Heavy Metal Pt I

Some of the most talented musicians in the world play heavy metal, some of the hardest-hitting music ever made. In this episode Chuck and Josh wade into the history of the genre, and try to get to the bottom of where the name came from. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:10Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:21Josh Clark?

  And welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. It's just the two of us. And I think we should greet all the metalheads listening by saying, shwing.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Wow, you ready for this one, huh?

• 1:36Josh Clark?

  I am, I'm pretty psyched. I'm not going to lie, I haven't been this nervous since maybe we did soccer.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree. I mean, we might as well issue the cover, the COA for the entire two parter. We're gonna miss a lot. This is about heavy metal. And anytime you're doing a big genre like this, it's really hard to satisfy everybody. So we will not name specifically your favorite band, most likely.

• 2:07Josh Clark?

  I mean, yeah, there's a pretty good chance. And we are also probably going to walk by some amazing fact.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:14Josh Clark?

  Don't call us stupid when you email in to tell us, just tell us, be like, guys, get this.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:20Josh Clark?

  That's the kind of email we like to get.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  That's the kind of email that gets read on the air. It's like, hey, I know you can't get to everything, but you missed this kind of really cool thing. Let me tell you about it.

• 2:29Josh Clark?

  Way to use a carrot rather than a stick, Chuck.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  So it is just really intimidating. I agree because

• 2:36Speaker 02

  and I want to chat just at the jump here about our metalness because I am not a metalhead.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  My metal experience is largely from high school as a Gen Xer in the eighties. Hair metal, so.

• 2:53Josh Clark?

  Same here, buddy.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Okay, that's good. So my, my top five metal bands.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  And I've gotten since into like Black Sabbath and stuff like that a little bit more. But my top five metal bands look like this, and that tells you a lot about what kind of metal fan I am. Sabbath, number one, Ozzy, number two.

• 3:09Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Motley Crue. Then Rat and then The Scorpions.

• 3:14Josh Clark?

  Oh, really? Rat, huh? They were pretty good.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Rat's awesome.

• 3:18Josh Clark?

  The Scorpions were good, too. That whole Winds of Change thing. Man, that's a stirring song.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's probably my least favorite, but I, those are the bands that I love. I listen on, you know, I got, sometimes you get a free Sirius XM couple of weeks or whatever.

• 3:33Josh Clark?

  Lucky.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  I got very addicted to the Hair Nation channel.

• 3:38Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, man, that stuff still plays really well.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  It does. I love it. And I even like all the kind of corny stuff from then, like put on that White Lion song and watch, watch me go to town.

• 3:48Josh Clark?

  That song Wait?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love that song.

• 3:51Josh Clark?

  That is good. Yeah, I know all those songs, too. I would even take a little further and say I like Dokken.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:58Josh Clark?

  I want to make a joke about liking Winger, but there are some Winger songs that I kind of liked. But like far and away, and I will, I will die on this hill, the best hair metal band of all time was Poison. I mean, no questions asked.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Would you say Poison?

• 4:15Josh Clark?

  Poison.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  You know what's funny? Go ahead. No, you tell me why and then I'll tell you what's funny.

• 4:22Josh Clark?

  Okay, fair enough. So the reason why I say Poison is the best hair metal band of all time is because they were highly talented, but they were also totally in on the cheesiness of the whole thing, too.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  You think?

• 4:35Josh Clark?

  They did not take themselves too seriously.

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:37Josh Clark?

  You can make an argument that every rose has its thorns, pretty, meant pretty seriously.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:42Josh Clark?

  But I mean, like, I want action tonight.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:45Josh Clark?

  Um, nothing but a good time. Like, those dudes were not, like, trying to be serious. There was no shout at the devil or anything like that.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 4:51Josh Clark?

  They were just partying.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean.

• 4:54Josh Clark?

  And they were the perfect hair metal band to me.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  You can't write a song called Unskinny Bop, uh, and claim to be like a serious band.

• 5:04Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  That's a good point. Uh, like gasoline, you wanna pump me?

• 5:10Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. Okay, so what was funny about that?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  What was funny is, is, uh, at some point, we're gonna talk about, you know, how sort of white male most metal is. And Livia, who helped us with this, um, you know, was able to source some, some women in metal, including full bands, and she didn't find Vixen. I was like, wait a minute, there was Vixen. And then I typed in to Google search, uh, female heavy metal or hair metal bands, and it said Vixen and Poison.

• 5:40Josh Clark?

  That's hilarious. You got that one wrong, AI.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was pretty funny. Uh, what are your top five? Do you have a working top five and not the joke that you sent me via text?

• 5:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Um, so mine's actually changed in the last couple of days, I have to say.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 5:57Josh Clark?

  It used to be Time Was, and I listened to most of my metal in like eighth, ninth grade.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 6:02Josh Clark?

  Probably around the same time you did. Um, I, uh, was like Metallica just unquestionably is my number one metal band.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 6:10Josh Clark?

  I, I think, and Justice for All is maybe the perfect metal album.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I liked that early stuff. I liked Ride the Lightning and Master Puppets. That was good.

• 6:18Josh Clark?

  I do too, but I didn't like those until I was old. Actually, within the last several years, I started listening to those two. I was like, damn, these are really good, too.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:26Josh Clark?

  It's just different. It's way less produced.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:28Josh Clark?

  It's way more, you know, like, it's just more thrash, right?

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:32Josh Clark?

  But so that kind of goes to show you my taste like I like Metallica's their most produced good album.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:40Josh Clark?

  So that's, that's their unquestionably my favorite. Black Sabbath is probably number two.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:46Josh Clark?

  Or a close at their heels, nipping at their heels is Poison.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:51Josh Clark?

  I really like Helmet, which is an alt metal band from the 90s.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  Oh, I love Helmet.

• 6:56Josh Clark?

  Okay, Helmet was great.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess. I didn't really think about alt metal, but sure.

• 7:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I'm having to include them. This is, I think, kind of a revelation. Like, I'm, I'm having to include alt metal here, right?

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:08Josh Clark?

  And then I can't, maybe Anthrax would probably be number five, right? Especially in eighth grade, I loved Anthrax.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  So not Iron Maiden, that surprises me.

• 7:15Josh Clark?

  Oh, God, why did I do that?

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 7:18Josh Clark?

