At my most "metal" I wore band t shirts and black jeans all the time, but never had particularly long hair (it's really thick, so it's not particularly short looking).
At every party you'd see me headbanging like crazy, and the next day I'd have the most fucking sore neck.
This was when I was 16-18 years old. (I'm nearly 21 now)
But this year in particular, I realized I just wasn't entirely comfortable with whole metal image. I mean, I don't mind if other people do it really but it's just not for me.
So now, I don't even wear band t shirts anymore and I dress really conservatively.
No piercings, no tattoos, none of those "metal" fashion accessories like spike bands. I just look pretty much like a normal guy.
I don't pretend to be a tough "brootalz metalz" guy.
I cry when I feel like andI care about my appearance and try to look nice (something many metalheads I've met seem unable to do).
Judge me, call me a weakling (or even worse, a "faggot") but ultimately I think it takes more strength to just be comfortable with who you are than pretending you're something you're not.
And ultimately dressing like a metalhead was something I wasn't, so I don't do it.
I went through the metalhead elitist phase, where I shunned music that wasn't metal (or classical or jazz fusion, since that stuff is technical like metal can be, so that was "okay" for me to listen to).
To be honest, I'm ashamed of that close mindedness.
Nowadays, I listen to everything from hip hop, pop rock (even emo punk/pop), avant garde, minimalism, post rock and all sorts of other stuff.
That's not to say I just listen to anything, I'm not a mindless idiot, I'm very picky about what I like, but I'm far more open to different genres of music than I used to be.
Metal head friends wise, I've got a few dudes I know.
One is super obsessed with thrash metal and will hardly listen to anything else.
I like thrash metal ( Rust In Peace is one of my favorite albums of all time), yeah, but would I wanna listen to that everyday? Hell no, I want some diversity in there.
I have a friend really into power metal.
I have another friend into the prog metal stuff like Ayreon, Symphony X etc.
They may be metalheads, but it's honestly that not easy to relate to their music taste, because I'm more of a death metal fan and don't care for power metal or the really melodic prog metal bands at all.
And a lot of metalheads I've met in real life, are quite frankly just horribly closed minded people that I was hardly able to hold a decent conversation with because they were just complete idiots.
When you be closed minded and totally dismiss whole genres that have artistic value, you lose sight of what ultimately metal is IMO.
Metal was forged as a result of open minded.
Wasn't it true that what was arguably the first heavy metal band, Black Sabbath, probably wouldn't have sounded the way they would have if they weren't fans of blues, jazz and heavy rock?
It's also interesting when you watch interviews of the more talented, intelligent individuals in the metal community like Jeff Loomis or Mikael Akerfeldt, that they strongly encourage you to listen to other music than metal for inspiration and enjoyment.
And ultimately the music they play that is often revered by many closed minded metal elitist who shun anything that isn't metal, is the result of listening to music other than metal.
So to me, really, being closed minded and elitist really isn't what metal is about.
If the metal community wants to gain more respect, more of them should start showing open mindedness, tolerance and acceptance of others and ultimately just be more intelligent about things in general so they don't get constantly shoved into the cavemen stereotype-bahg.
But at the end of the day I'm a metalhead.
I could take time off from metal, I've been through times in the last few months where I've listened to pop rock even more than metal, but ultimately metal is the home base so to speak.
When I pick up a guitar, metal is the stuff that more naturally comes out of me when I play. 70 per cent of my album collection is still probably metal and I've been listening to metal since I was 12.
I can talk about metal for hours, I study metal production, I've sat down and dissected metal songs bit by bit (whether it be the music theory, song structures etc), so I feel I understand metal fairly well.
. How about that? Not really a thought shared by everyone that listens to metal..
