I liked some Metallica hits etc. before (like Enter Sandman/Unforgiving), but I wasn't really into metal before 2001/2002 (broadband Internet boomed at the time and made music exploration much easier).

Some of my early favorite albums were Stratovarius - Infinite (2001), Nightwish - Century Child (2002) and Iron Maiden - Brave New World (2000), in addition to the older Metallica/Black Album.

I'm born in '87, so I was 14-15 at the time.

I am another addition to the Metallica bandwagon though it was bands like AC/DC, Queen, and System Of A Down that got me interested in heavier music when I was 14.

First bands that I checked out and called "metal" at the time were Slipknot, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach and Hatebreed on Napster way back in 2000/2001, with System of a Down following around 2002. Nevertheless I don't consider this the moment where I got into metal, because many of those bands didn't interest me except for the catchier, alternative songs they did. Back then I was a 90s music kid and my favorite bands at the time included Eiffel 65, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Sister Hazel, Soundgarden etc.,

The first band I saw live that was on the heavy spectrum, but still not a full-blown metal band was Six21 in 2003. They were a local band that included a couple members of Gloominous Doom, though their sound was quite different - punkish alternative metal. That show was also my first mosh pit.

The first metal song I heard is impossible to tell since several songs by Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Dio, Thin Lizzy and Motorhead were recognizable to me.

The album that would lead me on my journey to discover metal is Sombres Efforts by AqME, a french nu-metal/grunge rock band. I bought the album at a Virgin store located in the Louvre in Paris, France while visiting Europe in 2004. I still like that album, it's doomy and atmospheric and everything is in French so the lyrics aren't annoying "Shit ass fuck motherfucker piss ME ANGRY GRRR" bullshit... at least not in English. In seeking a similar sound to that album, a local CD vendor at a fleamarket sold me Demonic Electronic by Bile in early 2005. That's the album that tipped me to the metal side even though that is still not a full-blown metal band. That same vendor later offered me a list of bands after hearing that I liked Demonic Electronic, and of that list I purchased six CDs. These were:

Wolfheart by Moonspell
Infernal Satanic Verses by Mystic Circle
Am Universum by Amorphis
Them by King Diamond
Jaded by To/Die/For
Frozen by Sentenced

Before I knew it, there were a lot more bands I started getting into. Many were through similar artists recommendations on Yahoo! Music - an unreliable source since they described King Diamond as "death metal" ... in fact they still do. I would watch music videos on that site and that's how I got into a lot of mainstream bands - Killswitch Engage, In Flames, etc.,

A close friend of mine was a huge Therion fan, she got me into them early on and by the summer of 2005 I had amassed a good collection of CDs (Deggial, Live in Midgard, Secret of the Runes, Sirius B/Lemuria), as well as downloaded their entire discography. My first metal show, where a metal band headlined the set, was Therion in September, 2005 at the Trocadero in Philadelphia. The following morning was my first bangover.

I remember the line up of that night. First was Fountain of Tears, gothic metal from Lancaster (I think), next Carfax Abbey, some Industrial band... then Beyond the Embrace and finally Therion!

So, the first metal band I would continue to follow and listen to the discography of almost religiously is Therion.

Kinda difficult - I really loved me some Twisted Sister, then I bought Maiden's "Killers" and that was pretty much it. So I'd say Maiden, although I was already liking bits and pieces from Twisted Sister, Kamelot, Nightwish, etc.

Oh you poor, unfortunate man. Let's get you out of those clothes - and we'll do what we can about the smell.

Maiden.

The Trooper and Fear of the Dark were the two songs that really did it for me. I then had to explore the genre.

Def Leppard is the band that really got me interested in music, and led to all the "hair metal" bands. Obviously I heard some Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Metallica mixed in and loved it, though I think hearing Pull Me Under by Dream Theater is what really got me to start looking deeper.

I was 11 when I got Iron Maiden - Brave New World as a birthday present.
That was the release year 2000, and I STILL listen to that album very often, even two times this week
Fucking best album ever.

