Who/what got you into metal?

[Greg]

So let's hear everyone's stories about what exactly got you involved in the world of metal.

My story in starts in 1993 in 7th grade, when a kid named Ray moved into my town from New York. I noticed one day he had on a Samhain t-shirt where they were all standing with their shirts off covered in blood and thought it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. I asked him about the shirt, little did I know it would start up a friendship that would get me into heavy metal.

He let me borrow a few cds from bands like Danzig, Metallica, Pantera, etc., and I was hooked. Later on that week I took some of the money I'd saved up from mowing lawns/doing chores to buy my first metal cd, Slayer's Divine Intervention. From there I joined up with two of those 10 CD'S FOR A PENNY!!!!!! clubs and wound up with 20 new metal cd's from Tool, Pantera, Morbid Angel, Metallica, Slayer, and a few other early 90's rock mainstays like Nirvana and Pearl Jam (this was before the internet introduced me to all the cool metal shit happening in Europe a few years later so my knowledge was only U.S. stuff). After those cd's all arrived I got my mom to cancel my membership by haggling with them on the phone so I got to keep my cd's for two pennies more or less, <3 mom.

Pantera's "Far Beyond Driven" album became required listening on bus rides to away football games, and before long my goal in life was to one day look like my new hero Phil Anselmo's picture on the back of the Far Beyond Driven booklet, where it looks like he just swallowed some broken glass and is sweating gasoline. I have no idea where Ray is now but the seeds he planted way back in 7th grade are still growing today.

My first metal concert was in 1995-96, somewhere in there, I went to see Korn play at the Masquerade after they'd released their first album. Nothing too special went on there but it was my first time, and like a lot of girls' first times I'm kinda ashamed when I look back on it that my first time wasn't with the one of the ones I loved.

Since then metal has been a big part of my life. My friends and I used to listen to WREKage all the time in high school, and even when metal kinda went on the back burner for me when I first started college in '99 as I got into that whiny college rock crap to try to get chicks for a while, it got revived for me in a big way when a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of all the metal going on in Europe coupled with the internet explosion which made it all available with the click of the mouse. I had a great time going through all the black and melodic death I missed the first time around in the early/late 90's, and today I'm just as hooked on it now more than ever. :m3t4l:

[DarkWolfen]

For some background, MTV used to play metal on a show called Headbanger's Ball, not to be confused with the Ball they have on now and then when they call something that is clearly not metal on the show. Except last Halloween when MTV2 had three Type members of Type O Negative, (excluding Peter of course he knows better than to show up to something shitty like that.) :sm0k3:

Anyways, the year was 1993 and a friend of mine liked Pantera. The downfall of MTV started in the same year, rap music began to slowly clog the pipes of the station. Like too much hair in a drain and not enough Draino to clear it out. I bought Cowboys From Hell in that year on tape, I followed it up with listening to WREKage in that same period of time. How I found the show, I don't know, one thing I can tell you with complete certainty, Bob was hosting alot. I still have a tape from that era. In June I sent it to Bob to ID a song for me actually. There was one guy I remember that wore Megdeth shirts everyday to school and refused to stand for the pledge, a true metalhead. Even did an essay on the word, "Megadeth meaning, 100 million dead." I remember going over to some other guy's house in that year and he was playing on repeat, Black No. 1, the single on tape. But no, that's not the year I got into the band, strangely. Though I did buy (all on tape) Sepultura's Chaos A.D., Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss, Megadeth's Peace Sells But Who's Buying & in the following years took out all my frustrations out in the albums (all CDS) Far Beyond Driven, Vulgar Display of Power and Great Southern Trendkill. There was a period of time when I couldn't find any new metal to listened to, and for a couple years lost my bearing with metal, In 1998 I found a new pasttime, since in that year I got into reading more shit, lyrics were more meaningful and insightful into pain, distrust and pleasure, so analyzing the lyrics came as a smooth hobby. I got into Type O Negative many years later. When Metallica had clogged the drain of metal with mediocrity, and Corrosion of Conformity ceased to make a damn impact on the psyche anymore. Neither one of the original Slayer or the Sepultura still exist. Until I bought a used Chaos A.D. in 1999. :ch33rs:

What happened to the 3 friends I had in those years? One is still alive but have no idea what is doing. The other, Blake Jones, the big Megadeth guy, no idea! But the other well, I wonder if the Pantera was a bit too strong for him. A 45 to the skull. No coming back from that, I understand.

