What is Metal?

songsmith · Post by **songsmith** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

In order to allow a sidebar-type discussion started in the "Classic Rock" thread, I thought I'd post it as a new topic, since it seems like a good topic.

What is metal to you?

I played in so-called metal bands in the 80's, as well as bands that were REALLY what I'd call metal. Let me explain:
What I personally call metal started in Europe in the early 70's with Black Sabbath, and really hit big here in the early 80's with what was termed the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal" at the time. Bands like Maiden, Priest, Saxon, early Def Leppard, Diamondhead,UFO and so on. Lyrically, they were either dungeons & dragons-type, or FTW-type; and sonically, it was all about aggression and all amp controls set on 10. About the time Motley Crue hit in '83 or so, a lot of US bands were getting signed from LA, which leaned heavily on a T.Rex glam image, and a good-looking singer singing as high-pitched as he could muster. Quiet Riot had a #1 album and suddenly the whole world was spandexed and hairsprayed. I believe this is where things went separate... some wanted to be loud and kick ass, some wanted to be loud and get chicks.
Of course, record co's saw this, and figured that the ones who got chicks would sell more records, because many young girls will buy anything marketed at them. In addition, guys would buy if the guitars and drums were loud. Soon, if you played in a band, even a Top-40 dance band on a local level, you played a weird-shaped guitar through a Marshall, and wore more eyeliner than your girlfriend.
That was supposed to make you a rebel, and believe me, around here you were... at least for awhile. Eventually, it became very mainstream, and we all saw it as goofy, but hey, I'd do it again in a minute. (I always said I'd wear a tutu if it got me laid...) <insert bad visual image here>
Anyway, I also played in Black Angel, likely the heaviest band locally at the time, playing obscure UFO, 70's era Scorps, Megadeth, Motorhead, Raven, and stuff most of you have likely never heard of. It was great fun to play, but most local bar patrons didn't get it. To me, that was metal. I actually like looking back on that time as my period of true rebellion.
I also played in what was ostensibly the first speed-metal band around here, but that doesn't count, because we were just young and naive... we did mostly originals because none of us had ever seen a bar-band (we were embarrassed to play covers, 'cause we'd only been to concerts with original acts)... and we played fast because we were so excited to play in front of people. Sure, you could call it metal, we were as heavy as anyone, but we were also influenced by punk and pop and even country, as well as Priest and Dio.
But I digress. What do you consider Metal? Hard Rock? Is it still fresh to you? Is it still pertinent? Tawk amongst y'selves.--->JMS

witchhunt · Post by **witchhunt** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

I agree with John. Tony Iommi's style and "sound" was the beginning of what I call metal. But if you listen to Iommi's interview on the REUNION dvd, he says he never considered Sabbath to be metal. Just hard rock. John also mentioed RAVEN. I think they were probably the first band to kick up the tempo a couple notches and start "speed metal" or the very early stages of "thrash". OVER KILL is a prime example of a good blend of real metal and speed metal. So which is it? The first two MAIDEN albums would be considered metal to me. The rest, I'm not so sure about. They are heavy and up-tempo with siren vocals. They just weren't the same. So the question remains. Is it the sound, the tempo, the lyrics, or even the look? Maybe it's like the classic rock question. It's the individual's own decision.

Craven Sound · Post by **Craven Sound** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

I've been bitching about the "metal" classification for years; here's my $.2: Thrash (I consider mostly the cookie monster singers this); old school metal- Slayer, Pantera, etc. Glam metal- all the 80s shit; Classic Metal- Priest, Sabbath etc.; Progressive Metal- Tool, NIN. These are just a few of the classifications that I use.

wake up drumming · Post by **wake up drumming** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

I think anyone who listens to heavy rock, like myself actually HAS heard of Raven, UFO, and all the bands listed earlier. (Unless you're a young kid who was born in the 80's and missed that period of time). BUT, let's not forget bands like Venom, Hawkwind, etc. These bands contributed quite a bit to the heavy, black metal sounds. (well at least Venom did). Many bands and factors contributed to what is known as metal so it is hard to pinpoint. But, who really wants to. To me, metal is simply any music with an aggressive sound, distorted guitars, and darker lyrical content. I call Black Sabbath metal just like I call Godsmack metal. It doesn't matter if the guitars are tuned lower and the guys where pants 3 times their size; the music is still aggressive sounding, so to me it's all metal! Not nu-metal, not rap-metal, just metal portrayed in a different way. These terms and classifications are what can really suck and limit a band in terms of their career. Once you're pigeon holed into a category it's very hard to mature as a band and experiment with your sound. Most guys I know love metal, play metal, BUT grew up listening to all different kinds of music. I consider my band to be metal. Do we play Sabbath and Slayer? Yes, but we also cover rage, AIC, Helmet, etc. If people ask I say we're metal because it's aggressive, abrasive, in your face music, period. This is just my opinion though and who am I to try to define over 30 years of harder-edged music? (a.k.a. metal)

Sanctify · Post by **Sanctify** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

I think craven sound hit it on the head...

