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BANDS
Anthrax Danzing DIO
Exodus Grim Reaper Helloween
Eternal Death Iron Maiden King Diamond
Megadeath Metal Church Metallica
Slayer
MISCELLANEOUS BANDS
Celtc Frost Sam Hain
Sodom Possessed
Satan
Although the above list is somewhat numerous, it is by no means
exhaustive. The background for each of the above bands is listed
below.
ANTHRAX: Anthrax named itself after a deadly disease, admitting
they don't like things that are "safe and pretty." Youngsters
yearning for profanity listen to songs like, "I'M THE MAN." During
concerts, lead singer Joey Bellandonna shouts obscenities to the
audience, who scream them back. On their album, "STATE of
EUPHORIA", Anthrax also seems to metaphorically mandate vengeful
murder in a spiteful song called, "MISERY LOVES COMPANY," which
ends with the line "I'LL KILL YOU".
DANZING: Glenn Danzing, formerly with the Misfits, is a heavy
metal hero of the eighties. He collects Japanese monster toys and
sings about Satan. The cover of his latest LP, entitled,
"DANZING", depicts a goat's skull, the symbol of satanic
allegiance. Grisly songs on the album applaud a god of deceit and
darkness. The lyrics to, "TWIST OF CAIN" relate how Satan fathered
Cain, enabling him to commit the first murder. In another
song, "EVIL THING," Danzing describes how anger keeps him alive in
his private hell as a demon-man. During a recent MTV interview,
Glenn Danzing commented that it was acceptable because it
represents human nature. Man, he said, should acknowledge his good
and evil aspects and not be upset at his failures. Danzing's own
ethical dichotomy is apparent in such songs as "AM I DEMON," in
which he askes, "AM I BEAST OR HUMAN?"
DIO: Ronnie James Dio claims to have originated the so-called
two-fingered salute so popular at rock concerts. His imagery
ratifies his claim. The cover of his album "DREAM EVIL" depicts a
child asleep on a bed. Satan peers through a window above her,
flashing the satanic salute. From under the bed crawl creepy
slithering snakes. In "ALL THE FOOLS SAILED AWAY", he sings, "WE
ARE DAMNED...WE ARE CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LION AND THE
LAMB...WE TEACH YOU TO SIN." Dio's album "HOLY DIVER" depicts a
helpless, drowning minister, overcome by a horned and cloven-
footed devil.
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EXODUS: Their album "FABULOUS DISASTER" is named after film
character Malcolm McLaren's assessment of the Sex Pistol's Sid
Vicious in the movie "Sid and Nancy". Vocalist Steve Souza says
FABULOUS DISASTER intends to emphasize rawness and violence,
epitomized by songs such as "BONDED by BLOOD," and, "PLEASURES of
the FLESH". FABULOUS DISASTER includes an ode to a bloody three-
day New Mexico prison riot in 1980. Souza calls "OPEN SEASON" a
song about a psychopathic stalker who butchers a baby-faced foe,
"friendly, violent fun."
Exodus accommodates fans who crave ferocity and a headbanging
beat with songs like "THE TOXIC WALTZ". The song advocates slam
dance brutality, which Exodus enthusiasts take to heart. Vocalist
Steve Souza says one of his most memorable Exodus gigs was in
Tampa, Florida when stage-diving fanaticism left one fan with a
broken leg.
The lyrics of Exodus celebrate relentless rage in such songs
as "CAJUN HELL", which tells the story of murderous slaughter in
the South. The embittered Exodus offers for social disintegration
is to pitch people in the slam dance pit and slash each other with
"Verbal Razor Blades", the title to another Exodus song.
HELLOWEEN: They spurn authority and recommend rebellion. Their
songs inform fans there're stuck in a hopeless age of desperation.
Headbanging Helloween's album, "KEEPER of the SEVEN KEYS, Part
II", describes one man's destruction of the devil through
divination and his god-like power. Helloween depicts the devil
accurately as possessing the keys to fear, greed, disease, and
death. Helloween also advocates libidious behavior in a song about
a perverted professor named "DR. SATAN", who clones his well-
formed assistant and has a hedonistic hay day. Blatant blasphemy
marks a song called "SAVE US." The lyrics advocate the New Age
creed that
all forms of life are manifestations of spirit.
IRON MAIDEN: Iron Maiden's favorite subjects to sing about are
sorcery and savagery. Their fascination with the occult is evident
on albums like "POWER SLAVE", which delves in Egyptian mysticism
and magic. On their album, "SEVENTH SON OF THE SEVENTH SON", lead
singer and lyricist Bruce Dickinson belts out songs about demons
and creatures of insanity. The album cover depicts Eddie, the
goulish Iron Maiden mascot symbolizing death, hovering above a
gloomy civilization. In his hand he holds a ripped-out heart,
which is also chained to his rib cage. On the other side of the
LP, Eddie writes in a journal by the light of monstrous candles
with a crystal ball before him.
Iron Maiden celebrates the number seven which astrologists
credit as the number of the moon, in the SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH
SON". In a song called, "THE CLAIRVOYANT", Dickinson relates the
struggle between God and the devil for a telepathic child's soul.
The boy falls in love with the devil's daughter and eventually
kills himself in the song, "ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG". Their first
claim to fame was the album, "NUMBER OF THE BEAST", which featured
a song dedicated tot he Antichrist.
