Heavy Metal Thunder

Quite rightly, the identity of the child accused of the horrible murder at a Leeds school yesterday isn't being made public. Not that that has stopped the Daily Mail trawling up enough information to take breaching the spirit of the law up to the very boundary of breaching the letter of it.

And it's here that we see the resurrection of one of the tabloid press favourite tropes: It was heavy metal's fault:

On his Facebook page, along with the Grim Reaper drawing and links to British heavy metal bands Enter Shakari and Bring Me The Horizon, he had posted a picture of himself dressed in black with long hair.

Links? To Enter Shikari? Wearing black with long hair? Clearly, we're dealing with the devil's music here.

It's obviously metal's fault, right?

Except the Mail doesn't even seem certain he is a metalhead:

Another ex-pupil said the 15-year-old often went into school carrying Jack Daniels and beer and that he was a ‘goth’ who drew circles on the floor, claiming to worship the devil.

In subsequent coverage, we're expecting the Mail to also discover he was bobbysoxer, a mod AND a rocker, and a hepcat of dubious renown.

Still, goths and metalheads are at least united by the long hair thing, right? That's something the Mail can cling to.

But neighbours [...] said he had recently cut his hair very short.

Oddly, the Mail neglects to seize on this detail, misunderstand it and over-inflate it into somehow lumping him into the violent cult of skinheaded thugs.

I can understand the Mail's problem here - there's a question 'how could this happen? who could do this?' hanging over everyone's heads this morning, and there are no answers. For a paper which lacks morals and ethics, and apparently believes the world functions on a level of the simplicity of a Fred Basset cartoon, looking at a couple of things the boy liked and deciding they're somehow relevant is the obvious thing to do. It's probably because Viscount Rothermere and Paul Dacre listen to a lot of Wagner.

Metal fans like new things; don't like themselves

The journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts has just published a report which explores what people who like "contemporary metal" are really like.

The conclusion?

A multiple regression showed that stronger composite preference for the heavy metal tracks was associated with higher Openness to Experience, more negative attitudes toward authority, lower self-esteem, greater need for uniqueness, and lower religiosity. In addition, men showed a significantly stronger preference for the tracks than women

I think that last sentence means that men, rather than women, showed a preference for the tracks, but given that the survey seems to be 'everything you sniggered about metal fans is true', it could mean that male metallers prefer Girlschool to girls.

[Finder's fee: Brooklyn Vegan]

Metalobit: Mitch Lucker

Mitch Lucker, singer with Suicide Silence, has died following a motorcycle accident on Wednesday night.

The band's label has issued a statement:

"It is with great sadness and regret this morning that we have to report that Mitch Lucker, vocalist of SUICIDE SILENCE, passed away a few hours ago due to injuries sustained during a motorcycle accident.

"Nuclear Blast would like to offer our condolences to his family, friends, band members and fans worldwide who are affected by this loss. He left us doing what he loved to do most.

"He was 28 years old and will be sorely missed.

"Fans are encouraged to share their memories, photos of Mitch and condolences on the band's official Facebook page."

Lucker had been hospitalised in September with a broken elbow.

In a 2010 interview with The Au Review, Lucker explained why the band's music became darker between first album The Cleansing and second No Time To Bleed:

think the general population of people just don’t think. It’s actually proven that people just use the part of the brain they have to, to get through the day. They don’t sit there and ponder over the big picture stuff. So it’s kinda going along that whole concept.

Mitch Lucker was 28; Suicide Silence had been due to be part of the Outbreak Tour.

Keeping warm with metal blankets

Meet Ben Venom. He makes heavy metal quits. As he explains:

I'm interested in juxtaposing traditional handmade crafts with one of the more extreme musical genres, Heavy Metal. My work can be described as a collision of Iron Maiden Metal ballads with the outrageous stage antics of Ozzy Osbourne. Serious, yet attempting to take on a B movie Horror film style where even the beasts of Metal need a warm blanket to sleep with. The question remains… Can I play with madness?

Everyone needs a comfy cuddle. Even rock gods.

