Short Stuff: Devil Horns

Metal fans have many ways to express themselves, but none are as metal as throwing the devil horns. But who did it first? 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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• 0:39Josh Clark?

  Hail Satan and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck, and this is our mid-metal two-parter short stuff that's more metal-adjacent than you can possibly imagine. We're talking about the origin of the devil horn's hand sign that is as metal as metal gets as far as hand signs go.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. I've never had an opportunity to flash this, so I've never really done it, and I feel like a bit of a nerd, but I'm practicing because of that Judas Priest show.

• 1:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  I figure that'll be a great time to whip it out for the first time.

• 1:13Josh Clark?

  For sure. So where did this come from, Chuck?

• 1:17Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, let's talk a little bit about what it actually is, because there's a bit of irony attached to this, because when you're at a metal show doing this, you are, you know, what you're really doing is just a fun thing where you're like, this band rocks, and this is the appropriate sign that you do at a show like this to indicate that I think this rocks. But sort of the sub, the kind of funny subtext is like, yeah, Satan's horns. But what it really is in origin is sort of the opposite. It's known as a corna, which is Italian for horn, and it is what you do in old Italy, or even if you're, you know, have a grandma in Italy who is still, you know, still sort of superstitious to ward off the evil eye.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  It's not like, yeah, Satan rocks. It's like, no, get the out Satan.

• 2:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly. So all of the metal fans are like, oh, that's the problem. That's why Satan never shows up at their shows. We've been doing this wrong.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:17Josh Clark?

  So, um, yes, and like you said, is totally associated with metal. And the, most people trace it back to, um, Dio, Ronnie James Dio, who, uh, we surely have talked about by now in part one. At the very least, we definitely do in part two. Uh, he sang for Elf, Rainbow, Dio, obviously. He also took over after Ozzy, R I P, um, was kicked out of Black Sabbath in 1979. Dio took over as the front man, which is a cool way of saying lead singer for Black Sabbath. And Ozzy was known to like, give, um, like double peace signs.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:55Josh Clark?

  As like his thing. And Dio was like, I can't do that same thing, but I gotta come up with something. Everybody's gonna be expecting some signature hand signal. So he turned to, he turned to the corner.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  That's right. Uh, what is the deal with those hand signals? It's like, definitely a hard rock to, to metal thing. Cause like Van Halen with, with Sammy Hagar, they did that thing. And I don't know, I just never feel like I see other bands doing that. It's interesting.

• 3:22Josh Clark?

  What did Sammy Hagar and Van Halen do?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  They did the, uh, the, the double, I love you put together.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  In such a way that, you know, it may have indicated something sort of naughty. I'll just say that.

• 3:34Josh Clark?

  Oh, gotcha. I remember White Lion made the W with their two index fingers and thumbs coming together.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Did they really?

• 3:41Josh Clark?

  No. And then, uh, Poison had the thing where you snap your fingers and then slap your hand on top of your closed fist three times.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  And then.

• 3:51Josh Clark?

  That was.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Class my mind would go whoop, whoop, whoop.

• 3:54Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  All right. I don't believe that one, so I didn't fall for that one. But, you know, a lot of people, if you're, if you're just a casual researcher, you'll just see everywhere that it was Ronnie James Dio. People have asked him this, there was an interview in 2001 where he said, I doubt very much that I would be the first one whoever did that. That's like saying I invented the wheel.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  But I think you'd have to say that it made it fashionable. So he, he'd never claimed to be the, um, originator of that hand symbol, which is great, stand-up guy, Ronnie James Dio, R I P, of course.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  So where did it come from? I mean, Gene Simmons in court said it was him, or tried to at least.

• 4:36Josh Clark?

  He, so here's the thing, Gene Simmons really outed himself as a dipstick.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  When? Which time?

• 4:42Josh Clark?

