First American metal band???

allthingsmetal wrote:

To me, there IS a difference between 'hard rock/heavy rock' and 'heavy metal'. I mean back in the 70's I listened to Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Nugent, etc as well as Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, the Scorpions and there was a big difference in their sounds--even if they had the same label.

I'm the same way. Those three are separate genres for me just as much as thrash, death and hardcore are. Sometimes the lines get blurred, of course.

I also think it's funny some define metal as a look and attitude. To me it's the sound, that's it. I've been as square as a square can be my whole life going back to my childhood. And became infatuated with the intensity and sound of metal at 12 years old. And never once did I see men inside the covers with makeup, spandex and huge hair and think, THAT'S METAL. Different worlds I guess.

allthingsmetal wrote:

--(Petra. That's hilarious. Made me laugh--especially b/c my (to be) brother in law took me to see them way back when, thinking he was taking me a hard rock concert to "positively influence" me away from what I listen to).

Blue Cheer or maybe MC5!


I remember hearing this as a kid and thinking it had to be the heaviest thing ever laid down to record!


and this

When I said Blue Cheer it was because I think that they had a profound influence on the MUSIC that I love (not attitude, clothing or anything else that has been mentioned). I hear them in Sabbath, Celtic Frost, the bass playing of Cliff Burton, some Voivod and a whole host of bands that are what I consider heavy metal to be.

KISS, AC/DC, Nugent, Van Halen etc are fine bands and were called Heavy Metal by the U.S press, I honestly don't think that they have ever been considered Heavy Metal in Europe, in fact, I remember that most people thought that the U.S didn't really 'get' metal. So my vote went to Blue Cheer as a lot of people will tell you that Black Sabbath invented heavy metal and it was a purely English phenomenon, but the U.S played a big part in the evolution of the genre with the bands mentioned.

One band that has popped into my head is Twisted Sister, I know that they have been around since the early seventies and had a big following for a long long time before they got any recognition. I also know that they were far heavier than their image and hit singles would suggest, but I don't know what they sounded like in the early days.

Good call on The Rods, I almost forgot about them as they were a part of my early metal listening diet along with almost exclusively British and German bands.

By the way, I heard a rumor that Canadian Chuck Berry & Missouri Chuck Berry are both planning to put out albums under the name Queensryche

I think hindsight and retrospect often plays into the definition. For example I have a rock encyclopedia from the mid 70's (NME) that calls The Stooges (Fun House era) "Heavy Metal". However once Punk became a genre The Stooges got redefined away from metal even though they were "heavier" than almost anything out there in 1970. Not many people would call them metal now.
So going with the hindsight I'll stick with Bang! (I was wrong before, they were from Florida c.1972). People tell me they ere too obscure to matter, but they did have a song called "Questions" reach billboard #90. They were somewhat blues based, but not nearly as much as the majority of heavy bands from that era. To my ears they bridged a gap in sound between Sabbath and bands like Pentagram (and late Witchfinder General in the UK), at least for their first album and 1/2 or so. They are my pick.

Pentagram

Not familiar with the music on this release but Quiet Riot's first cd was released in 1978. Maybe them(?).
Riot's first was 1977. Not familiar with their music until Fire Down Under.
I was thinking the Rods but their release was in 1980.

Probably Blue Cheer.... Pentagram deserves credit for being an early US metal band. I am one that agrees that KISS, Aerosmith, Van Halen, AC/DC, Nugent, and even Rush were Heavy Metal bands. To me (and most people I knew) Hard Rock was Foreigner, Styx, REO.

allthingsmetal wrote:

Not familiar with the music on this release but Quiet Riot's first cd was released in 1978. Maybe them(?).
Riot's first was 1977. Not familiar with their music until Fire Down Under.
I was thinking the Rods but their release was in 1980.

Those are all late 70's releases. Heavy metal was already on a downswing at the end of the 70's and didn't really pick up steam until the early 80's.

SAHB Healer wrote:

I'll stick with Bang! (I was wrong before, they
were from Florida c.1972). People tell me they ere too obscure to
matter, but they did have a song called "Questions" reach billboard #90.
They were somewhat blues based, but not nearly as much as the majority
of heavy bands from that era. To my ears they bridged a gap in sound
between Sabbath and bands like Pentagram (and late Witchfinder General
in the UK), at least for their first album and 1/2 or so. They are my
pick.

Bang! is a good pick as well.

thejokeriv wrote:

Probably Blue Cheer.... Pentagram deserves credit for being an early US metal band. I am one that agrees that KISS, Aerosmith, Van Halen, AC/DC, Nugent, and even Rush were Heavy Metal bands. To me (and most people I knew) Hard Rock was Foreigner, Styx, REO.