As for WREKage, I listened to it now and then, but never with regularity like these days. It would have helped in the years of the 90's, if there had been the internet. Because I would have kept listening to it, in the years I didn't.

If these memories have taught me anything from the past, is that people, random people were alot more about metal than they are today. So be it! Who needs them anyways, they were just trend followers and didn't stay into it like the rest of us. :m3t4l:

[BoB]

I listened to stuff like Ozzy, Priest, Maiden in late elementary/early jr high (early/mid 80s) - growing up in the north (Pittsburgh) meant that stuff like that was basically mainstream even then. I dabbled in punk/hardcore for a few years - it was more aggressive/raw/out of the norm. Then in either 86 or 87 this buddy from a trailer court gave me a tape - one side had Slayer-Reign In Blood, the other Metallica-Master of Puppets. Holy shit! My life changed.
:m3t4l:

[bid]

Hmm.. my metal story.

My cousins used to listen to metallica, iron maiden, pantera when I was still listening to Bon jovi, MJ and other pop. But in 9th grade one month, I didn't find any good new albums. I mean none. zero. squat. The mixed pop tapes I got make me feel like puking. So I just got up and said, "I need something else. I think I will try metal". The first three tapes I got were Iron Mainden - X factor, Megadeth - Youthanasia and Pantera - Great Southern Trendkill.

Coming in directly from the pop world, X factor and Youthanasia sounded great. Trendkill was a bit iffy. Then my cousin gave me Fear of the Dark. I was hooked on the Maiden and Megadeth. I got all their previous stuff. I didn't like albums before Countdown to Extinction from Megadeth.. but I loved Maiden. Pretty soon, I got into other heavy metal bands and before I knew it, I loved Rust In Peace.

I went out of heavy metal in college where I had the good old friend called Napster. Soon, my cousins had no idea of the bands I was listening becuz we couldn't find their tapes in Bangladesh. But Napster.. baby! that gave me variety.. and people would recommend me stuff form their list... soon, I was into it.. all the way deep.

And then there was WREKage, that introduced me to the really brutal stuff. I don't like those stuff all the time.. but there are times when I like it.

[AmoebicDysentery]

When I was about 9 years old I was trying on my sisters underwear when she wasn't home and stumbled upon a Metallica "enter sandman" tape single...I listened to this song and the B-Side (Stone Cold Crazy) over and over again. I had never heard anything so powerful. I then bought the black album and every metallica release I could find. Then I got into bands like Megadeth, Anthrax, Pantera, Danzig, Sepultura, etc..When I was in 5th grade (I believe), riyght before headbangers ball went off the air, they were talking about new releases and mentioned "World Demise" by Obituary and said they were the heaviest band ever. "Even heavier than PANTERA?!?!", I asked myself. I soon bought that album and it completely crushed my head in, albeit I'd soon find out it wasn't Obituary's finest hour. It was probably too extreme for me at the time..so I didn't quite make the plunge into death metal quite yet.

Fast forward to age 13...Marilyn Manson was all over the place and Korn was finally starting to have mega success. I needed something more. I started listening to Wrekage religiously...taping every week and calling up and annoying whoever happened to answer the phone. I started picking up releases from the more popular death metal bands such as Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Broken Hope, Incantation..It kept on going on a downward spiral into the underground with bands like Mortician, Anal Cunt, Dehumanized, Skinless (Progression Towards Evil era), Eventually picking up a liking for Goregrind, Grindcore, and a splash of black metal...the end.