313 · Post by **313** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

The simplest definition of metal I have heard comes from the band Manowar. Manowar classifies the genre into two categories:
1. True Metal
2. False Metal

Manowar is true metal, and everything else is false metal.

Hail thee mighty Manowar!

SUperstar · Post by **SUperstar** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

Diamond Head, Celtic Frost, St. Vitus, CandleMass

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

Back in the day, while sitting in boring classes, I use to frequent a Metal board and the members would fight over genre classifications like they were fighting over the ontological meaning of God or something. They also had this unhealthy animosity for Nu-metal. (which they didn't consider to be "real" Metal) They would sit and philosophize on what Man 'o War meant by true and false Metal. My favorite arguements were the ones that dealt with the difference between Thrash Metal and Speed Metal. Then there were the arguments of what constituted Black Metal. Of course, no one could give a straight forward answer; they just wound up giving vague Punk-like meanings such as "It's the rebellion of modern Judeo-Christain ideals in a society of corporate control, with blah blah blah blah" or something to that effect. (Wasn't it really a term coined by Venom?) I mean, geez, I consider myself a very analytical person, but I don't waste my days away organizing the music I like into neat little categories. Put the damn Blind Guardian CD in the player and listen to the music. Who cares if it's really "Speed Metal" or "Power Metal". I picture people like that ironing their underwear and then organizing it in their drawer; sorted first by brand, then by color, then by number of present pee stains.

I think it's time I stop this tangent before it goes any further.

Punkinhead · Post by **Punkinhead** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

This is an interesting thread. I have to say metal today is an attitude and a lifestyle. If you have/live them, then it shows in your music. Really, metal is a personal thing. People find their way into the music all sorts of different ways. Whether through being cheated on, screwed by your boss, whatever. It has to do with the attitude really of, fuck this, im not gonna take your bullshit anymore, to me anyways.

The really terrible thing about metal is how it has split itself into many separate genres. Instead of just good or bad metal, you now have doom, goth, thrash, metalcore, grindcore, black, death, power, heavy, nu, etc.
And even more unfortunate is how this classifying can divide fans. Goth people aint into the death people, etc. Its all bullshit...Their really should only be metal. You either feel it or you don't....Im done now, as I can't possibly express all my beliefs and feeings about this...

313 · Post by **313** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

So true that the classifications divide the metal fans. Always has been that way. I went to see a band called Rogue Male (testosterone driven metal from about 1983). The supporting act for that show was a band from Memphis called Image. Image was more finesse, and less "heavy" by the standards of the era. Well, after a local Pgh. band played a short set, the large crowd of metal heads were stunned to see one of Image's roadies wheel a keyboard onto the center of the stage

. It wasn't more than a few minutes until the entire club was chanting "Death to all Keyboards, Death to all Keyboards..." You get the picture. The chant continued until about 10 minutes into Image's set, when I think everybody finally realized how good Image was! I'll never forget that show. A lot of metal heads including myself received a lesson in Metal Classification 101 that evening. Don't judge a metal band by its cover!

Victor Synn · Post by **Victor Synn** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

This is a question my band is always kicking around. The Genre argument. As anyone that has seen us or heard of us knows that we are an 80s hair band tribute. With that being said, we have a fairly rigid line to walk, since the genre is blurred quite a bit in the era we're covering. We are torn sometimes between doing Maiden or Queensryche and doing Night Ranger. It's really in the eye of the beholder. By the late 80s, you had a multitude of different metal classifications. Some bands got lumped into the Hair Metal genre that maybe should never have been. A good example of this would be a band like Saigon Kick. They release "Love Is On the Way," which sells multiple millions of copies, they make a video in the vein of so many 80s hair metal groups and they are then lumped into the catagory, which is why I really feel they died quick after the grunge movement. I recall their singer stating in an interview something to the effect of "I wish one of our heavier songs was the hit off of The Lizard." There are other bands like that, especially by the early 90s. But to get back to the point, it is as some people have said here...the attitude is what makes it metal. Not necessarilly the style, in my opinion. I would consider Motley Crue as much a metal band as Maiden, or Venom, or Pantera because they took the "Everything goes" attitude and used it to the extreme. How many people do you know can OD on smack, get revived, go home, and shoot up again? Or at a live event, tell the entire crowd of fans that they can come back to their two room appartment and party? So I think it really is the attitude, not the style that defines the whole genre. I also tend to lean toward metal being, at times, a technical genre musically. In the 80s, you had some of the best guitarists ever to strap on an axe gain a lot of notoriety as metal guitarists. Eddie Van Halen, Malmsteen, Vai, Satriani, George Lynch, the list goes on and on. Bands or groups that have people that have a lot of technical ability on their instrument that are in the genre I consider the real metal bands. Just my warped two cents on the argument.

