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The crew takes a closer look into the world of heavy metal and it's controversial sub-genres. Since the genre came into being, it's been walking the thin moral line and pushing the bar higher every day.
#BlackMetal #HeavyMetal #MainstreamBand
See more at https://gulfnews.com/videos
The crew takes a closer look into the world of heavy metal and it's controversial sub-genres. Since the genre came into being, it's been walking the thin moral line and pushing the bar higher every day.
#BlackMetal #HeavyMetal #MainstreamBand
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi everybody, welcome to Rap Rock and All That Jazz.
00:08My name is Yusra.
00:09And I'm Leslie Wilson.
00:12And we have a really cool show for you guys today.
00:14Yeah, we always will.
00:16Yes.
00:17Specifically today though, because I don't know why, I just really delved into this topic
00:21when I was researching about it.
00:23It's death metal.
00:24Jesus.
00:25Does that mean metal's dead, Yusra?
00:28No.
00:29Tell me more about it.
00:31Okay.
00:32So, basically, I did some research, and I've got my trusty paper, which I'm going to say
00:36I'm going to cheat from because I don't have all this information in my head.
00:40So basically, death metal is defined by sort of an extreme sub-genre of heavy metal music.
00:46And I don't know if you listen to death metal, but it's like really harsh guitar, really
00:51like aggressive, powerful drumming, and the way they sing, if I can call it singing.
00:59Yeah.
01:00Yeah, I think music is for moods.
01:02You know, I listen to death metal when I've had a really bad day at office.
01:05When I'm going out, I just want to bash something up, you know, I just bash my brains out with
01:10heavy metal.
01:11Or, you know, death metal.
01:12But it's kind of cool, isn't it?
01:14I know death metal is a derivation of trash metal, which is hard rock played at a fast
01:21and furious pace.
01:23Perhaps the iconic band was Metallica.
01:25They were racing through their songs.
01:27So death metal is definitely a derivation of that.
01:31And while it isn't as fast as trash metal was, it's even deeper, darker.
01:36The guys sing with deep voices like it comes out right from the bowels of the earth.
01:42To be honest, I don't think I've really given it a chance because I don't want to.
01:48Yeah, it's not for me.
01:51But the history of the genre is extremely interesting, especially as we kind of go deeper
01:57in it and talk about the sub-genre black metal.
02:00Oh my god, wait until I tell you what it is.
02:03So basically, what do you think is the musical characteristics of death metal?
02:10One of the things, the instruments.
02:13So we said it's very fast, high tempo.
02:16The guitars are like really low tuned, according to my research.
02:22And it's like the sort of the subjects matter in the lyrics.
02:29Can we talk about that?
02:30Sure, let's go.
02:33It's usually about violence, satanism, occultism.
02:38And they kind of just describe really extreme acts.
02:41And I think it's one of the reasons why death metal really hasn't surfaced into something
02:45that's like mainstream.
02:48Do they even want to be mainstream?
02:49I don't think they want to.
02:50I mean, I think the reason death metal found its way into the music world, into the realm
02:57of hard rock clubbing, is because a lot of good hard rock bands started to become commercialized.
03:02They were selling records by truckloads, Guns N' Roses, Metallica.
03:07And these guys wanted to do something that was for themselves, not to hit Billboard charts,
03:12not to make money out of.
03:13They wanted to be happy, do things that would shock the kids.
03:17Kids are pretty rebellious, isn't it?
03:19So they found an audience with these kids who liked rebellious music.
03:24If you don't sing to tune, they sing out of tune.
03:28You know the guitars are really low strung because they're more distorted.
03:32They're much more distorted.
03:34You get really fuzzy sounding, noisy.
03:36The guitars sound angry themselves.
03:38Yeah, I mean, I listened and it is a rough genre.
03:42I mean, listen to some of these band names, okay?
03:45Are you ready?
03:47They are called Venom, Celtic Frost, Slayer, Creator with a K.
03:54Other names are like Possessed, Death, Necrophagia, Obituary, come on, Obituary, Autopsy, Morbid
04:02Angel.
04:03What is this?
04:04I think part of the business is to sell it with a weird sounding name, really scary sounding
04:11name.
04:12If you do it yourself, you know what you're in for.
04:14But to be honest with you, one of my favorite bands, I don't know if they completely are
04:18death metal, is a band called Ghost.