[TheKshatriya]

When i was in 4th/5th grade i listened to bands like Korn, but my guitar teacher Howie Bently (Cauldron Born guitarist) got me into true metal. And after that i started listening to some deathmetal that he said he though i would like.

[WuDi, w/o competition]

I guess my first concept of metal came when I was 13 or 14. A couple of guys much older than I from the community theatre group we were all in let me sit in the backseat of their camaro while they blasted Anthrax and Megadeth, and Vanilla Ice just for a laugh.
But a much later girlfriend got me waist deep into darker music through her mix tapes, mostly gothic, industrial, and some weird concept stuff like Mr. Bungle. But a couple of choice tracks from At The Gates and Bethlehem really caught my attention.
After that it was my friends Martin, who got me into a lot of older Metallica and Fear Factory, and Coy, who was a huge Morbid Angel and Type O Negative fan, who helped further my transformation. :t01l3t:

[DarkWolfen]

<!--QuoteBegin-bid+Jul 22 2004, 09:24 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (bid @ Jul 22 2004, 09:24 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I went out of heavy metal in college where I had the good old friend called Napster. Soon, my cousins had no idea of the bands I was listening becuz we couldn't find their tapes in Bangladesh. [/quote]
Bid, so your home country is Bangladesh? I didn't know that. :huh:

[Greg]

<!--QuoteBegin-AmoebicDysentery+Jul 22 2004, 12:59 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (AmoebicDysentery &#064; Jul 22 2004, 12:59 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> they were talking about new releases and mentioned "World Demise" by Obituary and said they were the heaviest band ever. "Even heavier than PANTERA?!?!", I asked myself. [/quote]

Haha yep, I went through a similar experience when I heard Cannibal Corpse's "The Bleeding" album on a recommendation that they were the heaviest band around, and I wondered who could possibly be heavier than Pantera. I still love them and all but they almost sound like a hardcore band in comparison to what else was out there at the time that I was unaware of.

People like to slam the new Headbanger's Ball but they forget that the old one played its share of crappy videos too. For every Slayer or Morbid Angel video you'd get some from Skid Row, Motley Crue, and the rest of the hair metal bands dying out back in that time. I'd say the ratio of good to suck is te same now as it was back then. In fact, I can clearly remember watching the very last episode of the old Ball, seeing Riki Rachtman halfheartedly introduce a video by The Offspring, and thinking "wow... it really is over if they're playing them."

You may get a lot of hardcore bands being played on the new one but don't forget the old one was notorious for playing streaks of awful videos too.

[AmoebicDysentery]

I'm too young to remember the good days of HBB, but I remember once during the rachtman years they played Blind Melon :m0nk3yp33:

[DarkWolfen]

<!--QuoteBegin-AmoebicDysentery+Jul 23 2004, 10:40 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (AmoebicDysentery @ Jul 23 2004, 10:40 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I'm too young to remember the good days of HBB, but I remember once during the rachtman years they played Blind Melon :m0nk3yp33: [/quote]
Yeah there was a time when they played Slaughter and Stryper and other pop shit. I heard Rachtman say there was some years when the metal they played was a metal as Tiny Tim with his ukulele.

Don't let Slaughter's name confuse you, the only thing they slaughtered were their pair of panties when they spread their legs for a cheesy guitar solo.

[withered]

Ahhh, I'm getting a nostalgia high from way back in '89. I was all of 12 years old and I was rockin' to the likes of poison, bon jovi, and yes, warrant. I had just started learning to play guitar. Then, I saw the video for metallica's "one" on mtv some afternoon. "Holy shit!" I said. I had realized that up until that point, there was a big hole in my life that needed filling (not that hole). So my sister got sick of hearing me talk about it and bought me "...And Justice For All" for my birthday. It was like something I had never heard and it definitely killed some innocence in me. I made it my mission to learn every guitar part on that album and I finally did (except for some of the lead stuff on dyer's eve). I was hooked then got into Megadeth and my dear friend Mikie turned me onto Iron Maiden. Once I started a band, our drummer turned me onto Pantera then our vocalist turned me onto sepultura's "Arise" and Slayer. Then, in '92ish, everyone was still switching from cassettes to CD's and I happened upon CC's "tomb of the mutilated" (uncensored version) in a bargain bin for &#036;3.00. It was the only CD I owned for probably 2-3 months thus the only thing I listened too. This makes me want to go get a denim jacket with a big metallica patch on the back (actually, I already want one anyway)!

