Video:
Heavy metal at its best
The banks have run off with your money and your house is now worth less than
the extension you had built last year. Food prices are up, and so is
unemployment. News of the US presidential election tomorrow is no longer as
urgent as news of your rapidly vanishing hopes for the future. Who can you
believe in when the world's going to hell? How about a 53-year-old man
dressed as a schoolboy, replete with skewwhiff school cap, wildly swinging
satchel and a guitar turned up to 11? Sitting on the shoulders of a singer
that sounds like a giant gargling with nails? I'm not joking, and neither
are the five million people who have bought the new AC/DC album Black Ice
in the past two weeks. It was their first release for eight years, and it
went straight to No1 in 29 countries, including here and America. A flash in
the pan? Think again. Sales of the Metallica album Death Magnetic,
also released last month, have been similarly “off the hook” as band leader
Lars Ulrich puts it.
Elsewhere, Queen - now fronted by former Free and Bad Company singer, Paul
Rodgers - returns to the UK this week for sell-out shows at the O2 and
Wembley arenas. And Planet Rock, the dedicated 24-hour classic rock station
dumped by GCap at the start of the year, is now running very nicely
independently, thank you, as the only radio network in the UK with a solely
digital platform. Its listening figures for October have shot up by 16 per
cent, knocking the BBC's more critically acclaimed 6 Music from the top
slot. While Classic Rock hosts its own star-studded awards show
tonight at the Park Lane Hotel, Central London, where the guest list will be
topped by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.
Even Sarah Brown is in on the act. In 1997, new Labour chose Britpop as its
bandwagon, but under Gordon Brown's leadership, the Party seems to be
dancing to a different tune. Or rather headbanging. The Iron Maiden singer
Bruce Dickinson calls heavy rock “the working man's opera”, but it was still
a surprise earlier this month when the PM's wife appeared on a red carpet
with Steve Kudlow, the lead singer of the obscure Canadian heavy metal act
Anvil. One journalist wondered whether her decision was determined by the
band's album titles, which include Back to Basics, Plenty of Power, Pound
for Pound and Still Going Strong. If the residents of No10 are turning to
heavy rock in hard times, what does that tell us about music during an
impending world recession? Could it be that heavy metal is the most
credit-crunching music around? Does it hold perhaps the secret to some sort
of recession-proof Guitarmageddon?
Certainly Slash thinks so. “Conceptually, rock screams freedom,” says the
former Guns N' Roses guitarist, who, as the frontman of Guitar Hero, a
multimillion-selling computer game, has introduced a new generation of
teenagers to the joys of heavy metal. “It's not even about the sex and the
drugs, there's just a spirit to it which allows you to say ‘F*** the
financial meltdown or whatever is on the news. I'm gonna have a good time'.
I think people are also p***ed off at the untrustworthiness of politicians.
Bands like Metallica and AC/DC, these are the tried and tested groups that
people know they can depend on. That's a great feeling to have. They do what
they do, regardless of what critics say about it, and everybody's been
getting off on it since the beginning of rock'n'roll. When everything's
looking grim, one of the best antidotes is rock.”
The trend is not limited to albums and songs. Take the acclaim for the new
movie, Anvil! The Story of Anvil - a real-life “rockumentary” version
of the spoof movie This Is Spinal Tap - made by Westminster school
dropout Sacha Gervasi (see p4), about his failed attempt at success in the
mid-Eighties with the “demi-gods of Canadian heavy metal”. Sarah Brown, who
was at the premiere, wasn't the only famous person interested in it. “The
best documentary I've seen in years,” says Michael Moore. “A masterpiece,”
opined the famously prickly film critic Mark Kermode on Newsnight.
And in another about-to-be-released movie, The Wrestler, Mickey
Rourke stars as an Eighties star into “hair metal”, specifically Guns
N'Roses. “Mickey himself guided the music towards Guns N' Roses,” says
director Darren Aronofsky. “Old friends” with the GN'R singer W. Axl Rose,
Rourke's character “actually sings Sweet Child O' Mine in the
wrestling ring”.
A glance at history, however, and the facts should not surprise us. The last
recession, in the early Nineties, coincided with a sell-out surge in sales
for Guns N'Roses, AC/DC and Metallica - all of whom are back with a
vengeance (see above).
