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When Did You First Get Into Metal?


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Grunge had plenty of air time on radio and MTV, other than MTV’s Headbangers Ball, discovering new metal was difficult. Out of around 800 pupils at school there were only a handful of us into metal.


The UK also had the 90’s Indie/Britpop explosion which dominated the music scene and any metal orientated programs were mainly dedicated to Nu Metal.

It wasn’t until I started working around ‘96 that I had money to pick up magazines for myself, Terrorizer magazine was my conduit back to the extreme metal world. 
 

Kids today don’t know how lucky they are with the internet.
 

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In Australia international metal wasn't the easiest to come by in the 80's, much of it was already expensive, anything that wasn't on major labels was pretty much import only and from 20-80% dearer than local release stuff which was already over priced compared to other countries. Magazines took upwards of 6 weeks to make it here and metal was really only played on public broadcast/subscriber based radio stations that didn't pump out megawatts and could barely be heard in some suburbs. It's part of the reason the Australia metal scene was as strong as it was, because they relied on themselves.

Towards the end of the 80's and into the 90's before the internet took over things for metal did improve greatly but we'd still wait 6-10 weeks for an imported album, however more were released locally and news and interviews started to filter through quicker. Grunge definitely had an impact but local metal was still solid and between our major cities we had a lot of metal gigs every night of the week. I suppose in some way grunge did make it easier to get some metal and metal acts here but the internet would have done that eventually anyway.

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On 6/27/2021 at 12:03 AM, BMB said:

Then the 90’s hit and the Grunge scene took off so that is what I was exposed to. Luckily, I was exposed to the extreme metal scene by a another pupil at school that had recently been enrolled. Through him* I swapped tapes and was introduced to Pantera and Sepultura.

*An AMG review threw up a name that seemed familiar, James Fogarty, seems like he has carved a career in Black Metal.

Huh, if it's the same guy he's one of the founding members of The Meads of Asphodel, a completly bonkers band that has black metal at it's roots, but incorporates all manner of weird things like techno, musical theatre, etc. Small world.

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10 hours ago, Sheol said:

Huh, if it's the same guy he's one of the founding members of The Meads of Asphodel, a completly bonkers band that has black metal at it's roots, but incorporates all manner of weird things like techno, musical theatre, etc. Small world.

Yes, that is the guy. It would have been 1993/94 when I met him. We were only at school together for 6-8 months before he left.

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On 6/23/2021 at 11:59 AM, AngryWolf said:

All outstanding metallica points, I think it is perspective, Once you have done Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, for 20 or 30 years. You want to change it up,

 

Thanks for letting me play devils advocate, im always trying to really give a chance to whatever an artist is doing RIGHT now, the tendency is to dismiss it because it isn't what they did before, but that kind of growth and change is interesting to me.

 

 

your spot on re change and growth for bands such as mettalica.imo for new fans, getting into the black album, load, death magnetic are not bad places to start.  also sometimes new albums take a while to appreciate. a few spins before you get it.   

 

finally whats hardwired album like by mettalica. any good

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It’s something my older brother always used to play so loudly that I’d hear it through the walls(my room was next door) and I used to tease him about it..

Lo and behold, that on one fateful day little Ivory was going to hear ‘Dawn of The Dead’ several times throughout the hour and would subsequently spend days, weeks, almost a year to find the name of the band(would’ve been too embarrassing to ask) and became addicted to Murderdolls and download all their songs I could find on Limewire. Now I know they’re not the heaviest group out there; but they were pretty damn loud and edgy for a girl who up to that point listened to Radio Disney and the top 40 pop hits!

Later I got into Slipknot, of course.

Oh god, the cringey tweenage crush I had on Wednesday 13,.. I’m just glad those years are behind us.

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On 7/1/2021 at 12:03 AM, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

 

 

your spot on re change and growth for bands such as mettalica.imo for new fans, getting into the black album, load, death magnetic are not bad places to start.  also sometimes new albums take a while to appreciate. a few spins before you get it.   

 

finally whats hardwired album like by mettalica. any good

quoting myself is weird but i will saywhile others and im sure alot of others do like black album, load, death magnetic i just dont. its not because its different that puts me off its just ive never got in to those albums no matter how much i play them.

