You were old when you got into metal

“My early stuff was better”

. . .

Many of us own this story, or can recite it by heart:

A

a) Friend
b) Sibling

introduced me to heavy metal.

The band was

a) Black Sabbath
b) Iron Maiden
c) Judas Priest
d) Metallica
e) Slayer

Then I started listening to harder stuff, such as

a) Venom
b) Celtic Frost
c) Bathory

Now I am

a) Married, with a spouse that gently tolerates my music
b) Bitter and jaded, pouring my negativity onto the Internet
c) a) and b), the worst of both worlds

I’m somewhat kidding about that last part.

. . .

Anyway, this is the typical story of a person who discovered heavy metal as a teenager. I am fond of this story, as it is mine (minus the last part), but now it is not the only one.

Due to heavy metal’s long run (40+ years so far), the number of entry points into the music has increased. It’s possible to enter at a musical point far removed from the roots (see the rise of youth-oriented metal in the ’90s, from nu-metal through metalcore, deathcore, and now djent).

It’s also more possible than ever to enter at a later age. Given that mainstream (read: “grown up”) media like NPR and The New York Times are covering metal, and that the underground is deluged with metal websites, it’s theoretically easy to discover metal. One no longer has to go through the usual sibling/Sabbath/Slayer routine.

This interests me. Since metal is a strictly opt-in taste, coming to it as an adult is actually more radical than coming to it as a teenager, when one is supposed to be rebellious and listen to loud music. Adults are simply not conditioned to discover metal. What’s around is the mainstream (the radio), the indie mainstream (Pitchfork), and nostalgia (the stoppage of seeking out new music). No one around you listens to metal, so you must seek out the music on your own.

I’d love to hear those stories.

Let’s arbitrarily set “adulthood” as starting at 21, since many people graduate from university around that age, and most metal fans have already discovered metal by then.

. . .

If you were an adult (21 or older) when you got into metal:

a) How did you get into it?
b) What was the band and album?
c) How has your taste in metal changed since then?

. . .