Nothing’s average to you when you’ve barely listened to anything. Many of us started their musical journey with bands we don’t enjoy anymore because we now know better ones.
Back in the early/mid 90s I had just bought Death Spiritual Healing, Malevolent Creation Ten Commandments, and Nocturnus The Key from a video rental place in my home town.
Me and a buddy listened to all of the metal I just got and decided to see what else we could find. Then we saw it, it had to be the holy grail of heavy metal! There was a motorcycle blasting out of hell and this awesome bat in the background. The album was Bat Out of Hell and the band was so metal their name was Meatloaf! This was going to be soul crushingly heavy…
That’s a good fucking album though. Bat Out of Hell II: Bat Back Into Hell fucking sucked, though I will admit liking his version of a particular song more than Celine Dion’s version.
The incredible irony here is that there are so, so many death and black metal musicians that are genuinely better people than Gene Simmons could ever be. I would trust my kids (note: I do not have kids) around Cannibal Corpse and Cattle Decapitation. I would absolutely not trust Simmons around a teen daughter.
Oh for sure, metal heads are for real wholesome ppl. Metal concerts are probably the lowest in some stupid peer pressure things or macho competitions (who can to the most x stuff, who has the most money, etc), and I absolutely know how many people react to someone needing some help. Maybe because we are a more diverse group related to age? Or because we are everywhere yet nowhere mainstream?
I was the Metal Blade 25th anniversary show in Chicago–Cattle Decapitation with Goatwhore, Allegaeon, and Novembers Doom–and the lead of Goatwhore stopped the show to point out the guy that had his 10yo kid (with ear muffs!) at the edge of the pit, and told the crowd to be careful and friendly, because that kid was the future of the scene.
Crazy, I’ve been to a couple hundred metal shows and never heard anyone say the N word. No one’s ever threatened to kill me or my family. Never heard anyone going around the crowed telling women to get the fuck back in the kitchen… like the fuck you mean?
Late to the party, everything that needed to be said has been said. Still, let me add my voice to the choir: KISS has never been cool. KISS is the opposite of cool.
They’re more in the realm of like… Stoner Rock, Psychedelic Doom and Smooth rock tbh with a large emphasis on Satanist Imagery and gospel. I fuck with that. More like Candlemass type Doom metal than like Stormkeep Doom Metal.
KISS on the other hand was like “Hey kids, we heard you like corpse paint, crazy guitar riffs and meaningful lyrics so we made the opposite for your mothers to listen to.”
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