MIKE
~withered~

[bid]

<!--QuoteBegin-DarkWolfen+Jul 22 2004, 11:02 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (DarkWolfen @ Jul 22 2004, 11:02 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-bid+Jul 22 2004, 09:24 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (bid &#064; Jul 22 2004, 09:24 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I went out of heavy metal in college where I had the good old friend called Napster. Soon, my cousins had no idea of the bands I was listening becuz we couldn't find their tapes in Bangladesh. [/quote]
Bid, so your home country is Bangladesh? I didn't know that. :huh: [/quote]
A lot of people don't know a lot of stuff about me

[Metalfreak]

I grew up to Black Sabbath, Judas Preist, and I saw Metallica in '98 when I was 11. From then on, Metallica have been my favorite band but none of that got me into underground bands. Besides those bands, I was a huge Linkin Park and Korn fan. I absolutely loved anything that was nu-metal. Then a little over a year ago, I was driving thru Massachusetts late at night listening to some metal show. I didn't bother to change the channel. They played Soilwork and I really liked the clean vocals so I bought Figure Number Five like the week after. I absolutely hated the gutteral vocals but I kept listening to the CD over and over and then I grew to love it. Then I searched the internet for other bands. I found a few lists of death metal bands, Black metal bands, melodic death.... I saw Immolation listed under the death section and I also saw that they were playing in my city. Even though I haven't heard anything by them, I went and saw them along with Grave and Cremetorium. I headbanged through the whole concert! That was just the beginning. A few weeks later, me and my cousin were in Hot Topic and she saw Metal for the Masses Vol 1 CD. It had Soilwork on it, it was cheap, so I bought it. Then I fell in love with Shadows Fall, In Flames, and a few others on that CD. Then a few more weeks later, I went to Ozzfest, having been exposed to other bands by then and I got the Ozzfest CD sampler. I instantly fell in love with Dimmu Borgir's song, Blessings Upon the Throne of Tyranny. Now, a year later, I own Dimmu's whole discography! and like 200 more metal CDs. Black metal is my favorite genre of metal. Also, I've seen (in just one year) most of the bands posted on this forum! I used to love nu-metal, now I think it's talentless and it fucking sucks!

it's amazing of what one song can do to you.

[BlazeTSU]

back in 85 or 86 i was living w/ my dad in calhoun ga. and my brother had moved in w/ our mom in austell. while he was w/mom he started listening to metal. he was 10 years older then me and so he was my hero...needless to say i moved to my moms house at the age of 6 and started doing nothing but skateboarding and listening to (the best band to ever assemble) METALLICA, (the second best band to ever assemble) SLAYER and anthrax with a healthy dose of suicidal tendencies. from there i learned about metal as my brother did. i got into a bunch of sepultura, morbid angel, kreator, death angel, sacred reich, m.o.d., skid row(yeah, i liked'em and i still do matter of fact).

i went through a short time of not hearing anything new until all the pantera stuff starting crushing the world, then machine heads burn my eyes and fear factory's demanufacture changed my life. i used to fight for paychecks every friday listening to those albums in the bank parking lot. good times.

i listening to wrekage basically ever since 86 and i have tons of wrekage tapes that i would record and i love finding them and listening to them all over again. when sam and jonathon started doing the show my eyes were opened up to more of the underground stuff and i started listening to a lot of death and black metal. i've since maintained my love for all things metal and in the past couple of years i've fallen in love with a lot of crusty bands as well.