How'd you get into metal?

[FatesFan]

Not 100% sure but I do recall an older cousin spinning Toys in the attic and some Alice Cooper and I was digging it at a young age. My brother and I started a band and we played some Van Halen, Rush, Cars, etc. Then we got another guitar player and he brought over Point of Entry by JP and I was hooked. Then he shows up with Number of the beast and WOW....I could not believe it. Then he shows up with Accept and plays fast as a shark and again I was shocked but loved it all. My band covered Motley Crue before anyone back home even knew who they were. We had the leather records version of the first album. Then dude started showing up with Mercyful Fate, Cirith Ungol, Venom, Manowar,Jag Panzer, Exciter,Angel Witch, Anthrax. I liked it all except Venom or Cirith. In my freshman year ( I think ) some dude turned me on to Night on Brocken by Fates Warning and that topped it off.

 

[Kaosaur]

I was metal from birth.
In the womb, yo.


Actually I think it goes back to my early childhood and watching Beavis and Butthead. Really. As I was growing up I got lost in the world of Synthpop, Darkwave, Chillout and Electro (all of which I still adore) but I always come back to metal.

 

[dcowboys311]

Ostracised and RagePSV, do you guys still have those WREKage tapes? I'd love to get a copy of them if at all possible.

 

[dcowboys311]

Anyway I was really big into nu-metal back in middle school, but in 9th grade a friend of mine who used to live in Japan told me about this band called Sonata Arctica who he had heard of there. I enjoyed them but didn't really follow up. I started posting on the GameFAQs rock board and there heard about Dream Theater and Symphony X, which got me into metal.

 

[Ostracised]

Ostracised and RagePSV, do you guys still have those WREKage tapes? I'd love to get a copy of them if at all possible.

I might have one or two of them, but if I do they're in storage either wherever Uncle Sam took my stuff or up in Acworth where my mom's storage unit is. I'm in Korea so I don't have access to them at all. With pretty regular moves since I was around 15 things get lost and thrown away in the shuffle.

 

[Ostracised]

Wow, this kinda warms my heart. Early 90s would have been before I actively deejayed on WREKage, but right around the time I started hanging out at the studio (the old location behind Alexander Memorial Coliseum). That's where I first heard, say, Therion's "To Mega Therion" and Pan-thy-Monium's "Battle of Geheeb," two songs that will forever remind me of the halcyon days of WREKage.

How about Chris Poland's first solo disk, Wrathchild America, Danzig II: Lucifuge, Venom, Metallica starting and ending the show, and the call-in contest to vote on a new start and end band-not to mention the ONLY time Skid Row was ever played on WREKAGE??? Those were days...

 

[jaimek]

MTV takes most of the credit - I was already listening to mass-media friendly rock from a fairly young age, but Hard 30/60 and Headbanger's Ball put me on the path of most of the music I listen to now when I was 13 or 14. Queensryche, Savatage, and Testament stand out as the first three ~metal~ bands that I really got into as a result of those shows.

 

[DarkOne]

After having been primarily into hair bands for awhile, I witnessed Metallica's performance at the Monsters of Rock stadium tour in Philadelphia on June 12th, 1988.

Fan for life after that day.

Jason

I was there! I remember that day well (still have the cheap fake silk-screened shirt I bought in the parking lot). The acoustics were lousy, it was hot out, and I think Van Halen took about 2 hours to hit the stage. On the other hand:

Kingdom Come (bleah)
Dokken
Metallica
Scorpions
Van Halen

You don't get a much better lineup, especially considering how big those bands were in 1986. Awesome!

Steve in Philly

 

[DarkOne]

I was probably about 10 when a friend played Black Sabbath for me (the song, by the band, off the album Black Sabbath). After that, bands like Def Leppard started getting big radio airplay. Twisted Sister was the one that really struck a chord with me, and for years were my favorite band. From there, is was downhill all the way.

Steve in Philly

 

[RagePSV]

Ostracised and RagePSV, do you guys still have those WREKage tapes? I'd love to get a copy of them if at all possible.

I don't have any full shows, just 90 minutes here and 90 minutes there. I'm fairly certain that they are boxed up with the rest of my tapes in my parents' attic. I'll do some poking around and see what I can find. Damn, I don't even have a tape deck anymore to make copies. How times change...

 

[sarbah77]

Growing up, I'd always preferred the hair metal bands to anything grunge. Since the hair metal wasn't cool, I pretty much didn't listen to any music at all.

Skip to college and a coworker who would give us all rides home. He loved to play "Shoots and Ladders" by Korn for us (because it was so bizarre). Rather than think he was weird, I enjoyed it, and over the summer, he sent me a tape that included everything from Korn to the Fugees to Screaming Trees and Rage Against the Machine. When we were working together in the fall, I'd mentioned a friend of mine was wearing this really cool Awake t-shirt and he suggested I ask to borrow my friend's Dream Theater CDs, which I did.

