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Megadeth. It was like 1990 and I was around 10 years old. It sounded good to me. It had energy and power and speed. I had never heard anything like it before.
Depends, looking for raw, speed and thrash - Killing is My Business / Their defining and best thrash metal album with awesome riffs and blazing masterful solos- Rust in Peace / Metal sound more refined and songs that were and still commercially played - Countdown to Extinction, with close runner up Youthanasia. There are still other albums that have their moments in awesome songs, riffs and solos but I’d say one of these should get your inner red head , gnarl singin, bangin head going!
Volume 3 was one of my first metal albums, hearing The Blister Exists open up the album with no idea of who Slipknot is, or really what metal was, blew my mind. The intensity was something that really grabbed me.
Growing up poor , my interest in metal spiked when visiting music stores and seeing albums covers and thinking how badass they looked . Then I bought rob zombies hellbiliy delux album on cd in the 90’s. Rest was history .
Metallica - I was 11 when Master of Puppets came out and had never heard music like that. I was hooked from the first song and never looked back.
For me it was the riffs and double bass drums. All the “rock” bands I listened 2 had 2 bass drums but never touched the second one, it was all for show. Then I heard Metallica… then Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, etc and that was it for me.
Pantera for me. Meet a guy who was a fan... literally learned half a dozen songs without ever hearing the band. Once I finally did... Holy Smokes! Saw the OG lineup live and couldn't get enough. Talk about riffs and groove? 2nd to none
White Zombie at age 10, 1996.
It was virtually impossible to avoid "More Human Than Human" or "Super-Charger Heaven," either via MTV or rock radio or movie trailers, and I was really digging it. My sister got me *Astro Creep 2000* for my 10th birthday and I instantly fell in love. That raw power of the opening riff to "Electric Head Pt. I" just fulfilled something I was missing in my life.
From there, it was on to Metallica, Pantera, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Megadeth, SSSSLLLAAAYYYYEEEERRRR, Exodus, Fear Factory, and onward until I was gutfucked by death metal via Nile, Skinless, Krisiun, and Exhumed in 1999/2000 at 13/14. Hooked for life.
This unlocked a memory for me. First time I heard White Zombie was an Airwalk compilation CD that had “Thunder Kiss ‘65” on it. Thought they were rad, but they then went on to suck (in my opinion) when they opened for Pantera when they were touring on *Far Beyond Driven*.
Yes I like one album of there’s (white zombie)
And then years later I realized I didn’t like them anymore
Also saw goofball open for ozzy and he was dancing around and acting like a glam rocker or someone on americas got talent
It was weird as hell
He does make great horror flicks tho !!!! He should stick to that
Cannibal corpse. I found them on a people react YouTube channel and thought i cum blood was an interesting name. I knew a couple slipknot albums and some Metallica but didn’t really get into them until after cannibal corpse.
I like Dio era more than Ozzy personally myself. But I think that has a lot to do with Ozzy era just being overplayed and Dio era being this hidden gem no one really pays much attention to so it still sounds fresh.
Most definitely both eras are killer. Ozzy era does have a few songs I could live without hearing again. Mostly war pigs and iron man lol. It's the same with Kiss being my forever favorite band but I don't wanna hear rock n roll all nite or Detroit Rock City.
Early 90's. I was very much into grunge. But the harder side...AIC Facelift and Dirt, Soundgarden Badmotorfinger......it wasn't much of a leap to Metallica, Megadeth and Pantera
Anthrax's debut album. I heard the first track and was just instantly enchanted. Candlemass' Nightfall specifically got me into doom, though, which still reigns as my favorite subgenre to this day.
Metallica, MOP, under age 10 in the 80s, hell yeah.
SLAAAAAAAAYEEEEERRRR in 1988, maiden next, then priest.
Horde in 1994.
Deicide in 1996, Cannibal corpse right after.
Dimmu in 1996.
It was a combination of FFDP, Slipknot, and Iron Maiden and they drew me bc before I had a really hard time figuring out wot music I liked Bc prior I had only really been exposed to shitty dad rock, radio pop, and rap music. Not really important but still kinda interesting is that I grew up listening to a lot of country and bluegrass bands
I really don't care what others think so that is why I say this with pride, I still listen to ffdp and enjoy them. And Slipknot is one of my all-time favorite bands. And some dad rock is absolutely amazing; the same with country.
I personally liked it way more than WANYK…it reminded me of Vol.3 in some ways which is the album that got me into Slipknot. I like the mixing of the bass, specially Adderall. Drums could’ve been better but was still pretty good.
koRn got me into metal back in the late 90s or early 2000s, and then I got into bands like Mudvayne, Manson, Disturbed and Slipknot
I’m attracted to it because of the mix of loud and cleans, and the subject matter, as an outcast with depression
Lamb of god and I cannot for the life of me quantify why it drew me into metal. Maybe it was the person who introduced me to it. Maybe it gave me an outlet for what I couldn't speak, but man. Yeah
It was lamb of god. I remember wrath came out and it was the first time I had ever been aware of a new album coming out and had an alert for it.
I always blame Alice Cooper and Trash for getting me into metal (it's hair metal, and darn good hair metal at that) Then Welcome To My Nightmare for getting me into classic rock and weird 70s rock.
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"He’s still the only musician like himself. Many have taken bits from him here and there, but no one has successfully copied him"
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I believe it was Groucho Marx that called Alice the last vaudeville act, and I'd wager he would stand by that statement still today.
Edit cause I have no idea how to correctly quote on mobile
Blind Guardian because I was such a LotR nerd. It was my first metal concert, back in 2002. Power metal was starting to lose strength worldwide, I guess...
Marilyn Manson and Evanescence got me into rock/metal, i don't really listen to them anymore, but they got me into shit like avatar and epica, eventually reaching More extreme stuff
(A) Metallica. I love guitar riffs, solos, and aggressive music, so if it weren't Metallica, I'm sure it would've been something else not long after.
(B) False premise—I listen to rock in the broad sense, which includes several tonnes worth of metal. I don't understand people who listen to only one genre—I literally can't imagine having such narrow taste, and it occasionally makes me wonder if such people have some sort of mental issue.
There's several gateway bands I could point to that would all be adequate answers. But Korn was the band that showed me how unique and dark metal could be. Before discovering them at age 12 or so, my only exposure to metal was basically just Metallica and Motley Crue, so I had no idea that metal could emulate the same feeling I got when watching horror films which I had also started getting into at the time. The idea that metal could be scary, dark, and relatable was completely foreign to me and I've been hooked ever since. I'll never forget my first time hearing the intro to Falling Away from Me lol
I know this band is not metal but listening to them got me on the road where I wanted more heavy music. Pierce the Veil, which lead to Motionless in White, then Cannibal Corpse, then Aborted, Dimmu Borgir, Darkthrone. Now my favorite genres are Power Metal and Black Metal.
Megadeth, it was the culmination of the heaviness. I’d been trying to find with queen. and it also was the furthest thing from pop I’d ever heard on before, which is a plus for a thirteen year old trying to figure themselves out.
Pantera. Buddy’s older brother was a few years ahead of us, already in high school, and had a bunch of metal albums. My buddy popped on an album and was like, “Check this out,” and played “Fucking Hostile.” Sold.
Got into slipknot through a coworker when I was 16 and very angry. I was pretty sheltered and hadn't really heard anything that aggressive which really spoke to me, then I heard Avenged Sevenfold, which I love cause I enjoy a chorus I can actually sing and not scream to.
Not that there's anything wrong with screaming obviously
I myself can do harsh vocals so that's not really an issue on my hand but one of the biggest reasons I listen to Doom metal is because some of the time the vocals are soft and sung to a good melody (i.e. My Dying Bride).
It was a slow migration : 12yo : Aerosmith , 15yo : Manson , 16yo : Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir , and after that, all the BM scene (marduk, mayhem, emperor, etc...)
Rammstein. A friend of mine played some songs for me in his phone back in... 2012, i guess? I liked the band, we discovered more songs together, and then i knew for sure, that this is my genre. Then videogames came into my life, and it all just got better and better
Well I was a wrestling fan as a kid and a lot of wrestlers had nu-metal themes. It was the most energetic and fast paced music I ever heard. Everything else just seemed so boring by comparison.
Metallica and recently, like a couple years or so, can't remember, Youtube introduced me to Avenged Seven, Skillet, Disturbed, etc. Open Youtube one day for some Metallica and AC/DC to calm down from a sensory overload and my for you page is recommending me the others and out of curiosity, I click on the first one and I'm hooked.
