Why I Left Heavy Metal: Halloween Edition

With All Hallows Eve just around the corner, I felt it was a good time to speak on this matter.

You see, years and years ago, I was a dedicated disciple of all things heavy. In those days, I felt that anything musical that could be defined as pure and honest was required to have high decibels of distorted guitar angst. Primal fury, encapsulated by tormented words screamed at the edge of a singer's limitations, it was the only way to be a sincere artist in my mind. The enemy was easy to see. Acoustic strumming pretty boys who sung of girlfriends and happy meetings in coffee shops,totally glazing over the problems that the world wears. We knew them well and despised them better. We rock guys knew the score, if it wasn't loud and tormented, then it wasn't the real deal.

Then, one day, I simply stopped. Burned out and frustrated with what heavy music had turned into, I walked away. I had lost all interest in distorted guitar fury, and those savage rhythms that were requisite in such music. It had become commercial to me, easily crafted routine that no longer captured my imagination and spoke of the pain in my heart.

Aside from the occassional visit while the MP3 player is on shuffle, I have never gone back. I play in a mellower side of the spectrum, and am pretty happy with it. And I sleep soundly at night knowing that any contributions I might have made in what is rock and/or heavy metal would've only further dilluted down an already bland stew. Occassionally, I get a doubt or two about the path I chose. Understandable really, after near a decade of dedication, It's easy to look at what was and what might have been. But for the most part, ce la vie

Every once in a while, time and nature conspire to remind me of why I left that scene in the first place. Today was one of those days, as a catalog arrived at the homestead. Halloween is close, and as such, there's a lot of pressure out there to invest in costumes. Classic and new, treading new ground or simply modernizing a traditional theme. Vampires and fairies, witches and Spider Man. Power Rangers are still on the scene, and it looks as if the hippies and disco-lytes are now fare for kiddies. As if a failed counter culture movement and Studio 54 weren't depressing enough.

Of course, none of this is as bad as what I was about to encounter.

In the small handful of pages dedicated to the young men, I stumbled across a costume that at once angered and frightened me.

The costume was called "Headbanger." It was an all black number with fingerless driving gloves and an industrial grade mechanic's overalls. A studded neckline and wrist guards let the average observer know this this kid knew nothing about oil changes. The cherry atop this monstrosity was a pale white mask with long, shoulder length horse hair sewn atop it in a stringy, slightly balding fashion. The face was adorned with blood red coloring around the eyes and along the chin, forming a paganistic goatee of sorts. It was disgusting, abhorrent, and very very embarrassing.

Costume makers, traditionally, have been a few step behind the times. The market is flooded with Pirate garb years after Johnny Depp made pirates cool. Halloween is fed by fads, and rubber can only be molded so quickly. So, it surprises me very little when costumes turn up to in this day and age a bit overdue for when people actually would've worn the stuff.

Not so in this case. I need only flip through any heavy metal publication to see that my once proud musical genre still looks like this costume I see before me. This outfit is the direct descendant of bands like Slipknot and Dimmu Borgir, both still very functional entities in the brotherhood of metal. Bands galore, donned in pointy guitars and mad makeup, still look like this. What's worse, is that they look like this without shame. These misguided idiots are still under the impression they cut a terrifying figure on society. That they still put fear and nightmares into the hearts of yuppies everywhere. Never stopping to realize that the kids of those they are trying to frighten, will be dressing up just like them for cheap candy and gum.

I am ashamed for what once were my brothers. Ashamed that what once took nothing more than long hair, black T shirts, and true grit has slowly dissolved into this. An outfit adorned with copious quantities of makeup, excessive jewelery,and enough studded leather to make even Rob Halford question your manhood.

And for all the physical enhancements and theatrics, the music hasn't spun any more a convincing tale. Overly dissonant, relying more on random noise and hoarse frog croaks, the music has lost it's magic. It takes concentration to decipher the message, and having to concentrate while being pummeled with excessive volumes has simply become too trying for an old timer like myself.

So metalheads and rockers alike, take note: The tricks you've been relying on will no longer work. Weird outfits and distortion are simply not enough in this day and age. Things need to grow, expand, get pissed, and all in new and exciting ways. What those ways are, I can't tell you. I've defected from the cause, so it's now all on you. All I can say is, do something new, and do it fast. Before the epitome of your legacy is being glossed on the pages between a ninja and dinosaur.