  Well, this time in particular, right? Because he tried to trademark his, his trademark hand sign, which is like the devil horns, but rather than the thumb closing over the two closed middle and ring fingers, like you do with the devil sign. He stuck his thumb out. So there's three digits sticking out, right?

• 5:01Speaker 02

  That's I love you.

• 5:03Josh Clark?

  It is. It's the American Sign Language sign for I love you. Regardless of that, he tried to trademark it for himself, probably so he could sue people who continued to use it. And yeah, he tried to trademark it, American Sign Language sign. That just kind of is pretty dip sticky, if you ask me. But what's interesting about it is the, all the press that this thing got started to actually tease out the people who probably really were responsible for introducing the metal horns to heavy metal, or to music at least.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Should we take a break?

• 5:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  All right. We'll be back with more of this mystery right after this.

• 6:00Josh Clark?

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• 6:22Josh Clark?

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• 7:00Speaker 03

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• 7:03Josh Clark?

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• 7:06Speaker 02

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• 7:53Josh Clark?

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• 8:15Speaker 02

  So before we get to who possibly may have created this, we should mention Geezer Butler, the bass player for Black Sabbath.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  He said, hey, look at our photo from 1969. I'm flashing the sign. So I did it before Dio, and I actually suggested that he do it. And also, this was on the cover of Yellow Submarine. Like, John Lennon, in animated form, is making the sign on the cover of Yellow Submarine. That doesn't really clear it up because Geezer Butler is also wrong. So I'm going to let you lay it on us, my friend, who maybe started this whole thing.

• 8:59Josh Clark?

  Okay, I'm, thank you for giving me this one because this is amazing. It turns out that it was probably a blonde 18-year-old American girl named Jinx Dawson, who was the lead singer of a band called Coven, which would be, I guess psychedelic rock, maybe, but super dark psychedelic rock.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Did you listen to much of it?

• 9:20Josh Clark?

  I did. It's not that great, but-

• 9:23Speaker 02

  It didn't even sound psychedelic to me. And if you hadn't known the lyrics or the song titles, it didn't seem even spooky.

• 9:31Josh Clark?

  You'd be like, is this like a Paul Revere and the Raiders cover band or something?

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Sort of. It was interesting.

• 9:37Josh Clark?

  There was a, yeah, there was an article by a guy named Dom Lawson in Metal Hammer, and he called it, he said it was scarcely any kind of metal, but it flowed with a similar dark magnetism. I think he kind of nailed it on the head.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, what's interesting is, like, it is ultra-metal with imagery and lyrics and song titles, but it's such a weird thing for your brain to hear that kind of thing coming out of something that's not metal sounding, you know?

• 10:04Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. This is a 1969 album called Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls, and it had songs like "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" on it, "Packed With Lucifer", and then very spookily, the first track on this album was called "Black Sabbath."

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, can I read a few other song titles?

• 10:24Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  "White Witch of Rose Hall",

• 10:27Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  "Choke, Thirst, Die",

• 10:32Josh Clark?

  That's just one song.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Commas in between.

• 10:36Josh Clark?

  "Each Shoots and Leaves",

• 10:39Speaker 02

  "Wicked Woman" is one, and there was one called "Dignitaries of Hell".

• 10:45Josh Clark?

  She, and so Jinx Dawson, the reason why she's like, probably the one who did this, she was actually raised in a left-hand path house, and was raised as a Satanist in the Anton LaVey, Aleister Crowley sense, the occult sense. And another reason why it's attributed to her and her band, Coven, is because no one, no one was doing this, especially in the States. They were from Chicago. They, they essentially had no inspirations, aside from the real-life left-hand path initiations that Jinx Dawson had been raised around.

• 11:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, if you look at the, I think it's on the back cover, right, of their album, once again, "Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls," I just want to read that like five more times, they're doing that sign. I mean, it's very clear. It's not an accident. It's very much on purpose. It's exactly what it is. And it was so convincing that in 2017, when Gene Simmons was trying to trademark this stuff, they came forward and Gene Simmons was like, you know, didn't know about these guys.