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MEGADETH: In 1983, after being expelled from Metallica for anti-
social behavior, Dave Mustaine took command of his own group. The
son of Jehovah's Witness mother, Mustaine vocally attacks Tipper
Gore and the Parent's Music Resource Center (P.M.R.C.), an
organization Gore founded to censor raunchy rock lyrics. In a song
called, "HOOKED in MOUTH", Mustaine growls about Gore's actions
and accuses her of infringing on his constitutional right to
freedom of speech. Anyone who has heard his songs may question
what right he has to offend the public. In his remake of the Sex
Pistol's song, "ANARCHY in the UK", Mustaine sings, "I am an Anti-
Christ, and I am AntiChrist."
Megadeth cranks out songs about spilling blood and stomping
guts out with venomous anger. Megadeth's album, "SO FAR, SO
GOOD...SO WHAT", depicts a shell-studded, combat-clad soldier
whose melted face leers menacingly from beneath a crude helmet.
Admist the ruins of a nuclear holocaust, he stands poised with a
powerful weapon, ready to blast all living things. (The name
Megadeth refers to a hypothetical body count of one million deaths
from a nuclear war.)
Though Mustaine and band members claim to inform listeners on
important issues and deny allegiance to Satan, their first album
was entitled, "KILLING IS MY BUSINESS...AND BUSINESS IS GOOD."
"BLACK FRIDAY", a song from their album, "PEACE SELLS...BUT WHOSE
BUYING", exalts sadistic slaughter. Lyrics declare, "I LURK IN THE
ALLEYS, WAIT FOR THE KILL. I HAVE NO REMORSE FOR THE BLOOD THAT I
SPILL." "THE CONJURING", also from that album, seemingly simulates
a satanic ceremony. The singer says, "I AM THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"
and concludes "I'VE GOT YOUR SOUL." Another album, Megadeth muses
over the fate of a young witch buried alive by her father in a
song called "MARY JANE." Despite such occult collusion, Mustaine
says, "We're aware of the subject we write about--witchcraft,
satanic sacrifices, and the like, but we are not condoning them."
METAL CHURCH: The Metal Church song, "TON OF BRICKS" describes
someone ripping and kicking until "blood begins to flow." Another
tune on the album simply says, "I LIVE TO EAT YOUR BONES."
METALLICA: They play songs about "CREEPING DEATH as concert fans
chant, "DIE! DIE! DIE!" Clad in blue jeans, jeering members of
Metallica bellow lyrics lambasting war, drugs, and authority.
James Hetfield, Metallica's lead singer and lyricist, was heavily
influenced as a teenager by Black Sabbath. Now his band bewitches
a new heavy metal generation of kids for whom Led Zeppelin and
Black Sabbath are outdated. Hetfield, the son of strict Christian
Scientists, wrote, "DYER"S EVE", a dismal song about rage directed
at parents. Spiteful lyrics accuse his mother and father of
putting him through hell with their parenting.
These harvesters of heavy metal sorrow foster defiance among
their growing ranks of raunch-relishing, headbanger listeners.
Metallica's popular first LP, not-so,subtly titled, "KILL' EM
ALL", sold 350,000 copies. Although they profess no interest in
satanism, Metallica explored the works of occult writer H.P.
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Lovecraft while composing "THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE", a song
that tells of an immortal sanity-stealing stalker of the shadows.
Though some Metallica songs boarder on social commentary
("MASTER OF PUPPETS", "DISPOSABLE HEROES", "LEPER MESSIAH"), most
of their tunes celebrate suicide, hatred, and hopelessness. In
many Metallica songs, death is the only escape in a world of
"blackened *banality". Songs like "FADE TO BLACK" from their "RIDE
THE LIGHTNING" album, and "ONE" from the album, "JUSTICE FOR ALL"
laud death as a welcome friend in a world of frustration, pain and
failure.
SLAYER: This group sings about *necrophilia and lyrically
declares, "PRAISE SATAN" - "WELCOME TO HELL" - "HELL AWAITS"
"CRUCIFY THE SO-CALLED LORD, JESUS KNOWS YOUR SOUL CANNOT BE
SAVED". In their song, "BLACK MAGIC", they sing, "CAPTIVE OF A
FORCE OF SATAN'S MIGHT-DEATH TAKES MY HAND AND CAPTURES MY SOUL."
In the song, "EVIL HAS NO BOUNDARIES", they expose who their
master is, "SATAN IS OUR MASTER IN EVIL MAYHEM GUIDES US WITH
EVERY FIRST STEP." In their song, "SPILL THE BLOOD", they song,
"SPILL YOUR BLOOD, LET IT RUN ON TO ME. TAKE MY HAND AND LET YOUR
LIFE GO...YOU'VE SPILT THE BLOOD. I HAVE YOUR SOUL." Their song,
"ALTER OF SACRIFICE" describes the human sacrifice of a virgin
with lyrics like, "SATAN'S SLAUGHTER, CEREMONIAL DEATH. ANSWER HIS
EVERY COMMAND. ENTER INTO THE REALM OF SATAN...LEARN THE SACRED
WORDS OF 'HAIL SATAN'". Their song, "ANGEL OF DEATH", praises the
Auschwitch butcher, Joseph Mengle with the word, "SADIST SURGEON
OF DEMISE, SADIST OF THE NOBLIST BLOOD...MONARCH TO THE KINGDOM OF
THE DEAD." In "NECROPHILIAC", the lyrics go, "I FEEL THE URGE, THE
GROWING NEED TO F*%$# THIS SINFUL CORPSE. MY TASK COMPLETE, THE
BITCH'S SOUL LIES RAPED IN DEMON LUST."
*Banality - without flavor - tasteless- dull - lifeless
*Necrophilia - abnormal fascination with the dead - erotic
attraction to corpses.