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On 6/27/2021 at 11:45 AM, BMB said:

Grunge had plenty of air time on radio and MTV, other than MTV’s Headbangers Ball, discovering new metal was difficult. Out of around 800 pupils at school there were only a handful of us into metal.


The UK also had the 90’s Indie/Britpop explosion which dominated the music scene and any metal orientated programs were mainly dedicated to Nu Metal.

It wasn’t until I started working around ‘96 that I had money to pick up magazines for myself, Terrorizer magazine was my conduit back to the extreme metal world. 
 

Kids today don’t know how lucky they are with the internet.
 

your right there its so much easier to get music now on internet, i remember spending hours listening to cds at hmv or virgin records. the staff didn't mind me listening for hours at a time before i found a cd i truly liked and maybe bought.  

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On 7/1/2021 at 6:19 AM, Ivory said:

It’s something my older brother always used to play so loudly that I’d hear it through the walls(my room was next door) and I used to tease him about it..

Lo and behold, that on one fateful day little Ivory was going to hear ‘Dawn of The Dead’ several times throughout the hour and would subsequently spend days, weeks, almost a year to find the name of the band(would’ve been too embarrassing to ask) and became addicted to Murderdolls and download all their songs I could find on Limewire. Now I know they’re not the heaviest group out there; but they were pretty damn loud and edgy for a girl who up to that point listened to Radio Disney and the top 40 pop hits!

Later I got into Slipknot, of course.

Oh god, the cringey tweenage crush I had on Wednesday 13,.. I’m just glad those years are behind us.

its a start for sure, yeah quite a change from mainstream pop and radio disney. you just had to let it go, get it 😁murderdolls are the joey jordison side project, never listened to them, its a start, 

if you like slipknot id assume you like some korn music, to my ears theres some similarity. 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I feel like one of the cool things of metal is because it isn't "mainstream," you don't just randomly hear a metal song on the radio and get into the genre. From who I've talked to, a memorable experience or person introduces it, and we get hooked, keep listening, and don't stop. So, how'd you get into metal? Who/what introduced it to you and made it a part of who you are?

For me, honestly the 6 years I was addicted to playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band got me listening to a ton of metal bands in many sub-genres. It was very impressionable on my Middle school/High school brain. Beyond that, I had a childhood friend introduce me to Black Veil Brides, and even though they fall more in the emo genre, got me obsessed with vocal distortions. That obsession had me listen to a ton of different metal bands with intense distortion and rasp to learn as much as I could about it. Making these sounds in my own voice then teaching it to my students continue to send me down the rabbit hole.

Looking forward to hearing what ya got!

 

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23 minutes ago, MJAlex said:

I feel like one of the cool things of metal is because it isn't "mainstream," you don't just randomly hear a metal song on the radio and get into the genre. From who I've talked to, a memorable experience or person introduces it, and we get hooked, keep listening, and don't stop. So, how'd you get into metal? Who/what introduced it to you and made it a part of who you are?

For me, honestly the 6 years I was addicted to playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band got me listening to a ton of metal bands in many sub-genres. It was very impressionable on my Middle school/High school brain. Beyond that, I had a childhood friend introduce me to Black Veil Brides, and even though they fall more in the emo genre, got me obsessed with vocal distortions. That obsession had me listen to a ton of different metal bands with intense distortion and rasp to learn as much as I could about it. Making these sounds in my own voice then teaching it to my students continue to send me down the rabbit hole.

Looking forward to hearing what ya got!

 

Please check the forum for existing threads as we have already had this thread up and running (and regularly contributed to) for some time already.

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12 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

Please check the forum for existing threads as we have already had this thread up and running (and regularly contributed to) for some time already.

Hey! Sorry, Macabre. I looked in the wrong sub-thread before posting. I'll be careful moving forward.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Being a total and utter poser, I got into heavier music in 1992 when I was 12 and got into Guns N Roses then Metallica.

 

After that it was stuff like Iron Maiden, Megadeth, RATM and AIC then Pantera, Slayer and Sepultura and by 1998 melodic death metal and then proper death metal.

On 6/27/2021 at 8:45 PM, BMB said:

Terrorizer magazine was my conduit back to the extreme metal world. 
 

Kids today don’t know how lucky they are with the internet.
 

You couldn't even get Terrorizer locally until early 2000s.   

 

And totally agree - internet made everything easy.

