Up until my junior year of high school (‘97), my spectrum of heavy metal was the echoes of “cock rock of the eighties” and the unintelligible guttural growling of the darkest metal you could find.
Pretty drastic, eh?
I remember walking into my computer arts class for the first time. My new teacher was handing out computer station assignments. Back then we didn’t have Chromebooks or laptops assigned to us. Each student had to meet in a class and work on a designated Macintosh.
My row was simple. Two computers side by side on a single desk. My assigned Mac was up against the wall. My new “lab partner” took his seat next to me. And that’s when I met Tom.
His camo jacket covered his Slayer tee, with the arms cut off. Adorned on his jacket was every variety of logo patch representing different metal bands. His camo pants tucked into his steel-toed Dockers completed the ensemble.
At this time, I wasn’t sure what was more “alt” about him: his backpack which had twice the amount of band patches (mostly Slayer), the Slayer logo carved into his arm with a safety pin (I know it was a safety pin because he was keeping the cut fresh) or his mohawk molded into 4 equally pointed spikes.
Needless to say, this nerd kept to himself while blasting Bad Religion in my headphones.
“What kind of music do you like?”
“Oh shit,” I thought to myself, “why is he talking to me?”
I replied and told him I was really into punk, and my two favorite bands at the moment were Blink-182 (I had Dude Ranch on repeat) and Bad Religion (Stranger Than Fiction was my current spin).
He asked to listen. “Fuck ya! Now that’s punk.”
It was an interesting feeling to have my tastes acknowledged. But as I was trying not to gloat, he asked the ultimate question:
“Do you like metal?”
I explained to him my severely limited knowledge on the genre. He then passed me his headphones. “Listen to this…”
It only took a single measure, but I started bobbing my head along with the music. It was instinctual. It felt natural. It was heavy and rhythmic at the same time. It didn’t feel lame (eighties cock rock) or evil (black metal).
Then it started.
Can’t you see I’m easily bothered by persistence?
The whole first verse, leading into that iconic chorus, was fundamentally changing me on a molecular level.
Respect, walk
What did you say?
Respect, walk, are you talking to me?
Are you talking to me?
I could hear Tom’s muffled reaction through the headphones: “You like it, don’t you?”
It was almost like a pusher getting a new user addicted. And that’s a pretty apt analogy if you ask me. That day after school, I made a beeline to Tower Records and picked up Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power.
That album was my gateway. Through Pantera I fell in love with more modern metal, and metal adjacent, bands. Fear Factory. Nine Inch Nails. TOOL.
I know, not exactly an eclectic, nor pure, selection of metal bands — but that’s how I got started. Pantera shaped the way that I viewed modern, heavy music. And I couldn’t have been happier.
What song got you into metal?
