I was asked to do a book on something controversial in the mid-80s. I Told them I'd do it on metal because Tipper Gore and her merry band of Rather dumb and nasty folk in the PMRC had presented the idea that metal was evil to the general public.

Having enjoyed innumerable metal concerts where I'd spoken with hundreds of metalheads, I knew that the fans of this music, the music itself, and of course the musicians, were hardly evil. Or even dangerous. I'd been teaching a course on the Sociology of Rock Music for several years by then and I applied the analysis that I do in class to rock in general to analyze metal. The book took several years and was an intellectual challenge. There is nothing like writing to show you the holes in your ideas. Struggling to write the book advanced my ideas wonderfully.

I'm way bummed out about Chuck's death. I'd sent in a check the moment I'd heard he needed funds, several years ago. He did his work, made his
mark on the cultural world, in the 80s and I don't think his passing will have any cultural impact.

I remember when I first saw Death (the band!) in 1985 I think, at the Cubby Bear in Chicago. I remember thinking that this was never going to be a mass taste, radio and MTV wouldn't touch it. And I thought that was one of its real strengths (besides the sound itself which I really like)- it couldn't sell out. And it hasn't, of course.

What really impresses me too, and I recall at that concert telling my friend Bill, that if the Mexicans ever discovered death metal, they'd really be in to it; their culture prepared them for it. Sure enough, death metal is huge in Mexico, as well as in other Iberian cultures.

Well, I answered this in part above. I did tons of research beyond my yearsof being in to it. Forexample, I got friends to dump their old
Kerrang!s, Metal Hammers and metal zines with me, and I read them assiduously.

Or another example, the wild goose chase I had hunting down the answer to the question "Who named heavy metal?"- There were a few books and articles that all said it was done by Lester Bangs in his CREEM piece on Black Sabbath. Well it took much searching to find a copy of the magazine, at a library about 15 miles away. And when I got there, and Xeroxed the piece, and read it, the term "heavy metal" was NOT there. Nor was it in the second part published two months later.

It turned out that another writer had used
the term a year earlier and his (Mike Saunders in his review of Sir Lord Baltimore) was the first time it was used to describe a style of music.

In your book you have a chapter about the metal gods, you talk about the metal subculture being loyal to its metal gods and basically conservative. You also state in the chapter that cover songs are acceptable but metal bands are expected to write their own songsand not bring in people from outside the metal genre to do so. To do so might be considered betrayal! With this in mind lets consider a couple metal icons who should be up on charges! Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson both at one time denounced metal ( MAJOR SIN! ) in public during their solo careers and proceed to make non-metal albums! (Exhibit 1.Skunkworks and Two) Both singers have comeback metal albums that are partly written by someone outside the metal subculture. (Exhibit 2: Roy Z of Tribe of Gypsies (a Miami Sound machine clone))
And since we are taking about metal icons that don't write all of their own music lets bring to the stand Exhibit 3 the band SAVATAGE who has been using the music skills of a Paul O Neil both in SAVATAGE and TSO. I'm I jumping the gun or have I misinterpreted something? How do you interpret the above evidence? Why?

Your evidence is sound! Halford and Dickinson were great for many years,but not in the past decade. Had they never done anything except theirpost-horror stuff, we'd never discuss them. And while you've mentioned Halford and Dickinson, why not put up for inspection Mr. Sharon Osbourne.How many of his pop ballads has he written? They are capitalizing on their past efforts at best.

But lets admit that the rules of the game have changed. Those standards that I expressed in the book were from another era although they still hold in the underground (particularly in death metal and black metal).

When talking about the sexist attitude in metal you don't seem to have any hostility towards it in the book…you almost seem indifferent about it? You also give thanks to Joey DiMaio who during a show can be one of the most sexist men alive, so you know him better then that and just accept it as part of the show? Or does a part of you get pissed off at all the he-man shit and you just keep it to yourself and try to just "be one of the guys" type female metal heads?

Rock music has always been, and still is, sexist. Groupies are one of the major motivations for many musicians to do arduous touring. Think about
all of the songs that were out in metal by the mid-80s- how many were even about females?

And many metal bands had/have female managers. Both the musicians and the fans were not sexist, in the sense that if a femaledressed in jeans and a t-shirt, rather than in micro-mini skirt and high
heals with lots of skin in sight, she's treated as well as any male. (It takes two to tango).

As for DiMaio, as with most performers, his public persona isn't exactly who he "is."

Furthermore, I think that the sexism in rock in general, as well as in metal, can be understood sociologically. There is not room to elaborate
here, but if you think of how and by whom boys are socialized, women represent all much that is repression and shame. As men, women are
sources of serious problems. So the sense of freedom and rebellion that rock attempts to be is enabled by demeaning women. Think of the way teachers,
another source of repression and shame, are put down in movies from "Blackboard Jungle to "Rock and Roll High School" (and in music videos).

Of course there are bands that do even cross my line on such things- like the Mentors.

I remember when moshpits began. I really liked the comraderie and circle-dancing symbolism of it. But people were skipping around out of time
with the music, which drove me crazy. So I didn't partake.

And yes, the crossover music (eg. COC, DRI) and especially the hardcore punk fans, really changed the setting. For the first years, if you looked down on
the floor from the balcony, you could see the long-haired and beefier guys standing around the periphery, and the pit was full of thin, buzz-cut
guys with elbows flying. Yes, this sort of moshing (and why is there more blood at a Pantera concert than any other; far more than at a Slayer concert,
and certainly more than at a black metal concert) does mess up the standards of the metal subculture of the 70s and 80s. In the early 80s it was so clearly
different: at a punk show, people walking through the crowd purposefullybunked into one another but at metal shows they would gently tap oneanother on the shoulder and turn sideways so as not to bunk into one another.

But it isn't only metal that has mosh pits from hell- even the Cranberries (at Woodstock II) had a ferocious one. It indicates that people
are at the concert for a workout more than a listening experience.

As for metal having a chance, hey, it is alive and well. At least theunderground metal is thriving. I get dozens of new albums each year that are magnificent. And this music is thriving all around the world.

Rock and roll is not the devil's music; he'd sold it to the Conglomerates.

That's a good word, genre-cide!

You are right about all of the sub-genres.
I don't think it is a bad thing, and I can explain why it occurs. When a style is vastly popular (think grunge in the '90s) the majors sign gazillion bands that all sound alike. But without a major style that musicians who want to "make it big" will work in, bands are free to experiment to their heart's content. Think about how many of these bands in one sub-sub-genre have members who are in other bands in some other sub-genre. Many! (If you know about evolution of flora and fauna, where
there is relatively little food, there are far more species.)

As for legit, I'd rather not mention sub-sub-styles, preferring instead to mentioning the band's specific sounds on a given recording.

I've written about Metallica and the utter hypocrisy of their Napster position. They got to be known in the first place with people trading tapes
(an earlier form of Napster). When I refer to them, I designate it as Metallica '80s, or Metallica '90s; the first was a thrash metal band, the second a pop rock or hard rock band.

Rethinking their influence, I think metal would have been far better off without them (although I am quite
fond of all of the cuts on Kill 'Em All).

If metal stands for greed and hypocrisy, well then they should be considered as metal icons ;)