Non-metal bands that actually claimed to be metal?

You're right, I didn't read the fine print closely enough. You can't see it because of the flash, but the third pic says 1992.
I didn't even realize that, about Axel.

Probably as I was used to seeing glam/hair metal bands like GNR & Poison in Metal Forces or other small mags, before they were ever in the big well known ,corner store glossy mags.

There are a ton of books on the history of heavy metal, not to mention shows like VH-1 Classics Metal Evolution and scads of periodical articles from the era.

I am very passionate about the music I grew up with and still love today. I guess that's why it bugs me so much that metal fans try and dismiss or downgrade that music as something less than it is. Bands like The Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, etc. were before my time but I don't discount those bands as being important to the history of rock and roll and I don't try to say they aren't rock and roll because they don't sound like more modern rock and roll bands.

As I've said, I not too bothered about labels and I'm certainly not trying to 'downgrade' the music that I love. I guess that just hear great music that was a continuation of what the bands in the 60's and before. It's always the journos who have to give it labels and make it fit neatly into a genre. I don't really respect most of them anyway because I saw how they dismissed thrash as a fad, talentless garbage that would come and go. Then when it didn't and landmark albums such as MOP & RIB hit big, they did a 180 degree turn and claimed that they had always 'loved' those bands.

Witchfinder wrote:

Freddy, are you aware that some TROO Metulz fans consider this a classic?  I am not kidding.  I like a lot of obscure 80's cult metal bands and I run in to Killen fans all the time on some boards.  Hehehe.  

Oh believe me, I am WELL aware of the tr00 grimm kvlt following Killen has amongst the vinyl-elitist crowd, hahaha. We had one of them here on the forum for a while some years back, must've been before you joined up. He was rather, shall we say...."over-enthusiastic."

Killen hailed from Staten Island, New York, where I went to college... and I saw them live once. They were average (at best) so I find the idea that they're such a kvlt item now kind of hilarious. They were just a rinky-dink local band. Chalk it up to the power of teh Internetz, I guess.

...of course, if I could've looked into the future at that gig in 1989 and seen that copies of their lone album were going to be commanding stoooopid $$ to collectors years later, I would've cleaned out their merch table that night and I'd be making mad benjaminz on eBay now.

Quote :

I'm surprised it took you 3 pages to post Killen......

There aren't many of us left who've been around long enough to still get the joke. Ehehehehehehehehehehe.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Witchfinder wrote:

Freddy, are you aware that some TROO Metulz fans consider this a classic?  I am not kidding.  I like a lot of obscure 80's cult metal bands and I run in to Killen fans all the time on some boards.  Hehehe.  

Oh believe me, I am WELL aware of the tr00 grimm kvlt following Killen has amongst the vinyl-elitist crowd, hahaha. We had one of them here on the forum for a while some years back, must've been before you joined up. He was rather, shall we say...."over-enthusiastic."

Killen hailed from Staten Island, New York, where I went to college... and I saw them live once. They were average (at best) so I find the idea that they're such a kvlt item now kind of hilarious. They were just a rinky-dink local band. Chalk it up to the power of teh Internetz, I guess.

...of course, if I could've looked into the future at that gig in 1989 and seen that copies of their lone album were going to be commanding stoooopid $$ to collectors years later, I would've cleaned out their merch table that night and I'd be making mad benjaminz on eBay now.

Quote :

I'm surprised it took you 3 pages to post Killen......

There aren't many of us left who've been around long enough to still get the joke. Ehehehehehehehehehehe.

Hahaha! Awesome!

Although I know they started out as a metal band, TNT moved away from metal and went in a more hard rock/AOR direction. In the late 1990s, they were making claims that they were going back to playing metal for their next album, but didn't record a metal album.

ultmetal wrote:

There are a ton of books on the history of heavy metal, not to mention shows like VH-1 Classics Metal Evolution and scads of periodical articles from the era.

I am very passionate about the music I grew up with and still love today. I guess that's why it bugs me so much that metal fans try and dismiss or downgrade that music as something less than it is. Bands like The Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, etc. were before my time but I don't discount those bands as being important to the history of rock and roll and I don't try to say they aren't rock and roll because they don't sound like more modern rock and roll bands.

The thing is everyone agrees that The Beatles, Elvis, and Beach Boys are rock 'n roll. The issue is that there is little consensus with Metal. I'm not sure you could get 50 people to agree any particular band is metal. There is always a disclaimer attached to any band labeled metal that will say they are this type of metal and/or this era, etc. How often do you hear people say this band is metal, period. I'm at a loss to think of any band that is universally considered metal with no qualifiers attached.

journeyman wrote:

ultmetal wrote:

There are a ton of books on the history of heavy metal, not to mention shows like VH-1 Classics Metal Evolution and scads of periodical articles from the era.

I am very passionate about the music I grew up with and still love today. I guess that's why it bugs me so much that metal fans try and dismiss or downgrade that music as something less than it is. Bands like The Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, etc. were before my time but I don't discount those bands as being important to the history of rock and roll and I don't try to say they aren't rock and roll because they don't sound like more modern rock and roll bands.