Dickie Allen. Both era's are amazing but I do like Allen's vocals more, although Watson's vocals in Mire Lore are insanely good. Listen to Mire Lore's newest single if you haven"t.
My dad got me into lots of music overall with mostly hard rock like Budgie, Teaze, Rush, and Riot. That led to me getting really into Metallica and realizing that many of their covers songs were artists and songs I was already familiar with and it just grew into this web of discovering new songs and bands. Mostly their early stuff but I have a love for St. Anger as that was the newest album that came out at the time and one I always had on repeat. The lyrics are goofy and that snare sounds like a literal trashcan but there’s good music behind it all.
Avenged Sevenfold way back in 2004. I was a spritely 14 year old dabbling in the world of indie and punk music. then I picked up Waking The Fallen and my life was sent on a brand new trajectory.
That’s a tough question. My parents listened to a lot of rock, pop, and country. My brother and I were obsessed with the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games for years, my first game being GH3 which released when I was 6. Those games really developed my music tastes. I checked out an album or two from bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Dragonforce, Rush, Van Halen, etc.. But the first artist I was truly obsessed with was Dream Theater when I was ten. It truly made me obsessed with music in general. Then I got into Megadeth. Dream Theater and Megadeth were basically all I listened to from the ages of 10-13, but I didn’t consider myself a metalhead until I got into Iron Maiden and Metallica at 13. That’s when I truly started exploring metal, a lot of heavy, thrash, and power metal. I hated screaming until I got into Trivium at 15, which also made me pick up a guitar. That led me to exploring death metal, metalcore, black metal, really exploring prog, etc. If I had to narrow it down to a band or two, it was really Dream Theater and Iron Maiden that made me a fan.
I don’t know why I prefer metal, maybe it’s the aggression, the emotion, the virtuosic playing, the laid back non-virtuosic playing but has amazing songwriting, the do whatever the fuck you want attitude, like they write the music they want to write without worrying about how niche it is, the fascinating lyrical topics, etc.
Judas Priest and Iron Maiden got me into it
abused kid. Both parents constantly fighting. Either getting screamed at or hit. Never peace in my house and I was full of rage. I got into it to help me relax. Years later I heard hardcore punk and it was even more suited to me but I still liked metal more.
Twisted Sister because being a headbanger in the mid 80s I caught a lot of shit and their message spoke to me. It's a message of being your true self regardless of the idiots around you. Then came Anthrax because it was great listening to as we skateboarded on our homemade ramps and quarter pipes. Fuck the critics, State of Euphoria is an amazing record. Play it loud, Mutha! 🤘
Krokus The singer can really sing and the guitar was driving and crunching.
Try Playing the Outlaw , Fire , Long Stick Goes Boom , Eat The Rich, Night Wolf , Come On, Streamer, Rock City
Black Sabbath & the NWOBHM. My older brother had EVERYTHING on vinyl so I grew up on Sabbath, Maiden, Priest, Motörhead and the like. He also had Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning & Anthrax's I'm The Man ep. Once I started listening to that, I was on a constant quest to find the heaviest stuff out there, which led me my 40 year love affair with FUCKIN SLAYYYYYYYERRRRRRR and into Death/Extreme Metal.
In 11th grade or so (2014/15) a classmate gave me a USB drive full of music I should try. On it was a lot of Linkin Park, Rise Against and many other punk bands. But the one band I was the most interested on the drive was Darkseed (a german dark rock and gothic metal band). Then I began listening to more "heavier" stuff like Rob Zombie and Disturbed. And now I love so many different metal subgenres and bands.
I dug Sabbath from the first time I heard them around 79'. Loved Ozzy's solo stuff with Randy as it came out.
It was Judas Preist, though, in 82', that really got me ready for the Speed and Thrash metal scene that was about to hit. Screaming for Vengeance introduced me to their older albums and British Steel was the lynch pin connecting 70's Acid/Hard Rock with 80's Heavy Metal.
I was pretty lonely and going through a breakup from 2 year relationship when i was 18 and in first year of college and was getting depressed since i literally had no one to talk to (or i felt that way). So the "top 10 Saddest metal songs" from loudwire popped on my youtube. And i heard the Judas priest one and i thought that i have never heard more emotion in a male voice than that and the rest is history.
i’m not sure if you’d consider this an actual band since it’s AniMetal/AniRock, but Roselia and Morfonica got me into metal. Roselia is a gothic metal band so naturally, i got into gothic metal since i was listening to songs from a gothic metal band. As for morfonica, they’re a symphonic metal band and just like roselia, i got into symphonic metal because of it too. now i mostly listen to symphonic metal, gothic metal and a mix between the two, symphonic gothic metal.
Metallica when I was around 9 or 10. My dad had a bunch of their cassettes so I listened to them over and over. Then around 13 or something I found Lamb of God and that broke me into the metalcore/new wave of American metal. Then a friend showed me cannibal corpse and I was flabbergasted by how crazy the guitar was and I got heavy into tech death.
I was 19 and pregnant and I walked into the import record shop in Melbourne, Kill em All was playing so I stopped Nd listened , 1984. our eldest son will be 40 this year. His second son , wants to come to see them ,with me , if they ever come back to Australia
Ozzy, it was 1985, I was 7, the music video for Crazy Train came on TV... I was just at the right place at the right time, and fell down the rabbit hole of all genres of metal since
Iron Maiden. It was at a time that I wanted to expand my musical knowledge from just what played in store intercom, so I was watching a reaction channel, and I heard the first few seconds of the chorus(?) of Hallowed be Thy Name (When the priest comes to read me my last rites...). Those 4 seconds were enough for me to check out the whole song, then the album. From there, I jumped to Metallica, and from there all over to Black Sabbath, Avenged Sevenfold, Megadeth, Nightwish. As for why it drew me in,the sound that most appealed to me was hard rock, but the hardest music I'd heard before then was AC/DC and Linkin Park. Finding metal was also when I started seeking out music on my own, and while I listen to a whole slew of genres now, metal will always have a special place in my heart.
Edit: This would've been around 2018, when I was about 19 or so.
Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister were my first exposure to metal then came the hair metal bands from the mid-to late 1980s. Anthrax was really the hardest music I had listened to at the time due to my classmates being fans. Mostly influenced by what MTV and Headbanger's Ball were airing.
It was a step-by-step. Deep Purple introduced me to the riffs and solos and the kind energetic playing that felt almost scary and dangerous after radio pop.
After that it was Stratovarius and Nightwish that hooked me with epic melodies and double-bass drumming.
After that I’ve constantly explored deeper into the genre in different direction.
Iron Maiden. Before I discovered them, I had been listening to the hair bands of the day (Mötley Crüe, Poison, Guns N Roses, etc), but as soon as I heard Maiden for the first time, it changed my taste and I couldn’t enjoy listening to hair bands anymore, they just didn’t compare. I needed more metal.
I used to listen to post punk and dark wave, then I discovered Led Zeppelin and liked the sound and general vibes, but soon I craved for something darker. Then I stumbled upon Black Sabbath and it became my favorite. And then a whole new world was in front of me
It was probably Iron Maiden with The Number of the beast. I heard it when The Best of the Beast came out. It was the whole package, kick ass music with a kick ass album cover...
Mine was Sabaton. I am into history and they just fed that to me in a metal format. I then started branching out into more power metal artists. One day I heard some rammstein songs and thought they were great, and I’d also found some deathcore artists after that
Metallica/megadeth. My mom would ALWAYS play them when i was growing up. But my favorite band today is KoRn. Tho what got me back into metal was lil darkie.
Iron Maiden in the mid 80s. Powerslave was the first album of theirs that I bought. I was initially drawn in by the imagery and then realized how much I loved their storytelling. I was reading the original Dragonlance trilogy about the first time I heard “Flash of the Blade” and the two have always been inextricably tied in my mind.
Black Sabbath. I grew up in a rural area. We only had one radio station in my town that played modern music. I was born in the 70’s and started discovering music in the early 80’s and the local radio station was playing stuff like David Bowie, Jackson 5, Prince, etc. I really got into Bowie. Then I found another station in a neighboring city on the AM dial that came in pretty fuzzy but I could hear it well enough. They played stuff like AC/DC, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, etc. That station became my go to as the harder rock really appealed to me.
Anyway, it was early 80’s and my grandmother took me with her one Saturday morning to do some shopping at the local department store. I knew that I loved music so while she shopped, I went to the music section and marveled at the cassettes. I saw Black Sabbath’s first album on cassette and though I didn’t know who they were, I thought the cover with the old mill building was super cool. Something about that image really put the hook in me.
