1989. I was 13. I was taping music videos on VHS and watched the music video debut of Metallica’s “One” as it happened. It was the full length version with the scenes from Johnny Got His Gun, and I was glued to the set for all seven minutes. With Johnny’s voice fading (“s…o…s…”) into the darkness as the video ended, I was gripped by all kinds of intense feelings…sadness, anger, fear, confusion, relief, regret. It was metal, and I loved it. I had spent the previous two years wearing out my Def Leppard and Motley Crue tapes and really digging glam rock/metal in general, but this was my first exposure to real metal. Over time I’d eventually discover Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, and my love of thrash.

forties, listened since teen. slayer war ensemble, seasons in the abyss, Metallica one, sepultura dead embryonic cells were some of the early bangers that got my attention.

I still metal, but I’m not into too many genres or whatever. behemoth has remained.

hung out with most of Dimmu borgir once.

stuff that changed? I dont want to be Mr obvious but internet. it allows us to listen to all kinds of music etc. experience. experiment at home.

as I descend further into get off my lawn; theres hardly a CD industry but lots of vinyl. Im 99% digital but still keep discs and Records for whatever reason.

full on old man mode IMO society feels less able or willing to have the attention span for albums or long songs. everything is a soundbite or remix with “all the hits in there”

Forties.

Got into metal around 20 years ago. Always was a hip-hop head, but a night out to a rock club in Manchester had me loving metal. Might have been the ecstasy, but I kept coming back to the music.

I still love hip-hop but regularly go back to some SOAD. I also like classical now too to round it all off.

In high school, I was within range of KNAC, the Los Angeles hard rock and metal station. I’d say for about a quarter of the students, this was their preferred station (over KROQ or KIIS FM). Lots of metal heads with long hair and attire to match. It was just one clique among many.

How old is older? I’m old enough to know Scott Burns produced some of my favorite albums

I’m 58. And I’m a Motorhead, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden era metalhead. I lived through the first generation of speed metal (e.g. Exciter) and seem to have come through all the head banging without long-term repercussions. And seem to have come through all the head banging without long-term repercussions.

I got into it through friends who played and were in bands. I was stunning them and other bands in the early 80s. I actually recall hearing the guitar from La Grange at about 11 or 12 and realing that a guitar could move me.

I can’t play. I ran sound and did pyrotechnics for my friends. I love it loud. I still do.

In college, in Toledo, OH, there was a great band scene in the late 80s and early 90s. I saw bands like Axel Brice, Exciter, Accept, and more on the bars like Kip’s and Roxanne’s. There were great shows at the Sports Arena. I fell asleep at a Judas Priest/ Megadeath show after a full day of student teaching.

Now, I listen to Halestorm and a lot of the guitar players- Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen, Orianthi.

Define older lol.

I’m not quite fifty yet, but my early exposure to metal goes back to when I was toddler.

When I was really little, my mom even played “we will rock you” to get me to sleep, though there’s debate about that song being metal. But she also played a good amount of Sabbath, Iron Butterfly, deep purple, Steppenwolf, etc back when I was still a baby, and that continued as I grew up.

My parents were both fairly avid music listeners, so it wasn’t just metal, and they never got into the kind of metal that got popular in the eighties, except for my dad really liking Poison lol.

But, I was similarly avid about music, of all kinds growing up. But I didn’t really think of metal as a genre until the mid eighties, when it kinda started going more mainstream. It was just music, and I liked what I would hear, but it wasn’t this thing yet.

Anyway, my exploration of metal as a genre on a more intensive level was in jr high. A friend dragged me into a disused bathroom at school, and introduced me to the album master of puppets. Mind totally blown. From there, it snowballed. Maiden, megadeth, anthrax, and it kept expanding.

I never really had any limits to sub genres at all. I enjoyed “hair” metal as much as thrash or old school stuff like original Sabbath. Hard rock was folded into it as well, with bands like aerosmith and queen being accepted as “close enough” to metal among most of the kids that were metalheads in my school.

But I was the one that introduced death metal to the mix! I shoplifted Death’s Leprosy and it ended up being a tad controversial among the metalhead population at school. Some loved it, some hated it, with no in between. I hated it at the time, and they’re still far from my favorite band, though I’ve come to appreciate their skill. But the guy that introduced me to Metallica loved it, and that started a death metal boom as copies of the tape spread.

Back then, out here in the rural area I’m in, long haired guys would catch hell. Metal was automatically Satanism, and you were going to hell. I ended up fighting way more than I wanted to by virtue of being long haired and unwilling to put up with shit after the first few years of it. I was a pacifist, really shy and reserved growing up. So jr high was hell for me. But by high school, I had taken all the abuse I was willing to, and started fighting back. Not that being a metalhead was the only thing that attracted abuse, I had other abuse going on at school too.

Which is tangential, but perhaps shows how the social acceptance of metal and metalheads has changed. Not that there weren’t assholes that were metalheads, but it was a different kind of asshole, and a different kind of fight.

In truth, metal was what kept me from going crazy and doing something really bad. That outlet kept me sane enough to get through the bullshit.

Metallica 92 was my first concert ever. Well, that wasn’t a school thing, which I don’t think counts.

Then grunge happened lol. The popularity contest of music pushed metal off of the radio as much, and even MTV let it drop from front and center. It got harder to find new bands, the established bands often ended up folding or going quiet. It took a while for metal to reach the next generation, which is when things started to get interesting imo. Late nineties, seeing younger kids discover metal was awesome.

But I think the overall quality of metal has improved. There’s less of the kind of garage vibe stuff, where a group of people that aren’t really musicians just get together and make noise. There was a while in the late eighties+early nineties where any idiot with teased hair, a guitar, and no qualms could end up with a record deal.

I’m not actually knocking the garage metal. It has its own glory, but it isn’t exactly well made and high skill. I suppose I should say they’re a higher amount of well practiced musicians going into metal by choice rather than following a trend so they can make a living.

So, yeah. I’m not truly old yet, though I’m looking old right in the anus as I get closer to it. But the journey of metal has been a long one

I’m 46, was introduced to Black Sabbath literally on the first day of highschool. Immediately I fell into Slayer and Ministry and Anthrax. Soon I found Sepultura, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass. And there was GWAR! I’ve seen all of those live except for Sabbath, but I have also seen Helmet, Fight, Iron Maiden, and more. I grew up in a good area for live shows.

I guess older would be old enough to remember Cliff Burton.

My Metallica bassist is Newsted. Which means I’m not young, not old.

People who only knew Trujillo are the young bucks.

I started listening to Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, etc in grade school back in the early 90s. My friends and I were a small group of outcasts, most kids were listening to hiphop or pop music.

My metal tastes have slowed way down. Speed and thrash metal as a kid, these days I’m listening to doom. Sludge, acid, atmospheric… slow and heavier than a neutron star.