Let me start off by saying that I have
been a metal fan since I was old enough to understand music. I’ll never forget
the day I listened to Master of Puppets for the first time, that’s when I knew
this was the music for me, my life changed forever that day. From then on, I
started to listen to more metal bands and my knowledge and love for this art
form grew exponentially. I enjoyed the music’s intensity, energy, darkness and
attitude. I also love the fact that you can go anywhere with it, musically or
lyrically. But what I loved about it more than anything was that this music
embraced the fact that I’m a total freak, a weirdo, an outsider, whatever
people label us nowadays, and it allowed me to accept who and what I am when the
rest of the world around me wasn’t. That is why I am devoting the rest of my
life to this scene, I owe it that much.
However, lately I’ve been discovering a
big problem going on in our subculture: this obsessive, snobby elitist attitude
that is spreading in our world like AIDS, and I feel the need to address it.
While I am a metalhead at heart and
always will be, I’ve expanded my horizons musically in order to have a better
understanding of theory, understand other music, and to see how I can incorporate
other musical styles into my drumming. I listen to jazz (Buddy Rich mostly),
symphony (stuff like Wagner, Shostakovich, and movie composers like John
Williams, Danny Elfman, Ennio Morricone etc.), blues (George Thorogood, Stevie Ray Vaughan,
John Lee Hooker, shit like that), and of course, I listen to classic rock and
hard rock like the Beatles, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and
last but not least, Rush. I even listen to punk and post hardcore bands like
the Offspring, Green Day, and A Day to Remember. I could care less if that
makes me a poser in anyone’s eyes, because I know in my heart that I’m not.
In the summer of 2011, I went to the
Vans Warped Tour with my best friend, he had no one to go with, and so being
the good friend I am, I offered to go with him. I had never been to a
punk/hardcore festival of any kind at the time, but I wanted to check it out
because there were a few bands that I liked that were playing there, and also I
wanted to get into a festival atmosphere as a warm-up for the inaugural Heavy
T.O. metal festival going on in Toronto a week later. Warped tour was a great
time, illScarlett (a local reggae-punk band) put on a great show, and ADTR blew
everyone away. I got battle scars from the various pits and WOD’s I entered,
and plenty of merch was either purchased or handed to me. But what I remember
most about that day were all the people walking around in Metallica or Iron
Maiden shirts, heck, I even saw someone in Cannibal Corpse shirt if I remember
correctly. What blew me away was that said people blended in well with everyone
else. They weren’t getting chastised or singled out by any punk or hardcore
fans, and they seemed to have just as much fun as anyone else. When I went home
that night, I thought to myself: “You know, if I went to any metal show wearing
an Offspring or ADTR shirt, I’d be eaten alive!
I am noticing that the metal scene is
becoming more and more like Star Trek, which by that I mean that it’s an
amazing and beautiful work of art that’s getting a bad reputation by its fan
club. More and more all I am seeing when I go to an online metal forum, or a
metal concert, is an elitist attitude displayed by our fans. People going out
of their way to tell you their taste in music is better than yours and that
you’re not a real metal fan, we all know the sayings:
“x band sold out with their last album,
blah blah blah...”
"x band isn’t tr00 kvlt metal...”
“If you like x band, you’re a poser,
blah blah blah...”
“Nu metal is SHIT, glam is SHIT,
deathcore is SHIT, blah blah blah...”
It’s getting really fucking monotonous
and it is giving our scene a bad name, so to the people who are like this, I
have a message for you: STOP IT!
First of all, there is no such thing as
“selling out.” Allow me to paraphrase Lemmy by saying that the
whole reason you
play and create music is to have people hear it and buy it, regardless if it’s
50 people or 50 million people. Any musician who says they don’t want to get
rich and famous off of their music is completely full of shit.
The whole “sell out” bullshit has really
gotten out of hand. I can remember people saying Amon Amarth sold out with Twilight
of the Thunder God (Quite laughable considering Death Metal gets no mainstream
attention at all). The sad part is this is not the first time this has happened,
I can remember people saying Maiden sold out with The Number of the Beast
(what?), and I know of some Pantera fans who think they sold out WHEN THEY
ABANDONED THEIR GLAM SOUND AND STARTED PLAYING GROOVE METAL! The next one is my
favourite: I can remember just last year reading about Cannibal Corpse fans
calling CC sellouts and “disowning” the band because they were playing
Knotfest, headlined of course by nu-metal legends Slipknot. Let me repeat that
for you: CANNIBAL CORPSE WERE BEING CALLED SELLOUTS BECAUSE THEY PLAYED ON THE
SAME BILL AS SLIPKNOT! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? What really fried me was it
wasn’t just one person saying it, it was a whole faction of people saying it.
