Do i think Alexi is metal enough?well,sit back and i'll tell you a story....
I come from a time long ago when we all wore denim & leather,had shaggy perms,bullet belts,all trying to look like lips from Anvil,and were known to the general public as smellies!!oh and a keyboard in metal band was unheard of!
Well, we headbanged our way through the early eighties,pouring scorn on anyone who wasnt "METAL"until 1984 when my perception of metal was changed forever.
I was listening to the friday rockshow on BBC radio this fatefull night and a song called "Warhead" by a band called Venom was played.....I was stunned,
this is what i'd been waiting for(although i didnt know it!)THIS was knuckle bruising music,THIS was hardcore THIS was raw..Black Metal,where it all started, was born.To this day Venom are still one of my faves.
fast forward a couple of years,i'm married, 2 kids and have lost touch with whats happening music wise,and i stumbled on a band called Cradle of Filth.
WE WERE RIGHT,METAL BANDS DONT HAVE KEYBOARDS!!This horrified me,it sounded like two skeletons having a wank in a tin can!!and a church organist on steriods!WTF???,how had my cherished "Black metal"turned into this?NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!.
fast forward again to 1999,my second apiphany,same scenario-friday rock show,halloween special,midway through the night they played Slipknots debut single wait and bleed...a long lost feeling stirred ,now this was more like it!!,this was where metal should have gone,this floated my boat,METAL!
Present day(ish) I'm off to see slipknot in Manchester and my son informs me that one of the supporting acts is a band called COB.so he borrowed an album aff one of his mates and lent it me with the assurance"you'll like this".
The album was Are you Dead yet?.
I took it home..put the disc in..pressed play.....KEYBOARD!! NOOOOOOO!!!
The gut reaction was to be short lived,all of a sudden i was bombarded with a wall of sound,Punchy,FUCKIN HEAVY METAL,for me all the very best triats of my golden years and the new generation rolled into one... awesome!!!
So do i think Alexi is metal enough? His tunes make me want to headbang....he's metal enough