My Evolution as a Headbanger
Ever since I was little…
And I mean when I was under 6”…
Fuck, I meant 6’…
I knew that something was really off with me.
That something being; particularly, my taste in music.
I always found myself pulling away from the mainstream pop, RnB and electronic music scenes… but that being said, I was always into Bollywood.
And therefore I assume that my taste in music; from that line on, is under intense scrutiny.
Yes, I feel the microscope upon me.
Fret not, because all that was about to change one bright summer morning in 2008.
For on that morning, while desperately tossing my cousin’s cell-phone for pornographic material, I happened to chance upon something called “Dance of Death”.
Little did he know that this rather large mp3 file would set his musical orientation in stone for the foreseeable future.
I had my headphones on (for obvious reasons…), so I hit play.
The slow melody of the guitar was… haunting.
The voice and words of the singer-man even more so…
I began to draw into the story of that man.
It was like I had a movie playing inside my head and I was the actor playing the lead.
And just when I thought the story couldn’t get any better, the knocking drumsticks stop.
Then swarmed the silence…followed by…
“The Gallop”…
For the next 5 minutes and 31 seconds I had wild wolverine blood coursing through my veins and distilled lightning in my nerves…
I assumed that that’s what sex would’ve felt like…
Hell, I fell in love to say the least.
The story was moving and the Gallop picked up as the solo by Murray rang gospel-like in my ears. What was this holiest of holy sound?
The sound of Metal it was, and it had been poured into my pulsating brain…
And as the story ended, I found myself wanting to dance with dead some more…
More… I wanted so much more.
And so I surfed, into the deep dark depths of Wikipedia as I read that name:
IRON MAIDEN
I sought everything that LimeWire had to offer on these gods and I spent the next hour and a half, consolidating and isolating their sorcery into my little red mp3 player.
For the first time in my life, I did something while listening to music…
I buckled my knees, held my shoulders firm and rocked my head forwards and backwards. Repeatedly.
My mother assumed that I was having an epileptic seizure, but then saw that I had my earphones in.
She shook her head from side to side, and went to fetch my father in the living room.
They were slightly amused.
They left me alone.
In the months that followed, I became High Priest of the coveted Church of Maiden.
And from then to eternity, I was a trooper without a fear of the dark.
I ran to the hills, sang praise to the number of the beast and screamed:
HALLOWED BE THY NAME!!!
The Gallop picked up and so did I, as I was now an official Headbanger.
Months passed, and surfing YouTube one night, I stumbled upon METALLICA.
And specifically, their seminal masterpiece:
Master of Puppets.
There was form in their thrashing, which I soon discovered was their titular genre, “thrash metal”. More love ensued…
I still couldn’t put my finger on what it was about them… I mean sure, there was a significant difference in the metalli-ness of the bands, but their aggression and the rawness in emotion… I mean damn, it was like they were flipping the universe off every chance they got.
It was beautiful; the songs lent a perspective with which I stuck it to the man…
Songs like Puppets, and then Creeping Death, One, Sanitarium, Seek and Destroy, Fight Fire with Fire, Ride the Lightning, Whiplash… Damn… I felt this strange sort of energy pulsating inside me, making me feel invincible… Strangely enough, it was around the time I started doing push ups and shit…
Their power exemplified their stance on Metal, and far from being the showy bullshit make-up and blonde wig crap that metal used to be… they focused exclusively on the thrash of it.
I got mental metal boners indeterminately.
It was a crazy expedition as I rolled across their work through the 80s and early 90s…
I wanted to know more about these pioneers. And so I went looking.
I learnt about the band, their origin and their members.
A name came up. It was the disgraced former lead guitarist… Some skinny surfer looking dude. I wasn’t impressed at the least.
The interweb said that he composed several of Metallica’s early songs. The four horsemen which was a song I loved was under dispute. Apparently this guy came up with the original, a song called Mechanix.
I googled it.
The next thing I hear is this raw lean lead sound followed by a fucking orgy of devastating lunacy.
This guy had taken The Four Horsemen and put it on a drip of jet fuel and 99% pure cocaine.
It rang in my ear as the speed and sheer mind bashing ferocity let lose.
And at that point, I called it.