  Yes, Iron Maiden. I'm sorry. You're right, Chuck. Thank you. I was even going through my, um, my Apple Music folder just to look, just to refresh myself. I've got like five Iron Maiden albums in there too. So I'm not sure how they got left out. Let's say Maiden's number two then.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Okay. That's great. Uh, I have been listening to Iron Maiden lately. Uh, you know, I was an MTV kid, so I know that was my big influence. So I know the Iron Maiden songs that had big videos. But I never really dove in. Um, and kind of the same with Judas Priest, even though I have gotten way more into them lately. And, uh, I think I mentioned I'm going to actually see them later this year. And that was the other thing is like, I was way more into other music, like in the eighth, the ninth and 10th grade, that's when I was really started listening to like NXS and The Smiths and R E M and The Cure.

• 8:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, same.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  So that was my jam. But like, if you were an MTV kid and a radio kid, like you, you kind of listened to all that stuff. But I wasn't the one going to see those, you know, I never saw Ozzy live and stuff like that. Like those, those kids in my high school kind of scared me.

• 8:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well, they could be kind of scary. I think that's one of the reasons they were into it for sure.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:28Josh Clark?

  So just to update my list, though.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:31Josh Clark?

  Metallica's still number one.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:34Josh Clark?

  Black Sabbath, or sorry, Iron Maiden is still number two. Sabbath is in there somewhere, but there's a couple of new bands that I'm like, these guys are really good. Gojira, which is a French, I think they like, they transcend a bunch of different subgenres. So let's just say they're a French metal band and they're very good. They actually played at the Summer Olympic opening ceremonies.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 8:53Josh Clark?

  You remember the dudes who were like thrashing when, like standing on the building? That's Gojira.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:59Josh Clark?

  I really like Godflesh. I don't know how I miss them because I was into industrial in high school, too.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  They're very heavy.

• 9:05Josh Clark?

  Industrial metal. I love them, right?

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:07Josh Clark?

  And then I'm really now into High on Fire. Have you heard of them?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  I've heard of them, but I don't know anything about it.

• 9:15Josh Clark?

  They're amazing. I like everything I've heard of them and they're playing in Baltimore in mid-August.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 9:22Josh Clark?

  You, me and I are seriously considering things. Are you gonna go? Maybe. I like them that much now. Yeah.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  You're just, you're being coy because you don't want all the High on Fire people to be like, where's Josh?

• 9:33Josh Clark?

  All right, let's get down to business, shall we?

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like I said, Livia helped us out with this and so she starts off with the definition from the Encyclopedia Britannica, which, you know, is kind of silly, but sometimes we do that because like, it's kind of hard to define metal, as we'll see. And I have a lot of nitpicks with a lot of these bands that I don't consider metal that are in this material, but.

• 9:56Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah? A lot of them? I mean, there are a few, but a lot?

• 9:59Speaker 02

  We'll see as we go.

• 10:00Josh Clark?

  Okay, all right.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Maybe just keep a timer or a dinger or something.

• 10:04Josh Clark?

  A clicker?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  A clicker. Yeah, there you go.

• 10:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  But Britannica says it's a, it's a genre that includes a group of related styles that are intense, virtuistic and powerful, and includes distorted electric guitar. The virtuistic really rings to me because one thing, like there's no metal band that doesn't have a great guitar player, maybe two, maybe three.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  You know?

• 10:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, no, I agree. And are you taking a shot at me with the maybe three part?

• 10:34Speaker 02

  No, not taking a shot like Iron Maiden has three.

• 10:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they have three guitarists, man, and you can hear it.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:41Josh Clark?

  You can totally tell like, yeah, Maiden is pretty great. We'll talk a little more about Maiden in depth in a second, right? But I think you just kind of laid it out there like there's that's as that's as tight a definition as you can really kind of corral all of metal into just because it's there's so much varied stuff. It's like a really fractured genre of music.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:02Josh Clark?

  There's subgenres of subgenres.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:05Josh Clark?

  And there's probably subgenres of subgenres of subgenres. Like, that's how niche some of this stuff is. Like, if the average person came along and listened to, you know, some similar subgenres or closely related subgenres, they would not be able to tell the difference. Some of the subgenres like are pretty different and the average person could tell the difference. But when it gets super niche, you really have to be a fan to be able to be like, oh, no, this is this is technical thrash.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:33Josh Clark?

  Death core, you know?

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh, there is another little bit from the Grammys because now the Grammys has awards for this kind of thing. Uh, where they mentioned dark lyrics that may focus on social issues or fantasy and myth.

• 11:46Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Um, that's kind of important because I I found when I was nitpicking. So and these are just, this is just Chuck's dumb opinion, but sometimes the difference was very small as far as like, you know, all the trappings of metal. But I still don't consider it metal because maybe a very nitpicky reason.

• 12:04Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Uh, but you know, if you're if you're singing and it's heavy guitar and you're singing about Lord of the Rings, chances are you're heavy metal. Except Led Zeppelin to me is not heavy metal. They're they're hard rock as far as I'm concerned.

• 12:19Josh Clark?

  No, Led Zeppelin is always has always said like, we're not heavy metal. We never have been. We're like blues rock, hard rock, maybe heavy rock. I don't know. But they've always said we're not heavy metal, even though like most metal historians will point to them at least to some degree as one of the the founders or progenitors of heavy metal for sure.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, I also want to point out the Grammys missed something. They said that when they were focusing on the lyrics, dark lyrics that may focus on social issues or fantasy and myth, they forgot, uh, or girls, girls, girls.

• 12:49Josh Clark?

  Right, for sure.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Because hair metal, not a lot of social issues, not a lot of fantasy, not a lot of myth. That was a, that was a specific period in the eighties where they were mostly singing about girls and sometimes in a very gross way.

• 13:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's definitely, the world's definitely evolved past the hair metal view of the world.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:10Josh Clark?

  For sure. Still fun. Poison still just wants nothing but a good time, everybody.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:17Josh Clark?

  So, um, we did talk about Led Zeppelin. There's actually what's known as the unholy trinity of hard rock and Led Zeppelin's considered one of them.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, agreed.

• 13:25Josh Clark?