C.P.Lee, a lecturer in cultural and film studies at Salford University, which
is compiling the country's first heavy metal archive, explains: “People have
always sought solace through music in times of economic depression. The
success of heavy rock now is comparable to the success of Hollywood and
Broadway musicals in the Thirties. They're ludicrous in comparison to what's
going on around them but they make perfect sense. It's the same with AC/DC
and heavy metal. It's a time when people want something simple as an escape
from depression. Guns N'Roses music is not cerebral, it's physical. It
offers you an outlet. Because people just want to have fun, when all around
them are not having fun. Heavy metal bands just promise you a great time. I
mean, let's see someone hack a rubber chicken to death or dress as a
schoolboy. Angus Young [of AC/DC] is like the Jimmy Clitheroe of rock. The
school uniform is a semiotic signifier of something that's long gone and, in
a sense, that music is harking back to something that's long gone, a sort of
mythical past.”
This is a theory that Chris Ingham, publishing director of Classic Rock, buys
into. “Listening to AC/DC or Metallica, it gives you permission not to care
what else is going on in the world. I think we all need a bit of that
sometimes.” Or as the Whitesnake and former Deep Purple singer David
Coverdale puts it: “I have always regarded our style of music as
therapeutic. It has always received a rowdier reception in industrial
cities, where people seem to need to let off more steam. A night out with
Whitesnake helps you to escape the trials and tribulations you're
experiencing.”
Of course, heavy rock never really goes away. As part of the team that helped
to turn Kerrang! magazine from a one-shot colour giveaway in Sounds
magazine in 1980 into the biggest-selling music weekly in the world, replete
with its own branded TV and radio stations, awards ceremonies and festivals,
the appeal of the music is all too obvious. As Dickinson says: “It runs by
its own rules, it's defiant and unlike mainstream pop doesn't strive for
success at any price. The kiss of death would be if Simon Cowell suddenly
decided to put a heavy metal band together.” Or, as Paul Rodgers of Queen
puts it: “Rock has always had a global appeal, it transcends language
barriers. The music takes the older fans back to their youth. While for
younger fans it gives a glimpse of the real thing. It's not processed. It's
about making music for the moment, particularly onstage.”
Why, though, does its appeal lie largely with that over-protected species, the
white working and middle-class male? Why don't more women follow rock music?
According to the writer and musicologist Dave Dickson: “It's down to bodily
rhythms. Women tend to respond more to the bass - music you can dance to. By
and large, you can't really dance to heavy rock. Unless you count
headbanging, which I suspect most women don't.”
Lee says: “Mainly it's about gathering in a big tribal group of men and
letting off steam. There is something very communal about rock music. It
doesn't ask much, except total devotion.”
For young males, there is also what Lars Ulrich of Metallica calls “the rite
of passage factor”. “It's starting earlier and earlier. I see it close-up
with my own ten-year-old son. His buddies at school are suddenly completely
aware of who I am. They high-five me, ask for autographs. These are the same
kids who for years regarded me as the dad who looked as if he hadn't washed
for a week. Suddenly, 'cos of the new album, I'm cool.”
Ulrich adds: “Also, this music is irony-free; we're not uncomfortable with
what we do. The audience knows that we mean it, that we're the real deal. I
don't hear any 12-year-old kids talking about Nirvana or Coldplay. I hear
them talk about AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Metallica. I think they
appreciate what they see as rock's authenticity.”
Nor are these young males necessarily the knuckle-dragging beer-guzzlers
assumed by many. According to a report last year by Stuart Cadwallader, a
psychologist at the University of Warwick, most teenage listeners to heavy
metal are actually extremely bright and often use the music to help them to
deal with the stresses and strains of being gifted social outsiders. He
said: “There is literature that links heavy metal to poor academic
performance but we found a group that contradicts that.”
So, the next time you're wondering whether to hide what's left of your savings
in a pillowcase under the mattress, don't despair. Simply put on a bit of
AC/DC. That ageing schoolboy is there to save you.
For, as the Mojo editor-in-chief Phil Alexander explains: “Saying that Angus
looks ridiculous doing his frenzied schoolboy thing is like saying Chuck
Berry is too old to do the duck walk. Until he's physically incapable of it,
Chuck Berry will continue to do the duck walk and every time he does we will
continue to go berserk. It's the same with AC/DC. Or people like Slash from
Guns N'Roses. Do we want to see the top hat and leather trousers? Of course
we do!”