The thing is everyone agrees that The Beatles, Elvis, and Beach Boys are rock 'n roll. The issue is that there is little consensus with Metal. I'm not sure you could get 50 people to agree any particular band is metal. There is always a disclaimer attached to any band labeled metal that will say they are this type of metal and/or this era, etc. How often do you hear people say this band is metal, period. I'm at a loss to think of any band that is universally considered metal with no qualifiers attached.  

Eh.... IRON MAIDEN?!!!!!

Maiden, Priest, Saxon, Black Sabbath. If you put qualifiers on those bands you are stupid or under 25.

Dark Horseman wrote:

Maiden, Priest, Saxon, Black Sabbath. If you put qualifiers on those bands you are stupid or under 25.

I agree. 

Although Bon Jovi is very far from metal, they got the label anyways.

Jon Bon Jovi actually considers his band to be a form of metal towards the middle of the article!

http://articles.latimes.com/1986-09-28/entertainment/ca-9458_1_jon-bon-jovi

It doesn't look like hard-core bands such as W.A.S.P., Accept and Metallica will breathe new life into the genre. And former heavies such as AC/DC are graveyard-bound. wrote:

      



Also: Bon Jovi is "moderate metal". Most metal singers are "all out screamers". And Bon Jovi's music is "comparatively intelligent".      

I would interject that what a band considers their own musical style to be is more important and applicable than what fans or media claim it to be. I don't care what anyone and their friends considered a band to be...if the band claims otherwise, that's what sticks.

Case in point (on a teeny tiny scale)...LINE OF FIRE gets played on Metal radio programs...yet LINE OF FIRE is not a Metal band. Being played on a Metal program, or being included in Unrestrained magazine, or on Tribunal Records, doesn't make us Metal.

There is a really terrible group called Blood on the Dance Floor whose frontman claimed his band to be "more metal than Slayer".

I could start a new thread called "Bands that were Punk, but never claimed to be Punk" and get the same 400 different opinions. To me, metal [and more so punk] is a lifestyle and philosophy more than any specific sound. IE: Bob Marley, Eddie Cochran, Johnny Cash, and Jesus where all punk as hell. At the same time, to me, King's X, Rush, and Vito Bratta are all metal....to me. Subjective is the key word.

Shawn Peleta is metal to me, too.

Music as an art, not a science. The lines between genres are always fuzzy, lots of band exist on the edge of genres. Throw in the fact that the word "metal" has gone through several meanings and it's impossible to box off bands into the category of metal without disagreeing with a very large amount of people.

Genre, at its root, is a sales label. Anyone remember the "Alternative" section in the 90s? I certainly wouldn't have tried telling someone who thought Eddie Vedder's voice was sex in a can that they should check out this Billy Corgan dude, because they were, like - ya know, totally comparable.  

And yet, you'd see their bands lumped together by sales people who didn't have a clue.

Same thing seems to happen with metal and, hey, we can have fun with it and go - "If you dug this, you may also like that. Some people compare their styles." Once it moves into assigning merit and strength to material based on a label though, I think it's fair to say the way has been lost.

We're achieving thread inception here, but it's like the conversation over in the Queensryche thread that picked up about the Breakdown Room - you have a whole bunch of nupties over in that forum getting all fired up about who the band is and who screwed it up and sides being taken... All over a bunch of musicians (albeit talented ones) who captured lightning in a bottle under the right set of circumstances to gain public exposure. It was a bunch of kids who got lucky repeatedly and all these folks can do is focus again and again on who broke the chain and where did the luck go and when did they start to suck and it's all about this intense focus on the negative. Seriously, it's a forest/trees argument. Dig the stuff you dig and accept that, no matter how stupid the lyrics are or how lame the subject matter is, if the song gets your foot tapping or your head banging, some guy with a guitar and a tape recorder got damn lucky in getting the mixture right.

You can call it metal, ice nine, catsongs, or music to bury your childhood dreams by, but I'll still throw up the horns for it.

  

...Actually, does anyone want to help me form the band that pioneers the catsongs genre? It'll probably be pretty awesome... Maybe.

Would bullet for my valentine qualify as metal?

Gilbert wrote:

Would bullet for my valentine qualify as metal?

The bullet would technically have to...

Gilbert wrote:

Would bullet for my valentine qualify as metal?

100% subjective depending on who you ask.

ALL genres/sub-genres are subjective, there is no fact, there is only opinion.

I think a LOT of bands started out as metal and then drifted off from it.
Bon Jovi is a prime example. That 1st album was a metal album but after that they were just a hard rock band and now play rockfish country music.

Aerosmyth is also another example. They too were a metal band but went very commercial and poppy!

So yeah some bands were "metal"! To say some of them are now is wrong!!

Quote :

rockfish

"Rockfish" would be an EXCELLENT name for a band.

Just sayin'. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Gilbert, Absolutely NOT!

Maybe we should justify bands being "metal" or not by using this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness