Christians In Metal

Apart from metal bands who are obviously Christian, Christians appear all over the place in the metal/hard rock world. Here are a list of people I know about who claim to be or are definatly Christians:

Shadow Gallery (all members)
Alice Cooper
John Petrucci (Dream Theater-Devout Catholic, while many protestants would say that doesn't count I believe it does)
John Myung (Dream Theater)
Danny Spitz (ex-Anthrax)
Dave Eleffson (ex-Megadeth)
Dave Mustaine (Megadeth)
Hansi Kursh (Blind Guardian-I heard him claim to be a believer in an interview years ago)
Lance King (various bands Christian and Secular)
Michael Weikath (Helloween)
Gary Cerone (ex-Extreme)
Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden)

Those are the ones I know about but I'm sure there are more. James LaBrie (Dream Theater) used to claim to be a Christian in the past but these days has sort of turned away from that. Who are some I don't know about?

Tom Araya, Dave Lombardo, & Bobbly Ellsworth have all claimed to be christian.

TROUBLE

Tommy Aldridge (Ozzy, Whitesnake, Pat Travers, among others)
Rob Rock (Impelliterri, MARS, Driver, etc.)
Dee Snider (Twisted Sister)
Ted Nugent (at least according to his wife's book, Married to a Rock Star)

ultmetal wrote:

Dee Snider (Twisted Sister)

Isn't Dee Jewish? A while ago he appeared in some kind of "Passover Dinner" special on VH1.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Dee Snider (Twisted Sister)


Isn't Dee Jewish? A while ago he appeared in some kind of "Passover Dinner" special on VH1.

No, he stated on that very program that people are surprised that he isn't Jewish.

spectrefate wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Dee Snider (Twisted Sister)


Isn't Dee Jewish? A while ago he appeared in some kind of "Passover Dinner" special on VH1.

No, he stated on that very program that people are surprised that is isn't Jewish.

I stand corrected again. That's twice in two days. I suck.

spectrefate wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Dee Snider (Twisted Sister)


Isn't Dee Jewish? A while ago he appeared in some kind of "Passover Dinner" special on VH1.

No, he stated on that very program that people are surprised that he isn't Jewish.

I thought he was half-Jewish. I thought he said on Howard Stern once that his dad was Jewish but his mom wasn't. According to the Jewish guy I work with, that doesn't count. If the mom is Jewish, then the offspring are considdered Jewish, something about passing down the bloodline or something. Sorta like vampires.

Anybody know if Adni Deris is a Christian? Michael Weikath stated once that everyone in Helloween (except the drummer) either is a Christian or believes in God. I wonder about Deris from this lyric passage from Time, "Take the bibles words Speak it pure his soul" and sometimes I see him wearing a cross pendant in photos (of course wearing of a cross does not a Christina make-case in point, Yngwie wears a whole bunch of them but denies any connection to Christianity).

mc666 wrote:

Tom Araya, Dave Lombardo, & Bobbly Ellsworth have all claimed to be christian.

Isn`t that ironic, half of the members in the biggest anti christian band on the planet are christians???????


And how is it possible to live with the fact that they are turning thousands of people against christianity?

Olafsto wrote:

mc666 wrote:

Tom Araya, Dave Lombardo, & Bobbly Ellsworth have all claimed to be christian.

Isn`t that ironic, half of the members in the biggest anti christian band on the planet are christians???????


And how is it possible to live with the fact that they are turning thousands of people against christianity?

Well I belive Tom Arya said he was raised catholic but dosent follow it
as for the rest of slayer im not sure. it dos'nt really make sense that a band would write ant-christan songs when half the members are followers of christ

Sean Harris of Diamond Head dedicated his "Death & Progress" album to Christ, and there is a fair amount of Christian content on that album.
I know that Christianity played a big part in Bill Ward's sobriety. Don't know where he's at philosophically now.
Burke Shelley of Budgie is a lifelong Christian, never got into drugs and groupies in the first place.
There was an old band called Gravy Train (pretty heavy and good prog) that was dominated by Christian members.
Teaze must have had a Christian member to write the song "Open Up My Eyes". (a great song).

Before "Christian Rock" became an either/or sort of genre unto itself, it was very, very common to have religiously inspired songs on hard rock albums. I actually burned myself a CD of these songs and called it "The Psychedelic Old Testement". I'll come back to this thread and list some of the bands, but there are some huge names of proto metal that did songs that were Christian or virtually Christian.

The term half jewish is nonesense. Being jewish is about religion only not race, so you cannot be half jewish. In Africa there is a huge black jewish community.

Frank Marino is a Christian.

Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad is a Christian.

I think Katon DePena may be a believer. I seem to remember Glenn Rogers
telling me so. Speaking of Glenn, he too is a Christian. Glenn is the
on-again/off-again guitarist for Hirax.

ult

tul wrote:

The term half jewish is nonesense. Being jewish is about religion only not race, so you cannot be half jewish. In Africa there is a huge black jewish community.

Hebros.

Eyesore wrote:

Hebros.

Fuckin hilarious.

Eyesore wrote:

Hebros.

Add Lou St. Paul (Winter's Bane, Fires of Babylon) to that list.

I didnt know Lou was a Hebro

Maybe it was supposed to be a secret. Sorry about that, Lou.

Olafsto wrote:

mc666 wrote:

Tom Araya, Dave Lombardo, & Bobbly Ellsworth have all claimed to be christian.

Isn`t that ironic, half of the members in the biggest anti christian band on the planet are christians???????


And how is it possible to live with the fact that they are turning thousands of people against christianity?

money talks, & i think they make alot more of it than Believer.

Zakk Wylde(Ozzy, Black Label Society)
Ron Rinehart (ex-Dark Angel)
David Wayne R.I.P. (ex-Metal Church, Reverend)
Kai Hansen (ex-Helloween, Gamma Ray was in the past but now I'm not sure. His lyrics have gotten a lot darker and he even says ''God is an illusion and there ain't no paradise'' on Gamma Ray's latest album.)
I've heard people say that Chuck Schuldiner R.I.P. (Death) became a Christian. Changing the inverted cross in their logo to a normal cross from 'Symbolic' on certainly gives creedance to that theory.
Black Sabbath obviously had their song 'After Forever' plus any song that did talk about Satanism was more anti Satanism than pro.
Saint Vitus thanks God on 'Born Too Late.'
Tom Angelripper's (Sodom) lyrics on Better off Dead seem to be Christian even though he has since gone back to being anti-Christian.
Some of the lyrics of Testament (seems to depend on the writer) and Candlemass could also be interpretated as coming from a Christian viewpoint.
There are more examples so anyone who says Christians have no place in metal or that metal is fundamentally anti Christian (like some members of metal-archives) is just wrong. Christians certainly make up a sizeable proportion of the metal scene and long may it continue.

Not metal, but someone just gave me a cool Peter Green album "In the Skies" from 1979 that seems Christian oriented.

Geez, how could I forget Ron Rinehart. One of my good friends!

How about Ron Eriksen, ex-Viking. I think he is a pastor now, unless I am mixing him up. I know that Ron Daniel is a pastor, but I believe Ron Eriksen was just a stage name.

Yes, I was correct. Check it out:
http://www.rondaniel.com/viking/viking.html

Ron Daniel and Ron Reinhardt should get together with Glenn Rogers, Dave Ellefson and Nicko McBrain and start a christian metal band.