Tough to remember. My gateway to the harder spectrum of rock was cKy and HIM back when I was one of a million skater / BAM padawaans. I remember I had a few burned Metallica CDs which omitted all of the bullshit. Around this time I remember I stumbled upon Follow The Reaper, I want to say that was an album that upon first listen, something"clicked" and the rest was history.

Was listening to Sabbath, Led Zep, Van Halen as well as a lot of other Hard and Southern rock back in the late 70s when "Living After Mdnight" got me into Judas Priest.

Pretty much Rob Zombie and Fear Factory some time around the millennium.

In about 1990 I picked up Def Leppard's first album "On Through The Night" (still a great NWOBHM record, unlike their later dross -- listen to "The Overture" a tell me that's not a fantastic track). From them I went through Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Europe to Iron Maiden, then briefly flirted with Megadeth (RIP-era), before breaking through to the dark side with Sepultura, then Deicide and Death. From there, it was ever darker and deeper into the realms of extremity and obscurity.

A fairly natural progression in fact:
Def Leppard ---> Iron Maiden ---> Megadeth ---> Sepultura ---> Deicide ---> infinity and beyond....

Children of Bodom

Metallica, got the black album around 1999-2000. It was coolest music I had ever heard by that point. People bash anything after Justice but I think that's unfair, this album is still great.

I started off like most 91' kids listening to the likes of Linkin Park, Korn, System of a Down, Slipknot, Mudvayne, Sum 41 and Metallica. Now I say Metallica, but in all honesty, even though I had listened to Master of Puppets and Enter Sandman before, they didn't really click all that much for me. I didn't like them as much as those other bands so I can't really say at the time of initially hearing them that I was converted.

Funnily enough though, my friend showed me a Sum 41 cover/melody of 80s Metallica that featured For Whom The Bell Tolls and I fucking loved it. I looked up the original song and it blew me away even more then that cover(obviously). Then, I returned to MOP and it had similar effects, and so the accumulation of 80s Metallica began. Then my friend also told me that a lot of the crazy cool guitar stuff Sum 41 did on earlier songs was from the band Iron Maiden, whom I've heard of but never listened to. Showed me Aces High and 2 Minutes and then my addiction to finding more and more metal began.
It's weird how important Sum 41 were to my metal birth... And thus Metallica/Maiden plus Priest, Megadeth, Sabbath, Exodus, Slayer, Motorhead, Motley Crue, Accept, Trivium, WASP, Def Leppard, Ozzy, Pantera, Dream Theater and Dragonforce who I would find through MuchMore and Ultimate-Guitar, would make the foundation of my "first" phase of Metalhead-ness

Metallica. My brother had a bootleg of the liveshow at Blindman's Ball in 1997. He played it somewhere in 2000 and I really liked it, so he made me a copy of it and I started exploring the metal subgenres. I went from thrash to death until I eventually stuck pretty much exclusively to black metal around 2003.

One of my earliest memories is listening to Judas Priest's Defenders of the Faith.

I rediscovered Judas Priest around Grade 6 and soon found the wonders of Venom, Manowar and Megadeth soon after.



Sarcofago and Amon Amarth are what eased me into more extreme metal and "Live in Leipzig" by Mayhem got me into Black metal.

Fear Factory back in '98 or '99, shortly after the release of Obsolete. At the tail end of elementary school, I was actively seeking to expand my tastes beyond what friends and classmates liked and what the local ClearChannel approved pop/hip-hop/radio rock stations played. Obviously, the Venn diagram one could draw between those spheres of influence would be irrelevant. The "harder" stuff some of my peers liked was nothing more than derivative bands such as Korn and Dope and Coal Chamber and others which, even at the time, were too juvenile for me to give a passing thought to, but I didn't want to out myself. Fear Factory's latest was given some ample promotion at a local record store, a Sam Goody if I remember right, and the sound coming through the store's speakers instantly hooked me. Now, in retrospect, being the band's biggest mainstream success doesn't give me a lot of points for being tr00, but it just clicked for me at that time and that place with those songs. Bought the album that day with what little paper route money I had, Demanufacture a couple weeks later, and that was that.

