I don’t know why, but it always seems like a lot of electronic music fans started out as metal heads. Maybe it’s the technical aspects that is quite similar. A lot of people appreciate the more intricate polyrythms of metal and the technical ability of the musicians much like people do with electronic music. I’m not much of a metal listener these days but I did go through that phase in my late teens early 20s. How about you guys?
(I should note one of the first cassettes I owned was the blech ii compilation so I started out as electronic as I ended up)
Wouldn’t say I was a “head” exactly, but Slayer’s Reign in Blood remains one of my all time favourites to this day. Also had a thing for Earache in my late teens – all those albums by Napalm Death, Carcass, Morbid Angel, Terrorizer, Entombed…
And of course the original Black Sabbath lineup, the first five albums.
But my hair never got below my shoulders, and I loved both Front 242 and 60’s garage punk at the same time.
Oh yeah…punk, then metal, which led to industrial and an interest in electronic music. I’ve definitely made a correlation between the really technical metal stuff and electronic music in the past, especially with genres like idm and breakcore.
Metal was definitely one of my main genres as a teenager. Still listen to some metal, but it’s not a main part of my music diet. I also listen to completely different metal now than then. I mostly listened to nu-metal early on, like Slipknot and American Head Charge. Now if I listen to ‘metal’, I mostly listen to things that aren’t really metal but are metal-influenced like Sleep, Sun o))), Boris, Converge, Neurosis, Melvins etc. I will occasionally also listen to Burzum and Mayhem. I never clicked with Metallica and similar straight metal metal. Always felt too conservative for me. (Edit: unless you count Slayer)
Generally I prefer other kinds of rock music, but when it’s time for metal nothing can be substituted.
I was a semi professional metal guitarist from 18-23. Did quite a few extensive tours and put out a few albums. That said, I was a keyboardist in an industrial band from 14-18. Once I quit the metal band I took a few years off from making music before trying to “get back to my roots” in electronic music. I was born in Detroit, Mi. (Some of you may have heard of it) so electronic music was always in my blood. Metal just got stale for me. Everything started to sound the same and the challenge was disappearing, something that never seems to happen in electronic music. Always evolving and ever changing.
I still enjoy a lot of metal from pre-2006 era, but very little gas nitrites me since around that time.
I’ve also made this connection between the two with a lot of people I’ve met. Metal dudes that get bored with thrashing and start to explore more technical routes or even more experimental or ambient routes with electronics.
The connection from industrial to metal is very easy to make, and I’ve rarely known a metal person not to enjoy the likes of Venetian snares, aphex twin, squarepusher, etc.
Metalhead through out my teenage years. Slayer, Sepultura, Motörhead, Anthrax, Danzig, Alice in Chains, Pantara, rage against the machine, Black Sabbath, NIN …
Later teenage years I really liked the funkier “metal”. Suicidal Tenancies/Infectious Grooves, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus, which lead into a love of P-Funk.
I was a dirty headbanger in my teens! I don’t like most of this new shit. A lot of it just seems so goofy and too ‘vampire’ theatrical. Just my opinion. I like it old school, back when the guys playing the music looked like they lived in your same shitty little town! No clown makeup.
My progression was the exact same as ‘Accent’ - "…punk, then metal, which led to industrial and an interest in electronic music".
I was mostly into punk and hardcore, but obviously some metal as well. I used to tape a lot of my older brother’s trance and house records before that though, so it’s not like it really started my interest in electronic music. I think one of the really defining records to get me interested in “weird” electronic music was El-P’s ‘Fantastic Damage’. That was the record that made me want to explore making electronic music. The beats/instrumentals for that album are just wild. Incredible. Still an inspiration.
Wow, I’m pleasantly surprised that others also took this path. I think industrial and breakcore were the bridge genres for me which lead to 8-bit, IDM, instrumental hip hop and things I wouldn’t even bother trying to categorise.
Currently I’m in an outrun and techno kind of place.
Metalhead since 1980. ACDC and NWOBHM. The reason for learning guitar. Rockstars were cool these days - went to Holiday Inn the day after a Saxon/Ozzy gig, got autographs an played a video game (maybe Galaga) against Randy Rhoads. He drank a Gin-Tonic an I stole his staw on which he chew. Later I was very much influenced by Bay Area Thrashmetal and was a small part of the German Teutonic Thrash Scene. Sadly around 1990 I went a little bit away from it, no more really cool new albums for me. Almost everything afterwards wasn’t mine. I’m an oldschool thrasher.
I played drums in several local Death and Trash Metal bands and had a long intense Metalhead-phase in my younger days. Despite this I have always been an electronica-fan since childhood as well, now I still like certain types of Metal but actually I am only listening to electronic music since many years (sometimes I enyjoy some Meshuggah though XD).
some fav+ bands mentioned in this thread, so I guess yea
Not so much the true old metal tho…
Korn was like the first band I’ve ever considered myself a massive fan of…
At some point started to play bass myself, then got into Bungle, Primus, Melvins, Tool, Meshuggah, Isis, then discovered Squarepusher who was the perfect entry point for electronics from there…
