Heavy Metal

The AC/DC stage at Download 2010

Despite popular belief, and despite what record companies, mainstream radio and T.V choose to believe, Heavy Metal is thriving within our community today. The biggest misconception about Heavy Metal in 2011 is that the style of music consists of a bunch of guys making noise and screaming down a microphone. This is as far from the truth as possible. The second biggest misconception is that Heavy Metal belongs to a string of rag tag fans gripping on to the final straws of a dying genre; this is where I feel the need to step in.

Heavy Metal is a thing most people will never understand, and what people don’t understand they fear, or dislike. Parents feared Heavy Metal in the 80’s, and people in today’s age just flat out dislike it because of some misconstrued interpretation of what it is. “It’s just screaming down a microphone” is a comment I hear a lot in discussions about Heavy Metal.  A comment, might I add, that instantaneously makes me loathe the person who said it. Heavy Metal is a cult, a way of life and a religion.

To understand Metal, you have to first understand that it is undeniably a cult. Heavy Metal drags you in like a tractor beam and from that first distorted note of guitar you are either hooked for life, or you aren’t. I was.

Over ten years I have pumped thousands of pounds into my religion collecting over 400 CD’s, DVD’s, 12” vinyl, books, VHS and god only knows how many magazines. The scary thing about this lifestyle is not that you feel the need to buy the CD or DVD you don’t have, it’s the unquenchable desire to have that CD you don’t have, to have that Special Edition, or Japanese pressing. I am currently on thirty-five Judas Priest and Judas Priest related CD albums, sixteen 12” vinyl and six DVD’s. In 2009 I spent £160 buying tickets to see the band for the first time, and in July 2011 I queued for eight hours inside the SECC so I could make it to the front, center of the barrier (which I did) and got to partake in the greatest night of my life…and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

Heavy Metal makes you happy, sad, excited, it’s anti-establishment, it’s f**k you to your parents and a bonding experience for your children. I have seen generations of families at Heavy Metal gigs, grandparents, parents and children all going to see Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, AC/DC. There is no greater feeling – and I know this from experience – than 110,000 heavy metal fans singing in unison and being at one with the music. Download festival 2010 saw AC/DC headline the opening night and along with 109,999 metal heads I joined in in perhaps the greatest example of the metal community coming together.

Unlike every other genre of music, there are no hostilities between real metal heads, the fact is there are the ‘posers’ who want to act like they know what they are talking about, and they shout their opinions and stamp their feet and want to be seen as being cool, but this happens in all walks of life. ‘Real’ metal heads like to go to the gigs, go to the bars and pubs, communicate and meet new metal heads over the most important thing, which is the music.

Heavy Metal is viewed by the outside world as ugly, violent, loud and aggressive. These traits are apparent in every single metal fan, but not one of them is shown to a fellow metal head. Heavy Metal fans are loud and aggressive, but towards the people who cast their preconceived judgments on the community without stepping one foot into the Heavy Metal world.

Stabbings, robberies, beatings are synonymous with festivals like T in the Park. Download Festival? Not a chance, respect is a thing hard to come by in today’s world, but amongst the metal fans of today respect is an easy thing to gain and an easy thing to maintain.

Heavy Metal is a drug, more addictive than heroin and makes you experience the greatest high you will ever feel. For me, Heavy Metal is coffee, or Red Bull it wakes me in the morning and sets me on my way. It is a natural attention booster making me work faster and harder – I am listening to Judas Priest – ‘Angel of Retribution’ album as I type this – it puts me to sleep at night (I listen to it in my sleep), it’s my best friend and guidance counsellor who gets me through the hardest times imaginable and who is with me when I’m at the top of the world. Like I said earlier, 90% of people will never understand Heavy Metal and will never believe the impact it has on the lives of the die-hard followers who pledge their allegiance and their lives to the cause of the lifestyle.

We don’t want to be loved; we don’t even want to be liked. We like our beer, our long hair, our denim and our leather. We like our music loud and we like it fast. We like having our own world that no one understands, and we like watching the trend followers jump from fashion to fashion. We like the fact that the only constant stable relationship in our lives is to our music collection, and we like the fact that we can say we don’t give a f**k when you don’t like it. We don’t judge you so don’t judge us. Metal Lives.