Since this is a class on heavy metal, I thought it would be important to describe my interest in heavy metal. Since I was around ten years old, I started listening to heavier rock, including AC/DC. One of my friends growing up was really into AC/DC and his love for the band rubbed off on me. I would say that this was the first time I started listening to heavier types of rock. I would separate AC/DC from other bands that I was listening to at the time due to the vocals and the distortion on the guitars. The vocals were gritty and the guitar solos were fast paced. I think another reason why I gravitated towards this type of music was the fact that my mom and sisters didn’t enjoy listening to it and that made it “cool” to listen to.
One of my other friends introduced me to trash metal, in particular Megadeth and Metallica. There was a point in time where I would only listen to these two bands. I liked the double pedal bass drums, fast pace, shredding guitar solos, and the menacing lyrics. I would say that I liked Megadeth more than Metallica because I thought that Dave Mustaine was the brain behind Metallica before he was kicked out of the band. This is evident on the Metallica’s first album, Kill ‘em All. The type of trash metal on this album was not re-created on any of Metallica’s following albums, while Megadeth’s albums sounded almost identical.
That same friend who introduced me to Megadeth and Metallica also introduced me to more hardcore bands like Cryptopsy and Lamb of God. Although these were not my favorite bands, I respected them for their musical talent. For instance, the drummer of Cryptopsy, Flo Mounier is one of the fastest and most talented drummers in heavy metal. You can check out a YouTube video of Flo Mounier below and see how brilliant he truly is.
One of the topics we discussed in class was power and how heavy metal deals with power struggles. It is about who has the power in relationships. This was described well by the basketball exercise. We passed around a basketball and described the different ways we could show power. Some of the ideas were popping the ball, throwing the ball at someone, deflating the ball, and many more. Heavy metal tries to describe this power struggle.