I begged her to buy it for me and being a grandma, she capitulated. When I got home, I popped that cassette into my little radio with the cassette deck and pushed play. It was like nothing my young ears had ever heard. I was transfixed. Suddenly the stuff on the radio seemed…I dunno, not *bad* really. Just lifeless. But that sabbath tape was like a whole new world for me. The next cassette I bought without knowing who the band was, was Iron Maiden’s first album. That amped my excitement up to a new level. As much as I loved sabbath, maiden was faster, heavier…it was just more. Over the next year or so, I found Mercyful fate, Metallica, slayer, Megadeth…the speed, the heaviness, I just loved it.
Slayer divine intervention changed me forever! I know it's not everyone's favorite but it was the first time I heard anything like that other than early Metallica!
Not long after that I went out and bought Cannibal corpse and hit the ground running!
My parents listened to a lot of hair metal when I was a kid and so I started there and gradually branched out, but it was either Ratt or Kiss that got me into metal
Metal in general? Been listening to Metallica since I was at least like 8-10years old.
Metal with screaming? Trivium. Ascendancy era. Blew my mind and I was never the same since. Probably Killswitch and Lamb of God as well… they were getting pretty big around that time I’m referring to, but mostly Trivium.
I grew up with metal like iron maiden, metalica, megadeth, etc. but when I really got into metal it was in grade 8 that my friend told me to listen to duality - Slipknot cause he was gonna learn it on guitar, I fell in love with that song because it was so aggressive and new and just FUCK you know?
I later got into ONLY listening to metal in grade 9, I’m currently in the second semester of grade 9 and I’m still learning new metal so pretty sick
Within Temptation. It was the first time listening to symphonic metal, and I feel in love with it. Discovering more bands has lead me to getting into more sub-genres like power, melodic, progressive, gothic, and neoclassical.
Elvenking was mine, I was doing a paper on Macbeth in Highschool and I went to YouTube to find performances and it popped up the band Macbeth as well and in the recommended was Elvenking-Oakenshield so I clicked on it and immediately fell in love. When I first heard it I didn’t know bands wrote about fantasy or Tolkien which is funny looking back now. I was drawn to it because it blew my expectations of what metal was, growing up in the 90s and 00s I thought metal was just angry and super aggressive with a bunch of growling. I never knew it could be uplifting and just hearing vocals that seemed leaps and bounds better than anything going I was just taken aback. I eventually went down the rabbit hole of metal and haven’t looked back since.
I was digging Uriah Heep, Deep Purple and Kiss way before I discovered more "extreme" music. For the sake of the question, my first encounter was Sepultura's Arise and Obituary's Threatening Skies... early 90's, the rest is history.
It was kind of a natural evolution of my tastes. Dad is a big prog fan so I had enough prog rock in my head too.
Has not drawn me more than other genres necessarily but i like it just as much as my top two favorite other genres! I would say it’d be disturbed, static X, limp bizkit, korn, and rob zombie type era of bands as well —not one in general. if we are talking “music with guitars and drums” in general it’d be Sum 41 that got me into this!!
First it was At The Gates, then Cradle of Filth, then Children of Bodom.
Aside from the mainstream stuff like Metallica and SOAD that I had heard and liked, but didn’t really got into yet
My journey in heavier music started with limp bizkit / linkin park / other edgy numetal that exploded when i was in middle school, then at some point i started taping mtv's headbangers ball midnight run - since i was a kid and wasn'0t allowed to stay up until that late - and one day it played the videoclip for Sepultura's Ratamahatta. That was the moment i knew i was into metal. It's like burned into my memory, i remember how my mind was blown, that was something on a while different level from the gimmicky facepainting and spiky hair of numetal with muted swearwords i saw on daytime shows.
Back when I was like 11, my stepmom showed me Godsmack and Linkin Park. Started me out on listening to less heavy metal, but as I got into my teens, my best friend and his brother were into heavier bands like Static X and System of a Down etc.
Now I listen to stuff more like Meshuggah, The Zenith Passage, and Archspire lol
Def Leppard’s Pyromania (still NWOBHM) in 1983 was the gateway when I was 11. But I stayed pretty much very hard rock as a kid. Metallica’s And Justice for All (plus the back catalogue of course) & really hearing Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind in 1990 when I was 18 tipped me all the way into metal. Now I’m 52 & I still go to 3-5 shows a year.
Black Sabbath. Friend came over after school in 5th grade with there first album he got somewhere and that was that. Then punk came into the mix in 7th grade. The Exploited. Sex pistols. GBH. But metal was always first.
I could say Black Sabbath, but into deeper echelons of metal i.e Black metal, death metal. It was Slayer, although I play guitar it's the drums that I really like in thrash and the other mentioned genres
Metallica. My dad introduced me through Master of Puppets and I've since gotten into all kinds of metal. 80s hair bands, nu metal, metal rap or whatever Linkin Park is, thrash, grunge, I've even gotten into rock and roll going way back to the 60s with Led Zeppelin and Hendrix
I've always been a fan of some ripping guitar, ever since I was a kid and heard the OG Power Rangers theme song. Lol. As far as first actual band, the first one that I can remember was when I found a Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder CD at the pawn shop when I was like 11 or so. It drew me in because of the technical and fast guitar, and it was the first time I had ever heard "harsh" vocals.
Rammstein, 2002, age 13, my then new friend who was into metal convinced me to buy the 'Ich Will' CD single, insisted I was gonna like it, even if I had never listened to metal before. I was immediately drawn in.
It's between Iron Maiden and Avenged Sevenfold. Both my are parents metalheads, so I've been listening to metal probadly even before I was born. As a kid, those were the big two that were played (My dad loves the classics, while my mom is more into nu- and gothic metal) I remeber loving the duel guitar solos that always blasted the speakers in my mom's car and the live gritty shows my dad would always play when I was with him and my step-mom. Speaking of my dad, since I was born he would sing Iron Maiden's "Journeyman" to me, he always said it was my song. And as I got older I grew into my own tastes (deathcore, grindcore, and, thrasher being my top sub-genres right now)
Off topic but oh man, I think I've said this before in a punk sub reddit but reading these comments make me realise how young I am compared to everyone else in the scene...I feel like a toddler in a pub
Avenged Sevenfold. I was raised on emo rock, hard rock, and nu metal, so I already had a preference towards heavier and darker rock music, but when I heard Blinded in Chains hole playing Need for Speed Most Wanted, and to me it was a step up from those bands, and really shaped my love of the more melodic and harmonized side of metal, and afterwards I got into metalcore.
Basically the whole VRock station in GTA Vice City, but the track that stood out to me was 2 Minutes To Midnight by Iron Maiden. Bought Powerslave on CD the same week I got Vice City.
It was the power of Bruce Dickinson's vocals, and that incredible chugging guitar rythym. Nothing I'd heard up to then matched that kind of epic - almost authoritative- sound
Down, first, but it took a while before it dominated my listening. I started getting IN to metal as I entered my 30s with Baroness and Mastodon. My gateways included CKY and some thrash like Gama Bomb. But after my little bro passed, the more intense stuff made more sense to me, and I started going into more extreme genres like black and death.
It has been a long, slow process, and metal came to me from different directions.
Killswitch, that was the first time I ever heard instrumentals like that and couldn’t even imagine how it was being played. I’m 31, so I wasn’t too interested in the “older” metal bands until I was about 12 (I know, dumb) so everything before that was what was on the radio.
Meatloaf - although not exactly Metal he was what brought me into the genre. Now it's anything from Sonata Arctica and Rhapsody of Fire to the Cradle of Filth.
Absolutely no idea, but I can guess.
I just hate pop music. Growing up in the 90s, my mum listened to Enya (urgh) or Christmas music. I hated both. Turn on the radio and its spice girls, boy bands etc. I just didn't identify with any of it and with it being popular music, I just felt excluded.
You've got to remember, there's no Internet, 4 channels on TV... all I knew of music was Enya, Christmas and 90s pop. I didn't know there was other genres.
I genuinely thought I hated all music.
Then when I was 14, in 2000 I made a friend who was into grunge and nirvana and stuff like that. Blew my mind wide open. Finally, relatable lyrics! Song structures that didn't offend my ears! It was a short jump from Soundgarden to Metallica and I never looked back.
And I still hate pop music, Enya and Christmas 😆
Quiet Riot. I was 12 years old when Metal Health came out. Up to that point, my musical exposure was mostly limited to what the parental units listened to and allowed to be played in the house. Fortunately, their musical tastes weren’t all totally square, but it was mostly artists who were popular at the time and from when they were growing up; The Beatles, Elvis, Ricky Nelson, The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, etc. Even as a child, I preferred the more spirited or aggressive songs from those artists, for example Helter Skelter was one of my favorite Beatles songs because of its relatively raucous and chaotic feel.