[via metafilter]

Metalobit: Jani Lane

Jani Lane, who was lead singer with Warrant, has been found dead in an LA hotel.

Lane - who was born John Kennedy Oswald - hard originally started out as a drummer. Driven by a desire to get a bit more of the limelight, he took singing lessons, adopted a new name, and started singing in Plain Jane, the band which would eventually morph into Warrant.

Lane's relationship with Warrant was on-off; quitting in 1993 and returning the next year; leaving again in 2004; doing a Bet Lynch truncated return in 2008.

Lane was part of a sort-of-supergroup, Saints Of The Underground, which released an album in 2008, but his career outside Warrant was never entirely successful. He'd turned up on Celebrity Fit Club on VH1 about five years ago.

Lane's body was found in a Comfort Inn. He was 47 and is survived by two daughters.

Jesus 1, Metal 0

It turns out that Christians have given up on the power of prayer, figuring that Facebook is a lot more responsive than God when you've got a mission. They've taken to social networking in order to get a black metal festival axed.

The Christians - marching unto war under the banner Catholics Taking Action - took against the Sydney Black Mass Festival:

According to their page, "a satanic "Black Mass" celebration is to occur at Newtown RSL – it is simply disgraceful. The advertising which features the insignia of the Church of Satan and an inverted crucifix is encouraging people to come and partake in an "unholy spell to be cast upon the city of Sydney" featuring the "ultimate of soul possessing occult revelations...unbridled blasphemy... [and] a union of all things unholy".

Oh, bless them. They actually think that black metal fans believe all the devil stuff. I guess if you thought that, you might find the whole thing a bit alarming.

Anyway, some form protest letters later, and the unbridled blasphemy has been thrown off the venue, and so now won't go ahead. Because, obviously, satanists will just stop inverting crucifixes if they can't get a stage.

[Thanks to Karl T for the link]

Metalobit: Peter Steele

Type O Negative's singer, Peter Steele, has died, his bandmates have confirmed.

The internet had killed him off before. In 2005, the band posted a mock tombstone with his name on it, which seems a bit a grim way of promoting a record when you have a sickly singer. Type O Negative had pulled their tour the year before after "anomalies" had been found during one of Steele's medicals.

Steele once suggested in an interview with MTV that music might have screwed him up:

On more than one occasion, he emphasized to me that he'd have been a much happier guy if he never picked up a bass or sang a note. He compared his relationship with music to an affliction he had to endure and pulled no punches when discussing his distaste for record labels and mainstream goth culture. He was a contrarian to the end and wrote lyrics that were perceived as anti-Semitic (even though his keyboardist, Josh Silver, was Jewish) and homophobic (which he may have been). In 2007, the last time we talked, Steele told me, "That which does not destroy me just makes me more irritable, which I plan to take out on the band the next tour."

Born in Brooklyn as Petrus T Ratajczyk, it's believed Steele died from heart failure. He was 48.

Ryan Adams goes metal

I can't quite remember where Orion, Ryan Adams po-mo/po-faced metal album is supposed to sit in the order of things (before the whore of Babylon, after the four horsemen - is that right?) but we're only days away.

Metalobit: Leon Villalba and Tim Kennelly

Two members of After Death, Leon Villalba and Tim Kennelly, have drowned while on a trip to Brazil.

The band, which formed in 2005, was in the country supporting Master on tour. They'd been on the beach at Aracaju when Villalba got into difficulties. Kennelly tried to go into his aid, but he, too, was overwhelmed by the force of the waves. Other band members - and passers by - were unable to rescue either of the men.

Kennelly had joined the band last year, around the time of the release of their Eulogy EP.

Leon Villalba was 21; Tim Kennelly was 18.

Metalobit: Brian Lourie

The death has been announced of Brian Lourie, drummer with Slaughter (the Canadian Death Metal band, not the Nevada-born metal act).

Lourie joined the band in 1987, shortly after the release of the Strappado album - the torture-cum-bondage title of the album would eventually be adopted by a reactivated version of the band.

