What got you into Heavy Metal?

Just interested to know how some of you got into Heavy Metal.

For me I used to hate Rock/Metal, then I decided to get the GN'R Greatest Hits when it came out just for experimentation, and I loved it, I remember thinking woah this is heavy! And I like it! little did I know of the things to come.
Gn'r acted as a gateway band, from them I got into Jimi Hendrix, then Zeppelin and then Sabbath. And once you get into Sabbath... well the gate sort of becomes a great bloody Aircraft Hangar door. That's when I got into Metallica, Megadeth, Death, Maiden, Anthrax etc.
But I've started to go back now and listen to more early stuff again that really opened the gateway like Rush, Black Sabbath, Yes, Amboy Dukes etc

Dirt-biking in gravel quarries in Hutchinson, MN while someone cranked "The Eagle has Landed".

THAT SERPENT OF OLD,CALLED THE DEVIL AND LUCIFER ! THE ONLY DECENT D-MN THING THAT BAST**D EVER DID FOR ME ....HE ALSO TAUGHT ME THE SECRETS OF BACKMASKING-


EGANORI
...OOPS I MEANT IRONAGE.

I was a kid in grade school. A neighbor use to blare bands like Kiss, The Who, Thin Lizzy, etc. through his stereo. The whole neighborhood heard it. My friend and I, who were much younger than this kid, hung out with him and got heavily into Kiss, Aerosmith, etc. By the time I was in fifth grade I was into bands like Thin Lizzy, Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, UFO, Angel, etc. By mid-high I was into Judas Priest, Saxon, Motorhead, Def Leppard, Venom etc. High school it was Twisted Sister, Metallica, Anthrax, Heathens Rage, Queensryche, Mercyful Fate, etc.

Umm the 70's are what got me into metal with bands like:
AC/DC
Budgie
Riot
Montrose
Trapeze
Black Sabbath
White Witch
Judas Priest
Detective
Rose Tattoo


Countless others!

Wargod48

I got into Jimi Hendrix when I was 14 and he opened me up to the Blues, Classic Rock, and eventually to Metal.

My bother gave me Kiss Hotter Than Hell when I was in grade school (he was headed into the military). My parents thought they were evil so I had to hide the album from them. They gave in when my grandmother bought me a Kiss Destroyer shirt at the state fair one year. I guess I've always been into metal. It took a while for me to get into bands like Metallica and Mercyful Fate. They were nothing like Kiss, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Rush, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Whitesnake, Dio, Black Sabbath, and Ozzy...I'm sure I left many bands out. All these years later and I still listen to the same music...My favorite bands back then still are now. My wife still doesn't understand why I listen to "that" music...oh well, thank God for ipods.

I didn't take an active role in listening to music until about '98 (I turned 17 that year!) or so. I have three different friends to thank for getting me interested in metal/rock: one friend let me have his old Appetite for Destruction cassette, another let me borrow Poison's Greatest Hits CD and a few Bon Jovi CDs, then another played Metallica for me.

So I had my bases covered: Poison & Bon Jovi ---> GNR ---> Metallica. Things just kinda snowballed from there with me checking out websites for any info I could find on bands, making frequent trips to the music store, downloading songs, and ordering CDs online. The next major find for me was KISS. Something I reached out and tried on my own with Alive II & the then recent release of Psycho Circus. Never looked back, KISS is my favorite band.

I've more or less stuck with the older acts in rock & metal (with a few shames to my name of more current/mainstream acts) since then.

Stryper was the band that did it for me. A friend of mine gave me a copy of "Soldiers Under Command". It was just a tape 'burn', but I loved it. I cranked it nonstop for months on end.

Then "To Hell with the Devil" came out and I bought it brand new. I was hooked.

From that point I got into other bands like Bloodgood, Barren Cross, Saint and Bride.

I just listened to Christian metal for years. Then in 1989 I discovered thrash metal with Vengeance Rising. Just called Vengeance at the time. I got ahold of their 'red' demo before they were signed through Heaven's Metal mag.

From there I got into Slayer, Metallica, Overkill, Kreator, Sodom, and other such bands. I became a little thrasher. I'm still a thrasher - but I've branched out and I do appreciate other music nowadays too - but metal is my main diet. My meat if you will. The other stuff is just side dishes for me.

i was in grade school & me & all my friends were into our local
hometown heros the Misfits. it took off from there with my mom giving
me Judas Priest & Black Sabbath albums that were in with a bunch of
records she bought at a yard sale.



froom then on it progressed. my sisters boyfriend gave me Slayer's Hell
Awaits. one of my first record purchases on my own was Warlock's
Burning The Witches. then onto Bathory, Napalm Death, Celtic Frost, etc
etc.,

SAXON1500 wrote:

Dirt-biking in gravel quarries in Hutchinson, MN while someone cranked "The Eagle has Landed".