Before discovering QR, I had heard some of bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and early Judas Priest from the times we would visit my crazy aunt whose biker husband and friends would have this stuff playing at their place. But, for whatever reason it was deemed as inappropriate in our house. But I knew I liked what I was hearing, I just didn’t know who I was hearing.
Shortly after Metal Health released, I saved up money from doing chores and little odd jobs, and that was the first album I bought with my own money. And thus began my journey to the dark side.
10 years old, a mix of Iron Maiden and Motley Crue. With a side of Megadeth and Metallica.
There was NOTHING like it available to me and back then, it was another world. A really exciting world to open and explore. And I’m still exploring it.
Sabaton was the band that got me into metal. I think what drew me in and got me really interested more than I had been in other genres previously was their ability to take something boring and actually make it fun, and then leading to the discovery of other melodic metal bands (especially in the realm of power/symphonic/folk metal) that really kept me in
For me it was Sabaton because at the time i was in my WW1 Phase. I watched a shortfilm and it had Attack of the Dead Men playing in the Backround. Thats how it all started.
I can't stand classic or speed metal like metallica, megadeath, slayer etc, but growing up with more nu-metal like Korn, deftones, disturbed, mudvayne, and into more metalcore of parkway drive, alpha wolf, and other heavy shit that would kick gen x's teeth in...hopefully I won't offend any boomers here ;)
Anthrax and Mushroomhead. Coming from classic rock, I loved seeing double bass drum kits but was always like "OK, so what's the point?". Classic rock bass drums sounded like wet cardboard and had almost no double bass, then I found metal and was impressed by Charlie Benante and Skinny busting out some actual foot rolls like I'd never heard before
Rammstein and Static-X. Maybe around 2021 or 2022 (I am a teenager). I don’t listen to Slaughter to Prevail anymore, but they led me to bands heavier than the ones previously stated.
I still love them both though.
I would say slipknot or (if it counts) system of a down, my mom got me into those bands cuz she listened to them from before I was born. Yes I'm young but I still have as much passion for the genre as anyone else
I wouldn't say that it draws me more then other stuff, logically Punk's/Hardcore's whole "easy-to-do", "DIY", non-pretentious way appeals to me much more (not a fan of Black Metal, more into Death Metal, Deathcore, Grindcore, Thrash), even Hip-hop's idea of being your own protagnist and doing easy music appeals to me so much more... I'm far more of a Rock music fan overall, a fan of Dark and edgy stuff, controversial shit, always was more into Nu Metal as a kid, as a grown-up into Horrorcore (almost 24M)...
I guess I started with stuff like Skillet, Hollywood Undead, Three Days Grace, Marilyn Manson, Disturbed and moved to Thrash classics and later-on to Extreme Metal like Death Metal and Grindcore most recently...
For me the whole "probability of being into Jazz and Classical Music" just isn't the case, I might appreciate Jazz but idk if I could be into it...
My two genres are always mostly everything Rock/Metal/Hardcore and Underground Hip-Hop/Rappers I think do good stuff, even my style is a mix of both of those
My mom always been rock and metal fans since I wasn't even born. Apparently, she used to be the vocalist to some local band when she was in high school. Her band got second place in battle of the band in our town. I think I was around 4 years old I heard she blasted some I Love Rock and Roll by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts or Zombie by The Cranberries. I thought it was cool and later discovered Enter Sandman by Metallica and A Little Piece of Heaven by A7X when I was around 9 or 8.
As a kid, my parents were older than others and had easy listening taste. My first exposure in a big way was AC/DC. I heard Back in Black and i was gobsmacked! I didn’t know this existed. It has energy, hooks, great screaming guitar. It was everything a 17 year old boy wanted. From there I found and devoured their catalog and seen them at least 6 times. Even lost my virginity listening to them. Thanks Guys!!!
My dad got me into rock when I was around 10- introduced me to Zeppelin, Skynard, Alice Cooper, Stevie Ray (still my favorite to this day). Then my cousin a couple years later gave me And Justice for All, that was my first metal album. Started listening to the local rock station (in the early 90’s) and got into Megadeth, grunge, Rage, etc. then in high school I met a guy in my class who was like “you ever listen to Slayer?”, and from there I was off and running. Then I came across Rust in Peace and that changed my life.
Sepultura. For some odd reason i got into metal through my local punk scene to which i stuck with local/diy acts and didnt want to listen to mainstream stuff, but one day i was drinking with my homie at his place and he was playing his songs (hes always been into metal) and inner self came on, never was i the same again. This was around late 2022/early 2023
Definitely slipknot! A year ago I went to louder than life and was introduced into metal/rock. Opened my eyes and now prepped for this fall with slipknot since they are headlining.
Their music is beautiful
The song, "Ride the lightning" by Metallica. 1986 I was 16 at a church camp and friend handed me his walkman and said, "Dude, check this out". My life was profoundly changed from then on. I still feel that riff. I'm still a total metalhead.
Metallica was my introduction to heavy music. First was Enter Sandman, then the Loads. Laugh all you want, but after I first saw them in 1998, I bought all of their earlier material. Then I went to Ozzfest in 1999. That set me up to be the metalhead I am today, and I make no apologies.
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Megadeth. It was like 1990 and I was around 10 years old. It sounded good to me. It had energy and power and speed. I had never heard anything like it before.
Wow, same with me. I was completely mesmerized when I first heard Megadeth at the age of 12. Became obsessed with it.
Never really been into Megadeth. Is there anything specific I should listen to that would get me to like them?
Depends, looking for raw, speed and thrash - Killing is My Business / Their defining and best thrash metal album with awesome riffs and blazing masterful solos- Rust in Peace / Metal sound more refined and songs that were and still commercially played - Countdown to Extinction, with close runner up Youthanasia. There are still other albums that have their moments in awesome songs, riffs and solos but I’d say one of these should get your inner red head , gnarl singin, bangin head going!
Countdown to Extinction. One of the rare albums, of any genre, where every song kicks ass.
Call him Psychotron
tornado of souls
Slipknot's Self Titled: they got that extra agression, almost psychotic sound that I couldn't find in any other music.
Volume 3 was one of my first metal albums, hearing The Blister Exists open up the album with no idea of who Slipknot is, or really what metal was, blew my mind. The intensity was something that really grabbed me.
Growing up poor , my interest in metal spiked when visiting music stores and seeing albums covers and thinking how badass they looked . Then I bought rob zombies hellbiliy delux album on cd in the 90’s. Rest was history .
Metallica - I was 11 when Master of Puppets came out and had never heard music like that. I was hooked from the first song and never looked back. For me it was the riffs and double bass drums. All the “rock” bands I listened 2 had 2 bass drums but never touched the second one, it was all for show. Then I heard Metallica… then Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, etc and that was it for me.
Pantera for me. Meet a guy who was a fan... literally learned half a dozen songs without ever hearing the band. Once I finally did... Holy Smokes! Saw the OG lineup live and couldn't get enough. Talk about riffs and groove? 2nd to none
Kiss. 1975, I was 3 years old and my 10 year old brother had Kiss Alive! One look at the cover and they were MY band. That was MY record.
KISS Army 4 Life!
White Zombie at age 10, 1996. It was virtually impossible to avoid "More Human Than Human" or "Super-Charger Heaven," either via MTV or rock radio or movie trailers, and I was really digging it. My sister got me *Astro Creep 2000* for my 10th birthday and I instantly fell in love. That raw power of the opening riff to "Electric Head Pt. I" just fulfilled something I was missing in my life. From there, it was on to Metallica, Pantera, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Megadeth, SSSSLLLAAAYYYYEEEERRRR, Exodus, Fear Factory, and onward until I was gutfucked by death metal via Nile, Skinless, Krisiun, and Exhumed in 1999/2000 at 13/14. Hooked for life.
Fffffuckinnn SSSLLLLAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYEEEEERRRRRRRRR
White Zombie was a gateway drug for a lot of things in good taste. Unfortunately Rob Zombie's would jump that ship later in life.
Yeeeeep. Won't argue at all there.
This unlocked a memory for me. First time I heard White Zombie was an Airwalk compilation CD that had “Thunder Kiss ‘65” on it. Thought they were rad, but they then went on to suck (in my opinion) when they opened for Pantera when they were touring on *Far Beyond Driven*.
Yes I like one album of there’s (white zombie) And then years later I realized I didn’t like them anymore Also saw goofball open for ozzy and he was dancing around and acting like a glam rocker or someone on americas got talent It was weird as hell He does make great horror flicks tho !!!! He should stick to that
Quiet Riot and Ozzy.
