What Gives Heavy Metal Its Devilish Sound?

0:00 (intense music)- [Linda] Characterized today

0:04 by its aggressive playing style, dramatic vocals, and elaborate performances,

0:09 heavy metal music emerged during the counterculture era in the late 1960s,

0:13 and drew influences from proto hard rockers like Jim Hendrix and Cream,

0:17 psychedelic rock music, and the alleged OG devil's music, the blues.

0:23 Satan is coming around the bend♪ This Black Sabbath song

0:27 is often hailed as the track that birthed heavy metal music,

0:31 a genre notoriously perceived as the devil's music.

0:34 But contrary to popular belief,

0:37 most heavy metal music isn't inherently evil or Satanic.

0:40 Ozzy Osborne, the lead singer of Black Sabbath, even refuted this notion,

0:45 once saying, "I'm not a guy that worships the devil.

0:48 When Black Sabbath started, we got invited to a graveyard at midnight.

0:51 We told them our dark image is a joke."

0:54 So then how did heavy metal get this Satanic association?

0:57 And is it fair to view this association in a negative light?

1:01 I'm exploring these questions with help from Joey Hayes,

1:04 drummer and rockstar from Minneapolis.

1:07 (guitar playing) And later,

1:09 Joey and I will even attempt to create our very own heavy metal soundtrack.

1:14 (drums crashing) Heavy metal's dark sound can be attributed to its use of loud,

1:23 distorted guitars to create a gritty and aggressive tone,

1:28 deep baselines that add depth and weight,

1:32 AKA, the heavy sounds, and double bass drumming.

1:41 When combined with screaming vocals, minor key melodies, and dissonant chords,

1:45 it generates a very intense and eerie

1:48 atmosphere that often feels chaotic and unsettling.

1:52 Many metal bands also like to incorporate the tritone,

1:54 AKA, the devil's interval.

1:56 The tritone is a dissonant interval formed by two notes

1:59 that are six half steps or three whole tones apart.

2:02 So on a guitar, if you start on E and move down six frets or half steps,

2:06 you'll arrive at the note B flat.

2:07 When played together, they create a tritone.

2:09 (guitar riffing) Slayer's 1988 song South of Heaven is

2:16 a prime example of how Tritones contribute to its menacing tune.

2:23 [Linda] To shed light on this, I spoke with Michael Bishop,

2:25 better known by his stage name Blothar of the shock rock heavy metal band Gwar.

2:32 Michael also has a PhD in music from the University of Virginia.

2:36 Volume in itself can be an evocation of the sublime, right?

2:40 Like of something that overpowers your senses,

2:43 and then creating sort of spooky spaces with the vocals.

2:47 In what way, like echoes or, and in rock, this was the case too,

2:52 perhaps for just like dramatic sense,

2:55 but there's a lot of like dramatic pause and then like overwhelm of sounds.

2:59 Yes, drama in the music.

3:00 Heavy metal artists didn't just adopt darker themed sounds.

3:04 They also conveyed them through their lyrics, stage performances, and artwork.

3:08 Take, for example, Gene Simmons from the band Kiss and his now iconic,

3:12 the once provocative blood spitting act from their 1976 hit God of Thunder,

3:18 or Merciful Fate's debut album, Melissa,

3:22 which prominently features a skull motif and a track list

3:26 with titles like At the Sound of a Demon Bell, Black Funeral, and Satan's Fall.

3:31 The song lyrics of Slayer are also known

3:34 to be controversial for exploring occult themes and taboo subjects,

3:38 such as their 1986 song Angel of Death, which graphically details the horrifying

3:44 experiments carried out by Joseph Mengele, a Nazi doctor during World War II.

3:49 Pumped with fluid inside your brain♪♪ Pressure

3:52 in your skull begins pushing through your eyes♪- Slayer

3:55 did clarify that Angel of Death wasn't meant

3:57 to glorify or endorse the atrocities of the Holocaust.

