1. I used my guitar to cope with being bullied a lot by religious nuts in private school. The aggressive lyrical nature and technically challenging aspects of metal drew me to it as my preferred style of playing.
2. Unfair question. No one song/album/artist can capture the diverse spectrums of genre's of metal.
3. Thrash maybe as it solidified the aggressive nature of modern metal
4. I hate those games, but it's probably helped make metal more mainstream. I don't remember metallica and megadeth being cool in the mainstream crowd until guitar hero.
5. Pantheist.
6. Dumb I guess... but then again I feel that way about religion in general. Even though I listed pantheism I see it more as a "spiritual" perspective than anything that dictates how I dress, act, what I belief, etc. I definitely feel like people I've been around held religious attitudes towards metal though. I always liked diversity including things outside of rock/metal and it seems like that is looked down on in some circles.
7. Corruption really. My passion is medicine so those are the issues I tend to focus on. Scientific literacy and transparency in medicine and medical policy, enhancing patient autonomy, research priorities etc. Also think the government needs to get the hell out of who smokes what, snorts what, what gender they're fucking and all that. Fucking tired of bigotry being the political norm. As far as economic policies I believe in a healthy balance of free market values and government checks and balances.
8. Don't think so. I've played in metal bands, have hair down past my nipples and listen to metal frequently. But I don't really wear band shirts every day anymore or even identify as a "metalhead". I like psytrance, alt rock, rap, etc. But I can still get down with some Asphyx so what label do I use?
9. Important clothing articles typically include underwear pants and a shirt. Sometimes socks as well.