First American metal band???

another band that comes to mind is DUST...

My reasoning why I usually reject the idea that bands like Dust, Cactus, Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly, Mountain etc... are heavy metal is that they may have had heavy songs, but they kind of bumbled and stumbled into them. They had tons of crap on their albums too that's not heavy at all and it doesn't seem like they existed to just play heavy music. I think the term proto-metal is probably better for them as they were obviously influential. My reasoning might suck, but there it is.

But then again, heavy metal bands in the 70s were a lot more experimental and weren't as (frustratingly) rigid in their approach as later bands. Sabbath would record ballads, synth driven tunes, progressive rock leaning tracks, blues tunes, jazz-inflected tunes, etc. Same goes for Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Budgie, Thin Lizzy, etc.

I prefer that approach, which is why I prefer that era.

I pretty much agree with you WF.

Sure, Sabbath had different kinds of songs at times. But they played A LOT more metal than Iron Butterfly did.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Sabbath played more metal than Iron Butterfly. But that's not all they played (which was my point).

S.D. wrote:

But then again, heavy metal bands in the 70s were a lot more experimental and weren't as (frustratingly) rigid in their approach as later bands.  Sabbath would record ballads, synth driven tunes, progressive rock leaning tracks, blues tunes, jazz-inflected tunes, etc.  Same goes for Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Budgie, Thin Lizzy, etc.

I prefer that approach, which is why I prefer that era.

There's definitely something to this. Unfortunately, metal is one of those genres that labels tended to take a very active interest with - i.e. the bands half the time couldn't crap without permission from corporate if they'd shifted a few thousand units. I suspect this played no small part in reducing metal to the "formula" and ditching experimentation.

Then again, when bands DID experiment past the punk years, it wasn't exactly met with a resounding roar of approval either, so audience expectation came into that as well and it can probably be argued that this affected ALL genres of popular music and not just metal in the late 70s and onward. The era of "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" really seems to have been '66-'76 or thereabouts. Personally, I hope it comes around again.

While it was a total troll move to suggest Sinatra was the first American metal band, there is an element of metal to his stage persona. Yeah, it's a lot classier and more restrained, but am I the only one who sees the, "Yeah, I'll tell you to get bent and you'll love it - AND I got a few toughs who'll get the point across if what I'm saying doesn't" aspect to the persona? That's punk. That's metal. Only difference is in punk and metal, the person in question would probably jump off the stage and kick your ass personally. Still, similarities in l00d r00d t00d.

allthingsmetal wrote:

Back story: While listening to metal bands, my wife will ask "who is this"? I say the band name and, I guess, a 'geographical descriptor' like "german power metal" or "Bay Area thrash" or "Florida Death Metal" or "LA 80's metal", etc etc. She asked "who was the first american heavy metal band"? I thought "I'm not really sure" as I have never remember any one band being credited with that "title". I remember bands like Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, even Van Halen being called heavy metal in the 70's  (as well as Queen, etc) but I do not consider any of them "heavy metal".

What are your thoughts regarding who would be the first american heavy metal band?
Just wondering.

S.D. wrote:

If we're talking strictly "metal" (music+look+attitude) then whatever US band you choose would have to be "post-Judas Priest".  Judas Priest was the first band I can think of that was only metal, they can not be confused for any other genre.  They took the influences that came before them (Sabbath, Purple, etc) and used that as a building block to create the entire package we base traditional heavy metal around, both the sound and the fashion.

And I don't care what Hit Parader said in 1975...Aerosmith, Kiss, Ted Nugent & Alice Cooper were all heavy rock bands. They were all influential on the later 80s US metal scene, but they weren't strictly "metal".

Blue Oyster Cult came close, they had the whole dark artwork+leather look...but musically they were all over the map, they never had one signature sound, it kept evolving throughout their career.  

So I don't really have an "answer" for first US metal band that meet all the criteria Sax mentioned, but I would think someone would fit that criteria pre-1982.  Ciruth Ungol, The Rods?

Metal in the 70's was more varied and incorporated more influences and styles than the strict, rigid definition we have now. A band like Black Sabbath is credited with being one of the earliest metal bands, but listen to their stuff. They have the heavy songs, but they also have lighter moments, some jazz influences, some blues influenced songs, ballads, etc. Even a bit of funk at times.

Aerosmith, Nugent, Blue Oyster Cult, Kiss, Van Halen, etc. were the epitome of 70's heavy metal in the U.S. Were they "pure heavy metal" or "true metal" in the sense that we have it now? No. But neither was Judas Priest, UFO, Budgie, Sabbath, Deep Purple, Rainbow or any of the first wave of British heavy metal bands. Priest wrote songs like "Last Rose of Summer", an acoustic ballad that falls way outside that "true metal" bullshit people like to tout these days.