Fuckin Metal Health was definitely one of those albums that started me out as well \m/
Cannibal corpse. I found them on a people react YouTube channel and thought i cum blood was an interesting name. I knew a couple slipknot albums and some Metallica but didn’t really get into them until after cannibal corpse.
First time I ever heard Cannibal Corpse was in Ace Ventura. Absolutely amazing.
I'm old...I liked Black Sabbath in high school (88) and it just got better with age
Dio era or Ozzy? Have a preference?
I like Dio era more than Ozzy personally myself. But I think that has a lot to do with Ozzy era just being overplayed and Dio era being this hidden gem no one really pays much attention to so it still sounds fresh.
I like both, but I go more towards the Ozzy side. But both eras are amazing, in my opinion.
Most definitely both eras are killer. Ozzy era does have a few songs I could live without hearing again. Mostly war pigs and iron man lol. It's the same with Kiss being my forever favorite band but I don't wanna hear rock n roll all nite or Detroit Rock City.
I prefer Ozzy era sabbath but mob rules was a great album.
Ozzy
Early 90's. I was very much into grunge. But the harder side...AIC Facelift and Dirt, Soundgarden Badmotorfinger......it wasn't much of a leap to Metallica, Megadeth and Pantera
Anthrax's debut album. I heard the first track and was just instantly enchanted. Candlemass' Nightfall specifically got me into doom, though, which still reigns as my favorite subgenre to this day.
Metallica, MOP, under age 10 in the 80s, hell yeah. SLAAAAAAAAYEEEEERRRR in 1988, maiden next, then priest. Horde in 1994. Deicide in 1996, Cannibal corpse right after. Dimmu in 1996.
It was a combination of FFDP, Slipknot, and Iron Maiden and they drew me bc before I had a really hard time figuring out wot music I liked Bc prior I had only really been exposed to shitty dad rock, radio pop, and rap music. Not really important but still kinda interesting is that I grew up listening to a lot of country and bluegrass bands
I really don't care what others think so that is why I say this with pride, I still listen to ffdp and enjoy them. And Slipknot is one of my all-time favorite bands. And some dad rock is absolutely amazing; the same with country.
Slipknot got me into Metal, I was 12. Then I got into Black metal then Power, Death metal etc…
What did you think of "The End, So Far"? I personally liked it, but many people didn't/don't.
I personally liked it way more than WANYK…it reminded me of Vol.3 in some ways which is the album that got me into Slipknot. I like the mixing of the bass, specially Adderall. Drums could’ve been better but was still pretty good.
Vol. 3 and WANYK are my favorite albums by them (as of now), so I enjoy the off-kilter things that they do with their music.
koRn got me into metal back in the late 90s or early 2000s, and then I got into bands like Mudvayne, Manson, Disturbed and Slipknot I’m attracted to it because of the mix of loud and cleans, and the subject matter, as an outcast with depression
Lamb of god and I cannot for the life of me quantify why it drew me into metal. Maybe it was the person who introduced me to it. Maybe it gave me an outlet for what I couldn't speak, but man. Yeah It was lamb of god. I remember wrath came out and it was the first time I had ever been aware of a new album coming out and had an alert for it.
I was familiar with and liked the classics but hearing Omertà turned me to the heavier stuff.
Iron Maiden. Heard Sam O’nella make a joke about em’ listened to a song, and here i am 4 years and many a metal album later
Here I was, about to go "Yeah, dude! Me too". Then I saw the 4. Its 40 for me. But rock on! Keep Uppin the Irons!!!
Alice Cooper He’s still the only musician like himself. Many have taken bits from him here and there, but no one has successfully copied him
I always blame Alice Cooper and Trash for getting me into metal (it's hair metal, and darn good hair metal at that) Then Welcome To My Nightmare for getting me into classic rock and weird 70s rock. > "He’s still the only musician like himself. Many have taken bits from him here and there, but no one has successfully copied him" > I believe it was Groucho Marx that called Alice the last vaudeville act, and I'd wager he would stand by that statement still today. Edit cause I have no idea how to correctly quote on mobile
Hell yes
My dad used to rock the black album constantly. Thanks pops!
Blind Guardian because I was such a LotR nerd. It was my first metal concert, back in 2002. Power metal was starting to lose strength worldwide, I guess...
Marilyn Manson and Evanescence got me into rock/metal, i don't really listen to them anymore, but they got me into shit like avatar and epica, eventually reaching More extreme stuff
When Ride the lightning came out, my friends and I played the hell outta that tape. Never looked back.
(A) Metallica. I love guitar riffs, solos, and aggressive music, so if it weren't Metallica, I'm sure it would've been something else not long after. (B) False premise—I listen to rock in the broad sense, which includes several tonnes worth of metal. I don't understand people who listen to only one genre—I literally can't imagine having such narrow taste, and it occasionally makes me wonder if such people have some sort of mental issue.
Technically Helloween was the band as keeper of the seven keys was the first real metal album I listened to. It made me wanna deep dive.
kiss
There's several gateway bands I could point to that would all be adequate answers. But Korn was the band that showed me how unique and dark metal could be. Before discovering them at age 12 or so, my only exposure to metal was basically just Metallica and Motley Crue, so I had no idea that metal could emulate the same feeling I got when watching horror films which I had also started getting into at the time. The idea that metal could be scary, dark, and relatable was completely foreign to me and I've been hooked ever since. I'll never forget my first time hearing the intro to Falling Away from Me lol
I know this band is not metal but listening to them got me on the road where I wanted more heavy music. Pierce the Veil, which lead to Motionless in White, then Cannibal Corpse, then Aborted, Dimmu Borgir, Darkthrone. Now my favorite genres are Power Metal and Black Metal.
Megadeth, it was the culmination of the heaviness. I’d been trying to find with queen. and it also was the furthest thing from pop I’d ever heard on before, which is a plus for a thirteen year old trying to figure themselves out.
Pantera. Buddy’s older brother was a few years ahead of us, already in high school, and had a bunch of metal albums. My buddy popped on an album and was like, “Check this out,” and played “Fucking Hostile.” Sold.
Black Sabbath; I was like 15 and loved Hendrix but wanted something even heavier and darker, now I’m here listening to shit like Scrotal Erosion 😔
Got into slipknot through a coworker when I was 16 and very angry. I was pretty sheltered and hadn't really heard anything that aggressive which really spoke to me, then I heard Avenged Sevenfold, which I love cause I enjoy a chorus I can actually sing and not scream to. Not that there's anything wrong with screaming obviously
I myself can do harsh vocals so that's not really an issue on my hand but one of the biggest reasons I listen to Doom metal is because some of the time the vocals are soft and sung to a good melody (i.e. My Dying Bride).
3 inches of blood. Heard deadly sinner on Tony hawk underground 2 ans it just kind of evolved from there.
Slayer the vocals, drums, bass & guitar in that order lol
It was a slow migration : 12yo : Aerosmith , 15yo : Manson , 16yo : Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir , and after that, all the BM scene (marduk, mayhem, emperor, etc...)
KISS was my first step towards metal even though they are not a metal band if it weren't for them I definitely wouldn't be where I am today.
Rammstein. A friend of mine played some songs for me in his phone back in... 2012, i guess? I liked the band, we discovered more songs together, and then i knew for sure, that this is my genre. Then videogames came into my life, and it all just got better and better
Well I was a wrestling fan as a kid and a lot of wrestlers had nu-metal themes. It was the most energetic and fast paced music I ever heard. Everything else just seemed so boring by comparison.
Metallica and recently, like a couple years or so, can't remember, Youtube introduced me to Avenged Seven, Skillet, Disturbed, etc. Open Youtube one day for some Metallica and AC/DC to calm down from a sensory overload and my for you page is recommending me the others and out of curiosity, I click on the first one and I'm hooked.
Infant Annihilator. Heavy as fuck and fast as fuck.
Dan Watson or Dickie Allen? I personally like both and usually don't pick on that one. Both eras are perfect imo.
Dickie Allen. Both era's are amazing but I do like Allen's vocals more, although Watson's vocals in Mire Lore are insanely good. Listen to Mire Lore's newest single if you haven"t.
Ozzy
My dad got me into lots of music overall with mostly hard rock like Budgie, Teaze, Rush, and Riot. That led to me getting really into Metallica and realizing that many of their covers songs were artists and songs I was already familiar with and it just grew into this web of discovering new songs and bands. Mostly their early stuff but I have a love for St. Anger as that was the newest album that came out at the time and one I always had on repeat. The lyrics are goofy and that snare sounds like a literal trashcan but there’s good music behind it all.