Post by **Jim Price** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

Having listened to rock music since the early 70's, it seems that metal, like rock music itself, changes with the times. When I first started listening to rock in '72, I heard Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Grand Funk Railroad - even late 60's names like Cream and Blue Cheer - called heavy metal (Cream and Blue Cheer were even credited by a few music writers as pioneers of the genre). Then Kiss came along, and the 'metal' tag was applied to them. In the late 70's, Van Halen was lumped in the 'metal' category for a while (on the strength of that first album, "Runnin' With The Devil" still has that attitude to this day). Then the New Wave of British Heavy Metal kickstarted the genre into the 80's, and the Los Angeles wave came along, and groups like Ratt, Dokken, Quiet Riot, etc., all carried the metal label. (I still have a stack of back issues of 80's metal mags like Kerrang! and Metal Edge, it's interesting to leaf back through those mags and see what was being called metal at that time.) Then the 90's came, and everything diversified and subdivided into all these subgenres like Punkinhead referred to.

I guess the bottom line for me is that like music itself, metal and heavy music is always in a constant state of flux, and new practitioners will take hard, heavy, "metal" music and stretch it into new territories not yet explored. Metal, whatever it is, will continue to adapt with the musical climate, and what some group of kids 20 years from now calls "metal" will likely be very different from what we call "metal" now - just as what is today's "metal" is way different from metal in the 80's or early 70's.

tonefight · Post by **tonefight** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

Hey, did anyone get the "Sleeze Metal" label that was applied to G'n'R, Skid Row and L.A. Guns ?

I guess "Metal" like "Classic rock" changes as music moves in different directions

tonefight · Post by **tonefight** » Tuesday Jan 27, 2004

And when I hear Metallica refered to as classic rock I'll know to start shoppin for a cane.

songsmith · Post by **songsmith** » Wednesday Jan 28, 2004

Sorry, y'all. I didn't mean for anybody to be bothered by this thread... it just seemed like people were itching to talk about it, and the board's been a little slow since "Aja Saturday" a few weeks ago.
I simply figured it'd be something some people felt strongly about, so I put it out there for discussion. Truthfully, it could have turned into a pissing match, or,"You suck...No, YOU suck" kinda deal, but it hasn't, which makes me feel pretty good about the members of this forum.

There was a time when seeing a keyboard onstage turned me off, but that was in the mid-80's when guitars weren't heard very much on the radio... I just wanted to hear some crunchy guitars. Since that time, I've worked with a few fantastic keyboardists, and I can tell you, I didn't know what I was missing. It adds so much, even if it's just a pad in the background. Also, it opens up your repertoire...you can add so many colors to your palette... try it if you haven't already.

And Metallica as a classic rock band... I've been joking for years about Motley Crue playing the oldies circuit! I can hear Tom Riley now... " This Sunday at Delgrosso Park, WALY 104 presents to vocal stylings of Vince Neil and the Marvelous Motley Crue!" (See, he'd call it "Marvelous Motley Crue" to get around trademark laws, cause he'd be the only member left, you know, like all the oldies bands do.)

------>JMS

lonewolf · Post by **lonewolf** » Wednesday Jan 28, 2004

I don't know about that other stuff, but I am a huge fan of UFO and I would never call them metal. UFO is hard rock in its most pristine form. I was in a band called Forces in the 70s and we covered something like 10 UFO songs. Of course, most people at the time had no idea what we were playing.

Anybody wanna start a UFO tribute band???