4:00 Rather, it was, as stated by the late Jeff Hanneman,

4:03 one of the founding members of Slayer,

4:05 a history lesson, a situation where Mengele could

4:07 evolve from being a doctor to being a butcher.

4:09 And that Satanism is just something to write about,

4:12 which is way over the top and is an easy way of offending people.

4:16 Heavy metal's fascination with darker themes could actually be

4:19 a reflection of the cultural climate it emerged in.

4:21 During the 1960s and early 1970s,

4:24 the Western world faced significant social unrest and political turmoil.

4:29 Many people also lost trust in traditional values and institutions,

4:32 like the government and the church.

4:35 These sentiments were further intensified by the Vietnam War.

4:39 As one of the earliest conflicts to broadcast live images,

4:43 it gave people at home a vivid understanding of the realities of warfare.

4:47 That there was cultural anxieties that accelerated during this time period.

4:52 And I think you see that in film too, right?

4:54 Like, you know, this is when horror really becomes popular as a genre,

4:59 but you start getting really scary ones, right?

5:01 Like Rosemary Baby, The Exorcist, right?

5:05 Coupled with a kind of changing tech in music, electricity amplifiers,

5:09 stuff like that creates sort of the affective ingredients of heavy metal, right?

5:15 [Linda] In fact, Ozzy Osborne shared

5:17 that Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi once said,

5:20 "Isn't it strange how people enjoy being scared at the movies?

5:23 Why don't we create music that invokes fear?" And he

5:26 came up with the heaviest (beep) riffs of all time.

5:29 (intense guitar riff) This insight led to the birth of heavy metal,

5:37 which for many became a form of rebellion,

5:39 providing them with an outlet to find escape as well

5:42 as to express and confront their own fears and frustrations with societal norms.

5:47 Unfortunately, many communities at the time perceived this artistic

5:51 expression much like they did its musical predecessors,

5:54 as manifestations of devil worship.

5:56 How is the connection of the origins of heavy

6:00 metal now being misperceived as satanic or just perceived?

6:06 Well, so I think that it starts in misperception long,

6:13 I mean, long before heavy metal, right?

6:15 Rock and roll was the devil's music, right?

6:18 And the blues were the devil's music.

6:20 In early heavy metal, I don't think that you hear much satanism.

6:23 If you really actually sit and try and listen to it,

6:26 what you hear is songs about Satan, right?

6:30 And that's a big difference.

6:32 But it wasn't until the 1980s that heavy metal

6:34 and its reputation as the devil's music truly peaked.

6:37 Before then, the heavy metal scene mainly centered in the UK.

6:40 But with the launch of MTV in 1981, bands like Iron Maiden,

6:45 Judas Priest, and Motorhead gained massive popularity among American youths.

6:49 At the same time, America was grappling with the Satanic Panic,

6:53 a phenomenon sparked by the controversial memoir Michelle Remembers

6:56 and high profile cases of alleged Satanic ritual abuse,

7:00 such as the McMartin Preschool trial and the West Memphis Three case.

7:06 Meet Bill Lindsay, the front man of Impaler,

7:09 the horror themed speed mental band that debuted in the 1980s.

7:12 They could put a video together, and it looked really dark and scary.

7:17 And the kids are like, "I gotta buy that record," you know?

7:21 But then I think it also upset parents,

7:24 you know, that were already upset during the Satanic Panic.

7:29 The Satanic Panic saw widespread

7:30 fear and hysteria surrounding occult-like activities,

7:33 with heavy metal being among those accused of corrupting younger generations.

7:36 For instance, many parents and televangelists believed that Led Zeppelin's

7:40 song Stairway to Heaven when played in reverse contained Satanic messages.

7:45 Heavy metal bands are also often sensationalized in the press,

7:48 linking them to demonic activities and serial killers,

7:50 such as the case of The Night Stalker,

7:52 Richard Ramirez, who identified as a satanist and whose

7:55 AC/DC hat was found at one of his crime scenes.

