Satanic Panic and a Power Fanatic: A Love Letter to Heavy Metal

Loud and proud. The inkling of a new genre and yet another new era in music history arose from its necessary, but no-less controversial forefathers. “People say they didn’t really hear what we were doing,” former Black Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne laughed when confronted with critical press. “How could they not hear us?”

The early 1970’s came with a laundry list of musical evolution, whether that be the unshaken ties to psychedelic rock in the later approaches of Led Zeppelin, or the complete stripping of a foundational norm from the likes of Black Sabbath. Although a full-force and often heated debate, heavy metal’s true roots can be traced to either of these bands; within Zeppelin’s textural romantic fever dream or Sabbath’s sticky doom and gloom.

In Black Sabbath Don’t Scare Nobody, critic and writer for rock magazine Creem, Ed Kelleher, sat down with frontman Ozzy Osbourne, after a grueling leg of their third American tour. He was exhausted, hungover, and armed with just the right amount of foreboding wisdom he seemed to have a never-ending amount of. English-born, Osbourne spoke of an old practice, but new in interest in his home country: Witchcraft.

“Witches and devils? What is this shit?” he poured, as he reveled in the personification.

“The time was right for a rock and roll band which personified all the cults and rituals of the

day,” said Kelleher. Its who they were, and who the public revered them to be. Witches, satanism, dark magic: Black Sabbath multiplied their popularity amongst their own funerial march, set to blaring power chords and the unmistakable pitched rasp of the Prince of Darkness himself.

Osbourne offered the stories of their kindled fame, an age-old tale of dive bars to the big stage, and the debt of their widespread success, something fueled by word of mouth and not the everlasting confusion of critics, while Kelleher proved an unwillingness to personify these men as something to be afraid of. Even within the title, Black Sabbath Don’t Scare Nobody, Kelleher writes with a witty quip and grounded style, so much so that the reader may see Osbourne’s fiendish grin for themselves.

As the decade dipped into another, one with a more stylized take on previous output and a flair for spiked leather cuffs and copious amounts of hairspray, the 1980’s split heavy metal into its various subgenres, all with their respective cult following.

Whether Mötley Crüe’s own Vince Neil flashed his semi-screamed vocals in the name of glam metal, or Judas Priest’s Rob Halford pranced along the stage clad in black leather for something deemed a bit ‘harder,’ each band held a particular allegiance to their craft. J.D. Considine, American music critic and former writer for Rolling Stone Magazine, came to this conclusion in his 1984 article, Purity and Power: Total, Unswerving Devotion to Heavy Metal Form: Judas Priest and the Scorpions. He wrote about heavy metal for what it was, “the Music Which Gets No Respect.”

Eddie Van Halen coined the “tapping” technique for metal guitarists to come, Kirk Hammet kept the toe of his shoe on his ‘wah-pedal’ and therefore popularized its use, Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off of a dead bat at a live show in Des Moines, and Rick Allen continued to drum after a car crash claimed his left arm. A performer for every fan, and a fan for every performer.

Judas Priest’s vocalist Rob Halford, when speaking with Considine, described critics as narrow-minded; those who wrote off heavy metal as inherently obnoxious and shallow. “This is a very professional style of music. It means a great deal to many millions of people. We treat heavy metal music with respect.”

Within Considine’s casual rhetoric, one that amplifies his personal thought and encircles the reader in an embrace of musical solidarity, he elaborated upon an unmistakably bizarre point previously headed by Halford: playing heavy metal isn’t very far removed from performing classical music. Considine utilized this analogy throughout, describing both forms of music as a “triumph of emotion over form.”

As heavy metal bands secured their footing with the general public, the late eighties creeped in alongside the metal scene with an appetite for “thrash”. These later bands, harnessing the influence of their hardcore punk predecessors, sought to purify the genre with a non-commercialized appeal, something the glam metal bands thrived upon.

A pop metal band like Bon Jovi felt the musical sucker punch from the likes of Metallica, who at the time, would have described themselves as “in your face.”

In September 1988, lead vocalist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich sat across from longtime music journalist Richard Gehr, spilling their guts and describing their recording process in his article, Metallica. “We record about as nonlive as possible,” said Ulrich. “There’s never more than one guy in the studio at any one point in time.”

From a band that formed with a guitarist who left to form a longtime rival, and a bassist that passed in a tour bus accident, Metallica began their accent with their 1983 debut, Kill ‘Em All, although originally titled, Metal Up Your Ass: a testament to their unwavering philosophy. With that, Metallica solidified their presence within the genre, one that stripped back the gothic tones of heavy metal’s past and opted for long-form structures of ravaging speed and face-melting finger technique.

“You have freedom of choice, but how many choices do you have? It’s easy to say you can make up your own mind, but you can only make up your mind about two or three different things,” said Ulrich, when describing their most recent release, …And Justice for All!

Both founders of the band, Hetfield and Ulrich, entranced Gehr with their, sometimes taboo, writing/recording style, and spun personal beliefs and stories into what eventually became lyrical messages within their latest LP. With upmost ease and unbridled swagger, Gehr’s writing style oozes an over-descriptive situational awareness, painting the interview with words just as clearly as he saw it himself.

Each respective music genre has seen extreme growth, either in public following or genre-specific technique. It’s within heavy metal that the artist and fan find a connection through musical intensity, even if the lyrics and presence would frighten outsiders.

Judas Priest lead vocalist Rob Halford, after all, said it best. “Each of them is experiencing an emotional vibe and throwing it back at you. I mean, that’s what art is all about. We all need each other.”