we were all moving together like one big wave, carrying crowd surfers, and head banging to the music. The band was playing so loud that I could feel the earth move under my feet. At one part of the show I was not sure I was going to make it out alive. I was getting pushed up against the gate between the stage and the audience and I literally thought that I was going to die; it was awesome. In a Jimmy Buffet song called Manana he says: “Don’t try to describe a Kiss concert if you’ve never seen it,” and it’s true. A heavy metal concert is like nothing you have ever experienced and it’s the best feeling in the world. I always leave a heavy metal concert feeling like I got my money’s worth. 
Heavy metal has one of the most loyal fan bases of any type of music, which is why it has been able to endure for thirty plus years. It doesn’t matter if you are fifty, have a wife and kids, or what time you have to be at work in the morning; if there is a metal band that you grew up listening to, coming to your town, true hard metal fans will be there no questions asked. Whenever I have any troubles or doubts, I just put in Judas Priest’s 1980 British Steel album, crank it all the way up and I remember why God put me on this earth: to be “A defender of the faith.”

 

 

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Written by Ben Gilliland · Filed Under Editorial