(This is Part 5 of a 5-part series about metal culture by guest contributor David Mollica, a trained cultural anthropologist and dedicated metal head. This series is based in part on David’s Master’s dissertation and the interviews he conducted in preparation for writing it. You can download the actual Master’s paper at the end of this post.  The previous Parts of the series can be found here.)

Well everyone, here we are at the end. It’s been great being able to put this stuff out and to read the discussions in the comments. I hope you enjoyed the series and I want to thank Islander for letting me do it. I’ve got two subjects I want to tie up the discussion with: The sort of communities we create and what heavy metal means to fans in context of the larger world.

Obviously, metal heads don’t build communities like towns, share the same ethnic groups, or even share the same governments. The social groups we build are loose and informal, based on a shared interest in the music and to a certain extent, aesthetic preferences for stuff like horror movies and occult themes that come out in the music. We also don’t always cluster together and exclude everyone else at every turn, unless we are talking about high school cliques or some such. Despite this sort of cultural preference being very real, the study of informal fan communities is a fairly new trend in most social sciences, because many had previously dismissed such groups as being invalid artifacts of youth culture that get shucked off when we enter the world of adults.

That we grow out of the stuff we like when we age and basically get boring is a rather depressing way to look at things and I don’t really buy it as a universal. It happens, of course. I’ve lost some friends because they “grew up”. When I was 16 I liked Ozzy, Iron Maiden, and Metallica, but I didn’t know what song was on what album or the names of most of the band members. Now that I’m almost 28, I visit 2 to 4 metal blogs a day, spent a year studying groups of metal heads so I could write a dissertation about it, and know more than I probably need about not just Metallica and Iron Maiden, but also about a whole metric crap ton of other, less well known groups. I’m not trying to tell you I know more about metal than everyone else, I certainly don’t. I’m just pointing out that my interest in the music has grown as I’ve aged, not diminished. Continue reading »

(Here’s Part 3 of a 5-part series about metal culture by guest contributor David Mollica, a trained cultural anthropologist and dedicated metal head. This series is based in part on David’s Master’s dissertation and the interviews he conducted in preparation for writing it. The previous Parts of the series can be found here.)

Lets talk about sex and heavy metal…Get your mind out of the gutter, I mean gender, not how to spawn while listening to Slayer. It’s a pretty universal truth that there are more male metal heads than female. Of course anyone can rattle off a huge list of metal bands that have some women in them, like Into Darkness, and even a few all female acts such as Derketa or Mortals (all of which are pretty sweet bands), but these groups tend to be exceptions to the rule. The field is male dominated and always has been. I found this to be one of the most difficult things to inquire about during my study because I got a different answer from every guy I interviewed and the few female metal heads I knew at the time didn’t want to do an interview. My conclusions on the subject didn’t entirely satisfy me, as most of them are speculative and one can even be construed as vaguely sexist, so I hope this post spurs some healthy discussion.

First, think about the social environment at your average metal venue. If it’s even a halfway decent night there is going be yelling, pushing, drinking, headbanging, and mosh pits. According to Beth Winegarner, who has contributed to Invisible Oranges, she never liked to go to concerts because of that sort behavior. However, she still felt the emotional connection to metal that many people reported when I asked them why they liked the music. In other words, Beth is a fan even if she doesn’t socialize with the group all that often. She felt uncomfortable about being around what she saw as the aggressive behavior of male fans. Obviously this sort of feeling doesn’t account for everyone — one of my most gnarly pit-related black eyes was administered by a girl who looked to be about 16 — but it might be a contributing factor to why so many gigs end up being sausage fests. Continue reading »

photo by Peter Beste

(We’ve got something different for you, something I hope will provoke thinking and discussion.  This begins a 5-part post by cultural anthropologist [and metalhead] David Mollica on the subject of metal culture, based in part on extensive field research in bars.)

Hey NCS readers, Islander has kindly allowed me to talk at you about the metal community and why we do what we do for a little bit. I’m going to cover the whole media perception, violence, and counter-culture thing first to get it out of the way, then move on to some more interesting stuff in later posts. So first a little background:

I study cultural anthropology and mass media in addition to being a metal head and thought it would be cool to mix a little fun with my serious business. So, a couple years back I somehow managed to convince my adviser that letting me hang out in bars and listen to Iron Maiden was a legitimate form of fieldwork for my Master’s dissertation. The end result was a rambling 33 pages of material, some of which I’ll be talking about here. Since most of my field work took me to places where I had to keep up with the livers of London natives I may have missed a few things, so feel free to voice your thoughts in the comments. I like discussion. If you want a copy of the paper email me at gilderling@gmail.com.

Let’s start with a question you might not think about all the time: Why do you like Heavy Metal and what got you into it in the first place? Not only is this stuff grim, aggressive, angry and over the top, but we also see those things as standard positive qualities of the music. We expect macabre subjects and weird note progressions. So what drives us to listen to this instead of more mainstream or easy going stuff? Continue reading »