The bands' lead singer Dave Hewson issued a statement:

just wanted to let everyone know that longtime drummer for SLAUGHTER and STRAPPADO, Brian Lourie, has died of a heart attack at the young age of 39. Brian was one of the best people I have ever met and was a huge part of SLAUGHTER joining in 1987-88 'till we disbanded in 1992. His sense of humor and love for life made him such a wonderful person who will be greatly missed. I will try to [release] more info as it comes. Love you, bro

Alice Cooper: The song remains the same

After all that fuss over the suggestion that Slayer songs pretty much all sound like Slayer songs, how refreshing to find someone making rock music to a formula who admits that, yes, it's a formula designed to soothe rather than surprise. Step forward, Alice Cooper:

I really kind of do my albums for my fans. I realize I'm not breaking any new ground out there. I don't think OZZY is, or AEROSMITH is, either. We have our fans. We've had them for a long time. We are getting new fans because kids that like MARILYN MANSON immediately go, "Who's this ALICE COOPER that they're always talking about?" Then they bring up my website on the Internet and go, "Wait a minute…I like this guy even better… and he's got 25 albums out!" So, they rediscover me…but honestly, when I do an album, I'm not thinking about, "Boy, I really got to get the FOO FIGHTERS' audience." [laughs] I'm thinking that I've got to satisfy my audience."

It might be wishful thinking to picture Manson fans going "hey... this stuff is even better", although if they like the pantomime when the pantomime knows it pantomime, there's no reason why they shouldn't.

The clash of metals

This, then, would be two bald men fighting over a comb, were it not for one of the men being Bret Michaels: A spat has broken out between Posion and Def Leppard over which band is realer or something.

Joe Elliott started it by suggesting that Def Leppard had more "substance" to their music, and that Poison just coasted by on their image.

We've heard Pour Some Sugar On Me and seen pictures of Poison. Neither the substance of one nor the style of the other would detain people writing cultural histories of mankind for very long, we'd suggest, but Michaels wasn't taking such a slight on the chin. Pausing only to wash his hair, he embarked on an interview with a radio programme, and talked at some length. Some great length. The first he heard of the scurrilous claims were at a backstage press conference at Sweden Rocks:

All of a sudden, one guy goes, 'We have a video of Joe Elliott last night saying that MÖTLEY CRÜE and POISON and all these bands have no talent, they can't play.' Now, let me just put this on the record: I'm a DEF LEPPARD fan. Not 'kind of a fan' — like, I own the CDs; I own the albums. We used to do the song 'Wasted', if that gives you any indication. I used to play 'On Through The Night' with like… The song 'Wasted' was one of our favorite songs…. I'm a DEF LEPPARD fan. Old-school, new-school — it doesn't matter. Gone to see their shows, liked the guys. Joe Elliott, I don't really know, but he seems like a decent guy, whatever. I get in there and the guy says it to me. I say, 'You're lying. I don't think Joe would say that.' He's like, 'No, I've got it on video.' Which they had on video — him [Joe] stating this.

Goodness. First Kate Moss, then Max Moseley, now Joe Elliott. Is nobody safe from the secret videoing?

Bret started out by trying to be conciliatory, but then he changed his mind (and, yes, he is giving a stream-of-consciousness interview about a press conference he once gave, like a footballer talking through a goal):

And then it hits me that, listen, I've been nothing but cool. And I go, 'Well, this is coming from a guy who lip-synched on 'Dancing With The Stars'.' I go, 'This guy lip-synched…' Mutt Lange writes their… you know, does their albums… I'm not dissing them, I'm just saying…

Remember, snorting 'they mime on mainstream dancing programmes and someone else writes their songs' is not, in any way, to be considered a 'dissing'.

In other words, I was like, 'Look, give me and Joe a guitar each and a pen and a piece of paper, stick us in a room for an hour [and see who'll come out] with a couple of songs. But I don't wanna fight Joe.

I suspect that they'd probably both come out with a couple of songs, as everything these bands have done for the last decade or so has the taint of having been knocked up in thirty minutes as some sort of dare.

