(intense music) - [Linda] Characterized today by its aggressive playing style, dramatic vocals, and elaborate performances, heavy metal music emerged during the counterculture era in the late 1960s, and drew influences from proto hard rockers like Jim Hendrix and Cream, psychedelic rock music, and the alleged OG devil's music, the blues.
Satan is coming around the bend This Black Sabbath song is often hailed as the track that birthed heavy metal music, a genre notoriously perceived as the devil's music.
But contrary to popular belief, most heavy metal music isn't inherently evil or Satanic.
Ozzy Osborne, the lead singer of Black Sabbath, even refuted this notion, once saying, "I'm not a guy that worships the devil.
When Black Sabbath started, we got invited to a graveyard at midnight.
We told them our dark image is a joke."
So then how did heavy metal get this Satanic association?
And is it fair to view this association in a negative light?
I'm exploring these questions with help from Joey Hayes, drummer and rockstar from Minneapolis.
(guitar playing) And later, Joey and I will even attempt to create our very own heavy metal soundtrack.
(drums crashing) Heavy metal's dark sound can be attributed to its use of loud, distorted guitars to create a gritty and aggressive tone, deep baselines that add depth and weight, AKA, the heavy sounds, and double bass drumming.
When combined with screaming vocals, minor key melodies, and dissonant chords, it generates a very intense and eerie atmosphere that often feels chaotic and unsettling.
- Many metal bands also like to incorporate the tritone, AKA, the devil's interval.
The tritone is a dissonant interval formed by two notes that are six half steps or three whole tones apart.
So on a guitar, if you start on E and move down six frets or half steps, you'll arrive at the note B flat.
When played together, they create a tritone.
(guitar riffing) Slayer's 1988 song South of Heaven is a prime example of how Tritones contribute to its menacing tune.
- [Linda] To shed light on this, I spoke with Michael Bishop, better known by his stage name Blothar of the shock rock heavy metal band Gwar.
Michael also has a PhD in music from the University of Virginia.
- Volume in itself can be an evocation of the sublime, right?
Like of something that overpowers your senses, and then creating sort of spooky spaces with the vocals.
- In what way, like echoes or, and in rock, this was the case too, perhaps for just like dramatic sense, but there's a lot of like dramatic pause and then like overwhelm of sounds.
- Yes, drama in the music.
- Heavy metal artists didn't just adopt darker themed sounds.
They also conveyed them through their lyrics, stage performances, and artwork.
Take, for example, Gene Simmons from the band Kiss and his now iconic, the once provocative blood spitting act from their 1976 hit God of Thunder, or Merciful Fate's debut album, Melissa, which prominently features a skull motif and a track list with titles like At the Sound of a Demon Bell, Black Funeral, and Satan's Fall.
The song lyrics of Slayer are also known to be controversial for exploring occult themes and taboo subjects, such as their 1986 song Angel of Death, which graphically details the horrifying experiments carried out by Joseph Mengele, a Nazi doctor during World War II.
Pumped with fluid inside your brain Pressure in your skull begins pushing through your eyes - Slayer did clarify that Angel of Death wasn't meant to glorify or endorse the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Rather, it was, as stated by the late Jeff Hanneman, one of the founding members of Slayer, a history lesson, a situation where Mengele could evolve from being a doctor to being a butcher.
And that Satanism is just something to write about, which is way over the top and is an easy way of offending people.
- Heavy metal's fascination with darker themes could actually be a reflection of the cultural climate it emerged in.
During the 1960s and early 1970s, the Western world faced significant social unrest and political turmoil.
Many people also lost trust in traditional values and institutions, like the government and the church.
These sentiments were further intensified by the Vietnam War.
As one of the earliest conflicts to broadcast live images, it gave people at home a vivid understanding of the realities of warfare.
- That there was cultural anxieties that accelerated during this time period.
And I think you see that in film too, right?
Like, you know, this is when horror really becomes popular as a genre, but you start getting really scary ones, right?
Like Rosemary Baby, The Exorcist, right?
Coupled with a kind of changing tech in music, electricity amplifiers, stuff like that creates sort of the affective ingredients of heavy metal, right?
- [Linda] In fact, Ozzy Osborne shared that Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi once said, "Isn't it strange how people enjoy being scared at the movies?
Why don't we create music that invokes fear?"
And he came up with the heaviest (beep) riffs of all time.
(intense guitar riff) This insight led to the birth of heavy metal, which for many became a form of rebellion, providing them with an outlet to find escape as well as to express and confront their own fears and frustrations with societal norms.
Unfortunately, many communities at the time perceived this artistic expression much like they did its musical predecessors, as manifestations of devil worship.
