Okay, let's get some things clear about "Heavy Metal".

The term "Heavy Metal" when applied to music means something that's artificial sounding. Layers and layers of distortion on guitars, atonal basslines, blazing drums that have primal beats at their core. Metal guitars are the polar opposite of accoustic guitars, right? The idea behind Heavy Metal is to make dark, heavy music.

In my opinion, there is nothing heavier than Black Sabbath's first album's opener, "Black Sabbath". Why? Atmosphere. Say it with me.

At - Mo - Spear.

Good. The rain and thunder in the beginning of the song set the tone for the guitars, bass, and drums to enter. Tony Iommi enters with that heavy minor triad of notes. They just sound so.. Doomy. It's pure atmosphere that creates a sense of impending doom. And that's heavy. Heavy as balls.

I used to HATE screamed vocals of any kind, whether it be Hardcore, Grind, Death, or Black. Hated it. Loved the music.

So, I'm in this band, and we bring in a singer. The guy screams. I couldn't stand it, even worse when he screamed MY lyrics. Ugh!

But he and I sat down and discussed his vocals.. He explained that while he doesn't need to scream, and he doesn't, the hostility that comes from screaming, mixed with the emotions behind it, enhance the point of the lyrics. I asked him to sing for me.

And it was amazing. Amazing. This guy who sounded like he was choking on a cactus was singing Elton John! AMAZINGLY! His voice was clear, strong, and precise.

It was in that moment that I fell in love with screamed vocals. Taking in what he said about the emotions behind his vocals, and his mastery of a non-screamed vocal.. I loved it.

His exact words to me was this :

"You run your Mesa/Boogie with alot of distortion. I run my voice with alot of distortion."

And he's right. That's all it is; putting distortion on the voice like I do my guitar. Master of Puppets wouldn't sound right at all with clean guitars. Through the Eyes of the Dead wouldn't sound right with clean vocals on top of the controlled chaos of drums, guitars, and bass.

From a musical standpoint, with metal, it's skill. Programming a great sounding drum patch for a hip-hop song requires some form of clever, but is it physically demanding? No. It's not. Playing 218 BPM on a 16th note run with sweeps thrown in for melodic purposes is when you do it for four and a half minutes. Try it.

Compared to even hard rock, metal requires so much more dedication and love to make. You can't just 'like' metal and make the heaviest music to be heard. You just can't. You have to love it.

Metal is much more complex than any other kind of music, withholding forms of Jazz Improv. And forbid you bring Jazz INTO your Metal, like The Dillinger Escape Plan, Between The Buried and Me, or Psyopus. The dexterity needed in both the right and left hands of any metal band is something to be amazed at. Feet for drummers, can't forget feet. Even the song structure requires so much more thought then a standard Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Solo-Verse-Out-Chorus. Listen to bands from the "Deathcore" genre. The best way to describe their syncopation is a school of fish.

Listen to Mastodon. Even better live. The way one second all four members are off noodling on some progressive rock riff, and the next, BOOM, heavy, fast, and loud. No warning, but all four seamlessly shift between complex riffs and beats.

That is what I love about metal. Skill, talent, dedication.

Love.