Bret, though, isn't dissing anybody. Oh no:

Isn't he secure enough in his success or where he's at… If someone said, 'Hey, what do you think about MÖTLEY?' Even though we've had words — MÖTLEY and us, or supposedly, whatever — I'm like, 'Hey, I like MÖTLEY's music. I'm a fan. They have good rock songs.' I just feel uncomfortable in my skin.'"

I love that he can't quite remember if he has had a falling-out with the Crue or not, or if people just said he has, or, indeed, "whatever".

The radio programme asked a direct question: did Rikki Rocket challenge Joe Elliott to a fight? Bret gave an equally direct response:

"That I didn't see. What I thought was going on was that they were like… What the joke was from a lot of fans was, like, 'Don't trip over a water backstage at a DEF LEPPARD concert, you might unplug the stereo.' And I said, 'With our band, we don't ever use…' There's nothing. That's what blows everyone's minds. You go to a lot of 'concerts,' and you can trip over anything we've got, we play everything. In other words, the keyboard player… We have one guy extra to sing some of the parts, but that's it. There's no… You can put us in a club… Like we did it in New York. We went and played for, I believe it was WPLJ, and they stuck us in this club and played, and it was one of the best nights we'd had, 'cause you can put us there or in the stadium or an arena, and it's gonna sound the same; there's no fear. And that's what some of the joke… I think Rikki's challenge was the same as mine. If this is gonna become a songwriting duel, Rikki goes, 'Do you bring Mutt Lange, or do you bring the band?'"

- Did he say he'd fight him?
- We might have had someone sing some extra vocals live once
That's that cleared up, then.

I imagine this falling-out will continue for the next ten years, by which time it will be a full three decades since anyone outside the bands gave a toss about what either thought.

Was I mentally ill because I listened to Slayer, or did I listen to Slayer because I was mentally ill?

In what we're sure is a well-researched study, the Australasian Psychiatry journal has announced that if you like metal, you're more likely to have mental health problems than if you don't:

A study, published in today's Australasian Psychiatry journal, found that teens who listen to pop music are more likely to be struggling with their sexuality, those tuning in to rap or heavy metal could be having unprotected sex and drink-driving, and those who favour jazz are usually misfits and loners, prompting a call for doctors to include musical tastes as a diagnostic indicator in mental health assessments.

"There is no evidence to suggest that the type of music you listen to will cause you to commit suicide, but those who are vulnerable and at risk of committing suicide may be listening to certain types of music," the author of the study, Felicity Baker, said yesterday.

Yes, Baker does seem to have concluded - albeit without showing working - that the answer to the High Fidelity conundrum is that you listen to depressing music because you're depressed. But there's "no evidence" that listening to one genre of music will make you kill yourself. She can't stress that strongly enough.

But not so strongly she wouldn't suggest that doctors include a quick run through of what's on your iPod before deciding if you should be sectioned.

Now, we've always tended to assume that people who wear t-shirts promoting certain bands are basically crying for help - we'd donate heavily to anyone collecting to give Kasabian fans kittens to hug, for example - but this sort of reductive nonsense, which we'd suggest seems to be little more than putting on a white coat to trot out some stereotypes, is going a little far.

But, still, it's in a respected journal and so must be based on some long-term, in-depth, carefully-constructed studies, right?

She said an Australian study of year 10 students had shown significant associations between heavy metal music and suicide ideation, depression, delinquency and drug-taking, while an American study had also shown that young adults who regularly listened to heavy metal had a higher preoccupation with suicide and higher levels of depression than their peers.

So, the bulk of this work has been done on Year 10 students - not, then, by asking adults with mental health issues what music they listened to in their youth as a comparsion, for example. Or by tracking people over a long period of time. And how can they be sure that people who choose to listen to a loud, "outlaw"-themed musical genre might just not be more comfortable talking about their suicidal feelings, than, say, indie-pop kids? Or more likely to try and shock by claiming to take drugs?

It does throw up interesting possibilities of medical negligence cases in the future hanging on the misdiagnosis of a patient's favourite bands - "Goth? Did you really believe late-period Cult to be Goth, Doctor McMurray? Even a year two medical student would have seen Astbury had shifted to full-on cock-rock and diagnosed severe mental trauma in this patient..."