04:20Have you heard of these guys?
04:22They're Swedish.
04:23Oh yeah, the Swedes sure know how to do death metal.
04:28It's almost like gothic rock.
04:30Death metal meets gothic rock, where the lead singer, Tobias Farras, he dresses like the
04:36cardinal and he does all sorts of things that are sort of anti-Semitic, anti-Christ.
04:43But it's theatrical, it's meant to be that way.
04:45It's a genre that finds a lot of audience in the way it presents itself to the young
04:50people.
04:51It's not just the music, it's the way you sell the music, the way you tell the story
04:55of death metal.
04:56And at the end of the day, it's pretty cool, it's pretty fun, you know?
04:59Trust me, yeah.
05:00Give it a shot.
05:01Ghost is the name.
05:02Ghost, okay, that's the one band you want me to listen to.
05:06Alright, so jumping a little bit into the history.
05:09So death metal actually sort of emerged in the mid-1980s.
05:15I was not alive then.
05:18And it peaked around 92, 93.
05:21You know, it did find success with people, as you mentioned, but it could never really
05:27hit the mainstream like we said.
05:30And you know, one of these genres that really came out of death metal is a sub-genre called
05:38black metal.
05:39So black metal sort of originates in Norway, Sweden.
05:44And there's this insane band, okay, that I'm going to focus on now for the next few minutes
05:49because they are, they really like, whoa.
05:53I read that history and it was shocking.
05:55Mayhem.
05:56I don't know if you know Mayhem.
05:58Listen, with all these crazy names that these death metal bands are, it's Mayhem out there.
06:04It is Mayhem out there.
06:06So Mayhem is a sort of black metal band that was founded by this guy called Oysten Arrest.
06:16And so here's the thing about black metal is that people who, they don't use their names
06:22on stage.
06:23They have like pseudonyms.
06:25So his pseudonym was Euronymous.
06:28Euronymous.
06:29Wow.
06:30I don't know what that means.
06:31Maybe it's a play with unanimous or something like that, yeah.
06:36So he started a band with this guy called Jarn Stuberod.
06:42I'm sorry if I'm butchering all of this.
06:43I'm not even going to try to pronounce his name, just don't get me into that.
06:48His stage name was Necrobutcher, right.
06:53And they had another drummer, and they sort of started in the scene in the mid-80s doing
07:00cover songs of Black Sabbath and Venom and Motorhead.
07:04And then they recorded their first demo.
07:07And after that happened, they recruited two more people, lost them again, and then recruited
07:13two more.
07:14So they just, they were very instable.
07:16And then one band member joined the band, and his name was, sorry, I don't know.
07:21I'm waiting for this.
07:23So his real name was Per Yenvi Olin, but his pseudonym was Dead.
07:32So Dead, his pseudonym, yeah, he was a very critical member of this band because he kind
07:37of pioneered the whole costumes and being really weird on stage.
07:42So he's kind of dead serious.
07:45Dead serious about this genre.
07:47So what he did is he would use corpse paint on his face, and he would cut himself on stage.
07:58He buried his clothes overnight outside and wore them again on stage just so he can really
08:03feel dead.
08:05And his band members were seriously worried about him.
08:08They're like, this guy wants to be dead.
08:11That's kind of what he wants to represent on stage.
08:13And I feel like he inspired a lot of people today to really paint their face on stage.
08:19He would put dead animals on stakes as decoration.
08:25Does that not sound insane to you?
08:27I'm not really surprised.
08:29Like I mentioned earlier, that metal is very, it's a lot about the image.
08:35And actually it started by a guy called Alice Cooper.
08:38Remember him from the 70s and 80s?
08:40Yeah, Alice Cooper used to paint himself.
08:43He had a guillotine on stage.
08:44He used to kill people on stage.
08:48There was a lot of blood and gore.
08:49But his music was pretty, pretty cool.
08:52His iconic song was a song called School's Out.
08:55For summer?
08:56Yeah.
08:57Oh, there you go.
08:58Hey, look at me.
08:59So Alice Cooper, I mean, he was so theatrical.
09:01It was like going to, you know, to the theater when you went to a rock concert of Alice Cooper.
09:07So he probably laid the groundwork for all these guys.
09:11And it's lovely, isn't it?