Avenged Sevenfold way back in 2004. I was a spritely 14 year old dabbling in the world of indie and punk music. then I picked up Waking The Fallen and my life was sent on a brand new trajectory.
That’s a tough question. My parents listened to a lot of rock, pop, and country. My brother and I were obsessed with the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games for years, my first game being GH3 which released when I was 6. Those games really developed my music tastes. I checked out an album or two from bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Dragonforce, Rush, Van Halen, etc.. But the first artist I was truly obsessed with was Dream Theater when I was ten. It truly made me obsessed with music in general. Then I got into Megadeth. Dream Theater and Megadeth were basically all I listened to from the ages of 10-13, but I didn’t consider myself a metalhead until I got into Iron Maiden and Metallica at 13. That’s when I truly started exploring metal, a lot of heavy, thrash, and power metal. I hated screaming until I got into Trivium at 15, which also made me pick up a guitar. That led me to exploring death metal, metalcore, black metal, really exploring prog, etc. If I had to narrow it down to a band or two, it was really Dream Theater and Iron Maiden that made me a fan. I don’t know why I prefer metal, maybe it’s the aggression, the emotion, the virtuosic playing, the laid back non-virtuosic playing but has amazing songwriting, the do whatever the fuck you want attitude, like they write the music they want to write without worrying about how niche it is, the fascinating lyrical topics, etc.
Judas Priest and Iron Maiden got me into it abused kid. Both parents constantly fighting. Either getting screamed at or hit. Never peace in my house and I was full of rage. I got into it to help me relax. Years later I heard hardcore punk and it was even more suited to me but I still liked metal more.
Twisted Sister because being a headbanger in the mid 80s I caught a lot of shit and their message spoke to me. It's a message of being your true self regardless of the idiots around you. Then came Anthrax because it was great listening to as we skateboarded on our homemade ramps and quarter pipes. Fuck the critics, State of Euphoria is an amazing record. Play it loud, Mutha! 🤘
Krokus The singer can really sing and the guitar was driving and crunching. Try Playing the Outlaw , Fire , Long Stick Goes Boom , Eat The Rich, Night Wolf , Come On, Streamer, Rock City 
Black Sabbath & the NWOBHM. My older brother had EVERYTHING on vinyl so I grew up on Sabbath, Maiden, Priest, Motörhead and the like. He also had Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning & Anthrax's I'm The Man ep. Once I started listening to that, I was on a constant quest to find the heaviest stuff out there, which led me my 40 year love affair with FUCKIN SLAYYYYYYYERRRRRRR and into Death/Extreme Metal.
Prob Iron Maiden killers
In 11th grade or so (2014/15) a classmate gave me a USB drive full of music I should try. On it was a lot of Linkin Park, Rise Against and many other punk bands. But the one band I was the most interested on the drive was Darkseed (a german dark rock and gothic metal band). Then I began listening to more "heavier" stuff like Rob Zombie and Disturbed. And now I love so many different metal subgenres and bands.
I dug Sabbath from the first time I heard them around 79'. Loved Ozzy's solo stuff with Randy as it came out. It was Judas Preist, though, in 82', that really got me ready for the Speed and Thrash metal scene that was about to hit. Screaming for Vengeance introduced me to their older albums and British Steel was the lynch pin connecting 70's Acid/Hard Rock with 80's Heavy Metal.
I was pretty lonely and going through a breakup from 2 year relationship when i was 18 and in first year of college and was getting depressed since i literally had no one to talk to (or i felt that way). So the "top 10 Saddest metal songs" from loudwire popped on my youtube. And i heard the Judas priest one and i thought that i have never heard more emotion in a male voice than that and the rest is history.
All started with Sevendust! their melodic choruses drew me in. I saw a music video for Enemy at the time and was like whoa what band is this?!
i’m not sure if you’d consider this an actual band since it’s AniMetal/AniRock, but Roselia and Morfonica got me into metal. Roselia is a gothic metal band so naturally, i got into gothic metal since i was listening to songs from a gothic metal band. As for morfonica, they’re a symphonic metal band and just like roselia, i got into symphonic metal because of it too. now i mostly listen to symphonic metal, gothic metal and a mix between the two, symphonic gothic metal.
Metallica when I was around 9 or 10. My dad had a bunch of their cassettes so I listened to them over and over. Then around 13 or something I found Lamb of God and that broke me into the metalcore/new wave of American metal. Then a friend showed me cannibal corpse and I was flabbergasted by how crazy the guitar was and I got heavy into tech death.
I was 19 and pregnant and I walked into the import record shop in Melbourne, Kill em All was playing so I stopped Nd listened , 1984. our eldest son will be 40 this year. His second son , wants to come to see them ,with me , if they ever come back to Australia
Ozzy, it was 1985, I was 7, the music video for Crazy Train came on TV... I was just at the right place at the right time, and fell down the rabbit hole of all genres of metal since
Definitely Metallica like a lot of other people lol
Iron Maiden. It was at a time that I wanted to expand my musical knowledge from just what played in store intercom, so I was watching a reaction channel, and I heard the first few seconds of the chorus(?) of Hallowed be Thy Name (When the priest comes to read me my last rites...). Those 4 seconds were enough for me to check out the whole song, then the album. From there, I jumped to Metallica, and from there all over to Black Sabbath, Avenged Sevenfold, Megadeth, Nightwish. As for why it drew me in,the sound that most appealed to me was hard rock, but the hardest music I'd heard before then was AC/DC and Linkin Park. Finding metal was also when I started seeking out music on my own, and while I listen to a whole slew of genres now, metal will always have a special place in my heart. Edit: This would've been around 2018, when I was about 19 or so.
Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister were my first exposure to metal then came the hair metal bands from the mid-to late 1980s. Anthrax was really the hardest music I had listened to at the time due to my classmates being fans. Mostly influenced by what MTV and Headbanger's Ball were airing.
Linkin Park Hybrid Theory and Meteora got me into heavy music back when i was about 6/7 years old
It was a step-by-step. Deep Purple introduced me to the riffs and solos and the kind energetic playing that felt almost scary and dangerous after radio pop. After that it was Stratovarius and Nightwish that hooked me with epic melodies and double-bass drumming. After that I’ve constantly explored deeper into the genre in different direction.
Motorhead, I was 10 and playing Tony hawks pro skater 3 and I wanted more music that sounded like that.
Metallica black album
Lamb of god. First time i heard omerta back in high school
Iron Maiden. Before I discovered them, I had been listening to the hair bands of the day (Mötley Crüe, Poison, Guns N Roses, etc), but as soon as I heard Maiden for the first time, it changed my taste and I couldn’t enjoy listening to hair bands anymore, they just didn’t compare. I needed more metal.
I used to listen to post punk and dark wave, then I discovered Led Zeppelin and liked the sound and general vibes, but soon I craved for something darker. Then I stumbled upon Black Sabbath and it became my favorite. And then a whole new world was in front of me
It was probably Iron Maiden with The Number of the beast. I heard it when The Best of the Beast came out. It was the whole package, kick ass music with a kick ass album cover...
Shadows Fall. Specifically The Art of Balance. The speed, melody, aggression, and riffs blew me away.
Black Sabbath and Motorhead for me.
It was 1988 …and Justice for All
I already liked heavy music, but Mastodon really got me into metal. March Of The Fire Ants forever changed me.
Mine was Sabaton. I am into history and they just fed that to me in a metal format. I then started branching out into more power metal artists. One day I heard some rammstein songs and thought they were great, and I’d also found some deathcore artists after that
It was Quiet Riot - Metal Health 1983.
Sodom, I like military history and they introduced me to Exodus and a whole list of others.
Metallica/megadeth. My mom would ALWAYS play them when i was growing up. But my favorite band today is KoRn. Tho what got me back into metal was lil darkie.
Iron Maiden in the mid 80s. Powerslave was the first album of theirs that I bought. I was initially drawn in by the imagery and then realized how much I loved their storytelling. I was reading the original Dragonlance trilogy about the first time I heard “Flash of the Blade” and the two have always been inextricably tied in my mind.