I grew up in Willmar! Small world. Anyway, back on topic:

I grew up with hair metal. I first heard Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot, and Motley Crue when I was in third/fourth grade back in 83/84. since my parents wouldn't let me buy any tapes/records of these bands (not like I had money anyway), I would go over to a friends house who's older brother was into metal. There I first heard Maiden, Priest, Helix, etc. Eventually a friend of mine got ride the lightening. The first time I heard it I was blown away. Until then, I thought maiden was as heavy as metal got. About a year or so later another friend got peace sells and reign in blood. After that, my tastes started to lean towards the heavier side of metal (though I was still listening to hair metal, and still love it to this day!) Still , my parents wouldn't allow any of the stuff in the house, so luckily I discovered Christian metal, and I picked up everything I could from Barren Cross, Saint, Stryper, Messiah Prophet, Bride, etc, and that later turned into Deliverance, Vengeance, living sacrifice, etc. Though my parents though the music was horrible, they loved the message, and thought I'd probably "grow out" of my metal phase in a year or two. To their continued surprise I'm just as excited about metal now as I was then!

I think it was because the girl I really liked had a big crush on Vince Neil. So I of course had to check out this Motley Crue band. Shout At The Devil had just been released so I bought it. Cum On Feel The Noize was tearing up the charts at the same time so I checked out Metal Health as well. Then a friend turned me onto another brand new album, Ride The Lightning. From there it just progressed rapidly, kind of like kudzu.

P.S. Welcome Allen (A.K.A. blackieboy)

Went through a nu-metal phase, until I bought Slayer "God Hates us All" and it started from there. Of course I found out about megadeth and maiden soon afterwards.

Thanks 7thSecond!

KissinMaiden wrote:

Went through a nu-metal phase, until I bought Slayer "God Hates us All" and it started from there. Of course I found out about megadeth and maiden soon afterwards.

nothing like a little Slayer to bring the dead alive!

My first introduction to Slayer was "Reign in Blood". I was blown away. I would just sit there and listen to it - I was only a kid at the time. But that was almost 20 years ago now. Wow time flies.

I remember getting reign in blood but, i was more impressed with south of heaven. What a great album.

Yeah, "South of Heaven" is good too!

Now my all time favorite Slayer album is "Seasons in the Abyss". But I like em all!

blackieboy wrote:

My first introduction to Slayer was "Reign in Blood". I was blown away. I would just sit there and listen to it - I was only a kid at the time. But that was almost 20 years ago now. Wow time flies.

my friend, i still get that same feeling with that awesome album.

In 1980 I saw Motörhead in the German music show Musikladen playing the song Motörhead. It blew me away and from that day on I am a Motörhead fan. Motörhead opened the door for me and I soon started to listen to Kiss, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath...

I was really into rap for about 10 years, starting in my childhood and ending in my late teens.I started to tire of rap, bigtime. So I wanted to try new stuff out there, I tried prog, electronica, metal, nu-metal, etc. I noticed that metal and nu-metal were the two I was listening the most. Actually, nu-metal was what I mostly listened to. probably because many bands were influenced by rap.

So a while later notice some gamer friends of mine constantly talking about these bands i've never heard of. I asked for some mp3s and I got hooked, instantly. turns out the majority of the bands were melodeath bands from scandinavia. Melodeath was what I listened to for about a year straight. Well, I wanted more metal so I turned to the metalarchives and I started looking up bands this guy named ultraboris liked. Turns out that I really enjoyed a lot of his favorite albums. Couple of years later and here we are. Sorry for the long, boring story

I had two older cousins who decided to 'ruin' me back in 1982. One was a metalhead and gave me three Iron Maiden records for my birthday, his twinbrother was more of a punkrocker and he gave me 3 punk(rock) records. So I turned 6 years old and I owned 6 great reecords..... it all wnet downhill from there.... My parents thought it would just be a phase.... they know better now!

I still own these six records they gave me back then.... on october 8th it'll be the 25th anniversary of my donwfall

My mum raised me on classic rock, specifically Zeppelin. So it was always there really. When I started actively listening to my music by myself, I started off with generally rock-y stuff and then discovered Metallica and System of a Down along with various others - those two were pretty significant though. I guess things 'snowballed' shortly after that.

My Dad got me into metal.

He used to listen to Judas Priest, Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Dark Angel, Anthrax, Testament, Atrophy . . . all types of metal.
I used to be really fascinated by the album covers and it just went from there.

My Dad gave me Priest's Painkiller when it was just released (i was about 6), and that was it for me.

METAL !!!!!!!!!!!!!