“Metallica ain’t got shit on this guy.”
And his name was etched into my brain.
God was henceforth referred to as Dave Mustaine.
MEGADETH had that definitive edge that METALLICA did in their first 3 albums, and then some, like you have no idea…
Madness was their Muse and she had given them her all. A mastery of precision with the anger and fury that defined Speed Metal.
And it wasn’t just senseless shredding either, the compositions were exquisitely composed, the lyrics poetic and the mood of it, the rage was palpable as fuck.
I cannot even begin to stress how good Holy Wars, Tornado of Souls and The Conjuring were. It was fucking fantastic, I am at an actual loss of words.
At the same time, songs like A Tout Le Monde, Trust, 13, Sweating Bullets were deep and skin-tinglingly magnificent.
Peace Sells, In my Darkest hour and Symphony of Destruction had a lyrical quality that rivaled medieval ballads…
Megadeth was pure, uncut, grade A coke, with just a tinge of Heroin thrown in for evening it out and loads of acid for inspiration.
GODDAMN THEM FEELS!
Keeping my feet firmly planted in Thrash, with my head in the clouds of Speed Metal, I searched for more stuff I might like.
The math guy in my class suggested something called Eluvietie, a Gaulish folk metal band.
Oh yeah… they are good. Kinda makes you want to be a bearded headbanging goat-head-bagpipe player…beautifully composed melodies.
I explored more of the classic stuff as I got into college, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Aerosmith e.t.c…
They had some great songs but nothing truly metal like, I wasn’t really that impressed.
Oh and Lamb of God. Few good songs, but personally I think that they are overrated.
And as it is with things, nothing lasts forever.
Metal as we know it had died at some point in the early 90s. The few bands keeping it alive had all dissolved into mainstream mediocrity and just sort of burnt out.
Megadeth soon followed in the footsteps of its vain shadow Metallica and dropped the most disappointing album of all time, Supercollider.
I know right? That name… I mean, fuck Mustaine, what the dick were you thinking with that Dancing in the Rain shit?!
I knew sadness like never before.
To see my two favorite bands reduced to shit songwriting corporations endorsing fancy guitars and fucking band merchandise killed me inside.
The metal was brittle, just moments away from crumbling and being forgotten into the pages of some fucking piece of shit MTV documentary.
I felt so lost. There was no music anymore and I refused to acknowledge BFMV and other wannabe boy bands as metal. Slash and Miles Kennedy were alright, but they were like that cheap 3AM booty call that you just bothered for the fuck of it… low quality trash that makes you hate yourself 20 mins after the act.
But by some chance of fate I heard Tool.
It was enlightenment. Like LSD on disc.
The music was unlike anything I’d ever heard. The singing, like a mystic whispering to my soul, the things he spoke of and the way he did almost borderline brainfuck… fuck…
Too bad they only release an album every 10,000 days though.
It is exceptional, granted, but it wasn’t consistent…
Sort of like the absentee billionaire playboy dad.
I was lost. Again.
The shite that was being shoveled under labels like EDM, pop, and remixes pissed me off and Megadeth and Metallica became circus clown posers catering to kids who think that they’re still metal.
Just when I thought it’s all over for Metal, something got my head rocking back and forth again.
Maiden drops Book of Souls.
Yup. Daddy’s home.
30 years down the road, showing the kids how it’s done, and still taking them to school.
A finger in the air to the wannabes and a go fuck yourselves to the has-beens …
What the years that passed have shown me is simple.
I had found people that stumbled upon the greatest form of personal expression since Jesus Christ.
But unfortunately; and I apologize in advance for using for using crass words as “Sell out” and “Prostitute”, they sold out…Those fucking whores.
But Maiden, true to that name, still pure and benevolent, keeps it going…
That last kindling of light in the dark, keeping heavy metal alive.
It made a believer of me again, at a time when I had given up on it entirely…
I love Iron Maiden, and I believe I speak for a lot among the masses when I say, Thank You.
Thank you for saving that 13 year old Headbanger in me, and showing him what it meant to be heavy.
We love you Eddie…
Fuck that was emotional as fuck..
I’m gonna go rock out to Speed of Light now, Fuck…
Keep it Metal motherfuckers.