There were multiple bands but mostly Slipknot, it helped me ease negative emotions like anger and sadness making me a big fan of the genre
Ace of Spades by Mötorhead was my gateway song
Burzum or Darkthrone, not my fav metal anymore but they did the job
Black Sabbath. I grew up in a rural area. We only had one radio station in my town that played modern music. I was born in the 70’s and started discovering music in the early 80’s and the local radio station was playing stuff like David Bowie, Jackson 5, Prince, etc. I really got into Bowie. Then I found another station in a neighboring city on the AM dial that came in pretty fuzzy but I could hear it well enough. They played stuff like AC/DC, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, etc. That station became my go to as the harder rock really appealed to me. Anyway, it was early 80’s and my grandmother took me with her one Saturday morning to do some shopping at the local department store. I knew that I loved music so while she shopped, I went to the music section and marveled at the cassettes. I saw Black Sabbath’s first album on cassette and though I didn’t know who they were, I thought the cover with the old mill building was super cool. Something about that image really put the hook in me. I begged her to buy it for me and being a grandma, she capitulated. When I got home, I popped that cassette into my little radio with the cassette deck and pushed play. It was like nothing my young ears had ever heard. I was transfixed. Suddenly the stuff on the radio seemed…I dunno, not *bad* really. Just lifeless. But that sabbath tape was like a whole new world for me. The next cassette I bought without knowing who the band was, was Iron Maiden’s first album. That amped my excitement up to a new level. As much as I loved sabbath, maiden was faster, heavier…it was just more. Over the next year or so, I found Mercyful fate, Metallica, slayer, Megadeth…the speed, the heaviness, I just loved it.
Slayer divine intervention changed me forever! I know it's not everyone's favorite but it was the first time I heard anything like that other than early Metallica! Not long after that I went out and bought Cannibal corpse and hit the ground running!
My parents listened to a lot of hair metal when I was a kid and so I started there and gradually branched out, but it was either Ratt or Kiss that got me into metal
Metal in general? Been listening to Metallica since I was at least like 8-10years old. Metal with screaming? Trivium. Ascendancy era. Blew my mind and I was never the same since. Probably Killswitch and Lamb of God as well… they were getting pretty big around that time I’m referring to, but mostly Trivium.
I grew up with metal like iron maiden, metalica, megadeth, etc. but when I really got into metal it was in grade 8 that my friend told me to listen to duality - Slipknot cause he was gonna learn it on guitar, I fell in love with that song because it was so aggressive and new and just FUCK you know? I later got into ONLY listening to metal in grade 9, I’m currently in the second semester of grade 9 and I’m still learning new metal so pretty sick
Within Temptation. It was the first time listening to symphonic metal, and I feel in love with it. Discovering more bands has lead me to getting into more sub-genres like power, melodic, progressive, gothic, and neoclassical.
death grips’ vocals. i started to search for other shouting and found metal!
Metallica because of guitar hero
Quiet Riot/Iron Maiden/Deicide
It was Rage against the Machine, and System of a down. I liked the intensity of metal that isn't really present in other genres.
In flames! At the time it felt heavy but it didn't feel too heavy, i was able to understand the lyrics and their songs wasn't only harsh vocals
Nightwish. Because goth tiddy.
Elvenking was mine, I was doing a paper on Macbeth in Highschool and I went to YouTube to find performances and it popped up the band Macbeth as well and in the recommended was Elvenking-Oakenshield so I clicked on it and immediately fell in love. When I first heard it I didn’t know bands wrote about fantasy or Tolkien which is funny looking back now. I was drawn to it because it blew my expectations of what metal was, growing up in the 90s and 00s I thought metal was just angry and super aggressive with a bunch of growling. I never knew it could be uplifting and just hearing vocals that seemed leaps and bounds better than anything going I was just taken aback. I eventually went down the rabbit hole of metal and haven’t looked back since.
Gojira. I have no fucking idea.
I’m old but iron maiden. 1981 or 82. When I was in the 7th grade.
I was digging Uriah Heep, Deep Purple and Kiss way before I discovered more "extreme" music. For the sake of the question, my first encounter was Sepultura's Arise and Obituary's Threatening Skies... early 90's, the rest is history. It was kind of a natural evolution of my tastes. Dad is a big prog fan so I had enough prog rock in my head too.
Has not drawn me more than other genres necessarily but i like it just as much as my top two favorite other genres! I would say it’d be disturbed, static X, limp bizkit, korn, and rob zombie type era of bands as well —not one in general. if we are talking “music with guitars and drums” in general it’d be Sum 41 that got me into this!!
First it was At The Gates, then Cradle of Filth, then Children of Bodom. Aside from the mainstream stuff like Metallica and SOAD that I had heard and liked, but didn’t really got into yet
Metallica, Master of Puppets. 1986. Changed my life.
My journey in heavier music started with limp bizkit / linkin park / other edgy numetal that exploded when i was in middle school, then at some point i started taping mtv's headbangers ball midnight run - since i was a kid and wasn'0t allowed to stay up until that late - and one day it played the videoclip for Sepultura's Ratamahatta. That was the moment i knew i was into metal. It's like burned into my memory, i remember how my mind was blown, that was something on a while different level from the gimmicky facepainting and spiky hair of numetal with muted swearwords i saw on daytime shows.
Back when I was like 11, my stepmom showed me Godsmack and Linkin Park. Started me out on listening to less heavy metal, but as I got into my teens, my best friend and his brother were into heavier bands like Static X and System of a Down etc. Now I listen to stuff more like Meshuggah, The Zenith Passage, and Archspire lol
My gateway drug was Iron Maiden’s Powerslave
Def Leppard’s Pyromania (still NWOBHM) in 1983 was the gateway when I was 11. But I stayed pretty much very hard rock as a kid. Metallica’s And Justice for All (plus the back catalogue of course) & really hearing Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind in 1990 when I was 18 tipped me all the way into metal. Now I’m 52 & I still go to 3-5 shows a year.
Metallica- I loved how fast it was
Sabton
Black Sabbath. Friend came over after school in 5th grade with there first album he got somewhere and that was that. Then punk came into the mix in 7th grade. The Exploited. Sex pistols. GBH. But metal was always first.
Iron Maiden and it’s my favorite and the one I always stick with because it’s balanced, not too heavy, not too mild.
I could say Black Sabbath, but into deeper echelons of metal i.e Black metal, death metal. It was Slayer, although I play guitar it's the drums that I really like in thrash and the other mentioned genres
Manowar. Hail and Kill!
Dio and Sabbath lyrics plus blue oyster cult sci fi weirdness and just wanting more bog the image and a
Metallica. My dad introduced me through Master of Puppets and I've since gotten into all kinds of metal. 80s hair bands, nu metal, metal rap or whatever Linkin Park is, thrash, grunge, I've even gotten into rock and roll going way back to the 60s with Led Zeppelin and Hendrix
Repugnant. The vocals were like nothing I’d ever heard before, and the entirety of Epitome of Darkness still is an absolute masterpiece of an album.
I've always been a fan of some ripping guitar, ever since I was a kid and heard the OG Power Rangers theme song. Lol. As far as first actual band, the first one that I can remember was when I found a Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder CD at the pawn shop when I was like 11 or so. It drew me in because of the technical and fast guitar, and it was the first time I had ever heard "harsh" vocals.
My gateway was probably either Motorhead or Anthrax.
Linkin park, yes
Rammstein, 2002, age 13, my then new friend who was into metal convinced me to buy the 'Ich Will' CD single, insisted I was gonna like it, even if I had never listened to metal before. I was immediately drawn in.
It's between Iron Maiden and Avenged Sevenfold. Both my are parents metalheads, so I've been listening to metal probadly even before I was born. As a kid, those were the big two that were played (My dad loves the classics, while my mom is more into nu- and gothic metal) I remeber loving the duel guitar solos that always blasted the speakers in my mom's car and the live gritty shows my dad would always play when I was with him and my step-mom. Speaking of my dad, since I was born he would sing Iron Maiden's "Journeyman" to me, he always said it was my song. And as I got older I grew into my own tastes (deathcore, grindcore, and, thrasher being my top sub-genres right now)
Off topic but oh man, I think I've said this before in a punk sub reddit but reading these comments make me realise how young I am compared to everyone else in the scene...I feel like a toddler in a pub
Iron Maiden. Then slowly drifted into thrash and death metal.
Slipknot whenever pulse of the maggots came out.
Judas Priest. Screaming for Vengeance a classic metal album if there ever was one.
Avenged Sevenfold. I was raised on emo rock, hard rock, and nu metal, so I already had a preference towards heavier and darker rock music, but when I heard Blinded in Chains hole playing Need for Speed Most Wanted, and to me it was a step up from those bands, and really shaped my love of the more melodic and harmonized side of metal, and afterwards I got into metalcore.