  Um, and yes, no one's going to say like, I don't know, they're not hard rock. It's just, are they, are they heavy metal or were they just help, helpful in laying the groundwork for heavy metal? And like you said, one of the things that Led Zeppelin did, they were singing about Lord of the Rings before, you know, before Orlando Bloom was even born.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah. I mean, there's a guy that Libya found named Jack Mannan of the Metal Hall of Fame who said that, you know, they have lyrics related to the occult, uh, high fantasy, like Lord of the Rings, uh, war, distorted guitar, a loud, long haired, uh, you know, great lead singer. And like, again, all those things is, is fair, are fairly metal, but I just, I don't know, there's something about it. They're just more hard blues rock to me.

• 14:10Josh Clark?

  For sure. And a lot of other groups from the sixties, you would kind of lump Led Zeppelin in with because they were all starting to experiment with really distortion heavy guitar.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:20Josh Clark?

  But they were blues rock for sure. Like Cream, the Yardbirds, which actually like gave birth to Led Zeppelin, it turns out.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:28Josh Clark?

  Jimi Hendrix was another one.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:31Josh Clark?

  Uh, he has a metal tie in though. Um, Lemmy Kilmeister was a roadie for Jimi Hendrix before he went on to found the band Motorhead.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  I was today years old. Did not know that.

• 14:42Josh Clark?

  Isn't that a great little fact?

• 14:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's really great.

• 14:44Josh Clark?

  Man, can you imagine those two together on acid?

• 14:48Speaker 02

  Uh, yes.

• 14:50Josh Clark?

  Actually, I can do.

• 14:51Speaker 02

  Deep Purple is the second of the unholy trinity of rock. They were formed in 1968.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  But again, a little more like prog rock to me.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  I think by their fourth album, which was Deep Purple in Rock, is when they replaced their singer with a guy named Ian Gillan and their bassist with a guy named Roger Glover.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  They got a little heavier then, but you know, they're, they might be classified as proto-metal because of their guitar player Richie Blackmore, who was a legend. He went over to be, he went on to be the, to form the band Rainbow, which was definitely metal.

• 15:28Josh Clark?

  Is it? I've seen people say, no, it's definitely hard rock. Cause I, I was like, no, this sounds a lot like metal to me. I like them.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  I thought Rainbow was metal, but again, these are just our nitpicking definitions.

• 15:39Josh Clark?

  But that's a good, I mean, that's a good point. That's a good demonstration. Like you can really get metal fans arguing by just saying confidently like, no, Rainbow's metal. People will start arguing with you for sure.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then Sabbath comes along and to me, they're very much sort of the birth of metal. And I think a lot of that has to do, like the difference between them and Led Zeppelin to me, even though there are a lot of similarities is Ozzy's voice was just, he had a very sinister, kind of creepy sounding voice and their music just sounded more sinister than Led Zeppelin.

• 16:11Josh Clark?

  And that just sounded like they were, like the stuff they sang about.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:15Josh Clark?

  Especially today, you're like, yeah, that's metal. But when you look back at what the, the time they were coming out of, we're talking like the free love hippie 60s. They came right out of that. And so a lot of people point to Black Sabbath, not just as like the birth of heavy metal, but the end of the 60s, like the, the thing that said like, hey, we're going in a much different direction. And it, it's not nearly as pleasant and colorful as you guys have been taking things.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Of course, we're talking about the dearly departed, recently departed Ozzy Osbourne.

• 16:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, R I P Ozzy.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  R I P. Tony Iommi, guitar player. Geezer Butler was a bassist and Bill Ward on drums. And they were originally a blues band called Earth Blues Company. Eventually you become Earth, only Earth. They're from Birmingham, England. As you'll see, that'll be a recurring motif here.

• 17:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  And the name Black Sabbath came from the fact that it sounds like Geezer Butler. Again, their bass player had a sleep paralysis.

• 17:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it does sound like that, doesn't it?

• 17:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. What happened?

• 17:20Josh Clark?

  He dreamt that there was a dark figure standing at the foot of his bed. And so he wrote a song. They named it, um, he wrote a song about that and they named it Black Sabbath. And Black Sabbath is taken from a Boris Karloff movie about a talking boat that wins a regatta for a group of orphans. Boris Karloff does the voice of the boat. And they ended up having to change their name. Because some other band was like, hey, man, we're Earth. And then I'm sure another band was like, no, we're Earth. And then it just kept going on from there. Either way, Sabbath saw the writing on the wall. So they were like, well, our, our favorite song in the song that everybody likes the most is Black Sabbath. Let's just call ourselves that. So their debut album was Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath.

• 18:04Josh Clark?

  Featuring the song Black Sabbath. They were one of those.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  That's right. Uh, and they, you know, I'm going to sort of pepper in some, you know, Rolling Stone ticket for what it's worth. But they have a list of their top 100 metal bands and fun fact, uh, either Ozzy or Sabbath, or I'm sorry, metal albums. Uh, either Ozzy or Sabbath have four of the top 15. Not bad.

• 18:25Josh Clark?

  Not bad at all. No, Ozzy's definitely a metal god, which is interesting because Black Sabbath as a band, just like Led Zeppelin, it said, we're, we're not heavy metal or we weren't heavy metal.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:37Josh Clark?

  It's not what we were. And again, most people are like, you, you are, sorry to inform you, you were definitely metal.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:43Josh Clark?

  But apparently Rob Halford, the, um, lead singer Judas Priest.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:47Josh Clark?

  He, I guess he was on WTF with Marc Maron at some point. And he said, hey, Sabbath has always said like, we weren't the first metal band. Well, Judas Priest was founded the same year.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:57Josh Clark?

  So we'll, we'll gladly take that title as the first metal band. And you can make a pretty good case. If, if Sabbath says no, give it to Judas Priest.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't think I realized they formed at the same time. Uh, that's interesting. And, and I also think. Ozzy's post Sabbath career is just Ozzy Osbourne was as metal as metal gets. So there may be a little bit of like, kind of joining those two things together.

• 19:22Josh Clark?

  That's possible. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Had he gone like the way of George Benson or Chuck Mangione. People might leave, might leave, uh, oh, yeah, that's right. Wow. They're just popping up all over the place or doing the opposite of that, I guess.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're popping there. Yeah. Laying, laying down.

• 19:39Josh Clark?

  Right. So most people though, say they'll give Black Sabbath a pass on their first debut, their debut album. Say like, okay, that was kind of bluesy and it is, but it's still pretty metal-y. But they're like, your second album Paranoid, sorry, that is definitely metal. War Pigs is about as metal as metal gets still to this day.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, Paranoid is ranked as the number one metal album of all time by Rolling Stone. So there you go.

• 20:04Josh Clark?