Sure, I was aware of the more obvious genre bands, but they were written off as old hat and closer to "classic rock" (Sabbath and so forth) and the impressionable child I was didn't bother with them until later. Even more strangely enough, the first show I went to (snuck into by my uncle, to be specific) was a Testament show sometime during the tour for Low. It didn't immediately turn me on to metal, but the atmosphere and enthusiasm alone showed me that there was something to this music even if I didn't understand what the hell was going on onstage or otherwise.

You started listening to those guys from all the way back in the 1970s? Damn, youve been around awhile, and I mean that is a respectful way.

I listened to the popular hair stuff starting out around 1988 in grade school.  I even impersonated Bret Michaels for a talent show - lip-syncing "Your Mama Don't Dance" (I know.. WTF).  Guns n' Roses blew me away when Appetite came out and I still listen to that record to this day.  

It all changed though when I was in Toronto for a class trip and happened to stop by a record store. Epic by Faith No More was playing.. that chorus, that solo.. It was a FUCK YEAH moment.  I got into FNM's other (better) songs and they led me to Mr. Bungle, who really opened my mind to weird/extreme music.  Fear Factory's Demanufacture was next and I thought they were the heaviest thing on earth.  I had never heard vox like that.  From there I dabbled in gateway shit like Korn and grunge which eventually pointed me towards the underground.  

I saw Morbid Angel open for Pantera and fell in love with DM.  I became a complete metal nerd and went on from there to check out as many of the other subgenres as I could.  I guess Black Metal ended up my favorite.  

So I suppose I mainly have Axl, Patton, and Burton to thank for my metal obsession today.

I've been tempted for some time to start a thread for the Metal Ol' timers here. Anyway's ,my age was the same as many here when first moving towards Metal. 12-13 years old

Def Leppard. My siblings were big into the MTV rock acts of the day. I'm thankful they introduced me to music, so that I would eventually branch out to heavier and faster music. Regardless of the awful material they put out circa-Adrenalize era and onwards, I still consider them as one of the better rock bands out there (mostly because of the first three albums -- despite the obvious glam/pop influence in some of the songs, but they were quite the hard rockers in their prime).

Be right back, spinning High 'n' Dry. You've got me running!

I think Metallica was my introduction. I also really got into Megadeth, White Zombie and Pantera quickly thereafter.

The Agony Scene
Cousin had a compilation cd of Solid State Records and "We Bury our Dead at Dawn" stuck out and I was blown away. I was probably 14 when I heard it. The self-titled album is technically my first album as well.

I guess I'd have to say Alice in Chains were my first metal exposure. If you don't consider them "metal" enough, then I'd have to say...Metallica (?) or... Death? I got into one after the other pretty quick.

I would say Alice in Chains is quite metal. The guitars on their early work (particularly Dirt) have that nice sludge/doom metal "feel" to them. Also, Layne Staley's vocals were quite distinctive, often reminding me of Rob Halford.

Manowar was probably my first real heavy metal band. Other than that, a friend of mine sent me a lot of black metal (Dimmu Borgir, Satyricon, Carpathian Forest etc.) through the interwebz.

Depends on how strictly you want to define "metal"

If we are using a loose definition, then Staind(Nu-Metal)

If we are using a strict definition, then either The Deftones or Meshuggah.

Just like many of us, mine was Metallica. They used to play Nothing Else Matters on the radio and broadcast it on the television, I was about 7 at that time. Then much later on I decided to check out more songs by them when I was 13, then I found their cover of Iron Man on YouTube and started to get into Black Sabbath. Shortly after I discovered Iron Maiden, and was totally hooked.

Probably Metallica.

first tape i ever bought was either ...and justice for all or ugly kid joe's america's least wanted in 1992 or so. the first metal band i heard was undoubtedly metallica, though. i remember seeing the clip for "the unforgiven" many, many times. it must have been in the charts for half a year, but i remember not liking the way the song went heavy/soft/heavy/soft all the time.