09:13I mean, like I said, Ghosts do a lot of theatrics on stage.
09:16Yeah.
09:17They're a lot, Opeth, there's so many great bands, Inciprium.
09:20These are lovely bands who have fun on stage, like we're having fun out here.
09:24Yeah.
09:25You're like an encyclopedia of music.
09:29I hope my editor hears that.
09:33So basically it is such an interesting genre, I think.
09:38Metal in general, heavy metal, death metal, black metal.
09:41Because they just have such like cults, you know, following them.
09:45Yeah, that's true.
09:46That's the word.
09:47Magic word, cults.
09:48Cults.
09:49That's what you want to get.
09:50A lot of the stuff they sing about is Satanism.
09:51Yeah.
09:52And murder.
09:53And like, just, just bad, bad things.
09:56I think it's all in the name of fun.
09:57You try.
09:58I don't think they're like a Ku Klux Klan or, you know, the Freemasons or anything,
10:01you know.
10:02They just try to create these cults, this whole aura of, you know, scary stuff, underground
10:08stuff, stuff that is so anti-Christ, anti-establishment.
10:13And there are, like you mentioned, there are hundreds and hundreds of genres, sub-genres,
10:17symphonic metal, you know, guitar metal.
10:20Yeah.
10:21And it just goes on.
10:22It's, you could, it's like you could, it's a bespoke kind of business.
10:25You could create your own genre tomorrow and maybe, good luck, you might just find a couple
10:31of weird kids out there listening to your music.
10:33Yeah.
10:34And I think how difficult it could have been back then to really gain a following without
10:39the internet.
10:40Yeah.
10:41I mean, yes, sure, the internet existed in some places in the 90s and in the 80s.
10:46But that's what I'm wondering, is that these guys must have really, like, gone out there
10:51and, like, gone on stage and done concerts.
10:53And like, what were people thinking?
10:55Some of these guys burned churches down in Norway and, like, one of them murdered another
11:01one.
11:02I'll keep going with the story in a bit.
11:04Oh, you're getting serious.
11:05Wow.
11:06Yes.
11:07I thought these guys were out having fun.
11:08No.
11:09I mean, I think most of them wanted to be.
11:10But like, like I told you, the band member of Mayhem Dead was a very, like, extreme guy,
11:16you know.
11:17During, in the 90s, when they would all go into, like, a cabin in the forest, because
11:21people do that for some reason, they would, like, write songs together or record, practice
11:28together and record together.
11:30But then they would really get on each other's nerves and they'd start fights.
11:34And these fights would end very nasty.
11:36I mean, Dead, at some point, ended up killing himself.
11:39He committed suicide because of his desire to just be dead.
11:43So is he dead now?
11:45Dead is dead.
11:46Dead is dead.
11:47Dead is dead.
11:48Jesus.
11:49Anyways, so he killed himself.
11:52God bless him.
11:53And, like, he shot himself in the head.
11:55And you know what his, his friend did when he found him?
11:59He, like, like, broke his skull and stole some of his bones and made necklaces out of
12:03them and, like, gave them away to, like, other sort of artists who were deserving of it.
12:10Listen, kids out there, don't do any of this stuff.
12:14There's a statutory warning on the show.
12:16So we're just talking about some extreme music.
12:19And Usha, I just want to mention something you mentioned about bands that go into the
12:22woods and camp and do stuff.
12:24There's a band called Jethro Tull, an iconic British folk rock band.
12:28Do you remember them?
12:29No.
12:30They sang Thick as a Brick, Locomotive Breath, and great stuff like that.
12:34I don't.
12:35They were known to go to five-star hotels and pitch up tents in their rooms, you know,
12:40their lovely, beautiful air-conditioned rooms, burn a fire in there.
12:44They were so wacky till, till the smoke signal caught them once.
12:48And they were told, listen, guys, you can't do this.
12:50You've got to do it outdoors.
12:51But this is what the kind of stuff they did.
12:53You can't set up a tent in a hotel, you guys.
12:55They didn't.
12:56It's Jethro Tull.
12:58You're paying for a bed.
12:59That's weird.
13:00Yeah.
13:01I mean, it kind of does beg the question of, like, what do artists, like, how far would
13:07artists go to really get in the zone of, like, writing songs and getting inspiration and
13:13stuff?