  Well, then there's no arguing with that.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Uh, I agree, and I think we should take a break and maybe come back and talk about a very unfortunate kind of legendary incident that happened to Black Sabbath early in their career. Right after this.

• 20:35Josh Clark?

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• 22:05Josh Clark?

  That includes Field Services Manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 22:11Speaker 04

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 22:20Speaker 04

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 22:28Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 22:32Speaker 05

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. The holidays are coming up, so let us throw this out there. Are you prepared to host friends or family? Like, really prepared? Because there's a difference between having people stay at your house and properly hosting them.

• 22:49Josh Clark?

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• 23:03Speaker 02

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• 23:12Josh Clark?

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• 23:24Speaker 02

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• 23:48Speaker 02

  All right, so we're back with part two of six of the heavy metal duology. And I promised a little bit of talk about a famous incident, a very sad one, involving Black Sabbath early in their career. And that is when Tony Iommi, their brilliant left-handed guitar player, was a teenager. He worked at a steel mill in Birmingham, England. He was on his last shift. Apparently, he was heading out on tour with the band. And he came home on a lunch break and almost didn't even go back. And his mom said, "Get your butt back there. You gotta finish your job, boy." And he went, "Okay, Mom."

• 24:28Speaker 02

  And he went back and proceeded to lose the ends of his middle finger and ring finger on his right hand. But remember, he's a left-handed guitar player. So if it was the other way around, he could still hold the pick and probably be okay. But this is the hand that is on the neck. So he was missing a large portions of his digits that make that pretty vital.

• 24:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I also read that this was the first time he used a metal press because the guy who normally did it was out. And so they had Tony Iommi cover his shift for the first time ever. Like, last shift ever before he goes out on tour. Like, that's just crazy that that happened. But that was actually a gift to metal in a lot of ways because he had to basically adapt. Apparently Django Reinhardt lost like some fingers or a hand or something crazy like that.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  It was a fire that basically he only had use of two fingers on his fretting hand.

• 25:27Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, somebody told that story to Tony Iommi and it inspired him to just get back in there. He made prosthetics himself for his fingers. Apparently, they worked so-so. So instead, he had to adapt by, he loosened the strings by down tuning. So everything had a deeper, like heavier sound to it, the same notes that standard tuning would produce. They had a deeper sound. He wasn't necessarily doing it for the deeper sound. He was doing it because the looser strings were easier for him to bend with what he had left of his fingers. That was a huge development that came out of the loss of those fingertips.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Also, he switched to lighter strings. He couldn't play as fast. So that's why Black Sabbath has that terrific, just sort of... Grungy slog and it's not like that kind of fast metal. It's because Tony, you know, he, like you said, he made these things out of wax and leather. And if he played fast enough, they would fly off his finger. And so he had to kind of slow it down. And that's why they had that sort of deep sludgy grind.

• 26:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, one of the other things I love about Sabbath too, is they like their studio albums contain like mess ups, like blatant mess ups, like they'll just like miss the beat on drums or something like that. Once in a while, and they just kept going and released it on the album. I love that about them.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  I listened right before we recorded, I have the 180 gram versions of their, their debut, which has the most terrifying album cover of all time to me.

• 26:57Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah?

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Oh, I think so. And Masters of, or I think Master of Reality or is it Masters? I can't remember. And then I ordered, I realized I didn't even have Paranoid, so I ordered that.

• 27:08Josh Clark?

  Oh, really?

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Stat.

• 27:10Josh Clark?

  Nice work, Chuck.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's, that's something, we'll talk a little more about album art later, but that's definitely something that's missing in the, the day and age of like listening to stuff digitally.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:24Josh Clark?

  You don't have that record album to like look at while you're listening. And that's like part of the experience, right? But I will say that I noticed recently, I was listening to Somewhere in Time, Iron Maiden album, and the album art on my iPhone moves now. So Eddie, like they, they show him like shooting the guy who's like just out of frame. You just see his hand, his eyes light up, like it's really cool. It's worth downloading the album just to see that alone, let alone for the music. So I'm glad that that developed, but it's still not quite the same as holding like a record album, like cover and looking at it.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. The seventies also included, of course, Judas Priest, as you mentioned. Iron Maiden started in 1975 with a different lead singer. That's if you're not super into Iron Maiden and you just kind of remember the eighties music videos with the, the great Bruce Dickinson up front. Their first two records, Killers and, and just, I think it was self titled, right?

• 28:23Josh Clark?

  Uh, yeah, Iron Maiden and then Killers and they were both, it was Paul, Paul Diano was their first lead singer.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  I like those records.

• 28:30Josh Clark?

  Let's talk a little bit about Maiden right now. You want to?

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. You want to get into it?

• 28:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because it's really pretty much impossible to overstate the influence that Iron Maiden had on

• 28:41Speaker 02

  You.

• 28:41Josh Clark?

  Metal. You know?

• 28:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I agree.

• 28:46Josh Clark?

  Like, if you, if you ask some of the people who make up the big four of thrash bands, um, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax, they're, they're basically like, we wouldn't, we wouldn't exist if it weren't for Iron Maiden. Like, we loved Maiden so much, we decided to form our own band. We were inspired to form our own band. And it just keeps going down the line, band after band after band. Started out loving Iron Maiden. It's such a great entree.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:12Josh Clark?

  Into heavy metal music because it's so listenable.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 29:16Josh Clark?

  It's melodic. The lyrics are really interesting. Like, the themes of the songs are really varied. And I was evidence of this. The poster art alone can get you into Iron Maiden. Like, I had my room covered in Iron Maiden posters before I listened to them at all.

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we should talk about that for a second. Then their mascot is Eddie. If you've ever seen an Iron Maiden album cover or poster or live video where they have big, you know, giant Eddie walking around and stuff, like a puppet, I guess. He's their mascot and he was drawn by a guy named Derek Riggs. And he was, originally he was called Eddie the Head and then just the Head. But in their British accent, the Ed, they like dropped their H's.

• 30:01Josh Clark?

  Oh, is that right?

• 30:01Speaker 02

  It just became Ed, then Eddie is how they eventually wound up with Eddie.

• 30:05Josh Clark?

  Very nice. And he's been on every single of the, the 17 albums that they've released. Most of the singles, apparently not all, I don't know why, but he's usually kind of like altered to represent whatever that, that particular album is about, right?