How is the connection of the origins of heavy metal now being misperceived as satanic or just perceived?
- Well, so I think that it starts in misperception long, I mean, long before heavy metal, right?
Rock and roll was the devil's music, right?
And the blues were the devil's music.
In early heavy metal, I don't think that you hear much satanism.
If you really actually sit and try and listen to it, what you hear is songs about Satan, right?
And that's a big difference.
- But it wasn't until the 1980s that heavy metal and its reputation as the devil's music truly peaked.
Before then, the heavy metal scene mainly centered in the UK.
But with the launch of MTV in 1981, bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Motorhead gained massive popularity among American youths.
At the same time, America was grappling with the Satanic Panic, a phenomenon sparked by the controversial memoir Michelle Remembers and high profile cases of alleged Satanic ritual abuse, such as the McMartin Preschool trial and the West Memphis Three case.
Meet Bill Lindsay, the front man of Impaler, the horror themed speed mental band that debuted in the 1980s.
- They could put a video together, and it looked really dark and scary.
And the kids are like, "I gotta buy that record," you know?
But then I think it also upset parents, you know, that were already upset during the Satanic Panic.
- The Satanic Panic saw widespread fear and hysteria surrounding occult-like activities, with heavy metal being among those accused of corrupting younger generations.
For instance, many parents and televangelists believed that Led Zeppelin's song Stairway to Heaven when played in reverse contained Satanic messages.
Heavy metal bands are also often sensationalized in the press, linking them to demonic activities and serial killers, such as the case of The Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez, who identified as a satanist and whose AC/DC hat was found at one of his crime scenes.
In some cases, lawsuits were also filed against bands accused of promoting satanism or inciting criminal behavior like Judas Priest, who were taken to court for allegedly inspiring a fatal suicide pact between two friends.
During the Satanic Panic, like what was your impression of like the cultural landscape at the time?
Like where were you, what were there things you experienced culturally?
- Well, things were really conservative then.
It was Reagan era.
And so we put out, we started in 1983, and we put out a record in 1984 called Rise of the Mutants.
And I guess you could say that's where we got involved.
- That's where the trouble started.
- That's where we chimed in.
So, you know, as soon as that record came out, the PMRC had formed.
- [Joey] The PMRC, which stands for the Parents Music Resource Center, formed in 1985, and is ultimately responsible for the parental advisory labels that you see on album covers.
- Okay, the album, the graphics, the front, Rise of the Mutants, that capsulated the climax of our live show, but like the PMRC, and then there were some evangelists, just jumped on it, you know?
And so it was really like, I like to say I laughed all the way to the bank.
- Despite the scrutiny, many bands embrace the spotlight of the Satanic Panic.
For example, Venom's debut album, Welcome to Hell, garnered significant attention from supporters and critics alike for its heavy Satanic content.
(intense music) But were they actually practitioners of Satanism?
No, Venom's founder Conrad Lant, stage name Cronos, explained in a 2008 interview, "We're entertainers, and we use subjects like satanism and paganism to entertain people like horror movies do.
Listening to a Venom album is the same thing as watching an Evil Dead movie."
This trend eventually spawns sub-genres like Death Metal, distinguished by its growling vocals.
(intense guitar riff) And black metal, known for its exploration of anti-religious sentiments and occult themes.
(intense music) - Even after the Satanic Panic, black metal music continued to reinforce the association between heavy metal and all things demonic.
This is evident through their highly theatrical stage performances featuring corpse paint and ritualistic elements.
But perhaps the most extreme examples occurred during the early 1990s in the Norwegian black metal scene where several incidents of church burnings, suicides, and murders took place.
Following these acts, many bands and fans began to distance themselves from that scene, asserting that such behavior did not align with the values of the metalhead community.
Are most heavy metal bands practicing Satanists?
- No.
- Do heavy metal bands incorporate occult and darker themes in their music?
- Yes, some, yes.
- Can heavy metal bands incorporate occult and darker themes without being practicing Satanists?
- Yeah, I think there's a lot of that that goes on.
- [Joey] I think so too.
- Yeah.
(intense music) - [Linda] So how did heavy metal get its Satanic stereotype?
Well, they kind of welcomed it.
It's provocative and edgy and definitely a part of heavy metal's foundation of embracing darker themes.
(intense music) - Yeah, let's go!
- Okay, it is finally time.
Let's make this heavy metal song.
- Let's do it.
- Let's think about themes.
Right now I have written down black death, letting it out.
I have unjust evils of society, love is cruel.
- I guess my vibe was like some kind of triumph over adversity, you know?
All right, this is my masterpiece.
(intense music) - Oh my gosh.
It's really good.
(intense music)
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