My Experience in Metal

This isn't a hit piece, a point of fingers, or any sort of negative intent sort of article, but rather just some interesting observations I've made over the years as I've floated around metal in general.

Early in life, I spent a lot of time around my father and uncle, who both listened to all the 90's wave of metal; Machine Head, Sepultura, Metallica, Pantera (and all of Phil's projects), Crowbar, as well as a bunch of others. My mom however, listened to a bunch of classic rock - Led Zepplin, Tom Petty, Boston, etc. So I had this really weird balance of music growing up. Not to mention I was a gamer kid, and the music in games was always great in the era of PS1/2, Super Nintendo, etc. Then, in middle school, everyone I hung out with was listening to pop at the time. As I got into my high school years, I was more into rock; COC, Metallica, Korn, Disturbed, etc., and I hung out with a lot of people who listened to Blink 182, Butthole Surfers, and MSI.

By the time I was in my late teens, going into adulthood, my need for music was apparent; to make it, love it, and really delve into it. Unlike your average music listener, I am not just looking for a hook, a cool guitar riff, amazing drummers, or just a good beat/breakdown - I wanted... quite literally just good music, which often involved one or more of those elements. Also, I've always been a big writer and connector to lyrics, so great music, crap lyrics don't fly for me.

The only type of music that offered me that breadth of valuable connection was metal. Nothing else even came close. When I listen to music, I often want it to connect with me on some level, in some way. If it's just "good" or "cool" then what's the point? I mean I get it... but I just don't operate that way. I want to feeeeeeeel my music on levels that most people don't take it seriously enough to understand. As I picked up instruments, I learned it all very quickly, and the most challenging and fun music to play was metal. The likes of Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork, Trivium, Bullet for My Valentine, Sylosis, etc. - basically taught me how to play.

So that's where I started. I want to now, go through some of the phases and experiences I went through.

High School Nostalgia & Troubles

So one year for my birthday or Christmas or something, I got a CD player/boom box for my room. Also a few metal CD's. Now - this was a weird time. Not many folks in my school listened to metal. It was either the Coheed and Cambria crowd, or the dude that carried around his bass all day and listened to grind core and tech death.

Neither was really me at the time. I was learning to play guitar. My favorite bands at the time were Trivium, Amon Amarth, and Dark Tranquillity. Soon after would come Soilwork, who became my favorite band for ages.

I had two very distinct problems though... as mentioned, I had a lot of trouble fitting in. Metal is so expansive that I happened to hit an intersect of melodic death metal that no one really listened to around me. So having any sort of musical interests with others was hard. I spent a lot of time alone listening to music and feeling like I wasn't alone, despite being alone. The second problem was my family was going through a "Christian" phase of life, the one where we were limiting the kinds of music we were listening to.

Now I am not complaining. I am very grateful for all those experiences for two reasons; it solidified to me that music was very important to me, regardless of those around me, and second, the phase of life my family went through introduced me to Demon Hunter, which still remains one of my all time favorite bands (I literally have a hat where I sewed on a Blessed Resistance patch this year).

Either way it was a lonely road. I played guitar in a few not serious bands, and I had to alter what I played in favor of what the rest of the groups wanted. I guess it was fine, just wasn't what I wanted to do at the time.

In a Real Band Phase

Check it - I was a drummer for an experimental death... black metal sort of band for about 4 years. It was a fun, yet difficult ride. I am self taught, and I barely knew how to play drums when I joined. They just needed someone who liked metal enough to want to play with them and I did.

It was definitely not my style at the time. Now, I did enjoy a good drill and blast beat, but they were listening to Black Dahlia Murder, Necrophagist, Cattle Decapitation, and some other extreme bands, as well as some crazy stuff like Boris, Cynic, and strange genres of metal... and man was that insane listening to a lot of that. There were things I've never dreamed someone would come up with. I was still pretty deep into the melodeath scene though, following it like a hawk, soaking up more bands along the way.

I ended up leaving the band to pursue a career in tech and get a family going.

The Metal Adult Phase

Of course the "heavy like Linkin Park" phase of everyone I met when I mentioned metal. It really doesn't have much impact, but it's how I made and kept friends honestly. It was a few years of really just listening to a lot of my favorite bands on repeat, and realizing the general public... didn't like or cared about metal at all.