Thank you and this was the way, I felt so did my friends growing up, hard rock was Reo, Foreigner, etc and metal was the bands mentioned, now almost 40 years after the debut of those artist first albums the genre has morphed, change, mutated but back in the 1970's thrash did not exist, and heaviest thing on Earth was Black Sabbath.

Wasn't the first Fozzy? Remember: "Fozzy was a legendary American metal band who, unable to get out of their 20-year Japanese record contract, spent 20 years in Japan where they were mega-stars; when they finally return to the U.S. they found that artists like the the Scorpions, Dio, Judas Priest, Krokus, Twisted Sister, Iron Maiden, and Ozzy Osbourne had become stars by stealing Fozzy's material."

Orion Crystal Ice wrote:

Perspective is obviously important but it can introduce relativism into an objectively-based topic. The root significance is how the recordings sound, and it really shouldn't be anything past that.

** applause **

S.D. wrote:

No, I was saying I don't give a shit what the mainstream media labeled things as.

** applause **

Guess the Ford Mustangs from the '60s aren't really Ford Mustangs, because they are so different than the ones they make today.

I guess Sean Connery wasn't really ever James Bond, because he looks nothing like Daniel Craig....

Temple of Blood wrote:

Orion Crystal Ice wrote:

Perspective is obviously important but it can introduce relativism into an objectively-based topic. The root significance is how the recordings sound, and it really shouldn't be anything past that.

** applause **

It's funny when you applaud his reply to me and the basis of my arguement was that we called it "heavy metal" in the 70's because that is what we thought it sounded like.

The other thing pertaining to sound back then was a band that was termed heavy metal by whomever (fans or media) had other aspects to them besides being purely/strictly heavy metal. That is what alot of folks can't get past, or so it seems.

Also why is any topic slated to be soley objective based ? Afterall, opinion is subjective and relativism doesn't apply to this topic because A) when I lived in the 70's and listened to metal and B) When I joined a metal band in 1979 it was a choice I made to do something I liked and had no theory applied, much less was it a moral decision. I lived it so that kinda/sorta makes it an absolute truth. To me at least.


The original post asked for opinion, remember ? sheesh

I remember hearing this as a kid and thinking it had to be the heaviest thing ever laid down to record!
WHY? BECAUSE OF THE SOUND! IT WAS HEAVY! There wasn't much heavier than this in 1976. Not even Black Sabbath laid down a sound that was so concisely heavy IMO.

Temple of Blood wrote:

S.D. wrote:

No, I was saying I don't give a shit what the mainstream media labeled things as.

** applause **

Mainstream media?
What was the mainstream media in the 1970's? There was no internet, no massive satellite radio or global television companies, no Clear Channel Communications that owns and dictates what all the radio stations played. The was no CNN or FoxNews. There was no MTV or VH-1. Those are all things that came about in the 1980's.

Mainstream media back then was the big TV channels (ABC, NBC, CBS) and the massive print publications like Rolling Stone and Melody Maker. Mainstream media didn't give heavy metal even the slightest mention. It was rags like Creem, Circus, Grooves & Hit Parader, etc. that fueled the metal fire in us, and those were hardly "mainstream media" at the time. They were independent rags that could be pretty crass at times, especially Creem Magazine. It was local DJs on locally owned radio stations that were spinning records. The mainstream hated heavy metal and wouldn't give it the time of day, unless they were ragging on it in some horrid review written in Rolling Stone or something.

What some people don't seem to understand is that there was no heavy metal prior to the 70's. Heavy metal was a description put on the music by the fans and publications of that time, when heavy metal was in it's infancy. It was the "blue army" of fans that heard the heavy sounds emitting from the speakers and called those bands heavy metal. The bands weren't so confined that they couldn't play something outside a narrow definition.

Once again, it seems to comes down to, people who weren't there don't seem to have a grasp on the whole scene at the time. They use modern definitions and descriptions and discount well-documented evidence to the contrary. It really doesn't matter what you call or label a band. If you like it, listen to it. However, I'm not sure why people are so hell-bent on revising the history of a style of music and a scene that they claim to love.

ultmetal wrote:

There wasn't much heavier than this in 1976. Not even Black Sabbath laid down a sound that was so concisely heavy IMO.[/b]
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Black Sabbath was heavier, at least that is how I hear it.



I could also have posted just about any song from Master Of Reality or Volume 4.

Yes, both great songs.

Frankly, I think they are both very heavy for 1976. Production values and tuning are different, but the style, the riffs, the drumming, the heavy bass guitar, etc. is all very, very "heavy" for the time. That down-picked main riff on "Nobody's Fault" is fan-freakin'-tastic IMO. The guitar solos on the Aerosmith song are vicious as well.

