My real name is Mike, and I'm 47 years old.
I live about an hour or so from Seattle, and have lived in this area since 1989.
I grew up as an Army brat and spent my childhood in Germany (3 times), Oklahoma, Colorado, NYC, Texas and Arizona.
I joined the Navy after I graduated high school and served for 8 years. I still work for the Navy but as a civilian.
My first real exposure to metal was hearing Motorhead's Ace Of Spades album when it first came out, courtesy of my babysitter who also introduced me to Pink Floyd's The Wall, AC/DC's Highway to Hell and Back in Black, as well as Frank Zappa's Sheik Yerbouti album.
I got into Iron Maiden and Judas Priest after that, and got my world turned upside down when I heard Metallica's Ride The Lightning album back in '85. From there, I also got into Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, Testament and Exodus. When I moved to Seattle in '89, I got introduced to Soundgarden and Alice In Chains (and yes, they were considered metal at that time until the alternative crowd got into them as well.). When the grunge explosion happened, I felt like outside of Pantera's albums, Testament's Low and Carcass' Heartwork albums, that good metal was hard to find, so I stuck with the old school metal and classic rock from about '95 to 2000. And I always enjoyed listening to COC. I got introduced to Soilwork and In Flames around '02 or '03 and realized that good metal didn't go away. From there, I got into Lamb Of God, Shadows Fall, Opeth and Gojira.
I'm at the point in my metal listening career where I'll listen to any metal except for death metal. It just never hooked me. I can listen to Metallica, jump to KIllswitch Engage next and then blast some At The Gates after that. I don't give a shit about the metal sub-genres. If it's good, I'll listen to it.