Friday Q&A: 6/27/2014
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Welcome to Friday Q&A. Every week, we’ll put up a question for the staff, friends, bands, and you, the reader, to answer.
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This Week’s Q
What’s one thing that happens to you when you’re the most metal/only metal person your friends know?
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These days, it’s Metalocalypse, which isn’t terrible. Having a show that is entirely a self-deprecating view of metal quoted back at you at random times isn’t that big a deal, though it gets annoying. Other than that, it’s Satan references. “I know we won’t have, like, Satan murdering virgins or anything, but I’m throwing a party next week.”
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I don’t think this is the type of answer you’re looking for, but I was the only metal fan my two best friends knew when we were really young. By 7th grade all three of us had mullets and loved metal together, but at the time their reaction was to accuse me of listening to devil music while ripping the tape out of two of my cassettes and throwing them out a moving car window (Anthrax and Metallica I think). They’ve never lived it down. Nowadays I don’t run into too many situations like that, though a certain non-metal friend always makes me promise that the show I’m taking him to to will not include any “screaming” or moshing.
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People always try to imitate death metal vocals! And it’s always to poke fun at the music and at your taste. Which, you know, fine, metal’s ridiculous and over the top, and we all need to laugh at ourselves.
But stripping away the context makes death metal growls sound even more ridiculous than they are. It displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the music’s appeal, and it’s not funny after the eleventy billionth person does it.
Of course they do it poorly, too. That’s supposed to be part of the joke. One hopes that their throats are just a little raw afterwards when they discover it takes a lot of training, practice, and stamina to do it for an hour a night, many days in a row, at age 45, with many many many hard miles on your vocal cords. Ultimately though, the people who do this never recognize that what they’re doing is analogous to an old white Republican imitating rap by yelling “gat”, “ho”, and “bling” and bunch of times to a rhythm that even Kenny Chesney thinks is embarrassingly white.
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As an old white Republican, I resemble that remark!
Anyway, though I don’t see any of my friends more than once or twice a year at this point, they do love to remind me of T-shirts I’ve worn in the past. “Stay Sick Stay Fuck Hail Satan” from the Goatwhore tee is a favorite catchphrase when we get together sans wives and children.
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This is the worst. I live in a relatively small, not-metal city. There are metalheads here, but they are mostly dedicated only-deathcore dudes whom I don’t really hang out with often, or much older gentlemen (and some women) who were into it in the late-’80’s, early-’90’s and have kids/families/mortgages, etc. As a result, I’m the go-to reference for anyone who has a friend visiting out of town who happens to be a metalhead. So people just introduce their shitty frat bros to me. “Oh look, he likes metal, you two will be friends!” No we won’t. I have lots of not-metal friends. There’s lots of metalheads I actively dislike. ONE SHARED INTEREST DOES NOT A DEEP SPIRITUAL CONNECTION MAKE. Most human beings are shitty people. Metalheads are no exception. Look at the MetalSucks comment section for irrefutable proof. Likewise, few metalheads are as dedicated to the genre as I am, so if I try to start a conversation with most of these people about, I don’t know, Lord Mantis, they have no idea what I’m talking about and would rather just discuss Slayer. Which is fine, except I’ve had a million discussions about Slayer and dog, I’d rather just talk about the Red Wings.
The other thing that happens, which is almost worse, is when complete randoms come up to me to talk about the metal album they just bought to get into the genre. I love being people’s guide into this wonderful culture and art form, but I’m not your automatic validation machine. Case in point, a lawyer came up to me the other week. “Joseph, I bought a *black* *metal* record. I thought you might approve?” “Oh that’s cool man. What record?” “Have you heard of The Deaf Heaven?!”
. . . yes.
. . . yes I have heard of The Deaf Heaven.
“What do you think?”
I think it’s a good start, would you excuse me for a moment?
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Generally, if I’m the only metal person in a group of people, the subject doesn’t really come up. Occasionally I’ll pop in a reference or two that no one will get, but that’s it. The people that I hang around are generally pretty tactful about it. The only time it’s a little annoying is when I get compared to other metal dudes solely on account of my appearance, and that’s not even because I don’t look like other metal dudes (I do) but just because it happens so often.
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People send me tons of metal-themed links, which in some respects is awesome, but it’s clear that they figure that if you’re into any sort of metal, you’re into ALL metal, whether it’s Manowar, Behemoth, or someone making “metal-themed” covers of television theme songs in their bedroom and posting them to YouTube. I appreciate that they’re thinking of me and want to share something cool they found, but I mostly respond with a polite “thank you” because the thought of trying to explain the differences between the metal I enjoy and the vast quantities of stuff that slop around in the giant heavy metal bucket is just exhausting.
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You’ve read ours, now what’s yours? Let us know below and enjoy your weekend.
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