It wasn't just magazines like Creem and Hit Parader that were labeling these bands heavy metal at the time. The fans were saying these bands were heavy metal. The record companies were promoting them as heavy metal. Books on the history of heavy metal have these bands listed as the earliest metal bands. Martin Poppoff has an entire Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal for 70's releases. It was part of a scene that I grew up in and love, so I don't give a crap if people don't think these bands were heavy metal by some new standard. Just because Howlin' Wolf doesn't sound like BB King who doesn't sound like Stevie Ray Vaughn who doesn't sound like Joe Bonamassa doesn't mean that they aren't all blues artists.

It's actually gotten ridiculous. I have people arguing with me that Saxon, Twisted Sister and Judas Priest aren't metal but just classic rock. I've been doing those Hard 'n' Heavy videos and inevitably someone will argue that some band I have shown isn't heavy metal. On my 1980 video some guy was adamant that Twisted Sister were never a heavy metal band. I actually had a discussion with a young guy on Facebook just last week claiming that Megadeth haven't released a metal album since Rust in Peace. He says they are just a hard rock band. Really? Ugh! Of course his definition of heavy metal is all these bands with sentences for names. I had another guy say on one of my Facebook groups that singing in any form doesn't belong in heavy metal and only screaming (metalcore) and growling (death metal) belongs. (And ToB had a great response to him!)

The history revisionism continues...

Yes, I am passionate about this subject and the revisionism drives me nuts for some reason. Must be OCD!

To answer the question, I'd definitely agree with Blue Cheer being one of the first.

Witchfinder wrote:

My reasoning why I usually reject the idea that bands like Dust, Cactus, Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly, Mountain etc... are heavy metal is that they may have had heavy songs, but they kind of bumbled and stumbled into them.  They had tons of crap on their albums too that's not heavy at all and it doesn't seem like they existed to just play heavy music.  I think the term proto-metal is probably better for them as they were obviously influential.  My reasoning might suck, but there it is.

I can agree wit this. Those bands you listed can be labeled as proto-metal.

S.D. wrote:

I don't think anyone is arguing that Sabbath played more metal than Iron Butterfly.  But that's not all they played (which was my point).  

My point it that if the majority of the music you play can't be called heavy metal then you can't be called a heavy metal band.

I don't think "look" or "attitude" has a single thing to do with it in so far as it doesn't actually change the sound of the music, although I'm sure it helped shape the opinions of the "music journalists" of the day.

Only Quiet Riot ist krieg!!

S.D. wrote:

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.  

Still true a few years later.

Y&T, IMO, was the first American band to coalesce into actually being Heavy Metal. Blue Cheer, Sir Lord Baltimore, Hendrix, all were proto-Metal, like Zep and Sabbath.

Y&T seems to be so underrated. Especially those solos.

Bottom line: if someone doesn't like Einstürzende Neubauten, they don't know what metal is. metal is banging on pieces of metal with other pieces of metal and writing songs around it.

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Y&T, IMO, was the first American band to coalesce into actually being Heavy Metal. Blue Cheer, Sir Lord Baltimore, Hendrix, all were proto-Metal, like Zep and Sabbath.

That is if you can accept a ludicrous term like "proto-metal" to begin with.

S.D. wrote:

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Y&T, IMO, was the first American band to coalesce into actually being Heavy Metal. Blue Cheer, Sir Lord Baltimore, Hendrix, all were proto-Metal, like Zep and Sabbath.

That is if you can accept a ludicrous term like "proto-metal" to begin with.  

I only use it because A- it's the accepted terminology and B- bands like Zep & Deep Purple HATE being related in any way at all to Heavy Metal. So, since much of what they did served as a "prototype" for the Heavy Metal that eventually came around, I use "proto-Metal".

Suck it.

The commonly used term in the late 60s and early 70s in the UK was "HEAVY ROCK".  Which, frankly, is a better term anyway.

Anyway, doesn't really matter, I think far too much time and effort is spent trying to categorize music when it's much better spent listening to it and studying it.

In mechanical engineering, they would refer to this as a "mockup." So, Zeppelin and Deep Purple, et. al. will henceforth and forever be referred to as mockup bands, becuase mechanical engineering involves lots of METAL and gets the cookie for coining terms related to it.

S.D. wrote:

The commonly used term in the late 60s and early 70s in the UK was "HEAVY ROCK".  Which, frankly, is a better term anyway.

But it's neither the late 60s nor the early 70s...it's 2015. It's linguistic evolution.

