Metal music and metal culture, they’re interchangeable. Although they are slightly different in the end they came from the same place. Metal music is almost an understatement for the many many sub genres surrounding it, but metal bands are often interchangeable. Metal culture on the other hand is where alternative people find a home. It’s where the people who never quite fitted in band together and the atmosphere is insane.
Metal heads generally have a bad name. I guess if I was a cookie-cutter I too would be afraid of badass people with spikes in their faces, wearing all black and doc martins. Its understandable, but people who think like this are also the people who are missing out. Metalheads are the greatest people I know, they might be passionate about something out of the ordinary, but just because you don’t understand it doesn’t make it wrong. Metal heads are the most open-minded and accepting people I’ve ever met. they’d never judge you for not being alternative, so why would you judge them on their appearance not their personalities.
The best example I can give is concerts. Concerts aren’t for the faint hearted, whichever genre of music you’re into. People get pushed, trampled and fights break out. when you have 10,000 people in one small space there’s bound to be drama. and although metal heads have the worst name, they’re actually the nicest and safest people to be around. If someone falls over at a mainstream concert or gets injured, chances are that person will be trampled half to death before the bouncers can get them out. At a metal concert, people will run in lift you up and get you out as fast as possible. Being a female the bigger guys will protect me from the more rowdy moshers and although there’s a higher chance of being injured with the metalhead headbangers, walls of death and snake pits, all of this is optional. If it’s not you’re cup of tea you get right out of there and no body will say a thing. I think maybe this is the biggest misconception id change; that metal concerts are dangerous, because really in the middle of the pit, sweaty and bouncing around with a bunch of strangers to my favorite band, I’ve never felt safer in a crowd. I’ve seen metal heads lift kids onto their shoulders, stop the entire show, and find their (admittedly very worried and upset) parents before the show continues. When I dislocated my shoulder at Papa Roach at Soundwave in Melbourne and refused to leave the pit, the guys behind me made a wall with their bodies so i wouldn’t be slammed around anymore. Metal is a family, its like we banded together because society labeled us outcasts.
If the people who are metal heads aren’t a big enough draw card, then the music itself should be. People have these weird ideas about metal music, and yeah I guess I can understand it when you look at Slipknot and Marilyn Manson. Their on stage personas and theatrics are insane. But all it would take is to listen to the lyrics. Music can’t corrupt your soul, music can’t make you a serial killer, but it can sum up a situation you’re going through or a time in your life and help you through it. Music is my escape, It’s where I go when I’m feeling anything and I know a lot of people feel the same.
And to end this blog post, defending all that I am and all that I believe in, ill leave you with my favourite song;
“Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost It’s empty and cold without you here, too many people to ache over Trials in life, questions of us existing here Don’t wanna die alone without you here Please tell me what we have is real” -Seize the Day, Avenged Sevenfold
the perks of being a bogan 