The sane last word, though, goes to Michael Bowden, a child psychiatrist and the head of medical programs at the NSW Institute of Psychiatry:

"The key to understanding any teenager is to treat them with respect by listening to what they have to say, rather than typecasting them according to the type of music they listen to," he said.

But then he would say. You know what namby-pambies these opera lovers are.

Rhode Island survivors victimised again - because of musical taste

There's been no end of press coverage these last five years of the legal battles to pin blame for the Rhode Island nightclub fire. Less thought has been given to the people who got caught in the inferno, as a piece in the New York Times points out. The paper says that, for many, they're caught waiting for a legal settlement, still suffering from the effects of being trapped in a burning building - and finding a lack of sympathy:

“Most people don’t understand that a burn injury is a life injury,” said Ms. Fisher, 38, who gets a Social Security disability payment of about $1,000 a month. “If they think about us at all, it’s probably, ‘They must be all better, so why aren’t they back to work?’ ”

There's some suggestion that the nature of the band who caused the fire has reduced both the victims' visibility, and support for them:

Many believe the circumstances of their misfortune — that they were blue-collar folks gathered in a scruffy club to hear Great White, a has-been “hair metal” band from the ’80s — also help explain the lack of interest.
[...]
“We were waitresses, house painters, contractors, strippers,” said Victoria Eagan, who escaped the fire with minor injuries but whose two best friends were badly burned. “If it had been people at the opera that night, there would have been a big difference.”

Dee Snider is doing a benefit gig for the Station Family Fund, and he agrees that the heavy metal angle isn't exactly a help:

“I’ve tried to get this away from being about hair bands, about heavy metal, and to make this a people issue,” Mr. Snider said. “Since nobody else is going to do it, it’s got to be musicians, all kinds of musicians, taking care of their own and reminding people this could have happened to anyone.”

You can find the Station Family Fund online.

[Part of the Rhode Island nightclub coverage]

The horror done in the name of Skid Row

Sebastian Bach who, back in the 80s, was the traditional ending to the phrase "okay, if I really couldn't just shoot myself, and had to have sex with one of Skid Row, it would probably be...", is worried that the band's name is being traduced by the current version of the group. He frets:

. The Skid Row of 2007 doesn't help matters at all by what they are doing. They are wrecking the name worse than can ever be wrecked. So they make my job harder when I am trying to do something cool and new, and they are just touring the world two out of five original members, playing with all the bands that we would never have toured with me in the band. So they make it hard.

Yes, it's simply because of the rump-leftovers of Skid Row touring that people find it hard to take you seriously when you do something "cool and new", Mr. Bach.

And what is the "cool and new" thing that you're doing that being linked with 80s pop metal makes it hard to pull off? Ballet? Grime? Crunk?

Angel Down is more of what you would expect from me and what I expect of myself, which is ass kickin' rock n' roll! I am really happy with the songs, the playing, the production, the artwork and, oh yeah, I have a guest star on the album, too!

Yes, he's made a rock record with Axl Rose. And yet Skid Row keep trying to suggest that he's nothing more than a pantomime rock horse stuck in the 1980s, trading off faded glories. That really must suck.

[Via Idolator]

Nostradamus didn't see Judas Priest coming, did he?

Busy, busy in the studio: Rob Halford and his old friends Judas Priest, working on a concept album about Nostradamus. Why Nostradamus?

"(He's) a real man, not like a fantasy that you get in rock and roll and metal. (We're) telling the story of this very controversial human being from 500 years ago, from France, who still resonates all these years later. It's a human story as well as one that you know about from his premonitions."

Well, yes, he was a real man, but he was also a terrible fantasist himself - as you might have spotted with all his vaguely-worded "premonitions", all of which have come true if you use the ample wiggle-room he gave himself. Just because he really existed doesn't make an apocalyptic doom-laden concept album any more inherently less pompous, Mr. Halford.

But then: I wouldn't understand, would I?

"If you don't like metal, if you don't understand metal, you'll never get it. You just won't grasp it. It's very difficult to convert somebody into metal if they don't understand what it means."

And there we were thinking it was just ordinary rock with a midlife crisis.