• 30:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Um, like, uh, he was a inmate in a, in a mental institution for peace of mind. Uh, I do love the cover of Power Slave when he's, he's a pharaoh in the, in the desert. Pretty cool.

• 30:34Josh Clark?

  Apparently when they toured that, um, that album, they had like a 30 foot. Like actual build of that as the backdrop for their stage show.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Of course they did. Why would you not?

• 30:46Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  You know?

• 30:47Josh Clark?

  But yeah, Eddie was boss, just Eddie alone. And he's a good example of why the loss of like an album cover is really like a big deal because, man, it doesn't get any better than Iron Maiden album covers.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  No, agreed. They came out in 1975 and, believe it or not, Def Leppard was also debuting along with Motorhead and they were grouped together as what's called the new wave of British heavy metal. And that was sort of happening concurrently with the punk scene, which is interesting because punk and metal to me are very different, but there are some sort of tendrils that work through both of those kinds of music.

• 31:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And that's where those first two albums definitely, they were definitely influenced. Paul Deanna was definitely influenced by punk. So it was a lot more, it was a lot closer to hardcore than the albums that Bruce Dickinson helmed, starting with their third album, Number of the Beast, which is when the band just broke through and became metal gods. That was back in 1982.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, Dickinson brought that sort of operatic flourish, the theatrical, like some of his, I was listening today and sometimes he literally goes like, "from" and that kind of thing, which is like, you gotta love it. He really leaned into it.

• 31:58Josh Clark?

  For sure. And like, I don't know how, like, I'm not such a fan that I know who actually writes the songs. I've always presumed Bruce Dickinson did, but usually it turns out to be like the guitarist or something like that. But their songs are really, really interesting and they're really varied. Like they cover history a lot. Like there's a song about World War II pilots called Aces High.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:23Josh Clark?

  There's a song about Alexander the Great, about Europeans and Americans overrunning Native Americans in North America. Run to the Hills, that's on Number of the Beast 2.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Great song.

• 32:36Josh Clark?

  They have some really like uplifting, encouraging messages in their songs, like Can I Play With Madness and Wasted Years. They even have a song about the loneliness of a long distance runner. And that's what it's about.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:49Josh Clark?

  And it's really, it's a great song. Like they, they, they, they follow the pace and like the slow down and then the speed up again, once he gets a second wind, like.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 32:58Josh Clark?

  It's a really well done song, but it's about a long distance runner, running a marathon by himself.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, one of the things I haven't gotten around to yet in my recent documentary binge is I know there's a really good Iron Maiden documentary that came out, I think, last year or semi recently, and I haven't checked that out yet, but that's on the list like even higher now.

• 33:18Josh Clark?

  Sure. And if you're like, well, okay, how big is Iron Maiden? Well, we've got a few stats for you. One, Chuck, back in 2012, the Queen's 60-year jubilee,

• 33:31Josh Clark?

  the UK held some polls to say like, to figure out what the best of the best was of the last 60 years. The best British record album of the last 60 years voted by citizens of the UK was Number of the Beast, Iron Maiden.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  So just best record?

• 33:49Josh Clark?

  The best record. The Beatles were from Britain, don't forget. All of those guys who were the progenitors of heavy metal were from Britain. Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast was voted the number one record in the last 60 years in Great Britain.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  All right, here's my statement on that.

• 34:06Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  I don't doubt you. I just want to know a little bit more about the robustness of this poll. And like, who was polled?

• 34:15Josh Clark?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  It's shocking to me that that would be number one over like The Stones or The Beatles or Led Zeppelin, or just bands that were just way, way, way more popular.

• 34:24Josh Clark?

  I totally get you, and I triple check that to make sure that that was not just like some misinformed fan.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Hey, I just want to see the, I want to see where they took this poll, like how it was done. That's what I want to know.

• 34:37Josh Clark?

  But they, they got almost 10% of the vote, so it's pretty good.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  You're like, it was in the parking lot of an Iron Maiden show.

• 34:47Josh Clark?

  So they've also sold 130 million copies of their 17 albums. Not bad. Even Lady Gaga is a fan, right?

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think she was knocked out by their fandom or standum because she was like, what I see in an Iron Maiden's fanbase is what I want for myself. Like, they are so wholly dedicated, and that's something.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  I think that's true for a lot of metal bands, but they seem to be even more so than a lot of metal bands.

• 35:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And I mean, like worldwide, if you go to South America, they can fill a stadium every night for a month. Like, people around the world love Iron Maiden. I just think it's great because they're a great band. There's not a bunch of controversy. They're not like preoccupied with like bringing the full, the full power of Satan to bear on his nonbelievers. Like, they're just, actually, a lot of their stuff is pretty encouraging, at the very least, super interesting. So they're, they like, they're just a good band to be beloved worldwide, I think.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Totally agree. I still think I'm Judas Priest more. I was listening to British Steel today, and they're both great. They're kind of side by side for me, actually.

• 35:58Josh Clark?

  Okay. I have to like add to my original top five, maybe even current top five. I really like Motorhead a lot. I don't own a Motorhead t-shirt. I really haven't heard much beyond their Ace of Spades album, but I love what I hear of Motorhead. I like their whole jam. They're another band that said, like, we're not heavy metal.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. But they, they were kind of the progenitors of speed metal, I think, in a lot of ways. You know, the Scorpions came out in 65 in Hanover. I know I've recommended The Sales of Sharon as a very amazing YouTube thing to go watch if you want to see some pre 80s Scorpions. Def Leppard came out in 77. See, this is where Olivia has a couple listed, like Van Halen and Blue Oyster Cult and Aerosmith and AC/DC, that I don't think any of those bands are metal.

• 36:46Josh Clark?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't think Van Halen is metal?

• 36:50Speaker 02

  Not at all.

• 36:52Josh Clark?

  Oh, I disagree with you.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think they're not metal at all.

• 36:56Josh Clark?

  All right. I'm gonna say that I think that they qualify as metal.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Interesting. Have you ever heard David Lee Roth?

• 37:05Josh Clark?

  I have. I have. I'm very well aware.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Ice Cream Man?

• 37:10Josh Clark?

  Yes, I know that they have other stuff, but I'm saying like, I think they're like the stuff that sounds like metal is metal.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  I don't think it sounds like metal at all. I just think they're a rock band.

• 37:20Josh Clark?

  Have you heard Panama?

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, that didn't sound metal to me at all.