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$15 for Hit Parader and $19 for Kerrang here in the 90's. There was one local kinda mainstream publication that did an okay job but really relied on a lot of syndicated stories from overseas, it was called Hot Metal. That magazine has turned into a pay for view metal rumour site these days. The only other choices were street press which was free but rarely made it out of the city.

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1 hour ago, KillaKukumba said:

$15 for Hit Parader and $19 for Kerrang here in the 90's. 

It was similar in NZ. UK Metal Hammer was probably the main one.

Those magazines were expensive but that is what literally gave them value, so would get read from cover to cover.  

The internet made it all easy and ruined everything at the same time.

My gateway to metal (other than a dalliance with Twisted Sister in 1984 when the videos were on TV and, earlier, Kiss around 1981) was a mate at school I asked to "dub" me cassette tapes of Iron Maiden in early 1988. Yet, he disobeyed my request for providing Iron Maiden albums (except one, Seventh Son) and gave me more Judas Priest instead. He reckoned I would like it more and he was right.

Actually, upon reflection, I lie. In 1987 Bon Jovi Slippery When Wet came out (it was August 1986 according to Wikipedia but I suspect it didn't build up steam and hit NZ until 1987) and then I visited my cousins in UK for Christmas '87 and they were into W.A.S.P. and Def Leppard. I was already into Queen big time.

Rock was always going to be the way to go, but metal became all consuming by the time I gave in and finally accepted cookie monster vocals as my lord and saviour in 1992.

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

Around the 8th grade, probably the age of 14. I was into Nu-Metal like Orgy, Kittie, and Deftones but that Christmas I had some money and I went out and bought Iced Earth's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" because I had heard a kid at the friday night Magic the Gathering tournaments talking about Iced Earth and I wanted to see what they were about. Shortly after this, I went out and bought Metallica's "Master of Puppets". See in those days, I used to judge albums by their cover art so I saw two albums with cool cover art: Dark Funeral's "Secrets of the Black Arts" and Emperor's "In The Nightside Eclipse" and I bought both of those as well & from then on, I mostly forgot about Nu-Metal (save for Kittie, I had a huge crush on every girl in that band) and started listening to proper metal. It was only a matter of time from there that I was searching "goth metal" online and came across MP3s of a band called Nokturnal Mortum on The End Record's website, particularly the song Unholy Orathania off of the "Goat Horns" album and from that point on, I was fully hooked on black metal.

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On 8/5/2021 at 8:46 AM, JonoBlade said:

It was similar in NZ. UK Metal Hammer was probably the main one.

Those magazines were expensive but that is what literally gave them value, so would get read from cover to cover.  

The internet made it all easy and ruined everything at the same time.

My gateway to metal (other than a dalliance with Twisted Sister in 1984 when the videos were on TV and, earlier, Kiss around 1981) was a mate at school I asked to "dub" me cassette tapes of Iron Maiden in early 1988. Yet, he disobeyed my request for providing Iron Maiden albums (except one, Seventh Son) and gave me more Judas Priest instead. He reckoned I would like it more and he was right.

Actually, upon reflection, I lie. In 1987 Bon Jovi Slippery When Wet came out (it was August 1986 according to Wikipedia but I suspect it didn't build up steam and hit NZ until 1987) and then I visited my cousins in UK for Christmas '87 and they were into W.A.S.P. and Def Leppard. I was already into Queen big time.

Rock was always going to be the way to go, but metal became all consuming by the time I gave in and finally accepted cookie monster vocals as my lord and saviour in 1992.

 

 

Cookie monster vocals are quite something when done well👍When my kid was asking about scary metal vocals. I said imagine it's the sugar puff monster singing. Hard to be so scared then 🤣

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On 8/5/2021 at 10:05 AM, navybsn said:

Candlemass, King Diamond, and Celtic Frost soon followed.

All three of those bands were pretty great. Celtic Frost kind of got lame in the late 80s/early 90s, but their original material was classic stuff and was instrumental for the formation of black metal. King Diamond was more "orthodox" metal, but his image was crucial for the development of black metal as well.

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5 hours ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

Cookie monster vocals are quite something when done well👍When my kid was asking about scary metal vocals. I said imagine it's the sugar puff monster singing. Hard to be so scared then 🤣

As opposed to Alvin and the chipmunk vocals when you used to be able to record tape to tape with high speed dubbing? :)

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