7:58 In some cases, lawsuits were also filed against bands accused

8:02 of promoting satanism or inciting criminal behavior like Judas Priest,

8:05 who were taken to court for allegedly

8:07 inspiring a fatal suicide pact between two friends.

8:10 During the Satanic Panic,

8:11 like what was your impression of like the cultural landscape at the time?

8:15 Like where were you, what were there things you experienced culturally?

8:19 Well, things were really conservative then.

8:20 It was Reagan era.

8:21 And so we put out, we started in 1983,

8:26 and we put out a record in 1984 called Rise of the Mutants.

8:31 And I guess you could say that's where we got involved.

8:35 That's where the trouble started.

8:37 That's where we chimed in.

8:39 So, you know, as soon as that record came out, the PMRC had formed.

8:45 [Joey] The PMRC, which stands for the Parents

8:48 Music Resource Center, formed in 1985,

8:50 and is ultimately responsible for the parental

8:53 advisory labels that you see on album covers.

8:55 Okay, the album, the graphics, the front, Rise of the Mutants,

8:59 that capsulated the climax of our live show,

9:04 but like the PMRC, and then there were some evangelists,

9:08 just jumped on it, you know?

9:09 And so it was really like, I like to say I laughed all the way to the bank.

9:14 Despite the scrutiny, many bands embrace the spotlight of the Satanic Panic.

9:18 For example, Venom's debut album, Welcome to Hell,

9:22 garnered significant attention from supporters and critics

9:26 alike for its heavy Satanic content.

9:28 (intense music) But were they actually practitioners of Satanism?

9:34 No, Venom's founder Conrad Lant, stage name Cronos,

9:39 explained in a 2008 interview, "We're entertainers,

9:42 and we use subjects like satanism and paganism

9:45 to entertain people like horror movies do.

9:48 Listening to a Venom album is the same thing as watching

9:51 an Evil Dead movie." This trend eventually spawns sub-genres like Death Metal,

9:55 distinguished by its growling vocals.

9:57 (intense guitar riff) And black metal,

10:03 known for its exploration of anti-religious sentiments and occult themes.

10:08 (intense music)- Even after the Satanic Panic,

10:14 black metal music continued to reinforce the association

10:17 between heavy metal and all things demonic.

10:19 This is evident through their highly theatrical

10:21 stage performances featuring corpse paint and ritualistic elements.

10:25 But perhaps the most extreme examples occurred during the early 1990s

10:29 in the Norwegian black metal scene where several incidents of church burnings,

10:33 suicides, and murders took place.

10:36 Following these acts,

10:37 many bands and fans began to distance themselves from that scene,

10:40 asserting that such behavior did not align

10:42 with the values of the metalhead community.

10:44 Are most heavy metal bands practicing Satanists?

10:47 No.

10:48 Do heavy metal bands incorporate occult and darker themes in their music?

10:52 Yes, some, yes.

10:54 Can heavy metal bands incorporate occult

10:56 and darker themes without being practicing Satanists?

10:59 Yeah, I think there's a lot of that that goes on.

11:01 [Joey] I think so too.

11:02 Yeah.

11:02 (intense music)- [Linda] So how did heavy metal get its Satanic stereotype?

11:09 Well, they kind of welcomed it.

11:11 It's provocative and edgy and definitely a part

11:14 of heavy metal's foundation of embracing darker themes.

11:17 (intense music)- Yeah, let's go!

11:28 Okay, it is finally time.

11:31 Let's make this heavy metal song.

11:33 Let's do it.

11:34 Let's think about themes.

11:35 Right now I have written down black death, letting it out.

11:39 I have unjust evils of society, love is cruel.

11:43 I guess my vibe was like some kind of triumph over adversity, you know?

11:48 All right, this is my masterpiece.

11:51 (intense music)- Oh my gosh.

11:57 It's really good.

11:59 (intense music)