Born of the blues: heavy metal origins
It was Cream and Jimi Hendrix with his second single, Purple Haze, who
first developed the heavy rock genre. Inspired by the blues, they took rock
songs and extended them with long, improvisational jams. Led Zeppelin, Black
Sabbath and Deep Purple were considered to be the first heavy metal bands.
GLOSSARY
Hard rock The rock style typified by electric guitars and blues scales.
Heavy metal Thick and loud with strong beats, three-chord riffs, lots
of distortion.
Death metal A sub-genre of heavy metal with dark, gory imagery and
faster tempos.
Melodic rock Ballad-based, anthemic rock, championed by Bon Jovi and
Meat Loaf.
Headbanging Violent shaking of the head to music.
Devil salute Holding your fist with your first and little finger
extended, seen as the horns of the Devil.
Chloe Lambert
Full metal racket
Perhaps the beginnings of what we recognise as heavy metal lie with Black
Sabbath - who added black magic to a sonic stew of heavy fuzz-riff
guitar - and Led Zeppelin, who added sheer megawattage. Anyone
hitherto immune to the genre's primal appeal could do worse than to start
with a couple of prime Zep cuts - Immigrant Song, Dazed and Confused
- then scoot to Deep Purple's 1971 masterpiece Fireball. By
the mid-Seventies, British metal had surrendered the initiative to those
nascent Americans in make-up Kiss and Alice Cooper, whose Rock
and Roll All Nite and Under My Wheels are essentials on any metal
mix CD.
While American hard rock - see also Meat Loaf - revelled in
theatricality, its British counterpart went back to basics. Retreating from
punk's year-zero nihilism, the meat-and-potatoes functionality of The New
Wave of British Heavy Metal yielded peaks such as Iron Maiden's Run
to the Hills and Judas Priest's Breaking the Law. Even Queen
- whose very name seemed like an in-joke that an entire fan base took
decades to rumble - were obliged occasionally to release heads-down rockers
such as Tie Your Mother Down.
In this climate, Motörhead became pop stars with their thrilling Girlschool
double-hander Please Don't Touch, Status Quo produced
their best run of hits (download the NEC live version of Caroline for
proof) and Def Leppard broke out of Sheffield with their first US hit
(and still their best tune) Photograph. It was in thrall to these UK
bands that Metallica emerged with titanic early singles such as their
1984 six-minute biblical epic Creeping Death. Post-Spinal Tap,
heavy rock suffered an identity crisis that, notwithstanding Warrant's
PC-obliterating Cherry Pie, Aerosmith's Run DMC-abetted Walk
This Way, The Cult's She Sells Sanctuary and Metallica's
selftitled “Black Album” - resulted in the low years of soft metal.
Mercifully, big-haired buffoons such as Poison and Cinderella
were blown away by the dissolute Los Angeles misfits Guns N'Roses,
whose Appetite for Destruction restored some pride to a beleaguered
genre.
Post-Nirvana, grunge helped to establish common ground between indie
and metal with bands such as Stone Temple Pilots, whose Interstate
Love Song glides along one of the greatest rock riffs of the past 20
years. With the testosterone clatter of nu-metal (remember Limp Bizkit?)
consigned to posterity, Led Zeppelin's brief reunion has reawakened interest
in the elemental power of an idiom that remains triumphantly indifferent to
modernisation and progress. Indeed, this year's best hard-rock moments -
from AC/DC's epically dumb Big Jack to the title track of Guns
N'Roses' Chinese Democracy - could have been recorded at any point in
the past three decades. The old saying about fixing what ain't broke could
have been coined with this music in mind.
Pete Paphides
I was a teenage headbanger
I grew up in London in the early Eighties. The other kids at my school were
into cool bands like the Pistols and the Clash but I was into metal. I'd get
teased but I didn't care. I saw it as a statement of social confidence to be
able to parade across the yard at Westminster wearing a torn Hawkwind
waistcoat and striped troubadour trousers.
Of course there were downsides. I'll never forget the night I saw the Clash at
the Lyceum because I was beaten up for wearing a Motörhead T-shirt.
Intellectually, however, I was on the winning side. Punk was about not
conforming and here they were attacking me for not wearing bondage trousers
. Ridiculous. I used to hang out at the Marquee Club on Wardour Street. It
was a far cry from when the Who and Hendrix had played there. The New Wave
of British Heavy Metal was taking over and bands such as Iron Maiden would
gig there every other week, it seemed. We started hearing about this band
from Toronto called Anvil. No one knew who they were. Then their lead singer
Lips appeared on the cover of Sounds clenching a dildo in his teeth.
