Re: what got you listening to metal?
Back in '83 I was 11 and listening to the first wave of rap/hip-hop, but a lot of those songs had heavy guitar and other industrial type sounds on them, and I found that more and more often I was just listening for the heavy parts, so I chose to start hanging out with some metal-heads and started copying their record collections.
Within the next year I went from being into hip-hop, to being into thrash and death metal, my favourite bands at that time being Metallica, Celtic Frost and Anthrax.
Then I got into the rest of what I listen to, my current favourites being anything that Pepper Keenan is involved in.