First song/album that got you into metal?

I remember trading my friend an REO Speedwagon cassette for his Stryper To Hell With Devil cassette.

When I inserted the cassette into my cassette player and hit play the first song that played was The Way. My life immediately changed. I wanted to find out more about this kind of music. Thank God, because I've met some of my best friends because of metal.

I know you remember, so what was the song album that turned you into a metalhead?

Or a least the first one I loved enough to spend my pocket money on!

My dad tells me he used to have to play the first four Van Halen albums on vinyl to get me to stop crying as an infant.

Some of the first I remember include Cinderella's Night Songs, Yngwie Malmsteen's Fire and Ice, Kingdom Come's In Your Face and Van Halen's 5150.

AC/DC - Blow Up Your Video

AC/DC Highway to hell was my first step towards the light.

KISS - Detroit Rock City. An older kid that lived across the alley from me was huge into KISS. He played us Destroyer and blew me and my friend away.

GNR's Welcome to the jungle.

UDO's Best Of

Boris2008 wrote:

Or a least the first one I loved enough to spend my pocket money on!

This, though I couldn't care less if I ever hear that song again! Still love the album though...

I didn't realize it was metal until I was much older, but Judas Priest's Cheater from Rocka Rolla. I'll never forget hearing that riff & the harmonica coming from my dad's den. I was only like 5 or 6. It got me to exploring his record collection of rock stuff.

Hearing this song sometime in 1977 or 1978:



That and various Kiss songs. I distinctly remember listening to my friend's copy of Double Platinum. Then I heard Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath being played by a friend's older brother and it scared me.

I went full bore into Metal when I found Priest in about 1982 when I saw this video:

I'm not completely sure, but I think it was Tears Are Falling by KISS. I still think it's a very catchy tune and one of their best from the non-makeup era.

Oh god. My paradigm shift.

July of 1993. I still have the cassette tape of this.

Last Action Hero had just come out, gotten slammed by critics, disappointed the box office, and went unnoticed by me (love the movie today tho). This means that the soundtrack was in heavy rotation around this time.

Strict parents, religious household, no heavy metal allowed.

My thing was to surf the radio on my boombox while running a tape on record, but the one station that was forbidden was 103.7 KRZR (The Wild Hare), our rock and metal station.

One day, my parents were out, and I was left to my own temptations.

I was cruising around different bands and decided to to KRZR. It was a commercial break. Then the DJ came on and I hit record.

This is the song that played. My balls dropped that day and I welcomed the brutality of adolescence into my heart with shock and awe. My life was changed forever.



Seriously, those goosebumps stung like hell.

AC/DC's Let There Be Rock, my brother bought me the tape for Christmas in 1981.
I was 11 years old and for a long time it was the only tape I owned so I played it literally to death. To this day, I know every riff and lyric from that album forwards, backwards, upside down and sideways.

Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast

Borrowed the tape from a friend.

The title track did it for me.

Hmmm, Sabbath or Purple. Pick a song from the mid to late 70's.

I was semi-familiar with what passed for heavy metal on the radio back in the early-to-mid 80's, but the first time I heard GnR's 'It's So Easy' on my Sony Walkman, I was hooked. The swagger, anger and attitude of that song had me craving more. The whole album really, but that song in particular sparked a fire.

Believe it or not "Fade To Black" is what turned me into a metalhead, although i didn't actually hear that album until 1988. Still my favorite song/album/band to this day.

Hard to say, as there were a few back in 1983 that got me steered in that direction. I want to say it was something off of "Pyromania" most likely? I think it was probably "Rock of Ages", which I heard on the radio or it might have been "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)". All of a sudden, I remember my father allowing me to get a couple of free tapes through Columbia House, which was "Bark at the Moon" and "Shout at the Devil". I slowly delved into the scene, as I was still into AOR and pop music. By 1986 there was a considerable paradigm shift to that of metal, as Metallica rocked my world!

Probably Detroit Rock City from KISS. My neighbors at the time were a few years older than me and turned me onto KISS.

I'd say Iron Maiden's Somewhere In Time as far as what I would consider metal nowadays. I mean, I was listening to stuff like early Def Leppard, early Motley Crue, Scorpion and Krokus before that, but to me that's more hard rock than metal.

If you liked Krokus and shit, you were already into metal.

What got you into those bands instead of pop stuff?

My Dad was that quintessential 80's guy with a giant stereo system. Staples growing up Van Halen 1 and Thin Lizzy's Dedication album definitely laid the foundation for me.

AC/DC 'Highway to Hell'. heard that opening riff, and the Phil Rudd drum beat, finally Bon's killer voice. I have a feeling AC/DC was a gateway band for a lot of us on this board.

The garage band across the street used to butcher Sabbath tunes. It was the catalyst for me starting to piece together my "Frankenstein" drum kit and learning how to play along to records with headphones on. Summer of 1973 (I think)