Do you people even realize how stupid you sound? Grow the fuck up.
That’s another thing: these elitist
pricks are way too selective when it comes to what bands are metal or not. Let
me ask you people this: If Slipknot or System of a Down isn’t metal, then what
the fuck are they? Are they post-industrial progressive hard rock-core? Get
real for fuck sakes.
NEWSFLASH: There are different types of
metal other than thrash or death. Nu-Metal, while not as good as other
sub-genres, is still metal because it is metal with hardcore and hip-hop
influences. Metalcore is metal too, because it is a combination of metal and
hardcore. With that being said, crossover thrash is technically metalcore, so if
you’re a Suicidal Tendencies fan, yet you bash metalcore, punch yourself in the
face. The same can be said with Deathcore because it’s Death Metal with
hardcore breakdowns. Glam Metal, Djent, and Industrial Metal are all subgenres
of metal too. Hate to break it to you guys, but those subgenres are all
evolutionary stages of this music. You don’t have to like it, but don’t call it
“false metal” or “poser shit” simply because it’s not your shot of JD. If you
people opened your minds just a little bit, you’d notice there is a lot of
talent to be heard in those types of music, I think opening minds is asking too
much from some people though.
The word “poser” is the most overused
word in our subculture, and like that “sellout” thing, it has gotten completely
out of hand. Guess what assholes, if a person listens to primarily metal bands,
regardless if it’s deathcore or old school thrash, then said person is a
metalhead, period. A real poser is someone who wears a Kill ‘Em All shirt and
says his/her favourite songs on the album are Enter Sandman and One. Just
because someone listens to more popular metal bands than you do, or hasn’t
researched the underground scene more than you have, doesn’t make him a poser.
Here’s another piece of advice: Say you talk to a guy who loves Slayer and Cannibal Corpse, but has never heard of Kreator, instead of casting him out and calling him a poser, why don’t you suggest the band to him and tell him to listen to Pleasure to Kill or Terrible Certainty? Hell, while you’re at it, tell him to look up Destruction, Sodom, and Accept. This will introduce him to the entire Teutonic scene that he might otherwise have never been exposed to. Being proactive can’t be that hard, right? Well, these are elitists that I’m talking about, so...
These elitists are becoming more and more sexist too. They see a girl in a Megadeth shirt, and instead of talking to her and drooling over her like any normal guy would do, they just call her a poser because “oh she’s only wearing that to look hot and fit in, she doesn’t actually like them.” I’m just gonna stop there because there are no words to explain how stupid and stuck-up that is. Her favourite song might be Tornado of Souls, and she knows that Mechanix is the song Metallica re-wrote as The Four Horsemen, but she’s a girl, so she’s not a real metalhead, right? Give me a fucking break. Seriously guys, for the first time in a long time, women are getting into this music in large numbers... STOP SCARING THEM AWAY!
To me, metal has always been a culture of independence, a culture that will accept you no matter what you are, regardless if you’re white, black, red, brown, yellow, male, female, she-male, cybernetic, whatever. It embraces the fact that you’re different. It does not oppress you, it doesn’t judge you, and it won’t cast you out. It welcomes you with open arms and keeps you for life.
That is why elitism in our movement
needs to stop, because it is transforming this scene into the very things it
was against. To paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche: “If you want to defeat a
monster, be sure that you don’t become the monster yourself”. Metal is starting
to become that monster before our very eyes and that monster is hurting metal
more than any “poser” or –core genre ever will.
If any elitists are reading this, please
get over yourselves. Listen to your metal, and let everyone else listen to
their metal. Throw your horns up high and let all of us do the same. After
all...
“We are as one as we are all the same,
fighting for one cause."
There you have it, I hope you enjoyed that article. If you want to see anymore posts from me you can click on some of the links to your right. If you think my opinion is smart or stupid, or if you just want to troll, then comment below and I'll be sure to read how I deserve an arrow to the knee or some shit... I'm out!
Also, stay tuned for next week as I will be doing my first review on an animated feature!
- Mad Mike of Metal
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