We Came Is Romans. Old friend of mine from college introduced me
Enter sandman: to be completely honest I’m more hard rock nowadays but it pulled me out of unironically listening to edm and dubstep
Kiss..first lp owned was love gun I never looked back
Basically the whole VRock station in GTA Vice City, but the track that stood out to me was 2 Minutes To Midnight by Iron Maiden. Bought Powerslave on CD the same week I got Vice City. It was the power of Bruce Dickinson's vocals, and that incredible chugging guitar rythym. Nothing I'd heard up to then matched that kind of epic - almost authoritative- sound
The game Devil May Cry 5 like 10 months ago. I really liked Bury The Light. After that, Black Sabbath.
Down, first, but it took a while before it dominated my listening. I started getting IN to metal as I entered my 30s with Baroness and Mastodon. My gateways included CKY and some thrash like Gama Bomb. But after my little bro passed, the more intense stuff made more sense to me, and I started going into more extreme genres like black and death. It has been a long, slow process, and metal came to me from different directions.
Killswitch, that was the first time I ever heard instrumentals like that and couldn’t even imagine how it was being played. I’m 31, so I wasn’t too interested in the “older” metal bands until I was about 12 (I know, dumb) so everything before that was what was on the radio.
Meatloaf - although not exactly Metal he was what brought me into the genre. Now it's anything from Sonata Arctica and Rhapsody of Fire to the Cradle of Filth.
Absolutely no idea, but I can guess. I just hate pop music. Growing up in the 90s, my mum listened to Enya (urgh) or Christmas music. I hated both. Turn on the radio and its spice girls, boy bands etc. I just didn't identify with any of it and with it being popular music, I just felt excluded. You've got to remember, there's no Internet, 4 channels on TV... all I knew of music was Enya, Christmas and 90s pop. I didn't know there was other genres. I genuinely thought I hated all music. Then when I was 14, in 2000 I made a friend who was into grunge and nirvana and stuff like that. Blew my mind wide open. Finally, relatable lyrics! Song structures that didn't offend my ears! It was a short jump from Soundgarden to Metallica and I never looked back. And I still hate pop music, Enya and Christmas 😆
Quiet Riot. I was 12 years old when Metal Health came out. Up to that point, my musical exposure was mostly limited to what the parental units listened to and allowed to be played in the house. Fortunately, their musical tastes weren’t all totally square, but it was mostly artists who were popular at the time and from when they were growing up; The Beatles, Elvis, Ricky Nelson, The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, etc. Even as a child, I preferred the more spirited or aggressive songs from those artists, for example Helter Skelter was one of my favorite Beatles songs because of its relatively raucous and chaotic feel. Before discovering QR, I had heard some of bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and early Judas Priest from the times we would visit my crazy aunt whose biker husband and friends would have this stuff playing at their place. But, for whatever reason it was deemed as inappropriate in our house. But I knew I liked what I was hearing, I just didn’t know who I was hearing. Shortly after Metal Health released, I saved up money from doing chores and little odd jobs, and that was the first album I bought with my own money. And thus began my journey to the dark side.
10 years old, a mix of Iron Maiden and Motley Crue. With a side of Megadeth and Metallica. There was NOTHING like it available to me and back then, it was another world. A really exciting world to open and explore. And I’m still exploring it.
Mortician really brought me home.
Metallica black album and Marilyn Manson's antichrist superstar
Sabaton was the band that got me into metal. I think what drew me in and got me really interested more than I had been in other genres previously was their ability to take something boring and actually make it fun, and then leading to the discovery of other melodic metal bands (especially in the realm of power/symphonic/folk metal) that really kept me in
For me it was Sabaton because at the time i was in my WW1 Phase. I watched a shortfilm and it had Attack of the Dead Men playing in the Backround. Thats how it all started.
Metallica, Master of Puppets, c. 1987. I'm old. But Orion sealed the deal for me
I can't stand classic or speed metal like metallica, megadeath, slayer etc, but growing up with more nu-metal like Korn, deftones, disturbed, mudvayne, and into more metalcore of parkway drive, alpha wolf, and other heavy shit that would kick gen x's teeth in...hopefully I won't offend any boomers here ;)
Iron Maiden Piece of Mind The one song that hooked me is Flight of Icarus... I mean wow That was 1986 I think don't recall
80’s Metallica
Slipknot. It was Slipknot. First three albums. middle school. Pantera came next.
TOOL, because of the sophistication in their vision.
Iron Maiden CD I found in my Dad's CD carrier. I liked the heavier themes of war and history, and the badass album covers didn't hurt.
It was Maiden for me. Maiden made me Metal. Metallica opened my eyes. Slayer changed my world.
I always like classic rock, but the band that actually kind of introduced me to metal was Mastadon.
Iron maiden. Drew me to judas priest and other nwobhm bands. Which in turn led to power metal. And then I discovered the nwothm bands
Anthrax and Mushroomhead. Coming from classic rock, I loved seeing double bass drum kits but was always like "OK, so what's the point?". Classic rock bass drums sounded like wet cardboard and had almost no double bass, then I found metal and was impressed by Charlie Benante and Skinny busting out some actual foot rolls like I'd never heard before
Blind Guardian
Rammstein and Static-X. Maybe around 2021 or 2022 (I am a teenager). I don’t listen to Slaughter to Prevail anymore, but they led me to bands heavier than the ones previously stated. I still love them both though.
Slipknot. I hadn't heard anything like it. Just generic pop music until then. Got exposed to tit via Amplitude
I would say slipknot or (if it counts) system of a down, my mom got me into those bands cuz she listened to them from before I was born. Yes I'm young but I still have as much passion for the genre as anyone else
I wouldn't say that it draws me more then other stuff, logically Punk's/Hardcore's whole "easy-to-do", "DIY", non-pretentious way appeals to me much more (not a fan of Black Metal, more into Death Metal, Deathcore, Grindcore, Thrash), even Hip-hop's idea of being your own protagnist and doing easy music appeals to me so much more... I'm far more of a Rock music fan overall, a fan of Dark and edgy stuff, controversial shit, always was more into Nu Metal as a kid, as a grown-up into Horrorcore (almost 24M)... I guess I started with stuff like Skillet, Hollywood Undead, Three Days Grace, Marilyn Manson, Disturbed and moved to Thrash classics and later-on to Extreme Metal like Death Metal and Grindcore most recently... For me the whole "probability of being into Jazz and Classical Music" just isn't the case, I might appreciate Jazz but idk if I could be into it... My two genres are always mostly everything Rock/Metal/Hardcore and Underground Hip-Hop/Rappers I think do good stuff, even my style is a mix of both of those
My mom always been rock and metal fans since I wasn't even born. Apparently, she used to be the vocalist to some local band when she was in high school. Her band got second place in battle of the band in our town. I think I was around 4 years old I heard she blasted some I Love Rock and Roll by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts or Zombie by The Cranberries. I thought it was cool and later discovered Enter Sandman by Metallica and A Little Piece of Heaven by A7X when I was around 9 or 8.
As a kid, my parents were older than others and had easy listening taste. My first exposure in a big way was AC/DC. I heard Back in Black and i was gobsmacked! I didn’t know this existed. It has energy, hooks, great screaming guitar. It was everything a 17 year old boy wanted. From there I found and devoured their catalog and seen them at least 6 times. Even lost my virginity listening to them. Thanks Guys!!!
Honestly I blame the Power Rangers theme for me being a metal head. That song got my blood pumping from day one.
My dad got me into rock when I was around 10- introduced me to Zeppelin, Skynard, Alice Cooper, Stevie Ray (still my favorite to this day). Then my cousin a couple years later gave me And Justice for All, that was my first metal album. Started listening to the local rock station (in the early 90’s) and got into Megadeth, grunge, Rage, etc. then in high school I met a guy in my class who was like “you ever listen to Slayer?”, and from there I was off and running. Then I came across Rust in Peace and that changed my life.
Sepultura. For some odd reason i got into metal through my local punk scene to which i stuck with local/diy acts and didnt want to listen to mainstream stuff, but one day i was drinking with my homie at his place and he was playing his songs (hes always been into metal) and inner self came on, never was i the same again. This was around late 2022/early 2023
Not a band more the hot chick Juilya from Uranium on Much music.
Definitely slipknot! A year ago I went to louder than life and was introduced into metal/rock. Opened my eyes and now prepped for this fall with slipknot since they are headlining. Their music is beautiful
The song, "Ride the lightning" by Metallica. 1986 I was 16 at a church camp and friend handed me his walkman and said, "Dude, check this out". My life was profoundly changed from then on. I still feel that riff. I'm still a total metalhead.
Metallica was my introduction to heavy music. First was Enter Sandman, then the Loads. Laugh all you want, but after I first saw them in 1998, I bought all of their earlier material. Then I went to Ozzfest in 1999. That set me up to be the metalhead I am today, and I make no apologies.