By the time they arrived in England to play the Donington Festival in 1982,
Anvil were legends.
As I left school to see my idols at “Monsters of Rock”, Dr John Rae, the
school's august headmaster, asked, with faint bewilderment, where on earth I
thought I was going dressed like that? I told him. He asked me to explain
the appeal of the music. Like a true libertarian educator he felt it was his
duty to try to understand my pain. I explained that heavy metal was the
music of the common people. That its guttural appeal was that it wasn't
trying to be cool. There was an authenticity that stood in direct opposition
to the New Wave garbage in the charts. Of course, the cartoonish brute force
of heavy metal was completely satisfying to us fans. After all, we were just
adolescent males struggling to deal with often awkward sexual feelings. We
didn't want subtlety or nuance. We just wanted a little tribal solidarity to
take the edge off.
Furthermore, I told him, I considered Schopenhauer and the Scorpions to be
artistic equals. And it was snobbishness and cynicism that prevented others
from enjoying the myriad pleasures of metal music. Your loss, not ours, Sir.
For a moment Dr Rae reflected, then he leant downand in a whisper said:
“Remember Gervasi, wherever you go, and whatever you do, you are always a
Westminster boy.” And with an elegant spin of his robes, he turned into the
Abbey.
Within a few months I had managed to meet Anvil and they had, shockingly,
invited me to be a roadie on their “Backwaxed” tour during my school
holidays. By the time the band and I lost touch in the mid-Eighties, I had
toured with them several times and had even learnt how to play from the
Metal Drum God himself, Robb Reiner.
People have asked me why I decided to get back in touch with Anvil after more
than 20 years. I can't explain it. Probably some embarrassing midlife
crisis. All I know is that once I did, I had the rather rare experience of
finding my childhood - and indeed the band - almost exactly as I had
remembered. Whatever I was looking for, I found.
I may have given up booze and fags a long time ago but some bad habits, like
metal, die much much harder. And these days I can only celebrate the fact
that this particular bad habit is probably going to be company all the way.
Sacha Gervasi, the director of the rockumentary, Anvil! The Story of
Anvil
It rests its head on your shoulders and whispers in your ear
I want a new KISS album.
S. Sterling, Providenciales, Turks & Caicos
Check out "The Racquets" on You Tube, i saw them at the Cornbury Music festival in the Summer - They rocked ! Looks like we have another home grown rock talent on their way up .
BTW . Jessica from SanFran , you sound cool!
Todd, London,
These attempts to intellectualise metal and give it some form of social relevance or justification are annoying. Listen to it. If you don’t understand or like it then hard luck, we are doing fine without you anyway…
Orson Cart, Scotland,
Phil S you think metal isn't fashion obsessed? How many people wear band t-shirts at gigs? Horses for courses ;)
Andrew Todd, Wootton Bridge, United Kingdom
At my school (76-81) you were either a punk or a 'sweaty'. I was a punk, but saw AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Rush, Judas Priest, UFO, Kiss and Motorhead during my school years.
Always regarded The Beatles' Helter Skelter as the first 'heavy' song myself.
Good point about Rush, Steve. Awesome band.
Tony Butler, London,
As an aging metal fan I have always felt that it is politically and socially conservative. In a music industry so hideously fashion obsessed and full of liberal hypocrisy metal finds itself more rebellious by not seeking to be so.
Phil S, Olomouc, Czech
Also I'd like to correct the impression that hard rock and heavy metal are the preserve only of awkward, un-self aware men. I'm a 36-year old female who proudly has most of AC/DC's albums and the majority of my female friends love hard work. And we're not metal groupies or rednecks.
Jessica, San Francisco,
Hmmmmm, not sure about turning to metal to beat the credit crunch. 2 tix for Metallica = £100. So much for "rock's authenticity", Lars.
Still Slayer were a snip at £29 - go and see them!
Dan Waltham, Manchester,
Fantastic! What a ray of light in an otherwise dismal outlook...
Oh, and thank you - I have sent this link to my parents who I'm sure felt that my youthful tastes were tantamount to satanism...
Richard, Marlow, UK
As usual no mention of Rush. A band with the best drummer in the world who have just completed another sold out world tour
Steve, Leigh On Sea,