• 37:24Josh Clark?

  I know, I'm just kidding.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:26Josh Clark?

  I can't think of a single metal song of theirs. I think it's mostly just Eddie Van Halen's playing that I'm like, that's metal, man.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  Oh, see, not to me. That's just virtuosic, right? Uh, rock guitar lead to me. I mean, and also just, you know, they didn't sing about those things. There was no darkness. There was no, you know, the way they dressed, like Eddie Van Halen wore overalls on stage.

• 37:53Josh Clark?

  Hey, Randy Rhoads wore a polka dot, um, like Chippendales vest. So let's not get into that.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  All right. So anyway, just my opinion. I knew this was gonna be fun.

• 38:05Josh Clark?

  Mine too.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  But let's talk about just the, I mean, I guess this is a nice segue into the words heavy metal, because like I said, people can nitpick this stuff to death, what heavy rock was, or when it transitioned into metal. Um, there's a sociologist named Dina Weinstein that, uh, Livia found that, um, tried to kind of root out the origins of the literal phrase, heavy metal. Uh, it was in Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf, uh, you know, heavy metal thunder, but that wasn't talking about music. That was talking about cars and stuff.

• 38:39Josh Clark?

  Right. I, I, I don't know. It could have, it could have influenced it to some degree or whatever, but it doesn't seem like the direct answer.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:47Josh Clark?

  If you ask me. William S. Burroughs apparently puts up a pretty good argument for the guy who coined heavy metal, or at least, um, put it out there and that it was adopted to eventually describe that genre of music. It's not at all what he was doing. He had a character, um, from his Nova trilogy called Uranium Willie, the heavy metal kid. Okay. I don't know enough about William S. Burroughs writing to know if like Uranium Willie was like metal in like the metal sense.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:16Josh Clark?

  But he also had a drug called heavy metal that appeared in some of his other works, not Naked Lunch, but in other works. That to me makes a, you can make a pretty good argument that I would, I would buy, that that ultimately maybe led to the use of heavy metal to describe heavy metal.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think both of those things had put it out into this public consciousness as two words that can be said together.

• 39:42Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Uh, but for my money, you gotta go with Lester Bangs. Uh, this was in 1970 and I think he was running for Rolling Stone at the time, but the legendary rock critic and writer, uh, in one of his reviews in 1970 said, he was complaining, it was a negative thing. He said, all the heavy metal robots of years past, of the year past, when he was talking about the albums of 1970, he was talking about 1969. And he proceeded, uh, by a few months, a guy named Mike Saunders, eventually known as Metal Mike, uh, who described Humble Pie as a noisy, unmelodic, heavy metal laden, uh, poop rock band.

• 40:21Josh Clark?

  Thank you for changing S to poop.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, but-

• 40:24Josh Clark?

  To preserve the moral purity of our podcast.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  They, they both used the words heavy metal to describe music, I think for the first time in 1970.

• 40:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but they were, yeah, they were negative reviews. Um, that's, that's possible. I think Dina Weinstein says like, that's a real possibility. But she put something out that I thought was pretty interesting, too. She pointed out that a lot of these bands came from Birmingham, England, and Detroit, Michigan, which apparently were very similar at the time. They're very polluted, dirty, industrial, working class cities, and that the fans of heavy metal, um, also hailed from those areas too, or areas like them, um, and that, that they would be familiar with like, the feel of heavy metal. Like the, not the feel, what's the word I'm looking for? The-

• 41:15Speaker 02

  Sensibility?

• 41:17Josh Clark?

  No, more like the, um-

• 41:20Josh Clark?

  Just like what the term can kind of bring to mind. You know what I'm saying? And associating that with music.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:26Josh Clark?

  Somebody from, you know, super nice town, USA, whose experience with metal is the nails holding their white picket fence together. They might not be able to be like, yeah, heavy metal really describes this music. But the kids in Detroit and Birmingham probably could. And I thought that was an interesting point.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Oh geez, look at where we are. Why don't we take another break?

• 41:48Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  And we'll come back and talk about how the genre started to grow and sort of split into subgenres right after this.

• 41:55Josh Clark?

  This is gonna be fun.

• 42:14Josh Clark?

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• 42:36Josh Clark?

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• 43:17Josh Clark?

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• 43:50Josh Clark?

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• 44:37Josh Clark?

  Okay Chuck, so the early 70s, or the mid 70s to early 80s, gave us the British wave, the new British wave of heavy metal, right? Laid the foundation, you would call most of that just heavy metal. Like, it's just so classic, they don't even fit into subgenres. They just gave the world heavy metal. From that point, it just started to split. And one of the ways that it started to split was by spreading. And it didn't spread through radio. Radio was afraid of heavy metal almost from the outset. So bands were forced to basically say, "Let's just get out on the road. Let's go to our fans," rather than relying on other people to help boost our popularity.

• 45:17Josh Clark?

  And so touring, and massive tours, became just a part of being a heavy metal band, especially in the early 80s, throughout the 80s. And they would make stage shows that people would talk about for years afterwards. Like, we talked about the Iron Maiden, 1983, Power Slaver, '84 or '85. Power Slave Tour and what their stage show looked like, like that's the kind of stuff they were doing.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. The 80s, of course, that's when hair metal comes onto the scene and that's when I, in MTV, that's when I started getting into it a little bit despite my, you know, early alternative music leanings and also loving like Billy Joel at the time and stuff like that.

• 45:54Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  So I was all over the place, but you know, Rat comes along, Motley Crue comes along, your band Poison, Cinderella, another band that I love. I mean, we could go through them, LA Guns, Whitesnake, Hanoi Rocks, Slaughter, Skid Row, Dokken, Wasp.

• 46:09Josh Clark?

  Warrant.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Warrant, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister. And we have to mention this band because it was kind of the beginnings of some, some really dark metal. And that is a band called Merciful Fate.

• 46:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  From lead singer King Diamond, who would later, after Merciful Fate, I think Merciful Fate was 1980 to 84. And then after that, King Diamond, which is obviously a stage name, went on to form the band King Diamond. And they were very dark, sort of darker metal and used what's known as corpse paint, like the black and white makeup paint on a space.

• 46:44Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  And very influential early, I guess, dark metal.

• 46:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. The other band that typically gets pointed to is the, the basis of death or of death metal in particular is Possessed. They're from San Francisco.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 47:00Josh Clark?

