Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Sean or others, what do you consider are the quintessential features of Heavy Metal music? Is this music best defined by its style, its artists or its era?

Since there are so many sub genres of heavy metal music, it's hard to pinpoint quintessential features other than most of the music is played loud with plenty of distortion used on the guitars. The roots of the music is based on blues. Some bands or artists will tale a very simple approach to the music while others will be virtuosos. Most of the hair / glam metal bands of the 80's had great guitarist, good vocalists and drummers but bassists who I would never call influential in any way. Some of those bassist were quite boring actually, though there were a few exceptions.
Since metal has so many sub genres and has evolved so much, I would tend to think the music is mostly defined by the artists. Just look at how many people still can't accept the music or the term "heavy metal". Though it has come a long way. Heavy metal did pretty much become household words since Quiet Riot released the Mental Health album in 1983. That album changed the perspective and opened the door for heavy metal music.

I'll post more on this tomorrow but IMHO this is what made metal become metal out of the heavy rock that was already being played...skip to about 2:08

The main riff is constructed with a harmonic progression including an interval of tritone, that is to say the augmented fourth. That interval was banned from medieval ecclesiastical singing because of its dissonant quality, which led monks to call it diabolus in musica—"the devil in music." [1]Because of that original symbolic association, it came to be heard in Western cultural convention as “evil”. Today the interval continues to suggest an "oppressive", "scary", or "evil" sound. Heavy metal has made extensive use of diabolus in musica because of these connotative qualities; And this riff is one of the most famous example of its use in heavy metal. The Black Sabbath song was one of the earliest examples in heavy metal to make use of that interval.

This is what set apart Sabbath from Zep, Blue Cheer and any other heavy band...THIS was the turning point...these 3 notes...this one song...this one album. Yes, lots of blues overtones in the early Sabs, but no one pulled off what Iommi pulled off. Ozzy had NOTHING to do with it. Geezer and Tony, again IMHO, created something new.

That's the first song I learned to play! Then "Wasp/Behind the Wall of Sleep"......just a fantastic album! Sabotage is probably my favorite overall Sabbath album though (if anyone cares).

admin wrote:Sean or others, what do you consider are the quintessential features of Heavy Metal music? Is this music best defined by its style, its artists or its era?

This is really a subjective matter. For me, even as a kid, metal was about the darker side of music and life. I wasn't an evil or bad kid by any means, but the dark concepts and imagery that were brought into metal in the early 70s was very appealing. Much like the rebellious nature of rock and roll attracted kids in the 50s and 60s.

Hearing Gene Simmons sing God of Thunder or Ozzy sing Children of the Grave. The dark side is what took metal to the new level. While Zep and a few others had some darker material, it just didn't compare.

Cool video. You can clearly see the caps that Iommi wore on his middle and third fingers on his fretting hand. He needed the caps because he cut the tips of those fingers off when cutting meat at a deli that he once worked at.

Black Sabbath is the quintessence of Heavy Metal.

Although I'll put in a vote for Blue Cheer, which was a cool band and fits the bill in many ways..

rickenbrother wrote:Cool video. You can clearly see the caps that Iommi wore on his middle and third fingers on his fretting hand. He needed the caps because he cut the tips of those fingers off when cutting meat at a deli that he once worked at.

Just for clarification, it happened in a sheet metal factory.

phlemmy wrote:Just for clarification, it happened in a sheet metal factory.

Really? I read the other story in a magazine back in the '70's. Maybe you have a more reliable source.

I heard it was a factory mishap as well....not sure if it was a sheet metal or or cheesecake, but some sort of factory. Plus, that's pretty severe damage for a deli slicer.....unless he was high/drunk and ran his hand through it 15 times!

from Tony's site:

But Iommi's musical career was nearly derailed prematurely when he suffered a horrible accident at a sheet metal factory, when a machine sliced off the tips of the fingers on his right hand. Depressed and figuring that his guitar playing days were behind him, a friend turned him onto guitarist Django Reinhardt (who lost use of two fingers in a gypsy caravan campfire accident), inspiring Iommi to give the six-string another go, with soft plastic tips attached to the ends of his fingers.

Joey, maybe you were confusing Iommi with me. I cut the tip of a finger off with a deli slicer.

incubus2432 wrote:..not sure if it was a sheet metal or or cheesecake, but some sort of factory.

That took me a little while to get.

phlemmy wrote:

......Django Reinhardt (who lost use of two fingers in a gypsy caravan campfire accident)......

.....a gypsy caravan campfire accident! It doesn't get much funnier than that.

Recently saw interviews with all of Black Sabbath.
The fingertips incident happened the day before he was to quit.
And he was to quit because they got a record deal.

Must have bummed him out for just a little while.