I also agree that Master of Reality is one of the heaviest heavy metal albums to come out of the 70's. You'll get no argument from me there. However, does any of that diminish the fact that Aerosmith were one of the forerunners of heavy metal in 1976? Can you honestly compare "Rocks" to "Vol 4" and say one is heavy metal, the other is just hard rock?

Well, I mean it's hard to argue Aerosmith as the out-and-out first American metal BAND, like band in terms of consistency and purposeful vision within that context. The 'Rocks' stuff is definitely heavy and to me the most intense Aerosmith got outside of 'Night in the Ruts' (which is also their most underrated IMO). I just wouldn't say, yeah, this is the band that got it together in this cohesive thing and went this direction. Important? Of course, undoubtedly and beyond question. I think OP is looking for the first American band that was that heavy metal identity in the total package. Whole records, vision, everything. And no of course it's not ALL about hindsight. We would still call 'Sad Wings of Destiny' metal whether everybody ripped it off or not. Hindsight just helps because what bands that come after do is recognize a vision of a pioneering band and build upon it, and for that to happen the vision has to be there in the first place.

Orion Crystal Ice wrote:

Well, I mean it's hard to argue Aerosmith as the out-and-out first American metal BAND, like band in terms of consistency and purposeful vision within that context. The 'Rocks' stuff is definitely heavy and to me the most intense Aerosmith got outside of 'Night in the Ruts' (which is also their most underrated IMO). I just wouldn't say, yeah, this is the band that got it together in this cohesive thing and went this direction. Important? Of course, undoubtedly and beyond question. I think OP is looking for the first American band that was that heavy metal identity in the total package. Whole records, vision, everything. And no of course it's not ALL about hindsight. We would still call 'Sad Wings of Destiny' metal whether everybody ripped it off or not. Hindsight just helps because what bands that come after do is recognize a vision of a pioneering band and build upon it, and for that to happen the vision has to be there in the first place.

No, not arguing Aerosmith to be the first whatsoever. Sorry, didn't mean to give that impression. I was just using Aerosmith as an example of what heavy metal was in the 1970's in the U.S.

Yes, "Night in the Ruts" is fantastic and probably the most underrated of their catalog. I just happen to be listening to it right now.

As far as "looking for the first American band that was that heavy metal identity in the total package", good luck identifying that. Even Black Sabbath didn't know exactly what heavy metal was or didn't think they were a heavy metal band. They were just a hard rockin', blues and jazz-influenced, rock and roll band. The heavy metal tag in the 70's was more of something the fans labeled the bands rather than the band's themselves.

Even the European 1970's heavy metal bands were pretty diverse with few sounding like each other. I mean, Sabbath didn't sound like Uriah Heep didn't sound like UFO didn't sound like Budgie didn't sound like Deep Purple, etc. etc. etc. Listening to Uriah Heep's "Look At Yourself" and comparing it to "Master of Reality" or even "Force It" and they are all very different animals, but all under the same umbrella of the first wave of British heavy metal.

I just don't understand how something that was clearly labeled heavy metal in the '70s couls stop being so at any given time. How can anyone come later down the road and claim that it wasn't metal, because something that came later on was? If anything, the original heavy metal tag must be the correct definition. So in my world heavy metal and hard rock is still two sides of the same coin.

Besides, '80s metal was perhaps even more wide as a genre as it ever was in the '70s, so why is it more correct to pigeonhold the term later on? I mean, Twisted Sister and Savatage are very different in sound, but they are both heavy metal. To me they are as different as, say, Queen and Aerosmith.

As I said before it's all just opinion anyway. Person A) thinks Aerosmith sounds metal, Person B) thinks they sound like hard rock, Person C) thinks they are good ole fashioned Rock 'N' Roll.

In the end does it really matter? Not in the slightest. If you like a band you like them, PERIOD, what someone else calls them means absolutely nothing.

We've had this discussion about once every 3 months for the past several years, we all essentially say the same thing each and every time.

I still contend that metal cannot have any sort of definition by audio alone. It was and is a visual form as well, that requires a certain attitude. Also, and I have had alot of dissenters on this board with this perspective, but Metal is a lifestyle. To different degrees for each fan. That probably springs from my punk upbringing and being raised [quite literally] by the street kids and flophousers. But, if it is not a lifestyle, why are there so many old farts in their 40's, like myself, still have so much passion for a style of music?

So, to me, real metal is denim and leather and never "officially started" until Killing Machine, although there was heavy music before that in Sad Wings of Destiny, Sabbath, and all the others already mentioned. So, whatever American band came out after that 1978 release is the one I would agree with.

Let the onslaught begin....

I judge the music solely by the music.

The "metal image" proved to more of a hindrance on the music being taken seriously by anyone outside the scene. It led to metal being ridiculed and looked at as silly music that only appeals to teenage boys.

I think the music deserves more respect than that.

S.D. wrote:

I judge the music solely by the music.

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