• 11:52Josh Clark?

  No. Someone else who said they didn't know about these guys was Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler and Black Sabbath.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:01Josh Clark?

  And supposedly, and it gets even spookier, the bassist for Coven's name was Greg Oz Osborne.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:08Josh Clark?

  This is happening simultaneously in Chicago.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  Isn't that crazy?

• 12:11Josh Clark?

  Yes, as Black Sabbath is changing their name from Earth to Black Sabbath.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:16Josh Clark?

  And Black Sabbath has always maintained this is just some spooky coincidence.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 12:21Josh Clark?

  It's believable. There's an article by a guy named Dom Lawson, that same Dom Lawson from Metal Hammer Magazine, who basically says like their album got zero play, it just didn't make it over to the UK, there's almost no way they would have heard this. And the reason why is because their album was released right around the time of the Sharon Tate murders, the Manson murders, and America was not in the mood for stuff like satanic rituals.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Or bad music, yeah.

• 12:46Josh Clark?

  Sure. But Lester Bangs heard it. He compared Black Sabbath to a combination of Cream and Coven.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:53Josh Clark?

  So at least in the mind of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs, Coven was a, at least somehow related thematically to Black Sabbath.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it was like, take the music of Cream and combine it with the spooky imagery and lyrics of Coven, or Coven, as I like to say.

• 13:12Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, you could say it that way, too. I forgot.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, that seems to be the deal.

• 13:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so I guess it's unclear exactly how much direct influence they had, but at the very least, everybody tips their hat to them for being pioneers in that respect.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, at the very least, it shut Gene Simmons up.

• 13:30Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. So hats off to Jinx Dawson for that. And then we can't talk about the devil horns without at least a nod to the kitsune side. Kitsune means fox. And in Japan, if you go to a metal concert, say like a baby metal concert, that will come up at the end of part two. You will see something similar to devil sign, but rather than the ring finger and middle finger bent down and the thumb crossing them. The ring finger and middle finger come together and are pressed against the thumb with the pinky and the index finger up. And what you're doing is you're making a face of a fox. And it's very Japanese. That's what they do at Japanese metal shows.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  You know, I didn't understand any of that until I just sort of did it as you were following along. And I was like, oh yeah, look at that little fox.

• 14:10Josh Clark?

  Great.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Makes a nose is what it does.

• 14:13Josh Clark?

  It does. A little fox face and you can be like, hello, I'm a fox.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  If we have one extra minute here, I would like to do a real time update, breaking news.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  In part one, I rattled off my top five metal bands. And I forgot because I was listening to Hair Nation again later that day. And I have an update and I hate to do it, but I'm going to, I guess bump the scorpions out in favor of Tesla.

• 14:41Josh Clark?

  Okay. All right. I can see that they're similar in level.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I feel bad. Forgot about Tesla. And while I don't dive deep into Tesla, I think I'm going to go on record and say that like, three of their songs are some of the best songs of that era out of any band. So I have to put them in there.

• 15:02Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, while we're talking, while we're doing updates, I watched.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 15:08Josh Clark?

  Yumi showed me some, I guess, Instagram clips of Ozzy's funeral and Sharon Osbourne just losing it. It's so hard to watch, but then also she showed me a clip of him singing Coming Home, Mama, I'm Coming Home.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, great song.

• 15:22Josh Clark?

  I think he's sitting on like a throne in this stadium in Birmingham, that last show, like right before he died.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:28Josh Clark?

  It's, it's amazing. I hadn't seen it when we recorded part one and two of heavy metal, but it's, yeah, it's quite stirring. It's really neat to see. So. I'm like, man, that is a really great way to go out, you know?

• 15:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, he, he practically passed away on stage, you know?

• 15:43Josh Clark?

  Right. So we've said it before, said it again, RIP Ozzy Osbourne, one of the metal greats. And I guess Chuck Short stuff's out, right?

• 15:53Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 15:57Speaker 00

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