There's also been times as an adult where I've had to defend metal to a degree. I've heard all the "metal is satanic" and "metal makes people violent" arguments and stuff, and I felt I proved a lot of good points along the line. I tried to start and write more music with others, but didn't really make much of it. I really just followed a few good bands, and kept up with their release schedules, which at the time gave me 1-2 good albums a year.

One big thing about this phase though I wanted to point out, is I started listening to things OTHER than metal. Folk, rap, hip hop, and... country. What's funny, is this is where I really started to see elitism and it's effect on metal. I really dig several country artists and I had a great time listening to a bunch of it, and I still find some things here and there I enjoy... but oh my God guys, metal guys HATE country. Then I started to realize that I was in a sect of metal music that wasn't quite as gatekept as others. Tech death bro's, OSDM elitists, black metal purists, "their old stuff was good" weirdo's, and popularity and scene competition.

At one point, I was really into YouTube guitarists (Jared Dines, Stevie T, Samurai Guitarist, etc.) - and while I never immersed myself in the community, because of my own mental struggles, I was deep in it from a viewer perspective. At one point I joined some app that had basically a large metal blog. I found it very hard even there with thousands of metal fans to fit it.

Which really lead me into the next phase.

Discovery Phase

I LOVE to listen to new music. Well... new music I like. So basically I like the process of discovering new music that I like. There we go. Now we're talking here about a decade ago in 2014 - 2020, those years were full of discovery, genre traversing, and really trying to understand what I like and didn't like.

What I found was very particular. So I had phases. I went deep into metalcore, I went down a punk rabbit hole, a country rabbit hole, and even a black metal phases for a few months. The biggest two I ended up in were ultimately melodeath again, and tech death. I stayed there for a long while each time. I went into the tech death rabbit holes for months. I also went into the progressive death metal thing for a while.

Ultimately, what I ended up discovering is that I like well produced (not perfect most times), melodic based music with a set of lyrics I connect to. As much at the time that I hated to admit it, I fully embrace now that lyrical content and vocals are very important to my listening experience.

Christian Metal Phase

Over the years, yes I developed faith, and I ended up no longer writing off Christian metal as a genre, giving me an open the door to discovering faith-based metal. Yes, I chose that wording specifically, because the Christian label immediately writes things off. It was a tactic I chose thanks to Demon Hunter; who soaks their music in Christian values, but if you somehow didn't know they were Christian, it's hard to know. The tactic was to break that label and notion that comes along with it.

So I found a few good bands; HolyName, Earth Groans, Convictions. One thing that really surprised me is how HUGE of a hardcore presence there is in this scene. Thing I found out was I actually like hardcore... when the bands actually put in vocal effort and don't record in trash cans (very similar to black metal).

So What Did I Learn?

A lot I guess. Where do I even start? As far as skills, I learned a lot about mixing, producing, tools, song writing, and all the instruments. I also got to see a bunch of communities from the outside. I got to see the way that humans interact and think.

Thing is... specifically in metal, folks tend to take the music and make it their personality. Like their WHOLE personality. They buy all the clothing, get the piercings and tattoos, buy all the CD's and posters, and then post all their opinions and concerts online. They feel the need to defend their bands, genre, music taste, all because they feel it's connected to them. They basically isolate their personality down to music.

This is what creates the gatekeeping, in my humble opinion. That defense I just mentioned is the gatekeeping. If you strip away the one single thing they are about, they become nothing. So they must defend it at all costs.

It sounds ridiculous because it kind of is... but put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Usually people are drawn to metal because it's different, it's makes you feel something other genres can't touch. It takes your isolation, need for extremities, and your emotions and expands the heck out of it, then validates it. You probably feel broken, powerless, or crave to be different because you don't fit in anywhere. Then you create or find your group of also in the same boat, and you collectively defend it. It feels like you're part of something greater, a movement even.

Also I learned that metal has become very accessible over the years. People say it's dying, but every genre is dying. That's a whole different subject though, because I don't actually think it's dying. But metal starting with nu-metal, changed the game for the genre. Heaviness is accepted. And because metal is so expansive, there's also an infinite amount of communities around to join and be there inside of.

It would be even more popular though if it wasn't an exclusive echo chamber... but whatever, I can't control the world.

To end this on a personal note; I love metal because it can get deep. Lyrics are deep. Music is deep. Emotions, situations, and stories are deep. It's challenging, both mentally and sonically. It's inspiring. So much so that I learned how to do all the instruments, vocals, lyrics, production, so I could do it myself.

If you are metalhead, keep on my friend!