13:14And, I mean, these guys required, you know, sheep heads on spears in their concerts and
13:21yucky face paintings and, you know, punching each other.
13:26I think they would, the sky's the limit.
13:29They'd go anywhere.
13:30I mean, I mean, don't great writers do that.
13:32Don't great movie makers.
13:34They push boundaries.
13:35They push the envelope.
13:36So I think these guys, they want to do something that's never done before, perhaps, or do something
13:41so extreme that it even surprises them sometimes.
13:44Yeah.
13:45I mean, the one thing that I can think about is, like, I, for some reason, can't differentiate
13:51the artist with the person when it comes to, when I read things like this, like black metal,
13:56like it seems they were really, really into that craft to the point that they're not human
14:01anymore.
14:02They're a thing.
14:04Yeah.
14:05Yeah.
14:06They kind of roll into their alter egos, you know, I mean, I think all of us have an alter
14:10ego besides the ego, of course, but, and maybe, maybe that's what they do, and subconsciously,
14:16sometimes consciously as well.
14:18So there's a lot, a lot of undercurrents, there's a lot of, like, subterfuges, everything
14:23going on in music, you know.
14:26And not too many talk about, not too many people talk about death metal and all this
14:31go metal.
14:32So I think it's a great opportunity that we, we ourselves, I think I learned something
14:36from you today.
14:38You learned about dead and mayhem.
14:40Really?
14:41I heard about this crazy guy, what, what a.
14:43Like seriously, go and read about it and like, look at photos, we're going to try to put
14:48some photos up here.
14:49I asked our video person to help us out.
14:52Okay.
14:54I mean, it's, it's just, I don't know, I just can't humanize people like that.
15:02And like, what, what about the whole stereotype of people who listen to death metal?
15:06Because if I looked at you with your smart haircut and you're like horn rimmed glasses,
15:11like, do you listen?
15:12I just can't picture you like jamming out to death metal in your car.
15:16I'm a closet death metal fan.
15:19No, I listen to anything, everything.
15:23And then, you know, an audiophile like me, you're a bit of a weird, weird sort of guy.
15:28I'm willing to experiment with music.
15:32Most things in life, I pretty much am mainstream.
15:35But when it comes to music, I think the world's your oyster, you know, from folk to rock to
15:41pop to country.
15:43And there's so much fun.
15:44You know, you sort of, if ever I had one wish to, to, you know, ask my genie to be born
15:50again and to be born again as me and to be able to listen to music that I miss this time
15:57in my life.
15:58Oh, that's sweet.
16:00Because there's so much, believe me, there's so much music out there that we don't have
16:05time to listen to.
16:06I'd probably wish for a faster metabolism, but yeah.
16:11To be born again is good.
16:14Yeah.
16:15So is that it?
16:19Are we done?
16:20Are we done with this death metal stuff for today?
16:22I think we're done.
16:23I think we're dead.
16:24I mean, I wouldn't be able to even tell you what song to check out, but just listen to
16:27some other bands we mentioned to get an idea of, you know, the insanity maybe of this genre.
16:32Yeah.
16:33But yeah, that's it.
16:34You want to tell them about next week?
16:36Yeah.
16:37Guys, just keep listening to our show.
16:38We've got a, we've been thinking a lot, Yusra, myself and all our colleagues out here who
16:43have been supporting us.
16:44We're going to have some real fun out here.
16:46You know, next week we're probably going to do a show on the cheesiest songs ever written.
16:52Of summer.
16:53Yeah.
16:54The songs of summer.
16:55Sorry about that.
16:56That's the editor's call.
16:58So we do that first.
16:59The boss is always right, isn't it?
17:01So we do his.
17:02Is that me?
17:03Yeah.
17:04Why not?
17:05Love you to think.
17:06So we'll do summer songs next time.
17:07Yes.
17:08What are the songs you're going to be listening during summer?
17:09Oh, yeah.
17:10And yeah.
17:11Great one.
17:12We're going to have a lot of fun.
17:13Stay with us, guys.
17:14If you have any requests or, you know, subjects you'd like us to talk about, if at all we
17:18interest you, we'd be very happy to exchange ideas, not just between us, but with you guys
17:23out there as well.
17:24Send us a tweet at Gulf News on Twitter and we'll see you next time.
17:29Bye.
17:30See you soon.