Iron Maiden (because of the Carmageddon PC-game OST)
Metallica (I became a sucker around when "Reload", although I remember hearing "Master..." when I was much younger)
Cradle of Filth (Around when "Midian" came out)

Whe I was 5 the final countdown came out and I rocked the hell out of that tape. If wasn't for that tape I would never even know what heavy metal was. I still have that tape and the title track is only song that won't play on the tape, haha.

First "metal" band I've heard was System of a Down (though I have heard other numetal/faggy alternative artists, I never enjoyed any of the rest. Most people that go through such "gateway phase" have bad taste anyway) but I never liked the rest of the 'scene' they were associated with (and while I don't listen to them anymore, I still think SoaD are musically good, at least partially). Naturally soon I've heard of bands like Maiden, Sabbath, Metallica, Slayer, Motorhead, Saxon soon after, my first contact with extreme metal was Paradise Lost's Gothic, although still most of the stuff I listened to (and still listen, though maybe less often) isn't really extreme.

Would you rather him dig up a thread that's old enough to be in 2nd grade? There's a lot of new people around here every day, so no big deal.

For me, it was Metallica.

These topics are always cool to read, seeing the different paths that brought metal listeners all to a similar place

The first metal song I remember hearing was "Crazy Train" thanks to my dad's ring tone when I was 8-ish. The weird thing was my dad didn't even really listen to Ozzy or much other metal/rock except for some 80's Christian bands like Petra. The next time I can remember specifically coming into contact with heavier music was by hearing a Korn song on Mindfreak when I was 14. I downloaded a couple Korn songs which I was obsessed with, and that prepared me to be open minded towards metal and rock 2 years later when an acquaintance showed me his CD collection full of Iron Maiden and Slipknot among other stuff. It made a lasting impression on me- essentially converted me on the spot, influenced me to start listening to the rock radio station that played a nice variety of classic metal/rock and modern rock- this radio station (KUFO, which has since died) was a huge gateway and essential for me getting into metal. I heard classic Metallica, Dio, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath etc for the first times. It also got me interested in the modern hard rock bands like Breaking Benjamin, Chevelle, Disturbed, Slipknot. A few months after listening religiously to the radio and keeping a written record of all the songs KUFO played, I got internet access and started researching this stuff. It took about 2 months to understand metal goes a lot deeper than what I could hear on the radio.

So, I suppose Ozzy was my first metal band? Also, his album "Scream" is the first metal album I ever bought, June 2010

Back when I was about 8-9 years old I was into Led Zep, The Stones, Pink Floyd, etc. But, I wanted to get into something heavy. I didn't know where to start so I asked "the long-haired dude" at my local record store to recommend something loud and heavy. The first record he showed me was Metallica's Ride the Lightning. It was Metallica's newest at the time. I also remember him showing me Iron Maiden but I only had money for one so I chose Metallica because he said it was heavier than Maiden. I was really drawn to the badass Maiden album covers, though.
My mom flipped when I played it for the first time! I was in love!

I think it was actually Powerglove that got me into metal at first. I probably haven't been listening as long as a lot of people here. I started liking them about when their Metal Kombat for the Mortal Man album come out in 2007. Later I got into Amon Amarth. That got me interested in melodic death metal, and death metal. I heard Sigh, and that got me into black metal. Eventually I started liking something from every type of metal.

My first Metal band was Mago de Oz (kinda surprised that I'm the first mentioning them here ) I was 7 years in those days, so i really didn't know almost anything about Metal, but i like it. It was very different from the other bands my father show me when i was a child. I only remember guitars, drums, bass, harsh vocals, but with Mago... that's another experience, like another and totally new world for myself. Flutes and violins? That's what impressed me the most, and i get hooked in Folk Metal/Rock music since then. Is my favorite genre as you can see.

Black Sabbath of course