“Don’t feel you’ve got to hide”
From “Stay Hungry” by Twisted Sister
I grew up fearing metalheads.
Metalheads can be defined broadly as anyone who is either a fan or performer of heavy metal music. I would see metalheads at school and think that they looked … different. They had piercings, carried chains, wore black clothing and had tattoos. And they wore t-shirts with names that felt intentionally threatening to me like “Black Sabbath,” “Iron Maiden” and “Judas Priest.” I assumed they were unstable and violent.
I had metalhead friends (yes, “some of my best friends” were metalheads). They’d play the music and encourage me to listen. I tried but it was too loud, too intense. All the screaming, the supernatural imagery – vampires, monsters, satanic symbols — it was ghoulish and grotesque to me. And I wanted nothing to do with it. My dismissive attitude was perhaps best summarized in a scene in The Breakfast Club when Molly Ringwald mockingly asked Judd Nelson why he didn’t invite Ally Sheedy to one of his “heavy metal vomit parties.”
When I recently talked with Dee Snider of Twisted Sister on the Hardcore Humanism Podcast about his new album, For the Love of Metal Live, and his solo single, “Prove Me Wrong,” he explained that the bias I held against heavy metal fans and musicians was not uncommon. “There was this implication that somehow … you were not as smart as other people. You are not as good as other people,” Snider told me.
As a teen and in my twenties, I felt like the farthest thing from a metalhead. I wore my preppy khaki pants, plaid button-down shirts and penny loafers. I listened to (and still do) the 80’s pop music on the radio and newly emerging MTV – Whitney Houston, Duran Duran, Hall and Oates. But in retrospect, I realize that one of the biggest things that separated me from metalheads was how much I was trapped while they were not. I was a prisoner of my own interpretation of societal norms, expectations and judgments. This limited me in not only superficial ways like what I could wear, who I could be friends with or date, what music I could listen to, but also in more internal ways – what I could think and feel. And yet metalheads did not seem to care. They were proudly and unabashedly not doing what was expected of them. This was a freedom I couldn’t understand. And they seemed to have purpose – metal mattered to them. I did not believe in anything so strongly.
Though, while I was reveling in my mainstream “normality,” I did dip my toe into albums like Quiet Riot’s Metal Health, Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry, Scorpion’s Blackout and Def Leppard’s Pyromania and felt a growing affinity for loud aggressive music. And then I heard heavy metal pioneer Led Zeppelin and my world changed. That was when I began a ritual of locking my door, blasting my music and playing air guitar with my street hockey stick or singing into a hair brush (I used to have hair).
I would not admit it – but what I was doing was headbanging. And what was most notable about those moments was how free, how expressive I felt. It was my own little world where all of the pressures, expectations and criticisms I felt in the “real” world went away. I was alone with the music I loved. It mattered.
Then, in my early thirties something shifted. I moved to New York City. I wasn’t happy in my career. Most of my friends had gotten married and were starting families. I didn’t feel comfortable at events where I was the only adult who was single and I started to wonder if I’d always be. I was wearing black all of the time. And there was an emptiness to my days – I wasn’t particularly purposeful or passionate about anything. I started to feel disconnected – from myself, from the world. I felt like I was becoming different — kind of like the metalheads I had previously shunned.
Then one night, after seeing a cover band play at a bar, I was overcome by imagining how cool it would feel to actually sing in a band rather than into my hairbrush. I confessed to my friends my wish to sing in a band just once and they reacted by buying me a singing lesson for my birthday. I took a few lessons – they were terrifying and embarrassing. But my desire to experience how it felt to sing in a band would not die so I decided to take the plunge and try out for a band. I responded to an ad for an “alternative rock” singer on Craigslist and went to an audition.
I was disturbed to realize, when I arrived at the audition, that the musicians not only knew how to play but they knew each other. The bass player, Tay Malloy, who was starting the band, told me that they would start jamming and I should start singing when I wanted. I was confused – I thought we’d at least try a song I knew. They played for a while and I just stood there. I felt like an outsider and a fraud. I didn’t belong in this world. All of those feelings — being empty, different, shunned — bubbled over to the point where I almost started to cry. And then out of nowhere there was a release — I started screaming into the microphone. I’m not sure they were even words – just sounds.
The next day I thanked Tay for letting me try out. We talked on the phone and he said, “We were going to do an alternative band, but with your voice maybe we should try a thrash or hardcore sound.” I didn’t know what those words meant. Tay grew up in New York City’s Alphabet City as both a hardcore kid and heavy metal kid. He’d go to hardcore punk matinees at CBGBs on Sundays and then head out to Brooklyn to L’amour to see metal. He introduced me to the world of thrash metal and hardcore punk. We became friends and eventually started a band. We went through a few lineups and would play all around New York City’s underground – The Continental, Kenny’s Castaways, Knitting Factory, CBGBs, The Delancey. Ultimately, we found drummer Milton Hernandez and guitarist Mike Fujii and formed our band Odd Zero.
My whole world changed. I was enthralled with being in an underground band. I learned about the DIY world of hardcore and metal from books like American Hardcore. This was a world of purpose and passion – of people who defied conventional norms to be who they wanted to be and build a culture they wanted. My whole life became animated. There was never a wasted moment. I always wanted to be writing a song, practicing with the band, booking shows, making fliers for shows, sending our CDs for review or radio play. We were a local band – but it felt like the whole world had opened up.
What was most noticeable was how my world reacted. It seemed like the everyone I knew split into two camps. One was supportive — excited for me to do something new and different. They could see I was energized. Others were somewhere between disgusted and outraged by what they saw – me dressed all in black, thrashing around on the stage, screaming bloody murder. Why was I defying the norms to which I had previously adhered? It was then that I realized that I had become the person that a younger me would have scorned or ignored. But every time we played a show, I met more and more metalheads and punk rockers – and they were the ones who were supportive, excited for our band. They talked about creative ideas and plans. I knew I wanted to be a part of this world.
I’m not sure what’s next for me on my heavy metal journey. I know that underground cultures like Heavy Metal, Hardcore Punk and Hip Hop have had a huge impact on me and the philosophy and practice of our Hardcore Humanism program. I realize the value of helping people break free of expectations, finding their purpose and working towards it. I take every opportunity to interview people in the metal world like Dee and I never stop learning from the metal community. I feel a kinship with people who want to see the world differently and who want to pursue what fills them with purpose.
So, when Snider tells me that “Metal is alive and well,” I know he’s right as I now revel in my kinship with fellow metalheads.
Because metal is certainly alive and well in me.
Photo by Yasmeen Anderson