  They released an album called Seven Churches in 1985. That was another one that I was like, where, where was I? What was I doing?

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:07Josh Clark?

  This was right in my wheelhouse. Like, how did I not hear of Possessed? How did I not hear of Venom? Like, I did not, this stuff did not cross my path. And this, it's like actual legit death metal, but it's from 1985. Death metal wouldn't really start to take off until the later 80s, early 90s.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:27Josh Clark?

  And we should just say, death metal is like that, like, you know, the growling, like lyrics that you just can't understand. You have to read the lyrics while you're listening.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:37Josh Clark?

  That is death metal. That's like the key characteristic of death metal that, that anybody could come along and be like, oh, that's different than the other stuff I'm listening to because of this.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And you know, the why you didn't know about it is because you had to know the person who knew about it because it wasn't on the radio. Stuff like that wasn't even on MTV. I mean, maybe. Maybe you might see something like that as a deep cut on Headbanger's Ball later on, hosted by the great Ricky Rockman.

• 48:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  But otherwise, you just had to know the dude who was like, hey, man, have you heard this?

• 48:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And so they gave birth to Morbid Angel Autopsy Cannibal Corpse is a very, very famous death metal band from the late 80s. And it just keeps going on and on and on. Our longtime listener, I think she still listens. I haven't talked to her in a while, Alisa Whitegloves from the band Arch Enemy. She listens, or she used to, but Arch Enemy is a melodic Swedish death metal band.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:38Josh Clark?

  It's just a bunch of subgenres put into one. But if you listen to Alisa sing, she's doing that death metal like guttural singing.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:46Josh Clark?

  It's just part of death metal, no matter what that genre's carved into.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Not fully my thing. I was into a little bit of industrial metal. That came around in the mid 80s. Ministry, of course, is the band that comes to mind from Chicago, who were a little more of a synth pop. They were not what they became for sure early on. But they, they kind of led the way for the industrial music scene in the mid 80s when their 86 album Twitch came out.

• 49:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And that's, that's, I went in that direction toward industrial in addition to new wave stuff. Like, I really liked Nitzer Reb and Me Beat Manifesto, Skinny Puppy. None of those would qualify as metal, but I guess Ministry kind of bridged that, or was the bridge between metal and just straight up industrial. Godflesh, they were another one that was no question industrial metal. And again, go listen to Godflesh's, I guess, first album. Can't remember what it's called, but it's like a black background with a white minimalist kind of face all up in your face.

• 49:54Josh Clark?

  You'll be like, wait, this is metal? And if you listen to it, you'll, you'll say, yes, this is metal. They use a drum machine. And you're like, okay, well, that seems like cheating. No, they use a drum machine because no human being could play drums at this slow a pace and not like fall asleep or die from boredom, right? So they have a really slow tempo, but with traditional.

• 50:16Josh Clark?

  Like distortion and guitars and singing that you would associate with metal and you put it all together and it is really good.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I saw a cool interview with the great Mike Patton of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, one of the greatest singers ever in any genre. And he was singing the praises of God flesh. And I went and listened to a little bit of it and I was like, man, this is like very, very heavy stuff.

• 50:40Josh Clark?

  It is, it is. Oh, it's super, super dark, but they were from Birmingham too. So this is like, so Birmingham is to metal what Manchester was to Britpop.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:50Josh Clark?

  Like it just was this center. And what's crazy is it was a center for a really long time. I think there's still bands coming out of Birmingham that are noteworthy.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. The Grammys got on board in 1989 in all the wrong ways. They introduced the best hard rock slash metal performance and Metallica's Injustice for All very famously lost out to Jethro Tull. They had a comeback album called Crest of a Knave and everybody immediately was like, Grammys, you've never seen more out of touch with what's going on in the world. And so pretty quickly they were like, oh, maybe we'll split the categories. And the next year it was hard rock, a hard rock award and a metal award. But they even messed that up. Like, you know, bands like Soundgarden won the metal category and stuff like that. And like, they're not metal either.

• 51:42Josh Clark?

  Well, the Grammys aren't really known for being super in touch with underground stuff. And it's, it's interesting because the reason why groups like Soundgarden won the metal Grammy at the time is because grunge just took over. And it actually pushed metal right out of the limelight. Like basically starting January 1st, 1990, grunge just took over and it stayed that way for years. And then metal started to kind of come back in a way. New metal came along in the mid to late 90s. So like you had Slipknot and Korn, Linkin Park, I guess qualifies. I'm not either, but I know a lot of people are, like a lot of people.

• 52:22Josh Clark?

  Got back into metal, thanks to these guys. They basically, they were like, hey, you like, you like grunge, you like alternative, we're gonna help transition you back to metal. And then there was a, something called the new wave of American heavy metal, starting in the early 2000s, that took back over from new metal and brought it back to like legit, serious metal, like As I Lay Dying, Lamb of God, and of course, High on Fire, and a bunch of other bands that are still coming out in America and around the world. So metal came back. Whether you like new metal or not, you can thank them for bringing metal back from obscurity in the late 90s, early 2000s.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  Thank you, Corn.

• 53:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, thanks a lot, Corn.

• 53:06Speaker 02

  Alt metal was a thing too, in the, in the late 90s and kind of early 2000s. I think people consider Tool kind of an alt metal band, a band called System of a Down. I listened to some Tool, but they're another band that has a very, very, very hardcore loyal following.

• 53:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 53:23Speaker 02

  And then progressive metal, that had kind of been around in the 80s, like a band like Queensryche, who I never really liked that much, could probably be considered prog metal, as well as a band called Dream Theater, who are also very popular and very, have fans that are like super loyal.

• 53:40Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm. I remember listening to Queensryche Operation Mindcrime as like a 12 year old and being like, I don't get it.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:47Josh Clark?

  This is way too, way too grown up for me. Right, exactly. I don't know.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Like, you know what the crime is, these lyrics.

• 53:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Pantera was another one that actually kept metal alive during the grunge years. They, I did not know this, Pantera started out, the Cowboys from Hell, started out as a glam rock band, Spandex, Big Hair and everything. And eventually they shifted into more of a metal sound, and they were one of the pioneers of what's called groove metal, which is essentially what it sounds like. It's catchier metal. I think there's more refrains to it. And I'm just speaking musically. It's not, it's, it has nothing to do with like jam bands or anything like that. It's just as far as metal goes, it's probably the grooviest version of metal you could, you could do.

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate.

