For the case of a lot of metal bands getting noticed in a sea of similar sounding acts is quite difficult, and requires passion and extreme amount of touring, varied songwriting, or just plain luck to get signed or just find their own place. What are some bands that took their time to build an audience, or fought incredibly hard to earn their place in their scene and cemented their place in the music. Have they grown from being a regional act to a known band worldwide, or are they comfortable playing festivals and local shows to the die hards that have supported them all these years?

Iron Maiden are a textbook example of a band building up a following for themselves right from the lowest foundations. Before they even recorded their debut they had been playing live like crazy, always mantaining a professional attitude in everything they did.

On the other hand, you have a band like Velvet Caccoon that resorted to the most shameless gimmicks to win themselves a footnote.

Metallica. They were in the stages of becoming road horses before even No Life Till Leather was recorded. They just did show after show after show until they made Kill Em All and started touring, and a few years later Master of Puppets went multi-platinum with no music video or radio or MTV exposure. A mere 6 years later The Black Album comes out and they are well in the ranks of the biggest bands of all time.

Also, Velvet Caccoon is a really stupid name.

Still a stupid name.

Not as big a name as the other guys that are undoubtedly going to be mentioned, but when I think of this, I always think of Acrassicauda. For those of you who aren't familiar, they're from Iraq. They had to put up with violence and death threats from the Saddam regime, fled Iraq during the war, became illegal immigrants in Syria, and finally managed to qualify for refugee status in America and officially release some recordings, ten years after they formed. It's a bit of an odd case, because they don't even have a full-length album yet, but to get as far as touring in America and being able to release anything at all in that situation is amazing.

stam1na was founded in '96 and nobody knew of them for years, but they hit it big with their debut in 2005 and have been huge in finland ever since (probably not known much at all in any other countries tho')

Yup, Metallica is the ultimate example. No other band worked and put the focuys as much on the music rather gimmicks back then. Those who were around in the early 80s will know how the industry was turned upside down by music videos, a seemingly vital aspect of promoting bands. But Metallica didn't give a shit at all. They were the ultimate "fan band" in the history of the genre.

Of course, all this attitude and way of doing things was thrown under the bus, figuratively and literally, somewhere in Sweden in September 1986.

They worked their asses off and became a HUGE part of the U.S underground metal scene in the early 80s...every thrash personality from back then talks about the parties at the Metallica house and how the guys from the band were at all the gigs suporting (and playing)
I dont think their attitude died in 1986, AJDFA and Metallica are awesome albums...damn i still dont know how something like
AJFA was even nominated to a grammy.Anyway this opinion not related to the thread so fuck it.