Hawkwind? Best "viewed" with lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate-25

witchhunt · Post by **witchhunt** » Wednesday Jan 28, 2004

Yea. Especially "Spirit of the Age" and "Hassan I Sahba".

songsmith · Post by **songsmith** » Wednesday Jan 28, 2004

lonewolf, you were in Forces? I remember them... where'd I see you guys?
That UFO stuff is sorely underplayed... we used to play "Too Hot To Handle" and the audience just ate it up... it's danceable,too, we just never intro'd it with who did it originally, so they couldn't say "oh, I never heard of them..." We just played it and it went over well. Same thing with "The Zoo" by the Scorps... they hadn't heard it a million times, but they liked it anyway. Around here, you gotta sneak some culture in--they won't ask for it.--->JMS

313 · Post by **313** » Wednesday Jan 28, 2004

John McKelvey's band Piranha used to play some ufo too... I think I remember them playing "Let it Roll", "Doctor Doctor" and I'm thinking "Rock Bottom". Black Angel played "Shoot Shoot" and a couple others I believe.

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Wednesday Jan 28, 2004

The Zoo by the Scorpions; that's a bad ass tune. It's probaly pretty danceable also, since it has a that hard beat. (and it's one of the great times to pull the talk box out. I know all of you guys out there dropped 120 bucks on a talkbox because your band covered a Frampton tune, and now you have no use for it.

) Hawkwind are great. I wonder if Hurry on a Sunday would go over in a bar.

LA Guns were also a bad ass band. I have a VHS tape with all of their early videos. (Electric Gypsy, One More Reason, Bitch is Back, No Mercy, ect.) There's a part in the middle where Tracii Guns is showing his guitar collection and talking about his favorite guitarists. Pretty cool stuff.

Killjingle · Post by **Killjingle** » Wednesday Jan 28, 2004

Metal is Lemmy. Lemmy is god. Nuff said

J Michaels · Post by **J Michaels** » Wednesday Jan 28, 2004

bassist_25 wrote:LA Guns were also a bad ass band. I have a VHS tape with all of their early videos. (Electric Gypsy, One More Reason, Bitch is Back, No Mercy, ect.) There's a part in the middle where Tracii Guns is showing his guitar collection and talking about his favorite guitarists. Pretty cool stuff.

How can I get a copy of that?!?!

I saw LAGuns in 89 touring for their 2nd record, with Dangerous Toys and Tora Tora as openers - WHAT A SHOW! LAG has remained one of my favorite bands since then.... Saw them again in 2000 with Bar 7 (band of Jeff K and Tommy S from Tesla) and they kicked ass then, too.....

tonefight · Post by **tonefight** » Wednesday Jan 28, 2004

Ah yes, Dangerous Toys, very cool band. Queen of the Nile was my fav but Sportin a Woody ....funny, but he sang it so serious

DMFJ03 · Post by **DMFJ03** » Thursday Jan 29, 2004

I said what I pretty much wanted to say in the "Classic Rock" thread.

However, I would like to place in here a quote that was said by Mike Dirnt of Green Day.

"Putting that song [ Good Riddence (Time of Your Life) ] on the album was the punkest thing we could have done."

Now, all you have to do is place that same thought with metal. As long as you do something different, then you have made your mark. To me, standing out and being different is hardcore. I dress like a freak most of the times, but that isn't what makes me different. What makes me different is the beliefs, ideas, and concepts that I have. The clothing, ...well like I said before, I am a freak. Anyway, ... as long as you are yourself, be who you want to be, do what you want to do, and enjoy what you're doing then that makes you hardcore.

Where am I going with this? I'm glad you asked. The point I am trying to make is that "Metal" (all forms of it) comes from people who walk to the beat of their own drummer boy. Without that, it wouldn't be hardcore. Without hardcore, it wouldn't be "Metal".

That is the best way that I can describe what "Metal" is.

lonewolf · Post by **lonewolf** » Thursday Jan 29, 2004

You could have seen Forces in MD, PA, NY, NJ and VA, but around here, we usually played the Buckhorn Inn, Eldolyn Terrace, the Hoffman Inn.

Forces was:

Allen Estep--Drums--wrecked his Harley, was disabled and had to quit. Lives in Cresson
Mike Mazur--Bass--massive coronary at 34
John Saksa--Guitar & Vocals--back to school for Architectural Engineering, now living on Maryland/PA border
Jeff Renner--Guitar, Keyboards & Vocals--yours truly
Bob Gates--Lead Vocals, recorder--family life in Altoona. I saw him a few years back when he and John McKelvey did a duet called the Front Brothers.

UFO we played:

on with the action (one of my favs...maximum guitar crescendo)
reasons love
natural thing
shoot shoot
space child
lights out
too hot to handle
doctor doctor
rock bottom
love lost love
let it roll

I ended up with 5 flying V's