I listened to Dream Theater and then Helloween, on that friend's recommendation... and then the ytsejam list provided me with friendships and music recommendations. Korn was my gateway band?

-Sarah

 

[dcowboys311]

I might have one or two of them, but if I do they're in storage either wherever Uncle Sam took my stuff or up in Acworth where my mom's storage unit is. I'm in Korea so I don't have access to them at all. With pretty regular moves since I was around 15 things get lost and thrown away in the shuffle.

No worries. Thanks!

 

[dcowboys311]

I don't have any full shows, just 90 minutes here and 90 minutes there. I'm fairly certain that they are boxed up with the rest of my tapes in my parents' attic. I'll do some poking around and see what I can find. Damn, I don't even have a tape deck anymore to make copies. How times change...

Cool cool. I never listened to the show in the early 90s (I didn't live in Georgia and was only about 3 at the time) but now that I host the show, I'm interested in hearing firsthand what it was like back in the day. I've heard plenty of stories about stuff that used to happen but I'd like to hear the show itself too.

 

[PatrickHoyt]

Been listening to Metal since I was born so there wasn't much 'getting into it' I was just born into it. I used to jam out to Dio's Don't Talk to Strangers air guitar style when I was a toddler.

 

[_eva_]

I discovered metal in 2000. I started off with Pink Floyd, got into Led Zep, then AC/DC, then Iron Maiden. And at the same time as Pink Floyd I discovered Within Temptation, and quickly got into the old Theatre of Tragedy and The 3rd and the mortal, before discovering Nightwish.

 

[lady_space]

Well, when I was little (6 or 7) was when MTV first started. They used to play Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot, and I loved it. But when I first got into music of my own, it was radio stuff. I became a big Prince fan and listed to the AT40 religiously. Later on, mostly when I lived in Germany, around '85 - '88, I heard a little Whitesnake, Motley Crue, etc., and got Slippery When Wet and Look What the Cat Dragged In for Christmas of '86. When I moved back to the States, I got re-acquainted with an old friend, Angel, who had 2 older brothers who had gotten into metal. She played me Guns 'N Roses (I still remember not hearing her well and asking her "What did you say the guitarist's name is? Slut?"), Ozzy, Maiden, WASP, etc. I started watching Headbanger's Ball and saw Testament, Death Angel, Yngwie, etc., and loved it. She had an "extra" copy of Rage for Order she gave me, and then I bought Cinderalla, Yngwie, and Metallica tapes.

And that, as they say, was all she wrote.

Some very interesting stories here... thanks for sharing!

 

[thedelicateflower]

I was there! I remember that day well (still have the cheap fake silk-screened shirt I bought in the parking lot). The acoustics were lousy, it was hot out, and I think Van Halen took about 2 hours to hit the stage. On the other hand:

Kingdom Come (bleah)
Dokken
Metallica
Scorpions
Van Halen

You don't get a much better lineup, especially considering how big those bands were in 1986. Awesome!

Steve in Philly

i was there too...though when it was at the L.A. Coliseum...second row from the stage.....though i didn't get to see scorpions (who i had the tix for) or van halen (no loss)....because after metallica played a song or two (can't remember exactly...still in shock )...people stormed the stage and i lost my seat...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[No-Mercy]

i happened to hear iron maiden even though it was 2000

 

[ProgMetal_Lover]

1969 when I was 15,Grand Funk Railroads Red Album blew me away,then Sabbath,Deep Purple,Humble Pie,Foghat and a host of other bands since have kept me happy to be headbangin with bands like Iced Earth,Andromeda,etc today,METAL will never die.

 

[Eyes Of Horus]

At the age of 10 (summer 1983) I first heard Quiet Riot's 'Metal Health' over at a friend's house. Then got into Van Halen the next year. In middle school Bon Jovi ,Ozzy and Dokken were all we listened to. Then high school it was Guns N Roses, Def Leppard, Whitesnake, and Queensryche. At college I happened to listen to a late night metal radio show on the campus station. That show got me into Dio, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Testament and other heavier groups (this was around 1991-92). Then on Headbangers Ball (in 1994 I think) I saw a Helloween video. The next day I went out and bought all their CDs.

Then in summer 1995 my life changed forever. I happened to be in Tower Records and noticed a magazine with a big pumpkin on the front (Sentinel Steel #2). I flipped through the magazine and noticed that I hardly knew any of the bands on the inside. So I bought it and took it home. In the magazine were ads for mailorder companies. I sent for the catalogs and proceeded to spend thousands of dollars buying hundreds of CDs especially from Dream Disc (thanks Brent and Brian).

I'd like to thank Denis Gulbey for introducing me to Metal from around the world. I'd also like to thank Dream Disc, Impulse, Wildside, MoltenMetal and all the other mail order vendors for putting me in the poorhouse.