Heavy Metal Kids

We all have a musical tipping point. The time when we stop listening to pretty much anything and start to become music snobs.

As a child of about 12 years old I would listen to pretty much whatever I was given at birthdays, Christmas etc or just tape shit off the radio. This all came to rapid halt one Friday night down my local village green.

On this fine summer evening, I happened to meet an older kid hanging around the swings, smoking Redbands, and generally looking hard. Having known him from primary school,  and being impressed by his smoking and bandanna, we started talking. Of course, the conversation got around to music. He asked me if  I liked Heavy Metal, to which I obviously said yes, then, he asked me what Metal bands I was into.Not knowing any Metal bands, I replied Guns N Roses. To my horror, I was informed that Guns N Roses were for pussies and real metal heads listened to Metallica.

So, with my pride bruised and my coolness in shreds, perhaps the very next day, I caught the bus to town and purchased the first Metallica album I laid my chubby little hand on. It was called Master Of Puppets. It scared the shit out of me.

I had never heard anything so brutal. Ever. They were satanists, they'd probably kill your mum, they drank virgins blood, they smoked crack with the devil, they were defiantly cooler than fucking Guns N Roses.

Becoming a metaller was a watershed, all other music was shit, Pop was for pussies, only wanker's had short hair, Grunge was soft, Rave was gay, moshing was hard. I got some Doc Martin's 10 hole, army trousers, black jeans, even a shirt with the sleeve's cut off. I was fucking metal.

I got into countless bands, too meny to mention, Thrash, Speed, Death, Black, Grindcore, I was into all of it. The music geek in me was revealed and my metal knowledge soon outstripped even the cool older Metal kid down the green.

I grew my hair, practiced my moshing technique, enthusiastically took up smoking, perfected looking both evil and hard, and every week, managed to clear the dancefloor of my local youth club by getting the DJ to play Black Sabbath (The only Metal in his pathetically weak musical catalogue) while myself and the chosen few would stand in a circle and bang our heads.

 But it didn't last, the doors opened by Metal began to pull me to other genre's.

 Rage Against The Machine and Bodycount were my first experiences of rap that wasn't Mc Hammer. The punk bands that all my favourite Metal bands were into began to interest me more than Metal itself. Obviously, I wasn't as Metal as I thought I was.

It seems strange looking back, meny people from that era would never admit to being a Metal head but they were, and deep down, in their black, twisted souls they know it to be true. Me, I'd like to think that I'm still Metal , just a little bit at least.