Strange ways to discover a band

Did you discover a band due to weird or strange circumstances? Tell us about it!

I disovered Led Zeppeling becasue of Dark Angel, and their cover of "Immigrant Song"!

Cool thread. I'm gonna have to go down memory lane think about this one.

I discovered Sepultura by finding a cassette copy of Arise laying in the sand on the beach, and it wasn't in the case or anything. I had heard OF the band before, but had never actually heard them. The tape played just fine, and I was one pleased metalhead!


Another time (not a discovery of the band, per se) I bought a used CD, and upon opening it, I discovered that Disc 2 of Metallica's Garage Inc. was in there, instead, lol...

I discovered the Ramones through a chance viewing of their classic movie "Rock N Roll High School" on TV one Sunday afternoon, I must have been about 13 or 14. I had been dimly aware of the band's existence prior to that (due to their videos popping up occasionally on MTV, etc.) but had never really listened to'em much, but the concert scenes in that movie knocked me out, I was like "Holy cow, this band rules!"

They've been one of my favorite bands ever since.

I discovered heavy metal due to an anti rock rally at my church First Baptist Church of Largo when I was 11 or 12. The Rev Billy Mayo would bringing his traveling circus to town, drum up a little publicity and play records backwards, to uncover something called 'backward masking'.

In the mist of these silly b.s. he played AC/DC's Highway to Hell, it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard sitting in those pews, the next day with a list of the worst offenders (Satan worshippers and what have you) courtesy of one Rev Billy Mayo I went to the local Kmart and began my obsession with all things rock.

I found out about Iron Maiden when someone left their cassette on the Portland public transit bus.

Manny, I didn't find bands that way but scored some albums at a camp I went to that was having a record burning. My parents, gratefully, weren't into that.

I unknowingly went to a record burning back in the mid to late '80s. My buddies and I heard about an event at a local church where heavy metal music and rock music were going to be spoken about, lol...needless to say, it was not a positive seminar about it, and yes, people burned their albums after it in a bonfire.

I can see some small good, or intention, in doing such a thing, but I really think it's more stupid judgement and a mere dislike and bias against the music more than anything else.

Back in 1990's a cousin and I found a cassete in our neighborhood. It had the first album from "thebandthatshallneverbementionedagain", we played that cassete Many times until it got ruined

powermacho wrote:

Back in 1990's a cousin and I found a cassete in our neighborhood. It had the first album from "thebandthatshallneverbementionedagain", we played that cassete Many times until it got ruined

What is this band? Metallica?

Jesusandmetal23 wrote:

powermacho wrote:

Back in 1990's a cousin and I found a cassete in our neighborhood. It had the first album from "thebandthatshallneverbementionedagain", we played that cassete Many times until it got ruined

What is this band? Metallica?

I think the bandthatshallneverbementionedagain is heart of metals censored version of "K O R N"..haha.

This is a rad thread, I think the best thing I got was discovering blind guardians first two albums by being really into the art of the covers. A issue from the early 2000's had an article about it I just remember not giving a sh!t about what the music sounded like or if I was going to like heavy metal....I just really liked the art..haha.

haha why did the band got banned? jajaja thats funny. well thats the band that played FREAK ON A LEACH. I used to be a fan of them when I was young, but stopped soon since their stuped image

Oh "thebandthatshallneverbementionedagain". Got it.

HAHA. I typed in the actual name and it came out like that. Why did they censor it?

I listened to Exodus only after the tenth time of my dad hearing Low Rider on the radio and saying "Hey, do you listen to Exodus? They have an awesome metallized cover of this song."

I discovered the band Lions because they were touring and they stopped at the truck stop I was working at to fuel up. I asked them if they had a demo or something and they went out and ripped up their whole tour van to find me their last promo CD.