• 54:37Josh Clark?

  A couple of other things, Chuck. Did we talk about the big four?

• 54:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, we talked about the big four earlier of thrash bands, which is of course Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer.

• 54:49Josh Clark?

  Were you into Slayer, Megadeth, or Metallica or Anthrax?

• 54:53Speaker 02

  No, I was, I got into Metallica at one point when I lived in New Jersey because a friend of mine listened to them. And so I listened to Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning and Injustice for All. Like, those are great records. A little bit of Anthrax here and there, but those generally weren't my thing. Definitely never really listened to Megadeth. I know Dave Mustaine has a, has a reputation in the industry. He was let go of, from Metallica.

• 55:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  And hasn't stopped complaining about it for 43 years.

• 55:21Josh Clark?

  I saw an interview with him that he's, where he said, like, I, I own that. Like, I was, like, I had to quit drinking because I was so

• 55:29Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 55:29Josh Clark?

  aggro and violent whenever I did. But yeah, he was not happy about it. But metal fans are happy because he went on to found Megadeth, basically to spite Metallica, and they became huge in their own right. But I was never into them. I really want to be into Slayer. Like, I have Rain and Blood

• 55:47Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 55:47Josh Clark?

  on my phone, which is not a super metal thing to say, but it's the truth. And I just, like, I can listen to it, but I'm not like, damn, this is good. Like, I just can't get into Slayer. And I've never really been into Megadeth despite trying to.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  Was, when he left, he said, I'll show you guys. I'll go on to found, found a band that will never be as good or as popular as you will be.

• 56:10Josh Clark?

  It's, seriously, I hope it doesn't stick in his craw because that is, that would be hard to get over.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  I think he's kind of well-known in the industry. There's a couple of metal people that a lot of metal people don't like. Dave Mustaine is one, and then Lars Ulrich, the drummer from Metallica, is another. Even Metallica fans, there's a lot of them that are like, oh, God, Lars, just shut up. It's interesting.

• 56:32Josh Clark?

  What do you think about, yeah, he does, yeah, because some of them are so, like, vocal about their opinions and how awesome they are and how terrible other bands are.

• 56:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 56:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I'm sure. How about this? Let's say we wrap it up talking a little bit about black metal, and then we'll move on to part two. What do you think?

• 56:51Speaker 02

  That sounds good.

• 56:51Josh Clark?

  Okay, so we can't wrap before we talk about black metal, which was something that also emerged out of thrash, or actually, I think it emerged out of death metal, to tell you the truth. But where death metal is like guttural.

• 57:05Josh Clark?

  Black metal is screaming, essentially. It's just a higher pitched of not understandable lyrics. You have to read the lyrics along with it. But it is so death metal is like gory and like, just go look at Cannibal Corpse's Butchered at Birth album cover and you'll get an idea of what death metal is about.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:28Josh Clark?

  Black metal is legit, the kind of satanic metal that the, the, the censors of the 1980s and the pastors of the satanic panic were actually scared of. They didn't exist yet. Black metal is that.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  So does like, is Merciful Fate and King Diamond, are they thrown into that group?

• 57:50Josh Clark?

  Uh, I think the progenitors of black metal were Venom, all the way back in, in 1981. They were actually part of the new, new wave of British heavy metal. They're like, they had a picture of Baphomet in an upside down star on the cover. Right? So I could see suburban parents being actually scared of Venom. Um, Bathory from Sweden, they were another one from 1984. And the Mayhem is the one that like took black metal into like the actual, like this is kind of scary realm and because they actually did stuff in real life that involved like death and suicide and murder and church arson and stuff like that.

• 58:31Josh Clark?

  It was like the, the Norwegian black metal in particular, their scene, at least it was.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:40Josh Clark?

  Kind of dangerous. It's really just, you can't say that that's not true.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, like you said, there was a literal murder in the band Mayhem. Uh, and I will issue a huge trigger warning and encourage you not to go look this up. But you can't talk about Mayhem without talking about the worst album cover of all time. Dawn of the Black Hearts is a photograph. It was a bootleg album, but became very famous because it showed a photograph that the band took of an image of their lead singer right after he had died by suicide with by shotgun. And it's awful.

• 59:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  No other way to describe it, but just horrific.

• 59:22Josh Clark?

  It's essentially a close up and it's exactly what you would think it looked like. But like, that was their album cover. Bootleg album, like you said, true. But the picture was taken by one of Mayhem's band members, Euronomous, who apparently arranged the scene to make it a better looking photo and hadn't even like contacted the cops yet to say like, hey, my friend killed himself. He was taking pictures of it instead. So like this was like, this was, this is black metal. Well, there is also rife with white supremacists.

• 59:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:58Josh Clark?

  And I'm not so I don't, I'm sure, positive that there are black metal bands out there that are not down with all of that.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:07Josh Clark?

  But are still really good. But I would guess that they're not the majority. And I don't mean to put down the whole thing and sound like a pearl clutching like parent because I'm not. I'm just trying to get across like how, like legitimate what these guys are saying is.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:25Josh Clark?

  And like, if you read the lyrics, they're like, wow, this is really nuts, man. It's cool. And I don't actually know where these guys fall, like if they're white supremacists or anything. But I know that they are exemplary of Norwegian or Scandinavian black metal. They call it Emperor. And they have a song called The Loss and the Curse of Grace, I think.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:00:49Josh Clark?

  And it's got a great video. Like, it's a really cool song. Read the lyrics along with the song.

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:00:55Josh Clark?

  And you'll be like, okay, I understand black metal. That's a great entree to it, I think.

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  All right, I'll do it.

• 1:01:01Josh Clark?

  Okay. But I don't, I'm not really into the sound because I've read that it's deliberately meant to be noisy and put off people like me.

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  Squares.

• 1:01:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, let's just say it. Yes, squares. Who are into black metal from Scandinavia. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:01:20Speaker 02

  All right, that's a supersized part one. I think we'll probably have the supersized part two. And there's also going to be a fun little short stuff this week. So I guess we should just call this Metal Week. And we don't do listener mails at the end of a part one, right?

• 1:01:34Josh Clark?

  No. No, we don't.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  So take us home, baby.

• 1:01:38Josh Clark?

  Okay, you ready?

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:39Josh Clark?

  We are gonna stop. We are gonna stop. We are gonna, we are gonna, we are gonna stop, stop, stop, stop. We are gonna stop. Here.

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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