S.D. wrote:

Anyway, doesn't really matter, I think far too much time and effort is spent trying to categorize music when it's much better spent listening to it and studying it.  

Well, part of studying something is determining where/when things originate, correct?

Studying the origins of musical style is not the same thing as labeling and categorizing them.

Terms like "jazz" and "heavy metal" are just abstract descriptions so people that aren't either musicians or musicologists can discuss musical concepts.

S.D. wrote:

Studying the origins of musical style is not the same thing as labeling and categorizing them.  

Terms like "jazz" and "heavy metal" are just abstract descriptions so people that aren't either musicians or musicologists can discuss musical concepts.

But you can study and research and determine when the labels began, which is what we're talking about. We're not creating new ones. The labels are already there. We're just using history and research to determine how/when they are applied.

Which is why when someone like Tony Iommi says that the term heavy metal wasn't applied to their music until later I take his word for it from a historical perspective.  If Tony Iommi says that Sabbath played "heavy rock" then that to me carries more weight than what someone else described it as 5 or 10 or 45 years later.  Musical movements happen...and then labels are applied after the fact.  In the 1940s when bebop emerged the musicians didn't call it "bebop", it wasn't until later that writers coined that term to apply to the style.

...and of course we're still creating terms.  I never heard the term "proto-metal" until the last 10 years or so.  Nobody was using that term in the 1980s.  Back then Black Sabbath was "heavy metal".  Now all of a sudden it's proto-metal or doom metal or 70s metal or however many other descriptors that have come along in the years since.

S.D. wrote:

Which is why when someone like Tony Iommi says that the term heavy metal wasn't applied to their music until later I take his word for it from a historical perspective.  If Tony Iommi says that Sabbath played "heavy rock" then that to me carries more weight than what someone else described it as 5 or 10 or 45 years later.  Musical movements happen...and then labels are applied after the fact.  In the 1940s when bebop emerged the musicians didn't call it "bebop", it wasn't until later that writers coined that term to apply to the style.

...and of course we're still creating terms.  I never heard the term "proto-metal" until the last 10 years or so.  Nobody was using that term in the 1980s.  Back then Black Sabbath was "heavy metal".  Now all of a sudden it's proto-metal or doom metal or 70s metal or however many other descriptors that have come along in the years since.

I mean we're not creating terms in THIS discussion.

And I know Iommi considers Sabbath "heavy rock" or "hard rock". That was my point about linguistic evolution. Terms are created, applied, and evolve. It happens all the time. 10 years is long enough for a term to be generally accepted. So, "proto-metal" is used to describe bands that predate the "heavy metal" term but had a direct influence upon it.

It's not rocket science.

I know it's not rocket science and you also know my bias against genre and subgenre designations, the more that come along the less they mean.

Person A says Deep Purple is hard rock
Person B says Deep Purple is proto-metal
Person C says Deep Purple is heavy metal
Person D says Deep Purple is acid rock
Person E says Deep Purple is progressive rock

...and it doesn't matter one iota. Because regardless of designation, Deep Purple's music remains the same, calling it different names does not change what it is/isn't. In the end, the category is utterly meaningless.

Deep Purple are all those things, S.D.

Why does being a hard rock band exclude them from being a heavy metal band as well?

If you go back to 1975 and ask metal fans to list their favourite heavy metal bands, they'd probably have Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath lead the pack. Just because the genre has evolved, and nowadays people kind of associate it with even harder music, doesn't mean those bands weren't heavy metal.

Another 40 years and people will debate whether Iron Maiden, Judas Priest or Metallica were ever metal bands proper. And then two decades later whether thrash metal or death metal were metal since they weren't "brutal" enough to fit the description of our grandchildren. They'll be "AOR" or old geezer rock.

Lari wrote:

Deep Purple are all those things, S.D.

Why does being a hard rock band exclude them from being a heavy metal band as well?

If you go back to 1975 and ask metal fans to list their favourite heavy metal bands, they'd probably have Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath lead the pack. Just because the genre has evolved, and nowadays people kind of associate it with even harder music, doesn't mean those bands weren't heavy metal.

Another 40 years and people will debate whether Iron Maiden, Judas Priest or Metallica were ever metal bands proper. And then two decades later whether thrash metal or death metal were metal since they weren't "brutal" enough to fit the description of our grandchildren. They'll be "AOR" or old geezer rock.

My opinion is they are "DEEP PURPLE", they play Deep Purple music. I'll let everyone else waste their time trying to decide which meaningless category they want to file them under.

All these arguments about which bands were metal vs. which bands were hard rock are just moronic. You either enjoy the music or you don't. Plus it's all subjective opinion on how they are categorized anyway.