I was at a party in Azuza Canyon back in like 84' or something ? There was this cute rehead with green eyes. She ignored me all night untill I had finally talked the band that was playing into letting me sit in on the drums. We played "Hair of the dog" and "Livewire". Then she was all lovey-dovey. Anyways...later when she removed her tube top. There was a name written on one of her breasts, which one . The name was Traci Guns and I figured she was a stripper or something with her stage name advertising on a body part. She just said something like "oh that is just some guitar player in this band I saw last night in Hollywood called LA Guns, go check em out". I did, a few weeks later.

I discovered KISS when I was a kid because a teenage neighbor was blasting so loud one summer, the whole neighborhood could hear it. It was during the day, so no one seemed to care, as far a I remember. I was already becoming a rock and roll fan when I was in grade school and KISS blew me away. I became a bit of a fanatic after that.

I've discovered many bands through other band's covers of them. Diamond Head because of Metallica, Pretty Maids because of Hammerfall, etc.

ultmetal wrote:

I discovered KISS when I was a kid because a teenage neighbor was blasting so loud one summer, the whole neighborhood could hear it. It was during the day, so no one seemed to care, as far a I remember. I was already becoming a rock and roll fan when I was in grade school and KISS blew me away. I became a bit of a fanatic after that.

I've discovered many bands through other band's covers of them. Diamond Head because of Metallica, Pretty Maids because of Hammerfall, etc.

The cover song thing was a similar thing for me. I also used to read the rock magazines and find out that this player was in that band before and then go check them out. You know like Paul Rodgers with Free and the guys in Savoy Brown later becoming Foghat.

manny wrote:

I discovered heavy metal due to an anti rock rally at my church First Baptist Church of Largo when I was 11 or 12. The Rev Billy Mayo would bringing his traveling circus to town, drum up a little publicity and play records backwards, to uncover something called 'backward masking'.

In the mist of these silly b.s. he played AC/DC's Highway to Hell, it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard sitting in those pews, the next day with a list of the worst offenders (Satan worshippers and what have you) courtesy of one Rev Billy Mayo I went to the local Kmart and began my obsession with all things rock.

I got into Metal in a similar way. My parents were very anti-Rock music and had us watch a TV show called The Eagle's Nest on TBN or something. Pastor Gary Greenwald played clips of videos and talked about backward masking and such. The whole time I was thinking "I know I'm not supposed to like this stuff ... but wow.... this is great!"

I got into U2 because of Believer's cover of Like a Song.


I got into Rez Band because this camp counselor at summer camp gave each of us a cassette from his personal collection.

I got into Bride on a Winter retreat at this log cabin place. This college dude played some Bride stuff and I was hooked. I got Silence Is Madness later for Christmas.

I got into Phil Keaggy's Master and the Musician because my youth group pastor was teaching on the evil's of secular rock and roll. I showed him Black Sabbath's "After Forever", he showed me Keaggy. I didn't stop listening to Black Sabbath, but I did find a killer guitarist in Keaggy.

Some great stories here!

I love James B.'s story!

When we were kids, a buddy of mine discovered Van Halen thanks to a cassette tape in a car that someone had abandoned on his family's property in Pennsylvania. Before his father had the car towed away, my buddy looked thru it to see if there was anything salvageable inside and the VH cassette (first album) was in the glove box. If memory serves, he also found a stash of porn magazines under one of the seats

i discovered accept through an old cassette i came across in my previous BMW the second day i bought it. There was no name or anything, so i had to inquire about the band.

I fell in love with their sound and was immediately on the hunt for their cds.

If I'd been thinking at the time, I should've gone to one of those record burnings and got some good finds.

I used to go for bands just based on their name intrigueing me. Nuclear Assault, Cryptic Slaughter, Sleeze Beez, Spread Eagle, and Every Mother's Nightmare were all must buys just based on the band names alone. Shockingly I never got a bad album doing this. Some of my all time favorites were discovered this way.

My love of rap in the eighties got me into two bands that I love. Sir Mix-A-Lot's version of Ironman with Metal Church got me to finally buy that first MC album. Derek B and Boogie Down Productions both used Smoke On The Water as a sample which caused me to go out and get Deep Purple's Machine Head.